Stymied: Music

Year in Music

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 22:43:30 GMT

I've been reading a lot of year-end recaps and looks ahead in the music world recently and thought it was time to add my own two-cents.

10 Best Albums of 2006 (too tough to rank them):

Brand New- The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me: Easily the best, most innovative mid-90s grunge album since the mid-90s. I have to say I expected far less, thinking they would wind up in their own little emo world.
Cursive- Happy Hollow: No disappointment in this follow-up to the incredible "The Ugly Organist" as cursive switches gears from self-loathing and the music industry to small-town America and religion. What's not to like about an album that includes a note to God encouraging him to stay away on holiday?
Kaddisfly- The Four Seasons EP: Easily the best live show in America, even when playing to only a handful of people, Kaddisfly gave us a preview of their forthcoming full-length with five of the most skillfully-crafted songs ever. You can spend hours picking apart the intricacies of the music before even getting into the beautiful and powerful lyrics.
Boys Like Girls- Boys Like Girls: I know it's cheesy, but you have to reward the folks who do pop-punk the best.
Lost Ocean- Night to Life: Beautifully swirling vocals infused with strong drums, ambling guitars, and lots of the low end of the piano make for one of the most traditionally beautiful albums of the year.
The Dear Hunter- Act I: The Lake South, The River North: Bringing together all the right elements of Muse, Panic!, The Mars Volta, and Brand New, this is one of the most promising debuts we've seen in a while.
The Gufs- A Different Sea: The Gufs return after 8 years of disdain for the music industry with possibly their best album to date. Their past albums have included countless gems, but "A Different Sea" is truly a full album. It's great to have them back and making great music!
The Hush Sound- Like Vines: The duo of fronting vocals keeps things interesting as the piano adds depth to this pop-punk quartet. "Wine Red" is one of the best songs I've heard in quite some time.
The Format- Dog Problems: This is one instance where you can really tell that a very talented group made the record they wanted to make. After being dumped twice by Atlantic Records, The Format used their severance money to release the album on their own (it debuted at 77 on the Bilboard charts). Horns, strings, and whatever else they could find to spice things up take these Phoenix boys far beyond the acoustic rock band that the labels wanted to pigeon-hole them as.
Taking Back Sunday- Louder Now: While traditional fans of TBS found the album to be a little too far from their roots for many tastes, there's no denying it status as a fantastic rock album. The only place it falls short is when they try to slow things down. Keep rockin!

Top 10 Best Songs of 2006 (Again, no particular order):

Band Marino- "Everytime I Make a Girl Cry I Know I've Done My Job": It's hard not to be an awesome song with a title like that. Look for great things from these boys in the future.
Edison Glass- "This House": A beautifully sad song with an addictive video.
Taking Back Sunday- "MakeDamnSure": I think it's impossible not to sing along to this jam.
Cursive- "Rise up! Rise up!": "By your good book's standards I've sinned like a champion / But that book seems a tad bit outdated." Need I say more? It might be illegal to listen to this entire album anywhere near a church.
Lost Ocean- "Just Glide": Simply a feel-good song.
Brand New- "Sowing Season (Yeah)": Beautifully coreographed sweeps from crying in a corner to thrashing his brains out.
The Hush Sound- "Wine Red": Romeo and Juliet would be proud of this short epic with many references to Adam and Eve.
Jupiter Sunrise- "This Beauty": Amanda Rogers's voice carries this protest of culturally imposed ideals of beauty.
House of Fools- "Better Part of Me": Aren't we all looking for a better part of ourselves?
Say Anything- "Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too": Written for the B-side EP enclosed with the major label release of "...Is a Real Boy," this hysterically disturbing song is beautiful in its simplicity and honesty.

Top 10 Most Anticipated Albums of 2007 (Once again, no order...we'll let them define themselves)

Scenes From a Movie: Gotta give my boys a shout-out here. They've been working on their debut LP for a while now, and from the songs I've heard, it very well could be a huge hit.
Say Anything: Who knows what will come out of Max Bemis's head next? I'm excited to find out.
The Drive Back: If the Autumnmotive EP was any indication of what these Minnesota boys are capable of, I'm beyond excited for their potential.
Panic! at the Disco: Not gonna lie, I'm interested to see what they come up with. Even if the music sucks, it will likely be another production masterpiece.
Limbeck: They're going back to Ed Rose and Black Lodge Studio, so let's hope they get back to "Hi, Everything's Great."
Jupiter Sunrise: Laughing in the face of a producer walking off with $10,000 of their money and all of their new album, the band promises a Format-like effort, creating what they want to play and drawing on a ton of influences. It will also be fun to hear the first album with Amanda Rogers as a part of the band.
Rediscover: HelloGoodbye's not-quite-so-innocent protoges will be growing into their own shoes with their debut.
We Are the Fury: If "Now You Know" is any indication, we're in for quite a rock-fest.
Motion City Soundtrack: The Minnesotans are sober and have a good bit of success under their belts, can they take it to the next level?
Kaddisfly: "The Four Seasons EP" gave us a sneak peak at what may be a revolutionary progressive rock album. As long as they keep touring, their reputation as the best live show around should keep growing. Heck, I'd pay a lot to see them again, even if I had to sit through The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.

I think 2006 has been a great year in music, and I think 2007 is looking pretty darn good in its own right!

more music

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 20:31:59 GMT

Sorry to focus on music so much lately, I promise I'll get back to bigger issues soon. In the meantime, here are a couple follow-ups and promos:

Jupiter Sunrise (whose producer stole their music and they are now giving it away for free) has posted the first free song "Why'd I Wait So Long" here and here. PLEASE download it and pass it on to your friends.
The Format's new CD "Dog Problems" comes out in hard copy form on July 11th (pre-order here and get a free frisbee!), but you can also save a couple bucks (and a few weeks) by downloading the mp3 versions here. This is one of those rare CDs where you can really tell that the band got to do whatever they wanted to. Free from any label, but with the knowledge of a great producer, they have produced easily my favorite CD of the year thus far.
My good friends Scenes From a Movie are on their "DIY Do or Die" Tour right now. Check here to listen to two new, unreleased songs and to see when they're coming to your town! Go support them, feed them, tell them they smell bad but sound great, do whatever. Just make sure you see them play!

Why ClearChannel has single-handedly made American music mundane

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 19:55:09 GMT

The punk rocker in me can only see so many very good albums come out of major labels and not make it in the mainstream before realizing that the battle is no longer with the labels, it's with the radio. Sure, the stigma may still remain about "selling-out" and whatnot, but it's difficult to justify not doing it when bands like Anti-Flag and Say Anything have cds on major labels. The question still remains then, why is the music on the radio so stagnant?

I've been over my thoughts on the consumer culture of modern America already, noting that we have a comfort zone that is difficult to break into and difficult to be removed from. ClearChannel took that comfort zone from the turn of the century and continues to exploit it. Case-in-point: name a one-hit wonder since 2000. The 70s, 80s, and 90s were LOADED with them. Radio took risks with the music it played, throwing a massive variety of music at the American listeners and seeing what stuck. Now, ClearChannel has scientifically (or something) found out what Americans like to listen to. Thanks ClearChannel! It's so good to hear the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, and whatever other bands were popular about 6 years ago! Why would we want anything new?

I hope that sarcasm comes through across the internet. Anyway, the point is that ClearChannel has such domination over what we listen to that it seems to be a real-life Farenheit 451 (except without the sweet interactive life size soap opera walls). I can't even be hard on MTV anymore because they have so many layers (mtv2, mtvU, mtvYounameit) that they are still working on a system in which the cream generally will rise to the top. ClearChannel insists on milking the same old cows insisting that its the same quality cream they were producing 10 years ago. I say the American people deserve fresh cream, maybe even new flavors.

Note: The plus side is for the artists that do make it-- they have a much better chance of hanging around for longer.

There's more than one way to sell recordings of cats being skinned

Fri, 19 May 2006 23:54:54 GMT

One growing trend in indie music these days is a move towards signing a big deal, getting some exposure thanks to big label promotion and booking, then getting dropped by the label (it's okay, they weren't paying you anything anyway) and selling your next album on your own, hoping that the fan base you've already established, coupled with myspace and purevolume exposure and relentless touring, will purchase your new cd, regardless of whether they can buy it at their local record store (see Mute Math, Lola Ray, The Format).

Taking that concept one step further, though, is Jupiter Sunrise. They spent all winter writing, practicing, and recording a new album, paying a bigwig producer $10,000 and losing valuable tour time. That producer, Jonnie "Most" Davis, offered to sign them to his label, Public Records. Then he threatened to not give them their music unless they signed. When they angrily said they were not going to sign, Jonnie disappeared into the night with their music (not to mention their $10,000).

As a result of this, Jupiter Sunrise will be re-recording the songs for this album (both in the studio in the back of their RV and in whatever studio space they can find) as they go around the country on their tours. They're having a friend another band (Class of '98) mix the tunes, and best of all, they're going to give the songs away free to the fans! As the band says: "We really feel that music is like water and should only be sold if it's in a fancy bottle."

In the face of adversity, Jupiter Sunrise boiled the music scene down to what it should be: shared experience. The fans are encouraged to take the songs, enjoy them as they come along, and pass them on to all their friends. Sure, Jupiter Sunrise won't make any money (until they do release the CD in full), but let's hope they make more fans in the process. They'll certainly make the fans they already have very happy.