A great one I missed

I bought so many crappy albums in 2006 that I have to kick myself for missing this one: I'm listening to the album Yellow House by Grizzly Bear. I love it. It's kind of like a creepy, suicidal version of Sufjan Stevens Michigan. Some of the songs are kind of shapeless meanderings ("Lullabye", "Little Brother"), but these songs do a great job linking together brilliant building epics like "Knife" and "Plans". This album has that hypnotic mind-drifting feel to it that you'd find on Sea Change by Beck or Ys by Johanna Newsom; therefore, I don't recommend you play this one while driving. It's more of a half-drunk, half-asleep kind of disc.

I love the use of Beach Boys' harmonies and Tom Waits' instrumentation: lots of banjo, horns, harpsicord, and so on. My only complaint about this album is crappy production. It isn't as big of an issue for guitar-drums-vocals albums, but stuff like this needs clarity to hear all of the moving parts.

Anyway, it's a great listen. Give it a try if you like Sufjan Stevens but don't find him depressing enough.

Rap albums you need to hear

If you aren't a rap fan because of crap you've heard on pop radio, here's a few rap albums you need to hear from the past few years:

Madvillian - Madvilliany: Whether they are sampling jazz, accordions, or cartoon themes, these guys sound like a more dark paranoid version of De La Soul. Make this album the soundtrack of your next drug/alcohol binge.

Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury: There's no real trick here: just combine simple beats and two pissed-off MCs. Rich, flashy pop rappers are the target of this brutal assault.

Kanye West - Late Registration: I know it's easy to hate this guy, but he and Jon Brion have an original masterpiece here. Just listen to the orchestral coda in "Crack Music" and tell me if you've ever heard anything like it.

Jay-Z - The Blueprint: Overexposed and irritating? He's still the best. And "Renegade" with Eminem might be the best rap duet ever recorded.

Outkast - Stankonia: If there has ever been one album that shows the potential and excitement of hip-hop, here it is. "B.O.B" puts all the cards on the table: chaotic beats, choirs, guitars, and rapping that makes me dizzy in a good way.

If you still don't like rap after listening to any one of these, I can't help you.

Coming Soon

Here's a couple of albums I'm looking forward to in the next six months:

Counting Crows - Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings (March 25): Am I the only one who misses this band? Am I the only one who thinks they could retap what made August & Everything After a great record? Probably. This album could also be a disaster.

Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple (April 8): Their first album was bursting with wild ideas; I'm sure they have plenty left. I was unimpressed by the first single though.

Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs (May 13): They did a few good albums, a masterpiece (Transatlanticism) and then one mediocre album (Plans). This one is a complete crap-shoot. We'll see.

My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges (June 10): This is the only album on the schedule that I am sure is going to be great. With this band, I can't envision a bad album, especially after listing to Z. I hope I didn't jinx this one.

I think that's about it right now. Have a good weekend!

Vince Gill

I take back some of the bad things I've said about popular country music. I recently borrowed Vince Gill's These Days and spent about 5 days listening to it in all its 4 CD, 43 song glory. The depth of this album is amazing: pop, rock, blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, folk; it's a lot of ground to cover, and he divides it into four thematic discs to make it easier.

(I only have one major complaint about this album: why did he make one disc of power ballads and call it "The Groovy Record"? I missed something here.)

Are the lyrics corny and too safe? Of course - it's still country music. But after hearing this album, along with Brad Paisley's 5th Gear, Miranda Lambert's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose (why doesn't Jack White do a country album?), I've found a lot of good reasons to care about country radio in the past few years.

If you like versitile songwriters and you have 30 bucks to kill, I highly recommend These Days by Vince Gill. Before long, you might find yourself not hating country radio anymore. Plus, rock radio has been dead for ten years now, so try something new.

REM

I've been on a big REM binge for the past few days for two reasons: 1.) they have a new album out in April and 2.) Blender magazine did one of those "Back Catalog" deals where they reviewed all of REM's albums. I think my being excited about REM has a lot more to do with the Blender article than the new album. For longtime hardcore REM fans, there isn't much left to be excited about.

But why not? Isn't this band due for an artistic comeback? Bruce Springsteen and U2 had one. I refuse to believe that REM don't have another great album to offer. This band gave us three stunning masterpieces (Document, Murmur, Automatic for the People), several more great albums (Reckoning, Out Of Time, Monster, Life's Rich Pageant), and even a couple of underrated gems as they were winding down (New Adventure's in Hi-Fi, Up). Are they doomed to release crap like Reckoning and Around the Sun every few years as they fade into celebrity hell? This is one of the greatest bands of the 80s AND one of the greatest bands of the 90s!

I heard the new single, and I was not excited. Maybe their next album will be the comeback. I'll keep hoping.

Tom Waits best albums

Tom Waits is a tough artist to get into, but once you do, he has a better, more consistant catalog that any musician who isn't Bob Dylan. If you want to join the Tom cult, here's where to start:

1.) Rain Dogs: This album is a summary of everything great about his career, and it's also his best record. It has the closest he ever came to a pop song ("Downtown Train") and some of his best artpiece character sketches ("Clap Hands", "Singapore"). This is where to start.

2.) Swordfishtrombones: The album where Tom lost his mind is also his first masterpiece. While it doesn't have as great of individual songs as Rain Dogs, it flows better as an album that you have to listen to in its entirety. "In The Neighboorhood" is Broadway-mocking genius.

3.) Alice: This is a difficult one and a bad one to start with. I didn't really "get" this album until about 6 months after I heard it. Don't listen to it if you are already sad (or any of his albums, for that matter).

4.) Closing Time: The best of his earlier, more conventional barroom jazz.

5.) Real Gone: The beatboxing is a little distracting at first, but this has his loudest rock songs and best GW Bush-bashing lyrics. Also, "Trampled Rose" is one of his most terrifying ballads.

6.) Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards: Once you get into him, you'll spend the 30 dollars, and it will be worth it.

There are many more great albums by him, but these are the ones to start with. If you ask another Tom Waits enthusiest, they might tell you something completely different. That's why Tom is one of the greatest American songwriters ever to live.

"I'm Not There"

I'm usually not a big fan of soundtracks, various artists compilations, or tribute albums, but I can't stop listening to the "I'm Not There" soundtrack. First of all, it's all Bob Dylan songs. And just take a look at the musicians: Hold Steady, Sonic Youth, Joe Henry, Stephen Malkmus, Eddie Vedder, Cat Power, Sufjan Stevens, members of Wilco, members of Television... and so on. What's even more amazing is the fact that this all works: there are a few average performances, but there isn't a bad one in 34 songs.

Here's a few highlights:

"Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" by the Hold Steady - They make this sound like one of their own: bitter, loud, and hilarious.

"Pressing On" by John Doe - This is the guy from the punk band X? Doing a beautiful gospel song that makes me want to go to church? Really?

"Ring Them Bells" by Sufjan Stevens - Strange rhythm shifts, strange instrumentation... its Sufjan. I wouldn't have it any other way.

"Can't Leave Her Behind" by Stephen Malkmus and Lee Ranaldo - I think these guys need to do more songs together.

"Just Like Tom Thumb Blues" by Ramblin' Jack Elliot - The old guy steps in and shows everybody how it's done (he's 10 years older than Dylan). My personal favorite.

Spend some time with this album; every performance is worth hearing (yes, even Jack Johnson can be tolerated for a few minutes). Now if I could just find a place that shows this movie!

The National: The New Wilco?

Last spring, I had the joy of seeing the National open for the Arcade Fire in Washington DC. I've been to enough concerts in my life to have low expectations for opening bands. I'd heard of the National, but I had no idea that they were one of the best bands in America until I saw this show and later bought Alligator and Boxer.

The first song they played that night was "Start A War", which immediately got me thinking this band was a great replacement for Wilco. I'm not saying that Wilco's Sky Blue Sky is a bad album, I'm just saying Boxer is the album they would have done if they continued down the experimental path that gave us Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born. I see Sky Blue Sky as a pleasent listen for a Sunday afternoon once in a while; I see Boxer as a masterpiece I'll be playing for my kids in 30 years.

If you love albums about urban alienation that are equally beautiful and terrifying, its tough to beat this one. They've got a singer who sounds like a cross between Ian Curtis and Tom Waits, they have understated guitarists who can also write rock hooks, they have a drummer who even pounds on piano ballads, and they aren't afraid to use orchestral instruments. What else can you ask for?

Please, enjoy this band before they start playing Volkswagon commercials too...

Top Ten All Time

10. Arcade Fire - Funeral
9. Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
8. U2 - Joshua Tree
7. Beatles - Revolver
6. Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
5. REM - Automatic For The People
4. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
3. Stevie Wonder - Songs In The Key Of Life
2. Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
1. Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run

Thank You, Tom Petty

I would like to write a 2000-word rant about the glorious perfection of football played by the New York Giants last night. However, this is a music blog and not a sports blog, so i'll just move on.

Tom Petty continued a streak of great elder musicians doing excellent halftime shows. Ever since Janet Jackson ruined the prospect of young musicians playing halftime back in 2000 (thus forever clinching the award for "Most Desperate Act for Attention by a Horrible Fading Musician"), the honor of playing halftime has gone to some older, "safer" musicians. I think the show peaked last year with Prince's wild guitar solo and phalic imagery, but I was very satisfied with this year's show.

No dancers, no politics, no gimmicks, just four great Tom Petty classics. Bravo. If only Tom Brady could have performed that well...

Radiohead: In Rainbows

Since Radiohead has one of the most dedicated followings of any band alive right now, I'm one of many who was willing to pay for this album twice. When it was released in October, I paid about $10 for it (supposedly I was one of the few who paid a regular CD price), and for some reason I still couldn't wait to get my hands on a packaged copy with artwork. It has taken those four months for this album to really sink in for me, but now I'm clear on this: this is the best album of 2007 (sorry, I was wrong about Joe Henry's Civilians), this will probably be the best album of 2008, and this will be one of the five best albums of this decade.

Here's a track-by-track:

"15 Steps": Radiohead completely tricked me for a few seconds by making me think this would be an electronic-based record like Kid A. After the techno beat and the atonal high-pitched singing, that warm guitar can in and I knew I was in for something different. This is still my least favorite track, but it's a good album intro.

"Bodysnatchers": The second track is another trick: is this album going to be a Pablo Honey throwback? This is the heaviest, fastest song they've done in ten years, but it seems like another intro to the heart of the album.

"Nude": After the danceable first track and the hard-rocking second, Thom York is ready to break hearts. This atmospheric waltz lulls me to sleep with a classic Radiohead lyric: "Don't get any big ideas, they're not going to happen". I have fallen asleep to this one many times.

"Weird Fishes / Arpeggi": This album is all about rythm, and this song builds such a great one that they let the intro play for a minute. I still don't get the lyrics to this one, but the guitar keeps me humming it.

"All I Need": What would it sound like if Radiohead did a love song? How about unnerving and terrifying. This song might not have worked for me if it weren't for the dramatic outburst at the end.

"Faust Arp": This song reminds me of "Wolf At The Door" from the last album, but is used here as an interlude between the halves of the album. It makes a much better intelude than "Fitter, Happier" did, and the orchestra is well-timed and not overdone.

"Reckoner": Maybe the best drumwork I've heard in a Radiohead song, and a new octave for Thom. Besides the drums and the vocalist, everything else about this song is very subtle, making for a gorgeous melody.

"House Of Cards": This is my personal favorite: a conventional breakup song, a simple rhythm, and the best singing this band has ever done. I love the drowning guitar noise for the past few minutes of the song.

"Jigsaw Falling Into Place": Again the rhythm is subtle and steady, and again it's Thom's time to shine. His voice works perfectly with the creepy humming in the background, and this keeps building to another great dramatic conclusion. This song summarizes everything great about this album.

"Videotape": Where does Radiohead go from here? A terrifying piano ballad about killing yourself on video, of course. This is a great song, but I'm not sure how it fits with the rest of the album lyrically.

And I'll listen to the entire album 100 more times trying to figure it out. That's why this is my favorite band of the past 20 years.

Buy it. Buy it for your friends. Buy it twice like I did!