a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

I Don't Care if You Love Me.... Just So You Like Me....

Well, that oughta provide a hint. It won't, but in a perfect world where quality matters, it would.

Anyway, it's that most stressful wonderful time of the year again. A year of huge changes. A year that's leaving me with a headache right now, but it'll pass (in, oh, four to six months.... but hopefully the fruits of that will be worth it...). There'll be more personal updates again soon, to be sure, but this one's about the music.

It's time for the end-of-year review, and when the "new" list is almost as good as the "discoveries" list, you know it was a pretty good year musically. Definitely the best since 2005, and probably since 2004. And as it features the best album since 2005, by.... Well, just wait for it and plow along with me, a'ight?

My Top 10 Discoveries of 2008:

10. Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 -- Ole! Tarantula (2006) -- Seriously, how bad could a pairing of Robyn Hitchcock and Peter Buck BE? Well, not bad at all. And as rockin' as he's been in ages.

9. John Cale -- Black Acetate (2005) -- John Cale: Forgotten but not gone. Especially on this one.

8. Ian Hunter -- Strings Attached (2005) -- The Original Shaded One, plus orchestra, showing off the ballads in a big way: "Boy," "I Wish I Was Yr Mother," "Irene Wilde," and much more. And "Michael Picasso," his elegy for Mick Ronson, will reduce you to a blubbering idiot. What a great, great song.

7. Robyn Hitchcock -- Moss Elixir (1996) -- WhereinMr. Barrett Byrds Hisself plays it straight. For him, anyway. Robyn will always be Robyn, of course, but these puppies are actually accessible. The companion alt-CD, Mossy Liquor, is almost as good.

6. Michael Knott -- Hearts of Care (2003) -- The "Christian Tim Byrnes" (and this didn't come from me if you'll recall, but it fits) returns. Hubris, hubris, and oh yeah, hubris. And on that note, "Detox Radio Station" is worth the price of admission. (Comatose Soul, the one before it, just missed this list, BTW.)

5. Andy Partridge -- The Fuzzy Warbles Collection (2002-2006) -- For sheer inventiveness, this belongs here. 8 CDs of outtakes, unreleased stuff, and everything else that'll help Andy pay the bills leftover from his XTC days (since Virgin wouldn't, causing that 8-year holdout before they finally ripped up the contract). And on that note....

4. XTC -- Nonsuch (1996) -- How the heck did I wait this long to finally hear XTC's last real CD? (Yeahyeah, I know, there's the post-strike Apple Venuses 1 & 2; I still stand by this statement.) And very arguably, they saved the best for last.

3. Vigilantes of Love -- Blister Soul (1995) -- Wherein Bill Mallonnee learns to stop whining without ceasing to rip yr heart out, and thus making this CD the warm-up act for one of my all-time Top 5, Slow Dark Train.  (After which, he starts whining again.)  Book 'im, larry.

2. The Scattered Pages -- Lazy Are the Skeletons (2006) -- After several months (and after several months of playing it nonstop), I busted this puppy back out to confirm its place on this list. And it sounded as wonderful as ever. These guys deserve a career. Make it happen.

1. Grandpaboy/Paul Westerberg -- Mono/Stereo (2002) -- As close as the man will likely even get to greatness again... and as close as he'd been since Tim. Although... but, as always, that's ahead of our story....

 

Disappointment of the Year: It really wasn't even a bad year in that category. But let's give it to  Elvis Costello's Momofuku , since it dared to actually get my hopes up for the first time in years, then dashed them fairly mercilessly.

And now, our Top 10 for 2008:

10. Sam Phillips -- Don't Say Anything -- All the way back? Well, no. Back enough? Sure.

9. The War on Drugs - Barrel of Batteries EP/Wagonwheel Blues -- Intriguing, Byrds-y and pithy, when it's not buried under a mass of reverb. Still, a very promising first album beneath the occasional murk.

8. The Verve -- Forth  -- And speaking of reverb... but at least they've mastered it. Solid and sometimes even inspiring. But you have to get about two-thirds of the way for the latter to kick in.

7. Matthew Loaicono -- Kentucky -- A breath of fresh air that I'll have to hold in 'til the next K-Hearts album. These guys need a career, too. Again, make it happen.

6. Paul Westerberg -- 49:00 (of your time life) -- Speak of the debbil (raised a good boy) again. Not so much an album as an experience. Which in a way, is unfortunate, 'cause there's more than enough good material that it could've been an album too. But it's nice to have the attitude back, even as it runs deliberately (and sometimes literally) roughshod over the music.

5. The Cure -- 4:13 Dream -- Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Smith is back. And, for that matter, so is....

4. David Byrne & Brian Eno -- Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.  Warm, languid, yet still challenging.

3. Frightened Rabbit -- The Midnight Organ Fight -- The Proclaimers pretending to be The Waterboys writing a trouble-on-the-farm album. (Or, if you will, a far less mopey Pedro the Lion, who obsess about their own relationships instead of everyone else's.) Bouncy, raw (perhaps to self-indulgent excess), but real and often poetic. Let's see where they go from here.

2. Alejandro Escovedo -- Real Animal -- A 30-year career ranging from punk to folk to pop-chamber music encapsulated, updated, and in-yo'-FACE.

 

And finally, our number-one album of 2008 (and you had been warned....)

1. Sparks -- Exotic Creatures of the Deep -- Six months later, this is still in my rotation. Snotty, heartbreakingly empty, beautifully symphonic, bitingly funny, and downright rocking all at turns. The album of the Mael brothers' 35+-year career. Seriously. Not only is it the best album of 2008, but the best album since (brace yrself, larry ) Sufjan Stevens' Come on Feel the ILLINOISe. Which is 2005, for crying out loud (and pretty much where I started this blog). About TIME someone else stepped up. But these guys? I'd've never guessed they had it in them. But with each of the last three albums outdoing the last and pushing the envelope further, I'm even not sure anymore that their creative arc has peaked. As always, we'll see. (And by the way, this is the first picture I've EVER seen of Ron laughing, let alone smiling. And I've been fans of these guys for 30 of those years. Usually he's just staring a hole through you. I've personally experienced this, in fact. )

 And so there we go again. See you next year, if not sooner.

Posted by: burninglight at 22:10 | link | comments (24)