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Thursday, December 29, 2005
As the New Year bears upon us like the pliant buttocks of Father Time himself, the Scorekeepers are making their Best-Ofs and checking them twice.
A few of the lists, in no particular order:
Pitchfork : Mike McGonigal : Sasha Frere Jones : Triple J : BBC : FILTER (including celeb lists by the likes of Shock G and Gilles Peterson) : Pop Journalism : No Frontin : Shake Your Fist : Onion : NPR : Stereogum : Gilde : Rolling Stone : Harmonium : Chattanooga Pulse : Stylus : Pop Matters : Fat Planet's Top Aussie Bands : Sean Daly
So many weepy white guys, so little time!
I liked alot of what other people liked only probably not as much as they did:
Damian Marley, Kanye, Wolf Parade, Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Gorillaz, Danger Doom, Strokes, Futurehounds, Three 6 Mafia, Amerie, LCD Soundsystem, Seu Gorge, New Pornographers, Soft, Sigur Ros...
The blog Neiles Life has his top 20 indie/pop/rock songs you can download here including a worthy Teenage Fanbclub single.
We at moistworks also featured many great 2005 releases, including:
Spoon, Doe, & Malkmus
Rogue Wave
Edan
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings
Acid House Kings
Ohmega Watts
Antony and the Johnsons
Coco Rosie
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (who our very own Brian Howe put on the map. I've seen the official Tastemaker License Pitchfork issued Brian: it's oversized like a novelty or a prop but it's very real and powerful beyond words)
and
someone who isn't making enough of these lists:
Martha Wainwright, whose song "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" is crushing and triumphant and -- unlike the post I took great joy in writing for it -- doesn't contain a single false note.
Noz at Cocaine Blunts... has posted his top rap singles for the year. Its a thorough effort but the results seem to suggest that whoever stole the soul didn't return it in 2005. I think Antoine de Saint-Exupery best characterized the current state of rap when he posed: "Are we making chewing gum for men or men for chewing gum?" Though to be fair, he posed the question backstage at the VMAs, when he was still out-of-sorts for receiving no nominations and because a member of The Game's entourage had just cussed his ass out for wearing a cape.
So I guess moistworks owes you a list, and they are songs you wont be seeing anywhere else:
The Top 25 Songs of 1978
We try not to be too didactic here, but I think this list is basically definitive. That said, not too much thought went into this. In fact every minute spent was maybe 59 seconds too long.
This list isn't particulary reverent to Music Hall-of-Famers; notable omissions include Springsteen, Queen, Kinks, Dire Straits, Roxy Music, Jackson Browne, Black Sabbath, Dylan, The Clash, Clapton. Theres no Billy Joel songs from The Stranger. Though I love what Billy Joel is doing with his life: crashing Renaults in the sand, embarrasing himself at polo matches. Hitting rock bottom just takes forever in the Hamptons. And not a crumb from Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. But that record has reached a point of such classic rock ubiquity now, that I can't hardly imagine it actually coming into existence for a first time. It's like trying to admire one's own lungs.
Nor have I tried to imagine I was a blogger back in 1978 (i might have run a Blue Oyster Cult blog) and draft a playlist that would have been prophetic and hiply contrarian for the times: no Kraftwerk, Stranglers, Television, Big Star, Buzzcocks, DEVO or The Jam.
No, I don't make lists very often, but when I do, Im all heart - I make them on nothing but pure instinct. Thats why most of my grocery lists just have the word 'BACON' repeated in capital block letters from top to bottom Shining-style.
THE LIST:
25.
Earth, Wind & Fire: September
The Jacksons: Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)
Chic: Le Freak
Disco produced some of our greatest songs. It probably produced all of our worst ones too.
24.
Culture: Two Sevens Clash
23.
The Police: So Lonely
Download: So Lonely (Live in Melbourne, Australia 1981)
22.
Elvis Costello: Radio Radio
21.
Talking Heads:
The Good Thing & Psycho Killer
20.
Althea & Donna: Uptown Top Ranking
2nd best song ever about a Khaki suit. I'd like to think that the first is yet to be written.
19.
10cc: Dreadlock Holiday
Maybe a bit high but I really don't like cricket. I love it.
Download
18.
The Ramones: I Wanna Be Sedated
You know what, I'm listening to this song now and you know it's actually kinda tepid. Its off the list.
17.
The Mighty Ryeders: Evil Vibrations
16.
The Cars: Moving In Stereo/Let The Good Times Roll
My swim coach Kerry was tan and bear chested and had a sandy moustache and a white smile and took all the kids out to eat after the meets in his Jetta and played The Cars in his tape deck. He was so cool. He also played Billy Squire's 'The Stroke' at practice. He told us it was about swimming.
15.
Blondie: Heart Of Glass
14.
Plastic Bertrand: Ca Plane Pour Moi
Download
13.
The Cure: Killing An Arab
12.
Kate Bush: Wuthering Heights
If you are a slightly pasty hi-school chick back in 78 and you wear kinda frock skirt things and are only happy in art class because with collage you can arrange the universe in a way you cant in your real life and you are chaste, but only by circumstance, because you yearn so much but those boys in your school are so immature and grubby not like the complex men of Emily Bronte and you put this song on for the 1st time and your mind literally explodes.
11.
X-Ray Spex: Germ Free Adolescents
I like to imagine a teenage Howie Mandell listening to this song obsessively.
Chicks with "effervescently discordant" voices like Poly Styrene's went into hibernation shortly after 1978. Perhaps sensing the 80s wasnt safe for them, they just buried deep in the ground. But now they are back and man they are everywhere. Its a plague. Like those 17 year cicadas. The Brood X cicadas.
Download
10.
Brothers Johnson: Get The Funk Out My Face
Download
9.
Odyssey: Native New Yorker(12")
A bittersweet broadway ode to a bittersweet time in American music:
disco was dying, and the video game song parody was yet to be born.
8.
Parliament: Flashlight
7.
Rod Stewart: Da Ya Think I`m Sexy
Rolling Stones: Miss You
These are the same song. You know its true. Don't be mad, Rod Stewart fans.
Two greats flirting with disco. Only one would end up marrying her.
6.
Bee Gees: Staying Alive
5.
Taste of Honey: Boogie Oogie Oogie
Of all the dancefloor greats, this one has the longest legs.
4.
ELO: Mr. Blue Sky
This song cured my BiPolar disorder.
3.
Bob Marley: Time Will Tell
People dissed the Kaya record for being too soft: not political like roots-Marley or soulful like Wailers-Marley. But 'Time Will Tell' (and 'Running Away' for that matter) showcases singer-songwriter Marley at his unplugged finest.
2.
Lou Reed: Street Hassle
I got into Lou Reed when most people did, in College. I had bought the Rolling Stone Album Guide, 1987 edition and saw that this band 'The Velvet Underground' came highly rated. I had great loyalty to that Album Guide. I didn't even listen to 'White Light/White Heat' for two years because I was wary that its 3 Star-ness might taint my love for the other 4-Star Velvet's albums. I got into Lou at the same time as my friend Lumpy. We even went on the radio to talk about Lou. Like at 1am midweek, Mornington Public Radio in Melbourne, which had a broadcast signal of about 2 pubs, which was a good thing since our friends started crank-calling the station and I was drunk and Lumpy froze up and the host started talking about the "angst ridden tones of Gordon Gano."
Lumpy used to accuse me of being spoiled and not respecting peoples property. I dont think this was at all accurate: i used to empty the house vacuum cleaner to find coins to buy 'Horizon' cigarettes, the cheapest smokes available, boxed 50-at-a-time in a big blue carton with clouds on it that made them look like a package of tampons. But maybe Lumpy thought that I was spoiled because Lumpy only owned basically 4 possessions. He had a couple posters from the Australian tourism board advertising rainforests that he had laminated. He had a toaster. Actually he only had the toaster for like 2 months. One day I turned it on and threw my keys in the slot and blew it up just 'cause. And Lumpy had a guitar which he cared about more than anything else in the world. It wasn't a particularly good guitar or of any sentimental value but it was his guitar and he was a guitarist and he loved the thing. So one day a bunch of us were stoned and Lumpy and some other friends are trying to convince me that Dion, who they knew from his guest vocal on Lou Reed's "Dirty Boulevard" was a black guy.
"His name is Dimucci you fucking Bogans" but they didnt believe me so I ran into my room and got Exhibit A: a copy of Rolling STone magazine that had an illustration of Dion and I jumped up on the bed and held it up high, and I stumbled back, off the bed and put my foot right through the neck of Lumpy's guitar and it cracked like a bone and he burst into tears and ran from the room. I felt terrible. I couldnt afford to replace the thing. But then our friend Tim told me he knew this guy. SO we drove to the outer suburbs to this place that looked like Astoria, Queens but with a relentless blue sky, and he took me to this ancient man who lived with his ancient wife. The wife spent all day gardening. Well it wasnt really gradening, since she had the garden paved over and all the plants placed in pots. Maybe she did this so she wouldnt twist an ankle on a root, or maybe she liked the neatness or control, and wasnt so much a gardner as a commander of natures forces, spending her days setting the shrubs into formations, mobilizing the lupins. The old man spent all his time in a cluttered old workshop out back. He had devoted his working life to handcrafting instruments, mostly classical ones, and was apparently something of a legend at it, having worked on violins and cellos for the country's top orchestras. He was retired and a bit arthritic now but had little else to do, and was thrilled to take Lumpys crippled guitar off our hands. A few days later we returned and he had completely rebuilt the neck, laminated it and all. It was actually better then new. You don't need to pay me he said, but Tim made me give him $50.
SO the point is Im NOT spoiled ,and while in a way I dont respect property, I also DO respect property, or at least I pay other people to.
The other point of this story is that if you want to make an 11-minute, 3 Act song about a girl dying of a heroin overdose, and you want to record it live, with cellos and talking instead of singing, then you dont want a team of professional songwriters and ProTools and Kelly Clarkson. You want Lou Reed, thats it, he's the list.
Download: Street Hassle
1.
Peter Gabriel: Mother of Violence
Village Voice's 4th worst voice had 1978's best song. This song is the reason I could never be in the army. I'd be playing this in the barracks all day eating takeout from that Burger King they built for the troops, and eventually the Sarg. would order a order the 'Code Red' on me like in A Few Good Men.
Download: Mother of ViolenceLabels: James
posted by James
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