From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V9 #188 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Tuesday, November 16 2010 Volume 09 : Number 188 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] 17 more new albums I've liked this year, with short descriptions ["Brian Block" ] Re: [loud-fans] Ten More ["Joseph M. Mallon" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:20:16 -0800 From: "Brian Block" Subject: [loud-fans] 17 more new albums I've liked this year, with short descriptions A sequel to my July 2nd best-of-2010 e-mail. Alphabetical, with a tentative top-ten list for the year-to-date at the end. Agony Family, Yourself United (at base the songs are gently glittering melodic synth-pop, in a tradition reaching from Pet Shop Boys, New Order, and OMD through Postal Service and Owl City, but the songs have more motion -- textural changes and unexpected twists during the song -- and sometimes the band shows a sense of rock drama that reminds me variously of Peter Gabriel's Genesis, U2, Evanescence, or "We Don't Need Another Hero"-era Tina Turner. And the two main singers are reedier, dorkier, more emo than any of the above, though one of them has a very pretty voice regardless. Excellent album structure and flow: 21 pop songs in 75 minutes, and they make the length feel natural) Bilal, Airtight's Revenge ("neo-soul" or "rhythm and blues". Bilal's smooth but fairly energetic songs remind me of Van Hunt [a lot], and Me'shell Ndegeocello, Erykah Badu, and Anthony Hamilton [at least a little]) Hannis Brown, Oh Ah Ee (what ambient minimalism turns into when composed by a restless guy with a taste for Britpop: sound sources sculpted into fascinatingly odd but kinetic shapes, and vocals almost accidentally shaping into quasi-songs on top of them) Charming Hostess, the Bowls Project (your basic vocals, dulcimer, guitar, cello, clarinet, oboe, percussion, Middle-Eastern-instruments-I-can't-identify lineup, playing fusions of African, Iranian, Jewish, English, and bluesy folk musics) Clogs, the Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton (quiet but often-lovely Renaissance-evoking blend of classical strings and guitar, pure-toned polyphonic vocals, repetitive folk structures, and pre-rock forms of percussiveness) Cloud Cult, Light Chasers (Donovan's favorite band - a rock band, plus violin and cello, who made albums I adored in '07 and '08 - return with their lavishly detailed and plotted equivalent of Pet Sounds or the Soft Bulletin, which means some of you should think it's amazing. As with the above-named albums, I'd personally like it a lot better if their rock energy came back, but it's calm, uplifting, interesting, and pretty) Extra Life, Made Flesh (a combination I've wished for years would exist: aggressively twisted, thorny, dramatic math-rock with strong, genuinely pretty -- almost American Idol-ish yet geeky -- vocals and melodies. With smart, creepy lyrics, and two excellent accessible-though-weird pop singles) Flobots, Survival Story (hip-hop in band format with violin, no samples. Extremely agile wordplay, well-informed politics, thoughtful personal stories, a genial and generous personality: yeah, it's good for you, but I still dig it) Ben Folds / Nick Hornby, Lonely Avenue (novelist Hornby's lyrics, in their precision and mix of empathy with smart-assery, are very much in line with Folds's, though his subjects are wider-ranging. Folds contributes his fast, agile, playful piano-pop, his Elton John-ish balladry, and a couple of wild-eyed synth-abusing pop experiments) Jesca Hoop, Hunting My Dress (perkily well-sung folk music energized with long winding melodies, creative percussion, and interesting synth patches) Kate Miller-Heidke, Curiouser (which I was going to call "the best upbeat chart-pop album about mainstream topics since...", until I realized I don't have a "since" to end the sentence with. The music's in a category with early Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Britney Spears, and Kylie Minogue, the lyrics in the same genre as say Lauper or Alanis Morissette, but the hooks, wit, vocal skill and expressiveness all sparkle in a way that shouldn't even annoy anyone by going over their heads) Janelle Monae, the ArchAndroid (R+B, variously weird, slinky, funky, Supremes-like, orchestrated, and/or dreamy ... almost always a bit weird, really, but so are OutKast) OK Go, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (their videos for "WTF?", "All Things Must Pass", and "White Knuckles" are brilliantly fun creations that deserve all their YouTube views and more: if you haven't watched, please do so, and have a blast. I think OK Go - who conceived and directed the videos - have *earned* a purchase from anyone who's enjoyed those videos, whether y'all like the music or not: buying the album is the right way to say thank you for the good times. But I like the music, much more than I thought I would from the videos. Their first two albums were direct, hooks-first dance rock; this album makes the very odd decision to mute the hooks in favor of complicated sonic ear-candy. It's a headphones album built on shallow, kinetic pop songs. But if that's bad for dance, I've found it perfect for walks, dishwashing, and laundry-folding, as slowly the hooks do sink in) Rasputina, Sister Kinderhook (multiple cellos; percussion; and the unsettling, powerful, lovely and/or jarring, always articulate vocals of Melora Creager, singing eagerly about odd historical events and myths. Acoustic, unlike their last few albums; I miss the various forms of loud cello distortion, but the players are innovative and excellent regardless) Reign of Kindo, This is What Happens (intelligent Christian pop at the same intersection with progressive rock that animated Supertramp's best work; or, a vision of Maroon 5's sleek piano-pop in which every player is barely repressing years of acing their lessons at Julliard, but is fully repressing any impulses towards being sexist dickwads) Sigh, Scenes from Hell (extremely intense Full Metal Gargle with minors in Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky: blastbeats, thundering bass, searing guitar solos, howls, but also soaring brass sections, skittering strings, and thus tunes) These New Puritans, Hidden (the percussive intersection of industrial rock, tribal chants, and Fiddler on the Roof) My ranking of the year's albums so far would go something like 1. Kate Miller-Heidke 2. Extra Life 3. Kaipa 4. Verlaines 5. Reign of Kindo 6. Sigh 7. Aloha 8. Ben Folds / Nick Hornby 9. Emma Pollock 10. Yeasayer

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Feed a child by searching the web! Learn how http://www.care2.com/toolbar ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:02:23 -0500 From: Jer Fairall Subject: [loud-fans] Ten More November 15 is hardly the year's end, but since Brian posted his list and since I had to submit mine to PopMatters by today, here are my albums and singles. Top 10 Albums: 1. The Tallest Man on Earth - THE WILD HUNT 2. Broken Social Scene - FORGIVENESS ROCK RECORD 3. Drake - THANK ME LATER 4. Das Racist - SIT DOWN, MAN 5. LCD Soundsystem - THIS IS HAPPENING 6. Ryan Bingham & the Dead Horses - JUNKY STAR 7. Owen Pallett - HEARTLAND 8. Erykah Badu - NEW AMERYKAH, PART TWO: RETURN OF THE ANKH 9. Laura Marling - I SPEAK BECAUSE I CAN 10. The Paperbacks - LIT FROM WITHIN Top 10 Singles: 1. Cee-Lo Green - "Fuck You" 2. Janelle Monae ft. Big Boi - "Tightrope" 3. Laura Marling - "Rambling Man" 4. Robyn - "Fembot" 5. Owen Pallett - "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt" 6. Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce - "Telephone" 7. Vampire Weekend - "Giving Up The Gun" 8. Young Money - "Roger That" 9. Kylie Minogue - "All The Lovers" 10. Titus Andronicus - "A More Perfect Union" Comments, questions and jeers welcome. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:42:48 -0800 From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Ten More On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Jer Fairall wrote: > Top 10 Singles: > > 1. Cee-Lo Green - "Fuck You" Got to agree with this. The multiplicity of covers (William Shatner & Gwyneth Paltrow among others) is testament to its catchiness. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was my favorite song of the year. - -- Joe Mallon jmmallon@joescafe.com ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V9 #188 *******************************