2014 in music
Thank God for Spotify! I listened to more new music in 2014 than probably any year since the 1970s. And my conclusion is? First of all, there's too much of it. One can't really take it all in. But the upside of that equation is that there is probably more truly interesting, exciting and fun acts producing popular music than any time in history. There's simply no center or focus, nothing that would pull a generation (let alone a culture) together as in decades past. But is that a bad thing?Probably all this musical dispersion is a reflection of our times, where everyone has more access to different forms of media in specialized compartments due to the proliferation of digital dissemination. (A prime example is the existence of thousands of stupid blogs like this produced by bone-heads that nobody wants to read.) While this sort of chaotic proliferation is probably positive in that it removes the center of gravity from corporations that have traditionally profited from turning everybody into lock-stepping robots, does it not stultify the potential of ground-generated "movements" of mass revolt? I dunno. I guess we'll see.
But I thought it might be fun to look back at some of last year's best releases (in whatever format), at least from my cramped and overwhelmed perspective. You might find something you like that you may have missed out on. And rather than list them all at once, I thought I'd dot them throughout the coming year, perhaps on the first anniversary of their release dates.
I enthusiastically invite any and everybody who would care to take the time to share any of their favorite albums from the recently deceased year - or any other year, for that matter. I would most happily put them up here in the lame hope of creating a little sub-community of shared obsession. Or not.
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks:
Wig Out at Jagbags (January 7, 2014)
One of the first albums released in 2014 wound up being one of my favorites. Stephen Malkmus, I discovered, is the wise-ass genius behind the semi-legendary band Pavement, one of the great little-known postmodernist "alternative" bands of the 1990s. For the last decade or so, Malkmus has been producing albums with his own band, the Jicks, and in so doing, has been expanding his unique brand of encyclopedic pop brilliance to new and fascinating realms of bizarre, sarcastic beauty. There are a dozen solid songs on this puppy, each with its own unique aroma. Malkmus digs on Lewis Carroll-like whimsy in his lyrics, though he ultimately targets what he has always viewed as the bogus mythology of rock 'n' roll culture and the various incarnations of "cool."
The music is catchy as hell and fits its targets through inverting clichés, somewhat in the manner of Malkmus' most obvious forbear, the late Frank Zappa. Malkmus' music is post-everything, however, and sounds nothing like the stern modernism of Zappa's, even if he does favor odd time signatures and jumps. I absent-mindedly once described him as "a white Captain Beefheart" - forgetting momentarily that Beefheart was white! (Goes to show just how great Beefheart really was.) But Malkmus is white as in Wonder Bread, and he loves to twist that middle-American perspective until it is as upside-down as it actually seems to a truly conscious mind. So, depending on your perspective, these funny and imaginative songs have the potential to be your buddies throughout this year, as they were for me in the last one.
By the way, Nicole (teenage daughter) and I went to see them at the Granada last March. Not only were they spot-on marvelous, but I was pleased to notice that I was not the oldest-looking person in attendance. Enjoy!
"Lariat"
Only a chariot could carry it
Across this void
I wouldn’t jerry rig or candy coat your Latin kisses
You’re not what you aren’t
You aren’t what you’re not
You got what you want/You want what you got
People look great when they shave
Don’t they?
We lived on Tennyson and venison and The Grateful Dead
It was Mudhoney summer, Torch of Mystics, Double Bummer
You’re not what you aren’t
You aren’t what you’re not
You got what you want
You want what you got
Feels so great in the shade
A love like oxygen, so foxy then so terrific now
On a jape I’m returning
Bobby spinnin’ out
I was so messed up
You were drunk and high
Just a ramblin’ wreck
Comin’ off the breaks to see what was shaking
We grew up listening to the music from the best decade ever
Talkin’ about the A-D-Ds
We grew up listening to the music from the best decade ever
"Cinnamon and Lesbians"
Shanghaied in Oregon
Cinnamon and lesbians
The power lines revolt in time
I've been tripping my face off since breakfast
Taking in this windswept afternoon
Onward ye Christian sailors
You smooth-talking jack-off jailors
A one-stop shoplifter's narrow convenience
Life should be free
Take what you need
Raised in a numbers trailer
With grass-blowing funky neighbors
Come downtown cause we've got a cure for your headlice
We'll do it for free
Love it or leave
"Houston Hades"
I could see you fallin' in love
Every day people need love
With all their better halves
Do the math
Everybody needs it long enough to let it go
If Houston's Hades
For Houston ladies
With all those truck huggers
Gun luggers
Now you gotta have their babies
No.
This town, it's so impressive from a distance
Listen boy, I'm talkin' to you
Doo do do Doo do...
???
She's your queen most of the day
As for the other ones
It's not fun to harp on it
Everybody's got their days
If love is Hades
For all you Slim Shadies
It's no wonder he smashes guitars
Turn the stage into a cool crime scene
It sounds so impressive from a distance
Take it up a notch or two!
Doo do do Doo do...
Tearin' it away
Tearin' it away
Tearin' it away, hey
Tearin' it away
Tearin' it away
Tearin' it away, hey
Tearin' it away
Tearin' it away
??? falls apart
"Surreal Teenagers"
Want to share an album from 2014? Or any year? List of favorites? Hate mail? Just send it to:
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