One Word Review: Win Win

83: Unwonted

One Word Reivew: The Company Men

58: Cursory

Top 50 Albums of the 00s - #14: Radiohead - In Rainbows

Yep, we're counting down the top 50. Click here for overview and criteria.

This project was supposed to be long over. I made my list when there still remained six months in 2009, and I was hoping to be done before the year was out. Here we are halfway through 2011, and, well, we're getting there slowly but surely. Part of my reason for starting early was to get a jump on all those other lists that I knew would surely be arriving. Something about the best plans of mice and men something something. So all those lists finished way before me. I had made no predictions about what others would say when they compiled their opinions, though I must say I was not so surprised when Radiohead finished on top for many. The difference being that those sites all loved their 2001 release, Kid A. A fine disc, but more of a continuation of what they had started with OK Computer than a record that marks this decade in any way or broke much new ground.

And they continued on in that way throughout the years that followed until, quite suddenly, they gave away 2007 record, In Rainbows. The method of release was considered wildly innovative (though Smashing Pumpkins had done the same thing seven years previous). The bigger shock was how abruptly compelling their music had become. From the akbum-opening scuffling of “15 Step,” it was clear that the band had, if not exactly reinvented itself, done a refresh that would pay dividends throughout the record. For the first time, they were allowing the rhythm a certain catchiness. Not that this was house music, but a talented DJ could shoehorn it in if the vibe was right.

The whole album is chocked full of charming moments, and each song has something unique about it making it worthwhile. But there are some notable standouts. “Reckoner,” with its thumping percussion may be the best song Radiohead has ever made, and certainly their best in 10 years. And “All I Need” is a wholly unique take on forlorn obsession. Contrast this with Death Cab for Cutie’s obtuse “I Will Possess Your Heart” from their 2008 release, for example. We don’t get an epic concept record, but that’s OK. Like different short stories in a great collection, each one delivers intricacies in its own way.

I had gradually written this band off as each successive album seemed to get mathier and more remote. But the album is a reminder that a talented act always has potential for that next record to be their “best work in a decade.” Ten years from now, Kid A will be an old chestnut, dusted off for nostalgia’s sake, while this one will keep its groove. I’ve listened to In Rainbows more than anything else they’ve done. It even works at parties…


Previous Entries:
#15 - Interpol - Antics
#16 - Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
#17 - Jens Lekman - Oh You're So Silent, Jens
#18 - Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
#19 - Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
#20 - The Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta!
#21 - Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
#22 - Mission of Burma - The Obliterati
#23 - Don Caballero - World Class Listening Problem
#24 - The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

One Word Review: Rango

61: Riffy

Why Do We Hate Billy Joel?

This is as decent a summary as any. I'm in the 12%. I'm in all the other rows, too, actually.

Long form quote of the day

I sure wish I could write like this:

     "I looked at my watch and this high-powered publisher was already twenty minutes late. I would wait a half an hour and then I would leave. It never pays to let the customer make all the rules. If he can push you around, he will assume other people can too, and that is not what he hires you for. And right now I didn't need the work badly enough to let some fathead from back east use me as a horse-holder, some executive character with a paneled office on the eighty-fifth floor, with a row of pushbuttons and an intercom and a secretary in a Hattie Carnegie Career Girl's Special and a pair of those big beautiful promising eyes. This was the kind of operator who would tell you to be there at nine sharp and if you weren't sitting quietly with a pleased smile on your pan when he floated in two hours later on a double Gibson, he would have a paroxysm of outraged executive ability which would necessitate five weeks at Acapulco before he got back the hop on his high hard one.
     "The old bar waiter came drifting by and glanced softly at my weak Scotch and water. I shook my head and he bobbed his wine thatch, and right then a dream walked in. It seemed to me for an instant there was no sound in the bar, that the sharpies stopped sharping and the drunk on the stool stopped burbling away, and it was just like after the conductor taps on his music stand and raises his arms and holds them poised.
     "She was slim and quite tall in a white linen tailormade with a black and white polka-dotted scarf around her throat. Her hair was the pale gold of a fairy princess. There was a small hat on it into which the pale gold hair nestled like a bird in its nest. Her eyes were cornflower blue, a rare color, and the lashes were long and almost too pale. She reached the table across the way and was pulling off a white gauntleted glove and the old waiter had the table pulled out in a way no waiter ever will pull a table out for me. She sat down and slipped the gloves under the strap of her bag and thanked him with a smile so gentle, so exquisitely pure, that he was damn near paralyzed by it. She said something to him in a very low voice. He hurried away, bending forward. There was a guy who really had a mission in life.
     "I stared. She caught me staring. She lifted her glance half an inch and I wasn't there any more. But wherever I was I was holding my breath."

From Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye." I swear the whole book is like this. I am convinced that Chandler just had some kind of innate genius or labored over each pronoun like the screws on the space shuttle. See? I can't do what he does. But I am enjoying the hell out of reading it.

5ive-larious

Just had to share this one...

On the Lollapalooza Lineup

One of the hardest things about living abroad is missing Chicago's amazing music scene. It's something that kind of hums in the background. I notice when I bother to think about it, but most of the time, I'm busy with other things and don't realize that nobody swings their tour this far south. But the Lollapalooza and Pitchfork festivals are big reminders that tend to stick out. Lolla just released their lineup, and here's how it looks.

Headliners are Eminmem, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, and Muse, none of which are exactly groundbreaking artists at this point. But let's run down the entire list, grouping (the bands I know) by category.

Washed up nostalgia acts: Big Audio Dynamite, Foo Fighters, Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley & Nas, The Cars, Ween, Flogging Molly

Foofy mainstream mediocrity: Coldplay, Muse, A Perfect Circle, Eminem

Lollapalooza meta nostalgia acts: My Morning Jacket, Cage the Elephant, The Kills

On the list of today's popular indie-rockers, but not exactly cutting edge. Also including bands you may like, but I would prefer to be at the snack bar: Mountain Goats, Black Lips, Bright Eyes, Arctic Monkeys, Best Coast

Interesting acts who most would pay to see play in a club: Rival Schools, Imelda May, Titus Andronicus, Deftones, Cee Lo Green, Explosions in the Sky, Ratatat, Crystal Castles, OK Go, Beirut

Desconozco - bands I know nothing about: A ton of others. And here's where the big problem lies. Obviously, I'm out of touch these days, but I'm not the only one. Over the last several years, Lollapalooza has demonstrated an inability to bring worthwhile acts to the side stages. My last time in town for the festival was 2008, and I discovered precisely three new worthwhile acts thanks to the festival. Contrast this with Pitchfork where pretty much every band on the lineup brings something interesting to the table. In sum, the festival has no street cred.

I'm fairly certain that even if I was in Chicago, I would definitely not be visiting Grant Park this time around. I mean seriously, Coldplay? That's actually a band that came to Argentina and I still didn't bother to see them. Would it be worth listening to their Joe Satriani-inspired fluffrock while getting jostled by sweaty masses that actually want to see Coldplay?

No thanks.

Top Ten Sidney Lumet Movies

I'm on my honeymoon, so no blogging. But wanted to let anyone who may be following here that I wrote another Top Ten list for Scene Stealers. Click here for the Top Ten Sidney Lumet Films. Rest in peace, Sidney. You're greatly missed already...

One Word Review: Being John Malkovich

84: Brainy