December 2009
The End of the 00s: The Ballad of That Guy From... →
My contribution to the Awl’s excellent The End of the 00s series is up today, and I’m pretty excited about it. It’s one of my favorite things that I’ve written recently, and a bit different from what I normally do, at least in that it’s a work of fiction. I hope that you like it. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but you’re in for some serious carnage at...
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WatchHandsome Furs “I’m Confused” Zombies are played out, but Scott Coffey’s video for “I’m Confused” is so well conceived and beautifully executed that it hardly matters. The horror movie angle complements the intensity of the song, and the plot foregrounds the genuine love and sexual chemistry between the band’s two members. The clip is full of gorgeous...
“Hands down, end of discussion, no contest, the single shittiest phrase of the...”
– There are some things in Michaelangelo Matos’ A Regrettable Decade in Music feature that are a bit too whiney/cranky/obvious, but oh MAN is he ever on point with this comment on “haters.”
“And the way they sing, not looking at the audience, focusing instead on each...”
– Put Your Little Hand In Mind.
Arianna Stern on why Sonny and Cher’s “I’ve Got You Babe” makes her feel so sad.
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Awkward Pull-Quotes From My 2009 Pitchfork Album...
“If anything, it has become clear that his performance is inherently confrontational in the way it forces cynical, complacent audiences to reckon with idealistic discontent and unapologetic goofiness, and nudges them to wonder how and why it became so uncool to mix pleasure and politics.” Chain and the Gang - Down With Liberty, Up With Chains! 5/12/2009
“After this point,...
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Awkward Pull-Quotes From My 2009 Pitchfork Album...
“Too often Miller seems like a talented character actress who has somehow been cast in a lead role against type, and the very qualities that would make her charming and memorable in a smaller role become unflattering when exposed to too much spotlight.” Bosque Brown - Baby 4/1/2009
“Even when It Hugs Back seem to hold us close, the intimacy in their music seems hollow,...
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WatchMiles Fisher “This Must Be The Place” Miles Fisher’s recording of this Talking Heads classic is only slightly novel, and doesn’t have a great deal to add to the song. That is definitely not the case for David Green’s extraordinarily slick music video, in which the chilly precision and deliberate twitchiness of Fisher’s version is fleshed out by having him slip...
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“If you’ve been to private art school or perused NYLON, you’ve seen girls like...”
– The Anthropology of Anthropologie
It’s not easy to write about a perceived class of people who make you feel extremely insecure with thoughtful lucidity, but I think Arianna Stern manages that delicate balancing act nicely in this essay.
“Lydia Ramsbottom released a wonderful little concept album for kids this year....”
– As usual, Pierce Gleeson’s list of his top 5 albums of the year errs on the side of rather obscure recordings.
WatchI kinda don’t want to know the story of how Tori Amos came to guest-star in this MODOK Christmas special from the official Marvel Comics website, I’m just super glad that it happened.
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WatchBat For Lashes “Pearl’s Dream” This clip, directed by Nima Nourizadeh, is the least of the three Bat For Lashes videos for Two Suns, but c’mon — that is some stiff competition, and something had to come in third place. The visuals lifts imagery from the album cover and the live show, but the most haunting image is that of a menacing blond-wigged Natasha Khan in the...
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Rolling Stone Top 25, In US Sales
1. U2 No Line On The Horizon 1m 2. Bruce Springsteen Working On A Dream 569k 3. Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix 205k 4. Jay-Z The Blueprint 3 1.3m 5. Green Day 21st Century Breakdown 871k 6. Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca 48k 7. Neko Case Middle Cyclone 169k 8. The-Dream Love Vs. Money 472k 9. the xx xx 44k 10. Sonic Youth The Eternal 54k 11. Pearl Jam Backspacer 404k 12. Mastodon Crack The...
Pitchfork Top 10 Albums, In US Sales
1. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion 131k 2. Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca 48k 3. the xx xx 35k 4. The Flaming Lips Embryonic 75k (estimate) 5. Raekwon Only Built For Cuban Linx Part II 141k 6. Grizzly Bear Veckatimest 132k 7. Bat For Lashes Two Suns 36k 8. Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix 205k 9. Fever Ray Fever Ray 23k 10. Girls Album 19k
Sales figures are from Soundscan through...
“Too be fair to Mr. Durst, he’s damn, damn, damn good at writing an angry...”
– Christopher Weingarten on Limp Bizkit and Johnny Rzeznik’s version of “Wish You Were Here”
Believe me, you really want to watch that horrible guitar solo. It is the pinnacle of sadlariousness.
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WatchThe Flaming Lips “Watching The Planets”
This video by Wayne Coyne and George Salisbury is extraordinarily NSFW, but are you at work today? Probably not!
A lot of people whine and complain about what we have lost as the “monoculture” has dissolved over the course of the past decade, but I tend to focus on what we have gained. For example, we now live in an era where major...
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WatchBat For Lashes “Daniel” Pitchfork’s top 10 albums of 2009 is up today, and I am very happy to say that I wrote the blurb for Bat For Lashes’ Two Suns, which came in at #7 on the list. Two Suns means a great deal to me, and I put a lot of care into writing this thing, in part because I felt like I owed something to it, but mostly because I fucking despise so much of...
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WatchCymbals Eat Guitars “…And the Hazy Sea” Live in Brooklyn, 10/24/2009 I wrote the blurb for Cymbals Eat Guitars’ debut album Why There Are Mountains in Pitchfork’s top 50 albums of the 2009s. The album came in at #43, just beneath Douglas Wolk’s terrific blurb for Tune-Yards’ Bird-Brains.
“Listeners of Ys came for the beauty, but stayed for the emotional content. We...”
– Albums of the Decade: Joanna Newsom’s Ys
Liz Colville’s essay on Ys has me very eager to go revisit an album I think I may have very unfairly dismissed when it was initially released. I wasn’t in the right place for it back then. I suspect I might be now.
Dirpy - YouTube to Mp3 Converter →
Hello there, useful internet site!
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Bear In Heaven “Lovesick Teenagers” I...
FLUXCAST 2009 Retrospective Part Two!
fluxcast:
DOWNLOAD IT!
This is the second of three podcasts covering the highlights of 2009. The playlist for this double-sized episode can be found in the “lyrics” section of the metadata. Enjoy!
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