Music

Music

Bob Dylan – Oh Mercy

| xeyeti

This is actually a repost from an old blog of mine, but I thought it’d be fun to put it up here as well. Enjoy!

I’m always apprehensive about picking up anything Dylan did in the ’80s. The decade wasn’t too kind to him (his three evangelist Christian albums at the beginning of the decade are so abyssmal in certain ways that next to no one will listen to them), and the albums he made that were worthwhile still contained a seed of doubt and a bit of distrust. Most of his ’80s work was simply too smooth, too glossy, too glitzy. In short, not Dylan. Dylan’s music, while well-crafted, has always had a rough-and-tumble quality to it that disappeared for a lot of his ’80s work. Combine it with a dearth of decent songs, awkward and preachy (literally) lyrics that simply aped dogma, and a public that was turning to new wave and punk, and Dylan really seemed out of place in the 1980s.

Oh Mercy was something of a comeback for Dylan, and certainly the most interesting solo work he’d done since 1983’s Infidels. The production, provided by Daniel Lanois (who would also helm Dylan’s late ’90s Grammy-winning record Time Out of Mind, a record which owes much to Oh Mercy sonically speaking), creates a rather foreboding, haunting atmosphere, a perfect match to the lyrics and melodies Dylan wrote.

Musically, this album works better than anything Dylan had recorded since the late ’70s. Haunting ballads, piano-driven contemplations, and tight rockers fill this record, and the instruments sound like they’ve been played in an echo chamber. The murky, atmospheric production works in the songs’ favor, giving them an otherworldly feel.

Lyrically, Dylan is back in fine form. “Political World” kicks off the album with a litany of the problems with the modern world, while “Everything is Broken” delves even deeper into the bruised and wounded psyche of contemporary society. “Ring Them Bells” is one of Dylan’s most thoughtful contemplations on the nature of the soul, mankind, and the place where the two meet, and its subtle instrumentation and vocal delivery work perfectly. “Most of the Time,” “What Good am I?” and “Shooting Star” are some of Dylan’s most searching ballads, exploring ideas of loss, regret, purpose, and what might have been (or ought to be). In fact, “Most of the Time” is one of the best songs Dylan has written, whether in the ’80s or in his peak days of the ’60s or ’70s. There’s a stately grace and maturity to the song which is offset by the adolescent idea of being okay with the break up “most of the time.” The lyrics belie that assertion–the narrator is trying too hard to convince someone, either the object of his affection or himself, that he’s okay with not being with her anymore, and only serves to prove that he is not over her. The song also features one of the best (and few) bridges Dylan ever wrote, and the song scales to new heights to meet it, then gears back down into its melancholic groove to finish the song off.

Oh Mercy was an album that proved Dylan still had his skills and his wits about him. Musically and lyrically, it recalled Dylan at his best–not because he simply aped the styles and themes which made him famous, but because he tapped into the same creative force which drove those early masterpieces. He recalled his best work by making a record of equal caliber, something which most musicians entering in their third or fourth decade of music would have a difficult time duplicating. Oh Mercy is a minor masterpiece, a latter-day Dylan album that fans of the young visionary Dylan can admire and enjoy.

Delayed Reaction: Sucking on Counting Crows’ Hard Candy

| xeyeti

As with most bands that were popular in the ’90s, I came to the Counting Crows rather late in the game (like, around 2002 or so). While August and Everything After and Recovering the Satellites are obvious and pretty much indisputable classics at this point, I’m not sure the same holds true for the albums that came after. This Desert Life feels like the band decided to abandon any semblance of rock and roll for a slightly folky, Rod Stewart-meets-Van Morrison-doing-adult-contemporary sorta vibe (though I still love “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” from that record, I don’t care what you think). And then there’s Hard Candy.

Now, I’ll admit that when this album first came out, I listened to it on repeat for about three months, basically. But in the past six or seven years, it hasn’t come up on the iPod much. I decided to give it a spin yesterday, to see if it held up after all this time.

The good news is, the good songs on the record are still very, very good. Unfortunately, I’ve developed less of a tolerance for Adam Duritz’s vocal affectations, and several of the songs are just a slow, mellow mess of blah. Let’s dig in, shall we?

Things start off right with the neo-Byrdsian title track, with its ringing electric twelve string intro and its singalong chorus, remains my favorite song on the record. From there, the album goes to 2002 Top-40 Radio staple “American Girls,” a song which I admit strikes me as just really annoying ten years on. From there, things move into slow jam territory with “Good Time,” a song I just went ahead and skipped over (I didn’t care for it back in 2002, either). From there, the album alternates between upbeat, slightly off-kilter songs that I really enjoy like “If I Could Give All My Love to You (Richard Manuel Is Dead),” “New Frontier,” and “Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes to Hollywood)”, slower songs that aren’t too bad like “Why Should You Come When I Call” and “Holiday in Spain,” and songs that I just find boring, which is essentially everything else.

Other tracks on the album include the snooze-fests that are “Carriage,” “Miami,” and “Black and Blue” and the downright unlistenable “Butterfly in Reverse” (co-written by Ryan Adams). The most egregious misstep, though, is the band’s cover of “Big Yellow Taxi,” a track hidden at the end of “Holiday in Spain.” The song really does nothing that the original didn’t, except for smoothing out the sound of Joni Mitchell’s original into a mellow, non-threatening flan of nothing particularly interesting (don’t even get me started on the single version of the song, which features Vanessa Carlton on some of the most annoying and unnecessary backing vocals in music history).

Ultimately, Hard Candy is a decent if rather flawed album. The good songs are really quite good, and stand up to anything else in the band’s catalog. Others are…not so great, not so much because they’re bad but because they don’t aspire to do anything particularly interesting or worthwhile. The middle part of the album especially feels like a slow slog through bland, uninspired drivel. The album’s chief sin isn’t bad music, just bland music with flat, boring lyrics and instrumentation.

Delayed Reaction: The Wallflowers Debut

| xeyeti

I’m a big fan of all things Dylan. That includes both Bob and his son, Jakob. I got into the latter’s band, the Wallflowers, like pretty much every single other person in the world: the songs “6th Avenue Heartache” and “One Headlight” off their second album, the excellent Bringing Down the Horse. But then, unlike most people, I went ahead and stuck with them, picking up every album since then and even their debut, the self-title The Wallflowers.

When I first encountered the record, I wasn’t particularly impressed with it. it seemed too unfocused, too sloppy, too meandering to really have much of an impact on me. You could actually almost hear Jakob Dylan making an effort to say, “See? I’m not my dad, I’m my own man making my own music!” There are conscious stabs at making deep statements (“Hollywood” and “Somebody Else’s Money,” mostly), but mostly it’s just Dylan and his band trying to craft convincing American rock and roll.

Looking back at it now, I can see that they actually managed to succeed a little, despite the lack of critical praise or much public interest. As my brother mentioned when I was discussing the album with him yesterday, there are songs where you can hear the members of the band straining to play to the best of their ability, moments when they’re clearly just balls-to-the-wall tearing into a song and playing it as hard and as affectingly as possible. And those are some damn good moments, as it turns out: “Sugarfoot” remains the best song on the album, as far as I’m concerned. I was convinced of it the first time I heard the record, and I remain convinced to this day. But other tracks, such as “Sidewalk Annie,” “Ashes to Ashes,” and “After the Blackbird Sings,” are all just as strong. Jakbob Dylan may have still needed some polish on his lyrics and delivery, but the emotion was definitely there and the underlying structures were usually pretty solid.

Admittedly, some of the songs do run a bit long (looking at you again, “Hollywood” and “Somebody Else’s Money”), and some of them are rather repetitive (I love “Asleep at the Wheel,” but it gets old after about three minutes and then decides to run for another minute forty-eight after that), while others are just downright boring (“Honeybee” and “Be Your Own Girl”). But honestly, as albums go, it’s more killer than filler. Of the twelve songs on the album, I really only want to skip over four, and that’s better than a lot of debuts go.

Ultimately, The Wallflowers is a flawed but promising start. It’s interesting to think that, after this album tanked commercially, Dylan and his organist, Jaffe, ditched the rest of the group and got a new drummer, guitarist, and bass player for Wallflowers 2.0. This new incarnation, of course, went on to record Bringing Down the Horse, and the rest is history, as it were. But there’s still a part of me that wonders where the band could have gone if that first album had been more of a success…

John Fullbright, From the Ground Up

| xeyeti

I first saw John Fullbright play a show in Okemah, Oklahoma, at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in 2010. I was impressed with what he managed to do with just an acoustic guitar and his voice, and waited patiently for a studio album from the man. It finally arrived a few weeks ago: From the Ground Up.

Interestingly, the album sounds exactly like what I thought John Fullbright with a fuller arrangement would sound like: the drums kick in just where I thought they would, the electric guitars and steel guitars drop in fills exactly where you would expect them, and the piano and organ parts help fill out the sound. This predictability is both a blessing and a curse: on the one hand, the music’s pretty good, the instruments are played well and fit the tone and mood of the music perfectly, and everything really sounds like it should. On the other hand, it means there’s not really much in the way of exciting revelations or real surprises. Songs play out just like you think they would.

When Fullbright is uptempo or just uses a full arrangement, the songs are catchy and oftentimes downright fun. It’s hard not to sing along with “Moving” or “Jericho,” both of which I recognized from the live show I caught and from his live album (released a couple of years ago). Fullbright’s voice seems more controlled and nuanced in the studio recordings than live, which is to be expected, but some of the raw energy from his live performance has been lost (also expected, as that’s usually what happens when you go from live to studio, right?).

Unfortunately, when the arrangements become sparser and quieter, I tended to lose interest. It’s not that the songs are bad, mind you: “I Only Pray at Night” is a decent if rather unexceptional piano ballad, and “Forgotten Flowers” is a lovelorn finger-plucker that bears a close resemblance to its live version. It’s just that, after the sandpaper-throated rave of songs like “Gawd Above” and the sly “Satan and St. Paul,” the quieter moments are just a bit of a let-down, both stylistically and thematically. Most of the quieter songs are more traditional love song fare, and while that’s all well and good, it’s not Fullbright’s area of strength. He really excels with the more philosophical tunes, such as the aforementioned “Satan and St. Paul,” which feels exactly as apocalyptic as the title suggests it should, or the relationship as viewed through a biblical metaphor of “Jericho.” The quiet songs are just too straightforward for someone with as good a turn of phrase as Fullbright.

From the Ground Up is by no means a bad album. Sure, Fullbright’s not the next Woody Guthrie (more a hometown hero than a thematic or stylistic one, as both Guthrie and Fullbright hale from the bustling metropolis that is Okemah, OK), but he’s a solid musician with some impressive skills and a good ear for a tune. He has some clever phrasings (“Outside it’s raining fire/But I think I’ll go to bed/’Cause there ain’t much you can do/When it falls down on your head,” from “Satan and St. Paul”), and he definitely has a career ahead of him that I’ll watch with interest. This is a good album. Not great, but a damn-sight better than most of the crap you encounter nowadays.

Terra Nova

| xeyeti

I feel bad about yesterday’s sketch going up late, so here’s a little song demo thing that I put together awhile back. It was mostly an effort to figure out how to use the drum tracks in Garageband, but I also had a chord progression going through my head that I wanted to get to tape (as it were) before I forgot it. It’s a genre my uncle dubbed “Red Dirt Surf,” a term which I quite like (I mean, Oklahoma doesn’t really have any place you can find waves, but we had plenty of red dirt, and even if I don’t live there anymore, that place is in my bones). Anyway, enjoy “Terra Nova.”

Terra Nova

Last Song of 2011

| xeyeti

Yesterday, I sat down and actually got an entire song written from start to finish in under an hour. That doesn’t happen all that often, I have to admit. I’m pretty pleased with the tune, all things considered, though I have to actually do a real recording job on it instead of just this quick demo using the built-in microphone on my laptop. Anyway, enjoy the last song I wrote in 2011.

It’s Over (Demo)

Top Ten Albums of 2011

| xeyeti

I am, as anyone who has spent ten minutes talking with me knows, a bit obsessed with music (also, comic books, but that’s a totally different post). I try to keep up with new stuff, but there’s always just so much coming out, and all the old stuff I’m discovering that I hadn’t heard before, and all the other stuff I had heard before but really liked and wanted to hear again and again…it’s tough to keep up. That being said, there were a couple of albums I just did not get to this year that I really wanted to listen to. Stuff like They Might Be Giants’ Join Us, Calexico’s Selections from Road Atlas (1998-2011), or Deer Tick’s Divine Providence. I’ll get to them eventually, especially now that we’re in that dead time of new music releases that is the post-holiday time, but in the meantime, here’s the stuff I really liked this year.

Honorable Mentions (things I listened to and rather enjoyed, if not enough to really gush about):

William Elliott Whitmore, Field Songs: A pretty solid album, though not as engaging as Ashes to Dust (still my favorite of his).

Cake, Showroom of Compassion: It’s kinda nice to see these guys, fifteen years later, still doing their thing their own way. Sure, John McCrea might actually almost sing once in awhile now, and there’s occasionally no irony in his delivery, but it’s pretty much the same as it ever was, and what it was wasn’t broken.

Tom Waits, Bad As Me: A new Tom Waits album is always welcome, and this one hit some pretty sweet spots, but it just didn’t have the oomph that I wanted it to have. There really wasn’t a standout track for me, which is probably why it didn’t make my top ten.

The Submarines, Love Notes/Letter Bombs: These songs feel like they were custom-made for iPod commercials. Take from that what you will.

Steve Earle, I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive: A solid outing from Earle, the only tragedy being that the standard version of this album does not include his cover of the title track, a wonderful rendition of the old Hank Williams tune.

Radiohead, The King of Limbs: I think somewhere along the way, Radiohead and I headed off in different musical directions. I’m not sure which of us went wrong, but I’m not sure I really want to follow where they’re going anymore. Didn’t they used to play guitars and stuff?

R.E.M., Collapse Into Now: The final album from these guys isn’t too shabby, but it’s not really anything spectacular. Not a whimper, not a bang, but somewhere in-between.

The Top Ten (the albums I couldn’t stop listening to):

10. Old 97’s, The Grand Theatre, Volume 2: Picking up where last year’s The Grand Theatre, Volume 1, left off, this finds the band in fine form, cranking out poppier songs than were found on the first disc. You can hear them having fun with their music, which is always appreciated.

9. The Black Keys, El Camino: This picks up right were Brothers left off, sonically. They’re mixing in more old-school soul and whatnot with their standard minimalist blues, and it really adds some depth to the sound. It’s highs aren’t as high as on Brothers, but it’s a leaner record without a lot of the filler that weighed down the middle part of the earlier record.

8. Drive-By Truckers, Go-Go Boots: I mentioned the song “Everybody Needs Love” from this album in my iPod list yesterday, but honestly the rest of the album is pretty damn solid, too. These guys (and gal) are great storytellers in the Johhny Cash/Merle Haggard tradition, crafting sagas of hard liquor, harder luck, and infidelity that has all of the disturbing allure and attraction of a massive accident on the side of the highway.

7. Jonathan Coulton, Artificial Heart: I hadn’t really heard of this guy, then discovered he was responsible for the hilarious and whimsical song at the end of the game Portal. I decided to check this album out, and feel I’ve been deeply rewarded for doing so. His songwriting is top-notch, and this album would be worth it for “The Stache” alone, his paean to fuzzy upper lips.

6. Okkervil River, I Am Very Far: These guys become more awesome with each album. I still find it entertaining that “White Shadow Waltz” is not, as one would expect, in 3/4 time. Also, drums are used almost as punctuation in these songs, sharp cracks that accent the rest of the music and the convoluted lyrics perfectly.

5. Wilco, The Whole Love: This sounds like the album Wilco has been trying to make since A Ghost is Born. There’s a little something for everyone here: “Born Alone” could have fit in alongside anything on Summerteeth or Ghost, oddly enough, while “Dawned On Me” sounds like a Ghost outtake. “The Whole Love” itself is a distillation of everything the band is right now, a mission statement along the lines of “Wilco (The Song),” only even better.

4. 8in8, NightyNight: It was an ambitious if slightly ridiculous premise: get four like-minded souls in a recording studio for 8 hours to write and record 8 brand-new songs on the fly. The final product may have fallen short of that goal (only six songs in something like 10 hours, when it was all said and done), but the music they created was fun, whimsical, and more than a little emotionally engaging. Besides, it features Neil Gaiman singing a song about Joan of Arc wandering around a park in London in the modern day, and what’s not to love about that?

3. Beirut, The Rip Tide: The is the most streamlined album Beirut’s done, and it still features so much accordion and brass that it’s not even funny. It is, however, fantastic: I remain in constant awe about how this band creates such depth in the music. It’s almost operatic in places, but not pretentious or overwrought. It’s a nifty trick to pull off, and The Rip Tide walks the tightrope perfectly.

2. Portugal. The Man, In the Mountain in the Cloud: Oddly enough, I found out about these guys while sitting in a community college cafeteria over the summer. Regardless of how I discovered them, they sound like what would happen if the Flaming Lips started an Oasis cover band, and there’s nothing about that sentence that isn’t brilliant.

1. The Decemberists, The King is Dead: This may be the least-unified album thematically by the band in many years, but it makes up for that by being the most consistently great album they’ve done in years. There is a unifying concept to the record, though not in the same way there was for The Hazards of Love or The Crane Wife. For The King is Dead, they’ve stuck to a particular style for most of the record: a loose, country-ish, folky rock sound that creates a cohesion despite the lack of an overall theme. Many of the songs do share a longing for pastoral simplicity and a desire to be surrounded by good friends and family. The album came out back in January, but I’ve listened to it so many times already it feels like I’ve had it for years. I had to remind myself it actually came out this year.

So, that’s the list. Agree? Disagree (in which case, you’re wrong)? Let me know your thoughts and your favorites from this year!

Top 25 Most-Played Songs for 2011

| xeyeti

Every year, I reset the playcount on all the songs on my iPod. But before I do that, I count down what the top 25 most-played songs on the iPod were for the year.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for that once again. Here they are, in descending order:

25. Elliott Smith, “Baby Britain,” from XO (13 plays): I love me some Elliott Smith, as does my wife. He’s one of the few artists we completely agree on, and makes a great compromise when we’re in the car and want something to listen to. The man had a way with words and a deftness and nimbleness in his guitar playing that I absolutely loved.

24. Amanda Palmer, “Oasis,” from Who Killed Amanda Palmer (13 plays): This is quite possibly the best song about date rape and a trip to the abortion clinic you’ll ever hear, though that’s probably a pretty short list of songs to begin with, I’d imagine. Palmer offsets the seriousness of the situation with one of the brightest, poppiest melodies you could imagine (with Ben Folds on backing vocals, no less!), and the bouncy rhythm really makes you think there is something seriously wrong with Amanda Palmer in the best possible way.

23. Moxy Fruvous, “The Present Tense Tureen,” from Wood (15 plays): There was a time in college – probably about six to nine months – when I listened to nothing but this Canadian band, and it may have broken me. I mean, how many songs do you know about a guy walking along a creek, encountering an elf, and getting relationship advice while waiting for a stew to boil that isn’t actually in the tureen? Just this one, I assure you. Plus, it features the line, “Then he giggled in French/That’s what he did,” and that is possibly the best line in anything ever.

22. Counting Crows, “Mr. Jones,” from August and Everything After (15 plays): Several of the songs that pop up on this list (including this one) are songs on the playlist I designed specifically for my wife, because the alternative was she would always have to listen to Bob Dylan (or we’d be divorced; I imagine it’s a one thing or the other sort of situation) in the car. Anyway, we both enjoy this song, and it features a Bob Dylan reference, so I’m happy.

21. The Arcade Fire, “Intervention,” from Neon Bible (15 plays): Another song off the playlist for the wife. She identifies it as her favorite Arcade Fire song, while I love the prominent use of church organ.

20. Harlem Shakes, “Sunlight,” From Technicolor Health (17 plays): This band’s place in my music collection seemed like a bit of an anomaly, though I’ve never been able to really articulate why. They don’t really sound much like any other band I listen to much, and I don’t really care for any other bands that play their particular style of indie-guitar rock, and yet…I really love this album, and this song in particular. Dunno why.

19. The Gaslight Anthem, “Stay Lucky,” from American Slang (18 plays): Okay, these guys, I know exactly why I like. Anyone doing straight-ahead Bruce Springsteen-inspired rock is okay in my book, and these guys have finally grown beyond just aping their influences (the aforementioned Bruce Springsteen). This is a great song for driving to, though I do have to pay attention not to drive too fast when it’s on. Also, way too much fun to sing along with at the top of your lungs.

18. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?,” from Pendulum (19 plays): Let’s speak plainly: Pendulum is not a good CCR album. Hell, it’s not a particularly good album, full stop. It’s bland and does not have a clear identity, something CCR albums usually never suffer from (Mardis Gras is pretty mediocre, too). However! However, it does feature this particular song, which is a slice of redemption so powerful, so beautiful, so perfect, that I am willing to forgive the existence of the album based solely on the presence of this single song. Also, “Hey Tonight” is pretty good.

17. The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, “The Golden Age,” from The Golden Age – EP (19 plays): Yeah, it’s that song from the Hieneken commercial. I am highly susceptible to the music used in advertisement, if not the product (I don’t really care for Hieneken, for instance). Plus, it’s fun.

16. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Kings Road,” from Hard Promises (20 plays): Tom Petty has been one of my favorite musicians since I was a young, young man (one of the first concerts I ever went to, in fact, was a Tom Petty concert). He’s one of the best songwriters in rock and roll, and Mike Campbell is one of the most criminally overlooked and underappreciated lead guitarists in music. Campbell’s guitar parts always fit the song perfectly, and he doesn’t solo to show off his skills, he solos to meet the needs of the song. I think it’s safe to say I’ll buy any album these guys put out.

15. Cream, “Badge,” From Goodbye (20 plays): Between this and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” I think it’s safe to say that the Eric Clapton/George Harrison songwriting partnership is one that should have been much more fruitful. These guys did some of their best work together, but never really got around to doing many songs with each other. I call it a tragedy.

14. 8in8, “One Tiny Thing,” from NightyNight (21 plays): Take three musicians and one Neil Gaiman, sit them in a recording studio for a night, and see what they come up with. It’s a beautifully simple concept, and one that created several of my favorite songs this year. This particular tune, “One Tiny Thing,” is an excellent example of what they accomplished: simple, direct, but perfectly captured, a little slice of four friends working together to create music that is both fun and emotionally engaging.

13. The National, “Think You Can Wait,” from the Film “Win Win” (21 plays): I will listen to pretty much anything the National puts out. Seriously, it could just be Matt Berninger reading the phone book over Bryan Devendorf’s drums, and I would listen to it and declare it wonderful.

12. The Avett Brothers, “Will You Return?,” from Emotionalism (21 plays): Harmonies and banjos? Yes, please.

11. The Pixies, “Here Comes Your Man,” from Doolittle (23 plays): I never really listened to contemporary music when I was in high school, so I completely missed out on bands like the Pixies in the ’90s. My wife, on the other hand, was a bit of a Pixies devotee, so I’ve since been indoctrinated into their holy communion. This is probably my favorite song of theirs; I just love the harmonies in the chorus.

10. Josh Ritter, “Golden Age of Radio,” from Golden Age of Radio (23 plays): I think the record will show I love me some Josh Ritter (even if his last record was a little bland). This song is just fantastic: thumping percussion, a great chord progression, and a spirited vocal delivery from Ritter. Plus, it name drops Patsy Cline and Townes Van Zandt.

9. Florence + the Machine, “Dog Days are Over,” from Lungs (23 plays): I really only play the guitar, but I am apparently a sucker for a stripped-down, bone-rattling drum beat. This song has that, plus Florence Welch just sings with such gusto. That woman can belt it and has no fear, which I appreciate in a vocalist (possibly why I like Dylan so much).

8. Stephen Stills, “Wooden Ships,” from Just Roll Tape (24 plays): More a demo than anything else, this rough draft version of the Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young AOR staple is stripped down and simple, just Stills and a guitar. But stripped of harmonies and bombast, it’s still a great song. The core of the tune – the chord progression, the melody – is strong enough to make this just as great as the version everyone knows.

7. Dan Auerbach, “My Last Mistake,” from Keep it Hid (24 plays): While it may just be a simple song about screwing up a relationship, there’s something universal about the concept that musicians keep coming back to for a reason. And hell, this is just a great tune. The chord progression is catchy, the bluesy lead is pitch-perfect, and Auerbach’s vocals really deliver the emotional punch the song needs. It’s a simple song, but it’s a simple pleasure that really satisfies.

6. The Beatles, “Chains,” From Please Please Me (25 plays): Is this the best Beatles song? No, not by a long shot. Is it even the best song on this album? Heck no (I mean, there’s “I Saw Her Standing There,” For crying out loud). However, it’s a perfect distillation of what’s great about early Beatles: a great beat, excellent melody, and some of the best upper-register vocals you’ll ever hear. Plus, it’s got George on the lead vocals, and he didn’t ever get the love he deserved in that group, man.

5. Colin Hay, “Beautiful Word,” from Scrubs (Original Television Soundtrack) (27 plays): This song was used to great effect in the TV show Scrubs, but even standing on it’s own, it’s beautiful. The melody is gorgeous, and the simplicity of Hay’s delivery (and the stripped-down arrangement of just his voice and acoustic guitar) makes it all the more affecting. It’s one of those sad, sweet tunes I could just listen to over and over, and obviously did this year.

4. Drive-By Truckers, “Everybody Needs Love,” from Go-Go Boots (29 plays): Again, a pretty universal theme (people want to be loved) that’s been tackled hundreds, even thousands, of times in popular music, but this is just the sort of anthematic song you can’t help but sing along to at the top of your lungs when it comes on.

3. The Decemberists, “Don’t Carry it All,” from The King is Dead (29 plays): I have a pretty solid music crush on the Decemberists. I will listen to any album they put out, though I’ve always been a little disappointed they went the prog-rock concept album route instead of focusing on smaller, single-song stories. Well, The King is Dead was something of an answer to my prayers, and “Don’t Carry it All” was the hallelujah. It’s the loosest and most joyful I’ve ever heard them be, and it’s just fun to listen to (I know, not a word I’d really associate with the band, either). Honestly, The King is Dead is a strong contender for my favorite album this year, and it’s mostly on the strength of this one song.

2. The Hollies, “Just One Look,” from The Air That I Breathe: The Very Best of the Hollies (33 plays): A great little unrequited love song full of harmonies and a great bridge. If you can listen to this song and not want to sing along, I think you might actually be dead inside.

1. Deer Tick, “Easy,” from Born on Flag Day (35 plays): This song has consumed me in the past few months. Everything about it is amazing, from the feedback that opens the track to the use of the vibra-slap, the deep throb of the bass line under those riffs in the intro, to the Telecaster twang of the guitar and the growl in the singer’s voice. This is a song full of despair, gloom, doom, and a sense of overwhelming frustration and anger. It’s brilliant: in under 4 minutes, Deer Tick deliver one of the most affecting songs I’ve heard in a long time. As soon as the song is over, I want to hit the back button and hear it again. And the harmony in the second verse? Gets me every time. It’s perfect, and it’s the song I’ve listened to the most times this year.

The Boss

| xeyeti

In my effort to make use of technology most people have been utilizing for at least 5 years, I posted my first Youtube video today. It can be viewed here. It’s just a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” I did at work after hours while waiting for my wife to finish a meeting. The laptop I use at school is about 5 years old, so the audio and video quality leave a bit to be desired. Plus, you have to stare at my ugly mug for a good 2 minutes and change. Regardless, I hope folks enjoy it.