Top 100 Albums of 2000-2009: #80 - #76
The countdown continues. Hope you're enjoying it so far!
---#80---
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
(avant-pop)
2009
Bitte Orca strikes me as less a "pop album" and something more akin to an academic study in melody. Dave Longstreth assembles his pieces like a composer, and even though the results can be a little bit bewildering at times - it's fair to say that he intentionally skews an awful lot of standard, pop-music conventions - there's an underlying solidity to the songs that makes them surprisingly easy to sink into. In that regard, it's easy to draw comparisons between Dirty Projectors and avant-pop pioneers Talking Heads. However, while David Byrne's obsessions with world music and the exploration of sound resulted in Talking Head's finest albums being amazingly broad in scope, Longstreth prefers to stay closer to home, sticking primarily to the use of guitar, bass, keys, percussion, mild electronics and (a myriad of uses of) the human voice. His toolkit might be limited, but he finds an incredible number of uses for every tool. Band members Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman, whose voices were used quite sparingly, if at all, on previous releases, get a stronger showing here, and the album is so much richer for it, with "Stillness is the Move" in particular being a wonderful vocal showcase. The album is possibly a little front loaded, with the first four tracks being arguably its best, but the quality remains high enough that it never becomes a problem. Fans of willfully creative and unusual pop music should consider this well worth a look.
---#79---
Heavy Trash - Going Way Out With Heavy Trash
(rockabilly, psych-rock)
2007
This rockabilly side-project turned out to be a perfect fit for Jon Spencer, best known for his work with The Blues Explosion. With his Elvis-tribute vocal style and constant swagger, it's a shtick that fits Spencer so comfortably that it's a wonder he didn't try it sooner. Teaming up with rock 'n' roll guitar-wiz Matt Verta-Ray, Spencer injected some much-needed vitality into his noticeably flagging career (the Blues Explosion hadn't put out a solid album since the late 90s), and with Heavy Trash he sounds completely at home and brimming with confidence. Nowhere is that more evident than on the duo's kick-ass sophomore effort Going Way Out With Heavy Trash. Taking hold of the rollicking rhythms, sexed-up lyrics, sly humour and outlaw personae of their more streamlined debut, Spencer and Verta-Ray augmented their sound with a hint of psychedelia and some heavy blues overtones, and then simply cranked everything up to a higher level. Big favourites are the killer single "Way Out" and the trippy closer "You Can't Win", but the whole thing is an floor-stomping triumph, worthy of high volume and high rotation.
---#78---
Asobi Seksu - Citrus
(dream-pop, shoegaze)
2006
The 2000s seemed to be the decade of genre-revivals, and shoegazer got its turn like everything else. A handful of promising acts popped up during the middle part of the decade, blending layers of distortion with blissful pop in their best attempts to emulate My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Where many of those bands failed, or achieved merely average results, I think Asobi Seksu succeeded admirably with their second album. Citrus has the usual swirly distortion combined with pretty vocals, but what sets it apart is the band's willingness to focus on tunes over texture, allowing the latter to be more of a backdrop than a key element. The riffs here are seriously infectious, and the songs have a hooky pop sensibility about them that works beautifully. My Bloody Valentine's masterpiece Loveless initially seems like an appropriate reference point, although after further consideration is becomes obvious that Asobi Seksu are nowhere near as occupied with meticulous craftsmanship or impenetrable layers of sound, and Yuki Chikudate's gorgeous vocals sit a lot higher in the mix than Belinda Butler's ever did. Essentially, Asobi Seksu just wanted to make a series of knockout, catchy pop songs, and Citrus is exactly that, fuzzy guitars or otherwise. Highlight tracks like "Strawberries", "Strings", "Nefi+Girly" and especially the heartstring-tugging single "Thursday" rank amongst the decade's most addictive tunes.
---#77---
The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
(psychedelic-rock)
2009
This one might be the biggest surprise of the decade. After playing it disappointingly safe with the sub-par, Yoshimi-retread of 2005's At War With the Mystics, a lot of people had written The Flaming Lips off, placing them firmly in the "past their prime" basket. A few years passed with little in the way of band activity, before finally Embryonic came out of nowhere in 2009 to be the group's most daring album in over a decade. Beyond being merely a comeback or return to form, I'm seriously tempted to call this the best thing The Lips have ever released (you can toss a coin on that one, because it's down to this and Clouds Taste Metallic). The insular sound, the cosmic production, the jarringly vibrant instrumentation, the labyrinthine sequencing and the double-album format - all of these things constituted pretty bold steps at a time when everyone was expecting Wayne Coyne and Co. to once again maintain the status quo and make another album that fell into the (now thoroughly tapped) "life affirming pop" niche of their previous 2 or 3 releases. Instead they put everything on the line by creating perhaps the darkest album of their career, and the payoff has been tremendous. You can colour me very surprised - I just didn't think they were still capable of making something this original and flat-out great.
---#76---
Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
(folk, singer-songwriter)
2004
This entry could have just as easily been for either of Iron and Wine's other albums, The Creek Drank the Cradle or The Shepherd's Dog, because, honestly, Sam Beam is one of those musicians who seems to be incapable of writing a song that's anything less than really pleasant. The quality of songwriting plateaus at a consistently high level throughout his catalogue of albums and EPs, something that I've always found really impressive. However, Our Endless Numbered Days always seems to come out on top as my personal favourite Iron and Wine album. I think the crisper, cleaner production works really well with Beam's particular brand of sweet, subtle folk music, such that it lifts this album a couple of notches above the already lofty standard set by more spare sounding The Creek Drank the Cradle. I'd single out "Sunset Soon Forgotten", "Love and Some Verses", "Sodom, South Georgia" and "Naked as We Came" (easily Beam's best song up to this point) as my favourite tracks on the album, all of which create a wonderful, sleepy vibe of contentment that's really prominent throughout Our Endless Numbered Days (a vibe which, incidentally, matches perfectly with the drawing of a relaxed-looking Beam which can be seen on the album cover). Like I said, though, the man is the very definition of consistency, so consider this a recommendation that you check out his entire body of work.
---#80---
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
(avant-pop)
2009
Bitte Orca strikes me as less a "pop album" and something more akin to an academic study in melody. Dave Longstreth assembles his pieces like a composer, and even though the results can be a little bit bewildering at times - it's fair to say that he intentionally skews an awful lot of standard, pop-music conventions - there's an underlying solidity to the songs that makes them surprisingly easy to sink into. In that regard, it's easy to draw comparisons between Dirty Projectors and avant-pop pioneers Talking Heads. However, while David Byrne's obsessions with world music and the exploration of sound resulted in Talking Head's finest albums being amazingly broad in scope, Longstreth prefers to stay closer to home, sticking primarily to the use of guitar, bass, keys, percussion, mild electronics and (a myriad of uses of) the human voice. His toolkit might be limited, but he finds an incredible number of uses for every tool. Band members Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman, whose voices were used quite sparingly, if at all, on previous releases, get a stronger showing here, and the album is so much richer for it, with "Stillness is the Move" in particular being a wonderful vocal showcase. The album is possibly a little front loaded, with the first four tracks being arguably its best, but the quality remains high enough that it never becomes a problem. Fans of willfully creative and unusual pop music should consider this well worth a look.
Click to view---#79---
Heavy Trash - Going Way Out With Heavy Trash
(rockabilly, psych-rock)
2007
This rockabilly side-project turned out to be a perfect fit for Jon Spencer, best known for his work with The Blues Explosion. With his Elvis-tribute vocal style and constant swagger, it's a shtick that fits Spencer so comfortably that it's a wonder he didn't try it sooner. Teaming up with rock 'n' roll guitar-wiz Matt Verta-Ray, Spencer injected some much-needed vitality into his noticeably flagging career (the Blues Explosion hadn't put out a solid album since the late 90s), and with Heavy Trash he sounds completely at home and brimming with confidence. Nowhere is that more evident than on the duo's kick-ass sophomore effort Going Way Out With Heavy Trash. Taking hold of the rollicking rhythms, sexed-up lyrics, sly humour and outlaw personae of their more streamlined debut, Spencer and Verta-Ray augmented their sound with a hint of psychedelia and some heavy blues overtones, and then simply cranked everything up to a higher level. Big favourites are the killer single "Way Out" and the trippy closer "You Can't Win", but the whole thing is an floor-stomping triumph, worthy of high volume and high rotation.
---#78---
Asobi Seksu - Citrus
(dream-pop, shoegaze)
2006
The 2000s seemed to be the decade of genre-revivals, and shoegazer got its turn like everything else. A handful of promising acts popped up during the middle part of the decade, blending layers of distortion with blissful pop in their best attempts to emulate My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Where many of those bands failed, or achieved merely average results, I think Asobi Seksu succeeded admirably with their second album. Citrus has the usual swirly distortion combined with pretty vocals, but what sets it apart is the band's willingness to focus on tunes over texture, allowing the latter to be more of a backdrop than a key element. The riffs here are seriously infectious, and the songs have a hooky pop sensibility about them that works beautifully. My Bloody Valentine's masterpiece Loveless initially seems like an appropriate reference point, although after further consideration is becomes obvious that Asobi Seksu are nowhere near as occupied with meticulous craftsmanship or impenetrable layers of sound, and Yuki Chikudate's gorgeous vocals sit a lot higher in the mix than Belinda Butler's ever did. Essentially, Asobi Seksu just wanted to make a series of knockout, catchy pop songs, and Citrus is exactly that, fuzzy guitars or otherwise. Highlight tracks like "Strawberries", "Strings", "Nefi+Girly" and especially the heartstring-tugging single "Thursday" rank amongst the decade's most addictive tunes.
---#77---
The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
(psychedelic-rock)
2009
This one might be the biggest surprise of the decade. After playing it disappointingly safe with the sub-par, Yoshimi-retread of 2005's At War With the Mystics, a lot of people had written The Flaming Lips off, placing them firmly in the "past their prime" basket. A few years passed with little in the way of band activity, before finally Embryonic came out of nowhere in 2009 to be the group's most daring album in over a decade. Beyond being merely a comeback or return to form, I'm seriously tempted to call this the best thing The Lips have ever released (you can toss a coin on that one, because it's down to this and Clouds Taste Metallic). The insular sound, the cosmic production, the jarringly vibrant instrumentation, the labyrinthine sequencing and the double-album format - all of these things constituted pretty bold steps at a time when everyone was expecting Wayne Coyne and Co. to once again maintain the status quo and make another album that fell into the (now thoroughly tapped) "life affirming pop" niche of their previous 2 or 3 releases. Instead they put everything on the line by creating perhaps the darkest album of their career, and the payoff has been tremendous. You can colour me very surprised - I just didn't think they were still capable of making something this original and flat-out great.
---#76---
Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
(folk, singer-songwriter)
2004
This entry could have just as easily been for either of Iron and Wine's other albums, The Creek Drank the Cradle or The Shepherd's Dog, because, honestly, Sam Beam is one of those musicians who seems to be incapable of writing a song that's anything less than really pleasant. The quality of songwriting plateaus at a consistently high level throughout his catalogue of albums and EPs, something that I've always found really impressive. However, Our Endless Numbered Days always seems to come out on top as my personal favourite Iron and Wine album. I think the crisper, cleaner production works really well with Beam's particular brand of sweet, subtle folk music, such that it lifts this album a couple of notches above the already lofty standard set by more spare sounding The Creek Drank the Cradle. I'd single out "Sunset Soon Forgotten", "Love and Some Verses", "Sodom, South Georgia" and "Naked as We Came" (easily Beam's best song up to this point) as my favourite tracks on the album, all of which create a wonderful, sleepy vibe of contentment that's really prominent throughout Our Endless Numbered Days (a vibe which, incidentally, matches perfectly with the drawing of a relaxed-looking Beam which can be seen on the album cover). Like I said, though, the man is the very definition of consistency, so consider this a recommendation that you check out his entire body of work.