1) The Decemberists - The King is Dead; This group is one of my favorite artists to be introduced to me through Music Togetherness and as a result I picked up their 2011 release without previously hearing a single note. I had a very hard time getting through the country twang of this and quite frankly hated it after three or four listens. Then I decided to throw it in the car as background noise and suddenly found myself humming 'Rox in the Box' at work. The album progressively grew on me, however, I still do not like it as much as The Crane Wife or The Hazards of Love. I will say that my other favorites 'Calamity Song' and 'Down by the Water' mixed in really well in my compilation of their entire discology.
2) Rise Against - Endgame; Their last effort, Appeal to Reason, was my favorite of their work to date and thus I had really high hopes for Endgame. They continue their political and in your face attitude which sometimes becomes their focus and they forget about the instrumentation itself. However, there were 3 tracks which really hit a nerve with me on this and are moving up my favorites chart very quickly. The first is 'Help is on the Way'; like typical Rise Against, they describe someone in need and how they rejoice upon hearing 'Help is one the Way' from a public official. I can't help but feeling the overpowering sense of relief someone must feel upon hearing those words and how quickly that can alleviate the biggest hurts. However the bridge reveals the help never came and searches for who is to blame for false promises. The next is 'Make it Stop'; this is about all of the gay teenagers who get picked on and teased so much that they are driven to suicide. They quote several names within and I couldn't help but break down upon reading their stories. The song focuses both on making the teasing stop along with encouraging the teens to be proud of who they are and embrace the gift of life. The last is 'Wait for Me'; this is presumably about a soldier who requests his love one to 'Wait for Him' while he heads over sees. I have always had a soft spot for the dedication and selflessness of soldiers and this one just further reinforced that. Beyond these there are a few other highlights, but this album ended up with a few fireworks, 3 roman candles and the rest sparklers.
3) Panic! at the Disco - Vices and Virtues; This is my front runner for album of the year so far. After the disappointment of Pretty.Odd., I have to admit I was really pulling for this one and would have celebrated the slighted mediocrity. However, this one really blew me away. I put this on at 3am the night Lainey was born and even when Beth woke up to take her shift, I couldn't stop listening and forfeited sleep for a second and third listen. They added the '!' back into the name and thus managed to bring back the pace of their debut, but the maturity of their sophomore effort. Brendon's vocals are better than I could have ever imagined and shine on every single track. My favorite is 'Ready to Go' which takes a trip back in time and reminds me of an 80's track. Other favorites are 'Hurricane', 'Memories', and 'Ballad of Mona Lisa'.
Next up is likely Radiohead, although I haven't popped it in the player yet.
'The King Is Dead' is definitely a different experience than what's come from The Decemberists, especially recently with their exploration into the prog-rock-opera spectrum. The first time I heard it, I was really surprised at just how country sounding the new record was. I have to admit that I've always been a sucker for twangy indie-rock, though (check out the album 'Heartbreaker' by Ryan Adams if you're at all interested in something really good that's got the same feel), so this album really hit the spot for me.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you liked the song "Down By the Water"....it's towards the top of my current favorite songs of the year list. The first time I heard it, I thought it had a major R.E.M. sound to it, only to find out that R.E.M.'s guitarist, Peter Buck, contributed to the song. I'd be interested to know what other songs are on your Decemberists compilation, Thomas.
As far as the other two albums that you've discussed, I'll definitely have to give them a listen and get back to you. I enjoyed Rise Against when we listened to them before, so I'm looking forward to hearing it, along with the Panic! at the Disco album, which you've given such high praise.
I'll say now that the new Radiohead album isn't one of my favorites, but I still love it. Let us know what you think about it when you hear it, though.
Also, I've always wondered....how do you come up with your yearly top lists? Is it just the feeling you get from the music, or is there sort of a formula for deciding which album ends up the best? I've always tried to have a mixture of both, but I'm always trying to find a system that works the best.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you picked up "The King is Dead." I haven't heard all that much new music this year, but of what I have heard - this is by far my biggest obsession. I would go so far as to say it's my favorite Decemberists album, and one of my favorite albums of all time. Strong words, huh? No wonder I'm so pumped to see them at Bonnaroo again. That, and the last time I saw them there they were doing "Hazards of Love," which was good but a completely different musical experience from any concert set I'd seen before.
ReplyDeleteMy favorites are "Down by the Water" and "Calamity Song" as well - we finally agree on something!! You left out my favorite track though - "This is Why We Fight."
I'm not sure what's going on with me lately and my alt-country kick. I must explore this further. Still, I don't think I'll ever like pop country outside of the Z107.7 crossovers like Taylor Swift. ;)
I'll have to check those other two out as well.
And I find that Radiohead album creepy by the way. I don't have high hopes for you liking it. But don't let me sway your opinion one way or another ;)
ReplyDeleteOne more thing about "The King is Dead." One thing I really love about The Decemberists is their colorful use of language. There are a lot of bands out there and you can't understand what they're saying - then you go read their lyrics and find out you were just mishearing them because their vocals aren't clear. With these guys, they're usually saying what you think they're saying - even if what they're saying isn't English (or it is and you just don't know what they're talking about). My favorite part of "Calamity Song" is the part where Colin sings -
ReplyDelete"Hetty Green, Queen of Supply-Side Bonhomie bone-drab. You know what I mean?"
I always laughed at that part, because I had no idea what he meant. Then I looked up Hetty Green - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetty_Green. (Handsome woman, isn't she?). Now I feel like I learned a little bit. Isn't this fun?
The Decemberists should be commended for improving the vocabulary of everyone. They're definitely one of the best examples I've ever heard of a literary band. People say poetry and great writing is dead....it's not, it's just seen in music now. If Colin Meloy had lived in the 1800s, he would have been a well known writer of fictions, as he puts it, although no one would probably read them now.
ReplyDeleteI initially tried some different 'formulas' for ranking albums, but they always produced results which defied all logic. So music is the one area of my life that is not formula based, but I do keep the rankings in a spreadsheet.
ReplyDeleteI purchase hard copies of all of my albums, so I keep a log of release dates and the albums themselves. It is therefore quite simple to get a list of all albums released in a calendar year for me.
My Decemberists compilation includes (in order); Annan water, When the War Came, Rox in the Box, The Perfect Crime No. 2, Eli, the Barroy Boy (my favorite), Yankee Bayonet, Down by the water, The Bachelor and the Bride, Shankill Butchers, The Hazards of Love 3, Calamity Song, Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect, The Hazards of Love 1, A Cautionary Song, The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid, Odalisque. So a pretty heavy does of The Crane Wife and The Hazards of Love.
I've recently revised my formula, and I think I've found something I like fairly well. In my Itunes, I rate every song from 0-5, incorporating half-star ratings as well. I then find the mean and median of all of the ratings, add them together, and subtract the Standard Deviation. I used to just use an average song rating for the album, but I always thought that it made my overall rating artificially high, so this seems to be working well. I haven't used it for very long, so it remains to be seen how well it will really turn out once I get a decent portion of my library completed.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a way of rating music. I suck :(
ReplyDeleteListening to Panic At the Disco right now... not terrible...
ReplyDeleteWell...'Vices and Virtues' has definitely been the most surprising album of Music Togetherness for me. I went into it expecting absolutely nothing, and came away from it floored. I never really hated this band, but despite a couple of positives that I took away from their first two albums, Panic! at the Disco were a band that I thought I could have lived without ever listening to again. With this album, though, they took the positives (ie, the youthful energy of the first album, and the more classical pop leaning of the second) and melded them together into a winning sound.
ReplyDeleteThe core of this new Panic! is their newfound expertise of the recording studio. Sometimes the best way for me to describe an album is by comparing it to the difference between old-school standard television and the new-fangled HD format....and this is definitely a wide-screen album. Every sound is meticulously placed, and the vocals were just mastered perfectly. Brendan Urie's vocals sound thousands of times better, and more confident than on the previous albums, and really, this makes all of the difference. While the lyrics (I understand that the band's primary lyricist left the band before this album) are definitely no great shakes, every now and then it's just fun to listen to a guy belt out some energetic songs, and Brendan definitely does so here.
Instrumentally, the first time I listened to this album I thought of it as having a major circus feel to it....in a good way. The first few songs re-inforce this to me, especially in the sound of "Let's Kill Tonight", which really reminds me of a synth/goth/indie band that was around a few years ago called The Faint. "Hurricane" starts off with the sounds of an arcade within that circus, and then goes on with a buzzing organ that sounds eerily similar to the one that Muse used in their song "Muscle Museum" over a decade ago. "Memories" is a potential big-time single, despite it's depressing lyrics, which might be speaking to the departure of the two members of the band that left prior to this album. "Always" is the only real mis-step on the album for me, mostly due to the fact that it reminds me way too much of Plain White T's, whom I can't stand.
There are a big four standouts on this album for me, though, and the one thing all of these have in common is massive choruses. The first of these is "Trade Mistakes", which sees Brendan kicking his voice up to another level in the chorus, only to top it at the end of the song. Like Thomas, "Ready to Go" is my favorite song on the album, and I can definitely catch the 80's vibe that he saw in the song as well. This song, with it's pure energy instantly brightened my day the first time I heard it, and it hasn't dissipated at all with repeated listenings. "The Calendar" is definitely the best vocal performance of the the album, and one that will be hard for Mr. Urie to top in the future. When I saw the title of "Sarah Smiles", I was hoping that it wasn't a Hall & Oates cover, so I was pleased to discover that it's not from the second I heard the accordian intro. This song contains the band's best instrumental work, and the harmonizing in the chorus is fantastic.
Like I said at the beginning, this was the biggest surprise I've had thus far. This album has shown the effect that Music Togetherness has had on me...it's caused me to drop a few of the pretensions that I might have had in regards to music in the past, and I can see music like this for the enjoyment factor I get out of it, instead of trying to dissect every lyric....sometimes a good time is all music is there for, and this does it.
Also, as someone that's way more in tune with the band's past catalog, Thomas, can you hear a possible difference in sound with Ryan Ross and Jon Walker leaving the band?
ReplyDeleteAgain, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around us agreeing on Panic! at the Disco of all bands. I feel V&V is a really good blend of their first two efforts. Their first two efforts were so drastically different, that I can't say they had a standard sound to expect coming into the third album. Therefore, I do not hear a difference in sound, but I do feel Ross' departure has put a damper on the lexicon and the length of the album. Their first two albums had 3-4 more tracks and I have to think the well ran dry after 10 tracks.
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