“Can’t get there from here” is a colloquialism from the American South referring to directions too complex to easily give. If a traveler stopped and asked a local for directions, and the proper response would be “go two miles and take a right and it’s on the left”, the local would probably just say so. But if it was significantly more complex than that, the local would dismiss the traveler by saying “you can’t get there from here”.
It’s also the name of a popular R.E.M. song off the band’s 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction. But it would seem that the band can’t agree on how to punctuate the title.
R.E.M. traditionally ignored apostrophes, as seen in the song titles like “Feeling Gravitys Pull” and album titles like Lifes Rich Pageant. According to guitarist Pete Buck:
“We all hate apostrophes. Michael insisted and I agreed that there’s never been a good rock album that’s had an apostrophe in the title.”
And “Cant Get There From Here” is punctuated as such on the album’s outer sleeve. However, on the album itself the song is listed with the apostrophe. The same goes for the CD: no apostrophe on the sleeve, apostrophe on the disc. There are two versions of the song’s single, one with and the other without the apostrophe:
On their early greatest hits album Eponymous, the track listing lacks an apostrophe, but the liner notes include it. And the apostrophe appears once again on the back cover of the And I Feel Fine… The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982–1987 box set.
So who knows. It would seem the band enjoys the ambiguity. The A side of the album and cassette versions lists the album as Fables of the Reconstruction, but the B side is listed as Reconstruction of the Fables. Both have meaning, first as tales about the Reconstruction Era of the American South following the Civil War, the second as the literary deconstruction of fairy tales. But the album art doesn’t help: the front cover says Fables of the Reconstruction, but the back says Reconstruction of the Fables. Most CD versions of the disc say Fables of the Reconstruction on the cover, but Reconstruction of the Fables on the spine.
If all that wasn’t confusing enough, Fable’s liner notes include references to a song called “When I Was Young”, which isn’t included on the album. The song exists – it was played on a 1985 tour before Fables was released, and appears in demo form as “Throw Those Trolls Away” on the 25th anniversary edition of Fables. But if you have a CD player capable of reading CD-Text data from a music disc, you’ll find the song is listed as “When I Was Young”. And if the title sounds familiar, it’s the opening line of “I Believe” from Lifes Rich Pageant… which is the song “When I Was Young” eventually became.
2014 was something of a down year for music. Sure, tons of new albums came out last year… but few really grabbed my attention. The album I listened to most in 2014 – E-Bay Queen by my favorite synthpop duo, Marsheaux – came out in 2008. The rest of my yearly top ten was dominated by albums that came out in 2013: Langsom Dans by Gliss (#2), Inhale by Marsheaux (#3), The Bones of What You Believe by CHVRCHES (#5), Lost Causes by Flunk (#7) and Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s soundtrack for the British TV show Utopia (#8). With 2012’s Observator by The Raveonettes coming in at #9, that means only one 2014 album even made the top 10!
This year I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to post my top ten albums by playcount (thanks, Last.fm!) and then post my “editorial” top ten. Enjoy!
TOP TEN 2014 ALBUMS BY PLAYCOUNT
Here are my top ten 2014 albums by playcount. The number of plays is in parenthesis:
1) The Raveonettes – Pe’ahi (122)
2) La Roux – Trouble in Paradise (74)
3) Kid Francescoli – With Julia (66)
4) Warpaint – Warpaint (62)
5) Christine and the Queens – Chaleur Humaine (59)
6) Sylvan Esso – Sylvan Esso (51)
7) Bryan Ferry – Avonmore (41)
8) Blondfire – Young Heart (40)
9) Lisa Gerrard – Twilight Kingdom (32)
10) Blackbird Blackbird – Tangerine Sky (27)
Of course, ranking albums by playcount is tricky. The Raveonettes dominate this year’s list largely ‘cos I played two songs from Pe’ahi over and over again. Take “Sisters” and “When Night is Almost Done” off that album, and Pe’ahi probably wouldn’t even crack the top 10. And Lisa Gerrard comes in at #9 not because I liked her album less than others, but because one needs to be in a specific mood to listen to her music, as great as it is. And that’s why you need to rank the best albums of the year.
TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2014, RANKED
So here’s my “traditional” list of the year’s top albums:
#10: Warpaint – Warpaint
Warpaint are an all-girl band from Los Angeles. Did you know that Shannyn Sossamon, Heath Ledger’s love interest in A Knight’s Tale, played drums in the band’s early days? You do now! This disc shows a lot of promise, like a female Dot Hacker, or a slightly edgier version of Melody’s Echo Chamber. Or, if you’re an old fart like me, Mazzy Star with a lil’ more oomph. But the album seems to lose steam halfway through. It’s one of those albums that’s not at all “bad”, but you’ll put it on and by the time track 6 rolls around, you’re looking for something else to play. With the right material and production, their next album could be really, really good.
Have a listen:
9) Blondfire – Young Heart
I don’t know if kids still do this – or if other kids ever did this – but back when I was in high school, one could get “cool points” for discovering a hip new band. If I were still in school, I just might get points for discovering this duo, brother-sister combo Bruce and Erica Driscoll. I fell in love with their 2008 album My Someday almost instantly, and this disc is even better! While Someday was more or less your basic snythpop, this album is fuller and richer, with more guitars and drums and fewer drum machines. Erica’s often child-like voice won’t win any awards (it ain’t opera, folks), but it’s soothing and comforting, much like the voice of Sarah Cracknell, singer of my long-time fave Saint Etienne. In fact, many of these tracks almost sound like a lost Saint Etienne album: electronic and synthy, but warm and approachable. Not something you’d hear blaring at a nightclub, but rather something you’d hear at a cool party in north London. This album is surprisingly solid, too: there aren’t a lot of bad or filler tracks on it, and I’m often surprised to see that I’ve listened to the entire thing in one sitting!
Have a listen:
8) Christine and the Queens – Chaleur Humaine
It’s my shameful secret: I’m falling in love with French pop music, and especially female singers. And this disc, a project of French songwriter Héloïse Letissier, just hits it out of damn park. There are a few misses, though: a couple of slow songs I could do without, and a couple of English-language tracks that miss (why is it that French singers switching to English is almost always bad?). But the tracks that are good are really good, and more than make up for the misses. It’s sophisticated, yet approachable, synthpop that isn’t “too cool” for you.
Have a listen:
7) Lisa Gerrard – Twilight Kingdom
I’ve been a Dead Can Dance fan since I first heard them back in… 1985? 1986? And, like a lot of people, I was more a fan of Lisa Gerrard songs than Brendan Perry ones. Thing is, though, in my opinion, she never really had a solid solo album… until now. In fact, when I think about this album, I don’t think of any single song… I think of the entire thing as a single work of art. It’s all so beautiful and haunting. But then, that’s the problem with Gerrard’s music: it’s lovely, but it’s not something you can listen to on a whim. Well, I mean, sure… you could cue it up on your iPod any time you wanted to. But this isn’t something you’d play while doing household chores or at a party (unless it was late and you wanted everyone to leave). Still, though: I’ve owned all her solo albums at one point or another in my life, and this is the best one… by far. I’ve owned The Mirror Pool for almost 20 years now, and can only name a few tracks on the disc. Twilight Kingdom, however, is an album that sticks with me, one I know I’ll be listening to years from now.
Have a listen:
6) She & Him – Classics
She & Him is kind of a love-hate affair. I know there are tons of folks out there who can’t stand them, who think that the band only exists because of Zooey Dechanel’s star power. And there’s probably a kernel of truth there: would She & Him be as big a deal if Zooey wasn’t already a star? Having said all that, the band is coming along quite nicely. Ward was always a solid guitarist, and Deschanel really is developing her voice and vocal personality. She’ll never be the most talented singer in the world, but she’s just so damn… lovable. But that’s also the album’s Achilles Heel: no one wants to bash earnest musicians making an album of pretty cover songs. But not every track on this disc works. For every “Stars Fell on Alabama”, there’s an “Unchained Melody” (a cover that misses by a wide margin). My one issue going forward with She & Him is that they’re teetering on becoming “Starbucks music”, stuff you’d hear in the background of a coffee shop. She & Him were never “edgy”… but they’re at serious risk of becoming my mom’s favorite band, ya know? Still, this album is a lot of fun. Enjoy it.
Have a listen:
5) Bryan Ferry – Avonmore
I’ve loved Bryan Ferry since the first time I heard Roxy Music in (I think) 1982. But Ferry’s solo albums have never been very good, Oh sure, any given album might have 2-3 awesome songs on it… but there are also 4-5 completely forgettable songs, too. Seriously: can you name any song on Olympia other than “You Can Dance”? Did you ever even listen to side 2 of Frantic? Do you remember As Time Goes By at all? That’s what makes this album so remarkable: the whole thing is pretty damn good! I mean, it kind of loses steam towards the end (as most Ferry albums do), but I was surprised by how much I like “Loop Di Li”, “Midnight Train”, “Soldier of Fortune” and “Driving Me Wild”. It’s like the best string of Ferry songs since side 1 of 1985’s Boys and Girls. Of course, it’s Bryan Ferry, and the music doesn’t really sound that different from Boys and Girls, either. This album could have been recorded much any time after 1985. Not that that’s a bad thing. What is bad, though, is that you can tell Ferry’s voice is starting to go. That’s not entirely surprising – he turns 70 this November. It’s still sad to see such an icon in decline. But this album is a pretty good way to go, if you ask me!
Have a listen:
4) The Raveonettes – Pe’ahi
Yep, here they are in the top 10 AGAIN. Raven in the Grave was my top album of 2011, and the main reason Observator ended up at #2 instead of #1 on my 2012 list was that I just didn’t want to repeat myself. But while this is a solid album totally worth buying, it just doesn’t stick with me like other Raveonettes albums have. And what really puzzles me about that is why. Objectively, any track on this disc is as good as any other Raveonettes song. The album’s kind of disjointed – one slow song, one fast song, one really LOUD song, then another slow one – but Observator was the same way, and I freakin’ love that album. I think it might be because the middle of the album – from “Z-Boys” to “The Rains of May” – kind of runs together. Or something. And I might be the only one here, but it seems like The Raveonettes are making their vocals clearer than ever. Whereas on earlier albums vocals were mixed in closer to the music, and the lyrics were often opaque, with this disc, they’re completely front and center. And I have this theory that every Raveonettes song is about murder, suicide, drugs and\or sex… and having that beaten into your head just gets old after a while. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just was in a different place when this disc came out. I was listening to their (somewhat obscure) EPs – which are older, and have a more synthy sound – when this came out. It’s still a good album, mind you. It’s just not as good as the band can be.
Have a listen:
3) Sylvan Esso – Sylvan Esso
I never, ever thought folk and synthpop would work as a combo, but it SO DOES with these guys. The band, from Durham, NC, is made up of folk singer and Appalachian music champion Amelia Heath, while bandmate Nick Sanborn used to play bass in Magafaun, a group “on hiatus” with connections to Bon Iver. Yet somehow, it all works. Were it not for Heath’s charming vocals, the opening track “Hey Mami” might be the most annoying track of the decade. But they pull it off, grabbing your attention enough to want more. And in some senses, you’re rewarded for wanting more: “Coffee” and “Uncatena” are two of my favorite songs this year. But too much of the album is repetitive; it’s one of those discs where if I was going to put it on my iPod I would, for sure, only choose certain tracks. But the songs that work do work, and make me wonder what their future will be like. With a better producer, Sylvan Esso could make a masterpiece. There’s a lot to be said for synthpop with lyrics that actually have something to say, and Sylvan Esso is most certainly the band to do that. Also, be sure to read this fun article at the A.V. Club where Heath talks about her love of biscuits and gravy, and how a good plate of biscuits and gravy is the “light of humanity”.
Have a listen:
2) Kid Francescoli – With Julia
Kid Franescoli, a music project started by Mathieu Hocine, and later joined by singer Laetitia Abello, is a hazy, dreamy synthpop band from Europe (yes, “Europe”. I spent 20 minutes trying to find out where these people are from; “Mathieu Hocine” sounds French, but he sometimes sings in Italian; “Laetitia Abello” sounds Spanish, but could be French or Italian. I found one reference that says they’re from Marseilles – good enough for me, I guess). Oh, and most of the album was co-written by Julia Minkin, a girl from New York Hocine dated and broke up with (hence, the name, With Julia).
Anyway, the band’s music is intimate and lovely – kid of like a hip (but not too hip) European version of Washed Out. To listen to them is to fly over the Mediterranean at 30,000 feet as the stars twinkle above. And their music is hard to pin down: sure, it’s electro- or synthpop, but there are influences from everywhere: elements of classical, Italian folk and even Ennio Morricone in there, and guess what? It all just works. It’s really worth tracking this album down. And yes, this album is in English.
Have a listen:
1) La Roux – Trouble in Paradise
In 2009, a woman named Elly Jackson blew up the British music scene with her eponymous debut album recorded under the stage name “La Roux”. That album made it to #2 in the UK, won a Grammy in 2011 for “Best Electronic/Dance Album”, was nominated for a slew of awards in Britain and Europe and went platinum in the UK are Ireland, and Gold in Australia. It was a BIG DEAL, and people who had no idea synthpop even existed were pleasantly surprised by an album that reminded most of something the Eurythmics would have put out. But there was turbulence ahead: La Roux was actually a duo, with producer Ben Langmaid. The two quarreled over the future of the band. Entire albums were scrapped. Acrimony grew and Langmaid eventually left the band. Hence the long delay in her follow-up album… but the wait has been, by and large, worth it.
Trouble in Paradise is like La Roux, but somehow slightly better. While the debut album was great, it felt trapped in 80s nostalgia, as if Jackson was somehow afraid of breaking the illusion that it was 2009, not 1983. On this disc she actually steps out a bit. It’s not all drum machines and cold synths like the debut. Where La Roux might have been a beautiful, yet black & white, photograph, this album is a riot of tropical color. Yet once again, were trapped, this time by sexuality, which seems to permeate every inch of the disc. This isn’t a surprise – Jackson told us the album would be all about sensuality, and with song titles like “Cruel Sexuality” and “Sexotheque”, it’s not exactly a hidden agenda, either. But La Roux has always been about the hooks, that catchy something that makes her so appealing. The disc only has 9 songs, but damn if 8 of them could have been released as singles in a different era (ya know, when singles actually mattered). I know some will question my making this the album of the year, but the truth is, it’s the one disc I instantly fell in love with and wanted to hear more of. Sadly, this isn’t entirely of its own merit; 2014 was a down year, and so here we are. But Jackson deserves it anyway,
Have a listen:
THE RAW DATA
In case anyone’s interested, here’s some raw data from Last.fm.
Top Artists of 2014 (playcount in parenthesis)
1) Marsheaux (505)
2) The Raveonettes (460)
3) CHVRCHES (184)
4) Gliss (170)
5) Cocteau Twins (114)
6) Flunk (108)
7) Cristobal Tapia de Veer (96)
8) Saint Etienne (85)
9) La Roux (77)
10) Warpaint (72)
Top Songs of 2014 (source album in italics, playcount in parenthesis)
1) Marsheaux – “Analyze “(E-Bay Queen, 98)
2) Marsheaux – “The Game” (E-Bay Queen, 67)
3) The Raveonettes – “Sisters” (Pe’ahi, 58)
4) Gliss – “A to B” (Langstrom Dans, 56)
5) Flunk – “Queen of the Underground” (Lost Causes, 56)
6) Marsheaux – “So Far” (Lumineux Noir, 56)
7) The Raveonettes – “Last Dance” (In and Out of Control, 50)
8) CHVRCHES – “Recover” (The Bones of What You Believe, 42)
9) La Roux – “Sexotheque” (Trouble in Paradise, 38)
10) Gliss – “Hunting” (Langstrom Dans, 37)
In his day, Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) was a respected and popular composer of “Southern German” baroque music. He left a large body of secular and sacred work, such as this pretty Chaconne in F Minor:
Sadly, though, Pachelbel’s work was almost completely forgotten. Oh sure, some of his music would be played from time to time, especially his organ works. But for a couple hundred years, his name was lost in the sea of Bachs, Händels, Telemanns and Scarlattis. Few classical music scholars knew much about him or his work, to say nothing of the general public.
All that changed in 1970, when French conductor Jean-François Paillard recorded a slow, majestic version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D:
Just for fun, contrast Paillard’s overwrought, saccharine version with what many music scholars think the piece actually sounded like in Pachelbel’s day:
In any case, the piece became popular with classical music fans almost overnight, and went mainstream when it was prominently featured in the 1980 film Ordinary People. Since then, the work has become a staple of weddings and 100 Most Beautiful Pieces of Music box sets you see at stores like Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Pachelbel married twice. His first marriage ended when his wife and first son died in a plague outbreak in 1683. Pachelbel remarried a year later, and had two daughters and five sons with his new wife. Two of those sons – Wilhelm Hieronymus and Karl Theodor – became composers like their dad. But history remembers the second son as “Charles Theodore Pachelbel”, not Karl Theodor. And that’s because Charles became one of the first European composers – certainly the first European composer with name recognition – to move to the American colonies.
Exactly why Charles made the move is a complete mystery. We know for sure that he moved to Gotha when he was two, and Nuremberg when he was five. After his father died in 1706, the historical record falls almost silent, except that Charles probably lived in England for a time: his name appears on a list of subscribers to a volume of harpsichord music published in London. And how weird is it that customs or parish records from the time have been lost, but a list of magazine subscribers has survived?
We know that Charles Pachelbel was living in Boston by 1733 because he was asked to consult on the installation of a new pipe organ at Trinity Church in Newport, Rhode Island (the oldest Episcopal church in the state, by the way). Pachelbel lived there for approximately two years, having been hired as church organist. In 1736, he performed two concerts in New York City.
He moved to Charleston some time after March 9, 1736 (the second New York City concert) and February 16, 1737, when he married a woman named Hanna Poitevin at St. Philip’s Church, the oldest Anglican church in South Carolina. This was probably Pachelbel’s second marriage, as there are records which indicate that he already had a daughter. But what happened to her (or a possible wife) is unknown.
Charles Pachelbel lived in “Charles Towne”, as it was known, for the rest of his life. He held what is thought to be the very first public concert in the city on November 22, 1737. He became organist at St. Philip’s in 1740, and opened a singing school, probably the first music school in South Carolina, a year before his death. In 1750 he contracted a disease – recorded as a “lameness of the hands” – and died shortly thereafter. His wife lived on for 19 years, dying on September 6, 1769. He had at least one son – Charles, born on September 10, 1739 – but absolutely nothing is known about him or any of his descendants.
Very little of Charles Pachelbel’s music survives. One of the few pieces is this beautiful Magnificat:
Still, it’s amazing to think that Pachelbel’s son lived just a few hours away from me. I know full well that Johann Pachelbel existed at the same time the American colonies existed… but I’ve just never put 2 and 2 together on this one.
I sent an email to the good people at St. Philip’s in Charleston asking for any additional information they may have about Pachelbel, and will update this article if they reply with anything interesting. I specifically asked if they knew where he was buried, because the current St. Phillip’s isn’t the one Pachelbel knew. The first building was built in 1680 but was destroyed by a hurricane in 1710. A new building – the one Pachelbel knew – was built by 1723, but burned to the ground in 1835. The current building was completed in 1836.
* * *
There is (or was) a music group from New York City called “Anonymous 4”. I always assumed that the group got its name because they specialized in medieval and early Renaissance music written by unknown authors… and there were four of them, Hence, Anonymous 4:
By the way, that chant is in 15th century ENGLISH:
Edi beo thu, hevene quene, Folkes froure and engles blis, Moder unwemmed and maiden clene, Swich in world non other nis. On thee hit is wel eth sene, Of all wimmen thu havest thet pris; Mi swete levedi, her mi bene And reu of me yif thi wille is.
Come to find out, however, Anonymous IV was a real person, and a very important one, too.
Anonymous IV wrote a treatise about the Notre Dame School of Polyphony, at the time the epicenter of European music:
As the name suggests, no one knows who Anonymous IV was. He was almost certainly male, and almost certainly a student at Notre Dame in Paris. He was very likely English, because his works were discovered at Bury St Edmunds in England. Because of historical references in his work, they can be dated to the 1270s or 1280s.
It’s through Anonymous IV that we know Léonin and Pérotin, the two earliest European composers known by name. Anonymous even helpfully named specific works by them, greatly helping music scholars assign authorship to previously anonymous works. Although Léonin and Pérotin had both been dead for decades by the time Anonymous IV wrote about them, his description seems to indicate that they were still popular at the time, not unlike Elvis is today.
But there’s more than that. Anonymous IV mentions early music theorist Franco of Cologne, and describes several types of chants in detail, like organum and discant. He talks about the rules of music – why things were written they way they were – as well as how notation worked, and various genres that were popular in his day.
It’s all breathtakingly interesting stuff, and you can read a copy of his work (or download it in PDF, EPUB, Kindle and other formats) for free here.
ATLANTA (API) – Embattled Georgia State University president Mark Becker, who agreed to a controversial “partnership” between Georgia Public Broadcasting and WRAS, the school’s student-run radio station, has resigned. According to Don Hale, the school’s vice-president of public relations, the resignation will take effect immediately.
At a hastily arranged press conference this afternoon, Becker announced that he would become the next president of Georgia Tech.
“The first thing I plan to do is sell off that silly car they drive around campus… the Wrecky Rambler? What do you call it? Anyway, my main man Bill Nigut collects old cars, and I think he’d like it,” Becker said.
“Then there’s that old whistle thing. I’ll give that to my pal Teya Ryan. It would make a great accent piece for T-Dog’s drawing room, plus she could use the whistle to summon ‘interns’ to bring her coffee or massage her feet,” Becker said, laughing.
When asked about his long-term plans for Georgia Tech, Becker had several suggestions.
“Well, there’s some kind of hot dog stand just across the interstate. I believe we could acquire the 6 acre site and turn it into a small stadium, which we could then lease to Georgia State at a usurious rate. After all, even a 3,000 seat stadium could fit Georgia State’s season ticket holders 8 times over.”
“We’re also looking into converting Bill Dodd Field into a Target. We feel students would benefit from an on-campus shopping experience, plus we could force students to work there for free under some kind of internship program.”
Becker became agitated when a reporter asked why the proposed Target store would be a franchise location owned by a holding company called Becker-Ryan Investments, LLC.
“Look, if you can think of a better way for me to acquire the massive amount of capital necessary to buy the High Museum so I can sell off all of Atlanta’s cultural treasures and turn that building into my personal residence, I’m all ears!”
When asked if he had any regrets about his time at Georgia State, Becker was wistful.
“I only wish I had come here years ago. I could have demolished useless music venues like the 588 Club, the Urbanplex and the Chambray Club. I could have turned them into some sort of corporate franchises that completely lack any local flavor. I could have stopped the Uptown Music Festival. I could have turned that Merry Mack’s restaurant into a Public Storage site. I could have even bought the Fellini’s Pizza chain and converted them into a quick service restaurant concept I’ve been working on called Uwe Boll’s House of Schweinskopfsülze. There are just… so many ways I could have destroyed Atlanta’s culture. It makes me sad to think about it.”
It wasn’t all sad news, though. Becker announced that his investment company had just completed the purchase of Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, an Atlanta institution.
“We’re going to close Fat Mike’s for a few weeks as we convert it to Skinny Mark’s Unflavored Gelatin Yurt. Atlantans are going to love it!”
Becker’s press secretary later indicated that he is in talks with University of Georgia president Jere W. Morehead to purchase the legendary hedges at Sanford Stadium.
“Lord Becker says his front lawn is looking a bit ‘shabby’.
I don’t often ask you guys for help, but today I want to talk about something near and dear to my heart: a radio station named WRAS. It’s the “student voice of Georgia State University”, which broadcasts “live from the concrete campus in downtown Atlanta”. It played a HUGE role in making me who I am today, and is one of the things that made Atlanta a great place to live.
See, WRAS isn’t just your average college radio station. It has a 100,000 watt transmitter, which made it the most powerful college radio station in the United States before Georgia Tech’s WREK upgraded their tower to 100,000 watts, too. WRAS can be heard over the entire metro Atlanta area. Founded in 1971 – the same year I was born – the station is known for being one of the most innovative college radio stations in the country:
WRAS was the first radio station in the world to play OutKast.
WRAS was one of the first radio stations to ever play R.E.M. and was the first to put them in regular rotation.
WRAS was one of the first stations to ever play the Indigo Girls, and was the first to put them in regular rotation.
Bob Geldof was sitting in the studio at WRAS giving an interview when news of a school shooting came over the station’s teletype machine. The shooter was asked why she did it, and her reply was “I don’t like Mondays”, thus inspiring Geldof to write his most famous song.
The Replacements’ song “Left of the Dial” was inspired by WRAS’s slogan, “left on the dial, right on the music”:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iGS8on6Cxw
But now, it’s all in danger. A couple weeks ago – on the next to last day of finals, when the campus was nearly empty – GSU announced a “partnership deal” with Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) in which GPB will air talk radio from 5AM to 7PM. WRAS’s “regular” programming will air outside after those hours; during the day their music programming will be relegated to an HD subchannel and online streaming only.
It’s been a long time since I did a “songs I love” post, so here’s a 2-fer of songs I’ve been jammin’ on lately:
Gliss is a Danish band which moved to Los Angeles, where their debut EP, Kick in Your Heart, caught the ear of Billy Gorgan, who asked them to open for him on a European solo tour. I haven’t heard their early stuff, but the 2013 album Langsom Dans was called a “total departure” from their existing sound. Although I downloaded the album last year, I didn’t actually listen to it until a couple months ago… and instantly fell in love with it. Here’s a track called “A to B”:
Flunk is an electronic band from Norway; “Queen of the Underground” is the lead track off their 2013 album Lost Causes:
If you’re a frequent visitor to this site, you’re probably sick of me exalting the virtues of Last.fm. And I wouldn’t blame you for that. But these “best of” lists generate a lot of traffic from new visitors, so forgive me if I offer a brief explanation of the service.
Last.fm is a website that keeps track of the music you listen to. You sign up for an account and download their software for your computer, smartphone or tablet. The software then uploads the names of the tracks you listen to; the site calls this “scrobbling”. You can then find artists similar to the bands you like, or find other users with similar tastes and see what they listen to. The site offers streaming radio based on several categories, including a particular artist you like, a genre you like, or your overall music preferences. And, if you’re a statistics junkie like me, you can just play around with the numbers. Go ahead and check out my profile if you wish.
Below is a bunch of information about my music listening habits of the past year, collected from December 15, 2012 until December 2013.
Artists
Here are my top artists of 2013. The number in parenthesis is the total number of times I’ve listened to the artist this year:
1) Marsheaux (741)
2) Saint Etienne (379)
3) The Raveonettes (317)
4) Washed Out (183)
5) CHVRCHES (130)
6) Owl Eyes (110)
7) Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (96)
8) Roxy Music (95)
9) Emilíana Torrini (66)
10) Le Blonde (55)
A couple of interesting points here: Owl Eyes and Le Blonde, two artists absent from my Best Albums of 2013 list, make this list, largely because of one song each. I listened to Owl Eyes’ song “Nightswim” over and over again, but the rest of the Nightswim album wasn’t nearly as good. And Le Blonde hasn’t released a full-length album yet; their only official release is a kickass cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Sisters of the Moon”, which I played over and over again the latter part of the year (this season’s American Horror Story: Coven helped).
Although Saint Etienne and The Raveonettes didn’t release new albums this year, it’s nice to see them hanging on to the #2 and #3 spots on the artists list. And Roxy Music is still hanging on after all these years, coming in at #8 with 95 plays during the year.
Songs
These are my most popular songs of the year, with the number of times played in parenthesis. This list is not limited to songs from 2013.
1) Marsheaux – “Secret Place” (102)
2) Marsheaux – “So Far” (96)
3) Owl Eyes – “Nightswim” (91)
4) The Raveonettes – “She Owns The Streets” (57)
5) Le Blonde – “Sisters of the Moon” (56)
6) Marsheaux – “To the End” (55)
7) Washed Out – “All Over Now” (49)
8) The Raveonettes – “The Beat Dies” (48)
9) CHVRCHES – “Recover” (44)
10) The Raveonettes – “You Hit Me (I’m Down)” (41)
As mentioned in my Best Albums of 2013 list, Marsheaux’s “Secret Place” really is my favorite song of the year! “So Far”, off the band’s 2009 album, Lumineux Noir, comes in a close second. Owl Eyes makes her sassy self known at #3, while The Raveonettes’ hit from last year’s Observator comes in at #4. The previously-mentioned Le Blonde cover comes in at #5. Two 2013 tracks from Marsheaux and Washed Out come in at numbers 6 and 7 respectively, while “The Beat Dies” (from The Raveonettes’ 2007 album Lust Lust Lust) is the oldest track on the list. I drove my girlfriend crazy with CHVRCHES’ “Recover”, which comes in at #9, while one more track from Observator, “You Hit Me (I’m Down)”, closes out the top 10.
Albums (Overall)
These are my top overall albums in 2013. They are not limited to 2013 releases. The first number in parenthesis is the number of plays, the second is the year of release.
1) Marsheaux – Inhale (383, 2013)
2) Marsheaux – Lumineux Noir (203, 2009)
3) Washed Out – Paracosm (145, 2013)
4) The Raveonettes – Observator (137, 2012)
5) CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe (116, 2013)
6) The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust (108, 2007)
7) Owl Eyes – Nightswim (108, 2013)
8) Saint Etienne – Words and Music by Saint Etienne (82, 2012)
9) Marsheaux – E-Bay Queen Is Dead (69, 2012)
10) Emilíana Torrini – Tookah (53, 2013)
Albums (2013)
These are my top overall albums of the year limited to 2013 releases only. The number in parenthesis is the number of plays,
1) Marsheaux – Inhale (383)
2) Washed Out – Paracosm (145)
3) CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe (116)
4) Owl Eyes – Nightswim (108)
5) Emilíana Torrini – Tookah (53)
6) Nightlife – Days in Other Days (49)
7) Soft Metals – Lenses (43)
8) Postiljonen – Skyer (43)
9) Julianna Barwick – Nepenthe (43)
10) Clubfeet – Heirs and Graces (32)
More single-track shenanigans are at work here. In addition to Owl Eyes and “Nightswim”, Nightlife makes this list on the strength of the track “Worried Bird”, and Clubfeet make it for the song “Everything You Wanted”.
2013 might go down as the year synthpop absolutely dominated my music life.
Maybe that’s because I’m 42 years old.
I grew up listening to bands like Duran Duran, Human League, ABC, OMD and the Thompson Twins. And synthpop takes me back to those happy days, only this music is new. Don’t get me wrong: I love the 80s and 80s music. But sometimes I wish 80s music would just go away. I’ll be out at a club or restaurant somewhere and hear some 80s song I’ve heard a million times, like The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” or The Smith’s “How Soon Is Now?” and I’ll twitch, twitch because those songs have been run into the ground. How can I be nostalgic for something that never really went away? Synthpop bridges the gap: new music that sounds like something from 1982.
On the other hand, a lot of new music these days is… meh. Except for a brief period when I was a teen, screaming guitars have never really been my thing, and these days loud guitars just give me a headache. Loud guitars and cheap beer is a guaranteed headache.
What’s worse, as I approach middle age, I just don’t give a damn to hear rich 19 year-olds tell me how bad life is. Oh no, someone broke your heart, Taylor Swift? Cry me a river! Get in your private jet, fly to Rome and drown yourself in gelato for all I care. Love sucks? No shit. Welcome to an exclusive club called “The Human Race”. We’ve all been dumped before; if you feel the need to talk about it, there’s a group that meets at the Y on Tuesday evenings – bring cookies. Miley Cyrus? One Direction? Blech. People listen to this manufactured, over-produced crap? Really? And by “over-produced” I mean “Martin Hannett is rolling over in his grave”. Arctic Monkeys? The Strokes? Better, but too damn loud. The Lumineers? Arcade Fire? Mumford & Sons? Do people actually listen to these bands when not trying to get a girl in a sack? The 1975? Are these guys old enough to get into a R-rated movie by themselves? Justin Timberlake? You mean the guy who gets to sleep next to Jessica Biel on a bed stuffed with $100 bills? Yeah, that’s relevant to my life!
I don’t know. I mean, I just feel weird. I’m obviously “too old” for MTV and Capitol Records to give a damn about me, and I’m fine with that. Relieved, actually. But I also feel waaaaayy too young to be joining the Michael Bublé fan club. I’m not ready to shop for records at Cracker Barrel, thank you very much. So synthpop is where I find myself at the moment.
Below are my Top 10 Albums for 2013. Remember, this list is about complete albums, not albums with just one or two tracks I really liked. More on the individual tracks I liked in a “Music By The Numbers” follow-up post, scheduled for 12/16.
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#10: Au Revoir Simone – Move In Spectrums
Brooklyn-based Au Revoir Simone formed in 2003 and have put our four studio albums, including one of my faves from 2009, Still Night, Still Light. London’s The Times newspaper called their music “a collision between The Waitresses, Stereolab and Kings of Convenience”, while one of their biggest fans, director David Lynch, called their music “innocent, hip and new”. This album certainly is new. While their previous albums were an unconventional take on conventional pop music, this album is… lighter, airier and freer than any of their previous efforts. About halfway through the album, the music seems to lose structure completely. And that’s not entirely a good thing. On the one hand, if you like experimental music, it’s right up your alley. If you don’t, you’ll be likely to skip the rest of the album, starting at about track 6. It’s still a good effort, though. Even though it goes off the rails, it’s good to experiment. But maybe they’re just not the band to do it.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwvvlTKi5cE
#9: Emilíana Torrini – Tookah
Of course I was excited when I heard that Emilíana Torrini was releasing her first new album since 2008’s Me and Armini. And when I heard the first single off the album, “Speed of Dark”, I became SUPER EXCITED… because it reminded of her 1999 album Love in the Time of Science. If you know me, you know that Science is one of my all-time favorite albums. Produced by Roland Orzabal of Tears For Fears, Science was one of the best electronic albums, well.. ever. But then some bad things happened in Torrini’s life, and 2005’s Fisherman’s Woman was a mostly acoustic mopefest. It was still good, mind you. ANY Emilíana Torrini is a good thing. But I missed, so missed, the electronic Emilíana. The aforementioned Me and Armini was kind of more of the same: good, but not the artist I loved so much. It’s almost like… imagine if Human League decided to do slow, acoustic versions of their songs all the time. Maybe it would be good, or maybe it wouldn’t. But it’s not the sound you fell in love with. And sadly, Tookah is mostly more of the same, plodding Torrini we’ve come to know over the past few years. “Speed of Dark” is the only really “electronic” song on the album, except for perhaps the title track. The bulk of the album – “Caterpillar”, “Autumn Sun”, “Home”, “Elizabet” – is the same downtempo stuff she’s been doing for years. Which is fine. But not what I wanted. Having said that, it’s still good, though.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjO8MTeVVGg
#8: Carla Bruni – Little French Songs
Confession Time: I’ve fallen in love with songs sung (in French) by French girls. But it’s more specific than that. Oddly, the singers must be French; French Canadians, Belgians and Swiss need not apply (which is odd, I know, since Bruni was born in Italy). And the music must be mostly voice and guitar, with perhaps a few violins or accordions thrown in from time to time. This album is the perfect example of what I’m looking for. I first fell for Bruni’s music with “Quelqu’un m’a dit” from the album of the same name, as used in Hans Canosa’s 2005 film Conversations with Other Women. And this album is almost as good. maybe even better. Mostly written by Bruni herself, the album is light and breezy. If you speak French, you might find that the music is actually quite clever at times. For the rest of us, don’t fear: it’s lovely. In fact, the music on this disc is exactly what it says on the tin: “Little French Songs”. And that’s a good thing!
Lauren Mayberry is the lead singer of the Scottish synthpop band CHVRCHES. I personally don’t find her “stunning” or “sexy”, but she can be awfully cute, in a pixie sort of way:
(click to embiggen)
What’s even better than her looks is her mind. Mayberry wasn’t sure her music career would take off, so she got a bachelor of laws degree* and a masters in journalism. She even won a prestigious award from the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland in 2010 for an article she wrote about body piercing practices (read it in this PDF). More recently, Mayberry wrote this piece in The Guardian about the misogyny she has to deal with online with Twitter and Facebook (and no, she’s not being hyper-sensitive about “I think you’re pretty!” tweets; most of the example tweets she gives are pretty disgusting).
She’s also quite smart about the music business. For one thing, the band liked the name “Churches”, but thought it would be difficult to Google for, so Mayberry proposed the alternative spelling. And it took them forever and a day to get a record contract because the band held out for a label that would give them considerable creative freedom. Mayberry says:
“You see so many bands regress and become like children, getting told what to do. I’m not in the business of telling people ‘DIY or die’ but I do think it’s important to be as hands-on with what you’re doing as possible. Sometimes if you don’t take the easy option it’ll pay dividends in the long run…. One guy came to a show, and was like: ‘You’re going to be huge. I can see it in my mind’s eye, we could make you the next Pixie Lott.’ I did an internal scream and ran away…. I guess at the end of the day I want to be viewed as a musician. Maybe I am super-paranoid about it. But after this is all done, I want to be able to say that we did it in the way we wanted to do it.”
But perhaps the BEST thing of all is that, despite being one of the tiniest singers I’ve ever seen, Mayberry is NOT a vegetarian. She even posted her recipe for beef and chorizo chili on a website after being asked for it. Sweet!
