Flight of the Red Balloon
So the Oscar talk has prompted me to finally, belatedly put together a list of films I liked from last year. Apologies in advance for a few clips without English subtitles.
-Alfred Lee
(WARNING: SPOILERS. EVERYWHERE.) Read the rest of this entry »
Photo by David Greenwald
Like the albums list, this is divided into the ranked, remarkably great stuff and the unranked, still really great stuff. Enjoy the last post of ’07, folks – The Rawking will continue refusing to stop bright and early on Monday, January 7. The full list and MP3s galore after the jump! [Continue reading...]
1. UGK ft. Outkast – “Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You)”: mp3
2. LCD Soundsystem – “All My Friends”: mp3
3. Spoon – “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”: mp3
4. St. Vincent – “Marry Me”: mp3
5. Radiohead – “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”: mp3
6. Wilco – “On and On and On”: mp3
7. Ravens & Chimes – “January”: mp3
8. Justice – “The Party”: mp3
9. Lucky Soul – “One Kiss Don’t Make a Summer”: mp3
10. Andrew Bird – “Simple X”: mp3
11. Jens Lekman – “Shirin”: mp3
12. Animal Collective – “For Reverend Green”: mp3
13. Saturday Looks Good To Me – “Make a Plan”: mp3
14. Of Montreal – “Suffer for Fashion”: mp3 / “Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider”: mp3
15. David Gilmour Girls – “Young Rats”: mp3
16. Ryan Adams – “Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.”
17. The Acorn – “Antenna”: mp3
18. Field Music – “Working To Work”: mp3 / “Kingston”: mp3
19. The Main Drag – “A Jagged Gorgeous Winter”: mp3
20. Lewis & Clarke – “Before It Breaks You”: mp3
21. Les Savy Fav – “Raging in the Plague Age”: mp3
22. Maritime – “Be Unhappy”: mp3
23. New Buffalo – “You’ve Gone My Friend”: mp3
24. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – “Emily Jean Stock”: mp3
25. The Everybodyfields – “Aeroplane”: mp3
And the rest, in alphabetical order:
The Afternoon Naps – “Postcard”: mp3
The Autumn Defense – “This Will Fall Away”: mp3
Avril Lavigne – “Girlfriend”
Bill Callahan – “Diamond Dancer”: mp3
The Bird and the Bee – “Fucking Boyfriend”: mp3
Bright Eyes – “Tourist Trap”: mp3
The Broken West – “So It Goes”: mp3
Centro-matic – “Atlanta”: mp3
The Clientele – “Winter on Victoria Street”: mp3
Club 8 – “Whatever You Want”: mp3
Dungen – “Familj”: mp3
Feist – “1234″
The Good, The Bad and the Queen – “Nature Springs”
Iron & Wine – “Boy with a Coin”: mp3
John Vanderslice – “Numbered Lithograph”: mp3
Kanye West ft. Dwele – “Flashing Lights”
Laura Veirs – “Don’t Lose Yourself”
Liars – “Plaster Casts of Everything”: mp3
Loney, Dear – “Saturday Waits”: mp3
Marissa Nadler – “Diamond Heart”: mp3
Math & Physics Club – “Nothing Really Happened”: mp3
Menomena – “Muscle’n Flo”: mp3
Midnight Juggernauts – “Twenty Thousand Leagues”: mp3
The Narrator – “Surfjew”: mp3
The National – “Ada”: mp3
Ola Podrida – “Jordanna”: mp3
The One AM Radio – “Your Name”
Pants Yell! – “Reject, Reject”
Richard Hawley – “Tonight The Streets Are Ours”
Richmond Fontaine – “The Disappearance of Ray Norton”: mp3
The Shins – “Sleeping Lessons”: mp3
Sondre Lerche – “Say It All”
Studio – “No Comply”: mp3
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.”: mp3
The Thrills – “Restaurant”
Thurston Moore – “Fri/End”: mp3
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Best of 2007: Complete coverage of this year’s finest songs and albums. Click below for more.
Photo by David Greenwald
Most critics have long since given up the illusion of the year-end “best-of” list as an objective canon-definer, myself included. Instead, we’re left with critics’ personal favorites (where guilty pleasures reign supreme) or Pazz and Jop-style voting-based lists that tend to reflect the MOR consensus of staff taste rather than shining the spotlight on more obscure picks. (Plenty of MOR on this list, but it’s my MOR.) If you read a publication regularly, the lists of, say, Paste or Pitchfork shouldn’t surprise you, but if you’ve been enjoying said publication all along, they should still function as suitable listening guides. The trick is finding the list that aligns with your own personal taste. If you listen to NPR and spend a lot of time in Starbucks, that list is Paste‘s; if you’re into fey, sensitive-dude indie pop/rock/folk, well, you’ve come to the right place.
I’ve ranked 23 of these 40 albums. The ranked ones are all great (except Ryan Adams, which wouldn’t be honest to my listening habits to leave off) and certainly worth your time. The unranked albums that follow – the honorable mentions, I suppose – are also worthwhile, just not quite as striking or consistent as those that earned numerals. Without further ado, click the jump for my picks for the best albums of 2007. Read the rest of this entry »
All photos by David Greenwald
I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Click the links to see the original posts.
…And a whole year’s worth of my favorite shots after the jump. [Continue reading...]
Grizzly Bear (at the Troubadour; at UCLA)
Eric Johnson of the Fruit Bats
Already looking forward to next year’s show-going. And maybe getting a real camera. Cheers, 2007.
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Best of 2007: Complete coverage of this year’s finest songs and albums. Click below for more.
Disclaimer: I am aware you did not discover the National from this blog
2007 is drawing to a close and the lists keep pouring in – I’m looking forward to giving some serious spins to Gorilla Vs. Bear and Skatterbrain‘s year-end picks. Our coverage is coming next week, when I’m done with finals and have some serious time to invest in writing up my albums list (it’ll be a top 30), song list (probably a top 50) and a number of other ideas in the works. In the meantime, I’ll be posting holiday songs and trying to squeeze in a few more album posts, but as loyal readers, you guys should have a pretty good idea of what I liked this year.
Now, I want to know what you like. What was your favorite song or album that you discovered (or at least heard) here on The Rawking Refuses To Stop! this year? Did we turn you on to a new folk ballad or dance jam? I sure hope so.
Here’s a band I discovered thanks to Skatterbrain, who routinely introduces me (and the entire blogosphere, no doubt) to amazing stuff.
Club 8 – “Whatever You Want”: mp3
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Best of 2007: Complete coverage of this year’s finest songs and albums. Click below for more.
Last week, I presented my picks for the best albums of the year thus far. Here are some of the songs. I’ll probably finding myself posting these all again at the end of the year. They’re that good. Not a lot of overlap with the albums — in picking favorite songs, I find myself drawn to tracks that stand-out from a record vs. trying to pick a winner out of a collection of great songs. So you can imagine how good the Spoon song below is if Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is my current AOTY.
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – “Half-Awake (Deb)”: mp3
I thought these guys would never top “Pangea,” but if this song is any indication of how good the sophomore album will be, sweet Jesus. SSLYBY is to Weezer as LeBron is to MJ. My favorite track of the year so far.
Spoon – “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”: stream on Hype Machine
Notice: Britt Daniel going from breathy falsetto to sandpaper throat and back. Notice also: The fuzzy horn lines that could be guitars. The Motown backbeat. The bottom-of-the-sea harmonies. The handclaps. Best Spoon song ever.
See the rest of the list after the jump! [Continue reading]
Andrew Bird – “Simple X”: mp3
Sounds like a Radiohead b-side in the best possible way. Gorgeous.
Avril Lavigne – “Girlfriend”
Tell you what, Avril would beat the shit out of that “Hey Mickey” girl. If you’re a 13-year-old girl who hasn’t discovered the Shins yet, this is still the best song in the world.
Bright Eyes – “Tourist Trap”: mp3
This song is so fucking forlorn. It sounds like a great Ryan Adams or Will Oldham or, yes, Conor Oberst song, some lost tune recorded at 3 a.m. on a particularly lonely night. “The road finally gave me back / But I don’t think I’ll unpack / Because I’m not sure if I live here any more,” Oberst sings. Tell me about it.
Field Music – “Working to Work”: mp3 / “Kingston”: mp3
“Working to Work” is a polar opposite to that Bright Eyes track. It’s almost too peppy for words, hitting every note exactly on beat and requiring you to pump your fist in strict rhythm. It’s all peaks and valleys and peaks again, moving with ballerina-like accuracy: “DIVING TO DROWN / and coming up for air.” Phew. And “Kingston?” Like all my favorite songs, it’s dour and pretty.
The Clientele – “Winter on Victoria Street”
Watching a movie and getting bored / trying to get UP with a girl next door … I’m SO WIRED and nobody’s tired. These guys redefine “evocative.”
Lucky Soul – “One Kiss Don’t Make a Summer”: mp3
Best chorus on an album full of ‘em, and the best verse lyric: “You’re just a P.S. on a postcard home anyway.” Or are you? Ali Howard can’t decide, but damned if she’s not going to get a great pop song out of it either way.
More:
The Autumn Defense – “This Will Fall Away”: mp3
Bears – “You Can Tell”: mp3
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – “Emily Jean Stock”: mp3
Studio – “No Comply”: mp3
Centro-matic – “Atlanta”: mp3
Of Montreal – “Suffer For Fashion”: mp3
Download all the MP3s in one folder: zip
“Dave! Where’s ‘D.A.N.C.E.’?!?!” Here.
Previously: Best of 2007, Halfway: Albums
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Click below for more Lists.
Photo by David Greenwald
Guys and gals, this has been a great year so far. I can’t emphasize that enough. I could make a top 20 and every album on it would be stellar, but that’ll have to wait till the end of the year. Forgive me if you’re familiar with all these folks already — it’s hard to deny the indie staples placement when they’re all delivering fantastic records.
Note: I’m not counting Elliott Smith’s New Moon for various reasons: He’s my favorite musician ever and anything by him is going to be an automatic no. 1 — so that’s no fun. Secondly, this is an album that should’ve come out in 1995. It’s not exactly a reissue, but for the purposes of this list I’m going to pretend it doesn’t exist. (But you should buy it if you haven’t! Album of the year!)
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10. The Sea and Cake – Everybody
The Sea and Cake – “Crossing Line”: mp3
I’ve always liked the Sea and Cake, always enjoyed their bossa nova affections and connections to Jim O’Rourke and the Chicago scene. This is the first Sea and Cake album I’ve really loved. It still sounds like a Sea and Cake album, but it’s a great one. (Concert photos)
9. Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha
Andrew Bird – “Heretics”: mp3
This would be much higher if not for its sloppy, momentum-killing sequencing. But nevertheless, songs such as “Heretics” and “Simple X” are among his best and it’s more than refreshing to hear Bird finally embracing straight-up guitar rock.
8. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
Of Montreal – “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse”: mp3
Only Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes would turn the depression of a seperation from his wife and living in fucking Norway with heavy metal bands into the best album of his band’s lengthy, glorious career. (Concert photos)
7. The Broken West – I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On
The Broken West – “So It Goes”: mp3
The more I listen to this, the more it sounds like a power-pop classic. I haven’t heard a band channel Big Star this well in years. Have you?
6. Loney, Dear – Loney, Noir
Loney, Dear – “I Am John”: mp3
I keep comparing this to Sufjan and maybe I’m the only one, but it’s amazing to me that there’s another guy who can play all these instruments (or fake them electronically) and record these indie-folk mini-symphonies in his room. Dude’s voice is a bit high and whiny, but that’s how I like it. Every single song on this album is beautiful. (Previous post)
Top five after the jump! [Continue Reading]
5. The Clientele – God Save The Clientele
The Clientele – “Bookshop Casanova”: mp3
The Clientele don’t just drip nostalgic lovelorn depression — they’re soaked through with it. And they play guitar solos, too. (Previous post, concert photos)
4. Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog
What’s great about this album is it’s completely alien and incomparable to The Creek Drank the Cradle, Iron & Wine’s debut and best album. This could be his best album, too; they’re so different that ranking one against the other is a difficult conundrum. So what if we rank this one against indie-folk in general? It comes out on top. More accessible than Animal Collective, more charismatic and song-oriented than Califone, weirder and more no-holds-barred than Lewis & Clarke, this is as good as progressive folk gets these days. And — hear that slide guitar? — he hasn’t forgetten where he came from, either, even if now he’s into tribal rhythms and backwards recordings. Perhaps most importantly, Beam is one of the best singers, period, and on this album he cuts loose more than ever before.
3. Wilco – Sky Blue Sky
What?! No experimenting? It’s just songs? That’s what I thought the first time I listened to my favorite band’s latest. Then I listened to it again. Nels Cline’s miraculous fretwork has gotten most of the buzz, but the album’s unsung hero is Pat Sansone, who — if his work with the Autumn Defense is any indication — is largely responsible for the ’70s soft-rock influence. Jeff Tweedy’s vocals continue to improve as he gets older, and I appreciate the honest, unguarded sentiment he offers on songs such as “Either Way” and “On and On and On,” both songs that should rank highly in the Wilco songbook.
2. The National – Boxer
The National – “Fake Empire”: mp3
This was the front-runner for quite some time. I’ve listened to this more than anything else released this year. It’s overwhelming and confident in a way that few albums are in a way that begs for repeated listens. You can tie a different adjective to each song: “Slow Show” is aching, “Ada” is exciting, “Fake Empire” is mysterious… and on and on. Alligator still has the edge for me, but this is another classic from a band that’ll be churning them out for years to come. (Concert photos, download the White Session)
1. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Spoon – “The Underdog”: mp3
As I noted in a previous post, this is the most fun album Spoon’s ever made. The songs are bursting at the seams with cool production tricks (note the use of reverb on the backing vocals on “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb,” or on the guitar on “Eddie’s Ragga,” or on any song on the album, really) and a big, full sound that throws the band’s trademark curtness into a stereophonic whirl. All that and a bunch of great songs by one of America’s most consistently great rock bands. (Previous post)
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Very honorable mentions:
New Buffalo – Somewhere, Anywhere.
Laura Veirs – Saltbreakers
St. Vincent – Marry Me
Hauschka – Room to Expand
Lewis & Clarke – Blasts of Holy Birth
Lucky Soul – The Great Unwanted
Boris – Rainbow
Bright Eyes – Cassadaga
And on and on…Keep an eye out for a best songs of ’07 list next week.
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Click below for more Lists.
">Pitchfork Reviews Reviews: stuart berman and iron maiden morning roundup.1. Stuart Berman ends his Dandy Warhols compilation review with a frustratingly overzealous and dishonest observation, writing, “The Capitol Years is less interesting as a compilation of one sporadically successful band’s stint on a major label than a road map through an evolving underground rock...
4. there was a quasi-incredulous New York Times story this weekend about how Iron Maiden is still selling a ton of copies of their new record (their 15th record), and also how they’ve sold an unusually small number of downloads of the record and also an unusually small number of illegal downloads has been charted. people in the record industry give all sorts of quotes about why they think Iron Maiden is still selling so many records, like generic “they work hard and engage with their fans and tour a lot” and some other euphemistic stuff like that, but nobody interviewed gets anywhere near the obvious truth about this, which i guess we can call the Eminem Paradigm or the Susan Boyle Paradigm:
okay not to overgeneralize here, and i’m sure there are plenty of bright Iron Maiden fans, but if you are an artist that attracts a particularly old or technologically inept fanbase, you will still sell records because your fans don’t know how to download music, illegally or otherwise. there’s no mystery about why like Godsmack and Avenged Sevenfold always make chart-topping records, and if writers acknowledged that people who are seriously buying Iron Maiden’s 15th record are old and maybe ummm not the most discerning tools in the shed/pennies in the fountain/knives in the drawer, than there’d be no need for incredulous newspaper articles about it. not to be needlessly smug about why Iron Maiden’s 15th record has sold more records than every Best New Album this year combined, but you know what i’m saying
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from Dave:
This is so true and obvious
I used to make jokes about how people who buy country music don’t own computers, which is mean-spirited and very left coast liberal of me but probably not entirely false.
It seems surreal that the Weezer of my teenage years is also the Weezer of 2010’s teenage years, but then again, the band should really change its name to “Assholes who don’t deserve your continued or newfound attention” so as to avoid confusion.
Here’s the review.
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