By: Ben
Johnson
If you close your eyes and imagine that the way
things have been presented here
is the actual way they happened this year, you will then open them and find
yourself quantum leaped into one of two bodies. One is a 50 year old white man,
currently listening to Bob Seger on purpose and checking his investment
portfolio’s performance via Google Glass while riding an recumbent bike through
unnamed Suburbia at dusk. The other is a precocious but pre-embarrassment white
boy of ten or eleven who has recently discovered that video games are fun to
play while listening to music, and thanks to new information gleaned from
friendships with slightly older but no less awkward boys from Chess Club, is
now eagerly digesting whatever current crop of cynical teenybopper bands are slated
for the Warped Tour this year.
This list, aside from a few subtle nods to
surrounding culture (note: it only really
gets going in the mid-30’s), is the exact combination of these two, a grab bag
of survivalist MOR legacy acts and “edgy” bands of corporatist aural pedophiles
whose logos populate the Hot Topics t-shirt aisle. It is the mawkish year-end
list equivalent of Harry Chapin’s “Cats in the Cradle” for the self-isolated,
incurious, dead-middle American white male and the eternal child trapped inside
him. And like all weak-chinned American white males whose station has allowed
them to float through a life untraumatized by any system more oppressive than
the passage of time, emitting no characteristic more defining than a vaguely
inert inner childlike oblivious softness punctuated by occasional stress-induced
impotent rage, this list is kind of sweet, in an infuriating way.
This list is by and for a father and son duo
who got really into flying remote control planes this last Spring. There is
nothing technically wrong with flying a remote control plane, except maybe that
watching somebody fly a remote control airplane provides 95% of the enjoyment
of flying one yourself for roughly one four hundredth the cost, and also that
watching somebody other than yourself crash a four hundred dollar remote
control airplane and then go “aw shit!” is possibly the single most enjoyable
form of human entertainment. This list comes close to that.
So let’s all watch as the music staff of
Rolling Stone reads up on their hobby mags, holds up in the basement with Dad for weeks painstakingly soldering their 50
album list, wakes up extra early to make a full day of it, carefully hauls
their gear out to a secluded field, and then immediately pilots the whole
operation into the nearest big dumb obvious tree.
50. Yob, 'Clearing the Path to Ascend'
When I say this list is “for” father and son
duos who got really into flying remote control planes, one of the ways it does
this is with ego-inflating language, for instance this description of this Yob
album: “With their seventh album –
four sumptuous, sludgy tracks delivered across an hour – Yob staked their claim
on doom metal's throne. Lumbering Sabbathian riffage and Neurosis'
build-to-burn dynamics abound, but what sets the record apart are its gorgeous
moments of peace and introspection, which shimmer like moonlight on a tar pit.” Really this is the perfect soundtrack for when your
hormones make you disproportionately upset at your parents for making you do
the dishes, but if you want to go with “moonlight on a tar pit” as a
placeholder for that, be my guest.
49. Tinariwen, 'Emmaar'
Apparently Tuareg Rock can support the kind of big dumb
sound-flattening vibe that you get from putting Buddy Guy in a 48 track digital
studio with a 12-piece band of doofy session guys (the drummer has a splash
cymbal) backing him. As in, whoa, this can actually support that amount of
soul-deadening overproduction and still be damn good. In spots.
48. Coldplay, 'Ghost Stories'
The ghost of Gwyneth haunts my soul sometimes too. My butt
soul.
47. Gary Clark Jr., 'Gary Clark Jr. Live'
Recorded live at Blues Fest in front of an audience
of white people who showed up because they “love live music.” What kind? “Any.”
46. Tweedy, 'Sukierae'
Oh
this is Jeff Tweedy. You know, from Wilco. Oh, okay.
45. EMA, 'The
Future's Void'
This is annoying and not good.
44. Interpol, 'El Pintor'
They should make a t-shirt that’s the Unknown
Pleasures design but says Interpol underneath it. I would wear that shirt. Under
the rest of my normal adult clothes, but still.
43. Future, 'Honest'
Okay guys. We get it. You’ve been to a strip club.
42. Perfume Genius, 'Too Bright'
Okay guys. We get it. You’ve performed at a
strip club.
Look, these are not good jokes and I know that,
but what do you want me to do? Care?
41. Aphex Twin,
'Syro'
I’ve been tolerating electronic music a lot
more than usual for me recently. I’ve even listened to entire Burial tracks all
the way through. On purpose. And I thought “huh, I’ll be damned, turns out I
can listen to this.” Then I immediately bought a Scion, got my lip pierced, and
sold hard drugs to a teenager. True story.
40. Jack White, 'Lazaretto'
Have you heard that vinyl records are making a comeback? It
says it right here in this Parade Magazine that came with the Sunday paper. Ben
Vereen’s on the cover this week.
39. Caribou, 'Our Love'
My girlfriend likes regular-ass pop music, and
when she cranks it up in the car or the living room I tell her that she loves
dancing to techno. It makes her upset, like I’m calling her an idiot. I am not calling
her an idiot, though. I am saying the words “you love dancing to techno” in a
non-judgmental, observational way, and if somehow “idiot” is implied in these
words, that is more several other people’s fault than it is mine. Most current
pop music just sounds like techno to me, maybe because I want to call it that
to amuse myself, but also because maybe all pop music just is techno now. Like
all genres of popular music. Kanye West is techno. That “All About That Bass”
song is techno. Vampire Weekend is techno. Taylor Swift is techno. It’s the MTV
Techno Awards, featuring performances by Techno Wayne, Tech No, and The Foo
Fighters of Techno. This, Caribou, is techno too, but it’s like actual techno,
with like the tiniest, sparest hints of “maybe these techno tracks are also
indie pop songs that somebody sat down and wrote lyrics to.” This is the future
of pop music to the extent that my theory about techno is right. Techno in pop
music is like that weird space grass that swallowed Stephen King until he blew
his grassed-up head off in Creepshow.
All that said, I should buy this for my girlfriend. It’s actually not bad.
38. Hurray for the Riff Raff, 'Small Town Heroes'
This makes me uncomfortable. Physically. Like
listening to it hurts my back. It’s like watching a long movie in a movie
theater with bad seats. At a certain point I can’t care how good the damn movie
is. I feel like I’m sitting on an old cardboard box full of loose knives, and
the only thought I’m capable of is “box of loose knives box of loose knives.”
37. Benjamin
Booker, 'Benjamin Booker'
Associating
with Jack White does strange things to language. It replaces “late-career The
Jam power pop and/or major label Replacements” with “punk” and “young black
dude doing a slightly more soulful version of blue-eyed soul” with “blues” and
erases all mention of “folk” and “Mississippi John Hurt if he didn’t hate
electric guitars,” which is the most interesting part.
36. Alvvays,
'Alvvays'
These guys are like the next step in a line
that goes Mazzy Star, Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, These Guys and just gets cuter
and cuter every time and always makes you wish you were just hanging out with
them and listening to The Ronettes and My Bloody Valentine instead of expending
all that effort in the middle where they make this and you listen to it.
35. Lenny Kravitz,
'Strut'
NOW.
Now is when this list really kicks into high gear. Go back and read the intro
again if you want to. Lenny Kravitz. Holy shit. You know what thought I had at
a CVS the other day? “It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over” is a decent song. Sure it’s
a dumb goofy love song that oversimplifies all the urgency and passion of
“Let’s Stay Together” into an ad for Target, the message being equivalent to
“please don’t dilute our brand identity as a couple by leaving me,” but it’s
got those syrupy pop vocal strings on it, so it’s like it knows what it is.
Lenny Kravitz can only really ruin something I care about if he has a guitar in
his hand, otherwise he’s just an empty pair of bellbottoms. This? I’m not going
to listen to this, are you kidding me, it’s Lenny Kravitz. I’ll happily wait 25
years until it’s playing in a CVS and I’m buying a catheter or something.
34. Prince, 'Art
Official Age'
Remember
that part in High Fidelity where they’re playing the demo from the skateboard
kids and Jack Black rears up on both hind legs of his acting abilities and
delivers an I-will-reluctantly-admit-this “it’s really good,” but it very clearly isn’t?
33. The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, 'Midnight Sun'
Rufus
Wainwright fronting one of the more annoying Elephant 6 bands.
32. Damon Albarn,
'Everyday Robots'
Thank
God this rich old white guy stepped in. I was about to enjoy the connectivity
and democratizing aspects of modern communication technology without also
considering its alienating psychological effects. If only there was a better
way, like say writing a song about getting my head shaved by a jumbo jet and
then making enough money that my money can make a large portion of all the
money I’ll ever need, then thinking “Forgive me for having this crazy original
thought, but I think people would be more emotionally healthy if they got rid
of their cell phones like how I, thanks to my wealthy celebrity musician
status, am capable of doing,” and then getting rid of my cell phone and having
that work out totally fine for me. That would be awesome. I bet then I’d record
a bunch of sadsack songs about how alienating technology is, and not pause for
an instant to consider what a colossal privilege it is for me to have that
opinion, to not even need the abundant access I am afforded to all of the
technology whose desperate mastery constitutes almost the entire retention
mechanism of the rapidly evaporating modern middle class.
Like
how Louie CK went on Conan and said the same thing. I should hang out with
Louie next time I’m in New York. I’ll have my assistant call his assistant and
set that up.
31. Young Thug and Bloody Jay, 'Black Portland'
Maybe
I’m listening on the wrong speakers. Mine work.
 |
| Listening to Thom Yorke for twenty years like a boss |
30. Thom Yorke,
'Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'
I
heard “Optimist” from Kid A on the
radio the other day and listened for the first time in years and thought it was
more good that I’d given it credit for in a long long time. But at the same
time I was like “no no no no I can’t go back there” because when Kid A came out I listened to it
obsessively while being as depressed as I’ve ever been in my life. Thom Yorke
is still huge and I don’t get it. How did that many people manage to stay alive
for that long while listening to and enjoying this man’s music the whole time?
I’m impressed by their emotional constitution. Being a fan of this guy must be
like one of those 30 for 30 documentaries about some troubled dude like Elijah Dukes
where you realize that it’s probably a more impressive feat of athleticism to
hit any major league home runs while stoned than it is to hit like a hundred of
them sober.
29. Spoon, 'They
Want My Soul'
I like
the lyric “They Want My Soul” because it reminds me of “Rich Girl” by Hall
& Oates, and that reminds me that maybe Spoon is the modern equivalent of
Hall & Oates, which even if not true is a fun thought. Spoon should do an
album of all Hall & Oates covers.
28. Parquet Courts,
'Sunbathing Animal'
There
was some awards ceremony thing on MTV that I remember watching when I was a kid
where for some reason Ugly Kid Joe “I Hate Everything About You” was nominated
in a category which included both the word “Best” and the word “Rap.” This is
better than that, obviously. That was a real low point in culture.
27. Alt-J, 'This Is
All Yours'
I
wonder if “prog” will ever mean anything to me other than “get away, I am
poisonous.” It’s the bright colors
on an Amazonian tree frog of ways you can describe music.
26. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 'Hypnotic Eye'
This
is actually a useful calibration tool. By triangulating the quality of this
with where it is ranked, I am able to say with reasonable certainty that the
worst possible Tom Petty album would rank no lower than 32 on this list. That’s
if Tom Petty recorded a polka album called “A List Of Great Reasons To Own A Pet
Ferret.”
25. YG, 'My Krazy Life'
Has there been an “epic Twitter flame war” between a “social
justice warrior” and one of these guys over whether or not it’s “socially
responsible” for them to use the “n word” and talk about “beat the pussy” yet?
If not I just want to be prepared for it. Last time I didn’t prepare for
something like that, what happened next shocked me.
24. Leonard Cohen,
'Popular Problems'
What
the fuck is it going to take for Leonard Cohen to die of old age?
23. War on Drugs, 'Lost in the Dream'
You know what? All these new wave “indie”
singles from the 2000’s and early 2010’s are perfectly fine. Those are fine
songs. One hit wonder bands with names like Peter Bjorn and John doing the
twenty years later reincarnation of “99 Red Balloons?” Sure. Fine. Earmark me
for a “Greatest Whooshy Hits Of The Internet Era” CD that I can lose in the
back seat of my car. Don’t try and tell me that Men At Work has some underrated
album cuts, though. They don’t. Listening for underrated Men At Work album cuts
is a giant waste of time, and Men At Work has already claimed enough of it.
22. Skrillex, 'Recess'
This
is a much more introspective effort than I would have expected from Skrillex at
this point in his ascendancy. Like for instance that part where the bass goes
“BWUH BWUH BWUH BWIH BWIH BWIH” is so beautifully melancholic. Like it knows it’s
dying.
21. Eric Church,
'The Outsiders'
I
enjoy it when I haven’t heard something shitty like this since the last time I
made fun of the same shitty dude for making his last shitty thing. It’s like a
shitty reunion. “John? JOHN SHITTY?! Oh my Gosh it’s John Shitty! Hey John Shitty, what have you
been up to?” “Being shitty.” “Ha ha, I bet! Ho man. Classic Shitty.”
20. Sharon Van
Etten, 'Are We There'
Sharon
Van Etten facts I know: Sharon Van Etten is a whole different person than St.
Vincent. Different name, different person.
19. Jackson Browne,
'Standing in the Breach'
Of
all the legacy acts on this list, this one made me laugh the hardest. Rolling
Stone says “Browne confirmed his place as an essential voice in the wilds of
the 21st century with this powerful set of songs about love and progressive
ideals – forces that a corrupt world can never truly defeat.” Thank God for
Baby Boomers and their big ideas about love and progressive ideals, forces that
the corrupt world they created can never truly stop them from claiming to have
invented. Don’t all die at once, Baby Boomers. Never die all at once in a big
fiery explosion.
18. Sturgill Simpson, 'Metamodern Sounds in Country Music'
A little while ago I was in the basement of an
antique mall looking through box after box of old country records, and in the
heat of battle I was kicking myself for not knowing more about what to look
for. I know record dudes who have country down cold, I think the trick is they
know all the best Nashville session musicians. They go “Oh, they got Jim
Groggins on lap steel, he’s probably my third favorite lap steel guy of 1974, I
bet this is probably pretty good.” Meanwhile I’m like “I think George Jones is
supposed to be good, but what if I’m really thinking about George Strait? I
might want this record, but not if it’s the wrong George. I am paralyzed enough
by indecision not to buy this.” It bothers me at the time, but later, after I
go home and don’t have any old country records, I never regret it. Anyway, this
is pretty good.
17. Jenny Lewis,
'The Voyager'
Who’s
Jenny Lewis? Oh. Jenny Lewis is Rilo Kiley’s real name.
16. FKA Twigs,
'LP1'
I
know you guys are super interested, so I’ll just share my basic process here. I
pull up a YouTube of the album in question, then play it for as long as it
takes to come up with a joke or thought that’s good enough to write, and then I
get to stop listening. No longer listening is like my reward. I do this roughly
40 or so times, excluding the albums I don’t even need to listen to because
their existence is enough of a joke on its own. When you go from one of these
to the next one 40 times, trying to come up with gags and spoofs before you’re
allowed to move on with your life, the task itself takes over the actual music,
and everything I hear makes me feel like I’m searching for a parking spot at a
crowded shopping mall for hours on end. This is as good a soundtrack as any for
a shopping mall parking lot stress nightmare. It’s boring R&B without hooks
that sounds like it was produced by M83.
15. Against Me!,
'Transgender Dysphoria Blues'
How I
feel about this is pretty irrelevant. I’m a white hetero cis male and not
everything should be for me to judge. But since nobody asked, what I most like
about it is picturing the freaked outedness coming from America’s uptight parents
as they hear “God bless your transsexual HEART” blasting from their teenager’s
bedroom. It’s making me smile real big. I might not be in love with the megarock
overproduction here, but 90% of what makes rock and roll great is how worried and
upset it makes your shitty uptight parents, and I imagine this is a HUGE success
in that department. In fact, now that I think of it in those terms, it’s probably
the rock record of the year.
14. Weezer, 'Everything Will Be Alright in the End'
Weezer
has recorded ten albums. Ten. Magic fact: if you can name all ten Weezer albums
from memory don’t say all of them in a row out loud or else you will transform magically
into a fart.
13. Ought, 'More Than Any Other Day'
I
googled these guys and they’re from Montreal and this is their debut album and
they’re the “sure fine but why these guys and not any other band” critical pick
of the year. Thanks to an unnamed publicist, members of Ought are now hanging
out with Ice Age and Parquet Courts at the music biz kids table, having a
conversation about the “if you turn the hotel shower on all the way hot you can
steam your suit and that way you don’t have to iron it” trick. Albums like this
should have a “publicized by” credit in the title so we can thank the real
auteur.
12. Foo Fighters,
'Sonic Highways'
I
love Dave Grohl. Not his music at all, of course. His music is fucking
terrible. I just love his whole affable guy with no self-awareness persona, that
using this persona he’s somehow apparently shooting for venerable emptyheaded goofball dad, which is a category of person
that does not exist, and also I love how only coincidentally related to actual
rock and roll his whole life is. He’s like a rock and roll-themed human, the
way Olive Garden is an Italian-themed restaurant. Dude thanked his accountant
when Nirvana got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, every aspect of
which is just delicious. He’s fantastic.
11. Flying Lotus,
'You're Dead!'
There’s
a YouTube clip of a Flying Lotus performance in the middle of the day at some summer
festival in Wisconsin. The crowd looks like a bunch of bored white people doing
their best to pretend not to be bored in order to justify how much money they
just spent on drugs. Shit like this dicks up my YouTube viewing algorithms real
bad every year.
10. Taylor Swift,
'1989'
Trying
to write anything about this is like in ninth and tenth grade where the whole
school let out after 7th period but I and the other kids in the “gifted”
program had an 8th period, so you’d have to just sit there in 8th
period math class looking out the window at all the happy frolicking kids whose
parents didn’t force them to overachieve.
9. Mac DeMarco,
'Salad Days'
8. Run the Jewels, 'Run the Jewels 2'
The
great thing about the whole genre of hip hop is you can just blink your eye and
everything currently happening goes away and is replaced by something else. It’s
like listening to a View-Master.
7. Lana Del Rey,
'Ultraviolence'
I agree
with YouTube commenter Capucine chaussonpassion. This is the perfect album to
listen to when you have an entire hour’s worth of beans to eat.
6. Charli XCX, 'SUCKER'
Ever
wonder what MC Skat Kat from the Paula Abdul “Opposites Attract” video is up to
now? He produced this.
5. Miranda
Lambert, 'Platinum'
In
retrospect, after imagining the reality of this list, I guess you could also
quantum leap into a suburban mother letting loose in the car while driving to a
surreptitious weekly indulgence in TCBY Treats that she pretends is a secret just
to feel interesting even though she knows nobody cares, or a teenaged daughter currently
dismissively texting “so random” to a best friend she doesn’t even actually like
as a way to seek soothing validation for feeling threatened by the confusing actions
of a person, in this case Damian Wells’ decision to wear combat boots, which might
reflect any experiential background that is not her exact own.
4. St. Vincent,
'St. Vincent'
St.
Vincent is probably the Kate Bush of all these female singer songwriters in
that she’s the one I feel most guilty for not giving a shit about, and I will probably
eventually buy her albums and love them. Recorded music is great like that. It
doesn’t go away. It waits until you’re ready.
3. The Black Keys,
'Turn Blue'
I
think in music as in all things you do not have to get any better or more
talented, you can just keep doing the same thing for 15 years and people will
eventually say “that guy knows what he’s doing.” Really all you have to do is
just keep doing whatever you’re doing and not get bored and start doing something
else. It’s like a kind of success that you can have that is just available to
anybody, which is kind of great. The Black Keys are the Tiny Tims of blues
rock.
2. Bruce Springsteen, ‘High Hopes’
Just
this week there’s been like this auxiliary holiday overflow mailman driving a
U-Haul van through my neighborhood and throwing packages on doorsteps at like
7:00am, and he’s been absolutely blasting the Christmas music station. I keep
hearing the Bruce Springsteen cover of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town,” and I
have decided it’s hilarious. It’s like in the Anchorman how Ron Burgundy has to
read the teleprompter, except for Springsteen giving max-effort song renditions.
I want to make him do “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”
(picture a raspy Springsteen max-effort “wimoweh” repeated ad nauseum). FYI,
over half the songs on this feature Rage Against The Machine Guitarist Tom
Morello, so yeah, probably it’s the second best thing that’s happened this
year. Second only to…
1. U2, 'Songs of
Innocence'
I
hope a lot of people go to a retail outlet and physically buy this album on the
strength of this recommendation. A U2 “Songs of Innocence” CD is maybe the
single funniest physical music artifact of all time. It’s even funnier the more
you pay for it in a retail setting. I would not want to pay any less than
$18.99 for it. The price tag is a part of the whole effect. I want to bankrupt
myself buying $18.99 copies of the U2 “Songs of Innocence” CD, and I want to
spend the rest of my life leaving the price tag on it and giving them to people
at holiday gift exchanges. If somebody else gave me this CD with an $18.99
price tag on it I would never, ever get rid of it, and I was one of the people Googling
“how to get U2 off my phone” before even checking to see if it was there in the
first place.
Well
okay. I did that.
