BURKE'S LANDED GENTRY

2011-07-16T20:34:00.005-04:00

2011-05-26T01:28:00.005-04:00

2011-04-15T22:36:00.006-04:00

DOWNLOAD Donovan There Is A Mountain

First there is a mountain,

then there is no mountain,

then there is.

AND THE WINNER IS ...

2010-02-04T15:56:00.008-05:00

In October, before she ever appeared here as Helen Handbasket, this darling girl ...

... lost her iPod and thus much of her music collection. She sent me a pitiful e-mail asking how she could get a copy of my hard drive to begin to replace it. Understand: I am extremely sensitive to this kind of loss. I told her I would rig the Contest so she would win it.

But I was lying, and she didn't.

I say again: The integrity of this place is sacrosanct to me.

So congratulations to DR. SCOTT KIRKLIN, this year's addition to what will always be a list of randomly selected winners.

There is more to the story, however.

I have always wanted Helen to be a bigger part of this blog. I like the way she writes. When I conceived of BotB she was part of how I conceived of it; I was looking to get her voice into this space.

Part of getting the Kids on board for BotB in November was telling them I'd pay them ( modestly ) for their work. Carla got her pay in December; Helen I kept telling I was working on it. Because Helen was getting the hard drive, but I was waiting until today to say so.

Dr. Scott, Mz. Helen: Still working on it. I'm in the middle of a round of updates that will only make your prizes better. Figure on some time between 3/1 and 3/15.

All others: Sincerest thanks for your lists, and better luck come the TOP 10 OF 10.

Jn.

TOP 09 OF 09

2010-02-02T17:27:00.182-05:00

Final word count > 11,000.

The Landed Gentry's
TOP 09 OF 09

Jay Reatard
Watch Me Fall

The Rural Alberta Advantage
Hometowns

Raekwon
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx ... Pt. II

The Decemberists
The Hazards Of Love

Thee Oh Sees
Help

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It's Blitz!

Girls
Album

Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Dead Man's Bones
Dead Man's Bones

And the winner of this year's Contest is ...

Jn.

NO WE WILL NOT DESTROY YOU.

2010-01-31T21:37:01.099-05:00

In September, the very authentic Mormon rock star Brandon Flowers ( The Killers ) told Rolling Stone,

If you're an actor, you have no business making an album, no matter how good you sound when you sing in the shower.

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 ( tracks ) OF 09

09 Animal Collective, Happy In Space
08 Arctic Monkeys, Cornerstone
07 Grizzly Bear, Two Weeks
06 The Decemberists, The Rake's Song
05 Phoenix, Lisztomania
04 Phoenix, 1901
03 The Horrors, Sea Within A Sea
02 Sunset Rubdown, Apollo And The Buffalo And Anna Anna Anna Oh!
01 LISTEN Dead Man's Bones My Body's A Zombie For You

Agreed, Brandon.

Just one thing.

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 OF 09

Dead Man's Bones
Dead Man's Bones

The story goes that Ryan Gosling was dating Rachel McAdams, his co-star in The Notebook, and in 2005 Zach Shields was dating her sister. Gosling and Shields had little choice but to spend time together. It was awkward. Then they discovered that they shared an obsession with ghosts in general and Disneyland's Haunted Mansion in particular.

That was as much as I knew when I watched this:

Admission that will rankle B.T., my senior partner at Oldguy:

I have no use for Christmas music. I listen to the radio exactly as much in December as the other months - no more often than I rent a car. If I went the rest of my life without hearing another holiday song, it's not that I wouldn't be missing anything. It's that I feel my life would be better.

Except that I have always loved the Monster Mash.

I bought Dead Man's Bones before the video ended.

Gosling and Shields somehow decided to stage a ghost-themed musical. They always planned to have kids involved. Gosling would later tell Pitchfork that he prefers high school plays to Broadway shows:

[T]here's just something about a high school play ... you're not distracted by the achievements, you get to watch the process, the will to make something.

Do I take the guy seriously?

Did I mention that neither he nor Shields played many of the necessary instruments when they first conceived of the project? No piano, no drums? That even as the idea of staging the songs faded, they spent two years learning how to do what you now hear? That when they finally recorded it, they limited themselves to no more than three tries at any part?

That I genuinely believe this is the best piece of music I heard all year?

Not adjusted for context.

Not corrected for who made it under what absurd circumstances, nor for the fact that they were working with actual children, which - even if culled from Flea's school for the undeaf - necessarily complicates things.

Just best.

I have yet to write a track-by-track rundown of any album in the TOP 09, maybe because I was waiting or maybe because my approach to this enterprise has changed.

( Nor have I calculated formal REVIEW$; those are something slightly different by design. )

I love writing this blog - you must know that - but this year I found that what I love best is writing it with a few of you.

Maybe you find the BEAT ON THE BRAT feature silly or disjointed. It is sometimes. I do nothing to coordinate the effort beyond asking the Kids to react however they will to the songs. Sometimes they seem to be talking to each other about the same thing, sometimes past each other or about different things. I love every permutation - and I also loved the first battle on THE SENATE FLOOR, and look forward to making those battles a regular feature in the year ahead.

( Albeit minus one useless participant. I asked Greg if he was ready to battle again, and he expressed an intention to go out on top, hang up his gear after being named the winner of TSF#1. )

(( So Greg loses. Lifetime record: 0-1. ))

((( Congratulations, Senator. )))

(((( Who's next? ))))

This is my new favorite shit.

Hate it if you do, but it stays.

I asked Kids A and B for reactions to My Body's A Zombie For You; BotB#7 is part of the track-by-track below.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Intro

Spoken word, not usually my thing. But the narrator is well cast, and opening line

My suitcase is packed with all your heartbeats.

has a little something going for it.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Dead Hearts

Gosling's opening lines have something going, too:

I won't go whistlin' by your grave
if you don't go whistlin' by mine

At 1:50, when glass breaks for the first time and the friendly ghosts come in with their chorus of ohhhs, I still crack a little smile.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones In The Room Where You Sleep

Initially disappointed because I loved the video version. But by the fifth or tenth play that crazy organ becomes the best part of the song; rewatching the video now, I miss it.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Buried In Water

Also not usually my thing: piano ballads this slow. But giving the kids a starring role saves the track immediately, and Gosling's opening lines mark the first instance of what I will call his quirky use of language ...

down
under the ground
there's a town there
I've been down there

... varied rhyme schemes, funny frasing in the form of almost parenthetical details like, say, I've been down there. I get off on all of the above. More below.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones My Body's A Zombie For You

I fibbed a few days ago when I wrote that only the top track on my of the '00s list was decided. Z-O-M-B-I-E is right behind it. This is 4:31 of everything I love about music; that's as personal a truth as I have.

Carla and Helen - Kids - whatever you come up with in response to any BotB prompt, I will always be proud to share this space with you.

In that direction, Carla wins BotB#6 by baffling me with if Sublime met the '70s. All square, 2-2.

- - - - - -

BEAT ON THE BRAT #7: Dead Man's Bones, My Body's A Zombie For You

CARLA E sez:

At first it sounded '50s-ish, but this song has a different, sadder, feel. Haunting is also a good word, beauty, at times creepy, but really, sadness.

HELEN HANDBASKET sez:

The tongue-in-cheek nod to goth rock reminds me of everything I hate about happy mediums, but I'm making an exception for these guys.

- - - - - -

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Pa Pa Power

By now I have only one defense remaining: I could dismiss the best of Dead Man's Bones so far as utter fluke. To me that means that the key lyrics on the album are these, each sung by the children, each repeated several times:

please make me better

we won't destroy you, no we will not destroy you

No tuff ghosts, them. Either you will find the sweetness cloying or you will eventually concede that Ryan Gosling made a great album.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Young & Tragic

The kids get the whole song. They more than deserved it.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Paper Ships

More of the '50s sound Carla heard on Z-O-M-B-I-E. Another admission: I love that. The originals of the first three tracks on 2005's Stubbs The Zombie soundtrack are three of my all-time favorites: Lollipop, My Boyfriend's Back, Earth Angel. This year's random Contest winner gets 50 Buddy Holly songs.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Lose Your Soul

Might have been my favorite track of the year if not for three others I liked better on this album. Handclaps, more Monster Mash vocals, the children put to their best use - and all before that crashing bells-and-cymbals middle section.

I really struggled with the TOP 09 ( tracks ) OF 09, incidentally. This was a very deep year for great songs.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Werewolf Heart

More spoken word, still not my thing, still well cast, still with something going for it in the writing. Also: maybe Gosling's best opening line:

you'd look nice in the grave

Also: some of the most stirring music on the album, in the sound of running, forever, towards dawn.

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Dead Man's Bones

At this point Gosling is having so much fun, he may as well be one of the kids.

Which is why I have no choice but to kill him.

I mean, the fucking guy can be Oscar-nominated, all but give up acting to make my favorite album of 2009, yet meanwhile star in the criminally overlooked Lars And The Real Girl with the obscenely hot Kelli Garner - you know, while he was still dating McAdams - really, how much is too much?

A few weeks ago Helen wrote this better than I can:

Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend. What the hell, man? This twerp gets to be all Ivy League and shit AND cute AND the talented lead singer in a good band? Die. There's got to be a flaw.

Her hope for Koenig: herpes. And we agree: Gosling is worse. What I wrote about my opinions of self not surviving a Jay Reatard goes double for him.

Quite separately, I like hearing bands' eponymous songs. Regardless of whether the song or the band's name came first, this is how we see ourselves is a special kind of warranty.

( Favorite example: Flake Music's The Shins, which they liked enough to rename themselves. )

(( Note: They included three untitled tracks on When You Land Here, It's Time To Return, and have paid a price forever in the mislabeling of the songs nearly everywhere. Not a problem for our Contest winner; I make no mistakes. But the rest of you want the song with the wheels are off the track chorus. ))

LISTEN Dead Man's Bones Flowers Grow Out Of My Grave

The funniest of Gosling's almost-parentheticals ...

I was floating
above my bed
like a body
in a river
in a car

... then a nearly cheerful outro from a choir of dead children.

Two years ago I wrote that Maximo Park melts my ears, brain, heart and all the rest of it. In 2009, when I had to work to get into Quicken The Heart, I only melted for Dead Man's Bones. It happened again and again, every listen, and always in the same places.

When I think about you - and I mean you, readers - flowers grow out of my grave.

Thank you to the girl, my most devoted reader, without whose better judgment these posts would be even longer.

Thank you to Bruce, who still cares enough to have submitted the year's most entertaining entry in our Contest - compleat with preface.

Thank you to Stu, who kept several of the rest of us ( and especially me ) laughing these last two months.

Bigger thank you to Carla and Helen, who agreed to play along when I pitched them on BotB in November, and who are both on board for another year.

( Mind you, I have not confirmed that with either of them. )

Biggest thank you to all who read, whether only for the last ten days or only today or whenever. I hope you found something new to listen to and love.

But even if not, how about giving me another chance?

If nothing else you know you will never be distracted by the achievements. You get to watch the process, the will to make something.

One X and one O to each of you.

Jn.

FROM A MESS TO THE MASSES.

2010-01-30T22:43:00.377-05:00

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 OF 09

Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Let me guess that you spend less time reading music blogs than I do. Even so, odds are good that you heard as many remixes of songs on Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix in 2009 as there were songs on the album in the first place.

Wolfgang... = 10 tracks. Nine if you count the two seamless parts of Love Like A Sunset as one.

I'd estimate I've listened through more than two dozen remixes - and that only begins to tell you how much time I wasted. To really get it you'd have to ask how many of them improved on the plain old album versions.

I could tell you without estimating.

There was no improving on anything here.

( Not on the sound, anyway. The vision got this ...

... which became sadly perfect when John Hughes died in August.

UPDATE via Brooklyn and San Francisco, two extra special fuck yous to the lords of copyright. )

By now to the masses is exactly right. There isn't much I could write about Phoenix that the band's ubiquity hasn't already told you. Only:

1.

These guys are legendary perfectionists in the studio. The album before this one, It's Never Been Like That, introduced a shambling Strokes-like looseness that somehow sounded fussed over, as if they'd spent a month making it sound like they dashed it off in an afternoon.

This gets pretty meta.

Last album: sounds like they made it sound like they only played each song once.

This album: sounds like they did only play each song once - perfectly.

I can only imagine how long the second of those took. I edit these posts word by word, not sentence by sentence, making careful changes even to the long-ago posts I link to. The idea is always to make the writing sound like this was easy for me. But no part ever sounds as easy as Wolfgang... does from front to back. To the masses is right, but from a mess is impossible to hear.

2.

About that ubiquity. Phoenix didn't only do the best studio work of any artist with a 2009 release ( and, yes, much better technical work than the one coming tomorrow ). They also did the best work in late-night. Hot stabs at 1901 on Conan and Letterman. Girlfriend on Ferguson. Lisztomania on Fallon and Kimmel. Lisztomania and 1901 on SNL. They sounded better everywhere than most bands do anywhere.

3.

On top of everything else they had the bravade to split the album near its middle with 7:36 of Love Like A Sunset electro jam - the first 6:13 of which is wordless. Maybe the memory is going, but I can't think of another album with remotely comparable pop appeal that went that way. Not that this particular band taking the detour is a huge surprise. Trivia: Guitarist Laurent Brancowitz ( né Mazzalai ) played briefly in a three-man called Darlin'. Now Branco plays with his brother in Phoenix; the other two Darlin's are Daft Punk.

All he wrote.

The girl and I live in Ithaca now, after first visiting last March so she could attend an open house weekend at Cornell. I did a lot of driving that weekend in a rental car with satellite radio but no MP3 jack, mostly frustrated that other people were picking the songs for me. I hate that. I've hated it my whole life, from the Top 5 at 9 on Q105 in Tampa on. The only songs I remember being unbegrudgingly happy to hear that weekend were Dragon Queen, Coast Of Carolina, 1901 and Lisztomania.

The middle two have since become car commercials.

I like those commercials.

LISTEN Phoenix 1901

Jn.

COME ON, COME ON, COME ON, COME ON AND LAUGH WITH ME.

2010-01-29T22:30:00.446-05:00

If you like your singers more than a little damaged, you had two new alternatives to Jay Reatard in 2009.

Fighting out of the blue corner ...

Nathan Williams - Wavves - released his first album in 9/2008 ( Wavves, left ) and his second in 2/2009 ( Wavvves, right, totally different ). At his best Williams is undeniable. At his worst he came on stage possibly hopped-up at Primavera Sound in May, soundchecked forever, mixed it up with an antagonistic crowd, played a few songs badly and then ( after his drummer dumped a beer on his head and eventually quit mid-set ) cancelled the rest of his European tour.

The blogosphere's reaction was immediate and indignant, because we are all apparently pussies now. The same behavior that MADE punk in the first place is too unseemly. I forget - does this mean we never liked Wavves anyway?

I note that the s/t debut was GvsB's No. 07 favorite album of 2008 ...

I can't get enough of Wavves' radical "lo-fi beach punk." Listening to Nathan Williams' noisy, fuzzy, endlessly hummable melodies as they hiss out of my barely serviceable tape deck fills me with an inescapable urge to move back to Southern California immediately.

... but the superior followup was not among 25 favorite albums of 2009. This, however, still does it for me.

( As does this. )

Fighting out of the pink corner ...

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 OF 09

Girls
Album

Christopher Owens - Girls - released only one Album, but he grew up in a cult.

Then again, who knows exactly what that means?

My favorite cult of 2009 was Strong City. Leader Wayne Bent / Michael Travesser is in prison now, but even when he was free he was never really free. Watch his son Jeff describe how God forced Michael to consummate with Jeff's wife - and stick around for Michael's reenactment:

All I could do was groan. All I could do was kinda rock.

But the children of Strong City will not be making any albums - or DVD movies - anytime soon. Owens grew up in Children of God ( now the Family International ), which is better about giving its young over to the entertainment world. River and Joaquin Phoenix. Rose McGowan.

Still, when Album leads with the lyrics ...

oh I wish I had a boyfriend
I wish I had a loving man in my life
I wish I had a father
maybe then I woulda turned out right
but now I'm just crazy
I'm totally mad
yeah I'm just crazy
I'm fucked in the head

... dude may really, really mean it.

Even without knowing the backstory you'd probably find something ... off ... here. The sentiments expressed are mostly sweet, handholding ones, but the delivery is whacked. Never mind that Owens is exactly equal parts Elvis Costello and Tiny Tim; lines like I really wanna be your friend forever are always followed by lines like friend until the end of it all. There's a desperate urgency to Album that probably could not have come from anyone else I listen to. Still not certain how I feel about it; I know I love these songs and know that when I sing along I feel like I need a shower right after.

Full disclosure: That uncertainty is only compounded by how much I love the NSFW edit of the Lust For Life video.

I am apparently comfortable writing that gay porn images ( to say nothing of boobs ) consistently improve music for me. That was true when I linked to the cover art of Liars' It Fit When I Was A Kid single at the end of 2006, and it remains true at the beginning of 2010.

Of course, you could take the backstory and the video and the fact that track 5, Big Bad Mean Mother Fucker, might not survive a copyright challenge from the writers of Greased Lightnin', and you could dismiss the whole project as a series of gimmicks. That might leave you feeling cleaner, and it might even be easy.

But sometimes mucking through feelings that seem opposed to one another is healthy. Sometimes working out how you feel about a thing -

( Album, or, you know )

(( gay porn ))

((( or gay marriage )))

(((( or whatever gets you personally feeling two ways at once ))))

- that process of challenging yourself, giving private voice to both feelings until one fades away to leave the other - to me that process is a good part of what appreciating music or any other art form is about. And goddamn if it isn't easier when the work that challenges you just happens to come with the warmest, most soaring melodies of the year.

Whatever Owens may have gone through as a Child of God, whatever he may be going through now as a reported pill junkie, whatever you think of anything I've written above ( or of any of the things I've written about ), really, I defy you not to love some song or other on Album. Scroll back up to the video; close your eyes if you have to. Or, here:

LISTEN Girls Hellhole Ratrace

Jn.

DANCE 'TIL YOU'RE DEAD.

2010-01-28T23:05:00.481-05:00

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 OF 09

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It's Blitz!

Hope I'm wrong about this, but I have a loooooong history of being right about everything.

Yuk, yuk.

Hope I'm wrong, but I think YYYs are in trouble. Listen through It's Blitz! and you'll hear great work - but you may not hear a couple of other things.

Yesterday I wrote that rock is [1] guitar, bass, drums.

Not always.

The White Stripes have ( had? ) only four hands between them, so no bass. They more than get by because Jack is so proficient ( even when faking the bass itself ) that Meg's cavewoman pounding couldn't hold him back any more than anything else could.

The Yeahs have six hands, but two of them are busy enough with fingerwagging, etc. to be useless for these purposes. ( And I ain't hatin' on Karen O. ) (( Would not, ever. ))

So they make their racket the same way the Stripes do. No bass usually, but four skilled hands. Nick Zinner is one of the generation's most distinctive guitarists, Brian Chase one of its most distinguished drummers. Those two are puh-lenty of band.

Or used to be.

It's Blitz! was preceded by the following video. Please watch.

WATCH Yeah Yeah Yeahs Zero

The synthetic sounds leading off? The delayed introduction of drums and guitar, and the fact that both stay down in the mix with the keyboards? The boys disappearing until 2:40?

Not accidents.

Ten months later I cannot get over how few times Zinner and Chase get to turn their instruments loose through the whole album. Granted, KO is one of the most compelling personas in the world, and that is hardly a fault. But when she led off the last release, Is Is, with

tell me what rockers to swallow

baby, I thought it was rhetorical. Never woulda guessed you'd make a meal of your own band. Zinner gets credit in the It's Blitz! liner notes for playing guitars, KEYBOARDS, DRUM MACHINE, bass. Emphasis added, but can you blame me?

I dunno. Maybe the boys are still happy. Maybe Zinner likes playing with the new toys. Maybe Chase can hear the hurt he put on his kit beginning at 1:56 of album closer Little Shadow, and doesn't mind the shoes-in-the-dryer treatment he got throughout the final mix.

So YYYs made what is essentially a dance record. So KO emerges as the new flesh-and-blood Madonna ( as opposed to Lady Gaga, the android version ), and the boys are somewhat marginalized. Maybe they're still happy. Kinda sux even so.

And the bigger problem is this: KO is not wrong.

She isn't wrong to force her vision on the band if that's what happened here. She isn't wrong to think the dancefloor might be the best place for her. She isn't wrong to think this is her best album yet.

It's Blitz! is an even more perfect embodiment of what I wrote about Show Your Bones in the TOP 06 OF 06:

You hear this set and think you hear Karen O prowling, moving the way she does on stage, filling every inch of the room around her.

If that sentence did nothing for you back when, watch the Zero video again. That sequence from 2:10 to 2:35? That was what I meant.

That she isn't wrong is not only the bigger problem here - it's the biggest possible one. It's Blitz! = nine great songs. If the Yeahs turn back now it'll be at her expense. If they don't it may be at the boys'. Someone loses either way unless I'm just wrong and everyone is content. I say again: I hope I am wrong. I love this set.

But KO may finally be too awesome for her own good.

( Aside: Her dad is or was Polish, mom Korean. Is it me, or is the former leaving her looks? With each release she becomes even more of what I think of as girl; now her genes seem to be refining themselves in that direction. Zero was the first time I ever looked at her and thought, right, that's why she has the good hair. )

(( And also thought: ))

((( Get your leather, leather, leather on. )))

You notice I said nine great songs? Hate to be Zinner or Chase, trying to restore democracy the next time around. KO can say definitively that the only time It's Blitz! didn't make it was when she took cues from someone else - and can say it without worrying about their feelings, because she wasn't taking the cues from them.

TV On The Radio's Dave Sitek co-produced the set. The loser here is Shame And Fortune, which may have sounded familiar to you the first time through - it's basically a TVOTR song with KO singing. Better than a YYYs song without, but still. Up against Heads Will Roll and Dragon Queen, TVOTR sounds like one suck band.

Just hope the lyric that gave this post its heading won't prove prophetic.

Jn.

WHOA TANGERINA I WANNA GO HOME.

2010-01-27T18:02:00.814-05:00

M E M O R A N D U M

TO: Bruce Taylor
FROM: Jack Shiverbrains
DATE: January 27, 2010
RE: "Death" of Rock and Roll

QUESTION PRESENTED

Given that "[t]oday popular music largely falls into four camps: dancers, rappers, samplers and lyrical masturbators desperate for a hint of approval from Pitchfork," is rock dead?

SHORT ANSWER

No.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

On Monday, January 25, you complained of having gotten only "5.5 f-ing hours of sleep" after reading 50,000 words about Michael Jackson and Jay Reatard over the weekend. You then stated:

For all the gnashing of teeth over the death of Michael Jackson, it should be noted that he is responsible for the death of rock and roll.

Starting with him, appearance became paramount and music became an afterthought. Today popular music largely falls into four camps: dancers, rappers, samplers and lyrical masturbators desperate for a hint of approval from Pitchfork.

Rock is dead. Long live rock.

Also relevant: I had no better ideas today.

DISCUSSION

Admitted: TLG's various TOP 0Xs have included no shortage of dancers, rappers, samplers and lyrical masturbators. But death is a permanent cessation of all vital functions. In order to prove that rock is not dead, therefore, one need only demonstrate that (a) any of its vital functions have not ceased; or (b) though all of its vital functions have ceased, they have not ceased permanently.

There are obvious difficulties with this sort of analysis. The cited definition of death would apply far more neatly to a single living organism, which, once dead, could not be made to live again. The very concepts of life and death change when one considers inanimate things like rock and romance and Andy Rooney. In fact, the permanence element of the cited definition makes it impossible to prove that rock is dead - unless it gets to be so dead that it could never be revived.

The following thus concerns itself only with whether rock is dead temporarily - i.e., whether its vital functions have ceased for now. Here again, however, the cited definition would apply more neatly to something else. What, after all, are rock's vital functions?

Luckily there is a better question than that last one. As this memorandum seeks only to establish that rock is not all dead at the moment, we can avoid tedious consideration of its vital functions by asking instead, most generally, what rock is like when alive. Describe the thing; find one living example that fits the description; you lose.

What is rock?

In 25 links:

Rock is [1] guitar, bass, drums. No horns or strings. If rock wants more noise it will get it from feedback or a layer of fuzz. Perhaps [2] a flute and backing vox from [3] a girl. Rock is less [4] this than [5] this.

[6] Your own approach works fine for purposes of describing rock. The song titles tell the story well enough:

Enemy Destruct
Ruby Go Home
Meat Step Lively
A Flag In The Court
The Turn Around
Can You See?
Rainbow
Go Meet The Seed
I Can't Get No
Soda St. #1
Destroyed Fortress Reappears
Peanut Butter Oven

( If any of my readers is estopped from complaining about the lengths of these posts, incidentally ... )

Rock does not own [7] an airplane or [8] a spaceship; it travels by [9] van and does not bathe every day. It drinks [10] a lot, preferably [11] too much. It may vomit. It plays shows with others who drink a lot. They may vomit together.

Rock collaborates. It adds and loses band members. It changes labels or has different releases on [12] different ones at [13] the same time. In its various combinations and on its various labels rock is prolific - but the core of its sound does not change. It may use more flute, but no horns or strings. If it is alive at all, rock releases two full-lengths, six singles ( three split with friends, including one with tourmate [14] Jay Reatard ) and a collection of demos in 2009.

Rock exists for the same reason as porn: so [15] ugly men can [16] get laid. Rock is [17] groupies, and hopefully ( for rock's sake ) not ones with [18] chipped toenail polish. According to one of our female associates, "girls with chipped toenail polish = probably have [19] a disgusting vagina. Good rule of thumb."

Rock wears [20] T-shirts or [21] button-ups and eats its microphone. Rock does not use [22] hairspray - [23] ever - unless it is actually [24] dressed as a woman. In addition to its sex, rock may have changed its name once or twice, preferably by adding letters to a series of homophones.

Finally, although you may not be correct that appearance is quite paramount, rock is sound and vision. It sees itself a certain way. Granted, it may be hallucinating gently, and may therefore write lyrics like

HEY TAMBOURINE
WHAT'S THAT YOU'RE SAYING?
WHOA TANGERINA I WANNA GO HOME

ALWAYS IN CAPS NEVER WITH COMMAS. Rock is [25] a tickbird on a badass kudu. Or, you know. A purple bat and a wiggly rainbow.

CONCLUSION

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 OF 09

~~OCS~~ ~~The Ohsees~~ Thee Oh Sees
Help

LISTEN Thee Oh Sees Ruby Go Home

Jn.

ISAIAH FOUGHT BUT WAS EASILY BESTED.

2010-01-26T21:51:00.584-05:00

Remember the heading above, listen to the tracks below and we'll call it a day.

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 ( tracks ) OF 09

09 LISTEN Animal Collective Happy In Space
08 LISTEN Arctic Monkeys Cornerstone
07 WATCH Grizzly Bear Two Weeks
06 LISTEN The Decemberists The Rake's Song
05 LISTEN Phoenix Lisztomania
04 LISTEN Phoenix 1901
03 LISTEN The Horrors Sea Within A Sea
02 LISTEN Sunset Rubdown Apollo And The Buffalo And Anna Anna Anna Oh!
01 ____ ___'_ _____ __ ____'_ _ ______ ___ ___

( Did I say eventually? I meant to say eventually. )

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 OF 09

The Decemberists
The Hazards Of Love

Two albums included in the TOP 09 have me worried for the bands that made them. This is the first, but I worry less about The Decemberists than the band coming Thursday - for the best possible reason. Eventually in 2010 I will name my TOP 10 artists, albums and tracks of the '00s. Nothing after the top track is quite decided, but I will surprise myself if this is not the top artist.

THAT : LATER

NOW : THIS

Why worry at all?

Colin Meloy was as consistent as Britt Daniel in the decade past, but differently. Play Girls Can Tell, Kill The Moonlight, Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga on shuffle ( whether individually or all together ) and you do little damage to any of them. But shuffle Castaways And Cutouts, Her Majesty The Decemberists, Picaresque, The Crane Wife and The Hazards Of Love and you do more and more damage as you go.

The Crane Wife was almost a concept album. The Hazards Of Love is full-gone rock opera. Meloy keeps saying there are "basic issues" with presenting it as such, but it plays front-to-back like the soundtrack to a stage musical.

SHUFFLE
AND
DESTROY

I worry because, having zipped to the end of his album as themed work progression, Meloy now seems forced to choose between repeating himself and moving backwards. Granted, The Decemberists can continue to change musically; this album is equal parts folk and proto-metal, only one of which could really have been anticipated. But there is no other place to go with the storytelling. Tell a different story, yes. Tell more of one, no.

Then again, should Meloy return to writing mostly unconnected songs, almost no one writes them better. And, in any event, my worries are worries for the next record.

The plot of this one, spoiled:

Margaret tries to help a wounded fawn in the forest, but the fawn shifts shape into William. We learn that William was abandoned as a baby, and the queen of the forest saved him from danger and the world of men by giving him the fawn's form to inhabit. He and Margaret are cursed to love each other; the queen meets their love with reverse-Oedipal fury.

William bargains for one night as a man, after which he will remain the fawn forever. The queen agrees, but before night falls the rake whose backstory I linked above kidnaps Margaret on horseback. He rides away with her slung rude 'cross withers - I am not guessing; download the lyrics booklet under EXTRAS here - and the queen calms the river that divides her forest to ensure his escape.

When the waters rage again, William bargains with the river instead of his mother, agreeing to drown on his return if he may cross to save his love. He crosses; the rake is undone by the thing that never really bothered him before; William and Margaret exchange vows in the river, draw their last breaths, softly kiss.

Most remarkable:

Within the constraints of telling that story, Meloy produced The Rake's Song, unquestionably one of the perfectest pop songs of the year.

( First time I heard the line I used as this post's heading, I spit Diet Sunkist on myself. )

(( It stains. ))

How hard was that?

Say a crazy person tried to write about an album in two dozen linked haiku. The microscopic-scale equivalent of The Rake's Song would be writing a genuinely great five-seven-five among them. There isn't one here.

Actually, maybe you can question the perfection of The Rake's Song - if you happen to be Carson Ellis, who does all of The Decemberists' artwork and is also Meloy's wife.

From an interview in The Big Takeover Issue 64:

JACK RABID: I thought The Island, The Shankill Butchers, and going back to your original tale of infanticide, Leslie Anne Levine, were pretty dark humored ones. But this one, The Rake - oh my God! I've rarely felt stranger laughing out loud in my life!

COLIN MELOY: It was interesting, having written it, and then playing it for Carson and it was the only time she'd been appalled by a song ...

But none of the rest of you delivered Meloy's son Hank.

EVENTUALLY : NOW

Feed yourselves, text "HAITI" to 90999, and then subscribe to The Big Takeover or you are not my friend.

Jn.

RÉSUMÉ IS STRAIGHT-UP LIVE.

2010-01-25T22:51:00.310-05:00

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 OF 09

Raekwon
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx ... Pt. II

Rap has rarely merited a mention since I wrote this about the state of the art as part of the TOP 06 OF 06 - and see if you spot a pattern here:

In September 2007 I ran down something called the Umbrella Corporation that had opened for Voxtrot at Summer Jam 3 in Tampa. Still an all-time blog highlight, but not because the Umbrella Corporation - that bunch of monsters - has yet succeeded in taking over the city, then the world.

In January 2008 I gave Gang Starr's Step In The Arena my second-ever Peerage tag.

In January 2009 I wrote that "the best rap album I heard [in 2008], in a second straight pisspoor year, was The Renaissance ( Q-Tip )."

In November 2009 I put my money where my tag was, confirming Step In The Arena's Peerage status with an $83.18 review.

Two days later I had Kids A and B do their thing to MC Lyte's Cappucino in BotB#2.

Then last week I had Greg and the Senator battle to D-Nice's Call Me D-Nice in TSF#1.

Pattern:

Step In The Arena: 1991

Q-Tip: best work, 1991

Cappucino: 1989

Call Me D-Nice: 1990

Every positive mention for three years goes back to the same place. Now the first great rap album in that time is the sequel to one from 1995 - a sequel that most definitely does not sound like it comes 14 years after the original. Granted, OB4CL2 is brilliant. But how is this not a problem for the genre?

Says Pitchfork:

At a time when many critics have mistaken hip-hop's state of creative flux for the genre's final flatline, it seems simultaneously fitting and frustrating that a sequel to a 14-year-old album is one of the few things everyone can come close to agreeing upon. The long-awaited successor to Raekwon's groundbreaking solo debut doesn't push the art of hip-hop any further outside the boundaries of classic 1990s East Coast lyricism or production - in fact, it doesn't point the way to an exciting new future or direction for the genre much at all. It's an album for people who are comfortable with the way rap sounded in the mid-'90s ...

Whether Rae ... and the rest of the album's star-studded cast represent a bygone era or not becomes irrelevant once the atmosphere sinks in: this is one of those records where everyone seems hellbent on proving why they're still here and why they still matter.

Says me:

Amen, kind of. I reproduced that instead of writing my own because it says everything I would have - about this album. But the parts about how this is not the genre's end, and whether "bygone" is accurate or not is irrelevant? Know what might be nice?

Any supporting evidence at all.

Know what else might be nice?

If any of these rappers actually wanted to rap.

I mean, I'm not complaining that my old favorites have disappeared. Old has become the more prominent word for a lot of them. Kool Moe Dee was born in 1962.

And I'm not complaining that LL Cool J and Ices Cube and T ( and Will Smith, lest we forget ) decided they just wanted to act.

I'm not even complaining that Jay-Z took his mid-decade holiday and came back sounding like all he wants is to be rich enough to purchase New York.

But next week Lil Wayne will follow up Tha Carter III with a "rock" album Rolling Stone just said "sounds like he's been holing up with a bunch of Spymob and Incubus records." And none other than Ghostface Killah - the all-timer whose album prompted me to write about rap in the TOP 06 OF 06 in the first place - released an R&B album in 2009.

Is there no satisfaction in being great at a thing anymore?

Luckily we haven't lost Ghost, the man in the background who pushed to the fore of the original OB4CL, as he proves repeatedly on OB4CL2. There was no uglier or more evocative lyric all year - not from a rapper, or Andy Falkous, or anyone else - than the one that opens Ghost's verse on Cold Outside ...

they found a two-year-old strangled to death
with a Love Daddy shirt on
in a bag on the top of the steps

... and he gives it such a matter-of-fact delivery that it comes off as immeasurably easier to say than to hear. Few performers in history can match Ghost without breaking a sweat, and when he breaks one - as on album standout 10 Bricks, beginning at 2:09 here - rap can seem instantly revitalized.

Given that he did his work here while in the process of turning away from the genre, however, for once I refuse to give Ghost much credit. This is Raekwon's show.

The original OB4CL makes regular appearances on lists of the best rap albums ever, not infrequently topping them. Putting the name on anything else was a gamble, and a needless one at that, but Rae turns out to have known exactly what he was doing.

He got every "living" Wu-Tang member to participate ( U-God was "killed" in the early action of the original album; Ol' Dirty Bastard, movingly eulogized on the sequel, died without quotation marks in 2004 ), and seems to have held out for every legendary producer - living or not - who could do the Wu sound. Four years after J Dilla's death, it remains a treat to hear his work on House Of Flying Daggers, Ason Jones ( the ODB eulogy ) and 10 Bricks.

But there is only one Chef in this Cube Linx kitchen, and his quality control shames that of every rapper who spent the last decade filling CDs with the whole 80 minutes they could hold. Rae coaxed first-rate work out of everyone - and, still, the best performances here are his own.

WATCH Raekwon House Of Flying Daggers

The Wu has always been more about poetry than rhyme, and you hear that in the breathlessness of Rae even when his words do happen to share sounds:

fly criteria
( breath )
bury me in Africa
with whips and spears
and rough diamonds out of Syria

He excels at a craft; he works at it. Sometimes the work is hard, but HE WORKS AT IT - more than can be said of many too many MCs of late.

Promise: I will stop worrying about the genre when we start getting a Fishscale or OB4CL2 more than once every three years.

Jn.

I'M REALLY TRYING.

2010-01-24T22:38:00.092-05:00

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 OF 09

The Rural Alberta Advantage
Hometowns

I always wanted
to do a post in haiku,
counting syllables

and since I ran long
yesterday, today seems right
for five-seven-five

I praised this album
the day the girl and I saw
The RAA live

now, in retrospect,
it almost looks like I was
planning on haiku

after talking up
the show and all-world drummer
Paul Banwatt, I wrote:

Hometowns, here, right now.
Or wait until December;
this one is TOP 09

of course, December
became January, and
in all honesty

I was not only
never ahead on this band
I was way behind

Hometowns had dropped in
2008, but into
deep obscurity

my copy is the
rerelease on Saddle Creek
from 2009

ironic under
the circumstances: this is
no kind of grower

anyone who loves
Hometowns loved The RAA
immediately

part of the reason
is that the album has a
sonic first cousin

granted, once removed:
In The Aeroplane Over
The Sea, which, I know,

is damning the thing
with loud praise, because some sounds
are all the two share

Jeff Mangum, there, did
the best work of his life with
elliptical words

( or were lyrics like
semen stains the mountaintops
meant literally? )

Nils Edenloff, here,
treads the same straight heartward path
over and over

from the opening
Ballad's insistence that bad
will pass, good will last

to promises made
beneath tons of crumbled rock
in Frank, Alberta

one message pervades:
however far away from
home and those they love

in heartache, even
in tragedy, people do
make it through the night

LISTEN The Rural
Alberta Advantage Drain
The Blood - and please blame

the rough parts on the
degree of difficulty
I was facing here

Jn.

THE ONLY THING YOU REMEMBER IS YOU ONLY WHISPER TO ME.

2010-01-23T21:14:00.898-05:00

Maybe by many, maybe by a few, but there are more of you this year. Welcome. By design the TOP 09 OF 09 is a celebration of all that was good in music last year - and, hell, let's make yesterday's post an official part of the fun and call it a celebration of all that was good at this blog, too. But before the celebration ...

I have a couple of things to say. Ask B.T.; you may be here a while.

The album of the year - and this was not close - was Thriller. After kind of a rough June, Michael Jackson sold so much music in the third and fourth quarters that for many weeks Rolling Stone split its sales charts to distinguish between new releases and a category that may as well have been labeled Michael. None of us has seen anything like it - not from an industry that only declines.

One death drove 6.8 billion people back to The Jackson 5, Off The Wall, Bad, even Dangerous - but nothing compares to Thriller. Nothing ever will. Seven of the album's nine tracks were released as singles ( originally, not in 2009 ); all seven reached Billboard's top 10. Make just two more cuts and I'll take Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', the title track, Beat It, Billie Jean and P.Y.T. against your five tracks off of any release ever. Don't spend much time thinking about this. You can't win.

But Michael's story is not Thriller, nor any of the other records. The legacy never ended with the music. I will not make a cartoon of what follows, but I want to write about it quickly:

Michael's story is the story of fame in this country and this world. It's the story of one man and billions more reaching the deep end together, simultaneously, and only then remembering that no one had shown them how to swim. Please do not skip the next few paragraphs. I have no interest in knowing what eventually did or did not happen in Michael's bed in Michael's locked bedroom. This is not that.

But he missed his bet.

Here was one of the first real Bell Jar lives, a life that first hit No. 1 in 1969 - weeks after Michael turned 11. I doubt I could teach you five things about him, but did you know he was awarded United States Patent 5,255,452 - described for all time as METHOD AND MEANS FOR CREATING ANTI-GRAVITY ILLUSION? The lean in Smooth Criminal. By all accounts he was one of the savviest professionals in any field.

And yet he was a disaster - and I doubt I could teach you much about that, either. Whatever the mix of self-loathing and wealth that can drive an ordinary society lady to repeated and repeated cosmetic surgical procedures, Michael had a lot more of both. It is not possible to look at pictures of his nose through the years without seeing some of the hurt in his eyes. It should not be possible to look at those pictures without cringing.

How could anyone just keep doing that to himself?

Knowing you have a problem is not the same as knowing how to solve it. I suspect the truth in that sentence hounded Michael always. Every school-aged boy with a big smile likes to mug for a camera sometimes; everyone who can sing thrills at the occasional crowd. Michael seems to have oscillated between mugging and shying away for nearly 50 years - without ever being really comfortable doing either.

By the time of his White House visit in 1984 Michael had already started to cultivate an image of himself as ... eccentric ... I suppose is the best word ... though I have no idea how he would have described it. The photographs from that visit - just say I cannot possibly be the only person among us who still finds this jarring:

The military costume by Disney On Ice. The glove. And he only got weirder.

There's no good reason for any of us to have known that Michael had a pet chimpanzee, let alone to have known the chimp by name or by exploits. But Michael ( almost certainly in conjunction with his "people" ) welcomed the attention he continued to draw. He wasn't creepy in the '80s - just daft. He had more money than anyone could spend, except that while that would have been true of any comparably wealthy person, Michael found ways to spend it. In 1989 any kid ( and any parent ) would have leapt at a chance to visit Neverland. End of story; no punchline. The first public accusations came in 1993.

But before then it was clear that Michael had no more idea of what to do with his fame than what to do with his money. He bought things. He posed for pictures with them. At the end of the day the gates to Neverland closed. He seemed to believe that would always be enough to keep him safe and normal, whatever normal meant to him.

He missed his bet not because of anything that happened behind the gates, but because of what happened outside them. Fame changed - forever, so far. Now there were pictures around the gates, through them, over them. When he went anywhere. When he didn't.

I'm not breaking any news when I write that people are interested in celebrities, but the interest is a lot harder-edged now than it was 50 years ago, even 25 years ago. It's meaner. Michael wasn't nearly tough enough to take it. The glove had been on the night he debuted the moonwalk, March 25, 1983. Most reports date his first nose job to the late '70s - but that one was hardly definitional. Look at the covers of Thriller ( 1982 ) and Bad ( 1987 ). Nose. Skin. Entertainment Tonight debuted in 1981. Mary Hart came on board in 1982. Just when Michael would have become daily news anyway, he was making himself a story almost as often.

And now here we are, and Michael is dead, and Entertainment Tonight is not a show but several whole networks ( and at least one show on all of the others ). I won't attempt an overview of the industry; I won't tell you what I think of Chelsea Handler or Joan Rivers or the fact that Lauren Conrad has a novel to sell before I do. I'll just say I think this ought to stop somewhere, and I worry that it won't.

And I'll bring it all back to music like this:

American Idol's Randy Jackson ( no relation ) told Larry King on the night Michael died: "We would always say, Michael Jackson's like one song away from a big huge comeback."

That's what I lost the moment I heard the news. Thriller was my favorite album from the time I was 7 - when I first saw the Beat It video on a channel I knew I wasn't supposed to watch, and it scared the living hell out of me - until just before I entered high school. I always hoped the accusations were false - and I say that also believing that Rock And Roll Part 2 should never be played in sports arenas, where it gets the very asses Gary Glitter would rape out of their seats - and I always, always believed Michael would make more music I would love. He did almost every time. I miss that belief.

But how I know what Randy Jackson thought, and how I came to see him on Larry King Live ...

Actually, that's nowhere near my favorite fame-meets-music story of 2009. Not even my favorite with roots in Idol.

You probably know that someone named Kris Allen won last season, because America is not at all comfortable with Adam Lambert's sexuality. Fuck what I know about what Randy Jackson thought of anyone, and fuck that I know who Lambert is. I also know this:

One of the founders of the band The Fray worked with Allen on his post-Idol album; they spent time in Timbaland's studio while Timbaland was out of town. Key detail: Timbaland was out of town. But per the guy from The Fray, "Timbaland's brother said if Timbaland was upstairs and he heard this melody, he'd walk in the studio and say, 'That's a melody.'"

Timbaland's brother.

Question: How far down the food chain do we have to go before "celebrity" is no longer "celebrity" and thus "newsworthy" - so I never read about it?

Answer: There is no answer. The world is sick. Maybe you thought Al Sharpton sounded like a lunatic at Michael's memorial - "Wasn't nothing strange about your daddy." - but I swear to God I believe Michael was as much symptom as disease.

Rest, Michael, finally. When I listen I will always know you only missed some of your bets.

... and that was the year I spent writing an opening to the TOP 09 OF 09.

Or, you know.

The first year.

I hope that soon a fit of brevity will overtake me, and we'll get through at least some of these posts without your eyes rolling back in your heads. Actually, maybe I shouldn't hope that. I've always dreamed ( in part ) (( it isn't the whole dream )) of writing something people would read on the toilet. Maybe I'll write nine such somethings now, and you can thank me for the regularity with which we're both doing our things.

Two quick detours now before the actual TOP 09. Two bands that failed to make the list, but the latest blogging stylebook confirms what you might have guessed - I cannot do this without mentioning them:

Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective; that order. Both are coming along, but the Collective and I have history. They deserve the last word.

Grzlly Brr

Veckatimest is not so much a sonic as a somnolent improvement. I've complained several times about Grizzly Bear putting me to sleep; they write pretty, they sing pretty, and I can't get through Yellow House, let alone Horn Of Plenty. I thought I saw something I could work with in Friend, but then they cluttered up Dark Was The Night by "contributing" an actual lullaby and thus lowered my defenses enough that when this hit me, it hurt.

Best way I can mark the progress:

Every time I revisit the first two albums, still, I nod off. But when the girl and I went to sleep listening to music in 2009 - I mean when we chose to, when we put something on as we bedded down - Veckatimest was the pick more than once. They still put me to sleep, but now they tuck me in. That's not nothing.

The Animals

Here's the problem: These guys are too fucking dumb to help themselves. I don't think this is much of a mystery; I blame genetics. Their parents were stupid people and now they, too, are stupid people.

It would not be hard to make a great Animal Collective album. Dipshits: Wait 18 solid months between releases. No intervening EPs. Then play all of your new recordings for a roomful of very small children. The ones they like are the keepers.

We've been through this before, you may recall. I kicked off the TOP 07 OF 07 by writing the following about Strawberry Jam and Person Pitch:

[I]f they'd released one disc, made a Collective best-of, there'd be little question not only that it belonged on this list but belonged at TOP 01.

For fuck's fucking sake, I like Animal Collective. I buy all of their stuff, intervening EPs included. But I still haven't heard a release from them that I like all the way through.

( By the way, Strawberry Jam may simply be their worst work of recent vintage - I'm not the only one who thinks so. Pitchfork's Top 200 Albums of the 2000s include: 09. Person Pitch; 14. Merriweather Post Pavilion; 27. Sung Tongs; 55. Feels; no Jam. I'd take a lot more satisfaction from this if my own favorites had done better in the polling, but, alas, 34 years old = not cool. )

OK, but Merriweather Post Pavilion gets me closer than ever before. You have the irrepressible My Girls - the song the girl has been calling Happy In Space for months, I gather because she thinks it sounds like being happy in outer space. You have the stevia-not-saccharine sweetness of Bluish. You have the makings of a very strong album. And then.

Apparent aside that will prove to be on point:

One source of fascination for me for going on 20 years now has been how long it takes singers to get through The Star-Spangled Banner at sporting events. Two minutes; three. A woman named Leezette Lopatic used to sing before Tampa Bay Lightning home games; she stretched damn near every syllable.

( Fond childhood memory: )

(( My dad calling her Sleazette Pathetic every time they announced her. ))

These amateurs treat every rendition as an audition - even though they already have the job. I mean, once you're in the arena ... puck about to drop ... spotlight on you standing on the ice in your sequins ... lady, the fucking gig is yours. Now sing the song already.

Which brings us back to Animal Collective. I said I haven't liked a release all the way through, but this one gets me closer. And then.

Lion In A Coma.

Track 9.

Didgeridoo - best you could do?

No band tried harder to sound like Animal Collective all year. Dickheads, you already had the job.

Enough.

I wrote about Michael, and as we move through the TOP 09 we'll double back to considering the nature of fame and the nature of talent. I hope. Never was too good at carrying a theme. I'll maybe pull this off like 30%, and you'll be bored a time or two along the way, but I'll be satisfied in the end. And if you cut through everything I've written here through the years, really, only one theme remains: It's all about me.

Michael. The grizz and other animals. Tomorrow we celebrate. Today I have one last bundle of misery to untie.

The Landed Gentry's TOP 09 OF 09

Jay Reatard
Watch Me Fall

I didn't know Jay Reatard, and frankly I hope I never meet anyone like him.

He was, by all but the most sanitized accounts, a mess. Last year the girl agreed with me that Matador Singles '08 was the best release of the year; she wrote of Jay:

Ugly, punches his fans in the face, but I don't judge the music on either of those facts.

Punches his fans in the face.

This year?

At Gonerfest 6 in late September he pissed on his bassist's back while the latter was fiddling with equipment in the middle of their set. All of the words in that last sentence are literal. There's remarkably clear video of the incident at YouTube. I won't link to it, but you're only keywords away.

On October 6 he posted this message via Twitter:

Band quit ! Fuck them ! They are boring rich kids who can't play for ahit anyways .. Say hello to your ugly and boring wifes opps I mean lifes guys suck it

There were, you will be shocked to learn, reports of drug use.

I was so taken with Matador Singles '08 that for ?mas 2008 and then my birthday last January ( I get a lot of combined gifts ) the girl tried to find a concert we could fly to. She finally gave up and bought me a 20 Years Of Merge Records subscription instead. Best gift I ever got - and since we probably only missed a gig at which Jay was no more than half recognizable ( and fucking joyless ) (( in the video he doesn't even seem happy to be pissing on the guy )), I don't regret the substitution at all.

Or didn't, anyway.

Jay died on January 13. Cause of death not yet disclosed. I submit only that neither friends nor family would typically discover a person dead in bed at 3:30 in the morning - at 29 years old - without having a reason to think such person might be, you know, dead in bed.

UPDATE via the Memphis Commercial Appeal, 2/3:

Autopsy results released ... in the death of Memphis musician Jay Reatard reveal that he died from "cocaine toxicity, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in his death," according to Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. Karen E. Chancellor.

And if I'm being honest, no part of the foregoing is why I hope never to meet a person like Jay.

Maybe you see this already in my tendency to link to ( and even quote ) my own posts. Maybe you see it in the fact that I think nothing of making you read nearly 3,000 words before I get to the day's album.

Whatever, you'd probably guess that I think highly of this blog. It's what I wanted it to be; it's mine. I make every aesthetic decision. My taste controls. My writing features. This is the best I can do.

From my perspective, it's plenty fucking good. It's the only true record I have of my last four years, the best product I can point to from my whole 34.

What did you ever do?

I did this - and I would prefer to maintain my opinions of myself and my work, thank you.

But Jay was 29 years old. He had already handed in nearly two dozen full-lengths between his late solo work and earlier turns with The Reatards and several other bands. He was beyond prolific, and he was a genius. As big a mess as he was, I know he was more talented than I am. I can never meet someone like that. My opinions of self would never survive.

The music?

Confession: I spend a lot more time making sure I have the top of each year's TOP 0X ordered properly than the bottom. Down here I worry more about angles. If I can segue from Strawberry Jam and Person Pitch into The Stage Names, Okkervil River will be TOP 07 and not any other number. License or conceit: your call. Where the records go: mine.

Jay was hanging around the back half of the TOP 09 anyway, and then he died. And I'd been thinking about Michael for half a year already, planning some kind of goodbye for this space; Jay's last gift to me was an angle. He slid down at least one spot for his trouble. I haven't thought about how much higher I'd rank Watch Me Fall if he were alive. I don't care. I know it wouldn't have cracked the TOP 04. That's integrity enough for this process.

I say again: The music?

No denying that a couple of songs here are among the year's best, and no denying that a couple of them twisted into hideous shapes after January 13. Jesus Christ; if the title of the album opener isn't enough for you, how about that singalong part at the end? All is lost. There is no hope for me.

WATCH Jay Reatard It Ain't Gonna Save Me

Elsewhere you hear Jay playing with his sound, perhaps nowhere as much as on the one holdover from Matador Singles '08 - I'm Watching You, rerecorded for the LP. It runs 3:46 now to last year's 3:39, but damn if it doesn't seem to stretch far beyond that. New instruments and elements drift into the mix. He was tinkering, and he was onto something. If Watch Me Fall did not improve on Matador Singles '08, it nonetheless changed what Jay would eventually be capable of. There are sounds on this disc that he never made before now; the most obvious shame of his death is that this last tinkering will never culminate in the album he could have made ( for the first time in his life ) next.

The hardest song to listen through here is this one:

LISTEN Jay Reatard There Is No Sun

Never mind that it ends an album, a furious career, a lifetime. In retrospect it seems to know - and lyrically it ends all of those things on such a bleak note that the tragedy of Jay's death will never be anything else.

Michael would have loved every minute of his memorial - even John Mayer making that face that had Jennifer Aniston telling her friends she always made him turn the lights off.

Jay is just gone.

Tomorrow's another day? The sun always rises? There is no sun for me.

Allow me one more self-reference, and then we can finally chase this grotesquity back into the shadows.

If there is a lesson here - in Michael, in Jay - it's one I suggested a year ago, in closing the TOP 08 OF 08.

( BTW: Posthumous congratulations to Jay on being the first artist ever to appear in a second TOP 0X. )

(( Unless I die very, very soon, there will be at least one other. ))

There was less wisdom than still-boyish enthusiasm in last year's close, but as I get older I find that what I write as an enthusiastic boy often comes nearer to being wise than what I write when I try harder.

Then, I wrote:

Too often I've blown right past [a] moment to get to what was coming next and might be - but seldom was - better. So, no, I can't wait for Jay's next full-length. ... But when I reach the end of I'm Watching You, track 13 here, what I want to hear next is not what he's working on now. It's See / Saw, track 1. And I like that best of all.

If there is a lesson here, it is that these people are never perfect. Sometimes they're not even good. But if you love their work - and God knows you wouldn't have hung with me for this many words unless you loved the work of some artist or other - you ought to hold tight to that love for as long as you can, keep coming back through ups and downs, really try to honor the work by loving it and not all-too-quickly leaving it for whatever is next.

Michael was like one song away from a big huge comeback, except that he wasn't.

Watch Me Fall does not live in the same place in my heart as Matador Singles '08.

Jay, I will try to play it too. I will try to understand it as well. I will try to love it the way you did when it was inside of you and coming out - not when you were high, not when you were miserable.

When you were singing.

Thank you.

Jn.

THE SENATE FLOOR #1: D-Nice, Call Me D-Nice

2010-01-22T21:16:00.366-05:00

I hate to do this to myself on the eve of the TOP 09; in the next nine days I may not top what you're about to read. But welcome to the latest and possibly last new feature here at TLG, the one I've wanted to introduce since debuting Kids A and B and their BEAT ON THE BRAT back-and-forths. I said then that I saw battles in your futures. Here's one now - less Antietam than Armageddon.

For those just now tuning in, a recap:

After Kid B, Helen Handbasket, wrote her response to BotB#5, she changed her mind about the song that had prompted the response. See her followup in the comments below the post I just linked to.

Of course, I welcome that kind of followup. This blog is nothing if not a vehicle for finding new music to love - even if it takes a while - and frankly I'm pleased to have gotten Helen to follow up on anything. Bitch is lazy enough to remind me of me.

But the fact that I welcome that kind of followup hardly guarantees it will be welcomed by all. And, indeed, shortly after Helen admitted to having changed her mind, no less an authority than Senator John Kerry called her out for flip-flopping. Again, see the comments below BotB#5.

I liked the Senator's style, and I said so.

He told me to blow myself. Then he called me a cunt. Then ricedick. Then shiverbrains. Then he asked if he could keep calling me shiverbrains, and in doing so called me ricedick a second time.

In short, the Senator - since "revealed" to be one Stu Archison - quickly made himself a legend in these parts. He's exactly the sort of friend I want this blog to have. But his ascension has not always been smooth.

Along the way he and my friend Greg got tangled in a bit of semantic debate, and when the Senator eventually apologized to Greg, he did so by making a deft rhetorical pivot that "proved" Helen to be a moron.

( I put the word "proved" in quotation marks because the Senator relied on a creative reading of Helen's uses of "pretty much" and "perhaps" - but none of this is material. Read through the comments here to see the Senator at his very finest. )

Seldom chivalrous but never one to leave well enough alone, Greg ignored the Senator's shot at Helen - in fact, his own shot at the same target had provoked the Senator in the first place - and instead wrote, "The Senator is going soft. I'm not sure he can show his face again after equivocating and apologizing like that."

The Senator responded by challenging Greg to battle BotB-style; Greg accepted the challenge; here we are now. I'm so thrilled this happened organically that I've named the new feature THE SENATE FLOOR. It works the same way as BotB, only with volunteers. One of you steps up either for random assignment or as a challenger. Another of you steps up either for random assignment or in response to a challenge. I send you both the same song; you respond to it in the style of Kids A and B, writing as little or - in today's case - as much as you wish, then I post your responses here and we open the comments section to voting.

Most votes declaring one participant the winner ... well, that's meaningless. Eventually I'll decide.

One more thing:

I know there's a problem here, because someone's response has to come first and someone's second, and the sequencing could color readers' views of the effectiveness of the responses.

For BotB purposes, I generally sequence the responses according to how they seem to me to read. If one flows into the other, I always post that one first without regard to ( e.g. ) which of the Kids submitted her response first.

But for these purposes?

Understand: I am a big believer in the value of the last word. Because this was the Senator's challenge ( he now appears here as Stu Arch ) I'd planned to give him every advantage, and thus had planned to post his response after Greg's. Only ...

I sent them their prompt on Sunday evening. I received Greg's response Tuesday and Stu's Wednesday. I've been torn between two organizing principles ever since - how they read; how Stu earned the advantages by sticking his neck out first - and I finally decided, shit, I had to post the responses in the order below. Too perfect. One thousand apologies, Senator. I'll console myself by believing you would have made the same decision; given that I find nearly everything you write hilarious, I'm pretty sure our brains work in similar ways.

World, I give you THE SENATE FLOOR. Hear and see the prompt here - and when you step up, good luck battling either of these two.

- - - - - -

#1: D-Nice, Call Me D-Nice

STU ARCH ( 0-0 ) sez:

Let the record show that I smelled something rotting in Denmark at the first rapped line here: "My name is D-Nice, although I hate to admit it." I have obviously been set up to lose this battle, and still, heroically, I fight.

Derrick "D-Nice" Jones was an original member of Boogie Down Productions, and he became the group's DJ after Scott La Rock's murder in 1987. By the time he released his first solo album in 1990, D-Nice held almost every job that existed in the burgeoning hip-hop industry: rapper, DJ, producer and beatboxer. Also, talent scout. He discovered Kid Rock.

You can begin to appreciate the breadth of his talents even before D-Nice raps on CALL ME D-NICE, when he promises to drop some funky lyrics on this track HE made up, and thus reveals himself to be both the man on the microphone and the man on the turntables. Rapper and DJ - and so much more.

Both of his solo albums are now out of print, and D-Nice has forsaken his careers in hip-hop for one in photography. ( In fairness, only rapper, DJ, producer and talent scout remain as viable gigs. Beatboxer dried up on him. )

Having attended many benefits at Teresa's insistence - yes, I do still think of myself as the Senator - I have cultivated what white people refer to as an "eye," and I write with authority when I write that D-Nice chose his new career wisely. As funky as any lyrics he dropped ever were, they cannot compare to the work he does now.

To wit, an image from his recent series REVIVING THE DREAM: THE INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT OBAMA ( which I attended, by the way ):

Magnificent.

GREG ( 0-0 ) sez:

Here's an exercise in sophomore psychology. I'd bet anything that "Stu Archison" - errr, "the Senator" - will focus on the first line of the first verse here, claiming that "Shiverbrains" and I conspired in the song choice to reduce his chances of winning this thing. Then he'll write some half-baked wiki-answer while ignoring whether the song is good or a piece of shit. Am I right?

Whatever.

Fearing for his life back in 1987, D-Nice ran to his Boogie Down Productions colleague, DJ Scott La Rock, for help dealing with threats made by their neighborhood rivals. The result? La Rock ended up shot in the neck and later died from his wounds. After La Rock's death, KRS-One, the other founder of BDP, kind of went crazy. He arbitrarily fired people, changed his name to The Teacha and began to credit subsequent releases as having been "overseen by Scott La Rock" - who, of course, was dead. The focus of those subsequent releases also changed; KRS became perhaps the foremost proponent of using hip-hop to raise social consciousness.

Which brings me to the first line not of D-Nice's first verse, but his second: "I start to think of everything conscious all around me." That's a line we'd expect from KRS in 1990 - except, unlike KRS, D-Nice can't even keep it alive for one rhyme. The next words out of his mouth are these: "Who would be the sucker MC to try to down me?"

Forget whole albums ( like BDP's By All Means Necessary ). D-Nice couldn't hang as the voice of social consciousness for even two lines.

But the song isn't a total loser; we just can't lose sight of what it is - a combination of battle and brag, tough but also pretty damn funny.

So who would be the sucker MC to try to down me?

Is it you, Stu?

Or you, Senator?

Or you, or you, or him?

I am like a tree and every line I write a motherfucking limb.

- - - - - -

Gentlemen, I could not have done better myself.

Jn.

AIN'T NOTHING PLEASE ME MORE THAN YOU.

2010-01-21T04:36:00.001-05:00

Pitchfork was not kind to Up From Below today, and the particular accusation leveled - of scene-chasing inauthenticity - has not only kept me from buying into Edward Sharpe but also Lady Gaga. Otherwise, really, who had a better year than she did?

( NOTE: See comments re Gaga. Changed my mind. )

So maybe Sharpe is a fake, or maybe there is no Sharpe in the first place. I'm not buying the record, but I will say this: I haven't watched ( or enjoyed ) any video more than this one the last few months.

What cannot be faked:

Those two are sick for each other.

Jn.

MUM MUM MUM MAH.

2010-01-20T14:32:00.011-05:00

I haven't listened yet, what with final TOP 09 preparations eating my extra time, but count me among the 124,000 buyers who pushed Vampire Weekend to the top of the Billboard 200 this week. Congrats to those guys, and if you wondered, here's the whole top 10:

1. Vampire Weekend, Contra
2. Susan Boyle, I Dreamed A Dream
3. Ke$ha, Animal
4. Lady Gaga, The Fame
5. Alicia Keys, The Element Of Freedom
6. Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster
7. Mary J. Blige, Stronger With Each Tear
8. Taylor Swift, Fearless
9. Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel ( OST )
10. The Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D

Still a ways to go, but the world is coming around.

Jn.

BEAT ON THE BRAT #6: Elvis Costello, Less Than Zero

2010-01-19T16:10:00.006-05:00

WHEREIN KID A SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT - ACTUALLY, I CAN'T DO IT JUSTICE

Handbasket's two responses to BotB#5 gave birth to the Senator, so of course she wins and leads 2-1.

Less Than Zero gave birth ( or at least a name ) to Bret Ellis' first book. Listen, then read.

But enough preamble. You haven't heard from our Kids in nearly seven weeks, and one of them has something special for you: a comparison I'm fairly certain has never been drawn before.

- - - - - -

#6: Elvis Costello, Less Than Zero

HELEN HANDBASKET sez:

File Costello just behind ska in the type(s) of music to torture me with.

( But I am looking forward to BotB w/ the Senator & Greg. )

CARLA E sez:

I like it. It sounds cheery, even though it definitely isn't. His voice kinda is what I'd imagine would happen if Sublime met the '70s - and concerned itself with more than substance abuse.

- - - - - -

Erm ...

Right on?

Jn.

HERE COME THE MAN FROM THE STARS.

2010-01-18T13:51:00.003-05:00

New Spoon tomorrow.

Meanwhile I see Metacritic named Britt & Co. its top overall artist of the decade, using largely the same logic ( shit, and they have math ) that I suggested here.

I say again: They've made my shortest list of best artists of the decade doing what they always do. And I'll go a step farther: It's virtually impossible to keep them out of your TOP 10 or so unless this just isn't a band you like. They're remarkably consistent not only album to album but track to track within an album. Someday there'll be a best-of, and every Spoon fan will think (s)he could've done better even if (s)he weren't allowed to use any of the tracks that were actually picked.

Keep on marchin' along, beatin' his drum.

Jn.

WAS THERE ANYTHING ELSE?

2010-01-17T22:03:00.022-05:00

One of the most disappointing parts of getting older has been discovering that damn near everything I liked as a kid seems worse now. The exceptions are almost all candy.

This week:

One part Dots, the other part candle wax. The girl and I went through a bag of these Friday night.

Only tangentially related:

LISTEN Annie Chewing Gum

Jn.

IT'S IMPORTANT TO ME.

2010-01-16T19:59:00.003-05:00

Those who wonder what did become of the likely lads:

NME has done Carl Barat the favor of firming up his commitment, and now The Libertines WILL reform in 2011.

Jn.

GRAVITY'S MY ENEMY.

2010-01-15T15:47:00.005-05:00

Still processing Jay. Every TOP 01 has a permanent place in my heart, of course, but he was different. I have more to say but want to get it out right, so not this week.

Better news ( thank Gawd ) from a fellow TOP 01: M.I.A. has a new song here, new album to come in summer.

Neet.

Jn.

JESUS CHRIST.

2010-01-14T23:38:00.031-05:00

"They said, We will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story."

Jn.

To be absolutely clear ( because one of you protested ), there is no "Why didn't they make the whole church out of the shit they made the Jesus thingy out of?" joke intended here. No joke at all intended. CLICK ON True story. AND ZOOM TO 0:31. In all seriousness, I think someone should be removed from TV and lobotomized - and I'd say the same about another someone, but judging by her reactions, looks like sidekick Kristi Watts already had the procedure.

ALL IS LOST.

2010-01-13T18:09:00.010-05:00

Back with more shitty news. He didn't even see if he'd defended his TOP 01 ranking.

Jay, I hope whatever it was, it did save you somewhere in the end.

Jay Reatard, 1980-2010

Jn.

THIS IS THE THREE Rs - THE THREE Rs.

2009-12-25T23:39:00.019-05:00

Merry ?mas to all.

Apologies for the silence lately; just buried in the magazine, and - again - that will not change before ~~1/10~~ ~~1/12~~ 1/13 or so. Meanwhile, below is the post that appeared here 11/28. You still have until 1/31 to get your TOP 09s in, but we are getting close(r).

Hope the first holidays have treated you well. Happy New Year in advance.

Leave them drugs alone, still, and remember to tell your friends:

JOHN BERNARD BURKE DOT COM.

Jn.

- - - - - -

That time of year again.

Our man B.T. has me writing his baseball mag, so December is spoken for and The Landed Gentry's TOP 0X OF 0X will compleat its steady slide into January. We'll review this year with at least that much perspective.

Schedule:

TOP 09 - 1/23
TOP 08 - 1/24
TOP 07 - 1/25
TOP 06 - 1/26
TOP 05 - 1/27
TOP 04 - 1/28
TOP 03 - 1/29
TOP 02 - 1/30
TOP 01 - 1/31

What's in it for you?

Same as every year:

Enter our fourth annual Contest for your chance to win The Landed Gentry's entire music library!

How it works:

Any time between now and 1/31, you visit here and post your own favorite releases of the year in the comments section. All I need is your name, a way to contact you if you win, and a ranked list of any nine music releases containing two or more tracks. Proper singles ( one A-side and at least one B-side ) count! EPs count! Full-lengths of course count!

This is intended to get you thinking about ( and sharing ) your favorite new discoveries of the past year. No need for any of them to be new per se; if it was new to your ears in 2009, it counts!

Meanwhile I'll post my own TOP 09 releases of the year here ( mine will have been brand new - or at least new enough that I didn't know about them before 2009 ), and then afterward we'll collect all of your entries, throw them in a hat and pull one out at random.

Winner receives the same prize as Greg N., Paulie T. and Gene the M. in years past: approximately one shit-ton of music, delivered to your mailbox in a handy, pristinely organized package of not-at-all dubious legality.*

Doubt neither the breadth nor the depth of the collection.

Breadth: Animal Collective and Annie; Built To Spill and Buzzcocks; Coldplay and The Congos; The Decemberists and Dexys Midnight Runners; Eazy-E and I'll stop there.

Depth: Campfire Songs; Danse Manatee; Fall Be Kind; Feels; Here Comes The Indian; Hollinndagain; Merriweather Post Pavilion; People; Prospect Hummer; Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished; Strawberry Jam; Sung Tongs; Water Curses ... Eazy-Duz-It; It's On ( ~~Dr. Dre~~ ) 187um Killa. Plus assorted one-offs and rarities.

Said differently, I have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody.

You can, too.

Contest begins with this post and ends 1/31; any comments section between now and then will do.

Get crackin'.

Jn.

* Note that there are two ways in which legality can be "not-at-all dubious" - there is legality beyond doubt and illegality beyond doubt - and that will be the last mention of this, agreed?