Tennis, “Robin”
find it on Young & Old (2012)

Tennis is never going to win any awards for variety. They’ll play their la la shit for you anytime, and you’ll like it or…you won’t. But their new album has a little bit more of what the French call production, and said production comes from Black Key Patrick Carney, and rounds the edges a bit more than on their debut, so it’s a little easier to…y’know, actually tell the songs apart from each other. This new record comes only a year after their debut, so it’s not too surprising that “Robin” sounds like it was written at about the same time, but just with aforementioned Black Keying.

In other words, you can listen to this song and know whether you’ll love the whole album or not. I love it.

I can’t remember why I gave their 1998 album Good Humor a chance (likely because of that that constant paranoia of the music geek that you’re missing out on something good), but it completely turned around my opinion of Saint Etienne. My warming to them is probably in no small part due to the warm production of Tore Johansson, bringing in horns, electric piano and crisp drums that result in one of the coziest pop albums ever made.

Saint Etienne, “Woodcabin”
get it on Good Humor

The best example of this is the opener to Good Humor, “Woodcabin”, a track that seems titled for where it would sound best, but it still seems like an early morning comedown track. The jittery funk drum breaks place it clearly in the 90s, but there’s plenty of 70s songwriter in there. It’s clearly lounge pop, but that label suggests that it’s boring, where it’s anything but.

Mostly, though: Good Humor. Get it if you don’t have it. A too-often overlooked classic.

First Aid Kit, “Emmylou”
get it on The Lion’s Roar (2012)

We first heard about First Aid Kit (didn’t we?) when the Swedish teenage sisters popped up on YouTube singing Fleet Foxes’s “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” smack dab in the middle of the forest. Four years later, and we realize that these sisters still love Fleet Foxes AND barren forests.

But even though they’re four years older (funny how that works), they still show their youth on “Emmylou”, a song that packs in both a romantic view for music romances past as well as the the excitement of finding a type of music that you absolutely love and want to copy and worship and preach. And while the first thought may be a condescending “Oh, that’s cute”, this song nails its lofty ambitions as as a tribute to Gram & Emmylou and Johnny & June. And Fleet Foxes.

I was never a Steve Earle fan. His music always struck me as self-conscious as his politics, with every moment too carefully considered and dropped on you with a huge expectation that you’re supposed to respond to it in a certain way.

Not so with his son, Justin Townes Earle, who made a fantastic record a couple of years ago that is sincere and confident. The title track of the record, “Harlem River Blues” is a near-perfect slice of country/gospel that’s neither retro or modern, and whose allusions to suicide are delivered with little care as to whether you take it as deep meaning or a surface, enjoyable melody, making him more akin to him namesake Townes Van Zandt than his dad.

Tanlines, “Brothers”

Is it just me or has the internet had a lot of fun things to offer this week? It seems like every few hours, there’s some great link to a funny or horrifying story. 2012 seems to be picking up.

With all the quality the internet was offering, it’s sort of surprising/no wonder that I perked up when I saw a new song by Tanlines, a band I’d never really thought about twice before and didn’t have any of their music. But it was one of those great moments when taking a couple moments to check out a new track paid off like I wish Vegas had paid off. Very of-the-times synth pop that treads a line between slinky intricacy (think Junior Boys) and club-ready indie dance (think Cut Copy). A find almost as good as Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop.

My Morning Jacket, “Outta My System”
find it on Circuital

I have to say, it’s pretty refreshing to have someone look back on their life of crime and drug abuse gladly. I mean, I’m not endorsing it, but there’s something kind of ridiculous about people like, say, Motley Crue talking about how insane and fun their lives of debauchery were and then telling people not do it. But on “Outta My System”, a song that sounds a little bit like the Beach Boys when they first wake up in the morning and my favorite track on My Morning Jacket’s excellent Circuital, Jim James is glad for the experiences he had. And good for him, though I do feel kind of bad for those people whose cars he stole.

Instead, seek out the Labour Of Love EP. It features both the hit New Order cover and the song “Labour of Love”, but instead of being surrounded by slick studio songs, it’s mostly acoustic guitar with minimal drums and bass. In fact, all seven songs are minimal: the shortest song clocks in at only 27 seconds and even the longest song is only just over three minutes and it all adds up to less than 15.

There’s not a less-than-great track on the whole thing, but my favorite has always been the spirited “Paper, Bullets, Walls”, a tight song that’s still liberal with the arrangement, skipping from melody to melody but feeling like a traditionally-arranged song. It’s an oft-overlooked slice of sunny 90′s indie, condemning Frente! to the status of barely-remembered alterna-one-hit-wonder when this release should be a cherished treasure of the time.

Frente!, “Paper, Bullets, Walls”
from the Labour of Love EP (1993)

Los Campesinos!, “By Your Hand”
find it on Hello Sadness (2011)

It’s a stressful time for us music obsessives. The end of the year means a sudden panic of trying to catch up with the music of the last year before the next year’s new releases start flowing in. And while most of what I’ve caught up on has confirmed that 2011 was a less-than-stellar year, there’ve been a few moments of “where the hell was I on THIS one?!”

Exhibit A right above. I’ve never been a huge Los Campesinos(!) fan, but I’ve liked a few of their songs, so I really should have at least checked out their new album. Then I would have heard this awesome slice of exuberant, ready-for-an-Apple-commercial indiepop. Nothing else on the new record has caught my ear (yet) but this just about defines “immediate”. If you’re not wowed by the first thirty seconds, then go ahead and switch it off. It must not be your thing.

2011 was a real chicken-and-egg kind of year in music. Was there really less amazing music or did everything sound a little duller because it was a difficult year for me personally? Was there less sonically interesting music in 2011 or was it because I cut way back on listening to music with headphones? Was there less originality or is it because we’re so bombarded with music all the time that it just takes so much more to cut through the sheer volume?

While it may have been for personal reasons, it did seem as though 2011 was a lot lighter on really amazing stuff. There was plenty of great music, as there always is at any time, but nothing inspiring or transcendent. No Sleigh Bells or LCD Soundsystem. No “Tightrope” or “Dancing On My Own”. And maybe everyone else had the same kind of year I did, but most everyone else seemed to feel the same way about the quality: lots of great, little amazing.

It’s interesting that a lot of the widely loved music in 2011 tended to sound distant and formless, like Oneohtrix Point Never and Nicholas Jaar. Even artists whose music had a little more form like James Blake, John Maus and Shabazz Palaces still sounded like they were coming through a fog. Good stuff all, but if we had to ascribe psychology to the predominant sound of 2011, it seemed as though we were afraid to connect.

No surprise then that the music I tended towards in trying times had more form and comforting familiarity. So if you’re someone who believes that a list should have a great deal of musical variety, this probably isn’t the list for you. It’s mostly (sigh) indie with a few other things thrown in. That is to say, it’s a list of the songs I liked most this year, not a genre-spanning overview of 2011 in music. If that’s cool with you, continue on…

All of the songs are on one page this year, so click on the first song to listen to them all, or listen to the Spotify playlist.

Lana Del Rey, “Video Games”
find it on Born To Die

Remember the episode in Parks and Recreation where Leslie gives Ann a bunch of books to research and includes Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom only because “I’m dying to talk to someone about Patty”? That’s kind of how I feel about “Video Games”. It’s a song that’s been floating around for a good long time now, but it’s only recently gotten in my head and not gotten out of it, and it’s been a long time since a song was this worthy of debate. So here we go.

The case against “Video Games”

In one of the most ridiculous things that’s ever been in Pitchfork (and that’s really saying something), the write up of this song in their top songs of the year called it a “withering critique of the dehumanizing desires and stunted emotional capacities of men”. I have absolutely no idea how you could hear or read the lyrics to “Video Games” and come to this conclusion. Lines like “I say you the bestest” (seriously) and “take that body downtown” (an attempt to be provocative? So lame) are some of the most cringeworthy lines in any song ever. That the song is just about a bunch of random stuff thrown into a song is practically admitted to:

He holds me in his big arms
Drunk and I am seeing stars
This is all I think of

What in any of this is a “withering critique” of anything? And if the verses weren’t enough, then you have the choruses, which just seem to be a forced attempt to find as many “oo” rhymes as possible: you, do, you, do, true, knew, two, you, do. And all of this on top of some of the most heavy-handed and unimaginative strings ever, and it’s all sung with an overdone baby girl voice.

The people who hate this song because they feel like it’s a bunch of guys tongue-wagging at a hot girl in a tight skirt who’s little more than a marketing ploy are hard to argue against. What’s the appeal here?

The case for “Video Games”

I really do think that the reason this so has been so divisive has been the way it was first heard. Whether by marketing intention or the weird workings of the internet, it was first heard as an “indie” track, but “Video Games” is a pop song. It’s not as solid as Adele or as smart as Fiona Apple (a ridiculous comparison, since Apple is one of the best lyricists around), but it’s still pop, not intended for anything other than loving because you love it.

And it’s easy to love. As corny as the line “I heard that you like the bad girls, honey, is that true?” may be, it’s the shining hook of the song, utterly irresistible, and it’s been in my head for weeks now.

In other words, the case for “Video Games” is that there really isn’t a case at all. Like any pop song, it can be dissected and debated, the good qualities geeked over and the bad qualities laughed at or argued, but it’s really not something that should be either maligned or heralded as something smart that it isn’t. If you like it, listen to it. It’s a good, catchy pop ballad. If you don’t like it…go find something else.