You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2009.
Yup, the decade is ending. This is so crazy. I remember 1999 when everyone was panicking about Y2K like it was yesterday! What happened to all the time?! I’m dreading yet looking forward to recapping the decade. Luckily for me and you, we have blogs that are way more ambitious than mine is. Ahem. Pitchfork is definitely one of them. they are currently recapping the top albums of the Decade, after already having recapped the top songs of the decade. They also got a guest top list too, which I find a lot more interesting than the staff picks…and I think, one in particular, by Jeremy Greenspan (luff luff) of Junior Boys (hearts hearts), wrote a piece that really resonated with me:
My Thoughts on the 00:
I guess I should start by saying that I am out of touch. I think I’ve been out of touch for years. At least somehow, despite the fact that I still listen to music all the time, and think about music all the time, I’ve lost the directions, that secret knowledge of what’s goin’ on. This age of digital proliferation, of instantaneous access, has confused me to the point of total paralysis. Yet, in many ways the last ten years have been exciting for me. I started a band, and have had the opportunity to release three albums, work with some of my heroes, and go on tour with amazing bands, (Caribou, the Russian Futurists, Hot Chip, San Serac, Mouse on Mars, Ratatat, Circlesquare, and Max Tundra just to name a few) and meet many great people. when I think of the last ten years in music, I’m reminded of some truly stunning releases like Kelley Polar’s I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling, Fennesz’s Endless Summer, Berbury Poly’s The Willows, Jonathan Kane’s February, Kode9 & the Spaceape’s Memories of the Future, Marsen Jules’ and just recently the great new album by Fever Ray. I’m reminded of countless amazing 12″s by Carl Craig, Theo Parrish, Morgan Geist, Matthew Edwards, Shed, Isolée, Ikonika, Petr Dundov, Todd Osborne, Superpitcher, Vladislav Delay, etc. etc. I’m reminded of seeing great shows by Liars, Pan Sonic, the Field, Liquid Liquid, Mantler, Kraftwerk, Dan Deacon, and LCD Soundsystem. And so many great reissues of everything from Cambodian Funk to Arthur Russell, Ron Hardy, Chaz Jankel, Steve Reich, Patrick Adams, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and on and on.
And despite all this great music, and despite the great things music has brought me in the last 10 years, as a music fan, there seems to be something missing. Maybe I am getting a bit older. Maybe everything seems more exciting when you are 16 and discovering all these things for the first time. But honestly I can’t help but feel betrayed by the promise of a bold new future that got me giddy as a teenager in the 90s. Were things different back then? To me it seemed so. It felt to me like rock’n’roll was over, like the music industry was irrelevant, and that new technology was ushering in an unprecedented futurism in music that would last forever. In dance music it felt like there was an audience of dedicated listeners, who cared more about being absorbed in the music than they did about who was taking their picture or which cast member of “The Hills” was DJing. For me dance music has been reduced to something people “do” when they are drunk, kinda like “beer pong”.
I remember a time when guitars were genuinely embarrassing. I remember when finding music was hard enough to make it special when you did, and that albums weren’t reduced to soundbites that are reviewed and traded, half digested before they have actually been released. But maybe I am whinging. God knows I would never lament the death of the music industry, the Internet was the impetus that got my band signed after all. And I for one can’t wait till that physical trash called a “compact disc” is nothing more than a distant memory. And god knows that there is nothing worse than the “old guy” who goes on and on about how much better music was in “his day,” completely unaware of all the new cool things that are happening in different cities, in different cultures with different technology.
But I feel a sense of frustration with the way in which music doesn’t engage with the sweeping changes that the Internet has produced, and I sense that I’m not alone. I can’t help but lament the way in which the modernism of the 90s was stamped out and the triumph of modern indie rock, which although produces the odd good band, the odd good album, can hardly be mistaken as a sweeping paradigm shift in music culture. Music wasn’t better back then, not at all, it just seemed like it was “getting better,” and that’s what I miss more than anything. The global promise of a new type of music, a new type of experience, new methods of production, new forms of release and a connection with the looming uncertainty of the future.
This is my reflection on the past 10 years. But I’m not particularly worried that there is no future for music. Ray Kurzweil, the famous technology guru, often writes about the exponential growth of technology– that the startling changes of the past 100 years are nothing compared to what the next 100 years will bring. As the unimagined potential of the future draws closer, music thankfully won’t be able to maintain an obstinate stance, but will of course,like everything else, become unrecognizable, unclassifiable, and unprecedented.
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What are your thoughts on the decade? Your tops? The worsts? DITES-MOI! TELL ME! =)
According to Dead Air Space:
hi
in the past couple of weeks i’ve been getting a band together for fun to play the eraser stuff live and the new songs etc.. to see if it could work!
here’s a photo.. its me, joey waronker, mauro refosco, flea and nigel godrich.
at the beginning of october the 4th and 5th we are going to do a couple of shows at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles.
we don’t really have a name and the set will not be very long cuz ..well …we haven’t got that much material yet!
but come and check it out if you are in the area. we’ve also got locals Lucky Dragons playing.
all the best
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VOYYYYYYYYONS DONC!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO WAY! This is so awesome.
Video: COMBO; directed by David Ellis and Blu
Moby is probably one of the most underrated electronic artists nowadays…after having released three albums in the past four years and yes, hitting the top a few times in European electronic dance charts with a slew of singles unheard by most others, Moby is still just “that guy that did ‘Southside’ with Gwen!”. I think in the mainstream, he is best known for this song. And no lie, “Southside” is one of the greatest songs of the decade for sure! But c’mon! This is Moby. Moby, who quit punk in early 90’s, joined electronica, quit techno in 1992 (as he so famously told Eminem), became a great veteran of music more than twenty years later from when he started, and truly was one of the artists of the past decade who exposed electronic/music as an art form and it’s relevance to music history, to jazz, to film, and to activism.
I must admit, I stopped following Moby after Play, an album that produced probably his most well known hits “Natural Blues”, my personal favorite and defs my tops of the decade, “Porcelain”, and “Southside”. Sure I have all the albums since then but only have listened to them halfheartedly and gave my attention moreso to the singles released like “We Are All Stars”–written for 9/11, and ‘Lift Me Up”. What happened? I dunno. Moby is so chill. So perfect for so many occasions but I guess in the last four/five years I’ve become more pre-occupied with artists and genres of the like and discovered them to be a bit more fitting to the time and to my taste.
By now, allay’all should know who Flight of the Conchords are…or, at least, recognize their faces from the hit TV show which is entering it’s third season. Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement are the New Zealand charmers that worked their way into our hearts, daily platitudes and every day colloquialisms with songs like “Business Time”, and “Hiphoppopotamus vs Rhymnocerous”. Everywhere, everywhere, I was quoting FOTC lyrics like I was quoting “Mean Girls” lyrics from a few years back:
“Yeah, well, two minutes in heaven is better than one minute”.
“Recycling…it’s still important”.
“That’s why they call it business socks”
…and my favorite…
“My name is the Hiphoppopotamus, my rhymes are bottomless…
dfg
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dfg
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gfd
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sdlfjg
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Directed by DJ Douggpound, writer and editor for “Time And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” on Adult Swim.
Ugh I love Juiceboxxx. I am very sad that the iheartcomix tour dates given in their email ended up being a mistake. JUICEBOXXX WHEN ARE YOU COMING TO MTL, DAMNIT?!
Buy the 12″.
Buy the MP3s on iTunes:
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Courtesy of Nah Right
I know I am a million years late on this. Mais, je m’en fiche! Deal with it jaja. This state of Kanye looks pretty genuine to me. But I don’t really care about that. I care about how AWESOME this performance is of “Run This Town”. I think, one of the best I’ve seen. Finally, Jay-Z steps out of his usual nonchalant stage stupor and is in this, for real. Could Kanye’s near tear state have anything to do with it? And it almost, ALMOST makes me wanna pay the big bucks to see Jay-Z in about a month. We’ll see.
YESSS!!! Another favorite time of the year for me, Pop MTL! Happening from Sept 30 – Oct 4th, this event boasts artists such as: Fever Ray, Sufjan Stevens, Joel Plaskett, Glass Candy, Yo La Tengo, and more! Check out the poster and the website above for the full lineup, ticket prices, and schedule!!! After the jump for my tentative schedule and coverage of this great festival!
Video 1: Mary J. Blige and Ja Rule – Rainy Dayz
How my Mary J. Blige and Ja Rule nostaliga started: I was going through Raekwon’s Cuban Linx and was wondering why Raekwon feels the need to have Z’s at the end of every song title. This thought came up right on “Rainy Dayz” and I thought to myself…HEY THAT MARY J BLIGE SONG TOTALLY KICKED ASS. And so went my youtube whoring of all MJB and Ja’s hits. Wow, I was in junior high when this shit came out! SOOOOOOOOOOO good. AND I still know ALL the lyrics. Wow. Whatever happened to them? Enjoy (I saved the best for last)!
Video 2: Ja Rule ft. Ashanti – Always On Time
I remember this video MADE Ashanti. She disappeared too. She was never that great anyways, IMO.
Video 3: Ja Rule ft. Ashanti and R. Kelly – Wonderful
Ugh SICK. I love Ashanti’s “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAaaah” part. Lovely. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU JA RULE?! Yeah 50 Cent ripped on you, but no one really gaaaaaaaave a shit or gives a shit about 50 Cent anymore. He was so over after his “21 questions”.
Video 4: Ja Rule ft. Jadakiss and Fat Joe – New York, New York
JADAKISS KILLLLS THIS! This song was so underrated. Compared to Ja’s other hits, this one gets sooo overshadowed but IMO I think it’s one of his best. Sick beat.
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MP3: Beni – Maximus
These kids got nothin’ on me. Hot damn. This song rocks. The vid is even better. KITSUNÉ RULES!!!
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