Eric's 2009 Roundup

I agree with D's assessment that this was a good year for "good" albums. I heard a decent amount of new music this year, plenty of which I enjoyed, but none of which particularly excited me (despite all of the blog/NYMag-based insanity for the Dirty Grizzly Collective). So, here are ten albums that I purchased this year that I enjoyed to varying degrees, listed without comment (in vague order of how much I liked/listened to them, but not really):
1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2. Flaming Lips - Embryonic
3. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Beware
4. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
5. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
6. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
7. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast
8. Wilco - Wilco (the album)
9. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
10. AC Newman - Get Guilty


As per my usual habit, this year I went through several phases where I spent weeks, if not months, listening to only one artist or genre. The phases proceeded thusly:

I). Winter: Bonnie Prince Billy and other sundry Will Oldham aliases -- Inspired by the high placement on last year's lists, I ended up picking up a handful of his albums, starting with Lay Down in the Light, which remains my favorite. This bled into . . .

II) Spring: Bob Dylan -- I hadn't been in a Dylan phase in years, and had mostly ignored his newer stuff. I was focused more on stuff that I hadn't played to death in high school (ie, Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks). I spent a lot of time listening to a great bootleg set of the complete Basement Tapes (can't remember if I posted about it, but google for "A Tree With Roots") and finally got really into Love & Theft. I also finally got around to seeing Todd Haynes' I'm Not There. I'm generally not a fan of Todd Haynes' work and I don't know if I liked this movie at all really, but because I was in such a Dylan phase at the time, it really hit the spot.

III) Summer: Michael Jackson -- I must have listened to other stuff until the Summer of Death began, but once MJ died, I listened to basically nothing but for a good month or so (focusing especially on the stuff I posted about in the linked entry).

IV) Fall: The Beatles -- I hadn't listened to a Beatles record in years. There was just no need -- I had heard every single note of every single album so many times that it became hard to derive much joy from sitting down and listening to an album. That all changed when they released the remasters this past year. The sound was definitely am improvement, though, except in a few cases (the stereo White Album especially) it wasn't totally revelatory. But sitting down to hear the sonic improvements and compare the stereo and mono mixes (I actually bit the bullet and bought the Mono Box Set, like the sucker that I am) forced me to actively listen to music that had long become background music. And Sgt. Pepper in mono really is better (except for a couple moments)!

V) Late Fall / Winter: Motown -- For the past couple of months I have been listening to literally nothing but Motown. On this message board I sometimes go to, a guy is going through and reviewing / posting links to download every single Motown (or affiliated label) LP, in order of release. Many of these are out of print on CD, though easy enough to find online (check out blaxploitationjive.blogspot.com). Although Motown is, of course, first and foremost, a singles label (and certainly many of the albums are nothing but singles with some filler), many of the LPs are fantastic in their own right. As a first priority, seek out good singles compilations (preferably in mono -- it makes a HUGE difference, no joke) for The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. But a quick top five album recommendations:
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell - You're All I Need
Temptations - With a Lot O' Soul
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Make it Happen
The Supremes - More Hits By The Supremes (not a compilation)
Martha and the Vandellas - Watchout!

Motown basically has the best songwriting, the best production, the best playing (especially the drumming and bass playing), the best grooves, and the best singing. So its kind of by definition the best music ever. It's difficult for our generation, because it has been so muzak-ized by its use in commercials and movies. You definitely have to approach the music from a specific mindset to hear "I Heard it Through The Grapevine" as one of the coolest, tightest grooves ever laid to wax (it has three drummers!) and not a California Raisins commercial. But once you can, there's a seemingly endless well of amazing music to be enjoyed.

(Looking back, I spent the back half of 2009 listening to the greatest pop music ever by almost any account. While I certainly enjoyed Bitte Orca, it just can't compete).

I'm still in the Motown phase, though the lists people have already posted have given me some good stuff to check out and download from eMusic, before I cancel my subscription because I've now forgotten to download my allotment before it resets TWICE, which pisses me off to no end. Happy 2010!

Michael Jackson: The Forgotten Era

I was considering posting about this a while ago, and almost didn't bother because the Michael Jackson moment is kind of passing (though he still dominates the top ten albums on Amazon), but a rare in-person conversation with Tex convinced me it was worth doing because it seems that this time in Michael Jackson's history is completely overlooked and should really get its due.

Last month, while I was obsessively listening to Off the Wall, I was trying to figure out if anyone else in R&B was doing anything with a similar sound at that time. I noticed that, in fact, the Jacksons (the Jackson 5 name was owned by Motown so they had to give it up when they moved to CBS in 1976) had released an album in 1978, just before Off the Wall, and then an album in 1980, between Off the Wall and Thriller. Now, the basic narrative of Michael Jackson has him as a cute little kid singing "ABC," and then a few years later, emerges full formed singing "Rock With You" on Off the Wall. But not only was he still a member of the Jackson 5/Jacksons right up through the Off the Wall era, he actually was a member all the way through Thriller. In fact, MJ's first solo tour was for Bad-- the live shows he played during the Thriller era were with his brothers (though they increasingly featured his solo material).

Anyway, not only was he fully the lead singer on the Jacksons albums released during that time, he also wrote or co-wrote the vast majority of the songs (which can't be said for his early solo albums, though the songs he wrote actually did tend to be the best ones (Billie Jean, Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, Beat It, Wanna Be Startin Somethin)). So, basically, the two albums from 1978 and 1980, Destiny and Triumph, are totally forgotten Michael Jackson albums, released while he was at the absolute peak of his powers as a musician and songwriter.

PS Before Drischord weighs in, I'll just assure everyone-- these are pretty unambiguously "disco," though I can't remember the context of that argument so I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

Both are absolutely worth getting. I tend to like Triumph a bit better (you have to overlook the chintzy jheri-curl-filled cover), but they're both great. Here's a sampling of a couple of the key tracks from each. None of these would have sounded out of place on Off the Wall, and though they don't benefit from the impeccable crispness of a Quincy Jones production, they used a lot of the same session players, so it's the same feel.

Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground), from Destiny (Shockingly, this is a TV appearance and not a creepy fan montage. I'm pretty sure it's the studio version playing though):


Bless His Soul, from Destiny (This one's a little cheesy, but listen at least through the two minute mark or so when the arrangement totally takes off) (Just a still image of the album cover for this one):



This Place Hotel, from Triumph (Originally "Heartbreak Hotel," but changed to avoid confusion. This is an MJ solo composition and it absolutely kills)(and don't worry, this one is TOTALLY a creepy fan montage):



Can You Feel It, from Triumph (This is the actual video for the song and it's INSANE. I almost didn't include this one because the song itself is almost totally obscured by the Star Wars sound effects and random bits of orchestral scoring. It's worth watching though, if only to see that he was making over the top videos well before Thriller):

More on Michael Jackson's best

I ran across this Michael Jackson obituary in the New Yorker, which was most interesting to me for the light it shed on the African origins of the "mamma say mamma sa..." lyrics.

And here is the link to the song "Soul Makossa" as mentioned in the article.

Michael Jackson's Best

Q's comments made me realize that maybe not everyone here is as super familiar with Michael Jackson's music, and so I present to you, in my humble opinion, Michael Jackson's bets song ever, again accompanied by a creepy fan montage:



Seriously, how is the end to that not one of the greatest things ever?

Fuck. Michael Jackson died.

It was insane to watch this go from a TMZ rumor passed to me via gchat to most-twittered about subject to confirmed by the LATimes in about ten minutes. As I write this, the NY Times still hasn't confirmed (they're saying "hospitalized"). But again, that isn't stopping literally (no, seriously, literally) tens of thousands of people per minute from tweeting "RIP Michael Jackson." I wonder what the death of John Lennon would have been like (since that was even more shocking) in the twitter era.

Anyway, that said, go listen to Off the Wall if you haven't in a while. It's a fucking awesome album. .(So is Thriller, of course-- I'm not being contrarian by picking the lesser known one. It's just that we all know all the songs (or at least 7 out of 9) from Thriller-- Off the Wall is more of a revelation). Check this out-- if you take away the lead vocal and just listen to the backing track it sounds like it could be off of Remain in Light:



(BTW, the video above is one of those creepy "tribute" videos that are mostly useful to get an embeddable version of a song. But, of note, it's from two years ago!)

Man in the Mirror

Here's one for those of you who are more hip-hop oriented then I...

I was recently pointed to the new Rhymefest album, which is available for free download here

The basic deal is that it's a "dedication" album to Michael Jackson, using almost all Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 samples, plus some great interview clips to make it sound like Jackson and Rhymefest are recording it together. For someone like myself who really loved Jackson back in the day, and is still sad that he's so crazy now, it's kind of great. Anyway, this is my favorite track from it:



Thoughts?