2012: The Year In Indie-Pop

In a way, it might be wrong to start here, as I feel indie-pop was the least significant genre of 2012.

After a half-decade counter to the noise and aggression of the 90s, the pop-rock pendulum seems to  be finally swinging away from the gentile beauty that's dominated recent years back to the harder, more aggressive approaches of decade's past.

That said, nothing is more beloved in music than a great hook, something these albums provide in spades...and significant or not, the titles I've group here under the indie-pop umbrella are among the most colorful and eclectic batch 2012 produced.


1. Europe - Allo' Darlin: Twee-pop Nirvana.  Easily my favorite pop album of the year and one of the year's most instantly endearing and consistently solid releases.  If you've got a taste for early R.E.M.'s guitar-driven flow combined with Belle & Sebastian-styled lilting pop sweetness, this female-fronted jangle-pop gem is the album for you.
STRONG RECOMMEND - Spotify! / I-Tunes / Amazon . 

2. Making Mirrors - Gotye: Technically a 2011 release but not released in the states until January,  2012, most will associate this record with its ubiquitous summer 2011 hit Someone That I Used To Know, but it's the pop-eclecticism of the rest of the album that blew me away. Recalling a pre-American Idol sensibility where aiming for the pop mainstream still allowed for quirks, adult   intelligence, and off-beat artistry, Making Mirrors evokes the feel of guilty pleasures like Journey, Keane, George Michael, Travis, Stevie Winwood, Phil Collins for sure, but when it's all this well done and this varied, who cares.
STRONG RECOMMEND - Spotify! / I-Tunes /Amazon .

3. Researching The Blues - Redd Kross: An often hysterical, self-deprecating power pop album from an aged group of under-recognized L.A. lifers, Researching The Blues operates in the vein of the best work of Cheap Trick and more recent power-pop stalwarts like The New Pornographers. The riff's often "go to 11" on this hard-chugger, but make no mistake, this is a pop album through and through, with hooks galore.  Uglier, the band's acerbic take on the "joys" of aging, justifies the cost of admission alone.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / I-Tunes / Amazon .

4. Sun - Cat Power: Following the breakup of her long-term relationship with actor Giovanni Rabisi, Chan Marshall moves away from the Nashville/Stax-flavored balladry that defined her last release of originals, The Greatest, into the world of quirky, self-produced electro-pop. It's a change that works. The album's back half sags some, but the opening half, especially Ruin, is wonderful, and it's all capped by one of the most unlikely songs of the year, the Hey Jude-like, eleven-minute Iggy Pop collaboration Nothing But Time, written to cheer up Rabisi's teenage daughter, with whom Marshall had formed a deeply felt relationship.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / I-Tunes / Amazon .

5. Devotion - Jessie Ware: She broke out last year as a guest vocalist on several releases in the drums & bass world, most notably SBTRKT's self-titled debut, but for me, there's only one way to describe the music contained within this promising debut - Sade reborn.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Amazon .

6. Django Django: One of two genuinely bizarre pop releases to take the UK by storm in 2012 (the other being Alt-J's An Awesome Wave), this is my favorite of the two for its greater bounce and more eclectic feel.  Combining wonderful 60s-garage harmonies with all manner of natural and electronic influences, the band can come off like Devo one minute (Default), and spaghetti-western-inspired surf-punks the next (Hailbop), but it's all done with a sense of off-kilter, David Byrne-like fun.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / I-Tunes / Amazon .

7. A Thing Called Divine Fits - Divine Fits: A nifty set of indie-pop tunes from a new side-project fronted by Spoon lead-singer Britt Daniel and Wolf Parade/Handsome Furs guitarist/song-writer Dan Boeckner.  Fans of any of these bands will find much to like here.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / I-Tunes / Amazon .

8. An Awesome Wave - Alt-J: The other big, out-there Brit-pop release of 2012, An Awesome Wave is a much mellower, moodier affair than Django Django, playing more to the Blur / Radiohead side of the Brit-pop spectrum, but a couple of the tracks, especially Tessellate, feel as oddball fresh as any of 2012. Strange, but will be interesting to see how this band evolves.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / I-Tunes / Amazon .



Other 2012 Indie-Pop Albums of Note:
Bloom - Beach House
Ghostory - School Of Seven Bells
My Head Is An Animal - Of Monsters And Men
Nocturne - Wild Nothing
Port Of Morrow - The Shins
Plumb - Field Music

Next Up - Straight-Up Rock.

2012: The Year In Straight-Up Rock

Every couple of years, in this era when TV-oriented teen-pop, hip-hop, and electronic dance music dominate the charts, silly music writers will go out and pronounce straight-up, guitar driven rock 'n' roll dead...and then every couple years, just after such pronouncements have been made, rock roars back with a vengeance.

2012 was one of those years, highlighted by a number of fine albums that put chugging power chords, killer blues riffs, boogie-woogie keys, and party-all-night choruses back where they belong in rock 'n' roll - front and center.

1. Celebration Rock - Japandroids: The unquestioned summer rock album of 2012. Open Your Heart and Attack On Memory are more varied and consistently interesting, but for sheer hoist-your-brew-to-the-sky drums-and-guitar party anthem awesomeness, nothing topped this record or the epic twin pillars upon which it was erected, The Nights Of Wine And Roses and The House That Heaven Built, both bona fide contenders for song of the year.
STRONG RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

2. Open Your Heart - The Men: It shouldn't work as well as it does - the mix is dreadful, the vocals sometimes even worse, and it displays a complete disregard for traditional coherent sequencing...but for noise rock done with tons of urgency, devil-may-care stylistic freedom, and a strong debt to old time masters like The Stooges, MC-5, Sonic Youth, and The Rolling Stones, nothing topped this slop-rock joy.
STRONG RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes /Amazon.

3. Attack On Memory - Cloud Nothings: Another fine album, this Nirvana-esque effort from young Cleveland native Dylan Baldi doesn't deliver quite the peaks of Celebration Rock or the front-to-back intrigue of Open Your Heart, but it might offer the best combination of both. Mixing grungy, youthful power pop like Fall In and Stay Useless with emotionally and/or instrumentally searing material like Wasted Days and Separation, Attack On Memory marks Baldi as a name to watch in the years to come.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

4. Call Me Sylvia - Low Cut Connie: The piano is back, baby! Taking on the same bar band/blue rock motifs that have powered The White Stripes, The Black Keys, and The Hold Steady through the last decade, but re-incorporating that old-school tickled-ivories boogie-woogie of classic rock pianists like The Rolling Stone's Ian Stewart into the mix, Call Me Sylvia is lively, bawdy, irreverent, barrel-house fun. 
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

5. Blunderbuss - Jack White: I didn't care for it at all at first, and I still think this is one of the year's most overrated albums...but it has grown on me to the point where I now consider it a legitimate solid recommend. After a decade on top, White is really starting to repeat himself...riffs, lyrics, vocal phrasings here all feel like recycled, less interesting variations of his better White Stripes and Raconteurs songs (Salute Your Solution-clone 16 Saltines anyone), but I have to admit, those are some excellent White Stripes and Raconteurs songs Blunderbuss is referencing. More piano-based than past efforts, if Jack White can do no wrong in your book, you'll love this album.  If like me, you were hoping for something with a fresher feel, give it a spin on a free streaming service first before plunking down any cash.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

6. Ugly - Screaming Females: You want riffs, you've got it.  Singer/guitarist Marissa Paternoster's Corine Tucker/Karen O flavored vocals are a challenge - raw and powerful one moment, as grating as shredding Styrofoam the next - and will be a deal breaker for some, but her heavy Dinosaur Jr. meets Sleater-Kinney guitar work, as well as the backing of the trio's lean rhythm section, is sometimes inspired.
MILD RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

7. Black & Blu - Gary Clark, Jr.: An occasionally fantastic but often wishy-washy major label debut from the already legendary Austin axe-swinger, this album is riveting whenever Clark posits himself as the natural successor to the Jimi Hendrix / Stevie Ray Vaughn school of guitar exorcism, and average at best when he tries to prove he can hang with his contemporaries in softie neo-soul. An album where eclecticism hurts rather than helps, check it out for its best moments, but this is one you may want to cherry-pick.
MILD RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

8. METZ - METZ: One of the most punishing releases of the year, Metz is a hard one to define, sticking to punk brevity, but blurring the lines between hardcore punk, psych-rock, no-fi noise, and modern metal.  I like the psych-rock leaning numbers like Wet Blanket and Headache best, but fans of muddy, harder-edged music will probably like it all.
MILD RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

Other Rock Titles Worth A Listen:

Boys & Girls - Alabama Shakes
Clear Heart Full Eyes - Craig Finn
Heaven - The Walkmen
Local Business - Titus Andronicus
On The Impossible Past - The Menzingers
Yellow & Green - Baroness

Next Up - The Year in Folk and Singer-Songwriter

2012:The Year In Folk/Singer-Songwriter

Women dominated the Folk and Singer-Songwriter categories in 2012, but it was a rich field overall.

Here are some of my favorites.

1. Young Man In America - Anais Mitchell: To my ears, two out of the last three years running now, Anais Mitchell has produced the year's best folk album. But Young Man In America is a very different record than 2010's Hadestown, which incorporated a vast swath of indie guest vocalists to recast the Eurydice-Orpheus myth in depression-era America.  Here Mitchell is front and center, the songs modern and stylistically of a piece rather than unrelentingly eclectic, and the lyrics, though still narrative in design, far more personal.  But as strong as several of the songs are, it's the crystal clear, graceful moment-to-moment flow of the album's spare, idiosyncratic instrumentation that really sets this record apart.  My favorite late night chill album of 2012...in year that produced several.
STRONG RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

2. The Idler Wheel... - Fiona Apple: I've never been the biggest fan of Apple's past work.  I admire many things about her - her voice, her hold-nothing-back emotional honesty, and her massive spine when it comes to pushing back against the music industry's cheapening commercial forces - but I've always been a sound-is-way-more-important-than-the-words listener, and I've never connected with her jazz-inflected musical sensibility.  But that said, this elaboratedly titled new record is an out-there confessional gem, full of unexpected, quirky lyrical and stylistic turns, and all set to instrumentation so pared down, it eliminates the jazzier feel to her past albums that I've never liked. One of the best reviewed albums of the year, I can't give it a nod over Young Man In America's often breath-taking musicality, but for most singer-songwriter fans, this was the record of 2012.
STRONG RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

3. The Lions Roar - First Aid Kit: This latest effort from two young cherub-voiced Swedish sisters who harmonize like angels and write far beyond their years includes two of 2012's most gorgeous songs in Emmylou and To A Poet. That the rest of the album nearly matches this excellence is just a bonus. Along with Allo' Darlin's Europe, Dr. John's Locked Down, and Japandroid's Celebration Rock, one of the most immediately agreeable albums of the year.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

4. Tramp - Sharon Van Etten: Assembled over multiple years primarily in the garage of good pal, producer, and National guitarist Aaron Dessner (yeah, he's one of the twins), I still question the production decisions on this album, not convinced that Dessner's lush, High Violet-like adult-contemporary arrangements serve Van Eten's beautiful, powerful but instinctively damaged voice as well as the spare acoustic backings on her previous, more country-flavored release Epic.  But there's no denying Tramp has a number of excellent, brooding tracks.  The album takes several listens to process, but it's worth the effort...and keep an ear out for Beruit's Zach Condon, who swoops in to save the day towards the end just when things start to feel a little repetitive.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon.

5. Put Your Back N 2 It - Perfume Genius: With the lone possible exception of the Chromatic's Kill For Love, Put Your Back N 2 It was 2012's most intimate album - tiny, Paul Simon-esque, often gay-themed song fragments set against the most delicate of piano instrumentation. A bit hit or miss, but the best moments - Normal Song, Dark Parts, Hood - hit with such emotional impact, it's all worth it.
SOLID RECOMMEND - Spotify! / iTunes /Amazon.





Others 2012 Indie-Folk/Singer-Songwriter releases worth hearing:
A Church That Fits Our Needs - Lost In The Trees
Big Inner - Matthew E. White
Deer Creek Canyon - Sara Cahone
Fear Fun - Father John Misty
I Like To Keep Myself In Pain - Kelly Hogan
Narrow - Soap & Skin
The Something Rain - Tindersticks
There's No Leaving Now - The Tallest Man On Earth
What We Saw From The Cheap Seats - Regina Spektor

Next Up - The Year In Electronica and Electro-Pop.

McQ's Favorite Tracks Of 2012 (for now)

Hey Everyone,

Mix collections are still two months away, but thought I jump into the December year end playlist sweepstakes anyways.

As of today, December 5, 2012...in no particular order, these are my fifty favorite songs, limited to one per artist, of the year.

Lots that should be familiar to anyone who's been tracking the year end best lists (Japandroids, Frank Ocean, Fiona Apple, Grimes, Tame Impala),  many who've done equally exceptional work this year but seem to be getting overlooked in the final tally (Dr. John, Allo' Darlin, Anais Mitchell, Low Cut Connie, Liars, Swans, Death Grips), and just some old-fashioned personal favorites (Menomena, Jimmy Cliff, Mark Lanegan).

But no matter how you break it down, there is much here to feast on.

Enjoy!

DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M HERE - Emeralds (2010)

One of the more celebrated electronic releases of 2010, this ambitious effort from Cleveland noise /art-rock stalwarts Emeralds is notable for its meticulous recreation of the classic sounds and textures of early avant-garde electro-pop and ambient music, particularly those mid-to-late 70s works of pioneering electronic artists like Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Robert Fripp, and Brian Eno.  

Especially Brian Eno.

Truth be told, half these songs would almost feel right at home on Eno's  masterpiece Another Green World, and those that don't could flow effortlessly in a mix with tracks from other Fripp/Eno efforts like No Pussyfooting, 801 Live, Exposure, Music For Airports and Music For Films.

For me though, the mere spot-on recreation of these sounds was not enough.

Though the music is expertly done, sometimes with interesting twists, Emeralds fail to recognize the primary differentiator of Eno's genius: For all of Eno's conceptual innovation, it was his ability to marry his abstractions with a retained sense of primal, human emotion that set him apart.

Eno's efforts from this era weren't just groundbreaking...they could also be profoundly moving.

Here, aside from one beautiful track (Goes By), Emeralds fail to deliver on the emotional half of that equation, leading to a record that comes off - to borrow a phrase from the presidential debate parlance of the moment - as quite wonky: occasionally fascinating reworkings of forgotten sonic motifs, conveying little to no heart. 

There are tracks that impress.  The aforementioned Goes By, the fine, building opener Candy Shoppe, the explosive title track (which reminded me some of Tim Hecker's work on Ravedeath, 1972), and the shifting, over-the top but at times glorious Genetic are all well worth a listen.  

But the rest of the material, while still decent, floats by in a bit of a bloopy, hard-to-connect-with, undifferentiated haze that is best left to fervent fans of the band, genre and era.

Status: Mild Recommend

Cherry Picker's Best Bets: Candy Shoppe, Genetic, Goes By, Does It Look Like I'm Here?



Track Listing:
1. Candy Shoppe - 8
2. The Cycle Of Abuse - 6
3. Double Helix - 7
4. Science Center - 7
5. Genetic - 7
6. Goes By - 8
7. Does It Look Like I'm Here - 8
8. Summerdata -7
9. Shade - 6
10. It Doesn't Arrive - 7
11. Now You See Me - 7
12. Access Granted - 7
Intangibles - average to slightly low.
Spotify / iTunes / Amazon

Here's a live performance from last year of album opener Candy Shoppe.

RED BARKED TREE - Wire (2011)

Though loathe to admit it, for even the most ardent rock 'n' roll completists, there are bands...sometimes great bands...that escape one's grasp the first go around.  For me, Gil Scott Heron, whom I just discovered two years ago on his final solo release I'm New Here,  was one.  Wire is another.

So unlike most other reviews, I will not be examining late career recording Red Barked Tree in the context of how it relates to Wire's early lauded classics like Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, or A Bell Is A Cup...Until It Is Struck, for the simple truth that I have yet to hear them.

This review instead assesses Red Barked Tree as my point of entry into the band's body of work.

And taken in that context, it's clear I do need to start listening to those other albums, because Red Barked Tree isn't doing a whole lot for me.

There are a few things I like.  For one, the album sports an engaging rhythmic simplicity.  Musically, these are uncomplicated songs, but the instrumentation and song structures have a clarity of intent I find appealing.

There are also two genuinely excellent tracks...the raised-middle-finger opener Please Take, which is a textbook case-study in ironic understatement, and the album's feistiest number, the acidic punker Moreover.

But after that, the pickings are mighty slim.

Taken as a whole, this is an art-punk record with very little musical bite.

I'm tempted to reach and make thematic links between the album's title/cover, which seem to suggest an exploration of alcoholism as an emotional defense mechanism - and the actual music, which does have a similarly detached, protective but unassertive feel, as if conceived by a nasty drunk whose motor control has slipped too much to be a physical challenge, but who still sober enough to throw out a cutting zinger or two.

But in the end, such analysis lends more weight to this work than it probably deserves.

Red Barked Tree is a decent sounding, lackluster record with some fine, wry lyrics, but a number of flat, only mildly engaging songs.

It gets a mild recommend on the strength of its sound and those two fine tracks, and is probably a worthwhile addition for lifelong fans of the band.

But for others like me, who are just getting started in exploring what is reportedly one of the richest discographies in all of punk, I sense, from my limited perspective, that Red Barked Tree is probably not the place to start.

Status: Mild Recommend

Cherry Picker's Best Bets: Please Take, Two Minutes, Moreover, Red Barked Trees.



Track Listing:
1. Please Take - 9
2. Now Was - 6
3. Adapt - 6
4. Two Minutes - 7
5. Clay - 6
6. Bad Worn Thing - 7
7. Moreover - 9
8. A Flat Tent - 5
9. Smash - 6
10. Down To This - 7
11. Red Barked Trees - 7
Intangibles - Low
Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon

Here's a music only video for Please Take.

WHO'S NEXT - The Who (1970)

From today's perspective, Who's Next is as classic rock as classic rock gets.

Hell, with it's ginormous, arena-sized thump, all-time iconic bookends in Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again, and arguably the most famous scream in all of recorded music, Who's Next might be the classic rock album.

All of which blurs the historical truth that at the time of its release, Who's Next was something undeniably new.

Born from the failed, nervous-breakdown-inducing ashes of Lifehouse, an SF rock opera Townsend had envisioned as the band's follow up to Tommy, Who's Next captured the band at a moment when it was ready to sever all ties with its past, and these scattered shards of Lifehouse that survived, though no longer thematically linked, presented the group at their most emotionally confrontational.

Not that it's an album full of anger.

To the contrary, there is a vibrant eclecticism on display, from gorgeous, heartbreaking ballads (The Song Is Over, Behind Blue Eyes), to declarations of love both ferocious (Bargain) and charmingly elemental (Love Ain't For Keeping), from the acerbically comic (Entwistle's My Wife), to the joyously silly (Going Mobile).

But when push came to shove, it was the band's growing disdain for the behavior and ideology of their peers that fueled the album's best material.

Never fans or active supporters of the 60s flower-power movement, the band is downright disdainful of the protest-minded here, both lyrically (Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss - It's only a teenage wasteland), and visually (where album title and cover encouraged all to piss on a monolith - the mystical evolutionary metaphor from every acid-dropping hippie's favorite 60's movie, 2001, A Space Odyssey).

However, as fed up as the Who were with the conventional wisdom of the day, it was instrumentally, not thematically, where Who's Next would have its biggest impact.

One of the first albums to fully incorporate the synthesizer, Townsend's work with sequenced tape loops on those famous bookends is now a permanent strand of rock 'n' roll DNA, but at the time, the effect was revelatory.

For some odd reason...or maybe because Who's Next is so associated with classic rock - today's top electronica artists rarely cite the album as an influence...but make no mistake, Who's Next was one of the very first "electronic" albums...a huge step forward.

Bottom line - whether recognized or unrecognized for its breakthroughs, it's hard to consider Who's Next today as anything other than a career high for one of the 60s top acts, and one of the greatest rock albums ever made.

A must own, and one final thought, the 1995 Geffen 16 track re-release of the album contains some of the best CD bonus tracks I've ever heard.

I don't list those tracks here, but it's well worth seeking this expanded version out.

Status: Highest Recommend.

Cherry Picker's Best Bets: Baba O'Riley, Getting In Tune, Behind Blue Eyes, Won't Get Fooled Again.



Track Listing:
1. Baba O'Riley - 10
2. Bargain - 9
3. Love Ain't For Keeping - 9
4. My Wife - 8
5. The Song Is Over - 8
6. Getting In Tune - 9
7. Going Mobile - 9
8. Behind Blue Eyes - 10
9. Won't Get Fooled Again - 10
Intangibles: High
Spotify! / iTunes / Amazon

Here's one of the final performances of opener Baba O'Riley from the band's original line-up, captured just months before Keith Moon's death in 1978.