Two weeks ago, I started my first full-time job at World Oil magazine, and it's given a structure to my life that I've lacked since I left college last May. So now I plan to return to regular entries for good, mostly capitalizing on my lunch breaks and a quiet, new, working environment where I can actually write in peace.
Here are a few albums I discovered at the tail end of 2012. When I say discovered, I mean that I finally sat down and listened to them in full. Most of these, with the exception of Metz, I've know about for a long time.
Hopefully, next year, I will have a much shorter, top 10 blog post of albums that I've already reviewed. Since I've already quit smoking this year, maybe being more committed to this blog can be my resolution. See you in 2013.
Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE
I picked this up, quite literally, just 15 minutes ago, and I am in love. I love R&B in general but to a large extent, it's been pushed out of the top 40 by hip-hop. Soul and R&B used to be the predominate forms of popular black musical expression before rap and even though today hip-hop still contains shreds of soul still, I feel like, in general, that's becoming less and less true. This is not a dig at hip-hop, I just happen to be far more a fan of R&B/soul. So naturally, I was extremely surprised when I discovered just how soul-oriented channel ORANGE actually is.Normally, Beyonce is the closest the mainstream gets to picking up good R&B (well, we also had the fantastic "Alabama Shakes" explode this year too, I guess) and I think Beyonce is vastly overrated and she annoys the hell out of me. She's soul-lite. You've got Usher too, who actually doesn't particularly bother me, but his songwriting is so modern and radio-oriented that it's hard to enjoy his fabulous voice. Frank Ocean, however, is the real deal. Although the album is experimental and by no means a work of pure R&B, Ocean's voice shines through the mix and is the centerpiece of the music. That is a hallmark of work normally from the golden age of soul: magnificent vocals are king and everything else is either accompaniment or just plain ancillary. No throbbing synth tones or the now ever-present utz utz utz to poppify things.
I won't go into specifics since basically everyone else has already listened to this album, I just wanted to make it clear that it goes on my list.
Tame Impala - Lonerism
Chillwave died off (or at least went into a kind of extended coma) around the same time Cut Copy's "Zonoscope" debuted, two summers ago. The mellow psych revival has now been out of the spotlight for some time and 2012's biggest moments, if you ask the critics, were largely Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean. However, the success and overall positive reception of Tame Impala's Lonerism has allowed a bit of the old (Zonoscope seems like such a long time ago now), familiar, chillwave warmth to seep back into many magazines'/websites'/blogs' year-end listsBuilding on a very obviously Beatles-esque aesthetic framework, Tame Impala's music has mellowed out considerably from their sometimes hard-rocking debut. It's almost like going from The Who's Live at Leeds to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There are still the flawless, 60s rock, vocal harmonies but they are rarely disturbed by loud guitar or modern-sounding lead melodies. Instead the guitar is delicately poured on, along with phased out synths, and even a little grand piano.
"Elephant" is the only time the volume ever goes up with its chugging, palm-muted chorus but even that turns, with the help of a warbling organ, into a colorful psychedelic romp. There's even a riff that sounds like it was lifted right out of "Money" but if it was, it was definitely more homage than hubris.
The bridge in "Sun's Coming Up" and all of the heart-breaking "Why won't they talk to me?" are the album's highlights.
Mac Demarco - 2
Demarco has restored my faith in "indie-rock". For the past few years, I've steered pretty clear of any up-and-coming "indie" band who exhibited too much levity and playfulness because in my experience, lately that's become a clever disguise for having shite songwriting or technical abilities.WARNING: the next graph is a diatribe and has nothing to do with the album review. Read at your own risk.
[Best Coast is probably the clearest example. It's as if their music was written to project: "oh yeah, we're minimal because that's just who we are and somehow you're supposed to gather from this that we're very stylized and original when really there's almost nothing complex or compelling going on in our songs". You can see that stupid crap in action right here. They manage to take a mysterious, moody, tension-filled, song and dumb it down to such horrifying vapidity that it sounds like it was written, on a sunny day, inside an Urban Outfitters, specifically for an Apple commercial. They would call that juxtaposition of a dark-ish song and peppy music "ironic" (secretly of course, not publicly) but I would call that offensive and bad. To avoid this problem, I've stuck largely to heavi-er, weirder, darker music. There are poseurs here too, but somehow when I encounter them, it's less annoying to me.]
The lighter side of rock, what some people would call twee pop, has plenty of valid music, I just get easily irritated by cliches, and I tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Anyway, Mac Demarco appeals to all of the things I like in competently written "indie" music: first, a sufficient complexity to suggest that it's not meant to be ironic and that actual effort went into it and at least a dash of seriousness at points to show that there is some real emotion invested in it. Mac has both of these things in addition to a voice, that when combined with the music, reminds me of sadcore visionary Mark Kozelek of the Red House Painters. Some of the lyrics are iffy at points but the entire experience is so enjoyable, I find it pretty easy to forgive him. The typical palette on the album is drums, bass, Mac's sleepy vocals, and his shimmering chorus-bathed guitar playing. Mac is a very decent musician, producing, on "2", more than a few stellar licks.
"Cooking up Something good" and "Freaking out the Neighborhood" are the best examples of universally appealing Demarco songs from this album.
Metz - METZ
For a year with very few moments of musical excitement, Metz gave us something special.Actually, the kind of exhilaration I got from their debut is similar to my feelings on Ceremony's 2012 release, Zoo. Yet the theme of this post is going to be great music that passed me by throughout the year so I won't talk about Zoo, I actually reviewed that one.
Metz are similar to Ceremony given their post-hardcore genre and penchant for passionately noisy rock with a punk energy. Metz are definitely more noisy than Ceremony. If Ceremony is evocative of post-punk legends Wire, Metz would be more like Pussy Galore but with more yelling and doom. Notably, Metz is very fond of using (and perhaps abusing, depending on who you ask) feedback and amplifier chatter as texture. Lyrics are hard-to-make-out but are not screamed.
Overall the record is a little repetitive but it's so enthusiastically executed that that matters little, which I guess you could say of punk, in general. The dissonant vamping in "sad pricks" is the album's highlight and a good overall summary of Metz energy. I expect Metz, along with younger bands like Iceage, to be instrumental in coming years.
