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glenatronSo when the nineties ended all I really knew was nineties music and maybe a bit of necessary music history, everything was bright and new and exciting to me and it was great. I was young and in love with music and the whole deal was amazing.
Now at some point it seemed to me as though music stopped. I hear things now and there is very little that sounds actually new, suddenly it all sounds like tired rehashes of music I have heard before- new to the kids today perhaps but a little bit tired to me and maybe a lot of music isn't really for me now. I think this contributed to me not buying many albums in the middle of the decade, which means there are probably some omissions from this list that happened because I just didn't hear the records in question, but would have liked them otherwise. Others that people have really rated ( Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes etc ) are competent but have failed to blow me away entirely. However, this year I have rediscovered the pleasure of buying good records and listening to them intensively and I plan to do more of this in future.
So, on to the music, starting with one that isn't quite on the list,,.
Honourable Mention: Sequoia - Ebb & Flow
I don't have enough distance from this to say where it belongs relative to the list. It's a damn good album, no question, but after four years of living that record- the recording, the artwork ( that's my handwriting on the front cover ) playing the songs at gigs up and down the country, the whole deal, I can't really compare it with anything because I can't create the requisite distance.
Also, because I have heard it at every stage of it's creation, I know it so well that it is - to a degree - a record I don't really feel the need to hear again. Sometimes I'll listen to parts of it and be surprised and pleased with how good it sounds, but I rarely put it on to relax.
10. Damien Rice - O
A very fine album- intriguing, modern songs about love, doubt, porn and eskimos with heartfelt vocals and the brilliant interplay between the two voices it is one of the definitive singer-songwriter albums of the decade and very influential.
One of the very few records where the string arrangements ( particularly on Aimee ) come close to those on Five Leaves Left - although of course that is kind of the aim, I'm sure that the conversation was approximately "Make this song sound a bit like Nick Drake" but the outcome really was as close as anyone has got to that wonderful, autumnal, melancholic sound.
9. Tori Amos - The Beekeeper
Tori Amos is quite unusual in that she reliably creates albums that average out as good, with some truly brilliant songs and, a few somewhat weak filler trakcs. Nothing from this decade quite matches up to the brilliance of To Venus And Back, Boys For Pele or Little Earthquakes but this is still a very strong record, certainly next to some of the other dire nonsense she has produced lately - Strange Little Girls and American Doll Posse were both disappointingly terrible.
Here we have songs about pirates, a duet with Damien Rice and the astounding Toast which stands equal to her finest moments and there are more good songs than average ones here by a broad margin, which counts as a good Tori album. And because when she is good she is very good, a good Tori album is better than most albums by most artists.
8. Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
"Bring it back 2000 man..." I was really surprised to realise this came out this century, but it certainly deserves a place on this list. A genuine, beautiful, classic record full of the charm and warmth that Grandaddy always did so well. The subsequent album Sumday is also excellent but this one I prefer slightly.
The melancholy beauty of He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot with it's tremulous electronics and long slow build is worth the price of entry alone, even if it is somewhat connected in my mind with giant squirrels assaulting cyclists in slow motion.
7. Richard Thompson - The Old Kit Bag
This, for me, stands equal to anything Richard Thompson, the guitarist's guitarist and the songwriters' songwriter has released. Even the relatively filler tracks are solid and enjoyable, the menacing songs are properly menacing and towering over everything else A Love You Can't Survive is a searing moment of glorious lyrical storytelling.
The guitar playing is as stunning as ever, although I think probably best appreciated live when you become entirely conscious that yes, he is actually playing all of that on one guitar at the same time.
6. Mercury Rev - All Is Dream
If you listen to the opening bars of The Dark Is Rising you'll be entirely clear on why this appears here on this list. What a stunning song. I know that many fans prefer Deserters' Songs but for me that record was ruined by the saxophone ( oh how much do I hate that instrument ) whereas this one is a glorious success in its absence.
I do definitely prefer the tracks that have the more complete orchestration, but as an album this hangs together beautifully with it's soft, spacious sound.
It's also one fo the records I bought when I first met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sleepsy_mouse and it reminds me of the first few times I went to visit her, which are certainly a treasured corner of the decade.
5. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
I got this one quite late- in winter 2007 - because people had been going on about it for so long. In fairness they were right, it is a blazing, beautiful record. The way that musical figures carry through from song to song, the feeling of loss and time's relentless encroachment on life and the way that in spite of that it raises itself to glory and celebrates the joy alongside the sadness.
And then I was in Canada and my horse had just died three thousand miles away and it was one of the worst weeks of my life and this was the only record I could listen to at that point. It soaked up a lot of pain, but now every time I hear it some of that is released again and I don't listen to it these days, although I wish I could.
4. Midlake The Trials Of Van Occupanther
I was surprised to find this one had wound it's way so high in the list, but then I listen back to it and it really is an excellent record. Every song is strong enough to stand alone and they knit together beautifully to create a whole that is greater than the sum of it's parts. The desire to be part of a less complex, more rustic, time - to be waylaid by bandits and lose everything and start again, that talks to my rustic side. Sat by the fire and dreaming of horses, I'd say that side is pretty strong these days...
The record was very much a grower- I enjoyed it immediately but it took a year or two to appreciate it's depths. When Gideon Coe finished his morning show on 6 Music - the best radio show around at that time, no question - Branches was the track he chose as his definitive one of the period.
I'm not so sure about the many wannabe bands that have followed in these tracks, but this record is one I can go back to time and again and keep finding wonderful things.
3. Tom McRae - Tom McRae
Seriously, what a stunning songwriter. Every track on this album is a winner in terms of lyrics, tune, arrangement the lot. There are song highlights such as End Of The World News and Bloodless and there are highlight moments- when the cellos first come in on You Cut Her Hair the beat rolling in to A And B Song but there is nothing on this album that is not exceptionally strong.
There are no bad Tom McRae albums - All Maps Welcome might be less amazing than the others but an average album from this guy is better than most of what any other singer-songwriter could produce. When he is good - this album was very close with Just Like Blood and King Of Cards could easily be on this list - he is truly stunning.
2. Emmy The Great - First Love
I first heard something from Emmy The Great a couple of years ago and it caught my ears and made me think this might be a songwriter to be reckoned with. When this album finally came right I was absolutely vindicated. She is a brilliant lyricist. Probably the best songwriter in the world right now. As good as Dar Williams was before she got happy and lost her muse. I really can't overstate the quality of the lyrics here but I don't want to suggest that she is a one-trick pony. The tunes are strong and the arrangements are brilliant, particularly the counterpoint backing vocals on a couple of tracks that just offset everything amazingly.
There is no question at all in my mind that if I do get around to doing a "Songs Of The Decade" list Easter Parade would be right there at the top. So good that when I heard it I felt inspired to give up writing lyrics because really there's no need for me to even try when Emmy The Great is doing it so much better.
1. British Sea Power - The Decline Of British Sea Power
Half way through the song Lately it dissolves into squalling screaming feedback and a general wall of sound for very slightly too long. That is the only flaw in the entire album.
I don't even know how to talk about this one- I bought it, was somewhat unimpressed, put it on one side after a few listens and then came back to it a year later to discover that it was the greatest album ever recorded. Even thinking about it sends shivers down my spine.
Although it was released in this decade it is really about the twentieth century and not just the end of it, the whole thing. Favours In The Beetroot Fields with it's Dostoevsky references, Carrion's chorus referring to brilliantine mortality, it is a very complete picture, musically intense, beautifully performed and strikingly original. Although it is made up of familliar post-punk shapes they have never been arranged in quite this order and they have never sounded quite so rural. There is nothing rustic about it, but it is an album that lives by the sea, that celebrates all of England, not just the cities, even as they threaten to swim from these favourite island shores.
They have recorded some other very fine albums in the last few years, but nothing has come close to this amazing, intense achievement.
Now at some point it seemed to me as though music stopped. I hear things now and there is very little that sounds actually new, suddenly it all sounds like tired rehashes of music I have heard before- new to the kids today perhaps but a little bit tired to me and maybe a lot of music isn't really for me now. I think this contributed to me not buying many albums in the middle of the decade, which means there are probably some omissions from this list that happened because I just didn't hear the records in question, but would have liked them otherwise. Others that people have really rated ( Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes etc ) are competent but have failed to blow me away entirely. However, this year I have rediscovered the pleasure of buying good records and listening to them intensively and I plan to do more of this in future.
So, on to the music, starting with one that isn't quite on the list,,.
Honourable Mention: Sequoia - Ebb & Flow
Also, because I have heard it at every stage of it's creation, I know it so well that it is - to a degree - a record I don't really feel the need to hear again. Sometimes I'll listen to parts of it and be surprised and pleased with how good it sounds, but I rarely put it on to relax.
10. Damien Rice - O
One of the very few records where the string arrangements ( particularly on Aimee ) come close to those on Five Leaves Left - although of course that is kind of the aim, I'm sure that the conversation was approximately "Make this song sound a bit like Nick Drake" but the outcome really was as close as anyone has got to that wonderful, autumnal, melancholic sound.
9. Tori Amos - The Beekeeper
Here we have songs about pirates, a duet with Damien Rice and the astounding Toast which stands equal to her finest moments and there are more good songs than average ones here by a broad margin, which counts as a good Tori album. And because when she is good she is very good, a good Tori album is better than most albums by most artists.
8. Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
The melancholy beauty of He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot with it's tremulous electronics and long slow build is worth the price of entry alone, even if it is somewhat connected in my mind with giant squirrels assaulting cyclists in slow motion.
7. Richard Thompson - The Old Kit Bag
The guitar playing is as stunning as ever, although I think probably best appreciated live when you become entirely conscious that yes, he is actually playing all of that on one guitar at the same time.
6. Mercury Rev - All Is Dream
I do definitely prefer the tracks that have the more complete orchestration, but as an album this hangs together beautifully with it's soft, spacious sound.
It's also one fo the records I bought when I first met
sleepsy_mouse and it reminds me of the first few times I went to visit her, which are certainly a treasured corner of the decade.5. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
And then I was in Canada and my horse had just died three thousand miles away and it was one of the worst weeks of my life and this was the only record I could listen to at that point. It soaked up a lot of pain, but now every time I hear it some of that is released again and I don't listen to it these days, although I wish I could.
4. Midlake The Trials Of Van Occupanther
The record was very much a grower- I enjoyed it immediately but it took a year or two to appreciate it's depths. When Gideon Coe finished his morning show on 6 Music - the best radio show around at that time, no question - Branches was the track he chose as his definitive one of the period.
I'm not so sure about the many wannabe bands that have followed in these tracks, but this record is one I can go back to time and again and keep finding wonderful things.
3. Tom McRae - Tom McRae
There are no bad Tom McRae albums - All Maps Welcome might be less amazing than the others but an average album from this guy is better than most of what any other singer-songwriter could produce. When he is good - this album was very close with Just Like Blood and King Of Cards could easily be on this list - he is truly stunning.
2. Emmy The Great - First Love
There is no question at all in my mind that if I do get around to doing a "Songs Of The Decade" list Easter Parade would be right there at the top. So good that when I heard it I felt inspired to give up writing lyrics because really there's no need for me to even try when Emmy The Great is doing it so much better.
1. British Sea Power - The Decline Of British Sea Power
I don't even know how to talk about this one- I bought it, was somewhat unimpressed, put it on one side after a few listens and then came back to it a year later to discover that it was the greatest album ever recorded. Even thinking about it sends shivers down my spine.
Although it was released in this decade it is really about the twentieth century and not just the end of it, the whole thing. Favours In The Beetroot Fields with it's Dostoevsky references, Carrion's chorus referring to brilliantine mortality, it is a very complete picture, musically intense, beautifully performed and strikingly original. Although it is made up of familliar post-punk shapes they have never been arranged in quite this order and they have never sounded quite so rural. There is nothing rustic about it, but it is an album that lives by the sea, that celebrates all of England, not just the cities, even as they threaten to swim from these favourite island shores.
They have recorded some other very fine albums in the last few years, but nothing has come close to this amazing, intense achievement.
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no subject
Date: 31 Dec 2009 15:57 (UTC)Your #5...some of Tori's albums are like that for me, especially Boys For Pele. Love love love that album but cannot listen to it without dredging up old pain. Music truly is good medicine, but it's also a bit sad when we then lose that music to the pain.
Still, have to check out Beekeepers as I agree that the last few Tori projects have sounded terrible, and so have stopped looking for new Tori altogether. Glad to hear she's done something new and beautiful. May have to check out #2 as well...
no subject
Date: 31 Dec 2009 17:34 (UTC)I strongly recommend Emmy The Great to anyone interested in poetry or lyrics- if you just look at pretty much any of her lyrics (http://www.songmeanings.net/artist/view/songs/137438970122/) you'll get an idea what I mean.