So this is the third blog I have created. I have a bad habit of creating these things when I am creatively inclined to want to do it and then I get bored and don't do them for awhile. Sometimes, as I learned before I created this one, I forget how to even access my old account. Oh well I figured I would do some much needed critiquing and reviewing since I can't tell you the last time I did that. So 2008 is coming to an end and for the first time, I haven't thought about what the new year will bring. As one gets older, you tend to lose sight of the world around and days months, and yes, even years slowly begin to run together. I'm almost 21 and it seems like the past four years just slowly slipped away and I didn't even notice.
None the less, I am not here to be sappy I figured I would review my top 10 albums of the year based on what came out this year and acts that i only discovered this year so don't correct me if the year of these albums release are not sisinct with the year in review.
10. Vampire Weekend- Vampire Weekend
I still have yet to decide if I actually like this band or even this album. Working in a record store you here alot of in coming hype from artsy fartsy customers who talk about the next big thing in music and how they want to be wearing berets in the Soho district of New York or move to Williamsburg and start the next installment of bands that sound like Pavement or The Apples in Stereo. Vampire Weekend was another one of those bands that fell into the overly hyped category when their debut album was released this past January. At first listen the first couple tracks were catchy and clinged to my side for the remainder of the album's length. However I slowly became disenchanted with the combination of indy rock riffs and African beats. Nine months later I picked the album back up after hearing their music prominently used in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, a film that connected to me about what you would hope love could be but I knew it was only a movie. On further examination the album is pretty top notch for its genre. Tracks like "Oxford Comma" and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" proved to be even more entertaining upon a second listen and other tracks like "Walcott" and "Campus" made a better impression this time around. "Punk-A," which I am convinced I heard in every available medium at some point this year is really as cracked up as it seems to be. Reinvigeration in my interest aside I can't tell if this band is going to be the fad that the Williamsburg kids always talk about or if they have enough gusto to last through a couple more albums in these shakiest of times in music.
9. Jack's Mannequin- The Glass Passenger
This little fella came relatively late in the year so it doesn't get as big a praise as some of the other ones in this list. At first listen I found myself rather dissapointed in Andrew McMahon's second effort in his side project known as Jack's Mannequin. The album sounded entirely removed from the band's first release, Everything In Transit. However I realized soon enough that I could no longer refer to Jack's Mannequin as a side project. My hopes of seeing another release from McMahon's first band Something Corporate have died completely and the acceptance of Mannequin as his entry into maturity in music has settled in. I realized that the Glass Passenger was very much a Jack's Mannequin record where as the first album was more of a continuation of the Something Corporate style of writing and producing music. It is also important to point out that after being through a near death experience like leukemia like he had one needs to write about something more meaningful in life than chasing the girl and hanging out with your best friends. Glass Passenger is truly a fantastic piece of pop music, its everything modern about mainstream music as well as everything old school about songwriting. Tracks like "The Resolution," "American Love," and "Bloodclot" represent what putting your spirit into a song is all about. Heartache, personal triumph and omptimism are things that play well into some of the best songwriting out there and Andrew McMahon has shown those colors in these songs that are more than just the blood from his veins.
8. Rilo Kiley- Under the Blacklight
Okay so this album came out last year but I only recently discovered a taste for this group. Rilo Kiley, which features two former child stars dipping their feet into music is quite honestly a very refreshing band. I can't pin point exactly how to define them or really what I see in them but they just don't mind experimenting with sounds and writing some real catchy new wave kind of rock tunes. The two former child stars, Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett, seemed to found a better niche in writing and recording music then either of them did touring the television circuit through out the eighties and nineties (Lewis use to be on Troop Beverly Hills and Sennett was on Salute Your Shorts) Under the Blacklight the band's forth album was very much what I thought 2007 and even 2008 have been, a yearning for the night life. Honestly I have found myself over the past year and a half what is so exciting about hanging out in the city visiting bars and listening to upstart bands that Pitchfork will eventually profile but in a way I assumed this is what I would be listening to at 1 AM in a Williamsburg bar so I think its worth looking into. Catchy guitar riffs coupled with a massive amount of symphonic sound makes for many poppy yet danceable songs. Recommended songs to check out: Silver Lining, Close Call, Breaking Up, Dejalo, and 15 (probably the most sixties sounding about falling for jail bait I have ever heard!) I will probably continue to pursue listening to these guys, maybe go see them if they come around again but I can't help but laugh when I think of Blake Sennett when he plays guitar all I can see is him as Joey the Rat on Boy Meets World when I was a kid.
- So I am cutting off this post real quick because it is getting I will continue on with my reviews.... write after I post this.
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