Vikings & Beekeepers

Well, it’s 2009 and every possible Best of ’08 list has been written, printed and criticized, except for over here at Vikings & Beekeepers, where I’m still trying to summarize the last three months of music. Oh, but what a three months it was. The last three months may have had less really, really great albums, but it had the most regular great albums (which means a lot less padding for 6-10) and hey, finally some halfway decent hip hop albums (although, as it turns out, TI’s Paper Trail was a Sept. 30 release, so I guess I won’t be writing on that one until the best of 08)! Even if I seem to snub some albums here (apologies to Deerhunter), assume you will see them for my year-end list. My final year-end list will come shortly, if you care. I’m doing my damndest to catch up on all the music that I missed in the first half of the year.

Anyway, here’s what kicked my ass as we inched closer to the holiday season.

1. Marnie Stern This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That

Marnie Stern is most certainly not for everybody ­- her songs are too busy, her voice way too shrill and just look at that horrific album title – but it seems the only people who would resist are people afraid to be pummeled to death by awesomeness.

Combining her hammer-on happy fretwork and pep rally vocals with Zach Hill’s rollicking drums, Stern managed to make an album that blows you away with its technical proficiency, charms you with its modest self-help lyrics and challenges you to ingest the entire album in one sitting. Guitar-heads will freak and noise rockers have just found their pop princess, but This Is It… is an album for absolutely anybody who has ever doubted the uplifting power that a good rock song – and in this case, a great rock album - can have.

“Transformer”

2. Fucked Up The Chemistry Of Common Life

Modern hardcore has spent several years trying to outgrow the overwhelming shadow of its forefathers (Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat) by pushing its sonics past the point of chuggah-chuggah riffs and barking vocalists. Refused tried to embrace electronics, the Blood Brothers tried to create shrill, pitchy chaos and now Fucked Up are throwing their hat into the artcore circle. Unfortunately, hardcore, at its heart, is simply chuggah-chuggah riffs and barking vocalists. This is what makes Fucked Up’s latest such a triumph. They’ve managed to push the sound of their chosen genre, while ensuring that they remain unmistakably hardcore. Singer Pink Eye barks and growls like a diabetic Henry Rollins, while the band chugs along with the best of them. What’s different is the production. With a more is more philosophy, Fucked Up have added on layers and layers of decidedly un-HC instruments and guitar effects, while still being able to maintain the basic, essentially DNA of the band’s parent genre. The result is an album that’s equal parts ugly, brutish, brutal, expansive and beautiful. Fucked up indeed.

3. David Byrne and Brian Eno Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

I guess this one was released a little earlier than October in Europe, but I don’t think it saw the light of day stateside until far later. Still, if there was a more happy surprise this year, I’d like to see it. After a 27-year recording hiatus, Byrne and Eno reunited to create something far different than 1981’s ambient, patchwork My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts: a quasi-gospel album with, egads, actual songs and song structures. While both Byrne and Eno boast a fair deal of hip cache in these late-2000s, neither has released an album that has caused anyone to swoon in quite some time. What makes Everything such a wonderful surprise is its warmth and heart, two aspects of Byrne’s career in particular that have been overlooked. The painful and awkward “I Feel My Stuff” aside, this is an album by two artists who, despite advancing age, never sound out of touch.

4. Deerhoof Offend Maggie

Offend Maggie has been described as a sort of placeholder for Deerhoof, an album that rarely missteps, but doesn’t advance the cause. In comparing album opener “The Tears And Music Of Love” to “The Perfect Me” from last year’s incredible Friend Opportunity, one is inclined to agree ­- things are little more sluggish this time around. But simply because Offend Maggie doesn’t boast its two predecessors’ immediacy doesn’t mean its not a delightful, worthwhile album in its own right. “Buck And Judy’s” slowed down grooves make it feel like simultaneously the softest and heaviest Deerhoof song yet (pairing the soft/heavy dynamic is pretty much the band’s MO), “Snoopy Waves” is one of the most feel-good tracks of the year with it’s squelched guitar heroics and “Family Of Others” might just be the loveliest bit of freak folk this century has seen. Deerhoof just keep rolling along doing what they do best: being one of the best damn bands in the world.

5. Scarface Emeritus

This one should blow up in the ’09 as one of the most overlooked albums by websites rushing out their year-end lists at the expense of some terrific late December releases. As far as I can see, Emeritus, the supposed last album by legendary Houston rapper Scarface, may be the best straight ahead rap album of the year, the kind that rocks in both the car stereo and in the headphones. Let this be a lesson to all of you over-eager publications: while you were granting Lil Wayne’s overrated Tha Carter III with the token best rap album of the year status, you missed out on a real classic.

6-10 (in no particular order) Deerhunter Microcastle; Amadou & Mariam Welcome To Mali; Q-Tip The Rennaisance; Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit The Very Best Mixtape and The Welcome Wagon Welcome To The Welcome Wagon

This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.