Vikings & Beekeepers

A special shout out to all pointless intro tracks. You make me mad and you rarely serve a purpose. Go away.

10. Les Savy Fav “Reformat (Dramatic Reading)”

A kind of dinner theatre-type playlet, “Reformat (Dramatic Reading)” is an interesting enough diversion on Inches the first time around – a palette cleanser of sorts – but it’s almost never a “song” that you would ever want or need to return to. That’s what skip buttons are for, I guess – not a major issue. On Inches, it’s just a single skip on an 18 tracks album, but if I bought the two-song single that included only this and the live version of “Reformat” I’d definitely want my money back.

9. Jay-Z “Hello Brooklyn 2.0 feat. Lil Wayne”

I don’t hate Lil’ Wayne, I just don’t think his voice is a hook in and of itself. “Hello Brooklyn 2.0” came out during a time when Weezy was annoyingly ubiquitous, tossing off half-assed guest spots left and right. This song represents a low point. American Gangster has a fairly slow start and “Hello Brooklyn 2.0,” with its aimless boom-clap beat, Hov’s not-even-trying verses and a Beastie Boys sample, represents the moment where the listener starts to worry that the album might not be that great at all. Luckily things take off with the following track, “No Hook,” but this song does a good job of representing every possible way Hov could misfire.

8. Kanye West “Pinocchio Story (Freestyle Live From Singapore)”

Listen, if Kanye West is a purely serviceable, if slightly subpar rapper, than he’s almost certainly not much better as a freestyle rapper, even if it’s coming from Kanye’s faux-tortured soul (“There is no Gucci I could buy…”). A sort of lament of the superstar (“I just want to be a real boy”), Kanye lays on every layer of his phony “woe is me” affectation in a murky search of inspiration and spontaneity. I’ll forgive 808’s And Heartbreak for its insufferable whininess because the songs are good, but when the song has yet to be formed, then that whininess comes off as just…whininess. Boo-urns.

7. Modest Mouse “This Devil’s Workday”

For the big coming out party that was Good News For People Who Love Bad News, Isaac Brock and Co. decided to smuggle in a handful of Tom Waits tributes. I’m not the biggest fan of Waits, but I don’t begrudge anyone that is. I do, however, begrudge such a shameless attempt to mimic. Modest Mouse is a terrific band with a penchant for continually expanding their sound, but they’re not much of a cover band. Good News loses a lot of momentum in its middle third with this unhealthy Waits-fixation and “This Devil’s Workday” represents the low point. Stick to what you’re good at, boys, not what others are good at.

6. System Of A Down “Needles”

A lot of what makes System Of A Down work is the “it’s so bad, it’s good” factor. The songs are uniformly ridiculous and over-the-top. You’re laughing at it first, but soon you’re totally engrossed and head-banging in your car with utter sincerity. Unfortunately, “Needles,” with its “Pull the tapeworm out of your ass” refrain, doesn’t quite jump from “it’s so bad” to “it’s good.” It’s close – the song enjoys all the misplaced drama of SOAD’s best work - but it’s just way too stupid. No expects to take these guys seriously, but my goodness, don’t yourselves so easy to dismiss as Limp Bizkit acolytes.

5. Marnie Stern “Prime”

Marnie Stern makes a glorious racket with her splendid guitar playing, but sometimes that racket is just racket. This Is It… is an album bursting at the seams with energy and enthusiasm, but even at the best of times there are some things that listeners have to adjust their ears to (Stern’s voice is a shrill as her guitar work is impressive), but nothing comes as much of an affront to the listener’s ears than this jackhammer assault of treble, treble and even more treble. “Prime” is a bold opening for This Is It… because it puts everything that’s possible not to like about Stern right out into the open for everyone to see, but bold does not mean good and good this is not. Hell, the guitar lines aren’t even that good either. In my eyes, This Is It… starts at track two.

4. Ted Leo “Stove By A Whale”

Quick tip any young bands that are currently putting the track list together for their new album: don’t immediately follow up the best song you’ve ever written with the worst song you’ve ever written. It doesn’t make the better song sound any better, it just makes the lesser song sound worse. Case in point the dramatic drop in quality from “Timorous Me” to “Stove By A Whale” on Ted Leo’s mostly fantastic Tyranny Of Distance. Leo has just written the most winning song of his career, a song peppered with big exclamation mark moments (when the drums kick in, the closing guitarmony) and big heart. What does he do to follow it up? Slap on a quarter-written song with no direction and an interminable intro. It’s bad, bad, bad and it only sounds worse after the ecstatic “Timorous Me.” Sometimes you’ve got to pick tracks from the B pile to pad your album, but when you start reaching for the D pile, it’s time to consider the merits of the EP.

3. David Byrne & Brian Eno “I Feel My Stuff”

I know Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is at the bottom of my list and probably doesn’t deserve to be picked on, but there’s a good reason why this was the last album I considered for the list. It’s basically just “I Feel My Stuff” – it just sucks so bad and naturally it’s the longest song on Everything by well over a minute (and what a long minute that is). The song’s faults are plentiful – the arty production flourishes are annoying, Byrne’s lyrics are pathetic and the vocal performance is grating. But what really makes “I Feel My Stuff” a failure is that it sounds like it’s really trying, like it has a false sense of its own significance. Everything is such a positive vibe album, but “Stuff” defies goodwill. Byrne and Eno have never been worse. Not many have, actually.

2. Deerhoof “Kidz Are So Small”

Derailed! It really feels like there’s something special going on during the first two-thirds of Friend Opportunity. The songs seem fuller, more confident. They’re cocksure and big, a rarity for Deerhoof who always included heavy doses of twee cutesiness in their songs. In the past, that cutesiness provided an interesting juxtaposition for the songs – like you were hearing two completely different personalities running headlong into the other, melding into something weird and unbalanced, but ultimately effective. Friend Opportunity has less of that, but that doesn’t mean Deerhoof have exercised their overly precious demons, instead they’ve just condensed all of those aggravating, cloying tendencies into one heinous track. That arguable album standout “Matchbook Seeks Maniac” immediately follows “Kidz Are So Small” make it a song you’ll often be forced to endure, but even in its short time span, “Kidz Are So Small” wears on the nerves.

1.     Animal Collective “Visiting Friends”

Sung Tongs already kind of trips up by the time we get to “Visiting Friends,” a 12-minute dirge of aimless guitar strumming and aggravating vocal loops, but “Friends” is the song that cements the fact that Sung Tongs is not quite the “arrival” that critics wanted it to be. Animal Collective were always a weird band, but they were usually good for pairing that weirdness with, at the very least, something fascinating. “Visiting Friends” is weird, but it’s not fascinating. In fact, it’s a rudderless, meandering bore, serving no greater purpose than offering the listener the chance to run out of the house to grab some groceries safe in the knowledge that they could leave Sung Tongs running and not miss anything. With Sung Tongs, Animal Collective showed that there was genius in the premises, but all songs like “Visiting Friends” do is provide validation to the camp that believe that their music is only for mouth-breathing, humorless, chin-stroking wankers.