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| From | "garymaher@juno.com" <garymaher@juno.com> |
| Subject | My Top 8 of 2010 |
| Date | Thu, 23 Dec 2010 08:02:42 GMT |
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Where does the year go? My list is even shorter than usual, so I guess I didn't get around to a lot of the new releases this year. A lot of our usual Audities bands have been quiet lately and are way overdue for new releases -- Cloud Eleven, Splitsville, Wondermints (aside from the odds and sods set), The Nines, Jon Freakin’ Brion, The Lolas, Tiny Volcano (in the works), The Red Button (due in February), etc. But here’s what I did manage to find and enjoy in 2010: 1. Hans Rotenberry & Brad Jones - Mountain Jack. This is great, check it out. I only had to listen to it once to know it was my favorite release of the year. I actually like it better than the last couple of Shazam releases, and Brad and Hans really sound great together. I hope this is the first of many. 2. Teenage Fanclub - Shadows. I know "Better than Man-Made" isn’t much of an endorsement, and it’s not as good as Howdy, but it’s nice to see the Fannies back on track. 3. Jeremy Messersmith - The Reluctant Graveyard. I can see the Elliott Smith comparisons, but Jeremy Messersmith will not make you want to slit your wrists. Check out the track "Violet" for a blatant prototype of "our" brand of pop. 4. Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love. I guess it’s along the same lines as The Life Pursuit, i.e. a decent but not fantastic B&S record. But even a mediocre B&S album trumps most others in my book. Also, my copy came with a 45 RPM single whose two songs would have been the best on the album. One of them, Suicide Girl, is the best song I’ve heard from them since Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Whoever decided to leave this off the album wasn’t thinking straight... 5. The Secret History - The World That Never Was. The Secret History is indie-mopers My Favorite with a different female lead singer, Lisa Ronson, daughter of Mick. Songwriter and male lead singer Michael Grace continues to be Long Island’s answer to Morrissey, and while they don’t hit the heights of My Favorite’s best tracks, it’s a solid record along those lines. 6. The Innocence Mission - My Room in the Trees. Always one of my favorite bands, though hardly power pop. It’s mellow folky stuff. This one is better than their past few releases. 7. Field Music - Field Music (Measure). Their first album is one of my favorites from the past few years, a quirky collection of artsy twee pop. This, their third, is still quirky, but it’s heavier on the artsy and lighter on the pop. It kind of meanders around, where the songs on their debut got in, said what they had to say, and got out. It’s not bad, but it’s no world beater. 8. of Montreal - False Priest. I love of Montreal. I love Jon Brion. You’d think an of Montreal album produced by Jon Brion would be at the top of my list. Well it would be, if it wasn’t self-indulgent crap. And you can tell Kevin I said that. (But don’t tell Jon, I worship him too much.) I wasn’t particularly impressed by Skeletal Lamping, and I’m afraid Kevin’s lost his way a bit. Maybe he’ll get back on track after he gets The Controller Sphere out of his system. I came really close to leaving this off my list, but then I wouldn’t have had anyplace to put this little critique, right? Splendid older things I discovered this year: Various Artists - A Trip to Toytown. Someone very clever has compiled 119 songs from the recently identified genre of "toytown" pop. Think Penny Lane, Your Mother Should Know, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Marmalade, Kaleidoscope (UK), Village Green and Something Else era Kinks, Idle Race, all those pop-psych songs about shopkeepers – very pop, very 60's, very twee and very British. Go here and download it now: http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/toytown1.htm The of Montreal back catalog. All of it. If you haven’t delved into it, it’s great, and a lot of it is on sale at Polyvinyl Records’ website. The Millennium - Pieces. Curt Boettcher died in 1987, but what would my end of year list be without a Curt sighting. This year, I discovered Pieces, a compilation of demos of songs that for the most part would have comprised the follow-up to Begin. The best ones here are written and sung by Michael Fennelly, and they are among his finest compositions. It’s a crime that these songs remained unreleased for over 30 years. g
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