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December 28, 2006

BEST ALBUMS OF 2006 - THREE TAKES - PART 3 - KEITH O'BRIEN

True, no year is a bad or great year in music – it’s like claiming that today’s global temperature is warm – there are too many factors.

But I couldn’t banish the phrase, as I set up to give you my picks, made popular by the incredibly unpopular former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. And so, as I present a surprisingly rap-dominated list for your year-end enjoyment, I offer these words: “You go to press with the music you have, not the music you want.”

Here it goes; this one is for all (five?) of you twee/misogynistic hip-hop apologists out there.

My Favorite Albums of 2006

1) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

It’s the soundtrack to a "Glockwork Orange." Meta-critic alert – Listening to Clipse in the Tate Modern (idiosyncratic appeal alert), I felt a pang of sadness that the group barred its 2006 album Hell Hath No Fury from entry into the Top Ten, due to their monomaniacal pursuit of proving themselves as drug dealers. Sample line: “Ain’t spent one rap dollar in three years, holla.” The implication being that their coke game is still open for business and supplying their revenue for rims, etc. But in the subsequent weeks, the album just grew on me and turned into something I loved, perhaps more than anything else out there this year.

Clipse has accomplished many unique things: one, it makes you really try to put an objective claim to art and two, it provides an album that, initially monotonous, grows on you as you listen further.

To the second point, so much coke slang makes Tom Cruise’s public affection towards Katie Holmes look rational. But even the most ardent fabulists take keys (pun unintended) from their environment, so, yes, they likely were coke dealers. But onto the music, taking concern in their product, they enlisted Pharrell Williams who, while ruining a decent first single with his guest rap, provides a varied, futuristic soundtrack for their equally bombastic rhymes.

Trill features a menacing, futuristic organ that would fit in well with some ultra-violent activity; the South meets Space Oddity. Keys Open Doors prompts an ethereal choral loop that sounds like it would great travelers as they paid their two coins to Charon. Dirty Money: For good measure, Pharrell throws an off-kilter Casio noodling with a steady 808 beat, giving the MCs the opportunity to switch from steady structure to improvisation. This track probably sums up why this album is dope. Pharrell provides a blueprint, through the percussion, for Malice and Pusha T to push forth their rhymes, but the oft-times unbalanced melody track allows them to explore their vast street hustle vocab.

Clipse could very well become a one-gram-pony footnote in XXL’s 21st century issue, but this is the one for the vault.
// Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury - buy

2) Asobi Seksu - Citrus
Few albums are capable of sustaining beauty throughout, as accomplished by Asobi Seksu on its second album. From the positively euphoric opener Thursday to the languorous closer (save for outro) Exotic Animal Paradise, the group oscillates pace, but appears incredibly comfortable in their range – never pushing beyond their particular scope, but never failing.

But that in no way means that this is a simple or unambitious album – while singer Yuki does not explore much territory with her voice, the band investigate changes of pace, the introduction and quick termination of overlaying soundscapes, and pursuing spurts of guitar droning in feedback, to return to a revealing clean sonic palate.

It would be farcical to call this shoegazing (even on lyrical matters). This is pretty straight-forward dream pop. There are not too many heirs, but I would say it’s an amalgamation of Belle & Sebastian (tone), St. Etienne (voice and lyrical structure), and Echo & The Bunnymen/Kitchens of Distinction school of post-post-punk (guitar work).

Strawberries provides the best snapshot of the band at its best, introducing guitar, then drums, then bass, then Yuki, only to switch gears to highlighting her ethereal voice, then plunge into a mini distortion shred, and back to the initial melody.
//Asobi Seksu - Citrus - buy

3) Long Blondes - Someone to Drive You Home

No band has captured the attention of MerrySwankster.com as much as the Long Blondes, and for good reason. The band’s sneering post-feminism in lyrics feels more real than any of their contemporaries. Rather than postulating some devastated, can’t-go-on shtick or heartbreak-less self-important egotism (both espoused by, say, Beyonce), the combination of earnest lyrics and Kate Jackson’s half-sneer, half-pout, the band embodies its own marketing material (“sexy and literate, flippant and heartbreaking all at once.”)

This album, a long time coming, featured reworkings of a lot of the earlier stuff. So there was bound to be some letdown. The new sheen on Separated by Motorways removes the edge and urgency and takes the song further away from Erase Errata and more towards Elastica. It is still fantastic, of course.

Album standout You Could Have Both, combines sarcastic brilliance “Just when you’re ready to take on the world, some other girl had to get their first,” with a straight chugging anthem with super-clean guitar rifts. Recorded late in the Long Blondes legend, this is clearly the track that allows the listener to give Jackson his or her full attention, while the melody sets the table.
// the Long Blondes - Someone to Drive You Home - buy

4) The Blow - Paper Television

Lost amidst the Lily Allen canonizing, the States had a much more talented and inventive wordsmith, complete with backing music that did not sound like a Robbie Williams Sing While You’re Winning retread. You can tell that the Blow is Khaela Maricich’s project, because of the fantastic Fists Up where she sings with the music, rather then over it. In what could easily devolve into a “a woman and Casio” failure, Maricich deftly navigates maritime march drums, electronica squeals, DFA-era bass progression, and surf rock-lite.
//the Blow - Paper Television - buy

5) Cat Power - The Greatest
Chan Marshall famously drops booze from her personal repertoire, but retains the boozy feel with an album of standards-like songs enhanced by a backing studio session band. As with any Marshall offering, the subject matter is mostly dire, but the major difference is that she seems involved in the heartache, rather than taking the distanced approach in previous albums. Maybe it’s the wagon. Willie, Living Proof, and Love and Communication sound very 00’s, and the rest feel like a nice travel to the past.
//Cat Power- The Greatest - buy

6) The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes
While one could feasibly downgrade the Pipettes because they were a concept before a band, to do so would exclude every band. For profit or for love, they sensed there could be a great contemporary 60s girl group album, and they straight captured it. The chorus pipes on Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me,” set the Internet on fire, and later gems I Love You and Pull Shapes provide balance to what is a very solid effort. Maybe they caught an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but, by doing so, they reminded us about how beautiful harmonizing women set to strings can be.
//The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes - buy

7) Ghostface Killah – Fishscale
Exceeding the longevity of his Wu-Tang contemporaries by years, Face always brings passion. I’d argue that his last two albums didn’t have the weight of Ironman, and his meta-Rocky moment (“You haven’t been hungry since Supreme Clientele”) introducing one song admitted as so. So this Fishscale business is straight hustle, and Ghost is cantankerous as ever. And the thing about Ghostface – like early Ice Cube – is he really is a storyteller more than anything else. Witness from “Shakey Dog, “Throwing ketchup on my fries, hitting baseball spliffs, in the backseat, knees all stiff.” Sometimes, even hip-hop stars, have had the ignoble position of riding in the back.
//Ghostface Killah – Fishscale - buy

8) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
Brooklyn’s favorite art punkers got a brilliant sheen, and survived. While it’s easy to focus on nihilist offerings Bang and Art Star, the tenderness of Fever to Tell’s Maps and Y Control made the emotive tracks from its newest album less surprising. Cheated Hearts is as close to anthemic as the band should probably ever get, while epic Turn Into breaks into a nice Theremin solo. Surprisingly, Fancy, the most like earlier YYY material, works the least. Maybe art punk no longer applies. I can live with that.
// Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones - buy

9) Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country
If one were inclined to take Traceyanne Campbell’s ubiquitous lugubriousness as a bit much, one peek at the video for Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken only makes it more confounding. Is she acting unhappy? Is she really an overjoyed woman playing a part? I’m not sure, but few could handle such mournful songs set to generally poppy beats with such consistency. From early 80s pop to swinging twee to country organ, the only constant is Campbell’s tender voice dishing out the sadness.
// Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of the Country - buy

10) Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins – Rabbit Fur Coat
Lewis’ oddly gospel-influenced secular album is much more to her speed than Rilo Kiley, where she is pretty constrained. Her voice, molasses strong and slick, fits nicely into low-country licks and Watson Twin-harmonizing. This is a dust bowl plains album that fits so nicely in urban listening situations. Big Guns sounds like it’s from O Brother, Where Are Thou? Pt. 2: The Search for Curly’s Gold.
//Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins - Rabbit Furcoat- buy

[Continue reading for honorable mentions.]

Posted by Keith O'Brien at December 28, 2006 11:01 AM

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Posted by: Koren Zailckas at December 28, 2006 02:37 PM

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