Favorite music of 2013.

This is the music I most loved over the past year.  I doubt too many of these have made any other end-of-year lists: 


Tegan and Sara (CAN): Heartthrob.
This list in not in any order, but Heartthrob might be my most favorite album of the year.  I was stunned at how these two former folk-rock sisters were able to complete an entire album of big pop songs that were breathtakingly moving, musically literate, and full of crowd pleasing hooks:



My Bloody Valentine (GBR): m b v.
m b v proved to be neither greater nor lesser than their legendary 1993 album, Loveless, but it is a brilliant new stage in their career after a 20 year pause.  It stands on its own as a masterpiece of scorched beauty.
 



Sleigh Bells (USA): Bitter Rivals. 
Their sound has smoothed out since their first album, and they may have lost some of their unpredictable edge, but I think their songwriting is becoming more solid:
  

Whinnie Williams (GBR). 
I'm so impressed and inspired by how Jade Williams executed her vision of an almost hermetically tight world of style, sensitivity and dry humor. Can't wait for the album: 


Little Boots (GBR): Nocturnes. 
Victoria evokes club, house, and disco without ever raising a bead of sweat. Perfect and pure, smooth as glass:


Annie (NOR): The A&R EP.
Annie has an infallible sense of what pop should be.  Her infrequent releases only appear when she has crafted a work of perfection: 


Oh Land (DNK): Wishbone. 
Oh Land's debut was technically impressive. On Wishbone, she brings a little more grit and funkiness into her sound: 


Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (JPN): Nanda Collection. 
Kyary released her third album of frenetic insanity and hysterical beauty this year:


If appreciating Kyary requires a little more background, this little video might help novices:


Cults (USA): Static. 
I really liked their first album, but I loved Static. They extend what they were already doing while bringing in some more contemporary influences, without losing their charm.


Selebrities (USA): I was convinced this band was from Europe until I found out they're originally from Florida, which is just - weird!  They lovingly emulate the whole post-punk, Factory Records era, but still sound fresh.



Cate Le Bon (GBR): Here's someone I can't quite figure out, but this girl from Wales has my attention. Kind of folk/pop/rock with an eccentric sense of melody and rhythm; a bit reminiscent of the softer side of Broadcast.

Mott the Hoople. All the Young Dudes (1972).

When I went to college in 1974, there was a guy down the hall in my dorm who constantly played this record, and it became quite annoying.  Almost 40 years later, I have to admit it's one of the greatest rock songs ever.

Mott the Hoople were successful as a performing band at the time, but after releasing a few singles, all of which flopped, they were in danger of getting dropped by their label and calling it quits.  David Bowie learned of their desperate need for airplay and decided to write them a hit.  "All The Young Dudes" reached #3 on the UK charts and the top 40 in the US, and it basically made Mott contenders.  Now, it may be the only song that people even remember by the Hooples.

As is typical for a Bowie song, the lyrics sound great when sung, especially by Ian Hunter, who made the song his own, but when read on paper, they're inexplicable at times.  A depiction of disaffected youth emerges, punctuated by nonsense phrases and non sequiturs ("funky little boat race," OK, what??).  But that's not a complaint, I love Bowie's lyrics, and the way he mixes the straight forward with the inscrutable. 

"All The Young Dudes" became an anthem, "the" anthem, in fact, for Glam rock, although Bowie, enigmatic as always, said its subject was the impending apocalypse.  In fact, just this past week, I noted on Amazon, a 5 disc box set on the history of Glam rock released this month, called Oh Yes We Can Love, which is, of course, taken from a line in "Dudes:"

The Clientele. Reflections After Jane (1999).

This sounds like it was recorded on cassette tape in a closet (and maybe it was).  But it will haunt you to the core of your broken heart.  The lo-fi, boxy ambiance actually lends it an added appeal.  No one talks much about The Clientele, well, almost no one.  But they have their devoted fans, and they're on Merge, so they're probably well taken care of.  I hope so, because they are a treasure.



It's not always a world of muted, hazy nostalgia for the Clientele, here they almost look like rock stars.  Almost:

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. PonPonPon (2011).

I found this video on Laura Bettinson's Tumblr.  Laura is a member of Ulraista, and her Tumblr is an overstuffed closet of the outré.  Although new to me, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's "PonPonPon" has racked up over 54 million views during the past couple of years:


Kyary is not some obscure oddball, she is on a major label in Asia (Warner), and her first full length album, Pamyu Pamyu Revolution, debuted at No. 1 in Japan.  The song is great, but the video left me speechless, it's an intense work of art. Kyary's effortless embrace of the outlandish makes Lady Gaga look like your grandma doing the Macarena.  The video is filled with the signs and symbols that remind me of the work of Japanese artists such as Takashi Murakami: the otaku fetishes, kawaiisa pushed to a severe extreme, the stylized artifice, the unsettling childishness, and overall surrealism.  Andre Breton would have immediately bestowed his imprimatur on Kyary. I immediately bought her album, Moshi Moshi Harajuku, which did not disappoint.  My 10 yr. old daughter loves it too!

Taylor, Tegan & Sara (8/20/2013).

So, this is pretty special, n'es-ce pas?

The Doors. Waiting for the Sun. (1968).

I was very moved to hear of Ray Manzarek’s passing in May, and I was inspired to listen again to my favorite Doors album, Waiting for the Sun.  I hadn’t heard it in about 40 years, and time had made the listening fresher.  

Two things struck me this time.  One, Morrison was not a very good singer, unless it was a kind of dramatic performance, as in "Not To Touch the Earth," "The Unknown Soldier," or "Five To One," on all of which he excelled.  He was a master of the whisper-to-a-scream thing, building up tension and releasing it in eruptions.  There are some beautiful songs, written by Robby Krieger, such as "Wintertime Love", and "Yes the River Knows," where Morrison’s performance is monotonous and glum, as if it were simply a guide track that was supposed to be redone but never was.  In the documentary When You’re Strange, Morrison’s father maintains his opinion that his son was not a good singer, but admits that he must have been a charismatic performer.  When I was 12, I thought Morrison was a fantastic singer.  Forty-five years later, I have to agree with the admiral.

The other thing that struck me was the imaginativeness of the arrangements.  The band put so much creative energy into their parts, very few barre or block chords here.  Instead, Ray and Robby wrote parts for themselves that enhance these tunes with vivid color, subtlety, and impressive musicianship. Robby played with a brilliant display of guitaristic styles: some jazzy phrasing, flamenco, fuzzed-out leads, and luscious slide work.  Ray composed incredible material for organ, piano, and lots of harpsichord.  Manzarek’s contributions on this album seem to be the most sophisticated of any that he made to a Doors record.  This time around, I noticed that Ray quotes Monk's "Straight No Chaser" during a pause in "We Could Be So Good Together."  I wonder how many kids identified that reference at the time, I certainly didn't.  It’s a shame that the most interesting music on this record was probably only created for this album, and was unlikely to have been performed live.  Densmore's drumming, as usual, was nothing less than brilliant. 

"Hello I Love You" may sound a little dated now, but "The Unknown Soldier" stands up today as fascinating piece of work, spooky and still powerful.  There was really nothing ever quite like it, by them or anyone else.

My two favorite Doors albums are Strange Days (1967) and Waiting for the Sun.  I consider these to be part of their “gothic paisley” period.  They are eerie, dark, and mysterious, but not untouched by psychedelic flourishes common to those years. After the overly ambitious Soft Parade album (1969), they declared a return to their roots as a blues band with Morrison Hotel (1969).  This always puzzled me, because here’s a band with a jazz drummer, a flamenco guitarist, and two arty film students. I was suspicious of their claim to the lineage of Muddy Waters.  And I found it unsettling that these famous, affluent, rock stars were posing on the album with Skid Row derelicts who wouldn't know Jim Morrison from Jim Henson. The slumming effect was off-putting:

Then LA Woman (1971).  If Jim hadn’t passed they certainly would have continued to record, but the final track, "Riders On the Storm," really sounds like a farewell.  Despite having one of Morrison’s classic clunkers (“his brain is squirming like a toad”), the band’s performance is mesmerizing.  As those last delicate phrases on the Rhodes beautifully fade away, it sounds like a spirit being released from the world.

Twiggy. 1967.

The incomparable Twiggy, filmed in Paris, 1967, accompanied by a Rolling Stones song from way back when they still mattered (to me, anyway). Twiggy’s fresh clarity and brilliance shines even in black and white:

   

It would be decades before another model reached the same iconoclastic level, and that would be Kate: