Understanding Salesmen

Top 10 TV Characters of the First Decade of the 21st Century

2009-01-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

10. Charlie Kelly (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)

9. Andy Millman (Extras)

8. Ned the Piemaker (Pushing Daises)

7. Liz Lemon (30 Rock)

6. Huey Freeman (The Boondocks)

5. Capt. Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly)

4. Ben Linus (LOST)

3. GOB Bluth (Arrested Development)

2. Dwight Schrute (The Office)

1. Dr. Gregory House (House, M.D.)

Road to the Oscars, Pt. 1

2009-01-04T18:59:00.001-08:00

So I've compiled a list of films that I think will be nominated, with my favorites to win in bold. Once the actual noms come out, I'll post an updated list.

Best Picture:
Milk.
Frost / Nixon.
Slumdog Millionaire.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
The Dark Knight.

Best Actor:
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler.
Frank Langella, Frost / Nixon.
Sean Penn, Milk.
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino.

Best Actress:
Meryl Streep, Doubt.
Kristin Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long.
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married.
Kate Winslet, The Reader.
Angelina Jolie, Changeling.

Best Supporting Actor:
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight.
Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder.
Josh Brolin, Milk.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt.
James Franco, Milk.

Best Supporting Actress:
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona.
Viola Davis, Doubt.
Marissa Tomei, The Wrestler.
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Amy Adams, Doubt.

Best Original Screenplay:
Rachel Getting Married.
Burn After Reading.
Milk.
The Wrestler.
Wall-E.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Doubt.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
The Reader.
Frost / Nixon.
Elegy.

That's all I'm doin' for now. Let's see what happens when the real noms come out!

LA La Land

2009-01-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

so I moved to LA yesterday. It's nice to have basically my own place. I'm dripping with lethargy right now though, so...whatever.

Also, I've been accepted to review music for Kevchino.com; pretty soon my reviews for Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, Gang Gang Dance's Saint Dymphna, and Santogold's Santogold, will be up.

Also also, I got Joy Division and Radiohead posters, a Blackalicious t-shirt, and a new Neutral Milk Hotel vinyl, all at Amoeba.

Win? Yes.

Top 20 People of 2008

2009-01-01T13:19:00.001-08:00

The 20 best people of the year, conveniently in list form!

20. Dennis Kucinich. For hangin' in there. For bein' a stand-up guy. For gamely trying to impeach Bush like three months before the end of his term. For seeing UFOs. For secretly being a lvl. 12 lawful good elf wizard.

19. Charlie Day. For being the best thing about It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. For Green Man. For being the second closest thing we have to a 21st century Kramer. For "Day Man." For being the wild card.

18. Anderson Cooper. For being Anderson Cooper.

17. Paul Rudd. For being incredibly funny. For being a good-lookin' fella. For making Role Models funny. For Wet Hot American Summer, which was years ago, but whatever. For Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

16. Hillary Clinton. For keepin' up the game. For being Secretary of State. For breaking glass ceilings and stuff. For dealing with Bill.

15. Rainn Wilson. For actually being the 21st century Kramer. For Dwight. For Dwight. For Dwight.

14. Amy Poehler. For the Hillary Clinton impersonation. For The Mighty B. For marrying GOB Bluth.

13. Any Olympic athlete except Michael Phelps. For not being Michael Phelps. Fuck Michael Phelps.

12. Samantha Brown. For making me interested in going to Berlin. For going everywhere cool ever. For, along with Anthony Bourdain, making the Travel Channel awesome.

11. Tunde Adebimpe. For being a generally cool guy. For the new TV on the Radio album. For the old TV on the Radio albums. For being named "Tunde Adebimpe."

10. Danny Boyle. For Slumdog Millionaire. For having great taste in music. For Trainspotting and 28 Days Later too. For Sunshine too.

9. John Stewart. For being the smartest man on television. For making the news palatable. For mugging the camera and being super Jewy.

8. Mikey Rocks / Chuck Inglish. For spearheading the actually kind of cool "hipster rap" movement. For naming their group "the Cool Kids." For being fashionable, cool people.

7. Paul Krugman. For being a way left economist and getting the Nobel Prize for it. For laying the smackdown on George Will about the Great Depression. For having a sweet beard. For being a smartass.

6. Stephen Colbert. For being the best newsman currently on television. For expertly parodying Papa Bear Bill O'Reilly. For crying on Election Night.

5. Jon Hamm. For Mad Men. For proving that the early 60s were actually awesome. For being a smooth, cool motherfucker.

4. Tim Russert. For being a sweet, cuddly newsfellow. For being approachable and easy. For leaving us nothing but a legend and a pretty corpse, like Jim Morrison.

3. Tina Fey. For being the smartest person on television, just ahead of John Stewart. For 30 Rock. For Sarah Palin. For being a cutie.

2. Heath Ledger. For the Joker. For being the 21st century James Dean. For Brokeback Mountain. For being a better actor than anyone probably realized.

1. Barack Obama. For being elected president. For being elected president as a black man. For being elected president as a black man, and also being awesome and JFK-life.

I Don't Care How "Trendy" This Seems

2008-12-30T20:31:00.000-08:00

But I have a serious man crush on Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend. He's just an incredibly stylish, good-looking man.

/swoon.

iTunes Celebrity Playlists

2008-12-30T20:16:00.000-08:00

So I've been trolling the iTunes celebrity playlists looking for people that I could conceivably get along with. Here's what I've discovered:

Danny Boyle (director, 28 Days Later, Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire) has incredible taste in music, as does Rainn Wilson (The Office).

Kat Dennings has better taste than Michael Cera, and seems more clever too.

The Daily Show Correspondents listen to pretty crappy music, as does the entire cast of Entourage except, weirdly, Adrien Grenier.

Mike Myers is a Neutral Milk Hotel fan. Who knew?

Carlos Mencia is an ass, officially in every way now.

Vince Vaughn listens to a lot of country, but like cool country, old Merle Haggard stuff.

Alan Cumming (probably best known as Nightcrawler from X-Men 2) likes "No Diggity" by Blackstreet because it makes him think of bending girls over and slapping their asses, "in an ironic, modern-man sense of course."

Jason Bateman likes Belle and Sebastian and Pixies!

Wes Anderson has a predictably awesome list; so does the Schwartzman.

Zefron and V-Hudge have terrible taste, and can only name like five songs between them. I can't say I'm surprised.

Jason Lee's isn't bad.

John Cusack's list inexplicably has Bob Hope on it, and two Gnarls Barkley songs. And on that note, I haven't really listened to The Odd Couple, but Gnarls' first album, St. Elsewhere was unjustly overlooked. Skip "Crazy" and check out "Just a Thought," and you'll see what I mean.

Anyway, I'm over that. I just thought it was a fun diversion. Nighty-night and all that.

A Wild and Crazy Guy

2008-12-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

I've always had some mixed feelings for Steve Martin. The Jerk is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, and from what I've heard of his early stand-up and SNL work, he was sort of a genius. Plus, he was often on The Muppet Show, which is awesome. But nowadays...Cheaper by the Dozen? The Pink Panther? These aren't just bad; given who made them, they're embarrassing.

However, Steve Martin is also an author. Sometimes his books become movies that are better than they should be (Shopgirl), and sometimes they do not (all of the other ones). His most recent, though, is his memoir Born Standing Up, a lucid and clever account of his early years, from his being a Disneyland employee on up to The Jerk and beyond. In reading, I realized something: this is where Steve Martin's been. It's like he's sleepwalking through the movies he's in and pouring all of his talent onto the printed page. A few excerpts:

"[Mitzi, my girlfriend] had been swept away by director John Frankenheimer, who, twenty years later, tried and failed to seduce my wife, the actress Victoria Tennant, whom he was directing in a movie. Mitzi was simply too alluring to be left alone in a foreign country, and I was too hormonal to be left alone in Hollywood. Incidentally, Frankenheimer died a few years ago, but it was not I who killed him."

"I learned a lesson: it was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the abominable circumstances."

I could find more, but I won't. I'll simply urge you to read it, because it's a quick read, and it's hilarious, and it's poignant, and it's oh-so-worth it.

Top 20 Albums of 2008

2008-12-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

Well crew, here it is. The top 20 list. I don't think I'm going to include blurbs on this one like last year's, if only for the sake of time, but we can discuss it in the comments section if you really want.

Cheers!

20. Saint Dymhpna by Gang Gang Dance.

19. Flight of the Conchords by Flight of the Conchords.

18. Hold On Now, Youngster... by Los Campesinos!

17. Attack & Release by the Black Keys.

16. The Bake Sale by the Cool Kids.

15. Modern Guilt by Beck.

14. Songs in A and E by Spiritualized.

13. In Ghost Colours by Cut Copy.

12. Santogold by Santogold.

11. Remind Me in 3 Days... by the Knux.

10. Oracular Spectacular by MGMT.

9. Feed the Animals Girl Talk.

8. Saturdays = Youth by M83.

7. Volume One by She & Him.

6. For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver.

5. Vampire Weekend by Vampire Weekend.

4. Dear Science by TV on the Radio.

3. Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes.

2. Nouns by No Age.

1. Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel by Atlas Sound.

So there you go, peoples! Discuss!

It's Been a While

2008-12-29T17:52:00.000-08:00

But I'm back, again, to blog it all up, freestyle.

I want to make this a noteworthy post though, so...

The new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, has leaked, and it's damn good. It's...dancier than earlier Animal Collective, but still obviously an AC record. I agree with what Stereogum had to say about it; it's time to start handicapping year-end Best of 2009 lists.

I had a link to it here for you, but I've been asked to remove it. Sorry guys.

my own Best of 2008 list will be coming soon.

I am ASTOUNDED

2008-09-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

That John McCain is in a dead heat with Barack Obama.

This is insane. John McCain, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, et al., have been blatantly and openly LYING for weeks now. People have called them on it, but no one seems to care. Anything Obama or Biden or anyone on the left says is immediately fact checked to within an inch of its life, but clearly the right gets a free pass.

Exhibit A: The big one, Sarah Palin's Bridge to Nowhere. I guess there was a proposal to build a ludicrously expensive bridge to an island with like fifty people on it. At the get-go, Sarah Palin supported this bridge. God knows why. Congress then came in, and said "um...this bridge is sort of a stupid idea. There's no way you're going to recoup this money." So Palin agreed with Congress, at the very last minute. Now she's stamping around claiming she had always been against the bridge. People brought up that she, well, wasn't. She continues to claim that she was. Nobody seems to mind much.

Exhibit B: Barack Obama recently said "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," in reference to McCain trying to pretty up his Bushy politics in "change" and "Palinism." The McCain campaign decided this was a sexist reference to Sarah Palin and flew into a rage, accusing Obama of gross sexism and demanding an apology. This is ludicrous. As Obama pointed out on Letterman, taking the analogy to its logical extreme, Palin would actually be the lipstick, and McCain's policies would be the pig. This is clearly the McCain campaign grasping at straws against its opponent. Also of interest is that McCain used this exact same expression against Hillary Clinton during the primaries; no one cried sexism then.

Exhibit C: There was an ad in the past couple of days that states that "Barack Obama supports comprehensive sex education for kindergartners. Learning about sex before learning how to read?" This, again, is a blatant lie. What Obama supported was a reform in sex education for the K-12 set, dealt with "age-appropriately." The only mention of kindergartners in the whole program would be for tactics to avoid sexual predators. Is McCain against teaching kids how to not be molested? That's what this ad is really implying.

Exhibit D: John McCain keeps saying that Obama wants to raise taxes; however, Obama's tax policy would actually include 80% of the citizenry having LOWER taxes, particularly those in the lower and middle classes. Only 10% of the population would have higher taxes, and that's almost solely the super-rich.

Exhibit E: Sarah Palin is supposedly the anti-earmark champion, having railed against them while governor, and neglecting to mention that she requested over $27 million dollars in earmarks as mayor of Wasilla. Yes, Obama got more money for Illinois in earmarks, and Biden got more for Delaware. How is that different? Neither of them are pretending to have been constantly anti-earmark. Neither of them are lying.

The fact of the matter is, the McCain/Palin team have devolved into a team of liars and knuckle-dragging politicians. The reason is, this battle HAS to be fought personally for them to have any chance. Even leading GOP strategists claim that if this is solely about the issues, Obama wins hands down. People aren't sold on Obama though, so the GOP has to make it personal for them to have a fighting chance.

Speaking of issues, let's take a really quick look at what Barack Obama supports:

A timely withdrawal from Iraq.
Repeal of the Bush tax cuts.
Education reform.
Universal health care (or at least very close).
Increased environmental regulation and alternative energy research.
Net neutrality.
Guest worker programs.
Federally funded faith-based programs.
Denuclearization.
Increased attention to Darfur.
Increased diplomacy and tact in foreign relations.

Let's compare this list to what John McCain supports:

Indefinite involvement in Iraq.
Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Preserve.
Keeping the Bush tax cuts.
Overturning Roe v. Wade and revoking the right to choose.
Deregulation of net neutrality.
Less comprehensive sex education / "abstinence only" education.
Cutbacks of GLBT rights, including marriage.
Repeal of federal minimum wage laws.
Privatizing social security.
Potential reinstatement of the draft.

Polls have shown that Americans overwhelmingly support what Barack Obama is championing; McCain's platform is staggeringly close to George W. Bush's, a point of view that is almost universally condemned, here and abroad.

The point here is that Barack Obama is doing exactly what he said he would at the start of this; he's running a clean campaign, and working for the people. He's staying above the fray and focusing on the issues. Unfortunately, John McCain kind of sucks, and is therefore lobbing punches into him, even though he's taking the high ground and not fighting back. And don't even get me started on Sarah Palin. I just...come on, America. Most of the rest of the world agrees, and actually, based just on policies, most of the country agrees that Barack Obama is the right choice. Why isn't he leading in a landslide? Is it because he's black? Is it because of those vicious lies about him being a Muslim and lying about being a Christian? Is it because his middle name is Hussein? I'll tell you what it is: it's all of that. It's because folksy John McCain and hockey mom Sarah Palin are able to paint Barack Obama as "the other," a creepy, "not-like-us" foreigner. That's the problem. America is so hung up on image and race that they just may let a senile old man and a right-wing lunatic take control of a country that so dearly needs a tender hand, a leadership team that will infuriate the rest of the world, and will, pardon my pessimism, but almost surely will begin America's slow, inexorable decline into post-Roman obscurity.

So come on, America. Obama/Biden '08. At this point, it's not about comfort. We get it. He can be cold sometimes. He's black. He's young. But he's so very right for our country. If there was ever a time to put aside your reservations and dive in, to sacrifice something for your country, now is the time. All these people talking about sacrifice...now is the time. Sacrifice a little bit of personal preference for the man that will take America where it needs to go. I beg of you. Please.

Post-script:
I just stumbled across the following quote, which pretty much sums up the problem here:

"I will be honored to vote for such a great American as John McCain. I do not agree with many of his ideas, but I respect him to death." - metsarma, supposedly an Independent commenter on a Politico article written by Fred Thompson.

Post-post-script:
In her recent Charlie Gibson interview, Sarah Palin calmly suggested that war with Russia is a possibility. God help us all.

According to a recent SPIN article

2008-04-14T23:45:00.001-07:00

Bloggers make roughly $35,000 a year.

...

...

why wasn't I informed?

who's signing my check that I do not receive?

or to paraphrase every money-hungry rap song ever:

"where my money, bitch?"

I'm - I'm just bein' honest

2008-04-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

Outkast makes me sad.

Not because of their music, really, but because they should have been this generation's Beatles, and they screwed that up. They had the style, the grace, the hip-hop and the pop and the soul and the avantfunkwhathaveyou, and, more importantly, they had their fingers on the pulse of cool and the the ears of the world in their pockets. In 2004, "Hey Ya!" was number one on the charts; number two was "(I Like) The Way You Move." Two songs by the same band at the two highest spots; the only artist to do this previously was, in fact, the Beatles.

Outkast could have, and should have, been the 2000s Big Artist, the Beatles or the Zeppelin or the Run-DMC or the Nirvana, the Important Ones, and all because of one album, 2003's Speakerboxxx / The Love Below, an album easily as good as Zeppelin IV or Nevermind. Outkast had other fantastic albums, like Stankonia and Aquemini, but it was this one that was IT. It reigned the charts, and absolutely everyone adored it. "Hey Ya!" proved their pop mettle / importance, "(I Like) The Way You Move" earned them street cred, "Roses" combined the aesthetics of Uranus' second-best frontman (after Prince), Andre "3000" Benjamin, and the durrrty South's most intelligent and capable MC, Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, and the whole dual-identity and quirkiness of the album as a unit earned them major artistic and critical credibility. They had Importance in the palm of their hands. In 2003 and 2004, Outkast ruled the world.

But of course, they threw it all away. They dawdled about in a bunch of nothing for a while, Andre 3000 doing some mediocre acting, Big Boi doing...nothing, I suppose, until 2006 saw the release of their joint film and soundtrack Idlewild, a commercial and critical flop that, for now at least, effectively sealed their fate.

This is really unfortunate, because few people now seem to remember that Outkast was amazing, and it was solely because of the personas of the main players (playas?). Both coming out of the durrrty South / G-Funk thing, they diverged on such different paths that it's a shock that they even could work together. Andre 3000 is one of the more stylish and eccentric men in popular music, with a borderline-whiny soul voice and a prodigious flow (which, like fellow soul eccentric Cee-Lo Green, he seriously underutilizes), not to mention a flair for the theatrical, weird, and glamorous. Big Boi, on the other hand, is a typical b-boy, all thugglife hippity-hop, but with a twist; Big Boi is intelligent. He's probably one of the smartest rappers of all time (except maybe Ice Cube, but that's debatable; Chuck D was bright too, but he was sort of radical, and maybe just convinced people he was smart...the jury's still out). So you take this soul-glam ingenue and the most literate thug rapper this side of Atlanta, and you mash them together to create either one of the most unlistenable, pretentious creations of modern music, or today's Beatles.

Outkast began, so promisingly, as the latter; they're quickly, and unfortunately, devolving into the former. I can only hope they come back. We miss you, Outkast.

Humanity Fails at Life

2008-04-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

This is taken directly from the Hummer fan page on Facebook:

"The objective of this group is to bring all hummer fans together and to get people to appreciate Hummer as a do it all SUV, not a gas guzzling behemoth that pollutes the environment. back in the late 70's and 80's trucks and SUV's looked like hummers and now some uneducated people are trying to ruin its reputation, here is what i have to say to them (if you cant afford them, or never drove them then shut up) as for environmentalists, you want to save the world get rid of your old crappy cars and do some more research this car is a great truck and have proven their worth over and over again all over the world."

Of course! OF COURSE! We can save the environment by getting rid of our small cars and stocking up on "great trucks" that have "proven their worth" (which seems to have nothing at all to do with the issue at hand, but I digress)! This is a brilliant, revolutionary concept!

Thank you, anonymous writer, for so clearly and coherently expressing your opinions and beliefs. You've certainly convinced me!

Damn Dirty Apes

2008-04-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

Charlton Heston is dead?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/movies/06heston.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Thanks (I guess) to Kevin.

Heroes and Monsters

2008-04-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

I like music. I like new music. I like new, weird music.

I like Villains.

Villains is a band (or a man, or, or a 19th century French vivisectionist, or a baby genius floating in formaldehyde) from Los Angeles who traffics like a dirty Colin Meloy character in under-the-bridge avant-noir jazzfolkindiepopsomething, and it's very, very good.

I think the best thing about Villains, or at the very least my favourite thing, their music notwithstanding (which is, need I hammer in further, very good), is the fact that they have an aesthetic, which most bands simply do not have. It's borderline intangible, and yet very, very obvious. Villains is like a band of Franco-Italian gypsies rolled into one man, all art and commerce and Edward Gorey. Few other bands have a real aesthetic like that. The Arcade Fire does; they're like sharp-dressed church workers dealing with their own issues on the wrong side of a violin. Of Montreal has it, if free-wheeling acid dreams count as aesthetics. And now Villains has it, and the music itself is better for it. It feels somehow more real, even though it isn't. It's almost like the best alt-country bands in this respect.

Frankly, more music needs to have the romantic sense of whimsy and winking drama that Villains has so masterfully cornered.

Also, supposedly their name will be shortly changed to "Painted Ladies." Just keep an eye out for that.

www.myspace.com/4villains

I Should Really Get Back to Blogging

2008-04-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

It's been a remarkably long time, hasn't it?

Months and untold months...

oh well.

I'm (probably) back.

Here are some videos of Black Kids live on Jools Holland for you while I think of something interesting to write:

All Things Must Pass

2007-12-15T17:25:00.000-08:00

George Harrison needs love.

Why does no one seem to appreciate the Quiet Beatle?

I mean, while in the Beatles, he wrote songs like "Old Brown Shoe," "Taxman," "Something," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Savoy Truffle"...the guy was great! And he kicked John Lennon's ass at the guitar, too (see: anything at all ever. Any Beatles lead that's marginally good or interesting was either Georgie or McCartney).

And then, of course, there's his solo output, most notably All Things Must Pass. People seem to forget that this is a really, really fantastic album. "What is Life?" and "My Sweet Lord" are the standouts, of course, but there's so much more! You really just have to hear it. I sing its praises regularly, because I love George Harrison.

RIP Georgie. I know you died years ago, but I feel that not enough people really appreciated you, so rest in peace, sweet warrior of rock.

At least I miss you.

Hazen's Raisins

2007-12-15T16:16:00.000-08:00

Why isn't this an internet phenomenon yet?

Make it one!

Repost!

Top 20 Albums of 2007

2007-12-12T20:50:00.000-08:00

20. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? Of Montreal's most recent album lacks the buoyant fun of The Sunlandic Twins, and tends to wallow in melancholy, but all of the droney falsetto-funk and Scandanavia references makes me readily forgive Kevin Barnes his transgressions.

19. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Baby 81. I was woefully unfamiliar with the BRMC until this year, but I was very impressed with the vaguely garage-y scuzz-pop of Baby 81, and I'm sorely tempted to dig deeper into the band's catalogue.

18. Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends. Les Savy Fav could've copped out on this one. No one would've thought less of them; the art-punk quartet earned it. But that's just not Tim Harrington's way, and so Les Savy Fav's most recent album is as dancey / slinky / punishing as 3/5, and maybe even more listenable (maybe).

17. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away. The Shins will not change your life. They will, however, give you wonderfully un-saccharine, pleasant indie pop to listen to while seducing quirky, artsy girls (if that's what you're into).

16. Okkervil River - The Stage Names. I know, I know - this should probably be higher. Okkervil River's sophomore album was critically adored, and yes, it is very good; I just couldn't connect with it the way others could though. I would probably rate it lower on sheer "I like it" criteria, but I can at least see why it's brilliant.

15. My Brightest Diamond - Bring Me the Workhorse. Shara Worden is, hands down, my favourite female vocalist, at least in 2007 (sorry Feist, I just don't have a crush on you like a lot of people do). Shara proved her mettle first as one of Soof's Illinoisemakers (her official title was "cheer captain"), and proves her place in the indie pantheon with her full-length debut. The vocal acrobatics on "Golden Star" are enough to put this in the top 20.

14. Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta! Okay, so, I love Gogol Bordello. I really, really do. I find them obnoxious and charming and endearing, and Eugene Hutz is as fine a frontman as he is an actor (Everything is Illuminated). Their new album throws some Italian taranta dance moves into their Euro-krainian balalaika stomps, and really, it just makes it better.

13. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky. Wilco's a boring pick by now. Of course Jeff Tweedy is a genius. Of course their new album is one of the best of the year. Next.

12. Justice - Cross. Daft Punk's spiritual heirs (and countrymen) throw the funk off the dance floor and drags Jesus in, and the results are either asinine and bizarrely addictive ("The Party") or childlike and completely reasonably addictive ("D.A.N.C.E.")

11. Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity. Last year's The Runners Four was sprawling and wonderful, and seemed impossible to top. Somehow, everyone's favourite multinational freak-poppers did it, taking the cosmic weirdness of their previous epic and making it concise, and actually approachable for once.

10. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible. Indie darlings the Arcade Fire's sophomore album is somehow both more hushed and more dramatic than Funeral, toying with morose religious imagery all throughout, and teasing the listener until the orgiastic release of "No Cars Go," which is in turn immediately undermined by the dirge-y closer "My Body is a Cage." Tasty stuff.

9. St. Vincent - Marry Me. Naming her debut after a line from Arrested Development, former Polyphonic Spree guitarist Annie Clark has crafted a dramatic and winning album. Really, there's not much else to say. It's really great, particularly "Paris is Burning."

8. Beirut - The Flying Club Cup. Zach Condon's sophomore album has the basic aesthetic of sepia-toned photographs your European grandmother has, and in an album completely bereft of things like guitars, he weaves classic narratives from personal experiences, and squeezes high drama out of his 21 year-old voice.

7. Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala. Everyone's (or my) favourite Swede, pop songsmith Lekman returns with more sample/string based guitar-pop, soaring melodies, and Morrissey-morose, often hilarious lyrics.

6. Panda Bear - Person Pitch. Animal Collective's Noah Lennox really lets loose on this newest offering, twisting his angelic voice and contorting his rhythms like Brian Wilson clapping his hands somewhere in the middle of the California desert.

5. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Like Wilco, Spoon is by now a boring pick. Their new album is fantastic. It is, in fact, near flawless. But come on - it's Spoon. After Gimme Fiction, where else are they gonna go? Come on.

[No photo available because allmusic.com actually sucks]
4. Black Kids - Wizard of Ahhs EP. I know it's a little unorthodox to include an EP on a "Best Of" list, particularly in the top five, but this really is flawless. Evey single one of the four songs contained herein could become a hit single; there isn't one misstep, which is really saying something.

3. Radiohead - In Rainbows. Probably the only surprising thing about Radiohead being on here is that they aren't at number one, but this wasn't the best album of the year. It was a fantastic album, and the best Radiohead have made (arguably) since Kid A, but it still wasn't the best of the year. Still, you know, go Radiohead.

2. Battles - Mirrored. No one can blend techno and rock as organically as math-rock supergroup Battles. All angular rhythms and processed vocals, all capable of being reproduced by a quartet, live, Battles really raises the bar for experimental rock music, for all time, really.

1. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver. There's no individual song on here as great as Radiohead's "Videotape," nor is there anything as groundbreaking as Battles, but LCD Soundsystem's sophomore effort is far and away the best album released in 2007. Full of overarching rhythm and a feeling like every song is perfectly in place, completely devoid of filler, Sound of Silver should be a witness to the world of music that it's still possible to craft a classic Album, an album of a piece, like they used to. Starting with the Brian Eno / Talking Heads funk of "Get Innocuous!", Sound of Silver slides through nine perfect tracks, some cheeky ("North American Scum"), some morose ("Someone Great"), other unapproachably funky ("Sound of Silver"), culminating with the epic rock ballad "New York, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down," mixing Velvet Underground-scuzz and Queen-like pitches into a defiantly rockist and un-funky end, tying the rest of the no wave shimmying of the album together - it may be the song that makes this album an Album, if you catch my drift.

Be Still, My Beating Nerd Heart

2007-12-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

I finally bought The Black Dossier, by Alan Moore, illustrated by Kevin O'Neill.

Words cannot express how I feel about this book.

First, some background information:

Around the turn of the century, renowned comic book legend Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell) came out with his newest project, a Victorian superhero team-up pastiche called The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The premise was novel: in an alternate universe where works of art and entertainment have actually happened, a team of Victorian English sci-fi, horror, and adventure characters team up for government spec-ops. Thus started the illustrious second careers of Bram Stoker's Mina Murray, H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain, Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Henry Jekyll (and his devilish counterpart, Edward Hyde), Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, and H.G. Well's Dr. Hawley "the Invisible Man" Griffin.

No one expected the dizzying nuance of Moore's new world, in which every single character comes from a pre-existing source, from a brief meeting with Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Prof. James Moriarty ending up as the main villain. In 2004, a sequel was released, this time set against the backdrop of (the original, 1898) War of the Worlds, and still darkening the tone by having Dr. Moreau assist the government in biological warfare, and Mr. Hyde viciously murder-raping the Invisible Man (he had a reason).

And so this is the new one, set sixty years after the end of the original (making this one in 1958, for you mathematicians out there). Featuring a narrative spanning from the dawn of time to the mid-twentieth century, and fantastic references from Cthulhu's place in creating the world, to Shakespeare's Prospero adventuring with Don Quixote, from Bertie and Jeeves obliviously battling Lovecraftian monsters to a young James Bond seducing a young Emma Peel, and being a Big Brother party symapthizer, The Black Dossier really exceeds all possible expectations, making it one of the most nuanced, complicated, and basically fun books released this year.

I highly recommend it if you haven't read it (read the first two first, if you haven't read those), as well as anything else Alan Moore has written. Alan Moore's a genius, you see...

No Country for Young Men

2007-11-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

Beirut's Zach Condon deserves the term "wunderkind," I think. I mean, the guy's 21 years old, and he's without a doubt one of the more talented musicians of his generation (up there with James Murphy, Tunde Adebimpe, and Sufjan Stevens). Just this year he released his sophomore album, The Flying Club Cup, which mostly dispensed with his debut's (Gulag Orkestar) Balkan rumblings for a more unplaceably (*cough*French*cough*) exotic tone, and it suits Zach's Morrissey-with-soul warble far more snugly than the slowed-down-Gogol-Bordello tunes he used to traffic in. He's unimpeachably gifted, and The Flying Club Cup just may serve to cement his place in the indie music pantheon (or at least the folksier end of it).

Watch, and appreciate:

Sprinkle Some Fries on Those Cupcakes

2007-11-09T21:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, first off, I realize the Summer of Patton is over, and all the wonderment and awe is dying down a bit, but I still need to sing his praises, so deal with me here.

So, most importantly, Patton Oswalt did it this year. He Did It. He became the best comedian of the early 21st century, his generation's Richard Pryor or Bill Hicks, and he narrowly beat out David Cross for the title. In fact, even Patton's earlier stuff lagged behind David's ( Mr. Show > King of Queens, Shut Up, You Fucking Baby! > Feelin' Kinda Patton), but with this year's Werewolves and Lollipops, Patton wins. He's laid down the best comedy album since, probably, David's Shut Up, and it beats out anything else by his Comedians of Comedy friends by a long-shot (Live In: Nerd Rage anyone?), and don't even get me started on Dane Cook. I'm sure people will argue that Harmful if Swallowed, and Dane Cook with it, are the Stand-Up Watermarks of the Early 21st Century, but these people are stupid. I'll lay it down right here: Dane Cook sucks. Get over it. He's about as original and funny as Family Guy; carrying the metaphor, that would make Patton Futurama, underappreciated by the masses but super beloved and always respected. So Patton's Werewolves and Lollipops is the best comedy album of the decade, at least. It rewards repeated listens in the best way, and as a Pitchfork review pointed out, the jokes and Patton's delivery are so uniquely his own that you don't want to replay bits in your head or repeat them; you want to hear him say them, and so you keep coming back.

In addition to putting out the best comedy album of the decade and diversifying Coachella (that's not paragraph worthy, but it is cool nonetheless and I did get to see him there, so here's a blurb: Patton brought his Comedians of Comedy to Coachella, the first non-musical act there, ever. It was amazing, and I got a Zach Galifianakis t-shirt), Patton voiced main rat Remy in Pixar's Ratatouille, a charming and poignant little kid's movie that adults seemed to prefer over kids (see also: Toy Story, Finding Nemo). Ratatouille was a huge success, everyone loved it, it made lots of money, and it was, probably more importantly, Pixar's return to form. The Incredibles was, let's face it, just okay, and although Cars was better, it was this film that really reaffirmed Pixar's place in the good kid's movie pantheon, and Patton's portrayal was convincing and natural; it seemed real, which is a fairly big deal when you're providing the disembodied voice of an anthropomorphic rat.

So let's keep the Patton love going. We love him. We need him. He's saving comedy, and thus America's sense of humour.

We love you Patton. Never leave us.

There Will Be Blood

2007-11-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

Look upon P.T. Anderson's wonders and tremble, ye mighty*

This movie is going to kick your ass, and I'll tell you why. First off, there's the film itself, based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil! which is all socialist-y and wonderful, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who brought us Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, and Boogie Nights. Then we have the cast; Daniel Day-Lewis, in all his mustachioed glory, as the eccentric, rich oil magnate who wants to turn a piece of unused land into gold, and Paul Dano as the charismatic young preacher man, howling hellfire, trembling in insecurity and unsure of his place against Day-Lewis (and I haven't even seen the movie yet!). If that's not enough, then how about the fact that Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead's guitarist, for the less astute among you) is composing the score?

Basically, this movie can't lose. It just can't. And I'm incredibly excited.

*I need to re-read Ozymandias. Sue me.

These are Blogs

2007-11-09T21:05:00.000-08:00

clearly I have caved.
I have, seemingly, left the masses of sane thought to suit up and rocket into the blogosphere.
God help us.

I think I'll start off by sending you all away, to far more competent blogging, courtesy of Marc at heroinandminimalism.blogspot.com, and Kevin at nightwindows.net.

If you're bloggin' it and you're my friend and I neglected to pimp you, let me know, and I'll happily remedy the situation.

Now go off, while I rummage around for mp3s or something...