Favorite Music of 2018

I listened to a ton of jazz this year, much more so than in previous years. I think I'm becoming one of Those People, which is fine, but given how much my siblings and I made fun of my dad for listening to jazz when we were growing up, it seems just the teensiest bit like some cosmic prank. Maybe free will really is an illusion, and we are all genetically predetermined to eventually fall into the same patterns of musical tastes as our parents. If so, I dread the CCM and Jim Croce phrase that will one day awaken in me from my mother's share of the DNA.

In all seriousness, here are my favorite albums of the year. As I've done the past few years, I've linked to my original reviews of albums, in case you'd like to read my initial thoughts in my weekly reviews posts. And as always, I feel compelled to mention that it is physically impossible to have listened to every music release, and some genres especially (e.g. metal and hip-hop) got short shrift this year from me. So be sure to fill me in on what I missed! Or to tell me how wrong I am! Or to send help to rescue me from my jazz impulses!

Favorite Albums:

1. Let's Eat Grandma: I'm All Ears

Sometimes, it's not until I've lined up all the albums I've listened to in a year that I realize what my favorite is. It's not as if I've ever not loved I'm All Ears. It's great. But it's still something of a surprise to see it land here. But no matter. This is good music for goth indie kids, and great music for all-around nerds like yours truly.

[Read original review]

2. Sleep: The Sciences

I'm really not much of a metal guy, and The Sciences was the only metal release I bought this year. But it owns. The tongue-in-cheek "marijuanaut" mythology, the heavy, heavy riffs—I dig it.

[Read original review]

3. Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet: Landfall

Eerie, spacious, apocalyptic: pretty much everything you'd want from a collaboration between Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet. I've probably spent more time thinking about "Nothing Left But Their Names" than any other one composition all year.

[Read original review]

4. Szun Waves: New Hymn to Freedom

Astral jazz. I'm still not exactly sure how to describe it. I'ms till sure it owns.

[Read original review]

5. Noname: Room 25

I didn't listen to a ton of hip-hop this year, and my impression from people who do follow hip-hop more closely is that this was a bit of an off-year for the genre, Cardi B excepted (and I'm still pretty miffed that Cardi B's album never came out on CD, meaning I didn't really get to dive into it much). But Noname's album is really good! And if you're cheap, you can get it for free on her Bandcamp page!

[Read original review]

6. Father John Misty: God's Favorite Customer

I think this is the only 2018 album I gave an A grade on the blog. Grades are weird. I don't think any less of this album now, but somehow, an A doesn't feel right anymore (nor the #1 slot that would necessitate). But anyway, it's still very good. FJM pulling way back on the smirking and the social commentary and instead making a deeply personal record that sounds like the White Album but is a tight Revolver-esque single LP. Probably my favorite lyrics of the year, and certainly the one most likely to make me cry.

[Read original review]

7. R+R=Now: Collagically Speaking

Probably the best recent example of jazz's ongoing attempt to position itself within contemporary pop music discourse, fusing trap and R&B with a real jazz-head lineup of Robert Glasper, Christian Scott, and Terrace Martin.

[Read original review]

8. Harriet Tubman: The Terror End of Beauty

This jazz trio is back, serving up more of their electric Miles-style fusion. This time around feels particularly indebted to John McLaughlin's work, suffused with squalling electric guitars fed through some rather cosmic pedal effects. Very cool stuff.

9. Helena Hauff: Qualm

I never got a chance to formally review this, but here it is: the rare electronica album to make it onto one of my year-end lists. This Hamburg-born, UK-based DJ still makes her brand of house music on analog machines, which I suppose could be regarded as something of a throwback. And, I mean, we're not in cutting-edge Arca territory or anything. But it's anything but resting on nostalgic laurels. This is exploratory music, setting its horizons wide. And even if it had been done before, just try telling me that "Hyper-Intelligent Genetically Enriched Cyborg" isn't great.

10. Thom Yorke: Suspiria: Music For The Luca Guadagnino Film

I'll be perfectly honest: this moody, ambient-leaning 81-minute OST is on this list almost entirely on the virtues of 6 songs and about 29 minutes of music: "Suspirium," "Has Ended," "Open Again," "Unmade," "Volk," and "Suspirium Finale." But WHAT VIRTUES. Almost definitely the best music of Thom Yorke's solo career.





Great 2018 Songs Not On These Albums:

Beach House: "Dive"—Beach House didn't exactly re-invent themselves this year, but they did manage to take their music in the most interesting direction (meaning, any direction at all) in years, chopping up their usual sounds into dance beats and odd structures and strange acoustics. "Dive" is the perfect execution of this new inspiration, beginning as what sounds like a spaced-out, Beach-House-y version of Belle & Sebastian's "Electronic Renaissance" before, at its midpoint, exploding like a turning kaleidoscope into an anthemic collision between shoegaze and Arcade Fire indie pomp. It's awesome.

Daughters: "Long Road, No Turns"—A venomously sarcastic explosion of a song reminiscent of the 1980s' No Wave, but lyrically, it's all 2018: "It may please your heart to see some shackled, wrists and throat naked as the day they were born, but no one's going to do that for you." Whether you read that politically or personally, the power of the lines is unshakable.

Ariana Grande: "thank u, next"—Sweetener was a really good pop album, but nothing there comes within spitting distance of this non-album single, a track that stands alongside Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone," and Taylor Swift's "All Too Well" as one of the great breakup songs of the 21st century. In the grand tradition of the best breakup songs, it postures confidence and dismissal (that chorus, y'all) while being laced with crippling sadness. Skip the Mean Girls music video, though, because that's so uninspired baloney.

Jenny Hval: "The Long Sleep"—The centerpiece of Hval's excellent 2018 EP is a 10-minute, hypnotic ambient track. Hval remains one of the best at finding the cavernous unexplored spaced in indie rock, and this is a great exhibition of that.

Carly Rae Jepsen: "Party for One"—Quit teasing us, Carly; where's that new LP??

Janelle Monáe: "Pynk (feat. Grimes)"—Unfortunately, not a ton has stuck with me from Dirty Computer (a first for me and a Monáe album). The two exceptions are great exceptions indeed: the slinky Prince-esque banger "Make Me Feel" and this, the tender, soaring PC Music-ish pop gem. They're both good, but if I'm going to be only giving props to one, it's gotta be "Pynk." Maybe it was just the music video.

Preoccupations: "Espionage"—Preoccupations seems to have become one of those bands that everyone kind of agrees puts out good music but to whom nobody really gives the time of day. Maybe it's because they're a post-punk guitar-rock band, and 2018 just isn't the year for that. But it's too bad, because their music pretty much owns, especially "Espionage," which is propulsive and brooding in that specific combination that only post-punk can really evoke.

Pusha T: "What Would Meek Do (ft. Kanye West)"—Outside of the political ramifications (which are bad), one of the most unfortunate things about Kanye West's on-again/off-again MAGA embrace is that it overshadowed some of the actually really good work that came out of the Wyoming sessions. Pusha T's DAYTONA is front-to-back strong, but my favorite is, unsurprisingly, the one with the beat based off a Yes sample, because I am nothing if on-brand. Also, though I might be falling victim to the very same Kanye-based overshadowing that I just complained about, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that it's got what's probably Kanye's best, most thoughtful verse of the year, wherein he wonders if his MAGA stunts will protect him from racial profiling. Like... I dunno, y'all. It's good.

Robyn: "Missing U"—For me, Robyn continues to be mostly a singles artist, which is fine, because the singles are great. This one in particular. Crying in the club with the best of them.

Jeff Rosenstock: "USA"—A 7-minute punk-rock epic that ends with everyone shouting "Et tu, USA." It's kind of shameless, but it's also kind of great.

Sons of Kemet: "My Queen Is Harriet Tubman"—Probably the most energetic jazz release I heard this year was Your Queen Is a Reptile, a fusion of jazz, worldbeat, and black nationalism. Presumably with this song, they are talking about the abolitionist hero and not the jazz trio featured on the albums section of this list, but I'd accept either answer.

SOPHIE: "Immaterial"—I was thinking that SOPHIE's demented, bludgeoning pop(?) album, OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-SIDES was going to make my top 10 albums, but then the CD release of the album was pushed back, and I didn't get a chance to dive in as deeply as I would have needed to justify that top-10 spot. But anyway, here's the album's catchiest, sunniest song, which I like a ton.

Spiritualized: "On the Sunshine"—Pretty much classic Spiritualized, if a tad less tortured (so, good for Jason Pierce). You've got Pierce's droning vocals, the swelling guitars, the eclipsing feedback, the wild brass. My thing exactly.

St. Vincent: "Fast Slow Disco"—Annie Clark's lone full-length release this year was a slow, acoustic re-imagining of last year's Masseduction tracks, but her best work this year is in the exact opposite direction: "Fast Slow Disco," a faster, poppier, dancier, better iteration of what was already one of Masseduction's standouts. Bonus points for the excellent music video.

Underworld & Iggy Pop: "Bells & Circles"—"Losing My Edge," but ragging on Baby Boomers. Iggy Pop gives a hilarious vocal performance as a ranting, great-uncle-like character who complains that nowadays "nobody wants you to be able to do the things that make you feel good," like smoking on airplanes and sexually harassing airplane stewardesses. The lyrics turn increasingly crazed and surreal as the driving Underworld beat becomes more and more sinister. Profoundly funny and disquieting at the same time.

U.S. Girls: "Time"—It was a great year for female-fronted indie rock, and if I hadn't been such a loser listening to so much jazz, more of it would have made it onto my album list. You can't do much better than this careening closer to U.S. Girl's In a Poem Unlimited.

Kamasi Washington: "Will You Sing"—Speaking of closing tracks, here's the finale to Kamasi Washington's epic Heaven and Earth. As Washington steps further away from the Coltrane-style hard bop he cut his teeth on and more toward ornate, symphonic jazz, he's sounding more and more like Ennio Morricone, and "Will You Sing" is Washington's very own "Ecstasy of Gold."

Kanye West: "Lift Yourself"—Maybe Kanye just did it for the memes. But I'm serious when I say that this is a legitimately great piece of avant-garde hip-hop. There's a playfulness on display here, and not just with the literal scat lyrics but with how the song plays with its structure and its central soul sample in a way that feels fresh and interesting and fun. Kanye is at the nexus of a lot of what is terrible about 2018, and his position there is almost entirely his own fault, which is both infuriating and dispiriting (and worrying, given his recent statements about his stance toward his medication). But I am at least grateful that he left us this before he completely jumped off the deep end.

Mini Reviews for September 17 - 23, 2018

Kind of a meh week for movies.

Movies

Summer 1993 (Estiu 1993) (2017)

Reminded me very much of Ponette, that French film in whose primary draw is the incredibly compelling and sad performance by then-4-year-old child actor Victoire Thivisol. Summer 1993 mines a lot of this same territory, as a child (played incredibly compellingly and sadly by Laia Artigas) comes to terms with her parents' death of AIDS and what this means for her life. There's a lot here about how Frida's status as an orphan makes other adults uncomfortable and inconvenienced when they aren't consciously making themselves feel sorry for her, which is interesting, though I think this movie could (as with a lot of European arthouse these days) do with a tighter script. But maybe that's an impossibility when you're working with actors this young. Either way, as with Ponette, my biggest takeaway from the film is the naturalism of the child actors—and even then, Artigas is nowhere near what Thivisol was—and the rest of the movie kind of falls away when I try to think about anything besides the acting. Grade: B-

Iris (2014)

I don't really know or like high fashion that much, so I'm probably barking up the wrong tree with this movie. That said, Iris Apfel seems like a completely fascinating person and a breath of fresh air compared to the usual classist and taking-itself-too-seriously fashion standards—too bad she's so under-served by this oddly flaccid documentary. This is Albert Maysles making this movie. The dude did Grey Gardens; eccentrics are his home turf. What happened here? Why is this so bad at capturing Apfel's eccentricities? Grade: C

Troll Hunter (Trolljegeren) (2010)

I'm still not sure how I feel about found-footage movies that aren't firmly planted in horror. The technique's exploitation of seemingly lo-fi cinematic style and digital artifacts highlights the fragility of modern digital technology in the face of the supernatural and the ancient is something that I don't think has much footing outside the horror, where it works great for accentuating the terror, esp. of the cosmic variety. In a movie like Troll Hunter, though (or, to a lesser extent, Cloverfield, though I'd say that's the superior film), which is less a "horror" movie qua horror than it is a sort of creature-feature action film, I can't think of a compelling reason for the found-footage technique save that it kind of highlights the (admirably goofy) "science" of the film. That said, I did dig supremely just how devoted to its own wonky troll mythology this movie is—its own kind of deadpan; maybe I'm viewing this through the wrong lens and it's more mockumentary than proper found-footage, in which case I probably don't have a dry enough sense of humor. There are some nice setpieces, though, especially the one set inside the troll cave. Grade: C+

Coming to America (1988)

Surely it's no accident that this is virtually the inverse of the also-Landis-directed Trading Spaces right? This time, Eddie Murphy isn't a poor guy pretending to be rich; he's a rich guy pretending to be poor! And he's also from Africa! And he's also a sensitive(ish) romantic lead, not a wise-cracking firebrand! I dunno, it's a weird one, y'all. The opening half hour or so seem to set up a broad and often absurd parody of American (and often specifically African-American) culture, circa 1988, constructing this cock-eyed version of our world that feels a little like a softball version of what Sorry to Bother You or even RoboCop does with advertising as an expository device about the mechanics of this kaleidoscope iteration of our reality—there's a fine but definite line connecting the "Soul Glo" commercial we see early on in this movie and "I'd buy that for a dollar!" And this is all great fun, if much less interested in politics than the other films I've cited (and if a bit over-reliant on a strange motif of Eddie Murphy's character getting unsolicited hand jobs from strange women). But then, abruptly, the movie turns into a much more straightforward romantic comedy, and this stage of the story is not only less interesting and entertaining than the movie's setup; it also doesn't ever really make sense—especially in the climax, which cuts directly from a firmly downer note of rejection to a "happily ever after" epilogue without ever explaining how we got to the happily ever after. So, an uneven film overall: one that has enough charms that I can see how it's become a nostalgic favorite, but a mess nonetheless. Grade: B-

Shivers (1975)

There's a lot of rape in this movie, and it's of the schlocky, '70s-exploitation variety, which means that I look at the device askance. And the movie's plot is far too episodic to have the sense of mounting widescreen terror that it's aiming for. Still, there's something weirdly endearing about how go-for-broke this movie is in making everything about sex seem disgusting to the point of numb horror, bodies becoming abstracted sacks of meat slapping together, The joint fascination with eroticism and the critical distance from it feels so very Cronenbergian—impressive to evoke this early in the man's career. It's philosophically and executionally suspect, but it has the decency to be interestingly so. Grade: B-

Books

When We Wake by Karen Healey (2013)

As speculative fiction, When We Wake is alternatingly fascinating and frustrating. There are a couple of really strong ideas, but they're surrounded by a sea of half-baked world-building. The novel (centering on a girl who has been, via some amazing new tech, resurrected 100 years after her death) explores well the idea of scientific resurrection and the ways that the publicizing of that technology would ripple out into society (a society that, as this book shows, is facing increasing resource scarcity due to climate change and a refugee crisis exacerbated by isolationist policies—to say that this book has a finger to the pulse of current events would be an understatement, though I wonder if Karen Healey has, in the five years since this book's publication, reconsidered her stance that in 100 years, Islamophobia will be a relic of the past). Other elements of this future society don't seem nearly so considered, though; for example, in the novel's future, journalism has become a mere network of podcasts, presumably due to the crumbling of the fourth estate to new, personalized media, but it essentially treats these podcasts as news broadcasts in our own contemporary sense without exploring the way that the fracturing of media into increasingly tiny audiences has polarized information into ways that greatly undermine the communicative power of "mass" media. Also, I'll eat my hat if in 100 years, there are teens who are obsessed enough with The Beatles to bother hunting out Ringo Starr's solo discography—where are all my ragtime-loving teens in the year 2018, huh? Anyway, these gripes are all kind of window dressing to my bigger issues with the book, which involve the plot structure (which is meandering) and the characters (who are generic and bland—and also sort of defined in reductive ways, so much so that our protagonist falls in love with one black character, only to then fall in love with the only other black character in the book when she's resurrected 100 years later, mostly just because there is not much defining these characters outside their blackness and handsomeness, which makes the transfer of affection easy, which... yikes). I'm also getting tired of the stock YA narratorial voice—I know teenagers are snarky, but they are not all snarky in the same sub-Holden-Caulfield way! I'm rambling, and this certainly isn't a better-written review than When We Wake is as a novel, so far be it from me to judge too harshly. I think I just OD'd on YA dystopia a long time ago, and this didn't do much to help that. Grade: C+

Music

Sleep - The Sciences (2018)

If The Sciences, the first album in 15 years from the doom/stoner metal icons Sleep, lacks the totemic power of Dopesmoker, the last Sleep album, that's only because there isn't an hour-long song comprising the entirety of the record. But despite that, The Sciences is every bit worthy of the Sleep legacy, a tremendous collection of songs that are both hard-hitting, deeply primal metal songs anchored by positively prehistoric riffs and full of the typically playful stoner-metal mythology (the second song is called "The Marijuanaut's Theme," in case you had any hesitation of how seriously these folks are). It's lots of fun and one of my favorite albums of the year. Grade: A-