New Music Tuesday - 02/14/2012

Shearwater - Animal Joy

I started listening to Shearwater because the band was started, in part, by Will Sheff of my much-beloved Okkervil River. Sheff's no longer a member, but their music is still incredible. They've become known for lofty, involved concept albums. This album is a little bit closer to Earth; it's more accessible, but without sacrificing their sound.
"Breaking the Yearlings"

Tennis - Young and Old

This album may have been produced by The Black Keys' Patrick Carney, but you shouldn't expect any blues rock here. Tennis has a sunny, bright, pop sound that would be perfect for a boat ride around Martha's Vinyard. They don't stray too far from their first release, but one really can't complain when their style is so much fun.
"My Better Self"

Combined Best of 2011 List

Last year, I dorked out all over the year-end best-of lists and developed my own algorithm to combine them and determine a broadly considered best-of list. I did it again for last year's releases, though I've twiddled my thumbs on posting.

I changed it up a little bit this year. First, I expanded the publications that I considered, while also leaving out some that weren't really music publications. The publications used:
Rolling Stone
Spin
NME
Q
Paste
Stereogum
Drowned in Sound
Billboard
Amazon
Spinner
Time
Pitchfork
Under the Radar
Hype Machine
The A.V. Club
NPR

I decided to exclude Grammy nominations, though not out of disdain for the ceremony or any of the recent changes made. The primary reason was that the eligibility period doesn't match up with the calendar year. It seemed unfair to artists who released albums in late November or December (and were thus excluded from this year's nominations). Also, some artists who released albums in 2009 or 2010 were nominated this year depending on the release dates of the album or singles from the album. For example, Mumford & Sons had a couple of nominations for songs even though their album was released in late 2009.

Methodology
For the top ten of each list, I assigned a point value from 1 to 10 depending on the album's placement in the list. An album ranked number 1 was given 10 points, an album ranked 10th was given 1 point. The point values were the same for all publications.

Outside the top ten, I assigned a fractions of points depending on placement. Within the top 20 received 0.5 points, top 30 - 0.4 points and so on. For lists exceeding 50 albums, anything 51 and below was given 0.1 points.

One list, NPR's, was unranked; any albums included were given 3 points.

Once all those were calculated, I added up the points across the board and sorted them from the highest point value to the lowest.

The List
And here are the 10 best albums of 2011:

10. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost 27.8 points (4 top ten lists; 1 number one spot)
8.   M83 (tie) - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming 28.4 points (4 top ten lists)
8.   EMA (tie) - Past Life Martyred Saints 28.4 points (4 top ten lists; 1 number one spot)
7.   tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l 29.5 points (5 top ten lists)
6.   Jay-Z & Kanye West - Watch the Throne 34.6 points (6 top ten lists)
5.   Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues 42.1 points (5 top ten lists)
4.   F**ked Up - David Comes to Life 51.4 points (6 top ten lists; 1 number one spot)
3.   Adele - 21 52.1 points (6 top ten lists; 3 number one spots)
2.   PJ Harvey - Let England Shake 68.2 points (8 top ten lists; 1 number one spot)
1.   Bon Iver - Bon Iver 87.6 points (10 top ten lists; 4 number one spots)



Bon Iver and Adele were certainly no surprise, both got huge amounts of attention last year. I was surprised PJ Harvey eked past Adele; though she did get more love from the British publications, which really boosted her score. With all the love for last year's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, I expected Watch the Throne to place higher. The biggest surprise overall, though, was the position of EMA's album. It's excellent, but it's surprising for a debut to get that level of attention and praise.

If you would like to see the spreadsheet created to calculate this, you can download it here.

St. Vincent - "Cheerleader"

Annie Clark is two for two on amazing music videos for her latest album, Strange Mercy. This new video imagines her as a giant sculpture in a gallery. As museum-goers gaze on, she crumbles apart.

New Music Tuesday - 02/07/2012

Air - Le Voyage dans la lune

110 years after it was released, the classic French silent movie, A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans le lune) is finally getting a soundtrack. There is probably no better a band to provide this film with music. Air, also from France, made a name for themselves scoring Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides in 2004. The new soundtrack brings Air together with other amazing ambient/dream pop acts such as Victoria Legrand (of Beach House) and Au Revoir Simone. A restored and colorized version of the film has been making the rounds at film festivals this season, hopefully it comes to Cincinnati soon!
"Sonic Armada"

Ben Kweller - Go Fly a Kite

Kweller founded his own record label, The Noise Company, back in 2007, but this will be the first release exclusive to that label (previous issues, including 2009's Changing Horses, were released in conjunction with ATO Records). This is his fifth solo album and promises to continue in his straight-forward, personal style.
"Mean to Me"

of Montreal - Paralytic Stalks

Kevin Barnes has said that his key to preventing his band from becoming one-note or stale has been to reinvent the sound with every album. That drive has been evident on each of their releases. They've dipped their toes into psychedelic rock, avant pop and even recorded soul-inspired songs with Janelle Monae and Solange Knowles on their last release, False Priest. This one sees them experimenting with psychedelic and progressive elements. The constant change of sound has allowed the band to achieve what Barnes set out, to constantly revitalize the band and keep them fresh. Difficult to achieve these days, but they prove it can be done.
"Dour Percentage"

Paul McCartney - Kisses on the Bottom

With such a cheeky title, you know you can't be getting anything to involved; with this release, you're really not. Following a long line of older musicians with little else left to do (Al Jarreau, Rod Stewart), this is an album of pop standards. I had been hoping his new-found love would inspire some great music, but alas! He does a nice enough job with the tunes, but there's nothing earth-shattering here.
"My Valentine"

Sharon van Etten - Tramp

A bad breakup a few years ago has carried this artist very far. Despite being about pain and heartbreak, Sharon succeeds at making the songs more introspective than whiny, making them emotional and heartbreaking to listen to. For this, her third album, she has enlisted the help of a number of other prominent musicians; The National's Aaron Dessner, Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner and Beirut's Zach Condon. Despite the greater presence of guest musicians, the music still manages to sound extremely personal. I've had the change to preview the album over at NPR and it is already proving itself to be one of my favorites this year.
"Give Out"

Shame

While I skipped the week before, this past week I did make good on my weekly movie night. On schedule last Tuesday was Shame, directed by Steve McQueen (not the action star), and starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan.

Michael Fassbender stars as Brandon Sullivan, a New York professional with a severe sex addiction. He hires prostitutes, picks up random women at bars and masturbates in the bathroom at work; both his work and personal computers are loaded with pornography. Despite all this, he leads a very controlled life, necessary to hide his addiction from those around him. The order of his life is disrupted when his equally unstable younger sister, Sissy (Mulligan), drops in unannounced to stay with him. Suffering from attachment issues with men (including Brandon's own boss) and severely depressed, she throws her brother's world into a tailspin.



Before the nominations came out January 24, this movie was getting a lot of Oscar buzz, especially for Fassbender and Mulligan. The movie certainly got a lot of attention at other awards events, including the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. Despite some well-deserving performances, however, the movie was completely overlooked for an Academy Award; a true snub, indeed. Both main actors are among my favorites and have made great names for themselves despite relatively short careers, and this was definitely a movie that really showcased both of their talents. It's hard to say exactly why this movie was overlooked (perhaps the NC-17 rating?), but it is a great watch, nonetheless...provided you are over the age of 17, of course.

Mini soundtrack:

Blondie - "Rapture"

Carey Mulligan - "New York, New York"

Chic - "I Want Your Love"

Animated Videos

Animated videos provide artists a unique way to tell a story and can often lend more emotion that your standard live-action is able to provide. There have been a number of amazing animated videos released recently; including Fleet Foxes' stunning "The Shrine/An Argument" and The Crookes' down-the-rabbit-hole-inspired "Bloodshot Days."

Over the past couple of weeks, a couple of new videos have been released, both fully animated. What's even more incredible about these two is that they manage to convey a high level of emotion while being done in primarily black and white.

The first is Death Cab for Cutie's "Underneath the Sycamore." It follows a private eye in the pursuit of a beautiful, but troubled, young woman. This one reminds me, stylistically, of The Crookes' video.

Death Cab for Cutie - "Underneath the Sycamore"

The second is from Danger Mouse's and Daniele Luppi's "Two Against One," which featured vocals from Jack White. This one shows a man in pursuit of an otherworldly entity that's slowly destroying his life.

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi with Jack White - "Two Against One"

A La Modeliste

What happens when you put several masters in a room together to record a song? Well, you get amazing music, of course!

"A La Modeliste" brings together producer Mark Ronson, singer Erykah Badu, rapper Mos Def, backed by a band including Trombone Shorty and members of The Dap-Kings. The result is incredible and does a great job of showcasing all of the various talents present on the track.