"Try To Make It", the new single from the Sloan singles collection, is great.

Here are a list of my favorite tracks of 2005, in no particular order. These aren't all singles, just individual tracks:

"Club Foot" Kasabian
"Please Stand Up" British Sea Power
"Landed" Ben Folds
"Banquet" Bloc Party
"Catch My Disease" Ben Lee
"Winter in the Hamptons" Josh Rouse
"Maria" and "My Sweet Charade" Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
"I Predict A Riot" Kaiser Chiefs
"Made for TV Movie" and "Jews For Jesus Blues" Clem Snide
"Born in the 70's" Ed Harcourt (a 2004 UK release but I didn't get it until 2005)
"Bittersweet Bundle of Misery" Graham Coxon (ditto)

"I Summon You" off the new Spoon album kicks my booty every time I hear it...

Anyone else feel the same way about this understated masterpiece?

I like "Sister Jack" myself.

The Spoon record has grown on me a good bit, but it doesn't hit me nearly as hard as the poppy stuff on the previous records.

Yeah, Gimme Fiction is much more subtle (I suppose, less dynamic) than their previous work but its still fantastic music. What bothers me is how it won't crack the top 10 or 20 in the year end polls, but in my opinion is a better album with better songs than last year's Funeral, which reaped all the attention because it was bombastic and had a sense of pity-my-bereavement histrionics about it. God damn them! Restraint and artistry always gets nudged out of the spotlight when some loud bastard starts opening his mouth. I would respect Arcade Fire a hell of a lot more if they didn't use their "everyone I know has died" platform and tell the world how much they suffer and how noble they are for making upbeat music about it. Total bullshit.

Sorry, I went for a short rant there. Um, Spoon is good.

Yeah, I accept your apology. I'm not an Arcade Fire super fan, but I think they're OK. I saw the Dears live with TSOOL, and I agree with whoever posted that they're better! Anyway, I think you're wrong bigtime about Spoon. They will make the critics' top ten/twenty easily, but they probably won't make mine. Well, that's irrelevant because so far I have no more than a top four, let alone my top twenty!!

Sancho, I agree with you about "I Summon You", I have a friend that loves Spoon but doesn't really care for the new record. This is actually the song that I have really tried to push on him to try to get him into this album. I really like "Sister Jack" as well, but I've got to agree, "I Summon You" is remarkable, and quite possibly my favorite track of the year. Here are a few others that are on my mind at the moment:

The Decemberists- "We Both Go Down Together"
Okkervil River- "Black"
Iron and WIne- "Evening on the Ground"
Frank Black- "Sing for Joy"

"I Summon You" is definitely the best song I've heard so far this year...amazing.

I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't reach as many ears as it should because it is a subtle and restrained song right in the middle of a subtle and restrained album. Their loss.

quote:

Originally posted by SanchoPanza!!!:
I would respect Arcade Fire a hell of a lot more if they didn't use their "everyone I know has died" platform and tell the world how much they suffer and how noble they are for making upbeat music about it.

Are you serious? Please tell me when they have ever used that platform. It's more that every interview they get asked why they named the album Funeral, and they say because family members died while they recorded it. All the songs had been written before anyone died, and they had no effect on anything except the title of the album, and the last track, which had one line that was directed at Regine's grandmother (Alice died in the night). But the media loves playing up a story like that, and in every article you read the writer brings up the fact that people they know died, and how amazing it is they made upbeat music despite this. If the album was called Birthday or something because they all had birthday's while recording no one would notice any of this.

Sorry to rant and probably overreact, but I'm an AF fanatic, and will defend them to the death.

Well, a few:

"Polkamatic" ~ Vitalic
"If Not Now, Whenever" ~ The Books
"The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine" ~ Spoon
"10 Dollar" ~ M.I.A.
"Arc of Time" ~ Bright Eyes
"Bees" ~ Caribou
"Be Gentle With Me" ~ The Boy Least Likely To
"Smile Around the Face" ~ Four Tet
"Get Him Back" ~ Fiona Apple
"Making Planets" ~ Edan

Look at me!

the Dirty Projectors - Not Having Found
Caribou - Brahminy Kite
Sleater-Kinney - What's Mine Is Yrs
Angels of Light - Lena's Song
Deerhoof - Green Cosmos
Gang Gang Dace - Egowar
the Hold Steady - Cattle and the Creeping Things
Need New Body - Poppa B
Architecture in Helsinki - It'5!

et flippin cetera

"Junipers" by Sleater-Kinney
"It Kills" by Stephen Malkmus

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
"Junipers" by Sleater-Kinney

Jumpers?
A few to add:
The White Stripes - Blue Orchid
Stephen Malkmus - Kindling For the Master
Art Brut - Formed a Band (technically a 2004 release as a single, but the version on their album is better anyway)
Art Brut - Modern Art (love the lyrics)
The Boy Least Likely To - I'm Glad I Hitched My Applewagon To Your Star

Your monitor must be dimmer than mine!!!

"Junipers" (Track 4) Firs are trees found in a forest ("the woods".) I don't know shit from "Jumpers" or your list, except for Malkmus. Anything from him I'll give a

so far:

1. Spoon - I turn My Camera On
2. NIN - The Hand That Feeds
3. Architecture In Helsinki - Maybe You Can Owe Me
4. Jaga - Oslo Skyline
5. Out Hud - It's For You

Off the top of my head:

"Born to a Family" by The Go-Betweens
"This Year" by The Mountain Goats
"Big Boat" by M. Ward
"Fistfull of Love" by Antony & The Johnsons
"What's Mine Is Yours" by Sleater-Kinney
"Farewell Ride" by Beck
"Winter in the Hamptons" by Josh Rouse
"The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine" by Spoon
"Ball & Chain" by Martha Wainwright
"Burn the Witch" by Queens of the Stone Age
"Video" by Aimee Mann

dano, I would tend to believe that naming your album Funeral in the first place seems to be a bit loaded with portent. And then having all the members of the band take pictures in the style of a funeral, and then noting the deaths in the insert, and then writing songs that relate to death and such and such...seems to be something of a running theme. It even comes to self pity: singing "my family tree/is losing all its leaves" in a whiny, high-pitched voice with monstrously melodramatic string swells and tinkling piano notes seems to be a much, honestly. And then to keep a loose theme of "Neighborhood" songs running throughout when several tracks highlight social, familial, and emotional problems also seems a bit portentous. Some may call that "commentary" or "artistic expression"; I call it misguided bombast. What exactly are you trying to say, Winn? Don't care!

Don't even get me started on the line telling everyone to dance underneath the police disco lights, or whatever. That's such an unbalanced, goofy lyric that it destroys the whole song. You know, it may be that AF have good ideas but execute them strangely. I can see the image of the police lights flashing through the streets, but referencing disco (mind you, a brief, vapid, pop craze of the 1970s) along with domestic issues is lazy, unfocused, and completely contradictory. (Don't even mention anything that intimates disco being as summarily ridiculous as domestic problems...) I mean, do me in the booty and accuse me of flinching, but I'm never, ever going to give them any more credit than what's due. And I'm afraid I've searched every last torrid fiber of my soul and I cannot find a single little nook or cranny with which to find credit to give them. Spit in your hat and wear it, chums!

The more I write, the more I despise this band. And I used to like them too. Here's to them choking on their melodrama. And tell Winn Butler he needs to decide on which note to sing.

quote:

"Farewell Ride" by Beck

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who thinks that's the best song off Guero.

quote:

It even comes to self pity: singing "my family tree/is losing all its leaves" in a whiny, high-pitched voice with monstrously melodramatic string swells and tinkling piano notes seems to be a much, honestly.

Let me start off by saying that I am not a fan of the Arcade Fire. I listened to their album several times last fall and it failed to make an impression on me. That said, what is so wrong with writing songs or lyrics about something powerful that has happened to you? To me, if you avoid issues that you feel strongly about and that are affecting you, you're being fake. Being artificial and throttling your emotions results in stale, unfeeling music. Take the Eels, for example. The consensus choice for their best album is Electro-Shock Blues, followed by their latest, Blinking Lights. Do you think it's a coincidence that their two best albums are autobiographical and dealt directly with things that had happened to E, like death and other life experiences?

Or how about Jeff Mangum? In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, is considered a classic by many, and it's probably my favorite album ever. Many of the songs are about Anne Frank. I'm not particularly interested in Anne Frank. I had to read her diary in 8th grade and thought it was boring, but it's clear that Mangum was obsessed with her and it shows in the songs. You can just feel the emotion. It's so intense. Can you imagine what the album would have been like if Mangum would've decided that writing songs about Anne Frank wasn't cool, and instead he sang about something he wasn't particularly interested in?

I know the Arcade Fire wrote most of the songs before the deaths occurred, but you've got to figure that death had a big influence on the way they performed and sang. How is calling the album Funeral and noting something about their inspiration in the liner notes so wrong? I actually wish more artists were open about their inspiration and the meanings of some of their songs. For me, knowing what a song is about or where the singer is coming from can add immeasurably to my enjoyment.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
Your monitor must be dimmer than mine!!!

"Junipers" (Track 4) Firs are trees found in a forest ("the woods".) I don't know shit from "Jumpers" or your list, except for Malkmus. Anything from him I'll give a

No, I mean, the track is called Jumpers, not Junipers. Unless Amazon, and every review I've read is wrong.

OK, "Jumpers" then. My eyes must be dimmer than yours.

Wow Sancho, did the band offend you personally or something? First of all, naming the album Funeral in honor of and to pay tribute to family members who died doesn't seem so wrong to me. It seems like a nice gesture.

Then you go on to state problems with a bunch of lyrics and themes completely unrelated to death. So I'll respond to that. Laika, (the disco lights song) is told from the perspective of a child. The kid is trying to understand the situation with his older brother, who is apparently getting arrested after a dispute with his father, and the whole neighborhood is in the street watching. ("Now the neighbors can dance in the police disco lights") The child is the one making the analogy. How does that line ruin the song? I don't get it. The neighbors are being "entertained" by the older brother being arrested, hence the dancing in the disco light analogy. It seems like Win (not Winn) is making a comment about society's attraction scandal.