But what seems unfortunate is that for every truckload of manufactured chartbusters, a la "A Bay Bay" and the reprehensible "This is Why I'm Hot," a handful of beautifully crafted albums slipped through the cracks, ignored.
Indie reared it's head as a commercial force this year, with the Shins and Arcade Fire both taking their signature formulas to #2 in the Billboard album charts and Modest Mouse actually taking the top spot. The White Stripes scored the biggest hit of their career with the ragged, glitchy "Icky Thump," while Muse graduated to arena shows as Black Holes and Revelations continued to gain commercial acceptance.
So while the idea of Good Music is beginning to make a comeback, it still has a way to go. Take a look at some of the most criminally overlooked records from the summer. Buy them, download them, whatever, just get a hold of them.
Cooper Temple Clause - Make This Your Own
Talk about ending your career on a high note. After Make This Your Own was commercially D.O.A. on both sides of the Atlantic, the Coopers disbanded. They leave behind three albums of staggering diversity, which is crystallized by the presence of this CD. Hairpin dynamic shifts ("Damage," "Homo Sapiens"), growling electronics ("Head"), and a total disregard for eardrums ("All I See is You") crop up throughout the album, right next to pure, unadulterated pop like the rather inconsequential "Waiting Game." The album drifts to a close on the quietly devastating ballad "House of Cards." Using a crumbling relationship as a metaphor for the disintegration of the band itself, the song drifts by on a quiet piano line and a slow-buildling horn section. "All I know is wrong," howls Ben Gautrey, but this isn't your typical angsty teenager. Gautrey meant it. The album fades out with a gang vocal chanting "What does it matter now? / You'll never come home." It's a disquieting end to an album that never stops engaging a music fan's brain.
Homo Sapiens
Besnard Lakes - Are the Dark Horse
One of the darkest releases of the year. Hands down. Also one of the most beautiful. Loaded to the brim but never cluttered, and expansive without being boring. The songs have titles like "Devastation," "Disaster," and "And You Lied to Me," and lyrics like "they won't play your song on the radio" and "all the townsfolk moved away." While the bleak lyrical content of wars, spies, separation, and infidelity weigh heavily on the listener, the tightly wound arrangements give an escape. They frequently go on beyond the five minute mark, but you're suckered in. You never want to skip a song, you want to see how the vignette ends.For Agent 13
Yourcodenameis:Milo - They Came From the Sun
It's been the indie apocalypse this summer. Hope of the States, Cooper Temple Clause, and now Yourcodenameis:Milo have all parted ways, all right on the verge of a major breakthrough. But damn if they didn't go out with a bang, :Milo in particular. From the churning barrel-roll and jarring time shift of opener "Pacific Theatre" and the emo-done-right of "Understand" and "All That Was Missing," it's one of the best opening sequences of an album in recent memory. The album then sets in to :Milo's trademark experimentalism, as jazzy time signatures, judiciously used electronics, and schizophrenic dynamics take hold, with thrilling results. As the 7/4 dreaminess of "Dicta Boelcke" fades out, :Milo has had the last laugh. The simple, repetitive melody acts as a counterweight to the much more complex songs that dot the latter half of the disc, and closes the album, and the band's career, with a deep, relaxing breath.
Understand
Sondre Lerche - Phantom Punch
Where to go from a jazz album? Punk! But of course! But with Norwegian singer/songwriter/guitarist/wonderkid Sondre Lerche, it's never that simple. While on the surface Phantom Punch sounds like a Strokes rip-off, all wirey, scratchy, tinny wailing, the songs themselves are a little more sophisticated than "Last Nite." It has done Lerche good to be restrained to a three piece, as this album is trimmed of the flourishes that sometimes weighed down Lerche's earlier work. That still doesn't stop him from indulging in jazzy chord progressions, complex melodies, and deadly-addictive hooks. The disco freak-out of the title track's chorus and the stomp of the vaguely sinister "John, Let Me Go" point at unabashed pop. Lyrics remain somewhat of a weakness. It's obvious English is not Lerche's first language. But as the music begins to overtake the listener, Lerche's unique voice overtakes whatever linguistic deficiencies he may have. Not that it matters all that much anyway.
Phantom Punch
Manic Street Preachers - Send Away the Tigers
Their first release in the States since 1998's high water mark This is My Truth Tell Me Yours, the Manics continue their streak of high quality, sonically bracing albums. Stripping away the synth-heavy gloss of 2004's Lifeblood, the trio harks back to the heavily politicized, punk-tinged arena rock that garnered them fame throughout Europe. While it never climbs to the dizzying, terrifying heights of their brutal Holy Bible, it quickly becomes apparent that they don't need to. "Your Love Alone is Not Enough," featuring the call and response vocal with the Cardigans' Nina Persson and a chorus some would kill for, finds the first rock band to ever play in Cuba having fun, something unimaginable a recently as three years ago. "The Second Great Depression" glides by on waves of delayed guitars and James Dean Bradfield's unique, passionate voice, while "Imperial Bodybags" snarls and spits at the Iraq war without ever seeming contrived. The band is considerably lighter on its feet here; running times are kept short, the whole album only lasts a good 38 minutes. And last but certainly not least, lyricist/bassist Nicky Wire has come up with his best batch of words in the band's whole career throughout the album, "Rendition," and it's post-chorus realization "Oh, God, I feel like a liberal."
Your Love Alone is Not Enough
Your Love Alone is Not Enough
Hail Social - Modern Love and Death
Generally, hopping on a bandwagon is a bad thing. But if the shoe fits... It seems as though touring with Interpol has tempered Hail Social's bass-heavy rock attack into something a little more subtle but no less sinister. The dreamy, straight-up disco of lead single "Heaven" masks a darker lyrical bent ("Then you don't belong / with the rest of us / in the eyes of heaven") and that dichotomy seems to be the modus operandi for the entire CD. While some see it as crass exploitation of a popular trend, Hail Social fit into it with much more ease than some of their contemporaries, namely VHS or Beta.
Heaven
Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
It's David Bowie! Okay, David Bowie if the guitar suddenly seemed boring and prancing around in a red leotard was a good idea. The flamboyant Patrick Wolf's mood seems to have lifted as of late. The nihilism and crushing darkness of the performer's two previous albums has lifted slightly. The string sections on this album are lilting, not depressive and overblown. The electronics are trimmed and inventive, not cacaphonous. And Wolf's own baritone and lyrical wit have emerged from the dark. Well, aside from the devastating relationship-gone-flat torch ballad "Augustine." Although the album is slightly weighed down by the presence of four rather pointless interludes, Wolf's genius as an arranger is readily apparenty through the full songs. He deftly moves from the classicist, string-led "Overture," the Motown stop of the love-song title track, and the electronic freakout of "Accident and Emergency" before venturing off into more piano dominated tolerated. Wolf plays most of what is heard on the record, which is amazing when one considers the sheer number and diversity of instruments that crop up.
Accident & Emergency
Do you agree with what was said? Think that throwing-a-saxophone-down-an-elevator-shaft (a.k.a. jazz fusion) project your roommate recorded in your bathroom deserved chart grandeur but was shafted by an ignorant public? Leave a comment. We're always ready to humor you.
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