Year in Review: My Top 10 CDs

...Wow, you know, for me 2008 was actually quite a fantastic year for new music. Some years I've had trouble picking a Top 5, but this year I nearly could have done a Top 20. As it is I had to make some painful arbitrary cuts. Acts I've loved for years such as REM and Beck put out swell new albums, but I also discovered a ton of excellent acts this year (many thanks to cool blogs*) -- like the Hold Steady, Wolf Parade, NZ's own Flight of the Conchords and She & Him.

The order of my Top 10 could easily shift given a change of mood, and there's still a couple of '08 albums I really want to hear but haven't had a chance yet. All that as a caveat, in my humble opinion you can't go wrong with any of these discs from the year that nearly was:

1. Hold Steady, "Stay Positive"
Anthemic, inspirational and literate good ol' rock 'n' roll, and a constant in the stereo/iPod all year long. Frontman Craig Finn is one of these dowdy rock poets you see every once in a while, worshipping at the altar of Costello and Springsteen, and on his band's fourth album, creating a rockin' record that never ignores the tough moments, but ultimately seems one hell of a life-affirming document. Swinging from singing about being too old for the "scene" to crooning about cult filmmaker John Cassavetes, Finn manages the tricky business of juggling knowing when to rock and when to go for the killer lyrical hook. A great album has layers, and I'm still digging down deep into this one.

2. Cat Power, "Jukebox"
I know, an album of cover tunes? But nobody does covers like Cat Power, who takes a song and massages it into her own blood. Her takes on tunes by Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday are grooving, sultry and utterly her own. I'd have to say she's my favorite singer performing these days. Seeing her live back in March performing these songs was one of the year's highlights.

3. Wolf Parade, "At Mount Zoomer"
Broody, swirling and strange, the second album by this Canadian group is also kind of beautiful because (or in spite of) all the left turns. Sometimes it feels as if a few songs have been squashed together into one. It's got the grandeur of their mates Arcade Fire but sometimes also reminds me of The Doors without the boozy pretension. There's an urgency to it all that keeps the tunes in your head.

4. The Mountain Goats, "Heretic Pride"
I'm finally going to see them live this Wednesday, and I'm psyched. John Darnielle is one of "low-fi" pop's best writers, cunning with a turn of phrase and a fine eye for detail. He started out with boom-box recordings that were faint, tinny and strangely absorbing, but expands into a full band here with glorious results.

5. TV On The Radio, "Dear Science"
This one's on everyone's top 10 lists this year. Am I being a dork by saying I've been into them since 2004? I am so cool. Anyway, TV On The Radio abandons their more prickly side for a bit more mainstream sound, but their industrial-strength doo-wop punk-soul is still hugely compelling stuff, backed up by the dueling vocalists, dense instrumentation, and a state of mind that unerringly captures the confused, battered yet optimistic post-Bush, pre-Obama mindset of the world today.

6. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, "Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!"
The Australian high priest of weird doom and gloom, back with a roaring album of lust and temptation and sprawling story-rant lyrics. Like hearing a deranged preacher yelling at you in the subway, but backed by a garage band so propulsively cool you can't help but listen. If that doesn't sound like a recommendation, you don't know Nick Cave.

7. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, "Real Emotional Trash"
Combines the quirky whimsy of his old band Pavement with long, groovy psychedelic guitar jams, like a mash-up of Guided by Voices and Television. Wonderfully loopy and unexpectedly emotional, it's the best he's done since Pavement broke up and a terrific guitar record. Put it on, turn it up and stare off into space.

8. Bob Dylan, "The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs"
Strictly speaking, not "new" music but what a revelation of material from Bob's work of the last two decades. Gorgeously packaged alternate versions, unreleased songs and live tracks -- it's like getting a couple of new Dylan albums this year! I don't know if three versions of "Mississippi" were needed but "Red River Shore" is a sheer classic and just about justifies the album on its own. Dylan never really "finishes" a song and this look at his sketchbook is fascinating. (Now when do we get an official "Basement Tapes," dagnabit?)

9. Liam Finn, "I'll Be Lightning"
OK, this is a technicality, because it actually came out in New Zealand in 2007, but was released in America in 2008 and I bought it in 2008, so thppppptt. Liam, the Kiwi son of the great Neil Finn of Crowded House, crafts honey-sweet tunes that combine the House's melancholy beauty with a ramshackle, fuzzed-out charm. He's a one-man band, playing nearly every single instrument on this dense album (see him live, it's great how he recreates the sound). It's one of the more promising "famous musical kids" discs I've heard, and grows on me more with each listen.

10. Calexico, "Carried To Dust."
Moody Tex-Mex Americana rambles along through one of this Arizona band's best albums. It's the kind of music you listen to while driving through red dirt and ever-setting sunsets. There's a genuine warmth to Calexico's work, which is like soundtracks for epic western movies that never quite existed. In terms of evoking a mood, these guys are hard to beat.

The almost-tops, tied for #11:
Ryan Adams, "Cardinology," Jenny Lewis, "Acid Tongue," She & Him, "Vol. 1," Elvis Costello and the Imposters, "Momufuku," Beck, "Modern Guilt," REM, "Accelerate."

Best live show:
Tough call as Wilco, Sonic Youth and Cat Power all delivered most excellent Auckland shows, but the massive Big Day Out back in January squished Arcade Fire, Spoon, LCD Soundsystem, Bjork, Liam Finn and Billy Bragg into one hell of a day, so that gets the nod. One of my all-time great musical memories -- here's hoping Neil Young, TV on the Radio and Prodigy can deliver a fitting follow-up next month!

(*As always, go to Largehearted Boy for the coolest dang wrap-up of just about every blog in the universe's Top 10 lists!)

Year in Music 2008 midterm report

It's halfway through the year more or less, and while I still buy lots of those strange archaic shiny things called CDs, I haven't been buying a ton of new music (oddly, I've been filling in gaps in things like the Rolling Stones' classic 1960s work and my newfound Scott Walker obsession). But of what I've picked up from this year so far, here's what I'm digging the most:

Beck, "Modern Guilt." Just got this last week and I've listened to it a dozen times already, so that's a good sign it'll be in my year-end favorites. Beck teams with DJ Dangermouse for a trippy, psychedelic disc that's my favorite Beck since "Sea Change." It's got a gloomy undertone like that fine album, but leavened here by some addictive beat-heavy production and Beck's most emotionally forthright tunes in a while. The marvelous "Gamma Ray" sounds like a shoulda-been 60s dance craze and "Chemtrails" is a hazy, slow-building epic.

Elvis Costello, "Momofuku." Quick-tongued and angry like the best of Costello's work, "Momofuku" is a good-natured jam that boasts some terrific songwriting and a sense of enthusiastic fun that makes it worthwhile for any Elvis fan. It's as carefree as 2004's "The Delivery Man" but more polished lyrically than that one, although it lacks the sonic inventiveness of his last real masterpiece, 2002's "When I Was Cruel." But it's a fine set of songs -- "American Gangster Time" particularly is spot-on, and it's great to see Elvis at 50 still making music with a point to it.

The Mountain Goats, "Heretic Pride". I wrote about how much I dig the Mountain Goats before, and this squawky gem of an album is one of John Darnielle's most professional releases yet – fuller sounding than his earlier bare-bones guitar-and-boombox albums. The raw and urgent indie ethos is here but this is his most mainstream sounding album, with orchestration that enhances rather than detracts from Darnielle's goaty bleat of a voice. "Sax Rohmer #1" and "Autoclave" are eccentric little statements about love and loss that still feel like anthems to me. Great stuff.

Cat Power, "Jukebox." Of course, I saw her perform much of this album in a terrific live show back in March and while it's an album of mostly cover tunes, it's not a stretch to say this is one of Chan Marshall's most personal set of songs. In paying homage to the artists she loves like Bob Dylan, Hank Williams and Aretha Franklin she unveils something sacred about herself. And man, that amped-up version of her own "Metal Heart" is just a stunner. Crackling bluesy alt-rock and Chan's voice has never been sexier or stronger.

...And while I wouldn't call it great, one disc I think has been rather unfairly panned is Scarlett Johansson's "Anywhere I Lay My Head", a collection of Tom Waits cover songs. Now, does she sound like Tom Waits? Not at all. Can she sing? Well, not technically, but her deep moan of a voice does remind me a bit of Nico and old Sinead O'Connor. The production by TV on the Radio's David Sitek is really heavy to cover up the thin voice, but put it all together and it's a nicely moody little album, kind of fractured fairytale lullabies with a dreamy, gauzy tone. It's far more idiosyncratic and interesting than most actress-turned-musician CD releases, and I've found myself frequently playing it as kind of mellow late-night background music. Its biggest flaw is that as a Tom Waits tribute, it falls far short of the original material's growly majesty and sounds more like a 20-year-old girl reciting poetry to herself in her bedroom. But still, not as bad as all that really.

Concert review: Cat Power, Auckland, March 4

Yep, I believe in Cat Power. Her return to Auckland Tuesday night was an outstanding concert by one of my favorite singers today. I wasn't quite sure what to expect -- Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, has been putting out gorgeous ethereal tunes for more than a decade but also developed a bit of a reputation as a really rocky live performer, battling stage fright and sometimes just kind of trailing off into limbo in the middle of a set. (A fine but very sad profile of her in The New Yorker a few years back had me fearing for her life, really.)

No worries, mate -- she was great. Chan has come through the fire, done the rehab thing and all that, and reinvented herself as a down-and-dirty Southern blues soul singer. She's originally from Georgia, and her earlier work was more hushed, sparse and kind of Gothic folk, but her last couple albums have seen her sound broaden into a full band and her fantastic pipes expand into a kind of alternative version of Nina Simone/Aretha Franklin or somesuch. The scorching guitar work by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Judah Bauer was particularly great, although the sound was a little muddy and occasionally overwhelmed Chan's vocals (didn't help I was about two feet from a speaker and wedged in by the sell-out crowd, I guess).

Chan is eccentric, definitely -- constantly fidgeting with her clothes, making funky jokes, bumming cigs from the audience and dancing a bit like an autistic Frankenstein monster, but she was also delightfully passionate, quirky and real. She was terrifically confident compared to her earlier reputation. She never felt packaged, utterly throwing herself into the music. Her current disc "Jukebox" is a set of reimagined cover versions so this set was heavy on the covers, including takes on Nina Simone, Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. I particularly loved her ferocious take on her own "Metal Heart" and a radically revamped "Lived In Bars." No "Cross Bones Style", alas, but can't have everything.

I had an amazing vantage point, maybe 10 feet from her tops, to the point where I could hear the scuff of her shoes as she danced across the stage. Have to admit I fell a little bit in love with her -- Chan was raw and naked in a way you don't often see -- when she was belting out "I love you" over and over in her fantastic last song, you could almost see the person she was singing it to. Somehow, looking at her I felt l like I was seeing someone who was once badly broken but who's getting better all the time, hopeful and brave enough to survive the days ahead. Chan Marshall is happy, and I hope she stays that way as her voice is a beautiful one indeed.

Here's a great performance of the 2008 version of "Metal Heart" live in Paris. Awesome!


And her fantastic sultry cover of the Frank Sinatra chestnut "New York":