I’ve got 6 and 6 and 6.
6 favorite albums
6 favorite movies
6 item Mike Watt list
It’s new if it’s new to you! As Watt himself would say.
It felt new to be back at the movies this year, which was great, and overall I’m feeling optimistic.
My first CD collection was a single black plastic Laserline shelf—you know the kind, with the notched spaces for each case—wrapped in a padded case with a handle. It was a present from Santa.
Around this time I had 6 CDs, maybe 8. The case fit 12 and it wasn’t full.
My proper top 10 just so happened to split neatly into five metal records and five non-metal records. I know this seems kind of precious but this is how it worked out, honestly. Overall top three highlighted in parenthesis. I added five “discoveries”, non-2018 releases in thick rotation for me throughout the year. I’m calling this The Mike Watt List–one of Watt’s many sage chestnuts is “it’s new if it’s new to you”, and generally I jump at any chance to celebrate Watt, the definitive American punk. 2018 Metal Deafheaven – Ordinary Corrupt Human Love Horrendous – Idol Immortal –…
I’d be embarrassed to truly show you, if such a thing were at all possible, the extent to which the idea of “Top Ten” organizes how I think about what I enjoy, consume, and love. This is a post-High Fidelity culture junkie thing that I’m sure is common to a lot of us contributing here, and I for one have gotten pretty self-conscious about it. Invariably, when I sit down each year to do this Poop List, there’s an odd push/pull between the sincere eagerness I take in constructing these lists, my awareness of the vanity of this sort of exercise, and the reflex of embarrassment that inevitably comes knocking. The whole thing is pretty weird.
As with Sun Kil Moon last year, a single, sharp voice made the year for me—Father John Misty’s album is all at once great entertainment, giddy yet devastating satire, somber true-life folk. New friend Barnett and old friend Finn took me similar places, small stories, less-than-small stakes, real voices. The deservingly ubiquitous Lamar album totally mystified me at first but was impossible to shake off, blossoming the more I played it and talked about it.
1) Sun Kil Moon – Benji (Caldo Verde) >> Ultimately, I’m kind of glad that Kozelek threw himself from grace with the War on Drugs stuff. The shine on this album was a little too bright. I’m not talking about discovery greed here; it’s not that I wanted this thing to myself, or could ever imagine having it that way (who would even admit to that!?). …
Top Ten Buy New or Used via Amazon 1. Burial – Rival Dealer (Hyperdub) Burial made his anti-bullying, transgender-empathetic message clear in his text to the BBC and in this EP’s spoken word coda, but on Rival Dealer the theme of identity flux is also a deep-seeded musical element. “Do you know who I am?” wonders one sample; “You know my fuckin’ style!” taunts another (Raekwon, I believe). We sure thought we knew, but on “Hiders” and “Come Down to Us”, Burial shows us a new side, one so bright and so warm, an unexpected gift. Buy New or Used…
10 top Buy New or Used via Amazon 1. Japandroids – Celebration Rock << Am I old enough to miss being young? How it felt, how it sounded? Who of us ever thought a record would ever, ever, ever again sound like this, feel like this!? Buy New or Used via Amazon 2. Burial – Kindred EP << Burial’s embrace of long-form, mixtapeish compositions, here and on Truant/Rough Sleeper, was as unexpected as it was revelatory. The texture of this music, both physical and emotional, is simply staggering. This guy’s like the Beatles to me. Download via Stereogum 3. Action…
1. The Field ‘Looping State of Mind’, 2. Balam Acab ‘Wander/Wonder’ 3. James Blake ‘James Blake’ 4. Burial ‘Street Halo’ EP 5. Pure X ‘Pleasure’ 6. Julianna Barwick ‘The Magic Place’ 7. Shabazz Palaces – ‘Black Up’ 8. Gang Gang Dance ‘Eye Contact’ 9. Ganglians – ‘Still Living’ 10. Washed Out ‘Within and Without’ 11. Kashiwa Daisuke – ’88’ 12. Bon Iver – ‘Bon Iver, Bon Iver’ 13. Tim Hecker ‘Ravedeath 1972’ / ‘Dropped Pianos’ 14. M83 ‘Hurry Up…’ 15. Grouper ‘A I A’ 16. A Winged Victory for the Sullen ‘A Winged Victory for the Sullen’ 17. Zomby ‘Dedication’…
TW – POOP LIST FOR CALANDER YEAR 2009 – COMPILED and SPEIL-BEDECKED 1/20-7/2010 Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic Buy New or Used through amazon OR @ eMusic 1/ Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix 2/ Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion It is with a slight spine-shiver of embarrassment that I present this pair of perennial year end front runners as my Top Two. I would love to cover my tracks and affect some contrarian shtick to keep up appearances (by the way, has anyone else noticed that some versions of Word…