My Top Twenty of 2005

Amazingly, I never finished this.

Here it is, nearly 2006, and I've heard perhaps 2% of the new indie rock of this year and about 25% of the new hip-hop/r&B, but not by choice. So what can I do but write my OWN top twenty, without regard to chronilogical protocol. That is, this is the stuff that I found myself going back to the most this year, "guilty pleasure" (such a bourgie phrase) or no. Some of them are songs, some are albums. All, in my opinion, have something special to offer. And very few, if any of them, came out this year.

1) Tall Dwarfs- "Hello Cruel World"

"Hello Cruel World" combines the first several eps from New Zealand's '80s lo-fi pysch-pop masters Tall Dwarfs. One of the cadre of artists with ties to the Flying Nun label- which has released more great pop (The Bats, The Chills, Verlaines, Tall Dwarfs, for example) than any label post-1964 has any right to. I first got into this when my lovely girlfriend put it on, thinking I'd probably love it. It didn't sink in right away, but the overall tone was intruiging- the tinny, chirpy, strained voices and warm analog fuzz of the whole thing was captivating even without songs to back it up. But I must have been asleep when "All My Hollowness" came on- as I've been obsessed with that brilliant tune for about 8 months now. Made up of nothing more than a chorus of handclaps and footstomps for drums, cheap organs, and sullen, pitchy vocals, it somehow manages stunning beauty anyhow. In fact, I'd say it's a strong contender for top five best songs of all time. Any real songwriter would kill and infant to come up with something this good. And the rest of the album contains a lot of great moments as well, mixed with weird, fever-dreamy lapses into lo-fi psych-noise and found sound. The opener, "Nothing's Gonna Happen", nips at the heels of "All My Hollowness" in terms of overall impact, and contains one of the greatest lyrics of all time- "stiff pricks in the general direction- of anywhere but home". Essentially essential.

2)
1

Missives

The reign of the middle-brow in indie rock seems to have no end in sight, does it?
I mean for every high-minded art band like Talking Heads or Devo or something, there's someone there to water it down- not to the point of embarassment, of course. We don't want to be so normal that people think we're poor or something.

I guess I mean the press as much of the music. It seems like that melting pot that America has always purported to be has finally succeeded in melting us all into a viscous, intellectually mediocre, vaguely avaricious, but still nominally virtuous goo of a culture. The sudden infusion in the late-90s of Latin influence and presence in mainstream pop may have seemed like portent of a positive change in our society, but it was little more than the result of some hard math by target demographic watchdogs. All part of the goo. No culture is unbuyable in this golden age. I can become an expert in merengue in a matter of days, should I so desire. It all means more or less the same thing- variations on the theme of collecting. I've known a lot of people who were proud of their ridiculously enormous music collections. To them it meant that they were cultured. Because middlebrow lives and dies by its buying power. Actual ideas, conjecture, and dissent from the idea that consumption is our primary objective and purpose in life are reviled. I have been called an elitist many times for criticizing these ideas. What it really says to me is- "We know it's wrong, we know it's destroying us, but shut up and don't spoil it". Most of those who have criticized me have been people who call themselves progressives. I don't see how you can ignore your own capricious, insatiable stuff-lust and still call yourself a liberal, but that's just me.

I'm not really sure, if I'm being honest, whether or not I'm a music snob. I certainly have my opinions on music, as most people do, and my aesthetic leanings, but I can't really recall a time where I thought less of someone because of their taste in pop music. I certainly have thought "Oh, well, we probably won't have much in common"- but never "what an assface, he's into Pearl Jam".

Nevertheless, I have to say- the elitism of indie rockers, at some point, seemed at least defensible in an old-fashioned high art/pop art way, at least when I was in high school and before- but indie rock has gone the way of middlebrow- not saying very much, or not even saying nothing in as interesting a way as possible- like say,
Robert Pollard, or occasionally Steven Malkmus. As a teenager, I was into some college rock- starting to be called "alternative" occasionally, but what I loved about Sonic Youth, The Pixies, and that ilk was the fact that I didn't quite get it. Not because the music or lyrics were above my head, but because they weird so intensely weird and personal- whether they were personal narratives or not. These were the weird kids in school, making up their weird little worlds and putting them on records for me to hear. Well, the weird kids don't seem to be doing it anymore. The existence of Iron & Wine as a major indie act seems to say that much. Indie rock is now stuff for young professionals to attache their lifestyles with. As much as I hate Vice magazine- I'm going to have to agree with those secret neo-cons- there's no edge in indie rock anymore. They called it indie-yuppie. I call it a shame. And edge has nothing to do with loudness, vulgarity, sexuality, or drug abuse. Edge is when you know that the actual personality of whoever made the record is coming through. I don't really hear that much anymore.

Thoughts?