Apples to oranges, dust to dust

Apple-centric comparisons ranked from least to most valid:

"You're comparing apples to the single-Doppler velocity retrieval technique".
"...apples to dark matter".
"...apples to James K. Polk".
"...apples to Applebee's".
"...Apple commercials to John Hodgman's self-penned comedy".
"...apples to Snapples".
"...Apples to Apples to Cards Against Humanity".
"...apples to Delicious Apples".
"...apples to oranges".

See the constellation

On a rowboat in rural Hillsborough last night, I found myself looking at more stars than I've ever seen before. I started identifying constellations: the Fallen Skier, the A-Frame, the Wire-Sculpture Dachshund, the Hastily Scribbled Mountain Range, the Dented Interrobang, the Paper Airplane, and the Literal Fast-Moving Airplane.

My friends kept finding dumb-sounding stuff like "the Sword of Orion". I think their imaginations were running away with them.

Real crowd pleasers: the best music of 2016, part last

(continued from part three)

Best live show(s) you saw in 2016
I'm tempted to say Le Vent du Nord at the National Folk Festival in Greensboro in October. Sociopolitical Quebecois folk songs, in French, are not an easy thing to make a North Carolinian general audience enjoy, understand, and sing along (in a foreign tongue) with, and Le Vent have some impressive tricks to make it happen. Also, it was an outdoor show and the weather was beautiful.

But I'm gonna pick Shearwater, the Cat's Cradle, December 14. Their singer's public presentation is like mine -- a somewhat sheepish but agreeable storytelling voice, explaining cryptic lyrics, telling little jokes that sometimes go somewhere, and willing to make carefully-worded exploratory leaps. For example, I didn't know "Backchannels" was about "This little voice I sometimes get in the back of my head -- hopefully it's just me -- that says 'Hey, Jonathan, you've had a really nice run, and maybe now you should kill yourself". But it takes a lot of grace to tell that in a friendly, non-worrisome way and make it about "the last taboo, something we're not allowed to talk about in polite society, and maybe we should be. I suspect it's gotten pretty common since November, like I could bring it up and strangers would say 'Yeah! Me too!'. Like we should  bring it into the open and reveal for the tiny, impotent thing it really is".

No, I never feel that way. But what a useful speech, and what a tremendously fond, chatty concert it all was. The covers of David Bowie's Lodger era -- and of "the national anthem", by which Meiburg meant "Scary Monsters and Super Creeps" -- were odd and utterly inspired as well.

Most overrated artist/album

Whistle-and-bell-o-rama: the best music of 2016, part three

(Continued from part one)
(and from part two)

Most welcome surprise
I gave Esperanza Spalding some out-of-my-genre listens back in 2010. It turned out that I admired her Grammy-winning jazz on Chamber Music Society, where she was already starting to fold in gentle pop, classical, and world music influences — but I never got around to liking it. This year, Emily’s D+Evolution became my favorite album by anyone since 2012.

Spalding’s newer influences — Jimi Hendrix, funk, high-energy Latin musics, hip-hop, even high-speed a-cappella — grabbed my attention in a much more direct way, making it easier for me stick around and love the gorgeousness of her jazz chanteusery. The lyrics, not in the grand Grammy tradition, turned out to be smart and intriguing whether about love and lust, race and self-assertion, or the mythologies and missing toys and erratically-kept promises from which we build children into people.

Plus she ended with a Veruca Salt cover. I’d be delighted if I meant the alternative-rock band; they’ve made some great songs. But I’m as happy to mean, no, Veruca the little girl. Wonka had quite the year, come to think.

Biggest disappointment
Psalm Zero, Stranger to Violence. Charlie Looker's previous band, Extra Life, were an amazing blend of heavy, theatrical music with Charlie’s ancient madrigal singing style. Now he sings some like some generic alt-rock singer, and his new band is heavy in an efficiently harsh way. Boring.

Best video

Walking through paradise: the best music of 2016, part two

(Continued from part one. The list is immediately followed by actual writing/ blogging, I promise.)

Single of the Year
1. Regina Spektor, “the Trapper and the Furrier”
2. Shearwater, “Quiet Americans”
3. Esperanza Spalding, “Good Lava”
4. Saul Williams, “Burundi”
5. Aesop Rock, “Blood Sandwich”
6. Xenia Rubinos, “Mexican Chef”
7. Deerhoof, “Criminals of the Dream”
8. Anderson / Stolt, “Knowing”
9. Emma Pollock, “Dark Skies”
10. Anna Meredith, “Taken”

Single honorable mention(s)
Aesop Rock, “Dorks”
Aesop Rock, “Rings”
Beyonce, “Formation”
Birdeatsbaby, “Mary”
Blackpink, “Whistle”
David Bowie, “I Can’t Give Everything Away”
Dear Hunter, "Gloria"
Death Grips, “Giving Bad People Good Ideas”
Dowling Poole, “Rebecca Receiving”
Everything Everything, “Distant Past”
Field Music, “the Noisy Days are Over”
4Minute, “Hate”
Jesus Jones, “How’s This Even Going Down?”
Julie Ruin, “Mr. So-and-So”
King Gizzard + the Lizard Wizard, “Robot Stop”
Knifeworld, “High / Aflame”
Let’s Eat Grandma, “Eat Shiitake Mushrooms”
Marching Church, “Heart of Life”
Melt Yourself Down, “Jump the Fire”
Momus, “Fuck This Year”
New Model Army, “Devil”
Overlord, “Mission to Mars”
Sleigh Bells, “I Can Only Stare”
Esperanza Spalding, “Unconditional Love”
Regina Spektor, “Small Bills”
Kate Tempest, “Europe is Lost”
Tribe Called Quest, “We the People”
Kanye West, “Ultralight Beam”
Jane Zhang, “Dust My Shoulders Off”





Regina Spektor emerged this year as one of our great protest songwriters. The “protest” is surprising. “Great” shouldn’t be, yet

Elevate or operate: the best music of 2016, part one

(Every January, the talented songwriter/ music journalist Tris McCall conducts a detailed survey of his music-geek acquaintanceship about the year in music just passed. Starting with best albums, and best singles, he proceeds to a wide array of categories more specific — best singing, best concert, best liner notes, etc… — and often more potentially snotty, from “song that would drive you craziest on infinite repeat” to “hoary old bastard who ought to spare us all and retire”. He encourages not just votes but explanations, rants, and jokes.

The following is part one of my ballot, which turned out to be the most informational and least over-excitable. It’s simply my favorite albums of 2016, first a list, then paragraphs of description / discussion below to cover anyone I didn’t end up discussing at length later in the ballot. For each album I’ve linked to a song I consider representative of its strengths.)

Album of the Year

On the Decline of Western Civilization (the 1980 movie. not the ongoing story. mostly.)

I watched the Decline of Western Civilization, Penelope Spheeris's classic 1980 L.A. punk documentary, last week. It is, as reputed, great. Want a current-events hook, beyond the title? It’s a movie that — between songs — sympathetically shows you poor-to-struggling white people, few of them very articulate, explaining their world in sometimes-racist, sometimes-violent, us-vs-them terms. Just like so many NPR/ Times election features in 2016! Like those features, “Decline”’s release was followed soon by the ascent to the presidency of a lying far-right ignoramus with a mean sense of humor.

Notes specific to the movie:

* X, as I expected, were far and away the musical highlight. Even without Ray Manzarek of the Doors producing and playing organ like he soon would on their classic debut Los Angeles, they were a genuinely sharp and energetic band that played their instruments well, had snotty/ clever/ searching lyrics, and blended the voices of two incompetent singers into bizarrely attractive harmonies.

What I hadn’t realized was