2011 in lists

It’s that time of year. Here are various things I enjoyed on various levels, and I’m going ahead and posting this before I can agonize over the ordering any more.

Top albums
1. Yuksek – Living On the Edge of Time

It’s been a weird year for me, considering that I’ve spent it living in three drastically different places. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to spend as much time with music as I would like to, and I know there’s a lot I still need to catch up on. Out of this year’s new releases that I have given proper attention to, nothing has really affected me the same way Vampire Weekend’s Contra did last year. Still, something has to be #1 on my list, and at this point, I think I am comfortable with putting Living On The Edge of Time by Yuksek in that position.

I was familiar with Yuksek only in name before this year, and stopping by his set at The Creators Project’s festival was more than a pleasant surprise. After that show, I went on to see Yuksek two more times that week during CMJ. (It would have been three, if one of his shows hadn’t been canceled because of technical difficulties.) The French electropop producer, aka Pierre-Alexandre Busson, has a quietly commanding stage presence that is magnetic in its own way. The way he focuses on the performance is cool and detached, but still feels intimate–just like the record.

Living On the Edge of Time comes across as a rather personal album, even though Busson is perhaps distancing himself a little by writing in English rather than his native language. It’s a record to get lost in, a much more cohesive effort than his debut Away From the Sea that still shows off his stylistic range. Awash in synths, the classically-trained Busson still hangs onto his dance sensibilities while also crafting a sound that’s softer and more mature. Songs like “Always On the Run” and “On a Train” see him dealing with the inevitability of change, backed with lush instrumentation; his lyrics speak to escapism, but are ultimately grounded. “White Keys” features Busson’s vocals at their rawest as he gets introspective, as well as a chorus repeating, “White keys or black keys, it’s not so funky/We are restless, just music junkies.” It’s not his most elegant lyric, but that last line sums it up, really–Living On the Edge of Time brings together a sophisticated, versatile album with a voice that’s not ready to settle down yet.

I’m going to acknowledge that I may have been subliminally influenced by the fact that Busson is pictured in a Uniqlo advertisement that I see on the subway pretty much every other day*, but Living On the Edge of Time is truly a lovely album to spend time with.

*By this logic, I should also be eating Momofuku pork buns at every opportunity, which I would totally do if it didn’t require significantly more time and money.

2. Metronomy – The English Riviera

3. Peter Bjorn and John – Gimme Some

4. Friendly Fires – Pala

5. Beirut – The Rip Tide

6. The Rapture – In the Grace of Your Love

7. The Weeknd – House of Balloons

8. Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness

9. James Blake – James Blake

10. tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l

11. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

12. Eleanor Friedberger – Last Summer

13. Summer Camp – Welcome to Condale

14. Slow Club – Paradise

15. Cut Copy – Zonoscope

16. Smith Westerns – Dye it Blonde

17. The Kills – Blood Pressures

18. Jamie Woon – Mirrorwriting

19. Theophilus London – Timez Are Weird These Days

20. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

21. Coeur de Pirate – Blonde

22. Katy B – On a Mission

23. Wild Beasts – Smother

24. Destroyer – Kaputt

25. Sondre Lerche – Sondre Lerche

Top singles
1. Beyoncé – “Countdown”

2. The Rapture – “How Deep Is Your Love?”

3. tUnE-yArDs – “Gangsta”

4. Nicola Roberts – “Beat of My Drum”

5. Friendly Fires – “Live Those Days Tonight”

6. Fleet Foxes – “Helplessness Blues”

7. Metronomy – “The Bay”

8. Jay-Z and Kanye West – “N—-s In Paris”

9. Holy Ghost! – “Do It Again”

10. Los Campesinos! – “By Your Hand”

11. Beirut – “Santa Fe”

12. Girls – “Honey Bunny”

13. Azealia Banks – “212”

14. Yuksek – “Always on the Run”

15. Peter Bjorn and John – “Dig a Little Deeper”

16. James Blake – “The Wilhelm Scream”

17. Das Racist – “Michael Jackson”

18. Beastie Boys – “Make Some Noise”

19. Justice – “Civilization”

20. SBTRKT – “Wildfire”

21. Housse de Racket – “Château”

22. Katy B – “Easy Please Me”

23. Jessica 6 – “Prisoner of Love”

24. The Kills – “Satellite”

25. Cut Copy – “Need You Now”

26. Smith Westerns – “End of the Night”

27. Theophilus London – “Girls Girls $”

28. Washed Out – “Amor Fati”

29. Mayer Hawthorne – “The Walk”

30. Jai Paul – “BTSTU”

31. St. Vincent – “Cruel”

32. Foster the People – “Pumped Up Kicks”

33. Yelle – “Safari Disco Club”

34. Toro y Moi – “How I Know”

35. The Wombats – “Jump Into the Fog”

Miscellaneous non-single songs
Active Child – “Hanging On”
CANT – “Answer”

Live shows

A-Trak & Kid Sister @ Limelight, 4/23
Darwin Deez @ The End, 2/8
Fleet Foxes @ Ryman Auditorium, 5/13
Patrick Wolf @ Le Poisson Rouge, 9/18
Chromeo @ Terminal 5, 11/4
Sondre Lerche @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, 12/2
Yuksek @ Santos Party House, 10/20 (CMJ)
We Are Scientists @ The Studio at Webster Hall, 10/20 (CMJ)
Yelle @ Webster Hall, 12/8
Los Campesinos! @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, 11/17
Jens Lekman @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, 10/7

Movies
Beginners
Midnight In Paris
Shame
Submarine
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2
Martha Marcy May Marlene
50/50
Paul
Bridesmaids
Weekend

Movies I saw at the Nashville Film Festival, maybe coming to a theater near you eventually

Last week was the Nashville Film Festival, which I volunteered at in order to fulfill some need to give back to this community before I leave. It was a great experience, which I highly recommend to all of you who will still be in Nashville this time next year. I had the opportunity to see some great films, and I thought I’d write a little about each of them.

1. Submarine

The first feature-length directorial effort of The IT Crowd star Richard Ayoade, who’s probably best known Stateside for directing some music videos for Vampire Weekend and the Pulp Fiction episode of Community. Based on the novel by Joe Dunthorne, it’s a coming of age story that captures everything funny and neurotic and dark about being a teenager. The style and performances are impeccable, and there are many great coats and fisherman sweaters worn.

2. Broke*

Broke* // Official Trailer from Mindfree Entertainment on Vimeo.

I unfortunately didn’t get to watch the beginning because I was standing in line to buy limited edition vinyl on Record Store Day, but it was great that the film festival had free screenings at Grimey’s. What I did see was a great exploration of today’s music industry and where we might possibly be going.

3. Take Me Home

This was a very sweet, charming, old-fashioned romantic comedy in a modern setting. When/if this gets nationwide distribution, you should see it with your mom. It will be cute and neither of you will feel uncomfortable at any point.

4. Weekend

Lo-fi in a good way. Weekend felt very raw and honest. On account of the fact that it is both a gay love story and British, widespread US distribution seems fairly doubtful, but it’s definitely understandable as to why it got great reactions at NaFF and SXSW.

5. Jess + Moss

I’m going to be honest and say that I mostly watched this because I’d heard vague but positive things about it and appreciated the clean font and symmetry on the poster. The fact that the director also wore really cool red and blue Sperrys convinced me that this was something I should watch. Because of the aforementioned aesthetic, I assumed Jess + Moss was going to be about rich white people discussing their problems in a dry-humored fashion, which is one of my favorite kinds of movies. (Seriously.) It was not like that at all, very loose and sort of dreamy and unsettling. Certainly, it was beautifully shot, but I tend to go for more straightforward narratives. This film seems to be doing pretty well for itself.

Why I dropped everything to watch the premiere of Kanye West’s short film even though I haven’t listened to a lot of his music

As you may have heard, Kanye West premiered a 35-minute film yesterday evening. Runaway tells the story of a phoenix, portrayed by model Selita Ebanks, and contains music from his next album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Even though I haven’t even heard any of his previous albums all the way through (shame on me), I made sure I was watching, because I knew it would be a game-changer. And it is–while the acting talents of West and Ebanks left much to be desired, Runaway demonstrated a clear artistic vision that is not often seen. It takes an artist of West’s stature to raise the bar for visual branding. Animal Collective’s film ODDSAC may have made indie headlines, but Runaway has the potential to revolutionize how major labels do marketing. Ultimately, such projects require deep pockets, especially if the production values are to be as high as Runaway‘s, as well as enough people who are sufficiently interested to at least pretend to pay attention for more than half an hour. Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video was already challenging enough to attention spans at nine and a half minutes. However, Runaway serves to promote the entire album, justifying the length, though admittedly the extended ballet sequence was a little too extended. What counts is the obvious amount of effort that went into the realization of this film, which not only shows West’s dedication to his craft, but it gets people talking, and that’s what counts.

In Reference and Reverence to Joe Strummer

Born in Ankara, Turkey and the son of a diplomat, Strummer, whose real name was Mellor, was middle class and public school educated but became a hugely admired figure as the musical voice of rebellion.
—Guardian

1. In the original draft of Wes Anderson’s 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums, “there was a part that Jason Schwartzman was going to play, a kid living across the street from their house, the son of a diplomat who had escaped from a school in Switzerland and was living in an attic and had like a cable connected to their house, and they were sliding things across it.” The character didn’t make the cut, but a shadow remains–two songs by the Clash feature prominently in the film. These tracks are used as a sort of motif for the character of Eli Cash, the sole noted neighbor of the Tenenbaum family in the final version of the script. Conversely to the Tenenbaums, the unnamed Schwartzman character, and, indeed, Joe Strummer himself, Eli is shown as having a distinctly working class upbringing. He spends his childhood observing the Tenenbaums’ privilege from across the street. When he comes into his own success as a western novelist, he–like the Tenenbaum children–cannot withstand the pressures of fame. Eli turns to drugs as a coping mechanism, and the Clash songs underscore this. The collision-themed “Police and Thieves” accompanies one of his pickups, and “Rock The Casbah” plays as Richie Tenenbaum attempts to stage an intervention. While this connection is not as obvious as the actual presence of a rebellious diplomat’s son, the use of the Clash’s music adds further depth to the way Wes Anderson examines class differences.
(Quote)

2. The Vampire Weekend song “Diplomat’s Son” obviously immediately references Joe Strummer in its title. Originating in a short story written by frontman Ezra Koenig, the track eventually developed into “a six-minute dancehall song about a gay relationship” with the help of guitarist/keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij. It features the repeated line “He was a diplomat’s son, it was ’81.” I’m not sure what I’m supposed to get out of the image of the story’s protagonist hooking up with the titular character/Joe Strummer after a party, but in 1981, the Clash had just released their album Sandinista!, named for Nicaraguan revolutionaries. “Diplomat’s Son” appears on Vampire Weekend’s second album Contra; while the band did not intend it as a specific reference, they acknowledge the name’s additional connotations regarding the counterrevolutionaries who were in opposition of the Sandinistas. The references to the Clash culminate in “Diplomat’s Son” with the use of a sample from “Hussel” by M.I.A., who famously sampled the Clash’s “Straight To Hell” in her hit “Paper Planes.” This gets meta by not only making explicit allusions to Joe Strummer and the Clash, but by borrowing from the borrower.

As for both Wes Anderson films and Vampire Weekend being viewed by popular culture as the property of the privileged versus the Clash championing the working class, that’s a whole other blog post. Does it really matter, anyway?

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World trailer debut

Behold, the trailer for Edgar Wright’s latest comedic opus, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, based on the comics series by Bryan Lee O’Malley. I have probably watched this about 20 times so far today because I am just that much of a loser. From what can be ascertained from less than a minute and a half, it seems to stay pretty true to the integrity of the comics, down to sound effects reinforced via superimposed text. The sense of humor seems spot on, the previews of the fight scenes are beautifully choreographed, and hey, new music from Beck. Of course, the problem is Michael Cera. Scott is described as “dopey,” but he’s a confident sort of dopey, and that’s a real challenge for Michael Cera. It’s impossible to buy Anna Kendrick as being his younger sister, and I feel like I just watched him lose his virginity for the 80th time. I desperately want to reserve judgment on him–this is only just the first trailer. Here’s hoping that future ones will have more from the supporting characters, there was a distinct lack of Kim, Wallace, and Knives. The basics have been established.

I’ve barely started properly blogging again, and I’ve already started slacking off. No Top Eight Thursday this week.