Destroyer just dropped another bomb (pun intended) in the form of Kaputt, the first great album of the year, if you ask me. Every few days, I have a new favorite song, and I just keep finding little pockets with hidden $20 bills in 'em - both hallmarks of an album with serious shelf life.

But make no mistake, Kaputt is completely weird and improbable. Sleazy lite disco rock smothered in smooth jazz sax solos. It's still somehow unmistakably Destroyer though, with Dan Bejar's warbly croon and poetic ramblings, and a sound like watercolor. And if you were lucky enough to get down with Destroyer's Rubies, you'll find everything that made that album great here.

I think this one will give you the best idea of what to expect.

Destroyer - Chinatown by mouxlaloulouda

At this point, I have to put these cats in the Pantheon, with a robust catalog, a couple stunners (at least Rubies and Kaputt, if not This Night), a style of their own that evolves with every album, a compelling frontman/mastermind, high relistenability, and a whole lotta artistic integrity. There just aren't that many artists that can lay claim to all that.

(And my first double entry!)

The thing that's missing from so much of the 80s fetishism that we've seen in the last 10ish years is the feeling of it all. Needless to say, being alive in the 80s had a very distinct, very unique feel, and it's reflected in the commercials, your favorite movies, and especially the music. Yet nobody can quite seem to bring it back, hard as they may try. An "80s party," of course, feels absolutely nothing like the 1980s.

I think that time was so outlandish that it's impossible actually to empathize with our 80s selves and understand what the f--- they were thinking! This inability to relate makes imitation difficult. In contrast, I think you can kind of step into the 1960s, for example, intellectually and feel pretty comfortable.

ANYWAY, the point is, Twin Shadow have that feeling in spades. There are some clear musical touchstones, like the drama in Morrissey's voice, Depeche Mode-ish industrial dance rock, even a little early U2 sprinkled in. Cheap synths, drum machines, dance-y, expressive bass lines (I never realized how 80s that was!), lots of twinkling. But it's the vibe, the dreamy quality to the music, which can't quite be described - some strange combination of nostalgia and the future is now - or imitated, that I find so convincing and compelling. Listening to them is a little like stepping into a John Hughes film.

One good thing about writing a music blog that approximately two people read and even less people care about is that I don't have to put any stock into my tastemaking cred, perceived legitimacy, commercial prospects, etc. DB sent me a really interesting NYT article about the hype around My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and, more interestingly, the idea that year-end lists (and, I would add, entertainment criticism at large) are not just about institutional critics honoring certain albums but also about the symbolic importance of these tastemakers being seen and understood as honoring these certain albums.

I, on the other hand, don't have any of these institutional constraints (e.g. a readership)! I don't need my picks to be projections of music's important trends or hard-line statements about the importance of originality or thoughtful placements of artists within the entire historical trajectory of music. It doesn't matter that I'm a little out of the loop at the moment. I can just list a bunch of albums that made a musical mark on my own (fantastic!) year. What fun.

SO. I give you... from top to bottom... my musical year in a nutshell...


The Mac Daddy of 'em all:
Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

The other alpha dogs:
LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

The best of the rest:
Stornoway - Beachcomber's Windowsill
Avi Buffalo - s/t
The Walkmen - Lisbon
Julian Lynch - Mare
Foxes in Fiction - Swung from the Branches
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

Job very well done, but times are tight, kids, maybe next year, aka Top 11-20:
The Morning Benders - Big Echo
Spoon - Transference
Major Lazer & La Roux - Lazerproof
Janelle Monáe - The Archandroid
White Hinterland - Kairos
Baths - Cerulean
Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me
Beach House - Teen Dream
Glasser - Ring
Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can

EP of the year:
James Blake - CMYK

Strongest performance from last year's lot (an underrated category) / secretly my favorite album of this year anyway: Wild Beasts - Two Dancers

Biggest surprise/leap: Gorillaz

Album that would have been in my 10 if I had gotten to it earlier: Twin Shadow - Forget

Best album I just don't have an entire afternoon to listen to: Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me

Most underrated: White Hinterland - Kairos

Most interesting: Glasser - Ring

Most confusing: Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

Best first half of an album: The Morning Benders - Big Echo

Biggest grower: Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can

Most overrated album that I love: Beach House - Teen Dream

Most overrated album that I like: Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Best band name ever / EP of the year runner-up: Tanlines - Settings

Albums that I missed while I was gone but am digging in '11:
Girls - Broken Dreams Club EP
Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager
Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
Theophilus London - I Want You
Panda Bear EPs
Kanye

Best archeological dig: The Avalanches - Since I Left You

Poised for a monster in '11: oh, just a little band called Radiohead!!


...And my awards in the category of Jamz...

Anthem / advice of the year: 'Dance Yrself Clean' by LCD Soundsystem

Weirdest best paranoid-inducing hip-hop space jam with a monster horn outro that we should be transmitting into outer space instead of the stupid Beatles* maybe, going out on a limb here, ever: 'The Train Pt. II (Sir Lucious Left Foot Save the Day)' by Big Boi
*(just kidding)

Fave new theme dance that will never catch on because we're all a bunch of tightwads / because it's so hard, trust me, I might have tried: 'The Tightrope'

Not that guilty pleasure: 'Tik Tok' by Ke$ha

The song that caved me / Chief Ike's hammer: 'Just Dance' by Lady Gaga

Most iconic: 'Single Ladies' by Beyonce

Secretly most plays without worrying about burnout / fave song that sounds like a lucid dream: '15 Ativan (Song for Erika)' by Foxes in Fiction

Best rip off of a Funkadelic riff: 'Rill Rill' by Sleigh Bells

Best epic: 'Siberian Breaks' by MGMT

What I wished all dance parties sounded like: 'Computer Face // Pure Being' by Flying Lotus

Best Panda Bear impersonation: 'Baseball Cards' by Wavves

Best line: "Gorillaz and the Boss Dogg, planet of the apes!" - who else?

Perfection: 'Excuses' by Morning Benders

This is probably the last album I would have expected to listen to in South America- a dark black album in a continent of colors; a cold gust of twisted vocal distortions and synthetic, pagan beats; the polar opposite of the silly, sun-loving Colombian Akon/T Pain imitators playing on every radio - but as my 10 hour, Medellin-bound bus hurdled itself into the abyss late last night, it was absolutely perfect...

Fever Ray by Fever Ray

It is said that there are two kinds of people - those who do, and those who talk about doing. When it comes to making and playing music, I think it might actually be true. As much as I have always wanted to learn an instrument, mostly I have just talked about it. I tried to teach myself the bass. I wish I could rock the drums. Well, I played the sax when I was a kid. The reality is, I'm just a dude with a couple dusty cases.

My homeboy MA, on the other hand, has been quietly going about the business of making himself a musician. So quietly in fact, that I didn't really even know what he was up to until he surfaced with a couple full-on home recordings at a reunion a couple years ago. He played the drums growing up, but I thought that ship had sailed. But when I paid a visit recently, I find out he's become a pretty nifty little guitar player, just plucking away in his living room, and he's the lead singer of a band. Well, then.

So, I show up for his band practice, expecting a few dudes hanging out in the garage, hacking away at some half-baked ideas and doing more talking than actual playing - y'know, like you see in the movies. And honestly, I would have thought that was awesome. But I walk into this little one bedroom apartment, and it's covered wall to wall in equipment. It's fuckin hot in there, but these guys look like they just want to get on with it! Sure enough, I'm the one doing all the talking.

Finally, I settle into the couch, they tune up, and BAM! My first thought was, wow, they are a band. The second was that they're actually a pretty legit band; not unlike others I've seen on the LA nightclub circuit, having a go. And finally, I thought, wow, he just up and did it.

Seeing a good friend casually go about his music felt like everyone that talks about it is just making excuses.

Granted, he's always been an artist, and everyone in his band is seriously talented. And maybe that's what separates the men from the boys (so to speak). Probably.

But it was just as enjoyable to sit around his living room, with him throwing out various familiar chords, and me trying in vain to sing along, no ambition other than to have a little musical connection. And that's a place I think anyone can get to with just a little elbow grease. A few guitar chords, some bass, a serviceable bongo. Just enough to entertain ourselves, to tap into that shared sixth sense. Sounds so much better than an hour of sitcoms or debating local politics every night, right!?

I think MA would agree. It's just a matter of doing.

Check out Canyon Sets here, and if you´re ever in SD, treat yourselves. They´re so good, the kind of music you can get lost in.

PS at this moment, I´m listening to one guy with an acoustic gee-tar and about 5 Brazilians with bad voices singing Os Mutantes. That's what I´m talkin bout!

On a whim, I threw Versus in the car for my recent drive to San Diego... and I got surprised.

Song 1: 'Go,' A fast, fearsome, post-punk rant that immediately made me rethink the lethargic, crunchy connotations of the grunge era. Eddie Vedder at his head-bangingest and the rest of the band egging him on.

And the last song: 'Indifference,' a soulful, semi-political ballad that practically bleeds. I definitely got my soundproofed EV impersonation going on full blast. What a jam.

Consider me a fan, all over again. Time to dig through the catalog!





(And for good measure, their first SNL appearance, a triumphant showcase for everyone in the band... and a shocking window into early '90s Seattle style.)

On repeat through my entire DC trip...

Deerhunter: "He Would Have Laughed" by Speaker Snacks

More thoughts on Deerhunter and Bradley Cox here.