Obligatory Best of 2010 Post

I feel totally unqualified to make this post, but I feel like it's necessary and expected. Now my feelings of un-qualification are not because I don't think I have a sound and valid opinion on music because I believe I do. More because I missed out on a lot of music this summer when I was working at an amusement park. 60 hour weeks and a stagnant soundtrack that repeated every day in the park pretty much drove me insane. During all that I missed out on anything that happened in the music world. The employee housing there had no internet access so my only time to get online and observe what the outside world was doing was my one day off per week. With only one day a week to do normal human things like laundry, grocery shopping, and sleeping I rarely found time to catch up on what was going on in the music world.

So instead of doing a best of the best list I'll take you on a journey through the year. These albums are not necessarily from this year, instead they are albums that were important to me this year. These albums helped me through one of the tougher years of my life and I think they should be recognized.

Winter 2010: The Hazards of Love- The Decemberists
During the first part of the year I was still listening to The Decemberists Hazards of Love heavily. I'd only just acquired it over the Christmas Break. This album, while a little too Rock Opera-esque for most, was right on point for me. Not only did the use of steal guitars enamor me but the story of the lovers lost in the woods trying to find a way to stay together real stuck to me. I love the opening prelude that just draws you into this world and the way it just flows right into Hazards of Love 1. My personal favorite song from the album is The Wanting Comes in Waves/ Repaid. Probably because I'm a little bit in love with Shara Worden's performance as The Queen. (And yes I will freely admit that my great love of The Decemberists is because Colin Meloy is an Indie dreamboat.) The idea of wanting something coming in waves is just a beautiful image. That you can deal with it as the waves tend to wash over you. I really enjoyed this album and am very much looking forward to the new one due out in January.

Spring 2010: Ben Folds Live- Ben Folds

Yes I realize I am running behind when it comes to realizing that Ben Folds is a genius. I'd owned a few tracks of his about a year previous to purchasing this album but I really fell in love with him and his storybook like songs when I listened to this live album. I'm slowly but surely catching up with his anthology not only of solo work but also that of Ben Folds Five. But this album was there for me during some pretty trying emotional times. I remember waiting hours for a friend to visit me while working in Ohio and just listening to some of these tracks most notably Not the Same and Army the latter probably because of the line, "my redneck past is nipping at my heels." A problem I actually do tend to deal with and really seem to relate to. Another notable mention from this album is Best Imitation of Myself. The ideas that he touches on with a lot of these songs really hit my hard in that place where you heart is supposed to be. He's become a huge musical influence to me in the past year and I'm sure as I continue to grow his influences will too.

Summer 2010: Sigh No More- Mumford & Sons

This album actually came out in 2010! February, but still it's a recent album. This album was much more of a late summer early fall jam for me, but I explained my summer problem. (If we want to get technical my summer album was Abba's Greatest Hits but I think this might be a better fit.) Let me first explain that I was raised on Bluegrass and Country music. By country music I mean Lorretta Lynn, Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, and the like. Nowhere in that list will you hear anything like these silly Pop Country singers on the radio now a days. These people are the ones who set the standard that has now been bastardized. That being said I have a very special place in my heart for the sounds of banjos, acoustic guitar picking, steel guitars and dobros. They are the sounds of my childhood and when I find a band that can marry those sounds with good songwriting and technical skill well be still my beating heart. While it was the lovely tune Little Lion Man that caught me up in the same fervor most people were caught up in. However I think the track that really gets this album my summer spot is Dust Bowl Dance. It really paints a picture of that Grapes of Wrath time period and that desperation. This song really takes you on an emotional journey probably due to the pain you can just feel oozing from Marcus Mumford. My love for this band is stemmed in my adoration for Mumford, and as a vocalist I will admit that I am drawn more to bands who have interesting vocals but also vocals that work well with there sound. (You will never see me give a good review of anything Joanna Newsom does. I'm sorry.) This album just takes me back to a simpler time and excites me for the future at the same time. I honestly honestly honestly recommend this album for anyone who enjoys folk music, even slightly. You won't be disappointed.

Fall 2010: Lonely Avenue- Ben Folds & Nick Hornby

I know what you're thinking. You can't have Ben Folds on your list twice! That's unfair to other artists! One it's my list and I'll do what I want. Two since iTunes lists this as a completely different artist than my Ben Folds stuff I'm counting it. Besides this album actually came out this year! Basically Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity, teams up as the Bernie Taupin to Ben Fold's Elton John. Each song is like a short story, which makes sense when your lyricist is a novelist. There are so many lovely tracks on this album from the sad and poignant Picture Window to the quirky love song for poet Saskia Hamilton. (I'm told that the little boy in the video is a famous youtuber, at least that's what my 13 year old sister says.) The song Levi Johnston's Blues paints the picture of the young man who impregnated Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol and his views on the matter. If I had to pick a BEST OF THE BEST for this album it would be an equal tie between the songs Password, for the emotional journey it takes the listener on (and how much fun it is to sing in the car after a break up), and From Above, if only for the lines "Maybe that's why books get written/ maybe that's why songs get sung/ maybe we are the unlucky ones" Those are some of the most lovely lyrics I think I've heard all year.

Honorable mentions for the year:
Band of Horses cover of Cee Lo Green's Georgia. [No good links are available on youtube, but it's on itunes]
Ingrid Michaelson's Parachute
Kate Melua's The Flood
Kings of Leon Radioactive
Jukebox the Ghost Empire
Sarah Jaffe Better Than Nothing
Florence + The Machine Howl

A Very Bob Dylan Christmas

So I had every intention of writing a blog post telling you all about how laughable Bob Dylan's Christmas album is. Which it really is. Specifically his rendition of Angels We Have Heard of High and Feliz Navidad truly make it worth the purchase, that is if you love to listen to songs of your youth destroyed and love losing respect for the voice of the 60's. 

But you can't find those tracks online! It's like someone erased them from existence and now I can't share how terrifyingly awful this CD really is. However, there is a silver lining. While looking up the aforementioned tracks I came across a song I didn't remember at all while listening to the CD. But this video is so worth it. It makes me feel completely differently about Bob Dylan's foray into holiday music.

Must Be Santa is one of those tracks that on it's own is just kind of fun but not much more than that. But the video completely changed it for me. Mainly because I want to be at that party! Think of how much fun that party would be. Especially with Bob Dylan running around half blazed/just being Bob Dylan. I love the way the shots are moving so quickly that we can't see if he's lip syncing correctly or not. Even though  it's a ploy to keep Mr. Dylan from looking completely ridiculous it's a good aesthetic.

Now I'll be honest. If a song has excessive use of steel guitar, accordion, or tuba I generally will fall in love by default. I won't be surprised if I'm the only person who feels so strongly about this song and music video. But I will stand by it and I will love it and enjoy it the rest of this holiday season. If I were making a Holiday Mix CD (which I totally should have and don't worry I'll make one next year) this song would be the climax piece and I'd even include a bonus music video on the CD! I love this video I love this song.

I feel awful that I was intending to do horrible things to Mr. Bob Dylan tonight. I guess the Christmas Spirit just got into my heart. Merry Christmas ya'll.

 P.S. Bob Dylan is Jewish guys. Where are the Chanukah songs on this album?

P. P. S. How wonderful are the hats that he wears in this video?

I feel like a horrible person...

So I'm about to SERIOUSLY clean some stuff around the house, namely my room, but to do so I need a sweet playlist. I'm putting one together and am in a particularly Indie Music Mood so I'm just going through my genres. And I come upon an album I bought and never listened to.

I'll pause to let the collective gasp clear from the room.

I had every intention to, I'd been searching for it for a long time. The album is Saltbreakers by Laura Veirs. (So far it's great. I'm only on the second song as I write this.) I first came across the Ms. Veirs when I worked at a university radio station. It was a short lived thing. My show came on a 4am every Tuesday morning. I'm one of those sleepers that if they're too tired they'll never wake up so I just wouldn't sleep before my show so that I would able to make it. Well, there came a few occasions where I fell asleep sitting up and suffices to say I was let go. But the station had a huge library of good indie music and I found this album there. I played a track one night and really enjoyed it. The album kind of stuck with me in the back of my mind.

ALMOST A YEAR LATER, I ordered the CD off amazon. When the CD came in I promptly ripped it to my laptop and said to myself, "Oh I'll listen to this later, right now I'm gonna go play guitar" (Other excuses could have been, "I'm going to watch my cat sleep." "I'm going to see if I can draw an octopus with my left hand." "I'm going to pretend I'm interested in popular music at my sister.") Not soon after I switched from the Zune mp3 player to iPod and all my music converted over, but I lost most of the artwork. I'm actually still in the process of getting artwork back and finding out what all my unknown tracks are. Honestly if Biz Markie were to show up and tune up my music library about now that would be awesome. Aside from the part where I'm in my bathrobe, but maybe Mr. Markie is down with that. I bet he would be.

What I'm trying to say is that I feel like I've offended this album by putting it off for so long. It's been on my computer since September. And as I continue to listen to the tracks it's really fun. It has a similar to The Decemberists kind of feel. The lyrics are very literary like them, and Laura has a unique kind of voice. Thankfully she's not Joanna Newsom unique, but she's got enough quirk to it that I am satisfied.

To make it up to Ms. Veirs for having forgotten about her album I thought I would plug this album on my blog. Because it gets so much traffic. And it is so influential. Yep.

Saltbreakers by Laura Veirs. Get it!

[What makes me feel the worst about all of this is that it is NOT even a new album. It's from 2007. And apparently her album previous to that is even better. I hope she can forgive me!!]

MacArthur Park (Going for the Cake)

If you've never heard of or actually heard this song then do so now. Here. 


My first time was when I was about 13 or 14 in the car with my father. This song just happened to play on the oldies station we were listening to. I remember my Dad went about half crazy when he heard it since it was a hard to find song. (This is the dark ages before youtube.) And because it was so bizarre and an unnatural thing to hear in southern Indiana I never heard it again until writing this post.


Initial reaction was "UGH!" probably because at that point in my life I was falling in love more every day with Clay Aiken and learning valuable lessons from Linkin Park through my headphones. Even back then though, the critic on the inside could not stand the way the singer would warble at the end of the chorus. That and, who writes a song about a cake?


Yes. Cake. "MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark, all the sweet green icing flowing down, someone left the cake out in the rain, I don't think that I can take it, cuz it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have the recipe again, Oh No!" -Actual lyrics.


This song has come in and out of my life like when I found out that the original Dumbledore (Richard Harris is famous for other things yes, but I play to my audience, kay?) is that awful warbler from my youth. There was also once a discussion about that song while I spent a time working as a barista. I remember just over hearing a brief discussion between customers about the chorus. That seems to be the only part that people even focus in on. I guess because it is truly bizarre. 


And with good reason. It's a weird chorus. But the rest of the song, while it has it's weird lines now and again is actually pretty good.


"Spring was never waiting for us girl, 
It ran one step ahead, 
As we followed in the dance."


This is beautiful. And it in fact also sounds beautiful. You can hear it. Richard Harris is doing his acting thing well. I've learned to not mind that warble because it makes it feel more honest to me. 


"I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground around your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing checkers by the trees"

The imagery here is a little over the top at times, like when it comes to the birds, but the dress and the old men playing checkers. This song sounds like a painting at times. If you think of this song as a work of art it because a little less weird. If you visually presented with a stunning work of a green cake melting in the rain on a park bench, well that'd be something entirely different. 

Also I guess I have to bring up Donna Summer's version. Her version continues with the lovely 60's psychedelic sound that I really enjoy most about this song. Also Summer does have a  much more refined voice than Harris. However after the first verse and chorus she lets loose a cackle which kind of sent shivers down my spine. I'm not sure if this was a good thing or not.

The middle portion of this song, however, seems completely different. Even reads differently. Some artists who cover this song, will only do this portion. Even Liza Minnelli didn't have the guts to go for the cake. I wish she had actually. I love Liza's energy that she can bring to a song especially a character piece. In my head I can see her with arms outstretched bemoaning that she will never "have that recipe again!"

"There will be another song for me

For I will sing it
There will be another dream for me
Someone will bring it
I will drink the wine while it is warm
And never let you catch me looking at the sun
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life
You'll still be the one

I will take my life into my hands and I will use it

I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it
I will have the things that I desire
And my passion flow like rivers through the sky
And after all the loves of my life
After all the loves of my life
I'll be thinking of you
And wondering why"

Even Sammy Davis Jr went for the cake and Wayne Newton even Shatnerized it a bit to make it his own. Carrie Underwood did Summer's version on her alma mater American Idol. She went for the cake and she won that season. However, the BEST VERSION OF THIS SONG (in my very biased opinion) has to be by Waylon Jennings. I really think the steel guitars are what make it for me. And while I do cringe a little when he's trying to go for the climax of the chorus I really think that MacArthur park lends to this style the best out of all of them. 

I'm sure many other people I know of have covered this song, in fact now I feel the need to do so. I guess all there is to this song is that it is utterly bizarre and beautiful at the same time. Which is true about a lot of things from that era I guess.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go bake a cake for Thanksgiving. I'm thinking green icing maybe...

This is getting off to a slow start....

And I apologize. But my personal life blew up a few days ago so I'm taking a moment or so to regroup. I hope to have the first video version of this blog shot before the weekend is over. Everything's written, it just needs to be shot and edited. That being said I'm having a hard time to decide which topics I want to have on video and which I'll just keep in type form. I guess it depends on which is better received.

That being said I can't let this go with out any musical recommendations. So enjoy this delightfully ironic song called At The Indie Disco by The Divine Comedy. A new friend introduced me to the artist. All I've listened to by him so far is delightful.

Also I have to throw in one more song. This is a guilty pleasure. I can't help but just love the hell out of this song and this artist. We've been through all the bad times together. The day he perishes I will probably pour more than a few Smirnoff Ices out in his honor. I grace your ears with one of my all time favorite break up songs Biz Markie's Just a Friend.

Stay angry ya'll.

SO you're an Angry Guitar Chic.. but HOW angry?

I'm more of a bitter guitar chick than an angry one... but this is the name that stuck...

Ask me anything

I gotta get this off of my chest...

So I, like most people a few years ago, totally went crazy for Kings of Leon. They have a special place in my heart because they were kind of my first step towards being a bit more of an "Indie-music" girl and less of a "I've-been-listening-to-alternative-rock-because-my-high-school-friends-liked-it-and-now-I'm-in-college-and-have-lost-my-musical-identity-because-I-never-had-to-make-many-musical-choices-on-my-own-oh-my-god" girl. That band kinda defined my search for my own personal taste in music. Honestly after I got Only By The Night I had to go out and find everything else I could. The song Charmer holds a very special place in my heart as sort of the bridge between the girl I used to be and the woman I've been growing up into.

You might have heard, but the new album Come Around Sundown has been out for a little bit now. To me it feels very similar to Only by the Night but I'll save my official opinion for another time because I have not given it a decent listen to yet. [I'm sorry but I can't put down Ben Folds and Nick Hornby's Lonely Avenue] The first single, Radioactive is just a classic Kings of Leon tune but it really resonates. The sound is much more mainstream for sure, but I love the message and the lyrics.

From the opening lyric, "When the roll is called up yonder, I hope you see me there" evoking images of the idyllic Midwestern Christian childhood I had and then being thrown right into the hook. "It's in the water, it's where you came from" Maybe it's just me, but I love the way this song is like a love song to the bands musical  roots. It makes me appreciate my own a little more. There is just something vivid in the idea that it really is "in the water" that there is something from "where you came from" that makes you who you are. Plus the video is kinda precious.

This is just a good track and a great first single to an album and I hope brings the band as much success as their previous. I intend on getting a real review on this whole album, but I'm just so in love with this song right now I couldn't hold back any longer.

What the flying purple pasta product is this?

This is a blog. Welcome. Yeah there's a million of 'em whatever. But this is my blog. My music blog. Where I share my own work and the work of people I admire. This is going to be a companion to a vlog I'll also be starting soon reviewing new and old music that needs to be shared with the masses. Upcoming things to be shared include...

The new Ben Folds and Nick Hornby Album

Lots of Journey

Eric Clapton

The Decemberists

Cee Lo Green vs Band of Horses

Sarah Jaffe

Ingrid Michaelson

Kings of Leon

Elton John

Ben Vereen

Bach

Bjork

Julie Andrews

Arcade Fire

and many many more. 

These are just my initial ideas. More content will be coming soon. 

Keeping it angry for you,

AGC