The Post-Rockist

AMY’S LISTS FOR 2006

What I Learned About Music in 2006

I don’t like top ten lists. The imaginary authority they assert makes me feel stupid when what I would pick is unranked. And yet I am too uncomfortable with the underlying assertion that these are not just ten outstanding examples – they are the top ten, culled from thousands, with which the author of the list is presumably familiar enough to exclude them.

Not only have I not listened to even a hundredth of a percent of the albums that were released this year, I have barely listened to any albums proper. Nor have I paid any attention to hot singles, or scanned ratings thoroughly enough to judge anything over or underrated. Most of the music I listened to this year was either made by my friends or recorded before the year 1970. I worked at a college radio station for half of the year and still this “modern rock” sensibility managed to evade me.

Still, I learned a lot about music this year. And a lot of it you may have learned a long time ago. But just to make sure you don’t make any of the same mistakes or overlooks I did, I’m going to share it with you. In descending order, just like any self-respecting top-whatever list. And then I’m going to give you a selection of music that I appreciated in 2006. Top ten nothing. Don’t argue with me.

4) That one kind of bad Nirvana song was a David Bowie song first.

And thank heavens for that. It is always nice to realize that behind the whines and the grunge guitar hides a song that is brilliant and fantastic! I listened to tons of David Bowie in 2006, and every time I hear his voice, I remember why I believe in God. I think he should be sainted. He is also aging remarkably well, and is an admirable patron of contemporary rockers.

3) Not all concerts are created equal.

And more often than not, it has nothing to do with the musicians giving the concert. Sometimes bands that are wonderful when pressed are a snooze on stage – an Electric Six show in Madison, Wisconsin, which should’ve been wildly uplifting, felt canned, and was attended by the most annoying crowd of any show I have ever attended.

But beyond mere showmanship, there is something untouchable and atmospheric. I anticipated Andrew Bird’s performance at Summerfest more than I anticipated pretty much anything in my life except maybe growing up. And it was a total let-down, probably because it was outdoors, under a highway overpass, and I was surrounded by drunk people who were waiting for Wilco to start. Wilco’s set might as well have been a stadium show. I would rather listen to Wilco in my living room. Live music should be a blow-your-ears-out tent-revival basement-barroom beer-and-sweat experience – an experience that big outdoor shows just can’t deliver. See my review of Pitchfork (August 2006) for more exposition on this issue.

I have danced in the streets in my day. I saw Cake in a parking lot.

But not in 2006.

2) There is no ailment that soul music cannot cure.

I’m talking soul music in the broadest sense of the term. The magnificent One Kiss Can Lead to Another box set of forgotten ’60s girl pop (released in 2005) carried me through one winter malaise after another, and Alan Lomax field recordings of dusty Southern gospel calmed me deeply during my panic-stricken spring. New music is nice and all. It is good that new music is being made. Exciting things are happening in the world of rock and roll. But like a well-planned one-pot vegetarian diet, I am a recent convert to the belief that a musical menu that includes nothing but Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, the Jackson Five, and the dearly departed James Brown is nonetheless complete.

At boring concerts this year, I kept thinking about who I would rather be seeing. The answer was always Otis Redding. Too bad he’s dead.

1) It’s not so hard to like hip-hop.

True post-rockists have known this for a long time, and good hip-hop has long been the brightest spot in popular music. This year’s best-of lists are full of high-profile hip-hoppers: Ghostface, Lupe Fiasco, Clipse. By some standards, hip-hop is what is happening in music today.

Still, there is a pervasive and tenacious belief that hip-hop is all about guns, drugs, and hos in bikinis, that tendency to profess one’s love of “everything but country and rap.” And while I have always been theoretically open to liking hip-hop, having enjoyed ridiculous hits like “Gold Digger” and “Roll Out” and whatever Chris “Ludacris” Bridges graces us with, I have also always been cautious. I have always assumed that there is a context I am lacking, an instruction manual I need to read to really get it.

Luckily, I made friends with a nice approachable guy who turned out to love hip-hop thoroughly, passionately, all-consumingly. This guy basically raps in his sleep. Little by little, I learned not only to like hip-hop, the way one likes or does not like, say, brussel sprouts, but to develop a taste for it, to detect its myriad hints and spices. I like the nerdiness of A Tribe Called Quest, the defiant silliness of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the raw Wu-Tang sound. I like the Napoleonic pomposity of Cee-Lo Green and Kanye’s charismatic sincerity. The undiluted bravura of Outkast’s “Morris Brown” positively sweeps me off my pretty little hipster-white-girl feet. I’m not faking it! I am not kidding! This wasn’t hard at all! I went back to the Trick-Trick/Eminem single “Welcome to Detroit” and found it impossibly, intolerably low-brow. Mere months and the barest of introductions, and I had developed a palatte. I had become discerning.

Remarkable! Hip-hop is great!

And now, in no order at all, selections.

J-Dilla – Donuts
“Time: The Donut of the Heart”

This album, composed whilst J-Dilla lay dying in his hospital bed, is wrenchingly wonderful.

The Detholz - Cast Out Devils

These unsigned Chicago kooks are rock-and-roll disciples. They are evangelists. By far my favorite band of all time, their live shows are strange and boisterous, ironic, raucous, and utterly transcendent. Compared endlessly to Devo and Talking Heads, they are nonetheless fresh and epic in their own right. Cast Out Devils is their first release in four years (following 2002’s Who are The Detholz?) and proves once and for all that the band has moved on from funny-ha-ha songs about Mars and robots and is ready to seriously move us all. Scratch that – they are ready to launch us into the stratosphere. Some of their talky tracks are lamentably disposable, but the tight harmonies and crunching chord progressions of the title song and “Behold the Man” are such mystical experiences that it barely matters.

Jeff Tweedy handpicked The Detholz to tour with them and Pitchfork Media has already spotlit sister band Baby Teeth. It would be a crime if these brilliant men were far behind.

The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes
“Judy”

I have been playing in a rawed-up ’60s-style girl band for two years. This band’s success is at once predictable, overdue, and deserved.

Hot Chip - The Warning
“And I Was A Boy From School”

I didn’t listen to this album that carefully, but every time I heard anything by Hot Chip this year, I felt warm, sad, and wholly satisfied.

Califone - Roots and Crowns
“The Orchids”

I haven’t even heard this album yet and I know it’s great. You know why? Because this band has always been great. Even when I haven’t liked them they’ve been great. They remind me of train rides through Eastern Europe in the winter. And this is a knock-out title. Roots and Crowns. That’s beautiful! This album is great.