The Post-Rockist

TODD’s TOP 15 SONGS OF 2007

At the risk of sounding like a rock snob (which, after all, is the very antithesis of what being a post-rockist is all about), I can’t honestly say there were very many albums this year that grabbed my attention and drew me in obsessively from start to finish like in past years. Maybe it was because some of my favorite musicians released new records this year and my expectations were too impossibly high to meet, or maybe really good just isn’t good enough sometimes. But maybe it’s just been a result of my changing listening habits — weekly album downloads causing me to cycle through new releases at such a fast clip that if an album doesn’t catch my attention after one or two listens it’s automatically consigned to the digital dustbin. It’s a shame, really, but I’m not making any excuses for it.

In any case, there has been a slew of really fantastic songs, and the following is a list of some of my favorites in an only slightly meaningful order:

15. Wilco - “Either Way“ (buy)
(from Sky Blue Sky)

A hope-filled lullaby for the depressively predisposed. “Maybe you still love me, maybe you don’t, either you will or you won’t,” Jeff Tweedy sings with perfect complacency. Rarely do you hear such patience, restraint, and beauty in a song, but the opening track on Sky Blue Sky strolls along like a cautious optimist for those too old and tired to beleaguer the weight of pessimism. This isn’t soft rock, this is Zoloft rock.

14. Paul McCartney - “Ever Present Past“ (buy)
(from Memory Almost Full)

Upon first listen, you might think Macca’s “Ever Present Past” was released around the same time George had a hit with “I Got My Mind Set On You,” but despite the song’s sharp, youthful chorus it actually reveals to us a remarkably candid and far older Paul who is exposing his concerns of finding true happiness in the later years of his life and the fleeting permanence of his youthful exploits. It’s an honest, personal, and incredibly catchy song from one of pop music’s greatest songwriters.

13. Apples in Stereo - “Skyway“ (buy)
(from New Magnetic Wonder)

This is what rock ‘n’ roll sounds like to kids: electric riffs, banging pianos, ecstatic one-note solos, hand claps, and choruses where everybody chimes in with a “do-doo-doo-doo-do-doo!” All music should be this joyous.

12. The Pink Mountaintops - “Single Life“ (buy)
(from Single Life)

Good God this song rocks. Every single second kicks my ass and bleaches my bones. Take the two-chord punk energy of early Spacemen 3, the blasts of blistering white noise from The Jesus & Mary Chain, and add surrealistic, druggy vocals reminiscent of Bobby Gillespie and you’ve got a close approximation of The Pink Mountaintops’ “Single Life.” It’s a gritty, fuzz-rock gem and the closest thing to an endorsement of down and dirty hedonism you’re going to find on this list.

(Continued)

2007: Return to Indie Rock Mountain: The Mix CD by Amy

Wracked, anguished and awestruck after my typically tumultuous freshman year of college, and blessed with my very first CD burner (built into my computer!!), I made a mix CD that I thought would express to my friends what a very special, significant and emotionally trying time I’d had over those eight months. As a mix CD it was problematic: strictly chronological (in September I saw Dar Williams; in November I went home for Thanksgiving and saw 8 Mile in theatres, hence the Eminem track in between Lila Downs and fucking Dispatch), too many songs by the same artist (like Modest Mouse, which I had just discovered) and my taste in music was, at the time, terrible (hence, once again, Eminem. And Dispatch).

But the first semester of my sophomore year was even MORE full of chaos and drama as I learned that everything I had thought about the world and my life during my freshman year of college was all wrong (and that my taste in music was, in fact, terrible). It was so full of chaos and drama, in fact, that I had to create a commemorative mix CD at the end of the first semester. It became a great tradition, a rite of passage into breaks and summers, a way to close things up, a reflective album to listen to in the car on my way home.

Several important things happened to me this year. I quit one job and started another far more wonderful job. I moved out of one apartment and into another. I broke up with an Edan-worshipping, beat-making boyfriend and started dating a 12-string-strumming, Phil-Collins-poster-posting kind of guy. In my writing I started using adjectives made out of several mish-mashed words. In literature I believe these syntactical tics are called kennings, and I hope they go away soon.
(Continued)

BRYAN’S ALBUMS OF 2007 (Bryan writes for the Post-Rockist courtesy of Better Chatter).

10. Liars – Liars (buy)

Sailing To Byzantium
Liars have a big bag of tricks. They follow their heavy krautrock opus with an album containing some actual radio-friendly songs. “Houseclouds” sounds like a long lost Beck tune, “Sailing To Byzantium” eerily sounds like Radiohead, and “Freak Out” is pure snarling Stooges. There’s still a heaping spoonful of their classic murk, but Liars is as varied an album as I’ve heard all year while being raw, upbeat, and straightforward. It’s fun listening to a band known for experimentation prove they can play by the rules. I consider this their Loaded.

9. The Twilight Sad – Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters (buy)

That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy
As you can tell from the band name and album title, this Scottish quartet is a little bummed out. That doesn’t mean their music isn’t pretty. Layered My Bloody Valentine-inspired guitars and vivid lyrics make Fourteen Autumns‘ angst touching rather than whiney. Lead singer James Graham occasionally screams lines with an accent so thick and charming it’s tough not to feel for him. In a year full of great danceable albums, it was refreshing to hear The Twilight Sad’s big rock sound and tormented lyrics.

(Continued)

Happy Holidays, my babys.

Here’s your gift from us, and it’ll keep on giving for three more days. It’s this year’s Post-Rockist 2007 lists!

Due to the various musical tastes of our various contributors, we daren’t dare give you a commutative list (another reason is that we can’t do the math required). But these lists aren’t about the math, they’re about the music. Sure, some of us fall in line with the Great Arbiters of music taste like Pitchfork and some of us fall in line with the masses and some of us straddle the two and some of us choose the road less traveled, but equally rocked.

Sample tracks will be available for about two weeks. If you’re a record label and want us to take down a song, just let us know. No need to start a fuss.

DAN’S FAVORITE ALBUM’S OF 2007

10. Junior Senior – Hey Hey My My Yo Yo (buy)

Can I Get Get Get
Technically Hey Hey My My Yo Yo was released in Japan and parts of Europe in 2005, but didn’t make it to the U.S. until this year, but the good news is that is was totally worth the wait! Jesper and Jeppe are back having just as much fun as they ever did, but this time out adding another dimension to their sound. Moving away from the raw garage-disco attack of their debut album, D-D-Don’t Stop The Beat, Junior Senior focus more on melody, pop hooks and glossy production, while still maintaining their positive and playful rhymes about boys and girls.

(Continued)

Alright, I won’t tease any longer. I think it was fairly clear that our earlier discussion of Ghostface and RZA’s 2007 solo output, though enticing, were just mouthwatering appetizers. So let’s roll out the main course.

Wu-Tang Clan - The 8 Diagrams

Wu-Tang Clan (feat. George Clinton) - “Wolves”

Wu-Tang Clan - “Sunlight”
(from The 8 Diagrams)

Anyone hoping that Wu-Tang’s first new album in six years would reach out and grab their throats and squeeze until their veins throbbed and eyes bled, like on the Clan’s now-classic debut Enter the 36 Chambers, is set for severe disappointment. The 8 Diagrams is what we like to call a noirish slow-burner, not a shotgun blast from a dark alley. The RZA, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Method Man, Masta Killa, U-God, Inspectah Deck, and the posthumous Ol’ Dirty Bastard aren’t young boys from the Staten Island ghetto anymore; they’re grandfathers to a tradition. This is the sort of album you’d expect them to make at this stage in their career — mature, nuanced, tempered, rife with revelations upon repeated listens. If the Wu is still obsessed with the kung fu genre, this is the start of their Kurosawa period.

Sure, by now you’ve heard everyone rave about “The Heart Gently Weeps,” the RZA’s mellow interpolation of the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” featuring George Harrison’s son Dhani, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante, and Erykah Badu, but for all the praise being heaped upon this genre-bending collaboration everyone seems to forget to mention that it’s not even one of the strongest tracks on the new album. For that, look no further than the very next track, “Wolves,” featuring a frayed-at-the-edges George Clinton rasping like the long-lost black Brother Grimm on the chorus over spaghetti western-styled funk samples. But what really makes this album stand out — besides the awkwardly tacked on postmortem ODB track “16th Chamber” (complete with postmortem James Brown samples), the surprisingly touching ODB tribute track “Life Changes,” and the heavy use of melodic singing throughout — is the remarkable strength of the quieter tracks. In fact, one of the most striking songs on 8 Diagrams is also the sparsest, “Sunlight,” which features RZA alone in what ought to be a Borges monologue, reflecting on the mysteries of the caliph.

The RZA is clearly the largest influence on this album, both in style and scandal. First there was Raekwon kvetching about Bobby Digi’s supposedly dictatorial control over the recording process, and then came Ghostface whining about the album’s release date coinciding with his own Big Doe Rehab, and there will almost certainly be complaints from fans and record execs about the lack of a clear-cut smash single. But it is to RZA’s credit that he was able to hone in the Wu’s various egos and produce a cohesively surreal and moody masterwork. In a year when most other hip-hop felt aimless, 8 Diagrams presented us with the Shaolin masters staking out in a new direction.

-Posted by Todd

Considering that we left off last time on the subject of hip-hop soundtracks and “black superhero music,” it seems like the only logical place to continue our discussion.

The RZA Presents Afro-Samurai (The Original Soundtrack)

The RZA (feat. Talib Kweli, Lil Free, and Suga Bang) - “Certified Samurai”
(from Afro-Samurai)

I’ll give you two chances to guess what this show is about. If you guessed “sword-wielding samurai whose hairstyle of choice is an exaggerated ‘fro” then you’re off to a good start. If you took your answer one step further and added that this was an animated television series adapted from a Japanese manga comic for Spike TV featuring the voice-acting of Samuel L. Jackson and original music from the Wu-Tang Clan’s mad professor producer the RZA, then you already know way more about this program than I do. (Thanks, Wikipedia, for bringing me up to speed!)

Given RZA’s past scoring credits, including Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2 (also involving unlikely samurais in a modern setting), he was a natural choice for this role. What he does so well — aside from creating sparse, gritty beats that has spawned a whole generation of imitators — is that he taps into the pulpiest regions of our collective pop culture imagination and processes them into highly refined, edifying creations. Samurais, gangsters, sci-fi villains, comic book superheroes — all inhabiting the same world in a single beat.

On “Certified Samurai,” the intro kicks off with a diminished, digital bleat and menacing laugh — a classic cartoon sign of trouble on the horizon — right before a jazzy trumpet clears away all the smoke and daggers and makes way for Suga Bang’s neo-blaxploitation falsetto chorus. Already, in a matter of seconds, RZA’s set the (cartoon) stage for good confronting evil, and when Talib Kweli enters it’s obvious that it’s going to be a lop-sided fight: “What you craft with your heart or your weapon it’s a question / What you craft with, a glock or a message in a rhyme / I teach you little savage part of a lesson and choice / Between being a gansta and an artist is the start of your ending.” On what could have easily been a throwaway verse for Kweli, just a guest spot on an afro-anime soundtrack, turns out to be one of the strongest verses I’ve heard all year. He minces no words in laying out the ethical roadmap for the song’s protagonist, showcasing the causes of his imprisonment and brazenly offering up the pros and cons of possible escape plans. This track is my single biggest reminder that I’m a fool for not picking up Kweli’s Eardrum yet.

Ghostface - The Big Doe Rehab

Ghostface Killah - “Supa GFK”
(from The Big Doe Rehab)

While RZA’s black superhero might be a hero in more of a “classical” sense — beset by ethical dilemmas but ultimately in the pursuit of Good; super powers and/or skills — Ghostface Killah’s black superhero falls more into the ethically murky waters of Jay-Z’s celebrated hero. You won’t find this hero wearing a cape and mask, but you might find him in an ermine fur coat and brightly feathered fedora. And black-and-white terms like “Good” and “Evil” aren’t going to help much in this discussion either, since the objective at hand is becoming the richest hustler at any cost. And in fact, according to this album, Pretty Toney has been so successful in this regards that he needed to check in for rehab to cope with all his “big doe” (a.k.a. “dough,” or what you and I would call “money”).

While the whole conceit of this album is ridiculous, and it’s far more self-congratulatory than it actually merits, Ghostface’s unabashed cockiness does make for great entertainment at times. Like, for instance, the wonderful pimp-funk number “Supa GFK” (that stands for Super Ghostface Killah, if you didn’t pick that up), where he comes strutting on the speakers with this verse: “Aiyo, I’m coming up the block, got my hands on my ratchet, and these fucking little faggots don’t believe it’s Ghost. Well, surprise mothafucka! Starkey Love got breakfast, got some steaming hot biscuits, you can eat this toast.” Ah hell, did I just say that Talib Kweli delivered the best verse I heard all year, ’cause I could quote from this here song all day long. From his rhinestone drawers to his D.D.L. to the trail of baguettes he uses to find his way out of the Amazon, this is 24 karat comedy gold that Ghost is probably going to mine later and fashion into more glitzy rings and pendants.

While this may not be the sort of superhero that I grew up idolizing, in the end it’s all about gaining respect and success, and escaping the limits of your identity, even if it borders on caricature. Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks, I guess.

For further reading on the subject of soul, funk, and hip-hop music and black urban superheroes, I would highly recommend Jonathan Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude, for what it’s worth.

-Posted by Todd

It’s quite possible that this wasn’t the best year for hip-hop. Now, I’m no expert on the subject, but it’s hard to ignore the curious lack of crossover hits this year appearing in the onslaught of year-end best-ofs compared to years prior (critically anointed golden boy Kanye West not withstanding). And when the journal Foreign Policy starts publishing articles explaining why American-made hip-hop is on the decline because the genre as a whole has failed to globalize at the same rate as other musical styles, then you know you’re in trouble.

But we post-rockists try to be optimists in matters musical, so we’ll chalk the whole “off year” debacle to poor timing. With some of the biggest names in the business waiting until the last two months of the year to put out their new records (Jay-Z, Ghostface, and the remaining Wu-Tang Clan, to name a few), many listeners haven’t had a chance to pick these albums up, yet alone give them time to soak. So, without further ado, these next few posts will be devoted to these latest offerings by hip-hop icons that we should have already covered.

Jay-Z - American Gangster

Jay-Z - “Roc Boys (And the Winner is…)”
(from American Gangster)

American Gangster is a film I’m probably never going to see, yet for some reason I own the Jay-Z album by the same name. Thankfully for me, though, the Jigga man focuses more on recapping his own personal life and accomplishments instead of the film’s central character, Frank Lucas, so it’s easy enough to talk about this document on its own accord (only about half of the tracks here were “inspired” by the movie). The bad news is that Jay-Z’s American Gangster sounds mostly like a phoned-in Black Album, but the good news is that a second-rate Black Album is still better than Kingdom Come, and that’s given everyone cause for celebration.

There are a few things that give me pause on this album. For instance, the heavy use of Marvin Gaye and Marvin Gaye-styled samples throughout (e.g., “American Dreamin’” and “Say Hello”) for a film that (presumably) glorifies violence and street crime (Carter’s lyrics certainly do). While I had always assumed that Marvin Gaye was outspoken against such things, perhaps there’s a more complex message that Jay-Z is trying to convey that I’m just missing out on, aside from opting for easily identifiable period samples. My other concern is Jay’s insistence on being compared to other businessmen (i.e., Frank Lucas) instead of other rappers (i.e., Ludacris). As an aesthete white boy raised on the motto ars gratia artis it’s a hard concept for me to swallow that these songs aren’t personal statements expressed in a creative fashion, but rather manufactured items mass-produced for our consumption, much like a car or a pair of sneakers.

But like finding unexpected diamonds on a cubic zirconium wristwatch, it’s the least congruous tracks that really shine here. Take “Hello Brooklyn 2.0,” for instance. Eschewing soul entirely in favor of stripped-down, club-hungry bass and hand claps, Bigg D’s production is exciting and raw and entirely out of place from the rest of the album. But it’s Lil Wayne’s chorus that really knocks it out of the proverbial ballpark — I have no idea what he’s trying to say, precisely, let alone if it’s even a complete grammatical thought, but the way he spits it out just sounds so right that I imagine it’s become the unofficial greeting for all current Brooklynites (our Brooklyn readers can feel free to either confirm or deny this claim). Or, on the other hand, you could look at the album’s highlight, “Ignorant Shit,” which manages to musically mesh with the rest of AG with Just Blaze’s Isley Bros. samples, but narratively veers into whole ‘nother realm of self-reflexive cultural awareness (I won’t get into it here, but head on over to Marathonpacks for quite possibly the most well thought-out single track review of the year).

But somewhere in the middle, straddling the line between Jigga’s street-smart swagger and 1970’s revivalist soul party, is the celebratory, back-patting track “Roc Boys (And the Winner is…)” (”Mazel tav,” spurts Sean Carter, “it’s a celebration bitches! La heim!”). It’s nothing new, content-wise, just the same ol’ tired tale of street hustler striking gold and basking in all the jewelry and women and Porsches that his drug money can buy, but Jay-Z is an expert at weaving these sorts of tales and his flow is so sprite and fresh that any qualms I might have harbored just flew out the top of Hova’s limousine’s skylight. And the horns, well, the horns they seal the deal. Just listen to them; it’s the most exuberant sound I’ve heard all year. “This is black super hero music right here, baby,” he says at the end. Damn right. I’d love to hear 30 Odd Foot of Grunts pull off anything this smooth. The saucy Aussie has no right being affiliated with this much soul.

-Posted by Todd