What follows is some of my favourite music in 2005 - oh, and a contest! It is long but I only do this once a year.
My 22 Favourite Songs of 2005
Twenty-two is an arbitrary number, but a good one. Hopefully you will know most of these but if you do not, each of the twenty-two songs is available for you to download. I hope you like them.
1. Robyn - "Be Mine!"
So what is this song? Besides a rainshower, a sunshower? What is it, besides a chance to get rainsoaked on the street and then to walk into the park? In the park everything will be too green, with flowercolour diluted by the rain and by tears. But it'll be wide and open, with lawns and strips of asphalt for you to run along, with soil and sky and space for your whipping feelings. What is it besides that? It's astonishing and complicated emotions - it's the triumph of acknowledging your own sorrow, an affirmation of sure feeling. In that way it's Dylanesque, Joyce-like: it's subtle and messily real, and Robyn makes it feel so easy to realise. And what else? What else is this song? It's a pop song - yes, for dancing and cheering, with zips and pows, with cellos that stab and whirl til the park's right here in the club, in your room, and there's space for feeling everywhere. (more StG on Robyn) [buy (free worldwide delivery)]
2. Okkervil River - "For Real"
Okkervil River do something else. They draw the red windowshades and they kneel in their living-room - they kneel because they're turning their guitar amps up. Like I said, it's that perfect boom of word and sound, barbed yells and crushing blows. It's sinister but elegiac, scary but true. It's about murder and feeling, voices crying for sensation. "There's nothing quite like the blinding light / that curtains cast aside." The electric guitars are stuck through with spruce branches, with nails, with bits of eggshell. It's like the stamp in the middle of Wilco's "At Least That's What You Said," only instead of Tweedy's guitar solo there's the lamplight of a rhodes, the mounting panic of Will Robinson Sheff, and then a terrible tumble of drums, the searing chorus of pierced guitars, the knowledge that you're hurtling downhill, downstream, downtown, toward the smack and clasp that will make things clear. [buy]
3. The Strokes - "You Only Live Once"
The list's latest entry. But listen, kids - I can't shake the bra-na-na na na of the guitarline, Julian Casablanca's crooked vocals, the doubleclink of drums, the way the "oh-oh" feels already like something I'll sing, ruefully, when I'm 60. And the chorus is but a stall, a sideways-dancin' intermission so that when we return to the verses, it's fresh as daisies in a coffeepot of water. [pre-order]
4. Imogen Heap - "Hide and Seek"
More spell than song, a glamour spread over four and a half minutes: a moment of beauty, a moment of beauty, another. Let's all wear this song round our wrists, let's wonder at it. When does a vocoder begin to sound more human than a human? How do you write such a string of sounds, an almost unrepeating pop-song that still wraps full circle? How can I learn to sing like this? [buy direct from Imogen and avoid evil Sony rootkits]
5. Broken Social Scene - "Ibi Dreams Of Pavement"
A rock'n'roll steamship that wheels straight into the gale, straight into the whale's mouth. Old Blue dives deep, past coral towers and ravines, past death, and all the while there's Broken Social Scene inside - playing a lunatic pop-song, breathing seawater, battered by noise and bliss and that cetacean's pink tongue. If only all "art-rock" was this exciting; if only all rock songs could break surface and so brightly spout. (more StG on "Ibi Dreams...") [buy]
6. Sufjan Stevens - "Casimir Pulaski Day"
The marvel is not that Sufjan Stevens has written another pretty song. (A song of oboe and mandolin, of harmonies and his own tender voice.) The marvel is what he's hidden inside it. It's a song of repetition: repeated melody, repeated chords, instruments one after another repeating Sufjan's simple ditty. Stevens sings small domestic scenes, - the touch of grass on feet, sunlight through a window, a kiss, - and these images too begin to repeat. Echoing snatches of familiar phrase, as if the chorus is wrapped into the story itself, the mundane borrowing part of the mortal, the spiritual stowing away with the sexual. All of this accumulates, piling up with every circle of acoustic guitar strum - til the slightest change catches your breath in your throat, till the perfect repetition makes your heart stammer in your chest. The way Stevens sings "mouth"; the way you see her running, bare-footed; the plaintive/peaceful/pained/precise way that Stevens sings, finally, that "He takes and He takes and He takes". Stevens has made such small things say so much, turned real-life imagies into full-bodied statements of the erotic, the transcendent, the mournful. And all of it in such a pretty song, such a trifling song, a song light as air and too diffuse to even be caught in a stained glass window. [buy]
7. Kelly Clarkson - "Since U Been Gone"
How can I be more clear than the pinpricking of electric guitar at 0:34? The way that glint flickers into fullblown flash - and of course the way the mountain then falls on your head. (Don't worry, you are awesome enough to fight your way out.) [buy]
8. Herman Dune - "Not On Top"
What does a real life sound like, in one's twenties? (Beyond?) It sounds awkward, it sounds sloppy, it sounds well-worn and yet secretly glad. If you're lucky there's a guitar solo like a bird darting in a tree, a cute girl on backing vocals, a chorus like a Tin Man who's already got a heart and just needs to learn some up-to-date dance-moves. "There's 67 better ways to make some sense." Yeah, whatever! (more StG on Herman Dune) [buy]
9. Amerie - "1 Thing"
How did this song sink to #9? Lordy! I wade into "One Thing"'s go-go waters, just bellow my belly-button, and then I let myself be tugged by the off-on flow of the guitar, I let myself get snagged by Amerie's fish-hook voice, the twinkling lights of her "bing bong bing", and above all I get caught up in the ratatat drums. The drums they make me feel like I'm standing up even when I'm falling down, they let me take to the air even when I'm trudging all the way to work. (more StG on Amerie) [buy]
10. Wolf Parade - "I'll Believe in Anything"
You wait for the organ to resolve but first the drums butt in, big as Babel Towers. The rest of the song takes a long time to live up to the sprawling height of those bass-drum Towers. Voices twist, guitars tangle, but we don't go summit-scaling till the chorus at two-minute-something. It's then that suddenly the windsocks are full, that your hands are full of brickwork, that you're climbin' climbin' climbin'; it's then that the gargoyles spread stony wings, blink lunatic eyes, and swoop off into tomorrow. When the Tower falls it's the gargoyles who'll teach the world to talk. (What Jordan said.) [buy]
11. Smog - "The Well"
Quoth i: Every instrument seems to rub a different spot, and Bill Callahan's voice comes coffeecrackly in your ear, perfectly close-and-removed, perfect perfect perfect. ... Every time each part of the song arrives (cymbal shush, violin scrape), it's like a bud springing into bloom. It seems to be on a loop, but there are those little beats of difference, voices answering Smog's song, when everything changes (slightly, slightly). And, of course, it's hysterical. ... [W]here I'm moved is when the drums gear up in the end, in the rainbow moment where all the song's rhymes and themes burst up together, astonishingly written, wry and poetic, a lesson taught, a lesson learned, a joke and a parable. And my heart just swells on a woody springtime day. (more) [buy]
12. Page France - "Chariot"
I read somewhere that this song was about the Rapture. Not the dancepunk band; the big Messianic hooray. That's cool: there's room for that. It's also about plain old small-case rapture, about when a feeling's tugging on you so hard that a thumpthump bass-drum isn't enough, that a tambourine isn't enough, that you need a whole parade of singsong. Let's fill the gardens, friends. Let's take out the nightingales and bluebirds. Let's fix bells to our shoes and clap our hands. Let's put fairytales in our pockets and paint murals on the walls of our mouths. Let's follow a Piper into a mountain and turn the mountain into a cathedral, a circus, a place for us to break bread and quaff wine, and laugh. (more StG on Page France/guestblog) [buy]
13. Sugababes - "Push the Button"
On Bonfire Night we went to beautiful Musselburgh and stood in front of an enormous bonfire. The fire seemed more liquid than solid, something kinda dangerous despite our smiles. They set off fireworks - bam fizz wow! And through it all they played pop music, they played "Push the Button", and me I scribbled down lyrics so that I could google them when I get home. I smile at this song, I love the chorus' slow rev up, but I am pretty sure that if I met The Sugababes in an alley they could stop me breathing just by thinking it. Bam fizz wow! [buy]
14. Dirty Three ft. Cat Power - "Great Waves"
Quoth i: I don't know if I've ever heard Cat Power this mystical, so urgent without being desperate, so in control of her talents. ... Jim White play[s] behind her, [a] rattle and blur that leaps against my heart. Even more startling is that she sings of hurricane and flood, yes you got it, and there are so many images fresh in our mind. "The world is gone." A violin sounds like a ukelele or else it's a plain old mandolin and I imagine ... the individual bodies that are exploding when Chan sings "the bodies are exploding", the individual humans running for cover when Chan sings "humans running for cover", the cars "intersect[ing] in the middle of the sky". ... If there's going to be a song that makes me think of Katrina, me who was in Slovenia when the storm hit, me who doesn't have a TV, me who feels a million miles away and hasn't really been able to care, well then let it be a song that's a swamp, a morass, a thick soup of sound - and also a reservoir, a pool, a gift: every twig, leaf and raindrop, every brush of snare and thump of tom, everything unrehearsed and yet perfectly placed. [buy]
15. We/Or/Me - "Aimless Day"
Funny that a song that felt so strongly of summer becomes so dear in the winter: the glockenspiel's the only warm thing in the room, something to gather round, to stare into. (i wrote a lot more here.) even tonight, it seems to be better than "pink moon". [go see them in Chicago in January]
16. LCD Soundsystem - "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House"
Me, I want LCD Soundystem playing "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" at my house. The song has me at "H'OW-ow!" and it's still got me when things get spacey and cow-bell-y. "I've got a bus and a trailer at my house." When I listen to this I want to have (started and then) quit cocaine, so that I can open a window on an absurdly clear day and dump a million kilograms of it out the window, laughing madly, and yeah yelling "H'OW-ow!" as it blizzards in my pleasant Edinburgh block. [buy]
17. MIA - "Hombre"
Tiny hammers in my ears, tingtinging to get me into the right mode, beats tenderising me so that when MIA hits her stride I'm ready to join her: dancing like a girl and not like the hombre, imagining the joy that comes when you're out and this song suddenly comes on - like a musical interlude where we're all supposed to dance and bop and bump, glance-glancing at the girl who sings the chorus. [buy]
18. Andrew Bird - "Fake Palindromes"
Quoth i: We need to cut to the meat of the matter in a patented Said the Gramophone run-on sentence. The song's clear and obvious claim-to-fame, the wet and beating heart, the energizing whip-snap, is that killer fiddle hook, that four-note earworm, that vivacious blast, that indian sneer of strings with the thunderstomp of drum-and-shaker. And if you don't fall in love with the tune in the first two seconds, you will when Andrew Bird drawls "coulda died... shoulda died". Or when you notice the weird electric guitar that's stalking through the briar in the back, with long long legs. ... Or when "Fake Palindromes" ends (it ends!) after a scarce two minutes and fifty-two seconds. "I want to drill a tiny hole into your head," he sings. Well sign me up - just let me hear this thing again! Put it on a whirling repeat in a purple room with the blinds drawn. Run through that barrage of images, the formaldehyde-swap, the singles ads, the blood in her eyes. And then open the wardrobe and loose the violins, the super strings, the brown swooping things what lift me out the closed window and straight to the moon. [buy]
19. Stars - "Ageless Beauty (Most Serene Republic remix)"
Quoth i: Imagine my glee when I hear what Most Serene Republic have done with the tune: they stripped the synths away, stowed them in the closets, then wheeled out the stringy guitars and threadbare pianos. They made Amy Millan stand right there in the middle of the ballroom as the candles were getting lit, they asked her to sing just the same, but now it's not a superhero's song. Now it's a song for the scale of my life, for all the goofs and the joys, for the way beauty sneaks up out of dusty corners, the way it manifests itself as glints in peoples' eyes. The song has got today's loveliness and not some shiny tomorrow's: it's got friendship and revelry and good craic. It's got a voice sweet as honey cake and some friends who will gobble it up. [buy]
20. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth"
The reason this is one of my favourite songs of the year is because of what happens at 4:08. What happens? The same thing that happens a couple minutes earlier. But this time something's come over me, some regression to my Polish countryman's roots, to the tall-boots and high-jumpin' dance-steps. I am whooping with sneakers on, I am rolling my eyes, I am wearing this band's hype like a cape. I am introducing the Medieval poles to disco-beating indie rock, and I bet you they are loving it. [buy]
21. Agent Simple - "Brother"
Finally a song where I feel like Petit Nicholas, skipping to school, my leather satchel swinging alongside me. If Stephin Merritt is gonna be a stuck-up grump, a no-fun bully, it is so good that Agent Simple has been discovered. Finally - a wry and clever friend who writes songs for the Mister Men to sing along to, heads waving in the breeze. (What Dan said.) [buy]
22. Paul Duncan - "Oil In The Fields"
Good combinations: peanut-butter and strawberry jam; white wine and Nico; sadness and inevitability. Duncan is willing on his melancholy march. He knows he must go - "drawn back home again". He's been drinking, dreaming, getting lost in fields of big blooming flowers, mellotron orchids, under the blackgold starry sky. He's been feeling blue, but you know? the blue is turning to a hot reassuring purple. Molars said it well, too. [buy]
Runners up: R. Kelly - "Trapped in the Closet pt. 2", Elbow - "Mexican Standoff", Mountain Goats - "Dilaudid", New Pornographers - "The Bleeding Heart Show", Antony and the Johnsons - "Hope There's Someone", Spoon - "Sister Jack", and on and on...
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CONTEST
So, yes, Said the Gramophone has another contest. Boston's Brian Michael Roff and The Deer released an album this year called Inventory. It is a great record, dusty late-summer alt.country with a harvester's generous smile. I last wrote about it in April.
Brian is offering up a copy of Inventory, a copy of the ultra limited Pre-Inventory promo EP, and a BMR button. And shipping! And what do you need to do?
These are my ten favourite albums of 2005:
1. Final Fantasy - Has A Good Home
2. Robyn - Robyn
3. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
4. Smog - A River Ain't Too Much To Love
5. Herman Dune - Not On Top
6. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
7. Sigur Ros - Takk
8. MIA - Arular
9. The Constantines - Tournament of Hearts
10. Page France - Hello, Dear Wind
(Runners-up: Young Jeezy, Antony and the Johnsons, Fiery Furnaces, Jon-Rae and the River, Sunset Rubdown, The Clientele, Damian Marley, Clem Snide, The Evens, Jose Gonzalez, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah ...)
To win BMR's prize-pack, all you need to do is to pick your favourite album of 2005 and then write a haiku about it. Three lines, a total of (5+7+5=) 17 syllables.
Then either email me your haiku with the subject "CONTEST ENTRY", or post your haiku as a comment on this here post. The deadline is 11:59 EST on Monday, December 12th. The contest is now closed. Good luck!
(Did I mention how great the packaging is on Inventory? It is an elegant hand-made somethin'-special.)
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Elsewhere:
Tuwa has two terrific songs and apt accompanying words. I particularly love the Ian Love track - just Josh Rouse enough to please, hurtling forward with stars in its eyes.
Frank has heard the secret unreleased version of the last (fanTAStic) Wheat album, and has some samples for your enjoyment.
Plan B is selling prints of some of the fantastic photos that have appeared in the magazine. Outstanding shots of Afrirampo, Daniel Johnston, Kevin Blechdom, Arcade Fire, Devendra Banhart, and many more. A total steal at £10 each (or five! for £20). In related news, the December/January issue of Plan B has short reviews by me of the new Robyn and Mt Eerie records, and of Explosions In The Sky's visit to Edinburgh last month. Let me know if you pick it up.
The December issue of The Skinny has, among other things, a review by me of Stars (I know, the UK is slow), and another episode of StG-lite, The Easy Gramophone (starring Devin Davis, Bishop Allen, Dizzee Rascal, and more).
If you made it this far: thank you.
On November 26th, Said the Gramophone celebrated its sort-of second birthday. While the site's been running since March of 2003, it wasn't until November of that year until I found the will or the resources to start hosting and writing about mp3s. Just about every weekday since then, - thanks to Jordan, and Dan, and you, - we have been sharing our favourite songs.
Said the Gramophone is (as of right now) 559 entries long, and just under 225,000 words (yes, two hundred and twenty-five thousand). It's longer than Moby Dick and certainly not as good. But we're going to keep trying.
In honour of our second birthday, StG has a new look. Our lovely redesign was only eight months in the making and comes thanks to the fantastic work of Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet. Neale not only designed things and cobbled together most of the code, he did the illustrations above. And he's a good friend, too.
Please let us know if you spot any bugs.
I'd like to thank you all for coming back, day after day. I hope you'll not stop, even as we reach our middle age in blog years.
For the geeky-curious, I've hand-transcribed basically every song that StG has posted since November 2003. There are going to be a lot of omissions because I skimmed, rather than reading, the whole thing. But it still makes me pretty proud to browse that list and see all the wonderful things we've found. (And also how many more wonderful things we've left out!)
You can read that long list after the jump.
And thanks again, on this chilly Edinburgh evening, for reading our writing. You are the warmest audience we could ask for.
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Exploding Hearts - "Throwaway Style". In the summer of 2003, most of the Exploding Hearts died in a car crash. I lacked the words then, and I still do today. But what I know is that Guitar Romantic still exists, in gaudy yellow-pink-and-black, and it's not going anywhere. One of my favourite rock albums of the past ten years, this a record of buzzing garage-pop that's feels like it musta been scalpeled from some 60s/70s/80s scene, cut from a chest hot and slippery. As Said the Gramophone throws away its old style, here is two minutes and fifty-four seconds of glad punk splendor, something so charged with life that it's impossible to think of its authors as passed on: something that brings them to us with breath and sweat and electric guitars, immortal finger-snapping scoundrels who will bum you a smoke, if you ask. It's mixed so loud that you don't even have to turn it up (but you should).
[BUY]
Songs:Ohia - "Coxcomb Red (Joe Beats Experiment remix)". Most of the best remixes make a song more awesome. They improve its dance moves. But here's a remix whose raison d'etre is something altogether opposite. The beats here are weak, empty and echoing. They're there but they're not going to grab your feet or hips. You hear the room around the beats, the reflecting walls and slamming doors. You hear the groupie chatter. You hear the man in a room, a man singing his earnest rock-blues (and he's one of my dearest artists in the world), but you hear the echo, the walls and doors and groupies. You hear the space. You hear the ache and emptiness of standing at a gig, of listening to a song, and of hearing it just as a song - words sung, notes played. Because sometimes the music won't give you what you want, or you don't know how to take what it's offering. So you just stand there, you sway, and you hope that maybe it'll just hold you.
The Joe Beats Experiment presents Indie Rock Blues includes remixes of Neutral Milk Hotel, M Ward, Andrew Bird, The Make Up, and all sorts of other nonsense. More importantly still: it includes artwork by William Schaff. [BUY]
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Other things -
I didn't see Wolf Parade on Friday. A pileup on the highway to Glasgow more than doubled the trip-time to Glasgow, and as they were the first of two openers at a gig that wanted people out in time for a club night, it just wasn't possible. I was sad, yes. Tonight - Mogwai.
NPR blame Dan for kick-starting Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's hype. "Their name both attracted me and repulsed me at the same time," says Beirne. Hooray! [applause, yeah]
There's also an NPR story on NaSoAlMo (National Solo Album Writing Month). It's only a couple days till the deadline (!). Said the Gramophone will (hopefully) be providing hosting for the finished product of a bunch of entrants, and I can't wait to hear them. More on that later.
[more]
I suppose all the Americans are going to be off recovering from turkey, enjoying pumpkin pie for breakfast, putting on pilgrim hats and stuff. The rest of us, meanwhile, will go to work and wait for Friday night. (Friday night in Glasgow is Wolf Parade.)
(ps: looks like i'm going it alone tonight. any glaswegians going and want to hang out with a canadian?)
Uncle John and Whitelock - "Baghdadi". They're Glasgow's most exciting band, a furious hoarse blues that stamps and stamps and grabs at steeples. They stand on a stage and they rage - they rage and preach and you relish it. Soon you're stamping too, you're unscrewing the creaky portholes in your ears and eyes and heart, opening the hatches to let all the volleying sound in. But how do you bottle it? How do you bottle a band that throws whales at you, that tosses fiery houses and dying mothers? Well, you try. "Baghdadi" is that: it is an attempt. And so long as you turn it loud, loud i say!, just past the point of comfort... well you can begin to hear it. You can begin to hear Uncle John and Whitelock. Toss in that stormy blackbrown sound, try to climb its ladders, imagine a Wolf Parade lost for twenty years in the desert; Franz Ferdinand after all their loved ones have drowned.
Louder! (I do mean this.)
(I read somewhere that this band started as an art project where they built a back porch and then created a band to play blues on it. I don't know if that's true but if it is I think it's like Noah who built an ark cos god said "you'll need it!" and boy did he ever.)
There Is Nothing Else is out December 5th on GFM. Another, lesser song is available on the SAMH's "One in Four" comp. When Uncle John & Whitelock come to you: you better go and see 'em. Man.
St Jude's Infirmary - "The Church of John Coltrane". We'll take it all: traintrack clickclack, twins in twining harmony, a sound like Sons & Daughters in a little black dress, lyrics about John Coltrane and the Holy Spirit, bluzzing guitar and Scottish spoken-word. We'll take it all, put it in a pot of weak broth (this is the production), and boil it till the flavours come out out out, till the weak broth don't really matter because yum that's a whole potato, that's a cherry, that's twins in twining harmony and a thumping stained-glass chorus. I like that this track does it all, that it vaults from one parish to another, that it knows its knots. I like that just as you tire of things in the third minute, in comes a Scotsman with a poem, in comes an electric fence. He says "I don't want you back" several different ways; inevitably, none of them sound true.
St Jude's Infirmary live in Edinburgh.
Happy Healthy Lucky Month is out in January on SL Records (Ballboy, Misty's Big Adventure). They also have a song called "Montreal", which you can listen to here.
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Elsewhere:
Dave Barclay of The Diskettes is offering beautiful things at Popsheep. His latest gift is Kiowarini's "Le dernier souffle de sa nation", with vinyl that crackles like a campfire, a voice like Israel Kamakawiwo'ole on the night he finds out he'll be a father. Such a lovely song.
Following on the American and Canadian polls, Take Your Medicine has compiled the UK's "Hottest 47 Acts". Unlike the Canadian list, I pretty much think the results here are awful. Despite getting the winner right, of the top 25 acts there are only eleven that I would ever recommend to anyone (Girls Aloud, The Go Team, Radiohead, Patrick Wolf, Basement Jaxx, Rachel Stevens, Boards of Canada, MIA, Mystery Jets, The Futureheads, Franz Ferdinand), and the remainder I pretty much loathe. Unfortunately, crap guitar rock seems to rule the British blogosphere as much as it does the British mass music media. The list of omissions is as long as my arm.
As before, my ballot (with comments) is after the break.
[more]
Chris Whitley - "Dirt Floor". Chris Whitley died on Sunday.
I only really 'know' one of Whitley's albums, 2005's Soft Dangerous Shores. It is a strange album - a blues that's been melted down to cinders, burning on the pan, longing and poetry hissing and then smoking into the sky. Like Richard Buckner doing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; slow soulful songs breaking apart, split by drone and jazz and draining electronics.
But Soft Dangerous Shores is also a ghostly album, and this ghostliness feels almost vulgar to me, right now. The imprint's too fresh in the bed to be listening to a song that sounds like the living Whitley wanting to disappear.
So I wasn't going to post anything, til I read this ILM thread, and BeeOK posted "Dirt Floor" and I heard it and I thought Yes.
This isn't a ghost's song. It's a song of the living - a song of reassurance and peace. And it's a kaddish, I guess. A laying to rest. Whitley's got one of those voices - like Buckley, like Morrison, - that can edge into the ecstatic. But no he doesn't; here he stays at your side, steady and human. His guitar sounds like going home.
You'll be missed, Chris Whitley.
[many more Chris Whitley mp3s / Chris' website / buy CDs]
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Kelley Stoltz - "Prank Calls". Kelley Stoltz has a heck of a steam engine. It's powered by piano, fed by drum hits that fall like coals. The engineer has taught the passengers to sing: "no no no no!" And maybe the coolest part is that Stoltz has laid all the tracks himself, the railway tracks, and they go winding round the cool places to live - Mile End and Williamsburg and Glasgow's West End, - so Stoltz can visit parties and wave at The Strokes or Jim Guthrie or whoever. He can wave and then move on, choo-choo chugging, riding that aluminium pop-song in and out of sunsets. He can say goodbye and then come right back.
(Thanks, Mike.)
[more mp3s including Echo & the Bunnymen covers / Below the Branches is out in February on Sub Pop]
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Elsewhere:
Prints are finally available from artist kathleen lolley, and o how lovely they are. anyone else seen any great art for sale, lately?
A high-res extended version of the gorgeous Sony Bravia bouncing-balls advert, with Jose Gonzalez as a sumptuous soundtrack, are now available free online. (Thank goodness they're free, since they're commercials.) Is it wrong that an ad is one of the most beautiful things I've seen this year? [via kop-e-kat]
I'm digging the vibe of this band from Ottawa called The Acorn. They're sorta like a lazier Royal City. I'm pretty confused as to how I've never heard of them. I wonder if I know any of the band. Anyway - their music is here (via the essential catbirdseat). Through The Acorn I also discovered the ballsy dancepunk hoo-ha of Quebexico, whose lead guy is called The Funisher. Both of these things rule. If either of these bands read this and would like to send me some music, please do get in touch.
Some of my reviews for The Skinny are finally online, with the italics stripped away :( : Bon Jovi, The Pipettes, Wolf Parade (I didn't have room for a proper critique), Rick Astley, Audio Bullys, The Constantines, and the first of the "Easy Gramophone" column, about songs you can download, free and legal. It's basically a combined StG/Anti-Hit List rip-off.
The Canadian blogosphere is aflutter over i (heart) music's 33 Hottest Bands in Canada, modeled on last week's poll that found Sufjan Stevens to be the biggest thing in America. Dan, Jordan and I all voted, stacking our ballots to support the presumably underrepresented (and Jordan's band). I'm pretty happy with the results. There were a few bands I didn't vote for, counting on the support of others (Jon-Rae and the River, Constantines, Stars, Broken Social Scene), and I was glad that they came through. I remain baffled by the popularity of Metric and Martha Wainwright. It's still frustrating that a format like this leaves so many great bands out in the cold (P:ano, The Weakerthans, Julie Doiron, The Diskettes, Avril, Greg Macpherson, I'm looking at all of you).
A UK list should be coming later this week.
For those of you who are interested, my ballot is below the fold (ie, click "more"), along with all of my corresponding comments.
[more]
I just wanted to say welcome to anyone who's arrived via Yahoo's Pick of the Day, and extend a thank-you to whomever it was who wrote that sweet and humbling piece: thank-you.
Rachel Ries - "You Only". At first this folk-song seems clumsy - a too-wakeful song about sneaking into the house, a too-sprightly song about tuckin' in for the night. But then you realise, aha, why the guy is singing along - that oh lordy she's in on it. This isn't naive platonic playing: this is not a Saturday afternoon jam. No it's friskyfrisky: it's the laughing la-la-la of lovers who stuff their faces with peanut butter and then fall into bed; of those evenings when even if it's two AM there's still fingers running up and down that banjo; of those evenings when yes there's honeydew to be had. "For you only..."
I used to wonder what would happen if Sarah Harmer ran away from home wearing a red riding hood, en route to join the east-coast whaling trade when oh golly she fell head over heels in love, and with a South Dakotan boy at that. So she moves to the cornfields and though she sings to the sky and the cows she's also thinking of skyscrapers and smoke, and how they're not at all there... Anyway, I used to wonder, but then I got the beautiful package that is the Rachel Ries CD and now I don't wonder no more. Instead I sit on my bed feeling like a girl and listening to Rachel's voice.
[buy / more info]
---
Downy - "Ichi". When you're out walking one day, maybe you'll crest a hill with tall green grass and you'll suddenly face a dragon and uh-oh his mouth will already be open and he will be breathing fire and you, sir, will be in the thick of it. You'll be in a world gone liquid and gas, amid swirls and shocks of feeling, hanging there for the split second before the melt-and-collapse. If there was an observer, if there could be an observer, they might see just death. But you don't just see death: you see eddies and currents, you see flickers and licks, you see flame and fire. You, the wo/man who is being burnt to death by dragonbreath, you see your childhood and adolescence and old age, you see your whimsy and longing and regret, you see how your dreams and achievements get muddled up when they're put in a box and taught to fight. You're delusional now, (you're dead, frankly,) but you understand life's hot rumble better than you ever did when you're alive: it has something to do with earthquakes. Something to do with earthquakes.
Downy are a band from Japan. David sent me this song. It is a heavy jazz-rock, an Acid Mothers rock, a lodestone rock, something to use instead of a mining drill or Need New Body. But if you listen twice, thrice, you hear that the sludge isn't sludge - it's different things, guitar and bass and clangs, saxophone and a man's keening Minus Story vocals. It's like how you can see starlight two different ways: either it fills the sky, bright as oblivion, too bright to think; or else they're pinpricks you can pick, constellations you can choose, friends that take shape in the thick gloom.
[buy (if anyone can find any cheaper sources, let me know)]
---
Elsewhere:
I like the look of O Song -- Augie March, The Zombies, and the Paul McCartney song I may yet post here. I love that there's good songs and dollops of writing to accompany them. (Also, judging from the number of comments there, Said the Gramophone oughta just switch to livejournal.)
Daughters of Invention paint a cocaine-partytime kinda Toronto that's news to me, but cool I guess. More pertinently, the music's great: case-in-point the piano-rickety Robyn b-side about masturbation.
Tuwa's still lookin' for (at least) another person to review a doubtless-most-awesome mix CD for a Tofu-Hut-style project. Someone snap it up!
and finally, Abby's got a wonderful rant about posting pop songs you love.
The Montgolfier Brothers - "Journey's End". The Montgolfier Brothers' "World is Flat" (which I wrote about here, and which you can listen to here,) is an incredibly sad song. It's a song of smiling rock-bottom, of standing at a window with empty hands. And I never thought that Roger Quigley would stay in that unhappy place. It's with some worry, therefore, that I listen to All My Bad Thoughts and find that things have not got much brighter for him. The Montgolfier Brothers are stuck in the bluegrey dawn hours when everything feels hopeless, when everything is painted beautiful. "Journey's End" is a song of horrific loss, of paralysis, of longing. It's the opposite of Xiu Xiu's inward cursing - The Montgolfier Brothers look out, across the town, to where the former lover is sleeping; they look out, around the world, to where the sun is curving to greet them; they look out, out, out, to all the places they've ever gone, they've ever kissed, they've ever felt happy. The piano plays with a sharp loveliness, a circling serenade, but there under its surface is the wreck, the dread, the awful fucking inevitability of things that have already happened.
[buy All My Bad Thoughts]
George - "Song of Degrees". I saw this band last week - a pair in wilted evening-wear. They were better than the indie klezmer that followed them (sorry Hawk and a Hacksaw), better than the free folk that preceded them (sorry Nalle). They were modest and wry and played sweet, sweet songs. Suzy Mangion plays electric organ and Michael Varty plays clarinet, banjo, toy drums. There's something morose about them, like employees at a charity shop who have seen too many wedding dresses brought in, but so too is there the anticipation of happiness, the promise of a smile. Flickers of Aimee Mann and even (on "This Will Not Stop") of Final Fantasy, but most of all George remind me of Low, Low in an alternate universe, Low after getting washed up on a Brighton shore, amnesiacs reared on caramel-corn and summer romances.
[buy A Week of Kindness]
---
I may not love the White Stripes, but I do so love their new video (dir: michel gondry. also starring: conan o'brien.)
---
Fellow Clem Snide fans -- a collection of Eef's demo recordings from the early 90s have just been released on the iTunes Music Store. They're called Suburban Field Recordings 1. You can listen to one of the tracks, "A Parable", here.
|
about said the gramophone
This is a daily sampler of really good songs. All tracks are posted out of love. Please go out and buy the records.
To hear a song in your browser, click the  and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
All songs are removed within a few weeks of posting.
Said the Gramophone launched in March 2003, and added songs in November of that year. It was one of the world's first mp3blogs.
If you would like to say hello, find out our mailing addresses or invite us to shows, please get in touch:
Montreal, Canada: Sean
Toronto, Canada: Emma
Montreal, Canada: Jeff
Montreal, Canada: Mitz
Please don't send us emails with tons of huge attachments; if emailing a bunch of mp3s etc, send us a link to download them. We are not interested in streaming widgets like soundcloud: Said the Gramophone posts are always accompanied by MP3s.
If you are the copyright holder of any song posted here, please contact us if you would like the song taken down early. Please do not direct link to any of these tracks. Please love and wonder.
"And I shall watch the ferry-boats / and they'll get high on a bluer ocean / against tomorrow's sky / and I will never grow so old again."
about the authors
Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.
Emma Healey writes poems and essays in Toronto. She joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. This is her website and email her here.
Jeff Miller is a Montreal-based writer and zinemaker. He is the author of Ghost Pine: All Stories True and a bunch of other stories. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Say hello on Twitter or email.
Mitz Takahashi is originally from Osaka, Japan who now lives and works as a furniture designer/maker in Montreal. English is not his first language so please forgive his glamour grammar mistakes. He is trying. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Reach him by email here.
Site design and header typography by Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet. The header graphic is randomized: this one is by Keith Andrew Shore.
PAST AUTHORS
Dan Beirne wrote regularly for Said the Gramophone from August 2004 to December 2014. He is an actor and writer living in Toronto. Any claim he makes about his life on here is probably untrue. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
Jordan Himelfarb wrote for Said the Gramophone from November 2004 to March 2012. He lives in Toronto. He is an opinion editor at the Toronto Star. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
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things we like in Montreal
eat:
st-viateur bagel
café olimpico
Euro-Deli Batory
le pick up
lawrence
kem coba
le couteau
au pied de cochon
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+ paltoquet, cocoa locale, idée fixe, patati patata, the sparrow, pho tay ho, qin hua dumplings, café italia, hung phat banh mi, caffé san simeon, meu-meu, pho lien, romodos, patisserie guillaume, patisserie rhubarbe, kazu, lallouz, maison du nord, cuisine szechuan &c
shop:
phonopolis
drawn + quarterly
+ bottines &c
shows:
casa + sala + the hotel
blue skies turn black
montreal improv theatre
passovah productions
le cagibi
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pop pmontreal
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Cult Montreal
The Believer
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|
Regarding Why?'s Elephant Eyelash:
Surrealists break up
then lick their wounds, speak and sing
with the same strange tongue
Peter Licht: 14 Lieder
A moment of joy,
a bright light in the shadows
that guides you from here
Sean : I playied some of the music for Bubbie...she REALLY likes it...strange !!!
Zaidie
Sean-
I know you didn't like Guero, but no "Missing" on the song list? IMO that's the best song of 2005.
This is the longest thing I have ever read in the world.
excellent choices i reckon. that robyn album will v. shortly be mine, particular thanks for the tip on free delivery on that one.
great selections and certanly the smog and herman dune would be on my list as well (if I wasn't so lazy)
ps redesign is nice too, at first I wasn't so sure but now I forget what the old site even looked like
I enjoyed your list. It's nice to see there's other people out there who can enjoy both The Broken Social Scene AND Kelly Clarkson.
winner should let us post their 17 on http://reviewhaiku.org.
why?
well, we really like BMR too and think that would be super dee-doooooooper.
how now brow cow!!
Wow! Thanks so much for such a comprehensive lovebomb of music! You continue to raise the bar you helped create in the first place!
You're grey and green and
I'm the garden in Fall
and your apple shines.
(Sunset Rubdown: Snake's Got A Leg)
Sorry. Revised after I mistyped:
You're grey and green and
I'm the garden in the Fall
and your apple shines.
(Sunset Rubdown: Snake's Got A Leg)
tim kinsellas- "crucifix swastika
some say pretentious
channeling cummings he is
a gold kinsella
Great post, I like the Strokes song as well.
Thanks for posting the sugababes, can't get enough of that song.
Hi, it's been far too long since I've been here - you're in Edinburgh permenantly now?! I don't suppose you'll remember me, I'm from Glasgow and emailed you just before you came over. Anyway, just to say hey and that is SOME LIST! I completely agree with you about Casimir Pulaski Day too - it's definitely on my mix of the year.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah again
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
(Wilco: Kicking Television)
The blur of crying
Sparks shards of electric ice
Still love rock and roll
Deerhoof "the runner's fore"
Japan feels the West,
Making crunchiness so cute,
Asshole becomes man
the stop start stutter
winter in the summertime
drums just broke my heart
(wolf parade:apologies to the queen mary)
i feel kinda like Thax
About "EP" by the fiery furnaces:
Smouldering forges
Dropped dada rhymes like blown glass –
But why grandmother?
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
As a trumpet blares,
Illinois becomes our home;
Chicago, our love.
he states his wonder
in a State of wonderment
writing all alone
Sufjan Stevens! Illinois! Yes!
Can we make multiple entries? As long as its for the same album?
Not that I don't stand by my entry... I do!
"Whatever it is
she's doing, don't stop the tape--"
"It's not analog!"
(Imogen Heap's Speak for Yourself)
Devin Davis- Lonely People of the World, Unite!
(new to me in 05 anyway)
White black bang hit crash
Blue red smoke-filled brush stroke strums
Color in my ears
What I'm looking for
An alternative to love
Benson spits it out
Brendan Benson's An Alternative to Love
Deerhoof, "the Runners Four"
A tinny child voice
Bang crash scream team on repeat
Solace in the noise
I originally read "Pick your favourite albums of 2005." The key being the fact that I pluralized album. So, here are my top 10 favourite albums of 2005 in haiku form.
Noah Floating to Illinois!
Fantasy ark scene:
animal hunter milks buck;
bird orchestre sings.
(sufjan stevens - illinois, caribou - the milk of human kindness, cocorosie - noah’s ark, antony - im a bird now, final fantasy - has a good home, buck 65 - secret house against the world, broken social scene - s/t, animal collective - feels, bell orchestre - recording a tape the colour of light, jana hunter = blank unstaring heirs of doom)
just write 'i love you'
sideways on your wrist and you
will feel like i do.
(jason anderson "the wreath")
from the infanta
to the angels and angles
its leaves caress me.
(picaresque)
This is wonderful! All of it!
The biggest surprise for me was the new Strokes song. Never thought I'd like them!
Sufjan sings Illinoise.
I get lost in time and space.
I replay, again.
Kudos for giving top honors to "Has A Good Home" (was my personal second choice), but why no Final Fantasy in your top songs? "This is the Dream of Winn & Regine" is amazingly lovely (and even better live, without the techno-beats).
Still, nice choices all 'round. (And I'm glad I'm not the only one that prefers the MSR remix of Ageless Beauty!)
final fantasy "has a good home"
please please please he screams.
pierre trudeau was there when;
the audience died.
cheers
-aviva
some albums came out
and i listened to a bunch
but sufjan is best
Final Fantasy - "Has A Good Home"
fragile like winter
want nothing want everything
buried together
three women coming
of age now let's call it love
walk into the woods
(sleater-kinney, the woods)
Pitchfork hype be damned,
C.Y.H.S.Y. flawless
except for track one.
Regarding Sufjan's Illinoise
As the music gives
its theory about my state
I count resemblance
These songs set the tone
for my date with cottage cheese
no more throwing up
(Herman Dune - Not On Top)
Embrace death and life
Here's my plan to follow through:
Make your name sing
Death Cab for Cutie - "Plans"
I can hardly BELIEVE you didn't include Of Montreal, that's crazy, just craziness. You are a crazy-man.
M. Ward warbled while
Richard Hawley crooned but then
Brandi Carlile wailed.
Such wonderful haikus!
Anonymous - I know, I am astounding. :) You may also wish to remark upon the glaring omission of "Illinoise" from my favourite albums... (This was no accident: I am astonished at the way people are celebrating the album as a whole.)
Oh, and Beth - The songs on 'Has A Good Home' are astonishingly consistent, but they (particularly "Win and Regine" and "Please Please Please") cracked my top 30 and not my top 22. This was a year of fantastic tunes and much fewer fantastic records.
Archer Prewitt - Wilderness
Always keeps going
a kaleidoscope of sound
to jump start your heart
The first submission for the 25th Annual Said the Gramophone Favourite Album Haiku Contest:
It's Twenty-thirty,
the Clap Your Hands reissue
tops again somehow.
I could never "get" Broken Social Scene. They're beyond me, I guess - too overproduced and lacking interesting ideas and melodies. On the other hand, I tried real hard to dislike Okkervil River, but failed miserably. "For real" is definitely tops.
I just got to downloading the songs (my connection was slow when I posted last night) since I just knew about 7 out of the 22 and... good stuff. I completely passed over LCD Soundsystem and it seems I should've paid them some attention.
Also, glad I'm not the only one to leave out Illinoise on my top ten. really, I do think the Michigan album was better anyway.
Is it possible
to love Wolf Parade and to
hate Modest Mouse? Yes!
Holy shit is that Kelly Clarkson song good. What planet have I been living on that I hadn't heard it before?
Page France - Hello, Dear Wind
Estranged to Jesus
tambourines chime on
I think I've been saved
(The Hold Steady- Separation Sunday)
He almost killed me.
I've been plastered with Craig Finn-
The little hoodrat.
And for extra credit:
End of year list? Fun!
Page France, meet Kelly Clarkson.
Said the Gramophone.
Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving (3-LP)
We listen slowly.
The steady love of our friends
punctuates all loss.
i had no idea
antony would rank so high
goldfrapp not at all
Bursts of sound swelling
swallow me into their world
Iceland kind of rules
Sigur Ros, Takk
That Imogen Heap song... on first listen, wow. On listens 2 through n-1, I found myself wishing I could hear a real a capella version of it. On listens n through now, an uncomfortable feeling has crept in that this could be a songwriter's demo for a killer 80s power ballad. Chameleonlike.
That might be more than 17 syllables.
To death to cd's: I have the absolute opposite sentiment. To me, For Real sounds too emo/Saves the Day, as much as I try to like it, while Ibi is this amazing mixture of guitar, drum, and pure emotion.
wow, robyn? who knew. i remember her from a quite a few years ago when she was making white but catchy R 'n B songs that did quite well. look...uh..listen to her know. very nice! thanks for the re-introduction! :)
the land of lincoln
never been but now i've known
the good, the tragic
(sufjan stevens - illinois)
pulse that never ends
mesmerized and hypnotized
slain by sexy voice
(ivy - in the clear [nettwerk america])
my "best of" choice
regarding: BSS - "BSS"
what becomes the stretch
touches every fear you have
and then waits for you
Songs sweet and sad like
when I drop my birthday cake
off a paper plate.
(The Boy Least Likely To- The Best Party Ever)
"is this john denver?"
"no, mom, this is john darnielle."
the sunset tree rules.
(the mountain goats - the sunset tree holyshitsogood.)
My favorite album of the year is Sufjan Stevens - Illinois.
Small whisper wailing
From the Gacy basement sings
Banjo Messiah.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah,
i'm grinning from ear to ear.
see my yellow country teeth?
What measure of man
could stand in Callahan's shoes
and walk with such truth
(Smog - A river aint too much to love)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Big smile. Yellow country teeth.
Is this love? No doubt.
(an edit to my first entry on the chance that the last line could be interpreted as 7. either way, they could both suck :)
how splendid, how nice
this year: full of fantastics
poised poems with ease
(RE: Haiku Contest 2005)
Seas of fictions surge:
Gulls cry out revenge and love—
wheelbarrows of truth.
(The Decemberists: Picaresque)
It's past the deadline, but I want to write a haiku anyway.
Icelandic dream rock
shimmers with pop transcendence
Takk me to heaven
I echo Vic's sentiments; for how can this album go unrepresented?! [The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday]:
Too hopeless to hold,
religion means resurrect.
Sing Hallelujah!
OK SO FINE I'M BLIND.
Hi, you dumbfounded me. I tried to fully listen to 6 songs from the list and they are all boring boring boring. Glad I did not miss a thing. Keep it up, 2005 was good for you. Cheers.
I don't know who you are or how i got to your site and I'm not into hiku, but thank you for turning me on to some new music that flew completely under my radar in 2005.
You got fine taste.
Best in '06
-jeff
I am not Chinese.
I just discovered Van Morrisons Moondance.
Listen to the Strokes 'you only live once' when you're walking down a bust highstreet. Don't ignore my advice.
And when you forget
Just look up and remember
There's only the sky.
I know i missed the comp but i think that deserves something special.
Meigsx.
I found your site after searching google for "Casimir Pulaski Day", a song that I like alot and was curious about.
Thanks for posting links to all this great music. I downloaded them all and made a cd for my wife.
Information about the Casimir Pulaski historical figure here:
http://www.polishamericancenter.org/Pulaski.htm
I have to say that your list of the best singles of the year is one of the best I've seen. You've pick 22 winners in my books (not that really matters). Thanks for also leaving the links up long enough for those of us who are a little slow to be able to enjoy the great music!
YOU PEOPLE ARE FRICKIN WEIRD!! ...WHO GETS ON SITES LIKE THIS? ITS BULL SHIT HAHA
LATER
i love rap music
its the best music ever
please post more!
Love your blog, not only cuz of the song choices but because i have to think to understand what youre saying :). Just a quick question: Am i the only person in the world who can't stand 1 thing by Amerie, mayb it just got overplayed for me but i absolutely hate it.
If you could only pick one, what would be your vote for best song of the century? Esquire magazine’s trying to find out the No. 1 winner - try the single elimination battle royale at http://www.esquire.com/bestsong !
CoOl!!!
Sean,
Thanks for posting your picks. I downloaded them ages ago and just really listed to them a couple of weeks ago while I was lucky enough to be vacationing on a warm beach (I made a playlist of them all)
My favs were
2. Okkervil River - "For Real"
4. Imogen Heap - "Hide and Seek" (I absolutely love this - I need more from this artist)
6. Sufjan Stevens - "Casimir Pulaski Day"
8. Herman Dune - "Not On Top"
12. Page France - "Chariot"
15. We/Or/Me - "Aimless Day"
Some of the others I could do without, and some were okay, but these 6 are briliant. Sufjan's is the best. Such a beautiful sad song. I see you have a guilty pleasure for dance pop too. That's okay! ;+)
Cheers.
Merrrrrrr . Your list was shit!!!!!!!!.
God bless you steve irwin
Steve was told to wear 30+ protection to protect him from the rays.
Sean,
There is so much fantastic music out there...thank's for putting together yet another good list. I had heard some, and definitely had been missing out by not hearing others. Sufjan is brilliant, as are the New Pornographers; and I have NO idea why I have not been listening to Andrew Bird until now. Word.
Hello,
I'd like to buy a textlink on your site.
How much would it be? Are there any discounts for advance payment if I order 4-6 month placement?
I'm running some music info blogs and would like to purchase some links for better page rank. I'm currently 0 PR.
I purchased backlinks aldready on livemusicblog.com (in Resources block), radioblogclub.com and in onlinemusicblog.com and few others for my blog.
But I would like to purhcase more for the some blogs that I just created
Please let me know
Thanks!
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