Last year I made a ridiculous mega-meta list that continued into this January. Never again. There’s no way anyone cares about my lists of lists…maybe they do but my opinion of other people’s opinion of my opinion doesn’t seem…like…..it’s not as important to me. And I did do it for myself to refer back to, but I haven’t. I really should. There’s only so much you can do tho. I took some time off reading the entire internet every day to study for the JLPT this year and I’ve got 1000+ unread items. I couldn’t buy most of the albums I wanted this year and haven’t listen to some of the ones I did buy. Missed a lot of shows too. But my system is improving. I’m going to be able to get to this stuff, I’m telling myself. I just gotta stop caring about stuff I don’t care about. So many bands…I don’t understand why so many bands exist. I mean, bands, yes, I love bands but…so many. I’m saying it’s too many. Can we work on making the bands we have better? Let’s maintain our resources is all saying. If you weren’t in a band in 2011, don’t start a new one in 2012. It’s already impossible and it’s getting harder. Even if you’re already famous a guest spot on a Justin Beiber track is your only shot of living without a roomate in 2012. And when that dude goes it’s ALL over. Luckily he’s young. I’m sure he’ll become a totally normal adult with a long life and also the entire world economy and ecosystem will not collapse, destroying everything and everyone but for those who envy the dead.

1. Perfume – JPN

   ~No comment~

2. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
   

   It is. He did. (What am I doing.)

3. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu – Moshimoshi Harajuku

   Maybe it’s not a full album and not even every song is great. But video of the decade‘s gotta count for something. That’s right, I’m calling it. Everybody, you’ve got 9 years to try to top that. Huh huh!

4. Dream Morning Musume – Dorimusu 1

   The first disc is fans-only. The second disc cannot be argued with. (Literally, I have misplaced the second disc. I don’t really need it, but I would like it. Also, I need it. If you see it around please let me know.) This CD is priced at 3333 Yen. Do you what that comes out to in dollars at the current exchange? (It’s right in the link but) TOO MANY…for any album that could not guarantee 100% satisfaction and emotional closure. Which it did, maybe even before I got it. As soon as I put that order in I could begin to reassemble the scraps of my former life, before I had ever heard of any incarnation of this group. Everything else was sweet, sweet gravy. Thank you, Dream Morning Musume, for making this album.

5. Wild Flag – S/T
   

   This band did everything right with how they handled their business. They wrote some songs, then played live and got people interested based on the strength of their material and performance. (Backstory helped, but look at any failed supergroup.) They then recorded a single that was first a free download OR you could buy the 7″. (Now it’s a paid download
   .) Then they toured, then they recorded an album. It doesn’t make it a perfect album, but the songs are pretty good, and what it does is it proves the band is worth further attention. Hate to use this as a lecture, but it was such a perfect approach. With all the bullshit going on and so much music coming out, I had it in the back of my mind that I needed to hear this as soon as it came out. And I did. Got a thousand things in the pile here. This did not go into the pile.

6. Mastodon – The Hunter
   

   Got the deluxe but haven’t watched the DVD yet, which makes this a terrible review of that product. But c’mon, it’s only a couple dollars more. If you’re gonna buy the package why not, I figure. Really dug the Crack the Skye one. That album was better of course. I like this one a lot, but they really couldn’t top the concept with anything huger. I think it was a good approach. I like some other extreme influences creeping in more than the prog overload on CTS. You can’t really overdo prog it’s almost the point, but like Blasteroid has a little Converge in it. (Rubbing off from their tour together 09 tour. Yes, I did say “rubbing off”.) Brann sure sings a lot on this one. Only complaint you can say about Mastodon is maybe they should so so much production on the vox. Because they can not always pull off the harmonies live. (No matter how close they get it they can’t sound like multiple versions of themselves.) But that’s not the record’s problem. It’s the system, man. You can put 100 fx on the guitars but the mic needs to be raw or the whole thing’s considered a sham or whatever.

7. Shabazz Palaces – Black Up

   Ok, I’m old now so I don’t really get new rap anymore. I did not start hating black people. But let me tell you something: these guys are older than me. They can still make records. And it sounds like something new. I still like new things. Just not all the time. If there’s someone in a new band from an old band I liked as a young person it helps a lot to ease the fear and confusion I now constantly experience in my early 30s….now I’ve lost track of my own sarcasm. I really like this. It’s not a joke review. Please…just go if you want. You can go.

8. Boris – New Album
   

   I dunno, 3 albums this year I feel like I gotta pick one. Sometimes I feel like Boris is playing an elaborate joke on music critics. But at least they do it better than Lou Reed in that they make something you want to listen to.

9. Motorhead – The World Is Yours CD/DVD Set
   

   Another 2 disc-er. It’s Motorhead. They seem to get more and more consciously retro Rock n’ Roll and less the style that inspired a lot of Metal, which you could just as well call Metal but Lemmy doesn’t and who am to contradict Lemmy? Not to crap on me, but I’m not Lemmy. I think everyone in a rock band or not, should take some time out of each day to remind themselves that they are not Lemmy. A good exercise is to ask yourself in any situation, “What would Lemmy do?” The answer is “Not the thing you are going to do next.” Because you are not Lemmy. Even on a rare occasion where you might do the same thing that Lemmy would have been doing, for example, if you were at a bar with Lemmy and you both tried to walk through a door at the same time because you asked yourself what he might do next and you thought the answer was to walk through that door at that moment, and you were right, you would not only embarrass yourself, and Lemmy—the worse possible occurrence—you would be wrong, because Lemmy did not ask himself if he would walk through that door, he just did it. Or he tried to. So please. You can watch the Live at Wacken DVD instead. It’s Motorhead, you’ll like it. RIP Wurzel. I’m not doing a top 10 saddest deaths, but I like the Wurzel era stuff.

10. Shonen Knife – Osaka Ramones
    

    Couldn’t put this near the top of the list, but it’s way better than it should be. Maybe you remember when The Queers and bunch of bands did straight covers of entire Ramones albums? This is a lot better. Not just sticking to one album helps, they obviously are playing their favorites. There’s the unusual pick of the late-period Scattergun and a weird twist to Chinese Rocks — they just call it Chinese Rock and they seem to have turned a single entendre song about heroin into a metaphor for their music. So you’ve got to think if they’ve done it on purpose or not. “Everybody” knows they’re from Japan, but they get around enough, you don’t think they get called Chinese sometimes when they’re out and about? They’re living on Chinese Rock. If you spend more than a little time on this band, you’ve got to decide if they’re just that dumb and it’s cute or they’re actually really, really smart. I think they got it all figured out.

We’re probably still doomed tho. Happy New Year.%

Between 1991 and 2001 I had gotten through high school, most of college, a couple trips to a mental hospital, an intense long-term but disastrous relationship, learning jazz improv, some recordings of experimental music, drinking, a few drugs, listening to a lot of trip-hop, jungle, noise, a period of involvement with a certain performance art/UFO cult, started an artistic collective that no one would join, stupid hair tricks, cut myself and pierced my ears with safety pins, grew out and painted my nails, tore aluminum cans in half with my teeth, saw a lot of shows, worked a job I probably should have stuck with but probably couldn’t have stuck with, moved out of South Jersey, learned very little Japanese, and there was a stint as a drummer in what I’m going to call a “basement rock” band. The band ended after about half a dozen shows in the middle of nowhere because of the fame. I was medicated but sober, living with some friends who were all trying to figure out what a fuck they were doing since they had all quit their jobs to live in a house together and play in a band since there was now no band. I began working a series of retail jobs.

At first I got work near the house. I hated it. It just seemed like it was pointless and would never get better. (Which was true.) I tried to get jobs that I would like more, arts-related. The commute didn’t matter, I told myself. Just anything that is less stupid. I “succeeded”.

It’s hard to pick which commute was worse. It was by foot, bike or train. Usually a combination. I had a CD Walkman but used an old cassette one I still had if I was biking because I hated having the thing skip. Don’t let mp3 haters fool you, kids: they never perfected skip-proofing. And those things were relatively kinda big and heavy for about an hours worth of music tops. There was logistics involved. Just saying.

I’ve cut the list in half because the year divided pretty cleanly between two jobs I had then.
Read the rest of this entry »

So I thought this list would be fun, I had a pretty good idea what most of the list would be and I just had to add a little intro making fun of people who act like they are above small details like the chronology of their own life. But I almost did the same thing. Gone through several rewrites. I was reading articles all year about the 20th anniversary of Nevermind and thinking about when I first heard it as a freshman in high school and I’ve gotten so over-plugged in that I started thinking that year was actually 91. I was only entering 8th grade when Nevermind was released. This has been an interesting experiment in my own jumbled memories (a real thing that only I have access to) vs. whatever narrative I’m trying construct about myself (possibly bullshit) vs. what narrative I would want to present to people (edited bullshit) vs. real facts that can be looked up (“objective reality”).

I start writing it and I start with the bullshit, and it goes off track, I decide the whole thing is stupid, etc. Then I’m looking at it and then, unexpectedly, my brain starts working. And that’s what this is about. Maybe in the future I could be a music writer. Whatever I do, it’s going to require a consistently functioning brain. I used to have one of these, and I think I’m almost back up to speed. I’m not sure when things started to go wrong exactly, but I recall shifting my role models to individuals who were able to produce while being severely malfunctioning in every other way. Why fix the problem? The work is all that matters. Then things went a little more wrong than I anticipated. My brain didn’t handle it so well. I figured, why don’t I just shut this thing off for while? So I did. That works for a lot of people too. It’s the best state to make friends in. It’s nice to have friends, in real life. But circumstances have given me some alone time, and the situation is a lot like when things were working out between me and Mr. B. We had some problems, but we worked them out together. What if this could work again? Easier rhetorically setup than done. But things are at the point now where I can look at a year and accurately tell you what grade I was in.

What I’m trying to do here…I don’t know if I could ever do this full-time, but music is the biggest constant in my life. I’ve gone years sometimes without seeing a movie, watching tv, or reading a book. Stupid but true. I’m fine with being the outsider-y type, but my life stopped making sense even to myself. I’m trying to make the bullshit less bullshit. Using music writing to do this is the best way for me to go about it, and it’s something other people can get something out of. Otherwise I just sound like a teenage goth girl or a self-help book. And no one wants to read that (or the wrong people want to read that, and it’s not teenage goth girls, who I have total respect for—I’m just not of you…physically. I need to be less one of you. That time is over. But it’s nothing to ashamed of. It’s a fine thing to be. The best? Sure, maybe.).

Read the rest of this entry »

Sonic Youth is 30. They are celebrating with a live gig on the Williamsburg Waterfront with Wild Flag opening. I am not there. This is pretty much the show to see this summer. Still kinda mad at myself for missing WF at Johnny Brenda’s but figured I could make this one but I’m just too broke. Coincidentally, Shonen Knife is also 30 this year but we’re not talking about Shonen Knife right now. Let’s focus. I don’t need to tell you any more about Sonic Youth, it’s just an excuse for a quickie list post.

1. Daydream Nation
   Kinda wanna not give it the top spot because I will rarely put it on now because it’s so played out and so long. But it really is that good.

2. Evol
   Oh man, this is one to get next. You could totally go wrong after Daydream and get put off the band. Probably happens to a lot of people. Am I really talking like this? No, it’s just a blog. Take it easy.

3. Confusion Is Sex
   NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE. So dark. The darkest. Actually scary. No sentence is short enough to annoyingly describe it. Destroys.

4. Sister
   Most people would probably put Sister over EVOL. They seem to always play a lot of Sister songs live. Some clunkers lyrically. Actually, fuck it, I had this at 3, it’s going down a notch. Something about it tho.

5. Experimental Jet Set Trash & No Star
   Probably higher in the list than it should be for overall quality but it was the first one I got. Which makes no sense but that’s how it happened.

6. Washing Machine
   I could say a lot about this one but it has a great opener and great closer. It’s a summer album. Except wiki says it came out in late September. Becuz just sounds great blasting out of a window. It’s how summers feel to me.

7. Bad Moon Rising
   Very soundtracky, some moods just call for this album. Maybe hard to justify at #8, but it has the unbelievably epic Death Valley 69. Just noticed Dirty did not make this list, but believe it or not I never owed Dirty. It has some of my favorite songs but I only have a dub tape which cuts out several songs. (You could probably guess.) Sorry, Dirty. I just don’t think of you that way.

8. Goo
   Has it’s share of cringe moments, but they’re only moments, or are the lyrics to the title track. Probably the best overall production, if you like music to sound good. Like the breakdown part in Tunic. And Mote is maybe my favorite. Lee songs are epic (and I hate to use epic twice so close together but it’s 30 years of music here). Goddamnit, Wish Fulfillment is on Dirty, that’s another one. Turns out I do feel that way about Dirty, but it just didn’t work out. Fuck. Plus the metalheads from 9th grade are going to find me now and shoot me with their paintball guns, which I had avoided at the time by only listening to the first 3 Metallica albums until they graduated. And somehow a lot of The Doors. Weird bunch. How did ska fit into this? Man that 9th-10th grade summer was a weird one. I digress.

9. SYR 2: Slaapkamers Met Slagroom
   Might seem weird to count this, but it’s got the best parts from A Thousand Leaves which was a crushing disappointment of an album after the heavily played Washing Machine. Late 90s for me was mostly this, trip-hop, and shibuya-kei. Then I joined a rockabilly band. In retrospect…no it makes total sense. You had to be there. This record also has the benefit of being the best looking record I own so it tended to stay on the turntable for long periods. I miss my old setup but what can you do.

10. The Eternal
    Got to give them credit for pulling this one out after several records which were exactly half good. (Although I think Murray Street is probably better but I don’t really own that one either so I haven’t given it a fair shot.) This is the last CD was playing in my car a lot before the player broke. Only 2 years ago but seems like longer…shit really seemed like it was going to work out way back then. Maybe it will but time crawls with only shoddy radio reception and high gas prices. (Much better reception is North Jersey.) It’s literally a summer album but feels like it could be wintery. Not really I’m just being a jerk. It’s non-season specific. Long and zero hits but solid.

Closing thoughts: I need to stop fucking around and get some kind of actual income so I can go to more shows. This is awful. Just kidding. No I really need to move. Sonic Youth, everybody.

[edit: Yes, I added Amazon links.]

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1. Part 2
2. Take 2
3. Part 2, Take 2
4. Epilogue: The Prequel
5. 11-20
6. 2010二
7. Guys
8. In Defense of Nunrape
9. “It’s More The Way You Say Things.”
10. 2011

With that out of the way, I can make some additions without creating a new category.

It’s still January. Yes, no one cares. These lists this year are mostly for me. I’m not trying to put every list I thought was good, but there was a lot of stuff I didn’t get to that I knew was good and some other stuff I didn’t get to at all. So these links are lists of stuff I need to get back to.

BTW, it turns out using just the year as a title is a terrible idea for more than one reason: the link takes you to every post for that year and so does the link for the comment. Thought I fixed it by changing it to unicode numbers but it was not to be. If you were burning to comment have at it.

Some quick notes:

• I may have overstated my anti-Stereogum, pro-Weingarten stance. Stereogum and the Village Voice have been the only big indie/pop-covering sites I read for a while now. Weingarten has in the past said some things I disagree with (disagreements entirely outside of this blog) that I still do, but since then has said a lot more things that I do agree with and think he’s someone worth listening to in general. I should have put that into context better for anyone except the 3 people that might remember what I’m talking about. He’s probably the most currently identifiable music writer for the Voice, but I forget that he also writes for Rolling Stone. My problems with the Stereogum list are minor compared to the near mental breakdown I experience reading a Rolling Stone list. But then again I could experience a near mental breakdown reading a box of cereal or one of my own posts.
• I did try to find that black metal video I was talking about again. I really couldn’t remember the name or where I saw it. I did find this one by Belphagor. It was more extreme than that in that it involved some pooping. It’s not the anti-religious stuff that bothers me. In fact, the thing that bothers me about black metal lately is the pro-religiousness of some of the groups. My whole obsession with music and art is about getting away from religion, not trying to join another one. I’m still into the spirit of collectivism and whatnot, but… Oh the point was the music (and the title and name of the band) with that video was not at all memorable. Props to Belphegor for referencing the Actionists instead of trying to take the Necronomicon seriously or whatever. [Strong warning on that link, these are not music videos. But the music in some of them is pretty good. Way more intense than distorted guitars! Srsly, don't do it.]

More Best Ofs

• Metal Sucks Mega-list
• Village Voice: Calculating Enthusiasm, Hipness, Metalism, And, Uh, Kvltosis
• Rockmelon Soda’s Top 10 J-Albums
  Rockmelon Soda is not even a music blog, but this is a pretty good list. via Zac Bentz who did:

• Japanator Radio best-of: Part 1 and Part 2
• There’s also jrawk’s best of 2010 podcast which maybe has some better selections but the guy doesn’t talk anymore.

More 2010 Records I Bought and Enjoyed

• Cristina Black | The Ditty Sessions [self-released]
• Daniel Menche | Hover [Touch]
• Dokaka | 2nd Album (part of Discography) [self-released]
• Kayo Dot | Coyote [Hydra Head]
• Tinyfolk | CF [Rah Rah]

…this list was longer until I checked the release dates.

+ there were a couple good reissues:

• Bikini Kill / Huggy Bear | Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah / Our Troubled Youth [KRS]
• Xasthur | 2005 Demo [Hydra Head]

More Death

If 2010 seemed to go by quickly for you, we had very different years. I posted this New York Times obit recap on the tumblr with some obvious added omissions (and some you really couldn’t expect but…)

I forgot Nujabes. That happened in February somehow. Feels like years ago. And then there was Eyedea in October. October?

Then Japan Live reminded me about bice. Heart attack at 38. Ultra sad.

Then, Hello Project.

Aw crap. I did like some Hello Project still.

I even had to make my own list cause I’m not in totally into the same stuff as Celestia, but she reminded me. Momosu is getting rid of everyone that could sing and is headed back in pedotown. Berryz are just pulling out but never had very strong singers. Still, they are getting some songs. I can’t sit through any of these full albums anymore. I don’t like the direction of C-ute or Buono, the last singles I liked were from 09. S/mileage I have to admit that one song is on the edge of creepsville but it’s good. And yes I heard them covering Pucchimoni…they will never be Pucchimoni! But whatever, I’m going to go stab myself in the face, brb.

1. Moonlight night ～月夜の晩だよ～ (Tsukiyo no Ban da yo)
2. Fantasyが始まる (Fantasy ga Hajimaru)
3. 大きい瞳 (Ookii Hitomi)
4. 女と男のララバイゲーム (Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game)
5. シャイニング パワー(Shining Power)
6. 女が目立って なぜイケナイ (Onna ga Medatte Naze Ikenai)
7. くら寿司 ビッくらポン！(Kura Sushi Bikkurapon!)
8. 夢見る １５歳(Yume Miru 15 Sai)
9. 雄叫びボーイＷＡＯ！(Otabeki Boy Wao)

Nope that’s it. I can’t find another song that doesn’t make my brain itch. Luckily, I have the knife.

That’s the stuff.

%

Weird year. It was kinda like this. But also this.

It might have turned out like this or even this. But it didn’t. And 2011 and beyond will likely bring… dead links.

Wow this is getting off to a…some kind of start.

If only I would write more instead of just pointing, gooing and gaaing. That might be a better idea. What am I saying here? I’d like to think I’m more introverted than autistic this past year. Who knows. But enough of this sentence-paragraph bullshit for right now, we need a list. Here’s a list of them:

1: Stereogum’s Top 50

A list of best albums with one song from each streaming. They should have made medley-mashup mix for each. C’mon, guys! Oh, wait I’m not doing that. That would have really raised the bar. But that bar’s just fine where it is for right now. Leave that bar alone. Let’s talk about this list and why it’s my favorite. It’s the emotion. Most lists are simply an intellectual challenge. This one really went for the gut. First, panic. I simply haven’t been paying that much attention to this general area of indie music lately. A year end list used to filled with names I recognized and didn’t really care for too much. Now over half are completely out of nowhere. Thank gob for those streams. I went through the entire page in a sitting, frantically tetrising to ease the terror of oncoming senility. Soon, I felt relief and vindication. My year of ignoring this stuff was well spent. Most of it does nothing for me. The stuff I like I already knew about and the stuff I knew I didn’t like kept doing that thing I don’t like. (Maybe I would like the Arcade Fire, for example, if they stopped trying to make me feel like I’m driving away from the school I just graduated from in the car I just bought with the girl I’m not really sure if it’s going to work with but, damnit, we’re going to try…to love. No! We’re not. Done it.)

Then there’s the stuff that’s so good I can’t even deal with it: Swans. Joanna Newsom. Maybe Flying Lotus. Janelle Monae is another level of good. All music for moods I don’t find myself in the mood to digest lately.

And I did buy the new Kanye but it’s like voting for Obama.

2: Decibel Top 40

Yes, I’m linking to Stereogum again for the list. I also like their metal list. You might even say it’s got 10 more. You would be correct. But Decibel is a magazine, so they had room to give reasons for their choices. (Why do websites have less room for text than magazines? Answer in 3 or more paragraphs. Include the question in your answer.) I don’t like the two list system. Why are guitar-bass-keys-drums indie rock bands in a list (THE list) with pop-rappers and electronic one-man acts, but if guitar-bass-keys-drums bands who turn up a little louder or play faster (or much slower) that’s a whole other list? It’s not like every one of these bands is about nun-raping or whatever. Nun-rapists…maybe you would want that not in your main list. And wtf is Salem, for real? Why was I ever mad at Chris Weingarten, cause he gets paid? He deserves it.

[What I'm saying is, I like a publication with focus.]

3: Free Music Archive: Live@WFMU

You know who doesn’t deserve it? No, the FMA is a cool idea. There’s just…sooo muccchhhh. Found some cool stuff there but haven’t found a way to mentally prioritize it. When I do I’ll make some new podcasts. If you are not hip to the concept at all or have no idea where to dive into this mess, a great place to start would be the live FMU sessions. More likely some known names in there. And all these sessions are archived on FMU, but it’s now in a convenient format chopped out of the shows which of course are still great themselves but sometimes you can’t play Tetris for 3 hours or whatever you people do. You sure can’t write a blog post and listen to someone talk at the same time. So, that’s me. Put these in yr iDoodad whatchamawalkmans.

4: Hot 97 Top 10 Best Rappers of 2010

Four guys I never heard of that know more about rap than me, via Fusion Culture
.

5: More Metal lists

Fenriz should get his own listing but I want to keep some more lists together for reference. One of the few Myspace blogs ever worth reading, he makes some good general points about lists. I’m not as against modern metal as he is of course, but he picks out good stuff. (The Trapped Under Vice series is a must if you like the old school stuff. Vol. III was my favorite mixtape overall this year.

So we’ve also got:

About.com
Brooklyn Vegan
Noisecreep

…and Diane Kamikaze’s best of show, which is not all metal, but whatever. Like Decibel or Fenriz she hits that whole punk/metal-relevant area. The good stuff.

6: Village Voice: Top 10 NSFW Videos

The Voice had many epic lists, but here’s a good cross section of stuff that includes Behemoth which doesn’t happen too often. And Stereogum tried to outdo them too and maybe they did but also I can’t think of a reason to just post Sweatshirt Earl.

Somehow they both missed Cephalic Carnage’s Ohrwurm, which, without counting their lists was only the third most disturbing video I saw this year. The second was for some black metal band that involved nun rape, then got worse. (Google “communion wafer scat”, I guess. Once was enough for me.) Then there was…I can’t.

Let’s forget.

[good year for that guy with the thyroid condition]

7: Deciblog’s Random Number of Random Things

While I’m throwing Stereogum so many links, the Deciblog should get one as they tend to get fucking snubbed. Maybe they should post their lists there, but maybe some people just buy the magazine to reprint their list. I don’t know.

Obvious(?) co-sign on Slint’s Spiderland and the 33 1/3 series. Lotta good stuff.

8: Beyond the Sea: J-Albums

Here’s another whole category I haven’t been keeping up with but I’m glad someone is. It’s the more-or-less singer-songwriters of J-pop. Utada bailed this year but there’s other stuff.

Beyond the Sea was a blog I liked a couple years ago that got shut down for having downloads. Found a “beyondthesea” folder with some decent stuff on an old harddrive, looked them up and there it is. Hope they continue with writing this stuff up cause a lot of people gave up even commenting.

9: Matador’s List of Many More Lists

Haven’t even dug through this all yet. In here would be the better indie stuff. New Fall is great. New Bottomless Pit. Don’t have either yet. Yeah I guess Bottomless Pit sounds kinda 90s, unlike the fresh new sounds of… Ariel Pink? Those wacky retro novelty acts like Bottomless Pit and The Fall still putting out these novelty throwback records, quite good, believe it or not. Most people choosing ‘not’. Astonishing.

Anyway,

10: Records Paid For, Listened To and Enjoyed

1. Sigh | Scenes From Hell [The End]
2. Momus | Hypnoprism [American Patchwork]
3. LITE | Illuminate [Transduction]
4. Shonen Knife | Free Time [Good Charamel]
5. 0.8秒と衝撃。| エスノファンキードフトエフスキーカムカムクラブ EP [actwise]
6. white white sisters | euphoriaofeuphobia [real future]
7. Marnie Stern | S/T [Kill Rock Stars]
8. Torche / Boris | Chapter Ahead Being Fake [Hydra Head]
9. Early Graves | Goner [Metal Blade]
10. Ski Beatz / V/A | 24 Karate School Japan [R-RATED]

[I will of course get anything HALCALI puts out, but haven't got to it yet.]

Honorable Overall Mention: Show of the Year – Melvis/Isis@the TLA

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Original post (from April):

In the old blog I promised a traditional, focused top 10 for J-albums, but I killed the blog. If I don’t stick to it, I’m going to just drive around listening to the new Mastodon cause that shit is great.

But I figure I will add to list list as I go, committing to buy at least ten new albums from Japan this year. (I’m really being an asshole about it and not counting the new Utada.) If I get more, stuff gets squeezed out. I’m not trying to find albums that are merely “good”, but that threaten to take over your life. It’s always been my opinion that ten of such albums never come out in any given year, but blahblah, etc.

Mono | Hymn to the Immortal Wind
Morning Musume | Platinum 9
Ha.

It’s August. Fuck it. I’m not a critic, or even a consistent opinion-giver. Nobody cares about my year-end list, not even me. I thought it would be a good challenge for me to fill in the format for once with something meaningful to me. But it’s a bad challenge, or I fail the challenge, or the format fails me. I think sticking to my new format of strictly random reviews of records I own is a better challenge, but I have to get this one out of the way.

If you didn’t notice I decided adding to the list as I went was a terrible idea. I did drive around listening to only Mastodon and Momusu for a couple months. (Mono does not work as driving music for me, or you.) Then my CD player broke. This sucked but turned out to be good as it increased my gas mileage and decreased the amount of rocks thrown at my car considerably. It also got me listening to the radio, reminding me why I got into blogging about bands I originally discovered on YouTube. Sure there’s some good stations or individual DJs still out there, but I find myself on the edge of reception most of the time at best. Even the college stations, when the shows focus on current American indie, which used to be full of bands mind-blowingly good or fascinatingly bad—-it just seems “ok” to me. Everybody else seems to only care about putting the minimum amount of imagination into stuff you can dance to or seeming “dangerous” in some way. None of it really pushes anywhere. Few exceptions, but I’m tired of rhetoric, which is only part of the problem. Here’s my stupid list:

(btw, I started buying records alphabetically and did not get far before my credit card company cut the absurd limit they gave me a couple years ago in half, to just about what I owe them. Could be worse.)

Best of Records That I Could Afford Released in Japan in the First 8 Months of 2009 by Artists that Start with “M” Somehow

1. Muramasa☆ | BEST [Limited]
2. Mono | Hymn to the Immortal Wind [Human Highway]
3. Morning Musume. | Platinum 9 [UP-FRONT WORKS/zetima]
4. Marty Friedman | Tokyo Jukebox [avex]
5. MEG | Beautiful [Universal J]
6. MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS | World Is Yours [Avocado]
7. mudy on the Sakuban | Kidnie [zankyo]
8. Mari Yaguchi x AIRBAND | Seishun Boku/Seishun Ore [UP-FRONT WORKS/hachama]
9. mouse on the keys | An Anxious Object [MachuPicchu INDUSTRIAS]
10. m-flo | inside -Works Best III- [Rhythm Zone]

[edit: these get actual reviews as they come up randomly, which could take several years.]

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