Favorite Albums of the Decade: 40-31

Day 2 of my favorite albums of the decade is upon us, with albums 40 through 31 coming today. Before we start that, a recap of the list so far (you can see that post here):

50. Andrew WK - I Get Wet
49. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
48. Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
47. Badly Drawn Boy - About a Boy Soundtrack
46. Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
45. M.I.A. - Kala
44. of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
43. Hot Hot Heat - Elevator
42. The Stills - Without Feathers
41. Cake - Comfort Eagle


40. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

Recommended Track: My Girls

Why I Love It: While the cries of "album of the decade!" may have been a pinch strong at this album's release, the hype that this was Animal Collective's best yet was not. This is AC distilling their sound into more of a pop structure, as you can sense Panda Bear's influence (after 2007's stellar Person Pitch) becoming more and more prominent throughout. This may be the definitive headphones and audiophile album of the decade, as this album is all about rich textures and layers of sound. Not only that, but when they take us through the chorus on "My Girls" and we get the gleeful "Ohhh!!", there may not have been a more euphoric moment from music this decade.


39. The Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder (2007)

Recommended Track: 7 Stars

Why I Love It: The Apples in Stereo were another out of nowhere band for me, regardless of the fact that they had been around for 16 years before I knew any better. This album is one that is filled with delicious vocoder driven vocals, 70's pop instrumental arrangements, and a sunny disposition mostly about...science? Whatever it is really about (obviously I am all about the lyrical content here), this album is one that surprised in its ability to alternately get me screaming out vocals and to regress into a far more contemplative state. This is not an album weighed down by import, but mostly one wondering "can you feel it." Yes we can, and it feels good.


38. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale (2006)

Recommended Track: Shakey Dog

Why I Love It: For all of the reasons Raekwon's Cuban Linx sequel is a success, so is this album. While for the most part Wu Tang Clan had a quiet decade, Ghostface exploded to become the most dominant voice from that crew. With his searing vocals, Ghostface tells us yarns of what a day to day life for a coke pushing gangster is like on the East Coast. Especially on "Shakey Dog", which is, to me, the apex of rap as a form of inner city storytelling. Not only that, but we get all kinds of guest appearances (including an honest to god Wu track), comic book and kung fu flick nods, and we learn a little about the metric system on the way as well. Who saw that coming?


37. The 88 - Over and Over (2005)

Recommended Track: Nobody Cares

Why I Love It: The 88 released one of the best albums of the 1960's, giving us rather straight forward pop rock tracks with soaring vocals, clap along rhythms, and tracks about sweet things such as coming home to your love, or things of that sort. Of course, the fact that it was released in 2005 to relative obscurity sort of alters that concept a bit, but that does not rob this album of any of its brilliance. While their follow up was...not strong, this album (which I found when I first started reviewing albums at my radio station in college) is laden with pop gems that I'd say match up with nearly anything from this decade.


36. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours (2008)

Recommended Track: Hearts on Fire

Why I Love It: Cut Copy is a group that so effortlessly fused indie pop, electronica, and influences from the 1980's into their sound on this album that they were pretty much impossible to be denied. While it's true this album really doesn't intend to be much more than an album that is light, airy, and fun to dance to, it doesn't really matter. Cut Copy is so obviously comfortable with their identity and their sound on this album that everything they do ends up sounding like everything you wanted to hear from them, but you didn't even know it. That's how you know it's good.


35. Muse - Absolution (2003)

Recommended Track: Butterflies and Hurricanes

Why I Love It: Muse is one of the most incredible bands on the planet, as in many ways they are about as talented as anyone out there. For example, Matt Bellamy, lead singer, guitarist, and pianist for the group, can do all three things about as well as anyone in music today. Whether you're looking for a classically trained piano piece in the midst of a track, or an absolutely insane riff, or some of the most beautiful vocals you'll hear from any man, they'll deliver this and plenty more. This album became a very popular one because of a few standout singles, but the depth of the album is where the gems are hidden, such as the more slow burning pieces like "Butterflies and Hurricanes" and "Blackout."


34. Cursive - The Ugly Organ (2003)

Recommended Track: Art is Hard

Why I Love It: "When you get on stage and they scream your name...oh Cursive is so cool...". From the very moment I heard those moments, with the former part sang in standard style and the "so cool" part in the background with muted vocals, I immediately knew I was a little bit in love with this band. At first, I was drawn in by the arty aggressiveness of "Art is Hard" and "Some Red Headed Slight of Hand", but later on I was pulled in by the more introspective moments like "The Recluse" and "Staying Alive." About that time I started to realize just how stellar of an album this was, and it ended up being my favorite album by one of Saddle Creek's absolute finest. Front to back, this album is loaded with power, brains, and a hidden soft streak that they'll scream at you to ignore. Brilliant.


33. Spoon - Gimme Fiction (2005)

Recommended Track: I Summon You

Why I Love It: First, I have to say that if I was going to make a list of favorite tracks of the decade (I may still do that), "I Summon You" would have to be up there for the top prize. This album followed their less structured and more eclectic album Kill the Moonlight and really focused on focusing the bands strengths into more straightforward tracks. For the most part it was a success, as tracks like the aforementioned "I Summon You" and "My Mathematical Mind" end up being every bit as wonderful as anything else in the Spoon discography. However, it falls somewhere in between the spontaneity of Moonlight and the polished pop sound of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, and that lack of identity keeps it in the 30's for me.


32. Phantom Planet - The Guest (2002)

Recommended Track: One Ray of Sunlight

Why I Love It: Alright, cool it with the laughter. If you're thinking "really? the band that made the O.C. theme song?" well, you'd be right. That is in fact this band. However, hidden under that overplayed (but infectious) track is an album that is 60's bubble gum pop at its finest. Loaded with more hooks than a meat locker and featuring more toe tapping beats than almost anyone should be expected to handle, this was my album of choice for one entire summer during the middle of this decade. It still stands up to the test of time as an album that will get spins from time to time, just because every once in a while you need a little bit of pop in your life.


31. Air - Talkie Walkie (2004)

Recommended Track: Alone in Kyoto

Why I Love It: Whether it's the simmering creepy beauty of "Run", the effortless cool of whistle happy "Alpha Beta Gaga," or the Eastern quietness of standout track "Alone in Kyoto", Parisian duo Air takes us on a journey through their sound on this album. The way they structure their purely electronic sound gives the album the feel that it is more organic than your average album of this sort, giving it additional weight and soul throughout. This is their masterpiece in my mind, and one of the best electro pop albums of the decade, assuredly.

Over/Under

This weekend I was laying on my couch watching TV, recovering from the hectic evening the Roots concert presented and preparing myself for a sojourn into the midtown Mecca (my beloved stretch of road that includes my most frequently visited commerce based locations - Kaladi's, Middle Way, Boscos's), when I found myself engrossed in Hellboy. It was playing on TNT HD, and as much as I hated having to watch commercials and desired to put in my DVD to watch instead, the ramificiations of the previous night strictly disallowed this.

Which was fine.

Commercials allowed mini-naps and jaunts to other locations in my house to perform other duties (a little laundry here, dishes there, drinking a gallon of water and downing four advil as well...), so all was good. However, watching that movie and the barrage of Hellboy II: the Golden Army commercials really got me thinking about all of the things out there that gets ignored because of the whims of the audience and all of the crap that makes the big bucks and earns all the praise. So here I have a few little nuggets I want to share, because you know me: I love sharing my opinion on anything and everything, especially when it comes to what is over and underrated.

Movies: Underrated - Dark City (written and directed by Alex Proyas). Overrated - Any studio movie by Guillermo Del Toro.

While watching Hellboy, I couldn't get over the fact that there was simply something wrong with it. Overall it's a decent enough movie, but there is just something...off about the whole thing. Then the commercials for Hellboy II kicked in and I kept thinking about what a monumental trainwreck that was overall. Then I got to thinking about Blade II. At about that point, I started to wonder, can Guillermo Del Toro, visual genius and well regarded auteur, do anything right when it comes to making American studio films?

Don't get me wrong, I love Pan's Labyrinth, but that was Del Toro on his own turf. Pretty much everything he's made in America has been well regarded, but for the most part it's average at best (or it wishes it was).

Yet you have Dark City, a dynamic, methodical, and flat out brilliant sci-fi film featuring huge concepts and actual substance. Alex Proyas made an absolutely amazing comic book movie that wasn't even based off a comic, it just represented all of the high concept yet grounded in substance style you'd want out of a movie of the sort. Yet it didn't even clear $15 million dollars and to this day it has hardly even found an audience. People even claim that it was a rip off of the Matrix, which doesn't make for a number of reasons, most obviously the fact it came out before the Matrix.

The point is, Proyas made an incredible film, yet has made only two movies since. Del Toro on the other hand is an industry golden boy without any real success (in my eyes) in American film.

Sometimes, there isn't any justice.

Alan Moore Comics: Overrated - Watchmen. Underrated - Top 10.

Oh my! Did I really say that? Did I say the universally praised Watchmen was overrated? How could I do so? Well, I would like to say that I do quite like Watchmen. It's an extremely good comic book and I understand why people like it a lot. What's not to like? Moore is at peak form here, you have Dave Gibbons supplying fantastic pencils, and you have an extremely relevant and engaging story.

What I question isn't it's quality, which it is, just those that claim that it is the pinnacle of the comic book artform. To me, I'd take Preacher. I'd take Y the Last Man. Hell, even in terms of the universally loved comics, I'd probably take Maus over it. It just doesn't have the personal feel that I think makes a great piece of art a masterpiece.

On the other hand, Top 10 is a work from later in Moore's career that many overlooked. It was from his publising line - America's Best Comics - that featured his more highly regarded runs on Tom Strong and Promethea. Lost in that web of incredible works was Top 10, which was like a procedural cop drama in a world where everyone had powers. Except one that was long on interpersonal relationships and short on fictional forensic procedures. Okay, perhaps it was long on that too, but go with me here.

In recent years, Top 10 has started to earn a modicum of the praise it deserves, especially with Wizard naming issue #8 from season 1 the best single issue since I've been alive (whatever that means). But at the same time, I think it deserves to be held in the same regard of his best work, including Watchmen.

Overrated movies: Sunset Blvd. (Directed by Billy Wilder)

When I was at the library today, I was checking out works by H.P. Lovecraft due to my recent addiction to anything and everything Mike Mignola related, and while reading the inside cover of At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels by Lovecraft, I noticed something that really struck home about what I wanted to say about Sunset Blvd., the 26th highest rated movie of all time according to IMDB.

About Lovecraft's work, the editor (or someone) said, "At the Mountains of Madness remains one of the few works of American science fiction from the 1930's that can be read today for genuine literary pleasure rather than dutiful historical interest."

That is the exact point I'd like to make about older movies. Because I loved movies so much, in college I started watching much older movies to brush up on the classics. I started light, with the pop genius that was most of the work from the late 60's and 70's. Then I moved onto the hard stuff, and what stood out in particular was Sunset. That movie went down like the molasses my parents gave me when I was little to get over a cough. Slowly and disgustingly. My quest to bone up on the classics became "dutiful historical interest" at that exact moment, and also ended permanently then.

Gloria Swanson may have been anxiously awaiting her close up, but my god, I was anxiously awaiting a good movie to appear. I was not expecting a boring trainwreck. Sometimes though, that's what you get.

Also overrated: Shakespeare in Love, Brokeback Mountain.

Underrated music: the 88 - Over and Over

I came across this randomly one day when I was in at the radio station I DJ'd at in college. I was looking for new albums to review, when I impulsively grabbed this off a semi-interesting description on the cover. This is precious pop defined. Precious pop is a genre Hannah and I invented to describe Dr. Dog, but it works incredibly well for this as well. Full of instantly hummable melodies, hand claps, and more hooks than you'd find in your average marina, I immediately fell in love and waited for this one to inevitably blow up.

I still am waiting.

Seriously people.

This album is really freaking good, yet I could probably poll 1,000 people in my city and I'd say at most, 5 people will have heard of it, if even that. That makes me very, very sad.

Also underrated: Anathallo's Floating World, the Elected's Sun Sun Sun, Phantom Planet's the Guest.