"There are oceans and waves and wires between us, and you called to say you're getting older..."

Cover illustration of Secrets magazine issue #1405, November 10, 1962

With the end of 2011, I've decided to take a break for a while. While my reasons for stepping away are not the same as those of online music-writing legend Mark Prindle, who also shut down his site this week, I can sympathize when he says that it just kinda stopped being fun. After three years of daily posts (barely missing a single day the whole time, a fact of which I am a little proud), I find that keeping this online journal of my music experiences has changed my connection to music. I need to step away for a minute and see if I can start enjoying music outside of the context of writing about it, and my guess is that I'll take at least all of 2012 to do this.

I'll leave all the entries up for random Googlers, and the MP3s will all stay active for at least a little while. I'd like to thank everyone who's read this blog - it's been a cool experience, but I think I'm going to spend a few months fully absorbing the new Guided By Voices record (and going back to a lot of great records I wrote glowing reviews of, which have been gathering dust on a shelf ever since). I may start posting again at some point as well. We'll see. And, because I'm a weirdo who obsesses over minutiae and symmetry, I'm ending my blog with the titular song that I started it with in November 2008. Bye, folks...

"Wires and Waves" by Rilo Kiley

In Stores Now: Let's Go Eat the Factory by Guided By Voices

Image from an advertisement for Bon Ami washing powder, 1932

I'll say right up front that I have no "distance" when it comes to classic-era Guided By Voices. Those albums were a big part of my life in that part of your life where things can be impossibly big. So a new Guided By Voices album, recorded by the full "classic" lineup (Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Greg Demos, Kevin Fennell, and Jim Pollard), is almost too much of a thing to write about. Perhaps the most wrenching part of the experience for me is that I can really see the connection between Let's Go Eat the Factory and those albums - it's like the last fifteen years are irrelevant when these guys get together and make music.

Let's Go Eat the Factory seems to grow naturally from the last Guided By Voices LP - 1996's Under the Bushes, Under the Stars - which at the time was an unxepectedly dark, stitched-together, sprawling thing of beauty. Like that album, Let's Go Eat the Factory has a handful of perfect (and perfectly miniaturized) pop singles ("Doughnut for a Snowman", "The Unsinkable Fats Domino", "Chocolate Boy", "We Won't Apologize for the Human Race"), as well as over a dozen more surprising and wonderful pop experiments. Tobin Sprout's contributions are important here as well (as they were on Under the Bushes), including dense, droning rock ("Waves"), fragile ballads ("Who Invented the Sun"), and even a track that does the former and then suddenly the latter (the brilliant, two-faced "Spiderfighter").

The one development I see, though, is that Guided By Voices is not interested in delivering any "Anthems" with a capital A this time out, which is odd considering Robert Pollard's inspirations and instincts - Let's Go Eat the Factory has no "Official Ironmen Rally Song". As a result, this album comes across to me as the most direct tribute to Pollard's beloved Wire (circa 154) ever recorded by the band, flipping the switch between dark art-rock, delicate piano minimalism, and concise pop (it's a three-way switch, okay?!?) It's an inspired choice for Pollard and the boys at this point in time, but not an obvious one - the question is this: why wouldn't Pollard use the reunion media buzz to put out a more straightforward rock album for the curious masses? The answer is simple: because he's Robert Pollard and he doesn't care what anyone thinks. He's going to follow his muse - if this one doesn't hit the spot for you, there'll be another. Seriously, there's going to be another Guided By Voices album released in the next six months or so, titled Class Clown Spots UFO. Watch for it.

In the meantime, if you're an old-school Guided By Voices fan, there are moments on Let's Go Eat the Factory that will give you the chills. When the opening bass notes of "The Head" rattle Kevin Fennell's drum set audibly, when the high-harmony vocal comes in halfway through "Doughnut for a Snowman", when Pollard conjures the cynical, sneering ghost of John Lennon on "Hang Mister Kite", you'll feel that old lo-fi magic.

"Doughnut for a Snowman" by Guided By Voices

Top 50 of 2011: #1 The Double Cross by Sloan

Cover illustration by Gerald Gregg for Phoebe Atwood Taylor's Banbury Bog, 1948

#1 The Double Cross by Sloan (Yep Roc)

As is usually the case, I still stand by my original assessment of Sloan's The Double Cross (found here), but here's why I think it's the best record of the year.

By the way, does it mean that I am now officially an "oldster" because my favorite record comes from a band celebrating twenty years together? Possibly, but I can't get past the fact that Sloan is one of my absolutely favorite bands, and they put out an album this year that pushes its way into my Top 3 EVER Sloan abums (along with Navy Blues and Never Hear the End of It). That's right - I'm saying that this album is clearly better than One Chord to Another, something that most hardcore Sloan fans would find blasphemous.

Here's the deal, though - The Double Cross is the album that best shows Sloan as a collaborative team of talented songwriters. While the high points of earlier albums may have better individual contributions, this one blends the elements together perfectly, which must be a challenge when you have four distinct songwriters in the band (even when they've worked together for two decades). Each one does what they do best here - Chris Murphy chirps McCartney-esquely, Patrick Pentland sneers double-trackedly, Jay Ferguson coos over calliopes, and Andrew Scott drawls and meanders charmingly. And it just flows together end to end with a string of top-drawer singalong choruses and crunchy power-pop guitars. I know The Double Cross isn't an exciting choice for "Best Album of 2011", but, being completely honest, I can't put forward another album I liked better or listened to more consistently this year.

"Unkind" by Sloan

Top 50 of 2011: #5 - #2

Cover illustration of the owner's manual for the Pulsar arcade game unit, 1981

My top five contains albums that I've listened to countless times, but I doubt I'll be able to come up with something original to say about them. Time to use those "Original review here" links!

#5 Rolling Blackouts by the Go! Team (Memphis Industries)

With all that's going on in the world, how can it be that my Top 5 records of 2011 are all light pop fluff? I guess I needed music that makes me feel happy, and Rolling Blackouts can really "bring the happy", as the kids say. Apart from a stinker of an opening track, the latest Go! Team record mixes girl-group, J-pop, and shoegaze signifiers with pure sunshine to deliver yet another addictive sugar-rush of an album. (Original review here.)

"Buy Nothing Day" by the Go! Team

#4 Hit After Hit by Sonny & the Sunsets (Fat Possum)

2011 was also the year that I fell in love with Sonny Smith. Hit After Hit was the first thing of his that I bought, so it will probably always be my favorite. This is okay, though, because I don't think I'll ever tire of hearing this deliciously frayed-at-the-edges set of garage pop tunes. (Original review here.)

"I Wanna Do It" by Sonny & the Sunsets

#3 Cults by Cults (In the Name Of)

What? More frothy retro-pop? Not too surprising to see this one here, probably, because Cults delivered the hybrid of Saturday Looks Good To Me and Sleigh Bells that absolutely no one but me was asking for. A lot of people underestimated the level of craft behind Cults' tastefully "blown-out" beats, reverb-heavy girl vocals, and corny pop hooks - contrary to what most people say about this music being "disposable", I think that this one might stick with people and still be in circulation years down the road. (Original review here.)

"Abducted" by Cults

#2 Only In Dreams by the Dum Dum Girls (Sub Pop)

There are a lot of groups trying to do what Dum Dum Girls are doing right now, and, as a result, they got lost in the noise for some people (guilty!) But it was Only In Dreams (and, to a certain extent, the He Gets Me High EP that preceded it) that pushed their work to the next level. The difference? Well, for one thing, lead Dum Dum Girl Kristen Gundred knocked my socks off with her vocals on some of these songs. And the songwriting continues to improve without straying from that girl-group/dream-pop/garage-rock amalgam I love. (Original review here.)

"Bedroom Eyes" by Dum Dum Girls

Top 50 of 2011: #10 - #6

Illustration from the cover of Collier's magazine, February 25, 1933

Here's the top half of my Top 10 of my Best of 2011 list.

#10 Civilian by Wye Oak (Merge)

Every time I see a video of Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner performing one of her songs (or, in the case of her impressive performances for the Onion's AV Club, other people's songs), I'm very impressed with her charisma and magnetism as a performer. However, I don't think Wye Oak has yet made a record that fully capitalizes on Wasner's charm - there are moments on Civilian that are anonymously competent, but nothing more. However, the album really has some great moments, like the title track, and I can't help but think that Wye Oak's next release will be the one where it all clicks.

"Civilian" by Wye Oak

#9 Yuck by Yuck (Fat Possum)

Today's run-down includes a UK band mimicking American '90s indie-rock and an American band mimicking UK '90s indie - it's a formula that is working for me right now, not because I'm especially interested in derivative rehashings of sounds from my youth (I hope), but because these bands use these familiar sounds to deliver some sharp hooks and songwriting. London's Yuck gave us a self-titled album this year that recycled Dinosaur Jr, Elliott Smith, and Sonic Youth - an odd combination of influences, but i can't argue with the highly addictive results. (Original review here.)

"Georgia" by Yuck

#8 Dye It Blonde by Smith Westerns (Fat Possum)

Chicago's Smith Westerns may have done some things this year that revealed them as not-quite-ready-for-primetime teenagers (lackluster live shows, massacring a Tom Petty classic in a widely-viewed Internet forum, Belgian stage-collapse Twitter scandal, etc.) I'll admit that I've wanted to tell this band to "GROW UP" a couple times, but my affection for their dense and lovely Dye It Blonde hasn't diminished. Worshiping at the altar of George Harrison gets you a long way in my book. (Original review here.)

"All Die Young" by Smith Westerns

#7 Colour Trip by Ringo Deathstarr (Sonic Unyon)

And here's the flipside of the Yuck coin, a band from Texas that doesn't seem ashamed at all of their unconditional love for My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and Jesus & Mary Chain. I run hot and cold when it comes to shoegaze, so I wouldn't have thought that this album would worm its way into my brain the way it has, but it's a completely enjoyable listen end to end, with a lot of immediate hooks as well as a layered sound that rewards repeated listens. (Original review here.)

"Do It Every Time" by Ringo Deathstarr

#6 Mysterious Power by Ezra Furman & the Harpoons (Red Parlor)

I wish Ezra Furman's album had caught a little mainstream attention this year, but, because of delays in arranging distribution, the buzz around his previous record, Inside the Human Body had largely died down by the time Mysterious Power got an inconspicuous release in April. This album deserves some real attention, though, as Furman has continued to hone his incisive songwriting skills without losing any of his l'enfant terrible wildness. Mysterious Power is a compelling and intricate concept album about isolation, and it's probably my favorite of 2011's totally-slept-on releases. (Original review here.)

"Mysterious Power" by Ezra Furman & the Harpoons

Top 50 of 2011: #15 - #11

Panel from Unknown World Comics issue #1, June 1952

Today, the fourth part of my Best of 2011 list.

#15 C'mon by Low (Sub Pop)

In my original write-up of this album, I referred to Low as "the best band from Duluth", and I stand by that controversial opinion. With great sequencing and a mix of slowcore epics and sweet pop songs, C'mon is quickly becoming my "go to" Low album. Sorry, Things We Lost in the Fire, but you've become obsolete. (Original review here.)

"Especially Me" by Low

#14 Father, Son, Holy Ghost by Girls (True Panther)

I'll admit that I'm not as enamored of the unprettily titled "Vomit", the big single from Father, Son, Holy Ghost, as some people, but there are plenty of hooky, psychedelia-tinged pop songs on this album to bring me back to it on a regular basis. The title's evocation of god/father and the lyrical references to "mother" provide a nice tie-in to Christopher Owens' famously odd upbringing as well, without the album being about growing up in a cult. (Original review here.)

"Honey Bunny" by Girls

#13 Wild Flag by Wild Flag (Merge)

I think there must have been a lot of anticipation and high expectations around the debut by ladies-of-PDX supergroup Wild Flag, because I can't think of another album as good as this one that got significant backlash this year. A Sleater-Kinney/Helium hybrid with she-Who guitar leads and heavenly harmonies is something I can't understand being mad at. (Original review here.)

"Romance" by Wild Flag

#12 Belong by the Pains of Being Pure at Heart (Slumberland)

When I heard that the new Pains of Being Pure at Heart album used the early Smashing Pumpkins sound as a primary reference, I got worried. But there was no need - while that influence can be heard in some places, it's done tastefully (not all up in your face), and Belong is a soft-n-fluffy avalanche of twee-pop hooks and melodies to dispel any lurking echoes of grimacing '90s grunge angst. (Original review here.)

"Heart in Your Heartbreak" by the Pains of Being Pure at Heart

#11 New Theory of Everything by Mars Classroom (Happy Jack Rock)

This is the highest-placing Robert Pollard release of the five (!) that made it onto my Top 50 list, and I wish I'd had room for it in my Top 10 (if only because Pollard deserves to have one Top 10 slot reserved for him every year.) A collaboration with with Gary Waleik of '80s college-rock radio shoulda-been-heroes Big Dipper, Mars Classroom is the most rewardingly straightforward set of Pollard songs in ages, split neatly between creamy ballads and sparkling power-pop gems. (Original review here.)

"New Theory" by Mars Classroom

Top 50 of 2011: #20 - #16

Photo illustration from an advertisement for Sony/Superscope tape recorders, 1970

Here's the third part of my Best of 2011 list.

#20 As Far As Yesterday Goes by the Red Button (Grimble)

This is the first of only two releases in my Top 50 that I haven't already written about on my blog this year, and it's because I only just got my hands on a copy of As Far As Yesterday Goes. Like the first Red Button record, it's an impeccable collection of sweet power-pop tunes in a very Beatles-y vein. However, the songs branch out a bit as the album goes along, culminating with the album closer "Running Away", a Vanessa-Carlton-ready confection that I simultaneously love and cringe at - it's a reminder that one of the two songwriters in the Red Button had a song turn up on a Mariah Carey album once upon a time.

"Running Away" by the Red Button

#19 Last Summer by Eleanor Friedberger (Merge)

You're either on-board with Eleanor Friedberger's formula of music (known by most from her Fiery Furnaces records and now here as a solo artist) or you're not - it's a predictable but satisfying combination of simple melodies, chugging rhythms, conversational vocals, and wordy, travelogue lyrics. For me, it's a winning formula every time (except when her grandmother is a guest vocalist). (Original review here.)

"My Mistakes" by Eleanor Friedberger

#18 Cactuses by James Rabbit (Self-released)

I wrote a glowing review earlier this year of Splendor by Santa Cruz pop combo James Rabbit. But that one was the lesser of two full-length James Rabbit releases in 2011 - the clear winner is Cactuses. A kitchen-sink smorgasbord of musical influences and pop arrangements, this album hangs together on a "road trip into the desert" concept and has an infectious grin-inducingness to it.

"Summer in the Snow" by James Rabbit

#17 All Eternals Deck by the Mountain Goats (Merge)

John Darnielle's concept album about the struggle against fate is one of his darkest and most beautiful works. The shrill acoustic rage of his early albums is long gone, and you can't expect him to write another "Going to Georgia" at this point, but why would you want him to when haunting tracks like "High Hawk Season" are just as appealing in their own way. (Original review here.)

"High Hawk Season" by the Mountain Goats

#16 One Thousand Pictures by Pete & the Pirates (Stolen Recordings)

With a familiarly spiky, vintage college-rock sound that might make you think that you're listening to Pete & the Pixies, One Thousand Pictures is one of the few albums to come out of the UK's indie community this year that caught my ear with its off-kilter melodic anthems. A must for people who like their indie rock loudQUIETloud. (Original review here.)

"United" by Pete & the Pirates

Top 50 of 2011: #25 - #21

Illustration from the cover of The Inner Landscape anthology of science fiction, 1971

For the top half of my Top 50 countdown for 2011, I've included a link to my original review of the album (where available), as well as a brief comment on my current feelings about it.

#25 The Whole Love by Wilco (dBpm)

A friend commented to me that they agreed with my original write-up of this album, saying "I'm pretty wishy-washy on it as well." Maybe I underplayed my enthusiasm when I originally wrote about it, so let me be clearer - this is the best thing Wilco's released in the last eight years (since the Bridge EP). The '60s garage sounds are good fit for what Tweedy's writing these days. (Original review here.)

"I Might" by Wilco

#24 Hello Sadness by Los Campesinos! (Arts & Crafts)

Wales' favorite hyper and hyper-verbose indie-poppers get the blues with this paean to heartbreak and soccer fandom, and it makes for their most interesting (and non-exhausting to listen to) album to date. (Original review here.)

"Hello Sadness" by Los Campesinos!

#23 Bon Iver by Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar)

Oh no! Was this supposed to be my favorite album of the year? Like a gaseous life form from Star Trek: TOS Bon Iver is too amorphous to capture my heart completely, but it has taught me a few things about a corner of the universe I've never quite understood (i.e. smooth '80s pop sounds). (Original review here.)

"Towers" by Bon Iver

#22 Evening Tapestry by Brown Recluse (Slumberland)

Without having heard the album that the Ladybug Transistor released this year, I feel I can still confidently state that Brown Recluse released the definitive Ladybug Transistor album of the year, nailing that ivy-covered woodland-bop pop sound that's been gathering dust since divorces, chronic illnesses, and day jobs caused the Elephant Six collective to implode. (Original review here.)

"Impressions of a City Morning" by Brown Recluse

#21 Let It Beard by Boston Spaceships (GBV Inc.)

Robert Pollard's most accessible and successful post-Guided-By-Voices project has been cast aside in favor of the "classic lineup" reunion, but their final album is an impressive and impressively bizarre concept album about the music biz, pushing its way into the top tier of Pollard's recent releases on the strength of some amazing guest guitarists (J Mascis, Colin Newman, Steve Wynn, and Dave Rick). (Original review here.)

"Tabby and Lucy" by Boston Spaceships

Top 50 of 2011: #50 - #26

Photo from the Reveleer annual of Gaston College, 1971

2011's been a pretty good year for music. I don't feel like I can put together a definitive list of the best releases of the year, but, as is appropriate for this journal of my music listening, I can document my favorites. Several of my new favorites are reissues (Disco Inferno's The 5 EPs) or old albums I just discovered by bands like Grin or the Verlaines. Also, there are a few much-loved releases that I either didn't get around to buying (like Real Estate's Days) or avoided because of specific roadblocks like being one song short of album length (Beirut's The Rip Tide, Destroyer's Kaputt) or Cookie-Monster hardcore vocals (I'm looking at you, David Comes to Life!) But here's the top half of the Top 50:

#50 Lord of the Birdcage by Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices Inc.)
#49 Attention Please by Boris (Sargent House)
#48 Kind Empires by the Capstan Shafts (Self-released)
#47 Goodbye Bread by Ty Segall (Drag City)
#46 Obscurities by the Magnetic Fields (Merge)
#45 Kiss Each Other Clean by Iron & Wine (Warner Bros.)
#44 Mountaintops by Mates of State (Barsuk)
#43 Go Go Boots by Drive By Truckers (Play It Again Sam)
#42 Castemania by Thee Oh Sees (In the Red)
#41 The Ship's Piano by Darren Hayman (Fortuna Pop)
#40 Collapse Into Now by REM (Warner Bros.)
#39 Burst Apart by Antlers (Frenchkiss)
#38 Waving at the Astronauts by Lifeguards (Ernest Jenning)
#37 Green Pajama Country! by the Green Pajamas (Green Monkey)
#36 Mirror Traffic by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks (Matador)
#35 Departing by the Rural Alberta Advantage (Saddle Creek)
#34 Join Us by They Might Be Giants (Idlewild)
#33 Everything You Always Wanted to Know... by Sea Lions (Slumberland)
#32 Space City Kicks by Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices Inc.)
#31 Jonny by Jonny (Merge)
#30 Secret Thinking by Kleenex Girl Wonder (Self-released)
#29 The King Is Dead by the Decemberists (Capitol)
#28 Breaks in the Armor by Crooked Fingers (Merge)
#27 100 Records Vol. 2 - I Miss the Jams by Sonny Smith (Turn Up)
#26 Dancer Equired! by Times New Viking (Merge)

"Ever Falling in Love" by Times New Viking

We Love the Ronettes: The "Be My Baby" Drum Intro (Part V)

Image of Newsy Lalonde from the Topps "All-Time Greats" hockey card series, 1960

I'm just about ready to finish up the Wires and Waves year with a countdown of my favorite albums of 2011, starting next week, but I wanted first to do one more entry in my famous series about the "Be My Baby" drum intro (you can read the first four installments here: 1, 2, 3, 4). This time, it's all about '80s power-pop/new-wave songs that feature the "Be My Baby" drum intro.

Milwaukee's the Shivvers use a fairly straightforward version of the famous drum intro on their song "Why Tell Lies" before the momentum picks up a bit as the song shifts to a Raspberries-ish power-pop style. The songs by Tommy Marolda's the Toms and Todd Rundgren's Utopia each pair the familiar drum pattern with a synthesizer, so that each beat is accompanied by a stab of keyboards. It's pretty effective, although I tend to think that the Toms pull it off a little better. Both songs have pretty sweet choruses, though, which (as they must) end with a return to that "Be My Baby" drumbeat.

As a bonus, I'm including a song that doesn't fit the '80s theme but is one that I'm very fond of. It's a song that Shudder to Think did with Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Park of Low for the First Love Last Rites soundtrack. This song goes for a more standard Shangri-Las/girl-group sound that you expect when you hear that intro, but it's all worth it to hear the first breathy whisper from Parker - "Dear diary..."

"Why Tell Lies" by the Shivvers

"Long Line of Collectors" by the Toms

"I'm Looking at You But I'm Talking To Myself" by Utopia

"Just Really Wanna See You" by Shudder to Think (with Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk)

It's New to Me: "100 Records" Volume II - I Miss the Jams by Sonny Smith

Cover illustration from The Designer and the Woman's Magazine by J. Zamatin, March 1921

One of my favorite discoveries of 2011 has been Bay Area songwriter Sonny Smith - I've been wearing out my copies of both Sonny & the Sunsets records (and I've written about both of them). But his most intriguing project may be an art installation called "100 Records", composed of one hundred fake single sleeves and a jukebox of Sonny Smith originals to go with them, recorded under a variety of pseudonyms.

Smith supposedly released a collection of songs from the project in the form of a 7" box set, but I've never seen one on a shelf. Luckily, Smith released a second collection, I Miss the Jams, with ten more songs from the project. A couple of the tracks are just sloppy garage rock tunes ("Ain't No Turnin' Back" and "Back in the Day"), but none of the other songs sound like they were banged out as part of a batch of a hundred quickie compositions. Two of them are inventive re-imaginings of songs from the most recent Sunsets record (a Latin punk "Teen Age Thugs" and an awesome version of "I Wanna Do It" sung by the Sandwitches' Heidi Alexander). There's one totally weird beat-poetry monologue called "Broke Artist at the Turn of Century", and the collection begins and ends with a couple great tracks, "One Time Doomsday Trip" with Ty Segall singing lead and "Time to Split", which has a lead vocal by Tim Cohen of the Fresh & Onlys.

"Time to Split" by Loud Fast Fools (Sonny Smith)

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Ooh La La" by the Faces

Panel from Real Funnies comic book issue #3, June 1943

Although I now own the Faces' Ooh La La album, that was not where I first heard this song. I know what you're thinking, and no, I didn't hear it for the first time in the movie Rushmore. And I somehow never heard it on classic-rock radio growing up either. My introduction to "Ooh La La" was through the band Silkworm's cover of the song from their Lifestyle album - I fell in love with the song's lackadaisical chorus hook, which worked very well as delivered by Silkworm's Andy Cohen. Ron Wood's vocal on the original is quite good as well, for the simple reason that he isn't Rod Stewart.

I'm not sure what it is that bothers me so much about Stewart's singing, but it really puts me off a lot of the other Faces' songs, leaving "Ooh La La" as my clear favorite - it probably has something to do with seeing the "Da' Ya' Think I'm Sexy" video as a child. I'm thrilled that the Small Faces/Faces are getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year (although, as would be expected, I am willing to completely ignore the RaRHof if they aren't inducting a favorite of mine). I just wish they could put an asterisk next to their induction with a footnote that says, "* except for Rod Stewart - he sucks and has terrible hair."

"Ooh La La" by the Faces

It's New to Me: Love Is Hell by Ryan Adams (2004)

Photo of a Cyprepedium Chamberlainianum from The Orchid Review magazine, July 1922

So I thought Love Is Hell would be a great place for me to start with Ryan Adams' solo work (after a successful foray into Whiskeytown earlier this year). It's not the obvious "go-to" Adams album, but it has an interesting concept (create a "mope-rock" album a la the Smiths produced by seminal UK producer John Porter). And it has an equally interesting story to go with it (his label declined to release it as an album, so Adams released it as two EPs to positive buzz, causing the label to then release it as an album, pissing off the loyal fans who'd bought the EPs).

It's an impressive album, and the Smiths-style sad-jangle is a good match for Ryans' writing style - with "This House Is Not For Sale" he provides the perfect iteration of the formula, but the album also has a couple OK-Computer-aping numbers to start things off ("Political Scientist", "Afraid Not Scared"), an inspired cover of Oasis' "Wonderwall", and a couple Paul Westerberg homages ("English Girls Approximately", "Anybody Wanna Take Me Home") without coming across as a just series of impressive musical impressions. A couple songs have weak chorus hooks that let them down (the title track and "World War 24") and most of the songs are slightly too long, making the 16-track album seem bloated, but no single section of the album lags noticeably. I don't think I'll get the same results if I continue down the road of Ryan Adams' genre-exercise albums, but I'm in a good position to give his mainstream favorites like Heartbreaker an honest listen now that he's made a favorable impression.

"This House Is Not For Sale" by Ryan Adams

In Stores Now: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sea Lions but Were Afraid to Ask by Sea Lions

Illustration from an article of Jet magazine titled "Why Lesbians Marry", January 1953

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sea Lions but Were Afraid to Ask is the long-awaited debut LP by Oxnard indie-pop band Sea Lions. Fueled by frontman/songwriter Adrian Pillado's love of '80s indie music, from the C86 kids to the early releases of Slumberland Records (who released Everything You Always Wanted to Know...), Sea Lions' music is perfectly derivative, but maybe derivatively perfect as well. Pillado's consistently flat baritone vocals and offhanded delivery contrast with tinny, jumpy strummed guitar in a winning formula that dates back to Beat Happening and Orange Juice. So what makes this 29-minute album outstanding, when it employs this formula with little variation for fifteen brief tracks?

It's in the details, really. The songs on Everything You Always Wanted to Know... never really wear out their welcome - you get a bouncy riff, a vocal hook, and one or two little embellishments that fit together perfectly (it's no coincidence that the songs with strategically employed backing vocals - "Grown Up", "I Loved Her So Much", "As Times Change" - are easily the album's best). And each song has a nonchalant charm that its easy to let yourself be swept along. When the album's over, I don't find myself wanting to return to one amazing song - in that respect, the uniformity of the songs works to Sea Lions' disadvantage. But, since the album can be listened to in under half an hour, I'm inclined as often as not to just start it from the beginning and listen to the whole record again.

"Grown Up" by Sea Lions

Probabilistic Jukebox: "Under Control" by the Strokes

Cover illustration of Le Rire magazine, January 25th, 1902

I'm glad this song came up on the Jukebox - the Strokes may belong to a very particular time and place for most of us (2001-ish?), but it's nice to revisit that locale from time to time, and "Under Control" may be my favorite Strokes song. Without being completely devoid of that nervous VU-style energy, this song from 2003's Room on Fire stretches things out and unwinds a little, allowing Julian Casblancas to deliver his best recorded vocal performance - the way he drawls the climactic line, "You are young, darlin' - for now but not for long," is just great. You may think that you're done with the Strokes for good (I'm making the fairly safe assumption that you didn't buy their 2011 comeback album Angles), but I'd recommend giving this song another listen, in isolation and removed from the post-Is This It? hoopla. The deep-breath pause at the end of the chorus before the clumsy drumfill back into the verse is pretty nice.

"Under Control" by the Strokes

It's New to Me: Compilations 1995 - 2002 by Hood (2003)

Panel from Herbie the Fat Fury comic book issue #14, December 1965

Here's how I came to own Compilations 1995 - 2002 in a few simple steps: (1) I fell in love with Disco Inferno this year, and I was looking for other late '90s pastoral/noise post-rock; (2) Domino Records announced that it would be releasing a deluxe box set of Hood's LPs; (3) wanting to test the waters for a potential headlong dive into this box set, I checked Allmusic, who listed Compilations 1995 - 2002 as a decent starting place for potential Hood fans; and (4) Norman Records had coincidentally just found some copies of the compilation in the warehouse and was selling them super-cheap. So I'm listening to this CD and trying to figure out if this band has the potential to become a big deal for me, or if most of these tracks really are just tuneless lo-fi acoustic murmurings with random blasts of noise.

I'm going to give Hood the benefit of the doubt for now because I think that some of these compilation tracks weren't intended to be top-shelf material - would you contribute your best songs to a CD given away for free to ticket-holders at a Silver Apples concert? And, while "tuneless murmurings" is an apt descriptor for some of the tracks on here, there are some really excellent songs as well. "Vs. Aube" takes a recording of an avant-garde artist turning the pages of a Bible and makes it into something very tuneful and memorable. "Cross the Land" was written as a tribute to Disco Inferno, but its haunting monologue and blast of climactic noise are worthy on their own merits. Some of the low-key numbers like "All My Friends Are Dead" and "By Early Light" do the minimal techno-folk thing well and have good melodic components. But the best of the bunch is easily "Sound the Cliche Klaxons" - originally included with an issue of Cool Beans magazine (along with tracks by Kids Are Sick, Fluff Grrl, and Loners With Boners!) it's a fully-formed pop song with a nice stuttering rhythm, chiming guitars, and a haunting woodwind outro. I'd definitely go for a six-disc set of tracks like this one.

"Sound the Cliche Klaxons" by Hood

We Love Handclaps: "A Rich Nation" by Hutch & Kathy

Illustration from the cover of Journal des Voyages #61, September 1878

I'm a fan of just about everything related to the Thermals, and that includes the one-off acoustic pop project of Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster. In fact, I had a copy of Hutch & Kathy before I owned anything by the Thermals. The album has plenty of songs that cover political/personal concerns in a similar way to what the Thermals went on to do on albums like F*ckin' A. "A Rich Nation" is one such song, but the sunny folk-pop style takes a lot of the punch out of a lyric about capitalist-society nihilism, and the handclap-and-harmonica break toward the end doesn't help. But it sounds pretty good anyway.

"A Rich Nation" by Hutch & Kathy

It's New to Me: Neil Young by Neil Young (1968)

Illustration from an advertisement for Johnson's Baby Oil, 1956

Neil Young's first solo album is famously spotty, but I think that, while acknowledging that the general consensus is true, it may be my favorite Neil Young album (of those I've managed to acquire to date). Four of the album's songs are basically wastes of time - the opening track, "Emperor of Wyoming", is a theme song for a just-okay Western TV show. When I hear its plodding clip-clop melody, I can practically see the fake cowboy shot from the waist up, pretending to ride a fake horse while watching fake scenery go by. The album's other instrumental, Jack Nitzsche's "String Quartet from Whiskey Boot Hill", is little better but at least is loyal to the album's intro in its overall feel. "The Old Laughing Lady" is okay, but it's a waste of time by virtue of being six minutes long, about twice as long as it should be. And this is infinitely better than the nine-minute album closer "The Last Trip to Tulsa", which should never have been recorded at all. As far as I know, no one likes this song - apart from Neil Young, who was apparently very proud of it at the time, going so far as to print several of the song's absurdly portentous lines on the back of the album sleeve. Something about murdering a dude by dropping a palm tree on him - and it's just one terrible moment in an interminable and immeasurably boring track.

What was I saying? Oh yeah - I was explaining how much I love Neil Young. Those four songs are pretty weak, but the album's other six songs are now among my favorite Neil Young songs ever. "The Loner" is the only one I'm lukewarm about, but "If I Could Have Her Tonight", "What Did You Do To My Life", and the others are just what I want Neil Young songs to sound like. It's probably because this album falls in that window between Buffalo Springfield and CSNY, where my Neil Young fandom started, but each of the songs really hits the mark for me. My favorite is probably "Here We Are in the Years", but it could just as easily by "I've Been Waiting for You" or "I've Loved Her So Long".

"Here We Are in the Years" by Neil Young

In Stores Now: Phil Seymour Archive Series Volume 2 by Phil Seymour

Illustration from How the Uncared-For Epileptic Fares in Illinois by the Chicago Committee of Fifty, 1913

This release, Phil Seymour Archive Series Volume 2, is a sequel of sorts to the 2005 reissue of Seymour's self-titled solo debut of 1980, but it is (somewhat confusingly) not a straightforward reissue of Phil Seymour 2 (1982). For one thing, the reissue of Phil Seymour created a redundancy issue by including one of the tracks from Phil Seymour 2 - Fuel Records has done us all a favor by taking the remaining nine tracks from Phil Seymour 2 and combining them with ten other Seymour recordings from this period to make Phil Seymour Archive Series Volume 2. Also, they have used the original mixes of the Phil Seymour 2 tracks, which were "remixed" (i.e. ruined) prior to their original release and sound much better here than previously.

Phil Seymour is best known as a late-'70s/early-'80s power-pop sideman who played with Dwight Twilley, Tom Petty, the Plimsouls, and 20/20. His first solo record, though, stands up quite well on its own, and this collection is a worthy sequel. The highlight of the original Phil Seymour 2 album (apart from "Looking For the Magic" which, as I mentioned, was omitted here because it was part of the Phil Seymour sessions and reissue) is easily "Surrender", a Tom Petty composition that Petty himself didn't record until years later. The rest of the album is decent Raspberries/Twilley-style power pop, but the ten non-album tracks included here are as good or better. Five tracks come from a little-known circa-'83 session where Seymour recorded songs that would have been part of the never-assembled Phil Seymour 3, including a song by the Plimsouls' Peter Case ("Now"), one by 20/20's Steve Allen ("Chemistry"), and Michael Anderson's "Maybe It Was Memphis", which became a country hit for Pam Tillis years later.

The last five tracks are a set of fleshed-out demos recorded around '84 with songwriter Pat Robinson, made up of songs written by Robinson and Seymour. These are the best of the lot - they're a little rough around the edges (the vocals on "Gotta Get That Feeling Back", for instance, are disturbingly loud in the mix), but they are some of the catchiest songs that Seymour recorded (causing me to despair once again that Seymour never recorded that third album). The highlights include the moody new-waver "It's a Shame", the breezy "Teaching Me", and especially "Telephone Line", which has a super-fun chorus and a great vocal performance by Seymour.

"Telephone Line" by Phil Seymour

Why Does This Exist?: "State of Shock" by the Jacksons (feat. Mick Jagger)

Cover illustration from The Skipper comic book, November 1st, 1930

Would this song's existence be less confusing to me if I'd been a little older in 1984, when it was a hit? "State of Shock" was the only single from the Jacksons' Victory album that didn't have a video, and (non-coincidentally?) it was the only one that broke into the Top Ten. My mind just boggles at the idea of Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger hanging out in the studio in the early '80s! I don't consider Jagger to fall into the category of harmless/cuddly singers who would duet with Jackson, like Paul McCartney or Stevie Wonder.

The track isn't terrible for what it is, and it's impressive that it was written and produced by Michael himself. Also, it helps that Jagger is pretty anonymous for the bulk of the song, only becomes intrusive when he starts rambling in a creepy way toward the end. I guess "State of Shock" was originally conceived as a duet with Freddy Mercury (Wikipedia wouldn't lie to me about such things) - I'd like to have heard a full-blown collaboration between Mercury and Jackson from that period. Instead we're left with this decent (but not really an obvious hit) funk-pop track that fits well on the Victory album ... but has Mick Jagger on it for some reason.

"State of Shock" by the Jacksons (feat. Mick Jagger)

It's New to Me: The Wall by Pink Floyd (1979)

Image titled "Die Kugel - Tanzgruppe Prof. Bodenwieser, Wien" by Arthur Benda. c. 1931

With the release of the new Pink Floyd remasters, I thought it might be time to see what the fuss is all about (of course, I've had Piper at the Gates of Dawn for years but, right or wrong, I consider it a Syd Barrett album, not part of the actual Pink Floyd discography). My observations:

1. This remaster of The Wall is pretty quiet, actually, which is not the norm with the reissues coming out these days. The sound is bell-clear and lovely overall, but the quiet parts of the record are very quiet, and The Wall is so all-over-the-place dynamically, that I had trouble finding a volume setting that hit the right balance of quiet/loud.

2. Eve knowing in advance that The Wall is a work of unbridled, over-the-top ego, I was still pretty shocked by how it comes across as drenched in nausea-inducing levels of narcissism. I wouldn't mind Pink Floyd complaining about being pampered rock stars so much if the device didn't lead them to add fake applause to so many tracks (a pet peeve of mine).

3. The biggest surprise for me, though, was that, in spite of all the unnecessary structural convolution and theatrical window-dressing, there's a real wealth of accessible pop melody in The Wall. Maybe this was bound to be the case when talented songwriters put together a piece of work that's over ninety minutes in length, but I found that there are some really catchy tunes on The Wall beyond the ones everyone knows ("Another Brick in the Wall", "Hey You", "Comfortably Numb"). My favorites are "The Show Must Go On" (with its companion piece "In the Flesh" - you could make a really, really good song by combining the best bits of the two) and "Waiting for the Worms". The latter track features Toni Tennille (of the Captain & ... fame) on vocals!

NOTE: When I originally posted this, I didn't link to the correct audio file. Sorry for the inconvenience. Ooops!

"Waiting for the Worms" by Pink Floyd