Here are five songs from albums that did not make my personal Top 10 for 2011 (stay tuned for that list…):
5. Gary Clark, Jr: “Bright Lights Big City”.
This is a live version of the title track from his EP.
Having read and heard about him throughout the year, and seeing the goods in living colour on YouTube (check out the evidence here), I was dutifully impressed when I picked up the Bright Lights EP. But I am here to tell you, having seen him just this past weekend at a tiny venue: this dude is the realest of deals. I will be extremely surprised if 2012 is not a breakout year for him, and it can’t come soon enough. Word to the wise: if you have a chance to see him live, do it. You will regret it if you don’t, because he won’t be playing small venues too much longer.
4. Florence & The Machine: “Strangeness and Charm”.
Lots of hype here, and this new album does a half-decent job living up to it. If it’s a tad over-produced and all over the place at times, it is also audacious and totally unique. And the young and very sexy Florence Welch has an epic set of pipes. On this song I find her/their approach fully satisfying, as it evokes the best of ’80s pop and cuts it with a bleeding-edge sensibility. I hear Kate Bush; I hear Siouxsie Sioux; I am getting some Bjork and even some P.J. Harvey, all funneled through a Fiery Furnaces meets early MTV vibe. But mostly I am hearing –and feeling– the siren song of a wonderfully strange and charming new talent.
3. Mastodon, “Black Tongue”.
I wrote, happily, about this band in 2009 when they had their coming-out party into the semi-mainstream with Crack The Skye. Here is some of what I had to say: Some men let their freak flags fly. Some men get tatted up and sport full arm sleeves. Other men get tattoos on their fucking foreheads. (Whatever else you can say about Brent Hinds, he does not have commitment issues: inking your forehead is commitment; he’s like a head-banging Queequeg.) You only do shit like that if you are in this for the duration, which means that half-stepping is simply not an option. Either that or you’ve done a lot of drugs. Looking at the dudes in this band, you know it is all of the above. And then you listen to them. These guys somehow balance a full-on testosterone assault with brilliant writing and playing (and singing, as most of the members share the vocals at times), and deliver a product that is both thoughtful and bruising.
For me, their latest, The Hunter, is a bit all over the place (not in a good way) and seems more haphazard then inspired, but you can’t accuse these guys of faking it. They come out en fuego on the opening track, “Black Tongue”. On one hand, too bad the entire album isn’t this great; on the other hand, the band may have combusted if they attempted to maintain this intensity for a full session. These cats are music as cage match: every man for himself with all instruments and vocals brawling to come out alive. This is art as confrontation; love it or loathe it, you cannot be indifferent to Mastodon.
2. Tom Waits, “Talking at the Same Time”.
His last one, Real Gone, cracked my Top 50 of the previous decade. Seven years is a long time to wait between albums, so anticipation –and expectations– ran high for the follow-up, Bad As Me. I find some of it consistent with everything I love about Waits (the eccentricity, the honesty, and the guitar of Marc Ribot), I find some of it random or worse, and I find too much of it a horse that’s been beaten well-past submission. The Captain Beefheart affectations are tolerable in small-to-moderate doses, but anytime you spend too much time thinking of another artist that’s seldom a good sign. But what do I know: many of the faithful (for whom, admittedly, Waits can do no wrong) thought this album was yet another masterpiece. I’m not feeling it, but I am certainly grateful that this American icon is refusing to age gracefully.
1. Paul Simon, “Love and Blesssings”.
Another one that had some people saying Simon hasn’t lost his fastball and other people saying “Who is Paul Simon?”
Okay, no one would ever say that. Although you can’t fault the younger generation for looking at Simon, who is aging with neither the charm nor the hairline of Tom Waits, and wonder why he is wearing so much make-up these days. (And has he had work done? Is he trying to avoid looking like Grandpa from The Munsters or is that what he’s going for? Either way he should just accept that he was never much of a looker in the first place and age like a man. Ease off on the powder, pal; you wrote “I Am A Rock” for Christ’s sake…)
Anyway, the new album is, to quote Larry David: Pretty…pretty…pretty…pretty…pretty good.
I am pleased that Simon is still inspired and on a song like “Love and Blessings” he proves that he still has it going on (and major props for sampling “Golden Gate Gospel Train” by the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet).
