Trucking on with my favorite music of last year, we now come to Hercules And Love Affair. This is one of the best releases yet from DFA Records, which is considerable as they may be the most illustrious dance imprint of the decade. While I enjoyed this album quite a bit, I can't help but think it would mean more if I was a sensitive, sexually confused adolescent. Any sensitive, sexually confused adolescents want to weigh in on this record? Meanwhile, here is a clip for "You Belong":
I covered this album for No Ripcord. Here is a lil' bit of that:
Much like Neon Neon this year crafted a sound perfectly suited to a fictitious impression of the materialistic 80s, Hercules and Love Affair have perfected the ideal sound of an imagined era in dance. Bearing the DFA stamp (and drum programming by Tim Goldsworthy) through a release on Mute, the collective presents a racially diverse polysexual vision of how one might like to think it was. Feel free to ignore the elitism and vacuous hedonism that inspired those caustically sarcastic Chic anthems, Hercules and Love Affair give us a bracing collection of talented modern outcasts to imagine dancing with 30 years ago.
I know I blogtalk quite a bit about No Ripcord. It is not just because I write for them. I genuinely think that, my obnoxious contributions aside, No Ripcord maintains an astounding level of quality control and quantity of thoughtful content. A good example is the recurring Obsessions and Lamentations column. Not much ostensibly, just a guy noting the current popcult things that have caught his attention. The observations, however, are priceless and insightful. It is written by a guy named Alan Shulman. He is a delightfully smart, funny and opinionated writer who really should be writing for a magazine by now. If nothing else, he gets my eternal props for single-handedly knocking TV on the Radio out of contention for the aggregated Metacritic best albums of 2008 honor with his controversial 5/10 review. Why isn't he a major music writer by now?
Well here is the exciting conclusion to the list of 2008's best music my friends at No Ripcord started yesterday. Strangely, I found it less exciting than 50 through 25. Part of it is the list seems to get indier, whatever you take that to mean, as it goes on. Part of it is that I read too much about music, and these lists get more familiar as they get higher. Most of this I've heard at least some of in a mix or through a friend, and has been discussed ad nauseum, and just feels staler. There's a lot less here that I feel I really missed out on, though I am still curious about the most recent offerings from Jamie Lidell and Nick Cave (I'd also like to see them fight, mostly because, like all pop culture fans, I really want to see Nick Cave murder somebody with his bare hands). That is why top 50s are better than top 10s, concision be damned. For the George Booker blurb watchers, note that I wrote the entries for Neon Neon, The Bug, and Portishead all by myself. Crazy. I'm a workaholic, really, I've got to learn to delegate.
For all the haters that say I can't write short, you may notice that this includes blurbs (that's right, blurbs) that I composed concerning this year's releases from Ratatat and Hercules and Love Affair.
If you want to know what I voted on for this beast of a list, take a look at my favorite music of 2008. There I touched on how much I miss working for a record store or radio station. Despite all of the great music I found this year and the joy writing about it brought me, this list reminded me of some things I missed that I'm really curious about:
Harps and Angels by Randy Newman I feel guilty for only knowing the guy from his family-friendly Pixar themes and ruthless parody on "Family Guy". Apparently, he's one of America's greatest songwriters.
808s and Heartbreak by Kanye West Somehow, I haven't gotten tired of "Love Lockdown". I'm excited about the bold conceit of a whole album of autotune and drum machines and sadness. Sounds almost like one of my favorite batshit Zenith records, "Oppulent Erratique".
Car Alarm by The Sea and Cake Always a pleasure to hear from these snazzy Chicago all-stars playing the muzak of an elevator to lonely heaven, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens. These guys won me over by doing one of my favorite Bowie covers ever, which is no small achievement.
Snowflake Midnight by Mercury Rev Just general guilt for ignoring Flaming Lips' brothers in arms.
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today by David Byrne and Brian Eno Yeah, I've heard it and put it on my own list, but I don't remember if I pointed out that its free right now and you can listen to the whole thing below.
Object 47 by Wire Wire is one of those oft-written-about bands I never bothered to investigate seriously until this year. Turns out they're awesome. I wonder what they're up to this year...
The Hawk Is Howling by Mogwai Despite falling out of my genre preferences, and falling outside of most hard genre or sub-genre labels (even "post-rock"), I've never really been disappointed by listening to Mogwai.
In Ghost Colours by Cut Copy They made one of my favorite Fabric mixes, and everything I've heard by them is tops in the dance v. rock donnybrook.
Quaristice by Autechre Like a lot of music that is very abstract, theoretical, and electronic, but not blindly chasing an asinine designation like "idm" even though they were one of the pioneering acts that led to the creation of that asinine designation, Autechre is actually quite funky, mysterious and sublime. Thanks, Warp.
Offend Maggie by Deerhoof. One of the only "indie" acts I always like even when I find them impossible to "listen" to, because they are adventurous and inventive and more often than not come up with good shit.
And on and on like halycon. There is just too much good music in the world that we don't listen to enough of it. Has anybody heard this stuff that wants to weigh in? Want to work out a CD swap?
Lists are fun, and this one I'm particularly proud of. I meant to compile and post it in October but it seemed creepier (lazier) to do it in December. This is a small collection of favorite horror movies by myself and a few other No Ripcord film writers, George Smith and Gary Collins. Get down on it. Feel free to argue with us. We love that shit. Check it out here.
