Whither Modern Rock?

This post began as a conversation in a Philly music club about a month ago. A band took the stage and began playing a type of rock music that to me was the quintessence of Modern Rock (capitals required).

"This," I yelled (it was loud), "is Modern Rock."

Some friends I was with wondered: Just what is Modern Rock? What distinguishes Modern Rock from good, contemporary rock? I thought about it. And thought about it. It's been rattling around for some time. Now the subject might seem untimely, but with the recent release of the Foo Fighters' Greatest Hits and the single "Wheels" -- a band and song that are illustrative of the history of Modern Rock -- now seems like a good time for a brief examination (this is a blog, after all) of the form.

Unlike a lot of contemporary indie rock that draws on the post punk of the late '80s and early '90s (Think Pixies, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., The Smiths), Modern Rock is a direct relative of the classic rock of the '70s. It's a big, muscular sound that can easily fill a stadium. The first Modern rock acts, to me, are the better-known, so-called grunge bands of the Northwest. Green River, Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, Alice in Chains and The Screaming Trees. These bands were all innovative in their own right, and a lot of their music is good. Or at least it was good at the time. Nirvana really never belonged in the conversation with these bands. Yes. They were loud, wore a lot of flannel and were from Seattle, but they were taking their cues from the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr. and The Meat Puppets, not Led Zeppelin or the Who.

In its early days, the music of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden sounded a lot like it was a reconnection with the great classic rock of the '60s and '70s. There were big anthems and awesome guitar solos. Rock band members looked like guys again. The well trussed and over-made-up likes of Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue were immediately forgotten. This was a good thing.

But following the success of these bands (Nirvana included), big record companies raided the artist stables of small indie labels like Sub Pop, SST and Caroline and flooded the market with everything from Smashing Pumpkins to the Breeders. Some of these bands caught on. Others didn't. But a radio formula was perfected. Guitar solos became passe, but the muscular rock sound, the interplay of loud choruses and quiet verses and big male vocalists (Eddie Vedder was the gold standard) became important parts of radio success.

The next strategy for record companies after all the established indie acts were signed (and then dropped when they didn't sell) was to sign bands that fit the new formula. Stone Temple Pilot's first release, 1992's Core is a perfect example. To be fair, STP became more interesting with every subsequent release, but their early work is formulaic Modern Rock. It was Pearl Jam Cliff Notes: big guitar, big drum beats, anthemic choruses, gristly, angsty male vocalist. In fact STP's success cast them as the real beginnings of Modern Rock as a formula and not an organic musical movement. So influenced by record label was STP that they changed their name to satisfy Atlantic before Core was released (They were Mighty Joe Young and then Shirley Temple's Pussy). This does not smell of artistic purity, though to be fair, all three names are pretty bad.

The later half of the '90s was dominated by STP clones (I used to say these singers sounded like Scott Weiland sounding like Eddie Vedder) as Soundgarden broke up and Pearl Jam retreated into a decidedly anti-corporate and overly pensive period. Reprehensible rock acts like Everclear, Papa Roach, Fuel, Seether, Nickleback and worst of all, Creed dominated the radio with big, anthemic rock garbage that still has a heavy influence on the so-called alternative rock radio of today. (I can't even bring myself to account for the so-called rap rock horror show of Limp Bizkit and to a lesser extent, but no less irritating, Linkin Park). By this time, Modern Rock was hardly even a sound anymore. It was a fashion statement. It was a style as easy to slip into as a pair of old Levis

Modern Rock claimed college rock as its antecedent, but it had nothing in common with the great college rock of the early '90s. It was big and bloated. It was loud, but it was essentially pop. It was the soundtrack of the frat house. The college kids, always looking to react against the prevailing tastes, did so in many ways. The early aughts saw the garage rock revival of The White Stripes and The Strokes and the dark and funky post punk of Franz Ferdinand and Interpol. It was a sideways move: The new stuff was angular, nor as masculine (in that neanderthal sort of way) as Modern Rock, but it was still loud. I think Modern Rock wrought the very pensive, ambient sounds of today's indie rockers like Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Deerhunter, etc. The quiet, folksy chamber pop of these "new big things" to me sound like a reaction to the testosterone overdose of Modern Rock.

Which brings us full circle to the new Foo Fighters song, "Wheels." The Foo Fighters claim a lineage to several terrific bands of the '90s. Front man Dave Grohl was the drummer of Nirvana. Bass Player Nate Mendel is a founding member of Sunny Day Real Estate. But the Foo Fighters are really Grohl's band. The really great self titled debut in 1995 was essentially all Grohl. The songs were demos he wrote and recorded waiting for Kurt Cobain to show up to record or rehearse. That first album is a blistering power-pop, punk, well, I'll say it, masterpiece.

But it wasn't long before Grohl began to send Foo Fighters down the Modern Rock road (and too a lot more commercial success). The Colour and the Shape has some great songs, but the sharp punk attitude of the debut is already quite faded. "My Hero," an overly nostalgic mess of a song was a big hit and set the stage for much to follow. Grohl was still good. On every album he'd have some good songs, but the bad was catching up with him. "Wheels" sounds like it could have been recorded by Bon Jovi. It's sentimental, banal and smoothly produced. It's lifeless. It has nothing in common with the Foo Fighters of 1995.

The forces of Modern Rock can be seen pretty well in the production of the last Kings of Leon album, Only by Night. Kings started out as a sort of Appalachian Strokes but got slicker every time out. Their third album, Because of the Times, was, in my opinion, a really brilliant, challenging rocker that got lost at times but still seemed vital. It clearly didn't sell enough. Only by Night is focused and slick but the crazed Americana that made the first two records, Youth and Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak, so good is nowhere in the mix. It just wasn't radio ready, I guess. The Followills are too strange, perhaps, to ever be lumped in with Bon Jovi, but I fear what their next album will sound like. If it's like the Foo fighters, another good band will have bit the dust (apologies to Freddie Mercury).

Modern Rock was a formula that did more to kill the vitality of the form than nearly anything I can think of. It is only fitting that its heyday was the final days of big music. As CD sales decline, and big pop anthems become fewer and further between, Modern Rock hangers-on have all the vitality of a string quartet (my apologies to the Kronos Quartet). I don't necessarily think rock is dead, so to speak. There's plenty of vital stuff out there, but it seems like its piece of the listening pie is getting leaner and leaner. In 20 years if we're wondering how rock died, the answer is Modern Rock in all its excessive, radio-friendly awfulness.

U2, The Boss, artists of the decade?

So I got the new Rolling Stone, it's best of the decade edition (there it is, to the right of this post). I always expect to have arguments with best of lists. I think that's the point of such lists. They're completely subjective, even when, as Rolling Stone claims, they consulted numerous musicians and others in the "music biz."

Some of the magazine's choices were questionable: U2's No Line on the Horizon is a good album, but the best of the year? Don't think so. But hey, it's debatable. I also had a hard time figuring how they managed to pick The Strokes' Is This It as the second best album of the decade, ahead of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But that's what criticism is about... you make choices and support them. Others will agree or not.

There's no harm in making over-the-top proclamations. In my own lists I've argued hard for the Doves, a band that nearly no other publication I've read has any time for (haven't seen them mentioned in any other best-of list I've read). But Rolling Stone made several choices that really left me flabbergasted. Under "Artists of the Decade," good picks like Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Jack White and Kanye West shared space with MIA, Bruce Springsteen and U2.

Now I know Rolling Stone is no longer a rock magazine. It's really a pop publication. But MIA? MIA has one hit song this decade... How does that qualify her as an artist of the decade? No matter how great, I don't see how you can earn artist of the decade cred with one song.

I was equally baffled by U2 and Springsteen. Both are great artists. I like U2 a lot, and their most recent '00s albums are good, but the band's influence -- and they are perhaps one of the most influential band's of the last 25 years -- is based on their work between '82 and '92. During that period the band released at least three masterpieces: War, Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Their current work, at its best, recalls the sound they pioneered then.

Springsteen's greatest work predates even that period. The Boss has been really busy the last 10 years, and I like the political work he's done, but his period of influence stretches back the the '70s. At his best, he recalls the early work of the E-Street band or the starker songwriting of Nebraska. The Boss is cool, but an artist of the decade? Maybe an artist of his generation, but that generation is over.

Perhaps rolling Stone is simply catering to its aging base. But even an old -- by pop standards -- taste like mine found those choices almost absurd. I could see arguments made for Wilco, Kings of Leon, Conor Oberst or even Ryan Adams... All would have been better choices for artists who've influenced the sounds and tastes of the last 10 years.

I will give Rolling Stone credit, though. I think they were spot on for the best song of the decade: Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." So the writers aren't completely under an '80s rock. But, seriously, they needed to think a little harder about artists of the decade. U2 and the Boss are big, but their best days are long gone.

Favorites (and frustrations) of ‘09

These are my favorite albums. They are albums that spent a great deal of time in playing over speakers in my car or from my computer (no one plays CDs anymore). They were chosen only on the basis of how much I like them. There’s no objective consideration for their artistic merit or their place in the great annals of rock music.

Before I get to my top 10, though, I should mention some albums for which I had much greater expectations and a few that I thought were good, but didn’t rise to the band’s potential.

There were several big disappointments for me this year. Wilco’s new album Wilco (The Album) was a big one for me. Though “Wilco (the Song)” and “Bull Black Nova” are great, the album as a whole is sleepy and uninspired. I listened to it a few times and forgot all about it. I had higher hopes for Franz Ferdinand’s Tonight: Franz Ferdinand but found mostly the same formula without the energy of the first two records. Dan Auerbach, one half of one of my favorite band’s, The Black Keys, put out a solo record that I found really lacking.

Some albums were good but not quite top 10 material for me but worth mentioning:

Pearl Jam: Backspacer -- A nice album from the grunge godfathers. A few slow clunkers away from my top 10.

Telekinesis!: Telekinesis! -- A fun, guitar pop album with moments that recall Summerteeth Wilco.

Them Crooked Vultures: Them Crooked Vultures -- Great hard rock riffage from an awesome, super power trio. Ultimately, though, the songs get away from the group a few too many times.

Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Pin Points and Gin Joints -- Nothing new here, just that classic Bosstones sound.

Nirvana: Live at Reading -- What else is there to say about this album? It’s a two-CD collection of a great band at the height of its abilities. An awesome performance to remind you why the band kick-started the alt-rock of the ‘90s. Definitely a favorite, but I thought I’d save space on my top 10 for new music.

OK, now for the top 10:

10. Dinosaur Jr.: Farm.

Dinosaur Jr. reunited Lou Barlow and J. Mascis for 2007’s Beyond, the first time the two had played together since the original band split in the late ‘80s. And what do they do? Put out the best material of the group’s entire catalogue, including J Mascis’ well-known Dinosaur recordings of the ‘90s sans Barlow. The music on Farm is more of Beyond. It’s raw ear-bleeding rock with the explosive drumming of Murph and the roaring guitar of Mascis, perhaps the most unrecognized guitar genius of his time.

9. Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

This album snuck up on me. At first listen its just really nice guitar pop with little substance. SingerThomas Mars’ vocals waft like light background noise… He might as well have been singing in French. But the songs are infectious and better performed than I first gave them credit for. I found myself waking up with “Lisztomania,” “1901,” and “Lasso” on my mind. I’d hum the tunes to myself and sing the breezy lyrics. The French band’s fourth studio album is a work of power pop perfection.

8. Reverend and the Makers: A French Kiss in the Chaos

A friend introduced me to this band. He’d seen it perform on the Later… With Jools Holland. So I started listening to A French Kiss and became intrigued by the band. You could hear the dancy Brit pop influences -- Stone Roses and Blur -- but what makes the band interesting is Jon “Reverend” McClure’s sharp songwriting. He attacks everything from modern advertising to the war in Iraq with a uniquely British snark. These are songs with a keen social consciousness that belie their party music foundations.

7. St. Vincent: Actor

Texas songwriter and guitarist Annie Clark -- who goes by the stage name St. Vincent -- played with some interesting acts before venturing out on her own in ’07. She was a member of the weird and psychedelic Polyphonic Spree and later was a member of singer songwriter Sufjian Stevens’ touring band. Actor finds Clark in really terrific form. It’s a collection of haunting and beautiful songs, “Actor out of Work” recalls Arcade Fire; “The Strangers,” hints at Portisehead. But the album is wholly original. This is Clark finding her own voice -- a voice with real promise.

6. Silversun Pickups: Swoon

OK, so this band owes an awful lot to the early ‘90s sounds of the Pixies, Sonic Youth and above all the Smashing Pumpkins. In fact Silversun Pickups share a lot more than initials with the early ‘90s alt-rockers. Both bands share walls of distortion, vulnerable, melodic vocals, dance-beat drumming and a bass player in high heels. The Silversun Pinkups aren’t just a throwback, though. The songwriting is fresh and the performances are heartfelt. This is a fun album, both hard rocking and gorgeous.

5. Arctic Monkeys: Humbug

This band has been overhyped, even by the hype-happy British music press. But the four-piece English rock outfit deserves every bit of high praise its earned since its frenetic debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Humbug finds that band slowing (way) down the pace for a Sabbathy sound inspired a great deal by producer Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures). Still present, though, is singer Alex Turner’s keen, critical lyrics -- a British rock staple that goes back to the Kinks. Humbug was a risky shift in sound, but one that definitely paid off.

4. The Veils: Sun Gangs

This band grabbed me with the single, “The Letter,” a tour-de-force song of beautiful reverberating guitars and the remarkable voice of front man Finn Andrews (son of XTC keyboardist Barry Andrews). Andrews is a great songwriter and a wonderful singer -- though his is a voice that you likely wither love or hate. Sun Gang’s is a grand album, equal parts intense and melancholy.

3. Sonic Youth: The Eternal

I’m not sure Sonic Youth needed a comeback record. They’ve never really gone anywhere, but The Eternal is such a good album it’s hard to believe the band’s members are in their 50s. Kim Gordon has move from bass to guitar and vocals and Mark Ibold from Pavement was brought in on bass. The addition gives the band a solid rhythm section with the brilliant Steve Shelley.

The incredible thing about Sonic Youth is that they continue to challenge your ears some 30 years after their founding. The trademark guitar squalling and chugging is still there, but it still sounds as though the rest of rock hasn’t caught up with Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo. From the opening track “Sacred Trickster,” (maybe the best Sonic Youth album opener ever) the band is full of energy. Other great songs include “Antenna” and “Malibu Gas Station.”

The Eternal is what a rock record should sound like --edgy, loud, mysterious and it kicks a lot of ass.

2. Neko Case: The Middle Cyclone

I love Neko Case. There is no comparable singer songwriter. The New Pornographer member has been outstanding as a solo artist for the better part of this decade. Her two most recent Fox Confessor Brings the Flood and The Middle Cyclone are beautiful albums of strange, haunting songs about death, jealousy, killers, nature and more, all delivered by Case’s gorgeous voice.

The Middle Cyclone shares a lot with its predecessor. These are songs that might be classified as genuine Americana -- roots music that struggles with the strange and murderous reality of the New Land. Middle Cyclone stakes the same path and subject matter with reverberating guitars and echoing rhythm sections -- a sound that is simultaneously new and ancient. Case is mesmerizing right from the first track: “This Tornado Loves You” a song sung from the perspective of a Tornado chasing after an unnamed lover.

Sings Case: “Carved your name across three counties / Ground it in with bloody hides / Their broken necks will line the ditch / 'til you stop it, stop it /Stop this madness / I want you.”

It sounds impossible, but the song works. It’s chilling. Case is not only the most compelling female artist I’ve heard, she’s one of the most wonderfully strange songwriters, period.

1. Doves: Kingdom of Rust

The Doves have quietly compiled an impressive body of work over the past decade. Since it’s 2000 debut, Lost Souls, the Doves have recorded perfectly consistent albums of ambient-tinged, dancey indie rock -- a sound at which British indie acts have excelled since The Stone Roses.

2009 found the band topping 2005’s masterful Some Cities with this year’s wonderful and overlooked Kingdom of Rust. Kingdom is not an album unified by theme and pace, which is what you’d usually look for in a great album. It is, however, unified by the Doves’ adventurous sonic palette, a space-rocking sound that is comparable to Radiohead. Jimi William’s vocals have a consistent quality that bind the songs together no matter the stylistic influence -- tracks draw from from Johnny Cash “Kingdom of Rust”) to Blondie (not kidding. Listen to “Compulsion” and compare to “Heart of Glass”).

The Doves manage to make every song really terrific. Even when “Compulsion” plunges the band into Blondie-like disco-pop, the band retains something grand. Every song on the album is an accomplishment. “10:03” builds slowly into a loud rush of big-guitar chord power and “The Outsiders” and Greatest Denier” are some of the band’s most muscular rockers to date. The band does beauty well, too. The melancholy “Birds Flew Backwards” is a slow, penatrating song and the anthemic “Lifelines” closes the album with a rush of optimism

Kingdom of Rust is a big album with perfect production. It’s not the synthetic overproduction of Weezer or the contemptible fellow Englishmen, Muse. Each Kingdom is composed of big, spacious songs with spectacular arrangements of cinematic proportions. It’s an album you can easily get lost in and by far, my favorite of the year.

Where'd They Go? The Bosstones are Back

One thing about Liner Notes of which I'm proud is its shameless nostalgia for the music of my Gen X youth. I've always felt, and still believe, the music of my generation was never able to successfully toss off the great canonical weight of '60s rock, even though a great deal of music in the '80s and '90s is just as good if not better. There may be no band for which I suffer more nostalgic love than The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, a Boston band that I have seen more times than I can count and often for nearly no cover. It was a band that played around New England (where I'm from) regularly and long before anybody had heard of Nirvana.

I could barely believe it when I learned that just this week the band had a new album, Pin Points and Gin Joints, its first album of new material since 2002's Jackknife to a Swan. The Bosstones are a hopelessly underrated band. Generally regarded as slavishly formulaic, a novelty or just plain uncool, the eight-piece group, fronted by the incomparable Dicky Barrett, were pioneers of the so-called "ska-core" sound, merging hardcore punk with two-tone ska. That sound launched dozens of copycat bands (none of which were nearly as good) and influenced a lot of the pop punk that became so popular.

But the band was always better than the sum of its genre-bending parts. It's founding guitarist Nate Albert was a great musician (I'm sure he still is but he left the band in the late '90s) and the songwriting, much of it by Barrett and bassist Joe Gittleman "The Bassfiddleman," was usually sharp and genuine -- They wrote blue collar anthems of working, drinking, love and loss (of wallets) with a great ear for pop melodies and punk spirit.

The band even came pretty close to becoming a big mainstream act -- they were the prom band in the Alicia Silverstone (whatever happened to her?) film Clueless, playing "Someday I Suppose" and "Where'd You Go?" But it quickly faded from prominence, a one-trick-band. After the well received and commercially successful Let's Face It in 1997, the band faded into obscurity, a step above a '90s one-hit wonder.

The band's fade was hastened by 2000's Pay Attention, which was pretty bad (probably the only real dud in the 'Tones' discography). But the Bosstones switched labels, signing with the punk label Side One Dummy and released Jackknife to a Swan, an album that found the Bosstones recapturing a lot of the old grit and spirit of their early years. It was the sound of a band that had gotten some of its mojo back. It wasn't as great as Devil's Night Out or More Noise and Other Disturbances, but it was better than the band had sounded in 10 years.

Pin Points and Gin Joints slows the tempo down a bit from Jackknife but the mojo is still there. For the new, 14-song set, the Bosstones settle into an easy-skanking groove that favors the two-tone sound, though the punk vamps are still there. Also there are the usual Bosstones themes: Send offs to old loves, drinking (in Boston), Boston, troubled youth (growing up in Boston) and other assorted tales of blue collar living (in Boston). If Jackknife was a return of sorts to Question the Answers, Pin Points finds the Bosstones in the more radio friendly, Special's-like sound of Let's Face It.

And above all that, what's really back is what always made the band great: Bosstone's bonhomie. To draw from the overused hypothetical of the '04 presidential election, The Bosstones were always the band you'd want to hang out and have beers with. They are not hipster doofuses. They are not too-cool-for-school auteurs. The Bosstones are a horn-section away from being construction workers. At least that's what ithas always felt like. Pinpoints has that same beery, singalong quality.

The new album isn't brilliant, it's just very good music. It's exactly what a great band that's been together since 1985 should sound like. In fact, the whole band sounds really comfortable belting out one great ska tune after another... it's not material that is as memorable as the group's classics, and the tunes are certainly predictable (what more can you do with punked out ska?) but it's good anyway. There's no artifice here. It's a band of old friends. Just fun stuff to listen to with that classic Bosstones sound.

And that's good enough for me.

1983 Vintage U2 On Demand

I'm working on my year-end list of favorite albums for early next week but thought I should check in with this short note.

Some of the most interesting music "content" can be found on On Demand, in my case, Comcast On Demand. One of the music channels always worth checking out is called concert.tv. They have indie rock concerts and numerous appearances by many really great bands on the UK's Later... With Jools Holland (why the US doesn't have a show like this is beyond me).

I've seen great stuff there recently: two sets by The Veils at the Bowery Ball Room in New York. A show by Evan Dando (The Lemonheads) in the same space. The Jools Holland appearances by Radiohead and the Band of Horses are very good. There's even a Jools Holand appearance by the Red Hot Chili Peppers doing a very spirited version of "Dani California," during which the camera cuts to the audience to reveal Thom Yorke (yup, of Radiohead) bobbing his head furiously in appreciation... It's an image I thought I'd never see.

But to the point, concert.tv currently has in its list of memorable rock shows a 1983 German concert of U2. This is less slick than the famous Red Rocks film but really terrific, anyway. U2 in that period were an awesome live band.They still are a great live band, but the youthful, Irish funky post-punk rock was really awesome in its time, and that comes through very forcefully watching the U2 guys circa 83.

Though U2 is a band somewhat famous for its lack of virtuosity, by 1983 they may have been one of the most whip tight bands on the planet. All three musicians -- The Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr. and Adam Clayton -- are nearly flawless. The vintage songs here are great to hear live: "Gloria," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "I Will Follow," "New Years Day" and "Two Hearts" are just awesome.

Check out the show. It's divided into two 45-minute (approx.) sets on concert.tv. You won't be sorry. If you've forgotten how great these guys were, this will remind you.

MMW's Radiolarian set: Who you callin' a jam band?

For better or worse, Medeski, Martin and Wood have always found themselves in a strange musical place. Well, strange when it comes to categorization, that is.

The band first rose to prominence as an opening act for the jam band Phish. With that gig and the very danceable soul/funk album Shackman (Rykodisk, 1996) the trio of keyboardist John Medeski, drummer Billy Martin and bassist Chris Wood became a hippy favorite. Their odd birdlike symbol could be found on legion VWs, Volvos and any other vehicle with a bike or ski rack attached to its roof. They were lumped in with jam bands like Phish, Rusted Root (remember them?), Blues Traveller and all the other ‘90s Horde Tour regulars.

Yet despite its entre into the jam band scene, MMW never really belonged. They have always taken themselves more seriously. Yes, MMW always circle back to fundamental rhythms rooted in funk, soul and blues, but they do so with what is sometimes devious experimental abandon. Following the band’s rhythmically ambient and dancy Combustication, recorded with DJ Logic, the band released The Dropper, which is remarkably experimental and chaotic. It finds the trio really pushing the envelope of not only what kind of form can be considered music, but what sounds can be musical.

It was after The Dropper was released that I caught the band at the Electric Factory and they assaulted the amassed hippy/dance crowd with nearly 45 minutes (or at least it felt that long) of loud, formless, throbbing discord. It was thrilling stuff for anyone into experimental jazz. Every time they started to coalesce into a conventional rhythm, the band would break down into drumbeats that resembled the whole kit being tossed violently down a set of stairs while Medeski worked what on stage appears to be a mountain of keyboards and effects processors into all sorts of otherworldly chirps and electric burps. The Phish-heads were visibly disappointed, which made the show all the more enjoyable for me.

This month’s release of the Roadiolarians series box set will likely do more of the same for the casual fan looking for something he can throw on the CD player during a backyard barbecue. There are a few trademark funky jams here among the 29 studio tracks (The set will include all three Radiolarians albums, a new, live album and a documentary film about the band) but the album is primarily free-form, experimental and in some places charts new and really interesting territory for the band.

For those unfamiliar with the Radiolarians series, it consists of three full-length albums the band recorded over the course of 18 months in what was really a reverse process. They workshopped the songs on the road before documenting them in the studio. Each was released separately on the band’s new record label, Indirecto. (I doubt a conventional label would ever have let them record and release this material the way they did.)

The 29 recorded tracks on this set are an awful lot to catch up on if you find it suddenly dropped in your lap. Unlike Much of MMW’s work over the last 15 years, Radiolarians finds the band shifting gears often, mixing up their trademark funk and soul with afro-cuban, ambient and straight rock rhythms. The rock songs here are the ones that really made me stop and listen through the first few listens. “Reliquary” on the first disk, “Flat Tire” on disk two and “Undone” on disk three. Moments of “Undone,” which features Wood a distorted, electric bass (something a sound he uses more frequently here) sound a lot like the post-rock of Tortoise.

The band has a lot of fun, too. On disk three, it tackles the old spiritual "Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down" -- a favorite of bluegrass pickers and once sung by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy on his old band Uncle Tupelo's acoustic March 16-20 1992 -- with a New Orleans piano stomp, but the melody is on a fuzzed out (again) electric bass. It has to be heard to be believed.

Unlike The Dropper, MMW is not experimenting with chaos here. And it's not trying to satisfy a particular fan group. Its approach is a wide-open sonic palette in which anything three musicians can do with their instruments is attempted. The band here is at the top of its form in an extensive collection of performances that reward multiple listens. It's not music you can dance to, and it's not the kind of music you can put on while "entartaining." And that's a good thing.

Goodnight Keith Moon

This is terrific. Particularly if you ever read the original 1,000 times to your daughter.

Actually, it's pretty great even if you haven't read the children's book before.

http://www.goodnightkeithmoon.com/index.html

Them Crooked Vultures riff it up old school

Just when you thought all the monster heavy rock riffs had been written, Them Crooked Vultures – the Homme, Jones, Grohl supergroup/power trio – has delivered a self titled 13-track, hour+ collection of monster riffs that would have sounded at home on any of the recordings of Jones’ former supergroup, Led Zeppelin.

Fans of Zep and Queens of the Stone Age (Homme’s main gig) will hear a lot to like on this album. In fact, Them Crooked Vultures (let’s call them TCV for short) sound exactly like what you’d imagine a merging of both bands would sound like. All three musicians are doing what they do best, particularly Grohl who despite his successes fronting the Foo Fighters, really belongs behind a kit. Thankfully, there is little resembling the Foo Fighters on this album.

Aside from the easy comparisons to Zep and Queens (anything Homme touches will get that Queens sound, just listen to the Arctic Monkeys’ Humbug, which he produced) the most apt comparison I can make is to Cream, another super power trio that worked primarily in heavy duty rock riffs that had more in common with Godzilla steamrolling Tokyo than they did to the traditional blues from which they cribbed.

Cream’s virtues are largely the same as TCV's. All the members can play, though Homme is nowhere near as flashy an ax man as Slow Hand – that kind of playing is even more out of fashion than the monster riff. Homme’s vocals recall Jack Bruce a lot more than Robert Plant. And the material -- though TCM’s is lyrically darker in keeping with the times -- has an overall psychedelic flavor.

The strongest tracks on TCV get their strength from these virtues. The opening track, “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I,” begins with a very Zep-sounding, bouncy riff before the volume and intensity are cranked up to 11 mid song and the riff goes through some mind-numbing shifts that have to be heard to be believed. The same is true for “Elephants,” a nearly 7 minute romp that rolls out three huge tempo changes before any singing even begins.

Unfortunately, TCV shares Cream’s weaknesses. They seem so enamored of their riffage that some tracks go on for way too long. They are beyond tedious… they are nearly hypnotic. The nearly 8-minute “Warsaw or the First Breath You Take Before You Give Up” is interesting enough (not to mention an awesome song title), but about four minutes in, the track descends into some Homme guitar noodling before resolving into an atmospheric section some 6 minutes in. By then you've completely forgotten what you’re listening to.

Overall, Them Crooked Vultures is a good album by an excellent band. There are no stinkers here. Even though some are forgettable, every song has its merits, but I wonder what this might have been like had it been edited by a few tracks and 15 to 20 minutes (Eliminating the 7:30-minute closing track "Spinning in Daffodils" would have solved half the problem). A little focus might have made TCV an album that’s not just good but really superb. My guess is that a live recording by these guys would be even better.

Nirvana Live at Reading: Fun again!

We're fast approaching the 20th anniversary of Nevermind, the album that launched a thousand big label deals for indie acts in the '90s and defined a new movement of rock. So great is that album and the influence it had on everything that followed that it's hard to talk about Nirvana the band. It seems that every time you talk about Nirvana it takes on the weight of a whole musical movement. The band is not just a great rock trio. It is the sound of a generation.

Still, despite all of that cultural weight, there are several revelatory things about the new Nirvana concert album: Live at Reading released this month -- particularly for anyone who hasn't really listened to the band in a while, and then only their commercial releases. I count myself in that group. Loved them when they came out, but quickly tired of the overexposure. By the time they were doing their famous MTV Unplugged appearance, I was over the band. It just wasn't fun anymore.

The first time through the new CD, it occurred to me that Nirvana may be the loudest and most discordant band to ever go multi-platinum. This CD, a document of a legendary headlining gig at the 1992 Reading Festival in the U.K., is an hour and 17 minutes of gloriously loud and furious sludge topped by all those great melodies delivered by a singer that sounded like he just might loose a lung. It's power pop run through a bloody meat grinder.

If the greatest virtue of rock music is its ability to scare the listener and make the squares cover their ears in pain, Nirvana may be the best there ever was. No band playing to tens of thousands was ever so messy. And no arena band ever delivered such lyrically painful and dark material as "Drain You," "Polly" or "Aneurysm." The F-You ethos of the generation had already been well worn by the post punk of the late '80s, to which Cobain always acknowledged a great debt. But here, in Nirvana, that attitude was perfected in a screaming, distorted yet musical way that never really had a peer.

The second revelation, along those same lines, is that Butch Vig really polished this band when he recorded Nevermind. The album -- which has been certified 10-times platinum -- might have had success, but probably would never have been in the position to knock Michael Jackson out of the number one spot in January of 1992 had the band's sound not been processed into a more listener friendly format by Vig.

On Live from Reading, the band plays nearly all of its smash-hit album Nevermind intermixed with great tracks from the band's muddy debut Bleach -- "School," "Negative Creep," "Blew" and "About a Girl." None of the songs have ever sounded better. Live from Reading gets the Nevermind classics the raw energy they deserve.

Finally, it's just great to have a Nirvana album that's a blast from start to finish. The energy in this long set never flags. Not even for a moment. It's a terrific collection that even includes an early version of the In Utero classic "All Apologies."

If you forgot why Nirvana is considered the standard bearers of the early '90s grunge/alt/indie or whatever-you-want-to-call-it scene, this album will remind you.

Say it Ain't So: Weezer continues suckitude

Listening to the new Weezer album Raditude will make you stop and ponder if what you believe to be true is really true. By the time track 4, "Can't Stop Partying," pummels your ears, you wonder. "Was this band ever good?" It's hard to believe, but yes, Weezer was a great band... one of the best.

Liner Notes has always believed Weezer's first two albums to be very good. The band's second, Pinkerton, is pretty close to being a masterpiece -- a sharp, thematically cohesive album with heartbreakingly terrific songs. There are world weary laments like "Tired of Sex" and "The Good Life" and of love unrequited "Across the Sea" and "Pink Triangles." Each is the work of a desperate man looking for what he cannot have -- the stuff of compelling song.

Weezer developed its early reputation on smart and heavy guitar pop and lyrics that really got the now-famous angst of '90s kids. And the band's front man and principal songwriter, the appropriately bespectacled Rivers Cuomo, was a perfect hero of the ne'er-do-well -- a man millions muddling through life could relate to. It was a band that first hit the mainstream with a song about a relationship unraveling like a sweater, leaving its protagonist, naked, "Lying on the floor. I've come undone."

The band that made those first albums is still as talented on Raditude, but with Pinkeron 12 years and fading in the past, the angst of the band members, and clearly of Cuomo, is long gone. This is the band that in 2005 released the wretched album Make Believe (produced by Rick Rubin!) and a single called "Beverly Hills (That's Where I want to Be)," a song so devoid of substance and artistry, it could have been better performed by a kazoo quartet.

No, the new Weezer is a content, and happy arena rock band. Gone is the band that delivered the debut album's "Say it Ain't So," which is perhaps the bands best song to date. Gone is the irony, the angst, the desperation, fear, beauty and bizarre humor that defined Weezer's wonderful roots. The new Weezer is mainstream and enjoying it. Gone is Cuomo as Buddy Holly. He's now as interesting as Rick Springfield.

Take these songs with titles that tell you all there is to know about their themes: "The Girl Got Hot," "Can't Stop Partying," "In the Mall" and "Let it all Hang Out" (in which he actually sings the lyrics: "going out with my homies.") There's nothing to analyze. It's quite clear that the band that meant so much to the nerds of the nineties is now nothing more than a jock rock soundtrack special.

If there is a bright side, it is this: Raditude is probably better than average when compared to the great swath of middling mainstream rock targeted to tweens. Cuomo might have lost his mojo for writing songs that matter, but he's a great pop song craftsman (that Harvard music degree has to account for something, right?). The band still rocks and does so as well or better than any band you'll hear in heavy rotation on a CW show. The stage is there in the sharp, loud sound, but the actors are long gone.

Perhaps, Cuomo knows all of this. Liner Notes believes he does. He's too smart not to know that his new songs have none of the edge of his earlier work. The old Cuomo may be long gone -- clearly the man is too successful to fret about his self worth and agonize over failed relationships -- but the Cuomo singing about pre-teen concerns and frat boy revelations is more disingenuous than if he had simply tried to re-imagine the past.

Liner Notes is not sure why we continue to believe there's a chance the band would return to form. There have been whiffs of it -- there are some good moments on their fourth album, Maladroit. But with each release since Make Believe those hopes have sunk. Raditude will probably be a favorite of teens growing up right now. It's got great hooks and the concerns are teen concerns. But for those of us who know what Cuomo and crew are (were) really capable of, this one hurts (again).

Buck: That new Pearl Jam album is awesome

So, Liner Notes does have a music-related post...

Don't know if anyone caught it but Joe Buck, in one of his endless yammering sessions with the insufferable Tim McCarver during game 4 , said he had listened to the new Pearl Jam album and that it was pretty terrific. Yup, Buck likes the Jam.

Does that mean Buck is cooler than you thought? Or does this mean that Pearl Jam is about as hip as Lindsay Buckingham...Liner Notes has pondered this very deeply and thinks it's the latter.

Liner Notes is pretty sure that if the conversation had continued, McCarver was going to discuss his love of Grizzly Bear.

It's Whiskey Time

Liner Notes keeps this blog in his spare time. For the last two weeks, most of that spare time has been consumed by postseason baseball and the usual baseball watching activities -- drinking beer, drinking bourbon and drinking bourbon and beer in a bar. Liner Notes' nine in this series is the Phillies, and every time the 7th inning rolls around and Charlie goes to the pen, it's whiskey time.

It looks very much like baseball is going to last through Thursday night... By next week Liner Notes will get back to the serious business of music scholarship.There's a lot of stuff out there -- Best albums of the year, worst albums of the year, a new, terrible Weezer album to write about and some Northwest Philly musicians to catch up with.

Until then, excuse the downtime. Liner Notes hopes everyone's enjoying the series. It's been great so far. Go Phils!

(Note: Liner Notes really likes referring to itself in the the third person unfamiliar for comedic purposes. This may be the whiskey talking. It's hard to tell.)

Phi Roy Q & A

Here is the first part of the Phil Roy interview. There's more to come.

Liner Notes: How are things going so far with the new album?

Roy: You're the first person I've talked to. I haven't sent the album to the normal outlets yet. So you're first.

LN: How is the album going to be distributed?

Roy: I have a distribution deal with Sony Red, so it will be in all the normal places where you can buy CDs -- Borders, Best Buy, Amazon iTunes. But, unlike my past records, I wanted to do something different this time. I'm committed to a year of letting it come out slowly to the market slowly. I don't want hype. I had that last time with my last Universal release and I didn't like the results. I had publicists, marketing people and radio promtion people and I was not happy with the way it was handled.

You know, I think there's got to be a different way to release music into the world than to hit them over the head with it. This is an intimate record. It does not call for a "Hey! Look at me!" I want people to find out about the album. I want them to have it in their lives, and I will hire people to help me do that, but I want it to be in a much more intimate way, just like the album.

LN: This album was an interesting concept... Here you are a songwriter and you've put out an album of other people's songs. How did you come up with the idea?

Roy: Well, I'm a huge fan of this particular Sinatra album. It's the first concept album, ever, you know? It's the first long playing record where from start to finish he keeps the same feeling, the same mood.

I came up with the wordplay of "In the weird small hours. The title alone was worth me exploring. I understand the weird small hours.

At first [the album] was going to be an interpretation. I was going to sing the songs on In the Wee Small Hours, but as I got into them, I found that the narrative was from a time that didn't quite sit with me. Just the way people wrote about love and loss and longing... I thought there are other people who write about these things in a way I could relate to...

LN: There are a lot of contemporary artists on this album ... Do you listen to that kind of music a lot?

Roy: Oh yeah, a lot. Elliot Smith, Doug Arthur. His song "Honey and the Moon." When I first that song, it stopped me. Music is so often in the background. It's just on the radio. It doesn't stop you. That song did.

These people on my record, I picked songs from their catalogs specifically for my purposes. Elliot Smith, Not everything in his catalog would work for me, but the song, "Everything Reminds Me Of Her" -- you know, when you've just ended a relationship, just broken up with someone, that line says it all. What else is there to say? Nothing.

I wish I had written all the songs I covered. Maybe on a really good day, I could come up with something similar. Maybe I will.

LN: So you didn't care about these songs' popularity.

Roy:I prefer to have these songs be unknown. I'd prefer if people had never heard them before. You have to be a certain kind of music fan to know these songs, except for "Sign Your Name,"which is such a great song. That first Terrence Trent D'Arby album was a classic. Did you know the song?

LN: Oh yeah, I had that album on tap. It's lost or in a box somewhere. He was a great singer.

Roy: He was a great singer. That whole album, Welcome to the Hardline, is a classic.

LN: So you were looking for songs that weren't hits. What other qualities attracted you to the songs you picked?

Roy: If you're going to call an album "In the Weird Small Hours," it better be a little wierd and small. I really felt like that was the template.

So yeah, thematically, all the songs deal with love. On my last record, there wasn't one love song. I was love-songed out. I had just gone through a divorce so I wanted to write about other things. These songs are all about love -- either celebrating it or cursing it.

LN: How about your collaborator. Julian Coryell?

Roy: He is one of my oldest friends. I spent 20 years in L.A. before I moved back here and to Chestnut Hill.

LN: It's a long strange journey

Roy: Right, It's a long strange journey back to the cobble stones... you know, cobble stones are kinda small and weird (laughs). Maybe I had to come back here for this.

Julian is a musician's guitarist. He's a guitarist's guitarist. A musician's musician. He's best known for being Aimee Mann's guitarist for years. And he's son of Larry Coryell, the real pioneer of fusion guitar.

Julian pulled into town and stayed with me in Chestnut Hill and every night we'd record a song. We'd work it out in the afternoon, go to the studio and record it. We recorded at Morning Star studios in Springhouse, which is where I do most of my work. It's where Melody Gardot did her first record. It's a very fine recording facility only 15 minutes down the road. We'd get a take with no drop-ins, no overdubs. It's so prominent these days to do 5 takes, patch it together for a "master" take.

These songs are all in one take. My vocal isn't touched. When you're listening to a guitar and vocals or two guitars and vocals, its like you're sitting with me right now. Its essentially a live take.

It was important to me to have at the heart of this recording something unscathed. Something untouched. So I think it feels good.

LN: Regarding Radiohead's "All I Need," did you ever arrange something like that before?

Roy: I've used horns before. The concept was mine, to sing the song against a brass quartet and drums and nothing else. But I didn't take those four instruments and write a chart. I found an expert for that. That's one song that doesn't sound like anyone else.

The main compliment I've been getting is that this sounds like an album, which for the most part no longer exists. It doesn't sound like a playlist or something you shuffle. To tell you the truth I don't know if anyone wants that anymore.

With Radiohead, they're your generation's Beatles [Liner Notes is 35 and agrees]. They are the best band of your generation No one else even comes close. I think they'd like my version. I think they'd listen and say, "Wow. He tried." It's all about having a concept and executing.

Phil Roy gets wierd and small for an inspired new album

In 1955, Frank Sinatra released what might be his greatest record. In the Wee Small Hours was a collection of intimate ballads, all selected for the record — a practice that was practically unheard of at the time. It was a record of singular theme and purpose, a melancholy rumination on love and the hurt love’s end often causes.

Chestnut Hill singer/songwriter Phil Roy had long loved that record.

Roy, 50, a Philly native and Hill resident who can often be found on the Avenue with his black lab puppy, returned to the area several years ago after working in Los Angeles for 20 years as a songwriter. His work has been recorded by a wide range of artists, from The Staples Singers and Neville Brothers to Widespread Panic and Los Lonely Boys.

A songwriter, he was not accustomed to recording other people’s work, but there was something about In the Wee Small Hours that appealed to him. So he decided to cover it. Roy planned on re-recording the original’s 16 standards for an album of his own. He had come up with a title, “In the Weird Small Hours,” and wanted to pursue it. “That title alone was worth my exploring,” he said.

But though he loved the songs on the original, Roy said the material didn’t work for him. “As I got into [the songs], I found that the narrative was from a time that didn’t quite sit with me,” Roy told me over coffee at the Chestnut Hill Coffee Company.

So instead, Roy collected a number of songs by others, but songs that are contemporary by people he considers the best voices now — Conor Oberst, Ryan Adams, Elliot Smith, The Eels’ Mark Everett and Radiohead.

The result is an album that is much more than a cover album of contemporary songs. It’s a thematically cohesive work that accomplishes what it promises — a piece that is both weird and small, and ultimately a modern thematic companion to Sinatra’s original.

“These are people whose songs I picked from their catalogs specifically for my purposes,” Roy said of the artists whose work he mined for the album. “Music is so often in the background on the radio, and it doesn’t stop you. These are songs that did. Take Elliott Smith’s song. Not everything in his catalog would work, but that song, ‘Everything Reminds Me of Her’… you know, when you’ve just ended a relationship, just broken up with someone, that line says it all. What else is there to say?”

Roy’s version of the song is even more spare and melancholy than the original — a feat that anyone familiar with Smith will find remarkable. Roy actually slows the song down and gives the vocals much more prominence.

Perhaps the main point of deviation from Sinatra’s original, aside from the modern themes of the material, is that Roy did not pick popular songs. In fact, he was more interested in material that was not in heavy rotation. In many cases, listeners will likely never have heard of the songs. How many have heard of Swedish singer/songwriter Anna Ternheim before? Roy does a terrific, almost spookily upbeat version of her “Lovers Dream.”

“I prefer if people have never heard these songs before,” Roy said. “You have to be a certain kind of music fan to know these songs, except for ‘Sign Your Name.’ That would be the song from Terence Trent D’Arby’s hit from his debut, Introducing the Hardline. Delivered by Roy with a very spare Latin-jazz feel — just guitar, percussion and upright bass.

It’s that spare approach to all the material that finds Roy succeeding in creating an album and not just a cover record. He manages to breath new emotions into songs like “I See Monsters” by Ryan Adams and “Beautiful Freak” by Mark Everett. They are not always more downbeat, but they’re always new. One of the more interesting tracks on the new album is a version of Radiohead’s “All I Need,” which Roy sings backed only by a brass quartet and drums. The version is unlike just about anything you’ll ever hear.

Roy said the album was recorded at Morning Star Studios in Springhouse and that he and collaborator guitarist Julian Coryell recorded the foundation tracks guitars and vocal in one take with no overdubs. When you hear Roy sing, nothing is overdubbed. Backing instruments — horns, strings drums and double bass — were added later. “It was important to me to have at the heart of this recording something unscathed and untouched,” Roy said.

Though In The Weird Small Hours was released only a few weeks ago, Roy has no big touring or promotional plans. “I’m committed to a year of letting it come out to the market, slowly,” he said. “On my last album (The Great Longing), I had publicists and marketing people and radio promotions people, but I was not happy … I think there’s got to be a better way to release music to the world than hitting people over the head with it. This is an intimate record and doesn’t call for ‘Hey! Look at me!’”

Roy will continue to play for fans and friends at his home, a practice he started several years ago called the “I’m Not Leaving the House Tour.” People can contact Roy about shows at his house — seriously — through his Web site: www.philroy.com or through his e-mail philroy@philroy.com.

In the Weird Small Hours is available locally at Hideaway Music. Downloaders can find it on iTunes. It’s also available at regular CD outlets like Amazon.com and Best Buy.

On Thursday, I’ll post the entire Phil Roy interview.

Michael Jackson: Artist of the Year (?!)

Award shows are pretty lousy, demoralizing affairs. This is particularly true of music award shows that regularly seem to be about 10 years behind the prevailing (good) tastes of their time. They can count record sales, sure, but when it comes to choosing music that deserves recognition, they regularly fail in breathtaking fashion.

The American Music awards have finally done something that is even shocking for a music awards show: nominate Michael Jackson for "Artist of the Year."

Regardless of what you think about Jackson -- many love him, I could not care less -- the only thing he accomplished this year was dying (though, apparently, he was likely killed by his quack, according to police investigating the case). Is that all it takes to get an award now? I can think of a long list of artists who I wish would explore this option.

Perhaps to make the matter even more absurd, Jackson's competition includes only one act with any merit whatsoever: The Kings of Leon. Other runners up for the honor are Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga(!) and Eminem. It's funny, I thought Eminem was Artist of 10 Years Ago. This can only be nomination by drunken dart throwing.

Apparently the AMA's thought they'd take a page out of the Joe Jackson playbook and exploit the singer's name for ratings and buzz.

And furthermore....

So I'm having second thoughts about my Top 20 already. Not that any should be removed, but there a few more that I feel need to be recognized.My Top 20 just doesn't feel complete. So here's 10 more. And then I'm done.

30. Dinosaur Jr. Beyond
So the original '80s lineup of Dinosaur Jr. gets back together and they manage to record an album that is definitely better than the trio's previous recordings and possibly better than nearly all of front man J. Mascis' other work.

29. Band of Horses Everything All the Time
First time I heard "Funeral" I couldn't get it out of my head. A wonderful, quiet and powerful blend of indie rock and folk.

28. Queens of the Stone Age Music for the Deaf
Dave Grohl gets behind the kit (where he belongs) with Josh Homme for a terrific record of dark, heavy rock that's never schlocky. Just loud and powerful.

27. Bob Dylan Modern Times
The greatest songwriter takes on "modern times" with a bunch of old school blues motifs (get it?) for a surprisingly fresh and outstanding album.It's not Dylan at his best (those days are long gone) but his last few have been lively and compelling.

26. Silversun Pickups Carnavas
OK, I get the Smashing Pumpkins comparisons, and this album definitely owes a lot to the late 80s post punk sound of the Pumpkins and the Pixies, but Carnavas is a great rock record all its own with great playing and good songs.

25. The Hold Steady Stay Positive
The Hold Steady are a sonic blast of fun, a wall of guitars behind Greg Finn's wonderful storytelling. A really great rock and roll band and their best (sounding) album.

24. Wilco Sky Blue Sky
What can I say? It's slow and noodle-y, but the songs are well done and the playing is terrific. "Impossible Germany" may be one of Tweedy's best songs.

23. Ryan Adams Heartbreaker
Back before Adams had a real hard time editing himself, he managed to put out a few really good records (this and Gold). Heartbreaker, which teams Adams up with David Rawlings, Gillian Welch and Ethan Johns, is a great collection of tunes delivered with real feeling, something that seems to have disappeared from Adams' recent work.

22. Blur Think Tank
Who needs Graham Coxon? The band's brilliant lead guitarist finally quit the band after steering it away from Brit Pop on the excellent Blur and 13, but Damon Albarn, Alex James and David Rowntree managed to release another geat album of dense and wonderful music. It will likely be Blur's last as the reunion this year seems limited to performance, not recording.

21. Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
The album title is silly, but the hysterical hype around this record was not unjustified. A great collection of punky brit pop delivered mostly at blistering speeds may partially camouflage singer Alex Turner's clever lyrics. Listen closely, these songs are really good.

Favorite albums of 2000s

These are my favorite albums of the the last decade. I could say they're the best, but in order to claim that, I'd have to have heard everything there is and, well, I haven't heard everything. Even though I spend a ridiculous amount of time listening to new music, there are some bands whose album I just have not had the chance to spin.

So here's 20 albums I have heard and really like (or really liked at the time they came out). I did my best to order them, though in a month, if pressed, I might reorder the whole list. 

20. Modest Mouse Good News for People who Love Bad News

Modest Mouse becomes really listenable and scores with a hit record that’s mostly about death.

19. Strokes Is This It I still suspect that these guys had a ton of help getting these songs written and performed so tightly. The album is a perfect piece of pop rock with great songs. It was the band's first and best.

18. White Stripes White Blood Cells Good songs, great sound and the album that launched a thousand guitar and drum duos.

17. Ray LaMontagne Till The Sun Turns Black
Absolutely beautiful.

16. The Fire Theft The Fire Theft The Sunny Day Real Estate guys reunite, but this time without guitarist Dan Hoerner. The trio ditched the name but continued to develop the sound Sunny Day had reached on The Rising Tide.

15. The Black Keys Rubber Factory A bluesy duo from Akron, Ohio that perfected the drum guitar thing of the White Stripes.

14. Fugazi The Argument The post hardcore pioneers saved their best album for 2001. It's tight, melodic and just plain excellent.

13. Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand There's not one bad song on the debut of this Scottish disco punk band. Sure they sound a lot like Gang of Four, but they've got clever songs and great tunes.

12. Radiohead (#1) Kid A / Amnesiac I know, it's heresy to many to not have these as number 1 (Kid A especially). I get that these were awesome statement albums, but I think subsequent records might not have been as experimental but they contained better songs.

11.  The Doves Kingdom of Rust
My enthusiasm for this album is due primarily to gut. I really like this album. Perhaps its shine is still really fresh (it came out this year)... I can identify weaknesses -- imprecise lyrics, corny keyboard sounds, a lack of theme -- but the sum total is a sweeping, terrific sounding album of great songs without a throwaway track.

10. Drive By Truckers Brighter Than Creation's Dark These guys have released a lot of great stuff, but their most recent just might be their best yet.

9. Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings the Flood I have no idea what the title or the title track are about, but songs like "Margaret vs. Pauline," "Star Witness" and "Dirty Knife" are gorgeous and creepy at the same time. A truly original work.

8. Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights My head tells me that Antics is a better work, but I still like the debut best.

7. Radiohead (#2) In Rainbows Several years from now I may feel that this album was Radiohead's best. It's that good. But choosing their best album is like trying to decide which of your children you love best. It's not possible (at least for those of us with normally functioning souls).

6. Kings of Leon Because of the Times The Fallowills' third album is their best by a wide margin. It's loud and raw but tight and well-crafted. It's light years ahead of their debut -- an awesome rock and roll record.

5. Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
This is one great album that gets better the more you listen. Sure, the production is awesome, but none of it would have mattered without Jeff Tweedy's keen songwriting skills.

4. Arcade Fire Funeral 
An amazing debut album that charted a sound and style that are really inimitable. Neon Bible is great, too but I favor Funeral's raw and unpolished magic.

3. My Morning Jacket Z I was late to this album but once I caught up, I couldn't stop listening. I may have played it 100 times straight without letting anything else interrupt.

2. The Doves Some Cities A great record by a very underrated band. The Doves manage to shift styles and sounds, yet they tackle each song as if its destined to be a single. Brilliant music and terrific songs.


1. Radiohead Hail to the Thief

I think, again heretical perhaps, that Kid A and Amnesiac were warm-ups to Hail to the Thief that continued to chase the same themes of techno-alienation but with well crafted songs that didn't fail to include the whole band. I've often marveled at criticisms of the work as overly scattered or overlong -- how could you complain about having more of a record this brilliant?