As some of you may or may not know, last year I put forth a little project for myself; listen to a different album everyday for 365 days.  A project that, while on the surface, might’ve seemed like a marginal challenge (those who know me, know I listen to at least 5 times that per day), was actually no different than taking on meditation, working out or tackling a regimented diet.  It was an endeavor that — as with those others — required both an unwavering commitment and a certain amount of time in order to glean from it the desired results.

I wanted to try listening to albums again — not as I had for the last several years, as background music while I did other things or on my iPod while I was in transit somewhere, but as I had when I was younger; where I’d sit down, break out the art and lyrics and completely submerge myself in the experience.

Listening the other way is fine; I’m one of those people whose home — aside for a few specific moments — is always filled with music. But ultimately, that type of listening is like only reading the pages of a novel that pertain to the plot. You’ll get the gist of what’s going on, but you’ll lose the nuance and color that bring it to life.

What I discovered during the course of this project were two things: one, my affection for the L.P., as a compiled and time specific piece of art, is as strong as ever. When I revisited some old favorites I found — along with the nostalgic feelings they invoked — they had vital new stories to tell.  Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and The Clash’s Sandinista are just a few that come to mind.

But the project’s real joy came from the discovery of new material. In a time where the “age of the album” seems to be coming to an end (one of the unfortunate byproducts of the digital music revolution), I’ve listened to some of the best L.P.s of my life. It’s encouraging to see many artists (both new and established) — despite industry trends — still taking the time to conceptualize, craft and present ideas though a collection of songs.

Which brings me to the second thing I discovered while doing this project; an album a day, while rich from a sheer numbers perspective, made anything beyond a single listen rather difficult. My commitment to any one album while it was playing was unwavering, but I believe to truly absorb it’s potential you need to spend at least a week with it. Once the lyrics are memorized, and you’re singing along with it at the top of your lungs, something happens and everything seems to fall into place.

In the end, this experiment was an uber cool one. And while I won’t be doing it again this year — at least not formally anyway — I’ll continue with something in line with what I just said above — a spotlight album of the week. Whether my consumption of music this year will slow down will have to be seen, but whether it does or it doesn’t, rest assured that in the wake of the music flowing fast and furious from my iTunes, I’ll continue to write about what’s grabbing my attention and what I think you should check out.

So until next time, happy listening. And for those of you who played along with a similar project or checked out anything I mentioned here, good on ya, I hope you dug it as much as I did.

Click here for the pdf album listing of 365 albums vol. 4

Suggested listening:

Clem Snide: Hungry Bird While the turn to darker soundscapes and themes on Hungry Bird might be surprising to fans of Clem Snide’s previous albums, the direction is actually quite fitting given where singer-songwriter Eef Barzelay’s fine 2008 solo record, Lose Big, left off. Less a sequel and more of a companion piece (the two albums share the brooding “Me No”), Hungry Bird feels like the completion of an idea (especially when punctuated with the lovely “With All My Heart”). Not a perfect album by any stretch, but the tracks “Born A Man” and “Hum” or some of the finest Barzelay has written.

Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion A friend of mine said upon hearing this record, “this is the first Beach Boys’ album I’ve ever liked”. And I understand where he’s coming from. It’s impossible to listen to Merriweather Post Pavilion and not hear the best ideas and elements of that seminal group. But it also must be said, this sounds nothing like a Beach Boys’ record. Animal Collective has indeed decided to explore a more pop aesthetic on Merriweather, focusing on Panda Bear’s melodic vocal harmonies and sensibilities, while foregoing instinctual forays into discordance and horror. But the term “pop” as it applies to Animal Collective is a relative one. Densely layered and transcendent, this is nothing short of a masterwork and likely to be remembered for years. Will there be a better record in 2009? Perhaps. But it’s hard to imagine what.

Available on Amazon MP3 right now for $5.00

Special bonus alert; Bon Iver’s new EP Blood Bank is also available for $0.99. Worth picking up at any price.

Pau.

If you’ve been anywhere around Facebook lately then you’re probably well aware of the viral happening “25 random things about me” and in turn even contributed to its spreading.  If for some reason you haven’t been touched by this arguably benevolent virus and have no idea what I’m talking about, or you’re one of the seven readers out there who are scratching your heads at the word Facebook, let me briefly break it down for you.

About two weeks ago, Facebook, the popular social networking site, became host to what can only be described as a mass electronic chain mail… a virus, basically.  Members were “tagged” in a note by one of their “friends” with the heading “25 random things about me” that had — you guessed it — 25 random things about that person.  Upon reading it, the tagee was then asked to do a note themselves, re-tag the person who sent it and tag 24 additional friends whom they felt might like to know 25 random things about them. And so on and so on.

To say the virus was popular would be to miss the point — though the numbers are ridiculously impressive — what’s most interesting was not the level of “infestation”, but rather how it fits into and shapes our popular cultural zeitgeist and what that all means.  Time Magazine, in an online editorial, attempted to break it down, but their take on it was far less than favorable than mine.

Besides being unintentionally ironic (I think), the piece in its attempts to be sassy and humorously cynical (which it accomplished in places), failed to understand the greater significance of such “narcissistic” endeavors.  First and foremost, Facebook is a community — many communities to be exact — and as such, it’s all about communication and connection.  And while there are many ways this communication manifests itself — pictures, music, videos — 9 times out of 10 it’s through the written word.  In general it’s a glorified (albeit dynamic) form of public e-mail, but on occasion — as with the “25 random things” virus — it breaks free of this utilitarian constuct and becomes something else… literature.

Now we can argue what literature is until Harold Bloom comes around on Harry Potter — and perhaps if you do one of these lists you can put your definition there — but for me at least it’s hardly a question and the virus is a great example of how difficult it is to pin down.  In the same way that blogging might’ve originally challenged our assumptions and patience about what was important/valuable with its democratizing openness, so does this type of micro-blogging (for lack of a better word).

The Time piece, above all else, stressed that the virus/endeavor was a “narcissistic waste of time” and even attempted to back this up with arbitrary numbers. But what does that mean exactly? Is it a waste of time because it’s not a legitimate form of literary expression and therefore not worthy of engagement? Or that people shouldn’t bother sharing things about themselves because there are more important things to do?

If it’s the former, I don’t see what’s any less legitimate about this form of literature as opposed to any other.  As nonfiction writing goes, it’s been as interesting, funny, insightful and controversial as anything out there, and certainly no more “narcissistic” (whatever relevance this label has) than anything else on the web or in print.  And if it’s the latter, well, what can I say?  Take a look around at the world sometime and tell me how learning something about one another might be a “waste of time”… no matter how arbitrary the details.

Look, not everyone on Facebook chose to do one of these things in much the same way not everyone chooses to blog/write about their life or the world around them… or surf, or bake cookies, or meditate, or solve a Rubik’s cube, or wank for that matter. And that’s cool.  But if you did do one of these things and you tagged me in it, thank you… your insights, humor, ridiculousness and talent resonated with me in a way the best literature often does, and I’m all the better because of it.

Bottom line; if Facebook and its byproducts are such “narcissistic time wasters” and a threat to capitalist productivity, then perhaps there should’ve been an earmark attached to Obama’s recent stimulus package to shut it down.

#26.  I’m just saying.

pau

It’s been said — and I’m assuming the source is fairly reliable — that our sense of smell is the most proficient of all our senses in triggering memories.  And while I’ll admit the smell of coconut escorts me back to the years between 1974 and 1980 when surfboard wax was as important to me as girls or to a certain ex-girlfriend’s skin, songs are able to locate me in a particular moment where the details — the quality of light, the temperature, my emotions — are uncannily specific.

Like many of you who love music, a soundtrack accompanies my life and I can map it out with memories that are inextricably intertwined with songs. I can remember as a kid sitting in my room with my three sisters and our crappy record player singing The Beatles’ “When I Saw Her Standing There” at the top of our lungs in preparation for a lip-synced performance for my parents, or listening to “Pulling Muscles from a Shell” by Squeeze at the age of 15 while sitting in my buddy Kurt’s station wagon after one of our countless surf sessions and not wanting to get out until the song was over, or singing Macy Gray’s “I Try” with a girlfriend before she was to head back to her home in Argentina, and countless others before, in between and since. And while they’re not grand or well documented moments like a marriage or the birth of a child, every time I hear the song that’s associated with them they come flooding back with such specificity, weight and color it’s almost dizzying.

Choosing my favorite songs of 2008 wasn’t that difficult.  Narrowing them down to just 50, well, that’s another story entirely, especially when I got closer to the bottom of the list.  Unlike a great album which is like a journey and dependent on the interplay between the songs, a song — for me at least — is more like an instantaneous happening that can succeed independently of what happens before or after it.  Even more importantly, perhaps, is that it never takes more than one listen to get it — I either connect with a song or I don’t… it’s that simple.

Some of these songs are from brilliant albums, while others simply shine brightly on their own.  Some might’ve been released as singles, some not.  In the end what makes a great song or a song that connects with you is difficult to say.  Is it the melody, the lyrics or the rhythm… perhaps a combination of two or all three of these things?   Certainly, what speaks to many of us, probably won’t speak to all of us and that’s a beautiful thing.  As I’ve said, my musical tastes are very eclectic and different things speak to me for different reasons — sometimes it’s hip-hop, sometimes it’s pop and sometimes it’s a supercharged rock song.  And while I can’t say which of these songs will hold the most nostalgic resonance with me in the long run, rest assured in 2008 they tickled my pickle.

The top 50 songs of 2008

1. “Gorgeous Behavior” by Marching Band from the album Spark Large
2.  “Blindsided” by Bon Iver from the album For Emma, Forever Ago
3.  “Backwards Walk” by Frightened Rabbit from the album The Midnight Organ
4.  “Halfway Home” by TV On The Radio from the album Dear Science
5.  “Charity Case” by Gnarls Barkley from the album The Odd Couple
6.  “Work It Out” by Jurassic 5 from the album Feedback
7.  “ManWomanBoogie” by Q-Tip from the album The Renaissance
8.  “Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed On The Roof Of The Chelsea” by Okkervil River from the album The Stand Ins
9.  “Do What You Do” by Noah and the Whale from the album Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down
10.  “Numerology” by Eef Barzelay from the album Lose Big
11.  “The Story I Heard” by Blind Pilot from the album 3 Rounds and a Sound
12.  “Transliterator” by DeVotchKa from the album A Mad And Faithful Telling
13.  “Many Things” by Seun Kuti & Fela’s Egypt 80 from the album Seun Kuti & Fela’s Egypt 80
14.  “Gobbledigook” by Sigur Rós from the album Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
15.  “Lights & Music” by Cut Copy from the album In Ghost Colours
16.  “Raise Me Up” by Hercules And Love Affair from the album Hercules And Love Affair
17.  “Kids” by MGMT from the album Oracular Spectacular
18.  “Kim & Jessie” by M83 from the album Saturdays = Youth
19.  “Strange Overtones” by David Byrne and Brian Eno from the album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
20.  “Kalise” by El Guincho from the album Alegranza
21.  “Criminal” by The Roots from the album Rising Down
22.  “The Shaded Forests” by Deastro from the album Keeper’s
23.  “Self Portrait With “Electric Brain”" by Stereolab from the album Chemical Chords
24.  “One (Blake’s Got A New Face)” by Vampire Weekend from the album Vampire Weekend
25.  “rr vs. d” by Au from the album Verbs
26.  “One Day Like This” by Elbow from the album The Seldom Seen Kid
27.  “Keep On Rolling” by Quiet Village from the album  Silent Movie
28.  “Tonight In Bilbao” by Sun Kil Moon from the album April
29.  “Lying In The Sun” by Koushik from the album Out My Window
30.  “¿Quién? (Suite)” by Juana Molina from the album Un Dia
31.  “Houston” by R.E.M. from the album Accelerate
32.  “Lost To The Lonesome” by Pela from the album Anytown Graffiti
33.  “Heretic Pride” by The Mountain Goats from the album    Heretic Pride
34.  “The ‘59 Sound” by The Gaslight Anthem from the album The ‘59 Sound
35.  “Nowheres Nigh” by Parts & Labor from the album Receivers
36.  “You! Me! Dancing!” by Los Campesinos! from the album Hold On Now, Youngster
37.  “Beat (Health, Life and Fire)” by Thao from the album We Brave Bee Stings and All
38.  “Walking” by the dodos from the album Visiter
39.  “No One Does It Like You” by Department Of Eagles from the album In Ear Park
40.  “Nothing Ever Happened” by Deerhunter from the album Microcastle
41.  “Blue Ridge Mountains” by Fleet Foxes from the album Fleet Foxes
42.  “Cape Canaveral” by Conor Oberst from the album Conor Oberst
43.  “Murder in the City” by The Avett Brothers from the album The Second Gleam
44.  “Shed Your Love” by The Helio Sequence from the album Keep Your Eyes Ahead
45.  “Tiger Phone Card” by Dengue Fever from the album Venus on Earth
46.  “Your New Twin Sized Bed” by Death Cab For Cutie from the album Narrow Stairs
47.  “Are You Lightning?” by Nada Surf from the album Lucky
48.  “Da Da Da Ich Lieb Dich Nicht Du Liebst Mich Nicht” by Senor Coconut from the album Around The World
49.  “Emerald” by Lusine from the EP Emerald EP
50.  “Lovers In Japan (Osaka Sun Mix)” by Coldplay from the EP Prospekt’s March EP

pau.