Lazy Link Friday #2

For those of you joining this list already in progress..explanation here.

25) Broken Social Scene – You Forget It In People
That something this layered and complex can sound so spacious and effortless is a testament to how great this Canadian art house collectives second disc is. The albums lush and atmospheric opening track ‘Capture The Flag’ soon gives way to the controlled chaos of standouts ‘KC Accidental’, ‘Almost Crimes’ and ‘Cause=Time’. Grab a drink, throw on ‘Pacific Theme’, and let this album wash over you until it’s final strings die away.

24) Radiohead – Kid A
Radiohead tops the list with 3 separate albums in my list of 30 as I am an un-apologetic Radiohead fanboy. Voted best album of the Decade recently by Pitchfork, Kid A presented fans with a new Radiohead. The difficult recording process results in a mixture of post-rock, jazz, electronica, and a cut-and-paste lyrical style that transforms the cold metallic clicks into a warm and organic masterpiece.

23) Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antarctica
“Everything that keeps us together is falling apart,” is the opening line to the major label debut of Modest Mouse. It is a sign that Isaac Brock and Co. have grown as a band. The haunting and hallow meditations on heaven, hell and outer space are woven together with layers of guitar, cello, piano, keyboards, and drums. This mix of hesitation and confidence at our surrounding world plays out on track after track and peak with the epic ‘The Stars are Projectors’. Like the previously mentioned Kid A, this album grows upon repeated listening until you no longer have any other sound in your head except the opening strains of ‘3rd Planet’, and the assurance that “The universe is shaped exactly like the Earth/ If you go straight long enough you’ll end up where you were.”

22) Arcade Fire – Funeral
For an album with undercurrents of loss, death, and the coldness that comes from growing up, to say nothing of the title, Funeral is also a celebration of renewal and growth. The moments of operatic beauty in this album offset the desolation in the lyrics. Case in point: the anthemic riffs and grand style of ‘Wake Up’ ultimately leave you with the lyric “I can’t see where I am going.” The album closes with ‘In The Backseat’, a plaintive tail of loss and the struggle to become the ‘driver’ of your life and not just a passenger.

21) The Cure – Disintegration
If this list were in order of effect on my musical trajectory the album Disintegration would be in the top 3 albums I would pass on to my girls. Perfectly encapsulating the loneliness, despondency, and fear of growing up, Disintegration opens with the slow build of guitars and synth and the simple statement “Im so cold.” Clocking in at just over 70 minutes, the Cure run you through every conceivable emotion before leaving you ultimately longing with the closing track ‘Untitled’. This was the utter brilliance of the album, that you get the faint whisper of resolution in these closing minutes that beg you to start it all over again, each time believing that things will work out while you sit in a dark room alone.

Tags: lists, music

I know my dad partly from being under his roof for many years but also from the music he played when I was younger. Not counting the (no longer admitted) country music phase when I was in high school my dad always had great music playing in our house and it helped me know my father even when we were not close. I want to give my daughters 30 cds (or by the time they are teenagers 30 neural implants) as a sort of ‘your father explained by music’ gift. These albums are in no particular order:

30) Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
A cabin, some heartache, hope, and a guitar are the key ingredients to this gentle giant of an album. Songs fade in and out on gossamer strings while threatening at moments to fall into nothingness or burst apart at the seams.

29) Stereophonics – You Gotta Go There To Come Back
Another album that can break your heart, make you want to drink and smoke, or throw away everything someone has given you. Riff driven tracks like ‘Jealousy’ and ‘Help Me’ punctuate the moments of blue-eyed soul that abound on this must have album. For anyone that has sat alone at 1:30am with a beer in hand.

28) Smashing Pumpkins – Pisces Iscariot
Released with little fanfare in the fall of 1994, this compilation of B-sides is to me the best representation of a Smashing Pumpkins album.  Fuzzed-out distorted gems like ‘Hello Kitty Kat’ and ‘Frail and Bedazzled’ and spacey epic ‘Starla’ show the band at the height of it’s creative stride. Throw in the delicate and wonderful opening track ‘Soothe’, recorded in an apartment with buses providing the ambient backdrop, this is must-have for any Pumpkins fan.

27) Sunny Day Real Estate – How It Feels To Be Something On
The first release of the reunited SDRE is to me the best album to come from the Seattle band. Presenting a more mellow and expanded sound-scape, the band flirt with progressive rock and and quiet ballads. Showing a maturity (see: no longer growling) Jeremy Enigk touches on spirituality and environmentalism  on tracks such as ‘The Prophet’ and ‘100 Million’. Although many fans will rate Diary as the best SDRE album, How it Feels is a band comfortable with itself and its music.

26) Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun
Words are hard to come by when listening to this masterpiece from the Icelandic band and not simply because the Hopelandic language used on the album is one created by Sigur Ros themselves. Playing guitars with violin bows and singing in an angelic falsetto the band provides the soundtrack to Iceland. Beautiful, rugged, peaceful and apocalyptic sounds come together to create one of the best albums ever released.

Tags: lists, music