Tag: 100for2000

100 for 2000 – #80. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2007 – #10. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
(Puppy Love)

I’ve made a smart playlist on my iPod for 2007. And what a year it was! It seemed like more than any other year so far, I was spoilt for choice. So many great records. I was in love with music. Yet, looking at the songs and albums over and over, I kept coming back to this, the Walk Hard soundtrack. Regardless of the film, it’s one of my highlights of 2007. In fact, the only reason it comes in at number 10 is because the film worked against it.

If you have not seen it, you must watch Walk Hard now. On paper, it’s a Walk the Line/Ray parody. But it’s so much more. It’s star, Dewey Cox, is like a Forrest Gump of music history (except famous), and we follow him through every musical cliche from the 50s on.

Cox suffers abject poverty, a too young first wife, Daddy issues, the teen revolution, number one records, drugs on the road, protest folk, LSD, disco, punk, TV shows and finally, 00s era come back. It is pretty much the synopsis of many musicians biographies, but it’s played for clever laughs.

So yeah, the decade had other great movies as well. What sets this soundtrack apart? In my mind it’s the greatest comedy soundtrack parody thing since Spinal Tap. These songs are destined be classics in the comedy genre.

The soundtrack opens with the Marshall Crenshaw (Marshall Crenshaw!!!!!!!!!) penned title track, a cool Johnny Cash type manifesto song. But after that, it follows the trick of the movie, parody-ing the cliche history of music in order. It really, really sounds like a George Jones or Merle Haggard best of that’s chronological.

Oh, but the songs are great. And subtle too. It’s not cheap gags. Written mostly by Mike Viola and Dan Bern, these guys know that the music is funnier when played 100% straight.

The 50s bubblegum of Take My Hand (risque in the 50s), some country duets and Cash-like mariachi stuff kicks us off. When we hit the 60s, we are well and truly off. Let Me Hold You (Little Man), Hey Old Guy and Dear Mr President are some of the finest protest songs about midget rights, the elderly and racist sentiment ever.

Better still are the Dylan pastiches (Farmer Glickstein and Royal Jelly). Played utterly straight, except with absolutely nonsense lyrics. You’ll never listen to Gates Of Eden the same way again. Throw in a Beach Boys circa Smile era Black Sheep and the late career song that sums up his whole life – Beautiful Ride.

The music and production are flawless. No thought was spared. Slide guitars, pianos, trumpets – every cliche is played upon. And special call out to John C Reilly, a man who loves to sing, who nails every single song.

Removed from the movie, I have played many people these songs and they’ve loved it. You have to be some degree of a music nerd to get the full pleasure. But if you are, then you have to hear this. And see the movie too.

Dewey lives! An actual live gig to promote the movie, with a nice Dylan ramble. Not great audio, but you get the idea how great the songs are.

100 for 2000 – #79. Travis – The Boy With No Name

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2007 – #9. Travis – The Boy With No Name
(Independiente)

8 years on from the Man Who, the album that made them household names (and the album I just voted as the best British album of the last 30 years for the Brits), Travis did a conscious turn back of the clock. After the dark and moody 12 Memories, they teamed up with Nigel Godrich again, used their old logo, and made a proper Travis album.

Except it kind of wasn’t. If anything, it’s a sequel to that pair of albums they made years earlier (The Man Who, The Invisible Band). That existential angst has matured, as the band now had kids and wives themselves. Whereas they have at times traded in anger, sadness and quiet frustration, here on The Boy With No Name, there is a bit more intelligence, a resigned sigh, and fitting in with the world.

It’s a small difference, but a big one for a fan. As the Man Who and the Invisible Band were great albums for a confused, sensitive young man in his late teens/early 20s, so does this album sound great for that same guy in his late 20s.

(I guess, in way, you can also say the fire has gone out a little)

The two big singles really surround this point quite nicely. Closer is one of Fran Healy‘s very best moments. Neil Finn should be jealous. A beautiful, mature, it’s-just-you-and-me-and-I-love-you song of great intimacy yet wide appeal. It’s adult contemporary – not something you’d expect from a band once touted as the new Radiohead (I hate Radiohead, in case you don’t know). The other single, Selfish Jean, is a boppy pop rocker with a beat knicked from You Can’t Hurry Love. But it’s a farewell to a woman who doesn’t know what she wants, and it’s time to put those childish things away.

The songwriting is really, really top notch. This album got many luke warm reviews, but some really out of the world reviews as well. Those who gave it time really heard the songwriting. It’s Healy doing what he does best. Battleships, My Eyes (a song for his son), the utterly unbelievable 3 Times And You Lose… all great. Just, not pop radio material. But that great intimacy that they are so great at, it’s all here. More than most bands, these guys sound like they are singing just for you.

So this is another record I carried around with me a lot. And I know there were cooler records that came out in 2007, but truth is, I kept coming back to this one. The last track in particular, New Amsterdam, was a headphone favourite. It’s some Healy only, a pretty folk melody and some non sequitur stuff about Paris, New York and travel. In my mind, seeing the world, it was all mumbled up just the same. Somehow, all those random images now have this random song as a soundtrack.

I guess this album didn’t do very well for the band, and they have now taken their career back into their own hands. They got their records back. They started their own label. Healy‘s got a solo record due. I’ve liked every album to some degree, but this like Woody Allen coming back and doing one more screwball comedy with Diane Keaton. This could be the last time Travis sound so classic. And from their older place, it sounds like a goodbye.

100 for 2000 – #78. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2007 – #8. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
(ANTI)

Spoon had been in my life a long time. Since The Way We Get By ruled the radio a few years earlier, they always seemed like the kind of band I should like. With Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, I finally got there.

Part of the reason is Jon Brion, who, I guess, is my producer considering how many albums he’s been involved in that are listed here. I heard about this collaboration and was eager to hear the results. The song that came out of those sessions was The Underdog. Mariachi-ish trumpets and a variation on the Spoon beat, it caugh everyone’s ears.

In retrospect, this was Spoon‘s shot at (indie) success. These expensive, polished recordings pushed them to the next level (as of this writing, the follow-up debuted at number 4 in the Billboard charts). And they pulled back on the minimalism, and embraced widescreen concerns. Their catchiest songs, and sounding like a million bucks.

IT’s a nice mix of the electronica stuff I was getting into, and indie rock. The Ghost Of You Lingers sounds like LCD Soundsystem. That driving beat made this the most danceable guitar album I heard in a long while. Just try and keep still to Rhythm & Soul, or Finer Feelings.

As usual, I have no idea what the songs are about. There is a general, mysterious cool around Spoon’s lyrics. They are usually quite accusatory – which is much like the jagged guitar work. But none of that matters. Britt Daniels has a one of a kind rock ‘n’ roll voice that makes everything sound compelling anyway.

So kind of odd then that my favourite track on the record is a cover. Don’t You Evah was originally written by an obscure NY indie band the Natural History. But it brings everything on the record together. That driving rhythm, that great voice, those nonsense lyrics, that Jackson Pollack guitar work. It’s fun to dance to too.

So it was a long courtship, but I’m finally there with Spoon.

I might like Don’t You Evah more, but that film clip is awful. The one for the Underdog rul

100 for 2000 – #77. Crowded House – Time On Earth

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2007 – #7. Crowded House – Time On Earth
(Capitol)

I’ve loved Crowded House all my life. Certainly since I got to Australia, and since I started using English as my primary language. I woke up every Saturday morning early to see where Better Be Home Soon was charting when I was 7. I danced in my bedroom to Locked Out (a minor hit thanks to Reality Bites). I bought Recurring Dream when it came out, and watched the news over and over when they announced they would split. I was there with them when they did, steps of the Sydney Opera House, that magical night. I followed Neil Finn, felt my heart break when Paul Hester died, and after all that, I had no idea what the hell to expect from a new Crowded House album.

Maybe it should have been the third Neil Finn solo album. But with Hester‘s death, I guess Crowded House was on the brain. Having worn out every note of those 4 original albums, I was surprised and relieved that this album is great as well.

For the man who wrote Something So Strong, and co-wrote Weather With You and It’s Only Natural, I forget sometimes that Neil Finn‘s default setting is melancholy. And this is mainly a sad, winter record. I don’t think it really confronts Hester‘s death directly, but it does skirt around with mortality.

It’s not as strongly melodic as some of Finn‘s previous work, but neither was Together Alone or Temple Of Low Men. It’s subtler, but the songs are, without a doubt, still there. The gentle, floating, sad-faced opener of Nobody Wants To leads us into the first single, the urgent and anxious Don’t Stop Now. She Called Up, by far the poppiest thing on the album, hits you in the face, before settling into a series of masterfully crafted ballads. Amongst these is the ‘noble’ Pour Le Monde.

The electronica experiments have faded away. And following on from the great Everyone Is Here, it’s a pretty straight and honest recording, with a bit of strings here and there. At 14 tracks, it’s one of the longest albums Finn‘s ever out his name on, and maybe it could have lost a couple of tracks.

My favourite track though, is You Are The Only One To Make Me Cry. It’s just so well written it drives you nuts. For a songwriter, this is showing off. It is just so great. Just like I think Message To My Girl is a superior re-write of his brother Tim‘s Stuff And Nonsense (very similar, chord wise, structure wise), YATOOTMMC sounds like an update of Tim‘s All I Ask from Woodface. String-heavy, reflective and gorgeous, and one of Finn‘s best lyrics.

At the time of this writing, there is a new album due in a few short months and Australian tour dates. I’m excited for what can come next.

Crowded House – Don’t Stop Now. Their first new song in 10 years.

100 for 2000 – #76. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2007 – #6. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
(DFA)

All My Friends. That spectacular, breakout song from LCD Soundsystem‘s excellent second record Sound Of Silver. That’s how I came to this record and this band (band? Can I call them a band?).

This is pretty far removed from the kind of stuff I normally listen to. I don’t mind the odd electro single, but a full album? And so few of them have made me seek out the album. But the thing about electronica is that it’s sounds great and paints great imagery. Whereas James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem uses electronica sounds and textures, but wields them with the craft of a master songwriter. His spot-on concerns match the accuracy of Elvis Costello.

So, lets start with All My Friends. Could the song be more acclaimed? Such differently snobby music worlds as Pitchfork and Mojo both voted it their songs of the year. And it’s amazing – 7 and a half minutes of jagged piano rushing by, as Murphy contemplates getting older, the value of friends, not understanding the pop charts and how we live our lives. People started covering this song immediately, and by the time it was a single, the b-sides were covers by Franz Ferdinard and John Cale. The Franz version is actually pretty great as well.

History and criticism aside, this song is one of my favourites as well. There’s been a running thought in my head in the last 4 years (and perhaps even longer) – I will never have all my friends in one room together. And when I heard this song, that idea got wrapped up in it. As the years go by, it’s all about friends. And being away, and maybe for the rest of my life, wherever I go, part of me will always be missing someone. And often, tipsy, in a bar, having a moment to myself, Murphy’s voice runs through my head.

If I could see all my friends tonight

All My Friends is a big song and it overshadows the rest of the album. But it’s all great. North American Scum, the first single, has Murphy declaring he knows all the anti-American cliches already, so you can save them. Since when has irony, sarcasm, unreliable narrators and subtext been used so fully on an electronica album? The other song that no review can go by without mentioning is Someone Great. It sounds like a death song, but maybe to an ex-lover? Or a friend that our hero fell out with? I’m not sure, but whatever that line about being smaller than my wife imagined – for some reason that image sticks.

I picked up the first two LCD Soundsystem records around the same time. Although this is the better one (by a mile), I do have to quickly mention Losin My Edge. One of the greatest debut singles of all time. With an iPod, you just put the whole artist on shuffle. Which is really how I got to know this band.

This is a radio edit or something. You really need to hear all 7 or so minutes of All My Friends. One of the key texts of the 00s. I hear it being ripped off everywhere already.

100 for 2000 – #75. Josh Pyke – Memories & Dust

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2007 – #5. Josh Pyke – Memories & Dust
(Ivy League)

This album, Memories & Dust, is an odd one to talk about because Josh is a friend. And saying that I really like this album would end in an ass kicking.

So, we’ll resort to point form, once again.

– I really do love this album.

– I really liked Josh’s music before, and wasn’t sure what he would do when he finally made an album. It was great to see how he stepped up.

– Favourite track is Lines On Palms. I really love the lines

Sometimes I know who I am
What I’m doing
And what things might become

It’s such a wonderfully healing song. Although it occurs to me that if a friend gave you this sort of advice or wisdom over a beer, you’d probably punch him.

– I understand on many levels why it made sense to put Middle Of the Hill on here – but it was still wrong. It actually detracts from the album. Same thing goes for Vibrations In Air.

– Lets not even talk about the UK version of the album.

Let’s leave it there. Maybe in a few years, I can write a bit more about this.

Josh Pyke’s Lines On Palms. A great song.

100 for 2000 – #74. The Hold Steady – Boys And Girls In America

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2007 – #4. The Hold Steady – Boys And Girls In America
(Vagrant)

Just this weekend I was listening to an interview with the band Spoon, taking questions from NPR listeners, when there was a slightly dorky question. ‘Do you still believe in rock ‘n’ roll?’ But you have to ask yourself this when one approaches the Hold Steady. On Boys And Girls In America, they served up meat and potatos rock ‘n’ roll, with all the classic moves, classic sounds and amazingly, some new classic songs.

I’d heard about this band for a while but never investigated further. People compared them to the Replacements, and as much as I love the Mats, bands who love the Mats are usually emo dross. But this album, which was so American, won over the UK press. So, not a note heard, I took a punt and bought the album at the now non-existent Fopp in Westbourne Park.

And woo! What a rush. Anthems. Guitar solos. Springsteen piano. KISS riffs. And this spastic, gruff voiced beat poet in Craig Finn up front. What the hell was this? There wasn’t anything truly new on here, but it had been so long since a band sounded like this. And these guys hit it with such fury it’s tough to deny.

The more I listen to Craig Finn, whether in interviews or songs, the more I like the guy. We have some life beats in common – a teenage love of hardcore and the hardcore scene, loving beautiful but wrecked women, a romantic attachment to rock music that is all out of proportion to reality, that troubling but constant relationship with God. If you believe that rock is something that can save you, then I’m looking at Craig Finn more than anyone else these days to save me.

So the songs. Stuck Between Stations was the first one I heard, and still one of my favourites. A drunken, blurred dream of the poet John Berryman and the devil, talking on Washington Avenue Bridge in 1972, moments before Berryman threw himself off, ending his life. It’s got it all in one song. Boys, girls, life, death, poetry, the city, alcohol, loneliness and music. That’s pretty much all the essential elements of rock and roll right there.

And those themes recur and recur and Finn takes stock of his time and place in history. It goes from celebratory (Massive Nights – why was this not a radio anthem?) to intense and pitiful character studies (You Can Make Him Like You). Through it all, the energy never waivers, the intensity never drops.

This record broke the band out of the indie scene. I really think they could make it into the mainstream. A couple of the songs on here could have been big hits. More than anything though, they are now a big band for me. It’s amazing to think how long I waited for this band to come along.

100 for 2000 – #72. Wilco – Sky Blue Sky

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2007 – #2. Wilco – Nonesuch
(Nonesuch)

Wilco were one of my favourite bands of the 90s. Those high school and just after years. My beaten up copies of Summerteeth and Being There went with me just about everywhere. Through them I discovered a world of American music. In 2001, with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, they became a different band. They had the same emotional intensity, but a very different sound. So it was with extreme pleasure that Sky Blue Sky came along. It doesn’t sound like their 90s stuff exactly, but it harkens back to that simplicity – and takes it somewhere new.

I played this album to death. It’s so warm and engaging. This is exactly the kind of stuff I like, and that most of my friends can’t stand. Dudes singing in tight harmonies, guitars strummed and not riffing, someone in the band might have a beard. I remember that first listen, walking home through Notting Hill, hearing those excellent songs, and how easily that meal went down.

Which is slightly odd because Wilco has always been a band that challenged me. And they didn’t do it with this record.

(Have you heard my You Am I/Wilco, best friend/lover theorem? Well, I have two favourite bands. Australian band You Am I and Wilco, and for very different reasons.

You Am I strike me close to the bone, as if they sing with my voice and about my thoughts. I can go years between albums and pick straight up where we left of. There’s no new language to learn, we speak the same one. In short, You Am I are like a best friend.

Wilco however, challenge me. I had never heard such drones and noise til I heard Misunderstood. Or an album as sprawling and wonderous as Being There. The thick sunshine pop of Summerteeth. A man named Woody Guthrie. Those amazing lyrics. So Wilco is like a lover, someone you are scarmbling to keep up with, that you want to impress, and improve yourself for. Someone who makes you want to be better than yourself.

I spend a lot of time thinking about music.)

Lead Wilcan Jeff Tweedy said, about this record, that he wanted to write songs that his wife would actually like. And in that, it reminds me of something Beck said about Bob Dylan‘s Nashville Skyline. What’s happening here is a a bunch of guys who can do almost anything they want sonically, just kicking out a couple of tunes.

The tunes are some of Tweedy‘s best. Either Way, You Are My Face, Please Be Patient With Me (later used so well in the movie Ghost Town), What Light – the acoustic guitar was back in Wilco‘s arsenal. But there’s plenty of fireworks too. The guitar theatrics of Impossible Germany and Walken make them live staples for years and years to come. I know Tara’s favourite is On And On And On, a song for Tweedy’s father after the death of his mother.

For me though, my favourite is Sky Blue Sky. It has that lazy Grateful Dead-ish shuffle, and an amazing lyric. So happy to leave what was my home. I line that resonated, of course. But later that year after I had a nasty car accident – I survived/that’s good enough for now. Thirteen years and how ever many songs later, they still pull one out that goes straight into the top 5 Wilco songs.

I didn’t love Wilco (the album) as much as this one. And the last time I saw them live, they drifted into indulgence. I shouldn’t doubt. They’ve proven me wrong before. But this love affair that started in 1995…can it survive into the next decade?

100 for 2000 – #71. The Shins – Wincing the Night Away

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2007 – #1. The Shins – Wincing the Night Away
(Sub Pop)

The ShinsWincing the Night Away. I feel like that’s all I have to say to explain how important this album is to me. Because I have such strong feelings about this record. This mix of anxiety, excitement, love, sadness, sense of self, poetry, transcendence and so much more. And when I mix those feelings into a soup and try to describe them, all I can say is the ShinsWincing the Night Away. This was my album of 2007.

I listened to this album a hell of a lot. The film clip for these songs in my head is London. Just walking around. If you walk along Kensington High Street near Royal Albert Hall, it’s an open sky. And the opening notes of Sleeping Lessons, at dusk, sounded like someone turning the stars on in the northern sky, one by one. This album got me through the winter and carried me through several years, a hell of a lot of Shins gigs and even last June, in New York, where I was lucky again, and saw them play with a new line-up.

Something about the open-ness of the lyrics that allows one to fall into their music completely. Well, it happens to me at least. It’s like a new pair of shoes that you put on immediately, and then wear all the time. The two bittersweet songs directly about girls – Girl Sailor and Turn On Me – shades of every girl I’ve ever known are hidden in those songs.

After Chutes Too Narrow, and album I loved so much, I was cautious about this new one. What if it wasn’t as good? But if anything, it’s better. And the weirder tracks that initially seemed cold and alien to me, and now amongst my favourites. Four years later, my favourite track is Red Rabbits, one of my least favourites to begin with. It will change again in six months I’m sure.

I loved this band all out of proportion. They are my band of the 00s. Their impact on me goes beyond quenching my musical thirsts. It’s wrapped up on how I live my life. As age continues to call, and blind passion fades, I wonder if I’ll ever feel this way about a band again. I hope I do.

I have danced to this record. I have moped to this record. I have loved to this record. I have been heartbroken with this record. I have lived a wonderful four years, with this record. And having said all that, any critical assessment on the music will just fall flat. I can’t be critical with this. I have chosen a side and that side is the Shins. So you can find that stuff elsewhere. The record got great reviews. I’m sure they wont be tough to find.

100 for 2000 – #70. Paul Simon – Surprise

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2006 – #10. Paul Simon – Surprise
(Warner Brothers)

Funny how one can fall in love with an artist. Surprise came at the perfect time. I had been working my way through Paul Simon‘s entire life. And by the time I caught up, there was an excellent new chapter.

Of course, everyone knows Simon And Garfunkel. But it was in 2004 that I picked up the Complete Studio Recordings, all of Paul Simon‘s excellent solo albums on WB. Not that I knew how excellent they all were just yet. So I started at the beginning – 1972’s self titled debut – and worked my way up, falling in love with all his songs on the way. For my money, the four albums he made before Graceland are the best work he’s ever done.

I learnt the songs on guitar. I bought a badly written biography. I read anything I could on the internet and I downloaded live shows and bought live albums. This may have been the last time I really fell for one of those artists whose career spans decades. So it was with some excitement when he announced a new album.

So, I know how this shit works. For forgotten legends. No one cares for the new album. Publications like Rolling Stone and Billboard (with their misjudged sense of hero worship) would rave, but most of the world are not going to buy the newest Paul Simon album, because they hadn’t bought one in 20 years. It wasn’t even something I could share with anyone. I’m honestly struggling to think if I’ve ever had a conversation about this album with another living soul.

The album, Surprise, is brilliant. It’s his best since Hearts And Bones (ie. better than Graceland). There are some very simple reasons for this. One is Brian Eno, who produced the record but brought so much to the sound that he gets the occasional co-write. The other is the lack of love songs, which made his last album so bland. In an interview, Simon said something like no one wants to hear a man my age sing about sex. So he found something new.

Musically this record is Paul Simon in the 00s. There’s some buzzy guitar and studio effects (but in that organic Eno kind of way). The world music sounds are gone (although some of the rhythms remain), and it is far from just a man and his guitar. In fact, I think there may be more electric guitar on this album than any solo or S&G record he’s ever been on.

Amazingly, Simon sounds like he’s having fun and not taking himself too seriously. It’s best shown on Outrageous, the song that did the round of talk shows when this album came out. A great rhythm, a great song, and a silly lyric about not wanting to turn into a grumpy old man yet he has to dye his hair.

With the self-imposed no love songs rule, Simon returns to some of his other strengths. The story of the young bride who runs away on Another Galaxy is one of Simon‘s best. Father & Daughter is so sweet it became a minor hit in several countries. Then there’s How Can You Live In the Northwest, Simon‘s best political song, where he questions the questions, and if they are the right ones. There’s plenty more.

So yes, when this album I dived right in. And I loved every note. This is not a Sydney album, a Europe album or a London album. This is a Paul Simon album, and Paul and I stretch back 20 years. He’s an old friend who, no matter how much time is passed, we pick straight up from where we last left off.