Read entries 50-41 here.

Now we are really getting into the thick of it.  These are some incredibly difficult decisions to make.  Around this time you will also see a lot of artists where I had an incredibly difficult time picking the right album to represent them.  Prepare for a lot of me belly-aching over about three or four viable options, but then going with this odd duck instead.  I promise never for shock factor, unless specifically noted.

#40

Battles – Gloss Drop

Spare me your fawning over Tyondai Braxton and links to the Atlas music video.  I am well aware of the deep groveling over the early days of Battles and believe me I deeply adore it as well.  Gloss Drop was released four years post the critically acclaimed Mirrored after having to desperately scramble something together due to Tyondai’s departure from the band.  Some ideas had clearly been percolating during his time, as noted by their presence late into the quartet’s live performances, but ask the band at the time and the majority of the material was written in a rush.  It is hard to accept this reality, however, as like all Battles albums, this creation is a dense, layers deep formation of loops and instrument interplay.  Mirrored suffered, for me, due to Tyondai’s insistent on quirky pitch shifted vocals throughout, something that works well on a song or two, but begins to grate on the ears as the album progresses. Gloss Drop acknowledges nobody in the band is a strong singer and instead farms out the vocal duties to no names like Matias Arguayo, cult legends like EYE, and heavy hitters like Gary Numan.  The instrumental numbers are far more pop-centric compared to their earlier releases,  which led to some music critics to mull whether the band was lacking in forward progression.  This truly confuses me as the band was demonstrating an intent to shed their earlier ideals and historical baggage.  At this point there was no doubt the group was being helmed by musical juggernauts so really what need was there for more 8 minute interplay marathons.  Battles instead opted to take the concepts and boil them down to their essential components.  White Electric, for example, is still six minutes and is plenty effective with a dramatic build and eruption with no need for 3 minutes of barely audible faffing about with amp feedback or unproductive abuse of time signatures.  Battles had already evolved beyond its roots and was ready to provide something new; which in this case was light-hearted affair.  The result is remarkably cheerful, an album with buoyancy and glee.  This the first Battles album that has any sense of happiness in it, from the pink album cover to the bouncy Ice Cream, and the childlike Inchworm.  For the veteran fan you still had some classic Battles moments like the previously mentioned White Electric,  and remarkably intricate Futura, one of their strongest songs ever.  Battles seemed to get continuously dogged post Mirrored for not doing Mirrored again.  They were criticized for not adhering to their past and instead carving their own path, leading to a lot of belly-aching and remember- whens.  Gloss Drop proved there was no need for revisiting the past.  They would continue to press forward, exploring bright new options and always with expertly executed musicianship underneath.

#39

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno – Evening Star

Eno’s ambient sprawl is the work of legends and his ability to extend the most basic of musical structures to infinity is without peer.  What happens then when he includes frets of fire guitar wizard Robert Fripp into the mix?  Turns out, more ambient music, but with a few dabs of hot sauce.  Fripp’s guitar is looped into eternity thanks to Eno’s reel to reel machines while he continues to add additional layers of guitar on top.  The output is a multi-layered phenomenon unlike any other ambient album that is lush, involved, and still near formless.  Fripp’s work with Eno breaths life into the genre, giving it a hint of edge and structure, like the crusty layer on top of your pudding.  You can hear Fripp play individual notes on his guitar, their fleeting existence catching the ear, but they are soon awash in a sea of his previous notes, which seems to grow endlessly.  Each of the five songs is conceptually the same, Robert Fripp plays his electric guitar and Brian Eno manipulates aspects of those performances to create ethereal clouds of auditory bliss.  While each song is conceptually the same, the execution is wildly varied from dreamy frolics to gritty haunts.  The more uplifting numbers, like Wind on Water, are a weightless glee of flying above the surface of the ocean are in stark contrast to closer An Index of Metals, which is a 20 minute grating terror with dissonant loops that crash into each other and ripping guitar swells.  Each track generates a different set of emotions which also means it runs contradictory to Eno’s initial concept for ambient music; music that does not require your attention.  Instead, Evening Star is ambient music that demands your attention.  Eno’s choice of loops and the lush layers involved combined with Fripp’s less hurried, but still ornate guitar work commands your ears.  It is engaging ambiance, a didactic worth exploring.

#38

Nick Drake – Five Leaves Left

Simple songs are the most difficult to write, as the less you have, the stronger it has to be as it has more to carry.  Bloated 4-minute bangers can get away with lazy writing because they are packed with sensory overload.  Few artists truly can handle the daunting task of carrying a song with the barest of one.  Nick Drake is certainly one of these people, often using the simplest of ideas to generate the most beautiful of songs; soft, serene, but with a longing sorrow that seems to hang eternally over his head.  Nick Drake was certainly not the first guy with an acoustic guitar to sing some Brit-folk inspired songs, and definitely was not the last, but his presence in the genre is undeniable, a punctuation mark that no better sentence has followed.  Five Leaves Left is his first release, and really any of his three releases could have fit comfortably here.  Five Leaves Left is just a hint more produced, adding the faintest of string arrangements and hand percussion to give his works the most modest of pushes and emphasis.  Nick’s voice is bare, absent any reverb, putting him in the spotlight to the listener.  His slightly raspy higher pitched tone is far from your typical folk singer, neither bellicose and commanding or shrill and pained.  Nick’s voice is warming and comforting even if just a tinge unsettling and melancholy.  His songs often lack the typical verse-chorus-verse you expect as well.  They  instead move in a more organized stream of consciousness that plays on musical themes, and feel no need to rehash what we have heard already.  Nick would sadly pass before his music could be appreciated by the mainstream.  His work, now adored in the music scene, has seen few imitators, and probably for the best.  Nick’s bare bones approach is difficult to imitate at the level he was able to produce.  Unfortunately, his niche appeal has meant we all must endure more coffee shop heroes hammering away 12 bars of dredge about the most banal of topics. Perhaps if we showed them Nick Drake they would realize their futility and quit.

#37

Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand

Of the dozens of rock bands that spawned from the early 00’s brit-rock, Stratocaster lovefest, post-punk, new wave revival, few have survived, and even fewer have thrived throughout the near two decades since its beginning.  Franz Ferdinand is intriguing in that despite never straying far from their original sound of jangly guitar brit-rock they have continued to maintain success where many of their peers have faded into obscurity or disbanded.  Throw the discography on shuffle and aside from the far more synth oriented Always Ascending you’ll be hard-pressed to determine what album any one of their songs belongs to.  This would be a problem, if it were not for the fact that despite them writing nearly the same songs for 18 years they do it so darn well.  I was torn between their debut and their follow-up You Could Have Had It So Much Better.  Both  are extremely brief, under 40 minutes, both have legendary singles that will survive longer than them in Take Me Out, and Do You Want To, and both have a varied collection of dance floor favorites, serene ballads, and barn burners.  Their self-titled debut is just a hair above the sophomore follow-up, perhaps for its slightly more unpolished feel.  There is a hint of dirt in this well-oiled and efficient machine that is their initial release, not enough to really notice, but enough for it settle in your emotional core and resonant profoundly.  Franz Ferdinand’s debut brief romp has a strange effect of being a total pop-rock riot, but also having a wince of sorrow, leaving you with the faintest hint of melancholy despite your wanting to dance your tail off.  Song’s like Auf Asche hit you with a hint of gloom, but only enough to give you an inkling of this before launching into the sunglasses at night cool songs like Cheating On You.  Cool, yes, but there is a bit of nerdiness as well as the two guitarists bounce between each other throughout the album.  Sure, there is plenty basic chord strumming glee, but listen a little deeper and there are peculiar moments of dissonant guitar work, like on the previously mentioned Take Me Out where buried under the iconic riff you can hear uncooperative notes protesting against all the fun.  Franz Ferdinand is a brief frolic of early 00’s glee, a musical sugar rush, but there are enough special moments sprinkled throughout to elevate it above their peers like Kaisher Chiefs, Bloc Party, and the others that time has forgotten.  Sure, they may have been a bit more juvenile than their more buttoned-up compatriots like Arctic Monkeys or Snow Patrol, but Franz Ferdinand have always been far more of a joy to experience, and they proved this to be true right from the start.

#36

D’Angelo & The Vanguard – Black Messiah

If there has ever been album more dense, layered, and heavy than Black Messiah I have never heard of it.  After taking over a decade for D’Angelo to create, Black Messiah feels its weight, a 3 ton presence that cannot be denied.  Every note feels like there are 30 instruments playing at the same time, every percussion hit feels like it is seven drum kits at once, and every vocalization feels like an army of singers crying out at once.  There is an intensity Black Messiah carries with it that it gleefully unloads onto the listener without regard for safety.  Black Messiah is suffocation via R&B.  All of this is accomplished with an album that is not particularly long, less than hour, is not fast at all, rather it often moves at a plodding pace, and is not exactly what I would call aggressive, outside of the thunderous 1000 Deaths.  Instead, D’Angelo accomplishes this heavy feeling through expert production.  The music feels claustrophobic in its mix, the walls feeling like they are endlessly coming together.  Despite this constrained vibe, every instrument is pronounced and bespoke. Somehow this molasses like mix feels wildly distinct.  His blend of soul, R&B, gospel, and funk makes for an eclectic album that still feels unified in its bulldozer force.  Even though the majority of the songs have a heavy presence D’Angelo still is not afraid to have fun, like on Sugah Daddy which features a bouncing percussion track and piano work that sounds like someone is tap dancing on the keys.  Other times, yes, you are overwhelmed in with Black Messiah’s brute force like on the flying brickwall of 1000 Deaths or the possessed Prayer.  Still, despite its crushing intensity D’Angelo leaves you with an uplifting feeling with Another Life, letting you finally return to the surface to catch your first breath in 56 minutes.  The D’Angelo of 2014 was not the naked D’Angelo of 2000’s Voodoo.  All the sexy charm has been sucked out and replaced with 14 years of soul crushing reality.  A cultural milestone that is like a musical black-hole with a gravity that crushes anything remotely close to it.  

#35

Rage Against The Machine – Evil Empire

Across their three LP’s (and spotty and over produced covers album), Evil Empire is by and large the outlier among them.  The self-titled debut is as straight forward as it comes for the rap-metal genre they popularized, a straight punch to the face of socialist infused battle-cries, and The Battle Of Los Angeles is largely the same, just glossier.  Evil Empire is full of quirk, weird shifts, and curious stylistic choices.  This starts right from the moment go with People of the Sun which does have that hallmark Zack De La Rocha verbal manifesto, locked-in drum groove, and strange Tom Morello guitar tones, but something else is going on too.   The song is far funkier than anything from the original album, the guitar tone is far squeakier and alien than before, and its stop-start tendency is much less the barrage you got on most songs from their first excursion.  I know Bulls on Parade is quintessential Rage, the iconic protest anthem that for some reason Paul Ryan unironically lifts weights to while considering how to make us all die from poverty, but beyond Bulls the rest of the songs have this unsettling nature to them, this haunting void that is not apparent on the other two records.  There is more breathing room in these songs; they are less about directly attacking your senses, and instead generating a tense environment before engaging in a sneak attack.  Consider the beginning of Without A Face, Tom playing a single note, but low in the mix, while Tim Commerford lays out a relatively sparse walking bassline, all of which gives just enough ambiance for Zack to deliver his barbed criticisms before they launch into the refrain which is yes, pretty typical Rage, but it all then retreats back to the strenuous atmosphere of the songs beginning.  All of these little moments make Evil Empire special, and full of unsung heroes in their discography.  I know you all love smashing things to Killing In The Name, but consider the anthem of badassery that is Down Rodeo instead with its guitar that sounds like a records scratching, or the anxious Roll Right with its anxiety filled amp feedback.  These are all little moments that barely exist in their other albums which prefer to specialize in blunt-force trauma.  There is a willingness to try a different strategy besides brute force on this album, to use passive methods of persuasion, typically through creating emotional friction.  All of this makes those instants where they do go for the direct route all the more special, because it is used more sparingly.  The variety of Evil Empire makes it an outlier, but also their greatest album to set an American flag on fire to.

#34

Weezer – Pinkerton

Bless your heart Weezer, you created an album so sincere that it nearly killed you.  The self-titled ‘Blue’ album is without a doubt a charming early 90’s alt rock masterpiece with nearly every song being a joyous pal to sing along to.  Pinkerton, is not that, it is grimy, dirty, and pained.  The songs are slower, splattered with distorting, and with painfully on the nose lyrics about isolation and broken hearts.  I typically am not for songs where the heart is so painfully sitting on the sleeve, but River’s Cuomo’s lyrics mixed with these thunderous warped guitar chords won me over.  Everything is so tortured, and dysphoric that it is hard not to feel for him and hope he feels better soon.  There are no happy songs here, not even a glimmer of one.  Each song seems to fall further deeper into the well of despair, but miraculously none of them succumb to self-parody.  It is on the nose, everything is painfully obvious, but despite it all you are willing to buy into this absurd world River’s is selling.  First, the songs themselves are fantastic 90’s alternative rock, willing to venture out of the mold of 3 chord chug-fests.  There are hints of keyboard that cut through the down-tuned mud, and moments of breathing room like on El Scorcho which consists mostly of odd string plucks in between the riff happy refrain. Second, because everything is done with such an intense level of sincerity you are willing to accept how miserable everyone on this album is.  With songs like Tired of Sex which is self-explanatory, Pink Triangle where Rivers falls in love with a lesbian and can’t seem to accept his love will go unreciprocated, or Across the Sea which ventures a few steps into the creep territory about a fan who lives in Japan.  On one hand you can easily roll your eyes at how glum these songs are, going far beyond the schlock of 00’s pop-emo, but on the other hand you have to give him credit for going all out.  There is not a hint of irony anywhere on this album, and you end up just feeling sorry for the guy for being so unbelievably miserable.  This is a Live Journal come to life, your high school diary in musical form, bleak and modestly embarrassing in hindsight.  In theory it should not work, it should be a complete joke, but somehow everything somehow comes together.  The disjointed nature of these songs blends perfectly with the over the top lyrics, and shrill vocal performance which culminates in a moment where you just have to feel bad for Weezer.  We have all been here, the pained poet who is flailing in the dark, but few of us have had the gall to put it on display like Weezer did in 1996.

#33

Carl Orff – Carmina Burana

Don’t deny it, you live for O Fortuna.  You live for every stupid sports compilation, movie trailer, or video game montage done to O Fortuna.  You get so stupidly hyped every damn time you hear that opening timpani ring out that you knock your beer and nachos onto the ground or perhaps you purposely spike them in a fit of glory.  When the chorus bellows “O Fortuna” you leap from your couch ready to kick a hole in the wall.  Is it overplayed?  Of course, because I can just name the song and your heart rate is already accelerating in excitement, but is it unbelievably awesome?  Yes,  yes, it is.  Even better, the rest of this cantata is a musical delight as well.  Classical novices can rest assure that these pieces are all incredibly brief, and straight forward classical numbers, perfect for those who are new to the genre.  Hate a song?  Do not worry as it will be over in 2 minutes.  Unlike your classic symphonies which will kill you by runtime with nearly twenty minute movements, Carmina Burana scurries along at a quick clip.  Everything starts and ends in a rapid manner, and the music is not an ourobouros of complex arrangements playing on musical themes you will not be able to grasp without a fundamental knowledge of European musical theory.  Its big dumb epic tendencies may cause classical snobs to lift their nose, but it is hard to deny how effective and engaging it is. Pieces vary from the stupidly grandiose like O Fortuna or Ave Formossissima, but they also can be quite charming and funny like the collection of songs about drinking in the tavern.  Yes, you get your big dumb epic and a few numbers about the joys of getting drunk, how perfect is that.  Of course there are songs about love too.  I adore the straight forward nature of Carmina Burana, thanks to Carl Orff’s wonderful arrangements.  The choral accompaniment is massive, and seeing it live is like having a jet engine turn on in your face.  There is a power that is not quite captured on a recording, but without a doubt it is still a fantastic experience.  Worst case, you get to hear O Fortuna, not once, but twice.  Hopefully you brought some spackle to fix the holes in the wall you are about to punch in.

#32

Frank Ocean – Channel Orange

Starting your album with the Playstation boot-up sound is a pretty cheap way to win brownie points, but even if Channel Orange started with Q Anon ramblings it would be this high on the list; ok maybe a few steps down.  Frank’s slow-paced, benzodiazepine infused  R&B masterpiece from 2012 is a quicksand pit of themes on love, transitioning into adulthood, and finding one’s self, slowly drowning the listener in lush if not ambivalent tones and voicings.  The songs are enclosed in a warm embrace of reverb, giving the feeling it is being performed in an empty grand hall.  The instrumentation varies wildly, mixing acoustic instruments, electronic creations, and what sound like household objects, making for a varied and sumptuous tone.  Aside from a piano there is rarely an instance where any song shares a sonic spectrum with the one that came before.  Everything is rolled into a hazy cloud of misery and confusion.  It feels cohesive, but with a structure eager to venture out of its confines, not in a direct linear way but slowly meanderings in every direction possible.  Little interludes work as connecting fibers transitioning us between Frank’s outpourings of emotion.  Their ambient nature emphasizes the channel in Channel Orange, making you feel you really are transitioning between channels on an old TV set.  Frank’s voice is thin, but confident, ranging from low bellows to high pitched cries; a ray of light in the musical fog.  Channel Orange is often sparse, but the decisions made create an impeccable album, exciting and surprising you at every turn even if the surprises are slow builds instead of surprise startles.  Frank uses minimalism to its fullest effect, to create catchy pop songs that use the smallest of pieces to create the biggest of moments.

#31

Songhoy Blues – Résistance

Non-western music often refuses to succumb to the rule of the 1 beat, meaning you often are missing that guiding pulse which you bob your head or tap your steering wheel to.  Often, the 2 and 4 are more emphasized creating a shuffling feeling that runs counter to your trained ears.  Even more sensational is when multiple instruments are each playing by similar, but unique rules creating this flowing stream of rhythm, shattering the guard rails you rely on to know when you should be clapping your hands.  Songhoy Blues blends Western punk and blues rock influences with traditional musical themes and motiffs from their home country of Mali.  The result is something sonically familiar, sounding reminiscent of a blend of punk, ska, and blues, but with an unfamiliar rhythmic style.  In other words, you can bang your head, but how you do so is more up to you.  There are fewer chunky riffs and more hectic single note guitar runs, fewer two note bass leads and more bouncing walking bass grooves.  It creates a remarkable sense of cognitive dissonance, generating something extremely familiar, but you can not seem to identify why.  Most songs like Bamako, Ir Ma Sobay and Yersi Yadda are searing in speed, sounding like the soundtracks to chase scenes while other songs like Hometown and Sahara give the listener a chance to catch their breath and the band members a chance to rest their fingers.  Those quicker songs have an incredibly frenetic feeling that simply can not be achieved by playing you G minor chord any faster.  It is that intricate guitar work that gives Songhoy Blues its hurried vibe, giving everything a more accelerated feeling.  It also helps that the lack of emphasis on any specific beat on most songs keeps you on your toes and searching for the best time to stomp your foot  Some songs like Mali Nord do have a bit of a pulse, but no matter what it is never emphasized, often just a backing part to something larger.  Songhoy Blues may profess their love for old R&B and rock records, which is clearly apparent, but cultural origins are infused throughout.  Résistance is a blissful blending of cultures and ideas that makes for a breath of fresh air in a genre that desperately needs them.

Read entries 30-21 here