Save the Robot – Chris Dahlen

So I have this friend Matt, and we argue about music. We’ve always listened to music together – the Beatles, Pink Floyd, prog, jazz – and we’ve always had enough bands in common to start an argument about them. Matt is a more traditional rock snob, digging power pop and cult artists. He was collecting SmiLE demos before the kids in Brooklyn rediscovered the Beach Boys. Me, my tastes are not as defensible. Fringe artists, niche acts, and tons of bands I like purely as a matter of personal preference. I’ve got plenty of classics in my record collection, but also a bunch of bands I like because I like them – local acts, friend’s bands, artists I listen to because they cheer me up. My favorite band is XTC. I could try to argue why I think they’re the greatest band that ever lived – mount some case to get them into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame – but I know it’s not true.

We love to fight about new music. I’ll condense his argument for the sake of space: he hates it. It’s too hyped and too derivative, there are too many artists choking the stuff out and slapping it on MySpace, and the Internet – and especially publications like Pitchfork – are aiding and abetting the glut, because they need something to write about.

I’ve written for Pitchfork for seven years. I started at two reviews a week and I’ve steadily gone down to four reviews a year, but still, I stay in touch with the ‘Fork, and I contributed to the recent P2K Best Albums of the ’00s Feature, where I had to make a list of the Top 100 albums of the past decade. I also worked on the lists for the ‘70s, ‘80s, and the ‘90s, as well as the top songs from the ‘60s list. So I’ve spent a lot of time mulling over the last fifty years of popular and not-so-popular music, and how this decade stacks up.

And I think Matt has a point. New music is not as good as old music. For songs, it’s hard to beat the ‘60s; for albums, the ‘70s. The ‘80s go out as the most underappreciated decade – a whole span of time that used to be a punchline, when we think about growing up with Spandau Ballet videos on MTV and Huey Lewis on the radio, but that’s because we didn’t know about post-punk or college rock. (And who knew Scritti Politti or Talk Talk were actually so good?) The ‘90s, when I was in college and early adulthood, are pretty poor. So if I had to vote, I’d say the ‘00s were nothing special, but Christ, look at 1996. That year was enough to make you wish you didn’t have ears.

But dissing the whole decade is an easy, negative thing to do. I can agree with Matt that the count of original, essential bands today is low. But as a Pitchfork and Paste writer, part of my job was to find the gems that are coming out today. And looking at the top of my ‘00s albums list, I’m pretty happy with who I chose.

Except that once again, I chose albums that were off the beaten path. The top artists on my list are gifted and exciting. But they don’t have much in common. Guillemots are a fabulous, over-the-top pop band with a very English, Mercury Prize sound – they have yet to break big in the States – and their “Made-Up Love Song #43” may be my single favorite song of the decade. Its lyrics are so daft and its crescendo so consuming that as big, honest statements of love go, it’s pretty untoppable.

The only song that could challenge it is Max Tundra’s “Which Song” – a totally different pop gem, painstakingly constructed from more pieces than I can count, bursting with hooks, melodies, and countermelodies, but all assembled with an almost nebbishly precision. It’s joyous, too. “Made-Up Love Song #43” has that sensuous upright bass giving you a footrub; “Which Song” has a keyboard solo with an almost awkward, machine-like run of notes. I’ve listened to it probably hundreds of times this year and will never get sick of it.

In college, instead of digging grunge and college rock, I listened to a lot of jazz. Not even (or not always) cutting-edge stuff: I would walk around with my headphones listening to soft ECM comfort music, like Bill Frisell and the Dave Holland Quintet. I still listen to jazz and experimental music, but bands like Supersilent have caught my ear now, by combining a soothing austerity with an undeniable rigour. A combination of four distinct voices, nobody sounds likeSupersilent; even the members of Supersilent, working on their own projects, barely sound like Supersilent. I once flew out to San Francisco just to see their US debut. (Same weekend, they booked a gig in New York City and played for twice as long, but what the hell, the weather was nice out there.) 6 is an amazing album, carved out of completely improvised music but capturing and fully exploring a different mood and texture in each piece.

But my album of the year went to the artist I tracked most closely and spoke with most regularly, Doseone, who worked with Boom Bip on the album () (also referred to as “Circle”). () is a lo-fi indie hip-hop record by an MC and a DJ working early in their careers, who decided to try to cram a different genre into every track and see where it took them. There are a few flat-out jams and verbal pyrotechnics, and also sections of crackly static set behind cryptic but autobiographical spoken word. The closer, “Birdcatcher’s Oath,” is the loveliest piece DJ Shadow never produced. But also don’t miss the single, “Birdcatcher’s Return”:

Okay, obligatory journalistic ass-covering: I didn’t pick this album because I’ve spoken with Doseone. But the chance to interview him repeatedly this decade gave me more insight into his work. At first, I was too chicken to ask him what the albums meant. I made the mistake of not wanting to look stupid, when of course, looking stupid once in a while can get you all kinds of intel you never thought to ask for. By the time Doseone was working on his major albums with Subtle, he was on the phone with me for hours walking me through the mythology behind the records.

Nobody sounds like Doseone. Here are some other artists that nobody sounds like: Sufjan Stevens, with his magnificent Illinoise, which I ranked above Seven Swans, even though that quieter Episcopalian folk album is really my favorite. Nina Nastasia, the anti-Neko Case, writing hushed art folk from the swamps via the bathroom of her New York City apartment. Run to Ruin, like Supersilent’s 6, is a set of perfect and disparate settings that’s rigorous and really pretty. And the Books: they are the single most fascinating band I heard this decade, marrying found and played sounds, digital and analog sources, and snooty and silly intentions.

The highest-ranking album I blurbed for Pitchfork’s list was Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. It’s probably the strongest indie record I’ve heard this year, outlasting say, Dirty Projector’s Bitte Orca (I’m more of a Rise Above fan) or Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest. But on my own list, it didn’t crack my top 25. It actually landed at 35, right behind, um, McLusky Does Dallas – and that’s why I won’t be posting more than my top 25 albums here; I get kinda arbitrary after that first set. Only these 25 albums really blew my mind.

(By the way, if you want to skip ahead, my top 25 is at the bottom of this post.)

And now here are some albums in my top 25 that didn’t come close to the top of the staff chart. Aloha’s That’s Your Fire is a wild but wispy ride, with free-ranging vibes and drums mixing it up around heartfelt love songs. That’s a perfect mix for me, but not everyone got that excited about it. Consonant was overshadowed by the reunion of frontman Clint Conloy’s main band, Mission of Burma – but you should really check out their first album; you’ll like it. Cassetteboy’s The Parker Tapes is barely on the radar next to other mash-up and sampler acts like, oh, say, the massively popular Girl Talk. But its 100 tracks are endlessly fascinating, and “Fly Me To New York,” which mocks 9/11 with samples of Frank Sinatra, is the most profane cut I heard. And David Sylvian keeps surprising people with how far he’s come from his glam- and art-pop days. Blemish isn’t as “fun” as say, Brilliant Trees, but it is his strongest and most personal statement. Oh, and Charlotte Hatherley is pretty much bubble-gum punk-rock, but she makes me hella happy.

This decade, I found the kind of bands that I like to listen to: unusual, sometimes austere, sometimes splendiferous acts that are artistically defensible – no Miley Cyrus here – but are also pretty personal. I listen to slow, spare music when I’m working, and happy music when I’m depressed. I like fast, jittery music and dark, somber music. This is a matter of hard-wiring, and not really a cultivated taste. I loved TV on the Radio five seconds into hearing Young Liars. I only started thinking about them when I sat down to write. Same for Deerhoof’s recent albums, although the fact that I dig Friend Opportunity for its progginess makes me wonder if it really has legs for anybody else. I’m sure history will be much kinder to Runner’s Four or Reveille.

I like to joke that I have the worst taste of anyone at Pitchfork. And it’s probably true! I’ve been exploring new music the whole decade, but I’ve slowed down a lot, listening to far less new stuff than I should, and writing reviews either of classic bands that I’ve loved for a while (Nina Simone, XTC), or new acts that just happened to catch my ear (Deleted Scenes, Sister Suvi). Basically, instead of listening to records I’m reporting on, I’m just listening to the ones I like.

But in the past decade, I’ve gotten better at separating what I like from what other people will like. I have better ears, and I have a better understanding of which acts have legs, which ones merely sound nice and which ones have something to offer. Sometimes my work as a writer draws on my tastes – and sometimes not. I don’t mind keeping them separate.

So, here’s my top 25:

1 Boom Bip and Doseone ()
2 Max Tundra Parallax Error Beheads You
3 Guillemots Through the Windowpane
4 Supersilent 6
5 Dirty Projectors Rise Above
6 Aloha That’s Your Fire
7 Sufjan Stevens Illinoise
8 Nina Nastasia Run to Ruin
9 Books The Lemon of Pink
10 TV on the Radio Young Liars
11 Panda Bear Person Pitch
12 Walkmen Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone
13 Cassetteboy The Parker Tapes
14 Max Tundra Mastered By Guy at the Exchange
15 Subtle for hero: for fool
16 David Sylvian Blemish
17 Spoon Kill the Moonlight
18 Deerhoof Friend Opportunity
19 Decemberists Castaways and Cutouts
20 King Gheedorah Take Me To Your Leader
21 TV on the Radio Return to Cookie Mountain
22 Fiery Furnaces Blueberry Boat
23 Charlotte Hatherley Grey Will Fade
24 Sufjan Stevens Seven Swans
25 Consonant s/t