Music I Enjoyed In 2008

In no particular order, with one exception:

• Fuck Buttons, Fuck Buttons: Two British DJs who want to be the Boredoms except with all the grit filtered out through a silicone and plastic sieve.
• Vivian Girls, Vivian Girls: They're the amalgamation of about eight different sub-cultural zeitgeists, but that's forgivable because they're catchy too.
• Wayne, Carter III: Yep, so the wait was worth it and his hipster icon-hood only enriches his multi-faceted ironic appeal.
• Wale, Mixtape About Nothing: I'd like almost any album that combines a Seinfeld concept with rapping about the DC area, but it helps that this guy has great flow, too.
• Stephin Merritt, Distortion: Dude's willfully evading repetition of 69 Love Songs, but still makes a pretty decent recording.
• T.I., Paper Trail: The two songs that have dominated everyone's life for the past two months or so speak well enough for themselves.
• Max Tundra, Parallax Error Beheads You: Welcome back, Mr. Tundra.
• Crystal Castles, Crystal Castles: Luckily, I, too, enjoy the music from Mega Man.
• Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst: Emo Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Nebraskan. This time, he's nearly legitimate.
  

And my favorite of the year was Girl Talk, Feed the Animals, about which I've already said my piece.

Elliott Smith's strengths are melodic chords and a quivering, irresolute voice

Here's a good Elliott Smith song.



Here's another song that I like which has great vocal harmonies and percussion.



Here's Elliott Smith's miserable cover of that song.



That's all!

Two Inversely Related Cultural Critics

Ok, so if the internet is a valuable medium for any types of media besides pornography, it's commentary on things people in their mid-20's might find nostalgic. For me, there are two such critics that stand out above the rest. The more prominent of these is the Angry Video Game Nerd, whose basic idea is ridiculing terrible retro games.



And believe me, I've played a gargantuan share of NES games in my time. The basic trope of that era was to make the game as difficult as possible as to to make the kid playing the game devote as much time as possible to it and fool the parent who bought the game into believing it was a worthwhile waste of $50. In reality, this difficulty was usually not generated by an intelligent and fun game, like any Mario or Mega Man, but by irrationally and frustratingly absurd games. These are the kind of games that AVGN takes up and exposes for the trash that they are.

However, while I greatly enjoy AVGN, I have to admit that a lot of the enjoyment comes from nostalgia. I laugh because I remember playing a lot of these games, remembering exactly how goddamn awful they were. He draws upon the same life experiences that I have. I'm predisposed towards liking him and his show because I know exactly what he's talking about and am begging to laugh at any of his jokes.

The Nostalgia Chick works on the same level as the AVGN, but in an inverse way. AVGN isn't witty, but is fun because I'm obsessed with his source material. The Nostalgia Chick, on the other hand, reviews shitty movies from the 80s and 90s that were marketed towards girls. Not having a sister or any young female friends, my knowledge of 80s and 90s girl culture is more deficient than my knowledge of girl culture today. So, the Nostalgia Chick is reviewing culture that I don't know a damn thing about. Luckily, she's as witty and intelligent as AVGN's source material is familiar to me.



I've never been a fan of Disney animated films or She-Ra, but the Nostalgia Chick is so brilliantly smart, funny, and - yes - cute, that it doesn't really matter. I still wait readily for her next posting. Still waiting for that mixture of a really intelligent and witty person to review things that I like...

Michael Jackson's fashion is pure fascism

Okay, so I'm probably the very last person to notice this, but Michael Jackson's style is a page taken straight from Pinochet's playbook. Take an objective look - epaulets, armbands, sashes - they're all military-inspired at best and dictator-inspired at worst:

This is a picture of Mike around the time of his trial in 2005 wearing his typical armband - whose fascist connotations I don't think I really even have to get into - and the Order of Vienna medal. Other medals that he supposedly wears are antiques from WWI, WWII, and the Civil War.



Here's a performance from Super Bowl XXVII which explicitly evokes military imagery. The outfit he's wearing is pretty similar to the one he - well, the statute of him - is wearing on the cover of HIStory.

I mean, it could be a totally innocuous fashion sensibility, a method of promoting an album or two. Dude isn't the first musical act to evoke military and fascism in their image, but he is the only one, to my knowledge, to achieve such massive popularity, to not reference it somewhat ironically in his music, and to use it consistently over the course of his career (and even now, with his career over). If I really wanted to go into it, I'd reference the fascist efficiency of his tunes or the subliminal appeal of fascism and how he incorporated it into pop music. Or you could just say the he's clearly afflicted with major mental illnesses and grandeur is just one symptom among many. But it's late and I'm lazy... so I'll just suggest these things for now.

Do you ever wonder how they got people for the audience of America's Funniest Home Videos?

I mean, about twenty different times each season, they had to fill up a television studio with individuals enthusiastic about people getting hit in the balls and brides fainting at the altar. This goes double for the spin-off America's Funniest People. And unlike other lame shows of the era (despite my affection for AFHV, it is undeniably lame), there was little to no live-action component to AFHV. At least when you're in the audience for Home Improvement there's a live performance for you to see. Beyond that, AFHV had their yearly $100,000 or whatever contest where not only would the people in the studio in Los Angeles vote for their favorite video, but people in three or more other cities in America would vote for which video of buildings falling on people or dogs making babies cry was the best. Who decided it would be a good idea to dress up, go to a television studio, and watch videos on a screen? Maybe I'm overanalyzing it. I mean, I guess I'd go, today, if I had the chance.

I'll never be able to review like Robert Christgau

Here's his assessment of Enema of the State by Blink-182, an album that I appreciate more all of the time, and mostly on Robert Christgau's terms:

"Ignore the porn-movie cover except insofar as it conveys terror. These guys are so frightened of females that they turn down sure sex from one hussy on grounds of name-dropping and reject another for being too quick with the zipper. There's no macho camouflage--girlophobia is their great subject. And boy, have they worked up some terrific defenses. If preemptive jealousy doesn't do the trick, there's always suicide, or abduction by aliens. Yet note it well--because they're out front about their little problem, "Going Away to College" is the love song the Descendents put Green Day on earth to inspire."

Such pith! Amazing.

Abbey Road is a great album

Whenever I start thinking about the Beatles, I'm wary to mention them because of their myrad connotations. Beatles fans are too mainstream to be serious music fans (everyone knows that the Rolling Stones were the only band to release music before the Velvets - maybe the Beach Boys or James Brown if you're an effete traditionalist or a historian). That said, Abbey Road is a brilliant end to a career. I think that the impact of the Beatles' early end is underestimated. The ending medely is blissful; very few bands have survived 20+ years with their credibility intact. (apart from the invincible Stones.) And don't forget Lennon's amazing post-Beatles career.

A Very Alinea Thanksgiving

Ok, so these videos have been making the rounds for a short time and they really probably would have been much more interesting about two weeks ago, but since they get less interesting every day, here they are anyway:

Part One:



Part Two:



I first want to make clear that while I've certainly never eaten at a molecular gastronomy restaurant, I'm no Grant Achatz hater. But I think his confidence really comes through on these videos. He knows exactly what he's doing with every flavor on the plate and that's really the only thing that matters, regardless of what techniques he uses. Yet, his style remains a few light years out of the range of mere mortals using stone-age equipment, such as myself and this pair:



Funny stuff. A cautionary tale. For now, I'll retain my humility and low aspirations; I'll stick to the cookbooks meant for housewives, thank you.