| Listen for Shane (home) BEST OF 2003
past editions (here) Pernice Brothers “Yours, Mine and Ours”- Just the best thing this year. Period. Joe Pernice really is a genius of melody and a damn fine poet (when did I last need to type that phrase?). And a Red Sox fan. He had me long ago, but I just finished his first novel (novella maybe, it’s short) entitled “Meat is Murder” about 80’s teenhood and sadness and lust and obsession and The Smiths. Great stuff. Sample genius lyric – “I’m lonely as the average sea and as willing as the sand” Guided By Voices “Earthquake Glue”- gave me a new favourite song every month since its release: August – “Useless Inventions” September – “Beat Your Wings” October – “The Best of Jill Hives” November – “Secret Star” December – “Of Mites and Men” Evan Dando “Baby I’m Bored”- rooting for the underdog, but no really this album is sweet and leisurely beautiful. The last song “In the Grass All Wine Colored” could be twenty minutes long and I wouldn’t complain. Hypnotic. And he’s still cute after his drug buddies all but dealt him out. My Morning Jacket “It Still Moves”- creepily soothing like a Neil Young album that you actually want to hear all of the way through a few times. Buzz band with an opening song like 7 minutes long – ballsy. Canadian and not sucky : Two-Minute Miracles Volume III “The Silence of Animals” – catchy songs mostly unimpeded by the every-instrument-we-could-find arrangements. New Pornographers “Electric Version” – that makes it two fine recorded efforts by Canada’s fave little super-group, but it hurts (as a longtime Zumpano and even Superconductor fan) that they have sucked thoroughly in the 2 Toronto shows I have seen. They just sound & look disheveled and not really together, like that brown and green thrift store dress. It’s not all Newman’s fault – I saw Zumpano live and they were great, I just think maybe they should firm it up and be a real band cuz the records rock. Ya, and this is so true - from way back in ’99, Thanatopop “Four Track Mind” (I think they were from the Queen city St. Catherines, former home of the OHL Blackhawks and birthplace of $TQ) so completely crushes the winky Broken Social Scene in all its forms. I get it already – the sly band name er … collective name is an ironic nod to the fact that you are positioned well within a very unbroken network of geeky types who can help you get attention with your pretentious, and tragically unsexy record. Art rock still sucks. Other Stuff that’s good: The Shins “Chutes Too Narrow” The Strokes “Room on Fire”- better than the first one. I may be alone on this… The Raveonettes “The Chain Gain of Love” – Jesus & Mary Chain with a cool Danish chick instead of a zitty, drunken Scottish teenager! Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Fever to Tell” – sex sex sexy. Death Cab for Cutie “Transatlanticism”- consistent melodrama and catchy tunes Re-Releases/Collections: Elvis Costello “Get Happy” – there are like a 1000 songs on this friggin thing! He was great. He sucks now (sorry but have you heard his new thing ‘North”? ugh) but this was a man at the top of his game - leaking bouncy tunes from every pore. Big Star “Story” – fun and messy (and much incomplete) collection of a great band’s songs. Guided By Voices “Hardcore UFOs” – what you need. Nada Surf “Proximity Effect” – up there with Wilco’s “YHF” for Best Album Ever to Get You Fired Shane Quinn home |