Crashing pretty hard to earth after the last season of SYTYCD -- I must be getting old -- but the good news on that front is that we are indeed getting a tenth season. Anything beyond that and I'm afraid to push my luck.
Other TV developments include several of my favorite shows concluding -- Fringe and 30 Rock -- which should've occasioned a retrospective post or two, but instead became excuses to not do anything because hey, there won't be any more of these episodes! Except, there won't be any more episodes. And I lied, I did write something for the 30 Rock finale over at Slant Magazine. I had (and have) more ambitions ideas concerning the only sitcom I watch(ed) and how I'd hoped it would give up verisimilitude and fully embrace its off-the-wall cartoonishness, only to be disappointed when it paid obeisance to continuity by fulfilling Jack's prophecy concerning Kenneth: "In five years we'll all either be working for him... or be dead by his hand." And if the writers were going to follow through with this, I'd have preferred the second option.
Moving on!
I performed a Lindy Hop to one of the best song of the '90s, and I have to say, this time my performance doesn't make me wince too much! I guess I'm getting better.
That's about it for now (as far as the stuff that's not mind-deadeningly boring). Anything worth filling the Fringe- and 30 Rock-sized holes in my TV schedule now?
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Saturday, February 19, 2011
My First Concert In Over A Year
The last time I tried to go to a gig was in November of 2009, I believe, when my car essentially broke down. So I was pretty determined to make the trek to the City on a weeknight, especially when, well, fancy fishnets and effects pedals were so abundant. My review, here.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, February 08, 2010
Albums 2000-2009: 20-11
One thing that this batch of albums share is that more than half of them are extremely loud.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Albums 2000-2009: 30-21
Barry has his decade list posted (finally) (pot/kettle/black), so if you want a look at a genuinely nuanced selection, check out his top 30 of the '00s (about a third of which I'm familiar with).
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Albums 2000-2009: Preamble
Let me get an immediate caveat out of the way. The following words should never be attributed to my list: comprehensive; permanent; canonic. I've narrowed my list down to a favorite fifty albums that I feel reasonably solid about, but I've been tinkering with the both the rankings and with the stragglers at its bottom. Which is to say that, despite the months that I've put into this little exercise (and yes, months -- I started reassessing in November up to (and certainly through) this writing), the complete list still isn't solidified, nor will it ever be, because list-making of this sort is a slow-motion snapshot of taste. And taste isn't static, it evolves and is informed by whatever your current circumstances are; something that I never "got" before suddenly makes sense because of a fleeting mood that might never return again. I guess that deals with the permanent caveat.
The comprehensive caveat. For only a brief time was I ever an active music seeker at a professional level. That commitment wasn't sustainable for me, and it didn't last, clearly. In fact, since that time, the amount of energy that I devote to finding new bands and new genres has quickly dissipated to almost nothing by 2009. Don't get me wrong, I listen to music nearly every day, and even continue to buy CDs (yes, I'm one of those), except what I bought was exclusively from artists that I've been into since 2007 or before, which means that recent critical darlings are a big void for me. Part of getting old, I guess, and at an earlier point in my life, I'd have been upset or disappointed at myself for getting complacent, but now, I can't be bothered about it. (If Barry is in the same boat, I see no reason to feel ashamed.)
Similarly, my listening has always been somewhat haphazard, where I get into something more or less randomly, or on a whim, rather than as a result of some directed listening project, like, "I really ought to check out XYZ scene" (which probably describes a lot of music experiences). However, that haphazardness stands a good chance of not providing the momentum to continue along that artist's work or their genre, so that in my listening universe, they become this bubble floating disconnectedly in space.
In any case (clumsy transition to canon caveat), certain critical favorites have never been anything I'm interested in (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, hip hop that's more about the emceeing than the production (i.e. Timbaland or bust)). Also: don't expect any Radiohead. "Influential" or "important" doesn't make me appreciate an album that just doesn't press any of my buttons. What's more, my taste has really gotten simple: I like music that has any combination of textured arrangements, nice melodies, auditory space, and female singing. (This formulation yields a lot of post-rock and psych rock and noisy indie/indie pop bands.)
So: what follows in the coming weeks is a list of albums that I liked in late 2009/early 2010, no more, no less.
TV rating: The Wire - "Boys of Summer"
The comprehensive caveat. For only a brief time was I ever an active music seeker at a professional level. That commitment wasn't sustainable for me, and it didn't last, clearly. In fact, since that time, the amount of energy that I devote to finding new bands and new genres has quickly dissipated to almost nothing by 2009. Don't get me wrong, I listen to music nearly every day, and even continue to buy CDs (yes, I'm one of those), except what I bought was exclusively from artists that I've been into since 2007 or before, which means that recent critical darlings are a big void for me. Part of getting old, I guess, and at an earlier point in my life, I'd have been upset or disappointed at myself for getting complacent, but now, I can't be bothered about it. (If Barry is in the same boat, I see no reason to feel ashamed.)
Similarly, my listening has always been somewhat haphazard, where I get into something more or less randomly, or on a whim, rather than as a result of some directed listening project, like, "I really ought to check out XYZ scene" (which probably describes a lot of music experiences). However, that haphazardness stands a good chance of not providing the momentum to continue along that artist's work or their genre, so that in my listening universe, they become this bubble floating disconnectedly in space.
In any case (clumsy transition to canon caveat), certain critical favorites have never been anything I'm interested in (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, hip hop that's more about the emceeing than the production (i.e. Timbaland or bust)). Also: don't expect any Radiohead. "Influential" or "important" doesn't make me appreciate an album that just doesn't press any of my buttons. What's more, my taste has really gotten simple: I like music that has any combination of textured arrangements, nice melodies, auditory space, and female singing. (This formulation yields a lot of post-rock and psych rock and noisy indie/indie pop bands.)
So: what follows in the coming weeks is a list of albums that I liked in late 2009/early 2010, no more, no less.
TV rating: The Wire - "Boys of Summer"
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Monday, November 09, 2009
Forty-Eight For Work
Ever since my said we couldn't bring mp3 players to work (regardless of the security issue, I'm still horribly unhappy with this decision), I've been lugging my 48-CD Case Logic with me every day. Well, it's not hard to carry it with me, since 48 isn't a lot, but that was sort of the issue, I felt, that I can only bring less than 10% of my CD collection. Of course, the last few years, I've tended to listen to a small handful of albums at any given time over and over again, so at least theoretically, I'm able to bring what I want to listen to. The stickiest issue is that last part: what I want to listen to.
I have a hard time anticipating what I'd be in the mood for, so I ended up going with a fairly safe if not exactly wide range of my albums. I don't want anything particularly difficult or something that absorbs or envelopes my attention to the point I can't work, and, through my listening neuroses (alas, I haven't brought my Neurosis), hardly anything I'd consider an all-time favorite (which I tend to "retire" from my personal rotation -- that's another topic altogether). For instance, no Cocteau Twins, because their music is to me intensely intimate and personal; same with Mogwai and Labradford. Similarly, I don't bring my metal or punk, because at work, I rarely want to rock out, much less with my cock out, meaning barely any Boris (certainly not Pink) and barely any Sleater-Kinney. Strangely enough, though, I've brought my Fennesz, whose dissonance hardly qualifies him for easy-listening but is sufficiently ambient to maybe get by. But then, I've included a number of CD-Rs that breach the above rules -- they are utterly beautiful (Colleen!) or are face-melting skronk (Bardo Pond) -- simply because I have no other place to put them.
Seems that lush noise and work is a good mix, actually. And Can is great coding music, too. Viva le krautrock, or something!
Indie rating: Flying Saucer Attack - "Here Am I"
I have a hard time anticipating what I'd be in the mood for, so I ended up going with a fairly safe if not exactly wide range of my albums. I don't want anything particularly difficult or something that absorbs or envelopes my attention to the point I can't work, and, through my listening neuroses (alas, I haven't brought my Neurosis), hardly anything I'd consider an all-time favorite (which I tend to "retire" from my personal rotation -- that's another topic altogether). For instance, no Cocteau Twins, because their music is to me intensely intimate and personal; same with Mogwai and Labradford. Similarly, I don't bring my metal or punk, because at work, I rarely want to rock out, much less with my cock out, meaning barely any Boris (certainly not Pink) and barely any Sleater-Kinney. Strangely enough, though, I've brought my Fennesz, whose dissonance hardly qualifies him for easy-listening but is sufficiently ambient to maybe get by. But then, I've included a number of CD-Rs that breach the above rules -- they are utterly beautiful (Colleen!) or are face-melting skronk (Bardo Pond) -- simply because I have no other place to put them.
- Ellen Allien, Berlinette
- Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2 CD2
- Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2 CD1
- Bardo Pond, Volume I
- Bardo Pond, Live 2003/07/12
- Bardo Pond, Terrastock 6
- Vapour Theories/Prairie Dog Theories, Live
- Lightning Bolt, Wonderful Rainbow
- Colleen, Mort Aux Vaches
- Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn and Ginger Brooks Takahashi, Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project
- Nelly Furtado, Loose
- Fennesz, Venice
- Electrelane, Axes
- Sneaker Pimps, Becoming X
- Boris, Akuma No Uta
- Paula Frazer, A Place Where I Know: 4-Track Songs 1992-2002
- The Knife, Silent Shout
- Yann Tiersen, Amélie Original Soundtrack
- The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band with Choir, "This Is Our Punk-Rock," Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing
- Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, Horses In The Sky
- The Mountain Goats, The Sunset Tree
- Fuck Buttons, Street Horrrsing
- The Raveonettes, Lust Lust Lust
- The Raveonettes, Pretty In Black
- Sleater-Kinney, The Woods
- Stereolab, Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
- Stereolab, Mars Audiac Quintet
- Stereolab, Emperor Tomato Ketchup
- Stereolab, ABC Music CD1
- Stereolab, ABC Music CD2
- Gescom, Keynell
- Cat Power, You Are Free
- Yann Tiersen, Les Retrouvailles
- Camera Obscura, Let's Get Out Of This Country
- Slowdive, Just For A Day
- Can, Tago Mago
- Ladytron, Witching Hour
- Ladytron, Velocifero
- Can, Soundtracks
- Can, Monster Movie
- Sleater-Kinney, Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC, 2000/09/02
- Yann Tiersen, La Valse Des Monstres
- Flying Saucer Attack, Further
- The Ronettes, Greatest Hits
- Massive Attack, Collected CD2
- Fennesz, Plus Forty Seven Degrees 56' 37" Minus Sixteen Degrees 51' 08"
- Dusty Springfield, Dusty In Memphis
- Various Artists, Best of Irish Folk Music
Seems that lush noise and work is a good mix, actually. And Can is great coding music, too. Viva le krautrock, or something!
Indie rating: Flying Saucer Attack - "Here Am I"
Thursday, October 22, 2009
I Want To Learn The Accordion
That's the only thing I'm thinking after listening to Electrelane's "Eight Steps"... except I actually want to learn to play the harmonium, because that's the instrument being played on the track. Or is it the melodica? I have trouble distinguishing them sometimes/always. Who knows, I'm certainly not going to be picky as long as they all have that reedy, sweetly wheezing, blessed drone.
(I was a guest at an Indian wedding once, and the ceremony included some musicians, one of whom played, I now realize, the harmonium. Beautiful.)
Indie rating: Mirah - "Light The Match"
(I was a guest at an Indian wedding once, and the ceremony included some musicians, one of whom played, I now realize, the harmonium. Beautiful.)
Indie rating: Mirah - "Light The Match"
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Natalie's SYTYCD Top 16 Performance and Result Shows Music Recaps
[I picked this picture because, although it did not make the "official" group of images from the performance night, it speaks volumes about the dancing and Mia Michaels]
I had to fast forward through Toni Basil’s “speech” in the beginning. Going from Lil’ C to Toni is like going from English to Mandarin Chinese with no subtitles. Makes little to no sense. ADAM SHANKMAN FOR 3RD PERMANENT JUDGE!!! I know that Shankman gets a bad wrap for sometimes being too nice, but I like that he supports the dancers but can still give them constructive (coherent) criticism.
Onto the music recaps for the Top 16 Performance and Results shows…
Karla & Jonathan’s Hip-Hop routine choreographed by Dave Scott
What a disappointment with Karla’s background with the Boogie Bots. The first problem, I think, was with the song choice. It’s kind of an in between song. Not hard-hitting and not smooth enough for lyrical hip-hop. That translated into the movement. There wasn’t much going on there, Dave Scott. Better work next time.
Song: By My Side
Artist/Band: Jadakiss feat. Ne-Yo
Where you’ve heard the song before: Apparently it got good airplay but I don’t listen to the radio so that might explain my non-exposure to this song.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Asuka & Vitolio’s Jazz routine choreographed by Mandy Moore
Thrash Rocker Jazz. Asuka was bound to break down. A la Cousin Heidi and the Bench routine. The dance started out slow. It seemed even slower with Pat Benatar playing. I don’t know. I didn’t think it was hard enough. Maybe I’m used to more steps? I just don’t know.
Song: Heartbreaker
Artist/Band: Pat Benatar
Where you’ve heard the song before: Cheyenne Kimball of an MTV series fame sand this song with Benatar in a Candie’s ad. It was performed on Charmed by Pat Benatar and a parody was done on My Name Is Earl. Idina Menzel, of RENT, Enchanted, and a short arc on Private Practice, sang this song on her “I Stand” tour. It’s a song available to play on Rock Band and Guitar Hero: World Tour.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Melissa & Ade’s Rumba choreographed by Tony Meredith
Who doesn’t love some Destiny’s Child once in awhile? As far as rumbas go, this definitely wasn’t one of my favorites. I think they danced it well and even got into the emotion, but I just didn’t get it. It looked a little rough around the edges.
Song: Emotion
Artist/Band: Destiny’s Child
Where you’ve heard the song before: It was originally sung by Samantha Sung in 1977 and then later recorded by the Bee Gees. It was off of Destiny’s Child’s album Survivor.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Janette & Brandon’s Hip-Hop routine choreographed by Dave Scott
As much as I hated Dave’s first routine, I actually kinda liked this one. Maybe loved it. I didn’t love all of Brandon’s stops, but I did love that both of them went for it and pulled it out 90% of the time.
Song: What a World
Artist/Band: Common
Where you’ve heard the song before: It’s off of his newest album Universal Mind Control.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Kayla & Kupono’s Viennese Waltz choreographed by Jean-Marc Generaux
Fancy lights! Pulling out all the stops SYTYCD. I liked it. It kept my attention and I like that he used a song off of Jewel’s new album, Lullaby. It’s actually called Sweet Dreams on iTunes, if you’re searching for it. Kayla was amazing. I’m glad we got to see her do a waltz. Pono did better than I expected as well.
Song: Sweet Dreams for You
Artist/Band: Jewel
Where you’ve heard the song before: As I said above, it’s from her newest album Lullaby. If you liked the song, give the rest of the album a listen.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Randi & Evan’s Contemporary routine choreographed by Mia Michaels
I kinda wanted wardrobe to put a unitard on Randi. You had to look really close at this dance to see that it was a Mia Michael’s original. At first glance it could have been a Mandy Moore or a Tyce Diorio. Strange song choice, but it all worked together.
Song: Koop Island Blues
Artist/Band: Koop feat. Ane Brun
Where you’ve heard the song before: I’ve never heard it before. It’s off of their album Koop Islands.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Caitlin & Jason’s Paso Doble choreographed by Jean Marc and France Generaux
Brandon’s audition song. They went through the steps but it definitely wasn’t good. The song is huge, HUGE. There are very few dancers that can stand up to that music. Caitlin and Jason were not two of them.
Song: O Fortuna (from Carmina Burana)
Artist/Band: Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg & Kurt Prestel
Where you’ve heard the song before: This song has been all over. I can’t list it all. Go over to Wikipedia to ch-ch-check it out.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Jeanine & Phillips’ Broadway routine choreographed by Tyce Diorio
I wonder if Tyce got any of his inspiration from this dance. It was nice to see Arielle in the audience. One of the few Broadway routines that I enjoyed. I loved the song and the concept.
Song: Moses Supposes
Artist/Band: Singing in the Rain
Where you’ve heard the song before: I imagine most SYTYCD fans and dance fans in general have seen this movie. If you haven’t, watch this YouTube clip of Moses Supposes from the movie.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Top 16 Group Opening Routine choreographed by NappyTabs & Dmitry
One of my Top 3 Group routines ever. I loved the combination of hip-hop and whatever it was that Dmitry threw in. That whole routine goes on the Hot Tamale Train for me.
Song: I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)
Artist/Band: Pitbull
Where you’ve heard the song before: Some of the SYTYCD Season IV Real dancers did a dance to this song on Ellen. It’s also getting lots of airplay these days. On my iPod. In the gym.
Buy the single on iTunes:
The Rage Boys Crew Performance
I think that this dance should have been limited to those dancers under 4 feet tall (like Evan and Randi). Too adorable. But Cat Deeley takes the “Cute” award of the night.
Song: Feel It
Artist/Band: Colby O’Donis and Mauli-B
Where you’ve heard the song before: I couldn't find this song anywhere in mp3 format. Sorry!
I didn’t get a chance to re-watch the solos so no commentary this time around.
Asuka’s Solo
Song: Don’t Trust Me
Artist/Band: 3OH!3
Where you’ve heard the song before: It’s from their album Want.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Vitolio’s Solo
Song: Viva La Vida
Artist/Band: Coldplay
Where you’ve heard the song before: It was featured on the showMedium and the re-boot of 90210. If you don’t have this album already, go out and buy it. It’s worth it!
Buy the single on iTunes:
Karla’s Solo
Song: 15 Step
Artist/Band: Radiohead
Where you’ve heard the song before: It’s from their album In Rainbows. Apparently the song used a group of kids from the Matrix Music School & Arts Centre in Oxford.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Jonathan’s Solo
Song: The Hunted
Artist/Band: Kodo
Where you’ve heard the song before: High praises for the SYTYCD music people and their wide variety of music this year. Kodo is a drumming troupe from Japan. I imagine this song is from the movie The Hunted.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Caitlin’s Solo
Song: Que Sera Sera
Artist/Band: Jennifer Terran
Where you’ve heard the song before: This song has a loooong history. Read it over at Wikipedia because I can’t process all of that information right now.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Jason’s Solo
Song: New American Classic
Artist/Band: Taking Back Sunday
Where you’ve heard the song before: Taking Back Sunday needed to make an appearance on SYTYCD. It’s only right. Great choice. Go buy this album as well. Where You Want To Be.
Buy the single on iTunes:
The Veronicas’ (+ Lindsey of the Beat Freaks) Performance
Finally! A half-decent song and kickass dancers. Now let’s keep this up SYTYCD.
Song: Take Me On the Floor
Where you’ve heard the song before: This song was used for promos for the Australian version of Dancing with the Stars. And I’m sure it’s stuck in your head by now. Catchy tune.
Buy the single on iTunes:
Asuka’s Goodbye Montage
Song: Already Gone
Artist/Band: Kelly Clarkson
Where you’ve heard the song before: The last 2 weeks plus the next 5 weeks. Or maybe they’ll change the song when we get to the Top 10. SYTYCD keeps me guessing!
Buy the single on iTunes:
Jonathan’s Goodbye Montage
Song: On Your Own
Artist/Band: Green River Ordinance
Buy the single on iTunes:
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Random Ten
Load up all my mp3s, select "Shuffle," hit play. (Better than doing work I should be doing.)
- Bardo Pond - "Sifaka" (Vol. 3)
Less of an exploratory space psych jam than the usual Volume stuff, "Sifaka" has hand-claps and a snaking groove that's more typical of Bardo from the mid-'90s. - Gemma Hasson - "Dan Malone" (The True Songs of Ireland)
Sweet singer about whom I've tried to find more information -- or even her albums -- to no avail. She's got that quivering voice that you tend to hear from Irish balladeers, which normally annoys me, but in her case, she makes up for that with a pure voice and some great traditional Irish folk backing. One of three songs that I've ever heard from her, sentimental as hell but makes me melt for Erin's glens anyway. - Sole - "Tepee on a Highway Blues" (Selling Live Water)
Anticon rap with a lullaby melody. Not the hottest thing from Anticon, but it's pretty enough. - Cocteau Twins - "Ooze Out and Away, Onehow" (The Moon & The Melodies)
Begins as a whisper-quiet ambient track -- I can barely hear Liz on it, all floaty and cloudy -- before the drum machine kicks in and she does her thing, it's a Cocteaus track, duh, and I'll lap it up, always. - Mirah With The Black Cat Orchestra - "Dear Landlord" (To All We Stretch The Open Arm)
One of the better tracks from Mirah's weird collab album, it's twangier, almost swingier than her usual acoustic singer-songwriter material (which I love). Oh wait, this is a Dylan cover. - The Pipettes - "In the Bleak Midwinter" (Pipettes Christmas Single 7")
A b-side from the polka-dotted dancing gals, way more choral than the usual Pips, not much production or accompaniment, which gives the song a frosty yet snug feel. Really focused on their voices, reminds you that they're more than just pretty faces, glasses, and '60s dance moves. - Lil' Wayne - "Mrs. Officer" (Tha Carter III)
The "wee oh wee, oh weeee" song. Not terribly memorable -- more of an R 'n B track -- but then again, at least it's not "La La." The chorus, sung by one Bobby Valentino, grows on me, though. - Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-la-la Band with Choir - "Sow Some Lonesome Corners So Many Flowers Bloom" ("This Is Our Punk-Rock," Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing,)
Slow-building ASMZ track -- haha, well, that's any ASMZ track, I suppose -- with a simple plucked guitar that layers on more and more voices, dissolves into a long passage of atmospheric orchestral doodling that's more akin to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, before it crashes down in a more typically ASMZ climax. Interesting tidbit, Winamp (yes, I still use Winamp) numbers this track as #666. - A R Rahman ft. Suzzanne - "Dreams On Fire" (Slumdog Millionaire)
The sappy ballad, which makes me want to dismiss it right away, but it's got this pulsing bass throb and electronic tinkling that is a big improvement over your typical platform-for-a-wailing-diva slow jam. Oh, and ethnic flute! - Doomriders - "Mercy" (Long Hair And Tights)
Big rolling Motorhead-style metal with added thrashy soloing (yay!) and hardcore singing (meh!).
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Stereolab @ The Fillmore (10-21-2008)
I tweeted yesterday that I hadn't been as excited to go to a concert as I
was while counting down the minutes to go see Stereolab, the effect of
which was setting myself up for an epic letdown, because I really
rilly wanted the Groop to close out the show with a 45-minute
version of "Jenny Ondioline." Of course that didn't happen; in fact, they
didn't play "Jenny" in any of its brain-melting incarnations. Fortunately,
their songbook is so well-stocked with motorik-meets-lounge-pop all-time
classics -- "John Cage Bubblegum"! Meghan McCain's favorite Marxist pop
anthem "Ping-Pong"! -- that I think I can forgive the band their omission. Also, they're touring in support of Chemical Chords, probably the happiest, hoppiest most dance-friendly album they've released to date (if I'm wrong, be kind, I estimate that I've never heard about 40% of Stereolab's total output). I had a stupid grin on my face for half the show.
Right before the band got onstage, a roadie were placing paper plates around the various instruments. Enigmatic! After the gig, the big mystery was revealed when some of the band threw them Frisbee-style into the crowd -- the plates had the setlist written on them!
I didn't get one, but someone did:
Perc (Percolator)
Neon (Neon Beanbag)
Eye (Eye of the volcano)
Mountain
Chemical (Chemical Chords)
2 Finger
Ping Pong
Valley Hi
Lo Boob
Ecstatic
Double Rocker
Silver Sands
John Cage
French (Disko?)
Cybele's (Cybele's Reverie)
----
Vortical
Emergency
Stomach
No "Daisy Click Clack." ;_;
Apologies to the people behind for forcing them to watch my spastic, arrhythmic dancing.
Laetitia Sadier, in all her Gallic cool, has got great moves (at one point
she even busted out some air guitar). Like, she could be a Pipette!
"Static Ecstatic" is about a "French prick(?) -- Nicolas Sarkozy."
Indie rating:
was while counting down the minutes to go see Stereolab, the effect of
which was setting myself up for an epic letdown, because I really
rilly wanted the Groop to close out the show with a 45-minute
version of "Jenny Ondioline." Of course that didn't happen; in fact, they
didn't play "Jenny" in any of its brain-melting incarnations. Fortunately,
their songbook is so well-stocked with motorik-meets-lounge-pop all-time
classics -- "John Cage Bubblegum"! Meghan McCain's favorite Marxist pop
anthem "Ping-Pong"! -- that I think I can forgive the band their omission. Also, they're touring in support of Chemical Chords, probably the happiest, hoppiest most dance-friendly album they've released to date (if I'm wrong, be kind, I estimate that I've never heard about 40% of Stereolab's total output). I had a stupid grin on my face for half the show.
Right before the band got onstage, a roadie were placing paper plates around the various instruments. Enigmatic! After the gig, the big mystery was revealed when some of the band threw them Frisbee-style into the crowd -- the plates had the setlist written on them!
I didn't get one, but someone did:
Perc (Percolator)
Neon (Neon Beanbag)
Eye (Eye of the volcano)
Mountain
Chemical (Chemical Chords)
2 Finger
Ping Pong
Valley Hi
Lo Boob
Ecstatic
Double Rocker
Silver Sands
John Cage
French (Disko?)
Cybele's (Cybele's Reverie)
----
Vortical
Emergency
Stomach
No "Daisy Click Clack." ;_;
Apologies to the people behind for forcing them to watch my spastic, arrhythmic dancing.
Laetitia Sadier, in all her Gallic cool, has got great moves (at one point
she even busted out some air guitar). Like, she could be a Pipette!
"Static Ecstatic" is about a "French prick(?) -- Nicolas Sarkozy."
Indie rating:
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
2007: Ten Hours
First a desultory top 10 8 albums of the year, though with a nota bene: I don't think I've been this disinterested in putting together a year-end list in recent memory. That doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the year's releases; rather, my media priorities and critical attention have shifted unequivocally towards teevee, and I haven't felt the urge to keep up my indie cred as years past. This list makes no claims as to comprehensiveness:
* The Electrelane ménage -- krautrock and gorgeous melodies -- hooks up with sweet, heartbroken lyrics. Much rejoicing. (Come back, Electrelane! -ed.)
≈ An ambient record you have to listen to, spacious and intimate. The key is to disappear into the waves...
† Never heard anything so loud.
℘ Nothing wrong with Peej doing pretty, especially as a Civil War ghost.
∞ Baltharian reveries on the Cylon baseships.
1234 Geddit?
∪ Cheating, sure (i.e. Pink live!), but I finally get Merzbow now, he just needs to play behind a hardcore punk-metal trio shredding out the best post-Motörhead long-player ever. (Nb. the linked video isn't with Merzbow -- you'll just have to imagine the track with more industrial noise.)
∫ The most pummeling quiet record -- ever?
Enough of the music bollocks, here's the TV
If you're a regular reader, you probably have picked up my contrarian views which, I'll admit, are sometimes (oftentimes?) blatant provocations, playing the devil's advocate just for its own sake. And one of the unstated assumptions that underlies this blog (and explains the amount of energy I put into it) is that tv land always has quality, it's not the underachieving wasteland that various cultural sentinels would have you believe it is. Critics who complain about any given year's quality are these dour sentinels, or else they're deluged by the sheer volume of mediocrity that's unavoidable in any medium, and I have little time for their opinions.
That said, I compiled the 10 Best Hours of 2007 with difficulty, though to avoid historical revisionism, I had a hard time doing it last year, too. Part of the reason is that the new shows mostly disappointed (though I swear to God, Reaper delivered on its promise), while the old favorites either stumbled along during Fall 2007 (which piled additional detritus onto the sublimity of Spring 2007 that I had to mentally sort through) (also, the strike didn't help, but we'll probably never know just what could have been if things had been business as usual), or skipped this year altogether, whether by HBO's strategized scheduling practices (you guessed it, The Wire) or because their runs simply ended (Teen Titans, Justice League Unlimited).
And sometimes I'm just behind the curve. Just this year, I've caught up (and I'm still catching up) on no fewer than 5 shows of which I'm now an entrenched fan, and no doubt I'll still be discovering new shows. But for the moment, if I could propose an amended 10 hours from 2006, they'd look something like this (new entrants bolded):
10. Justice League Unlimited, "The Great Brain Robbery" (5x08)
9. Friday Night Lights, "Pilot" (1x01)
8. Survivor: Cook Islands, "People That You Like Want To See You Suffer" (13x10)
7. Heroes, "Fallout" (1x11)
6. Teen Titans, "Things Change" (5x13)
5. Lost, "Live Together, Die Alone" (2x23)
4. Veronica Mars, "Not Pictured" (2x22)
3. Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part 2" (2x11)
2. America's Next Top Model Cycle 6, "The Girl Who is Going to the Moon" (6x09)
1. The Wire, "Final Grades" (4x13)
Given that almost half of my top 10 of 2006 got turned over, anything I put together for 2007 is destined to be no less temporary. (And let's not forget that we're talking about tv here, that gloriously ephemeral and intangible medium -- at least it was before the DVD, which, like the edenic serpent, introduced to it the death of permanence and respectability, but that's another matter).
But the real reason a list of 10 was hard this year and probably will always be hard is that for all the tv I watch, I don't watch enough to compile awesome episodes from 10 different shows, which is sort of reflected in my year-end music list as well. I don't have enough time to watch that much tv, I don't have cable, I'm afraid of getting hooked on shameless trash (like, say, The OC), I don't believe in the concept of a canon -- whatever combination of these reasons is the case, I don't come close to comprehensiveness, and so if you ever read me saying "this year was a bad year in tv," feel free to launch a projectile of your choice (I suggest: a football) towards my groin.
Which is all to say that the following list is a project of simple vanity. Just because I include certain shows on an arbitrary list doesn't make them more legitimate or better than anything anyone else watches (even if I make claims to the contrary -- remember, I'm an admitted hypocrite). In addition to the vanity, a top 10 lets me reflect on some shows, to work through why I enjoyed them, with perhaps a dash of evangelism for the more ratings-challenged ones.
Finally, I should state that despite the anti-canon equivocations of the preceding paragraphs, the top five includes episodes that sent me into ecstasy -- whether of the unadulterated variety or the kind that involves endorphin-releasing schadenfreude -- enough so that 2007 was a great tv year, however you slice it.
(Nb. I realize that one of the entrants below is actually two hours, but for the sake of symmetry, shut up.)
10. So You Think You Can Dance, Week 1, Top 20 Dancers Perform (3x06; FOX, 6/13/07)
The overall talent level, if not the choreography, was exponentially better than years past, and all the promise offered by the dancers was nearly as exciting as anything they actually did. Also, this was kinda hot, and a certain host put the "cat" into "lolcat."
9. Project Runway Canada, "Opposites Attract" (1x06; Slice, 11/12/07)
Just as you'd expect, the Canuck version of Runway doesn't have the same bite as its southern cousin since, as we all know, Canadians are scientifically more polite than Yankees, which, when it comes to reality tv, is to sadly blander effect. (I can make this un-PC generalization because I watched an episode -- one whole episode! -- of Canada's Next Top Model.) For instance, Evan Biddell, the show's self-styled heavy, slimmed down from his pre-Runway weight of 300 pounds, then bit off the catchphrase of an infinitely more colorful American Runway contestant. Some heavy!
Yet, the most notable trump card that Runway Maple Leaf holds over Runway Crying Eagle is its host, Iman. While Runway Canada kicked off with as much empty space and personality as the Northwest Territories, Mrs. David Bowie single-handedly raised her version above any stereotypical and expected Canadian blandness. Iman owns the whole show in a way that Heidi -- bless her always-smiling Teutonic femmebotness -- never has. Iman informed the designers of their upcoming challenges and all eyes were of course on her. Her hosting style was uncompromising as she takes her sweet time with her line readings. Where Heidi bids farewell to eliminated contestants with the impersonal "auf Wiedersehen," Iman tells them what's up, "You just didn't measure up." But it was in the sixth episode of the season that she at last decided to utterly dominate the show, letting loose with charisma, humor, and an effortless strength of opinion that is captivating.
In fact, she almost single-handedly raised the show's game at the opening of the show when she reminded everyone that she can still bring the woah:
I haven't seen someone work the shadows like this since Sydney Bristow. It's safe to say that she'll always be an elegant lady.
Additionally, there was Marie Genevieve, whose French(-Canadian) accent drives me nuts.
She also combines my two favorite things: glasses, and white girls.
8. Bones, "Mummy in the Maze" (3x05; FOX, 10/30/07)
Even if I never remember the procedural bits, Temperance Brennan makes science and empiricism sexy.
7. John From Cincinnati, "His Visit: Day Five" (1x06; HBO, 7/15/07)
The most thrillingly weird moment on TV since the first season finale of Twin Peaks. Prepare yourselves.
Sure, this scene is pure spectacle that pointed to mythological depths at the time but instead opened up a can of worms that ultimately turned out bottomless -- but sometimes payoff is unnecessary. Some things just can't be expressed yet remain beautiful all the same. If you can let yourself be enticed by the unanswerable mystery, the unfettered unknowable, and unbounded possibility, then you'll have stumbled onto the allure of the ineffable. It's a vastness which, if I were the grandiloquent type, I'd call God. (Also if I were a blasphemer.)
Oh, and who can forget this sparkling performance? Camp (albeit unintentional) and weirdness -- John From Cincinnati really is the Twin Peaks for the '00s.
6. Reaper, "The Cop" (1x08; The CW, 11/13/07)
Remember how I'm never wrong? Still the best new show of the season. Yes, a lot of Reaper's own viewers have cited the show's uneven tone or its meandering master narrative, but I could barely care less and I'm still not wrong. Look, if I acknowledge every one of my mistakes, that'd make for exceedingly dull reading. Like our own beloved president, never admit to error! So here's how I reason my way out of this quandary: for me, nearly any narrative deficiency can be compensated for by hilarious wit, especially the sophomoric variety, which Reaper has no problem with. As a for instance, peep this. (Start at about 8:30.)
5. Survivor: Fiji, "It's a Turtle!" (14x10; CBS, 4/19/07)
In Fiji, the lines drawn in the sand split the would-be survivors into two principle camps: the players I adored -- Yau-Man and Earl -- and the players I hated -- Alex and Mookie, who liked to figuratively flex their muscles and kick sand in the face of slight professor Yau-Man. (There was a third camp, the people I couldn't care less about, but that describes exactly how much energy I want to spend on them.) Alex was a piece of work inside and outside the game, but I loathed Mookie, whose defining moment came two episodes earlier, during a projectiles-throwing challenge, when he ridiculed Yau-Man's unorthodox technique which, of course, had the weight of science behind it as he pwned Mookie (start at about 2:30 for the goods -- don't miss his shock and dismay that a skinny old dude could manage to outperform him). That instant crystallized the jockish presumption that typified Alex and Mookie, and when they thuggishly tried to strategize against Yau-Man and Earl and dubbed themselves (along with Dreamz and Edgardo) something as junior-high pimply as "the Four Horsemen" (of what? Delusionally Inflated Ego and Pathetic Macho Dick-Swinging?), their plans obviously and completely unraveled with the frothiest layer of schadenfreude ever on Survivor. The bad guys don't always get their comeuppance in reality tv -- much less reality qua reality -- but when it does, there's nothing sweeter.
Also, Boo's FLOZ hat is destined to be the enduring mystery of our times.
4. Friday Night Lights, "Mud Bowl" (1x20; NBC, 3/28/07)
Season two has made me reconsider the fabled first season's naturalism, which is more accurately Naturalism since the situations so often were larger than life and their consequent outcomes concluded neatly by preternatural maturity (which season two tried to complicate by rolling back and/or conveniently forgetting a lot of character growth). But scratch the substance and you reach the show's real meat, its style. Don't let the vérité influences and flourishes fool you, because they're precisely the point, and did "Mud Bowl" ever bring the ruckus: Of course Dillon was going to win its regular season finale to go on to the State Championship, which would've been predictable and lifeless if the moment was anything less than heart-stopping and epic. A neutral site built days before the game. A torrential storm torn straight from YHWH's Old Testament wrath. Motherfucking Isis. Boys entering the crucible of flooded ash and the annihilation of all ego, and emerging men of character. And a television show transcending the shackles of substance and into the realm of pure aesthetics.
3. Heroes, ".07%" (1x19; NBC, 4/23/07)
Wherein Nate loses out on Linderman's pot pie, and the show's nerd quotient goes through the roof. I never plotzed so much.
2. 30 Rock, "Greenzo"/"Somebody to Love" (2x05, 2x06; NBC, 11/8/07, 11/15/07)
See what I did there? Together, not only were these two episodes the most riotous consecutive weeks in sitcom history (not even God, if She were a divine comedy Supercomputer with all eternity to write half-hour laff-fests, could come close to the hilarity), but they also add up to one hour! I'm smart, like Al Gore.
1. Veronica Mars, "The Bitch is Back" (3x20; The CW, 5/22/07)
Loathe as I am to admit it, the fans were partly right, the third season was the least of the three. Yet for all the foul cries and spurned oaths, Veronica Mars was never a categorically bad show. Season three shifted its method; instead of one grand mystery, the season was split into three abbreviated mystery arcs (though in the end, that last arc got chopped even further into mostly standalone episodes so the CW could look for Pussycat Dolls), and as a result, the show's scope and focus consequently suffered. Not much, mind, but enough to throw fan nation into a frothy spaz.
Yet all that was erased when Veronica Mars and her father Keith became mired in a sex tape and election scandal in the Veronica Mars episode ever. Their fates were never so much in doubt, and the show was never so uncompromisingly urgent, its status quo never so ruthlessly overturned -- all of which would have still applied even if the season finale hadn't officially become the de facto series finale. Leaving the Marses -- heretofore the most self-sufficient and self-composed father-daughter duo ever to grace network tv, I'd gather -- dangling over this network show's most dangerous and uncompromising knife-edge (a show which, on a regular basis, dealt frankly with teen sex, teen drug use, and teen angst) to no resolution was as cruel of a kick in the teeth as the agony that Keith and Veronica suffered.
Just a warning: Next year, if you're still reading and I'm still blogging, expect to see an all-Wire top 10.
Indie rating: Electrelane - "Saturday"
- Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls *
"Saturday" - The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand †
"Million Year Summer" - Eluvium - Copia ∞
"After Nature" - Mira Calix - Eyes Set Against the Sun ∫
"Umbra/Penumbra" - Colleen - Les Ondes Silencieuses ≈
"Sun Against My Eyes" - Feist - The Reminder 1234
"My Moon My Man" - PJ Harvey - White Chalk ℘
"White Chalk" - Boris with Merzbow - Rock Dream ∪
"Feedbacker"
* The Electrelane ménage -- krautrock and gorgeous melodies -- hooks up with sweet, heartbroken lyrics. Much rejoicing. (Come back, Electrelane! -ed.)
≈ An ambient record you have to listen to, spacious and intimate. The key is to disappear into the waves...
† Never heard anything so loud.
℘ Nothing wrong with Peej doing pretty, especially as a Civil War ghost.
∞ Baltharian reveries on the Cylon baseships.
1234 Geddit?
∪ Cheating, sure (i.e. Pink live!), but I finally get Merzbow now, he just needs to play behind a hardcore punk-metal trio shredding out the best post-Motörhead long-player ever. (Nb. the linked video isn't with Merzbow -- you'll just have to imagine the track with more industrial noise.)
∫ The most pummeling quiet record -- ever?
Enough of the music bollocks, here's the TV
If you're a regular reader, you probably have picked up my contrarian views which, I'll admit, are sometimes (oftentimes?) blatant provocations, playing the devil's advocate just for its own sake. And one of the unstated assumptions that underlies this blog (and explains the amount of energy I put into it) is that tv land always has quality, it's not the underachieving wasteland that various cultural sentinels would have you believe it is. Critics who complain about any given year's quality are these dour sentinels, or else they're deluged by the sheer volume of mediocrity that's unavoidable in any medium, and I have little time for their opinions.
That said, I compiled the 10 Best Hours of 2007 with difficulty, though to avoid historical revisionism, I had a hard time doing it last year, too. Part of the reason is that the new shows mostly disappointed (though I swear to God, Reaper delivered on its promise), while the old favorites either stumbled along during Fall 2007 (which piled additional detritus onto the sublimity of Spring 2007 that I had to mentally sort through) (also, the strike didn't help, but we'll probably never know just what could have been if things had been business as usual), or skipped this year altogether, whether by HBO's strategized scheduling practices (you guessed it, The Wire) or because their runs simply ended (Teen Titans, Justice League Unlimited).
And sometimes I'm just behind the curve. Just this year, I've caught up (and I'm still catching up) on no fewer than 5 shows of which I'm now an entrenched fan, and no doubt I'll still be discovering new shows. But for the moment, if I could propose an amended 10 hours from 2006, they'd look something like this (new entrants bolded):
10. Justice League Unlimited, "The Great Brain Robbery" (5x08)
9. Friday Night Lights, "Pilot" (1x01)
8. Survivor: Cook Islands, "People That You Like Want To See You Suffer" (13x10)
7. Heroes, "Fallout" (1x11)
6. Teen Titans, "Things Change" (5x13)
5. Lost, "Live Together, Die Alone" (2x23)
4. Veronica Mars, "Not Pictured" (2x22)
3. Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part 2" (2x11)
2. America's Next Top Model Cycle 6, "The Girl Who is Going to the Moon" (6x09)
1. The Wire, "Final Grades" (4x13)
Given that almost half of my top 10 of 2006 got turned over, anything I put together for 2007 is destined to be no less temporary. (And let's not forget that we're talking about tv here, that gloriously ephemeral and intangible medium -- at least it was before the DVD, which, like the edenic serpent, introduced to it the death of permanence and respectability, but that's another matter).
But the real reason a list of 10 was hard this year and probably will always be hard is that for all the tv I watch, I don't watch enough to compile awesome episodes from 10 different shows, which is sort of reflected in my year-end music list as well. I don't have enough time to watch that much tv, I don't have cable, I'm afraid of getting hooked on shameless trash (like, say, The OC), I don't believe in the concept of a canon -- whatever combination of these reasons is the case, I don't come close to comprehensiveness, and so if you ever read me saying "this year was a bad year in tv," feel free to launch a projectile of your choice (I suggest: a football) towards my groin.
Which is all to say that the following list is a project of simple vanity. Just because I include certain shows on an arbitrary list doesn't make them more legitimate or better than anything anyone else watches (even if I make claims to the contrary -- remember, I'm an admitted hypocrite). In addition to the vanity, a top 10 lets me reflect on some shows, to work through why I enjoyed them, with perhaps a dash of evangelism for the more ratings-challenged ones.
Finally, I should state that despite the anti-canon equivocations of the preceding paragraphs, the top five includes episodes that sent me into ecstasy -- whether of the unadulterated variety or the kind that involves endorphin-releasing schadenfreude -- enough so that 2007 was a great tv year, however you slice it.
(Nb. I realize that one of the entrants below is actually two hours, but for the sake of symmetry, shut up.)
10. So You Think You Can Dance, Week 1, Top 20 Dancers Perform (3x06; FOX, 6/13/07)
The overall talent level, if not the choreography, was exponentially better than years past, and all the promise offered by the dancers was nearly as exciting as anything they actually did. Also, this was kinda hot, and a certain host put the "cat" into "lolcat."
9. Project Runway Canada, "Opposites Attract" (1x06; Slice, 11/12/07)
Just as you'd expect, the Canuck version of Runway doesn't have the same bite as its southern cousin since, as we all know, Canadians are scientifically more polite than Yankees, which, when it comes to reality tv, is to sadly blander effect. (I can make this un-PC generalization because I watched an episode -- one whole episode! -- of Canada's Next Top Model.) For instance, Evan Biddell, the show's self-styled heavy, slimmed down from his pre-Runway weight of 300 pounds, then bit off the catchphrase of an infinitely more colorful American Runway contestant. Some heavy!
Yet, the most notable trump card that Runway Maple Leaf holds over Runway Crying Eagle is its host, Iman. While Runway Canada kicked off with as much empty space and personality as the Northwest Territories, Mrs. David Bowie single-handedly raised her version above any stereotypical and expected Canadian blandness. Iman owns the whole show in a way that Heidi -- bless her always-smiling Teutonic femmebotness -- never has. Iman informed the designers of their upcoming challenges and all eyes were of course on her. Her hosting style was uncompromising as she takes her sweet time with her line readings. Where Heidi bids farewell to eliminated contestants with the impersonal "auf Wiedersehen," Iman tells them what's up, "You just didn't measure up." But it was in the sixth episode of the season that she at last decided to utterly dominate the show, letting loose with charisma, humor, and an effortless strength of opinion that is captivating.
In fact, she almost single-handedly raised the show's game at the opening of the show when she reminded everyone that she can still bring the woah:
I haven't seen someone work the shadows like this since Sydney Bristow. It's safe to say that she'll always be an elegant lady.
Additionally, there was Marie Genevieve, whose French(-Canadian) accent drives me nuts.
She also combines my two favorite things: glasses, and white girls.
8. Bones, "Mummy in the Maze" (3x05; FOX, 10/30/07)
Even if I never remember the procedural bits, Temperance Brennan makes science and empiricism sexy.
7. John From Cincinnati, "His Visit: Day Five" (1x06; HBO, 7/15/07)
The most thrillingly weird moment on TV since the first season finale of Twin Peaks. Prepare yourselves.
Sure, this scene is pure spectacle that pointed to mythological depths at the time but instead opened up a can of worms that ultimately turned out bottomless -- but sometimes payoff is unnecessary. Some things just can't be expressed yet remain beautiful all the same. If you can let yourself be enticed by the unanswerable mystery, the unfettered unknowable, and unbounded possibility, then you'll have stumbled onto the allure of the ineffable. It's a vastness which, if I were the grandiloquent type, I'd call God. (Also if I were a blasphemer.)
Oh, and who can forget this sparkling performance? Camp (albeit unintentional) and weirdness -- John From Cincinnati really is the Twin Peaks for the '00s.
6. Reaper, "The Cop" (1x08; The CW, 11/13/07)
Remember how I'm never wrong? Still the best new show of the season. Yes, a lot of Reaper's own viewers have cited the show's uneven tone or its meandering master narrative, but I could barely care less and I'm still not wrong. Look, if I acknowledge every one of my mistakes, that'd make for exceedingly dull reading. Like our own beloved president, never admit to error! So here's how I reason my way out of this quandary: for me, nearly any narrative deficiency can be compensated for by hilarious wit, especially the sophomoric variety, which Reaper has no problem with. As a for instance, peep this. (Start at about 8:30.)
5. Survivor: Fiji, "It's a Turtle!" (14x10; CBS, 4/19/07)
In Fiji, the lines drawn in the sand split the would-be survivors into two principle camps: the players I adored -- Yau-Man and Earl -- and the players I hated -- Alex and Mookie, who liked to figuratively flex their muscles and kick sand in the face of slight professor Yau-Man. (There was a third camp, the people I couldn't care less about, but that describes exactly how much energy I want to spend on them.) Alex was a piece of work inside and outside the game, but I loathed Mookie, whose defining moment came two episodes earlier, during a projectiles-throwing challenge, when he ridiculed Yau-Man's unorthodox technique which, of course, had the weight of science behind it as he pwned Mookie (start at about 2:30 for the goods -- don't miss his shock and dismay that a skinny old dude could manage to outperform him). That instant crystallized the jockish presumption that typified Alex and Mookie, and when they thuggishly tried to strategize against Yau-Man and Earl and dubbed themselves (along with Dreamz and Edgardo) something as junior-high pimply as "the Four Horsemen" (of what? Delusionally Inflated Ego and Pathetic Macho Dick-Swinging?), their plans obviously and completely unraveled with the frothiest layer of schadenfreude ever on Survivor. The bad guys don't always get their comeuppance in reality tv -- much less reality qua reality -- but when it does, there's nothing sweeter.
Also, Boo's FLOZ hat is destined to be the enduring mystery of our times.
4. Friday Night Lights, "Mud Bowl" (1x20; NBC, 3/28/07)
Season two has made me reconsider the fabled first season's naturalism, which is more accurately Naturalism since the situations so often were larger than life and their consequent outcomes concluded neatly by preternatural maturity (which season two tried to complicate by rolling back and/or conveniently forgetting a lot of character growth). But scratch the substance and you reach the show's real meat, its style. Don't let the vérité influences and flourishes fool you, because they're precisely the point, and did "Mud Bowl" ever bring the ruckus: Of course Dillon was going to win its regular season finale to go on to the State Championship, which would've been predictable and lifeless if the moment was anything less than heart-stopping and epic. A neutral site built days before the game. A torrential storm torn straight from YHWH's Old Testament wrath. Motherfucking Isis. Boys entering the crucible of flooded ash and the annihilation of all ego, and emerging men of character. And a television show transcending the shackles of substance and into the realm of pure aesthetics.
3. Heroes, ".07%" (1x19; NBC, 4/23/07)
Wherein Nate loses out on Linderman's pot pie, and the show's nerd quotient goes through the roof. I never plotzed so much.
2. 30 Rock, "Greenzo"/"Somebody to Love" (2x05, 2x06; NBC, 11/8/07, 11/15/07)
See what I did there? Together, not only were these two episodes the most riotous consecutive weeks in sitcom history (not even God, if She were a divine comedy Supercomputer with all eternity to write half-hour laff-fests, could come close to the hilarity), but they also add up to one hour! I'm smart, like Al Gore.
1. Veronica Mars, "The Bitch is Back" (3x20; The CW, 5/22/07)
Loathe as I am to admit it, the fans were partly right, the third season was the least of the three. Yet for all the foul cries and spurned oaths, Veronica Mars was never a categorically bad show. Season three shifted its method; instead of one grand mystery, the season was split into three abbreviated mystery arcs (though in the end, that last arc got chopped even further into mostly standalone episodes so the CW could look for Pussycat Dolls), and as a result, the show's scope and focus consequently suffered. Not much, mind, but enough to throw fan nation into a frothy spaz.
Yet all that was erased when Veronica Mars and her father Keith became mired in a sex tape and election scandal in the Veronica Mars episode ever. Their fates were never so much in doubt, and the show was never so uncompromisingly urgent, its status quo never so ruthlessly overturned -- all of which would have still applied even if the season finale hadn't officially become the de facto series finale. Leaving the Marses -- heretofore the most self-sufficient and self-composed father-daughter duo ever to grace network tv, I'd gather -- dangling over this network show's most dangerous and uncompromising knife-edge (a show which, on a regular basis, dealt frankly with teen sex, teen drug use, and teen angst) to no resolution was as cruel of a kick in the teeth as the agony that Keith and Veronica suffered.
Just a warning: Next year, if you're still reading and I'm still blogging, expect to see an all-Wire top 10.
Indie rating: Electrelane - "Saturday"
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Colleen - "I'll Read You a Story"
On Tuesday (October 9), I took a break from my usual pop depravity to instead indulged my inner snob with a concert at an actual sit-down theatre (note English spelling!). While Beirut and their raucous gypsy punk stylings headlined, Colleen was for me the real attraction, and she was just short of sublime, as by my count she played only four songs. For those of you who aren't familiar with her, Colleen (née Cécile Schott) is a French musician, formerly electronic, currently acoustic, but always minimalist and deeply melancholy. Tuesday night, most of her set was based on the viola de gamba, out of which she alchemized hauntingly lush loops.
The video above in fact captures the experience of the show -- a stage, darkened except to spotlight the artist, emptied except for her and what she needs to perform. And even though I was sufficiently far away that I had to squint to see (my poor eyes!), and even though the venue's sound could have been louder, Colleen played so exquisitely that I was at times lost sense of consciousness, of self dispersed throughout the darkened theater swirling into wisps of strange shapes and moving colors.
The setlist, as far as I could gather:
- Unknown
- "This Place In Time"
- "I'll Read You a Story"
- "Everything Lay Still"
Beirut and Colleen also played Monday (as did the opener Alaska in Winter -- arresting music, but his stage present was too conceptually flimsy), when, surprisingly, her performance received middling comments. Yet the night that I went, all the people in my row (within earshot) were swept away, and when she took her leave, standing stage left to receive her applause, Colleen looked equally astonished and bashful -- at least I'd like to think so -- by the crowd's reaction.
On a side note, as I stood at the merchandise table in the lobby -- I was trying to get the person's attention so that I could buy Les Ondes Silencieuses -- none other than Colleen herself (in this context, I should call her Cécile) swept by, quickly throwing down a small pile of flyers onto the table, and then dashed away before I had a chance to realize it was her.
By the way, the dancer, according to the homepage of the director of the video, is Elna Dahlsjö. Dancer = SYTYCD, in my system of classification.
Indie rating: Alias - 4x18 "Mirage"
Monday, January 01, 2007
Ten Hours from 2006
I'm a bit surprised that I've taken so long coming up with a Top 10 TV shows, especially because 2006 was a fairly strong year in terms of reality TV plus Veronica Mars (haters can shut it), and that I'm as obsessed with TV as ever. Compare TV to my music geekness, which has abated considerably, though nonetheless I've decided on a moderately stable list of 10 albums:
Special mention goes out to Electrelane's Singles, B-Sides & Live collection.
Anyway, back on the TV front. To cut some suspense, stuff that is totally up my alley -- Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans, and Battlestar Galactica -- aren't on the list because like a failed nerd, I only started watching their first seasons this year -- I have a feeling that once I get completely caught up, a lot of reality tv would get bumped off this list.
So, without thematizing the entire year (which, if you ask me, is an exercise in futility and arrogance), an ascending list of my favorite hours from 2006 with brief-to-briefish commentary:
10. So You Think You Can Dance, Top 10 Dancers (2x16)
The judges were witless annoyances, the reality wasn't narrative-based, and I still don't know a quickstep from a jive, but SYTYCD is the younger, snottier, snappier, and sometimes "edgier" (i.e. including krumping as a style) version of Dancing with the Stars. Clearly, all of the hip-hop styles are on the show to appeal to younger viewers, who would be more familiar with popping-and-locking than fan kicks, but amazingly, the most impressive, sublime moments of the second season of SYTYCD were lyrical, paso doble, and the Cuban rumba, and this episode featured two of these styles. As shallow eye-candy goes, SYTYCD is fluffier (even if the final prize is actual employment for the winner), but as camp as a high-energy disco number, fluffy goes a long way.
9. The Amazing Race, "5 Continents...10 Countries...And More than 59 Thousand Miles!" (9x12)
Wherein smelly hippies flex their brains to beat almost heterosexual fratties!
8. Scrubs, "My Transition" (5x18)
OK, so Scrubs makes the list 9.5 hours. Add "My Urologist" (5x17) if you're into Dr. Acula. Vampires and absurdist high-comedy -- how could I not love this?
7. Friday Night Lights, "Pilot" (1x01)
Friday Night Light perfectly blends the football action with searing melodrama in its first episode. Also: QB1 vs. QB1.
6. Survivor: Cook Islands, "People That You Like Want To See You Suffer" (13x10)
Many reviews point to the preceding "Mutiny" episode (where Candice, and then Jonathan, abandoned the Aitu (Survivorese for "hero") Tribe) as the turning point of Cook Islands, since it turned the most likeable contestants Ozzy and Yul, who to that point were among the likeliest contenders to win the game, into underdogs. At the same time, the other tribe, composed of young white kids (& Nate), dared to treat the solemnity of the Survivor as no more than The Real World: Cook Islands, thus earning the contempt of most viewers. (Insert boring tangent about how the white kids, AKA the face of homogenous America, rejected the Protestant Work Ethic, which the two Koreans, a Mexican, a black woman, and a middle-aged Jew were left to pick up.) In other words, "Mutiny" completely deserves its place in Cook Islands lore, but in all of 2006, I don't think that my schadenfreude got as much of a work out as it did when I saw Candice blub because she was surprised that the tribe she betrayed to make out with her show-boyfriend was angry at her.
5. Project Runway, "Designer's Best Friend" (3x03)
Just about any episode could've made this list (like Kayne's Marilyn Monroe riff), but seeing how Laura interacted with her dog was just too priceless. (Not to mention the first of Angela's many disasters.)
4. Heroes, "Fallout" (1x11)
Lost-lite, but a very candy-coated version that, thus far, doesn't take itself quite as seriously as its progenitor, as summed up by Matt and FBI Girlfriend's telepathic flirting (better known as the awesomest exchange between shippy characters ever).
3. Lost, "Live Together, Die Alone" (2x23)
Even though Lost consistently disappoints and frustrates me, the finale to season 2 rates this high almost because it stands out so much from the rest of that tease of a season, much of which was satisfied with maintaining its insular little world as the series became preoccupied with drawing out its status quo. Without answering existing questions, the show introduced new mysteries that were entirely within the parameters of the status quo, and as a result, many viewers felt like they were strung along. But by the finale, Lindelof, Cuse, et al seized the chance to blow up the insular little world they'd created and show us that, yes, another world existed beyond the Island, a world much larger with a whole different vocabulary to describe its own questions. (Unsurprisingly, this outside world has been a non-factor in season 3.)
2. Veronica Mars, "Not Pictured" (2x22)
Maybe my taste is questionable (obviously it is with all these reality tv shows), but Veronica Mars was no less enjoyable in its second season than it was in its first. (Caveat: I only saw the mythological episodes that UPN reran during the summer hiatus.) The season finale typified everything I love about the show and even added a cherry on top: snappy and "epic" dialogue that culminated with Logan's impassioned and equally epic speech to V, a reveal that was unexpected but not out of leftfield, and a serious and genuine sense of danger during the climax (which is the cherry, if you're still keeping track).
1. America's Next Top Model Cycle 6, "The Girl Who is Going to the Moon" (6x09)
Before this year, I wouldn't have listed a recap episode at all, much less rank it this high, mostly because it's simply a summary of what's happened so far in a show's season. However, I picked a recap episode is because if it would stand in for the whole season, and I otherwise would've listed multiple episodes of Cycle 6. But "The Girl Who is Going to the Moon" also helped me realize two benefits of recap episodes. The first: "deleted" scenes that offered hilarity -- Joanie doing her Furonda impression, Danielle and Joanie rapping in the kitchen, etc. The second: it allows viewers like me, who originally couldn't stand Jade's mentalism, to revisit such classics as, "This is not America's Next Top Best Friend." The difference between the first time I heard her inanity and the second time were was Joanie and Danielle had both been built up into protagonists who could face (or play) off against Jade. As long as Jade was a credible threat to win, and without any frontrunning girls to keep her winning, I couldn't enjoy her Sister Soldier antics; but when Joanie and Danielle became the prohibitive favorites to reach the top two, I could safely dwelve into Jade's analystic mind.
Indie rating: Joanna Newsom - "Emily"
- Boris, Pink
- The Pipettes, We are the Pipettes
- Joanna Newsom, Ys
- Bardo Pond, Ticket Crystals
- Espers, II
- Isis, In the Absence of Truth
- OOIOO, Taiga
- Saint Etienne, Tales From Turnpike House
- Camera Obscura, Let's Get Out of This Country
- Eluvium, When I Live in the Garden and the Sea
Special mention goes out to Electrelane's Singles, B-Sides & Live collection.
Anyway, back on the TV front. To cut some suspense, stuff that is totally up my alley -- Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans, and Battlestar Galactica -- aren't on the list because like a failed nerd, I only started watching their first seasons this year -- I have a feeling that once I get completely caught up, a lot of reality tv would get bumped off this list.
So, without thematizing the entire year (which, if you ask me, is an exercise in futility and arrogance), an ascending list of my favorite hours from 2006 with brief-to-briefish commentary:
10. So You Think You Can Dance, Top 10 Dancers (2x16)
The judges were witless annoyances, the reality wasn't narrative-based, and I still don't know a quickstep from a jive, but SYTYCD is the younger, snottier, snappier, and sometimes "edgier" (i.e. including krumping as a style) version of Dancing with the Stars. Clearly, all of the hip-hop styles are on the show to appeal to younger viewers, who would be more familiar with popping-and-locking than fan kicks, but amazingly, the most impressive, sublime moments of the second season of SYTYCD were lyrical, paso doble, and the Cuban rumba, and this episode featured two of these styles. As shallow eye-candy goes, SYTYCD is fluffier (even if the final prize is actual employment for the winner), but as camp as a high-energy disco number, fluffy goes a long way.
9. The Amazing Race, "5 Continents...10 Countries...And More than 59 Thousand Miles!" (9x12)
Wherein smelly hippies flex their brains to beat almost heterosexual fratties!
8. Scrubs, "My Transition" (5x18)
OK, so Scrubs makes the list 9.5 hours. Add "My Urologist" (5x17) if you're into Dr. Acula. Vampires and absurdist high-comedy -- how could I not love this?
7. Friday Night Lights, "Pilot" (1x01)
Friday Night Light perfectly blends the football action with searing melodrama in its first episode. Also: QB1 vs. QB1.
6. Survivor: Cook Islands, "People That You Like Want To See You Suffer" (13x10)
Many reviews point to the preceding "Mutiny" episode (where Candice, and then Jonathan, abandoned the Aitu (Survivorese for "hero") Tribe) as the turning point of Cook Islands, since it turned the most likeable contestants Ozzy and Yul, who to that point were among the likeliest contenders to win the game, into underdogs. At the same time, the other tribe, composed of young white kids (& Nate), dared to treat the solemnity of the Survivor as no more than The Real World: Cook Islands, thus earning the contempt of most viewers. (Insert boring tangent about how the white kids, AKA the face of homogenous America, rejected the Protestant Work Ethic, which the two Koreans, a Mexican, a black woman, and a middle-aged Jew were left to pick up.) In other words, "Mutiny" completely deserves its place in Cook Islands lore, but in all of 2006, I don't think that my schadenfreude got as much of a work out as it did when I saw Candice blub because she was surprised that the tribe she betrayed to make out with her show-boyfriend was angry at her.
5. Project Runway, "Designer's Best Friend" (3x03)
Just about any episode could've made this list (like Kayne's Marilyn Monroe riff), but seeing how Laura interacted with her dog was just too priceless. (Not to mention the first of Angela's many disasters.)
4. Heroes, "Fallout" (1x11)
Lost-lite, but a very candy-coated version that, thus far, doesn't take itself quite as seriously as its progenitor, as summed up by Matt and FBI Girlfriend's telepathic flirting (better known as the awesomest exchange between shippy characters ever).
3. Lost, "Live Together, Die Alone" (2x23)
Even though Lost consistently disappoints and frustrates me, the finale to season 2 rates this high almost because it stands out so much from the rest of that tease of a season, much of which was satisfied with maintaining its insular little world as the series became preoccupied with drawing out its status quo. Without answering existing questions, the show introduced new mysteries that were entirely within the parameters of the status quo, and as a result, many viewers felt like they were strung along. But by the finale, Lindelof, Cuse, et al seized the chance to blow up the insular little world they'd created and show us that, yes, another world existed beyond the Island, a world much larger with a whole different vocabulary to describe its own questions. (Unsurprisingly, this outside world has been a non-factor in season 3.)
2. Veronica Mars, "Not Pictured" (2x22)
Maybe my taste is questionable (obviously it is with all these reality tv shows), but Veronica Mars was no less enjoyable in its second season than it was in its first. (Caveat: I only saw the mythological episodes that UPN reran during the summer hiatus.) The season finale typified everything I love about the show and even added a cherry on top: snappy and "epic" dialogue that culminated with Logan's impassioned and equally epic speech to V, a reveal that was unexpected but not out of leftfield, and a serious and genuine sense of danger during the climax (which is the cherry, if you're still keeping track).
1. America's Next Top Model Cycle 6, "The Girl Who is Going to the Moon" (6x09)
Before this year, I wouldn't have listed a recap episode at all, much less rank it this high, mostly because it's simply a summary of what's happened so far in a show's season. However, I picked a recap episode is because if it would stand in for the whole season, and I otherwise would've listed multiple episodes of Cycle 6. But "The Girl Who is Going to the Moon" also helped me realize two benefits of recap episodes. The first: "deleted" scenes that offered hilarity -- Joanie doing her Furonda impression, Danielle and Joanie rapping in the kitchen, etc. The second: it allows viewers like me, who originally couldn't stand Jade's mentalism, to revisit such classics as, "This is not America's Next Top Best Friend." The difference between the first time I heard her inanity and the second time were was Joanie and Danielle had both been built up into protagonists who could face (or play) off against Jade. As long as Jade was a credible threat to win, and without any frontrunning girls to keep her winning, I couldn't enjoy her Sister Soldier antics; but when Joanie and Danielle became the prohibitive favorites to reach the top two, I could safely dwelve into Jade's analystic mind.
Indie rating: Joanna Newsom - "Emily"
Monday, November 14, 2005
Random Music Post: Top 10 Albums of 2003
I think I may be a bit premature making of a Best of 2003 only after two years, but I'm feeling adventurous!
1. Bardo Pond - On the Ellipse
2. Vapour Theories - Decant
3. Mirah/Ginger & Friends - Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project
4. Alizée - Mes Courants Electriques
5. KaitO - band red
6. Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
7. Cat Power - You Are Free
8. Saloon - If We Meet in the Future
9. M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
10. Colleen - Everyone Alive Wants Answers
TV rating: Freaks and Geeks - 1x15 "Discos and Dragons"
1. Bardo Pond - On the Ellipse
2. Vapour Theories - Decant
3. Mirah/Ginger & Friends - Songs from the Black Mountain Music Project
4. Alizée - Mes Courants Electriques
5. KaitO - band red
6. Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
7. Cat Power - You Are Free
8. Saloon - If We Meet in the Future
9. M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
10. Colleen - Everyone Alive Wants Answers
TV rating: Freaks and Geeks - 1x15 "Discos and Dragons"
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