Favorite Albums of the Decade: 30-21

Day 3 of my favorite albums of the decade is here, with the final 30 coming in the next three days. Before we start that, a recap of the list so far (you can see 50 through 41 here and 40 through 31 here):

50. Andrew WK - I Get Wet
49. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
48. Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
47. Badly Drawn Boy - About a Boy Soundtrack
46. Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
45. M.I.A. - Kala
44. of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
43. Hot Hot Heat - Elevator
42. The Stills - Without Feathers
41. Cake - Comfort Eagle
40. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
39. The Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder
38. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
37. The 88 - Over and Over
36. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
35. Muse - Absolution
34. Cursive - The Ugly Organ
33. Spoon - Gimme Fiction
32. Phantom Planet - The Guest
31. Air - Talkie Walkie

30. Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground - Self Titled (2008)

Recommended Track: Simon Courage Flees the Coop

Why I Love It: Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground rose from the ashes from my once upon a time favorite band Gatsby's American Dream, as it was fronted by one time Gatsby's bassist Kirk Huffman and also featured keyboardist Kyle O'Quinn, yet it did not feature really any of the technical rock brilliance that made Gatsby's such a great band. This band was an entirely different animal, channeling Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band and psychedelia into modern day indie rock to create a sound that was altogether unique and original in its own right. Their self titled debut featured a dense and beautiful instrumental sound (it better, given the fact they have roughly 1/5th the population of Washington state in their band) and Huffman's smooth vocals, and it blew me away. It maintains itself as one of the most obscure of gems from this decade, but I think one day they'll find their audience outside of the Pacific Northwest.


29. Gorillaz - Self Titled (2001)

Recommended Track: Slow Country

Why I Love It: This album reminds me of driving around in high school with my best friends, being alternately entertained by their more popular songs such as "Clint Eastwood" or "19-2000" while marveling in the creepy cool of "M1A1" or the monstrous relaxation powers of "Slow Country." This album could easily have been just a gimmick (it's a band fronted four cartoon characters!), but heavily featured on this album is all of Damon Albarn's musical prowess and Dan the Automator's incredible production. Individually, their powers would assure a project success. Together? They make something special, as this album clearly demonstrated.


28. Passion Pit - Manners (2009)

Recommended Track: The Reeling

Why I Love It: This album only came out this year, but any album that cause me to immediately text my friend and say "it's like they made this album specifically for me!" has to be a strong contender for one of my favorite albums. This album is all soaring vocals, delicious synth, clap along beats, and unforgettable hooks, and really, that's about as good of a recipe for "David music" that you could possibly come up with. Perpetually exciting, energetic, and dance party inducing, this album is assured a place in my rotation well into the next decade.


27. Radiohead - Kid A (2000)

Recommended Track: Everything In Its Right Place

Why I Love It: After seeing massive success with The Bends and OK Computer, Radiohead effectively abandoned their more straightforward rock sound to adopt the sound of the future. More keyboards, more electronic production, more post-modern glances at what the future of music could be like. Before this album, no one had so successfully adopted this type of production and such intense focus on textures and depth of sound, and it is something that has obviously affected many artists since. Even without the pioneer nature of this album, this is one that is filled with every bit of the Radiohead songwriting talent that we'd come to expect, and in many ways surpassed even OK Computer as Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and the rest clearly were not fearful to adventure as far as their sound could take them on this album. Completely brilliant, and a great marker for where music was going to go in the decade that followed it.

Bonus points for "Everything in its Right Place" being one of the single coolest performances of any song I've ever seen live. When I saw them, they closed their encore with it and it ended up being Jonny Greenwood with a series of pedals remixing the song live with all of the instruments looped through and controlled by him. Brilliant.


26. Beirut - Gulag Orkestar (2006)

Recommended Track: Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)

Why I Love It: Zach Condon is a talent that is about as surprising as you can find. Here is this 20 year old kid from Albequerque who releases an indie rock album positively buried in Balkan musical influences in which he plays anything you can think of: guitar, accordion, trumpet, mandolin, ukulele...everything. This kid is just massively talented. Not only that, but he is blessed with one of the most unique voices in music today and a nearly unparalleled songwriting ability. This was his stunning first release and it is as filled with sweeping emotions that you would expect from someone of his age. The fact that he managed to imbue it with such genuine feeling and such a unique sound really solidifies him as one of the most exciting young talents in music today.


25. Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things (2002)

Recommended Track: My Slumbering Heart

Why I Love It: "You don't like girls!" my mom says hysterically. We're talking about music and how I'm not a big fan of female lead singers, but her phrasing leaves something to desire. It turns out that I actually like both girls (in general) and girls (lead singer varieties). Especially when it comes to Jenny Lewis, the lead singer of Rilo Kiley, who combines with guitarist and occasional singer Blake Sennett to form one of the best songwriting duos in music (as long as it isn't on Under the Blacklight). This album finds them at their best, pairing occasionally dark subject matters with atypically sunny presentation, as they brilliantly hide the lyrical weight in jangly guitars and simple and beautiful melodies created by Lewis. Not bad from the kids from Troop Beverly Hills and Salute Your Shorts.


24. Portugal. The Man - The Satanic Satanists (2009)

Recommended Track: The Home

Why I Love It: Portugal. The Man automatically get bonus points for being from Alaska, but really, that doesn't matter when it comes to this album. While previous albums featured elements of brilliance but ultimately fell off because a few tracks that were a bit weaker or because they simply did not stand up to the test of time as well, this one combined all of the strengths of their first three albums and removed the negatives. It's as if John Gourley and his brethren made a pros and cons list of their sound and simply crossed off the cons. This album highlights Gourley's beautiful vocals, which occasionally touch on falsetto but never egregiously so. They do this by focusing their sound more towards a pop influenced version of their funk groove sound, targeting melody and rhythm over their more surprising sound of the past.

Some would say it's less challenging than their older albums, I'd say it is similar to what Animal Collective did with Merriweather Post Pavilion: the distillation of their sound to focus on the elements that work the best. After many spins of this album, it's hard to argue that their decision was the wrong one.


23. The Thermals - Now We Can See (2009)

Recommended Track: How We Fade

Why I Love It: The Thermals have long been a band that I've enjoyed but never one where I ever sat down with an album, listened to it all the way through and thought "man, I loved every second of that." Well, that is until this album, in which we found them tightening up their sound a bit and focusing more on production and songwriting. Tying into a theme that Hutch himself described as "The Thermals Guide to Better Dying" (or at least I coerced him into that one), this album packs their typical lyrical power into an album full of tracks that rival the power of personal favorite "Returning from the Fold" (from their album The Body, The Blood, The Machine). It's like a greatest hits all on one new album from of the Pacific Northwest's best bands.


22. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)

Recommended Track: In the Morning of the Magicians

Why I Love It: The Flaming Lips are really a magical band. There are not a lot of other ways to describe them, as their sound is so unique and uplifting and spiritual in ways that typical phrasing does not describe them that well. This album finds Wayne Coyne and the rest harnessing their sound into their most infectious and often beautiful album yet, creating the theme song of Oklahoma and my life simultaneously. This album is almost the musical manifestation of John Michael Higgins character on Community tonight, as if with every passing track Coyne is telling us to live life to its fullest. When I'm listening to this album, I don't really see any reason why that isn't possible.


21. The Killers - Hot Fuss (2004)

Recommended Track: All These Things That I've Done

Why I Love It: The Killers?! What are they doing here?! I must have made a mistake! Okay, maybe I didn't. Under the bravado, before the terrible follow up albums, and even if you say they're unoriginal and deriviative, I will say this: they write some damn catchy tunes. This album was entrenched in my CD player for quite some time and still is an album that can get me to effortlessly sing along to in no time flat. Sure, they may be all of the negative things you think they are, but it is impossible to deny that this album is infectious beyond words and possibly the single best popular album to be released this decade.

New Kay Kay on Friday!

Kay Kay and his...weathered underground

Modern day 60's pop luminaries (and personal favorite) Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground are sneak attacking the world by announcing that they are putting their new album, titled Introducing...Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, up for stream on Friday on their Myspace page. Their debut release (self-titled, naturally) was my favorite from 2008 as it was filled to the brim with sunny, psychedelic pop gems, and I have really high hopes for this group.

Do me a favor and check this release out on Friday, and if you like it share it with friends. The album won't be released in physical form until a currently undetermined date, but let's start building excitement now folks! Blow minds baby.

Again?! We just did it!

Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, musical wunderkinds and the only reason it's acceptable that Gatsby's American Dream broke up, are up to something. Today they released a new track called "Diggin'" (it rocks) on their Myspace and they announced that they are already half way through production on a new album. A newer album I should say, considering their last album came out in February.

The album is apparently titled Introducing Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground and it went from not even known to being my most anticipated album of 2008 or 2009 (depending on when it comes out I suppose). Cannot wait for this release.

Also, you'd be a fool if you passed up a chance to catch them touring right now with Portugal. The Man and headliner RX Bandits, as you'd be hard pressed to find a better show than that. Extremely talented trio of bands, and very entertaining ones as well. Get on that, and see that show for me, your lowly Alaskan friend.

Favorite albums of 2008 (so far)

For our next big list, Sheri and I are churning out a mixtape version of our favorite songs of all time, with a 20 song tracklisting encompassing our musical tastes for all time. However, because that is such an arduous affair and neither of us really had time to work on it, we're taking a break from our list comparison event. Instead, this week I'll do another list I'd been intending to get to: my mid-year favorite albums of 2008.

Once again, these are favorite albums of the year, not necessarily best...whatever exactly that would entail anyways. I also only included seven albums, as these are the only albums that have been released so far that I think can legitimately make my end of year list.

Also, check out my muxtape of my favorites along with assorted other tracks I enjoy here, all for your listening pleasure.

1. Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground - Self Titled

Favorite track: Birds (On a Day Like Today)

Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground is the brainchild of soon-to-be indie rock god Kirk Huffman (former bassist of my favorite band Gatsby's American Dream) and Kyle O'Quin (keyboardist from Gatsby's self titled album), and for a child of the 90's, this album gives me a little piece of what it was like to live in the 60's.

It's psychedelic rock at its finest, at times jammy, dreamy, and grandiose as all get out, it was my most anticipated album of the year coming in and blew me away even after I got my hands on it. Lyrically bizarre but told through gloriously sweet vocals brought to you by Huffman, the true star of the album is the dense soundscapes the band creates with a massive amount of instruments. To say they are original doesn't cut it, they make music like no one else does today.

To seal the deal, I saw them at Sasquatch and they played half the album in stellar fashion, both perfecting and reinventing the sound brought on the album within the same performance.

This band should be in every music aficionados regular musical rotation, and I can't wait for more of the world to bask in their glory. Blow minds baby, indeed.

2. Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell

Favorite track: Tesselate

This is an album I've already raved about within my blog here, but I'd like to emphasize once again how superb this debut is. I was a fan of their A Lesson in Crime EP and I saw them at Bumbershoot last year, but I felt as if they had a chaotic energy that would be better suited if focused in a more structured sound.

With Elephant Shell, they did that to a stunning degree, channeling all of the talent that poured out of them into eleven tracks of sheer rock gold. My most listened to album this year so far.

3. Vampire Weekend - Self Titled

Favorite track: M79

I'm unsure as to whether or not anyone who reads blogs has heard of this band. They've received absolutely no hype whatsoever.

Oh wait, nevermind...they are the most hyped band so far this year by far. I get confused sometimes.

However for once, the hype is worth it as this band's debut is a breath of fresh air. It recalls one of my favorite albums that my mom had me listen to quite often when I was younger (Paul Simon's Graceland) but at the same time, it is its own animal altogether.

It's brilliantly orchestrated and wonderfully simple, and frankly if we had one new artist (alternately forward thinking and respective of the past) like this band ever year the world of music would be a very better place right now.

See what I said about this album before here.

4. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Favorite track: You Can Do Better than Me

I know, I know, as recently as this blog post, I said that this was my favorite album of the year. But that was over a month ago. I mean come on, how can you expect me to maintain my opinion for that long?

Truth be told, I still say it's Death Cab's best album yet. Its a very well put together album that reaches new heights for the band while taking them in directions they had yet to go before, while still providing the same thing we'd expect from a Death Cab album. However, it is a very tough year and the three above this album could not be denied.

5. Jamie Lidell - Jim

Favorite track: Wait for Me

This album I'd say is the most unexpected of any on my list. I'd never had any experience with Jamie Lidell, his type of music isn't really my thing, and really, there wasn't a lot of hype behind this album.

But this is the most joyous of any album I've heard so far this year. Lidell brings back the fun and impassioned singing that I love Motown for and layers it upon incredibly catchy piano and drum based beats. This album is designed to get your toes tapping and to get you singing while you drive.

This is the feel good hit of the summer, except it is just me that is treating it like that. Not only that, but it gets better with every spin.

See my original write up about this album here.

6. Styrofoam - A Thousand Words

Favorite track: Bright Red Helmet

I just picked up this album recently after hearing "Bright Red Helmet" on UAA's college radio station KRUA (88.1 = best station in Anchorage), and before then I hadn't even realized this high quality electronic outfit was releasing a new album. I'd been a big fan of their previous album, but I must admit, this one may be even better.

This album has less well known guest stars than 2004's Nothing's Lost (come on, that album featured Ben Gibbard and Andrew Kenny), but makes up for it with songs that are more well put together and instantly catchy. While Styrofoam never reaches the same high they did with Nothing's Lost's standout track "Make It Mine," the new album is more consistently engrossing and the overall performance of vocalists are superior.

For fans of the Postal Service and glitchy electronic indie pop, this one is highly recommended.

7. Islands - Arm's Way

Favorite track: In the Rushes

I went on and on about this album in this post, but I just want to say once again that this band really took a big step in my eyes with this album. Islands were another band that I thought were too chaotic to ever really become a favorite of mine, but they tightened up their sound and really released an exceptional album.

Plus, there is a partial cover of one of my favorite tracks off the Rushmore soundtrack on the album, which earns them major kudos.

There you have it. My favorites to date, and listed below I have albums that need more spins but could get on there, honorable mentions, and releases I'm very interested in that I haven't had a chance to explore yet.

Need more spins: M83 – Saturdays = Youth, Coldplay – Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

Honorable mentions: My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges, The Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely, Flight of the Conchords – Flight of the Conchords, The Mars Volta – Bedlam in Goliath

Haven't listened to yet: The Hold Steady – Stay Positive, Portishead – Third, Ghostland Observatory – Robotique Majestique, No Age – Nouns, Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin – Pershing, Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer, Fleet Foxes – Self Titled

The Year in Music to Date

There has been a bunch of great new music so far. Even better, I've been discovering a lot of music I missed from last year, such as Albert Hammond, Jr's solo debut Yours to Keep, Pinback's exemplary Autumn of the Seraphs, Ghostland Observatory's bizarrely genius Paparazzi Lightning, and White Rabbits' debut Fort Nightly. I definitely missed big time on all of them.

With that said, there are three albums this year that have stood out above the rest for me. Two I've raved about the bands already, with two self titled debuts coming out from Vampire Weekend and Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground respectively (review for Kay Kay may be coming...depending on something I'm looking to put together). But the other album is a bit of a surprise that I like it so much, especially when I say it is on par with the other two.

On April 22nd, Tokyo Police Club is releasing their first full length album titled Elephant Shell, and of course it is out there for the grabs if you so choose. I checked it out, mainly to decide if I will buy it when it comes out and the answer is an emphatic "yes!"

The guys in Tokyo Police Club are all very young (definitely younger than yours truly) but their music is remarkably technically solid and scatterbrained simultaneously. They had only released a pair of EP's before this, neither of which in my opinion really gave the idea that they were capable of an album so cohesive and consistently fantastic. I liked their material, but it really took seeing them at Bumbershoot last September for me to really get them. Well, that and the release of this album.

Elephant Shell maintains the kinetic nature of their previous material but manages to tighten it up into something that resembles a whole album. Instead of being disconnected two minute burn outs of songs, they now have pop sensibilities and the sense of connection that really makes their sound not only palatable, but addictive. Before they had all the elements of a delicious post-punk extravaganza, with their spacey keyboards, the hand claps, the gang vocals, but they didn't have the experience to tie it all together. Now? The whole is finally greater than the sum of the parts.

Take a look at single "Your English is Good." This track is a perfect example - I could legitimately see this becoming the feel good hit of the summer, as it is so toe tappingly great with the shoutalong background vocals and the repetitively genius keyboard lines, I can't imagine anyone not asking "who is this?" by the end of it (which is an incredible 3 minutes and 11 seconds after the beginning, quite possibly a new record for the band). If any track is representative of the step they've taken, that track is.

Want something that is catchy, driving, and a little bit off the beaten path? Pick up Tokyo Police Club's debut Elephant Shell April 22nd. It's a great album, albeit not exactly the world's longest one, clocking in at slightly less than half an hour. Also, if they come near you check them out for sure. Not only do they totally rule live, but they are really nice guys who seem to really care about putting on a good show.

Can I get a hell yes?

Sasquatch just got immeasurably better. The best band most no one has heard of and perpetual obsession of mine, also known as Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, has been added to the Sasquatch Music Festival. Excuse me as I go and hammer dance for five consecutive hours.