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The Tris McCall Report

Critics Poll XVIII -- 2007

Don't you dare lay down your spear and die, oh, small fry.

I suppose you could call my tastes adolescent. I'd prefer to say that adults suck. Instinctively, we knew this when we were kids -- we recognized that our elders were a bunch of phonies and professional conciliators, and when we grew up, we were never, ever, going to make the same mistakes that they did. These days, you and I are grownups. Do you think we have anything to proud about? We're not newcomers anymore; we share some responsibility for the hash we've made of the decade. This is our world now. How do you like it?

Time is supposed to mellow us and teach us to be complacent. I've found that the older I get, the less patience I have for the "polite" music. Most current critical favorites, from Feist to Spoon to The New New Pornographers, make sophisticated adult-contemporary pop. Hey, I enjoy aesthetic pleasures too. But after everything that's happened on our watch, I don't understand why we still think we have the right to be cautious and cryptic. I do not understand why we still think that subtlety is a virtue. What this decade should have taught us all is that subtlety is fodder for ideological steamrollers. In 2008, subtlety equals surrender.

I have never intended my Critics Poll ballots to be used as a buyer's guide. That's especially true this year. Most of the time when I make my list, I'm well aware of the reasons why you readers might hate my #1 album; this year, I can hardly imagine why you wouldn't. The adult in me wants to tell Max Bemis to chill out, pipe down, stop raging against everybody long enough to make some kind of peace with society, figure out his place in the order of things, cultivate his (very real) musical and songwriting talents, abandon "emo" for something more suitable for discerning palates, maybe do a few commercials, you know, cooperate with the consumer enterprise.

The adult in me is a fucking jerk. Bemis is absolutely right to be furious about the world he's inherited. His latest double-disc may be overwrought, but it's hardly hyperbolic: there really is an war against his metier, the same one that pits the already-compromised against those who are still young enough to want to chafe against their golden chains. This fight goes on constantly; today you'll encounter a thousand little manifestations of it. Maybe you'll run into some big ones, too. Jeff Smith's stunning cover illustration is no cartoon fantasy: that battleline is real. I know what side I'm on, for good.

 

Album of the year

I can't pretend I'm impartial, but if I wasn't recusing myself, I'd have Palomar's All Things, Forests at number four.

Single of the year

 

Best album title

Why, In Defense Of The Genre, of course. Funniest title: NOFX's They've Actually Gotten Worse Live! They're a trip, they are. Now just imagine if they were willing to learn a fourth chord.

Best album cover

I hate to be a broken record, really I do, but sometimes it can't be helped. Honorable mention: Jamie T, surrounded by all the albums he's rippe-, er, listened to.

Best liner notes & packaging

Richard Swift's Dressed Up For The Letdown came with a glossy red booklet; a replica notebook featuring hand-drawn illustrations, scribbled historical factoids about the year 1938, photos of child warriors, a pornographic sketch, some math problems, and an endearinly pompous liner-note essay comparing the artist to a clocksmith. Now, if only it had come with some songs!

Most welcome surprise

Ron Paul's money bomb. For one evening, at least, I didn't feel quite so stranded in America. Oh, you want an album? Well, I was stupefied at how engrossing Maroon 5 has suddenly become. I know, you still don't believe me. All I can say is: don't judge it by the radio singles. Those are great, but to really understand the depth of the achievement, you've got to listen to It Won't Be Soon Before Long from beginning to end. You could call it a concept record about a self-absorbed asshole in Los Angeles, but is that really a deal-breaker? These days, Shampoo is considered a mid-seventies classic; this album is just like that, only you can dance to it, and you don't have to watch Goldie Hawn act dumb. All of Adam Levine's conquests happen offstage.

Biggest disappointment

Maximo Park's Our Earthly Pleasures. Arena rock: it's not for everybody.

Album that opens the strongest

Regional Community Theatre by LadybiRdS begins with three synthpop confections sweet enough for the display case at Fabiane's. The next track is a duet with Max Bemis, of all people; he sounds petulant as always, but you can feel him fighting off a big, goofy grin. At this point, you will wager that the dizzy sugar-high is unsustainable. You'll be correct.

Album that ends the strongest

Graduation

Worst song of the year

"The Salmon Dance" by The Chemical Brothers. I really hope that this is a product of a contractual obligation, and that nobody involved was under the impression that they were making YouTube rap.

Song of the year

"Almost Rosey". It's her "Solsbury Hill".

Best EP Release

The Company You Keep, by The Morning Pages.

Best singing

Neil Finn

Best rapping

Turf Talk. There are moments when he sounds a bit like Shady, and that's not so good. But his Eminem voice is only one of about six distinct styles he flashes on West Coast Vaccine. Each personality is adept on the mic, and often, just to fuck with your head, Turf and Rick Rock will run them all at once. If and when he gets signed to a major, they're not going to let him pull these stunts anymore, so enjoy the schizophrenia while you can.

Best vocal harmonies

Beth Arzy, overdubbed from here until eternity on the outro to "A Statue To Wilde".

Best bass playing

Right now, I'd like to introduce the foundation of the E Street Nation, the Tennessee Terror, Mr. Garry W. Tallent!

Best drumming

Bob D'Amico. My head is still spinning from some of those fills on "Duplexes Of The Dead". I'd also like to give some love to the two RKs who never get any -- Jason Boesel and Pierre de Reeder -- for actually managing to channel the spirit of Fleetwood Mac. Many have tried, few have succeeded. But the Friedbergers have put together a thunderously-good rhythm section: two players good enough to play stylistic hopscotch with the hyperactive frontpeople. Damn.

Best drum programming

Every city has its regional production mill, and Dallas's, as it turns out, is better than many. Tum Tum's main collaborator on Eat Or Get Ate is Josh Loudermilk, but Zilla gets terrific beats from other sources, too: David "Boom" Pinks, Just Beatz, Play-N-Skillz. Even Mannie Fresh drops by Milkyway Studios in Dallas to make his contribution to the emcee's cause; Mannie knows a hot project when he hears one. Turns out his contribution isn't even close to the hottest track on the disc. The locals are hungry; their urgency is apparent; they make every snare hit count.

Best synth playing or programming

Jesse Carmichael. I want his instruments. And no, I don't believe they're all softsynths.

Best piano/organ/electric piano playing

You want to be careful here. There's a risk you can turn into the sort of sports-voter who gives the Golden Glove to Omar Vizquel every year just because he's always won it. Now, I may worship Omar as a God, but even I can acknowledge that there are better players at his position these days. Likewise, there were some fabulous young piano players making records in '07: Bryce Avary, Mike DiBiasio of the Roadside Graves, Sara Bareilles, even the dude from Lavender Diamond. But then you spin American Doll Posse and you forget all about those guys. This year's model wasn't even much of a piano set (alas); there were entire songs devoted to showcasing big, stupid faux-glam guitar. Regardless, Tori Amos is the prohibitive favorite in this category every time she puts out an album.

Best rhythm guitar playing

Charlotte Hatherley. This was the easiest question on the entire poll for me. All of this stuff is entirely subjective, I know -- but if you voted for anybody else, I challenge you to listen to The Deep Blue and tell me you weren't wrong.

Best lead guitar playing

Phil Wandscher of The Sweet Hereafter. As Tom Snow said, 3/4 time suits him well.

Best use of a non-traditional rock and roll instrument

I was all set to vote for Shilpa Ray, but then Melissa Surach pointed out that Jessica Delfino used a rape whistle on one of her songs. I haven't heard it, but that's got to be the correct answer, right, Shilpa?

Best instrumental solo

Blake Sennett on "Dejalo". I may be the only person on earth -- including the members of Rilo Kiley -- who loves that song. But for thirty seconds there, It's 1985, I'm at a bar mitzvah at the Shackamaxon in Scotch Plains, I'm wearing an itchy blue suit, and I'm working up the courage to ask Jennifer Bruder to slow-dance. Oh, the magic of cheese.

Best instrumentalist

Bryce Avary of the Rocket Summer. Most one-man bands sound like Little Johnny Four-Track has no friends. But Avary demonstrates his mastery of genre conventions on all three standard rock instruments -- and then he bangs around authoritatively on a studio piano that echoes like the voice of God. Which it may well be; if anybody in emo-pop has a line to the big guy, it's Avary. Do You Feel concludes with the musician out in the desert, hurling himself at his deity: "take my life and use it, I'm ready!" It's so magnificently earnest, and beautifully performed, that it's prompted me to add a brand new category to the poll:

Song That Makes Me Most Wish I Was A Christian

The Rocket Summer, "So, In This Hour..."

Best arrangements

Prinzhorn Dance School. Two voices, one snare drum, one bass guitar, intermittent six-string plinking out rudimentary lines, OCD, psychosis, and awkward, disturbing silences.

Most thoroughly botched production job

Hey, Carl Newman, what the hell happened to the bass guitar? You've got the mighty John Collins in the band; this is how you mix? I am reminded of those Knicks games when Stephon Marbury suited up, but no matter how much the crowd at the Garden chanted, he still wasn't put in the game. You want to be the Isiah Thomas of indie rock?

Best production

Kanye West for Graduation. Polow da Don deserves mention, too.

Rookie of the year

Prinz/Horn.

Band of the year

The Fiery Furnaces. Neither Led Zeppelin nor Genesis ever did first-rate Led Zeppelin and Genesis on the same album. Or, for that matter, on the same song.

Best lyrics (on an individual song)

"In Defense Of The Genre". Boy, does this band know how to get my Irish up. "Just you wait and see where your lemming line leads." No need to wait, Max, I can see all too well.

Best lyrics (over the course of a full-length)

If I can't vote for Rachel Warren, I suppose I'll have to vote for Will Sheff. No, fuck that, Rachel Warren is the answer. Remember, reader: before we were friends, I knew your music. Chances are, we became friends because I heard your music; I believed in what you were doing, and I wanted to be part of it. That's not favoritism, that's inspiration.

Best songwriting

Adam Levine, and hear me out on this. It is very difficult to make a traditionally-constructed pop song groove hard enough for it to merit radio play on R&B stations. The last person to make this happen on a consistent basis was Prince, and Prince didn't always do it very well. We've come to expect R&B and soul music to be loop- and sample-driven, and traditional pop songs tend to be an amalgam of distinct sections. Think of your favorite R&B single: what marks the division between the verse and the chorus? Chances are, it's some sort of rhythmic variation. The most similar commercially-successful artist to Levine currently recording is Robin Thicke, and as nifty as he is, he regularly pens songs that don't change chords at all. "Wanna Love U", that's one groove for three minutes, briefly interrupted by a turn-the-beat-around middle section for Pharrell's horseplay. Well, that's not how Maroon 5 writes. Every song on It Won't Be Soon Before Long has a distinct verse (many have variations within the verses) and chorus. More than that, Levine makes sure that every song -- even the funk-workout "Kiwi" -- has a sturdy bridge to a final release; often there's an outro, too, sometimes there's a pre-chorus, sometimes there's a pre-bridge. He builds his songs much the way Stevie Wonder, or Stuart Murdoch, would. Astonishingly, despite all the section-breaks and the high-risk transitions they imply, It Won't Be Soon Before Long is compulsively danceable. Not intermittently danceable, no, it's danceable all the way through. This is an astonishing achievement in the current climate -- that a band so reliant on traditional pop architecture could, through catchiness and compositional skill, force their way onto urban playlists.

Best sounding album

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Best concert I saw in 2007

Probably the FFs at Maxwell's, although that was not a joyful evening for me.

Best music video

Best choreography in a video

Beyonce Knowles, "Get Me Bodied". I love the lead dancer; he's hilarious. Drop down low and sweep the floor with it!

Best guest appearance

In defense of the genre, Max Bemis has assembled an emo-pop version of Dumbledore's Army. Just about everybody who makes this style of music gets a guest appearance somewhere on these two discs; even Gerard Way, who is Not Emo, hollers his head off on the title track. Anyway, the role of Ginny Weasley is played, appropriately, by redheaded stepchild Hayley Williams -- she gets to be Bemis's object of ultimate desire on "Plea", and a sinister ghost-hallucination on "The Church Channel". She's a total pro about it, too, really laying into both of her performances, wholly embodying characters that could have been weak caricatures. If I had to cast a musical tomorrow, I'd offer her the lead part first, and then build the rest of it around her voice. In fact, I hope somebody with the balls to do it (Stephen Merritt, maybe?) puts together a Harry Potter musical, just so Hayley Williams can sing the part of Ginny. Who plays Ginny in those stupid Harry Potter movies they make? Some clown? Lord knows I visualized Hayley Williams as Ginny while reading Deathly Hallows -- that is, during those few pages when J.K. Rowling let Harry's love interest out of lockdown. Hmm, maybe it's not such a great role after all.

Sexiest people in pop music

Oh, Tori, it was always you.

Worst video

Do you know the moment in the Lovecraft story when the scientist sees the shoggoth, and the horror of it scrambles his brains permanently? Well, watching Fantasia lather up in a bathtub wasn't quite as awful as that, but it's as close to it as I ever want to come. (Great song, though.)

Worst singing

Regine Chassagne, defining indie unlistenability for the new century.

Worst rapping

Northern State

Worst lyrics

Neon Bible. Maybe your "father's house" doesn't want you, either. Have you considered that, Win? All the nonsense about eating in the ghetto on a hundred dollar plate (so?) aside, Butler's reductive anti-Americanism really wore on me this year. Look, we already know that our country sucks and is slouching toward fascism. We don't need some histrionic Canadian -- one who is, incidentally, getting rich off of the largesse of our people -- rubbing it in. Just stay up there in Montreal and finish that stupid tunnel you were digging.

Worst lyrics by a good lyricist who ought to know better

Suzanne Vega, "New York Is A Woman". Ecch.

Worst song on a good album

"Conquest", from Icky Thump. You're pushing it, guys. Also, how about "15", from Under The Blacklight? I love Rilo Kiley, but I think if I had to play that one more than twice -- or just be in the room while Jenny Lewis sang it -- I'd quit the band.

Crappy album you listened to a lot anyway

Calling The World

2007 album you listened to the most

American Doll Posse. It's always the Tori Amos album. Every morning I get up, and I look at my record collection, and think, "I could listen to all these other guys, sure...., but I could also put on the Tori Amos album." Next thing you know, I'm playing air piano at the desk, and singing some crazy shit about fairies.

2007 album that wore out the quickest

Fur And Gold

Song that got stuck in your head the most this year

"First you get her name (yeah!)/ Then you get her number!" Also, my obscene version of "1,2,3,4" is quite catchy. Don't ask for the lyrics, they're not printable on a family website such as this.

Thing you don't know, but you know you should

Hmm... John Vanderslice's Emerald City sounds pretty interesting...

Man, I wish I knew what this song or album was about

I know what they're all about, and I'm telling mom. No, seriously, have you guys heard "Crank That Batman" by the Pop It Off Boys? "Get boogie on the floor'", indeed. They're having a good laugh at us down there in Hotlanta.

Album that felt most like an obligation to get through

El-P, I'll Sleep When You're Dead. It's excellent, but as usual, the emcee doesn't make it easy.

Album that sounded like it was the most fun to make

Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby. It is safe to say that any session that concludes with a bluegrass version of "Superfreak" was a hoot. That's not the sort of thing you attempt unless you're an elderly gentleman with a goofy sense of humor and talent to burn. Plenty of expensive marijuana, too.

Album that sounded like it was a chore to make

Curtis. Now that his delusions about his invincible business acumen have been punctured, perhaps 50 Cent can get back to doing what he does best. He really is an outstanding vocalist when he's in the mood to be. His latest set of machine-pressed hip-hop is underrated (as all his albums are), but it's also utterly joyless, and that hurt. The surest way to drain all the fun out of a record release is to turn it into a sales contest against a well-financed opponent; Damon Albarn could have told him that.

Most romantic song

Jaymay's "Autumn Fallin'". I know it's not officially out yet, but just you wait.

Funniest song

"Manchasm", by Future Of The Left. I'm not going to link to the lyrics -- you've got to hear it in real time, and it's best if it takes you by surprise. Expect extra lulz should your name happen to be Colin.

Most frightening song

Just about everything on Prinzhorn Dance School, especially "You Are The Space Invader". Seriously, there was a three-week stretch in September when I couldn't put this record on. It was scaring the fuck out of me, and making me feel like I had severe mental problems (don't say it). Now that's the definition of a great album.

Most inspiring song

"People Like You Are Why People Like Me Exist", from In Defense Of The Genre. Fightin' words! Also, there's the amazing (and amazingly awfully-titled) "Sorry, Dudes. My Bad.", which, on paper, is about how Max Bemis freaked out and wrecked the ...Is A Real Boy tour. There's a piano breakdown after a spoken-word section -- Chris Conley of Saves The Day reassures Bemis that his bandmates have his back no matter what -- and, hat in hand, the frontman turns to the group and testifies. "Forever yours, I am/ like the ocean to the sand/ forever in debt to my band/ like I'm in the palm of your hand." I feel that way about every largehearted fool who has ever gotten onstage with me.

Most moving song

Probably "Katrina Clap". True confession: I get the chills every time I hear Kanye West rap "you can live through anything if Magic made it." I'm a regular cornball, I know.

Saddest song

"Silent House", Neil Finn's brutal tale of senile dementia.

Best cover

Charles Bissell wins again -- this time, for his one-man guitorchestral reinterpretation of Okkervil River's "It Ends With A Fall".

Song that would drive you craziest on infinite repeat

"Boyz". How many how many how many how many woo hoo how many how many how many how many start a war!, how many how many woo.

Most consistent album

Weirdly, Widow City. I guess "Restorative Beer" and "Cabaret Of The Seven Devils" are a bit of a slowdown, but it's not like I'd want to lose either one.

Most vertiginously inconsistent album

Time On Earth. Five titanic songs, some dull soft-rock, and some really wigged-out Enz of the Earth stuff like "Transit Lounge".

Most convincing historical recreation

The Bees. That's not music, that's forgery.

Best album I rescued from the dollar bin at Tunes

Call Message by Greenland. Grabbing it on a whim went against a decades-old theory of mine -- that bands named after geographical areas of any kind are never good. Turns out they're the exception: an engaging bunch of stoners from the DC area with a knack for writing lazy hooks. Plus, they win points for making fun of Anderson Cooper in an indie rock song. If my album list went to 30, they'd be on there.

Great song I completely forgot about until I rediscovered it on YouTube

"Holiday", by Nazareth. Sloan would kill for a chorus like that. And hot damn, what a fantastic singer. He sounds like a debauched version of Milton. Why can't I sing like that?

Song/album that should have been shorter

I know I'm supposed to say American Doll Posse. Honestly, it's hard to argue against this assessment, but when you actually sit down and try to figure out where to cut, it's not so easy. You could leave out the silly, minute-long numbers like "Programmable Soda", "Yo George", and "Fat Slut", but then all you've done is turned an eighty minute whopper into a seventy-eight minute one. "Digital Ghost" is probably the weakest of the ballads, but there's something so pleasing about her performance on it. You could lose one of the big rocking show tunes, like "Teenage Hustling", but that would undermine the hypersexual garishness she's working so hard to achieve with this set. By her own nerd-girl standards, "Big Wheel" is awfully boneheaded. But that's the single; the suits won't let you drop that one. Lopping off everything after "Dark Side Of The Sun" works conceptually -- and maybe even aesthetically -- but could you really part with "this is your posse bonus/ 'cuz I like you"? And if you let her sing that, well, you've got to let her give you some sort of bonus; otherwise, you won't believe that she really does like you. Just leave the damn thing the way it is, grit your teeth, and plow through it. You'll be happy you did.

Song/album that should have been longer

The Stage Names. Could I get, maybe, one more number? Something to pad the theme a bit, you know, some wordy, erudite filler? I wouldn't mind. As it is, the album feels a wee bit like an encore set after an exhilarating show: sweaty, trebly, recursive, exhausted; watching a depleted and dehydrated frontman with one eye on the dressing room door, and one eye on a girl in the front row.

Album that turned out to be a whole hell of a lot better than you initially thought

Lady's Bridge. Ignore my Pop Music Abstract entries for Richard Hawley and The Rocket Summer. I'm right about the rest of it, though.

Most overrated artist

He's incredibly endearing, and often very funny, and his decision to pull the plug on his mySpace page was both brave and noble. But considering the fuss made about it, Jens Lekman's music is awfully limp.

Album that was the most fun to listen to

It Won't Be Soon Before Long

Thing you feel cheapest about liking

Downtown Jersey City

Hoary old bastard who should spare us all and retire

Common

Young upstart who should be sent down to the minors for more seasoning

Lavender Diamond

2007 album you'll probably re-evaluate in 2008

Our Ill Wills. It's hard to assess an album that's this derivative, but also this enjoyable.

Most overplayed song

I won't say Rihanna; "Umbrella" deserved every play it got. How about "This Is Why I'm Hot"? Or "D.A.N.C.E."?

Place the next big pop music boom will come from

Brace yourselves for FBR-style emo-pop from Continental Europe and the U.K. It's a-coming! I'm also intrigued by all the Los Angeles (and L.A. themed) music on my poll this year: Say Anything, Maroon 5, Rilo Kiley. Everybody knows I'm a sucker for Californians, but the ones I dig are usually from the Bay Area. It's probably just an aberration.

Will still be making good records in 2017

Kanye West. Graduation put the argument to rest: he's a lifer.

Will be a one-hit wonder ("Crank That" doesn't count)

MIMS

Biggest musical trend of 2008

More rappers rocking, more rockers rapping. Trying to, anyway.

Best album of 2008

Everything Is Borrowed

 

Poll album results

Poll singles results

Poll miscellany

Postscript

 

Past ballots online:

Critics Poll XVII (2006)
Critics Poll XVI (2005)
Critics Poll XV (2004)
Critics Poll XIV (2003)
Critics Poll XIII (2002)

 

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