dsmith2904
ONE love, blood, life
The Best Music
By Josh Tyrangiel
1. K A N Y E W E S T
T h e C o l l e g e D r o p o u t
The obvious comparison is The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, but where that solipsistic concept album came wrapped in sincerity, West's swings wildly between his belief in his own exceptionalism and his fierce conviction that followers—which he defines as lazy rappers, college students and anyone who works at The Gap—are all chumps. West can be as petulant as Eminem ("If my manager insults me again, I will be assaulting him"), but he's at least as clever, and as a producer he's attentive to the tiny details that elevate a record to greatness. There's plenty of self-indulgence, but at the end of Never Let Me Down, as West's choir sings, "When it comes to being true, at least true to me/One thing I've found, one thing I've found, oh no you never let me down," it's easy to believe in his exceptionalism, too.
Best Tracks: Jesus Walks, Never Let Me Down, Spaceship, School Spirit
2. R I L O K I L E Y
M o r e A d v e n t u r o u s
It's worth noting that lead singer Jenny Lewis was a child actor—not because her role in Troop Beverly Hills foretold greatness, but because she invests her mini pop dramas with star quality and range. You believe her pessimism on Portions for Foxes ("Baby I'm bad news") her bemusement on It's a Hit, and her strength on just about everything. Proof that you can go pop without going stupid.
Best Tracks: It's a Hit, A Man/Me/Then Jim, Portions for Foxes
3. F R A N Z F E R D I N A N D
F r a n z F e r d i n a n d
You can tell they're an art school band by the literary references, the abstraction and the exuberantly pointless German sing-a-long at the end of Darts of Pleasure (though curiously Auf Acshe is entirely in English). Yep, they're smart guys, but they've got the idiot souls of AC/DC and the riffs to match.
Best Tracks: The Dark of the Matinee, Jacqueline, Take Me Out
4. U 2
H o w t o D i s m a n t l e a n A t o m i c B o m b
After years of calling themselves a pop band, U2 finally decided to write some pop songs. The result is their catchiest album, with each song built around an instantly memorable hook. The ballads are sometimes weighed down by their own enormity (would any other band even joke about writing a song called Yahweh?) but the garage rockers are keepers.
Best Tracks: Vertigo, All Because of You, Crumbs From Your Table
5. W I L C O
A G h o s t i s B o r n
Jeff Tweedy's great gift is abstraction, and while in the past that's sometimes seemed like a convenient excuse for not finishing songs (see the wildly overpraised Yankee Hotel Foxtrot), this time he sets a mood and keeps to it. No point looking for meaning in a line like "I'm a cherry ghost," just lay back and enjoy the fog.
Best Tracks: Hummingbird, Handshake Drugs, Theologians
6. A R C A D E F I R E
F u n e r a l
On some tracks they cover themselves in sonic mud like the Pixies, on others they're as crystalline as Nick Drake. But while this Montreal band, headed by husband and wife team Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, hasn't yet settled into a sound, they're whip smart and productively wounded. Almost all of the songs are about death, and they're delivered with disarming fury.
Best Tracks: Neighborhood #2 (Laika), Rebellion (Lies), Wake Up
7. U S H E R
C o n f e s s i o n s
The contrite songs are standard R&B, notable only because Usher's begging and pleading are directed at Chili from TLC. Things only take off when he starts making excuses for his infidelity. Burn is so smooth that you'll barely notice he's saying "it's not me, it's you." Yeah! explains how things got messed up in the first place with a great rap cameo from Ludacris and an addictive atonal whistle embedded in the chorus. Easily the best pop song of the year.
Best Tracks: Yeah!, Confessions Part II, Burn
8. G R E T C H E N W I L S O N
H e r e f o r t h e P a r t y
Ain't no "might be" about it. Enjoying this album of Wal-Mart quality rhymes and time-tested professional hooks makes you 100% redneck.
Best Tracks: Redneck Woman, When I Think About Cheatin'
9. G R E E N D A Y
A m e r i c a n I d i o t
Always underestimated because they were such convincing idiots themselves in the early 90s, Green Day has matured into a worldview, and this rock opera about politics and ignorance is their career best. Musically, they still love three chords and a wall of fuzz, but they've found ways to stretch their compositions from two minutes to nine without Meatlovian pretension while Billy Joe's occasionally keen observations about red states never forget their most important function is to rhyme.
Best Tracks: Jesus of Suburbia, Boulevard of Broken Dreams
10. T I E ) K E R E N A N N
N o t G o i n g A n y w h e r e
R E G I N A S P E K T O R
S o v i e t K i t s c h
Both of these singer-songwriters were born abroad, and funky English pronunciation is part of their appeal. Israeli-born, French raised Ann chirps her delicate songs with nary a hard consonant, as if she knows the tiniest affricative could ruin everything. The Russian-born Spektor is harder, kookier; she crams syllables into her mouth like un-lit cigarettes, rolling them around until she decides to fire them up all at once. Her voice isn't quite as gorgeous, but her songs are riveting.
Best Tracks: (Keren Ann) Not Going Anywhere, Road Bin
(Regina Spektor) Ode to Divorce, Poor Little Rich Boy
Top 10 Songs
1. Yeah!, Usher
2. Never Let Me Down, Kanye West
3. Mosh, Eminem
4. Vertigo, U2
5. Dreams, TV on the Radio Ignition Remix
6. Neighborhood #2 (Laika), Arcade Fire
7. Laura, Scissor Sisters
8. First of the Gang to Die, Morrissey
9. Toxic, Britney Spears
10. Slow Hands, Interpol
--Time
By Josh Tyrangiel
1. K A N Y E W E S T
T h e C o l l e g e D r o p o u t
The obvious comparison is The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, but where that solipsistic concept album came wrapped in sincerity, West's swings wildly between his belief in his own exceptionalism and his fierce conviction that followers—which he defines as lazy rappers, college students and anyone who works at The Gap—are all chumps. West can be as petulant as Eminem ("If my manager insults me again, I will be assaulting him"), but he's at least as clever, and as a producer he's attentive to the tiny details that elevate a record to greatness. There's plenty of self-indulgence, but at the end of Never Let Me Down, as West's choir sings, "When it comes to being true, at least true to me/One thing I've found, one thing I've found, oh no you never let me down," it's easy to believe in his exceptionalism, too.
Best Tracks: Jesus Walks, Never Let Me Down, Spaceship, School Spirit
2. R I L O K I L E Y
M o r e A d v e n t u r o u s
It's worth noting that lead singer Jenny Lewis was a child actor—not because her role in Troop Beverly Hills foretold greatness, but because she invests her mini pop dramas with star quality and range. You believe her pessimism on Portions for Foxes ("Baby I'm bad news") her bemusement on It's a Hit, and her strength on just about everything. Proof that you can go pop without going stupid.
Best Tracks: It's a Hit, A Man/Me/Then Jim, Portions for Foxes
3. F R A N Z F E R D I N A N D
F r a n z F e r d i n a n d
You can tell they're an art school band by the literary references, the abstraction and the exuberantly pointless German sing-a-long at the end of Darts of Pleasure (though curiously Auf Acshe is entirely in English). Yep, they're smart guys, but they've got the idiot souls of AC/DC and the riffs to match.
Best Tracks: The Dark of the Matinee, Jacqueline, Take Me Out
4. U 2
H o w t o D i s m a n t l e a n A t o m i c B o m b
After years of calling themselves a pop band, U2 finally decided to write some pop songs. The result is their catchiest album, with each song built around an instantly memorable hook. The ballads are sometimes weighed down by their own enormity (would any other band even joke about writing a song called Yahweh?) but the garage rockers are keepers.
Best Tracks: Vertigo, All Because of You, Crumbs From Your Table
5. W I L C O
A G h o s t i s B o r n
Jeff Tweedy's great gift is abstraction, and while in the past that's sometimes seemed like a convenient excuse for not finishing songs (see the wildly overpraised Yankee Hotel Foxtrot), this time he sets a mood and keeps to it. No point looking for meaning in a line like "I'm a cherry ghost," just lay back and enjoy the fog.
Best Tracks: Hummingbird, Handshake Drugs, Theologians
6. A R C A D E F I R E
F u n e r a l
On some tracks they cover themselves in sonic mud like the Pixies, on others they're as crystalline as Nick Drake. But while this Montreal band, headed by husband and wife team Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, hasn't yet settled into a sound, they're whip smart and productively wounded. Almost all of the songs are about death, and they're delivered with disarming fury.
Best Tracks: Neighborhood #2 (Laika), Rebellion (Lies), Wake Up
7. U S H E R
C o n f e s s i o n s
The contrite songs are standard R&B, notable only because Usher's begging and pleading are directed at Chili from TLC. Things only take off when he starts making excuses for his infidelity. Burn is so smooth that you'll barely notice he's saying "it's not me, it's you." Yeah! explains how things got messed up in the first place with a great rap cameo from Ludacris and an addictive atonal whistle embedded in the chorus. Easily the best pop song of the year.
Best Tracks: Yeah!, Confessions Part II, Burn
8. G R E T C H E N W I L S O N
H e r e f o r t h e P a r t y
Ain't no "might be" about it. Enjoying this album of Wal-Mart quality rhymes and time-tested professional hooks makes you 100% redneck.
Best Tracks: Redneck Woman, When I Think About Cheatin'
9. G R E E N D A Y
A m e r i c a n I d i o t
Always underestimated because they were such convincing idiots themselves in the early 90s, Green Day has matured into a worldview, and this rock opera about politics and ignorance is their career best. Musically, they still love three chords and a wall of fuzz, but they've found ways to stretch their compositions from two minutes to nine without Meatlovian pretension while Billy Joe's occasionally keen observations about red states never forget their most important function is to rhyme.
Best Tracks: Jesus of Suburbia, Boulevard of Broken Dreams
10. T I E ) K E R E N A N N
N o t G o i n g A n y w h e r e
R E G I N A S P E K T O R
S o v i e t K i t s c h
Both of these singer-songwriters were born abroad, and funky English pronunciation is part of their appeal. Israeli-born, French raised Ann chirps her delicate songs with nary a hard consonant, as if she knows the tiniest affricative could ruin everything. The Russian-born Spektor is harder, kookier; she crams syllables into her mouth like un-lit cigarettes, rolling them around until she decides to fire them up all at once. Her voice isn't quite as gorgeous, but her songs are riveting.
Best Tracks: (Keren Ann) Not Going Anywhere, Road Bin
(Regina Spektor) Ode to Divorce, Poor Little Rich Boy
Top 10 Songs
1. Yeah!, Usher
2. Never Let Me Down, Kanye West
3. Mosh, Eminem
4. Vertigo, U2
5. Dreams, TV on the Radio Ignition Remix
6. Neighborhood #2 (Laika), Arcade Fire
7. Laura, Scissor Sisters
8. First of the Gang to Die, Morrissey
9. Toxic, Britney Spears
10. Slow Hands, Interpol
--Time
