A Grand Illusion

2. The Go-Betweens, Oceans Apart

This still stands.

1. The Hold Steady, Separation Sunday

So does this*.

EDIT: The link isn’t working, so just scroll down to the bottom of this page to the December 7 entry…if you got the patience.

2. The Go-Betweens, Oceans Apart

This still stands.

1. The Hold Steady, Separation Sunday

So does this*.

EDIT: The link isn’t working, so just scroll down to the bottom of this page to the December 7 entry…if you got the patience.

My review of Brokeback Mountain, which I admired enormously and left me stumbling dumbfounded for most of the Christmas holiday. It’s not a great film, though: damn, does that Ang Lee dig repression.

My review of Brokeback Mountain, which I admired enormously and left me stumbling dumbfounded for most of the Christmas holiday. It’s not a great film, though: damn, does that Ang Lee dig repression.

4. Kanye West, Late Registration

At least he’s got the good sense to over-orchestrate his songs when his ego threatens to humble him before the eyes of impatient critics. Jon Brion should sell his mellotron to Aimee Mann as a parting gift.

3. M.I.A., Arular

One of the year’s most gratifying sights was watching teens who wouldn’t know Sri Lanka from Sirhan Sirhan go apeshit over “Bucky Done Gun” and “Galang.” The kerfuffle over her politics has never captivated this listener. Only those beats — those dizzy, dizzy beats — and M.I.A.’s exuberance — an exuberance born of sorrow and death — signified beyond the pre-release polycultural condescension (and post-release; read this recent horror of a blurb in SPIN’s year-end countdown).

4. Kanye West, Late Registration

At least he’s got the good sense to over-orchestrate his songs when his ego threatens to humble him before the eyes of impatient critics. Jon Brion should sell his mellotron to Aimee Mann as a parting gift.

3. M.I.A., Arular

One of the year’s most gratifying sights was watching teens who wouldn’t know Sri Lanka from Sirhan Sirhan go apeshit over “Bucky Done Gun” and “Galang.” The kerfuffle over her politics has never captivated this listener. Only those beats — those dizzy, dizzy beats — and M.I.A.’s exuberance — an exuberance born of sorrow and death — signified beyond the pre-release polycultural condescension (and post-release; read this recent horror of a blurb in SPIN’s year-end countdown).

6. New Pornographers, Twin Cinema

What I wrote here still holds up. If you don’t agree, have fun with your Destroyer, Zampano, and Neko Case records.

5. LCD Soundsystem, s/t

I’m now having second thoughts about ranking it so high. Most of the previously released singles leave me cold (even “Yeah”); and the genre exercises just sorta sit there (”Movement” is rank mid’90s Moby). Still, here’s your chance to listen to every dance, trance, and electro trend of the last 10 years, sped up, slowed down, schlocked up, for your pleasure.

6. New Pornographers, Twin Cinema

What I wrote here still holds up. If you don’t agree, have fun with your Destroyer, Zampano, and Neko Case records.

5. LCD Soundsystem, s/t

I’m now having second thoughts about ranking it so high. Most of the previously released singles leave me cold (even “Yeah”); and the genre exercises just sorta sit there (”Movement” is rank mid’90s Moby). Still, here’s your chance to listen to every dance, trance, and electro trend of the last 10 years, sped up, slowed down, schlocked up, for your pleasure.

8. The Rolling Stones, A Bigger Bang

In which four reprehensible plutocrats remember that they’re also, um, in a rock band and should play like one. Their best since Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), if not Monster.

7. The Mountain Goats, The Sunset Tree

Imagine all the shit that’s most revolting about autobiographical songs cycles. Now write and record them with surprising instrumental embellishments, narrative clarity, and a cold ruthless eye. David Copperfield meets Dazed & Confused, and it’s a wonder that John Darnielle seems like such a nice person.

8. The Rolling Stones, A Bigger Bang

In which four reprehensible plutocrats remember that they’re also, um, in a rock band and should play like one. Their best since Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), if not Monster.

7. The Mountain Goats, The Sunset Tree

Imagine all the shit that’s most revolting about autobiographical songs cycles. Now write and record them with surprising instrumental embellishments, narrative clarity, and a cold ruthless eye. David Copperfield meets Dazed & Confused, and it’s a wonder that John Darnielle seems like such a nice person.

I stole this idea from Miccio. Two a day, taken from my Village Voice Pazz & Jop ballot:

10. Kate Bush, Aerial

Having made my peace with Bush’s rather stiffjointed motions towards ecstacy (chugging power chords don’t achieve liftoff even when she’s howling “I wanna be up, up, UP on the ROOF!” like she’s still wants to take her shoes off and throw them in the lake), I relaxed and accepted this woman’s version of middle-age domesticity. From dreaming of washing machines to Renaissange madrigals for her son to the subtle smarts of her sound (she makes the best case for the virtues of self-production), this is still plenty weird.

9. Spoon, Gimme Fiction

Unduly impresssed by Britt Daniels’ previous excursions into tuneful opacity, I was prepared to like this record before forgetting it in December. What I did forget was how seductive tuneful opacity can be when garnished with bits of ugly guitar squalls, with Daniels’ increasingly confident vocals atop. Flaunting the encyclopedic knowledge of all things rock that is de rigueur for canny aesthetes these days, Daniels is more comfortable doing “Rocks Off” (”Sister Jack”) than “Emotional Rescue” (”I Turn My Camera On”). For canny aesthetes, this is a real achievement.

And now for some good news:

HARRISBURG, Pa. – “Intelligent design” cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said. Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said.

This morning while walking to my car I noticed that I was the only person in my building with neither a wreath nor a Christmas tree. (My mom bought me a poinsetta, but it’s looking rather wan and forlorn on my terrace).

What a relief then to read this by Christopher Hitchens on Christmas:

This was a useful demonstration of what I have always hated about the month of December: the atmosphere of a one-party state. On all media and in all newspapers, endless invocations of the same repetitive theme. In all public places, from train stations to department stores, an insistent din of identical propaganda and identical music. The collectivization of gaiety and the compulsory infliction of joy. Time wasted on foolishness at one’s children’s schools. Vapid ecumenical messages from the president, who has more pressing things to do and who is constitutionally required to avoid any religious endorsements.

He ends with a cheerful “God damn them everyone.”

Blogging has been non-existent this past week, thanks to a stack of papers to grade (done) and a three-day vacation (done, alas). Let’s try to catch up.

Stylus and Pitchfork has released its list of the 50 best albums of the year; I’ve written the New Pornographers blurb for the former.

I’ll post my own list shortly; there’s a couple of albums I’ve recently bought which I’m still assessing (Spoon, Lee Ann Womack) for Pazz & Jop purposes.

As for movies, I loved Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe, unwieldy title and all. Still on the list: Syriana (sorry, Phoebe), Brokeback Mountain.

It’s refreshing when Hitchens plays nice on occasion, as he does here on the late Eugene McCarthy.