102. The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree (2005)

I don't think I'll ever be able to appreciate John Darnielle's music; his voice is so annoying and unlikable (for me) that everything he sings, no matter how gorgeous or well-written, is utterly mangled. This album is about his relationship with his abusive stepfather, and while that's an interesting subject to approach through music the lyrics have a tinge of safeness to them, of overly-studied "tossed-off"-ness. Maybe it's just Darnielle's voice that's throwing me off, but everything here is just so composed that it's bloodless. Listen to Will Oldham's music for comparison--even on a (relatively) weak recording like The Letting Go he blends in perfectly with the music, and songs like "The Seedling" and "Strange Form of Life" have real emotional power. Also someone like Jason Molina--his music and subject matter is similar to Darnielle's but there's a power in his lyrics and arrangements that Darnielle almost completely lacks. It sounds like a self-help record, an album that would have a hotline listed in the liner notes for someone to call if they also have an abusive family member. Again, it's not the subject matter that sinks this record; it's that the subject matter is not interpreted in an interesting way. Darnielle needs to give his stuff to other musicians, maybe; his voice sinks everything he does. He sounds kind of like Thomas Dolby; just imagine the guy who sang "She Blinded Me With Science" trying to sing super-emotional folk songs and you'll understand my ambivalence toward this record and everything else the Mountain Goats do. The arrangements are boring; the vocals weak. Just another folk record.

MY RATING: 3.7

The Mountain Goats - "Broom People"

103. M.I.A. - Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol.1 (2004)

This served as little more than an introduction to M.I.A. and her music back in 2004, and today it doesn't serve much purpose now that Arular and Kala exist; all this album does is make me want to listen to an actual M.I.A. album. I did like that this mixtape looks back all the way to the early 90s when looking for stuff to sample; it's a big departure from the hundreds of rap mixtapes that never sample anything that's more than a year old. "China Girl (Diplo Mix)" starts out with a Eurythmics sample, which by itself isn't all that creative but shows M.I.A.'s awareness that she is closer to Madonna than Fela Kuti, who never once allowed the politics on his records to usurp the music, so too on this record its most powerful moments are when M.I.A. allows the political statements to come second behind the beats and samples. So this is basically a party record, to be put on when you're more focused on drinking and talking to other people than listening to music.

MY RATING: 3.8

M.I.A. - "Baile Funk One"

104. The Postal Service - Give Up (2003)

I really wanted to dislike this record--at first listen it's the worst kind of adult-contemporary pabulum, pleasant electronic pop with wistfully pretty and studiedly "clever" lyrics about love and all that. But I can't hate it. The melodies are too well-written and the instrumentation gels so well with the vocals that I can't discount it. The melody of "Such Great Heights" is cloying and annoying, yes, but once you get beyond that you can start to appreciate the finer points of this record--the way "We Will Become Silhouettes" seems to eschew a chorus melody until the last possible second, the heavily processed horn samples of "Clark Gable", the pounding noise of the first few minutes of "Natural Anthem". It's like a much-improved version of the Notwist's Neon Golden, except where that record was content to float in a puddle of its own mediocrity this one tries to be catchy--even anthemic--something that at first might seem at odds with the practiced simplicity of the electronic instrumentation, but works incredibly well most of the time. Ben Gibbard's vocals are an acquired taste, yes, but I can't think of any other sort of singing that would sort this kind of music so well. A real surprise. As this type of electronic pop goes it doesn't quite reach the mastery of the Junior Boys (who are this genre's masters) but it's a clear improvement on the Notwist.

MY RATING: 8.5

The Postal Service - "Clark Gable"

105. Battles - Mirrored (2007)

I've yet to wander much into the somewhat frightening (and terribly-named) world that is "math-rock"; it seems to be more about technical prowess than emotion and I don't like that kind of stuff. Battles vary the palette with adding weird, processed vocals and when it's all put together this stuff sounds like battle (aha!) music for some kind of possessed chipmunk army. One thing to be said: the musicianship on this record is almost wholly perfect and the production is fantastic. "Race:In" performs the neat trick of making it sound like the performers are going at it right in your own room, and "Bad Trails" is repetitive but produces a frightening little atmosphere (and was memorably used in the underrated film Big Fan). The problem with albums that carve out a distinct sonic atmosphere for themselves (and this one certainly does) is that if the resulting album is not sufficiently emotionally convincing it can sound like novelty music, a one-off. Two other famous "singular-sounding" albums--My Bloody Valentine's Loveless and Slint's Spiderland--moved beyond their oddness through transcendence in the first case and power and terror in the second, and this album really has neither of those. It's a nifty little curio, and since this band seems to be all but broken up right now, never to release a followup, that's probably what it will remain.

MY RATING: 7.4

Battles - "Atlas"

106. Manitoba - Up in Flames (2003)

In electronic, sample-based music it's usually electronic elements that are sampled and placed in new contexts; what this album tried to do was take acoustic music and mess with it electronically so that the two types of music (electronic and acoustic) would be bonded on a molecular level. This sounds like psychedelia more often than not, and a lot of this sounds like a more lush but less melodic version of Love's Forever Changes. Vocals are chopped up and abused in the same fashion, but the effect is pleasantly relaxing (this is not intense music). The whole album is basically just a huge, candy-colored collection of psychedelia; there's not much to say about it as it changes little throughout its duration (honestly the whole album sounds like individual parts of a single longish track) but on the whole this stuff feels a lot more honest and creative to me than repetitive "psychedelic nostalgia" bands like the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols. Just let it relax and carry you away, etc...

MY RATING: 8.3

Manitoba - "Kid You'll Move Mountains"

107. Justice - † (2007)

It was inevitable that after Daft Punk would come the Daft Punk copyists--even moreso since it seems that the original duo don't seem much interested in making new music anymore. The band is still coasting off of Discovery, now nine years old, and it only makes sense that other groups would jump in to fill the super-bassy French house void Daft Punk have left behind them. So how does this fare? The entire thing is basically constructed around the gigantic single "D.A.N.C.E.", a song I've never really liked, mainly because the playground-chant chorus isn't nearly as good as the band seems to think it is and there isn't enough else interesting in the track to make up for it. The rest of the tracks somewhat resemble that single except with the catchy choruses removed, as though Justice only decided to copy the middle, slightly less good section of Discovery and forget the rest. All is not lost, though: "Newjack" and "DVNO" are both great dance tracks, the latter with its expertly sampled vocals almost worthy of the great ones themselves (it's as good as "Face to Face", anyway). But the whole thing is kind of neutered and faceless, as if sheer loudness were enough to overcome the essential emptiness at this album's center. It isn't, and it doesn't.

MY RATING: 5.9

Justice - "Let There Be Light"

108. Sonic Youth - Murray Street (2002)

Sonic Youth worked hard to carve out a totally original sound for themselves in the 80s, of which Daydream Nation was the apotheosis, but, that apex reached, it seems like now a Sonic Youth record is more successful based on how much it deviates from the SY formula (the great pop record Rather Ripped) rather than how much it adheres to it (the boring Sonic Nurse and The Eternal). Thankfully Murray Street follows the former more than the latter path and uses the Sonic Youth sound not for avantgarde noisemaking but for sheer atmospheric beauty. This is certainly the most gorgeous album Sonic Youth have ever made--certainly it isn't the strongest in songwriting or sheer power, but that isn't its focus: its focus is to be pretty, and it does that wonderfully. Also, SY's infamous noise breaks in the middle of each track are used this time in the service of emotional power rather than wacky guitar experimentation. Even the lengthy feedback part that covers about seven minutes in "Karen Revisited" has a clear emotional trajectory from beginning to end--something new for this band. These are not conventional songs in any sense of the word--they meander and move through various instrumental passages, but the passages are very pretty, and this is a great record to fall asleep to. Who would have thought that in the days of "Death Valley 69"?

MY RATING: 8.1

Sonic Youth - "Rain On Tin"