Top 25 Albums of the 2000s

After reading Pitchfork’s Pitchfork’s top albums and songs lists, I was inspired to come up with my top albums list.*  If you have a couple spare hours, click through the songs list for awhile and listen to some of the embedded songs.  Maybe you missed something; a decade is a long time.

*I can’t imagine coming up with a top X songs list.  Comparing albums is difficult but at least you can come up with some basic metrics (album depth, how much you want to listen through a whole album at once, etc.), but for songs I got nothing.  Is “Destroy Everything You Touch” better than “Mein Herz Brennt”?  I have no idea!

Sure, my list isn’t as authoritative and I haven’t heard every culturally relevant album of the decade.  A year from now my ordering could be completely different or I might have entirely new entries from albums that I just haven’t heard yet.

My first attempt started with a goal of my top 25 albums, but this ballooned up to 30 albums that I found I just had to include on a decade-long list.  Then 35, then 50.  But for me, there really wasn’t a huge difference between, say, the #32 album (Röyksopp – Melody AM) and the #49 album (Space Manoeuvres – Oid).  So we’re down to 25 albums for the purpose of brevity.

Note that I ruled compilations ineligible for this, which disqualifies albums like Nick Warren’s Reykjavik mix (almost certainly a top 25 entry).  Ok, well, technically Nah Und Fern is a compilation, but I’m using it as a stand-in for the four albums that comprise it.  The albums are so interconnected in theme and aesthetic, I don’t think I could choose a distinct favorite.

1. Radiohead – Kid A (2000)
2. The National – Boxer (2007)
3. Aphex Twin – Drukqs (2001)
4. Radiohead – Hail to the Thief (2003)
5. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver (2007)
6. The Smashing Pumpkins – Machina/The Machines of God (2000)
7. Editors - The Back Room (2005)
8. Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)
9. Asobi Seksu – Citrus (2006)
10. Boards of Canada - The Campfire Headphase (2005)
11. Thom Yorke - The Eraser (2006)
12. Mindless Self Indulgence – Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy (2000)
13. Ulrich Schnauss – Far Away Trains Passing By (2001)
14. Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007)
15. The Orb – Okie Dokie It’s The Orb on Kompakt (2005)
16. Beck - Guero (2005)
17. The Avalanches - Since I Left You (2000)
18. Ulrich Schnauss – A Strangely Isolated Place (2003)
19. Boards of Canada – Geogaddi (2002)
20. Faded Paper Figures – Dynamo (2008)
21. The Orb - Cydonia (2001)
22. Gas - Nah Und Fern (2008)
23. The Field - From Here We Go Sublime (2007)
24. The Knife - Silent Shout (2006)
25. Gorillaz - Demon Days (2005)

Just missing the cut (in no particular order): Electric Six – Fire, Manitoba – Up in Flames, DJ Shadow – The Private Press, Dan Deacon – Spiderman of the Rings, Passion Pit – Manners, Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere, Kid Koala – Some of My Best Friends Are DJs, The Shins – Wincing the Night Away, Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion, The (International) Noise Conspiracy – Survival Sickness

Most unknown from top 25: Faded Paper Figures – Dynamo

Most critically derided from top 25: The Orb – Cydonia

Barely missing the cutoff date: Nine Inch Nails – The Fragile (released at the end of 2009, this would have been a contender for #1)

Wanted to include in top 50 but could in no way justify it: The Bug - London Zoo, Nobukazu Takemura – Hoshi no Koe, Deepchord Present Echospace – The Coldest Season

Wouldn’t be surprised if they entered the top 25 in the future: The Dead Weather – Horehound, Asobi Seksu – Hush, Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

Decade winner: Thom Yorke

Coming up with this list was a little strange, as it mixed albums like Machina that I was essentially raised on almost ten years ago with albums I didn’t discover until this year like Faded Paper Figures’ Dynamo.  I swear I could change this list around a dozen times be no less satisfied or dissatisfied with it.

Picking the #1 album was pretty difficult.  For a long time I had Boxer as the top entry.  Plus, I didn’t really want to pick Kid A, as it’s #1 on almost every top albums list I’ve read.  Kid A really is a great album, but I think I view it differently than a lot of people.  For many, they viewed it as an avante-garde step for rock and a musical revolution.  Coming from an electronic music background, I viewed it more as a natural progression of electronic and rock music.  Kid A takes a lot of cues from “IDM” artists like Aphex Twin, but Radiohead just did it so damn well.

Arbitrary song of the day: Nina Simone – Sinnerman (Felix Da Housecat’s Heavenly House Mix)

October 2009 Mix CD

1. The Bug – Warning
2. Glasnost – [Hidden track]
3. M.I.A.-  Paper Planes (Diplo Remix)
4. Fischerspooner – Emerge
5. The Knife – We Share Our Mother’s Health
6. Les Savy Fav – The Sweat Descends
7. Pixies – Where is My Mind?
8. Stellastarr* – My Coco
9. Tokyo Police Club – Juno
10. Sleater-Kinney – You’re No Rock N’ Roll Fun
11. The Strokes – Reptilia
12. Animal Collective – Fireworks
13. Faded Paper Figures – B Film
14. David Byrne & Brian Eno – Strange Overtones
15. Cut Copy – Hearts on Fire
16. M83 – Kim & Jessie
17. Sonic Youth – Shadow of a Doubt
18. The Shins – Those to Come
19. Passion Pit – Eyes as Candles

Arbitrary song of the day: Kanye West – Heartless

Why compensation picks are the new reserve clause

Ok, well, maybe not for all players.  But for certain players, such as John Grabow (who is a type A middle reliever), they will not be able to find another team willing to give up a 1st round draft pick in order to sign them.  In Buster Olney’s blog, he has a quote from an AL GM who says, “If they offered [Grabow] arbitration, there’s no chance another team would sign him. You’re not going to give up a No. 1 pick for a middle reliever.”  This is a fairly recent phenomenon, as teams have just started figuring out the value of Rule 4 picks.

We saw this happen last year when players like Orlando Hudson, Juan Cruz, and Orlando Cabrera were offered arbitration which drove their prices and bargaining position way down in the free agency market.  For players like Grabow, clubs won’t be willing to give up a first round draft pick to sign them.  This essentially forces the player to either go to arbitration (which typically won’t give the player the raise they would get on the FA market) or try to negotiate a new contract with the same club from a weak bargaining position.  Players can get a clause on their next contract that forbids teams from offering them arbitration (as Orlando Cabrera did), but, again, this drives down their value.

So for players in a certain strata (lower-end type A and lower-end type B) to stay in MLB, they are essentially forced to re-sign with their current team.  In effect, compensation picks allow teams to perpetually renew contracts for certain players, aka. the reserve clause.

For who say that compensation picks help lower-end teams like the Pirates, I would say that their supposed goal to compensate lower-end teams for losing players to free agency has failed.  Good players going to free agency typically come from good teams, so better clubs get more compensation picks.  Additionally, as the Yankees showed last year, if you have more spending power, you can get more type A free agents while giving up less.  They signed CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, and Mark Teixeira, but only had one first round pick to forfeit.

Hopefully, the MLBPA will manage to eliminate compensation picks during their next negotiations with ownership.

Arbitrary song of the day: Faded Paper Figures – B Film

September 2009 Mix CD

Let’s try a slightly different format this month…

1. The Dead Weather – Treat Me Like Your Mother
2. The Strokes – Juicebox
3. Mindless Self Indulgence – Mark David Chapman
4. The Bug – Poison Dart (Stampin feat. Flowdan)
5. Beastie Boys – Alive
6. The Prodigy – Run With the Wolves
7. Muse – Supermassive Black Hole
8. Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses
   
9. Beck – Profanity Prayers
10. The Strokes – Red Light
11. Shout Out Louds – Impossible
12. Four Tet – Smile Around the Face
13. Beck – Sexx Laws
14. Peter Bjorn and John – Young Folks
15. The Knife – Heartbeats
16. Faded Paper Figures – The Persuaded
17. The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
    
18. Animal Collective – My Girls
19. Passion Pit – Little Secrets

I actually preferred to put The Dead Weather’s cover of “Forever My Queen”, but I think they’ve only performed that live, and I usually don’t put live tracks on mix discs.  How many super-groups can Jack White form during his musical career?  Is he like Johnny Appleseed but with rock groups instead of apple trees?

The Stampin feat. Flowdan version of “Poison Dart” is far superior to the original due mainly to Flowdan’s deep, growling vocals.  The lyrics for “Poison Dart” are equally incomprehensible to my lyrical-understanding sensibilities to “Skeng”, but they seem to have a little more depth.  Basically, “Poison Dart” seems to mention a wider variety of weapons and “military headgear, gloves, and a mask” than “Skeng”.  We follow that up with the best Jewish rappers from Brooklyn.  I like how they still rap about who they are and the fact that they are, indeed, rapping.  Very old skool hip hop.

I may have mentioned it before, but I don’t “get” Muse.  I’m not taking the “they ripped off early Radiohead” thing, no.  I just don’t understand their wide appeal.  I mean, they aren’t bad or anything.  They’re technically competent, they come up with decent melodies and such, but I still feel like I’m missing some key ingredient.

I have decided that I like The Strokes.  I’m a bit late to that party, but I’ll deal with it.

The Studio remix of Shout Out Louds’ “Impossible” is still better, but the original still has some fun hooks and interesting composition.  Surprisingly, the original clocks in at almost 7 minutes, longer than the danceable remix.  Not usually the way it works.  This fades into “Smile Around the Face”, which I think I like mostly because it sounds like Passion Pit.

I need to listen to more of The Knife.  They are special.  Another special band?  Faded Paper Figures.  I found them on Pandora and bought them on CDBaby.  This is the internet music scene in action.

I appreciate “Such Great Heights” more with every listen.  The interplay between all of the tinkly melodies is entrancing.  Similarly hypnotic are the arpeggios on “My Girls”.  The unrelenting chants, the sparse percussion, the perpetual build-up, the urgency in tone, and the patience in composition.  There’s a lot going on here, and I can see why it took Paul Shirley so many listens.

Arbitrary song of the day: Circulation – Turquoise (differentGear Mix)

August 2009 Mix CD

Garrett Jones has to start sucking at some point, right?  Players don’t suddenly become better moving from the minors to the majors.  Anyway…

1. Coal Chamber – Big Truck >> If I was still 9 years old, I, too, would write a song about a big truck.  There’s something you have to admire about a band who screams “big truck” and makes that a song.  I love it.
2. White Zombie – Creature of the Wheel >> One of the few non-singles from Astro Creep: 2000, but it very well could have been.  People forget just how good this album was, with over half of the album being singles.  There will be a metal post in the relatively near future discussing such matters.
3. The Presets – Down Down Down
4. The Rapture – House of Jealous Lovers >> Even though I know the title of the song, it still sounds like “Hot souls!  Chinese lovers!” to me.
5. Franz Ferdinand – No You Girls
6. Beck – Mixed Bizness >> Beck is the funk.  He wants to be it, and he is it.  No part of this song is not the funk.  This cannot be denied.
7. Muse – Starlight >> I’ve never been a Muse fan.  I don’t have anything against them.  I remember thoroughly enjoying (and still enjoying) “Muscle Museum” in 1999.  But, really, I only like this one for the nice keyboardy bits.  Does that make me a bad person?
8. Giant Drag – Kevin is Gay >> Actually found this one via Bill Simmons’ tweet.  Simple lyrics, simple melodies, gorgeous post-grunge sounds.  I wish there were more “meows” here, though.  Also, the first sounds in the song are apparently lead singer Annie Hardy imitating the “shoryuken” sound from Street Fighter.
9. Blonde Redhead – 23
10. Shout Out Louds – Impossible (Possible Version by Studio) >> Swedish indie pop transformed into Balearic house.  It works so incredibly well, you wouldn’t know it’s a remix.  Sunny and warm enough that it works even in the dead of winter.
11. Stereolab – Good is Me >> Not just an experiment in music, but in logic.  “I am good therefore good is me,” “He’s not me therefore he is not good.”  While not logically sound (maybe that’s the point?), it is hella hypnotic.  “Good is Me” plays out in a bizarre ABAC featuring twangy guitar sounds and Americana organ before shifting to a ’70s prog rock outro.  I will need to investigate further Stereolab material…
12. Mute Math – Typical >> I’m a sucker for big crunchy distortion and “Typical” delivers.
13. Interpol – Roland >> I’ve explained before why Turn on the Bright Lights is a great album and Interpol’s other albums are not, so I don’t think we need to do that again.
14. Joy Division – Dead Souls >> The first lyrics don’t appear until almost 2 minutes in.  Of all Joy Division songs, I can see this one being most ferociously performed live.  Joy Division was supposedly a lot more aggressive live and this would have been a great window.
15. Bloc Party – I Still Remember >> The main guitar riff is a brilliant post-punk revival take on new wave.
16. The Shins – Sea Legs >> One of the more distinctive Shins songs.  It could have only been off of Wincing the Night Away.
17. Beck – Sunday Sun
18. Nick Drake – Fly >> The interplay of all the plucked, strummed, and bowed strings is dreamy.  Drake as always brings otherwordly qualities to simple lyrics.
19. The Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist >> I hadn’t really listened to this song ever.  It was just kind of “that acoustic track at the end of Zeitgeist.”  It really is a special acoustic work by Billy Corgan on par with anything from the Mellon Collie demos.

Arbitrary song of the day: Tears for Fears – Head Over Heels

Most British TV shows suck

Most British TV shows suck.  This shouldn’t be a revelation.  Not everything can be Monty Python or The Office.  Most American television sucks, too, but I think that’s easier to realize for American viewers like me.  We generally don’t see most terrible foreign shows; the ones we get have been vetted by the local critics and audiences.  Because of this, I think greater leeway is given to foreign shows from critics.  Stuff like Dr. Who and The Black Adder are respected critically and have sizable fan bases, though the former is at best campy with Sci-Fi Channel made-for-tv-level special effects and the latter is, well, not funny (or maybe it used to be and hasn’t held up in the slightest).

This is closer to the state of British television than I'm comfortable with.

In this biased, prejudiced mindset, I set out to see a few episodes of a couple shows I knew I wouldn’t like: The IT Crowd and Coupling.  I went into The IT Crowd expecting The Big Bang Theory, the biggest television abomination.*  It wasn’t that bad.  Now, it was still bad, just not eye-stabbingly terrible.  Richard Ayoade is decent, but his intentionally bad presentation isn’t nearly as effective here as in the fun romp that is Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.

I must concede that it does have a pretty slick title sequence.  However, most everything else about the show is bad, standard sitcom fair.  It’s close to When the Whistle Blows, the show within a show from Extras.  With all of the geeky tech stuff around, you can tell it’s written by passionate geeks.  Unfortunately, they are passionate geeks with terrible taste in television.

*The Big Bang Theory offends me not so much as a geek, but as a television viewer.  Really, CBS’s entire Monday night lineup is an affront to humanity. How I Met Your Mother, Rules of Engagement (I haven’t seen it, but it’s at an impressively terrible “28″ on Metacritic), Two and Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, CSI: Miami – that is an All-Star team of terrible television.  My god.  CBS in general has terrible programming though.  The only thing I ever watch from CBS are AFC football games.  That is it.  I can’t say enough about how bad CBS’s programming is.

Coupling seems to be a sexed-up version of Friends.  The jokes are juvenile (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and predictable with storylines and hijinks that were stale fifteen years ago.  The laugh track is horribly out of place, as it always is in single-camera sitcoms.  The inappropriateness is somewhere in between The Flintstones and the first season of Sports Night.

Also, I’d like to point out that my suggestion for Aaron Sorkin’s next show wasn’t too far off from this.

Arbitrary song of the day: Shout Out Louds – Impossible (Possible Version by Studio)

JCVD

Upon hearing of JCVD, I thought my plot for a film called "Jason Statham Will Shoot You" had been taken. But no.

Never trust Netflix “At A Glance” descriptions.  I thought I had learned that, but I guess I didn’t.  Netflix described JCVD thusly: “Jean-Claude Van Damme plays himself in this comic action film.”  Because of this, I went in with expectations of seeing something similar to Shoot ‘Em Up, which I can’t recommend enough.  This was reinforced before the film even started as the production company’s intro sequence and logo (which is normally a silhoutted boy pulling a daisy from the ground) featured Van Damme attempting to take a flower from a child and subsequently performing a roundhouse kick on him.

The opening sequence is an impressive single take of Van Damme beating the crap out of a couple platoons of soldiers.  While the scene is full of awesome, its primary purpose is to provide contrast to Van Damme’s down-and-out persona.  As the film unfolds, we learn in a non-linear manner that he’s losing his daughter in a custody battle, is short on cash, and has wound up as a key figure in a post office robbery.

The directorial techniques are a mixed bag in terms of success.  The washed-up tone and washed-out colors of JCVD are similar to that of The Wrestler and add a gloominess.  We are essentially presented with the first events of the film twice: once from outside of the post office and once from Van Damme’s view inside the post office.  The second run through of the plot quickly becomes tiring though, as its pretty easy to figure out what has happened only a few minutes into it.  Some of the more effective devices include a dramatic (and well-acted!) fourth-wall breaking monologue and a fake “rewound” ending.  Not what I was expecting going in, but there’s some interesting stuff here nonetheless.

Arbitrary song of the day: Giant Drag – Kevin is Gay

June 2009 Mix CD

So it’s a little late, but I swear I wrote the tracklist and burned it in June…

1. Los Campesinos! – Death to Los Campesinos! >> Peppy boy/girl vocals with baroquely poppy bells and drums. Fun times.
2. Matt and Kim – Daylight >> Turned onto this track by a post on Keith Law’s blog.  The clicking drums, affected vocals, and growling synths are the perfect ingredients for lo-fi electropop hit.  See MGMT – Time to Pretend.
3. The Ting Tings – Shut Up and Let Me Go >> This song has slowly grown on me.  Whereas “Great DJ” happened for me almost immediately, it look me a few listens to warm up to the neo-disco guitars and synths.  The vocals definitely have that repetitive, chanty quality that I can hook into.
4. Asobi Seksu – Mizu Asobi >> Every time I listen to their album Citrus, I seem to find a new great song.  Hush is probably a bit too dream-pop, not enough shoegaze.
5. Ida Maria – I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked
6. Green Day – Know Your Enemy >> I’m not really a punk fan (perhaps that’s evident by including a Green Day track on this mix?  I don’t know).  Despite the oversaturation of their recent album, “Know Your Enemy” is quality pop-punk.  I even like the extremely simple guitar solo bit in the middle.
7. The Presets – My People >>   “My People” throbs, dominates, and devastates.  With that kind of energy though, it probably overstays its welcome at 4.5 minutes.  I definitely regret missing these guys live in March.
8. The Smashing Pumpkins – G.L.O.W. >> I probably regret putting this song on here already.  It’s not particularly remarkable and definitely not a lyrical masterpiece.  Also, what’s with the abbreviated song names, Billy?  Who are you, W.A.S.P.?
9. The Bug feat. Flowdan – Jah War (Loefah Mix) >> Ok, yeah, I have no idea what this is about, but Flowdan has a great voice and Loefah creates a grinding bassline that surpasses Kevin Martin’s original mix.
10. Gnarls Barkley – Surprise
11. Beastie Boys – Pass the Mic >> Why do rappers like to rap about their own names so much?  Anyway, the rhyming of “commercial” with “commercial” freaks me out every time.
12. Beck – Que Ondo Guero >> The car horn-like synths and scattered vocal clips make me think of an LA traffic jam.  Beck can really sound like anything, but I think a lot of it is due to which producer(s) he employs for a given album.  For example, Guero with the Dust Brothers or Modern Guilt with Danger Mouse.
13. Asobi Seksu – Strings
14. Ben Folds – Jesusland
15. Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal >> It’s still nowhere near as good as “Blue Ridge Mountains”.
16. Editors – When Anger Shows >> Just an epic song by Editors.  Most of their work stays in the 3.5-4.5 minute range, but this one is almost six minutes.  It’s almost like two separate songs, which works well due to Editors’ big melodies and repetitive lyrics.
17. Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye >> I see a lot of comparisons to The Smashing Pumpkins with Silversun Pickups (I assume to Gish/Siamese Dream era work; specifically, “Lazy Eye” sounds most like “1979″ and “Drown”).  I’d also throw Pavement and The Breeders out there as comparables.
18. Papercuts – Future Primitive >> “Future Primitive” brings to mind a modern black and white Western film with its distant backup vocals, clompy rhythms, and OK Corral guitar.
19. Badly Drawn Boy – The Shining >> What a delicate and bold work.  Each instrument and note is vivid and necessary.  The warm brass shines and interplays with the strings and guitar beautifully.  I don’t think I could recommend this enough.
20. Passion Pit – Moth’s Wings >> It was entirely intentional, but the acoustic guitar of “The Shining” transitions into the synthetic plucking of “Moth’s Wings”.  Passion Pit is quickly becoming one of my favorite artists.

Arbitrary song of the day: Das Racist & Wallpaper. – Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper. Remix) – What an insane song, but the remix is slick and energetic.  You owe it to yourself to listen to it once.

Quick Film Reviews: Towelhead, Bottle Shock, Star Trek, Crank: High Voltage

Towelhead

Towelhead is almost a female version of Running with Scissors.  Both deal with themes of homosexuality, abuse, and bizarre, unaware family members.  While the title of the film (and if I recall correctly, the preview I saw) suggests more of a theme of racism whereas the film centers around protagonist Jasira’s sexual discovery and abuse.  The characters surrounding Jasira are pretty interesting, including her father, who, when is he isn’t being racist or cruel to Jasira, is actually funny (as in we are laughing at him, not with).  Aaron Eckhart plays a difficult role as the scummy neighbor with a Texas accent that isn’t entirely there.  There’s her awkward black boyfriend Thomas, who while a bit of a sex-obsessed high school student, ultimately seems to be a decent person.  However, the real hero of the film is Jasira’s neighbor Melina and her husband Gil who shelter Jasira.  Overall, Towelhead is an interesting combination of family problems and abuse with some scattered bits of humor to lighten it up.

Bottle Shock

First off, I like Alan Rickman.  He has a great voice and is just perfect as a British wine connoisseur Steven Spurrier.  I was most interested in his story along with California vinter Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman).  However, much of the film is derailed with Chris Pine and Freddy Rodriguez’s love triangle with their wineyard’s intern.  This subplot is not new, interesting, and not entirely resolved even though it takes up a good chunk of the film.  The story of the Judgment of Paris though is a solid interpretation of theme of snooty Europeans being knocked down a peg by the down-to-earth Americans.  Judging by Chris Pine’s role in this and the following movie, he seems predisposed to playing arrogant douchebags who get beat up in bars.

Star Trek

Just in case you don't believe me that there are explosions, there is one on the poster.

When I first heard that JJ Abrams was going to be directing the new Star Trek movie, I was excited.  I love his work on Lost and Cloverfield, but after seeing the trailer, I wasn’t so sure.  Luckily, the trailer lowered my expectations enough to make the film somewhat enjoyable.  I know we don’t need another person on the internet complaining about Star Trek, but there was a lot of dumb stuff in the movie.  There are sword fights (why?  you realize you have phasers, right?), a villain with ridiculous intentions and motivations (along with an evil space ship that has an interior like something out of Galaxy Quest), and enough deux ex machina to have its own gravitational field.  And speaking of which, I don’t rightly understand the confusion about singularities that sometimes makes them destroy planets and sometimes allows people to travel through time.

The cast is decent, though it’s hard to tell through the explosions.  Chris Pine is clearly doing his own thing with Kirk, which is fine in itself, but I’m not sure his characterization gave him much more personality than “kind-of-a-dick”.  Karl Urban does a good impression of Bones and Sylar is spot-on with Spock.  Anton Yelchin and Simon Pegg are enjoyable comic relief as Chekov and Scotty respectively.  But why is Tyler Perry in this film?  Was he doing research for Tyler Perry’s Madea Joins Star Fleet? (Cracked has a good take-down of Tyler Perry here.)

Ideally, what I wanted in a new Star Trek film was a film taking place further in the future with a transitional cast from ST:TNG, with a series spinoff.  Obviously, that film doesn’t make nearly as much money as this one and I couldn’t guarantee that the plot would have been much better, but I would have liked it more.  Anyway, the plot to Star Trek basically undoes all Star Trek canon.  Since so much of the Federation beating back the Borg in ST:TNG and First Contact was so dependent on very specific set of extenuating circumstances which would not have happened due to all the changes in the timeline, I’m going to assume that a hundred years or so after Star Trek, the Borg came along and assimilated everyone.  The End.

Crank: High Voltage

I can’t begin to describe this film.  The plot is as enjoyably absurd as one could hope with a group of Chinese medics rescuing Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) who just fell out of a helicopter, stealing his heart, and plotting to steal his penis (yes, that happens and in the first five minutes no less).  As much as I joked about needing to see the first film for this to make sense, it actually did help to know some of the characters and events of the original Crank.  As over-the-top violent and misogynystic the first one was, this one was even more so – a not unimpressive feat.  Though the plot is (intentionally) ridiculous, the humor, effects, and tongue-in-cheek dialog are whip-smart.  I love that they kept the Google Maps transitions, too.

Crank is clearly setup now for a third entry, though I’m not quite sure what can be done to top Chev Chelios having to keep his adrenaline up and having to stay electrically charged.  Is he going to be on fire throughout Crank 3?  Does he have to kill someone every 10 seconds to stay alive?

Arbitrary song of the day: Nine Inch Nails – La Mer

May 2009 Mix CD

I missed the April mix disc due to my main PC being down with hard drive issues.  Thanks go to Western Digital for their useful customer service, even though it did take a month to get a good one in return (the first arrived DOA).  Anyway, let’s kick it in a manner befitting of an elderly school…

1. The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die >> Before reading Paul Shirley’s writeup on The Prodigy, I was unaware that The Prodigy even had a new album.  I wasn’t into their previous album, which was too much of that awkward electronic-rock crossover with too many guest stars, a type of an album which occurs more often than it should.  In short, The Prodigy is back with an evil, growling big beat that shows off what they’ve always done best.
2. Mindless Self Indulgence – Straight to Video
3. The Smashing Pumpkins – FOL >> I broke my rule of not including Pumpkins songs on mix albums, as the quality obviously isn’t as consistent as their 90s work and it’s not entirely certain that Billy Corgan will keep putting out full albums.  Also, he should probably drop “The Smashing Pumpkins” moniker now that it’s just him…
4. Phoenix – 1901 >> The track has a dance-punk vibe, despite minimal synthesizer intervention.  And isn’t this one of the most unexpected SNL music acts?
5. Bloc Party – One Month Off >> I guess this song occurs one month after Underworld’s “Two Months Off”?
6. Liars – It Fit When I Was a Kid (Crystal Castles Remix)
7. Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor >> I’ve listened to this song so many times now, but I still don’t know if I have anything interesting to say about.  Let’s try… it’s… a good… synthpop?  No, I guess I don’t.
8. The Ting Tings – Great DJ >> I’ve just been clicking through their singles on Youtube and so far this is the only one I like.  Am I doing it wrong?
9. Moloko – Fun for Me >> As I previously mentioned, I’m glad I learned of this song.
10. Andrew Bird – Imitosis >> Andrew Bird looks to be one of the more interesting musicians to see live – great multi-instrumentalist.
11. Editors – Open Up >> It seems like Editors’ B-sides are hit-or-miss.  Along with “Colours”, these are a couple of Editors best songs.  Enjoyably repetetive and singable.
12. Interpol – NYC >> Conveys a sense of space, a quality which I think is present only in Interpol’s best.
13. Aceyalone with RJD2 – A Beautiful Mine (edit) >> Also known as the theme to Mad Men, I edited this down to remove the extra noodling at the end.
14. Dan Deacon – Okie Dokie >> Aside from the plain insanity of this track I enjoy two particular things about this song.  One is the refrain of “I’ve got a rattlesnake gun” (is it a gun that is for shooting rattlesnakes?  is it a gun that shoots out rattlesnakes?  THESE ARE THE THINGS I NEED TO KNOW!).  Second is that it’s on the album Spiderman of the Rings, one of the better album names you’ll see.  Anyay, I still need to hear Deacon’s most recent album.
15. Passion Pit – Sleepy Head >> Reminds me of “Alice” by Pogo.  I absolutely adore the wipey synth that comes in around 1:13.
16. Hot Chip – One Pure Thought
17. Asobi Seksu – Transparence >> I hadn’t really noticed until now, but I didn’t really like their first album.  They didn’t figure out until Citrus (2006).
18. Third Eye Blind – Jumper >> This is still a good song; I refuse to believe otherwise.
19. Supergrass – In It For the Money >> What’s with the sudden ending?  It makes it a little hard on people making mix CDs, but it does provide good contrast with…
20. Michael Andrews – Slipping Away >> A short creepy track you’ll probably recognize as being out of the Donnie Darko soundtrack.
21. The Prodigy – Stand Up >> Big bold brass.  I like it.

Also, you owe it to yourself to watch/listen to Steve Porter’s remixes of the Slap Chop and Sham Wow commercials.

Arbitrary song of the day: Thom Yorke – The Clock