#20 - New York Dolls' "New York Dolls" (1973)

Even without (consciously) thinking about the transvestism featured on the cover art, my knee-jerk reaction to the vocals on album opener "Personality Crisis" was, "Wow, David Johansen sounds just like Dee Snider of Twisted Sister."  Strike that.  Reverse it.  Thinking Snider begat Johansen is eerily similar to Lloyd Christmas from Dumb & Dumber observing, "Hey, look, The Monkees.  They were a huge influence on The Beatles."  For my second sortie into glam rock territory, I looked to the self-titled debut, New York Dolls.  If the balls-out, winner-take-all abandon with which they approach these arrangements and performances is at all genuine - and since they come from a band that imploded after two albums, I'm inclined to think it is - then these recordings constitute powerful evidentiary support for letting the chips fall where they may.  I'm not sure where you come down on That 70's Show, but let's pretend for a moment that you love it.  New York Dolls are the Michael Kelso of 70's rock:  big, dumb, pretty & proud.  They hammer on their keyboards and wail away on their guitar strings.  On "Lonely Planet Boy," a sloppy saxophone floats in and out of the mix like its player stumbled into the studio spaced out on amyl nitrite.  "Trash" is a catchy, three-minute number of fully-formed punk rock before there was a thing called "punk rock."  It's song as sonic assault; rock as a blunt instrument.  As far as favorite moments, it's a tie between the anarchic singalong to "I've Been Working on the Railroad" at the end of "Subway Train" and the great line in "Bad Girl" when Johansen sings, "I'm beggin' please, little lover, stop this carryin' on / gotta get some lovin' before the planet is gone." Because everybody knows what an aphrodisiac eschatology is.  The hyperbolic urgency is so funny and the phrasing, right down to the use of "little lover," reminds me of a similar moment from Bob Dylan's "Talkin' World War III Blues," when he sings, "I was down in the sewer with some little lover / when I peeked out from the manhole cover."  Some things never change.  And I'm glad rock stars evoking Armageddon to cop a feel is one of them.  Grade: B+

#19 - The Byrds' "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" (1968)

Clocking in at a mere 28:32 over the course of 11 tracks, you'd be right to wonder how many different ideas The Byrds could get away with including on this album.  Turns out they could get away with a lot.  The first eight songs comprise an uninterrupted suite of unadulterated, uncompromising beauty.  Seamlessly weaving east and west, old and new, they are quite literally inventing folk rock in real-time.  British invasion power pomp is tempered by proto-chamber pop.  Indian ragas meet country rags.  Steel guitar-driven Okie tunes migrate into laid-back California harmonies and back again.  And, amazingly, it all works.  So much so that knowing this album was released on January 3, 1968 is comforting, in the sense that I'm happy those who lived through the tumult and chaos of that terrible year had this as their background music.  There are a few missteps, to be sure.  Awkward lyrics like "Take my time this morning, no hurry / to learn to kill and take the will / from unknown faces."  Wait, huh?  Is that what Vietnam was all about?  Taking the will from people's faces?  Or the fussed-over orchestral intermission during "Old John Robertson."  It's an inspired move, guys.  No need to make it sound like it's being played in a wind tunnel.  And a note to all bands:  if you ever come up with a gorgeous, gently galloping bassline like the one that undergirds "Draft Morning," don't you dare distract from it to make room for cheesy sound effects.  Unfortunately, the remaining three songs reinforce several hippie/psychedelic stereotypes and make an otherwise timeless album obnoxiously dated.  With references to sandalwood, "talking" drums, rainbows, and children's dreams, "Tribal Gathering," "Dolphin's Smile," and "Space Odyssey" - each goofier than the last - are probably only cool if you have access to the same drugs they were taking when they wrote them.  "Space Odyssey" actually begins, "In nineteen and ninety-six we ventured to the moon."  Oh, brother.  Grade: A-

#18 - The Decemberists' "The King Is Dead" (2011)

On the one hand, since this album came out yesterday, it's probably a little premature to lump it in with the "classics" this blog is supposed to be about.  On the other hand, it's a strong batch of tunes.  With help from Gillian Welch and Peter Buck, The Decemberists explore Americana.  Maybe this seems like a bit of a left turn after the over-the-top (and underrated) prog rock stomp of The Hazards of Love or maybe it makes perfect sense given Colin Meloy's perennial forays into British folk and the side project string band Black Prairie.  What of the results?  Well, one of the challenges of this blog is to process an album after a single listen and to put what I hear into some kind of context.  During the initial run-through, I heard Uncle Tupelo strings, REM jangle, Tom Petty beats, Bruce Springsteen harmonica and a well-integrated fiddle bit (here played, I believe, on accordion) from "Raggle Taggle Gypsy."  I also didn't hear a bad song in the bunch.  The Decemberists are one of my favorite bands, but even I can admit that they've always managed to throw a clunker or two onto every album.  And while the highs may not be as high as elsewhere, the melodies are strong throughout.  There is a lot to be said for being able to put on an album while driving or sitting on a porch - as I expect to do with this one - and never getting the slightest itch to hit "skip."  Yeah.  A lot to be said.  Grade: B+

#17 - U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" (1984)

I wonder what The Unforgettable Fire must have sounded like in 1984.  Knowing U2's subsequent trajectory, it's hard to look back at this album without thinking of it as a bridge between the earnest European anthems of War and the earnest American anthems of The Joshua Tree.  You get pulsing hard rock like "Wire" that both recalls "New Year's Day" and hints at "Bullet the Blue Sky."  You get "Pride (In the Name of Love)," one of two songs on the album celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr., which matches the stadium-thumping power of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" beat for beat, while previewing the Gospel imagery soon to be featured in songs like "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."  You get "Bad," one of their all-time great songs, simultaneously elegiac and exultant, a story of both addiction and redemption.  Unfortunately, you also get a lot of aimless, repetitive, naturalistic "poetry."  Songs filled with "running" and "raining" - the kind of images one might expect to hear from a ninth-grade English class upon receiving its first creative writing assignment.  Co-produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, this an experimental album.  And it would be a disservice to the spirit of experimentation to insist that all such experiments must result in success.  Even so, it's still difficult not to hear U2 on this album as a band in flux.  The obsession with the U.S. - "4th of July," "Indian Summer Sky," "Elvis Presley and America" - is evident throughout, though it has not yet resulted in an attempt to assimilate its musical roots.  In many ways, U2 has always stood like an awkward colossus between the two hemispheres.  This album is the sound of them trying to steady their footing.  Grade: B-

#16 - Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes" (1972)

My knowledge of 70's music has grown in recent years, but it has only begun to process the impact of David Bowie and his cohorts.  If this blog helps me bring that era into greater focus, making artists like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Marc Bolan more than just mile markers on the trek up Mount Glam Rock, then the experiment will be a runaway success.  First stop: Mott the Hoople.  Frustrated by their lack of success and thinking seriously about bowing out of the game, this British band took one more stab at it at Bowie's behest.  In fact, a small, symbolic relic of this encouragement is immortalized on tape as they can be heard scrapping the intro to the second track, "Momma's Little Jewels."  The bandmates sound ready to call it a day when Bowie's voice comes through from the production booth, saying, "Don't stop, carry on."  With Reed's "Sweet Jane" kicking off the album and Bowie contributing the title track, MTH seem content to plant their standard firmly in the glammers' camp.  All the elements are here: seedy lyrics, sleazy guitar riffs, Jagger swagger.  On "One of the Boys," lead songwriter Ian Hunter seems to give away the whole style-over-substance tenet of the glam rock ethos when he sings, "I don't say much, but I make a big noise."  Grade: B

#15 - The Felice Brothers' "The Felice Brothers" (2008)

On my way to see the Felice Brothers in North Adams tonight.  Considering how much I listened to this album in the past twelve months, I very nearly included it in my "Top 10 of '10" (see the first ten posts).  Time being linear and all, though, doing so didn't seem quite fair since it came out in 2008.  Listening to this scrappy, ramshackle, countrypolitan rock - a style of Americana that owes so much, maybe everything, to Bob Dylan and The Band - it's hard not to think about authenticity.  Must a contemporary performer update old-fashioned music?  Must a white musician eschew traditionally black forms?  I have much to say on this topic, but not here and not now.  Let it suffice to say that this is late-night, car-drivin', foot-tappin', beer-drinkin', full-throated-sing-along-inspirin' music for those with a taste for country.  And I'm not talking about that overly-polished pop with a twang that passes for country these days.  I'm talking about the genuine article.  I'm talking about that same deep and deeply American wellspring from which all our folk tunes flow.  This is midnight ramble music populated by whores, horses, cowards, drunkards, clowns, louts, grifters, drifters, and Methodists!  Is it real?  Maybe, maybe not.  I'm not really sure what that means.  Or whether it matters.  If you are in the mood to imagine, though, you could do worse than to cast your lot with these dreamers.  Grade: A-

#14 - Solomon Burke's "Don't Give Up On Me" (2002)

1940-2010

 
Speaking of soul, there's so much beauty on this spare, simple album, which has been rightly compared to Johnny Cash's American Recordings.  With songs contributed by Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Brian Wilson, Van Morrison and Nick Lowe, this album is chock full of wise lyrics and beautiful performances.  Highlights - including a guest spot by the Blind Boys of Alabama, whose voices complement Burke's perfectly - abound.  So, after the shooting in Arizona and the President's plea for greater love and civility, I think I'll just transcribe the lyrics to album closer, "Sit This One Out."  Grade: A-

The night’s getting old
and your eyes are weary.
You can’t see clearly
and your nerves are thin.
A half-eaten meal
and a tear on the table.
We don’t seen able
to hold our anger in.

Chorus:
Love sometimes
takes the form of frustration.
It’s a sad combination
of emptiness and doubt.
But, our only human connection
is expressed with a shout.
Well, I think I'm gonna have to just sit this one out.

There was a time
when we could sit and talk about things together.
No, we didn’t shout about things, at all.
We laughed, we loved, we played
and said what we had to say.
But there’s nothing to do now
and I don’t have a clue how to rise above it all.

Chorus

Can I rise above it all?
I don’t even have a clue.
Sometimes I feel like I’m going to fall.
So, I just hold on, don’t let go -
don’t give up everything that you work for so long.
Don’t destroy yourself in a second, with anger.
Hold on, a change will come.
I just wanna say:
I think I'm gonna have to sit and work this one out.

#13 - Otis Redding's "Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul" (1966)

I don't know what it means that as years go by I find myself increasingly enamored by classic soul music.  Just as the malnourished crave the very food their bodies need, maybe my burgeoning interest in soul is my spirit's not-so-subtle way of telling me what it's been missing.  At any rate, I've been thrilled in recent years by James Brown, Percy Sledge, Etta James, Ray Charles, Jackie Wilson, Solomon Burke, Candi Staton, and their very worthy white counterpart, Van Morrison.  But when I really need a fix, no stars sit as high in my sky as Sam Cooke and Otis Redding.  Rightly or wrongly I see in them the fundamental elements that make soul what it is.  From the former, we get that injection of gospel he honed with the Soul Stirrers.  From the latter, we get that gruff sound, that deep southern sensibility marinated in the blues.  Listen to their live work and you'll know that both could tear the roof off a club.  Both could pen lyrics fit to break your heart.  With this album, Redding shows off not only his songwriting and vocal virtuosity, but his comfort with diverse styles.  At turns he is plaintive, gritty, thrilling and always, always charismatic.  Unsurprisingly, "Try a Little Tenderness" is the standout track.  His patient restraint as the song builds and builds towards its crescendo suggests an artist in full control of his craft, someone whom Yeats might say has "come into his force."  But there are other equally amazing moments: his back and forth with the horn section on "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)"; the way he summons such believable emotion on "My Lover's Prayer"; the effortless cover of "Day Tripper," which, along with his amazing take on "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" elsewhere, shows he could have just as easily done some moonlighting as a rock singer if his day job hadn't panned out.  Lastly, I have to mention how much I love "She Put the Hurt on Me."  Rarely has such pain sounded like such fun.  Also, Peter Gabriel fans will laugh when they hear the opening of "I'm Sick, Y'all" and find out where that iconic "Sledgehammer" horn intro likely came from.  There is one more connection between Cooke & Redding, too.  One died on Decembert 10th and one on December 11th, though four years apart.  Both went far too early.  Who knows what they might have had in store?  Grade: A

#12 - P J Harvey's "Rid of Me" (1993)

Background information:  I saw P J Harvey open for U2 in Albany on their Elevation tour in 2001.  Seeing Bono & the boys in concert was the realization of a decade-long wish for me and they really did put on a great rock show.  Bono was under the weather but still worked the crowd like a pro, name-checking J. B. Scott's, the Albany rock club U2 visited on one of their first runs through the states.  So, I was in good spirits and required nothing extra to make the evening complete.  But Harvey kicked off the show in a slinky, silvery, glittering cocktail dress, alternately roaring and cooing into the microphone for more than half an hour.  She was, in a word, sexy.  And I made a note to check out some of her recordings.  Finally making good on that promise today, nearly ten years later, I listened to Rid of Me, which many critics consider to be her crowning artistic statement.  Helmed by Steve Albini, the erstwhile Pixies producer who months later would help craft Nirvana's sound on In Utero, the recording bears his mark throughout.  But whereas with those artists the quiet/loud dynamic inherent in the songwriting requires a heavy hand to help drop the hammer, here the technique is applied much more indiscriminately and to a much less interesting effect.  The songs are awash in messy, sludgy excess.  On stage, standing alone, Harvey had shone, her signature, throaty moan filling the arena to the rafters with sex and catharsis.  On tape, her vocals are either drowning in a tedious, monochromatic angst or futilely competing for space with Albini's "Wall of Grunge."  Maybe the lyrics are good, I don't know.  The heavy-handed production values were too dated and distracting to notice.  It certainly doesn't help that she attempts an ill-advised and directionless cover of Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited."  I mean, shit, if she wanted to time travel, why couldn't she have worked with Bob Johnston & Tom Wilson?  Sigh.  At least I can enjoy her whipping her hair back and forth on the cover art.  Grade:  C- 

#11 - Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" (1971)

 This was the album that got me thinking about this project in the first place.  Thinking about New Year's resolutions and realizing that I've been reading about and collecting music for awhile now, I figured it was high time I started enjoying the fruits of my labor.  So I scrolled through my iPod looking for an as-yet-unheard album with a solid reputation.  Funkadelic's Maggot Brain caught my eye.  Seeing that the first track was more than ten minutes long and knowing my own preferences for music other than "jam" and "funk," I was dubious.  I was relieved to find the music not only accessible, but downright enjoyable.  Over the course of this year, I'm sure I will come across "difficult" albums that reveal themselves slowly, gradually opening up layers of complexity and nuance.  But this isn't one of them. It's just plain good from the get go.  The first song is the title track and apparently its special quality comes from George Clinton telling guitarist Eddie Hazel to "play as if your momma just died."  Next you get "Can You Get To That" with an acoustic melody so infectious you'd think George Harrison sat in on the studio session (and the melody is sampled by Sleigh Bells for "Rill Rill," too.)  For an album with only seven songs, there are plenty of memorable highlights: the iconic bassline of "Hit It and Quit It," the call-and-answer vocals in "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks," and what sounds like someone bending the notes of a motherfuckin' triangle on "Back In Our Minds."  Grade:  B+

#10 - Cee-Lo Green's "The Lady Killer" (2010)

Retro music can be a crapshoot, especially when it’s in the wrong hands.  How do you walk the fine line between reverence and rehash, between classic and kitsch?  For every She & Him, a group that turned out an excellent 60’s-style pop album this year, there’s an Amy Winehouse who would prefer to forsake quality music for the Keith Richards’ Fitness Regimen.  Cee-Lo, who will likely and unfortunately be remembered more for “Fuck You” than for the majority of his work in Goodie Mob, Gnarls Barkley, or as a solo artist, had a great 2010.  His stellar contribution to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack, “What Part of Forever,” featured some of the best whistling this side of an Andrew Bird album and – more impressively – made me listen to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack.  The Lady Killer covers some serious musical territory over its 45-minute run-time.  You get 50’s crooning on “Old Fashioned,” 60’s cool on the Bond-inspired “Love Gun,” a funky 80’s bass line on “Bright Lights, Bigger City” – not to mention a fantastic take on Band of Horses’ “No One’s Gonna Love You.”  All that and a voice more than worthy of the material he has the good taste to resurrect.  Grade:  B+

 

#9 - Charlotte Gainsbourg's "IRM" (2010)

If you don’t like Beck, stop reading.  To call him a producer on this album would be like going to Five Guys and referring to the bacon on your cheeseburger as a “garnish.”  This is a full-on Beck project and his fingerprints are everywhere, even if Gainsbourg is the principal collaborator.  If you’ve never gone to Beck’s website and listened to some of the offerings from his “Record Club,” in which he and a group of guest musicians cover a classic album in a single day recording session, do yourself a favor and check it out.  There are some gems.  You can hear that type of experimentation in the percussion on IRM tracks like “Greenwich Mean Time” and “Voyage.”  Most of the vocals are delivered in that wispy, girlish voice that has been a mainstay among indie songstresses for the past decade.  Don’t let that deter you.  A virtue of Beck’s compelling production is to feature Gainsbourg’s singing at exactly the right level throughout.  The result is a voice that sounds in practice far more versatile than you would think it could be in theory.  It is jaunty on the White Stripes-style duet “Heaven Can Wait,” seductive on “Time of the Assassins,” sweet on the Beatles-y ballad “In the End,” hopeful on “Master’s Hands,” and – amazingly – both fragile and defiant on the menacing “Le Chat Du Café des Artistes.”  If you’re wondering about the title, it is the French abbreviation for what English-speakers call an “MRI” – a reference to the series of brain scans that Gainsbourg underwent after a water-skiing accident a few years back.  Pardon my French, but this album is KO-A.  Grade:  B+

#8 - Roky Erickson with Okkervil River's "True Love Cast Out All Evil" (2010)

Of all the high profile comeback albums in 2010 from stars of yesteryear – Jerry Lee Lewis, Mavis Staples – this gem by the former 13th Floor Elevators’ frontman was by far the best.  Bookended by two lo-fi song fragments, the album consists of Erickson & Co. tackling all types of heavy shit.  Ruminations on love and loss and law from a man who in 1969 opted to be committed and undergo electroconvulsive therapy rather than serve a ten-year sentence for possessing a single joint.  A background like that makes it all the more poignant when he sings – sounding like a psychedelic Steve Earle – “electricity hammered me through my head” on “Ain’t Blues Too Sad.”  This album is as deep, dark, and beautiful as it is unexpected.   Grade:  A-

#7 - Titus Andronicus' "The Monitor" (2010)

In a year when Snooki & the Real Housewives have reduced New Jersey to a national inside joke, one could be forgiven for thinking that their chief export in 2010 was STDs.  It would be worth remembering, however, that this is the state where George Washington crossed the Delaware River and where Walt Whitman wrote his deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass.  Punk-rockers Titus Andronicus clearly draw a great deal of inspiration from their home state on this Civil War-themed album.  In the seven-minute (!) opener (!!), a “A More Perfect Union,” Patrick Stickles sings, “Oh, I never wanted to change the world, but I’m looking for a new New Jersey / ‘cuz tramps like us, baby, we were born to die,” channeling both Billy Bragg and the patron saint of the Garden State, Bruce Springsteen.  This is a nerdy, brash, passionate mess of an album and you may find yourself singing along during the first listen.  Grade:  A-

#6 - Nas & Damian Marley's "Distant Relatives" (2010)

It was hard to know a year ago what rap in 2010 would be like with Lil Wayne in jail.  Aside from maybe Rihanna, there really has been no single figure in hip hop quite so ubiquitous in the last five years as the Poet Laureate of Hollygrove.  I am happy to announce that the state of our union is strong.  Perennial heavyweights like Big Boi, Eminem, The Roots and Raekwon all punched out strong albums this year, while newcomers like Nicki Minaj and KiD CuDi delivered full lengths that were highly catchy, if a bit more superficial in content.  And though there were a few tracks still peddling in Auto-Tune, it appears as if most of hip-hop took Jay-Z’s “D.O.A.” for the coup de grace it was meant to be.  Of course, all of the regular tropes are still there:  the sex, the money, the braggadocio.  But there seems to be more room in rap these days for realistic introspection.  Or, in the case of “distant relatives” Nas and Damian Marley, a thoughtful reflection on a tumultuous past and a hopeful future.  The story of Africa is the focus here – its anthropology, its diaspora, its colonization – told through a riveting and tasteful sampling of its contributions to world music.  And though the album does not shy away from the well-plumbed depths of slavery and racism, neither does it wallow in anger or despair.  Distant Relatives is ultimately about shared experience, a “big picture” album that insists on considering history from an inclusively human and humane perspective.   Grade:  A-

     

#5 - Sleigh Bells' "Treats" (2010)

Many of the critics reviewing this album compared band member Alexis Krauss’ singing to something like religious chanting and the comparison is appropriate.  There is a hypnotic, meditative quality to the vocals, especially on stand-out tracks like “Rill Rill.”  But for my money, the real star here is Derek Miller’s production, which, in a year of catchy and crunchy guitar riff pyrotechnics (see: Fang Island), is the undisputed King of the Mountain.  Listen for the thrilling moment on “Infinity Guitars” around the 1:51 mark when the already loud song gets inexplicably louder.  It is obvious throughout that their amps go to “11.”  Grade:  A- 

#4 - Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (2010)

My introduction to this album’s material was watching Kanye West perform “Runaway” on the MTV Music Awards.  After a year of embarrassing outbursts, interviews, tweets and an involuntary cameo on South Park, calling himself a “douchebag” felt like too little and too late.  It also felt appropriately tasteless.  Hearing the word “douchebags” sung, no matter how deserving its target, no matter how pretty the accompanying melody, for any reason other than comedy just felt…silly.  Watching that on TV, I really thought I was witnessing Kanye nuke the fridge.  But then:  a pair of revelations.  The first was this album, which, for all its bombast, is nearly a masterpiece.  The second was my realization that his personal life – even his frighteningly narcissistic insistence on living the majority of it in public – is kind of irrelevant to the art he’s creating.  I don’t want to make a virtue out of vice, but he seems capable of an alchemy that turns shit into gold.  After all, reasonable people can agree on all the available facts and still disagree on the conclusions one could reach from them.  Is Kanye obnoxious?  Garish?  Self-involved? Arrogant?  Yes.  Is he also charismatic?  Ambitious?  Self-critical?  Talented?  Yes.  As he rightly dares us on “Gorgeous,” “act like [he] ain’t had a belt in two classes.”  In 1994, major league baseball went on strike.  I was 15.  Turned off by what seemed to me then to be the greed of players and owners alike, I stopped watching.  I even stopped playing, so great was my disgust.  But, after reaching adulthood, I came back to the sport, acknowledging that the game itself was better than the men who played it.  So it is with Kanye.   Grade:  A-

 

#3 - Surfer Blood's "Astro Coast" (2010)

 An amazing debut from a great new band.  I haven’t been this impressed by a “first try” since, well, since Vampire Weekend came out.  If you’re not hooked by the opening power chord undertow of “Floating Vibes,” then don’t bother with the rest.  But if you let yourself float a little further out, here be dragons:  great harmonies, handclap percussion, reverberating guitars, jangly solos.  And, if the REM influences haven’t crashed over your head by then, they will on “Twin Peaks.”  Be sure to hang around for the flawed, stream-of-consciousness beauty of closer “Catholic Pagans” with its goofy allusions to bomb shelters and Barack Hussein Obama.  Grade:  A-

#2 - Das Racist's "Shut Up, Dude" / "Sit Down, Man" (2010)

The conventional wisdom about Das Racist is that they are not so much a rap group as a group of guys who love rap. And that this love has led to a knowledge so encyclopedic and a sensibility so epicurean that they almost can’t help being great rappers themselves. This critique is codependent with the other standard line on this band: that if they are not exactly novelty musicians (think: “Weird Als” for the millennial generation), they are, at least some of the time, taking the piss. I am of the opinion that many reviewers have missed the mark here, that they have revealed the extent to which their ideas are trapped in a kind of hipster lockstep. If for most of your adult life you have only been amused by irony, then you run the risk of believing that every time you laugh it must be the result of something ironic. Now, don’t get me wrong. Das Racist are funny. And they are not above poking fun of rap’s clichés and excesses. But that, too, reveals their devotion to rap’s legacy of humor and authenticity (see: De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, etc.) as opposed to a tongue-in-cheek aesthetic mocking rappers who take themselves too seriously. Bottom line: if you love wordplay, classic hip-hop, pop culture, good beats, self-deprecation and social commentary, then these two excellent mixtapes are as real as it gets.  Grade(s):  A- / A-

#1 - Vampire Weekend's "Contra" (2010)

 

Contra was released less than two weeks into 2010.  Week after week I waited for someone to top it.  Here I am, December 31^st, still waiting.  Nearly twelve months on, the songs sound as fresh and as expertly-produced as they did at first blush.  To borrow a Sarah Palin-ism, this album may be the best refudiation of the sophomore slump since the curse was first diagnosed.  The whole band – and lead singer Ezra Koenig in particular – sounds more assured than on the debut, which is something, considering they weren’t really the shrinking, shoegazer type to begin with.  As Koenig sings on “Holiday,” “I got…a healthy sense of worth.”  Indeed.  Lately, this band’s high self-esteem is just good common sense.  Grade:  A