Pere Ubu – Lady From Shanghai (Fire)
I kneel and genuflect before the first two Pere Ubu albums and the handful of singles surrounding it, but I think this may be the greatest Pere Ubu album ever made.
My Dick – My Dick’s Double Full-Length Release (Bandcamp)
Ohio is the greatest album I’ve heard in the past hour, and in the age of ubiquitous internet I can’t think of any higher praise.
Yo La Tengo – Fade (Matador)
Fade pulses and hums with the rhythms of nature, sounds swell and grow, advance and recede, throughout each song. YLT may be the most nurturing band I’ve ever heard. They love and caress every note in a way that makes this album in particular sound incredibly human. It makes me want to be a better person. It makes me want to love more deeply.
Interpol – Turn On the Bright Lights: Tenth Anniversary Edition (Matador)
I understand why Interpol’s considered a joke today. Even back in 2002 I understood why they were a joke. Everyone wants to be Joy Division, but nobody has ever wanted to be Interpol. The tragedy is that 99 per cent of the people who laugh at Interpol have a lot more in common with Interpol than they ever will with Joy Division.
Scott Creney’s Favorite Albums of 2012
This is what it feels like to be alive in 2012 — connected to everything and more isolated than ever.
The Babies – Our House On The Hill (Woodsist)
It’s a shame about the Babies. Come on feel the Babie-heads.
The Opposite of Work
If you’re going to break a rule try to make sure you did a good job at it. Nothing is sacred but everything matters.
Song of the day – 528: Talk Normal
It’s basically just some words that go before the embed. #musicjournalism
Holly Herndon – Movement (RVNG Intl.)
Movement is an auditory feast. It’s no Bob Dylan but then John Lennon was no Kraftwerk, you know what I mean?
Song of the day – 523: Sleigh Bells
I like this 21st Century groove, the cut-off jeans, the shadow boxing, the way everything is distorted and MEGA and seizure-inducing. the shallowness of the concept and the embracing of the NOW.
Clinic – Free Reign (Domino)
Like The Fall, Clinic is always different/always the same. You know what you’re going to get but you don’t know how you’re going to get it.
The Audacity of Barry Manilow
The first line alone contains two historically volcanic eruptions of bragging. Not even Kanye has the ego to say he’s been alive forever, let alone that he wrote the very first goddamn song
Talk Normal – Sunshine (Joyful Noise)
Five hundred years ago Talk Normal would have been burned as witches for this act of prophecy.
Rusted Root – The Movement (Shanachie)
Consider the evidence. The sound of college radio is Rusted Root.
A.R. Kane – The Complete Singles Collection (One Little Indian)
The missing link between Robert Wyatt and Disco Inferno, A. R. Kane sounded equally at home in the club as in the bedroom, under the stars and in the studio.
U.S. Girls – Gem (FatCat)
Is it Gem’s frozen nature that makes me feel encased in glass? Or is it my own detachment that keeps me from finding a way in?
Titus Andronicus – Local Business (XL)
If anyone in The Hold Steady was less than 45 years old, they might sound like this.
Bat For Lashes – Haunted Man (Capitol)
This half-assed Paula Cole bullshit bores the crap out of me. Its Enya-esque sonic soundscapes make me wretch.
Tame Impala – Lonerism (Modular Fontana)
It’s the psychedelia of sitting around your friend’s teenage bedroom smoking shitty weed, listening to people say the most banal shit, and wishing you could leave.
Melody’s Echo Chamber – S/T (Fat Possum)
Guitars dissolve in smudged razors, pushpins hidden in your lipstick. There may or may not be a horror show lurking within your candyfloss.
Matt & Kim – Lightning (Fader)
Say what you want to about the quality of the music, it makes an excellent litmus test for weeding out fluff-eating imbeciles.
Grizzly Bear – Shields (Warp)
Shields is a city album. It functions as a nice urban version of Fleet Foxes — a sound born out of concrete rather than forests, glass instead of rivers, subways instead of trails.
The Mountain Goats – Transcendental Youth (Merge)
Darnielle fashions Hallmark epiphanies out of his Wal-Mart realism.
The Go-Betweens – Quiet Heart (EMI Australia)
In my 20s, I liked the Go-Betweens. In my 30s I loved them. As I prepare to enter my 40s, I am in awe of them. By the time I reach my 60s, they might be all I listen to.
