Wednesday 23rd December 2009
ROCKFEEDBACK ALBUMS OF THE DECADE
Rockfeedback, for whom both Liam and I occasionally write, have just posted their albums of the decade list. Yeah, it’s another list, chill out haters.
The number one choice surprised me a little, although it does show that editor’s view rules (right, Tom?). I vividly remember it brutalising me into confusion as a seventeen year old, so kudos for bringing back those harrowing memories.
Below are our contributions and links to the entire list:
Panda Bear – Person Pitch
Much to Dylan’s chagrin, we spent much of the decade looking back as a means of moving forward. But not Panda Bear. He was looking in, on that last continent of man, the self. Because Person Pitch is obsessed with itself, a collage of half memories, found sound samples and never ending internal loops, not unlike the artwork that adorns its front cover. As such, it’s a deeply personalised record, in that it couldn’t have been assembled (I think that’s the appropriate verb) by anyone else.
I don’t know how Person Pitch happened or at what point it started to make sense, but hidden somewhere in these nine waking dreams was a logic that dictates a start, middle and an end. But I can’t find it. I’ll leave that to Panda Bear to know. I just hear waves of insect colonies, waterslides, school playgrounds and stoned love. Endless, endless stoned love. (Stephen)
LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
Sound of Silver couldn’t have been made in any other decade, such is its wanton compression of the best bits of the previous five. Yet despite its smash and grab sign o’ the times construction, at its centre was, well, a centre. There was actually something there; something that made technology that little more human and dancefloors that little less lonely even when smeared with teardrops (that remind me, baby, of you).
And in “All My Friends” in particular, James Murphy achieved two truly remarkable things. First, a moan about the emptiness of fame that actually made you like him more, and second, a song that meant that if anyone were to list the best song of the decade and not include it, they were instantly wrong. ‘All My Friends’ made losing your edge irrelevant for seven motorik minutes, because taste wasn’t an issue. You either thought it was amazing, or you were wrong. The sound of silver was the sound of just getting it right, even if everything else seemed that bit wrong. (Stephen)
Queens of the Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf
Turn on the radio and switch to any station. Now listen as the homogenous slop pours forth, punctuated by the inane braying of pseudo-personalities. Songs For The Deaf knew radio was dead, whether it was K-R-D-L (“The Kurdle”), CLONE (“your infinite repeat”) or evangelists spoiling music for everyone. Josh Homme took this premise and commandeered a road trip through a taut, visceral landscape, redefining hard rock with nods to glam, hardcore and pysch. Joining him were Nick Oliveri, cast a rabid dog with a hard-on for the pharmaceutical cookie jar, and Mark Lanegan at his most vampiric, lips still wet with blood. The biggest coup remains Dave Grohl’s re-conversion to the dark side, his relentless and muscular drumming front and centre.
Post-script: Lanegan continues to work as a lone-wolf mercenary, Oliveri remains in exile and The Foo Fighters haven’t suddenly got any better. Any surprise that Grohl’s back with Homme? (Liam)
Smog – Dongs of Sevotion
How do you sum up an album like Dongs Of Sevotion in 100 words? What soundbites can you muster for an album that encompasses sadism, submission, loss of innocence, decomposition and cheerleaders? A record that at one point claims “I lay open jelly-limbed/To your smallest whim”, and the next “I could hold a woman down on a hardwood floor”? Where a man’s dying wish is for his wife to contrive a eulogy that extols his virtuous nature, but also recounts their sexual exploits, particularly “the time we did it on the beach, with fireworks above us”.
The last truly Smog album to be released under that moniker, it can only be summed up by Bill Callahan himself: “The conversation is like the beating taken in a dream/Where no real blows are landed/The only harm is in memory”. (Liam)
Rockfeedback Records of the Decade:
125-101
100-76
75-51
50-26
25-1
