The only end of the decade list that matters?

With each passing year in the '10's, I became more estranged from whatever passes for the critical albums consensus these days.  In 2009, I scored 2/5 in GAPDY (and was at least mildly interested in the other three) and remained mostly within the loop of the most highly acclaimed music of 2010.  By mid-decade, my top ten lists were mostly filled with electronic music oddities and various experimental projects that hardly anyone else paid attention to.  A quick glance at P&J stats through 2016 (thanks again to Glenn Mcdonald) clearly shows this trend via my collapsing centricity scores.  Or, consider the number of albums in the years 2010-2016 for which I was the sole voter: 1 (notably my #1 album that year), 1, 1, 4, 2, 5, 6.

Tracks lists usually contain a lot of duplication of artists that appear on the albums lists.  A representative track from the most acclaimed albums is chosen, the order is jumbled up a bit to distinguish it from the albums, and you end up with a mostly redundant tracks list that doesn't tell you much that you didn't already learn from the albums list.  

In putting together my 40-for-40 list, I discussed the idea of using my tracks list as a form of autobiography, where the songs don't always match with my "favourites of all time", but signify changing trends, attitudes, and relationships with music and in real life. 

Billboard have taken a similar approach with their "100 Songs That Defined the Decade" list.  They note that the decade can't be summed up by simple catchphrases ("The Drake Era", The Global Pop Era", "The EDM era", etc.).  Instead, the decade consists of countless "mini-histories" and mini-eras, which collectively help to define the music of the '10's.  Implicit in all this is the fact that decade start and end points are arbitrary markers anyway, and cultural labels are always attached after the fact.  All the more reason that ten years can't be summed up with a couple of simple descriptions.

They note that "these [100 songs] aren't our picks for the best songs of the decade, or even the most popular, necessarily -- although a large number of them were widely loved, including by many of us on staff -- but rather, the songs that shaped and reflected the music of the 2010's.  Not all of them defined the decade at its best, but better or worse, it's close to impossible to imagine the decade without any of them."

This is exactly how it should be.  Baauer's "Harlem Shake" was an inescapable cultural meme -- and you won't find a sniff of it on any albums lists.  Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" was a massive #1 hit and arguably the most successful Canadian single ever.  For those reasons, it belongs on a list like this, even if most of her fans insist that her later albums were far better.  Whether you think her best stuff came later or not, whether you are bored sick of "Call Me Maybe" or still add it to your playlists regularly, there's no contradiction between quality and popularity/impact on this kind of tracks list.  On an albums list you'd choose the best album, thereby ignoring most popular hit by far, and skip over a crucial "mini-history" of the decade.  

Billboard's list covers plenty of different genres, and even if you don't listen to albums in many of those genres (which I don't), you're still likely to know some of their most popular songs.  That still counts on a list like this.  There are plenty of mega-hits, controversial moments, and songs with iconic videos.  They even found room for Rebecca Black's "Friday", and it makes perfect sense that they did.   

Each entry features a write-up with input from the producers, artists, and industry insiders responsible for the track.  Some are interviews from years ago, and some are new and refreshing retrospective looks back at what made each song into what it became.  It really comes off like an essential document of music history, and may be the only published "end of the decade" list I can truly relate to.    

Top 10 Albums of 2019

I wasn't consumed by feelings of grief and misery in 2019, although it might seem that way while scanning over this list of albums.  The past year was not a healthy one for me and many people close to me, but while it was going on, it didn't feel like more bad things were happening than in most other years.  In some years time, I may look back on 2019 and eventually grasp how tough things were.  In that case, these ten albums may reflect my general state of mind more than I'm currently able to admit.

Sure, plenty of people are writing about how the year's best music should reflect the chaotic, allegedly historic times we live in.  In some circles it's automatically assumed that music should be viewed through the lens of the politics of the day.  I think that this generation of fans and critics have subconsciously longed for music to have the cultural cache it did in the 60's, when artists working in several musical genres would unite around the Vietnam War and other world-changing problems.  I have never cared about any of that.  I want my music to reflect my tastes, and whether it deals with "important" subjects is irrelevant.  I don't think I'm a miserable person, although this list might make you think otherwise.  No matter the interpretation (and again, perhaps only years of hindsight will lead me to the truth), this list is a reflection of me, and has nothing to do with current events -- in any country.  

This list is really a party of one, because for most of the year, nothing came close to hitting me in my gut like my #1 album did.

10.  PTU, Am I Who I Am, Trip

Bonkers techno that never feels obliged to play by the most basic of "rules" of the genre -- super short tracks, almost no intros/breakdowns/outros, constant mid-track mood swings between squelching beats and frizzy beatless electronic weirdness.  

9. Barker, Utility, Ostgut Ton

Am I the only one who hears this as an album that continues the work that Philippe Cam started nearly two decades ago?

8. The National, I Am Easy to Find, 4AD

The National invited a bevy of guest vocalists to record with them, and it was a welcome change, even the results don't rank among their very best work.

7. BIG|BRAVE, A Gaze Among Them, Southern Lord

The album's title might suggest a pleasant ambient metal/shoegaze hybrid.  In fact, the shoegaze-y guitar blizzard is the decorative icing for the main course of brutally sludgy riffs and apocalyptic vocals.  BIG|BRAVE are hammerfist, steamroller rock and aren't quite metal in a weird, intangible way, even though their music carries the intensity and heaviness of metal. 

6. Alcest, Spiritual Instinct, Nuclear Blast

Blackgaze as a concept is a marriage made in heaven between two somewhat restrictive genres that compensate each other's weaknesses.  This is easily Alcest's most intense record and arguably their most consistent despite peaking too soon (about three quarters of the way through). 

5.  Amp, Entangled Time, Sound in Silence

The sound of 90's Bristol steadfastly refuses to go away, doesn't it?

4.  William Basinski, On Time Out of Time, Temporary Residence Ltd

Basinski has certainly proven his mettle at being able to memorialize history-making events through serene, loop-based ambient music.  Here he turns his attention to the most challenging and profound physics experiment done in my lifetime.  He not only pays tribute to LIGO's accomplishments by sampling the deep, rumbling pulses of gravity waves, but also beautifies the monotony of staring into the furthermost reaches of space, patiently waiting for something to happen. 

3. Fennesz, Agora, Touch

Fennesz remains one of the few artists whose entire output is a virtual must own for me (inasmuch as I can keep track of everything he's doing).  Yet somehow his albums are always growers.  Much like Autechre, he works in a nearly inimitable style that's instantly identified with him, but still manages to consistently defy convention and surprise even his most hardcore fans. 

2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Ghosteen, Ghosteen Ltd.

The fairy tale world depicted on the album cover symbolizes Cave's method of dealing with death by seeking out the light.  Instead of wallowing in grief, he searches for hope through Buddhist myths and other parables overflowing with rich imagery.   Every note means something, thanks to the sparse instrumentation and glacial pace of most of the songs. 

1. King Midas Sound, Solitude, Cosmo Rhythmatic

"Solitude" is an almost unbearably personal glimpse into one man's loneliness.  Unable to deal with the reality of a difficult breakup, he pores over pointless minutiae of their relationship all while borderline stalking his ex, walking on a knife edge between obsession and madness.  The bleak, haunting music is relentless, the mood never lightens, nothing is resolved.  But in some sense, the album is a reminder that these unhealthy fixations are still a form of surviving, and are better than the alternative.   

  

Musical memories of my father

My father was the record buyer in our family.  The shelves in our family room were stocked full of 50's and 60's rock and soul records.  Along with many people from his generation, The Beatles and Motown records were his favourites, but there's a good reason those records have stood the test of time.  His love of classic rock ended with the 60's though.  Browsing his collection, one might think that rock ended after Cream and the Woodstock soundtrack.  I felt that void much later on, in high school, when I had to play catch up in getting into Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and countless other rock staples.  In fact, my lack of appreciation, and even contempt, for a lot of 70's rock well into the 21st century, is almost certainly related to the lack of exposure through the records we had at home.   

But we had disco.  A lot of disco.  My father used to teach night classes in law at Ryerson University (then a college), and there were a number of record shops in that area in those days.  He'd teach his class and grab some disco albums or 12" singles while he was in the area.  When I think about my earliest musical memories, most of them involve disco.  Donna Summer.  Sylvester.  The disco lessons my mother would teach in the basement, with my father as her demonstration partner.  

The 80's came along, and my father still had his pulse on what was cool.  Long after most of his friends had stopped following contemporary music, my father was inspired by a new, revolutionary way of enjoying music -- via the music video.  There was no MTV in Canada, and Much Music didn't come on the air until 1984.  My father stayed up late on weekends to watch shows that would air music videos, like City Limits, and his finger was glued to the record button on his VCR.  I think this was his greatest achievement as a music fan.  Long before streaming services and the internet, we had video on demand thanks to my father's many sleep deprived nights. He didn't blindly tape whatever they showed either, he only taped the songs he thought were good.  His taste was impeccable.  I had every great video of the 1980's on the tape shelf in our family room.  Song by song, weekend by weekend, his diligent work added up.  He taped dozens of hours of videos over a period of about six years.  Other families had home videos with family picnics on them.  Ours were starring Duran Duran.  

When my parents split up and my father moved out, he left the records with us.  Once in a while he'd ask about them.  Most of them were technically his, either purchased by him or stuff he had before they were married.  He never made a big point about demanding them back though, possibly because when he moved out, he wanted a clean break from things in his former life.  I effectively inherited those records, because I was the only one who really kept listening to them.

I only attended one concert with my father -- the Stray Cats in 1991.  He wasn't a concert goer, and he wasn't a "round up the family and buy tickets to such and such" kind of person.  He didn't buy tickets to this concert either, they were freebees from the managers of the concert hall next to his office, so he took us. Many of the biggest musical acts from 2010 are still big now.  But in 1991, The Stray Cats might have well have been beamed in from another planet.  The music industry had completely turned over since the 80's, and even the megastars would have trouble adjusting (Prince, Madonna, Bruce, and more).  The Stray Cats were awesome that night though, although it was difficult to admit it then.  That was the first and last free show I ever saw there, I never bothered my dad to ask for free tickets even once.  

From then until the end of his life, my father entered into my musical life only indirectly.  He stopped being an active collector for all intents and purposes.  But he was there when my friends and I used his apartment as a home base before and after Suede's first concert in Toronto, at the nearby Palladium on the Danforth.  I have no idea what he was thinking when we returned from that concert, still buzzing and soaked in sweat, babbling about the tiniest concert details.  I crashed at his apartment countless times after staying out late at a concert or club.  

We were not a musical family.  We didn't grow up singing or playing musical instruments, I learned those things in school when I was older.  If my father thought that music was important he might have pushed us to take an active part in it, but he didn't.  He probably thought we'd absorb what we loved naturally, because that's how it was when he was growing up.  So my father was the biggest musical influence I had when I was a little kid.  His tastes were largely my tastes until I was a teenager.  Whether he intended it or not, I learned so much from him.