Challenge, Winter 2010 "Dancing to Architecture" Suppliment

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 1

Dancing to Architecture

Music reviews & news with a Queer ear

by Bill Realman Stella

Q ✩ Galactic ~ Ya-Ka-May

I was tempted right up until deadline day to place Ya-Ka-May as the sole number one album of the year. (Then I re-listened to the other five.) Everything you'll read below about the Treme soundtrack goes for Ya-KaThe (Never)Complete >150 Favorite Dear Readers: May, and Ya-Ka-May pushes the New Orleans Top 10 Albums of 2010 Here's my Holiday-time gift to you! envelope in several directions, unassailably Your Gift Guide to Please accept these choices for The indebted to the city but embracing, like the city, influences from all over. Ya-Ka-May pracThe Best Music of the Past 12 Months Best albums of 2010 tically leads towards future fusions. Dig how "..get it right. i gotta get it right… gotta keep to help you choose gifts for your Irma Thomas gets the funkiest treatment I've listening, gotta keep up the pace, put 'em all ever heard, bar none. And that's only one of friends and loved ones! in there, get 'em all on the list. damn, that's the dozens of guests happy to grace these great. that's a great one, too. so much, too righteous grooves. Next: Where the fuck did Or to treat yourself! much! …no—don't say that! keep looking for they pull that wild-ass groove from? Next: Dig There is something for every taste! more, keep looking until you're sure you how harmonically rich and percussively unsethaven't forgotten any. What??! Whaddaya mean Find links online at issuu.com/ tled the tracks are under those Gangsta Rap I only have three pages?!" vocals. Next: Dig that Queer Hip-Hop Queen gaamc to help you buy any and Three pages isn't enough. An extraordinary every item listed, plus many more flirting with the entire dance floor—OH! That's nasty! Next: Dig how they place those number of fine (borderline B/B+ or better) sub-Saharan rhythms in a meeting with choices than can fit in print. albums came to my attention since last DeSmooth Jazz. Those few examples just skim cember. You'll discover this issue of Challenge Support Musicians! the surface of all the deeply satisfying CRAZY expanded to include more than 150 addi—No better investment! on each and every track. tional albums! It's all at issuu.com/gaamc As their record label (Anti-) puts it: "[Galactic Happiness Through Art! As in previous years, I've formatted the list as a recognizes] this fundamental truth: that all of Top 10 but with multiple the town's seemingly The Merriest of Holidays to All! titles at each level. This disparate styles—Jazz, year's unprecedented First brass bands and Funk as Place result helps to clarwell as the newer ify why I take the unusual Bounce/Hip Hop—are step of tying multiple intrinsically linked." albums to tiered rankings Top Songs: ALL. OK, rather than arbitrarily cut especially: "Heart of off the list at 10 best alSteel" (with featured bums. I enjoy and collect guest Irma Thomas), music from so many gen"Friends of Science," res and tastes that the "Boe Money" (Rebirth tiered format allows mulBrass Band), "You Don't tiple albums from multiKnow" (Rebirth & Glen ple styles to share a nuDavid Andrews), "Wild meric position. That Man" (Big Chief Bo seems much more fair to Dollis), "Cineramame than making baseless, s c o p e " ( Tr o m b o n e literally rank compariShorty, Corey Henry) sons. Unlike 99% of music "Dark Water" (John reviewers, I post a list that Ya-Ka-May [U.S. version] — Ya-Ka-May [Import, Bonus Tracks] Bouette), "Do It Again" is as inclusive as possible.

(Q Cheeky Blakk), "Muss The Hair" & "Bacchus" (Allen Toussaint, at his absolute best), This stylized Q indicates albums by (or contributed to by) out Bisex"Katey vs Nobby" (Q Katey Red & Sissy Nobby) ual, Gay, Lesbian, or Transgendered creators. Entries with this star ✩ Does who says "I love your work!" Matter?: The disproportionate lack are albums previously reviewed; read more about them in back issues of attention given Ya-Ka-May compared to all that its sound should have of Challenge. Sometimes you'll encounter RIYL = Recommended If You earned is as sinful an exclusion from the Great Albums pantheon as I've Like, a short list of artists who share styles similar to that entry's. Alever known. I'm blown away, now that others' Best of most every entry includes Top Songs: tracks I love.

2010 lists have begun to appear, by how overlooked it Start your listening with these, find their samples onis. I can't counteract it all, but I must stoop to a blaline first, or focus on buying these songs (let's be real) if tant request that readers not take my raving as undethe entire album doesn't click with you. served. It's not based on any bias of mine I can think of, not even that this year I've fallen in love with New In previous years, the #1 album was an eventually Orleans-based music as a group. Ya-Ka-May has obvious choice that rose above all others (with a few reached into my heart, soul, shaking hips and dancing rare instances when I simply couldn't make a decision feet—It's got a hold of me but good. on any but a random basis between two choices). I've

never experienced anything like this year: The clearest path to the top is a six-way tie among diverse equals. Ladies and Gentlemen, the not-

✩ Shelby Lynne ~ Tears, Lies & Alibis Best Light Rock? Americana? Country-flavored Pop? No matter how you describe her sound, Shelby Lynne has written 2010's best set of songs in the classic sense—not recordings or tracks but songs.

Tears, Lies, and Alibis simply accomplishes an incredibly rare feat, that of a mature talent in intimate contact with her muse and in control of her career, recording an album of great songs with great performances — and nary a one that's skippable. These masterful miniatures have just the right balance of every good thing in contemporary music that would cause me to fall head over heels in love with an album. And I have fallen in love with TLA.

commercially influenced, based entirely on merit selections for

1 THE FIRST PLACE BEST ALBUMS OF 2010 ARE: Galactic ~ Ya-Ka-May Shelby Lynne ~ Tears, Lies & Alibis New Politics ~ New Politics Sacha Sacket ~ The Viscera Project Various Artists ~ Treme, television soundtrack Brian Wilson ~ Rei mag i nes Gershwin Shel by Lyn ne

Page 2 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 Lynne writes and records in the great American tradition, assimilating aspects of a variety of idioms and cultures into a new, from-the-heart creation. She solicits contributions from C&W's Western Swing and Bluegrass styles, from mainstream Country Pop and Contemporary Acoustic Folk, from Roots Rock and Tin Pan Alley. She invokes what's required as needed. Not a checklist of trends—just what sounds true to her.

People need to begin to include her among those who come to mind when we think of "Our Best Contemporary Songwriters". Take a listen to these Top Songs: "Rains Came" epitomizes the happy, jaunty accompaniment to a painful lyric, a pop hit abandoned by the trends of our times. Honestly, in a culture open to anything, it'd be a sure-fire Top 10 hit. In ours? Wiped from our musical memory just as surely as rains come to clear away heartache in the song. Don't let it stay that way: Discover it for yourself. "Why Didn't You Call Me" is the metaphorical B-side of "Rains Came," how Lynne felt better after a good cry.

"Alibi" evokes the quiet, pain-riddled but beautiful 70s ballads by the likes of Phoebe Snow or Roberta Flack. It and "Like A Fool" are a pair of songs about pairs of mismatched lovers.

"Family Tree" wears two mantles: that of the proud descendent who's had enough of being disrespected by her family and, by means of swallowed words like "my disguise" or the grief implicit in "the tears I cry could mean anything," what's left of a person to mourn—and dance—after one has had to cauterize wounds inflicted by one's family.

"Home Sweet Home" Sacha captures the sweetness and the melancholy of "going home"—how, after traveling so long, one feels like one is just visiting. With a golden-toned acoustic guitar, a valorous, vulnerable vocal, and lyrics like "I don't know what state I'm in," in three minutes she captures that feeling of how brief and rare the visit is.

Has there ever been a better song about trying to drink your troubles away than "Old #7"? The title apparently has a double meaning that refers to the Jack Daniels bottle in front of her and the lover who has left but haunts her. "Something To Be Said" also captures one's feelings of inarticulate inadequacy when trying to describe a special object, and one's relationship to it, particularly an Airstream mobile home, encapsulated as: "Who'd've though art was a trailer?"

"Loser Dreamer" has one of those lyrics that feel like someone has been poking around in my head, and has compassionately stolen thoughts of disillusionment, and of retreat into the comfort of one's dreams. "Loser Dreamer" becomes a title of honor.

"Old Dog," a classic country blues as if culled from the earthy song-inspiring aether, takes up the folk-singer's charge to rewrite songs as necessary to keep them alive: Wherever "Old Dog" appears in the lyrics, "Lost" Dog is sung instead every time but once.

Aside to Singers: HEY! LOOKING FOR GREAT SONGS? GEMS? OVER HERE! BRILLIANT, ADAPTABLE WORKS OF BEAUTY, YOURS TO COVER FOR THE ASKING!

Night"? I dare you to hear hers. Along with two originals—the down home "Ain't Nothin' Like Christmas" and the secular "Xmas"—Lynne and her band bring a whole lotta warmth to the season with a smoothriding sleigh-full of holiday standards. And there ain't nothing beats Lynne harmonizing with herself on "Sleigh Ride". Two sides of a multifaceted performer: Tears, Lies & Alibis and Merry Christmas—Why not (blatant plug) get them both?

✩ New Politics ~ New Politics

The Best Rock Album of 2010. The best 1986 album of 2010! And without a single lick of doubt the Best New Artist of the Year. Even the graphic design for items in multiple formats is excellent.

10 fantastic tracks out of 10; great from beginning to end.—Yes! It's the debut album New Politics by the new Danish band New Politics Written and sung in English—with very good lyrics. (I wouldn't believe that a song could be great without good lyrics.) You might call it Dance Rock, you might coin the phrase Garage Rap, you may just leave it to Rock alone without modifiers—I don't care if you blow a week's pay on genre labels, I just want you to hear it.

What scares me, what gives me reason to feel concern for this trio's careers, is that New Politics is yet another great rock record from the RCA label.

You may not know that BMG/RCA has released dozens of the past decade's great rock records, most of which made a little splash then drowned in the flood of new music vying for attention. BMG has the attention span of a tick.

But after all that is Sacket said — FUCKING GO AND BUY THIS RECORD NOW DAMMIT! 10 fantastic tracks rocking out, out of 10! When was the last time any one of you heard me say anything close to that about an album?

It can only get better than this if it makes me burst a vein.

Top Songs: ALL. OK, especially "Yeah Yeah Yeah," the lead-off track, and "Dignity," (and the newest video, for "Dignity," is a must see.) Also: "Burn," "Nuclear War," "Give Me Hope," "Love Is A Drug"

HOLIDAY EXTRA! Shelby Lynne ~ Merry Christmas

That's right, Lynne has just released a Christmas album! You think you'll be bored by yet another interpretation of "Silent

New Politics

Q ✩ Sacha Sacket ~ The Viscera Project

This astonishing project has consistently amazed me since June. Sacket is delivering new songs at near the rate of a song a week. They are each diamonds patiently waiting their turn in the sunshine. The songs have lyrical strengths most lyricists never bother to hone. The resonance of mashing familiar phrases like "made flesh" and "turn to stone" into "Turned my stone flesh" (from "Gradiva") upends our ears and turns our heads. The rhymes are sometimes gentle, avoiding cliches by making deft choices of partial rhymes.

These are imperfect recordings. One will not find Sinatra's voice dancing meaningfully with Riddle's arrangements.

But neither will one have to pretend there's artistic merit in a Rufus Wainwright-like muffled voice or meaningless lyrics fronting impeccable arrangements. Sacket takes the route I've missed hearing from anyone for years, sings direct-to-digital, no misdirection necessary, with sparse roomy arrangements more designed than decorated.

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 3 How does a set of songs, not an album, imperfect, qualify for Best of 2010? First, Sacket and his accomplices have learned the mysteries of transmutation within art: imperfections are part of what make these pieces more attractive. Second, out of the 24 songs posted so far, the exceptional quality of 14 amazing tracks plus a handful of very good ones leave only a few minor tracks in their wake. And its non-album status confers innovation's glow upon the Project.

I can't think of a single instance since They Might Be Giant's Dial-A-Song project of this much quality song-craft appearing at this steady a rate (and TMBG's under-60-second songs frequently were goofy toss-offs, joyful but minor, meant as preview or at best delightful amusement). These songs are the real deal. Several of them: "Cellophane," Helium," "Ire" among them—are worthy of repeated reinterpretation. I can't wait to hear what comes next. Top Songs: "Cellophane," "Helium," "Lazy Eye," "Chalk," "Seven Years," "Creeping," "Ire" Follow as new songs are posted weekly at sachasacket .bandcamp.com.

✩ Various Artists ~ Treme:

Top 10s Suck!

(Everybody else's literal Top 10s, that is.)

Why add a competition where none exists?

Wh y b e s t i ng y?

Top 10s (the choose-only-10 kind) are just plain WRONG! Our culture should have moved away from that kind of scarcity by now—Our creators certainly have!

Top 10s are no longer the cream of the crop!

It's a farce masquerading as discriminating taste!

Let there be abundance and merriment!

"Ooh Poo Pah Doo" ~Trombone Shorty & James Andrews "Drinka Little Poison (4 U Die)" ~Soul Rebels Brass Band & John Mooney "We Made It Through That Water" ~Free Agents Brass Band "Shame Shame Shame" ~Steve Zahn & Friends "My Indian Red" ~Dr. John "At The Foot of Canal Street" ~John Boutte, Paul Sanchez, Glen David Andrews & New Birth Brass Band "Buona Sera" ~Louis Prima "New Orleans Blues" ~Tom McDermott & Lucia Micarelli "I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You" ~ Michiel Huisman, Lucia Micarelli & Wendell Pierce "Indian Red (Wild Man Memorial)" ~Mardi Gras Indians "Indian Red" ~Donald Harrison "Time Is On My Side" ~Irma Thomas & Allen Toussaint "This City" ~Steve Earle "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" ~Treme Brass Band "My Darlin' New Orleans" ~Li'l Queenie & The Percolators

Let not your 2010 be marred by arbitrary distinctions bet ween your Punk and your Soul Brothers and Sisters!

None of that 10 Best Soundtracks vs. 10 Best Alternative Dance Mixes vs. the 10 Best Gay Albums vs. the 10 Best Gifts from the Guitar Gods for US! Let's Get Together! Everybody In The Pool!

Share the magic of music and the thrill of discovery!

Try something you think you'll like.

Tr y s o m e t h i n g n e w t o y o u .

Try something that will Challenge you.

Treat yourself ; Music will treat you right in return!

Music Heals. ✩ Brian Wilson,

Music From the HBO Original Series, Season 1

Can I possibly rave gleefully enough about how much in love I've fallen with the sounds of New Orleans? [NO!] Is it possible to find a more-joyous, life-affirming album this year? [NO!] Will you go buy a copy of the Treme Soundtrack? Just say YES! I haven't a more unreserved recommendation for a holiday gift this year than this.

How cool is an Irma Thomas/Allen Toussaint duet? Thomas, Toussaint, John Bouette, Rebirth Brass Band and Trombone Shorty all reappear here as well as on Galactic's Ya-Ka-May. Most of these tracks are previously unreleased recordings, among them fulllength versions of songs mostly only heard in snippets within Treme the series, plus a couple classic tracks, plus Mardi Gras Indian chanting, plus the lagniappe of a new Steve Earle song. How cool?

Treme returns cool to its roots. It's an honor just to hear all this great talent. To list all the artists isn't enough, but it is necessary.

If you're not already familiar with the musicians, many of whom I wasn't aware of until this year, all are worth discovering.

I don't think I've ever experienced more great music in any other 11 hours of screen time—and the music, while plentiful, came on-screen in tasty samples, doled out generously like bits of lagniappe. It was packed full of performances, with room for everyone from Steve Earle and his son Justin Townes Earle (!) to Kermit Ruffins and Dumpstaphunk to the Rebirth Brass Band to blow. Not to slight the story—there were characters aplenty. To mention just two of the great actors: If Khandi Alexander and New Jersey native Clarke Peters aren't nominated for Emmys for their pivotal roles, a confession of mortal sins is in order. Watching Treme was like being blessed by brilliance for an hour every Sunday night, as if soul AND music just dropped by for a spell, with Ivan Neville and Dr John in tow, and national treasures Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint show up late at night. More than even that, sprinkled lovingly throughout were examples of over 50 years of New Orleans recorded history, one gem after another set in this ode of love to the city that will never drown.

In seriousness, I can't recall when last I was so wrapped up in a story that several times an episode I had to check in and prevent myself from taking it all in as unvarnished truth. So many real places and real people were included that I'm having a very hard time separating fiction from reality. I guess truth would be stranger… but Treme's truth had that kind of beauty too.

Top Songs? All of them. Here they are: "Treme Song" ~John Boutte "Feel Like Funkin’ It Up" ~Rebirth Brass Band "I Hope You’re Comin’ Back to New Orleans" ~The New Orleans Jazz Vipers "Skokiaan" ~Kermit Ruffins & The Barbecue Swingers

The Brian Wilson Band ~ Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin

Every bit as good as I'd dared hope. Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin so well it sounds inevitable. These aren't "covers"—they've become Brian Wilson songs as well as Gershwin's. Only chemistry accounts for so seamless a bond with that of a mature Beach Boy. The astonishing strength of Wilson's self-confidence leads a band of arrangers and players who clearly love what they do to bring light, beauty, and renewal to some of the most recorded songs the world has known. Altogether magical. Best Popular Standards (Old School) & Concept Album of 2010.

Top Songs: "They Can't Take That Away From Me," "The Like In I Love You," "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'," "'S Wonderful," "Someone To Watch Over Me," "Nothing But Love"

2 THE SECOND PLACE BEST ALBUMS OF 2010 ARE: David Byrne & Fatboy Slim ~ Here Lies Love Drive-By Truckers ~ The Big To-Do Ben Folds, Nick H orn by ~ Lonely Avenue Gogol Bordello ~ Trans-Continental Hustle Ray LaMontagne & the Pariah Dogs ~ God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise Bobby McFerri n ~ VOCAbuLarieS of Montreal ~ False Priest River City Extension ~ Unmistakable Man Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band ~ London Calling - Live at Hyde Park tUnE-yA rDs ~ Bird-Brai ns

Q✩David Byrne & Fatboy Slim ~ Here Lies Love

A vibrant concept album based on the life of Imelda Marcos.

Really. Those Latin rhythms Byrne first embraced on the much maligned Talking Heads album Naked come to fruition here in sophisticated, elegant, bawdy arrangements and vocals. And with so many simply super vocalists, it's silly to recommend one knock-ya-out performance over another. Best I could do is show favoritism; I can't choose based on distinctions of quality.

Top Songs (Guest vocalists): "Why Don't You Love Me?" (Q Cyndi Lauper & Tori Amos), "Please Don't" (Santigold), "Dancing Together" (Sharon Jones), "Men Will Do Anything" (Alice Russell), "The Whole Man" (Q Kate Pierson), "Never So Big" (Sia)"

Page 4 CHALLENGE Winter 2010

✩ Drive-By Truckers ~ The Big To-Do There's Rock, there's Punk Rock, and then there's Rock and Roll. THIS is Rock and Roll at its 2010 best.

If you love rock and roll, I don't know how you can live without owning at least a couple of Drive-By Truckers albums. I Drive-By Truckers' career stretches back to the late 90s, The Big To-Do is at least their tenth album, and the last six studio albums are all masterful.

Hell, they were soul phoenix Bettye LaVette's band throughout her recent album The Scene of the Crime. Most often, reviewers comment on the band's Southern roots—there's no denying them, and the band embraces them. But don't segregate them from your collection with a Southern Rock label. Their backgrounds include life in the modern American South, but to listen to them they're no more Southern Rock than the Rolling Stones. DriveBy Truckers' songs and musicianship ought to be mentioned in the same breath as Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (who they've toured with) Aerosmith or John Mellencamp.

Every song on the album is strong—so strong that to pick just a few highlights would be unfair. But the last song, "Eyes Like Glue," written by Mike Cooley, one of DBT's two key songwriters, is an odd little male-bonding father-toson lullaby—an appealingly scary slice-of-life cautionary tale for boys. It's the only song I know of with a dad singing truth to expectations before regret turns to bitterness—heart-touching, in its way. Cooley, interviewed at music blog site Blurt, says about it: "That song is pretty much exactly what it is. … I wanted to get into how the role of fatherhood was fitting into this whole rock ‘n roll thing and how I fit into it, too. It sounds like I'm talking directly to a kid, but I openly acknowledge that I'm not paying any attention to them. So I'm really just talking to myself and other dads." Set with a deceptively light fingerpicking pattern on an acoustic (joined by a second after the second verse) and a gently-nudging electric piano (at the last minute joined by a pedal steel), the brilliant lyrics are: "I see you watching me / Your eyes are just like glue / Stuck like glue to every foolish thing I say and do. // There's a safer distance / Still not out of touch / If daddy's quiet it prob'ly means he's thinking way too much. // Some day you'll be a man. / You'll have a big old brain. / You won't need it but you'll try to use it just the same. // It's like any house. / Lonely people roam around. / Wasted empty space. / A maze, with only one way out. // Nobody ever told me half the things I'm telling you. / Even if they had, I'd've had the same look that you do. / Sometimes you think it and you want to hear it said out loud. / If no one else does, then it's up to you to shout it out. // You'll want to do it all / and you'll believe you can. / But when the best that you can do / becomes all you can stand / you'll know you're

just a man / when you feel all the weight press down. / Next time you're watching me / remember that's all I am now."

Top Songs: "Eyes Like Glue," Birthday Boy," "This Fucking Job"

✩ Ben Folds, Nick Hornby ~ Lonely Avenue

Amazing what dedication to character will do for a composition.

All the music and melodies on Lonely Avenue were written to lyrics Ben Folds requested of novelist Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity and About A Boy, among other things.

With that thinnest of connective tissue as an underlying structure, it's an album that holds together as an album—as a unified whole, not merely a collection of tracks.

It's intelligent, often bloody brilliant. (Don't be scared of the smarts.) It bears up to repeated listens infinitely.

Based on Folds' full-fingered piano arrangements, Lonely Avenue places the right instrumentation with the right song, broadly ranging from orchestral strings to an electric piano with attitude to a mournful french horn. It's ridiculously satisfying.

Both Folds and Hornby stepped up their game for this collection. I suspect their inner critics wouldn't let them let the other guy down.

My external and very public critical-self is overjoyed by the results.

Top Songs: "Picture Window" captures the dance the mind spins to with hope and despair as partners cutting in on each other's turn. "When there's this much pain to kill / You know what hope is? / Hope is a bastard / Hope is a liar / a cheat and a tease / [If] Hope comes near you / kick his backside / Got no place in days like these." "Levi Johnston's Blues"

does in fact come from the (well-imagined) voice of the Levi Johnston. Also: "Claire's Ninth," "Belinda" — ah, crap, it's another one where I can't say there's a lesser song on it.

Gogol Bordello ~ TransContinental Hustle

The immigrant punks have added Brazilian influences. An extraordinary sound gets even better.

Gogol Bordello is a band people fall in love with when they see their shows. They are a band for which words on paper simply fail to communicate how extraordinary their sound is.

Inventive. Energetic. Passionately pulsing with life. None of that more than hints at the esprit de corps, the full-fledged camaraderie of distinct talents coming together as a musical group to produce the unique fusion which leader Eugene Hutz calls Gypsy Punk. No gentle, so-called World Music this.

It sounds great. And true to the creative impulse, trips to Latin America (and falling in love with a woman from Rio) have inspired Hutz to move to Brazil, and to add a variety of new dance rhythms to their mix.

Hutz sings with Punk urgency, and composes with a huge palette of styles and song structures. Everyone in the band are musical gypsies for sure, mining and commandeering the gamut of gifts they draw upon without ever seeming repetitive. Each member contributes veins of

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 5 musical traditions from around the world. Long-time staples of the band include Romany violinist Sergey Ryabtsev, and accordionist Yuri Lemeshev from Russia's Far East, and Israeli guitarist Oren Kaplan mans the guitars that fundamentally rock in any genre. Percussionist/vocalist Pamela Jintana Racine's parents are from Thailand and Vermont. More recent additions include percussionist and MC Pedro Erazo who’s from Ecuador, and Thomas 'Tommy T' Gobena on electric bass and backing vocals from Ethiopia. Elizabeth Chi-Wei Sun on percussion and backing vocals is a Chinese immigrant to the U.S., and newest member, drummer Oliver Francis Charles, has family from Italy, Sweden and Trinidad & Tobago. The only American in the band is the drummer, not counting, for this album, legendary producer Rick Rubin.

Naturally, none of this background would matter were it not for all involved being committed to feature everyone's strengths prominently, not melt them into an indistinct swill.

Gogol Bordello are a world treasure. Don't be the last to realize it.

Top Songs: Even their Reggae swagger is stronger, welded to Punk on "Immigraniada (We Comin' Rougher)." "Rebellious Love" is the latest in a long line of Bordello songs celebrating independence and passion.

"My Companjera," "Sun Is On My Side," "To Rise Above," "Break The Spell," "Trans-Continental Hustle, and "Raise The Knowledge (Purification Fire)" will all prevent you from sitting still.

✩ Ray LaMontagne & the Pariah Dogs ~ God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise

LaMontagne's sweet, breathy tenor is free-of-restraints, and together with the Pariah Dogs (that's Pariah now, not Prairie) sounds comfortable with bluegrass and country-soul ballads alike. New acoustic rock is often criticized as music for slackers, with a relaxed vibe, often stoner-mellow, as if that's preferable to anything with a whiff of uptightness. Well-composed as it is, I don't know whether the far-flung jam band nation will accept Ray LaMontagne and his new band the Pariah Dogs as the best thing to come their way since Michael Franti & Spearhead, but they should.

Unlike Franti, RL & PD stick closely to a country-rock sound — think classic Neil Young pre-Crazy Horse. The Pariah Dogs are comfortable with bluegrass and rhythm & blues ballads alike.

Just a threesome of consecutive Top Songs: tells what you need to know about the range of expertise RL & PD have. "Beg, Steal or Borrow" evokes the lightly-electrified momentum of Crosby, Stills & Nash on "Teach Your Children." "Break On Through" could be a Tracy Chapman song if you didn't know better. And "This Love Is Over" reminds me of a Brook Benton country soul track or one of Sting's slow bossa novas. And later, like a backdated, updated "Old Man," "For The Summer" best evokes that classic Young sound I mentioned. In fact, had I younger ears (excuse the pun) and had never heard Young's Harvest, God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise would hold a similar honored place on my music shelf. They share a lovely pain-riddled sensibility that helps cleanse the heart of injuries, without erasing the experiences that caused them.

RIYL: classic Neil Young (both acoustic and electric), Tracy Chapman folk, or Sting's sophisticated but softer sides..

Top Songs: "Repo Man," "New York City's Killing Me," "Beg, Steal or Borrow," "Are We Really Through,", "For The Summer"

Bobby McFerrin ~ VOCAbuLarieS VOCAbuLarieS is McFerrin's first new release in eight years, a collaboration with the composer/arranger/producer Roger Treece. VOCAbuLarieS features over fifty of the world's finest singers, recorded individually and in small groups to create virtual choirs consisting of over 1,400 vocal tracks.

In other hands, a project of this scale wouldn't only devolve into a quivering mess, the most likely outcome conceivable is that it'd lose its humanity.

Although it's not presented in strict a cappella, nor as a live performance, if you've become more intrigued by small group choral vocal music in the wake of the revived and growing attention focused on it because of Glee, Ben Folds' album last year called Ben Folds Presents: University a Cappella!, NBC's The Sing Off (and America's Got Talent, to a lesser extent), even Jersey Boys, you owe yourself to hear what one of leading composers of concert music—of vocal concert music—brings to the party.

This is the finest "concert" or "serious" music of 2010.

Top Songs: McFerrin titles his pieces with literal themes, then extends them, elaborates on them, takes them on flights of fantasy. Most of them have vocalized sounds, not recognizable words as such, but "Baby" is sung with one and, yes, "baby" is that word— not exactly universal, but close to it.

"Say Ladeo" takes great pleasure in the act of saying "ladeo"—and gives great pleasure, too.

"Wailers" explores many of the vocal sounds which we in the West associate with the Middle East, Arabic and Muslim cultures. A spectrum of consonant and dissonant characters amble by, from the trills and "wail"-ings concentrated at notes which Western ears hear as minor intervals of the scale, to whispered urgent sounds that seem to appear in Hollywood movies when a "sandy" tone is called for, to the "zig" of "ziggurat."

"Messages" starts in and circles back to the Latin and Latinsounding syllables of Gregorian Chant, and visits English plainsong and, to my ears, Japanese court sounds.

"The Garden" is the closest thing to a standard song in the set. If a line can be doubled, it usually can be a thick, dense chord, but airy almost beyond belief, swooping like athletic birds synchronized in flight over tall fields, a vastness of colorful flora, skirting stands of shady forest.

When I first heard "He Ran To The Train," I noted that it was reminiscent of Jaco Pastorious, the extraordinary bassist/ composer, most often remembered as a key member of Weather Report but also an extraordinary band-leader, known fora transcendant arrangements with parts for top-notch bass-playing harmonies and flights of swooping harmonious voices. (Not to mention the occasional harmonica!) On "He Ran…" McFerrin showcases several very Pastorious-like concurrent bass lines: a monotone plucked string, a chorus of men intoning variations around the interval of perfect 4th, and a more Doo-Wop inflected line. The remainder of the track is packed with swoops and clusters of its own.

Q ✩ of Montreal ~ False Priest

When I want to be challenged, I turn to of Montreal. No music daunts my ability to describe it more. Imagine Prince, Bowie, Tom Tom Club, The Stylistics, Aerosmith, and The Beach Boys sharing a bedroom, then make music that captures how they fuck each other.

Result: amazing, ear-bending, imagination-expanding song-craft. Almost another tie at #1, except that I want to love it a little bit more than I actually do love it Top Songs: "Godly Intersex," "I Feel Ya Stutter," "Coquet Coquette," "Sex Karma," "Famine Affair," "You Do Mutilate"

✩ River City Extension ~ Unmistakable Man

It's a fine new album from River City Extension, originally from Toms River, NJ. (c'n hardly believe it myself, but Yup, Toms River!)

Jersey Rocks! (Can't help myself and, besides, you know it's true.)

This is a band with an energy and cohesion of elements so rare I have to reach back to the David Bromberg Band for comparison.

Yet they don't sound like the DBB—sounding like yourself is always the best thing to do.

The best new music from New Jersey. They have a rare cohesion of energetic and laid back elements. RIYL: The David Bromberg Band.

Every one of the first seven tracks are winners. (A slight misstep occurs at track 8 when they veer into Jimmy Buffett territory for an escapist side trip. But the band could well pocket a decent royalty from licensing the song to commercials.) It takes two more decent tracks, "I'm Too Tired To Drink" and "Holy Cross", fun crowd-pleasers we'd all love to boozily shout along with, before RCE regain the surefooted confidence of the album's first half with the heart on its sleeve ballad "Today, I Feel Like I'm Evolvin'". From there on in it's smooth sailing, as we listen like traveling companions eagerly anticipating the places they're going and the people they plan to spend the future with, or whatever comes next. Unmistakable Man ends beautifully on a note of a future faced promisingly.

Top Songs: "If I Still Own A Bible," "Our New Intelligence"

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band ~ London Calling Live at Hyde Park [DVD]

Just because it's released in DVD form, that shouldn't disqualify a three hour concert depicting the band in its current form and power from being considered as a new music album. The duet on "No Surrender" with Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem alone is enough to recommend it. But for an "bonus", "Wrecking Ball"—written to commemorate and performed just before Giants Stadium was torn down— the songs aren't new, but the performances are as fine as can be found of live E Street Band this decade. It's the sound of old rockers experienced at railing against the darkness who will not go easy into the night.

Pay special attention to secret weapon Nils Lofgren's guitar solos: a shining, defiant, whirling dervish of cacophony on "Youngstown," laying down the evolving underpinning of "Seeds," churning the blues on

Page 6 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 "Johnny 99" and leaping tall buildings with his slide on "The Rising." If there's one irrepressible criticism of the choice of this particular show for DVD posterity, it's that, in order not to overstep a curfew too much (watch the show and you'll see what I mean), Nils isn't given many opportunities to stretch out, compared to previous shows I've heard.

The man is an under-appreciated wonder, a guitar playing monster, a rock god without suitable worshipers. Change that, dear readers, and join in giving him praise, won't you please?

Top Songs: Bruce has surprised audiences many times to show up on-a friend's stage for a few tunes, but "No Surrender" is one of the relatively rare times a surprise guest join Springsteen and the band; "Out In The Street" concludes with Bruce, having climbed a couple of flights of stairs after wading into catwalks skirting the audience, yelling "Give me an elevator! I'm fucking sixty!", setting up the evening's recurring theme: "Lookit, I'm not too old for this—yet!"; "She's The One," "Johnny 99," Jimmy Cliff's "Trapped" performed by request, the incomparable, forever keeps you guessing "Rosalita" played so tight it's scary and so playfully loose it's as if they're performing it as a lark in the park, and "Dancing In The Dark" comes out to play at the last, just as nightfall is full and "Dark"'s language of exhaustion and rebirth takes on new shades of meaning.

✩ tUnE-yArDs ~ Bird-Brains

The most creative, preconceptions-defying album of the year.

Top Songs: "Hatari," "Lions," "News," "Safety," "Jumping Jack"

3 THE THIRD PLACE BEST ALBUMS OF 2010 ARE: John Grant ~ Queen of Denmark Grinderman ~ Grinderman 2 Hockey ~ Mind Chaos ing ~ Dial: An Operock Elton John, Leon Russell ~ The Union Ted Leo & The Pharmacists ~ The Brutalist Bricks Off With Their Heads ~ In Desolation OK Go ~ Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky Sia ~ We Are Born Regina Spektor ~ Live In London

Q John Grant ~ Queen of Denmark

This is the last album I'm adding to 2010's >150 Favorites List. It intimidates me. Not the album per se; naw: Queen of Denmark is charming, creamy, with lyrics where sweet nothings and actual sweets are name-dropped unexpectedly. I join a crew of reviewers smitten by Grant's endearingly naive world of love and pain. But I'm afraid to speak aloud about it, should I break a spell. Dare I? Perhaps it's best I just point you to interviews, so Grant can speak for himself. Also, follow the links in the usual places, and hear for yourself. May you become smitten, too.

At Queersighted.com, read how in "Sigourney Weaver" he "thought it was clever and funny to express that hostile environment [the vicious cruelty of classmates in his new junior high school] as Sigourney Weaver fighting the aliens, because that's exactly how I felt."

At MOJO magazine, learn how his childhood ice cream parlor inspired the lyrics to one of the songs. (Queersighted calls MOJO "the leading UK glossy for rabid, mouth-breathing music fans".) MOJO just named Queen of Denmark its #1 Album of the Year.

I call it The most romantic album of 2010.

RIYL: Nilsson, Stephin Merritt/Magnetic Fields, Matt Alber Top Songs: Neither my honey Allen nor I are a "TC" but how could we resist the love story of "TC And Honeybear" (the lead-off track) with a title like that? And don't these lyrics just make you wanna just go :-) "awwww…" ?: For TC and his Honeybear, the world will not stop moving / For rendezvous and longing stares and hearts that won't stop burning / Before that Honeybear had given up, He felt so sad and lonely Then one night he looked up and he saw, he saw his One and Only / When TC came onto the scene, He entered in on golden wings / And

with him he brought butterflies of crimson red and emerald green / Cause before TC Honeybear was waiting, was waiting for him patiently / TC took his fear away, became his One and Only The world came crashing down on them, with all of its ferocity / And Honeybear was terrified, he said do not take him, take me / Before that Honeybear had given up, he felt so sad and lonely Then one night he looked up and he saw, he saw his One and Only / He said, Please don't take him, 'cause I love Him He's my joy and my Life For my love, I won't hesitate / I will give him all that his heart can take / And I'll trust Him fearlessly / I want Him to be free "Caramel," "I Wanna Go To Marz," Where Dreams Go To Die," "Sigourney Weaver," "Silver Platter Club," and "It's Easier" all further support my calling QOD 2010's most romantic album. Unfortunately, the current music video for "Chicken Bones" is a lowconcept, tonally at odds with the song affair, and having seen it I suggest you give it a pass. "JC Hates Faggots" does a damn good job of writing in persona—you can guess which, can't you?

(Also, see ing, just below, for more on the unexpected theme of Gay Men releasing naive opuses in 2010.)

✩ Grinderman ~ Grinderman 2 Now this is edgy music! It's music for tribal rituals, music for casting out demons. Damn, but it's good, like steam, like a sweat lodge, like dervish dancing. "Grinderman" explicitly describes the amplified steel clashing against itself, threatening all words in place, then searing through the ground to be recast into the next cut. It's loose. It's inventive. It's a new kind of Blues.

Top Songs: First video "Heathen Child" has almost instantly been remixed as "Super Heathen Child," featuring Robert Fripp's (King Crimson) unique guitar let loose, "Bellringer Blues," "Mickey Mouse & The Goodbye Man," "Worm Tamer," "Palaces of Montezuma"

Hockey ~ Mind Chaos

With mercurial exuberance, Hockey join the scarcely-attended club of Dance music-makers who sound like they're enjoying themselves.

Surprisingly, most of the attention on the dance floor is taken by thumpa-packed, sparkle-mesmerized attitude-succubi, but where the hell is the fun? Take LCD Soundsystem, for instance. On their MySpace page they describe themselves as "Disco House Funk Punk." With all that allegedly going for them, why do they come across as Devo's little brother, scribbling on the walls, parents ooo-ing and ahh-ing over them and calling their messy fingerpainting masterpieces?

Yup, this here, stuck inside a review of Hockey's debut full-length, is a mini-rant at the acclaim given LCDS, but not Hockey. This is the album LCD Soundsystem would make if they could trade a broken-off piece of their hip reputation for some genuine fun. Hockey is having fun. Based on their lyrics, LCDS is having a hard time accepting their good fortune.

But who gives a bleep about LCDS? We will care now about Hockey. The variety of movement they inspire is enough to give a good workout from head to foot!

That's both the light impact and hard-working, aerobic kind, and a cool down. Just the thing one might expect to come out of Portland, Oregon.

Top Songs: "Song Away" could just be the catchiest single Talking Heads never made. "Tomorrow's just a song away / a song away" is a superb hook line, and how composer/lead singer Ben Grubin fits an "Electric Avenue" slash "Safety Dance" good time into a list song dovetailed with a nonsense song is the sinker. Just why this isn't a crossover hit… My best guess is that, to even be considered to get near the chart-tops, everything, no matter the genre, must have an intensity that has crossed a line in the last decade to increasingly become the exclusive realm of super-human images, not real people at all. "Curse This City" transitions from a (Queen's) John Deacon bass guitar swagger vs crunchy-growly guitar troublemakers to become consecrated by the power of (in successive order) hiphop, guitar shredding and tent revival into the line "I'm gonna love this city if it only help me shine shine shine." Inspired. "Too Fake" is a favorite of a lot of people, too, and I could go on, because this is one of those rare albums where every track is strong.

But here's the thing. The album shouldn't be on this list. I had already finished writing when I happened upon the album's October 2009 release date, and realized I hadn't double-checked for that

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 7 when I'd originally added Hockey to my list (last March). But I had a very slim Best Of 2009 column last year and, poking around the web, Mind Chaos has kept earning blog entries and online reviews through November, so I'm keeping this review in.

Q ing ~ Dial: An Operock

Much more is going on here, in this delightful revival of naive Art Rock epics, than first meets the ear. Full to the brim with memorable melodies, I'm as fascinated as can be with every aspect of the project I've seen and heard so far, from the minimalist animations created for many of the songs to the overwhelming variety of inventions which carry the songs and story.

At the moment I'm enjoying Dial without having earned a master's degree in it, so to speak. An overview of the story is at DialTheMusical.com, but I have a general, generalized, undetailed sense of it: A young man-boy is outof-sorts with his world, and through a journey which in ways is like a dream-walk, endeavors to find his way out of his shut-down existence and into the (or "a") waking world. Classic elements of adventure and fantasy come into play: friends (and others) he meets along the way help and hinder him, he sets out to seek his identity and life-purpose, and learns more than that as a result of his travels, ultimately arriving at some kind of destination: a return home, changed fundamentally for the better in exchange for having paid a substantial cost.

Charming and fun to listen to from the start, on repeated listens Dial becomes much more than the generic introduction I've laid out. Specifically? For instance, "Dial" is a bird with "a radiant, sundiallike mohawk crest," the man-boy is a 27-year-old who is the first adult to understand Dial in living memory—only a new generation of children know what Dial is saying; all other adults are stuck sleepwalking through life. Of necessity, language is invented: There is rampant "Astrophobia," and "Somnambolution" is the only way out of the depths of sleep. Honesty, naturally, has a role to play, as does the transformative powers of love, and the destination here, delightfully, is a metaphorical, metaphysical playground.

Dial makes use of a few reappearing motifs: when I first heard "Dial's Theme" I thought I couldn't possibly hang on for another hour with this clearly-important melody. But a half-hour later, when it reappears in it's fourth or sixth guise within "Orbiting The Truth," it had attached itself to my DNA, had become a welcome friend. A rich tapestry of instruments and voices appear, recombine, and are joined by new elements throughout.

I must, however, bring my first impressions to your attention.

Several of Dial's songs appear to be heavily influenced by British Rockers. For instance, "The Big Sleep (Wake Up)" channels Ian Hunter & Mott The Hoople. "Pretty Bird" channels Peter Gabriel & Genesis. For anyone dedicatedly listening to Rock and Roll in the 60s and 70s it's difficult not to think of The Who when experiencing a work such as this. (Especially when accompanied by the invention of the word "Operock," and a confrontation with a horde, as comes in "Somnabolution"—complete with a Roger Daltrey homage of a vocal.)

But so many other rock-n-rollers took on the challenge of longer-form works, it's not difficult to hear, (just skimming the surface) Jefferson Starship in "You Are Loved," and Roger Waters-era Pink Floyd in several other places.

Allow me to give Dial one of the strongest compliments I have to give: I want to sing it. You'll want to, too. Dial's magic is irresistible.

Stream the entire album in charming animated video form at dialthemusical.com. And note: The key creative spirits behind the name ing are Out, New Jerseyan-in-exile Mark Smotroff and Sean Mylett.

Top Songs: "The Big Sleep (Wake Up)," "Drop," "Long Walk Home," "Astrophobia," "Kick Start Your Day," "Orbiting The Truth," "Somnambolution," "Pretty Bird," "Eyes Wide Open"

Q ✩ Elton John, Leon Russell ~ The Union

Russell, in collaboration with John (reverted to Honkey Chateau mode) becomes something new, and we get to be the happy recipients of a unique compositional voice. Russell is one of the masters that the Rock Hall of Fame seems determined to overlook (preferring ABBA fer-

gawdsakes). His command of multiple styles — backwater bar blues, elegant New Orleans syncopation, British dance hall, Tin Pan Alley — all combined into a unique compositional voice (one of his songs was the Carpenters' hit "Superstar") and, with his unique singing voice, a handful of underappreciated but confident releases under his own name after providing an essential element to the appeal of some of the best releases by Joe Cocker and George Harrison. Elton John's earliest successes obviously sprang as hyper evolutions of Russell's solid musical persona. The two of them together? The best team-up of the year fulfilling a dream deferred between student and influence (but nearcontemporaries) to collaborate. T Bone Burnett is producer here, too.

Top Songs: “Gone to Shiloh,” "There's No Tomorrow," "Monkey Suit"

✩ Ted Leo & The Pharmacists ~ The Brutalist Bricks

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists started as a solo project, but after its successful debut, Leo expanded to a full band. Five LPs, a devoted following, and several international tours later, they are still going strong. Their sixth album, The Brutalist Bricks, is wake up music: rousing, energized, concise.

Ted Leo and the Rx' reliability is another of their canonical qualities. They never trade away intelligence for Punk's high-energy. Leo's songs possess a wit with one of the highest Earned Punch Averages in rock and roll. Their catalog's consistent high quality will amaze.

This set evokes a variety of memorable markers in Rock history. One can hear riffs lifted (with love and respect) out of the catalogs of everyone from My Aim Is True-era Elvis Costello, to early-70s prepunk party bands like Thin Lizzy, to Led Zep unplugged. But the most frequent touchstone is early Joe Jackson Band: Tight-cut punk guitar shards relentlessly slash across rankin' riffs rife with reggae/ska backbeats, and motivate a restless dissatisfaction with whichever song style was worn the last time out. The Rx insist one must procreate a new style into existence with every new song. Strike your blow against the vapid, and land your copy of this worthy addition to their nervy oeuvre as soon as you can.

Top Songs: "The Mighty Sparrow," "Ativan Eyes," "Woke Up Near Chelsea," "Last Days," "Gimme The Wire," "Mourning In America," "Where Was My Brain"

Off With Their Heads ~ In Desolation The best Punk album of 2010. Punk rage for the disillusioned and aging. Off With Their Heads push, push, push relentlessly at the goal—but, now, what is it? Shifting one's goal in mid-step while running is tough on a body, disorienting on one's soul. But the band manages to capture that feeling. The stop-inyour-tracks images, the impossible pursuit of living-life on-thebrink, make these, from "Drive," one of the best lyrics of the year: I’ve been watching myself turning from bad to worse.

I’ve been locked up in the basement putting bad habits first.

I won't answer my phone because I want to be left alone To shed all the skin that makes me well up and choke.

I’m not alive, I'm just as good as dead.

I can't find a reason why I should even get out of bed.

Just make it stop, just make it go away.

I’ll give you everything I have if you’ve got the right words to say.

But I can get by on what little is left in here.

If I can just get away from my shadow, I’m in the clear.

Then it will stop and it will all go away.

I’ll be everything I was, I’ll be everything I wanted to be.

I’m out of my mind and I’m out of your sight.

So I just drive. It doesn’t matter where.

I put my foot to the floor and let the wind blow through my hair.

I’ll never stop. There is nothing for me out there.

I’ll be on the roads less traveled while it all fades in the mirror.

It's not morose, not pessimistic, to recognize the shit in your life, stare back as tough into its face as you got it, and SING about it! In Desolation blazes with life lived, taps the youthful cellular energy contained in one's mitochondria to punch at the drag of mundane reality on your fading dreams, using gobs of amp'd-guitar feedback growls to chase away demons. Great lyrics, heaps of leaping en-

Page 8 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 ergy, and melodies—yeah baybay! This is my first contact with the 7-year-old OWTH, thanks to Bouncing Souls' online recommendation; I now look forward to losing a few pounds of sweat jumping around at one of their gigs. (Hopefully at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, January 29th 2011.)

Top Songs: "Drive," "Their Own Medicine" follows with another relentless attack track, a viscerally relatable revenge fantasy; next, no more quiet or remorseful but an iota more humble, "Trying To Breathe" joins the highest ranks of utterly romantic, my-life-isnothing-without-you songs, beautiful in its way, keenly aware of one's mortality with a blood-rush of consequences to pay, ending on a glorious downpour of chromatic coda chords; "Old Man" rejects and accepts Dad-shit "passed on to me;" "The Eyes Of Death;" "My Episodes," featuring a deep sustained church organ, soon joined by electric piano, sans drums, is their version of a gospel-tinged ballad; and "Clear The Air" will be known casually by the line "I'm falling apart"

✩ OK Go ~ Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky Don't hate them because their videos are beautiful. Where every other album I heard this year seemed to think their miscellaneous noises and noodlings and machine-cold-generated sounds were somehow "experimental" or "artistic," OK Go astonishes with how effective a well-placed noodling can be, how emotional a well-tweaked generated sound can be, how compositionally rich mining the untapped veins of pop music can be. They're a fun band to see in concert too. Give them credit for going where no man has gone before but seeming like it's business as usual: David Bowie never pulled off as great a persona.

This album grew on me over time. It was as if it called me back to renew our acquaintance, to re-listen and hear it with new ears each time.

Give OK Go credit: They use gimmicks of sorts (marching bands, handbells, treadmills (of course)) to garner attention, but earn that attention long-term by making the novelty elements serve the music, and not the other way around. For recording deceptively simple miniature epics which are truly complex in the execution, OK Go deserves your re-consideration.

Top Songs: "Skyscrapers," "WTF," "Needing Getting," "This Too Shall Pass (When The Morning Comes)," "White Knuckles"

Q ✩ Sia ~ We Are Born

The magnificent voice on Zero 7's so-called Chill Jazz hits has displayed a unique imagination in her solo albums, a talent that continues to shine here.

The tremendous amount of self-esteem she displays is reason enough to fall in love with her. Not the self-involved kind—it takes strong self-esteem to reveal loneliness and separation pain the way she does—but the keen sense of self at her core empowers her—and her listeners—to create with confidence.

In another example of how musical justice is rare, in a fair world Sia Furler would have inherited or borrowed the audiences from any of the RIYL's mentioned below. That she has a dedicated fanbase is cool, but it rankles that she isn't well-known, the benefactor of a huge, responsive, nearly-automatic flood of appreciative fans, promoters and critics.

RIYL: Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Zero 7, David Bowie, Adele, The Go! Team, Kate Nash, Cee-Lo Green, Norah Jones, Ben Lee, k d lang Top Songs: "You've Changed" pulls sounds in from so many places: Erasure-style synth bleeps, smooth R&B background vocals, diatonic scale cheap-amplified guitar hook, P-Funk wheel-controlled keyboard note bends, Chic-style rhythm guitar, triangle, even the proverbial kitchen sink of pop songs: the toy piano!—all in service of Sia's supple, playful singing. (But no cowbell!) "Clap Your Hands," the big, first single, moves a body onto the dance floor—without coercion! An excellent, contemplative video for "I'm In Here" enhances the sad beauty of one of the few ballads on We Are Born.

"The Fight" is upbeat about unifying in the good fight. In contrast (but not out of place here) Oh Father is almost dauntingly autobiographical, about a relationship described thus: "You can't hurt me— No, I got away from you. I never thought I would." CHILLS, man.

Regina Spektor ~ Live In London

[released after DTA's print deadline] Much of the craft coming to us from Spektor's unique perspective on the world seems a creation of the studio: The voice that both emanates strength and vulnerability, the fine-honed string sections, the very rich melodies and melodic accompaniments. But, reminding us all how a live performance can be immediate and also beautifully practiced, Spektor nails the definitive version of song after song live. Live concert albums once embedded themselves in my memory not for their technical proficiency or flights of long-winded fancy but because the songs never sounded better before—Think: Elton John's 11-17-70, Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive, Woodstock. Lately, not so much. (If I had an hour to spare I'd try to come up with something more recent, but that makes my point, doesn't it?)

Top Songs: "Eet," "On The Radio," "Sailor Song," "Dance Anthem Of The 80s," "Bobbing For Apples," "Ode To Divorce," "Laughing With," "Hotel Song," "Us," "Fidelity," "The Call," "Love, You're A Whore (Kisses Hard On The Mouth)"

4 THE FOURTH PLACE BEST ALBUMS OF 2010 ARE: Atlantic/Pacific ~ Meet Your New Love Bro adway Orig i n a l Cast ~ G reen Day's American Idiot Deerhunter ~ Halcyon Days Michael Franti & Spearhead ~ The Sound of Sunshine The Hold Steady ~ Heaven Is Whenever Jeremy Henry's Haus of Glitch ~ Saturn in Retrograde: The Death of a Sell-Out Slut; + remixes Indigo Girls ~ Staring Down the Brilliant Dream Freedy Johnston ~ Rain On The City John Lennon, Yoko Ono ~ Double Fantasy Stripped Down Dave Matthews Band ~ Live In New York City Passion Pit ~ Manners [Deluxe Edition] Robert Plant (with Patti Griffin) ~ Band Of Joy Ra Ra Riot ~ The Orchard Angus & Julia Stone ~ Down The Way Atlantic/Pacific ~ Meet Your New Love Along with The Autumn Defense below, Atlantic/ Pacific represents a revival of the 70s California sound, the bright, light Country Rock pioneered by Buffalo Springfield, then by Canadian Neil Young solo and Poco, and finally the Eagles. A/P is more to the Buffalo Springfield / Poco side than TAD's middle-Eagles sound. What makes A/P extraordinary is that they've attained a glorious sound on their debut album. Also remarkable, they credit Red Bank NJ as a home base.

Top Songs: Before it gives in to an id-let-loose acid-flashback ending,"Picture Perfect" is steady as you go, as Poco-esque as contemporary music gets. "Let Me Into Your Light" builds beautifully on a reverberant, anticipation-filled opening minute with a buzzy throbbing tonally indistinct bass line that goes haywire before giving in to softly processed played-backwards cymbals and a crowning psychedelic electric guitar. I get an urge for a doobie every time I hear it. (That's a *compliment* son.) The title track is enchanting. I haven't heard a hook like that ringing, chiming unison guitar/keyboard in the opening in who knows how long. It introduces the line "Come sit beside the fire," which becomes a seductive plea, which I imagine turning into a magical evening under the stars. "Patterns" simply shimmers. The singalong melody on "The Latest" must have inspired thousands to sing themselves into having a better day.

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 9

Q Broadway Original Cast ~ Green Day's American Idiot

It's simply a relief to have a Rock concept album successfully adapted directly into something new for the Broadway stage. Has anything else done so? Tommy, Jesus Christ Superstar, and The Rocky Horror Show (among other things) all had their movie versions first. [No, neither ABBA's nor The Four Seasons' jukebox musicals count.] American Idiot by Green Day is one of the great albums of the decade. Fusing all of its energy with the kind of commitment and professionalism of talented Broadway performers just leaves me giddy. Just one of many, John Gallagher Jr repeatedly impresses as a featured actor in an ensemble cast, like he did in Spring Awakening. And I've only heard the album! (Haven't even seen the show—yet.) From my perspective, there's no shame in any Green Day / Punk Rock fan enjoying "their" songs in a new, more choreographed arena (figuratively and literally). Neither do Broadway aficionados need to look to these songs condescendingly as little more than a loud interruption. Place the music in your player and listen at any volume you wish, and I believe you'll connect with it.

Top Songs: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," "21 Guns," "When It's Time," "Last Night On Earth," "Before The Lobotomy/ Extraordinary Girl" "Last Of The American Girls/ She's A Rebel," "Letterbomb"

Q Deerhunter ~ Halcyon Days

A band that showed promise, who but for a few exceptional tracks hadn't previously delivered more than the kind of subgenre-specific results only zealot fans could love, steps up with innovative dream-delayed rhythms and a rich chromatic palette of applied noises darting about and emanating from nonmajor chords. Especially thrilling …

Top Songs: … is the already-in-flight hovering momentum throughout "Helicopter," the spinninginto-the-cosmos multiple codas of "He Would Have Laughed," "Fountain Stairs," "Desire Lines," "Memory Boy" At Spinner.com, where Halcyon Days was called: "...a spine-tingling concoction that meanders effortlessly from psych to shoegaze to art punk," their AOL live session reveals the beauty and stature that these songs should have when they're well rehearsed and the band's creative juices are flowing. It's a surprisingly confident breakthrough performance, and I suggest you hear it.

FYI, from Atlanta, Ga's weekly arts magazine/institution "Creative Loafing" (clatl.com): "Deerhunter … [frontman and songwriter Brandon] Cox has appeared on stage in a dress a few times, and once smeared himself in his blood. Those provocations, however, complemented a fantastic live show. With Cox's spectral, reedy-thin presence in the forefront, Deerhunter's music, both grungy and ecstatic, made for revelatory and powerful concert performances. Adding to the controversy, Cox often decorates his albums with images of young men. The [previous] Deerhunter album cover features Cox's close friend Cole Alexander from the Black Lips. Alexander is naked, and the photo of him is a double negative made to look like two men whose penises are touching. … Visuals like these have led some music fans to assume Cox is gay. But he prefers to call himself asexual, saying he doesn't pursue romantic relationships with anyone, male or female."

Later, in April 2008, he confided to Spin, "I'm a 26-year-old gay virgin who eats barbecue and watches Braves games." Like I said, FYI.

✩ Michael Franti & Spearhead ~ The Sound of Sunshine Two songs released ahead of the album: the dazzling title track, then "Shake It" ("We shake it like we got no bones"—Nuff said!) motivate me to movie my ass, literally and figuratively. Then comes

the sound of the song with the unpretentious title "Hey Hey Hey"… and my heart fills and is glad.

Michael Franti saved my life.

Again.

"Hey Hey Hey" restores me, revives me, invisibly protects me. What an amazing song!

U n b e l i e vable! My fears were that the success of "Say Hey (I Love You)" from the previous album, All Rebel Rockers, would plunge Franti into a pandering mode. That' has been proven groundless. You can still hear the entire album streaming on MySpace, at www.tinyurl.com/frantitsos Top Songs: "Hey Hey Hey (No Matter How Life Is Today)," "The Sound Of Sunshine," "The Thing That Helps Me Get Through," "Shake It," "Headphones"

Q ✩ Jeremy Henry's Haus of Glitch ~

Saturn in Retrograde: The Death of a Sell-Out Slut; [also, remixes of others' music]

"Electronica" and "Dance Punk" will no longer do for Mr. Henry.

"Unique" is undeniably true, but not specific enough. Words scoured from below the belt of up-to-the-minute cuberthesauruses or invented to describe his music: "Emotronic". "Ghettotech". "Glitchfather". Or just "Glitch," simply enough.

What is Glitch? Henry writes: "Glitch is a highly-adjustable, semiautomated, real-time audio manipulation system which allows you to alter your music in a variety of different ways ranging from subtle to extremely bizarre. Glitch music, also sometimes known as microsound—a style that emphasizes clicks and pops—started its ascent in the early 90s with whirring micro-loops and other digital effects over traditional instruments, or synthesizers and drum machines. Everyone has heard the stutter of a stuck CD player; now, musicians are [inspired by that sound to create Glitch-

s t y l e c o m p o s itions]." And in his Haus of Glitch mode, he's much more than your everyday hobbyist remixer.

As a Glitch progenitor, Henry has discovered that that sound, of a CD stuck-in-play is a perfect form for forward movement, for momentum, for freedom.

Everything at hand is fair game for dicing and slicing, from his own initial ventures into self-recording (his remix of "Selfish Song" from the start of his oeuvre becomes "Brutal Unicorn's Scratchtastic Mix" on the new album) to telephone messages to, in the last year or so, steady successes at his re-definition through Glitch of what a remix can entail. He has brought everyone from Lady Gaga to Laurie Anderson into his Haus of Glitch, with Weezer, Matisyahu and spoken word by actor/ hitRECord.org activist Joseph GordonLevitt in between.

Jeremy Henry's latest full-length suite, Saturn in Retrograde: The Death of a Sell-Out Slut, could also be seen as the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. (Perhaps its title should be: Janus Goes Both Ways: On My Back Catalog, Facing Forward.) (It's OK: Jeremy and I have long teased each other.) It expands beyond a retrospective of his best tracks into his early discoveries of his future, now his current, path.

The evolution of Jeremy Henry, a man whose musical identity can't stand still, is bound to take twists and turns. You may as well follow him now, because his sound and his ideas are good enough and new enough that they've begun to spread into the mainstream.

You wouldn't know it was him when you heard it, because musical ideas (like language, as Laurie Anderson would say) spread virally.

Page 10 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 But I'm here to tell you: Credit Jeremy Henry's style as the first Big Idea in music of the new decade.

At the start of his career Henry described himself: "If Ani DiFranco and David Bowie had a baby, I think it would be me." Now, he writes, "…I hope it would be me." That baby has reconciled with the ghost in his machines to scare, thrill, tickle and bounce, always forward.

Top Songs: "Selfish Song" IS BRILLIANT! BRILLIANT, I TELL YA'S, BRILLIANT!! [ahem.] Also on the album: "Streets Of New York," "You From Here" Available by download only: "Only An Expert" (as a fan of Henry's since 2005 and one of the few in the Out Music scene championing him, my most vindicating moment of 2010 came when Henry won Grand Prize Best Remix for this Laurie Anderson track), "The Fame Monster MegaMix" (fan-site recognized remix for Lady Gaga)

✩ The Hold Steady ~ Heaven Is Whenever

The Hold Steady come as close as they ever have to delivering a classic rock and roll album. One characteristically iambic phrase after another, anthem after anthem, on Heaven Is Whenever THS hones every chop they got to the gristle and sinew.

The departure of keyboardist Franz Nicolay (previously the man behind the 'boards with brilliant but oft overlooked cabaretrockers The World Inferno/Friendship Society) means the keys have been toned down, replaced by thick heaps of guitars.

So let me focus MY GAWD on DID HE JUST SING ABOUT THE BAND HUSKER DU IN THE ALBUM'S LOVE SONG? "We Can Get Together," an alluringly beautiful song whose lyric provides the album title. AND It references Bob Mould's seminal band, AND "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" and AND… Todd Rundgren's band Utopia's "Love Is The Answer"!

The Hold Steady are at the top of their game.

Top Songs:"We Can Get Together," "The Sweet Part Of The City," "Soft In The Center," "Hurricane J," "The Weekenders"

Q ✩ Indigo Girls ~ Staring Down the Brilliant Dream

31 live performances spanning four years depict the many sides of the Girls, including songs never before given an official release.

Top Songs: "Go," "Watershed," "Kid Fears," "Wild Horses"

HOLIDAY EXTRA! Q Indigo Girls ~ Holly Happy Days

More than half the album consists of originals or rarely-heard songs, and Indigo Girls fulfill their potentials. Of the familiar songs, I'll just say this: Simply imagine how they sound performed by Indigo Girls. Then, just believe it's true. Top Songs: "I Feel The Christmas Spirit," "It Really Is (A Wonderful Life)," "Your Holiday Song," "Peace Child," "The Wonder Song," "Angels We Have Heard On High," "I'll Be Home For Christmas," "There's Still My Joy"

✩ Freedy Johnston ~ Rain On The City

Best New Pop Rock Songs of 2010.

Freedy Johnston does not deserve the nearobscurity of his carer, nor do his songs deserve to be so ignored. These are gorgeous songs. One could fall in love with these songs (despite the in one of them not fall for a certain type).

These songs could be the basis of an amazing jukebox musical. These songs have hummable melodies, lyrics with evocative images, and leave you feeling good. I defy you to find anyone comparable writing new songs today.

Top Songs: "Don't Fall In Love With A Lonely Girl," "Lonely Penny," "Livin' Too Close To The Rio Grande," "The Kind Of Love We're In," "It's Gonna Come Back To You

John Lennon, Yoko Ono ~ Double Fantasy Stripped Down

Were this the original release of these songs, it'd surely be nearer the top of the list. I can't honestly call it new; it's not. But it's not just "stripped down"—it is an honest-to-goodness re-mix, subtracting parts, sure, and altering the balance of familiar elements, as well as pulling in unreleased takes and material, creating an intimacy and presence with John unlike his audio verite Plastic Ono Band, or the live "Give Peace A Chance" tracks or the pre-Spector version of "Across The Universe." As I write, I've just heard "Starting Over" for the first time "stripped": that is, without heaps of background singers and strings and stuff. In other words, we've heard most of these sounds before, only they were buried under all that stuff. I'm experiencing a revelation—a reveal of truth. Entertaining as its great arrangement was, given this alternative, it was an encumbrance. Maybe it's 20/20 hindsight, maybe 1980 was too soon to digest the lessons about immediacy and honesty that Punk and the burgeoning Indie scene were teaching us, maybe (as Yoko states in press releases) the technology really has advanced to allow us to enjoy that immediacy with greater clarity. Rarely has a "remix" refreshed something great and turned it into something else also great.

Lennon largely kept it to himself during his lifetime, but later it became notoriously well-known that he disliked the sound of his voice—which explained a good deal about his love of layered, big recordings with echo drenching his voice. That was Lennon's signature sound, but it's tough for me to imagine the man, who, to me, epitomized the standard for a professional rock singing voice, compared himself to, I don't know, Elvis I suppose, or Sinatra, and believed his voice was wanting. On Stripped Down one not only gets to hear his 40 year old voice, one gets to hear little bits of business with his voice that are hidden (or suppressed?) in the original mix. You know that breakdown towards the end of "Starting Over," when the fulsome arrangement goes into a swirling vortex of a breakdown? Suddenly, this time, there appears John's voice at the re-boot, with his guttural evil/silly low chuckle. Then, he's back "chk - chk - chk" -ing the pickup of the beat—like you would DO if you were putting down a vocal where you'd want the drum beat to go. It's a delightful moment, perhaps the most extraspecial of a rich collection of ordinary moments which, in the moment they're revealed, become extraordinary. Stripped Down is a great gift to Lennon's legacy.

Top Songs: "Starting Over" is literally only the start. A Lennonesque (no other adjective will do) love-screed, not heard in the 1980 version, becomes a pre-Rap rap that runs smack up to the end of "Dear Yoko," an already renewed song for stripping layers of vocals, saxophone and melody-doubling electric guitar and placing a harmonica front and center. "Cleanup Time" sticks closer to the funky, rubbery grooveliciousness of the original intro; an extra early pre-chorus and chorus features Lennon singing ascending slides with soft buttery smoothness. The layers of gorgeous beating echoes in the initial "Beautiful Boy" give way to the sunshiniest of lullabies, and a little sailor's jig is restored as a coda. "Watching The Wheels" and "Woman" don't suffer from the nearly demo-like nakedness, other than adjusting one's ears for what's missing. And, yes, Yoko's tracks sound better, too, especially a much more straightforward "Give Me Something."

Dave Matthews Band ~ Live In New York City I do not love Dave Matthews Band studio albums. Even their radio-hits filled major label debut Under The Table And Dreaming does not

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 11 connect the way it should to count me among their fans. In retrospect, it's because of a surmountable sterility in the performances.

Just another example of how recording is not just as simple as sticking good musicians in front of microphones. I'd heard DMB concerts were legendary, that the DMB were the heirs apparent to the Dead Head legacy. The live DMB tracks I've heard were heavy on longwinded soloing—none of it prepared me for the singular concert experience of Live In New York City.

Perhaps (if you know me) this is the most shocking rank of this year's list. I haven't enjoyed a Dave Matthews Band album in over a decade, since Crash, so imagine my surprise upon finding so much depth, so many thickly-rendered, rich performances in a live concert album packed with re-arranged, improvisation-transformed versions of the DMB catalog. Matthew's vigorous delivery of his sometimesmeandering melodies re-sets their metabolisms to a higher emotional temperature, and sparks cause more sparks to foment, in the moment and from-the-muses and the heart.

I have to assume this set is not so rare, that my previous long held attitude (call me "unimpressed"), biased me against bothering to listen to what looks to be a substantial catalog of live records. It wouldn't be the first time a live album refreshened old vibes. I'm happy to change my mind, to praise a band whose revival I have to admit I've missed.

Top Songs: How chillingly beautifully does the trumpet fanfare work on "One Sweet World"!, "Funny The Way It Is" has gained a power several times its original recording, a power that seems easily wielded—and that's an illusion no less awesome than Hollywood swordplay made to seem like child's play. "Proudest Monkey" includes a phenomenal guitar solo—all the guitar work shines there. "Satellite" takes on a playful charm that felt muted before. "Spaceman" begins more like a mutant offspring of a fogey jive and The Police's "Walking On The Moon" before it sticks to a place of party people where "all the freaks are on parade." "Dancing Nancies" shimmies, then shimmers, in perpetual cycle.

✩ Passion Pit ~ Manners (Deluxe Edition)

Passion Pit is a really cool band name, but nearly a misnomer here. If one were to be, as some call it, too on the nose, this band would be called Shimmer. Every second of Manners is energized and glistening, posed and poised to give pleasure. Hmm… Maybe Passion Pit isn't such a bad name after all.

It's the creation of Michael Angelakos, reportedly birthed as a belated valentine for his girl (the reports all say "girl"). And it's an album with legs, as they say: "Sleepyhead" appeared first on Passion Pit's previous, Chunk of Change, and appears revised on 2009's Manners. Then Manners reappears this year in a Deluxe Edition—which means a new cover with a few extra tracks, including one more version of "Sleepyhead". (Let's stretch the truth and call Deluxe a new 2010 release, OK?) Manners is also a set with a freshness that evades easy marketing, but that same freshness will work in its favor: People will be discovering Passion Pit, and treating its music as new-to-them, for years to come The songwriting's freedom from easy hooks and reach for memorable melodies, the expansive yet controlled instrumentation, is rich yet inviting. Is that an electric dulcimer laying down the riff ahead of the band, who arrive ahead of a grand piano?

Angelakos' lyrical prowess embraces a poet's skills and a young man's post-angst existential concerns.

It's all delivered in a beautiful high tenor. An odd mix that shouldn't work but does. I like all eleven tracks of it.

Can't resist plugging their two New Jersey appearances this holiday time, December 30th and New Year's Eve, the 31st, at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair. Tickets were still available at this column's deadline.

Top Songs: "Moth's Wings," "Eyes As Candles," "Sleepyhead"

✩ Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers ~ Mojo

Mojo is the sound that Petty has been trying to get out from his head and into his fingers, his bandmates, his instruments and his recordings for all his life.

Top Songs: "Jefferson Jericho Blues," "I Should Have Known It"

Robert Plant (featuring Patti Griffin) ~ Band Of Joy

Plant gained a lot of (deserved) acclaim last time around in a true collaboration with Allison Krauss on Raising Sand. Band Of Joy, for all its many collaborators, is organically Plant's project, a bona fide rebirth of a vessel through which his creativity can shine.

Top Songs: "Silver Rider" is plainly epic, but begins hauntingly, by which I mean as intimately as its initial little voice can be while recording every secret you have. "

✩ Robert Randolph & The Family Band ~ We Walk This Road

So tasty. Thick slabs of pedal steel guitar played like nobody else, like nobody's business. Gospel-as-impure-fever, served up with vocal harmonies seasoned "by feel," in the tradition of harmonizing relatives since forever. True family funkiness, representing New Jersey at our best. RIYL: Eric Clapton, Cream, Sly & The Family Stone, Hot Tuna Top Songs: "Traveling Shoes," "Back To The Wall," "If I Had My Way," "Walk Don't Walk," "Dry Bones"

Ra Ra Riot ~ The Orchard

Rock string-sections remain a rarity, but for Ra Ra Riot, the violins and cellos are not just essential to their sound, they are functional rock and roll essentials. Their ambitious pop sound balances jittery guitars and bass lines with drummer Gabriel Duquette's surprising fingertip-splashes, while the strings alternate between adding expressive harmonies and pumping up the rhythm percussively. A mighty fine well-oiled machine performs everything under a skin so melodic, expressive and human that one only feels the pulse warmly, while details of construction hum along mostly unseen.

The violin and cello players are members of the band, not studio add-ons. RRR identify as Indie, and the inclusion of a cellist and a violinist in the band is an Indie move.

No "sophomore slump" for this band.

Top Songs: "Boy," with its great jittery bass lines, prompts your body to play along. The strings' harmonic input is fantastic, and the deceptively brief guitar solo is masterful.

They made a very cool video for it too."Foolish" features some beautifully filigreed guitar work while the strings add rhythmically to a march that just at the end becomes a swaying bounce. The clockwork mechanism of "Too Dramatic"—the strings almost veer into Phillip Glass territory—coexists with a crowd-pleasing melody (one I can easily imagine a crowd singing along with at a Ra Ra Riot concert). The moody "You And I Know" gives a change-of-pace lead vocal to cellist Alexandra Lawn, a break from frontman Wes Miles. "Shadowcasting" evokes the emotional space between Kate Bush "Running Up That Hill" and a U2 "Beautiful Day".

✩ Angus & Julia Stone ~ Down The Way

Perhaps the thing I like best about the music I like most is when I hear a performance that defies my expectations. Julia Stone's baby doll voice somehow avoids having a cloying quality, and that ability to be something as well as not be it is a Very Good Thing.

On their latest album Down The Way, the Stones look to break out of the Indie bush leagues into the independent musician bigs.

Julia Stone tends to use her sweetest-sounding voice. Typically, that

Page 12 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 spells trouble, but perhaps the thing I like best about the music I like most is when I hear a performance that defies my expectations.

Her voice evokes the knee-jerk thought "She has a baby doll voice," but she has rare, difficult ability to stay this side of mawkish. All elements come together perfectly on "Take You Away," a tastefully weird balance of pretty and obsessive, not unlike Sting's "Every Breath You Take." In truth the entire song is sweet, but not saccharine, not infantile, and only a tad nostalgic. It's a song made for candlelight or, also good, to pop into the car stereo on the way home from prison after getting out on bail. A fine balancing act.

With lyrics that are wide open to interpretation, their track getting all the attention is "And The Boys". Just let it wash over you. The impressionistic video is at youtube.com/watch?v=RUDc1frz22E . If, while watching, you happen to feel the urge rise in you to dance around in circles, I say go for it.

Top Songs: "And The Boys," "Take You Away"

5 THE FIFTH PLACE BEST ALBUMS OF 2010 ARE: The 88 ~ The 88 AfroCubism ~ AfroCubism Antony+the Johnsons ~ Swanlights Bad Religion ~ The Dissent of Man Clare Burson ~ Silver and Ash Bitch ~ Blasted!

Jay Brannan ~ In Living Cover Blue King Brown ~ Worldwize Carolina Chocolate Drops ~ Genuine Negro Jig Elvis Costello ~ National Ransom C o u r t Ya rd H o u n ds ~ C o u r t Ya rd Hounds The Gaslight Anthem ~ American Slang Chris Gates & Gatesville ~ Welcome to Gatesville Buddy Guy ~ Living Proof Quincy Jones, Various Artists ~ Q: Soul Bossa Nostra Tris McCall ~ Let The Night Fall John Mellencamp ~ No Better Than This Preservation Hall Jazz Band ~ Preservation: An Album to Benefit Preservation Hall The 88 ~ The 88

Another of those albums that make me ask "Is there no justice for well-honed pop songs in the marketplace?" The 88 are the Badfinger of our day. Like Badfinger, they are consistently good, use The Beatles' template that melds 50s Rhythm & Blues-based Rock and Roll to Brill Building hooks and Country Gospel passion given a clean-cut makeover; also like Badfinger, they get overshadowed by larger cultural forces. Unlike Badfinger, they've not had a major hit record, although they've been at it with five albums now since 2002. But if you watched certain TV shows, I could play you songs from their catalog you'd recall; most recently they're behind the theme song to NBC's Community.

The 88 is one of the albums I want to get inappropriately strident about encouraging people to PAY ATTENTION! LISTEN TO THIS! er, to seek out. Enter an alternative world to the so-called "alternatives," where understated sublimity substitutes for flash.

Top Songs: "After Hours," "Automatic Brain," "Center of the Sun," "They Ought To See You Now," the vulnerable vocal on "Takes It Away," set with just a strumming guitar, points to an afterlife for strength to survive, "Hold On" takes on disappointment with the advice of one experienced at it; it's not a stretch to think it's more autobiographical than the rest.

AfroCubism ~ AfroCubism

The story, basically, is that the Cuban musicians who became known as the "Buena Vista Social Club" were supposed to record over 14 years ago with renowned Malian/African musicians but something, "for reasons that have never been made clear," went awry. What was supposed to debut as a collaboration brought acclaim to the Cubans alone. Until now.

Top Songs: "Djalimady Rumba" rides a bumpy spine of blocky thumb piano plonks and spindly high-pitched acoustic and electric guitar plunks, to appear non-threatening but slightly psychedelic. Quickly translated, "La Culebra" is "The Snake", but I imagine that more is going on than the obvious. Set to the rangey lope of the high plains, Eliades Ochoa, in a worn proud voice, sings as the tune travels. When he shouts "Oye Jose!"—attention must be paid. Perhaps the coolest groove in worn through the hilly terrain of "Para Los Pinares Se Va Montoro"

Q

Antony & the Johnsons ~ Swanlights

Antony Hegerty seems little interested in becoming a star. His focus is on his art. When the results are as successful as this, that is how it should be. If I were you, I wouldn't put this on as entertainment to decompress by after a hard day, but if you're open to the pure experience of fine art, the somewhat challenging but directly affecting impact of Swanlights will be rewarding.

Top Songs: "Thank You For Your Love," the closest thing on this set to a pop song, resists categorization as it turns into a frantic, downbeat-defying extended end-chorus. It'd be easy to dismiss "The Spirit Was Gone" facilely as an Art Song gone missing on a pop album, but it's a legitimately engaging piece. On "Fletta" I don't know what Antony and Bjork are singing, neither the language (Icelandic?) nor the meaning, but their voices blend beautifully, urged on by an arrangement that's surely what Steve Reich sounds like in a good mood.

"Christina's Farm" is almost a duet for voice and piano until about 4 ½ minutes in, when strings introduce a full-fledged small orchestra of emotionally shaded and welling layers of themes and harmonies, accompanying Antony singing "Tenderly renewed / Tenderly renewed / Everything is new / Every sock and shoe/ My faith and your faith / Tenderly renewed."

✩ Bad Religion ~ The Dissent of Man 30 years into their career, Bad Religion still want to pick up the gauntlet The Clash laid down when they split. Undistilled lyrics railing against the frustrating bullshit of the status quo with pure punk thrash still predominate — and Bad Religion dominates Modern Punk like few else. But as if to hide their skills the backend songs have bulletin-like lyrics and the bouncing melodies The Clash proudly employed throughout London Calling, plus harmonies The Turtles, Hall & Oates or Green Day would admire. "Someone To Believe," "Cyanide," "Turn Your Back On Me," "Where The Fun Is" and almost ¾ of "Ad Hominem" are well-honed pop-punk-rockers that could appeal to open-minded fans of any of those bands.

Green Day, huh… I wonder, is Bad Religion Broadway bound?

Top Songs: "Cyanide," "Where The Fun Is," "Won't Somebody," "Pride and Pallor," "Turn Your Back On Me," "Ad Hominem," "The Devil In Stitches"

Q ✩ Bitch ~ Blasted!

Can't resist loving this self-proclaimed "Theatrical Punk." She combines Indiefolk wordplay and rockin' violins artfully.

RIYL: Ani DiFranco, Laurie Anderson Top Songs: "Kitchen," "Lost You," "Open Up," "Punk-chew-ation," "Bugs," "Blasted!"

Q Jay Brannan ~ In Living Cover

Known for the singular perspective of his own entirely enjoyable songs, with a decade's-long body of work behind him, Brannan steps into the fray of an album of cover songs. Brannan has sung covers excellently before—his video-only performance of "Man In The Mirror" after Michael Jackson's death was practically the only musical tribute I could stand listening to at the time. These, his sometimes stately takes on songs, most of which perhaps no one

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 13 else has ever covered, are respectful when they should be, but are deviant at other times when they need to be. They are undressed of everything this insecure age insists they should wear, nakedly showing off their beauty.

Top Songs: The Deviants: If you thought The Cranberries' "Zombie" was almost heart-rending before, remove the "almost" now.

The beautiful harmonizing with himself on "Both Hands" is another highlight: Brannan harmonizes with himself so closely I'm challenged to tell how many voices are there —four, I think. His pianohaunted version of "The Freshman" comes across as that rare quality: a cover that sounds so natural in his hands one would assume he'd written it, if one didn't know otherwise. The Respectful: "Beautifully," "Say It's Possible"

quit"), and rock'n'roll figures that TGA tries to cook into a coherent

Blue King Brown ~ Worldwize

Chris Gates' music, especially "Being The Man Of My Dreams," has been vying for my attention for over two years. Finally, the demos I heard in 2007 and 2008 are a bona fide album. As a reviewer for 2fast2die.com puts it: "The simple joys of domestic sobriety fit Chris Gates like a trucker cap. A former punk-rocker and recovering blues-metal hellion (in The Big Boys and Junkyard, respectively), the Austin singer/songwriter/guitarist now resides in Gatesville."

I don't know what compelled Gates to turn "Man Of My Dreams" into a lugubrious waltz, but I'll retain the faster, simpler live club performance video version in my memory as evidence that the song itself remains a classic-in-the-making. "Man Of My Dreams" remains an amazing song, but someone needs to produce a definitive version of it.

Singers! Here's more great material for your perusal. Welcome To Gatesville is Southern Rock with a Punk edge.

Top Songs: "Being The Man Of My Dreams," "Searching For You," "Broken Hearts & Faded Pictures"

Great thick heaps of exciting reggae & world beat. The production values are top-notch.

Top Songs: "Stand Up," "Moment of Truth," "Water," "Come And Check Your Head," "Keep It True"

Clare Burson ~ Silver and Ash

Morning music, often sweetly plaintive, plenty of space to drift in.

Top Songs: "Baby Boy," "Goodbye My Love," "In The Sea," "The Only Way"

Carolina Chocolate Drops ~ Genuine Negro Jig

Top Songs: The a cappella "Reynadine," the street-corner performance feel of fiddles and spoons on "Peace Behind The Bridge" and the more traditionally Appalachian Bluegrass of "Trouble In Your Mind," the jug band (plus kazoo!) of "Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine" — Carolina Chocolate Drops reclaims Genuine Negro Jigs, just like the title says, but it's never academic. "Hit 'Em Up Style" updates the material, nudging their traditional fiddle/banjo/ jug sound into close quarters with vocalized beat-box and Hip Hop syncopation. Most of the vocals are by Rhiannon Giddens, who has an extraordinarily strong and expressive but undramatic voice— she's clearly the freshest voice of 2010, in a year with plenty— and I mean plenty—of attention given to new voices.

Elvis Costello ~ National Ransom

McManus balances lyrics bound-up in verbiage with clear, cool instrumentation. Helpfully, superstar producer T Bone Burnett manned the board.

Top Songs: "Five Small Words," "Jimmie Standing In The Rain," "Dr Watson, I Presume," "Bullets for the New-Born King," "National Ransom," "All These Strangers"

Court Yard Hounds ~ Court Yard Hounds

Emily Robison and Martie Maguire are two-thirds of Dixie Chicks, and this album is better than two-thirds as good as Dixie Chicks' last album. I call that a success.

Top Songs: "Skyline," "The Coast," "Then Again," "Delight (Something New Under the Sun)." Topically Q, "Ain't No Son" takes the unique angle of dual points of-view. The intro is in the voice of the son: "I've got something to say / I'm scared and so afraid / Can you take me as I am? / Come what may, our blood is all the same / I am still your little man," but the rest of the song is in the voice of the mother or parent: "You Ain't No Son of mine / Aww, forget it girls, there ain't no use in trying… / All boys should be boys / That's how it should be / Yeah, you ain't comin' home / No, you ain't comin' home / 'Til you walk a straight line / You'll be out on your own // Don't expect to save your soul for free / When you're the one who turned your back on me." Keeping it in the persona of a mother rejecting her Gay son makes it a tougher song: both tougher to stomach and stronger for the choice.It's hard to believe one can hear the anger and turmoil intertwined as unsettlingly as the wailing guitar lines, pealing lap steel and fiddle and frantic banjo are, yet imagine that the songwriter's point of view toward the subject is anything other than antagonistic.

The Gaslight Anthem ~ American Slang After I (only last year) discovered for myself their great 2008 album "The '59 Sound", then got to see them in concert last December, I was sure American Slang would have the creative momentum to contend for the year's number ones. It's good, but It does not. From the jump the energy is a tad weary—leader/lead vocalist doesn't sound rested.

It's an amazing set of images ("your fortune in American Slang", "and everybody used to call you lucky," "Give me the fevers that just won't

whole and I love their sound and spirit too much to fret (much), but it's not the breakthrough album I'd hoped too much for; they remain at the edge of breakthrough.

"Gaslight Anthem’s members are committed naturalists, their bluesand-soul-influenced rock sporting heavy, unhealed scars."—Jon Caramanica,the New York Times Brian Fallon's voice deserves better care. Formerly more husky than its current rasp, he possibly abused it self-consciously to intensify his performance, but now it sounds stressed and worn.

Top Songs: "Stay Lucky," "Boxer," "Bring It On," "The Diamond Church Street Choir," "American Slang"

Chris Gates & Gatesville ~ Welcome to Gatesville

Buddy Guy ~ Living Proof

Bluesman Buddy Guy, heralded as a hugely influential guitarist and passionate, dynamic performer, releases Living Proof that you don't have to record gimmicky albums as you age. Singing and playing with taste and verve to rival men a third of his age, this simply is a fine set of Chicago Electric Blues.

Top Songs: "(I'm) 74 Years Young" ("When it comes to lovin', I'm never done." I'd like see Rap braggarts live up to —or pay tribute to—that.), "Guess What," "Skanky," "Stay Around A Little Longer" (featuring B. B. King)

Quincy Jones, Various Artists ~ Q: Soul Bossa Nostra

Hip-Hop artists pay tribute to the music of Quincy Jones. Not mere guest-vocal covers, the new now generation take the core of many familiar tunes and revise them in the crucible of their unique talents. The respect of the students for the maestro fairly drips off the tracks.

Top Songs: "Strawberry Letter 23" (Akon), "Soul Bossa Nostra" (Ludacris, Naturally 7, Rudy Currence), "You Put A Move On My Heart" (Jennifer Hudson), "Many Rains Ago (Oluma)" (Wyclef Jean), "Tomorrow" (John Legend)

Jorma Kaukonen ~ November 23, 2008 at the Tabernacle, Mt Tabor, NJ (29 other concert albums available)

Briefly, last summer, I considered subscribing to Emusic.com.

Finances being what they are, that didn't happen, but not before I discovered —I swear— 30—thirty—30 live albums by Jorma Kaukonen. No, I haven't listened to all of them (smart-ass). But I have heard this one, where Kaukonen is joined by his frequent guitar playing partner Barry Mitterhoff and a lovingly interactive audience. If your idea of a heavenly two hours is to listen to a masterful guitarist or two or three in a small, reverberant hall with fellow travelers who feel just as appreciative of the sweet sounds coming your way as you do, than this, gals and guys, is heaven.

Pop your way over to emusic.com if you like. Careful: There is another album of Kaukonen live in Mt Tabor on a different date (earlier in 2008) with Peter Rowan sitting in for a half-dozen songs.

But I'm sure it'll be great too. Meanwhile, Kaukonen just celebrated his 70th birthday, and is playing and teaching as strongly as ever.

Top Songs: "I'll Let You Know Before I Leave," "Travelling Drinking Gourd," "Embryonic Journey," "Hesitation Blues," "Water Song," etc. etc. etc. (It's 19 tracks long!) Best as I can tell, they're an emusic.com exclusive.

Page 14 CHALLENGE Winter 2010

✩ Tris McCall ~ Let The Night Fall The great unsung songwriter's latest. Listen to his skills at crafting words and melodies, and wonder why more influential people aren't championing him. For reasons which may have more to do with the generosity of his character—friends have implied that he will choose supporting other musicians over raising his profile as a performing, recording musician—and certainly have nothing to do with any lack of talent, his career never gained traction. But you could help change that just by being inspired to check him out. His song "Dancing To Architecture" inspired me, as the perfect name for this column. Now he writes some of the best music reviews of our time, which you can find at connect.nj.com/user/tmccall/index.html Top Songs: "Sugar Nobody Wants," "The Ballad of Frank Vinieri," "The Throwaway," "WFMU," "First World, Third Rate," "Midnight (Now Approaching)"

John Mellencamp ~ No Better Than This

Who's this new Mellencamp guy? Now he sounds like he's some kinda rejuvenated elder teenager, only one with the soul of a 70-year-old, one foot in the 50s/60s Blues revival, the other in the concurrent Folk revival, and both feet planted 50 years ago.

No Better Than This is pretty good, no matter how the title is self-deprecating. Truth is, Mellencamp is writing some of his finest songs ever. Honed down to their essences, none of these will fulfill anyone's nostalgia needs. Good. Although Mellencamp attracted superlative musicians for many of his albums and tours (keep your ears alert and eyes peeled for alumni of his band, such as drummer Kenny Aronoff and fiddle player Lisa Germano, who appear in bands with people like Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls, and who you can catch on TV as utility players for special events), his current preferred stripped-down and lean productions dispense with the need for them, for an intimate audition of the songs' inner workings.

Top Songs: "Save Some Time To Dream," "Right Behind Me," "A Graceful Fall," "No Better Than This". "Thinking About You" is the (no way around it) Dylan-esque folkiest track on the album. "Coming Down The Road," playing in my ears as I type, taps an authentic Americana with an unpretentious, derivative but distinctive arrangement. The lyric outlines moments of bittersweet acceptance of the life one has led, not the life one dreamt of living. Its gentlemanly Rockabilly shuffle lets one believe it could be a Sun Records out-take.

Q Preservation Hall Jazz Band ~

Preservation: An Album to Benefit Preservation Hall

Guests include Tom Waits, Angelique Kidjo, Ani DiFranco, Yim Yames (of My Morning Jacket), and Pete Seeger, all singing with the legendary but by no means dusty New Orleans band.

Top Songs: "Louisiana Fairytale" (with Yim Yames vocals), "Freight Train" (Q Ani DiFranco), "Tootie Ma Is A Big Fine Thing" (Tom Waits), "La Vie En Rose" (Angelique Kidjo, vocals & Terence Blanchard, trumpet), "I Ain't Got Nobody" (Buddy Miller), "Taint Nobody's Business" (Steve Earle), "Winin' Boy Blues (Dr John), "After You've Gone" (Del McCoury), "Shake It And Break It" (Andrew Bird), "Old Rugged Cross" (Q Brandi Carlile)

6 THE SIXTH PLACE BEST ALBUMS OF 2010 ARE: Against Me! ~ White Crosses Bachman + Turner ~ Bachman + Turner The Bad Plus ~ Never Stop Ray Charles ~ Rare Genius - The Undiscovered Masters Coheed & Cambria ~ Year of the Black Rainbow Melissa Etheridge ~ Fearless Love Hole ~ Nobody's Daughter

Jonsi ~ Go Hilary Kole ~ You Are There Local Natives ~ Gorilla Manor Mice Parade ~ What It Means To Be Left-Handed The New Pornographers ~ Together Rabbit! ~ Connect The Dots Eli "Paperboy" Reed ~ Come And Get It The Tallest Man On Earth ~ The Wild Heart PT Walkley ~ "The Nice Guy" Soundtrack Kenny White ~ Comfort In The Static Cassandra Wilson ~ Silver Pony George Wirth ~ ~ The Last Good Kiss

✩ Against Me! ~ White Crosses

Tom Gabel, the core creator within the band Against Me!, is writing short prose stories, rich with the poetry a good short story demands, and has set them in modern rock song-styles. Just a sampling of those styles: The band borrows from classic Springsteen on "Because of the Shame," adding blockier chords; shakes classic Def Leppard tropes loose to sprinkle into "Suffocation," raises "Rapid Decompression" into the best Buzzcocks song they never wrote; crosses The Zombies' garage pop with Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang" hook on "Ache With Me;" and wants for a gymnastic voice to add to the arena-ready rock of "We're Breaking Up." The wondrous contradiction of White Crosses is that, in a rare instance of the exception making the rule irrelevant, the rock-infused melodies and purpose-charged, literary lyrics don't fit each other, seem mis-matched and acting at crosspurposes at first. But each tells its story so compellingly they sink their claws into your attention. The stories the lyrics tell, the stories charging ahead on legs of hard rock riffs so well-worn as to sound like folk songs, are stories that never promise more than they deliver, miniature wordriff-pictures of people one learns to like even as they hang their wounds out for all to see.

I recognize this guy: "I was a teenage anarchist,

looking for a revolution. I had the style, I had the ambition. I read all the authors, I knew the right slogans. There was no war but the class war. I was ready to set the world on fire. I was a teenage anarchist, looking for a revolution. Do you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire? I was a teenage anarchist, but the politics were too convenient.…but then the scene got too rigid. It was a mob mentality, they set their rifle sights on me.… [Y]ou want me to surrender my identity. I was a teenage anarchist. The revolution was a lie."

I recognize that journey. I'd like to meet him, and definitely want to hear more from him — Don't you?

Top Songs: "Teenage Anarchist," "Rapid Decompression," Ache With Me," "Suffocation"

Bachman + Turner ~ Bachman + Turner

Yup, it's the Bachman-Turner Overdrive guys (and before that The Guess Who), back and almost unbelievably as good as ever.

Top Songs: "Slave To The Rhythm" makes-over the "Taking Care Of Business" shuffle with an insistent, on the edge between Slade and Queen chorused-voices call and response; the rough, of "Rock 'n' Roll Is The Only Way Out" only needs a congregation of "That's What It Is" takes a page from, of all people, Steely Dan's vocal-harmonies playbook; "Rollin' Along" announces that BTO's sound is in BT's capable hands; "I've Seen The Light"

The Bad Plus ~ Never Stop

No longer covering rock songs, this is a fine set of piano/basscentric jazz originals.

Top Songs: "Never Stop," "You Are," "Super America"

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 15 Ray Charles ~ Rare Genius - The Undiscovered Masters

Charles' sexiness saturates —I know, that's not news, that's what every review says, but it's still astonishing to encounter it. Charles demonstrates his resilience on his Tony Bennett-like "Wheel of Fortune" Top Songs: "Hey Hey Hey," "

✩ Coheed & Cambria ~ Year of the Black Rainbow

Five albums into a career as heirs-apparent to the complex melodic Hard Rock of Rush, the musicians of C+C pick up the helm (from where Rush by and large left it) not as imitators but by doing the right thing: heeding their inner voices. Creative sparks bring a rich balance of engaging ideas and far out skills (—man!). The listener's imagination is captured, but your repressed headbanger is uncaged. (A few uncannily Geddy Lee-like falsetto vocals for a track or section here and there are exceptions to the not-imitators assertion; but, as they say, if you must steal, steal the best ideas.)

C+C suffer from the unfair disadvantage my generation puts newer rockers in, a kind of precedent trap that gives no room to those bands who follow none-too-closely in a successful band's footsteps. Without that breathing room, these bands suffer —not in comparison, but at the hands of those who make comparisons. I prefer to see the new bands—and comparisons to older ones—as points of divergence, not molds. I'm a Rush fan, but I'm glad new bands—especially C+C—sound not like revival or nostalgia bands but like they're tapping veins previous explorers just didn't discover.

Top Songs: I really love the track "Far," with its theme of love transcending physical distance reflected in the contrast between outer-spacey guitar solos and the steady, buzzy signal riffing of an arpeggiated guitar line. "Made Out of Nothing (All That I Am)" is another highlight, a ringing anthemic vow of a song. It's followed by another highlight, the unusually pretty "Pearl of the Stars," which deftly sidesteps the pitfalls of becoming the obligatory power-ballad. And Coheed & Cambria bring the Rock with "When Skeletons Live".

Q ✩ Melissa Etheridge ~ Fearless Love

Etheridge's new songs flirt with the edge of even my tolerance for earnestness—so that's a heap of earnestness right there. But her big rock sound stays on the side of the angels. Heavy angels, sporting armored skirts and leather kilts, but aloft, spirited and propulsive.

Granted, the title track, which got the big push to be a big single, is excessively pithy, but what about "Nervous"? "Nervous" is a song for the times! I want Etheridge singing "You make me Nervous" for me, too!

What about "Heaven On Earth"? Packed to the brim with resurgent confidence, Etheridge offers to be your Tour Guide to the Bright Side: "They fed me fear and violence / They hooked me up to this reality // Now I'm not cursing anyone / They only did what they had done to them // When you are at the end of your rope / Come find me / Holding on to your last string of hope / Come find me // Open up your eyes / I'll show you what you're worth / Don't you know it's you and me / In this heaven on earth // Don't you know that you are golden / Don't you know that you are pure delight baby / It doesn't matter what they painted on you / You can wash it all away tonight" Lyrics like those aren't meant to be kept in semi-obscurity. Put some substance on the bones of your playlist, and pick up "Fearless Love" soon. It's an album you should not underestimate.

Top Songs: "Nervous," "Heaven On Earth," "We Are The Ones"

Q ✩ Hole ~ Nobody's Daughter

An unoriginal observation about two originals: Courtney Love is like a more contemporary version of Yoko Ono. Obvious similarities: Widow of innovative Rock music poet superstar. Had her own respected art(music) career before coupling. Segment of the world still blames her for numerous sins they hallucinate are her fault, up to and including his violent death.

The criticism can be deafening. But all that is blather. Like them or not, like their music or not, Ono and Love deserve our respect for, among other things, producing unique music that enriches the world for having been made. It causes me to wonder how different the world would be without them. Ono has received close to her due in the recent past, but disrespect follows Love still. It's not right.

From this new album, "Pacific Coast Highway" performed live on The View (of all places!) was my sit-up-and-pay attention introduction to Nobody's Daughter. Later re-listenings focused my attention on the extraordinary songwriting: Courtney Love juxtaposes 3 stan-

zas of 4 lines—each with different melodies, 12 lines sketching a unique picture—to the chorus-lyric: "Your whole world is in my hands." Then she does it again, three more stanzas, three variant melodies, with for a different-feeling juxtaposition to "Your whole world is in my hands." There's room, still, for a middle section twist, and a coda instead of a repeat of the chorus. It's all a fully satisfying tour-de-force, transforming personal history into art. You just can't take that kind of songwriting skill for granted.

At websites where Nobody's Daughter could be heard, reactions blurred into volley after volley of dismissive comments; Basically, they moaned, she ain't what she was before.

Thank goodness. Regurgitating the past is a dead end. Love neither shies away from the loud rock style she commandeered for herself, nor shies from writing songs from her present reality. She's the mother of a 17 year old — It'd be creepy if she tried to pass herself off as one. Here's an example of lyrics soaked in experience: the killer chorus of "Samantha": "People like you fuck people like me / In order to avoid agony. / People like you fuck people like me / In order to avoid suffering." I'm always thrilled to hear lyrics that strong set in tough guitars.

Courtney has entered Bob Mould territory: She's not reinventing her world from scratch, but does reinvent how she will bring her talents to bear. Patti Smith and Bouncing Souls are other examples of somewhat similar loud rockers successfully creating new work that respects and builds upon their old body of work without becoming enslaved by it. Love's songs are part of the cream of a generation (still too often called "aging rockers") renewing themselves, examples for artists negotiating our way through our new age.

Bottom line: Nobody's Daughter is one tough orphan.

Top Songs: "Pacific Coast Highway," "Nobody's Daughter," "Samantha," "Skinny Little Bitch"

Q ✩ Jonsi ~ Go; Q ✩ Jonsi ~ Go Live

Icelandic musician Jónsi Birgisson, a member of the criticallyacclaimed band Sigur Rós, collaborates with his boyfriend on his first solo project, Go, only Jónsi's second recording in English, coproduced with Peter Katis, who had worked behind the boards along side The National and Interpol.

Here, Jonsi lets loose with a voice that soars into the atmosphere, not a falsetto. With maybe the most blissfully beautiful voice I've heard in ages and some of the most similarly beautiful newborn music in existence—and some of the most mysterious and ephemerous— this unique sound is a must-listen.

As this column was being written, we were blessed with Go Live, a live concert recording, including songs not on Go. Plenty happens live that doesn't replicate but does simulate the album's sophisticated effects; by doing it that way Jonsi and band retain the immediacy of a live performance. It's a beaut.

Top Songs, Go: "Boy Lilikoi" is a flittering, jittery intertwining of flutes and beats and bowings and plucks, all swelling, all gliding, like a multi-chambered rococo courtyard. This hyper-euphony often rises on the wings of Jonsi's gorgeous voice into a proverbial fever pitch, seeming to generate its own shine at the moment prior to searing its speeding elements into a harmonics-rich tonal singularity. "Go Do" is every bit as hiking-downhill pastoral as its "surrender to summer" lyric. Driven by vocals reaching for boy soprano territory, "Grow Till Tall" roots itself in the longer-held atmospherics more familiar to Sigur Ros fans, before tipping into a staccato stampede of snares and fuzzy static."

Top Songs, Go Live: "Icicle Sleeve," "Kolnidur," "Tornado," "Boy Lilikoi," "Animal Arithmetic, "Around Us"

✩ Hilary Kole ~ You Are There Ms. Kole, a poised, sultry torch singer, duets with 11 jazz pianists on 13 standards.

Top Songs: "If I Had You" (with Hank Jones), "Lush Life" (Kenny Barron), "Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise" (Benny Green)

Local Natives ~ Gorilla Manor

Instantly upon hearing bits of clips of Gorilla Manor, I wanted to retitle it "Never Mind Vampire Weekend, Here's Local Natives." Whatever it is about the groupthink surrounding VW, Local Natives shows more potential in their final chords than VW does in entire songs.

Despite all the whoevers who've over-hyped VW's world-music-lifting credibility (really: after a century of Latin influences in anglo music,

Page 16 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 does incorporating it now count as praiseworthy?), Local Natives' have these mysteriously lovely, perfectly under-perfected harmonies, shocking mid-stream shifts in tone and instrumentation that kick ass but never leave you wondering what song you've wandered into, and hooks to last for days after they've landed. And they do a killer version of Talking Heads' "Warning Sign." Gotta love that.

Top Songs: "Sun Hands," "World News," "Warning Sign," "Shape Shifter"

Mice Parade ~ What It Means To Be Left-Handed

Mice Parade was originally the solo project of New York percussionist Adam Pierce, long involved in a half-dozen other bands and projects over the last decade or so. Now led by Pierce, Mice Parade features the vocals of Carolyn Lufkin and the dual drum kits of Doug Scharin and Pierce's stuttering, hyper-rococo, polyrhythmic percussion.

Top Songs: "Old Hat" is a jagged, jangly jumble of 32nds and 64ths.

For a brief change of pace, their cover of the Lemonheads' "Mallo Cup" takes a page out of the R.E.M. fakebook, burying a vocal under electric, echo-distorted layers of loud guitar chords. "Even" features ringing, liquid guitar top-lines. "Kupanda" is a polyrhythmic joy.

The New Pornographers ~ Together

ELO meets Donovan meets Arcade Fire. Jefferson Airplane's happy children. I'd call it "Chamber Pop" but I'd guess other reviewers would call it… something else. Bright melodies, boys and girls voices all together, all over each other, the bowed string instruments are prominent in the arrangements. Others bands have set their sound on contrasting strings with Electro and Techno, but these guys are throwing back to the era/landscape that began with The Mama's And The Papas and lived until the 1970 Paul Kanter Jefferson Starship album or thereabouts. They don't believe they're on a nostalgia trip though, as a listen to "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk" tells you. TNP are sharing real, positive messages for now, not old hippies.

Top Songs: "Moves," "Your Hands (Together)," "Crash Years," "Valkyrie In The Roller Disco"

Rabbit! ~ Connect The Dots

Catchy and clever pop songs that are as cute as the band is. As each miniature unwrapped itself, my grin got grinnier, my cheeks got cheekier, my unshaven beard got fuzzier. Smiling never hurt so good.

Top Songs: "Ladybug," "Jellybean," "Pea," "1-4-3"

Eli "Paperboy" Reed ~ Come And Get It

RIYL: The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Ne-Yo. Yes, it's got that kind of vibe. Summery, teenager paeans to love and sex. In a decade, he'll be credited with inspiring a baby boom. You can slide one into a set of 70s soul records and no one would ever doubt that it too was from then. It's not just a good trick—it's not a trick: it's a commitment to a performance style good for years to come. It can't be as easy to do as they make it sound, or everybody'd do it.

Top Songs: "Young Girl," "Name Calling," "Come And Get It," "Just Like Me"

The Tallest Man On Earth ~ The Wild Heart

Every so often someone—Steve Forbert, Conor Oberst, Dan Bern—comes up with a heavily Bob Dylan-reminiscent album. At this point in music history, Kristian_Mattson a.k.a. The Tallest Man On Earth is as much in the tradition of Forbert, Bern and Oberst as he is Dylan, and that's just fine company.

Top Songs: "King of Spain, "Love Is All"

PT Walkley ~ "The Nice Guy" Soundtrack

An 80s Pop stylist extraordinaire. Derivative in that deeply touching way that transcends homage or copycatting, to be experienced as if a musical son has come of age. The Top Songs' titles both tell you nothing (more than "Redundant much?") and tell you everything you need to (here's that phrase again:) defy one's expectations that anyone could possibly still write

anything good with titles as familiar or cliced-sounding as those.

PT Walkley catapults past "good" to "hidden gems." Unearth this one.

Top Songs: "Something More," "The Radio," "Oh My Darling," "Somebody," "Why"

Kenny White ~ Comfort In The Static

The only reason I discovered White's story songs is because of Ron Morris Out Musician and co-proprietor of Mercantile Home of Easton, Pa, along with his husband, Ken Jones Jr, who hosted and instore performance by White. White distinguishes himself from the common singer-songwriter, using jazz voicings in his chord progressions, and cultivating a hep-cat atmosphere to underscore his depictions of slices of a -hard life. RIYL: Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Loudon Wainwright III, Mose Allison Top Songs: "Gotta Sing High," thumbing its nose at hitmakers and hitmaker wannabe's, skewers James Blunt handily, as well as inducing ripples of laughter while ripping into all those who followed "You're Beautiful"-ly in his hunky footsteps. "Useless Bay" could well be the hangout for the seedier characters in his rogues gallery. The uniqueness of "Last Night"—how it defies the loneliness of its George Martin-esque strings while bemoaning the lack of trustworthy souls—is a lesson in original arranging, along with stating a lyrical lesson to which I'm very sympathetic.

Cassandra Wilson ~ Silver Pony

Wilson is part of the latest old guard of modern Jazz vocalists.

She's restless, always seeking out new avenues to explore and new song choices to pursue. It works well, and to everyone's advantage, when we hear her reaching for something new but accessible, which is something she is a master at. There's plenty of room here, on an album recorded live-in-concert, for her band to stretch out— and they have a number of solo spotlight moments, but the real pleasure comes from Wilson's slightly tart voice subtly stretching itself like a canvass on a strong, but not simply shaped frame.

Top Songs: On "Went Down To St James Infirmary," some sick, bent chords let you know where you are. Stevie Wonder's "If It's Magic," Charlie Patton's "Saddle Up My Pony,"and the sole studio recording this time, "Watch The Sunrise"

George Wirth ~ The Last Good Kiss

A folk troubadour in the classic style: acoustic guitar strings ringing with every fingerpick, ripping-good lyrics, smokey vocals. Bonus: He's a(n unsung) New Jersey talent.

The Last Good Kiss is Wirth's second full-length album, and it's mature, earnest and deep, but deeply in touch with people's unglamorous humanity. He populates his stories with great, character building details, often specific New Jersey details, to draw portraits and landscapes with universal appeal.

An equally enraptured reviewer wrote, "[A]nyone who has fallen into a Wirth song knows that each one is a soft chair, reading light and cherished book containing stories that take the mind to distant and imagined sanctuaries. … I’ve just finished "reading" fourteen novellas in the last couple of hours. … The Last Good Kiss is a compilation of Wirth’s observations of life’s struggles, tales and loves. From his dark tome to Asbury Park, "Memorial Drive," to his subtle love song hidden behind images of Jesus Christ walking on water, "Weight of Sin," Wirth takes us down long and winding paths that lose time and place as we turn each wonderful page. …

We are graced by the fiddle of Amanda Shires ("The Last Good Kiss" and "In Your Arms"), the dobro of Abbie Gardner ("Make You My Home"—backing vocals, too) and Jim McCarthy ("Dreamland") , Gardner again on lap steel ("Power Lines"), and the elusive Janey Todd (writer and co-vocals on “Dreamland"). What is most interesting about these contributions comes from the sense that what each artist has brought to the songs has always been there. Each accompaniment is reserved, harmonious and comfortable in its place, as if walking side by side perfectly with Wirth’s guitar and lyrics."

That reviewer, Scott Wolman, of the Poetic Leanings blog, continues with a comparison I would not

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 17 have had the guts to raise myself, but one I heartily agree with: "The Last Good Kiss" is also graced with some of the best songwriting found this side of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen."

If you see beauty in the wrinkled visage of a proud elderly face, you'll want to experience the beauty of these characters, and the love that went into songwriting them into existence. Folks, you have to hear this one to believe it.

Top Songs: "I Will Not Go Down Easily This Time," "Great Wide Blue," "Weight of Sin," "In Your Arms," "Heaven's Gate"

7 THE SEVENTH PLACE BEST ALBUMS OF 2010 ARE: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals ~ Cardinals III / IV Arcade Fire ~ The Suburbs Barnes ~ Domesticated Broadway Original Cast ~ Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson Eric Clapton ~ Clapton Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse ~ Dark Night of the Soul Devo ~ Something For Everybody Luke Doucet & The White Falcon ~ Steel City Trawler Fake Problems ~ Real Ghosts Caught On Tape Final Fantasy ~ Heartland Cee-Lo Green ~ Ladykiller Liza Minnelli ~ Confessions Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band ~ The Promise Trombone Shorty ~ Backatown KT Tunstall ~ Tiger Suit Various Artists ~ Bear City Soundtrack Ryan Adams & The Cardinals ~ Cardinals III / IV

[released after DTA's December 2010 print deadline] Jangly rock without the jams, slightly marred by some rough vocals committed uncommittedly. In the vaults since 2007, the hyper-prolific Adams must have had an entire four-month window in his volume of output to fill with two discs of songs missing in action (recorded before the tour supporting Hey Tiger).

Top Songs: "Wasteland" marries U2's martial arena rock (cut through with electric The Edge-like gleams) colliding with Clashlike thrusts; A beautiful illogic interrupts the swampy warpath of "Kisses Start Wars" for Brian Wilson-esque falsetto quotes of "Don't Worry Baby"; "Ultraviolet Light" doesn't want to lose sight of magic, with Ryan unexpectedly singing like Ringo; "Breakdown Into Resolve" bounces off the walls of bad ideas, cycles from "angry [to] tired [to] "happy"; "P.S.," "Gracie," "Numbers" is another ADD-style hit that's "fucked" just like its lyric says; anthemic, potentially encore-starting "Kill The Lights"

Arcade Fire ~ The Suburbs

Critical darlings—not that there's anything wrong with that— other reviewers are more passionate about than I. You can find the raves without my assistance.

Top Songs: "Ready To Start" is a statement of purpose. I do really love the rubbery effect of using an odd time signature on "Modern Man"—any sense of direction is thwarted when an extra beat acts to kill forward momentum. "Empty Room" shares my dream of a string section playing punk. "We Used To Wait" starts off Supertramp-y, then turns into The Doors. "Suburban War" has an autobiographical authenticity, whether it's factual or not.

Broadway Original Cast ~ Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

Not sure why they have to be so self-referentially meta about it, but Hey! Broadway musical producers lately seem to think/they've noticed that all the cool kids have a growly guitar leading their band, so they gotta get one, too! It's no classic, but it's awesomely cool, dude, er <cough> it's great that a good show by talented "kids"—one of the many I know one could trip over if only one would go where they hang out—has found audiences and as much buzz as this one has.

Not that's it's a lightweight: BBAJ doesn't shirk its responsibility to tell much of its story through its songs, and to give that story real conflict and drama. Michael Friedman is the composer's name, and he deserves big credit for pulling off the impossible The show hit's an emotional temperature mark on an edge between absurd and visionary.

But it's strange: I can't help thinking they lifted their style from De-

vo—they just removed the synthesizers and added a hefty dose of swears. (Geez, Devo. Whatever happened to those guys?)

Top Songs: "I'm Not That Guy," "Populism Yea Yea," "The Corrupt Bargain," "Crisis Averted," "Second Nature"

Eric Clapton ~ Clapton

Lately Clapton seems determined to redefine his old moniker "Slowhand" to be taken literally. For now, the tempo is a tasty one.

It's mostly a set of other peoples' material, and Clapton's renditions have by-and-large been dismissed critically as "tired". They're not.

Clapton himself describes it well as "an eclectic collection of songs that weren’t really on the map." Mellow at times, yes; but plenty of life pumps through these renditions of old blues tunes, ballads and novelties, not least because of featured appearances by Sheryl Crow, Steve Winwood, Derek Trucks, Allen Toussaint and Wynton Marsalis—good company to have.

Top Songs: "My Very Good Friend, The Milkman" is a slyly randy little number. Clapton brings a Louis Armstrong-styled vocal—without rasp or buffoonery—to this one. Walter Richmond and Allen Toussaint both shine on the ivories; Marsalis is along for the ride, too.

"River Runs Deep" is swampy and cool. The line "Fetch me my gin, son, or I'll tan your hide" sets the tone for "Rockin' Chair." "Run Back To Your Side" starts out covering familiar territory, but a couple minutes in one realizes just how simmeringly this gumbo cooks.

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse ~ Dark Night of the Soul

Resonating with nearly more backstory than music, with, as Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Burton) puts it, "twisted dreams and other beautifully haunting" themes permeating Dark Night of the Soul, Audio auteur Danger Mouse suggested to Sparklehorse (a.k.a Mark Linkous) that they line up collaborators for these songs. With photography (and two vocals) provided by director David Lynch in the lead, the are pair joined by the following remarkable roll call of guests: The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys (Super Furry ANimals), Jason Lytle (Grandaddy), Julian Casablancas (The Strokes), Black Francis (The Pixies), Iggy Pop, the multi-talented David Lynch, James Mercer (The Shins, Broken Bells), Nina Persson (The Cardigans), Suzanne Vega and VIc Chestnutt. Unfortunately, before the album came out, both Vic Chestnutt and Sparklehorse died.

Top Songs: Wayne Coyne's doubled vocals on "Revenge," instead of a tight harmony, are off, unaligned, distant from and almost counter to each other until the choruses, when they close in and start to stutter, analogous to the phrase "it backfires." "I'm a mix of god and monkey" is the perfect line to find in a song about "Pain", featuring Iggy Pop vocals. Sparklehorse does appear for a vocal alongside Nina Persson for "Daddy's Gone." Vic Chestnutt turns in a remarkable performance, gruff and gentle, on "Grim Augury."

"Jaykub," featuring Jason Lytle from Grandaddy, is definitely enunciated "Jay Cub," which leads me to wonder…who might that be?

Devo ~ Something For Everybody

Geez, Devo! Whatever happened to those guys? It is amazing and remarkable that Devo returned this year as if they'd never left. They held contests to choose everything involved in the production of Something For Everybody from which primary color would dominate the cover to which songs would make the cut. It's like the American culture finally caught up to them. By which I mean, the sad truth is: We've finally devolved just about as they warned we would. (One of the tracks IS titled "Later Is Now.") Soothsaying through performance art: the epitome of how to make a buck in the post-Rock and Roll era. Don't tell me these guys don't deserve to be in the Rock Hall of Fame.

Oh, was there music, too? Why yes; yes there was.

Top Songs: "Don't Shoot (I'm A Man)," "Fresh," "Later Is Now," "What We Do," "March On"

Luke Doucet & The White Falcon ~ Steel City Trawler

Top Songs: "Thinking People," "Ballad of Ian Curtis," "You Gotta Get It," "Love and a Steady Hand"

Fake Problems ~ Real Ghosts Caught On Tape

Without wearing their influences on their sleeves, Fake Problems have clearly kept their minds wide open, revealing the big impact U2 and The Clash had while evoking a mix-tape mentality that pulls from other punks like Bouncing Souls, back to the surfer tunes of Dick Dale and The Surfaris. Fun. Top Songs: "Grand Finale," "Ghost To Coast"

Page 18 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 Cee-Lo Green ~ The Lady Killer

The most heterosexual album of the year. No surprise then that the beat is relentless.

The Lady Killer both lives up to the Gnarls Barkley standard for jaw-droppingly well-produced soulful Dance-Pop and disappoints by revisiting many much too familiar places, frappéd into frothiness.

Based on the Green bonus tracks and non-album tracks around (well worth seeking out for yourself) TLK could have been a killer double album (easily a Fourth Place Best Of choice) if he had just included everything under one title, a move apparently rejected in favor of thematic consistency (to the title The Lady Killer).

Top Songs: "No One's Gonna Love You"—But the best Cee-Lo track of the year, "Georgia," released as a single back in June, is missing from the actual album. As for "Fuck You," I like Lily Allen's 2008 "Fuck You" much better. Yes, I AM kind of grumpy about it. Which takes all the steam out of a track that's otherwise an energetic puppy dog with its wagging tail wriggling his entire body happily 'cause you're here to give it attention. Weirdly, I also got more into the other track Cee-Lo released in advance of TLK, "What Part Of Forever," found on the Twilight: Eclipse Soundtrack (of all places!), and not part of TLK either.

How to treat the various "Bonus Track"s around, other than loving them (they're more interesting than TLK's core tracks) is part of the dilemma. The bonus tracks are essential. I've heard "Everybody Loves You (Baby)," "Scarlet Fever" and "Please."

Final Fantasy ~ Heartland

Final Fantasy is the unlikely nom-de-performance of Owen Palette, who makes a kind of quirky poprock utilizing electronic gadgetry, an amplified violin, and an a-freakin'-mazing imagination.

Top Songs: "Lewis Takes Action," "Oh Heartland, Up Yours," "Lewis Takes Of His Shirt," "Tryst With Mephistopheles"

Q Liza Minnelli ~ Confessions

An altogether not self-indulgent set of mostly romantic ballads, Confessions thrillingly (no hype) consists of fine songs not already over-recorded by multitudes. Yes, Minnelli's voice is mature now, but she and her longtime collaborator, pianist Billy Stritch (the only instrument here other than Ms MInnelli's voice), and producer Bruce Roberts have braced it to her strengths as a sensitive interpreter. If you've caught any of her televised live performances over the last decade or so and given a slight wince at (to be kind) something or other, the clean, lighthearted, professional feel of this recording will come as a very welcome surprise. To add MY confession: As a little gay boy, I eschewed Babs, Judy, Eartha and similar divas, and gave my heart's attention to Liza (and Bette, among others of the late 60s / early 70s generation).

Top Songs: "You Fascinate Me So," "This Heart Of Mine," "I Got Lost In His Arms"

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band ~ The Promise

Not mere outtakes from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions, but an album sculpted from the best songs left out once the core of that album took a very specific identity. Many of the them—"Fire," "Because The Night" (given its finishing touches by Patti Smith), and "Talk To Me"—were hits for others. They're the best-written songs on here.

Because none of these songs were ready for public airing when they were abandoned, the assertion that Springsteen recently "completed" them by adding only what parts were missing when he moved on is unbelievable. The overwhelming majority of these tracks are still incomplete. If it wasn't for the great songs written in the DNA at the heart of a baker's dozen of the 22 songs (21 tracks: “The Way” is included as a "hidden" track), this album's unfinished productions would relegate the set beyond the lowest scope of this list. But the fundamental song elements are frequently strong, even if the recordings are often disillusioningly uninspired or wrong-headed and weak.

There's also the problem of a not-ignorable amount of tape hiss throughout most of the recordings. I'm having a hard time reconciling the pristine re-mastered sound of Lennon's "Double Fantasy" (see above) in NYC in 1980 with the hiss-marred Springsteen recording done in NJ in 1977-78. Was there a decision to leave the audio documenting whatever may have befallen the tapes over time before they were digitized? All it adds is the sound of a ga-

rage to the rock and, for all their working-class ethos, these songs evoke far more Top Songs: the four mentioned plus "Wrong Side Of The Street".

Trombone Shorty ~ Backatown

Yet another entry in the ongoing New Orleans renaissance. Features guest appearances by Lenny Kravitz, Allen Toussaint, and Marc Broussard.

Top Songs: "Something Beautiful," "On Your Way Down," "Hurricane Season," "Quiet As Kept"

KT Tunstall ~ Tiger Suit

She didn't garner a breakout hit this time (like she did last time around with "Black Horse & The Cherry Tree"), but there are plenty of good follow-up songs here. Tunstall successfully explores the qualities we fell in love with when she first appeared: her joie de vivre, the slightly improvised quality of her performance when most all around her in the Pop music circus are mining the overproduced side of the street, her musical and integrated use of electronic effects. I don't imagine she'll ever make a breakthrough record that changes everything, but I'm happy so long as she keeps in touch with her own muse, and not give in to the pressures (unimaginably intense, I imagine) to conform to pop sophistry.

Top Songs: "Madame Trudeaux" is practically mid-60s Dylan-esque, made modern—and I do believe its focused on figure in the public eye due her share of vitriol, per Tunstall. An exciting chant raises "Uummannaq Song" above the mystery of its title and lyric, above its echo of early 80s MTV Pop, into something iconic, defining this one song as first among equals on the album, like turning over new sod in a search for the last of 11 lost rings. "Come On, Get In," "Difficulty," "Push That Knot Away," "Uummannaq Song," "(Still A) Weirdo"

Q

Various Artists ~ Bear City Soundtrack

A slew of the folks I've been playing on the radio up to a decade ago and writing about here in DTA for half-a-decade — and many more — all show up together on this one soundtrack! My heart is gladdened to see them get some mutual national attention in this way! Woof! (Oh, glorious exclamation points!!)

Top Songs: Over the last seven years about a half-dozen remixes from Bearapalooza founder Freddy Freeman have come across my desk; excitingly,"Echo (Velveeta Mix)" is the first that has more on its mind than adding danceability to an otherwise Country Rock track: Freeman gives a looser, more pointed, more dramatic take on his signature tune, "(Waiting For An) Echo." ("Velveeta Mix"? I don't think doing it well is cheesy at all!) Also featured: "Here And Now" - Blowoff [a.k.a. Bob Mould & Rich Morel] "Even So" - Adam Shenk "Breathe (Morel Pink Noise Mix)" - Nekked "It Was A Dance" - Shannon Grady "Smile For Me" - Elijah Black "Thank You" - Jeffrey Altergott "Bedazzler" - The Bobbleheads "So What?" - Corey Tut "I'll Find A Way (DeMarko Powerhaus Opus Anthem)" - Brian Kent "The Bear Song" - Pixie Herculon [a.k.a. Jill Sobule] "BearCity is a witty and sexy story of a group of big, hairy men – living, loving, and learning in the Big Apple. Romance can be hairy."

8 THE EIGHTH PLACE BEST ALBUMS OF 2010 ARE: The Autumn Defense ~ Once Around Channel Faergolzia ~ Channel Faergolzia Bryan Ferry ~ Olympia Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings ~ I Learned The Hard Way Adam Lambert ~ Acoustic Live!

Cyndi Lauper ~ Memphis Blues Bettye LaVette ~ Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook Pansy Division ~ Lost Gems & Rare Tracks Plastiq Passion ~ To Be A Blade Of Grass In Cracked Cement Rust Belt Lights ~ These Are The Good Old Days

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 19 The Thermals ~ Personal Life Adison Skye ~ Sung From The Heart Taylor Swift ~ Speak Now The Autumn Defense ~ Once Around

Wilco bandmates Pat Sansone and John Stirratt release the fourth album of their side project. Reminds me, in a good way, of the energetic soft-rock of sound of The Eagles in their earlier "Already Gone"/"Desperado" modes, something I hated back then on the grounds of how non-innovative it was. If one's mellowing includes the ability to acknowledge high-quality songwriting in a sound that won't catch anybody by surprise, I suppose in that way I've mellowed.

Top Songs: "The Swallows of London Town," "Once Around," "Don't Know," "Every Day"

Q Channel Faergolzia ~ Channel Faergolzia

Since the late 90s, Seth Faergolzia gave over a decade of his dedication and commitment to his band Dufus, whose Ball Of Design I raved about in the very first Dancing To Architecture to appear in Challenge. (See below for their final album, Eth.) The debut of Channel Faergolzia is the debut of the team of Josh Channel and Seth Faergolzia, a less tribal affair—more of a family of affinity affair—than Dufus, and it continues the tale of talented, struggling, down on their luck Brooklynites who turn gumption into gold, er, well, silver, yeah, let's say silver. If it was the 1930s and these tunes were the heir apparent to vaudeville, we'd be saying "That Dufus boy sure has him some moxie!"

Half of these tracks exemplify the experimental, the noise punk, and the wild, wonderfully weird. But beginning with "Intro" (which in typical fashion comes in at track 3) the others are very good songs, under-produced in a way some have taken to calling AntiFolk. When Faergolzia has a mind to, his bartone can be just as compelling to listen to as the baritone in Crash Test Dummies.

Top Songs: "You" and "Trace" chime romantically. "You": "Don't want to judge you / just want to smile." The aforementioned baritone is best on "Trace." Starting with the lines "There is no fear as great as the love you gave me / There are no words can describe the love you gave me," "Voice of Allah" takes on big themes of freedom,

interdependence and finding god. "Come On Brain" is a hyperchatter rave-up, as one would expect from the title. In "Taken A Form" the vocals channel Willie Nelson at moments, surprisingly.

Bryan Ferry ~ Olympia

The first album to reunite Roxy Music members Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, and Andy Mackay since Roxy Music's seminal album For Your Pleasure in 1973, Olympia also features musical contributions from Nile Rodgers, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Marcus Miller, Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Mani (Primal Scream, ex-Stone Roses) and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead.

The guests aren't spotlight hogging at all— Olympia feels like a band of collaborators at all times, no doubt due to Ferry and the legendary Rhett Davies' co-producer skills. Ferry made a reputation on suave, sophisticated, soulful rock, and these sessions add handsomely to the honorable history, as well to our stock of fine Ferry/ Roxy releases.

By the way, Roxy Music is another band the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame have unwittingly overlooked. Maybe this release will loosen people's memories about how essential and historic and influential those Roxy albums were and continue to be.

Top Songs: "Heartache," "BF Bass (Ode To Olympia)" (Phil Manzanera), "Shameless," "You Can Dance," "Me Oh My" (David Gilmour, Oliver Thompson), Tim Buckley's "Song To The Siren," "Tender Is The Night" (Steve Nieve)

✩ Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings ~ I Learned The Hard Way

Another set of hard-won Soul by Sharon Jones and the band that has launched a million sales for other artists (e.g. Amy Winehouse). She's the best soul singer you haven't heard yet and they're the best R&B outfit you have heard but

haven't realized was them.

I do not understand at all why they don't just release live recordings of their awesomely dynamic shows. They deserve a big hit— the kind that will put the names Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings in the hearts and on the tips of just about everyone's tongues—and I'd bet a live album would do that for them.

Meanwhile we'll make the best of the best record they can make.

Top Songs: "I Learned The Hard Way," "When I Come Home," "Mama Don't Like My Man"

Q Adam Lambert ~ Acoustic Live!

[released after DTA's print deadline] If you somehow have come to believe that Lambert is about to turn into last year's news, all I can say to that is: nuh-uh. Even this set, with no new songs, is evidence Lambert will not depend on past successes for his future directions. Creative choices for how to approach the material from new angles don't transform his songs—they don't have to—but it's not easy to prevent unadorned songs from settling into rote renditions, and this set allows no cobwebs.

I'm surprised and impressed by the state of Lambert's voice alone. The man, rightly, is treating an instrument like he's an opera singer, because it has to be there to hit some unbelievable notes on-demand, if not night after night then damned often. The notes he hits on this EP, with sparse instrumentation, Top Songs: "Whataya Want From Me," performed quietly(!), "Music Again" and "Aftermath," on which Lambert hits stratospheric notes with no other apparent support but some echo and what must be a golden diaphragm, somewhat less acoustic than the rest, a very enjoyable version of Tears For Fears' "Mad World," a great song choice for him, and "Soaked," accompanied only by piano (and a rapt audience), on which he channels the spirit of Freddie Mercury, but burns even brighter, if you can image. That about covers it all.

Q ✩ Cyndi Lauper ~ Memphis Blues

An R&B and New Orleans influenced album. Inhabiting territory similar to what Candye Kane has performed so successfully in for 15 years, Lauper makes room for her inimitable voice in the realm of the bluesy little big band. Allen Toussaint is featured on three tracks, joined also by B.B. King on one of those, "Early In The Morning."

RIYL: Allen Toussaint, Wanda Jackson, Ray Charles, Candye Kane.

Top Songs: "Romance In The Dark," "Just Your Fool," "Early In The Morning," "Down So Low," "How Blue Can You Get" (w/ blues guitar & vocals by Johnny Lang)

✩ Bettye LaVette ~ Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook

In choosing the songs for Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook, Bettye LaVette had impeccable taste. She listened to over 500 songs, culled by her husband from the vast catalogs of 60s and 70s British hitmakers. The project was inspired by the opportunity LaVette had at the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors, when her performance of "Love Reign O'er Me" for honorees Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey brought down the house. These 13 songs—including "Love Reign O'er Me" as a bonus track—are all incredibly in need of being heard in new settings. The Rolling Stones' "Salt of the Earth" (the lyrics get updated too), tracks from Led Zeppelin, The Animals, Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd are reinterpreted, as are two by Elton John and two by George Harrison, including "It Don't Come Easy" (a hit for Ringo Starr).

The one overarching misgiving I have is with the choice to give a serious tone and slower tempo to most tracks. Even Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity" is slower than the already slow original.

Songs, even given "serious" treatments, don't all want to be as heavy as "Love Reign O'er Me." The exceptions to the decision to take it slow are the most noteworthy of the set. Leading off with a churning version of "The Word," a rarely rerecorded gem from the Lennon/ McCartney songbook and precedent to "All You Need Is Love," is a brilliant move. "Why Does

Page 20 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 Love Got To Be So Sad" is a rave-up with gutbucket flair. But instead of the downtempo takes here, I can't help but wonder what might "Nights In White Satin" have been in LaVette's hands had she sung it sizzling and soulful? Passionate, but merely simmering is the arrangement we get. "Maybe I'm Amazed" is restrained—perhaps it calls for a bit more amazement? LaVette's vocals bring a range of perspectives to these fine songs. But I'm left wishing they were supported by a few more moments of heat, hot rhythm sections, and lighter strings.

Top Songs: "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad," "The Word," "Salt Of The Earth," "Love Reign O'er Me"

Q Pansy Division ~ Lost Gems & Rare Tracks

It probably pisses off Jon Ginoli (Pansy Division's leader) that their entry follows Liza Minelli. Dude, it's an accident of the alphabet. Those are the breaks.

But I oughta cut them a break, because Pansy Division have gotten some downright unfair breaks over the length of their career. Total Entertainment!, their mid-00s album, is on my bonafide 10 (and, in a list like this, by that I mean a simple quantity of absolutely 10) Best Albums of The Decade. The most reliable report I know—Jon Ginoli himself—says it sold less than 5000 copies.

I can't help it if our entire culture doesn't like Gay innuendoes mixed in with the catchiest Pop Rock tunes I'd heard in ages. I'll just try to help y'all reading this to open your ears. You can snatch up a copy of either the digital-only Lost Gems & Rare Tracks or Total Entertainment! at a super price direct from Jon at PansyDivision.com . (Tell 'em I sent ya—you'll be doing me a solid, and helping me mend a fence.) Double down, and you pick up 2 solid sets of literally Lost Gems & Rare Tracks with dozens of good excuses to dance, jump around, laugh, or fuck a buddy. Talkin' 'bout songs, folks— songs that grab you, prick up your ears, and unbelievably, some only existed on B-sides until now.

Top Songs: I mean, check out the titles they cover, and the other titles of the songs they wrote!

Naturally, they cover Pete Shelly's early 80s nearlyforgotten classic "Homosapien," "Son of a Preacher Man" (yes, that one, but with a tweak or two), "I Can Make You A Man" (yes, that one, and mostly untweaked, as far as I remember), "Loose," "Musclehead," "Vicious Beauty," "You Make Me Hot," "Your Loss," "I Know Your Type," "Too Many Hoops" (w/ alternate guitar solo), "Coming Clean"

Q Plastiq Passion ~ To Be A Blade Of Grass In Cracked Cement

The week I write this, Plastiq Passion will share the bill on an Asbury Park, WXRP-FM-promoted stage with buzz band Girl In A Coma classic 80s band Dramarama. Good move, but they're good enough that they deserve better. Get PP on tour with The B52s or REM or Joan Jett. There's potential here. (I know, it's easier said than done.) Usually rock bands come and go, put out a CD, play gigs, and disappear—whatever. Plastiq Passion have stuck to it since the grrl group sound of their first 2006 EP, and now reveal an affinity for predecessors like Blondie and The Cure. Featured performers at this year's JCLGO pride event, these cool Lesbian-led rockers follow in well-travelled footsteps, but satisfy a spot left nearly empty, with too few all-women rockers taking the New Wave path between Punk and Arena Rock. That's a spot on the spectrum where too few go, where too many go missing-in-action.

This set of short, not-yet sharp, shorn-close cuts crackles, generates sparks. The subversive power of their album title alone gives me that little chill of recognition of talent at the back of my neck.

Best, they don't shy away from having fun. I can place myself bopping in the sand along with the B-52's-y "Angel", bouncing in cramped clubs with Thin Lizzy-ish "Not Long Ago," and happily airdrumming along approximating the Clem Burke (Blondie) style on "Girl". If they can deliver on the tempting promise of these recordings and build a following based on killer live shows, Plastiq Passion will break through, never again missing-in-action from the scene.

Top Songs: "I Said," "Girl," "Tragic (Just Like Me)," Not Long Ago," "I Can't Wait," "Angel"

Rust Belt Lights ~ These Are The Good Old Days

Arising out Buffalo, NY (more frequently associated with hard times than most towns more typically thought of as Rust Belt places), TATGOD is one impressive debut. Although still a little rusty behind the ears (melodies from song to song are too samey), they feature beautiful wide harmonies, shifts in tempo, tricky change-ups, and a helluva powerful drummer who propels 32nd note measure-long fills as solidly as he pushes unique rock thumpin' in four-four. If you looking at new bands like real estate, Rust Belt Lights have plenty of that most important element: potential, potential, potential.

Top Songs: "Home, Sweet Home," "I Can't Stay Home," "Awake In Dreams," "Chutes And Ladders," "Sleep Tight"

The Thermals ~ Personal Life

Top Songs: To renew my faith in the less-than-threeminute (but more than two) Pop Punk single, here comes "I Don't Believe You." Not to mention the quirk of queueing up the next verse by ending the last one with "Repeat," "Not Like Any Other Feeling" takes the novel "It's a feeling that you fight against" angle.

"Your Love Is So Strong" is a perfect song for a crowded, friendly/drunken bar-full of celebrants to sing loudly along to, into each others beaming faces.

Air guitar optional.

Adison Skye ~ Sung From The Heart

It's nice to hear a potential pop princess debut with the clear and real potential to make music for grownups. Best as I can tell, she's the primary songwriter (not merely a contributor credit in a list of names). She doesn't sound like she's pathetically attention starved, and she doesn't exhibit herself as a drama-in-the-making. Nor does she insult the title Sung From The Heart: For all the sheen and tricks of the trade present, her singing does land authentically.

Her voice isn't massaged into submission.

Skye has the chops to sing in-tune. Studio processing doesn't make her sound good—she sounds good. She has the image and sounds like what Alanis Morisette might have as a teenager if both Alanis Morisette's Jagged Little Pill and Taylor Swift had already existed when Alanis was a teenager. Endearing, light, heartfelt Teen Pop. Also, in the midst of the rush to ride the bandwagon of making anti-bullying videos, I wouldn't mention she has one if not for what she says. I don't know if she wrote these words, but she begins her video saying "Imagine being harassed and humiliated day in and day out…" Not "bullied," mind you, or "teased"—no, she goes right to "harassed".

That is laudable, because too few of the professionals trying to get the message out on the issue cut to the chase and speak about harassment: You know, the illegal thing. Not the thing, "bullying," that can be misinterpreted as kid stuff. A small but important gesture, the video, produced via her involvement as a spokesperson for TheHumanityProject.com, can be found at http://tinyurl.com/2a67trw .

Top Songs: "Beautiful," "Another I'm Sorry," "Breathe You In (Acoustic Version)," "Train Wreck" [Avoid "I Tried." Why do producers force singers to sing high notes they can't finesse?]

Taylor Swift ~ Speak Now

Swift has only interested me as a story in the news before. Her success seemed unfathomably unrelated to listening to her. (Projecting hopes and dreams onto her, well, that's different.) With Speak Now that changes: Finally, an album of songs that don't depend on pop overkill to reach (desperately for sales to) her audience. Not that it's a sure indicator, but the fact that two of the album's tracks top six minutes; two more exceed five, and two more are nearly five minutes long give one interested pause. Absent the self-indulgent overreach (and she's not, mostly), longer songs tell me she's just reaching to find herself as an artist, reaching to be something other than an even bet at becoming a disposable product, like most of the rest of the young girls who become the soundtrack to a pin-up poster. If pundits were impressed that she could write with a modicum of depth before, well,

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 21 pundits being pundits they'll probably tear her off her pedestal for daring to grow up in public so awkwardly here. I'm intrigued.

Top Songs: "Mean," "Better Than Revenge," "Last Kiss," "Dear John," "Back To December," and album closer "Long Live" is American Rock and Roll.

9 THE NINTH PLACE BEST ALBUMS OF 2010 ARE: Barnes ~ Domesticated The Black Keys ~ Brothers Brady Earnhart ~ so few things Johnny Flynn ~ Been Listening FourTet ~ There Is Love In You The Kinsey Sicks ~ Each Hit & I Make Do and Mend ~ End Measured Mile Nellie McKay ~ Home Sweet Mobile Home Mumford & Sons ~ Sigh No More My Chemical Romance ~ Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys Graham Parker ~ Imaginary Television Graham Parker ~ Live at the FTC The Philistines Jr ~ If A Band Plays in the Woods...

Animal Prufrock ~ Congratulations; Thank You & I'm Sorry The Roots & John Legend ~ Wake Up! Seal ~ 6: Commitment Esperanza Spalding ~ Chamber Music Society Mavis Staples ~ You Are Not Alone Tracy Thorne ~ Love And Its Opposite Two Cow Garage ~ Sweet Saint Me Two Door Cinema Club ~ Tourist History Pete Yorn ~ Pete Yorn

Q

Barnes ~ Domesticated

Barnes is the man who wrote/sung/produced my all-time favorite Out music album, Loud Boy Radio. His singular, charismatic 1999 performance on a Beltane weekend in the Tennessee hills before 100 friendly Faeries in Pistol Pete and Popgun Paul's barn of a home was so excellent, it and his songs, the Loud Boy Radio songs I soon played on the radio whenever I could, were the single most important motivations for me to take up promoting Out music—which led to all that you're reading right now. Why then does his first new album in years only place here? I attribute that to 1) Domesticated has only four new songs and 2) although they're often crafty, a mellow shadow has fallen on his outlook. Not a little bit of nostalgia and a dose of yearning for creature comforts has crept in to lie alongside the living-life-to-its-fullest Loud Boy. Those new-to-Micah bedmates come dressed in romance and sentiment borrowed from the confident positivity of the 1950s, replacing the cutting-edge electronica he's identified with. On the other hand, look around at his neighbors, around here—Danger Mouse, Cee-Lo and Clapton? That's nice company to keep.

Barnes' strongest strength is his lyrics, lyrics which he delivers with an undefeated spirit, lyrics which express the unexpressed, and speak to me in ways so unusual it's hard to communicate how deeply they impact me. When I listen to him sing I experience the words and emotions being plucked out of me—mind, heart and soul.

For example: Top Songs: "Domesticated": "Never was one to be thinking 'bout settling down / You walk in and suddenly—the thought's in my head / You make me realize there's more than the single life… // I've seen too many downs from the wrong side / to be anybody's idea of a good guy / You're so beautiful, you know I gotta try… / I can hardly wait to get Domesticated" "One Last Hurrah": "You took our broken hearts and sharpened them with knives / You beautified our lives / See them sparkle and shine / Here's to the love we made and all the love we lost / Will we never pay the cost for our perfect

crimes? // …One more round in the dirty underground / One Last Hurrah / One last bang of the drum " "My Teenage Heart": "It's all my fault / I can't stop myself from hurting all the ones I love / With words so sharp they slice the heart and soul / It's all my fault / I just can't hold back when I see something beautiful / I got to have it in my hand to hold / My Teenage Heart / It wants what it wants just when it wants it / I can't seem to stop My Teenage Heart… // It's all my fault / Cause I say the wrong things at the wrong times to the wrong folks / Seems like I gotta always apologize / It's always my fault / Cause I hurt so much, and I want so much, and I need so much / I never seem to get enough love " "Falling": "I never understood those simple love songs / Used to make fun of the words but now I sing along / Babe, I used to be cool / You made me Into a romantic fool // Now I know why they call it Falling."

The Black Keys ~ Brothers

Top Songs: "Tighten Up," "Everlasting Light"

Q ✩ Brady Earnhart ~ so few things

Pure songwriting mastery. Top-notch poetic lyrics, entrancing melodies, understated apt arrangements. If he sang stronger and his acoustic guitar stayed in tune longer, wishes would come true.

RIYL: Nick Drake, acoustic Bob Dylan Top Songs: "Wild Nights," "As You Were," "Everywhere," "Elkton," "Lullaby"

Johnny Flynn ~ Been Listening

Contemporary Folk, often with the addition of a string quartet or horn section. Flynn's a particular singer-songwriter with a range, voice, and maybe a finger-picking style reminiscent of a young Richard Thompson.

Flynn hasn't shown himself to be a guitar prodigy, but they do share a British perspective on an Americana sound. And his topic matter—fighting for a working man's dignity while fighting a questionable war, the timewasters of modern times, the impermanence of the world but for home and love in one's heart—has brought him to critical favor by Mother Jones magazine's music reviewer.

Top Songs: "Barnacled Warship" is a lugubrious jig—unable to take flight, the cellos and fiddles make you sit up and listen. "Kentucky Pill" with its loping, friendly gait, loping trumpets, and a friendly mandolin, could be inserted comfortably into a Dave Matthews set list. Also: "The Prize Fighter and the Heiress," "Amazon Love," "Been Listening," "Churlish May." "The Water" (duet with Laura Marling)

FourTet ~ There Is Love In You

Two tastes you may not enjoy separately merge into something extraordinary. It's a magnificent fusion of Music Concrete and New Age. Top Songs: "Angel Echoes, "Circling," "Sing," "Love Cry"

Q ✩ The Kinsey Sicks ~ Each Hit & I

Last year's headliners at Jersey Pride in Asbury Park, The Kinsey Sicks, are on the verge of releasing their seventh album of originals, the enigmatically titled Each Hit & I. (You may be a better punster than I, but if not, give it time—decoding the title took over 4 hours for me before the light dawned.) It features an extraordinary 20 new songs including originals plus parodies of Katy Perry ("I Kissed a Gull")—Hilarious!, Beyonce ("All Boy Singer Ladies"), Britney Spears ("Fertilizer"), Michael Jackson ("Dead"), ABBA ("Gonorrhea") and Simon & Garfunkel ("Necrophilia"). Also, "Free With Every Purchase! Secret Kinsey Sicks Decoder Glasses" that reveal "secret images and uncultured pearls of wisdom hidden throughout the booklet." (Take a squint at the album cover.)

As the press release requests, I'm doing my part to "forward this to your friends with discretionary income and bad taste."

It adds: "And if that's not enough … the CD comes with a booklet filled with lyrics, photos, fun graphics, and commentaries from the gals as well as the guise behind them."

It's an album that's probably not at your local brick and mortar store. To order, go to this link at kinseysicks.com . Or contact ksicks@aol.com, 415-882-1142. The Kinsey Sicks, PMB 387, 584 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA 94114.

Top Songs: "I Kissed a Gull," "All Boy Singer

Page 22 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 Ladies," "Fertilizer," "Dead," "Necrophilia"

Make Do and Mend ~ End Measured Mile

On their first full-length (after 2 EPs) Make Do And Mend place their stamp on the contemporary hardcore punk scene by pairing the abrasive and the melodic. Their bond is strong. Judicious use in later tracks of lighter rhythm guitar tones and even a cello provide variety to make the second half more intriguing than the first—no small accomplishment.

Top Songs: "Oak Square," "Thanks," "Firewater," "Night's The Only Time Of Day"

Nellie McKay ~ Home Sweet Mobile Home

The always-idiosyncratic McKay takes her new appropriation of Doris Day's perky persona (see her previous album, Normal As BlueBerry Pie) and takes it on the road, metaphorically visiting locales around America and North America. Wanderlust, thy name is Nellie.

Top Songs: "Caribbean Time," "Bruise On The Sky," and "Beneath The Underdog" receives special mention for inventing a description of being an outsider personality, and I'm quite comfortable as one, thank you.

Mumford & Sons ~ Sigh No More

Every acoustic plucked-string instrument and Anglo male vocal group cliche gets a refreshening airing out here. Indeed, Sigh No More —exactly! Sigh Not! Breathe deep, and expel exhales like singers sung-of-old, guiltless of a lack of creating much of anything new. But M+S happened along just as a generation happened along who haven't been exposed much to this sort of thing.

The word "inspiration" was invented for music like this. The evident self-esteem needed to believe this stuff inherently works requires one to imagine it's inspirational. Everything about the tone breathes urgently, as if breathing life into itself. It all sounds inspirational, as if inspiration came with instructions. Even "Little Lion Man," which became the remarkable single by playing against type by employing "fucked it up" in the best lyric on the album, could conceivably be forgiven for that were it sung in a church, because of its affirmational tone and overall cuteness.

One shouldn't follow wordiness with too many words describing it, so the less said about other lyrics, the better.

Like Riverdance or The Four Tenors albums (and all their imitators) I find it all a bit manipulative: Do they sing pretty harmonies, often soaring, occasionally solicitously comforting? Check. Are the instruments played unmistakably skillfully? Check. Is it drenched in the roomiest echo possible? Check. Are the arrangements dynamic, every opportunity to start at a quieter, less-complex level built into a level of dramatic tension, re-started, re-built, repeat, crescendo, dramatic conclusion taken? Check, check and check. If it wasn't enticing you to enjoy it, it'd seem formulaic, no matter how many changes occur.

Good clean (—Unbelievable co-incidence: As I sat unexpectantly, listening to "White Blank Page," just as I finished typing "clean" the lyric sung was "clean"—repeated!—) fun. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If that's the sort of thing you like.

Top Songs: "Little Lion Man" is the one made infamous by titillated tweeters acting like they've never heard the "f-word" before —one can hear their sad, immature, minds unexposed to any real music blathering in protest: "But it's such a nice song! Not a hiphop or heavy metal! It's whaddya call—a pop song, with pretty harmonies and shit." "The Cave" and "Roll Away Your Stone" also have their irresistible qualities.

My Chemical Romance ~ Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

With shouts of "New Jersey! Represent!" MCR have been one of the biggest bands to arrive in the last decade. They make their way back to the twisted-carnival atmosphere that's been their realm for years, plugging away at undeniably catchy, undeniably rocking, deniably conceptual concept albums.

Top Songs: "Vampire Money" is a raving crazy final shot of all-yagot. Not that they're saying anything new about cash and fate, but it's a cool new way to say it. "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)," "Bulletproof Heart," "Summertime," "Planetary (GO!)"

Graham Parker ~ Imaginary Television; Live at the FTC

[FTC released after DTA's December 2010 print deadline] Imaginary is a new studio album from early this year; FTC of course is a concert album retrospective of a few rare gems and a

few of Parker's better known tunes from the late 70s and early 80s, when he enjoyed/suffered through more success/more notoriety, combined with more than a few high points from his more recent albums over the past decade, demonstrating that the man can still tell a good story, sing a cynical or a heartfelt song, and outright out-write the pack of rockers plodding along 30 years after.

Top Songs Imaginary Television : "Weather Report," "It's My Party (But I Won't Cry)," "See Things My Way," "1st Responder" Top Songs, Live at the FTC: You can feel the walls pulse and the floorboards shake on a remarkable stretch, from "Beancounter," through "Local Boys," "Local Girls," "White Honey," "Mercury Poisoning," "First Responder" and right on down to "Soul Shoes," when the band is cooking with the lids placed tight, but everything's simmering loosely enough and everyone's having so much fun you can taste it.

The Philistines Jr ~ If A Band Plays in the Woods...

Song titles and lyrics alone will give you a good idea about these guys' tone and attitude.

Top Songs: "The Bus Stop Song" or "Hey, Hey, It's the end of the world again / Here we are, just waiting for everything to end" "Tarquin's Halfassed Mission Statement" or "Don't be afraid to make so stupid mistakes"

Q Animal Prufrock ~ Congratulations; Thank You & I'm Sorry

Animal (formerly of Bitch and Animal, see Bitch at # on the list) finally releases a solo album, sticking with Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe label (where Bitch has self-released).

Top Songs: "Liberation," "Emotional Boner," "Mister Fool," "Cosmic Tranny"

The Roots & John Legend ~ Wake Up!

Man-o-man, if ever there was an album I should love start-tofinish because of its premise, but don't. Don't misunderstand.

Songs of activism and social issues may not be fashionable, or as trendy-popular as they were in the 70s, but no fewer good ones have been written and recorded in the last decade than at any other time, so bringing a little attention to the subgenre by reaching back to some R&B-flavored ancestors is laudable. The Roots, the war horses (pardon the expression) on this collection, are the beyond-reliable funky pop music machine who rival Motown's legendary house band. But Legend is an overrated vocalist. Despite the equal billing on the cover, Wake Up! is listed under his name most places. But I can't give greater credit among equals to the guy who doesn't step up his game to The Roots' skill level. His vapid vocal choices make me impatient for his "Wake Up Everybody" to end (one of my absolutely favorite songs, through several previous versions), and he deflates "Compared To What" out of all of its urgency. On an album titled Wake Up!, that's a deadly musical sin.

The choice to emphasize the "straighten it out" chorus on "Our Generation" doesn't sit well—a phrase inherently associated not with fixing problems but with steamrolling over opposition doesn't belong on an album of social activism songs (at least not so prominently). Fittingly enough, after four very disappointing tracks, Top Songs: like "Hang On In There" arrive to revive the proceedings with sweet soulful strings and a loose, sexy arrangement that feels like a thousand points of comfort on. From there, the album's revisionist vision stays on an even keel through six none-too-familiar overlooked gems, climaxing with the cinema-graphic drama of Bill Withers' "I Can't Write Left Handed."

The core of Wake Up! has great heart, an uneasy companion for the kind of commerce playing itself out on some tracks. Out in the web-osphere, video of Legend & The Roots performing Arcade Fire(!)'s "Wake Up" captures the passion and spark missing from Wake Up!'s first third. Perhaps a song less than five years old didn't fit thematically with covers of 60s and 70s originals, but it sure would fit thematically with the fundamental musical message. A shame it's included neither on the album nor as a bonus track on the pricey "deluxe" version.

Seal ~ 6: Commitment

Big, serious business, this Commitment. Seal wears his perfectionism on his sleeve, with slick production by David Foster, the producer mostassociated with slick. "Big Time" is the epitome of their inclinations.

Slice any beat of the track at all (as well as 90% of the remainder of the album), and you could audit a class based on that slice to learn how to construct a "perfect," thick, supremely well-balanced wall of sound.

But what comes across most amazingly is, Seal's voice has always sounded a little ragged around the edges, but he sounds no more

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 23 ragged now than he ever did. Without being privy to the inner workings of the sessions, I can't tell whether some inaudible studio magic is responsible, or whether he really has maintained that dramatic, quality voice. Granted, the echo is audible on it, and when he reaches for higher ranges, Foster is sure to employ various chorusing effects (a similar tactic to those used early on in recording history) and as well as breaking out an AutoTune effect for the top of Seal's range. But it's a remarkable studio outing for all involved. It's not rock and roll, and its time has come and gone, but it's worthy of respect.

Top Songs: "If I'm Any Closer" revisits the metaphor inferable between a key for a lock and a musical key, repeating "If I'm any closer I will be here / I can feel but I can't see / To tell you the truth I'm not the only one / who's trying to find that key" and transitioning

to the next track by means of sliding strings (or "strings") to its lower key. "Letting Go" is generally a quieter change of pace, with lovely acoustic guitar figures and cellos. "Weight Of My Mistakes" evokes prior Seal hits.

Esperanza Spalding ~ Chamber Music Society

The rare album title equivalent to truth in advertising, multiinstrumentalist Spalding plays and sings the gamut, from EuroClassical to Jazz to R&B. Top Songs: The gentle and demented spin of "Short And Sweet;" the swinging vocalese of "What A Friend;" also: "As A Sprout," "Inuitil Paisagem," "

Mavis Staples ~ You Are Not Alone

I love Ms Staples' spirit—her stage presence, her personality, her exuberance are all fully present more than 50 years into her career but am not entirely moved by this Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) production.

The songs he wrote are central to this Gospel Blues lovefest. The songs he found respect Gospel traditions. If only they made me feel like going to church.

Top Songs: "You Are Not Alone," "Don't Knock," "Only the Lord Knows," "I Belong To The Band, Hallelujah"

Tracy Thorn ~ Love And Its Opposite

Musings about growing into mature adulthood in the wake of broken hearts, divorce, and deep disappointment. Not the happiest of subject matter, but Thorne, former lead singer for Everything But The Girl, sings like a waking dream, and leads her group in creating expressive custom-fit settings. Every focused song is a bit of a masterpiece framing a slice of life.

RIYL: Natalie Merchant, Aimie Mann, Annie Lennox—all of whom Thorne can resemble a young version of.

Top Songs: "You Are A Lover" is question-pocked letter composed at the moment a friend betrays her. The album takes its title from an image in "Long White Dress," the very symbol of the Opposite of love. "Kentish Town" is a bittersweet reverie on the impermanence of everything that seemed it would last forever in the town where you grew up. "Swimming" ends the album on a note of hope.

Two Cow Garage ~ Sweet Saint Me

It's their fifth album (the first one I've heard unfortunately) and with lines like "I wanna feel like the second verse of 'Let's Get It On'." ("Lydia") and "All you December boys got it bad /Th' sons of losers and dreamers can be such a drag / Birthdays and graduations through a telephone / The son of a son of a rolling stone", I'll make time to find

out what I've missed. Make time for Sweet Saint Me. RIYL: Bruce Springsteen (especially The Ghost of Tom Joad), The Bouncing Souls Top Songs: "Wanted To Be," "My Great Gatsby," "Jackson, Don't You Worry"

Two Door Cinema Club ~ Tourist History

It's their stadium-ready debut, full of butch novelty-gimmickpeppered arena-rock. It's already drenched in echo, so all it needs is the space to echo in. "And she spoke words that would melt in your hands" is a typical lyric from "Undercover", a song that's one example of their nice knack for change-ups, going from a languid mood to hyperactive (while maintaining tempo), or elsewhere from Electro-DancePop to a whirlwind rocker, or from a Techno intro into Modern Rock. Right now, they remind me of U2's debut because they display a similar amount of talent as U2 did. Their future is anybody's guess.

Top Songs: "Undercover," "Come Back Home," "This Is The Life"

Pete Yorn ~ Pete Yorn

Sometimes the label's bio rises far above boilerplate—one can tell the company is thrilled to have this particular artist on their roster—and quoting it is better than reinventing the wheel. Like, for instance, Vagrant Records' description of the formerly major-label New Jersey boy Pete Yorn: "With ten years and five studio albums under his belt, Pete Yorn is a stalwart in the singer/songwriter world. … Yorn released his first full-length musicforthemorningafter in 2001,which went gold and had Rolling Stone hailing him as one of the Ten To Watch in 2001. Fast forward through nearly a decade and multiple musical ventures to 2010 to find Pete Yorn releasing his sixth studio album on Vagrant Records. The 11-song collection was produced by Frank Black (The Pixies) and is comprised of raw tracks, born of shattered nerves and shifting dreams—yet edged with hope. … Black and Yorn set up an impromptu studio where they created the album in a mere five days.

The result is Yorn's most introspective work to date, as the selftitled album explores relationships, ambivalence and our natural fear of the future and unknown." (That was really well-done, right?

Thanks, anonymous public relations person.)

Top Songs: I'm full-fledged in love with "Rock Crowd," and its entreaty: "Rock Crowd, Put your arms around me"! How'd that line never get written before now?? Just hearing him come back to the chorus to ask it repeatedly makes me want to become an audience of one and do it. It's an anthem in reverse: Instead of throwing open arms around the crowd to herd them as one united front, together, he leads the crowd in making him their object. "Badman" is all fundamental Velvet Underground/Spiders From Mars Rock'n'Roll, right down to the Lou Reed-style vocal. "Sans Fear" utilizes 50s Stroll-step 6/8 time to put a comfortable cushion on a story of facing the unknown in a relationship. "Love is "Stronger Than" fear" is the faithful sentiment at the center of a Lennon-esque tune sung direct to your heart, taking you into its confidence.

10 THE TENTH PLACE BEST ALBUM(S) OF 2010 ARE: Laurie Anderson ~ Homeland Apache Beat ~ Last Chants Jeff Beck ~ Emotion & Commotion The Black Keys ~ Brothers The Budos Band ~ III Dufus ~ Eth Heart ~ Red Velvet Car Kings Of Leon ~ Come Around Sundown Lyrics Born ~ As U Were Anya Marina ~ Spirit School EP None More Black ~ Icons ✩ John Raymond Pollard ~ Deep in the Red / Black & Blue: Songs for a Great Depression; Disk Covered 80s The Republic of Wolves ~ Varuna Santana ~ Guitar Heaven The Secret Sisters ~ The Secret Sisters Smashing Pumpkins ~ Teargarden by Kaleidyscope Vol. 2 - The Solstice Bare The Superions ~ Destination… Christmas Tame Impala ~ Innerspeaker Keith Urban ~ Get Closer Violens ~ Amoral Neil Young ~ Le Noise Yula & The Extended Family ~ The Dark Side Of The Bee

✩ Laurie Anderson ~ Homeland

Top Songs: "Only An Expert," "Bodies In Motion"

Apache Beat ~ Last Chants

Clearly influenced by Talking Heads and Arcade Fire. Noisy, jittery guitars often one step removed from Afro-Pop, Tina Weymouth-like bass guitar foundations. Vocals and drumming that remind me of the Go-Go's. Sloppy and beautiful is difficult to pull off, or anything sloppy would always remind you of beauty. Like the French bohemian's mismatch of scarves, shirts and skirts, like dung-drenched sets in Terry Gilliam's movies, like the Towers in Los Angeles, sometimes sloppiness sets disparate elements against

Page 24 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 each other to noteworthy effect. I could do without the cheesy synth notes held down for measures at a time and heard way up high in the mix, but that doesn't ruin the pleasure of all these other elements crashing against each other beautifully.

Top Songs: "A Break In The Light," "Another Day," "Nightwaters"

Jeff Beck ~ Emotion & Commotion

His first studio album in seven years, Beck has long felt more comfortable wearing his jazz leanings and influences on his sleeve.

He enjoys following in the footsteps of those who've made lifelong careers with their versions and variations on jazz and contemporary standards.

Top Songs: Here he records many tracks with a 64-piece orchestra, including "Over The Rainbow," and "I Put A Spell On You," the later with Joss Stone's vocals. She also sings "There's No Other Me".

His interpretation of Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" has been critically applauded, garnering a Grammy nomination.

The Budos Band ~ III

The Budos have been bringing their 11-piece large Afro-Funk sound to the public for about six years now, coming from the same label —slash— brain trust —slash— talent pool, Daptone Records, as Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. They're all about the cool groove.

Top Songs: "Crimson Skies," "Reppirt Yad" (read backwards)

Q Dufus ~ Eth

Since the late 90s, Seth Faergolzia gave over a decade of his dedication and commitment to his band Dufus, whose Ball Of Design I raved about in the very first Dancing To Architecture to appear in Challenge. Eth marks The Final Album by Dufus, partially fan-funded, produced/orchestrated by Seth Faergolzia. For more about him, see the Channel Faergolzia entry above.

Top Songs: It's kinda cool that a band's final album begins with a song titled "Silence," and song that steps beyond putting a brave face on transitions to ask "What is wrong with silence?" "Feed The Baby" employs a distinctive sort of scat singing, and other onomatopoeia syllables play on "Life Is Empty." With a rhythmic sophistication uncanny for a song with perfect and naive lyrics like "When friends seem imperfect just let it go / We are imperfect, just let it go / They know all the possibles that you can be / All the different ones you become, they see" "Old Friends" is a highlight.

Heart ~ Red Velvet Car Yes, that Heart.

Top Songs: "Queen City," "Safronia's Mark," "There You Go," "WTF"

✩ Kings Of Leon ~ Come Around Sundown When is a band's fifth album their sophomore slumper? When their fourth album was huge. I'd like not to be in reactive disappointment mode, but the hype is too disproportionate. It's not bad music, it's just not the second coming, nor a second helping of Only By The Night. The investors are speaking: Millions have been plowed into Kings of Leon by record companies, radio stations, music media of all stripes, promoters and venues worldwide. With tens of millions of songs sold, a bona fide rock and roll band has broken through to a mainstream audience in these decidedly un-rock-n-roll, rockiest of times. The investment must be protected; the machine protects itself. The Kings are proclaimed the U2 of our time! Hold on now: As these songs play all I keep thinking is "It'd be so easy to turn this stuff into Muzak." So what? you might ask, All those Beatles songs were Muzak'd. But their performances had to be significantly tamed, especially the love song vocals, which were turned from sincere to sappy. But a string section could play "Pyro"'s melody intact—or anything on Come Around Sundown really. No taming necessary, just mute the reverb and dampen the distortion. If an entire album of songs aspiring to "Lite" rock hit status (like 90s Aerosmith or Nickelback) is your desire, here's the album for you. Put it on repeat, and pretend no other modern rock exists.

Top Songs: "Pickup Truck," "No Money," "Pony Up"

Lyrics Born ~ As U Were

A trip through R&B styles of the 70s and 80s, blending mid-70s funky tropes with early 80s Hip-Hop party tropes. LB wears a variety of Rap and Hip-Hop styles for a song's length, and restlessly tries on new drag with each next new groove. Not *bad* per se, just not as interesting as it is a nostalgia exercise. I hope he got it out of his system.

Top Songs: Odd that "Pillz" is the one joint that sounds most like Lyrics Born. "Something Better" (featuring Francis & The Lights)

would be great material for Jeremy Henry's Haus of Glitch to work with. "(What Happened 2 Out) Love Affair?" and "Lies X 3" are four-tothe-floor, like Fine Young Cannibals' "Good Thing" with LB channelling FYC's Roland Gift. Is that Seth Green as the other voices on the comedy sketch interludes? (as in "Born-E-Oh's"). "Oh, Baby" is a James Brown homage with a casually foul-mouthed 80s braggart rap.

Anya Marina ~ Spirit School EP

Downtown, retro Dance music, evokes a late 70s college dance club before every scene splintered.

Top Songs: "Spirit School"'s bouncy New Wave rides in the wake of Stiff Records' dance floor faves, "Whatsit"'s nascent Electronica precedes the harsh buzz Nine Inch Nails insinuated into the scene, "You Are Invisible" sticks minor hooks to a come-hither attitude. It and "Busrider" take me back to all the it's-still-early tracks too cool for crowds spun to warm-up the floor before the loud and fickle trendsetters arrived. Any of the five tracks on the EP have hook-shifts that'd put a twist in my step.

None More Black ~ Icons Another gravelly-voiced punk band with something to say, the smarts to say it, and a good ear for melody.

Top Songs: You just gotta love a band that puts out a balls-tothe-wall, tribal call-and-response at breakneck speed called "I'm Warning You With Peace & Love." Also: "Backpedal," "Gary Page One in Pink," "Budapest Gambit"

Q ✩ John Raymond Pollard ~ Deep in the Red / Black & Blue: Songs for a Great Depression; Disk Covered 80s

"Shelter" from DITR/B&B:Songs for a Great Depression (whew!) has the feel of waves lapping a shore and breezes running through its veins. No drowning in tears on "Well of Sorrow," a song that makes real the sound of a veil lifting as the beginning pangs of healing propels one out of depression. Atmospheric swells, crackling pebbly textures and sultry shimmers resonate through the tracks, and makes the album percolate. On Disk Covered 80s, Pollard covers hit songs from the 80s. "Caribbean Queen" always seemed destined to be covered by an out gay man, so: It's about time! Very cleverly, he hears shared chord progressions as an opportunity to link The Eurhythmics' "Sweet Dreams" with INXS's "Need You Tonight" as a medley — performed as a duet! In addition to the Latin touches, the sound of coins dropping on The Pet Shop Boys' "Opportunities" (also known as "Let's make lots of money") is a brilliant touch. Pollard uses unexpected, often everyday sounds musically on both albums — not as sound effects or even as percussive hooks but as elements in themselves. By successfully employing such sounds, Pollard moves into a leading edge of 2010's musical zeitgeist, making "non-musical noises" positively musical. I hope the trickle of examples becomes a trend. Rediscoveries await.

Top Songs: "Shelter," "Well Of Sorrow," "Opportunities," "Sweet Dreams / Need You Tonight"

The Republic of Wolves ~ Varuna

The most intriguing thing about the emotive, sometimes overwrought echo-drenched atmosphere of Varuna is the scope of their grasp. They'r after nothing less the questioning the nature of God and how families deal with balancing matters of faith struggling with one's free will. Grandiosity without substance is not my taste, and this band is still young and feeling its way around profundity.

But some of their grand intentions settle into lovely melodies and sound collages that seek to lift the veil on mysteries, but not too far. Where's the fun in answers, after all? In a year or three, when their next album builds on what they've laid down here, people will be talking about "that new band, Republic of Wolves"; now's your chance to hear them ahead of the buzz.

Top Songs: "The Attic," "Grounded, I Am Traveling Light"

Santana ~ Guitar Heaven

Carlos Santana missed an opportunity to take his turn on lessobvious choices. Imagine him bringing the spirit to, say, King Crimson's "Discipline" of Bowie and Eno's "Heroes." What we have, though, is less-scary than it might appear at first glance. Covering many great rock anthems, as has been his way for much of the previous two decades, guest vocalists help Santana take his turn at turning up the volume.

Top Songs: Johnny Lang guests on "I Ain't Superstitious," the track here that best balances the updated with the traditional. Cellist

Winter 2010 CHALLENGE Page 25 Yo-Yo Ma's choices shine a new poignancy on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," challenging the creators to take a different tact than the typical one-up-man-ship this kind of duetting tends to lead to.

A harpsichord (synthesized, presumably) first duets with Ma, then he's joined by a few measures of electric guitar; next piano and Spanish-style acoustic guitar in trio; percussion enters and more of a band feel starts just before India Arie starts to sing; the changes don't stop there: Arie multi-tracks her voice, and the electric guitar of course returns (I was interested to see if they'd stick to the acoustic), but a cello part can be heard consistently to the end, a taste that I never tire of. Whoever came up with the idea to have Joe Cocker sing on Jimi Hendrix' "Little Wing" is a genius. And Gavin Rossdale has a fine time with "Bang-A-Gong," and I appreciate being able to follow the lyrics at last.

The Secret Sisters ~ The Secret Sisters

The Secret Sisters' T-Bone Burnett (Elvis Costello, the Elton John/ Leon Russell team-up) -executive-produced debut recalls a blend of The Maguire Sisters and The Carter Family. (Admittedly I'm a little out of my element here; no expert of 40s and 50s middle-ofthe-road pleasantry nor traditional Country balladry am I.) Top Songs: "Tennessee Me," "I've Gotta Feeling," "Do You Love An Apple"

Smashing Pumpkins ~ Teargarden by Kaleidyscope Vol. 2 - The Solstice Bare

Only four songs, but four very good, radio-playable, sing-alongable Rock 'n' Roll songs.

Top Songs: "The Fellowship (Are You With Us)", "Freak (Life Is Not A Dream)," "Tom Tom (Here Comes The Morning Man)", "Spangled"

Another HOLIDAY EXTRA! Q The Superions ~ Destination… Christmas

It's the coolest of the cool, to keep you warm in the snow, with the B52's Fred Schneider leading the Top Songs: "Christmas Conga / Jungle Bells," Chillin' At Christmas," with "Fruitcake," and if those jungle bells (not a typo) weren't silly/sexy enough, 'taint nothin' like Schneider enticing you to "Jingle Those Bells" in voice that embeds itself in your head.

Tame Impala ~ Innerspeaker

There were lots of John Lennon - slash - San Francisco Sound imitators like Tame Impala back in the mid-70s, when it was particularly uncool in the undertow of wave upon wave of Punk and Funk records. Maybe younger ears unexposed to all those forgettable bands think this is novel. I don't. But it has its pleasures to reveal, if only for its trippy reality-bending moments. Weird as those are, what's truly weird is that it takes until track six for the gen-uwine imitation jeans to kick off and the weird-gone-cool to kick in.

Unless you really want to put up with five "eh" tracks, start with "Solitude Is Bliss" to get into the good shit. RIYL: The Beatles in trippy-mode e.g. "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" or "Blue Jay Way," Big Brother & The Holding Company, Yes pre-Close To The Edge, Cream Top Songs: "The Bold Arrow Of Time," "Expectation," "Island Walking," "Jeremy's Storm," " Runway, Houses, City, Clouds," "Solitude Is Bliss"

Keith Urban ~ Get Closer

Today's Country done well. That's the most I can say.

Top Songs: "You Gonna Fly," "Long Hot Summer," "Shut Out The Lights"

Violens ~ Amoral

Fun BritRock-influenced, by turns taking a page from dangerthreatening metal bands, then from the late-60s vocal sounds of (yes. this is an odd jump) The Association or The Cowsills.

Top Songs: "Violent Sensation Descends" takes that odd jump, and comes across like a blend of The Doors and flower power (which makes for a nifty dissonance with the violent sensation).

Also: "Acid Reign," "Are You Still In The Illusion," "Full Collision," "The Dawn Of Your Happiness"

✩ Neil Young ~ Le Noise

For 3 songs out of 8 it's like Euro-Classical solo or duo chamber music, if you fully embrace that the solo instrument is a loud, growly, echo-laden electric guitar. Add Neil Young vocals; stir. For the rest of it (that is, most of it) Le Noise is accurately titled. But

unencumbered Young performing his short poem-songs of doubt, contradiction and faith is an undeniably powerful experience.

Top Songs: "Walk With Me," "Angry World," "Rumblin'"

Yula & The Extended Family ~ The Dark Side Of The Bee

Top Songs: "Come To Think Of It," "Kriss (Fake It Til U Make It),"Red Light Children" ("If you keep me satisfied, I'll be there, child") It's a free download!

(Think of it as a parting gift, as we come to the end of the list of "Top 10" Albums. But wait, what's this? The great songs on not-Top 10 albums? OK, bring it on!)

Additional Top Songs of 2010

(not listed above, in alphabetical order by artist)

"Something's Got A Hold On Me" ~ Christina Aguilera ~ Burlesque Soundtrack

A fine remake of the vintage Etta James co-composed classic; a song that hasn't been over-recorded. Aguilera has never sounded better.

"The Hair Song" ~ Black Mountain ~ Wilderness Heart

Another entry in this year's psychedelic revival. Fittingly, there's no apparent reason why it's called "The Hair Song."

"Let's Go Surfing" ~ The Drums ~ The Drums

Another in the continuing series of hyped Brooklyn bands—many of which are well-worth the hype. As for The Drums… "Let's Go Surfing"'s vigorous, illogical (Surf the Hudson?) dance track is more than the one song on their debut album that sounds finished—It's a lo-fi "Rock Lobster."

"Love The Way You Lie" ~ Eminem featuring Rhianna "Won't Back Down" ~ Eminem featuring Pink"

"Lie" is an utterly undeniable pop masterpiece, the best music video of the year—not least because it is absolutely the hottest (on several levels). To me, the one overlooked thing Eminem has begun to do very well is he has learned how to wear fame. All of the tricks invented by the star-making machinery to perpetuate careers are geared to make you ride fame—You've heard interviews with actors and musicians suddenly thrust into the limelight talk about "riding it as long as they can." Em, who never appears truly solo, has finally figured out that he can still brag about himself and guiltlessly encourage other people to carry a large part of the load and give other talented people big roles. The subtle shift from letting others work for him to attracting new talents to work with him has something to do with the deep impact of the featured women's striking performances on the album's best tracks.

Q "Telephone" ~ Lady Gaga, Beyonce ~ The Fame Monster Nothing I could say can effect what you already think.

Q "Teenage Dream" ~ Glee cast featuring Darren Criss

Despite my ongoing resistance to all-things News Corp and Fox related, despite my decision to leave Glee to the realm of Things For Which I'm Not The Intended Audience, despite my distaste for all things Katy Perry, this Glee cover of one of her hits nails my admission that whenever I catch a part of Glee character Kurt's storyline, I enjoy it. Whatever else is worthy of criticism in the entire Glee phenomenon (lots) they're handling Kurt's character really well, better than any primetime television Gay kid in over a decade. For that I am grateful. The performance? While sweetened with instruments and electronic tools normally too much for my taste, it's closer to a realistic depiction of an all-male concert vocal group than the show tends to provide.

"Never Stop" ~ Chilly Gonzales ~ Go

Used in Apple's iPad commercials, when pop culture looks back on 2010 this is the song they'll reference.

"Beauty In The World" ~ Macy Gray ~ The Sellout

Heard first at the end of the series finale of "Ugly Betty," it's hummable, unforgettable, confidence building but light—like a small gift one gives oneself and, on an album called The Sellout, a completely non-ironic presaging that it'll be licensed to commercials for as long as it can.

Page 26 CHALLENGE Winter 2010 "Georgia" ~Cee-Lo Green "What Part Of Forever" ~Cee-Lo Green ~ Twilight: Eclipse Soundtrack

The best Cee-Lo Green tracks of the year aren't on The Lady Killer. Can't go along with what feels like a very old-fashioned fascination many are having with pop music with adult language. Apparently this society of ours is still too ashamed to say (sing) "fuck" (or "shit") without packaging it in "irresistible" hooks. Where have the rest of you *been* for the last 30 years? Between Green's "Fuck You" and Mumford & Sons' "Young Lion" it's as though y'all haven't heard any pop song with adult language from John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" to Lily Allen's "Fuck You". Or perhaps the real problem is that those two tracks, and who knows how many others with adult language, have adult things to say —those two are even (Heavens Forbid!) political statements!

Meanwhile, "Georgia" is a superlative nonnostalgic recollection of Green's memories of childhood, family and growing up. "What Part Of Forever" simply makes me happy, anticipatory.

Q "The Bear Song (Wanna Be A Bear)" ~ Pixie Herculon (a.k.a. Jill Sobule) ~ mp3, BearCiti Soundtrack

Jill Sobule in her intentionally-not-foolinganyone male-twink persona energetically opens opportunities for herself to shed some of her sincere and earnest image. It's Danceable, don'tcha know? And here's a "Bear song" video, and let's pal around with Margaret Cho, too.

Once again, the women do—and do well—what the men don't think of. (By the way, Ms Cho, despite her status, i.e.: "Oh, Margaret Cho! I love her!", is irrelevant here, as well as on her own album of songs. Fawned over elsewhere in Gay media, at every chance to be musical, she instead chooses to be rude. Kinda beside the point she has consistently tried to make when she gets serious, isn't it? Can you guess that I'm kinda over Cho, P.O.'d that her reported collaboration with the band Girlyman didn't come out?)

"Set Me Free" ~ The Maestrosities ~ video at YouTube.com www.TheCoolestBandEver.com www.facebook.com/thecoolestbandever Expect great things from these guys in 2011. The video "Set Me Free"—which incorporates the classic Supremes/Vanilla Fudge/etc song "You Keep Me Hanging On"—has a well-developed concept, but for now also enjoy performance videos of this trumpet-clarinettuba-accordian-ukelele and no-drums, but spoons ensemble. Yes: spoons. Their personalities are well-delineated without being stereotypical. Recordings are not yet on sale, but keep an eye out for their live dates: I can vouch that their performances are priceless.

"Getting Ready For Christmas Day" ~ Paul Simon ~ So Beautiful Or So What (2011 release date)

A disorienting phase-shift effect permeates "Getting Ready For Christmas Day" front to back, verifying that this is not a traditional Christmas song. From a clomping rhythm, Simon hangs spoken clips of call-and-response church preaching, a shiny steel guitar, and a repeated whooshy metallic zoom effect to aggregate disparate aspects of the season. Simon's lyrics are always worth a look. This is what I came up with today: From early in November to the last week in December I got money matters weighing me down.

Whoa, the music made me merry but it's only temporary I'm no Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.

In the days I work my day job, In the nights I work my night, but it all comes down to working man's pay.

Getting ready, yeah I'm getting ready, Getting Ready For Christmas Day

[voices speaking, as would a preacher speak with a small congregation responding, about "getting ready for Christmas"] I got a nephew in Iraq It's his third time back But it's ending up the way it began.

With the luck of the beginner He'll be eating turkey dinner On a mountaintop in Pakistan.

Getting ready, oh we're getting ready For the power and the glory of Christmas Day. [more sound clips, similar voices speaking] Getting ready, oh getting ready For the power and the glory and the story of the Christmas Day. If I could tell my mom and dad that the things we never had never mattered, we were always okay.

Getting ready, oh, ready ready for Christmas Day. For the power and the glory and the story of the Christmas Day.

Q

~ "I Tried To Forget You," "Good Intentions" ~ Soulkiss

Soulkiss—a relatively new trio consisting of tenor Tim Dillinger, Kare Alford & soulful David Sosa—revives classic three-part soul harmonies, but in rare form: rare both in their high-quality performances and in the three male voices aspects.

"The musicianship is real, the energy is tangible, the vocals passionate and perfectly harmonious."

—Barry Towler, The Vibe Scribe. A great description of Soulkiss in live performance is at The Huffington Post at http://tinyurl.com/soulkisshuffpost .

Meanwhile, their new tracks are on iTunes.

Q "Gravity" ~ Martin Swinger ~ M O O N

M O O N is not yet released, but one can hear "Gravity"—find it as a video at YouTube or at MartinSwinger.com .

Q "Canonize Philip K. Dick, OK?" ~ World/ Inferno Friendship Society ~ Hallowmass 2010 7"

As described by Rastid at PunkNews.org "Canonize Philip K. Dick, OK? is phenomenal. It has everything you could want in a song: A catchy chorus with a message ("You can't change the system from within / the system changes you"), plenty of good advice ("Learn to burn bridges / get good at it"; "Use your imagination / learn to keep secrets too"), rabble-rousing warnings ("Spite and rage will age you, girl / but sitting in your office is killing you"), lovely backing female vocals, swing time and more."

Q "Just True," "Regular Guys," "Click," "Saddest Gal What

Am," "Blue Twilight" ~ Original Cast ~ Yank! A WWII Love Story - A New Musical Only available to be streamed online!

T HA N K YOU FOR R E A D I N G, E V E RY B ODY!

Dancing To Architecture® contents © 2010 Bill Stella.™, ® & © items included in the column for review purposes are ™, ® & © their respective owners.