It might make me unpopular but… containing year-end lists to 2008 is idiotic.
By their very nature, year-end lists can only encompass a small pocket of what’s actually on your iPod. Sure, 2008 was a great year (for indie rock especially), but at the end of the day there’s more to audio exploration than breaking new bands. Any crate-digger worth his whiskers will tell you that there’s just as much to be discovered from the past as the present. As such, many of the best records I found in the last 12 months were old, lesser-known works, long ignored, or only recently unearthed.
Thus, in a bid to push the year-end list to its absolute limit, Flavorwire presents The Beard’s Top Eight Records That Weren’t From 2008.
Whisker-twisting reviews and essential MP3s after the jump.
It might make me unpopular but… I think year-end lists are basically BS.
As new media expands, offering every snot-nosed blogger and Facebook fiend the chance to weigh in with an opinion, you’d expect year-end album lists to become a bit more all-inclusive. But, in indie rock especially, what’s emerged is a new consensus machine driven by the very mechanisms that could drive dissent.
No matter which way a writer goes, it’s inevitable that a host of Beardly wonders will fall through the cracks. So, rather than add another inane list to the pile, what say we look at (and listen to) some amazing rock records that you won’t see on anyone’s year-end lists? Thus it is that Flavorwire proudly unveils The Top Ten List That Never Was (And Never Will Be).
Whisker-twisting reviews and essential MP3s after the jump.
Unpopular Opinions is a weekly column written by Flavorpill’s resident music curmudgeon and esoteric record-bin enthusiast, the Beard. His opinions do not reflect those of Flavorpill, Flavorwire, or any of their affiliates…
It might make me unpopular, but i think… that indie rock is as rife with mediocrity and musician-as-commodity acts as anything else.
But, rather than wax on about Beard-abhorred bands like the National, Tapes ‘n Tapes, and others without any retort, perhaps its best to try and explore both sides of the “paint-by-numbers” indie-template argument. Sure, I think my follicly-challenged buddy Scruff is sadly misguided when it comes to defending indie kingpins the National (a band that pretty well embodies the crux of the argument), but when the time comes for a bona-fide IM throwdown, he does put up a good fight — despite the fact that he’s clearly wonting for whiskers…
Perhaps the most anticipated album of our age, Guns ‘N Roses’ long-brewing Chinese Democracy broke its 15-year gestation period with a bit of a whimper. While the media’s incredulous exhortations of the album were unrelenting in the weeks before its release, sales and radio response have been somewhat less stunning. The critical reaction is similarly mixed: Paste called the record “a bottomless pit dug by disposable income, a persecution complex, and egomania,” while Rolling Stone maintained that it was an “audacious, unhinged and uncompromising hard-rock record.”
While his guest review for the Onion addressed a number of shortcomings, best-selling author, acclaimed music critic, and general Axl enthusiast Chuck Klosterman ultimately came out in heavy defense of the album. After the jump, Klosterman goes one-on-one with Flavorwire’s resident hair-metal hater and Unpopular Opinions aficionado, The Beard, on the album itself, the reasons for its muted reception, and the underpinnings and larger implications of his outlook.
Unpopular Opinions is a weekly column written by Flavorpill’s resident music curmudgeon and esoteric record-bin enthusiast, the Beard. His opinions do not reflect those of Flavorpill, Flavorwire, or any of their affiliates…
It might make me unpopular, but I think… writing your own songs is overrated.
I’ve been to the hippest barbers, and I can tell you categorically: nothing flips indie kid face fuzz like the shave of an inauthentic artist. In an age of “co-writers” like the Jonas Bothers, Avril Lavigne, Rihanna, Britney Spears, and any number of other dimple-cheeked dodos, it’s hard not to get a little angry: does anyone write their own songs anymore?
Unpopular Opinions is a weekly column written by Flavorpill’s resident music curmudgeon and esoteric record-bin enthusiast, the Beard. His opinions do not reflect those of Flavorpill, Flavorwire, or any of their affiliates…
It might make me unpopular, but I think… that the anti-Prop 8 contingent can be just as bad as Prince when it comes to steeping their condemnations in stereotype.
Before I court your reactionary (though, hopefully, non-violent) responses, what say we really explore the issue? Pop legend and longtime purple enthusiast Prince recently gave an interview to the New Yorker where he intimated that he does not support the rights of homosexuals to wed.
As he told writer Clare Hoffman, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’”
Welcome to Unpopular Opinions, a weekly column written by Flavorpill’s resident music curmudgeon and esoteric record-bin enthusiast, the Beard. His opinions do not reflect those of Flavorpill, Flavorwire, or any of their affiliates. Enjoy.
It might make me unpopular, but I think that… despite her recent rise to B-grade celebrity status, Rilo Kiley frontwoman and solo singer Jenny Lewis should have stopped making records in 2004. What better way to protect the L.A. daughter’s brilliant indie-pop past than taking her name off Rilo Kiley’s 2007’s Under the Blacklight (the most stunning example ever of thoughtless style’s diminishing effect on substance)?
On the record, Lewis replaced her everygirl approachability with forced attempts at sexiness and, even worse, seedy porn-star serenading. It’s no so much that she sold out or that she doesn’t have a right to strut her stuff, more that she reached inadvisedly (not to mention insincerely) beyond her bounds. Critics leveled plenty of all-too-kind Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac comparisons, but the fact remains: Lewis is no Stevie Nicks, Blacklight‘s slickness was insipid, the song quality suffered, and the supposedly-similar back-story (internal band drama between former lovers) was a real stretch.
Of course, her solo career is another thing entirely – it’s actually hurting the indie-music industry…
