Well, we seem to have made it to 2010. Amazing! Now if only we can make it past 2012…

I thought I might put together a little collection of songs that reflect the feelings a new year often brings up. Excitement, anticipation, sadness, regret, confusion. Songs that just…feel right. Not sure if there’s any rhyme or reason really, so if they make sense to you you’re probably as emotionally scrambled as I am. Hope you enjoy them, either way.

Jeff Buckley – New Year’s Prayer

Patrick Wolf – Eulogy

Galaxie 500 – Another Day

Charlotte Hatherley – It Isn’t Over

Phoenix – Lisztomania

Digitalism – Taken Away

Pete Shelley – Yesterday’s Not Here

Tom Petty – Free Fallin’

Sharleen Spiteri – All The Times I Cried

ABBA – Move On

Semisonic – Closing Time

Nina Gordon – New Year’s Eve

One thing I missed in 2009 was the new Bob Log III album My Shit Is Perfect. Here’s the title track, a delirious mix of slide guitar, old school rhythm, and DIY ethos. This guy is pure fun and, brother, there’s always a need for that.

MP3: Bob Log III – My Shit Is Perfect
[Off My Shit Is Perfect, out now. Stream It. Buy It.]

Warp Records has released their 2010 compilation and it includes this fabulous track by The Hundred In The Hands, a fresh summer song run through an electro wringer and mashed into an amalgamation of all around goodness. Plus, could Eleanore Everdell be any more adorable in that band picture? She looks like a French Yé-yé star! I’d post this for that alone, truthfully.

MP3: The Hundred In The Hands – Dressed In Dresden
[Off the Dressed In Dresden single, out now. Stream It. Buy It. Also available on the Warp Records 2010 Compilation, out now. Stream It. Buy It.]

Doubt
Jesus Jones

Driven by the hit “Right Here, Right Now,” Doubt hit the airwaves with U2’s Achtung Baby, Depeche Mode’s Violator, and Nine Inch Nail’s Pretty Hate Machine, bringing electro-rock to widespread exposure. Jesus Jones hasn’t maintained the level of popularity the others listed above have (although the moderate success of follow up album Perverse at least meant they outlasted contemporaries EMF) and Doubt has mostly faded from view. I dusted off my copy to see if its disappearance is warranted.

Doubt holds up well, mostly due to it staying away from the faddish club sounds of the day and instead concentrating on blending loops and samples into guitar rock. For listeners more accustomed to the aggressive noise of current electro-rock purveyors such as Does It Offend You, Yeah? and Pendulum, Jesus Jones can sound somewhat tame. Even the driving “Trust Me” is a little quaint.

The best reason to revisit Doubt is for the hits. “Right Here, Right Now” is timeless radio fare, although now it’s mostly consigned to commercials and political rallies. “Real, Real, Real” is my pick for the album’s best thanks to the infectious, layered chorus. While “International Bright Young Thing” is still popular, it’s never done much for me – I prefer “Welcome Back, Victoria” with its Tom Petty-esque guitar. Also of note is “Two And Two,” which you could rerecord with a more antagonistic sound and slot it seamlessly into an electro festival DJ set.

There’s a historical value which supplements the hits. Most of the ideas here, fresh at the time, have now been developed further with additional complexities added, leaving Doubt influential but sounding a bit simplistic at times. It’s definitely worth a spin, though I can’t see it garnering much replays. This is more one you pull out from the back corner of the collection, say “Oh man, I remember this!” and give it a play, are glad you took the time to do so, then put it back in the corner for another year.

Worth The Revisit? Yes

Corinne Bailey Rae probably finds herself lumped in with the Duffy’s and Amy Winehouse’s of the world, though she’s not mining soul as blatantly as those two. Not that doing so is such a bad thing – I happen to be a fan of both of them. But CBR seems to be going her own way, sticking closer to the singer/songwriter slant. She’s got that mumbling, sing-slur that you either love or hate (put me in the love column in this instance).

Knowing her tragic personal history – her husband was found dead of a drug overdose in 2008 – I can’t help think her new tune might possibly be about her relationship with him. It’s called ‘I’d Do It All Again’, and features Corinne pulling a Bill Murray and repeating the same day over and over again. It’s a great rainy day tune.

James Cameron is an easy target. Why? He makes himself an easy target. He delivers Oscar speeches like this. He apparently inflicts a sort of borderline torture on his actors (at least according to Kate Winslet, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Ed Harris, Sigourney Weaver and…well, I guess anyone that’s made a movie with him). He makes unashamedly populist films like Titanic and True Lies, with cardboard heroes and villains that deliver Snidely Whiplash-like dialog. Oh, and he also makes movies like Avatar.

It’s easy enough to take shots at Avatar’s storyline. It’s a very, very simplistic one. ‘Nature good! Earth good! Military bad! Scientists smart! Don’t kill indigenous peoples!’. Honestly, that about sums it up. So it’s not terribly difficult to see how some might take exception, especially after being told this was ‘a game-changer’. The movie has an awful lot of flaws for all to see. Like when Edward from Twilight stands in the sun.

The characters, for one. You could typically rely on early Cameron films to have a certain devotion to character moments. Aliens, The Abyss and both Terminators are full of them. In fact, those films’ premises would swiftly fall to pieces were it not for strong characters you could identify with/care about. I sort of cared about Jake Sully because his brother died (not a spoiler really, you find that out about 5 minutes in) and he suffered a debilitating accident that left him a paraplegic, but never found much of a personality to identify with. He was a bit blank. Same goes for the normally outstanding Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi playing some kind of corporate stooge (I half expected a scene where he shouts ‘Buy! Buy! Sell! Sell!’ into the 2154 equivalent of a telelphone). I won’t even go there with Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch. He was basically playing Rod Steiger’s character from Mars Attacks, but straight. You’re left unsure what anyone’s motivations are.

The dialog is not strong. Terms like ‘Jarhead’ get used too many times per sentence (‘I don’t need some dopey Jarhead Jearheading things up with his Jarheadism!’). Slang terms for the native Na’Vi – like ‘blue monkeys’ – seem forced and too deliberately placed to evoke genuine disgust. Everyone speaks like a caricature. No single character ends up a winner in the dialog department.

Then there’s the really big bone – this movie is racist! Well, I’m not totally convinced it’s racist. Simplistic, somewhat misguided, certainly. I don’t really enjoy ‘message’ movies on the whole, because a movie is not the ideal format for message delivery, IMO. Messages are totally subjective based on the viewer, even in movies that hit you over the head with it as hard as Avatar. For instance, while most reviews have discussed the obvious ‘noble savage’ implications and the displacement of an indigenous population, or even James Cameron’s possible presentism, I’ve seen no reviews that tackle what I perceived as a rather obvious point of view expressed in the film – primitivism. Or at the very least, a slightly neo-luddist viewpoint, e.g., the good guys are living in harmony with nature with very little technology, the bad guys are at the height of their civilization’s technical achievement, yet their mighty war machines are defeated in battle by natives with bows & arrows because of their harmony with Mother Earth. Though Sully’s transformation into his Avatar could be seen as an endorsement of transhumanism, which wouldn’t sit very comfortably next to primitivism.

And again, that’s my point. How much of this was intentional? How much of it wasn’t? How much of my interpretation of the film is taking place in Master Yoda’s tree? I’m not sure any of us should be spending this much time poring over a 3D blockbuster. I’m not advising everyone to shut off their critical thinking, but yes, I do think there are times when a cigar is just a cigar.

Putting all that aside, it’s also an entirely enjoyable movie. I liked it but didn’t love it, which seems to have vanished as an option in our popular culture. You either worship at the altar or spew bile in every direction. I’m neither, so where does that leave me? Nowhere, apparently. I’m Mr Lukewarm. Though I don’t see how anyone can deny how amazing the 3D is.

And honestly, I think the world needs James Cameron, if for no other reason than we need a mass market filmmaker with the same resources & reach as Michael Bay that doesn’t fellate the military with every frame. James Cameron is essentially the anti-war Michael Bay, isn’t he? Though I don’t believe he’s ever made anything quite as stupid as Transformers 2. I’m not sure anyone has, actually. The Fallen wasn’t scary at all, and Shia LeBeouf’s parents were cartoon characters. Oh, but that’s a rant for another day. At least Avatar didn’t have a Jar-Jar. Or a Shia.

Album: Love Tattoo
Artist: Imelda May
First Impressions: You can sum Imelda May up in one word: sexyashell. Honestly, Love Tattoo is standard rockabilly, albeit extremely well done, but the sexiness inherent in May’s singing elevates the whole affair to something worth your notice. Plus the album is on sale at Amazon for $5 so really there’s no good reason to pass.

I hope everyone got to enjoy a few days off for “holiday relaxation,” a term which usually means crowded airports, awkward family encounters, and stupefying boredom. So nothing relaxing perhaps, but hopefully there were also a few magical moments that made it all worthwhile.

No better way to get back into the swing of things than with this Felix track. It unfolds like a cat that starts rolled up and calm before slowly arching it’s back and baring its fangs, then calming back down and going to sleep. Plus it contains the unarguably fabulous line “There’s a secret you keep and it makes me dance.” So, basically, bonus all around.

MP3: Felix – Where Is My Dragon
[Off You Are The One I Pick, out now. Stream It. Buy It. Also available on the Seeking Axis Mundi - The Hi-Lo Tunez Plan: 12th Step Free Download.]

Oranger has contributed a new (old) song for the Eenie Meenie 10th Anniversary compilation. I find it incredibly amusing that, having a track better than 90% of the songs out there today, the band has been casually sitting around all this time with it in their back pocket. “Oh, you need a song for your compilation? Yeah, we got something – here you go.” You can envision the casual flick of the wrist as Oranger sent it off. Such awesomeness should be held up as an example for all of musickind.

MP3: Oranger – Brother Brother
[Off The Eenie Meenie 10th Anniversary Digital Compilation, out now. Buy It.]

I’m a fan of how this Basia Bulat song is constructed. The urgency of the instruments, how the vocals float a bit outside the beat at times, the gypsy folk feel. It’s a bit tricky since it hits enough markers to draw the casual listener in but not quite conventional enough to make them feel completely at ease. Honesty though, there are entire genres devoted to brain dead listeners – I prefer a bit of a challenge.

MP3: Basia Bulat – Gold Rush
[Off Heart of My Own, out January 26th]

Ultimately, I think I felt intimidated by the idea of doing a year-end best of or a decade best of. They both seemed impossible, so it was much easier to just avoid everything blog-related. Since then, I think I’ve become comfortable with the idea of skipping them all together. Or at least putting it off until the year is actually over and I can fully absorb all the releases, a.k.a. ‘The excuse I’m offering for why I haven’t done it yet that sounds like I’m more thoughtful than I really am’.

I finally got around to watching 500 Days of Summer last night, and despite my fears that it might be drenched in hipster clichè, it was a very cute little flick. It featured a lot of uncomfortable music references that felt forced, a la Garden State, but it was easy to look passed them. The Temper Trap’s ‘Sweet Disposition’ wasn’t one of those forced references, though it did play several times throughout. Mark talked about these guys several months back, but I have to admit I didn’t get much chance to dive into their album beyond one or two songs. Not included in those one or two songs was the wonderful ‘Sweet Disposition’, but after hearing it multiple times during the movie last night, I’m hooked.

The Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition

Album: Girls Le Disko
Artist: Shiny Toy Guns
First Impressions: Usually remix collections contain a fair amount of repetition and deadwood – Girls Le Disko is remarkably fresh and tight. Every track on here had me thinking “I’m so buying this.” A recommended listen for Electro fans.

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