Top 100 Songs of All-Time

Put this together recently as my favourite 100 songs of all-time. There's sure to be stuff I missed, but it's pretty good actually. I particularly love my Top 10.

100. Broken Girl - Dance Music
99. Crowded House - Better Be Home Soon
98. Cave In - Luminance
97. Phoenix - Too Young
96. Quasi - It's Hard To Turn Me On
95. The Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way
94. Modest Mouse - Parting of the Sensory
93. Neighbors - Sometimes
92. My Bloody Valentine - Sometimes
91. Maxine Nightengale - Right Back Where We Started From
90. Fatlip - What's Up Fatlip?
89. The Watchmen - All Uncovered
88. Everclear - Santa Monica
87. 88 Fingers Louie - I've Won {Really should've had it at #88)
86. Joel R.L. Phelps - Now You Are Found
85. Al Green - Let's Stay Together
84. Rachel Stevens - Some Girls
83. Pretty Girls Make Graves - Speakers Push Air
82. Jawbreaker - Do You Still Hate Me?
81. Blue Rodeo - Bad Timing
80. Phil Collins - All My Life
79. Badly Drawn Boy - Once Around the Block
78. The Beatles - Across the Universe
77. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
76. Antarctica - Absence
75. Wiley - Pies
74. Europe - The Final Countdown
73. Scratching Post - Get With the Program
72. !!! - Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard
71. The Get Up Kids - Action and Action
70. Simon and Garfunkel - Only Living Boy in New York
69. Grandaddy - Underneath the Weeping Willow
68. Cadence Weapon - Oliver Square
67. Radiohead - Idioteque
66. Weezer - You Gave Your Love to Me Softly
65. The Zombies - Care of Cell 44
64. Foo Fighters - How I Miss You
63. Explosions in the Sky - Day 1
62. Doves - Black and White Town
61. m83 - Lower Your Eyelids To Die With the Sun
60. Secret Stars - Some Sinatra
59. Yo La Tengo - Deeper Into Movies
58. Built To Spill - Else
57. DJ Shadow - Building Steam With A Grain of Salt
56. Nelly Furtado - Shit on the Radio
55. Sleater-Kinney - Dance Song 97
54. Fleetwood Mac - Dreams
53. Regina Spektor - Chemo-Limo
52. Liz Phair - Divorce Song
51. The Descendents - Bikeage
50. Van Morrison - Beside You
49. Archers of Loaf - Web in Front
48. Kings of Convenience - Winning A Battle Losing A War (Minizza Remix)
47. The Anniversary - All Things Ordinary
46. Sebadoh - Magnet's Coil
45. The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar
44. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
43. Coldplay - The Scientist
42. Cowboy Junkies - Blue Moon Revisited
41. Superchunk - Pink Clouds
40. Bob Dylan - I Want You
39. Rilo Kiley - Portions For Foxes
38. Slowdive - Avalyn 1
37. For Stars - How It Goes
36. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
35. Bobby Womack - Across 110th Street
34. Iron & Wine - The Trapeze Swinger
33. INXS - Never Tear Us Apart
32. Love Spit Love - Am I Wrong?
31. Smoking Popes - Need You Around
30. Justin Timberlake - Like I Love You
29. The Roots - Act Too (The Love of My Life)
28. Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
27. Lovin' Spoonful - Daydream
26. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
25. Underworld - Born Slippy/NUXX
24. The Wedding Present - Dalliance
23. New Order - Regret
22. American Football - Never Meant
21. Mogwai - Fear Satan Remix
20. Chris DeBurgh - Transmission Ends
19. Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
18. Harvest - Epicure
17. Bollweevils - Talkpeople
16. Planes Mistaken For Stars - Staggerswalloswell
15. Trembling Blue Stars - Ripples
14. Ol' Dirty Bastard - Snakes
13. Jets to Brazil - I Typed For Miles
12. Sigur Ros - Staralfur
11. The Mountain Goats - The Best Ever Metal Band out of Denton
10. The Platters - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
9. Queen with David Bowie - Under Pressure
8. Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper
7. Kylie Minogue - Love at First Sight
6. Bjork - Hyperballad
5. Moby - God Moving Over the Face of the Waters
4. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
3. The Flying Pickets - Only You
2. Harry Belafonte - Day-O
1. Ben Folds Five - Army

The Top Ten Albums of the Year

10. White Rainbow - Prism of Eternal Now: Ambient heads were talking this up over on Sound Opinions and I gave it a chance and forgot about it. Then I gave it another and got lost in it. It's a beautiful ambient album, with weird noisy freakouts and tribal-sounding drumming.

09. L.Pierre - Dip: The dirty half of the late, lamented Arab Strap, Aiden Moffat, who wrote lyrics in pornographic detail, re-sets sail on his solo career with a bedazzling ambient album that no one heard (Seriously, when I tried to search for this album the other day, most of the results were from me talking it up all over the internet).

08. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank: Modest Mouse is so close to synthesizing their newer sound with their older sound into a landmark album that it's exhilirating and frustrating all at once. Your enjoyment of this album, though, really depends what you like about Modest Mouse, as a band. If you like their ramshackle off-key pop songs, than this will be a good one. But if you're a fan of the out-of-control noisy MM of past years, stick to their older output. "The Parting of the Sensory" is probably my favourite thing of the entire year: a laid-back country song that turns into a menacing foot-stomping hoedown.

07. The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour: As a citizen of Canada, I pretty much have to like this. I mean, this is as Canadian as Canadian gets. Somehow, the majority of the world embraces true Canadian acts as Shania Twain, Celine Dion, and Nickleback, yet any one of those three could just as easily be from anywhere in the world. But The Weakerthans can only come from Canada, there's no way this band could be from anywhere else. And this is probably their most Canadian album yet, I mean, there's a song titled "Elegy for Gump Worsley" the legendary portly former NHL goalie, or "Tournament of Hearts", the title a nod to fellow Canadian outfit The Constantines, the subject matter a struggling relationship coded in curling imagery. Musically, it's no huge leap from previous Weakerthans' albums, except one exceptionally snarly Neil Youngesque guitar solo, but it's still a solid solid Canadian album. This is the album that encapsulates more about what it is to be Canadian than a million Bryan Adams ballads, a million Barenaked Ladies ironic rap songs, or six billion Sk8er Bois.

06. Paramore - Riot!: This is straight-ahead fun power pop rock. With a singer that looks like she wandered into Hot Topic by accident and got suckered in by the emo boys fascinating hair cuts and complicated shoes, singing over top of hooky, punchy guitars, it kind of reminds me of a million cute-girl-fronted bands that were around in the early nineties with one massive difference: Paramore know how to write a song that sticks with you. This thing just blindsided me. I hope Fall Out Boy's reign at the top of the charts never ends as long as they keep bringing with them bands that are catchy and fun like Paramore.



5. Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War:Stars released one of my favourite albums of 2005 "Set Yourself On Fire", so I was anticipating this one greatly. Then, I got wind of the title, and was worried about another Canadian group resorting to warmed-over tired political talking points, and approached the album with a lot more trepidation. But, then, it just turned out to another Stars album, so all is well. The war of the title is both a literal war, and a metaphorical one. This is the sound of Stars also taking some chances, though. For the most part, it sounds like Stars being Stars, but there are some genuinely surprising moments: the song "Personal" is written like a personal ad, answered by another, and back and forth to its heartbreaking conclusion (my brother tells me another song sounds like a screenplay, but I must have missed it while running out some trash), there's Torquil Campbell's surprising falsetto making its first-ever appearance (by my count). But the standout moment for me was "Barricade", a piano-aided ballad set against the backdrop of a massive protest where Campbell sings the shit out of the chorus in a way I've never heard him before as he's usually content to kind of whisper out his words, and then closes with a crowd chanting at the cops. If you didn't like past Stars albums, this isn't going to win any new converts, but if "Set Yourself On Fire" moved you, get ready to be moved once again.

4. Feist - The Reminder: felt kind of bad looking at my 2006 Best Of... lists and wondering where the women were at, there was nary a vagina to be found anywhere (Especially seeing as I counted James Blunt as 2006...) but 2007 has already produced two female solo albums better than 8 of the Top 10 from last year. "The Reminder" was such a pleasant surprise from an artists I considered kind of superfluous prior to this year. You can count 2007 as the year Feist realized she had a decent voice and decided to sing the hell out of it, pushing her songs light-years beyond anything from "Let It Die". She does ballads better than anyone else this year, where her voice trembles and almost breaks, but also surges and crests, sometimes over as little as an acoustic guitar. But, then she also proves herself on upbeat dancey numbers like "My Moon, My Man" and thrilling indie-pop like "I Feel It All". A revelation.



3. m83 - Digital Shades Vol. 1: In which Anthony Gonzalez lays his Brian Eno-influences on his sleeve with a concise emotional ambient album. Not a proper follow-up to 2005's epic "Before the Dawn Heals Us" as much as a side project under the m83 banner, "Digital Shades" is like all the awe-inspiring ambient interludes off that last album stretched out to a full-length. Like sun in the winter, it arrives, it's brilliant, and, before you know it, it's gone.

2. Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad: See then smack me once upside the head, then multiply by a hundred, and you have the best pop album of the year.




1. Eluvium - Copia: Ethereal ambient album infuzes solo-piano with atmospherics for a completely out-of-this-world experience. Songs fade in gently, settle into a pleasant little melody, before exploding out with synths, or turning inwards on themselves and begging you to turn it up. How fitting that the most emotional album in this era of unprecedented communication options, is the one that says the least; that an album with nary a vocal can say so much about the human condition and can evoke the gamut of human emotions without ever addressing the listener once. Spectacular.

Top 50 Albums of the YEAR

50. Lou Reed - Hudson River Wind Meditations
49. Radicalfashion - Odori
48. You Say Party! We Say Die! - Lose All Time
47. Scary Kids Scaring Kids - Scary Kids Scaring Kids
46. Port-Royal - Afraid to Dance
45. Ne-Yo - Because of You
44. Angels & Airwaves - I-Empire
43. Minus the Bear - Planet of Ice
42. Crippled Black Phoenix - A Love of Shared Disasters
41. Wintersleep - Welcome to the Night Sky
40. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
39. Kate Nash - Made of Bricks
38. Circa Survive - On Letting Go
37. Dntel - Dumb Luck
36. Jose Gonzalez - In Our Nature
35. Immaculate Machine - Immaculate Machine's Fables
34. Handsome Furs - Plague Park
33. Kelly Clarkson - My December
32. Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of...
31. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away



30. Timbaland - Presents Shock Value
29. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
28. Apostle of Hustle - National Anthem of Nowhere
27. Jesu - Conqueror
26. Justice - t
25. Amandine - Solace in Sore Hands
24. Besnard Lakes - Are the Darkhorse
23. Rich Boy - Rich Boy
22. Fields - Everything Last Winter
21. Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
20. Interpol - Our Love to Admire
19. Explosions in the Sky - All of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
18. Kanye West - Graduation
17. Caribou - Andorra
16. Mark Olson - The Salvation Blues
15. LCD Soundsytem - Sound of Silver
14. Britney Spears - Blackout
13. Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline
12. Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - Spirit If...
11. Radiohead - In Rainbows

Top 100 Singles of the Year

001. The Killers - Read My Mind
002. Aly & AJ - Potential Breakup Song
003. Omarion - Ice Box
004. Rihanna featuring Jay-Z - Umbrella
005. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
006. Rich Boy featuring Polow Da Don - Throw Some Ds
007. Nelly Furtado - Do It
008. Paramore - Misery Business
009. Young Jeezy featuring R.Kelly - Go Getta
010. Rihanna - Don't Stop the Music
011. Ciara - Like A Boy
012. Phoenix - Rally
013. Kate Nash - Foundations
014. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
015. Interpol - There's No I in Threesome
016. Smashing Pumpkins - Tarantula
017. Diddy featuring Keyshia Cole - Last Nite
018. 50 Cent featuring Justin Timberlake and Timbaland - Ayo Technology
019. Interpol - The Heinrich Manuever
020. My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words
021. Soulja Boy - Crank Dat (Supa Man)
022. Feist - My Moon, My Man
023. Band of Horses - Is There A Ghost
024. The Weakerthans - Civil Twilight
025. Stars - Take Me to the Riot
026. Modest Mouse - Dashboard
027. Britney Spears - Piece of Me
028. J.Holiday - Bed
029. Bloc Party - The Prayer
030. James Blunt - 1973
031. k-os - Born To Run
032. Rihanna - Shut Up and Drive
033. Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye
034. Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
035. Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around...Comes Back Around
036. The Shins - Phantom Limb
037. Josh Ritter - Right Moves
038. Feist - 1-2-3-4
039. Kanye West - Stronger
040. Battles - Atlas
041. Papoose - Alphabetica Slaughter
042. The Chemical Brothers featuring Fat Lip - The Salmon Dance
043. Kelly Clarkson - Never Again
044. Ne-Yo - Because of You
045. Gwen Stefani featuring Akon - The Sweet Escape
046. Gwen Stefani - 4 in the Morning
047. Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
048. Modest Mouse - Little Motel
049. The Editors - Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors
050. Kanye West featuring Dwele - Flashing Lights
051. The Guillemots - Annie, Let's Not Wait
052. Three 6 Mafia - Doe Boy Fresh
053. The Tough Alliance - First Class Riot
054. Rich Boy - Boy Looka Here
055. Mandy Moore - Extraordinary
056. Handsome Furs - Dumb Animals
057. Rich Boy featuring Keri Hilson and Polow Da Don - Good Things
058. Fields - If You Fail We All Fail
059. Kenna - Say Goodbye to Love
060. Kate Nash - Mouthwash
061. Bjork - Innocence
062. Circa Survive - In the Morning and Amazing
063. Silverchair - Straight Lines
064. Britney Spears - Gimme More
065. Besnard Lakes - For Agent 13
066. Kevin Drew - Backed Out on the...
067. The Killers - Shadowplay
068. Justice - D.A.N.C.E.
069. Paramore - Hallelujah
070. Tegan & Sara - Back In Your Head
071. Hot Hot Heat - Let Me In
072. Justin Timberlake - Love Stoned/I Think That She Knows
073. Rihanna featuring Ne-Yo - Hate That I Love You
074. Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson - The Way I Are
075. Timbaland featuring Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado - Give It To Me
076. My Chemical Romance - I Don't Love You
077. Paramore - crushcrushcrush
078. The Killers featuring Lou Reed - Tranquilize
079. Nelly Furtado - All Good Things (Come to an End)
080. Timbaland presents One Republic - Apologize
081. Bjork - Earth Intruders
082. The Game featuring Kanye West - Wouldn't Get Far
083. Cascada - What Hurts the Most
084. Malcolm Middleton - We're All Going to Die
085. Nelly Furtado - In God's Hands
086. Kanye West - Can't Tell Me Nothing
087. Bloc Party - I Still Remember
088. Rooney - When Did Your Heart Go Missing
089. Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry
090. Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats
091. Kanye West featuring T-Pain - The Good Life
092. Air France - Beach Party
093. Modest Mouse - Missed the Boat
094. Fields - Charming the Flames
095. The Shins - Australia
096. Underworld - Crocodile
097. Angels & Airwaves - Everything's Magic
098. LCD Soundsytem - North American Scum
099. Circa Survive - The Difference Between Medicine and Poison is in the Dose
100. Fall Out Boy - Thnks Fr th Mmrs

"Who want a body massage?"

For no reason other than I feel like it...

Grandaddy "The Sophtware Slump

Grandaddy "The Sophtware Slump"

Someone on a message board somewhere was recently hyping this album, and it made me think of it for the first time in a long time. So I revisited it last night and it was sounding better to me than maybe it ever had before (And I'd always thought pretty highly of it before anyways). It's weird in that it's as conceptual of a concept album as there is, all about technology and the modern man. But, as nuch as it's about that, The Sophtware Slump is an album I always associate with loss. Much of that could be my discovering Grandaddy in the winter of 00 when there was a whole lotta losin' goin' on in my personal life. In fact, I had a hard time getting into this album until one its tracks, the sublimely short and sweet "Under The Weeping Willow" somehow oddly wormed its way into my head and repeated itself endlessly in my head on a flight out for my grandfather's funeral. What's odd about it worming its way in is that I had no idea what the song was for the entire length of the flight. When I finally had some time to myself, that night, I went through the few CDs I'd thought to bring before I hopped on the plane, and found it was, indeed, a song off of the album. I can't tell you how much those lines meant to me that night:

"I wanna sleep

underneath the weeping willow

as it cries all night quietly

its tears all around me

until I'm allowed finally

to wake and be happy again"

I hadn't intended to get all livejournalish here, but here we are. Sometimes, not always, I find it interesting to hear why certain albums attain certain status for some people. I've probably heard better albums about loss (Then again, listening to this again, maybe not) but I'll never be able to divorce this album from my own personal experiences, and I wouldn't want to either. It's why, as much as I enjoy reading and contributing to polls about Best Albums or Songs, it's ultimately futile as you no matter how much I recommend something that has had a personal affectation on my life, I cannot ever recommend it in the same way. Because when your grandfather dies, and you have to rush out on a plane trip to his funeral, you're going to have your own musical accompaniment, and that's yours, and it belongs only to you, and you really can't share it with anyone else.



Anyways, this album is really good. I have no idea how you'd classify it. I guess it almost treads in the power or fuzzpop territory. Maybe I can sway you by saying that it had such an effect on actor Jason Lee (of My Name Is Earl, Mallrats and Chasing Amy fame) that he named his son Pilot after the first track of the album. I know it's cliche to say it, but this is definitely a headphones album, I couldn't believe the difference in listening to this album on the stereo, and listening to it on the headphones last night. Thrilling.

Rihanna "Good Girl Gone Bad" Real-Time Record Review

I've never done one of these before, but I'm completely excited by this album, maybe more so than anything else to surface this year. So, you can read my appreciate it while I'm appreciating it.

01. "Umbrella" featuring Jay-Z: Come on, it's "Umbrella", rapidly becoming one of the best singles of the year. I would love to hear the Jay-Z section axed out, but it doesn't bother me enough to make me devalue it any. Much has already been made of her turning "Umbrella" into a four-syllable word, and it is endearing: "under my um-ber-ell-ah", but attention must be paid also to her "Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, ay" where the third and fourth "ays" are sung lower. This is another one of those songs that sounds so much better at high volumes, where you can hear just how much is going on in the background: the synths, the bass, the strings (there's something string-like, I don't know what it is). Frontloading the album with this song is either going to be a ballsy "This isn't even the best song on the album"-type statement, or a harbinger of collossal disappointment.

02. "Push Up on Me": Opens with a beat that reminds me of a certain gun off that James Bond Goldeneye game for Nintendo 64 that I spent entirely too many evenings playing at friends' houses. This sounds like a Neptunes track, but I have no idea who it is.

03. "Please Don't Stop the Music": This beat is incredible, more of a techno beat than a pop or R&B beat. At first listen, it almost sounds like Daft Punk is backing Rihanna. I really dig the sampled "woo-hoo-hoos" in the background, it sounds like Goofy skiing off a cliff. This is too good, actually, the bass almost drops out, gets all obscured as she sings, than explodes back to the forefront on the chorus. Holy hell, this just gets better and better. The music drops right out, leaving just Rihanna and the beat, before the murky bass comes back in with some backing vocals. This is just beyond almost anything else I've heard this year. Incredible.

04. "Breakin' Dishes": At first listen, this sounds like "Maneater" but it's ANGRY. Rihanna is pissed, but she also "super-cool". I heard Timbaland was on this album, and this sounds like him, but it's not him, at least according to wikipedia. It sounds like someone heard "Sexy Back" and said "Oh I see where you wanted to go with this, let me fix it" and then went ahead and did fix it. Rihanna puts the same pronounciation on "Marshmallow" as "umbrella" when she sings "I'm roasting marsha-mellows on the fire". God, this is good, too. The beat is something else. Then it gets more aggressive, I'm thinking like "Army of Me" as she announces "I'm gonna blow this house down!"

05. "Shut Up and Drive": Starts with electric guitars, big, crunchy electric guitars, which promptly drop out, but pick up again right before the chorus. Wiki says this is the next single, and it's pretty bad-assed, with Rihanna singing about big, booming bass in the back while guitars mesh with the beat. Then, at the end of the chorus, the music stops entirely and Rihanna says "Now shut up and drive". This is a pretty untouchable first five songs. Oh wow, the beat picks up and the guitars drop out and it threatens to blow my speakers, before coming back. Then, a siren and a car accident to end it off.

06. "Hate That I Love You" featuring Ne-Yo: And here we have a Rihanna/Ne-Yo ballad to slow things down, they were getting pretty loud and aggressive there. But, it's not exxactly inferior. I mean, I guess it is in comparision to the first five, but it's not a bad song. It's got a seductive little beat, and a terrific chorus where Rihanna bemoans "I hate how much I love you". If you're worrying this is like "Unfaithful", which is what happened last time Ne-Yo wrote her a ballad, cast those doubts aside. This one suits her much better. The secret is Rihanna has a neat voice, but it's not an American Idol-type voice, so keep her away from vocal gymnastics and it will be fine. If she tries to do too much, it just comes off whiny.

07. "Say It": This is a mid-tempo one, kind of chilled out. A laid-back, easy beat. It would sound perfect coming from a studio, driving around on a summer afternoon. Hopefully, the next track is a banger, like #4 or #5, because if it is this is the perfect segue, it's a little livelier than "Hate That I Love You" but still fairly mellow. It's kind of like what that new Akon single would be like if Akon wasn't completely terrible. I actually really like this beat the more I live with it.

08. "Sell Me Candy": It's not quite a banger, like #4 or #5, but it's a lot more uptempo. The chorus bears more than a passing resemblance to "Umbrella". These are by far the weirdest Rihanna vocals I've heard, it's more like she's rappping, or reading really fast rather than singing. The chorus is good, though. I can't actually really hear anything that's being said, but it's terrific. Amazing, even. I was kind of worried, actually, given the title, that this was going to be like Kelis, so I'm really glad it isn't. I really don't like Kelis.

09. "Lemme Get That": A pseudo-Middle Eastern sample, with a pretty hypnotic bass. Then, it gives way to a weird shout-spoken vocals, with a weird horn sample, and it's actually pretty damned nasty-sounding. There is so much going on here, and it's so off-kilter that it shouldn't work, but it seems to be working. Yeah, it's working. The beat is big and undeniable. Wiki says this is Timbaland, and it all makes sense now as it's completely wrong and weird, yet all comes together. Why is it that everything Timbaland has done for everyone else in the last few years has gone so right, while his own solo one went so wrong. What was really weird about the Timbaland solo album is that the best tracks were the ones that should not, in a million years work, like the collaborations with She Wants Revenge or Fall Out Boy, yet the ones that seemed like homeruns (J.T., 50 Cent) were clunkers. Rihanna drops a "uh-uh-uh" near the end that sounds just like the chorus to "London Bridge" like she replaced the "How come every time you come 'round..." with uh-uhs.

10. "Rehab": Not actually a cover of the Amy Winehouse song, though I was actually kind of hoping it would be. Instead, it's a Timbaland-produced slow song about Rihanna checking into rehab for a broken heart. The synths in the background are good. It's nothing new, really. If you've heard a Timballad before, you've heard this, though that doesn't mean it's not good. Actually, it's perfectly fine. I was not expecting the Justin Timberlake appearance, though. He doesn't do much, just a few "ohs". Actually, yeah, I do like this.

11. "Question Existing": What a weird one, a big, pounding beat. But, it's a slow-moving, almost lurching beat. The vocals are all distorted, given a real edge. Ooo, but the chorus is even bigger, with synths coming down crashing behind her. Then, at the 2:29 mark, Rihanna just starts talking: "I like to think that I'm pretty normal. I laugh, I get mad, I get hurt, I think guys suck sometimes." It's staggering really. It's so unexpected, it's like she stops the big show, and takes a break and lets you behind the curtain.

12. "Good Girl Gone Bad": And just so to keep you on your toes, this one opens with acoustic guitar strumming. I think it's about a girl from a bad home becoming a stripper. The chorus is super-catchy, ending with "You better learn how to treat us right" with all the backing vocals coming in at once. It's a perfect closer to the album. When hearing that the title of this album is "Good Girl Gone Bad" it invokes memories of Christina Aguiera's "Stripped" where she went so over the top dirrty to put herself back in the spotlight that she's only now just starting to recover as a respected singer. So, when you hear the title, you're expecting the album to be all about Rihanna growing up and being bad. But, really, what the title seems to mean, rather, is that Rihanna doesn't want to go bad. She just wants to be loved. She even repeats it at the end of one of the songs, "I just want to love". The chorus implores the listener not to be one of the people who makes a good girl go bad, because "once a good girl goes bad, (they) die forever."

I think I might just have a new album of the year. Unbelievable. I really dug her album last year, but the number of clunkers outweighed the moments of excellence. But there's not a bad track on the album, not even a misstep, really.

L.Pierre "Dip"

What's weird is that Arab Strap was always thought to be Aidan Moffat's vocals and lyrics with Malcolm Middleton's instrumentation. Yet, when 2007 saw the early release of solo albums from both of the members of the now defunct group, Middleton's was a straight-forward rock-y type album, while Moffat's solo output is a lush ambient album with very little in the way of vocals, certainly no growling spoken words about sex. This is the second song off of said album, and like the rest of it, it's a quiet lilting song. "Weir's Way" starts with a bit of the seagull calls that blend through from the first track but then a sweet acoustic riff comes in and it rides that riff until that gives way to some horns, and almost choral harmonies before finally picking up a beat at the 7:51 mark which it follows to the end as the music rises and surges before subsiding again. Eleven minutes and thirty-six seconds of pure bliss.

This album is being completely slept-on, though a large bit of that is due to it not having any kind of North American distribution. It's probably a Top 5 album of the year, so far, for me, though.

L.Pierre "Weir's Way"

hXXp://www.megaupload.com/?d=88FJV6A2

"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children"

(quote from William Makepeace Thackeray)

Little Children: I'm still plugging away at 2006, hoping to get to 50 movies seen (Two away), and this was my most looked-forward-to, yet still-unseen flick. And it did not disappoint. I don't know if I'm completely onboard with calling this a suburban satire, though portions of it are definitely delightfully satiric. It's the story of two couples, where the wife from one family (Kate Winslet) feels trapped and alone until she meets Brad (Patrick Wilson), the husband from the other family, and they begin an affair. This affair is set against the backdrop of a neighbourhood where a pedophile, Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley) has recently moved back in with his mother. The whole thing is chock full of great performances: there are of course the two Oscar-nominated ones, Winslet, and Haley, but there are also the two overlooked roles: Noah Emmerich as Brad's old friend Larry who reconnects with him, and obsesses over the pedophile as a way of salvaging his life in crisis, and Phyllis Somerville as Ronnie's mother, who is possessed of an uncommon inner strength to defend her son, regardless of what he's done. Terrific film.

The Spirit of the Beehive {El Espiritu de la colmena}: I always check TCM on Sunday nights because they seem to show random foreign movies at that time that you never see at any other time of the week (I missed Tokyo Drifter when I was sick, but caught some of Seven Samurai in recent weeks), and I hadn't heard of this one, looked it up on IMDB, and decided to watch it based on the praise some gave it. Now having watched it, I'm not sure I can really give it much of a description. It's about a family in 1940s Spain that has grown distant from each other. The mother and father hardly talk, no one seems to pay much attention to either daughter. Together, the daughters see a screening of Frankenstein. When one daughter asks the other about why Frankenstein is killed, the other daughter explains it was fake, and that Frankenstein lives near them. They frequen an old abandoned building, looking for Frankenstein, and generally pass the time away. Later, when someone comes to live at the abandoned building, the youngest daughter, Ana, befriends him. It is beautifully shot, and looking it up on IMDB, the cinematographer was beginning to go blind, which I can believe becase The Spirit of the Beehive can be watched almost as a catalogue of beautiful images that he sought to get down on film before his eyesight gave out. It is amazingly slow-paced, but there's enough to look at, that it should never really get you down. I'm really glad I saw

The Best Eleven Singles of the Half-Year

Man, Rich Boy is totally a goober.

11. Young Jeezy featuring R.Kelly - Go Getta: Even though Young Jeezy continues to be the most superfluous rapper going, this one succeds on the strength of the beat, and R.Kelly's appearances.

10. Three 6 Mafia - Doe Boy Fresh: I love the epic samples used by Three 6 Mafia, this one is no different. Sure, it's the less skilled younger brother, the Keith Gretzky to Stay Fly's Wayne, but, in some ways, that makes it even more endearing.

09. Modest Mouse - Dashboard: It ain't no "Float On", but it's still a ramshackle catchy little ditty.

08. Diddy featuring Keyshia Cole - Last Night: This is the best Diddy single since "Bad Boy For Life". It's completely un-Diddy in that it's a bizarre 80s sounding beat, with Keyshia Cole crying over top of it about how sad she is, while Diddy is at his least braggadocious, lamenting lost loves. It's a toss-up between which is better, as the edit is about 2 minutes shorter and cuts out a lot of Cole's whining, which grates after a while, but the full-length has the completely insane ending with Diddy phoning his girl's house and threatening to shoot up her place if she is, in fact, just screeing out his calls.

07. Rihanna featuring Jay-Z - Umbrella: You know, I didn't even like "Pon De Replay" when it came out (still don't, actually), so I'm completely confuzzled as to just where all these great pop songs came from. Time will tell if this holds up to "S.O.S." which was played 'round the clock, but became better with each play, or if I will burn out quickly on this one. I would guess the former, but Jay-Z's half-assed appearance could drag it down to the latter.
06. [b]My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words[/b]: Yeah, Throughsilver was right, this is THE MCR single. Miles better than The Black Parade which has a good start and finish, but no meat to the middle, this is just DRIPPING with emotion. Billy Corgan wishes he could hit these heights of emotional melodrama.

05. Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye: A late-enough 2006er that I'm counting it for 2007, as that's when everyone started playing it. It's a complete mystery why this is doing so well, in that it really in no way sounds like anything current and is more of a throwback to late 90s alternative rock. It's a terrific song, though, my favourite part being the way he repeats that one section of lines with added vigor until the last time he shouts them right over the guitars.

04. Rich Boy featuring Polow Da Don - Throw Some D's: Rich Boy kind of looks like a goober, but, really, he has next to nothing to do with how good this song is. Really, it's all Polow Da Don (Who might want to shorten his name to something easier, PDD maybe?). PDD produces it, and it rides this simple, laid-back sample with a big bass then gets more complicated as the song goes on, mixing in this little sample that I can't quite place. But, what's more, is PDD than comes in after the second chorus and drops the best verse of the entire song, especially when he brags that "Every freak should have a picture of my dick/On their walls!" My only complaint is it's too early, as radio will have moved on, and this really should've been the song of the summer.

03. Ciara - Like A Boy: Ciara continues her miracle run, completing the Triple Crown of great singles after her appearance on last year's Field Mob single "So What", and last fall's "Promise" which was beyond amazing: a declaration of love/R&B personals ad riding a Prince-sounding beat. This one just might eclipse the other two (Maybe not, "Promise" is really, REALLY good). It has this strings sample that sounds just like that Diamonds commercial with the silhouettes of happy couples that was ridiculed oh-so-well on Family Guy. Ciara sings about double-standards and talks about how maybe she'll start staying out all night, leaving her cell on vibrate, and making boys cry, wishing that she "could act just like a boy" which is a pretty admirable song to attempt given that weird Internet rumor going around a year or two ago. But, the song is greatness. I'm hoping for many more Ciara singles this year, as she is just on a roll.

02. The Killers - Read My Mind: I really think all the reviewers last year lazily lambasting the Killers for copping Springsteen because Brandon Flowers dropped his name in an interview missed the mark. The Killers maybe were going for Springsteen lyrical content, but they never sounded anything like the Boss. No, I'm pretty sure, and judging by the opening of this one with the ambient keyboard sounds so reminiscient of "Where the Streets Have No Name", that The Killers dream is really to be this generation's U2. This song is nigh-perfect, too loud to be on the "soft-rock" stations, but tempered enough to be perfectly acceptable as the soundtrack to the next romantic comedy. The only things that throw me off are Flowers' weird hiccupped delivery on a couple of lines, but even that is becoming quite endearing.

01. Omarion - Icebox: This should have been such an amazingly huge hit that it's ridiculous. Timbaland delivers a better beat on this one than anything on his own album: twinkling piano keys, and a perfect throbbing bassline. But, really, Omarion's the star here, lamenting a girl he loves; he's losing her, he'll soon have lost her, because the girl he loves doesn't exist, except in his memory. Omarion sings the hell out of this one. Easy #1 single of the year. I wouldn't be surprised to see this still sitting here at the end of the year.

Why Am I Telling You This For the Last Time?

This title just kind of hit me tonight, and I was sure it must've been a great book I'd read at some point and forgotten, but it turns out, it was a Jerry Seinfeld comedy special that I'm pretty sure I never saw. Anyways, it is also somewhat of a mission statement. This makes the third time I've lost/misplaced/forgotten my password(s) and had to discard a previous blog.

So, basically, what I'm saying, is that if I lose the password to this one, I'm out. I'm done. No more blogging. Not that I expect to stick to that promise, or stick to any sort of regular posting schedule.

Also, I seem to have ads. Click them. Or don't.

Thus far, this blog has no content, but it does have a hastily-created header, now. And a picture at the bottom. The header is a lighthouse somewhere in the lower end of Argentina, featured prominently in the film Happy Together where lonely people go to discard their loneliness or something like that. The picture below is from my backyard. Anyways, I expect I will soon be rambling at some length about music or movies or something, if you're greatly irritated by my ramblings, go to the link bar on the right, because any and all of Throughsilver, Tom, or James write much more eloquently about music than I do.