nate’s year-end corral was so eloquent in its simplicity that it made me feel bad for being almost self-hatingly obfuscatory in my last few posts. but that’s nate’s style, on and off the field. thanks for keeping me in check, nate.
my favorite artist/album title combination from this year
vivid, transparent, and brutally honest, perhaps to a fault.
the titter-titter award for best historic naughty jam i heard this year
the five royales, “laundromat blues.”
paraphrased: my girlfriend’s genetalia is the best genetalia. it is like a washing machine. my analogies prefigure academic rhetoric about the mechanization of sex and try to counteract a long history of catholicism’s cultural legacy of portraying sex as dirty. if you don’t believe me, ask my backup singers, whose moans are self-evident.
runners-up
the treniers, “poon tang”
screamin’ jay hawkins, “bite it”
the latter also ties with tom ze’s “o amor é um rock” for the jane birkin was really no big deal award for sex noise that made me libidinally itchy in a very real way
the best economist cover
close runner-up
of all the words rotting the maw of babel, few bother me more than the overuse of “dada.” i’m serious. bothersome. but i’ll use it for some of these recent economist covers, which run closer to the heart of dada than almost anything i can think of. the deadpan absurdity of the images, rather than dulling or avoiding, actually sharpens their messages. putin and kim jong-il aren’t cast as inert monoliths of boring ol’ dictatorial gubernments, but as what they really are: scary-as-shit cartoons; supervillains in the continuing nightmares of global politics.
three older, “classic” hip-hop albums i heard (and really liked) for the first time this year, in part because i never really listened to hip-hop growing up
stetsasonic, in full gear
black sheep, a wolf in sheep’s clothing
del tha funkee homosapien, i wish my brother george was here
the best album i had forgotten about for a little while
the raincoats, the raincoats.
i recently told a friend that this was one of my all-time favorite records and then realized i hadn’t listened to it in almost two years. it turns out that i kind of needed to, just to remind me that the first step to taking over the world is deliniating just where your world is; between this album and gertrude stein’s tender buttons, i learned the value of thinking small. plus, palmolive’s drumming awakens me to rare heights of idiot joy.
an album that came out this year that has a whiff of the spirit i love so dearly on the raincoats
ooioo, taiga. ooioo like the cars that go boom. they also like west african guitar patterns and screaming.
one hastily selected song from this year
momus, “nervous heartbeat”
twelve hastily selected songs from years other than this year
miles davis, “he loved him madly”
comus, “figure in your dreams”
animal collective, “good lovin’ outside”
del tha funkee homosapien, “dr. bombay”
the coasters, “little egypt”
the pochonbo electronic ensemble, “arirang”
sparkletones, “little turtle”
lord kitchener, “kitchener in the jungle”
gilberto gil, “volks, volkwagen blue”
ned rifle aka hal hartley, closing theme from trust
disco tex and his sex-o-lettes, “i wanna dance wit’ choo”
the boredoms, “jungle taitei”