I was planning on putting this up earlier, but it works out well that I have New Years' Eve off and have time to compile this. Here are the favorite albums of a few Sad Bears. I'm sure you've already read way too many lists but please humor us for this. We like lists way too much.
Feel free to berate us/debate us in the comments. Lists after the jump. (And happy new year. Don't party too hard out there while you watch the NHL Winter Classic!*)
*I realize that I will probabaly be the only person actually watching this. Deal.
Tonight I listened to Eagles of Death Metal at work. We missed deadline by 45 minutes because a coach conveniently "forgot" to call in his score. "Forgot" despite the fact that he remembered our rival paper to the North, who we had to call to get the damn boxscore.
I edited 60 inches of obits and a 60 inch murder trial story and listened to J. Devil preach it and it made me wish I was back in college where I could be allowed to drink, blow things off and make poor decisions with relativity no consequences.
Sadly, this might be the best thing any member of Weezer (current, or now, in the case of Matt Sharp, former) has produced since Pinkerton. And it came out in 1996.
Either way, I'm down with P. Return of the Rentals is such a fucking gem. I think we can all concede that he was the backbone of Weezer. Rivers can sit on it, especially without his high harmonies in the background of the early songs.
I can't vouch for every moment of this song, but I love the opening and I've been exploring Unicorns and the related work of Islands -- all ushered into my world by one Nick Laffey, of Des Moines, while in Minneapolis.
CHASE: Song: "Killa Bees" Artist: Wu-Tang Killa Bees (RZA, U-God, Inspectah Deck, Suga Bang Bang, and Blue Raspberry)
Transference is really, really growing on me, as is Spoon's overall aesthetic. They're so overtly catchy and simple, but the strange and subtle details - hitting certain notes and hooks on off beats, "wrong" tones and sounds, unusual imagery (even Biblical at times), etc. - make immense differences and set them apart. Britt Daniel is really something special among pop songwriters.
Some ambition for Silliman. It's not my favorite song on the album, but, short of posting "Runaway", this video best reflects what Kanye's trying to do on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
I have a kind of running comparison between Kanye's Fantasy and The Age of Adz running through my head and no time to really sort them out. The short version: both express personal suffering in overtly epic ways, but while Sufjan is self-conscious about it, Kanye is not. Kanye West actually seems to think that his problems are equal to or a result or a symbol of the sins of the Western world. More on that another time.
