Three Bulls!

Click the category link for a stroll back through years past. I’m not convinced we have the strength to make it through this year. But looking at least year, it’s true, it was just as bad, so we effort for your benefit. Onward giant tortoise!

Read P-fork and listen along, if you dare here.

100: Girls “Hellhole Ratrace”

The music seems like I’m going to be into it, and the description of “casual bedsit glam-pop” seems intriguing, likely pretentious, and probably inaccurate. The sleighbells and in fact everything else about the first half suggest it should include the words “Christmas” and “baby” somewhere. Of course it does that landscapery fuzz tremolo thing coupled with excessive repetitiveness aiming for some previously unknown Elvis Costello/Radiohead sticklebastard sweetspot. Decent enough that I’ve lost a mental bet about it.

UC’s take: I think band names are largely inconsequential, but Girls is kinda intentionally paradoxical to the point where I’m forced to consider it while listening to the music. What do they mean? I too like the sleigh bells and strumming guitar and the vaguely Spiritualized bitching and moaning in the song, but I don’t think it is musically robust. I got really bored at the repetitiveness about two minutes into the song, and it really never brought me back into it. Still, it’s a pretty acceptable track. You get a bye, Scott Plagenhoef….

99: Final Fantasy “The Butcher”

UC is likely to need a kleenex on Final Fantasy principle. Like a twe-er but somehow less precious and tinkly Sufjan Stevens (Phil Glassy minimalism), I think it is because FF doesn’t own a triangle. Has a certain amount of charmery in its pleasantness. Never seems stupid on any level. Huh. What is going on at the Fork?? Is this the year of decent but obscuritan?

UC’s take: This is pretty awesome stuff. I think I like other Final Fantasy songs before, especially with more elaborate and hooky violin loops, but this has everything in music that makes me tingle in that special place. It is very Sufjan Stevens-y, especially with the horns and constant chords. I like that. Crap, think this song is amazing. The Pitchfork review is well-written and thoughtful as well. I agree with PP – we are being setup for something very very bad. This is the virus delivery system. I’m concerned.

98: The Magnetic Fields “The Nun’s Litany”

Relatively substandard Magnetic Fields joke track. I don’t have Distortion yet but I’ll have to presume this is the least interesting and worst track on the album, if the album is of any amount of quality. Perhaps I just hate the track because Doug Wolk just neutered the hell out of it with his flaccid prose. That last bit was just for him, consider:

The title is the omitted detail that makes the lyric’s meaning fall into place; the melody is as severe and formal as a nun’s cloth, but the arrangement is interested in an entirely different Jesus and Mary. The escalating fantasies of each verse have little circumstantial barbs built into them (“I want to be a brothel worker/ I’ve always been treated like one”), and the last one ends by abruptly stripping singer Shirley Simms’ voice naked in front of her audience.

I never want to discuss music, or water sports or see any of these people ever again.

UC’s take: I have to make the assumption that there are eight other tracks from Distortion, because then this fits into somebody’s top 100 list with just barely room to spare. Honestly, all the other tracks are better. This is pleasant enough, if not a little provocative, but it is fast putting me to sleep. I did laugh out loud reading Pinko’s flaccid prose comment, though. That was good entertainment.

97: Buraka Som Sistema [ft. M.I.A. and DJ Znobia] “Sound of Kuduro”

Usual in the countdown I don’t feel this Bataan Death March of Music Criticism Prose until the 40s or 50s. Now, I feel like I’m there after four songs. I really feel the Forkers are cashewy nut logging it with their words. Instead of simple, readily apparent pleasures to be had at listening, we’ve got Meh-sters Theses of critwank. What is there to say about this song? I don’t even know.

UC’s take: This does particularly suck very strongly. The M.I.A. name dropping doesn’t add any cred at all, and the unlistenability index increases as the song marches on in its obnoxiousness. Let me be straight – I was never going to like this song. No way, no how. But on a scale of political pundits I would rather listen to than Buraka Som Sistema, this falls right around the Rush Limbaugh level. I don’t even know if Kuduro is a country or city or region, but I am wondering if the Bush government might consider establishing “diplomatic relations” with the Kuduro-kind.

96: Empire of the Sun “Walking on a Dream”

Well put together 80′s revivalist pop trifle. Completely absent from the cynical and decrepit teensploitation of Wesleyan wavers MGMT. This song works for a mixtape or a midepisode montage for a hypothetical update of Miami Vice with the same pop-cheese top 40+underground sensibility as the original show. Also, they just nail the fade out falsetto outro. Derivative but pretty good.

UC’s take: This song is perfectly acceptable if not even kinda catchy. It’s not exceptional by any means, but it doesn’t seem to strive to do so. Really, the tragedy of this entry is the completely inept description provided by Mike Orme. For example, calling this disco-country rock, is like calling Spoon a psychedelic-country band. There is no country music in this song. It’s barely disco-influenced. It is pure pop and nothing else. Furthermore, describing the dulcet treble vocals in the song a screeching falsetto, would be akin to calling Sufjan Steven’s voice a booming bass. I really don’t know how any part of the song review relates to the song. It is bizarre.

95: Friendly Fires [ft. Au Revoir Simone] “Paris (Aeroplane Remix)”

Vocals, probably taken from a better and more interesting original track save me from being crushed by a subliminal 900 pound wheel of cheese. Actually OK, but you wonder if picking a remix is overthinking it. Second half loses the cheese-floor and goes to reimagined New Order circa-Brotherhood. [Edit- I just listened to the original- surprisingly less interesting and more sucky! Nice job Aeroplane, you picked up some slack]

UC’s take: I liked the song more when it was just instrumentals and sounded like it could have been some good retro-sounding electro. I think the singing is entirely uninteresting and stops me from enjoying the rest of the song. Also, and I hesitate to even contemplate this thought, it should be more ’80s sounding. Also, more cowbell please!

94: WHY? “Fatalist Palmistry”

Ah, I think the entire countdown so far has been doing Grayson Currin impressions. Grayson Currin is the Lee Siegel of the P-fork staff. This is decidedly not a compliment. This is a song where the lyrics seem kind of tattooed onto a generic indie sun-op track. This is not a compliment. Maybe some interesting lines here, and I think it grows towards the last gasp. Grayson shines his heartlight on the words:

He sweats death even as he bemoans life even as he celebrates not being dead yet. He confesses maudlin feelings for a married woman even as he admits his devotion is a limited-time offer even as he proclaims admiration in the eternal: “I’m lucky to be under/ The same sky that held/ The exhale from your first breath.” It’s difficult hearing any writer toil through this sort of detailed torture on tape. Thanks to the song’s survivalist glow, though, listening in is a joy.

This is the sound of millions of tiny music boners being extinguished by a soul sucking over-intellectualized battle station. Maybe I even get his point. Meh-be.*

*That was unfair, I wonder if this song might actually be good. Like I said, possible grower.

UC’s take: I agree with everything Pinko said about the prose of the review. I think I have also uncovered the musical progenitor to this song. It is Microphones all over again. Or should I say the Meh-crophones. So boring and excruciatingly unmemorable. I think this song is neither a grower nor a shower.

93: Atlas Sound “River Card”

Has a nice sound, and I’m currently inexplicably enamored with Deerhunter/Atlas Sound (inexplicable because I sometimes can’t put my finger on why I listen to the whole album and not just the total stunners). The song is OK, but I am saddened that the more effective and crystalline versions of Atlas Sounds’ debut, “Recent Bedroom”, “Small Horror” or the title track weren’t deemed more worthy of the Atlas Sound spot, given that I am certain we’ll be seeing two Rihanna tracks, Beyonce, and possibly a Britney Spears song coming up on this list. “Recent Bedroom” is deeply hypnotic and wonderful.

UC’s take: How come Grandaddy never got this kind of love from Pitchfork? This is a pretty good song that captures my attention by its shimmering percussive backdrop. I don’t think it is remarkable, though. Still, better than most of the other songs I’ve been hearing in the 90-100′s.

92: Born Ruffians “I Need a Life (Four Tet Remix)”
An 8 minute pleasant trifle that decides to get heavy and almost awesome for a few seconds at the four minute mark, seemingly lulled us into complacency, only to lull us back into complacency but with the possible promise of future heaviness. I think when UC listens to this he will forget that he is listening to it, leaving the room to go do laundry and coming back to no memory of hearing the song. I can’t say that I will have 8 minutes of my increasingly limited and recession-hurtling future to even listen to this again, but it isn’t half bad let alone half terrible.

UC’s take: This song started to hypnotize me around the 3 minute mark, then started to lose me. Then at that 4 minute mark, there was that burst of awesomeness, and then I started getting bored again. This music, surely is useful for something. Maybe slideshow background music for the 150 pictures of your baby that look all the same. I shut it off at minute 5. It became intolerable. [PP adds- K! UC is talking about your future baby!]

91: Jamie Lidell “All I Wanna Do”
The only kinds of total derivative that will be disallowed in the P-fork offices is that of any of the kinds of derivative I like (more on this as we make our way). Ryan Dombal says Sam Cooke on this, but a lot of the echoes say Ben E. King, either way. This song is fine, but the emotionalism sounds so color-in-the-lines that I feel I watching a talented bizarro-world American Idol candidate. I fear this song is destined for hipster boy MP3 mixes targeted at hipster girl pants.

UC’s take: Music that tries to be timeless in sentiment and style, yet utterly undistinct and inoffensive, is fine. There are lots of people that like John Mayer and the like, and clearly these people spend lots and lots of money, and the market needs to keep providing for them. But I should remind you that once upon a time these same people used to buy Boys-2-Men. I don’t think this song is any different. Why it is on a Pitchfork list is perplexing and possibly corrupt.

90: Sic Alps “Message From the Law”
Just as I was feeling down about the absence of Pinko-targeted garage-y revival derivativity, out pops this Nugget nugget. Very very good. Thank you Pichfork Marc, of previously unkown Masters variety! Minus points that it is the B-side to some single, possibly impossible to see, touch or hear.

UC’s take: Standard Pinko Punko special edition music. It sounds even more ’60′s that normal and is pretty coarse. I like the few moments of harmonizing at the ends of the sentences, but it doesn’t stick with me.

89: Ponytail “Celebrate the Body Electric (It Came From an Angel)”
Actually super awesome [UPDATE- it takes a Yoko-ian left turn as I type this]. Space rays surfing music. And then the lyrics come on and we deflate like a sad balloon. Fulsome will love this. Space ray spaz rock primal scream surf music. 60% awesome, 40% not awesome.

UC’s take: I have to give special credit here to Paul Thompson for his use of the most unhelpful metaphor ever. I really don’t get the relationship between this music and Spiderman. Musically, it ranges from don’t like it to what the hell were they thinking to can we put in lots of little screaming sounds and pretend that we get Animal Collective. Except for the few moments that are actually really good and spacey. Overall 91% not awesome and 9% awesome. There is nothing inbetween.

88: Low Motion Disco “Things Are Gonna Get Easier”
The Quiet Storm smooth Jazz radio framework has aimed to maximize its brand recognition with a Sirius satellite radio station for smooth electronica. Burps of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” bubble under. This is the sound of an extended hipster self-love session, which is what one gets when one places a bottle of lubriderm into the path of non-commital facial hair. Simultaneously harmless but undeniably awful that this was deemed to be recognizable excellence in any form transcending its pleasant footprint within the genre of casual hipster after party masturbation music.

UC’s take: One thing that is not gonna get easier, is finding apt metaphors and analogies to express my disdain for this music. I don’t know when easy listening ever acquired indie cred, but I am concerned that the staff at Pitchfork are either really really high, or simply not getting really really high. This track was so boring that I decided to watch a commercial about a hair removal product to keep my interest.

87: The Veronicas “Untouched”
Electro neo-ew wave copping feels off Don Henley “Boys of Summer” in and out, while performing sub-Katy Perry wishful thinking pop 40 trash. Tim Finney rightly notes the almost special-level ABBA-simplicity, which I note is coupled with a Laura Branigan jogging 80s beat. Definitely a windows up guilty pleasure, if solely for the ah-la-la-la ah-la-la-la unnecessary throw away. Soul destroyingly plastic. Windows-up means you don’t vote for it. God, they are probably 12 years old singing about being “untouched.” Blech.

UC’s take: My 22-year old sister outgrew this music over 10 years ago. I actually don’t hate the music, just the lyrics. I think if they were singing in Korean, I might actually like this song. In fact, if they weren’t singing at all, I might actually like this song.

86: Los Campesinos! “Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks”
I just can’t stand the dude singing, as much as I want to like this. Pass. Marc to the H-O writes: “As online music gets increasingly corporatized, indie rock appears to be reassuming the marginal place it held in the old brick-and-mortar economy; if so, a subculture crashes and burns magnificently here.”
I would actually like to know what he is alluding to here. Maybe he’ll read us this year. MH shoot me an e-mail: 3bulls @ gmail

UC’s take: I know that Los Campesinos! are much better than this, so I have to presume that this song was selected specifically as a diss to me. It is like finding the one bad Beatles song and playing it on WZLX every day. Why? I should add that this song is too long. If I buy a LC album and this song is on it, I am going to delete the track from my iPod.

85: Osborne “16th Stage”
The entire concept of house-stalgia is lost on me, so I’ll just have to review this on the visceral merits. A well put together, some level of boring chill-house meh. If I could run more than a mile, I might consider listening to this while exercising, except now this song would constitute the entirety of my workout. My life is too short for this. Meh-be next life. I can’t even remember what “meh” jokes I’ve made before. If I reuse any, I’ll just claim I’m aping re-occurences like100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Meh-rquez.

UC’s take: 8 minutes and 18 seconds of this crap? It’s not just torture, but it is slow torture. Waterboarding is fast torture, although the psychological scarring clearly lasts a lifetime. Chinese water torture is excruciatingly slow torture, although the psychological scarring clearly lasts a lifetime. This is somewhere in between, although the psychological scarring clearly lasts a lifetime.

84: Beach House “Gila”
I loved their last album, and downloaded this one from eMusic, but never found the time to warm to this. It is quite nice, and similar to their entire oeuvre, warmly fuzzy organy mellow outs. Pleasant bordering on excellant. The ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ahs take it over the finish line into win territory.

UC’s take: Oooh, this song gets a big thumbs up from me. I am totally captured by the melancholy and sultry of Beach House. This song is particularly accessible. I find some of their other songs less melodic, although equally compelling. I can almost sing along to this. Bonus feature: the ah-ah-ahs sound a little like ella-ella-ella’s. More organ, please!

83: Titus Andronicus “Upon Viewing Brueghel’s ‘Landscape With the Fall of Icarus’”
Almost a little too effortless. Panavision 70 mm bar punk. The synths hurt it by revealing the too smart for their britches insides. Still awesome, but a shade calculated.

UC’s take: I like the beat, but not the singing. I think it is too punky for me. Also, the voice has a little too much affectation and dare I say emo character. My rating of this song started as a 9.5 and descended to a 6.5 by the halfway point, never to rebound. I hope this isn’t too harsh for Pinko ….[PP adds- I guarantee there will be word-eating here, mister!]

82: Solange “Sandcastle Disco”
Since everyone knows that S is B’s little sis, P-Fork for once dodges the critical easy out by mentioning the fact and then comparing her to big sis. But then they do, while just coyly alluding the name- Beyonce. I will, since our readers probably have no idea of who I am talking about. S does sound like B, but without all the annoying Beyonce tics. This song is actually extremely restrained, and as usual Pitchfork crushes on pop-production. This song isn’t my cuppa but the ‘Forks Andrew Gaerig rightly underlines how in reality this song is an odd pop throwback in style and content. It does seem a little bit sweet. Kudos to Solange.

UC’s take: Solange is fine. This might be the only song so far where my female companion has not made a yucky face. I think it is pretty earnest R/B-esque music and deserves its place on the pop top 40 charts. I would be happy to listen to this song in a car or even in my dentist’s office. I’m not sure why P-fork gets off on it, but who I am to say what hip is? [PP adds: "Indeed, mothereffer!"- Grayson Currin's mom]

81: Love Is All “Wishing Well”
I can’t reliably review this, as I am very sensitized to fuzzy, chime-y, retro gazer pop. Oh wait, oddly spazzwagon vocals from an excited sing talker of questionable singing ability. Fulsome would love this, I’ll call it a shade positive. Similar territory being mined as Titus Andronicus above, and not as good, yet more earnest and believable.

UC’s take: Well I like this more than the Titus Andronicus. I think the chorus is really catchy and the singing, while kinda fey, works for me. Anyone that doesn’t like Architecture in Helsinki should just stay the hell away. Really. As usual, the Pitchfork review is opaque and unhelpful. Thank goodness for 3B! to the rescue …