am/fm

I'm not the biggest sports fan out there (in fact, I may be in the running for the title of the smallest), but for reasons best left undiscussed I ended up watching the Pats game last night (OK, it was the Giants' game, too, but I was watching with New England fans). The whole game. If you knew me you'd know how weird that is.

But so anyway, every time the announcer would mention Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss, I would hear a little echo of someone (later I placed it as Killer Mike) singing the name in my head. And I wondered the whole time, "I think there's an Outkast song about Randy Moss." But that sounded stupid, so I didn't say anything.

But sho'nuf, they namecheck the guy in "The Whole World."

Happy Football!

eh.www.amNY.com

Our favorite semi-regular feature is back on this week. My desk is over flowing with unlistened-to CDs, and I'd like to spin as many as possible before the great New Year's purge next week.

Heloise & The Savoir Faire "Trash, Rats and Microphones"
Heloise takes Peaches' tough-girl brashness and sets it all to a indie dance rock beat. Both tropes I enjoy, but as a combination I'm finding it incredibly annoying.

Glorytellers s/t
This album explodes immediately into the vocals with no preamble, and it has me hooked from the get go. Acoustic strumming accompanies the singer's frank delivery of sad truths with lyrics that are bluntly poetic. It's simple and sad, and I love it so much that it kind of hurts my heart. Check 'em out here.

A bit of cursory research shows that these guys are no newbies to the scene. Every member has been in at least one other band, and frontman Geoff Farina was the main force behind Karate and Secret Stars.

A Place to Bury Strangers s/t
I just can't get into this one. It sounds well done for what it is — post-apocalyptic shoegaze — but its not keeping my attention.

City and Colour "Bring Me Your Love"
Not readable by my computer. But they're from Canada.

VA "Souvenirs"
The cover promises "Modern covers of the classics: Frank Sinatra, Bill Withers, Jane's Addiction..." The who in the what now?! Too bizarre-sounding to pass up.

The verdict: Bands I never heard of covering songs I know as well as my own name? I don't know if this is something I'd ever need to listen to again, but it was interesting to hear. The cover versions tended toward ultraslick Euro-pop or wildly inappropriate smooth jazz, but they might (I said might) make an interesting addition to a party mix — particularly Chris Glover's beat-heavy version of the oft-covered "The Way You Look Tonight." Really, in all, the whole thing is kind of crap. Listen here!

more after the jump...

Again, a post that would have been a bit more topical a week ago, but pre-Christmas was a busy time.

This little gem is "Stars" by the Weepies. It's been featured in some Old Navy commercials for the past couple of months. It's a really beautiful song, and I always took that away from the ad, even if I never ever remembered what the commercial was for. Now I know.

The song:

The ad:

The same band also had another song in a JC Penny Christmas commercial. Cliptreats breaks it down.

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I was thinking about this post over the holiday. And I decided it would be cool to do a series on non-traditional instruments used in rock. So here's your second installment: The kazoo, which pops up more than you think.

Spinto Band, "Brown Boxes"

Eric Clapton, "San Fransisco Bay Blues"

Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Love Rollercoaster"

Frank Zappa, "Jewish Princess" (very NSFW, possible NSFlife)

Jimi Hendrix, "Crosstown Traffic" (Allegedly the kazoo noise is a comb and a piece of wax paper.)

Ringo Starr, "You're Sixteen"

Pink Floyd, "Jugband Blues"

I'm From Barcelona uses a lot of kazoo.

The Beatles, "Lovely Rita"

Beck "Steal My body Home" (At the very end.)

There's also XTC's "The Everyday Story of a Smalltown" off "The Big Express", but you'll have to take my word for it, because I can't find it on YouTube.

I'm sure there are more. What've you got?

eh.www.amNY.com

I get a tremendous amount of mail daily, and sometimes I am remiss about opening it in a timely way (especially after a vacation), so I didn't find this album until last week.

"A Family Holiday" is a benefit album for 826NYC, featuring tunes by local indie bands (none of which I'd heard of before, with the exception of the Undisputed Heavyweights, who have a very enthusiastic friend/publicist). There are both standards and original compositions, and it's kind of a refreshing take on holiday merriment. The aesthetic tends towards simple arrangements with an indie feel.

And it's an equal opportunity celebration: There are two Hanukkah-related tracks, and only one of them is "The Dreidel Song." Casey Shea makes a plea for ecumenical understanding, contrasting Christianity and Judaism in "My Holiday Song," a tune that verges on novelty-song kitsch but stays firmly on the side of cute.

As with most compilations, the contributions vary in quality. The aforementioned Undisputed Heavyweights serve up a delightful version of "Baby It's Cold Outside," a song which seems to have experienced a mysterious resurgence this year (and which also seems to have kind of date-rapey lyrics). A stripped-down acoustic duet that neatly sidesteps the lounge lizard feel that this song can sometimes evoke.

Jeff Jacobson transposes "Frosty the Snowman" to a minor key, recasting the song as a true indie mope rock. It works.

Misty Boyce's rather straightforward cover of "The River" works less well for me, but I hate this song to begin with. It's just so freaking depressing.

In all, it's one of the better holiday albums I've come across, and it's for a super good cause. Pick it up and bust it out next year, and you'll be the coolest kid at the party.

eh.www.amNY.com

If you're out there, here's a few more lists to contemplate...

• Accentuate the negative over at The Onion AV Club with the Worst Band Names of 2007. My personal favorite: Cornish Gay Men.

• Make fun of mainstream mediocrity at Best Week Ever with their list of the Least Essential Albums of 2007.

• And finally, shake off the snark for a more positive New Year. Stereogum looks at forthcoming releases for 2008. The 25th anniversary edition of Thriller comes out in February.

A cappella, Christmas music and ... well, you'll see (it's at about the 2 minute mark).

eh.www.amNY.com

OK, this was kind of agonizing to cut it to 10, but I guess that's the point. These 10 albums have proved themselves my favorites of 2007, over some very strong contenders. I am by no means saying that these are the absolute very best of the year, they're just albums that meant a lot to me. And I would highly recommend a listen.

Albert Hammond Jr. "Yours to Keep"

I'm not ranking these in any particular order — because it was hard enough to just choose ten — except for this one. This was my all-time favorite album of 2007. It's so basic, but so good.

John Vanderslice "Emerald City"

Listening to Vanderslice is like reading a really good collection of short stories. The characters he creates and emotions he evokes go beyond the range of the average rock song, but he's not overtly literary like The Decemberists or The New Pornographers (much love for both of those bands, it's just a different style). You can engage with the songs on a surface level or go much deeper, ether strategy is rewarding. (That's three.)

Bishop Allen "The Broken String"

Something I learned: Bishop Allen is an actual street in Cambridge, MA, where the band members used to live. They're not there anymore, but the street is pretty small, so you can totally go stalk their old house. The album is totally charming, folky with an edge.

Kanye West "Graduation"

A-duh. What don't I like about this man?

More after the jump ...

I saw the movie "Juno" last night, and it was absolutely adorable. It's as twee as everyone's saying it is, but it carries it off. More than this, however, the soundtrack features multiple times the best song ever to use the Contra code, The Moldy Peaches' "Anyone Else But You." Kimya Dawson provides soundtrack vocals for much of the movie, but the song is also used diegetically, in a duet between Ellen Page and Michael Cera. And Page's (Juno's) musical precocity is well established in the film world, so even though she's only 16, it's plausible that she'd know The Moldy Peaches, a group whose underground heyday was years ago.

Another nice musical touch: they introduce Michael Cera's character to the strains of The Kinks' "A Well Respected Man." I love that song.

eh.www.amNY.com

What if the Beatles wrote "Stairway to Heaven"?

(via)

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Here's a baker's dozen of my favorite posts from the last year. They were either fun to write or fun to read, or I just think that they represent the blog pretty well.

1. These are the only acceptable Christmas songs.

2. Songs that feature cowbell prominently, in list form.

3. You should be watching Flight of the Conchords already.

4. I can't include this on my "Great Albums of 2007" list, because it came out in 2006, but The Cardigans' "Super Extra Gravity" is a great one.

5. I saw Calexico! I didn't tag it "live review" for some reason, so I missed it for the Best Shows of 2007 post. It should be on there.

6. I do love Muppets and Kanye, so when I can talk about them both in the same breath, I'm a happy girl. Also, I love imparting random, tangential trivia.

7. Porcupine or Pineapple!

8. The one and only Soundtrack Battle Wednesday.

9. An internet-wide discussion of the worst song ever. I still say not in a million years would it ever be "Ebony & Ivory."

10. Cool music makes the TV shows that play it cool, right? I don't know if I'm noticing it less, or what, but the hipetude of "Gossip Girl"'s soundtrack is less glaringly obvious these days. And, yes, I watch it every week.

11. I liveblogged the VMAs. It's taken me a while to recover, but I think I'll be ready for the Grammys by the time February rolls around.

12. We covered all aspects of CMJ (for which we won an award from Newsday!), including what was in the gift bags.

13. Me and the kids love Pavement.

eh.www.amNY.com

I thought that I was going to have a hard time scrounging to get 10 albums I liked in 2007, but it turns out there was some good music this year. So I'm going to need a little more time to get you my "Best of" overall list. In the meantime, chew on this...

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BWE tells it like it is, introducing the Sinceys. For the record, I was, in fact, considering Rihanna for my own top 10 (Which may be out as soon as tonight!), although I never liked Kelly Clarkson.

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10 CD Thursday is the blog's occasionally regular feature. I've been pretty bad at it of late, just because my Thursdays are so hectic (I'm considering moving it to Sunday ... we'll see). Anyway, the gist is, I listen to 10 CDs from my ever growing slush pile (unsolicited advances sent to me by publicists, or sometimes the band itself) during the course of the day and comment snarkily on them. I generally like 2 out of the 10, and truthfully not many of them make it into regular rotation. But here's a bunch that, against all odds, permanently wowed me.

1. The Harlem Experiment s/t
"Jazz from above 125th Street, this album meanders funkily on an actual musical journey."

2. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings "100 Days 100 Nights"
"I am absolutely loving this album. Funky old Motown with an energetic freshness."

3. Liars s/t
"I like this, very much. Deconstructed rock with palpable menace."

4. Alaska! "Rescue Through Tomahawk" [Release date: March 8, 2005]
"It's slow burning awesomeness."

5. Jens Lekman "Night Falls Over Kortedala"
"A very stylized production, with a big band disco throwback feel. It's like a modern day musical, with some very dark undertones."

6. Common "Finding Forever"
"I love Common, and I am so glad that he is finally getting national, widespread attention. He is so talented and totally deserves it. Maybe it was that Gap commercial that did it."

7. The Budos Band "The Budos Band II"
"An instrumental funkgasm from the fine folks at Daptone Records."

8. John Vanderslice "Emerald City"
"A gifted singer/songwriter with an ear for despair, Vanderslice a master of 'wallow music.' But it's not so depressing that it will drag you down out of a good mood. I just love it." (That's two)

9. Why? "Sanddollars" (EP)
"Pleasant downer rock with barbed lyrics. It's kind of what I imagine living in the center of the country sounds like."

10. Thee More Shallows "Book of Bad Breaks"
"There's a lot of complexity to this album, and mixing of elements that you might not think would go together: some electronica noise over top of a straightforward rock score in a way that doesn't mesh, but totally works."

eh.www.amNY.com

(Growing up, on our birthdays, my dad used to wake my sisters and I up with this song on full blast.)

So today is the first anniversary of am/fm. We've had our ups and downs, stylistic changes, musical awakenings; features were created and abandoned; we tried out live blogging and video production (of which there will be more of in 2008). Basically, it was like any first year of blog life.

As the anniversary falls conveniently in December, I'm going to use this space for a little reflection on the year that was. First up: best live shows. This is, of course, not definitive — it's the best shows from this year that I saw and blogged about.

10. Justin Timberlake: Way more fun than I was expecting.

9. Wainwright Family and Friends Holiday Show: This was my very first post. You can tell that I hadn't yet developed my signature rambling live review style.

8. Duran Duran: I expected this show to be awesomely filled with nostalgia, but the absolutely kick-ass time I had was bonus.

7. One Ring Zero: Dork rock that's even better in person.

6. Vampire Weekend: This local band is getting a dangerous amount of hype; Their first album doesn't even come out until the end of January, and they're already a critical favorite. But their "Graceland"-inspired world pop is GOOD.

5. CMJ Seven Band Extravaganza: A chronicle of my own personal musical odyssey. I didn't like every band I saw, but I had a lot of fun going venue to venue. And Spinto Band was a nice cap to the night.

4. Rocketship Park/Two-Man Gentleman Band: Another CMJ show. I chose these two bands at random because I liked their names, and it happened to work out for me.

3. John Vanderslice: I can't get enough of this man. You'll be seeing more of him later today.

2. Albert Hammond Jr.: My true love of 2007.

1. White Stripes: Jack and Meg totally owned MSG. This was really a magical night.

eh.www.amNY.com

Last night, while running around this fair city of ours, my friends and I broke out into this song. It was magical. We were drunk.

Anyway, another friend of ours expressed her dislike of this song. She's wrong and I just wanted to publicly say so.

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eh.www.amNY.com

I've been meaning to put this up for a while now, but Brooklyn kid rockers Care Bears on Fire scored a Converse commercial.

Sell out factor? Kinda high, since everyone and their dad has had at least one pair of All-Stars in their life (I'm on at least 6 in my lifetime count), but the kid's, like, 12. It's pretty awesome to get a national commercial when you're 12.

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It's December, so that means everyone with an opinion is going to be making their year-end Best of 2007 lists. In this media savvy world, though, we all know that the list is the cheapest form of journalism: it's an easy post that's totally arbitrary and causes readers to get all riled up when their own tastes are or are not validated. But people on both sides of the publishing divide love lists: it's an easy post that's totally arbitrary and readers love to get all riled up when their own tastes are or are not validated. VH1 knows this better than anyone — they've forged a whole cable channel out of the idea, "Here are some things that happened in an order we've created." Their "100 Greatest Songs of the '90s" totally plays to their strengths of "repackaging entire decades into easily digestible canons of kitsch," as Idolator puts it. And having fallen prey to these shows, I can say it's almost impossible to look away. You NEED to know what is number one. (To spare you the suspense, in this case it's Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".)

("No Diggity" is no. 32. I just thought you needed to hear it.)

So what's a cred-hungry indie-blogger to do? The Year-End Round-Up is so mainstream, but it's nearly impossible to resist the siren call of presenting your own definitive take on the past 12 months. We're bloggers, after all, sharing our opinion as fact is what we do. The answer so far seems to be in line with the hipster credo: do it anyway, but make fun of the fact that we're doing it.

(My personal solution, I think, will be: 10 albums I liked in 2007. If there are in fact 10. I wasn't exactly blown away by all that much this year.)

• Idolator, in addition to pointing out what all the big guns are doing, is doing a daily feature called Idolator's 2007 top 40 list of awesomeness in which they discuss a song per day. It's kind of cool, actually, bringing some actual depth to the conversation and justifying each choice.

• eMusic pits their year-end sales list against iTunes' in an exercise that seems a little dubious from a statistics standpoint.

• Stereogum plays it pretty straight with their Grammy Awards-like presentation of The Gummies. They get snarky with a category called Most Overblogged, which is taken by Arcade Fire (who also won Best Live Act).

• Brooklyn Vegan invites some comedians to share their own Best Of lists. Why is it that indie-rock and alt-comedy go hand in hand? I'm not complaining. I like that it's happening, it's just a little puzzling. I'd like to make a pithy Flight of the Conchords reference here, but it's just not coming to me.

• Pitchfork is going End of the Year crazy with Best Videos, Best Photos, The Year in News parts 1 and 2 and more to come. While I question whether anyone really will sit down and listen to all 50 of their Top Videos, the news round-up is a nice, concise picture of the year that was according to Pitchfork.

eh.www.amNY.com

I don't get emo's popularity. I just don't. To me, it just sounds like whining about sad feelings and and being too scared to live life. If I'm going to music for emotional solace, I prefer more active-oriented feelings, like anger, directed passion, revenge.

But, regardless of how I feel about the genre, there's no denying that the kids like it.

And therein lies the key: "the kids." Mick Jagger and the never-say-die boomers have shown that rock is no longer a young man's game. But emo definitely is. It's all about facing the challenges of growning up — emotional responsibility, romantic love, sex — and maybe not being OK with all that; it's adolescence in sonic form.

At least that's what I learned from Andy Greenwald's book.

My coworker Korin and I were discussing bands like Dashboard the other day, and she mentioned that she had this book. In the interest of anthropological knowledge, I dove right in.

What I learned, after the jump.

I had a gloriously refreshing vacation full of musical self-discovery and education. OK, well that last part isn't true, but I did get turned on to this song:

Yeah, it's almost a year old, and the word's pretty much out on KT Tunstall. That's kind of an occupational hazard; by focusing so intently on niche genres, I often miss completely what's going on in the mainstream. Usually I feel like I'm not missing much, but from time to time I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Anyway, I've got more for you later.

eh.www.amNY.com

Emily may be on vaca, but we're hearing nominations for some sort of music awards are out today?

Something called the Grammys?

Fooo. Check out some of Emily's posts on her fave bands... some day they, too, will be recognized.

Maybe the Hulmies.

It’s my obligation to take advantage of Emily Hulme being away and infuse some international news in this music blog. [Editor's note: Emily 'the other Emily' Ngo is amNewYork's nation/world editor]

This is actually a pretty sad story. The Mexico City area has faced a rash of brutal murders in recent weeks. Some of these are execution-style slayings.

The targets are musicians who sing about the druglord life with a recent exception of two who just sing about love.

Read more.

What’s happening?

— Emily “not Hulme” Ngo

While Emily's away on vacation, various coworkers are going to take turns sharing secret facts about her that you may not have known.

Today's secret factoid: Despite all the posturing on this blog, Emily's favorite musician is actually this guy.

I'm on vacay until next week, and my only plans so far are to sleep this horrible cold away. But I'll be back, my friends. I'll be back.

eh.www.amNY.com