Demo: "Midwest Winters"

This needs a little something in the bridge, but whatever. Check it out.

Revenge of the Earnest: Fighting Snark and Sarcasm in Indie Music Journalism

Some time last week, Chaz Bundwick-- the South Carolinian behind Toro Y Moi-- released a Toro Y Moi remix of Odd Future member, and the recently Racecar Brown reviewed Tyler, the Creator's song "French." That probably shouldn't have been a big deal, but then Chris Weingarten, the man behind 1000 Times Yes who famously reviewed 1000 albums in single Twitter posts, took Bundwick to task, accusing him of bandwagoning.

Chris Cantalini, purveyor of indie blog Gorilla vs. Bear shot back, starting a war of the 140-character tweets that the Daily Swarm covered here. It's interesting, to be sure, but not precisely the point I'm getting to, merely the catalyst behind it.

I get to the point after the jump.

Oscars vs. Grammys

The Oscars were last night.

I, like most of America (if Nielson ratings are still to be believed), prefer the Oscars to the Grammys. There are a few relatively obvious reasons for this. The spectacle itself is a bigger event, in terms of scope and spectacle; movie stars are on average more charismatic than musicians; people aren’t afraid to poke fun at the Academy, or each other, or themselves, which makes for more engaging television; and people are more aware of the number of people watching, making them more likely to use their platform in an intriguing way.

But all of that, in my opinion, is ancillary. The biggest reason the Oscars are bigger than the Grammys for people of all demographics is because the Oscars seem to nominate and award the art they’re evaluating based on merit in a more significant manner than the Grammys.

That is to say, Oscar winning movies are typically more respected– by critics, by viewers, by art buffs– than winning Grammy winning songs or albums.

More after the jump.

Demo: "Thirteen Years"

This is a track I wrote relatively recently. It was recorded with some aid from my friend Bennett Selchow and it's called "Thirteen Years."

(Not Quite) Midweek Music Review - Radiohead: The King of Limbs

Radiohead
The King of Limbs
[self-released]

Rating: 8.0/10
(This review originally was posted on Audiosuede)

Hit the jump for the review.

Midweek Music Review - Tyler the Creator: Bastard

Tyler the Creator
Bastard
[self-released]

Rating: 8.5/10

Hit the jump for the review.

I will NOT write an essay about Arcade Fire winning Album of the Year.

The title of this, that's what I said to myself Sunday night after seeing Twitter explode (both positively and negatively) regarding Arcade Fire winning the Grammy for Album of the Year for their 2010 record The Suburbs.

It's going to be too overdone. There will be nothing left to say. All of my music critic friends are already making snarky jokes about it. Those were the justifications I whispered to myself.

See, on Sunday night, I live tweeted the Grammys without actually watching the Grammys. Part of this was because I like live-tweeting, part of it was because I don't like watching the Grammys, and part of it was a sort of social experiment, devised to see how much of the pomp and circumstance can come through in a parade of like-minded people speaking in 140 characters about the same event.

Hit the break for more.

Midweek Music Review - James Blake: James Blake

James Blake
James Blake
[Atlas/A&M]
Rating: 9.0/10
(This post originally appeared on Audiosuede)

Hit the jump for the review.

Demo: "Consequences"

This is an old track that I've recorded about a billion times. Here's another mix of it, it's called "Consequences."

Midweek Music Review - Iron & Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean

Iron &; Wine
Kiss Each Other Clean
[Warner]

Rating: 8.0/10
(This review originally appeared on Audiosuede)

Hit the jump for the review.

Midweek Music Review: The Dismemberment Plan's Emergency & I (Reissue)

The Dismemberment Plan
Emergency & I (Reissue)
Barsuk Records
Rating: 9.5/10
(This review originally appeared on Audiosuede)

Review after the jump.

Demo: "Red Junior Prom Heels"

Just thought I'd take today to throw a demo I'd recored a few months ago at everyone. It's called "Red Junior Prom Heels.

Top 20 Albums of 2010: Part Two, the Top Ten

NUMBER TEN

BATHS: CERULEAN

While some music sounds timeless, as if it could come from any era (see: Cosentino, Bethany), some music is inextricably linked to the time it was created. Cerulean, the debut LP from Will Wiesenfeld's Baths project, could only have been conceived, written, and created in modern music. Brian Eno and Aphex Twin and J Dilla and the Postal Service and Flying Lotus before we can get to the point of "Hall" or "Maximalist," where ambient, hip-hop, melancholy electro-pop, and killer breakbeats come together in the service of fragile love songs that still make your shoulder lean back and your head nod. Wiesenfeld has been doing this damn thing for awhile, and the experience in a group like [Post-Foetus] shows through on Cerulean. The strange conjecture of styles and emotions isn't a happy accident, it's a labored, intensive process that somehow still pulls off sounding wrought and relaxed, tense and cathartic.

Peep numbers nine through one after the jump.

Top 20 Albums of 2010: Part One, 20-11

NUMBER TWENTY

CRYSTAL CASTLES: CRYSTAL CASTLES

Crystal Castles want to fuck you up. And then they want to make sweet, back alley love to you. Just check the duality of the one-two opening punch of "Fainting Spells" and "Celestia." The former packs mind-melting synths, discombobulating channel-jumping and the most abrasive vocal performance this side of an early Blood Brothers album. The latter goes in completely the opposite direction, rocking epic gothic melodies and Alice Glass' hauntingly seductive voice to create one of the greatest ballads this year. That kind of dichotomy is what makes the 2010 version of Crystal Castles interesting. Yeah, Alice Glass can destroy your brainpan, but she can also make you melt. Yeah, Ethan Kath can attack you with walls of blown-out noise, but he can also rock you to sleep. Not bad for a band once derided as a one-trick pony.

Peep numbers nineteen through eleven after the jump.

Top 50 Songs of 2010, Part Five: The Top Ten

NUMBER TEN

The National are a band that exist within a single idiom: sad man's mid-tempo indie rock. While their talents are enormous, their arrangements immaculate, their lyrics suggesting a upper-middle class profundity, and just generally a band of pretty great musicians, their albums from Alligator to 2010's High Violet have been crafted in that singular vein. That sounds like a bad thing; it's not. The reason why they've been able to get away with traversing that singular path throughout their entire career is because of just how fucking good they are working in it. It's been almost 12 years since the band formed, and High Violet's opening track "Terrible Love" might just be the finest example of their illustrious career. It starts out National-y enough, with a workman's guitar riff and metronomic bass drum thwomp. But it doesn't take long for its depths to reveal itself, as delicate acoustic guitar notes, splashes of aching piano, and just the faintest notes of contrapuntal violin. And then, by the time we find out that it takes a fucking ocean not to break, the song has exploded with the type of energy only held by the perpetually downtrodden, with the drums completely unable to hold together, the guitars ripe with dissonance, and Matt Berninger's passionate tenor acting as the song's lone anchor. The loneliness of the Monday morning commute has never sounded quite so epic.

Hit the break for the top nine songs of 2010.

Top 50 Songs of 2010, Part Four: 20-11

NUMBER TWENTY

Let's not kid ourselves, people. You have to go back to Madonna to find a female pop star-- hell, a pop star of any gender-- who has captured the public consciousness so thoroughly, who has brought attention to really bizarre matters in such a borderline crazy way, who has cultivated such an insane yet relateable public image. Oh, and who has pushed pop music so much further beyond its borders. Fame Monster single "Telephone" came out at the beginning of this year, and while its music video garnered all the attention, with its Kill Bill pussy wagon, telephone wig, and general fucked up-ness, the song was little more than overdriven, meticulously crafted pop music, with one of the biggest earworm choruses of the year. "Telephone" is pop music for the modern age, loud and in-your-face enough to break through our obsession with Facebook, cell phones, techonlogy in general, while simultaneously embracing the very technologies its attempting to overcome.

Numbers nineteen through eleven after the break.

Top 50 Songs of 2010, Part Three: 30-21

NUMBER THIRTY

I have not been quiet about my distaste for the last two Arcade Fire records relative to their debut masterpiece Funeral. Like Neon Bible before it, 2010's AF release The Suburbs was too mid-tempo, too quiet, too slow, too ho-hum for me to really connect with it in a meaningful way. More troubling are the songs, littered across both Bible and Suburbs, that call to mind Funeral's towering highs. "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" is one of those tracks. Though only carrying a little more shuffle than most of the humdrum album, "Sprawl II"'s engaging synth lines and vivacious Regine Chassagne vocal painted the suburban escape as somehow epic, where looking past the retail mountains beyond mountains was a glance through the looking glass.

Go beyond the click for numbers twenty-nine through twenty-one.

Top 50 Songs of 2010, Part Two: 40-31

NUMBER FORTY

The "K.R.I.T." portion of Mississippi rapper Justin Scott's stage name stands for "King Remembered in Time." If dude keeps on rolling out jams like "Country Shit," K.R.I.T. will be remembered right this moment, too. A lot of Southern rappers go for porch stoop communal tracks or maximalist crunk. On "Country Shit," K.R.I.T. splits the difference, throwing in a little bit of Dilla-esque spliced vocal samples for good measure, and creates something that expresses the pride and depression, the dreams and the reality of Southern living.

Hit the jump for numbers thirty-nine through thirty-one.

Top 50 Songs of 2010, Part One: 50-41

2010 was a weird year. In the beginning, we had the last remnants of chillwave turn dark, morph into witch house, and create something kind of wholly unsettling, but pretty awesome. We had Vampire Weekend, Titus Andronicus, and the National all releasing stellar and completely different views on indie rock. During the summer, we got glimpses or full servings from rap heavy hitters like T.I., Big Boi, Kanye West and Lil Wayne. Now we're into 2011, and like last year, Racecar Brown is taking a look back at the year that was to determine the best songs and albums of 2010. Without further adieu, let's open the proceedings with Part One of the top 50 songs of 2010.

Hit the jump to see 50 through 41.

Don't Call It A Comeback

Or, you know, you probably could call it a comeback. Sorry, LL.

2010 was a wacky year for me personally. Moving, finding jobs, gaining jobs, losing jobs, working jobs, having no money, begging for money, actually having some money, making friends, losing friends, becoming disconnected from friends.

These things, they happen.

2011, on the other hand, looks like the year of me having a plan.