Music, Travel

I am back from Europe! There will be 7 travel entries based on the past month (Bath, Wales, Stratford, Dublin, Paris, Cologne, Amsterdam) appearing over the next month or so. But first, a bit of reflection on 2008 is important. I could comment on the crash of the economy or Obama, but instead I'll comment on music.

Nothing this year blew me away quite like MIA's Kala last year but there was a lot to like. The common theme I can find this year in my favorite albums was an ability to manipulate meaning using apparently simple lyrics and song structures - I'm thinking here especially of Distortion or Conor Oberst, hell, even Kanye West's 808's and Heartbreak does this pretty effectively much of the time. On the later, an apparently self-involved jerk manages (at least I think) to say a lot about weakness, loss, and the dangers of fame. And he does that using fairly simple beats and autotune - and it seems to me that's the point (see the title of the album).

Then of course there are this year's amazing rap albums. The best rap albums don't just spew sick lyrics for the hell of it, they manipulate the context of the song and they bluster, creating a complex space to say something. Lil Wayne's laugh makes us think he's not serious, but then again, sometimes he is, and sometimes the truth is somewhere in between... And of course, he's hilarious.

But I should really do some work, so I'll just list my recommends, roughly in order of how much I found in them.

1) TV on the Radio - Dear Science

2) Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III

3) Conor Oberst

4) Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark

5) Randy Newman - Harps and Angels

6) The Roots - Rising Down

7) The Magnetic Fields - Distortion

8) Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

This isn't to say none of the other albums I heard this year weren't any good. These are just the best.