#40. Gas - Pop (Mille Plateaux, 2000)

I'm going about this one a little differently than normal. Pop isn't an album you listen to so much as one you feel, so it feels odd to do my normal extended look at the best parts of it when the best thing about it is the cumulative effect. So this is a bit more abstract than normal, trying to describe the way it feels to drift in and out of sleep with Pop playing in the background since that's the best way I can think of to go about it.

I'm submerged. I don't know if this is a recent development or not, but I don't feel short of breath yet. I can't see the surface or the bottom, but that doesn't frighten me for whatever reason.

Do I even need to breathe? I've felt like this for a few minutes, like I'm stuck suspended in a never ending tub of water, but I still haven't felt the need to inhale or exhale. There's a pulse I keep feeling that feels like my breathing, long, deep inhalation and exhalation like I'm running or hiking a particularly arduous trail, but i don't feel the breath. It's weird, but I'm not at all put out by it.

This is comforting, the feel of the liquid surrounding me. It should be oppressive and frightening since I have no control over what I do or when I do it but I'm more relaxed than I've ever felt. I finally look around and see that I'm alone. This expanse stretches for what seems like miles upon miles without a hint of any other life forms near by. I feel like moving out a bit to see if that changes.

Pushing through the water is more difficult than I'd thought. Is this even water? It's too thick, not like syrup or anything but definitely not as conducive to an effortless glide. The pulse is still there where my breathing should be, and it's not shortening as I push through. I still can't see anything but vast, clear expanses of this liquid, no other people in my state, no animals of plants. I keep moving.

It's darker now, not to a great degree but enough that its noticeable. Inertia finally takes hold and I'm moving much more smoothly, still not gliding like I would in a lake but not struggling either. I should be struggling by now, I feel like I haven't taken a breath in far too long. The pulse is there still, that must be all that's needed here.

What is this place? It never occurred to me to ask that before despite all the oddness, but the question's there now. Am I dead? Is this heaven? Hell? Purgatory? Vallhalla? I keep moving through the non stop clear liquid. I'm not panicking because I'm unable to. All these thoughts should be sending my mind into overdrive, but this is the most peaceful I've ever felt.

I must be dead. Either that or I'm living in David Lynch's dreams.

I think I see something on the horizon, but I try to move towards it and the liquid gets thicker. I seem to have a charted path through this that won't be deviated from. How long have I been moving? Time doesn't seem to matter wherever I am, but I should have breathed by now.

The liquid thickens up all around me. This should be suffocating me but since I haven't breathed in...10 minutes? 15? Ever?...so that's not a concern. It got darker too, but my calm hasn't been broken. I'm moving more slowly, but I'm not stopping. I should just ride this out...

I finally feel my heart beating. Pounding is more descriptive, echoing all around me to the point where it's muffled beyond recognition. Has it always been like that? Suddenly I see that there's something on the horizon - can you call it that when you're being propelled through a viscous goo? - but it's so dark that I can't make it out. I'm more aware of the sounds around me now, the way this mystery liquor sounds as my arms cut through it, the heart beat echoing against a boundary I can't see. It's calming in a peculiar way.

I should be panicking.

What is that that I'm moving towards...am I still moving even? I don't feel like I've stopped but the shape in front of me hasn't changed in dimension since I spotted it. Are we both moving at the same speed? Is it another person trapped in whatever surrealist dream sequence this is? I should just ride this out...

The liquid suddenly gets less dense, as if I've hit a barrier between the oppressive water and the real stuff. I'm moving with renewed vigor, my heart beating with a more normal rhythm, still echoing endlessly through the expanse but sharper, more like I'm the one in control.

I finally feel the need to breathe just as the water gives way to air. It's almost like this landscape responds to my needs as they occur. So now I'm not swimming, I'm floating. Still moving along the same track but not fighting through a liquid of ever changing density. I'm breathing on my own. It's euphoria in the purest sense.

I lost track of whatever was in front of me, but I don't care. I feel lighter, more free than I ever have. I'm my own person, mostly, not dependent on external forces to breathe for me, in control of my own essential functions. I'm not able to deviate from the course yet but I'm not worried about that.

Peace and calm have given way to pure happiness. I have achieved Nirvana. I am one with my surroundings. I no longer feel the need to ride this out like it's a bad acid trip, I just feel the need to exist in this moment as it is without feelings beyond that. i'm on top of the world and I don't know how I got there.

I should write a book about this whenever I'm done. Will I ever be done? Do I care?

I stop abruptly. I haven't hit a wall or anything, nothing in front of me that I can determine. I start to fall...well, that' not quite it. 'Fall' implies loss of control and that's not what this is. I'm descending though, slowly losing altitude, downward in a straight line. Otherwise I'm motionless. Gravity doesn't work the way it should here, I've determined this much.

I close my eyes, not because I don't want to see what's below me but because it feels like the thing to do. There is no fear, no doubt. I'm going where I need to go.

I come back to questioning where I am. This isn't hell, I'm far too calm for that to be the case. Besides, hell is other people and there's no one around. I open my eyes and look down again. There's no bottom, nothing below me but a vast emptiness. I smile inwardly, perhaps outwardly too. Whatever this is I'm fully enjoying it.

I feel like an angel. At least I feel like an angel as the movies would portray them, slowly descending from the heavens towards earth, face full of peace and unquestioning love. I'm not even religious but right now I feel like a messenger for a guy I'm unsure of the existence of. I'm not gonna question this feeling...maybe there is a higher power and this experience is him/her/it speaking to me. What are they saying? Be at peace? Don't question your path? Just go with it no matter how illogical it all seems?

My heart's beating faster now. The expanse is getting darker. My descent is speeding up.

I stop. There is no bottom, no floor, but I take a step forward anyway. I'm walking on an invisible barrier, listening to my own insistent heartbeat. There are more sounds though, like an orchestra playing at mezzo forte about a mile away, their sound diluted by some good, but not top of the line soundproofing. They swell and fade and I move towards them.

My heart's beating as hard as it ever has, but it's not beating quickly. The sound doesn't seem to be getting closer, just like that shape it seems to be moving in the same direction at the same speed. I can't move any faster but I know that if I did I wouldn't get there any faster anyway.

For the first time I'm not at peace, I'm slightly apprehensive if not mildly frightened. It's the sound I can't quite reach that's doing it, it's beautiful but sinister. I hear it recede, left with nothing but my heartbeat again. That's more like it.

The sound's behind me now. I turn around and for the first time there are surroundings, not emptiness. My face lights up, I literally feel like there is a calm glow emanating from my face as I take it in. It's not ornate, a simple room where people are sitting down, talking to friends, dancing with each other, all with the same calm glow about them. I make my approach and I'm greeted with open arms.

They say this is what raves are like, the feeling of community amongst drunk and stoned twenty somethings having their heads rearranged by overly loud music and distractedby glowing objects. This isn't that though. This is reserved, dignified. There's conversation at normal speaking volume even though the sound is enveloping. There is dancing that's more like a fluid movement than a random array of flailing limbs. This is the ideal dance party.

It takes a minute to let it all sink in. Everything is white, furniture, clothes, decorations, but it's more dynamic than it is bland. The white is blinding when coupled with the glow, giving it a depth that it doesn't have in real life. The people are all smiling, no one seems to have any ill feelings towards anyone else. It's the most glorious thing I've ever witnessed.

And now I'm part of it.

The mass of us are all moving as one, we start to unconsciously vocalize as the sound builds around us. We don't know what we're saying, but we don't need to. We all know that this is where we needto be, and we'd never want to be anywhere else. There's no feeling like this...this genuine uplift, this group euphoria. More people are joining in. I wonder if they all took the same route I did.

I feel it all dying down, but the feeling is staying right where it needs to be. The mass of us slowly, reluctantly disentangle and go our separate ways, all with the same look of pure joy and understanding on our faces. We don't want this to end, but we know it can't last forever. We don't know where we go from here but we know it's all gonna be alright.

If heaven is half as exhilarating as this I'd consider being born again.

#41. 'We take more drugs than a touring funk band'

McLusky "To Hell With Good Intentions"

The one thing about McLusky that I - purposely - left out of my Do Dallas review is how splendidly they walk the line between smart and stupid. Sure a lot of their songs are just big dumb fun but on multiple occasions, not the least of which is "To Hell With Good Intentions," there's a sense that they're actually making a point underneath all the humour and raucousness. At first they all sound like a series of non sequiturs whose only focus is to make the listener chuckle and shout along, but there's definitely a higher degree of actual intelligence behind most of the better songs that the Welsh trio made than they'll ever get credit for. Just as an example "Collagen Rock" reads like the most concise takedown of throne-pretenders in the indie world ever written but all people are gonna remember it for is that riff and the way Andy Falkous relishes in screaming 'fake tits, YEAH!' at the end of each verse. That's the problem in a nutshell, the intelligence and meaning get so obscured by the humour and delivery that few people even think to realize its there.

"To Hell With Good Intentions" isn't quite as vicious as "Collagen Rock," but it's still one of the most under rated songs lyrically of the decade. Sure, everyone will quote it and praise the funny side of it (SING IT!) but once you look at the words in isolation they become a lot more mocking and disdainful than simply hilarious. It's rampant self-aggrandizement on one level, turning the old playground taunt of 'my big brother can beat up your big brother' into a vehicle for all manner of pointless bragging, but the part that few people catch is how the chorus undercuts the whole endeavor. Think about the song and the first thing that comes to mind is one of the verse parts, probably 'my band is better than your band/we've got more songs than a song convention' because that's a fucking awesome line. The chorus is bone simple, seven words over a suddenly chaotic bass line and double-speed power chords that makes everything that Falkous boasts about in the verses utterly meaningless: 'And we're all going straight to hell.' In short, all that shit you're talking about how great you are means nothing in the end because no one gets out of the grind any better than any one else. We're all going to the same place, and that place is fucking awful. It's the ultimate retort in the face of such rampant egotism ("Hey, I just got that promotion you were gunning for!" "Great, be sure to remind me of that when we're both stuck in the seventh circle..."), and it makes the song better because it's now so much more than a collection of funny one-liners.

It may seem odd to go on this sort of a track after I just spent nearly 800 words defending a pair of albums that resist analysis on all levels with a song that sounds like the common ground those two albums share, but the subtext ain't the only reason "To Hell With Good Intentions" got to be the McLusky representative on this side of the endeavor. It's still in the chorus though, or more specifically the shift into overdrive that the band makes as it hits. The song's main riffs for either instrument are pretty languid all told, but the minute Falkous busts out that final 'SING IT!' and the music gets utterly manic, with each member of the trio seeming to double the speed they were playing at to create a perfect little maelstrom. Joe Chapelle's bass line goes from a shallow pulse to an octave jumping jackhammer, Falkous' guitar part reaches frenetic heights that few of his peers could match and drummer Matt Harding anchors the whole transition with some of the tightest playing you;ll find on the whole album. It's the sort of transition that should sound a lot more jarring than it is in practice, and Chapelle's bass line, as simple as it is, gives it an oddly melodic undertone that stops it from sounding like a soup of frantically picked chords - though with Albini at the mixing board that wasn't ever in danger of happening it's nice to know there's a bit of a safety net in place in case he had an off day.

#41. Fight Like Apes - ...and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion (Model Citizen, 2008) and Dananananaykroyd - Hey Everyone! (Best Before, 2009)

Yes, this is gonna be another lamentation about how music stopped being fun and got too fucking serious, especially in the sphere of critically acclaimed releases. If you've heard either of these albums you know that these aren't serious albums, they're the kind of album you can just throw on, relax and get a genuine grin on our face within about 5 minutes regardless of your mood previously. I know that these two, especially Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion are not great albums. They're flawed creations with a lot of issues that could probably be ironed out by their next releases, but they're so singular in their flawed nature that it's absolutely impossible to do anything but stick em on the list regardless. If you want a good place to start with teh battle between objective and subjective insofar as criticism, look no further than here: I know that neither of these albums is objectively deserving of a place this high up (well, maybe Hey Everyone! is, but we'll get to that later) but in my mind they're two of the most downright fun releases of the last couple of years and it would feel wrong to ignore them. And since it's my list, objectivity can suck it on this occasion.

The flaws of ...and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion are especially apparent; the lyrics are occasionally painful, the music is lacking and it's produced with so much emphasis on loudness that any sort of dynamic range the band might have goes out the window. Yet inspite of all that, I fucking love it. I can listen to it front to back and not care about how middling it all is because it's so much fun to listen to. That's the sort of quality that's under rated in music nowadays, the ability an album has to make you ignorant of its flaws, however major, and just set about the task of making you smile like a loon for its whole length. The band itself sounds like the least likely combination to pull this off, a friend of mine described them as 'what would happen if Demi Lovato took too much acid and recorded an album with some whacko noise-punk band' and that's about as accurate as I've heard, but something in their fusion of LOUD synth blurts and beeps, McLusky-ian rhythm section and vocalist MayKay's alternately tender and punishing vocal style makes for am undeniably exciting, if patently stupid, listen.

It certainly helps that behind all the idiocy there's a decent sense of pop-craft to be unearthed. I've already praised "Jake Summers" to the heavens, but it bears repeating that it's one of the most fun singles of the last few years, and it's nearly matched by the likes of "Do You Karate?" and "Lend Me Your Face." The less raucous numbers, not that they aren't raucous in their own way, just less singularly focused on it, are just as fun, and "Tie Me Up With Jackets" might rival "Jake Summers" for the most essential moment on the album if it had anything as awesome as the primal 'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK' at the end of the latter's second verse. Even if the album kinda falls apart after the much better than it's title would suggest "I'm Beginning to Think That You Prefer Beverly Hills 90210 to Me" and leadoff track "Something Global" isn't as good as it thinks it is that's a full 75% of the album that's the perfect mix of unpretentious fun and instantly earwormy hooks that makes any sort of flaws glide by without much notice. I can't figure out how they pull it off, but it works and I'm not gonna question the whys of it all.

If the one word description of ...and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion is 'fun', the only possible way to describe Hey Everyone!, Dananananaykroyd's first LP, so succinctly would be to call it 'busy.' The very nature of the band pretty much guarantees that description since its lineup reads like Noah's Ark for rock instruments; two drummers like an early 80s Fall LP, two bassists like Dianogah, two guitarists who want to be compared to Polvo's ace team but ain't quite there yet and two vocalists who are pretty interchangable - plus the band's fond of gang shouts anyway so it's not just two in a lot of cases. Now, on paper that looks very, very awesome to me; guitar interplay is one thing I can never get enough of so the possibility of expanding that to every instrument in the band's arsenal strikes me as a great experiment. In practice it falls apart though, sad to say. It may be going for multi-layered interplay heaven but hte results often sound cluttered above all else. It's not as big a stumbling block now as it was for the first couple of listens, but there are still moments where so much is going on that it all crumbles into a big mass of nothing.

But the saving grace is, once again, that it's a blast to listen to if you put that out of your mind. The best songs here - "Pink Sabbath," "Some Dresses" and "Watch This" to name the real cream of the crop - are absolutely fierce bits of post punk bliss. The double drums are as propulsive as you'd imagine, like Hex Enduction Hour on amphetamines and a sugar high, and when the guitars and basses converge into a breakdown it's positively massive sounding in the best way possible. Even when the complex instrumental set up breeds nothing more than a jumble of riffs that want to coalesce but can't quite get there it can be completely exhilarating if you can put the frustration aside. It's clear that these guys and gals are damn talented as players too; listening to the guitars in isolation from each other (great stereo panning in this one I must say) reveals a lot of extremely tight, knotty riffs that might rival some of Polvo's mid-level riffs if the interplay between them was a bit more polished. It's just a case of the band not knowing when to stop on some levels I guess. They have the songs and the talent but they don't quite have the skill to pull it off the way they want to. It's a shame that this seems to be putting people off the album since it's damned great fun if you just listen to it and don't analyze it. And since we're about to start with the section where analysis is the main watchword it feels nice to talk about a couple of albums that don't need that sort of insight to be deservedly listed among my favorites of the decade.

#42. 'Won't you show me what begins at the edge of town?'

Battles "Atlas"

The reaction that people have to "Atlas" the first time I play it for them is always the same:

• Appreciative head nodding for the intro
• Confusion when the vocals enter
• Gradually resume head nodding after a few lines of the vocals
• Get considerably more into it until the middle section
• When it comes back to life the head nodding resumes
• No comment when the vocals return because they're too busy trying not to dance
  

Without fail, that's what happens. My stepbrother expressed disdain for the 'chipmunk vocals' until he realized how much his foot was tapping. My dad gave me the second biggest 'wtf' look he's mustered when I put something into the stereo - biggest being for Trout Mask Replica - but eventually turned it up as we headed down the freeway. My mom wondered out loud what the hell was up with the vocals but a mere minute later wanted it on her mp3 player. It never fails; the confusion gives way to genuine enjoyment no matter what your musical likes and dislikes are.

"Atlas" might be the oddest universal song of the decade. It may not have "Hey Ya" levels of 'gets everyone in the room dancin' and singin' within five seconds' appeal, but through sheer relentlessness it seems to be ableto break down every type of person. And for something this unambiguously odd to have that sort of appeal is truly a feat to celebrate. Think about the individual elements of the song: guitars that don't sound like guitars so much as video game synths, the most rigid drumming this side of New Order or Kraftwerk, vocals that take the whole regrettable autotune gimmick to its logical endpoint so that the words don't even matter anymore and a structure that lets one of the most addictive grooves of the decade stop dead for a good 3 minutes right when it gets going. That doesn't exactly sound like the kind of song that will be the subject of anything but underground, and I mean deep underground, obsession from a certain subset of fringe music nerds like myself. It certainly doesn't sound like the kind of song my whole family would wind up liking after some trepidation. And yet it manages to hook everyone I've tried it on without much effort whatsoever. It has a weird kind of power that I can't put my finger on, but I'm glad it has it.

A lot of the credit has to go to John Stanier's drumming. For the dude who was drumming with Helmet at their peak and was part of one iteration of Tomahawk to be providing such a restrained and downright danceable beat seems a bit out of character, but the results are damn near perfect. It's a pretty simple pattern all told, but it works in tandem with Dave Konopka's subtle bass line, Ian Williams' guitar work and Tyondai Braxton's loopy vocal and programming work to lay the foundation for an irrestistable groove. I'm including the vocals because for all intents and purposes they're just another layer of instrumentation, so heavily processed that even with the lyrics in front of you it's hard to determine what's actually being said (the rare occasions I'd try to sing along to it early on lead to 'people won't be people if they eat this sandwich/put em in the dark if your head hurts an atlas') but so integral to the song that it's not like they can be ignored. The fact that so many people seem to undergo a 180 on them as the song progresses, either that or they get so caught up in the groove that they're willing to put their distaste aside, just goes to show how much they get absorbed into the meat of the song by the end, and when that meat is as undeniably groovy a it is for "Atlas" even the most seemingly offputting bits can be overcome by it.

There's also the trick of letting the song completely die in the middle only to rebuild the groove piece by piece over a few minutes. It's the same sort of thing that pushed "You Made Me Realize" into my list of absolute favorite songs ever, the willingness to interrupt one of the most undeniable grooves of the decade for the sole purpose of bringing it back so gradually that it feels like an event when it hits. Battles do this part so methodically that it makes for the most fascinating part of the song. Hearing the four members gradually rebuild the song from nothing but Konopka's bass pulse while charting it through some interesting new riffs that all seem to lead right back to Williams' solo in the most logical possible way despite the serpentine path it takes is nothing short of exhilarating, to put it simply. The minute Williams' gets into that octave-jump guitar riff (you know the one I'm talking about) might be the single most exciting moment in the band's repertoire, and given my affection for Mirrorred as a whole that's not exactly light praise.

It's also a great example of why long-form singles, that's to say singles that don't abide by the 3-5 minute radio range, generally manage to work better for me. A 3-5 minute song couldn't do half the things that "Atlas" does anywhere near as well. It couldn't dismantle and rebuild itself, it couldn't put so many unlikely people under its spell, and it certainly wouldn't outrank the last 20 or so songs without having the freedom to run for seven minutes. The fact that it doesn't seem to take anywhere near that long to play out says as much about its greatness as the 700-or-so words here ever could.

#42. The Drones - Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By (In Fidelity, 2005) and Havilah (ATP, 2008)

Man, I've started and restarted this about a half dozen times already trying to find a good way to introduce these two, everything from anecdotes to a long-winded bit of critical fellatio for "Shark Fin Blues," and I'm still nowhere near finding one. So I'll just go about it in an uncharacteristically straightforward way if only to try and get this written.

The Drones fucking rock. It's as simple as that; even when they lapse into a few acoustic numbers on their latest album they just fucking rock. I could try to dress it up a bit, but that's not necessary. The way that the quartet go about their business is primal, ferocious and deceptively deep, so describing it as anything else just doesn't seem right. I remember the first time I heard "Shark Fin Blues" back in 2006 and it became the sort of song I would listen to for days on end without caring that I had some 50-plus albums sitting on my computer waiting to be listened to it became clear that they were gonna be a band to watch, and while no moment will ever match the power of that first blast ("Jezebel" from the un-represented Gala Mil comes close though) hearing the band's evolution through their past three albums (still need to sit down with Here Come the Lies and The Miller's Daughter yet) has been one of the most exciting listening experiences I've heard this decade.

The contrast between 2005's Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By and 2008's near-masterpiece Havilah isn't so great that it sounds like two different bands, mind you, but there's a definite maturation between the two. This is especially clear in frontman Gareth Liddiard's lyrics, which went from great little vignettes whose memorability had more to do with his raw and unpredictable vocal style than the words themselves to first class poetry over the course of the three years between the albums. While "Jezebel" is quite rightly sen as the highest point of Liddiard's lyricism, the bulk of Havilah is almost at the same level, especially moments like "I Am the Supercargo" and "Oh My" where there's a perfect synthesis of excellent lyrics and the distinctly raw vocal style that will always be a Drones trademark. That's not to shortchange the lyrics on Wait Long... at all, as the bitter and rousing closer "This Time" might be the first indication that Liddiard would become one of the decade's best writers, but the evolution between the two in that department is nothing short of astonishing.

Musically there's been evolution as well, but I wouldn't characterize it as being improved or worsened so much as matured between the two albums. Wait Long is more exciting, taking all manner of unexpected twists and turns to get to its destination while Havilah is much more composed, still keeping the loose feel of its predecessor but focusing its attack to make for a much smoother listen. Once again, there are hints of this maturation on Wait Long..., as both "The Best You Can Believe In" and "Another Rousing Chorus You Idiots!!!!" have a degree of restraint that makes them sound a bit out of place in the midst of such a rocking album, but even the most primal moments of Havilah are so much more composed, "Oh My" especially sounds just as ferocious as something like "Baby²" or "You Don't Really Care" yet there's a much higher degree of control and overall musicality to it that makes it stand out above the fray. The only thing I'd lament about the more composed nature of Havilah is that it robs us of another song like "Shark Fin Blues" where Liddiard and co-guitarist Dan Luscombe weave a series of variations on a few basic riffs in and out of each other. That sort of guitar tapestry is gone on Havilah but really none of the songs need it. I guess I just wish there were more songs like "Shark Fin Blues," in and of itself one of the best songs of the decade if not all time.

What it boils down to is that Wait Long... is the visceral album and Havilah is the mature one. The former is energizing, rousing and affecting on a much rawer level while the latter is slightly more contemplative while still managing to hit all those notes. It's not really possible to call one album better than the other, though on a purely objective level there's not denying that Havilah represents a huge step forward, because both are equally enjoyable in their own way. They both have their strengths and no real observable weaknesses - though a couple of Wait Long...'s longer tracks don't exactly justify their length - and both work equally well depending on the mood I'm in. They both represent one of the most interesting and accomplished new bands of the 00s on top of their game, albeit in different ways, and both are deserving of a lot more praise than they've received from the world at large.

#43. 'Ain't got no car to take you on a date'

Timbaland ft. Keri Hilson and D.O.E. "The Way I Are"

So after 10+ years of being in the background of approximately 5 dozen of the best urban pop singles to ever grace the radio Tim Mosely decided it was time to give himself the starring role, and that proved to be his undoing. I have yet to hear Shock Value in its entirety, mind you, but judging by the four singles it produced and the other songs that Timbaland's attached himself to in its wake it almost seems like it's the demarcation between the time when he could do no wrong and the present where his name doesn't so much cause excitement as it does trepidation. Post-Shock Value the biggest singles to feature Tim in either a production or guest sense have been either thoroughly mediocre (Madonna's "4 Minutes") or actively deplorable (Flo Rida's "Elevator"), a great tumble for the dude who was the alpha and omega of pop music a mere 3 years ago. Add to that the fact that three of the four singles from Shock Value already felt like Tim resting on his laurels and that none of them really seemed to merit him being the primary credit and it seems like he might have let his status as the 'can-do-no-wrong' producer of the moment get to him the same way that The Neptunes did earlier in the decade.

There's no sign of that on "The Way I Are" though. Sure it doesn't feel like Tim's the star here any more or less than on his straight production credits, but the song itself is definitely on a different level than the rest of the batch from Shock Value. I can't quite figure out exactly which aspect it is that pushes it over the edge, but something makes it stand as a firm part of Tim's A-List as opposed to the tedium of the other three singles. The production is still a ways removed from the more interesting work he'd done in his early years - comparing this to "We Need a Resolution" shows just how much Tim's production style has changed since the decade began - but that doesn't bother me so much because the key elements here are all top-notch. Even without the trademark Timbalandisms, no eastern strings or off-beat drums to be found, it's the only one of the Shock Value singles that sounds like a Timbaland production vs. a cheap imitation of one. It almost feels like he took the basics of his best work from his 2006 double-shot of Nelly Furtado's Loose and Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds and condensed into a three-and-a-bit minute bluffer's guide to why everyone loved those two abums. The synths from "My Love," the 'Yeah, yeah's from "Sexyback," the lush pads from the chorus of "Promiscuous," the kinetic brashness of "Maneater"...it's all crammed into "The Way I Are" and even if it's not as effective as most of those songs it's still a potent reminder of what Tim can do when his mind's set to it.

The more I listen to it though, the more I think it all comes down to Keri Hilson. There's something about the way she works in this song that makes even the most strained of her vocal passages come off as utterly sublime. Given her...spotty let's say track record as a solo artist it's hard to recall that when this first came out she sounded like the next big R 'n' B female vocalist, such an effortlessly graceful and punchy performance that matches Tim's production flawlessly. Their verbal sparring - not the right word, I know but bear with me here - during the chorus is a wonderful bit of vocal interplay and her work on the pre-chorus blows Tim's verses, not to mention D.O.E.'s bridge section, out of the water. It may go down as the only time that Hilson was ever particularly relevant and good simultaneously but if you're only gonna hit it out of the park once it's best to make it something specail, and she pulls that off here with remarkable aplomb.

#43. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (Self-Released, 2007)

Do we need to go into the story of how this one came about again? It seems that every professional review felt the need to repeat the same information about the whys and hows of Justin Vernon's debut recording under the Bon Iver name, even a full year after the album became a massive word of mouth hit and everyone who cared knew about the circumstances. And while context is important in a lot of cases, I've found myself wondering whether any of it even matters with respect to the album itself; if the album had just been released without the sob story would it have become one of the most revered albums of the decade without any push outside of word of mouth and a glowing Pitchfork review? I'd like to think it would, lord knows its good enough to set the right people off without much provocation, but the way it's continually presented as being of a piece with the story of Vernon retreating to a cabin in the woods after he broke up with his girlfriend to record it almost serves to diminish its impact as a damn near perfect break up album. Without that little story to attach all the songs to it still stands out, but when all that anyone talks about is the story it obscures just how damn good the songs are.

So let's talk about the songs then, because For Emma, Forever Ago contains eight absolutely devastating and poignant ones that would do any dude with an acoustic guitar proud. The one thing that the circumstances of its creation ensured was that the songs would never get overly busy, with only a few having more than Vernon's acoustic strumming as accompaniment, but that's not exactly something that would make it stand out. The only thing that does that are the songs themselves, and each of them (excluding the instrumental "Team") is a note perfect break up song. They don't all cover the some territory of course, with the tone ranging from defiant on "Skinny Love" to utterly resigned and hurt on the very next track, but they're all held together by the unique aura that songs of lost love have about them. It's there in the lush and sensual "Creature Fear," one of the biggest growers the album houses, as Vernon seems to be reliving a particularly intimate moment with a genuine sense of loss. It's there in "Skinny Love," the only time he seems to get angry about the break up - 'now all your love is wasted?/then who the hell was I?' especially hits the sort of loathing that seems to be missing elsewhere - and it's there when he drawls 'what might have been lost/don't bother me' on "The Wolves (Act I and II)". It's the sort of enveloping sense of loss that defines it for me more than its circumstances do; they may be intertwined to some extent, but the former would have been there even if he'd stayed home to record it.

The one thing that the whole cabin retreat aspect does lend to it is a sense of isolation. It's one thing to make this type of album with people still moving through your life, but Vernon recorded so much of it in hermit mode that it feels so much more desolate than most other break up albums. It's odd to see it that way when a full half the songs are augmented by a quasi full-band - albeit after the fact - but even on something like "Creature Fear," probably the closest to a full-band sound the album has, or the horn augmented "For Emma" there's a palpable sense of loneliness that pushes through. Once again though, that feeling would be there no matter what was known about the impetus for the album's creation. It's not the kind of thing that you can fake, the sort of isolation that the album embodies, and even without the extra knowledge of what the recording environs were like I'd assume as much about its creation. There's a certain transparency about For Emma, Forever Ago that makes it impossible to not guess much of what was already known about it, if that makes sense.

I know that having some sort of hook is almost essential to an album as under the radar as For Emma getting any kind of traction, and its ascension from self-released, not meant to be heard outside a small circle of Vernon's friends document to one of the biggest successes of the late decade owes as much to that story as it does to the quality of the album, but in a way it seems a bit unfair to have it all explained like that. The lack of mystery doesn't bother me when the material is this good, but having the whole process spelt out like that makes it seem less special somehow. I don't think it lowers my opinion of the album, I mean it coming it at #43 here says enough about how much I enjoy it, but a little less emphasis on the cabin and all that would probably serve the album better.