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The Hip2besquare 2008 Year End Favorite Albums List

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What I like about the year end lists is getting to see what all your peers have been jamming to over the past year and discovering what gems may have fallen through the cracks.  With all the music that comes out in a single year, you’re bound to miss a few no matter how much time you spend staring at your Google Reader for the next best band or album to be released.

What I don’t like about the end of the year lists is all the pressure that seems to be on picking the top 10, 20 or 50.  Look, if there were 22, 29, 31 or 49 albums in all that stuck with me this year through thick and thin, then I’m going to mention those albums.  I’m not going to throw in Kings of Leon just because they happened to come out with an album this year and “use to be” a solid band.  Unfortunately KoL have gone down hill in my mind.  It all began with that ridiculous video they put together for “Sex on Fire”.  It then ended when the song appeared on Gossip Girl.  Yes, I’ve watched the show but keep in mind, I live with my girlfriend.

Listed below are albums that I and my friends were all about in 2008.  They’re not in any particular order but based on how much I wrote you can probably tell how much the album meant to me.  A few of these may actually have been released in previous years but the fact remains that they were discovered by our ears in 2008.  That’s all that really matters.  In the end, the year end lists are to help those who don’t spend countless hours scrolling their Google Readers for the latest and greatest music.  This is for you, friends.

Fleet Foxes – “Fleet Foxes”

Sub Pop had a few gems this year but it was clearly Fleet Foxes that took home the grand prize for one of the best break out artists of 2008.  Many make comparisons to My Morning Jacket’s early work, and rightly so.  They have the reverb, southern country rock with classic Americana rock sound mixed in.  But there’s something about their harmonies that blow me away more so then My Morning Jacket.  MMJ blew me away with their soaring riffs and hooks.  Yeah, Jim’s vocals are great and all, but nothing compared to Fleet Foxes Robin Pecknolds and his supporting cast, Skye Skjelset, J Tillman, Casey Wescott and Christian Wargo.

Their debut full length self-titled album was released on Sub-Pop and came after critics were already drooling over their Sun Giant EP.  And speaking of drooling, I’ve been known to go limp after the first two or three songs of listening to their album as I’m usually in a calm trance and lose a good portion of my bodies functionality.

Missing them live this year is probably one of my greatest disappointments.  They played at the Somerville Theatre which is literally a hop skip and jump from where I live.  To make matters even worse, I bought tickets to see Hot Chip in NYC on the same weekend that Fleet Foxes was playing in NYC.  Yeah, I guess I could have sold my Chip tix, but I couldn’t disappoint the crew, some of whom had never seen the Chip live and I love being with friends who get to dance their faces off for the first time during their short but sweet live set.  God, I love music.  Lets keep it rolling.

Bon Iver – “For Emma, Forever Ago”

There were two moments in 2008 where I cried because of joy.  One of course was when the greatest baseball team ever, the Philadelphia Phillies, won this years World Series and broke a 25 year period where no major Philadelphia sport (Football, Hockey, Basketball and Baseball) won a championship.  I was three years old in 1983 when the Sixers, our basketball team, won the last championship.  So basically, on October 29th, 2008, this twenty eight year old saw for the first time his home town team raise a championship trophey over their heads and get to say, “WE’RE NUMBER ONE”, and actually be the number one team in the league.  It feels soooooooooooooooo goooooooooooooood.

The second occasion wasn’t quite as deep as the Phillies win but it was close.  How Jason Vernon’s voice has gone unnoticed till now is beyond me.  I have not heard any of the other bands he played in.  I know that one of the reasons the songs that eventually made up his debut solo album, “For Emma, Forever Ago”, came about in part because of his original bands break up.  That and some other break ups such as his dead beat job working in North Carolina at a food establishment, his break up with direction in life, his break up from his girl which all drove him out to the Wisconsin woods, the state where he grew up, for some alone time.  Apparently there were even moments of ending it all.  Jeez.  Can you imagine.  Jason had no prior notion of making any music during his escape from reality.  At the beginning it was filled with routines such as chopping wood to stay warm during the winter months he took refuge (3 months).  The trips to town to get bags of rice and so on.  But no musician can stand still for too long.  Sooner or later you get the itch and she comes calling to you.  And boy, did she come calling to Jason.

The album was actually released by Jason himself in 2007 after sending it to friends and getting feedback that this is something that must be shared with the masses.  Well, the masses responded and a year later Jason was signed to Jagjaguwar and on tour with labelmates, Black Mountain.  This is another live show I am mad I missed.  They played the Middle East…UPSTAIRS! The place holds 194 people.  What a show that must have been.  But it didn’t take long for Jason to return.  Only this time, instead of opening for another band at a small venue, he was headlining his own tour and playing no less, the Museum of Fine Arts.  It was at this show, with my best girl to my left, sitting in the amazing Remis Auditorium, that the joy hit me.

Keep your eye out for his four song EP, “Blood Bank”, to be released on 1/20/09.  Expect his new material to be more of a traditional full band sound versus the solo sound you get on his debut but I don’t expect any diminish in the presence of Jason’s virtuosic vocal chords.

TV on the Radio – “Dear Science,”

The opening song “Halfway Home” on “Dear Science,” is one of the better lead off songs I’ve heard in awhile.  It’s also one of the strongest songs on the album.  This was not as strong of an album as Return To Cookie Mountain.  The presence isn’t as clear upon first listen where as the presence of Cookie Mountain was hard to ignore.  Their forceful punch was held back slightly on ‘Science.  A lot of this has to do with the polished production of Dave Sitek, one of the founding members and lead guitar player in the band.

With the polished sound we were exposed to even more textures, exemplifying the talents that make up this Brooklyn based group such as the vocal capabilities of Kyp Malone.  It also exposed their political side with songs like the “Golden Age” and “Red Dress”.  But if you’ve seen any of the members in an interview or been to a live show, you probably already knew how political they are.

TV on the Radio are one of today’s premier artists and I’m looking forward to following what I hope to be a long lasting career.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Bon Iver @ Museum of Fine Arts Remis Auditorium – Boston, MA 7/25/08

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I remember hearing of the mythical Bon Iver back in the summer of 2007, around the time all the bloggers were freaking out about this free album that landed in their inbox one day.  I knew he was a man, gone astray in the Wisconsin woods where he opened up his heart and soul to music and came out a winter later with one magnificent album, For Emma, Forever Ago.  But now that I’ve witnessed “Bon Iver” I know it’s more then just a man, it’s a feeling.  A group effort.  One that involves not just Justin Vernon, but also his band members and the audience.

This is not to say that Bon Iver could be without Justin and his remarkable innate talent to sing as if every lyric were his last and every note consisted of equal parts blood and tears.  I honestly can’t say that I’ve been more moved by one mans voice then I was at this show.  The only other human being close enough with a voice that compares would be Jonsi from Sigur Ros.

But it’s clear that the man who gave birth to “Good Winter” (French translation of Bon Iver which is actually spelled Bon Hiver) is set out to move away from a one man concept.  Bon Iver, the group, appears to be getting ready to kick into song writing high gear.  They were energized, pumped to be on their first ever headlining tour and playing at no less, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and to top it off, sold it out in two days.  Mind you this was a man who no more then two years ago ran off in search for meaning in his life in the backwoods of Wisconsin in the middle of Winter.  Want to know how cold it gets in Wisconsin in the winter?  Just ask any member or the 2007 New York Giants or Green Bay Packers how cold it was during last seasons football playoffs (-23 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chill).

They’re on the tour bus, listening to music (we’ll talk about that in a couple minutes) and feeling each other out.  They’re telling life stories and conversing about the nature of today’s society and world events.  They’re writing music.  And we got a little taste of what Bon Iver, the band, is sounding like in the future.

About half way through the show they decided to play a new tune.  So new, that everyone had their own notes on hand.  I didn’t have my notes-book so I don’t remember exactly the name but I believe it was called “Blood Bank” or maybe “Blood River”.  Either way, it had a real funky, rock n’ roll groove.  Justin jumped up on his keys and played in B3 organ style while all the members sang along.  It was clear that instead of Justin’s voice, the music played the star of the song.

The band then took time to cover a group they’ve all been listening to recently in the tour bus, Talk Talk.  Those who don’t know (I didn’t),  Talk Talk was an early 80′s born band that ended in 1991.  They play experimental and euphoric music that has a psychedelic side to it (Learn more).  They played the song, “I Believe in You” and it seems to be about a “spirit” of some sorts.  A very ethereal, slow jam that drags a bit but had a great vibe.  Quite beautiful.  And once again, Justin’s voice was neither here nor there in this segment of the show.  In fact, the drummer took the lead vocal reigns for the cover.

Listen to Talk Talk and “I Believe in You” on this myspace page: www.myspace.com/talktalklaughingstock.

What about Forever Emma, Forever Ago tunes?  Well, they played just about all of them, and yeah, including that one (“Skinny Love”).  For me, it was “Blindsided” that took the cake from the album songs.  Like with any album, jamming is usually cut short in order to keep the flow going from one song to the next.  However, most bands will extend on certain sections that call for a little extra improvisation.  “Blindsided” was one of the best examples of this all night.  On the album it’s around the 3 minute mark where the vocals fluctuate from “would you really rush out” to “for it now” or something like that, and then they break back to the verse after 40 seconds but instead, during the show, they kept going with this vamp and Justin went off on his guitar and man, not only can he sing but the kid can play the geetar too.

We also had ourselves a little collaboration moment with the band.  It’s one of Justin’s goals to have the audience participate as much as possible during the show.  He even handed out lyrics to songs during some of his first ever live shows to the crowd so that they could sing along word for word (read more about this during his Pitchfork interview).  We sang “what might have been lost” during “The Wolves (Act I and II)” and attempted to sing as loud as the PA during the climax of the song, which was not easy and I’m not quite sure we accomplished this or not but we gave it our best shot.

So we heard every tune off the album, plus a brand new one and a cover, so by the end, as every one stood up to applaud Bon Iver, the band, we all wondered what they could surprise us with next.  For the encore, both the Bon Iver crew and the entire Bowerbird crew (opening act and close friends of Justin) came walking out to the front of the stage.  Everyone was instrumentless except for Justin who was holding an acoustic guitar.  They explained how they had played everything they knew so for times when the crowd is a good crowd (which we were) they play a song written by their good friend Sarah Siskin who is based out of Nashville.  Since they also covered this same song, which is called “Lovin’s For Fools”, in New York City you can bet every single blogger and their assistants (yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if some bloggers in NYC actually do have assistants) were on top of reporting this little gem of a tune.  Watch the Bowery version of this song in the above video.  Listen to more Sarah Siskind music on her myspace. One review said that you can see how well Justin and Phil Moore, lead vocalist for Bowerbirds, know each other by the way they hit their pitches during this song.  While I agree, I still can’t get over Phil Moore’s resemblance to one Andrew Bird.  While I love the birdman, there is something about Phil’s take on this vocal style that turns me off.  Sorry for any Bowerbird fans, this is not a negative review of Bowerbirds its just a personal issue and overall I think their music is quite exceptional.

Bon Iver are on the road now until October 7th where they end in Dublin, Ireland.  See the whole tour schedule.  Bon Iver’s evolution over the course of this year, in my opinion, is going to depend largely on the commitment of the players around the core of Bon Iver, Justin Vernon.  If the commitment stays high, which I assume it will, we may just see a really great follow up album that given the uplift in Justin’s soul, will be more energetic, lively and collaborative.  Just a prediction but hey, I wouldn’t complain if he found enough room for another For Emma, Forever Ago.

Any Jeremy Fisher Fans out there?

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On Sale!If so, we’re giving away a couple of tickets to his upcoming show at the Paradise Lounge on 2/25 here in Boston.

To win the tickets, all you have to do is answer the following trivia question and if you’re the first one to get it right, you win. Post your answers in the comment section.

Q. What is the real name of the artist Bon Iver? And what does Bon Iver mean?

Download a track from Bon Iver’s recent re-release on Jajgauwar records, For Emma, Forever Ago – “Skinny Love”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Purchase For Emma, Forever Ago (Label) (Amazon MP3 store) (eMusic)

Don’t know who the heck Jeremy Fisher is? Watch the following YouTube clip of Jeremy playing “Cigarette”

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3779019364369535983