eternalized, objectified : the best of 2008

Better a tad late than never, that's my middle name, so here goes a recap. I think 2008 was a year of big decisions for me. Nothing earth-changing, really, but they could eventually be for me. I bit off more than I could chew, that's for sure, especially in the second half of the year, which explains my absence from this blog. But I haven't been completely out of touch with music; in fact, I think I bought more music in 2008 than the year before, which explains why I'm able to come up with a longer list of the best songs of the year (44) than the two lists prior. I could have rounded the list to 50, but some of the other songs just don't fit in the two mixes I've made below. Truth be told, they weren't easy to make. It was clear early on that I could split my list between electric and acoustic, fast and slow, bands and singer-songwriters, but actually grouping the songs that I liked in a way that made them gel together (an OCD behavior typical of mix-tape fanatics) meant that I had to violate some of the contrasts I just described. This is why you'll find a Portishead song in the same mix as Bon Iver, and why I included Kings of Leon's Sex on Fire instead of Manhattan, my favorite from their album.

Like I keep saying, this blog is about songs, but I won't hesitate naming the 10 albums I listened a lot to last year, which necessarily makes them my Best Albums of 2008. In no particular order:

• Dear Science: TV On The Radio
• Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
• Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
• God is an Astronaut: God is an Astronaut
  
• April: Sun Kil Moon
• For Emma, Forever Ago: Bon Iver
• Sleight of Heart: Malcolm Middleton
• Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
• Limbo, Panto: Wild Beasts
• Car Alarm: The Sea and Cake

Anyway, enjoy these songs:

Best of 2008 Mix 1

click here or on the image above to stream the entire list in one go, or click on the titles below to listen to the songs individually

1. (The Forgotten People) : Thievery Corporation
2. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa : Vampire Weekend
   
3. Head Honcho : DeVotchKa
   
4. Youthless : Beck
   
5. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! : Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
   
6. The Fix : Elbow
   
7. DLZ : TV on the Radio
   
8. Shores Of Orion : God Is An Astronaut
   
9. Rooks : Shearwater
   
10. These Hands : Deerhunter
    
11. The Devil's Crayon : Wild Beasts
    
12. Say Back Something : Tapes 'n Tapes
    
13. Sleeper Hold : No Age
    
14. Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1 : Los Campesinos!
    
15. Electric Feel : MGMT
    
16. Better Than This : Keane
    
17. Graveyard Girl : M83
18. Holy Cow! : Margot & The Nuclear So And So's
19. To Be Where There's Life : Oasis
20. Sex On Fire : Kings Of Leon
21. One For The Cutters : The Hold Steady
22. Daddy's Gone : Glasvegas

Some highlights:

Mix 1 of music to groove to was made with some compromises, but overall I'm very happy with it. The musical output from 2008 was weird in a good way for me in that the songs that stood out the most are very diverse. Thievery Corporation, the Washington, D.C.-based DJ duo that puts a club spin on so-called world music, released their best album since Abductions and Reconstructions from a decade ago, and I thought The Forgotten People, their own composition, made for a rousing opener.

Dig, Lazarus, Digg!!! by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is easily my most played song of 2008. What an amazing record, with an addictive hook and an interesting twist on the old narrative of the artist's struggle between purity and popularity. At least that's how I see it.

How Elbow had gone by under the radar all these years is a mystery to me. These guys have been making tremendous records since 2001. They finally won the Mercury Prize last year, but I think they're just getting started. Elbow is very versatile; their debut album, Asleep in the Back, is track-for-track half a world away from last year's The Seldom Seen Kid, but both are equally good, although the latter is obviously the more self-assured. The Fix is full of mischief.

Album buyers will find TV On The Radio's Dear Science great value for money; they'll get 11 well-crafted songs that cross genres. DLZ, whatever that means, is the most brooding song of the album, a scathing critique, the way I read it, of George W. Bush and his wars.

God is an Astronaut was a big surprise. Scottish post-rockers Mogwai released an excellent album last year in The Hawk is Howling, yet here I am posting a song by a group that obviously takes after them. God is an Astronaut's self-titled album is a revelation, every song is stirring, and Shores of Orion uncorks a pent-up indignation.

Wild Beasts was an awesome find. This new English band has its own sound. They cook up highly original guitar melodies, but their songs aren't for everyone. What could put people off is the vocals. They make liberal use of falsettos alternating with pure grit, and the combination can be grating. The best example is She Purred While I Grrd – listen to it when your tolerance hormone level is high. The Devil's Crayon is tamer, but no less ear-catching.

I don't know how many new bands released their debut and sophomore albums on the same year, but Los Campesinos did it, and they did it well. What makes this Welsh seven-piece amazing is they don't only deliver fun party songs for the artsy, but their lyrics can also be cleverly graphic and hilarious without making the songs ridiculous. Documented #1, from the second album, is such an example; the first line never fails to make me sniggle.

Did any band release a more fun record in 2008 than MGMT? These guys have had a great run, and let's hope they don't crash and burn. Oracular Spectacular is just what the album name suggests: an exciting piece of work that hints at even greater things.

Sometimes it's hard to take a band seriously because of their choice of name, but Margot and the Nuclear So & So's is a good argument for, well, not taking a band for its name. Holy Cow is seriously professional in sound and arrangement – perhaps more so than the band would have liked, since this comes from Not Animal, the version of the album their label wanted to release. (The band's preferred version, Animal, was also released, and it's equally good.)

I had stopped taking notice of Oasis since What's the Story Morning Glory?, but Dig Out Your Soul restored my faith, perhaps because the album is mature, perhaps because the Gallaghers are more mature. They've been easing their grip on the group's creative output, and To Be Where There's Life is guitarist Gem Archer's work. It could well have been George Harrison's composition sung by Lennon. It has the makings of a classic in spite of the novelty – a £12.50 toy sitar, if Noel's claim is to be believed.

Only By The Night by Kings of Leon probably gets the award for the most polarizing album of 2008. The band has grabbed the public's attention since their debut, but with each record they've veered further away from their southern roots. Some hated them for it, most loved them even more. I'm with the latter. Take the past out of the picture and you'll agree that they're making great records. Who could resist Sex on Fire?

Best of 2008 Mix 2

click here or on the image above to stream the entire list, or click on the titles below to listen to the songs individually

1. White Winter Hymnal : Fleet Foxes
2. Writer's Minor Holiday : Calexico
   
3. Total Belief : Malcolm Middleton
   
4. Twist Of The Knife : Andy Yorke
   
5. I Still Care For You : Ray LaMontagne
   
6. Skinny Love : Bon Iver
   
7. Always : Peter Bradley Adams
   
8. Moorestown : Sun Kil Moon
   
9. Face Down In The Right Town : Earlimart
   
10. New Schools : The Sea and Cake
    
11. Speak : Dark Captain Light Captain
    
12. Listen : Amos Lee
    
13. Hard White Wall : Joan As Police Woman
    
14. Little Black Sandals : Sia
15. Hearts Club Band : Martha Wainwright
    
16. A&E : Goldfrapp
    
17. The Rip : Portishead
18. Gódan Daginn : Sigur Rós
19. Cape Canaveral : Conor Oberst
20. Swallows Of San Juan : Alejandro Escovedo
21. Cath... : Death Cab for Cutie
22. Weightless : Nada Surf

This Mix 2 of rock for wimps has some of my favorite songs of the year. White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes was a shoo-in, although this isn't my favorite from the album (that would be Ragged Wood). These guys are really good and oozing with minty freshness, even though they're very 70s Americana. I thought I'd get sick of them easily, but I'm still listening to the album. They'll probably have to find a newer sound for their future albums, though, perhaps with the help of a new producer who could funk them out a little bit. It's not that their original sound is bad, it's just that even Mentos comes in different flavors.

Calexico is back. Their Garden Ruin album from 2006 didn't really pluck my strings, but Carried to Dust has quite a number of gems, including this here's Writer's Minor Holiday, plus House of Valparaiso, Two Silver Trees and Red Blooms.

I grew fond of Malcolm Middleton very easily. This former Arab Strap lays incredibly simple but engaging acoustic arrangements in his latest solo album, Sleight of Heart. The self-deprecating Total Belief is typical of his ironic humor. "I woke late today with a puzzle in mind, I found myself hoping for the destruction of mankind, Nothing bad you know and not out of spite."

You wouldn't know Andy Yorke was Thom's younger brother just by listening to him. In Simple, his debut album as a solo artist, he got the sensitive singer-songerwriter virtuosity down pat. Twist of the Knife easily holds a candle to artists of the same ilk, like Ray LaMontagne, who subdues his normally powerful caffeine-and-nicotine vocals into whispers in I Still Care for You, or Bon Iver, aka Justin Vernon, who found himself being the alternative press's darling thanks to For Emma, Forever Ago. While Skinny Love is again an easy pick for last year's favorites, many other tracks from For Emma are more elegant, though a bit less radio-friendly. Re: Stacks is a painting in gentle brushstrokes of moving on from a failed relationship. "This is not the sound of a new man or a crispy realization, It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away. Your love will be safe with me." The heart aches. I'll count Peter Bradley Adams in this group. His album Leavetaking is overly sentimental, but the songs – nay, serenades – are expressions in soft sighs of an honest wanting. Sun Kil Moon didn't really impress me with April, but Mark Kozelek is enshrined in this blog (see picture above) and he can do no wrong – even with The Finally, his latest album of covers, which incudes Send in the Clowns. (Really.)

Earlimart was an accidental find. I can't remember which artist I was browsing on iTunes that showed them as related, but I clicked and liked what I heard. This male-female duo makes amiable music that refuses to fade into the background, with their little elements of earcandy such as bird chirps and vocal harmonies. The Sea and Cake and Dark Captain Light Captain use the same technique, but the former slides a bit into jazz-pop and the latter alt-folk. Amos Lee straddles these genres with relative deftness. And just to wrap this up: Martha Wainwright continues to beguile, Sigur Ros finally became accessble to me, Alejandro Escovedo has a sweet soft side you want to explore, and Nada Surf are still underrated!

catching hold of the light

cast away : the one am radio

our fall apart : the one am radio

click on the song titles to listen

The first thing you will notice when you listen to This Too Will Pass, an album by Hrishikesh Hirway or The One AM Radio, is the melancholy of his sound. These are midnight songs, best heard in bed in the company of empty space, eyes open staring into darkness. The second thing you will notice is the serenity of his voice. Hirway does not sing as much as softly breathes, but his is the monotony of quietude. If he is perturbed, he has found peace with it. And if neither has yet grabbed your attention, the third thing you will notice is his visual lyricism. Hirway's songs are beautiful pieces of haiku stretched into prose, creating imagery with attendant mood: calm but intense, unadorned but symbolic, concise but redolent of a rich narrative. Consider this, the entire lyrics to Our Fall Apart, about a couple on the brink of a perhaps decisive separation:

We stood within the dappled shade of the small backyard where we had our start. You kept your eyes on your cupped hands, held as though you might catch hold of the light. Behind the curtain of your hair, you began to say, half-turned away, "How strange to find this place unchanged to our hardened hearts, and our fall apart."

And then there's Cast Away, which is a haunting song about a man struggling to accept the prosaic reality of normal life after a long surrender to depression.

The first thing you saw when you washed up onto the shore were the words "I don't love you anymore" scrawled into the sand. And as the sun and the din from the street beat you sore, you had a sudden ache for the ocean floor. Every night you dream of the same underwater scene, where you nearly made your peace, but then the silence suddenly ceased. And placed by an unseen hand, you were brought back to the tumult of land. The sound of the hull against the waves is not around to lull you to sleep nowadays. You just lie awake, listening to the gulls in the bay. Breathe in salt air as you stare at the ceiling, trying to recapture the feeling of being married to the sea, but your vision gets so watery. Every night you dream of the same underwater scene, but safe beneath your sheets, you'll never find your way back to that peace.

It makes you think: Is it possible for someone to be so depressed, he wants to stay depressed?

three portrayals of almost love

Or, films with characters that sing.

gold : interference

when your mind's made up : glen hansard & marketa irglova

click on the song titles to listen

An Irish indie hit from last year, Once tells the story of a relationship that develops between a Dublin busker and an immigrant flower vendor who inspires him to pursue his recording ambitions. I first saw it on a plane and fell asleep halfway through. I thought the story was more interesting than the music, but felt it was too slow to keep my attention. I gave it another chance on DVD, and loved it. It's intimate storytelling; we don't even get to know the characters' names. Theirs is a relationship of mutual respect, admiration and love of music, with physical and emotional attraction an undeniable presence, a looming uncertainty over how it might change the course of the lives they're trying to carve for themselves.

One of the film's many charms is the simplicity of its story, and watching it unfold raises only two questions: Will he make it, and will they end up together? Spoiler alert. We only learn about the latter, and I can't think of a better ending: They record, he decides to go to London, they spend a day together before he leaves, and they confess to a mutual attraction in a sweet, awkward goodbye, where she declines his suggestion to consummate the relationship, afraid it would only lead to pointless "hanky panky." What a girl.

So here are my two favorite songs from the film. Frankly, we've heard Hansard's style before, which many people say reminds them of Damien Rice, but to me sounds more like a stripped down, pre-White Ladder David Gray. I like the way When Your Mind's Made Up develops by gradually adding and removing various elements – guitar, piano, voice, drums, backing vocals – to complement the mood of specific parts of the song. Gold, on the other hand, is a duality, alternating string virtuosity with vocal and lyrical purity. The latter, however, stands out in its earnestness. Vocalist Fergus O'Farrell sings with the withered voice of a medieval troubadour, delivering a song that is not only traditional in sound, but also in its use of metaphor. It's amazing to me how a song like this can still come from this century.

one day the dam will break : jesse harris

never see you : rocha

click on the song titles to listen

The Hottest State had its moments, but in the end I decided that it was an overdramatized piece of work that lasted far longer than its statement was worth. Written and directed by Ethan Hawke based on his own debut novel of the same title – in other words, it's self-masturbatory – The Hottest State tells the story of how a young struggling actor, William, falls in self-destructive fashion for a young struggling musician, Sarah. Their mutual attraction is obvious from the moment they meet – he is beguiled by her air of mystery, she by his mawkish verbosity – but the relationship they eventually establish remains platonic, until Sarah declares herself ready to get over a prior rejection, and by extension, to let herself fall in love again. Not long after the act, she begins to distance herself and decides that she doesn't want a relationship after all.

Unable to understand why, William tries to win her back, progressively becoming more obsessive, through midnight phone calls and recitations of Shakespeare in front of her apartment. You begin to get the idea – which, I guess, is that love can be real and passionate even at an early age – but Hawke rubs it in by sending William to a downward spiral that becomes too exasperating to watch. Perhaps it's due to a weakness in direction. Unlike other talky films that Hawke is very well familiar with – like Before Sunrise, where the conversations cleverly explore each character's lives – The Hottest State uses uncreative dialog and narration to explain. The flashbacks of William's early separation from his father are a disjointed explanation of how he developed his need for a relationship he could hold on to, and everything we get to know about Sarah's past is crammed in a dinner scene almost as an afterthought. This is, of course, a film about William as much as Ethan Hawke, who has called his novel a work of autobiographical fiction. But the film takes itself too seriously that it becomes pretentious – words that have been used to describe Hawke himself.

Thankfully, the soundtrack is enjoyable, made up mostly of songs written by the unheralded Jesse Harris, performed by some good artists and himself. One Day The Dam Will Break is an uplifting self-medication against an inevitable fall, and Never See You is a shy wish for a second chance.

anyone else but you : the moldy peaches

tire swing : kimya dawson

click on the song titles to listen

I don't really have much to say about this film, which the world and half of Mars have probably seen, other than it's worthy of its acclaim. The soundtrack is an excellent alternation of mostly classic folk/rock songs and Kimya Dawson's jocular songwriting talent and tongue-in-cheek folk sensibility. Director Jason Reitman's song choices give the soundtrack a character as quirky as the film itself, and it's impossible to listen to it without thinking of the film's story and its starkly different characters. I predict Juno will be up there in the company of Singles, Garden State, and Pulp Fiction in all-time lists of Hollywood's most memorable soundtracks.

do you hear that, mr. anderson?

a playlist : ringtones for people who hate ringtones
click here or on the image below to listen

Bear with me for a bit and let's talk about numbers. I was happily ambling about the internet the other day when I came upon this highly disturbing bit of news: According to soothsayers, mobile phone users will spend about $6.65 billion in ringtone downloads by the year 2012. Assuming that by then there will be at least 3.3 billion people with cellphones, and that the price of ringtones remains about a dollar each, then that amounts to at least two ringtones for every mobile phone in existence. That means there's going to be an awfully good chance that every phone that rings in the future will do so to the sound of music. But that's just the half of it. According to misfortune tellers, ringback tones will be more popular than ringtones within just a couple of years. That means instead of hearing the familiar ring when you're calling someone's phone, you will be hearing a song that that person has chosen for you to hear. So what kind of music will you be hearing more of – against your will – in the streets, in restaurants, in public transport, and even on your own phone in the near future? Check Billboard's Hot Ringtones chart for a hint.

Now I don't really care what songs they are. Putting it mildly, I'm not very fond of ringtones. All of them. I think ringtones are one of the most useless inventions ever, way up there in the ignominious company of electric candles, umbrella hats, and superhero capes (except Batman, who isn't superhuman, so he needs it). People have taken to ringtones to publicly announce what cool individuals they are or how much sense of humor they have. Well let me tell you something, Mr. Bleeding Love, your ringtone sucks, and when you pretend to be embarrassed when your phone rings and you fumble as if you can't find it just so the song plays a bit longer, what you're actually saying is, "Ooh, look at me, I'm an attention whore!" Twat. Apologize is for pole dancing, not moviehouses. Shake It and Pork and Beans are for frathouse pukefests, not supermarket aisles. Viva la Vida is for driving yourself off into a cliff, not for hospital waiting areas. And you should all be reminded that a blaring playback of Beautiful Girls in an ATM line is an abuse of airspace rights, tantamount to assault. One day, someone will Taser your ass in revenge and I'll be cheering them, bro.

Of course, I and the rest of us ringtone non-fans know that this rant is a futile exercise in rational bitchin', as there apparently is no shortage of people who will fork 99 cents for the cheapest badge of individuality they can buy. But if there's one lesson we, the people, should all have learned from Hillary!, it is to never give up and to keep rolling on. We have within our means a number of ways to keep the fight for a sane, noise-free environment, and as responsible urban citizens, we must assert our rights and do any of the following:

1. Write for your congressman to legislate a total ban on ringtones. That way, we can litigate ringtone users to death and make their lives as miserable as they've made ours. Punishment for the guilty will vary. End-users will be isolated in a jail facility with a sound system playing Buy U a Drank on repeat 24/7, while ringtone manufacturers (including iTunes – I worship you, Steve, but please take them off the store and sack whoever told you that selling them was a good idea) will be hung, drawn, and quartered twice over.
2. Ask Dean Kamen, the inventor of Segway, to invent a ringtone-blocking device that city planners can install in public areas, defined as any amount of space with a population density of more than one person per square meter mile. (We don't really want to be thought of as being overly selfish, so this seems like a reasonable size to me.)
3. With the economy in a rut, the government could surely use some money. In these trying times, imposing a 1,000,000% tax on ringtone purchases is truly a win-win situation and a genius idea whose time has come. Lobby it.
4. Start a grassroots organization and initiate a "World No Ringtone Day." Spread the word through text messages simply saying, "Today is a good day to respect the rights of others to not be violated by your insensitive ringtone. Please set your mobile phone on vibrate and shove it up a nice, warm place within your body, if you know what I mean."
5. And now for the fun part: Beat ringtone users at their own game. Tell them how much their ringtones are the pig's ass by using one that will call their attention and slap their faces silly. Make it hard, make it punchy, make it as in-your-face as possible – anything with an angry riff, a cascade of drumming, or lyrics that will feed on their paranoia, because more often than not, these ringtone folks are right-wing Snapple drinkers who believe that terrorists are contaminating their bottled-water sources and so they try to seek comfort from wherever they can, including their cell phones. Therefore, I humbly propose the following songs:

• Human Fly : The Cramps
• Black Betty : Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
• Heartbreak Hotel : John Cale
• Shake Your Rump : Beastie Boys
• Pay to Play : Nirvana
• Suicide Blonde : INXS
• It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine) : R.E.M.
• Psycho Man : Black Sabbath
• Man in the Box : Alice in Chains
• Rebel Yell : Billy Idol
• Space Oddity : David Bowie
• Kashmir : Led Zeppelin

Got better ideas in mind?

insert big sigh here

shots is fired

hard drive

Both songs by Evan Dando. Click here or on the image below to listen

Shots Is Fired is what you feel when you've scarred your feet from what you thought was a march to a hopeful end and the road all of a sudden forks and both paths look bleak and turning back is not an option and neither is a pause because you hear the ticking on your wrist that says time is running out. You wonder how in hell you even got here when just a moment ago or was it just a moment ago everything was so straight and so simple and so sure and you remember that you tried to blaze a trail because you weren't content with straight simple sure. Whatever part of you that's been calling the shots is fired. Tell him he's lost control how can it be how could he let you down how could he leave you on your own. But you gotta do it you gotta take a step left right right left it doesn't matter just take that step close your eyes it's gonna be okay it's gonna be fine maybe it's even gonna be easy but who are we kidding. Whatever. Get in motion. Hard Drive is what you feel when you know you'll get there you'll get to it it'll be over if not soon then eventually. You'll see it. A familiar street. The house of a friend. Pale paint on wooden gate. Your name carved in a tree trunk. Porch. Home. A path to the beach. A hand to hold. Palm on palm. Fingers locked. Wrinkled skin. You touch each other's aged face. And don't you know it, you're happy, just when it matters.

heart on a stick, dipped in a vat of burnt sugar

or, a playlist : songs for the lovestruck and forlorn

Here's a playlist I've kept from one iPod to the next. I don't really have a name for it other than the generic Acoustic Ballads, but I've learned to live with it. Any other adjective would be inaccurate, any other noun contrived. Songs have come and gone on this list, but they all have one thing in common: they're stripped down songs about love, loss and yearning, and they're unabashedly sentimental. It doesn't necessarily mean they're gooey and clichéd. Most of them are not off-the-shelf expressions of abstract feelings, but experiences written as stories, as intentions, as streams of consciousness. 

As usual, you can listen to the songs two ways: Click on the image below to hear them all in one go, or on the song titles to hear each song individually.

1. Somebody That I Used To Know : Elliott Smith
   
2. No Fear Of Falling : I Am Kloot
   
3. Saturday : Josh Rouse
   
4. Naked As We Came : Iron & Wine
   
5. To Be Alone With You : Sufjan Stevens
   
6. I Wouldn't Miss It For The World : Johnathan Rice
   
7. Poetry & Aeroplanes : Teitur
   
8. Sleeping To Dream : Jason Mraz
   
9. Only You : Joshua Radin
   
10. Your Sweet Voice : The Reindeer Section
    
11. Trouble : Ray LaMontagne
    
12. My Winding Wheel : Ryan Adams
    
13. Kathleen : Josh Ritter
    
14. Dogs : Damien Rice
    
15. Silent Sigh : Badly Drawn Boy
    
16. Babylon : David Gray
    
17. On Your Side : Pete Yorn
    

a boat ends its journey

playa girón : silvio rodríguez

click here or on the image below to listen

I believe that idealism is a mark of noble leadership, but its practice should not humble a people to poverty. I believe that every person has the right to health care and education, but not at the cost of his freedom of expression. I believe in the pursuit of national unity, but not to the point of denying individualism. I know very little about Cuba, I know very little about Castro. What I do know is just enough to make me both respect and revile the man, impressions I no doubt share with countless others who have neither set foot on the island nor met any of its people. And yet, I have a strong sense that Castro enjoys a positive popular bias. His name has become synonymous with romantic notions about revolution, that what he has come to symbolize seems to have overshadowed what he has actually achieved. Castro may be a divisive figure, but also an inspirational one. Forget his influence on the current turn to the left in Latin American politics. While on one hand he has driven away some of the best musicians the island has produced, on the other his rule has led others to sing of his ideals in ways that are poignant and sublime. In Playa Girón, Silvio Rodríguez, a trovador and member of the Cuban parliament, pays tribute to the fishing boat where he worked in 1969, an experience that to him represented not just man's return to primitive form, constantly in battle with the forces of nature, but also the virtue of toiling not for mere individual survival but for the shared benefit of many. The song, he says, is "an intimate and human tribute to the nameless men who work in sometimes perilous circumstances for the Cuban population." But what makes the song really moving is that it is its own answer to the very question it asks: What words and rhythm do justice to a boat as vital as the Playa Girón? Here are the original lyrics below, followed by my very liberal, not literal, translation in English.

Playa Girón

Compañeros poetas,

tomando en cuenta

los últimos sucesos

en la poesía,

quisiera preguntar

—me urge—

¿qué tipo de adjetivos

se deben usar para hacer

el poema de un barco

sin que se haga sentimental,

fuera de la vanguardia

o evidente panfleto,

si debo usar palabras

como Flota Cubana de Pesca

y «Playa Girón»?

Compañeros de música,

tomando en cuenta

esas politonales

y audaces canciones,

quisiera preguntar

—me urge—

¿qué tipo de armonía

se debe usar para hacer

la canción de este barco

con hombres de poca niñez,

hombres y solamente

hombres sobre cubierta,

hombres negros y rojos

y azules los hombres que pueblan

el «Playa Girón»?

Compañeros de historia,

tomando en cuenta

lo implacable

que debe ser la verdad,

quisiera preguntar

—me urge tanto—

¿qué debiera decir,

qué fronteras debo respetar?

Si alguien roba comida

y después da la vida,

¿qué hacer?

¿Hasta dónde debemos

practicar las verdades?

¿Hasta dónde sabemos?

Que escriban, pues, la historia,

su historia los hombres

del «Playa Girón».

Playa Girón

My comrades in poetry,

considering the many ways in which

poems are written these days,

I would like to ask you,

I'm very keen to know,

what words must one use

to pen a poem about a boat

without making it sound sentimental,

without making it pretentious

or an obvious propaganda,

considering that I have to call it

the Cuban Fishing Fleet

and Playa Girón?

My comrades in music,

considering the wealth of tones

and the boldness one can employ

in the process of writing a song,

I have to know,

what harmonies one must use

to create a song about this boat,

this boat of men who knew little about childhood,

men and only men on deck,

black men, red men, blue men,

yet men who spent their lives in Playa Girón?

My comrades in history,

considering that truth is never a compromise,

I would like to ask,

I'm dying to know,

what do you say,

where do you draw the line

when someone steals food

then sacrifices his life for another?

What do you do?

To what extent do you uphold the truth?

How much do you really know?

Let them write, then, their own story,

their own history,

the men of Playa Girón.

sounds of silver : the best of 2007

Not to let a good year in music pass this blog by, I'm making a last ditch effort to resuscitate it after being long out of commission due to a technical glitch. Nothing serious; my iMac just decided one day to, you know, die, and this trusty PowerBook didn't have the program that lets me stream songs in Flash format, until recently. I'm still going to get a new computer; the act has just been delayed, first because of the wait for Leopard, and now for whatever upgrade comes after Macworld next month. I'm also torn between a new 24-inch iMac and a 17-inch MacBook Pro, but enough of the tedious stuff. I'm back on track, and since it's the end of the year, I thought I'd make the second of what will hopefully be my annual list of the year's best songs.

That's right, this blog is all about songs, not albums, so I won't even bother (We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, Modest Mouse) telling you (Because Of The Times, Kings of Leon) what are (Armchair Apocrypha, Andrew Bird) to my biased ears (In Rainbows, Radiohead) the best albums of 2007 (Boxer, The National) even though (Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem) I enjoyed (Crime & Beauty, Suzanne Vega) this year (The Con, Tegan & Sara) more than (Leaves In The River, Sea Wolf) the last (Wincing The Night Away, The Shins). I just wanted to make that clear.

I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking that alternative rock is entering a new, quiet golden age, not just in the sense of today's music being not of the out-loud variety that grunge was, but also because the independent music scene seems to have found a lasting mode of survival, thriving and happy to be buzzing under the radar like never before. I am, of course, talking more about its manner of distribution than the creation of new styles. MySpace and Facebook have made word-of-mouth not only easier and more effective but also cool again, and these new channels have allowed bands to reach new and old audiences without reliance on corporate marketing. While getting rid of the middleman has long been possible through downloads from artists' websites, the conundrum has always been how to translate this freedom from labels into revenues. Radiohead's pay-as-you-wish model for "In Rainbows" introduced a clever way of doing so, because although it no doubt attracted low-ballers, it also won for the band a new market in those who wouldn't have thought of buying the entire album otherwise. I'm pretty sure it won't be the last, and as new, creative ways of selling songs and albums come up, independent artists will continue to make music the way they really want them to sound.

Which brings me back to my blog. Next year, I'll be back to posting songs not just because they're new and worthy, but because they mean something to me. In the meantime, enjoy this list, which took me a while to compile. A few housekeeping notes: There are two ways to listen to these songs. Apart from uploading them individually, I've also grouped the songs in two virtual mix tapes. All songs in each mix are in the same file, and will play one after the other in the sequence below. You can, however, jump from one song to the next or the one before by clicking the forward and back buttons. You can also play them in shuffle mode by clicking on the cube icon. So without further ado:



Best of 2007 Mix 1
click here or on the image above to stream the entire list, or
click on the titles to listen to the songs individually

1. Australia : The Shins
2. Do Me A Favour : Arctic Monkeys
3. Don't You Evah : Spoon
4. Go Tell The Woman : Grinderman
5. Coat Check Dream Song : Bright Eyes
6. People As Places As People : Modest Mouse
7. Time To Get Away : LCD Soundsystem
8. A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene : Okkervil River
9. Plasticities : Andrew Bird
10. Mistaken For Strangers : The National
11. House Of Cards : Radiohead
12. The Opposite Of Hallelujah : Jens Lekman
13. Somewhere Between Waking And Sleeping : Air
14. No Cars Go : The Arcade Fire
15. Fans : Kings of Leon
16. Makeup : Everybody Else
17. Yankee Go Home : Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Best of 2007 Mix 2
click here or on the image above to stream the entire list, or
click on the titles to listen to the songs individually

1. Heart It Races : Architecture In Helsinki
2. Gronlandic Edit : Of Montreal
3. Raise The Roof : Tracey Thorn
4. Close Call : Rilo Kiley
5. Zephyr & I : Suzanne Vega
6. Myriad Harbour : The New Pornographers
7. Lay Your Head Down : Keren Ann
8. I Feel It All : Feist
9. Lifesize : A Fine Frenzy
10. The Con : Tegan & Sara
11. Love Me Like The World Is Ending : Ben Lee
12. Basement Parties : Matt Pond PA
13. Pioneer To The Falls : Interpol
14. Like Something Worth Remembering : Mixtapes & Cellmates
15. Pots & Pans : Les Savy Fav
16. You're A Wolf : Sea Wolf
17. Tonight I Have To Leave It : Shout Out Louds

thoughts from a boat ride

cartwheels : reindeer section

click here or on the image below to listen

How much can you write in half an hour? Half an hour is my ferry ride to work. The amount of time it takes for me to decide where I'm having lunch and actually getting there. Three, maybe five, percent of my waking hours that slips past cognizance as I trawl the internet. (Is that all?) Three hundred and sixty seconds of gainful knowledge as I read the editorial page. Six songs and many years of adolescent memories from my eighties playlist. A tall soya no whip mocha for flatfoot. How do you occupy your mind in a half-hour commute? Sometimes I get to wondering about thought process itself. What do I normally think about when I have nothing to think about? I never knew, or maybe I did, but have forgotten. Thoughts are funnily tentative, like dreams, which are thoughts you never knew you had. Sometimes I steal glances at other people. Do you look at other people too? Mentally pick on the man next to you for his coffee-stained two-buck necktie from Bangkok? Do you close your eyes and try to take a nap? Reminisce your childhood? Cartwheels are the stuff of childhood. I have never cartwheeled in my life. Or maybe I have, but never with any measure of success. I climbed walls and trees and jumped off them to scare my mom. I tumbled in the grass, on my parents' bed, on our living room couch, which wasn't much of a couch, as the make was firm and you hardly sank. I remember the giant shell on the side table. I would put it against my ear to listen to the sound of hollow. The sound of hollow. Empty has a sound. Empty takes aural space. Space is funnily fleeting, like time. My thirty minutes is over. My ferry is about to dock. Good day.

and i thought it was gonna be the worstest

don't fence me in : david byrne

click here or on the image below to listen

Summer is officially over; how was it for you? I have to say it was good for me, too. I didn't think it would be, what with the new job cutting my annual leave days in half to a miserly 12. A change in company policy brought it to 15, and that was good enough for me to go somewhere far for a few days in July. So I spent my birthday in Prague, followed by a series of trips that were small in scale but surprisingly big on fun. Right after returning from the city of a hundred spires, I played host and tour guide to a few friends whom I met at an internet travel forum, then wore a black shirt, black jeans, and black eyeliners to watch the reunion concert of The Cure. Shortly after, I went to Manila to attend the wedding of a friend, saw Gwen Stefani in concert (please keep that thought to yourself), then went to Singapore, China and Japan, both for business and, with careful planning, weekends of pleasure. My legs are still hurting after climbing Mt. Fuji last Saturday. Needless to say, I'm not complaining. So it is with great pride that I present to you this song – one of the few that I promised to deliver during the Triassic period. Don't Fence Me In is a cowboy song extolling the freedom of the open space, and that's enough for me to call it a travel song. Written by Cole Porter, this version is by David Byrne – one of the guys in the picture above – who also wrote what I call the best. travel song. ever!

hello, what's this?

everything hits at once (for discos) : spoon

click here or on the image below to listen

Okay, so I'm still officially off the air, but as I was cleaning my iDisk last weekend, I found quite a few songs I had uploaded but have somehow forgotten to post. In fact, there are seven of them, and I'm putting them up here in single installments, for added suspense. Or something. This here is the funkier version of the first song off Spoon's 2001 album, Girls Can Tell. Everything Hits At Once is a post-breakup song that captures the unease that sets in right after the end of a relationship. It's not quite sadness, but an emptiness that's almost corporeal. You actually feel something hollow in your chest. A chasm that grows every minute you're made aware of your sudden solitude. A vacuum that turns into a whirlpool that sucks you in with every memory of your own mistakes. You want to plug this hole. You want to save yourself. You try to do something, anything – a haircut, a singles bar, a pornographic site – just to take your mind far away from your insignificant reality, but you only end up being spaced out, making a fool of yourself as a matter of course. You catch your own reflection in the elevator door, and it mocks you. Get a grip, for heaven's sake! And you let out a laugh, a sob, a drawn-out sigh. It feels good. You close your eyes, breathe in, breathe out. And tomorrow you'll get over it. Best line: Merging in traffic, cross the lanes, and then we become something bigger than just anyone. Best part: The xylophonic loop that's absent in the original.

alternative sounds takes a break

As if this blog wasn't irregular enough, I'm taking a break for about a couple of months.

My iMac, which has the program that converts my songs into the Flash format you listen to here, has died on me. I'm still thinking whether to buy a new one or have it fixed. Either way, it'll take a while before my online life is back on track. If you wish to know when I start blogging again, please e-mail me at alternativesounds {at} gmail.com

Now as to why I've been quiet for a longer while than usual, yes, that was a bit rude, not making good on my promise of a diverse all-women March. Weird as it may sound, my frame of mind has just been focused on something else. Since my last post, I've not only quit my job, but I've also left the world of journalism where I spent many happy years. Truth is, I had long been wanting to shift careers, but it was never easy for me to do, being in a place the language of which I don't speak, and not having letters of higher learning after my name. You can imagine how happy I was when I got this new job – the title and description will bore you, but it's exactly what I'd been looking for – and so I wanted to make sure that my mind was a fresh, clean slate before my first day. I'm still going through a learning curve, but I think I'll be fine.

In other news, I had 10 days off in between jobs, and during that time, I finally had the chance to organize my CDs. I think I overdid it. I separately alphabetized my English-language and world-music albums by artist name. Then I stacked my compilation CDs by genre and alphabetized them by album title, then my soundtrack albums by film title, and then my freebie CDs by the names of the magazines they came from.

I've also been buying a lot of new albums. Here are some of them, and it pains me that I can't blog about them just yet:

• Air : Pocket Symphony
• Andrew Bird : Armchair Apocrypha
• The Arcade Fire : Neon Bible
• Archie Bronson Outfit : Derdang Derdang
• Arctic Monkeys : Favourite Worst Nightmare
• Bright Eyes : Cassadaga
  
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah : Some Loud Thunder
• Everybody Else : Eponymous
  
• Grinderman : Eponymous
• Kings of Leon : Because of the Times
• LCD Soundsystem : Sound of Silver
• Low : Drums and Guns
  
• Matt Costa : Songs We Sing
• Modest Mouse : We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
• Rodrigo y Gabriela : Eponymous
  
• The Shins : Wincing The Night Away
• Tracy Thorn : Out of the Woods

Anyway. I was actually able to convert three songs into Flash before my iMac died. Here's the rest of what I promised last month.

fall at your feet : mary black

click here or on the image below to listen

Fall At Your Feet by Crowded House ranks high up in my favorite songs of all time, and this cover version doesn't disappoint. Mary Black, an Irish folk artist, made it her own and even infused a lot more emotion than the original.

zomaye : gigi
click here or on the image below to listen

A strong reminder that some of the best beats in music can be heard outside the English-speaking world. Gigi is from Ethiopia.

recovery : new buffalo

click here or on the image below to listen

I saw this act in Sydney last year. Very good.

women's march : part 2

These are some of my favorite female artists from the 90s whose work I still find immensely relevant to this day. The 90s was a great era for women in music. There was so much diversity in rock alone: from Hole to Mazzy Star to PJ Harvey to Tracy Bonham. These are the ones I listened to the most.

sinéad o'connor : red football
sinéad o'connor : sacrifice
click here or on the image below to listen

Did you know that more women aged 15 to 44 suffer death or disability from domestic violence than from war, cancer, malaria, and road accidents combined? Sad but true. I grew up in a household full of strong, nurturing women, who selflessly raised, educated, and provided for me and my siblings. It's simply beyond my understanding why women should suffer from violence at home and from biases in the workplace, politics, and many other facets of society. Not a lot of female pop artists take up these issues in their work, but you can't blame them. Any form of entertainment is less likely to have mass appeal when its content is heavy. Never one for commercial success, Red Football is doubtlessly Sinéad O'Connor's most up-front statement about women's rights. What this song achieves is it delivers an unequivocal message without being moralistic. Indeed, calling an end to violence against women no longer needs to simply appeal to people's morals. It needs to confront. It needs to provoke. It needs to agitate, as the ending of this song does. Of course, Sinéad is not only to be appreciated for her bravery, but also for her vocal uniqueness. Which is why I also have to post Sacrifice, her cover of Elton John's song about infidelity, which Sinéad delivers with unfurling anger. You will notice the change in her tone when she sings "We lose direction, no stone unturned." Even for a Sinéad song, Sacrifice is heavy on the reverb, but it only highlights what she can do with her voice.

paula cole : happy home

click here or on the image below to listen

If you knew Paula Cole from her breakthrough album, This Fire, you would know that Happy Home, from her debut album Harbinger, is anything but happy. In fact, it's about the opportunities women miss and the compromises they make, willingly or otherwise, when they carry out the roles of wife and mother. But what's good about this song is it's a story of two people: the mother suffering a crisis of what defines her identity, and the well-meaning daughter trying to figure out what is going on. It reminds me of the relationship between the young son and his mother, played by Julianne Moore, in that excellent film, The Hours. Best line: But everybody could feel the suffocation underneath the façade of a happy home. Best part: The mix of acoustic and electric after the bridge where she sings "Home sweet freedom, flowing in my mind."

crossroads : tracy chapman

click here or on the image below to listen

Yes, I know Crossroads came out in 1989. But like many, I had dismissed Tracy Chapman as a one-hit-album wonder until she released Give Me One Reason in 1995. The album where it's from, New Beginning, renewed my interest in her music. So while I listened to the spawns of the grunge era in the 90s, I was also rediscovering her sound, which is why I will always associate this song with the 90s. There's a lot of sorrow in her music, but she never makes them sound hopeless or desperate. Her voice doesn't have the range or versatility that the rest of the artists here have, but it beats in itself, not with anger, but with willpower. Hers is the voice of quiet defiance, which you will hear in Crossroads, a song about a woman's refusal to make compromises. Best Line: Standing at the point, the road it cross you down, what is at your back, which way do you turn. Best Part: The intro hooked me to the rest of the song.

caught a light sneeze : tori amos

click here or on the image below to listen

I'm not a Toriphile, but I did enjoy her music immensely from Under the Pink to Boys for Pele. The albums that came after were just too labored for my taste, until she released Scarlet's Walk in 2002, where she became a watered-down version of her old self. That said, what I like most about old Tori is not so much her lyrics as her voice and sound, from the restraint of Merman to the more elaborate arrangement of Tear In Your Hand. Most of the time, her lyrics are too coded for me to comprehend; I don't think I've ever agreed with anyone about what Silent All These Years means. Caught A Light Sneeze is no less difficult, but there are enough hints to say it's about the meltdown of her relationship with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The reference to Pretty Hate Machine, the album that catapulted NIN to fame, is a giveaway. Best line: I need a big loan from a girl zone. (I have no idea what it means, but it sure sounds good the way she sings it.) Best part: How she stretches "building tumbling down" at the chorus.

ghost : indigo girls

click here or on the image below to listen

I first learned about the Indigo Girls when their album Swamp Ophelia was given to me as a birthday present by someone I dated. While the relationship didn't last long – it was in fact my shortest ever – the impact of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray's music on me did. I was so impressed by that album that I immediately looked for their prior work and discovered Rites of Passage, where Ghost is from. Where do I even begin to talk about this song? It's a gem. It captures you with its quiet start, then with the lyrics bit by bit, and then ultimately with its totality. Your appreciation of it grows the more you hear it. There's so much beauty in this song that every time you listen to it again, you're touched by one aspect that's different from the last – a poetic line, Emily's tearful wail, Amy's somber backing, or the way their fingers slide on their guitars. What first struck me was the first line in the chorus – There's not enough room in this world for my pain. It sounds so sincere that it reaches out to your own sense of pain and longing. The best line? It's hard to choose, but it would probably be from the final verse: This bitter pill I swallow is the silence that I keep, It poisons me I can't swim free, the river is too deep. The best part? I love the bridge, where Emily delivers an evocative wail, followed by a reversal of the duo's vocal roles.