McNutt Against the Music

Concerts of the Year

I can’t speak to the years prior to my coming of age, but I can say without hesitation that in all the time that I have been going to concerts, 2006 is easily the best year Halifax has ever seen when it comes to live music. In fact, it’s the first year that I’ve attended enough notable concerts to warrant a list such as this.

While Halifax always has a vibrant music scene filled with local talent, this was the year where the bands came to us. Hardly a month went by without a major concert event, and there was something for everyone. OK Go, Motley Crue, Rob Thomas, Sam Roberts (twice), Great Big Sea, Bedouin Soundclash, Alice Cooper, INXS, Our Lady Peace, All-American Rejects, MSTRKRFT, The Dixie Chicks, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Live, the Goo Goo Dolls, Sarah Harmer, Metric, Billy Bragg, Randy Travis, Bryan Adams, everyone associated with the Juno awards (from Coldplay to Nickelback)…the list goes on and on. Regardless of your personal likes and dislikes when it comes to these bands, I challenge you to point to another year where this many NAME artists came our way. 2006 was the year that Halifax was put on the map as a touring destination, and we’re thankful for it.

Out of the shows I made an effort to attend, these are the five that still linger with me as the calendar turns into a new year. There are two themes that run through each of these shows. The first is that, surprisingly, every one of them was open to an all-ages audience, demonstrating that no longer are this city’s best musical moments only available to those who have reached the arbitrary age of 19. The second is that each of them left me feeling as if I was seeing something special while I sat/stood there watching these artists perform. The beauty of the live performance is that you get to see something truly unique that will never be recreated in that same way again. Each of these choices embody this sentiment, and are remarkable testaments to the power of live music.

5. The Rolling Stones / Kanye West / Alice Cooper / Sloan (Halifax Commons, 23 September 2006)

Yeah, I was a little hard on the boys in my initial review of this concert, but as time passes I’m more and more willing to blame the rain for any negativity I held towards the show. This was an event more than anything else, and on that level it delivered with flying colours. If my reasons for seeing the Stones were more based in rock-geek obligation, it was Mr. West who was the icing on the cake, a chance to see one of the brightest stars in popular music in his prime. (Read the original review here.)

4. Feist (The Marquee Club, 15 January 2006)

When I went to get my ticket to see the beautiful and wonderful Feist in concert, I was devastated when told it was sold out. Thankfully, the nice cashier quickly righted my discontent and informed me that a second, alcohol-free show on Sunday night was just added. This was nothing short of a blessing in disguise. With an attentive audience rapt in her presence, Feist reworked and reinterpreted songs from Let it Die and treated us to some new gems as well. In between, she noted how much better a show it was than the one the night before. Point: Ryan.

3. Final Fantasy (St. Matthew’s Church, 18 November 2006)

Usually, I choose to go to concerts of artists whose recorded material catches my fancy. There are times, however, when I smartly put those preconditions aside and see an artist based on reputation and name value. While Owen Pallett’s records have never grabbed me, his one-man live show – complete with hand-made overhead animation – is a marvel, a testament to his innovation and talent. As I sat in the church’s balcony, I found myself at the edge of my pew, eagerly awaiting what musical wonders Pallett’s magical violin would create next. In the Coast this past week, Stephanie Jones called it perhaps the best concert she’s seen in her life; while I wouldn’t go that far, it was easily one of my highlights of 2006. (Read the original review here.)

2. Wilco (Alderney Landing, 19 July 2006)

I’ve long resigned myself that, unless they’re Canadian, the odds of many of my favourite artists ever coming to my hometown are slim to none. And then, out of nowhere, I open up the Chronicle Herald one morning in late April and see that Wilco – perhaps in my top 5 favourite bands ever – are going to be playing Halifax. Thank goodness no one else was around to hear my girlish scream of impassioned joy.

Supposedly there is a video out there of me rocking out at the concert, singing along to every word and bouncing around to every beat. I probably look like a complete idiot, but frankly, I couldn’t give less of a damn. A band with this much talent and passion deserve more than polite applause when they give us a show this superb; they deserve every last bellow, cheer, foot-stomp and fist-pump that we can muster. (Read the original review here.)

1. Broken Social Scene / Bedouin Soundclash (Halifax Forum Multipurpose Room, 1 April 2006)

Considering my esteem for Wilco, it says volumes about how memorable this show was that it sits here at number one instead of the visit from Chicago’s finest. Funny enough, I was actually wavering at the time on whether or not I would actually go, for a variety of reasons that in hindsight were pretty stupid (I didn’t know anyone else in Halifax who were going, it was an all-ages audience, and Broken Social Scene were touring in support of an album that I found a little disappointing). But, figuring that I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, off to the Forum I went.

Almost three hours after Broken Social Scene first took the stage, I stood in the middle of a sweaty hoard of teenagers exhausted, dehydrated, and exhilarated. With apologies to Soundclash, who played well, this night belonged to Kevin Drew and his crew, almost all of whom were in town for the Junos. While the band often tours with only 8-9 members, at any given point this night there were up to 20+ performers on stage. The core musicians held the stage together through the entire three hour show (yes, a three hour show), with other band members coming and going depending somewhat on the needs of the song, but more just helping out whenever they wanted. It was like a family reunion and we in the audience were all invited to the festivities.

While the show was hardly the most technically superb showcase for the band – they battled sound problems for much of the evening and the playing was a tad sloppy sometimes – they didn’t seem to care much, and neither did we; everyone was having just way too much fun. The pit in front of the stage was intense, full of teenagers abandoning physical restraint as they bounced into one another, like this was the first and last concert they would ever see. Normally, such behavior would have seen me watching from the back of the room with disdain, but there I was, smack dab in the middle of it, completely caught up in the energy and passion around me. Sometimes, the kids are alright.

My favourite musical moment of 2006, more so than any note on any album I’ve heard all year, was two songs into the show (with only a small portion of the Scene on the stage), when Kevin Drew said four simple little words that produced a cheer so deafening that I thought the place would explode: “Ladies and gentlemen, Feist.” Onto the stage ran the heroine, and the band launched into “7/4 (Shoreline),” feeding off the crowd’s joyous intensity and upping their energy along with it. And then, just when things couldn’t get any more thrilling, onto the stage bounds Amy Milan, throwing herself into the song’s second chorus. And there, right in front of me, were two of the most beautiful voices in music today dueling over the song’s chorus, with the entire crowd throwing themselves towards the stage to take part in the moment. That’s something that no album in my collection, no song on the radio, and no other concert I went to can replicate. And it’s why Broken Social Scene gave Halifax, and me, the best concert of 2006.

Singles of the Year

A year-end singles list is particularly challenging compared to an albums list, for the simple fact that everyone knows what an album is; what constitutes a “single” is a whole complex mess. Does it have to have a video? A download from the band’s website? A commercial single? Do commercial singles even matter in this day of digital downloading? It’s questions like these which have led several writers, bloggers and websites to change from a singles list to a favourite tracks list, opening it up to any song produced during the year.

I’m not going to do that, if only because I know that a “favourite tracks” list would end up being the sort of thing that only I would like, and that few of my readers would understand. No, I’m sticking to singles – flawed a process as that might be – because there’s something to be said about the universality of popular music, about those tracks that stretch out beyond the confines of the album and are put out there for all the world to consume, to contemplate, and to rock out to (in fact, there’s a few fantastic singles that I have left off this list because, for me, they’re far too connected to their parent album). Each of these tracks eagerly asks for a place in the soundtrack to your life. And for their ambition, I recognize them here today.

10. The Strokes – Heart in a Cage

There are a few solid contenders, but First Impressions of Earth might be my choice for most disappointing album of the year. Considering that Room on Fire is one of my personal favourites, the too-loud, overproduced and underwritten schlock that filled most of its follow-up was hardly impressive and largely forgettable. But “Heart in a Cage” is worth remembering – a great vocal hook, a killer guitar riff and a fistful of energy to boot.

9. Justin Timberlake – My Love (featuring T.I.)

Originally this was just out of the running for my list, but then I saw JT’s fantastic performance of the track on SNL last month and was reminded of how great it is. Sure, the synth hook is great, but the more I hear the track it’s Timberlake’s vocals that take centre-stage, a note-perfect falsetto that just oozes awesomeness. Chris Rock has a routine where he talks about the debate during the 1980s over who was better: Prince or Michael Jackson. Perhaps Timberlake is the consensus candidate for our time.

8. Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out of This Country

Who knew the Scottish could be so pretty? Tracyanne Campbell sings her heart out on this track from the album of the same name, backed by a blissful alt-pop jangle. It’s really tough to find anything witty or profound to say about this track, because it sounds so wonderfully effortless. Gorgeous.

7. Sloan – Who Taught You to Live Like That?

The weekly free download slot on iTunes has to be one of the most coveted pieces of online real estate these days, used to great effect by Sloan in releasing the first single from Never Hear the End of It (we’ll come back to that album on Wednesday). It’s the perfect introduction into how wonderfully remedied the new Sloan is: it’s a Jay song (not Patrick or Chris), it’s got a great piano riff, and best of all, it doesn’t sound anything like Cheap Trick.

6. TV on the Radio – Wolf Like Me

“When the moon is round and full / gonna teach you tricks that will blow your mongrel mind” might be the best line I’ve heard all year. Easily the most accessible TVotR track to date, “Wolf Like Me” is an intense piece of proto-punk, based off a blistering guitar riff and passionate, frantic vocals. And then, out of nowhere, the bridge hits, the whole thing slows down and the song becomes another monster entirely. It’s the soul at the wolf’s core, and worth the price of admission by itself.

5. Nelly Furtado – Maneater

While Americans got the hip-hop of “Promiscuous,” the British had “Maneater” as their lead single from Loose and promptly sent it to the top of the charts. As is often the case, the British were right – this is the far superior piece of work, with the chorus of the year that makes you forget that Hall and Oates ever had a song with the same title.

4. Band of Horses – The Funeral

A blogger favourite this year, I previously described Band of Horses a band that does almost nothing truly original or groundbreaking, but does it very, very well. “The Funeral” is their debut album’s centerpiece, a pretty guitar riff that explodes into a sickeningly-sincere fist-pumping hook made even better by vocals that sound like they’re about to break at any moment.

3. The Killers – When You Were Young

The first time I heard this song I intensely disliked it; the same with the second, third and fourth time. Then, around the fifth listen, something changed in me and I began to hear things a little different. What I thought was a Springsteen ripoff sounded more like Springsteen homage. What I thought were wussy vocals sounded more sincere and powerful (something that can’t be said for the rest of Sam’s Town). The guitars that I found predictable sounded exhilarating. And here it is, number three on my singles list. I still have no idea how in the hell this all happened.

2. Gnarls Barkley – Crazy

While I read about the collaboration between Cee-Lo Green and Danger Mouse sometime early in 2006, the first person to play me this song was Ian, a fellow PR student who whose musical preferences also include Nickelback. If I ever needed proof that Gnarls Barkley had a crossover hit on their hands, there it was. Soon enough, millions of people who had never even heard of Goodie Mob and never listened to The Gray Album or Demon Days were cranking this out their speakers all summer long. It was easily this year’s “Hey Ya” – the hip hop-influenced pop song that your bratty little sister and your middle-class mom were both digging in 2006.

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Turn Into

Surprised? I know I am. Unlike the last couple of years, where my top single was a breakthrough hit (“Float On” in 2004 and “Since U Been Gone” last year), here I’ve gone for something a little more underrated, and certainly underappreciated. In many ways, the process of coming to this surprise conclusion echoed last month’s Liberal leadership convention: after spending most of my time debating between several qualified, prominent frontrunners, my gaze went a little further down my list to a song that perhaps I hadn’t given a fair shake to, and voila: “Turn Into” becomes my Stéphane Dion.

I’m tempted to call this a choice for posterity’s sake; if I look back at this list in 10 years, something tells me that “Turn Into” will age the best, its soaring romanticism resonating far beyond the shelf life of some of the more popular songs on this list. But that would be a cop-out, and a crappy way to choose my top single. No, “Turn Into” is brilliant today, every bit the proper follow-up to “Maps” and while more traditional in its arrangement, there’s something about it that hits almost as hard, be it the keys in the bridge or Nick Zimmer’s solo that barely stays on key. This is popular music at its finest – accessible, immediate and powerful. And my single of the year.

Albums of the Year

If video killed the radio star, the Internet killed both, and the album along with it. While some could make the case that ‘artists’ filling CDs with 70 minutes of crap killed the album, the Internet age has not been kind to it either. Today, with attention spans reduced and instant gratification the norm, audiences expect to be blown away with the press of the play button, not immersed in a complicated tapestry of song.

Their loss, really. I love a great single as much as the next person, but I was raised on the album, I live by the album, and I will likely be listening to albums until I meet my end someday in the distant future. There are few greater pleasures in the world of music than putting a record/CD/download on from start to finish, sitting back and letting yourself be genuinely surprised by where the journey takes you.

2006 was a decent year for music, but something tells me that it won’t linger with me the way previous years did. I looked back at my best-of lists from the past two years when putting this together, and I’d take the Top 5 from those two years ahead of this one any day of the week. It’s a notable list, though, because it emphasizes new discoveries over old favourites: eight out of the 10 artists have never appeared on one of my Top 10 lists before (although three of those eight artists have appeared in other projects), and I’d consider a good six of five or six of these as completely new discoveries, bands and artists whose work I really dove into for the first time this year.

Honourable Mentions:

As usual, there’s some wonderful music that I really dug this year that just wasn’t able to break into my top 10 for whatever reason. While they might not be getting a writeup and photo, they at least deserve a namedrop in case you’re inspired to check them out. They are (in alphabetical order): Band of Horses – Everything All the Time; The Dears – Gang of Losers; Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere; Bruce Springsteen – We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions; Neil Young – Living With War.

10. Girl Talk – Night Ripper

The mash-up, as an art form, tends to be more novelty than anything else; even the genre’s highest point –Danger Mouse’s combining Jay-Z and the Beatles to make The Gray Album – still didn’t have much of a shelf life beyond the concept itself, and relied on your enjoyment/interest in the source material to keep it going. But Girl Talk has taken the mash-up to its next level, finally realizing its ultimate potential by putting together songs you love into something completely different but still vital, interesting and most of all, damn catchy.

Like a pop/hip-hop version of The Avalanches, producer Greg Gillis has built an entire album out of samples; the difference is that they’re all recognizable. Over 150 artists are mashed together to make up the concise, 45-minute album, and I spent my first listen in a joyous game of “name the sample.” There’s a healthy dose of hip-hop that holds the album together, but it sits alongside pop, alternative, classic rock and pretty much everything else under the sounds. “Hold Up” alone samples Mariah Carey, James Taylor, 50 Cent, the Pixies, M83, Nas and Weezer (among others). With Night Ripper, Girl Talk has produced the intertextual soundtrack of our lives.

9. Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche

Last year, Sufjan’s Illinois finished at the top of my list, and in three years time when I’m putting together my list for the top albums of the decade, I expect it will have a place almost as prominent. There are very few artists out there who could put out a collection of b-sides and outtakes that would warrant my attention, let alone end up on my year-end list. But there’s something different about Sufjan Stevens, something in the way he writes and arranges that turns him into one of those unique artists whose castaways are still worthy of a good listen.

The pieces, leftovers and fragments from Illinois opus come together into a cohesive and satisfying album with The Avalanche, Sufjan’s Amnesiac to his Kid A. The same themes emerge here as on last year’s ode to the state of Illinois: love, friendship, history, travel, geography. And while hardly the masterpiece of its parent album, The Avalanche is filled with a similar charm, the fragile ballads and orchestral bombast soundtracking meticulously-researched personal and folk history. Part of me grumbles that releasing The Avalanche has only further delayed Sufjan from returning to his loveably-ambitious 50 States Project, but the part of me that has ears attached to it finds little to complain about here.

8. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Neko, goddess with the voice of gold, what pleasures do you have for us this time around? What wonderful ways will you evolve your country sound? Biblical hymns? Stream-of-consciousness lyrics? Songs that lack proper endings and formulas? All of the above? Really?

Really stunning, that’s what. Fox Confessor, the third studio record from the alt-country crooner and part-time New Pornographer, might be among the oddest country albums you’ll hear. It’s akin to a dream, with words and songs dropping and returning out of nowhere, adding a welcome abstract dimension to Case’s sound that up until this point has been pretty traditional. And while the songs and arrangements are the best of her career, the star is still Case’s voice, quite possibly the most beautiful musical instrument in the world, full of power, poise and grace.

7. Thom Yorke – The Eraser

A performer releasing a solo album while the band that made them famous is still together is a risky endeavor. Such albums have a tendency to go in one of two directions: either they are so similar to the original band’s work that their release seems pointless, or they’re overly indulgent and take one aspect of the band’s sound to an unwelcome extreme. No artist is entirely immune to these faults, not even the frontman of the greatest band of our time.

Despite sounding quite similar to how you think it would – Thom Yorke singing over bleeps, bloops and keyboards – The Eraser is able to walk a fine line between these two extremes by not trying to be a grandiose statement; instead, it’s content with being a confident and catchy electronica album. The highlight of The Eraser is the vocals, where Yorke ditches the studio trickery that has defined his work on the last few Radiohead albums and proves that he deserves all the praise he’s ever received for his singing. It all comes together for a claustrophobic and intimate offshoot of Radiohead’s work, one well worth the trip (and if nothing else, a good tideover until the long, long, LONG overdue Radiohead album arrives – in theory – sometime this year).

6. TV on the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain

Sometimes I’m really slow on the pickup. I missed jumping on the TV on the Radio bandwagon a couple of years ago when Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes was making its way around the internets. Thankfully, in 2006, that train made another trip around the track and I was more than happy to jump on. Return to Cookie Mountain – a runner-up to Final Fantasy’s He Poos Clouds for the worst album title of the year – features prominently on most music critics’ lists this year, and with good reason.

I’m trying to think of a way to nail down the multilayer, mutigenre music the band produces in a simple phrase, and the best that I can come up with is “Motown on psychedelics.” They ‘get’ classic pop music but soundsmith Dave Stiek and the band have decided to screw with it, with fascinating results. The album drags a bit towards its end, but the highlights are among the highest heights of the year. The album leaked early to the Internet with an altered tracklisting that turned out to be incorrect; the real album opens with “I Was a Lover,” the perfect primer for the beautiful insanity that lies ahead.

5. The Decemberists – The Crane Wife

This is the second year in a row that the Decemberists have ended up at number five on my list, which is interesting because I don’t think The Crane Wife is as good as last year’s Picaresque. That says less about The Crane Wife, though, than it does about how much stronger 2005 was for albums than 2006. While the songs on this Colbert-thwarted rock group’s major label debut are a tad bit weaker than on its predecessor, The Crane Wife is a welcome development in the band’s work and is, sonically at least, is a much more interesting album.

How well you enjoy the album will depend on if you buy the merging of Pink Floyd-esque progressive rock with the band’s classical folk traditions. Me, I found they fit perfectly within the band’s taste for the epic, and reminds me quite a bit of their five-part EP The Tain (one of the best things they’ve ever put to tape). The Crane Wife suite, split over the album, is like a 15-minute distillation of everything that makes Colin Meloy and his band so wonderful. If they can merge these new influences with the songwriting poise of their previous work, they might have a new classic in them. For now, The Crane Wife remains another notch in the band’s impressive belt of work.

4. The Knife – Silent Shout

In a year in which Jose Gonzalez’s “Heartbeats” became a huge hit thanks to appearing in a Sony TV commercial, the band who originally wrote and recorded that song – Sweedish brother-sister electronica duo The Knife – released an album that couldn’t be any further from it. In fact, Silent Shout almost sounds like a calculated response against Gonazlez’s easily-digestible (though admittedly great) take on their work: an album so off-putting that I didn’t initially give it a fair chance, perplexed as I was by the single track that I downloaded. Thankfully, a few weeks ago when starting to think about this list, I decided to give it another shot. This worked out well when Pitchfork named it their album of the year, and I was able to nod with knowledgeable respect for an inspired choice.

To choose the most obvious of indicators (for people like me who aren’t electronic music junkies), Silent Shout sounds like an attempt to marry the cold, industrial techno that Kraftwerk used to make with the dance hall anthems of Daft Punk. It ends up a bit more the former than the latter (which perhaps explains my esteem for it), but the completed whole is nothing short of stunning. The duo’s trump card is vocalist Karin Dreijer Andersson, whose pristine performances are distorted in all sorts of unnervingly wonderful ways. This is creepy electronica, a collection of songs that aims for the dance floor but ends up best with a set of headphones in a dark, dark place.

3. The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America

And now for something completely different: an album about kids who dance, drink and screw because there’s nothing else to do. Yes, for all the talk about the Springsteen influence in this album (and it’s there – “Stuck Between Stations” wonderfully reeks of it), the first time I listened to this album my Reference-O-Meter turned to Pulp’s 1995 British sensation Different Class. Not only do the same themes of youth and indulgence run throughout Boys and Girls in America, but it shares with Pulp’s classic the distinction of being one of the best party albums in my collection.

Of course, just like when British punk was imported to the States, the Hold Steady downplay questions of class and turn up the romance, producing a blisteringly poignant and powerful album about sexual politics in the 21st century. This was my first exposure to The Hold Steady, but Craig Finn’s down-to-earth lyrics and dance-around-your-living-room anthems have instantly won them a place in my rotation. Whether playing behind glory days or remembering ones that never quite existed, Boys and Girls In America is one hell of a soundtrack.

2. Sloan – Never Hear the End of It

One of the reasons that I find that I’ve reviewed more movies than albums on this blog is that it’s easier to come up with a quick opinion of a movie; music takes time, and in most cases deserves to be lived with before dropping an opinion on the world. One exception to this that I made this year was Sloan’s Never Hear the End of It. Thankfully, my initial opinion of this album has pretty much remained unchanged: this is an amazing return to form for a band that I had completely written-off.

The big question is whether or not the album’s more eccentric knockoffs justify an album that’s 75 minutes long. For me, the answer is a resounding yes: these “filler” tracks are what give Never Hear the End of It its character, eschewing the calculated pop of the band’s last few albums for something more interesting, more diverse and frankly, more fun. Plus, four songwriters this good deserve a chance to shine, and this album is their showcase. Perhaps Sloan find themselves near the top of my list for subjective reasons, my surprise and delight at seeing an old friend back to form. But what are lists if not subjective? Glad to have you back, gentlemen; you’ve been missed.

1. Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I Am Dreaming

For me, this is an obvious choice, a fact which I wrestled with for quite a while. After all, it was my top album back at the year’s midpoint, and it might be in this spot by default just by being my most listened-to album this year. But even though there are many worthy contenders for this spot, and even though it’s an album that’s been neglected by many a Top Albums list this year, I once again return to Shut Up I Am Dreaming as my definitive album of 2006.

Like Silent Shout, this is an album that is often more unnerving than inviting, but once you strip away the reverberated keys and distorted guitars there lies an intimacy to Spencer Krug’s work that stays with you long after the album reaches its end. Through his work here, with Wolf Parade and with Swan Lake, Krug has emerged as one of Canada’s best songwriters and vocalists, using his Bowie-esque howl and quirky, enigmatic arrangements to create miniature pocket symphonies of twisted pop. Yet never does it feel gimmicky or false; instead, it sounds vital, relevant and essential. It sounds like my favourite album of 2006.