Is it too late for a retrospective post on 2008? Hope not, because this is the first of two or three.
According to the statmeisters of last.fm, the following songs are my 20 most-played of 2008:
20 Road to Somewhere – Goldfrapp It was very much the year of Goldfrapp on my playlist. I first crossed paths with Goldfrapp via a free iTunes download of "Ooh La La" from Supernature, but it was 2008's folk-tronica release Seventh Tree that led to Goldfrapp scaling my artist chart. Easily my favorite release of the year, it propelled Goldfrapp from the lower reaches of my top 50 artists to number four.
19Holiday Road – Lindsey Buckingham Theme from the great National Lampoon's Vacation.
18Nikita – Elton John I tend to fixate on random '80s songs such as this, #17 and #15 for periods of time.
17Hold Me – Fleetwood Mac
16X-Files (UNKLE Remix) – UNKLE The movie I Want to Believe, while not altogether bad, was certainly not what the franchise needed at this point. This new interpretation of Mark Snow's classic theme, however, is simply brilliant.
15I'm Your Man – Wham!
14You Never Know (Live in London) - Goldfrapp
13So You Say – The Bird and the Bee The retro-modern bliss of songs such as this, "Birthday" and "Polite Dance Song" made The Bird and the Bee my second-biggest breakout of the year.
12Birthday – The Bird and the Bee
11I Told Her on Alderaan (Richard X Andress Mix) – Neon Neon I have no idea what this song means, but it's really catchy pop with a strange Star Wars reference.
10Light Years – Kylie Minogue
9Some People - Goldfrapp
8Happiness - Goldfrapp
7Underneath – Alanis Morissette Alanis had steadily been losing me to the point that I never bought the last album, although "Everything" was a nice single. The new album is — dare I say it — a return to form.
6Little Bird - Goldfrapp
54 Minutes - Madonna
4Clowns - Goldfrapp
3Number 1 - Goldfrapp
2Give It 2 Me – Madonna I had myself all psyched up to hate Hard Candy based on the stylings of Timbaland and Timberlake and the fact that Confessions on a Dancefloor was a creative peak, but I ended up really digging it. This, the second single, is a perfect example of why. The "get stupid" breakdown is killer. It's a shame that it has become so in vogue to dis Madonna.
1A&E – Goldfrapp Absolutely sublime. It's disheartening that a song this amazing gets completely ignored in the U.S.
Another sign that the world is moving on arrived in my e-mail box today: A note from BMG Music Service informing me that the music club is folding as of June 30. I guess this time they really mean it when they say the offer for that stack of CDs comes "with nothing more to buy … ever."
They're replacing the club with a new service, yourmusic.com, which sounds like a boneheaded, cue-based Netflix approach, except you don't send the music back.
I've been a member of BMG since the early '90s. Like everybody else, I couldn't pass up those dozen CDs for a penny deals, and it was a decent way to boost a music collection, even if their editions were sometimes dodgy. I can remember some of the cassettes I got back in the day didn't include liner notes. And it was a pain to have to mail in that card declining the featured selection that you wouldn't want in a million years.
Steep shipping charges and the delay for new releases were always problems, but a bigger obstacle in recent years has been lack of selection. There have been numerous times when, lured to the site by an offer of 60 percent off with no shipping and handling, I would have bought something if there were anything I wanted. Looking for Goldfrapp's back catalog? Go elsewhere.
Of course, BMG deals in physical media, which can't catch a break these days. Really, though, when Amazon MP3 sells a hot new album for a few bucks on release day, it's not a surprise that the era of the music club gets an obit this year.
On the first couple of listens to "Love Etc.," the Xenomania-produced lead single from Yes, the forthcoming Pet Shop Boys album, I was shaking my head "no." I wasn't feeling it. With a couple more listens, it started to make sense, and it had firmly taken hold by about the sixth listen. I'd even say it's probably their best lead single since Very. It's the killer melody of the whole "Boy it's tough getting on in the world" bit that seals the deal. They're right to say that it doesn't sound like anything they've done before, although the percolating rhythm vaguely recalls "Can You Forgive Her?"
If we needed another sign that Yes may be the proper pop-tastic successor to 1993's Very that the pre-release buzz had wrongly suggested 2006's Fundamental would be, the animated video is at least a small one, as it recalls the computer-generated beauty of Very singles such as "Liberation." This homage to side-scrolling video games is beautifully and cleverly constructed; it's arguably weird but undeniably inspired.
The U.K. gets the album on March 23; the U.S. has to wait until April 21.
Item number one: My reaction to the Pet Shop Boys' new album being titled Yes: No.
I seem to be in the minority of fans who dislike the title, but it feels like they're not even trying. For something in the affirmative, I'd go for a title such as Definitely. Pet Shop Boys, Definitely. It's more true to the spirit (holy trinity?) of Please, Actually and Very.
Apparently this album will drop in the U.S. on March 24, and that works out quite nicely: It's my birthday. : - )
Item number two: I'm as much about silly pop songs as the next music fan who never grew up, but it hurts my music-loving heart to see something as asinine as Flo Rida's "Low" become the number one song of an entire year. It was bad enough to see the song sit atop the Hot 100 for 10 weeks, and to see it as Billboard's number one song of the year is an insult to music, particularly all the great stuff that never gets radio exposure. But that's coming from someone who started to feel my love affair with the top 40 was out the window around the time "Rump Shaker" sat on the top five.
It turns out that George W. Bush and I do have something in common — a taste for Dr. Pepper, that most addictive of beverages (even if I'm now confined to the caffeine-free version). It's one of the rather mundane details that director Oliver Stone makes clear in W., a film in which I believe Stone has fairly pure intentions (this is no Michael Moore-style ambush). I went to the movie seeking a bit of catharsis — a purging of some of the emotional disappointment of the past eight years — as well as perhaps a few insights into how Bush II came to be. Check the expectations at the door, and there's fun to be had here.
Weaving past and present, Stone shows us the young W. as a man who indulged in the privileged fun life while continually struggling to gain the approval of his accomplished father. Fast-forward to the 2000s, and the current W is seen planning the war in Iraq, devising the "axis of evil" rhetoric and puzzling over those elusive WMDs. One of Stone's missteps is focusing almost exclusively on Iraq and ignoring the highly disputed and suspect election outcome in 2000.
A serious challenge for this movie is that it's just about impossible to stop evaluating the cast's approximation of their respective characters and fully give in to Stone's narrative. Josh Brolin, at least, owns his character; the first time he did the Bush laugh, it was so true to life that I wanted to rewind and hear it again. Also precisely on the money is Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld; in a great scene in which the principles are commiserating about the absence of WMDs over lunch, Rumsfeld is singularly focused on the pleasures of a fabulous slice of pecan pie. Toby Jones also rises to the occasion as political weasel Karl Rove, the man who knew how to help Bush push the people's buttons (at least before 2008, anyway). From there, it's a decidedly mixed bag: Thandie Newton, as Condoleezza Rice, turns in a sub-Janet Jackson-on-SNL effort; Jeffrey Wright makes a reasonable stab at Colin Powell's voice of reason; and James Cromwell is impossible to separate from James Cromwell in the role of George H.W. Bush.
Stone comes closest to revelatory in the scenes in which W. consults with his church pastor, seeking to light his inner fire. Someone who went so single-mindedly in the directions Bush did must have felt some divine anointment. Stone aims to tie it all together in a series of fantasy interludes in which Bush stands before a stadium full of roaring baseball fans. It's high-concept and a noble attempt, but it's not the grandiose spiritual revelation audiences crave, particularly when it leaves the movie feeling as if it doesn't have an ending.
So I go to do my daily check at Amazon's MP3 store to see what's today's deal, and I did a spit take with my coffee upon seeing Keane's new album, Perfect Symmetry, which hit stores today, on offer for "the unbelievably low price" of $2.99!
It's the kind of release I normally would have pre-ordered, counting on Amazon to get the physical CD to my mailbox on release day or the day after. Glad I didn't go that route this time.
iTunes is playing hard for this one, as well: Apple's music store is offering the deluxe edition, which includes a bonus track, a whole album of demos and some video stuff, for $12.99. But it's saddled with DRM and lesser audio quality -- one of the big reasons iTunes is steadily losing me to Amazon.
This is the first time I've noticed a major new release offered as the MP3 deal of the day. Will we be so lucky next month when the new Killers album drops?
Giving Perfect Symmetry its first spin right now. "Spiralling" is a hot jam, and I love the geometric art design for this release.
Genre: Horror, remake, J-horror Director: Masayuki Ochiai Run time: 1 hr 25 mins DVD released: July 15, 2008 Cast: Joshua Jackson, Rachel Taylor Verdict: &1/2
This unnecessary J-Horror knockoff (it's actually a remake of a movie from Thailand) answers the question of whether Dawson's Creek's Pacey (Joshua Jackson) can carry a horror movie. Not that there's anything particularly wrong (or right) with his acting (that goes for his role in FOX's mediocre new X-Files wannabe, Fringe, as well), but I kept expecting Dawson or Katie Holmes to come 'round the corner. With its Vengeful Female Spirit and Secrets from the Past, this movie feels as if it were made by someone whose only cinematic references are The Ring and The Grudge and all the lame imitators that followed. The Jackson character and his new wife, played in full I-want-to-be-Naomi-Watts mode by Rachel Taylor, begin to find ghostly images in their photographs — both casual snapshots and in the professional work of Jackson's character. And that could be mildly interesting, but the movie can't even nail ghostly photos in a compelling fashion. The one almost-frightening moment involves a boy gazing at a window reflection on a subway train, and the rest you'll anticipate before it even happens. Shutter is one of those tired movies that leaves you wondering why anyone bothered; it's a picture totally out of focus.// DVD NOTES //Nothing like a steaming pile of cinematic dung gussied up with a dozen self-important featurettes, is there? Everything from shooting in Japan to tips for ghost hunting is covered. Alternate and deleted scenes, including an alternate ending, and audio commentaries are also needlessly included.
