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What are you listening to right now?

had a bad day, needed to chill out. put on william basinski - 92982. this is an incredible piece of music.
 
Couldn't get this out of my head all day, it pumps me up. Reminds me of Doug Funny banging on a trashcan, and drumming on a street light.
 
Today I have the unenviable task of picking a favorite between:

Kid A
Hail to the Thief
In Rainbows

Might take all day...

ETA: This joker at work has me convinced I need to reconsider Amnesiac, as well. Guess it couldn't hurt to get some more context, but I'm pretty sure it will land in 4th for the decade.

I guess I'll just liveblog it here for a while.

Kid A: I came into this wanting a certain album to win. It wasn't Kid A. But this album is about as close to perfection as I've heard, and I've listened to about 200 albums over the past 2 weeks. Is it bad that when I hear "Women and children first and children first and children first" I think of George Costanza? This album has no weak tracks. I don't know that I could pick a favorite if I listened ten times. How to Disappear Completely, Optimistic, Idioteque, Motion Picture Soundtrack. The end of this album just makes me want so much more. I know it's amateur hour to call a record "cinematic," but this is like the soundtrack to all the most important moments in a person's life. This one is going to be tough to beat.

Amnesiac: "I'm a reasonable man, get off my case." This track starts with some tricks, some gimmicks. Some microphone work that wasn't there on Kid A, or even OK Computer. Hadn't been around since The Bends. And then the next song he is remorseful and goes back to a straightforward piano tune wish some just solemn lyrics. Solemn is the tone of this album. It's something like regret in the strings on Pyramid song. Ugh and then my beloved Pulk/Pull. The timing might not be right for me to say this chronologically, but I don't think you have producers/DJs like Burial, or even somebody like MF DOOM (though I know his Vaudeville Villain and some earlier incarnations predated this) without a tune like this. I always felt like this song deserved better context than Amnesiac, like Dwayne Bowe or Larry Fitzgerald deserved a better QB, but now it is starting to make sense to me. The upright bass and vocal harmonies bringing that gravitas back again on "You and Whose Army." Oh right, and I forgot this Beck tune was on here. Never understood the appeal of "I Might Be Wrong." Supposed to be some great gem from an otherwise forgettable Radiohead, but I think quite the opposite. It's nice to remember there's a guitarist in the band, sure, but he seems to forget it himself most of the time on the tune anyway. Phil can't decide whether he's man or machine. "Hey, what was that sleepy tune we did on Kid A? Wanna just throw it on this one? Yeah, it was solid, fuck it, let's just put it on here again." Sort of a snooze through to Hunting Bears, which is just tremendous. In fact, the final triad of songs is really great; redeems the album in my book. This won't be my favorite of the four, but it really is underrated, probably only because of who wrote it. One more comment on this album. Life in a Glass House just deserves so much praise. "What's that you've got Ed? Is that an oboe? Save it for the last track, anything goes on that one."

Hail to the Thief: 2+2=5 is still my favorite Radiohead tune. There's not a wasted beat on this song. It only takes about 2 minutes to get to the fucking raddest beat drop in their catalog (seriously, this blows Paranoid Android's payoff out of the water). And it introduces the album thematically, doing the extremely rare thing in the Radiohead ouevre and underlining the points for you. It even calls out the album title, which, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that happens anywhere else along the way. And then Thom is almost gleeful to "Walk into the jaws of Hell." Sit Down is a bit more patient in the buildup to the Stand Up portion, and then it also smacks you in the face with this funky metal-electro drumming that just melts your face off. Go To Sleep makes me want to do anything but. Plus it features the awesome "We don't want a looney taking over!" They really didn't like Tony Blair/ George Bush. Funny, cause neither did I. Also, that song cracks me up because they use the fade out. They completely destroy your expectations and your ideas about the conventions of rock, or just music in general. They're at it all day erry day, and then they do the random little tricks that remind us they are indeed mortals every now and again. "I'm up in the clouds..." Yea, you don't say, Thom. Up to this point in their catalog, this album is easily my favorite effort from Phil. He is just a maniac on this one. How many fills can I get in a bar? I see your "Sit Down" and raise you a "Where I End." And then after the "I will eat you alive" outro, the "We Suck Young Blood" is just very convincing. I know neither of them are meant to be literal (tough to take a literal view when I have no idea who 'we' is supposed to be," but I believe the words I'm hearing. I also imagine they just get everybody to clap on the 4th and it works for a while til the song just starts having a seizure. Then that brilliant track ends, and there's a brief pause and an otherworldly technointro before you sense "Ok, I think we've sufficiently terrified our listeners, let's get back to melody." To which Ed replies "What is a melody?" And then oh fuck the timpani intro to There There. I will always remember this tune opening their show at Bonnaroo 2006 and 90,000 terrified hippies losing their minds. The refrain is the stuff of nightmares, and it is almost shuddered out of his vocals, but this song is worth shouting at the top of your lungs. Or maybe it's not a terrifying thought, maybe it should be a comfort. Just because you're paranoid and you're anxious and the walls are falling down...it very well could all be in your head. Those two snare triplets to end the song are just perfection. And...in an effort to stop using the word "terrifying" to describe one of my favorite albums evar, I will just say that hearing "little baby's eyes" is...disconcerting. Then Punchup makes me giddy happy. Love it when they find a sweet spot riff and go with it. Incredibly fitting that I get called into a meeting around the "piss on our parade" lyric. I imagine Myxomatosis would sound good at Madison Square Garden, or say, the start of the zombie apocalypse. Possibly my only gripe about this album is that I've always felt the last two tracks should be switched. But what do I know, they are both incredible tunes. I guess "A Wolf at the Door" is a pretty brilliant way of underlining the themes of the album. This album ends and the only thing that kills my boner is that fans had to wait four long years til In Rainbows.

In Rainbows: It was worth the wait. Remember when Radiohead played 15 step with that marching band at the Grammys? That was sweet. I have to try to pretend this isn't the album I've listened to the most of theirs, like I don't know every lyric, every chord change. Hate to go all literary douche on you here, but this is a postmodern work of sheer existential brilliance. Every song just reeks of "have we done this before?" Then Bodysnatchers. This was song #2 at Bonnaroo, and the song's festival debut, though it had made a few live appearances through the years. It, like so many songs on In Rainbows, perhaps belongs on OK Computer. "Has the light gone out for you? Because the light's gone out for me." What do you call this part, the bridge? IDK, whatever it is, it shakes me to my core. Then the point-counterpoint guitar, the false climax, and then he just shouts the outro "I SEE THEY COMING! I SEE THEY COMING!" Chills. Fuck I love that tune. Don't remember which review it was, either CMG or Pitchfork, that says Thom is channeling the angels on "Nude." He really does pour everything he has vocally into that tune. Ugh, and then Weird Fishes/Arpeggi. Half of this story is told deep underwater, the other half up in the clouds. In an otherwise rigid drum track, Phil definitely knows when to accent a line with a crash. Can't help but recall "I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas." Then it's weird amidst all these extistential crises that we get a ballad. Never much loved "All I Need." It's a fine little tune, but doesn't fit the album IMO (*he says as he sings along and dances in his chair*). Fuck it all though, the cymbals at the end are incredible. Then up next "Exactly where do you get off?" I could ask you the same question, Thom. Nice choice on the strings, though. And then oh jeebus, Reckoner. I defy anybody on planet Earth to tell me they don't like this song. Falsetto, meet your maker. Only Radiohead could turn a tambourine/sleigh bell sound into something so jarring. And what's more endearing than "Dedicated to all you...all your needs." I used to consider House of Cards a bit of a throwaway track, as far as those exist in Radiohead, but it has grown on me a lot. I think this song is about getting rid of your foibles and forgetting about all the modern concerns side 1 brought up, if they hadn't already been erased by Reckoner. But then, maybe he's not sympathetic to sweeping things under the rug, because you get that "Denial...denial" counterpoint. It's a mystifying tune, and a great segue between Reckoner, and the next bit of magic, Jigsaw. This has to be my favorite song on this album. It's like everybody has woken back up again, and they want to just gnash their teeth about it. There's this in media res feel to the lyrics, like we're all eavesdropping on the story unfolding before us. I can't get enough of the second "THE BEAT GOES ROUND AND ROUND!" when they just shift into hyperdrive and kill it the rest of the way. Videotape makes me sad. It makes me sad that the album is ending, and the lyrics make me sad. They remind us about death. When this album was released, I was convinced this was the announcement of the retirement of Radiohead. When the drum finally comes in, try to follow it through the end of the track. It starts out as this simple sounding little dyad, and it grows into a furious synthpad/copy machine futurebeat. I almost cry when I hear "This is my way of saying goodbye." I know understand it more fully one album later, that it's just another story in the arc of the album, but I was utterly devastated the first 25 times I heard it at least. And then, far less ceremoniously than it began, the album ends.

And here I am, 4 hours later, no closer to making my decision. Oh well, maybe it will be a fun read when I finally flip a coin or whatever.
 
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I'm going to copy you today Townie, been awhile since I've listened to all of these back to back to back.
 
My effort has been derailed by the discovery of new Yellow Ostrich big ugly yellow couch sessions.
 
Calexico - Feast of Wire
The Thrills - So Much for the City
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
 
Upon the new Beach House single release, I decided to queue up their discography this morning

Beach House (self-titled) (2006)
Devotion (2008)
Teen Dream (2010)
 
Beach House are an example of a band who get better every time they write a new song. That was a good morning.

This afternoon, I've got:

Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll
Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands
Ozomatli - Street Signs
 
Didn't get to Ozomatli yesterday.

Gotta love starting your morning with some Latin fusion

Ozomatli - Street Signs
then switching gears to:

Liars - They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Zutons - Who Killed the Zutons?
 
Nils Frahm - Felt

to start the morning. Trying to go through 2011 albums I missed.
 
I finally bit on the new Grimes album. This is really solid.

Also: Youth Lagoon- The Year of Hibernation
 
The Killers - Hot Fuss; Sam's Town
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights; Antics

to start my morning
 
The coda on PDA alone makes Turn on the Bright Lights a glaring omission from my top 50 list.
 
The Zutons - Who Killed the Zutons?
TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
 
Miike Snow - Animal

dance party at my desk!
 
wolfgang amadeus phoenix- lisztomania
 
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