(desperation + noise)

15. Say Anything – In Defense of the Genre

My dog died last week. My dad picked up her ashes today, and the whole house has been throbbing and swelling like an irritated wound since. 12 years is a long time. I last saw her during Thanksgiving. She had long since mutated into protruding bones and sad organs – the dog who I’d previously seen run and pant into eternity was wilting in the wicked shade. My mom’s been crying at every upturned memory, at Christmas ornaments or cracks in the wall that take her back to two weeks ago, when Dawny would be waiting for the garage doors to open, and the cars would inch their way in as she went around to greet us as though we’d been disappeared for decades. My mom’s been taking every opportunity to egg me on into crying too, possibly just to have someone in this house who visibly suffers as much as her, for my dad internalizes everything until his insides are pure claws. I, I am content in knowing that this moment has passed, that suffering has ceased momentarily for a long-suffering being, that all the dust and insecurity have settled and made way for new, mad beauty. There is still sadness, but there is relief that I will never again see Dawny as only bones, skin, and pain.

14. Matthew Good – Hospital Music

It wasn’t conscious. I am not entirely convinced that this is even a sane way to react to death. It has made thing easier, though. A few hours ago I lifted up the tiny tomb and read the poem they attached to it and almost fell over, not in lieu of breaking down, but in reaction to the common realization that all the white hot lives in motion just today could be snuffed out, shattered light bulb-like. At least Dawny lived long enough to not stumble into the void, but fall peacefully into it. I’m hoping the same grace will be given to my grandmother, who I saw today, who has forgotten her birthday, who is stubborn about it, who probably feels as though she is descending into the arms of something she can’t entirely handle. I see my mother get exasperated at her every minor objection and I realize that the record is going to skip on this exact spot, 30 or so years down the line, and then it will be between her and me. It’s a sad, uncomfortable inevitability. Despite this, perhaps in response to her constant attempts to elicit outward emotion from me over Dawny, I cruelly told her that she’d probably end up just like her mother. That’s the way things work in my family: we slide minor toothpicks into each others’ sides until one of us starts bleeding over everything.

13. Panda Bear – Person Pitch

Which says less about my family and more about me, in that I’m willing to participate in it.

12. Devin Townsend – Ziltoid the Omniscient

FUCK YEAH DUNNA DUN DUNNA DUN DUNNA DUN DUNNA YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH FUCKIN’ YEAHHHHH FUCKIN’ PROG-METAL ‘BOUT COFFEE-ALIEN-EARTH RELATIONS WHICH IS AN ELABORATE DREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM OF A STARBUCKS EMPLOYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE FUCK FUCK FUCK YEAHHHHHH HERE’S A WICKED FUCKIN’ RIFFFFFFFFFFF HERE’S ANOTHER WICKED FUCKIN’ RIFFFFFFFFFFF HOLY SHIT THIS ALBUM IS FULL OF WICKED FUCKIN’ RIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFS AND ALSO IT MAKES ME LONG FOR COFFEEEEEEE I MEAN WHAT OTHER ALBUM CAN YOU SAY THAT ABOUUUUUUUT EXCEPT MAYBE SOME FUCKIN’ GAY CAT STEVENS RECORRRRRRD FUCKIN’ DEVIN TOWNSENNNNNND BETTER PUT WEIGHTS IN YOUR ASS-KICKIN’ BOOTS WHEN YOU LISTEN TO THIS RECORD BECAUSE IT WILL SEND MOST OF THE UNPREPARED PEOPLE LIVING WITHIN 100 FT OF YOU INTO THE FUCKIN’ STRATOSPHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE YOU WILL FEEL THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN SHINE ON YOU AND YOU WILL BE NAKED AND GOD WILL LAUGH AT YOUR WEIRD GENITALS AND THAT IS WHAT LISTENING TO A DEVIN TOWNSEND RECORD IS LIKE FUCK!

11. M.I.A. – Kala

So a lot of people think 2001: A Space Odyssey is totally dark, yo but when they point out what is dark about it I am taken aback because they’re always reppin’ hittin’ bones with other bones or space babies (never watch that scene at 4 in the morning, because no matter how many times you’ve seen 2001 those eyes the size of Olympic pools will put the fear of God in you and you will stumble toward the window and everything you see will be sick and/or unholy) but I am always pointing toward the first few minutes of pure black, where it is like you are staring the iconic obelisk in the goddamn face, almost-motherly in its ability to fill your entire body with unending horror, and all that Ligeti music is in the foreground forcing imaginary restraints onto your every limb because to move now is to disrupt a sort of seemingly eternal oppression – there is no hope and we are all escalating toward a point identical to where we started. Oh God.

10. Burial – Untrue

I say this because I face this same differing recognition of bleakness in a lot of music. Some people will say those last two Talk Talk albums were the pinnacle of post-rock and Mark Hollis need not apologize for his synth-pop past because he made those records and is eternally an artiste of the highest sort for it. To these people I say fuck you. First, dear creators of genre names, though I am not one to criticize the existence of genres and subgenres, in fact I think people who do and even add the insufferable caveat “there’s only good music” would scream and cry in the middle of the record store if their precious rock section were merged with country, or hell, even jazz, please stop adding “post,” “proto,” and “neo” to everything you deem “new” because we are all getting older by the second and by the time we hit retirement we will shake our canes in your general direction because shit gets confusing.

9. Pig Destroyer – Phantom Limb

Also, “post-rock” is as troublesome as “emo” and “indie” in terms of ascertaining any specific sound belonging to its namesake. I mean, you got both Tortoise and Mogwai under that huge goddamn umbrella. Just because they’re both instrumental doesn’t mean they sound anything alike, man!

Second, the synth-pop era of Talk Talk fucking RULED and No Doubt schooled y’all in that respect a few years ago when “It’s My Life” lit up everything with an electric current. Also you are excluding The Colour of Spring which combined said synth-pop with the otherworldly shit Hollis got down with fully on those last two albums. (If at this point you’re wondering who is even making these crazy accusations, no one is, no one at all, it is just what I see people saying occasionally and these things accumulate in my head and soon I think everyone is thinking these horrible things and I end up talking to myself in elaborate blogs that are supposed to be about kick-ass records from last year.)

8. Okkervil River – The Stage Names

Thirdly, finally, the point I’m trying to make will reveal itself to you fully and you will continue to read my blogs because it is such a revelation that it will have made these past few masturbatory paragraphs so fucking worth it man, just you wait, is okay, the world didn’t fucking stop after Laughing Stock. I mean, it may have seemed so because that record was so goddamn immense that I’m surprised everytime someone listens to it time doesn’t freeze but hey, you know, life goes on and people don’t make records for almost a decade, but then in the quiet year of 1998 Mark Hollis raises his voice once more and makes this tiny little untitled record that lays waste to the entire Talk Talk catalogue. Yeah I am fuckin’ serious.

7. Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist

But it gets no play whatsoever from the music publications. On Pitchfork’s ’90s list, Laughing Stock is in the top 10, whereas Mark Hollis is nowhere to be found (I can’t be bothered to see if it’s actually there, and also if you aren’t laughing at my taking Pitchfork’s lists seriously, you should be, it’s way funny). Hell, on rateyourmusic, the general public has rated Laughing Stock 1400 times while Mark Hollis has received approximately a fifth of that. Let’s not even get into the 100s of reviews of Laughing Stock that describe the record as the ultimate expression of a tiny man getting pulled apart in all directions. But wait, wait a minute guys.

6. ZAZEN BOYS – I Don’t Wanna Be With You

On Mark Hollis not only is a tiny man getting tore the fuck up but his life is being slowly ruined retroactively by an evil mustachioed man with a time machine.

There is also a whole lot of silence on Mark Hollis. That is because this tiny man is no longer wailing, no longer raging, raging against knifing of his wife (this is something the mustachioed man did, you see). He has resigned himself to his fate, though not so much that he refuses the occasional whimper or the brief-but-eye-stabbingly-bright moments of real live holy shit hope.

5. Wu-Tang Clan – 8 Diagrams

WU-TANG CLAN AIN’T NUTHING TA FUCK WIT

4. Pink Reason – Cleaning the Mirror

If this comes off as some sort of “mothafuckas ain’t recognizin’ true genius” spoiled child rant I am very sorry because I meant for it to be more of a call to arms, as in: “Hey, you! I know you thought this record was boring just like you thought the first three minutes of 2001 were pointless but please dive into it once more, open your eyes while submerged, and realize that someone has poisoned the water.” Or maybe more, “I know you thought this was where all the plants stopped growing but man, there’s this shit you weren’t even aware of where the plants turn into pure thorns that will prick us incessantly until we die of excessive bleeding.”

3. Jay-Z – American Gangster

Now, I think it is very important that we listen to these sorts of records regularly because they remind us constantly that pain is a slipperly slope into nowhere and nothing, and it can be extended into infinity if we allow it to. They remind us that we shouldn’t.

2. Ulver – Shadows of the Sun

And I suppose that’s why I coupled this piece, including its now-very-old first part, with my list of favorite albums from 2007 – I tend to gravitate toward anything that explores darkness in a particularly adept fashion, which a good majority of these records do (in fact, I think Devin Townsend is the only odd one out, but dude has fully rocked me into isolation enough times in the past for it to not fucking matter). They remind me that we young twilight punks may look at the great stretch of life, love, and madness and see sad eternity,

but in reality,

we are temporary,

and thank fucking GOD.

Within the first hour of hearing of Dawny’s death, I had both grieved and moved on.

1. Radiohead – In Rainbows

And there is nothing wrong with that.