Another Form of Relief

I’ve posted both Rilo Kiley and The Elected in the past month, so it only seems fair to complete the set. I was kind of torn on Jenny Lewis’ record when it came out. While enjoying it, I didn’t really think that much of it simply because it didn’t sound like Rilo Kiley. It’s strange that a couple of years and one horrendous album later, that actually doesn’t seem like a negative anymore.

Melt Your Heart feels like it would be right at home in a smoke-filled bar, it’s lone singer on the stage lamenting about failed loves while no one really pays her any attention. It’s obvious that it’s this material where Lewis’ passions now lie. Still, as long as there is money to be made in songs about porn stars and doing fifteen year olds, I guess we’ll be waiting a while for anything new.

What does it say when a side project band is putting out better records than the band that initially spawned it? Is it fair to even call it a side project at that point? Both fair questions when looking at The Elected, who have grown greatly from “that little band with the one from Rilo Kiley who isn’t Jenny Lewis”. Two albums in and Blake Sennett has mastered his “Elliot Smith in front of a band” routine down to a perfect art. He’s just made it slightly less depressing.

#19
Emmy The Great
‘Paper Trails’

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I’ve really tried to get into the music of Emmy the Great, but I can’t seem to do it. Maybe I’ve been hearing the wrong songs or something, but all of the tracks that I’ve picked up from various blogs haven’t done very much for me. All except this one anyway. It’s quite a feat for an artist I don’t particularly like to get to get a song in my top 20 songs of the year, but ‘Paper Trails’ somehow gets there. I can’t even tell you what it is that I like about it. Possibly the song itself, but it makes so little sense that it’s probably not. It could be her voice, but if it is, why don’t I like her other songs? It’s all very confusing really. Rest assured that this is a fine song though, and certainly worthy of it’s place here.

#18
Sky Larkin
‘Keepsakes’

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I wrote earlier on in the year that ‘Keepsakes’ was one of my favourite songs of the year, and the fact it’s made this list confirms that very little has changed. It’s not their most complex song, but it’s the one that I’ve enjoyed more than any of the others in the past year. There’s something a little creepy about the whole thing, but it’s mainly just an outlet for Katie’s increasingly powerful voice.

#17
Play Radio Play
‘Jello’

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The first time that I heard the early parts of ‘Jello’ I genuinely thought that I was listening to The Postal Service. Nearly everything comes across as uncannily similar: the song structure, the random electronic bits and the vocal is pretty much a perfect Gibbard. Of course, this leads to an ineviatble question of why I’m including a song so highly here if it’s just a rip-off of another band. I’m not even sure if I can answer that question entirely though. I just really like the song. It’s simplistic and some of the words are a little awkward, but it’s just incredibly catchy.

#16
The Light Footwork
‘Coastlines Are Landmines’

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The Light Footwork seemed to arrive entirely out of nowhere with an already perfected sound. Primarily the creative outlet for Jay Underwood and Becca Wilhelm, they combine the musical sounds of Beulah with the songwriting finesse of Stephen Malkmus. If I was putting together an album list for the year, there is no doubt that their debut release, ‘One State Two State’ would feature very highly, if not in the number one position. I don’t think I’ve played any other complete albums as consistantly in the past year. Anyway, ‘Coastlines Are Landmines’ is just one standout song on an incredible album.

#15
The Elected
‘It Was Love’

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“I’m still not a big fan of ‘Sun, Sun, Sun’, but this song is just about my favourite of any song that The Elected have put out. If there’s one thing Blake Sennett can do well, it’s sounding melancholy while doing his best Elliott Smith impression. An entirely depressing story about two people who stay together because they know no better (”I just put up with you / Kid, I stayed because you wouldn’t leave”). I don’t know if it’s supposed to be positive or not when Blake describes this time as “It was love / Or at least the closest I got”, but it certainly doesn’t seem that way even if it’s supposed to be.” - originally posted June 2.

#14
Pony Up!
‘What’s Free Is Yours’

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I discovered Pony Up! toward the end of the year, and have since obtained a lot of their material. To be perfectly honestly, a lot of it isn’t all that interesting to me. What is interesting to me though are perfect pop songs, and ‘What’s Free Is Yours’ certainly falls into that category. An upbeat song from a slightly bitter woman who is changing her perception of the past to make the guy she’s broken up with seem like the bad guy (”I don’t believe / you’d be here if you could / But then again / you never said you would / I make up promises you never made”). It’s this perfect capturing of the quirky little things that people do that allow Pony Up! to have some fantastic songs. They just need seeking out amongst all the rest.

#13
Pocketbooks
‘Cross The Line’

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“‘Cross the Line’ is the first song released from their new batch of recordings, and it’s easily cemented itself in place as one of my favourites of the year so far. Full of lovely imagery (it opens with “I’m asleep on a train on the Zone 2 boundary”) and basically continues as a back and forth conversation between the male and female vocalists. This takes on a nicely self-aware twist when she starts calling him on the honesty of his lyrics (”As a kid I would run through the fields and orchards” / “What about your hayfever though?” / “I’d climb the branches to the top” / “What, with your vertigo?” / “Look, I’m making all this up”). Extra points also have to be awarded for being the first song I’m aware of that actually slots in the term “Oyster card” without being entirely tacky.” - originally posted November 4.

#12
Beeches
‘Make Your Own Luck’

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Proclaimed as “a fucking excellent song” by at least one attendee gig Beeches played for AFoR a month ago, ‘Make Your Own Luck’ is my favourite song of theirs and one of the best I’ve heard this year. Musically it comes across as a crazy drunk person, jumping from energetic bursts of aggression to slowed down gentle parts and back again. Lyrically, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Essentially the story of man singing to his new step daughter after he met her mother at “the filming of Trisha” before they “married on Kilroy”. Of course, it’s all rather whimsical, but who can resist it when it leaps into high gear for the second time?

#11
Jenny Owen Youngs
‘Fuck Was I’

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Myspace

Firmly a part of my “big in 2007″ list is Jenny Owen Youngs, something that was made stronger by a recent signing to Canadian indie label Nettwerk, who will be re-releasing her 2005 album ‘Batten The Hatches’ early next year. Despite initially being kind of indifferent to it, ‘Fuck Was I’ quickly became one of my favourite songs of the year. Pretty much the anthem of any breakup, mournfully looking back and asking “what the fuck was I thinking?” All sung by a wonderful voice with a gentle strings arrangement in the background, sad songs really don’t come much better than this.

#10
Born Ruffians
‘This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life’

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The world has been decidedly short of slacker anthems since the loss of Pavement, so a song like this from Canada’s Born Ruffians fills in the void perfectly. Two and a half loud, noisy minutes about the things the singer wants from life (a girl, nice car, a meaning to his life) while seemingly accepting that he’s too lazy to do anything about it. This certainly isn’t an epiphany song, more one that proclaims what will never be had. Making the whole thing rather a downer to be honest.

And with that we’re down to the final nine songs that make up best songs of 2006. In my opinion of course. If you read the blog regularly you can probably guess a few of the songs that will make up the top end of the chart, but hopefully there will be a couple of surprises in there too. Be sure to come back tomorrow to find out what they are.

When I wrote the first ‘Five for Friday’ post this time last week, I said I didn’t know whether or not it would be a recurring feature or not. Given how much I enjoyed it writing it though, getting to go into some detail about some of my favourite songs, I think it’s inevitable that it’s going to be, at least for a little while. As such, we now have part two in the series, where you get to read me rambling about some songs that I like, and as a reward, you get to listen to them. I think that’s how all this works anyway.

MP3 Semisonic - Closing Time (expired) (Feeling Strangely Fine, 1998)
It’s a shame that Semisonic will seemingly forever be lumbered with the “one hit wonder” tag as over the course of nearly a decade they put out several really great albums. They also hold a personal significance to me as they were the first real band I got seriously into after I purchased ‘Feeling Strangely Fine’ following some school exams when I was 16. Crazy times. Anyway, ‘Closing Time’ is probably their most definitive song, even if it isn’t their most complex. The words are pretty much self explanatory, putting across that feeling of being kicked out of a bar at the end of the night to a fantastic piece of guitar work. And the sadness from Dan Wilson’s voice when he points out that “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” is just perfect.

MP3 The Elected - It Was Love (expired) (Sun, Sun, Sun, 2006)
I’m still not a big fan of ‘Sun, Sun, Sun’, but this song is just about my favourite of any song that The Elected have put out. If there’s one thing Blake Sennett can do well, it’s sounding melancholy while doing his best Elliott Smith impression. An entirely depressing story about two people who stay together because they know no better (”I just put up with you / Kid, I stayed because you wouldn’t leave”). I don’t know if it’s supposed to be positive or not when Blake describes this time as “It was love / Or at least the closest I got”, but it certainly doesn’t seem that way even if it’s supposed to be.

MP3 Elliott Smith - Happiness (expired) (Figure 8, 2000)
A nice segueway here from a man who sounds like Elliott Smith to Smith himself. I don’t really know what ‘Happiness’ is actually about, and it’s far too easy to shout “suicide” or “broken relationships” or whatever at it. I guess it doesn’t really matter given the song itself, and it’s certainly not hard to believe how real the emotion behind “all I want now is happiness for you and me” when Elliott is the one singing.

MP3 The Rakes - Retreat (expired) (Capture/Release, 2005)
It’s easy to proclaim that The Rakes sound like every other British band of the past couple of years, but out of the recent batch of “common people” bands, they are the one that I enjoy the most. A song about trying to strike that balance between not wasting your life but also keeping a social life, we never do really know whether the narrator decides to “retreat” or “go out for the fifth night in a row”. I’d hazard a guess that he’s heading down to the club just once more though. It’s a theme that The Rakes often return to, particularly in their awesome “Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)”.

MP3 Pavement - Rattled By The Rush (expired) (Wowee Zowee, 1995)
We’ll conclude with a Pavement classic today, from their often overlooked ‘Wowee Zowee’ album. If I’m honest, it was probably the last Pavement album that I learnt to enjoy, but upon doing so, I discover a whole bunch of gems, including this one. It’s probably the most accessible song on the album while still remaining as unique as most of their recordings. I’m not going to try and assign reason to it, although Malkmus has implied that it’s about marriage in interviews, which kind of fits, so I’m not going to argue with that. Thinking about it, I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s the fun of songs like this that I find lacking in Malkmus’ solo material and why it doesn’t end up doing very much for me. Kind of a random tangent I know, but it’s something to consider.

That’s all for tonight. On an entirely non-musical related note, if you get a chance to see Sarah Silverman’s Jesus Is Magic, make sure that you do. It’s just about the funniest, most offensive thing that I’ve seen in a very long time.

Below you’ll find the perfect example of why it isn’t a great idea to insult bands on Myspace. Blake Sennett of The Elected takes time to hit back at one such person rather publicly. It’s pretty much a flimsy excuse to see how well embedded video works on this thing, but go with it, it’s highly amusing.

I can also pull a second flimsy excuse from this post, in that I’m going to talk about Blake for a bit. The poor guy is always going to be “the other one” in Rilo Kiley when next to Jenny Lewis, meaning he doesn’t get a fraction of the attention that she does. Which is really quite a shame given how talented the guy is. His songs within Rilo Kiley always seemed to go unnoticed next to Lewis’ tracks, but now thankfully he has an outlet for his own material through The Elected.

As such, I now present a brief retrospective of the career of Blake Sennett. I’ll skip out on the child acting part of it and go straight to the music, starting with the godawful Steve (just to show how people improve) right through to my favourite from this years new Elected album. Enjoy.

MP3 Rilo Kiley - Steve (expired) (from Self-titled EP, 1999)
MP3 Rilo Kiley - Small Figures In A Vast Expanse (expired) (from Take Offs & Landings, 2001)
MP3 Rilo Kiley - So Long (expired) (from The Execution Of All Things, 2002)

MP3 The Elected - Greetings In Braille (from Me First, 2004)
MP3 The Elected - Go On (from Me First, 2004)
MP3 The Elected - Not Going Home (from Sun, Sun, Sun, 2006)
MP3 The Elected - It Was Love (expired) (from Sun, Sun, Sun, 2006)

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