summoning willpower....

"Hello willpower, anybody there? It's me, S.Vincent, and I need you to step up the power to 11"

After my 120 album 2008 debacle, I had a small conversation with myself that went a little something like this....

"hey assface, you do that again an I'm gonna sock you in the guts"

But, today is a going to be a serious challenge for me as I clicked on over to pitchfork.com and saw that they are starting their "2008 best of's" lists including "top 100 tracks" and "top 50 albums". A brief analogy: music reviews are to me as acting like a douche is to Pete Wentz and Spencer from the Hills. One, I am going to have to supress the urge to look so as to not spoil my list, and 2) to supress the urge not to buy any albums that I don't already have. (besides the number 1 if I don't have it, that one is justifiable)

It won't be easy, but I figure it could be best to get this big test out of the way first in my "52 albums or less" campaign. Plus, times are tight with the holiday shopping season upon me, so it should be quite a bit easier to hold back.

I don't wanna get punched in the guts.

27-Flying Lotus "Los Angeles": This is a beats type album. I really enjoy it, but its electronic melodies instrumental with very few lyrics basically means that unless you are a music snob, you probably will tune this stuff out. Reminds me a lot of Aphex Twin. You can really get into the flow on this particular album, as Flying Lotus moves in really unique directions with claps, snaps, thumps. There is a really disturbing video for the song "Parisian Goldfish" that I will not assist you in finding anymore than I already have. Trust me, your life will change for the negative in this horrific 3 minutes.

26-The Walkmen "You and Me": I can't really figure out why I like this album. It should be utterly boring to me with its indeciseable sound and direction and what sounds like off-keyish vocals. But the more I hear it, the more I like it. They use an echoey effect kind of like My Morning Jacket, but at a much slower pace. There are some good highs and lows, but this is coffehouse type music as subtleties are the name of the game. They build slowly and deliberately but you never really know when they are going to come and the vocals move awkwardly up with these melodies. I know that I am not explaining anything good right now, but somehow this all works for The Walkmen, trust me. I really like "Four Provinces" and "In the New Year" these guys sound a lot like down-tempoed Peter, Bjorn, and John (if you know who they are). But this album and the next album, Wolf Parade, are pretty much equal to me. I like Wolf Parade a little bit more because it's sound is more conventional.

25-Wolf Parade "At Mount Zoomer": That is, as conventional as an independent strugglings artists can be. To tell you the truth, I don't even know why I bought this album, since I wasn't a huge fan of their 2005 release "Apologies to Queen Mary". But when you download 120 albums in a year, you obviously have a done a lot of things that you don't remember and that don't make sense. However, this one worked out better. I really enjoy this album, especially the vocal stylings of Dan Boekner and Spencer Krug. This album will growa with more listens as you get used to the warbly lyrics and the bounces back and forth between the keyboards and guitars. It's solid all the way through, but I wouldn't say there is one distinct single here. They sound a little bit like Spoon, except less structured. If I did this list over and over again, I could see this album bouncing all over anywhere from 20-30. A real solid release, and next time I download an album of theirs, I will know why I did it.

24- Black Mountain "In the Future": Ahhhh yes, a rock album. So few and far between they are these days, and this is a good one at that. I really enjoy it as a tribute to the Led Zeppelin 70's dream rock style. Wolfmother did a pretty good job at re-juvenating this genre as well. However, they cherry picked the crowd pleasers, not the whole catalogue. Black Mountains approach is the less bombastic side of Led Zep, but its still enjoyable. I especially like that the background vocals are sung by a female/male combo and it makes the whole experience feel like a walk into a country farm house filled with various road drifters telling their tales of the open road. Woe, love, exhaustion, confusion, wonder and lust. Was that artsy enough for you?

23- Brian Eno & David Byrne "Everything that Happens Will Happen Today": I must admit, I am a sucker for both of these guys. David Byrne is the lead singer for the Talking Heads, which is a very underated band, and Eno is a legendary producer and musician, including a short stint with U2 on my second favorite album by them "Achtung Baby". Their partnership goes back a long way and I couldn't even begin to elaborate on Eno's illustrious career, so I won't, but there is some serious no-debateable talent here. This partnership works uniquely in that the two work independently of each other. Eno makes the music, sends it Byrne, then Byrne melts his voice into it. If you listen closely, you can tell thats exactly what happened as the vocals and music could almost work independently of each other. Very cool. I Really Really like "Everything that Happens" "Strange Overtones" and "One Fine Day".