At The Barbecue: Best Music Of ’08 (So Far)

Jennifer Kirk: I actually have two albums that I have listened to non-stop since their release (or more since I picked them up at my favorite record store, Grimey’s). The only similarities I have found between the artists is their proximity to the New York/Canada border and the fact that I get to see both at Bonnaroo for the first time. My musical tastes are always dependant upon my mood, and this has helped me throughout the years to develop a deep affinity for multiple genres, bands, and sometimes escape the pigeon hole of “I only listen to jambands.” So without further ado..here are The Felice Brothers and Chromeo.

This album starts out with a bang — literally. Frankie’s Gun! is one of those great tracks you can sing along with after hearing only twice, and then you can listen to it over and over and over again. It’s what I would consider to be one of my ‘road trip’ songs, you know the type of song that you play in your car on a beautiful sunny spring day, with the windows down, sun roof open, and your shades down (of course). Eventually you’ll find yourself screaming right along with the “BANG, BANG, BANG!” section at the top of your lungs while rolling along the country side. Try it out for a spin or two, I think you might like it.

Trouble Been Hard is the next track on the album – and a very depressing one at that. My favorite line has to be “and if the law don’t find us, lord the devil will.” The album flows along with great story telling in the next three tracks Ruby Mae, Radio Song, and Helen Fry (She’s A Master of Disguise). The album then goes on to cover a few choice topics like Whiskey In My Whiskey, Oxycontin, and Where’d You Get the Liquor. Finally, the album ends with gritty cover of the classic Glory, Glory and the ending is a little well, funny. Over the course of the album you’ll discover the Felice Brothers to be a nice mixture of the Band with Bruce Springsteen as the front man.

Next up is the two-step punch of Chromeo. I first discovered Chromeo on Thanksgiving weekend in 2006. I was in Atlanta to see the String Cheese Incident at the Fox Theatre for what was my last Cheese shows. After the first night a hotel neighbor brought over their first effort, She’s In Control, and as soon as the first track started a dance party ensued in our small hotel room and eventually spilled out onto the balcony and into the hallway. Naturally, I picked up the album upon my return to Nashville. I was nothing short of excited when I heard of their album Fancy Footwork and like She’s in Control it does not disappoint. Chromeo is one of those bands that I imagine myself roller-skating to back in the 1980’s complete with a disco ball and some Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie taboot. Each track flows in and out of each other with ease. My favorite tracks include: Tenderoni, Fancy Footwork, Outta Sight, Momma’s Boy and the last track 100%. I, for one, cannot wait to have a late-night dance party with my best friends and Chromeo as the background music. It’ll be like the silent disco – only better.

Rupert: Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight

There’s a turning point the first time you listen to this album. While it all sounds appealing from the get go, it doesn’t hook you in until the line, “It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm” on Keep Yourself Warm. After that, the drums and distortion kick in and you’re initiated. From then on, it’s onto a couple weeks of favorite song after favorite song, presumably in this order: Keep Yourself Warm, Floating In the Forth, I Feel Better, Good Arms Vs. Bad Arms, and then Old Old Fashioned. For the obligatory comparison, it’s a more daring Counting Crows with the Killers guitar drive. The versatility of the songsmithing really separates this album as they maneuver a wide variety of sounds and often patiently leave room for pretty acoustic instrumental segments. The only complaint is the lyrics don’t always work, sounding preachy and contrived at times – rarely though. I wouldn’t be surprised if this stays at the top of my list come December.

Chad Berndtson:

Album of the year so far? Hmm, lots of directions to go here—I’m loving the one-two punch from the unclassifiable brilliance of Jenny Scheinman, totally floored by the Roots (they’ve finally made the whip crack, end-to-end disc they’ve been promising us for, like, a decade), and I’ve been drinking My Morning Jacket’s whiskey-flavored Kool-Aid since long before it was fashionable, so why stop now, regardless of what Pitchfork thinks of Evil Urges?

But the disc that’s been really blowing my skirt to Monroe-like heights is Red of Tooth and Claw by the Indiana band Murder By Death. There is your garden variety gothic, terror-filled country punk, and there are these characters, who in their present incarnation combine a cello, hard-galloping tempos, and a singer who’ll be dogged by Nick Cave and Johnny Cash comparisons for the rest of his career, and why should we hold that against him?

Every song’s a keeper—this is a soundtrack or backdrop to some kind of fucked up, end-of-the-world saloon and Quentin and Rodriguez are probably mining it already for their next hipster pastiche. The final song, Spring Break 1899, is an off-the-rails lament at waltz tempo that’s as sickly hilarious as it its graphic and self-destructive. To these ears it’s the best defiant-yet-resigned, “Yeah, I’ll have another drink and go fuck yourself” song since Cave’s own Lay Me Low. For real.

Scott Bernstein:

My favorite album of the first half of ’08 is a release that caught the music industry by surprise. Everyone may have known The Raconteurs were in the studio, but no one expected them to skip the whole “sit on an album and promote it for six months” step.

Consolers of the Lonely captured my full attention from the opening lick of the title track to the final bluesy chords of Carolina Drama. Some friends & I were driving back from an Umphrey’s show in Sayreville when I heard this disc for the first time. Each song was a revelation and showed off the many wonderful shades of The Raconteurs’ music. I haven’t gone more than 72 hours without hearing this disc since that trip.

Chilly Jackwater:

I like ’em old. Yeah, you read that right, sicko. OLD. I’ll take Teri Hatcher over Kristin Cavallari. Diane Lane over Micha Barton. Hell, I’d take Helen Mirren over most of The Hills’ cast. Sure, every now and again young talent will come along and capture my attention, but it’s been a few years since that’s really happened. And I’ve tried. Lord help me, I’ve tried. But your Cavallaris, your Bartons…for me, they just don’t hold a candle to the women of record store posters past: Kathy Ireland, Elle McPherson, and, the Babe Ruth of her time, Heather Thomas. So what the hell am I talking about?

You see, I love the hip and the hop music from the late ’80s and early ’90s. DJs from that era – DJ Premier, Terminator X, Eric B, etc. – crafted their classic tunes from beats originally laid down by funk’s pioneers. While I’m sure you’re all very familiar with James Brown, The Meters, and P-Funk, there are hundreds of other acts whose work is equal to – if not better than – the more famous artists of the so-called Butter Funk Era (roughly 1967-1974). One of those is Baby Huey & The Babysitters. James “Baby Huey” Ramey’s fusion of funk and rock caught the attention of legends like Donny Hathaway and Curtis Mayfield. But because of the all-too-common story of “heroin addiction+band friction=lead singer death by overdose,” the band recorded just one album called The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend. But man is it awesome. Beats from this record have been used by Tribe Called Quest, Ice Cube, and Ghostface Killah, among others.

Now as a general rule, the old funk albums from which some of hip hop’s best beats (and Phish covers, for that matter) are culled from, have one – maybe two – good tracks and five smooth R&B cuts that would make Color Me Badd cringe. (In re: Phish covers, I dare you to get through Deodato’s record that includes 2001 without punching someone in the face.) But not The Baby Huey Story. Every tune on it is a full-on funk and soul party the way it was meant to be. The funk hits right off the bat with Listen To Me and Mama Get Yourself Together. On top of that, with his everyman’s gospel-tinged voice and “lead-singer-of Foreigner”-style shrills, it’s clear that Ramey was probably one hell of a front man. Sure, he slows it down a bit, but he does so to cover Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come. And he nails it, topping it off with a vocal rap about all the crap he’s gone through in his life: drugs, poverty, and everything else that true bluesmen have had to unfortunately endure in order to make great music. But on the next track, Mighty Mighty, we’re reminded that Baby Huey was all about the party. Simply put, this track is like classic Meters on whatever it was Trey was taking on 11/22/97.

So if you’re into that old funk, but are a little tired of the same old stuff the wookies like to jam when they’re trying to look like they’re down, check out Baby Huey.

Shane Handler:

Drive By Truckers – Brighter Than Creations Dark – 19 songs hard living and hard rocking songs that will make Jim Beam or Jack Daniels your new best friend.

Some Dude:

This was really a no-brainer from me, as the self-titled release from those Ivy League indie-prepsters Vampire Weekend has easily been my favorite album of the year so far. While they may be one of the more polarizing acts, their album is absolutely infectious and the one that I’ve gone back to more then any other. There has already been so much written about these guys (including myself), and about their mix of Graceland-era Paul Simon meets the Talking Heads meets The Police that you’ve probably already formed an opinion about their music without ever even hearing it.

I won’t waste my time extolling the virtues of this album, but if you don’t think that Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, Campus and Walcott aren’t some of the catchiest tunes around I don’t think we can be friends.

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17 Responses

  1. “I’ll take…Diane Lane over Micha Barton.”

    WTF are you talking about Chilly? ZOMG!

    good list, other than those disturbing comments. listening now.

  2. it doesn’t come out until tomorrow, but the new sigur ros album has had me headphoning like a fiend for the last 2 weeks

  3. “the joker said on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 11:13 am
    “I’ll take…Diane Lane over Micha Barton.”
    WTF are you talking about Chilly? ZOMG!
    good list, other than those disturbing comments. listening now.”

    You’re insane, Joker. Lane’s a vision, and trumps someone like Barton any day. Barton wasn’t even the prettiest girl on her old show!

    On topic, I just can’t get enough of Consolers of the Lonely. That, and the new Girl Talk, will get me through much of the summer.

  4. Stephen Malkmus…anyone? You do rembember that record, right? If so, then you probably recall how much it ripped. But then again, of course it ripped. Why? Because it’s the best freaking record released this year!

  5. My Morning Jacket, no doubt, masterpiece. Drive By Truckers, if they could have trimmed that to 14 songs, it would have been even better, me thinks.

    And how about

    Marco Benevento (Invisible Baby)
    Vetiver (Thing Of The Past)
    Black Crowes (Warpaint)
    Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey (Lil Tae Rides Again)
    Howlin’ Rain (Magnificent Fiend)
    Gary Louris (Vagabond)

    I just surprised myself at how good this year’s been!

  6. gleam, some killer inclusions with both the Gary Louris and the Vetiver. Did you happen to catch any dates on that tour? A dreamy night of kind, kind country and folk-rock for sure.

  7. “My Morning Jacket, no doubt, masterpiece.”

    Evil Urges would, easily, be near the top of my list, but for what I’ll call The Guyute Effect, whereby one song that is either clearly misplaced or should have been left off an album entirely damages the integrity and cohesiveness of that album.
    Highly Suspicious is NOT a good tune, and doesn’t fit the album at all. It should have been deleted for the betterment of the collection

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