end of the year as we know it
So I have to say, I’m pretty excited about eMusic’s year-end package this year. Here’s what we’ve got hitting the site over the course of the next few weeks:
* Our time-proven user and writer polls — the results of which are kind of surprising (particularly the top two choices in the critics poll, one of which — shame on me! — I actually haven’t listened to yet). No spoilers, but I will say that the user poll convinced me to, at long last, give a listen to the Okkervil River record. All I’ll say is: I shouldn’t have slept on that one for so long.
* A ‘Year in Metal’ piece written by Scott Seward of Decibel Magazine. I love metal dearly, and feel like so many of eMusic’s great metal albums get overlooked. Scott did a great job of rounding up the best metal albums of the year, and includes picks from each of metal’s great, terrifying subgenres.
* A ‘Year in Reissues’ piece by Michaelangelo Matos, freelancer extraordinaire (and former eMusic Managing Editor). Michaelangelo also dug through the catalog to surface some great titles that might have otherwise slipped through the cracks.
* A ‘Year in Hip-Hop’ piece by columnist Hua Hsu, highlighting eMusic’s other great, untapped resource: indie hip-hop.
* Interviews! We have a great batch of interviews that span the genres — from classical to jazz to plain old indie rock. You’ll hear how one of 2007s biggest stars began the year in obscurity, why one artist thinks his band is the best live act around and how one of the year’s most beloved records almost didn’t get made (to quote: “After eleven months of working on this record, I only had lyrics done for two songs. I know that caused a lot of tension and a lot of fear and anxiety in the band. I know [our guitarist] was, towards the end, a little out of his mind. He was honestly wondering, “Do we have a record here?”)
* We asked our 12 columnists to champion one record they felt was ignored even by fans of independent music, and turned the results into a Dozen called “Overlooked Albums of 2007.”
* And last (but certainly not least), electronic guru Philip Sherburne is assembling a Dozen of the year’s best electronic singles.
We tried to go broad genre and personality-wise this year, and I really hope you enjoy getting to read a little more about the stories behind some of the year’s notable albums. I’ve lately adopted as a mantra a comment made in our user poll by DrNick: “A band I’d never heard of made an album I can’t stop listening to.” That, to me, is eMusic in a nutshell, and was one of the most inspiring things I’d read all year.
The Okkervil River record: Really? It’s that good?
I bought their last disc, way back when, and really loved one song — “Black,” I think, which was heartbreaking — but the rest of the disc had such a limited, drab sound that I decided to pass on the new one. Maybe I’ll have to reconsider. Let me try it another way: If I didn’t like the last disc much, am I wasting my time with the new disc?
You know, it’s hard to say. I’ve actually never really heard anything they’ve done before — I listened once to their very first record and intensely disliked it. Ever since then, I’d just assumed that they were standard, boilerplate indie rock, which I tend not to like. What surprised me most about this one was both the lyrics and the sonic dynamics. Here’s a good gauge: download only the first song and “Plus Ones.” If you like those, take a chance on the others. If not, take a pass.
Okkervil River are my new favourite band I have to say and if I had not missed the deadline for the eMusic picks of the year that would have been my number 1.
By far.
You sum it up well Joe, “lyrics and sonic dynamics”, and the later not just with the instruments but the lead vocalists vocals and passion really get me every time.
Disappointing there is no reggae/world music round up. I also love eMusic for the reggae catalogue and Blood & Fire records. Yabby You and Culture have been some of my other finds this year.
Great tip for next year’s package — I’ll definitely be sure to include one. I will say this: a world music (for lack of a better term) record placed verrrry highly on the writer poll…
Joe: I hope the “world music” disc you’re talking about is the one from Tinariwen (not the one from Gogol Bordello!).
Mr.B: I love Blood & Fire, too. I’ve downloaded about 25 of its releases from eMusic. But the company is in deep, deep trouble. It may not survive (indeed, it’s my understanding that, as of mid-summer 2007, it was dormant, and could only be saved by a white knight coming to its financial rescue). So you may want to grab the BAF discs here while you can. There’s a thread on the eMusic forums about this, too.
I heard the same thing about Blood & Fire. I’m freaking out a little bit about that, and grabbing as many of the titles as I can.
Daniel, I love The Stage Names as much as I disliked Black Sheep Boy. Seeing them live in September was icing on the cake. I now get the hype. (But I still don’t like Black Sheep Boy that much.)
Mr B, I agree–Okkervil is all about the passion (see For Real on Black Sheep Boy). The thing that really gets me about The Stage Names–the album and the tour–is that the passion is as visceral as ever, but it’s also somehow more controlled. In a good way. Passionately polished? That said, some of my favorite Okkervil songs are older–off of Down the River of Golden Dreams. Namely, It Ends With a Fall and Blanket & Crib. Sigh. The lyrics get me every time.
Checking Okkervil River’s new stuff out now. I dunno. It’s a big step up from the “standard, boilerplate indie rock” (that’s such a good description, Joe) of Black Sheep Boy. But it’s still a bit paint-by-numbers indie rock for me (which I can love or hate, depending on circumstance) and the singer’s voice is a hurdle for me. I’m going to let this one simmer a while before deciding whether to get it.
On a different subject, while I totally understand why they would do so, I hope eMusic’s writers don’t limit their year-end best-of lists to only those discs that are available on eMusic. As it happens, most of what I discovered and loved this year came from eMusic, but I’m also interested in hearing what eMusic writers have to say about some of the great stuff released in 2007 that, regrettably, isn’t available on eMusic, e.g., Low’s “Drums and Guns,” Wilco’s “Sky Blue Sky,” The Field’s “From Here We Go Sublime,” Rihanna’s “Good Girl Gone Bad,” and so forth.
You know, funny you should mention that — I’ve been thinking we should do our “All-Inclusive” lists on 17 Dots. The way eMusic itself is set up we can’t really feature records we don’t carry, but I’ll definitely ask our writers if they want to send over lists that combine eMu and non-eMu titles. I’m sure Todd & Yancey have similar lists. And I’d love to see your lists, too.
I love a lot of that Rihanna record, too, and I thought that Low record was really overlooked — so dark! so good!
other non-eMu records that made my cut: Miranda Lambert, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend; Paramore, Riot! and Against Me! New Wave. I’ll start a new post above this and see if, in the words of the great Carl Weathers, we can “get a stew on.”
“so many of eMusic’s great metal albums get overlooked”
You’re not kidding. :^/
The picture made me think of the Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende. What would be his favourite song of 2007?
I should point out to the folks disappointed in no reggae/world music round up that the reissues piece is very heavily slanted that way.
Okkervill is good. Not good enough to make it on my top 10 list, but I’m listening to it again this morning and I can see it growing on me. I have given it quite a few chances already, though.
More than anything on the Okkervill album, I like the duet Sheff does on The Mendoza Line’s “Aspect of an Old Maid.” There’s some intensity. Too bad Mendoza Line’s album nosedives pretty quickly after that song – just can’t get into it past the first 3 songs. Must have something to do with the vocals.