As I do each year, I'm working hard on compiling my list of top albums for the year. What is your favorite new album of 2012? Do you have any suggestions for ones I should listen to that I may have missed so far? Thanks.
Has anyone else listened to any of the new Beatles remastered vinyl releases? If so, which ones and how do they sound? In theory, I really don't like the idea that these are made from the 2009 stereo digital remasters - I'd rather have new vinyl made directly from the original analog tapes. However, there are two big advantages I see of these new vinyl releases over the 2009 stereo cd's: 1) Unlike the 2009 stereo cd's (and like the 2009 mono cd's), limiting has not been applied to boost the sound levels. 2) These are made directly from 24-bit digital remasters, so are higher resolution than the 16-bit cd's. So far I only have Abbey Road in the new vinyl format. I do think it sounds very good, and I do like it a lot more than the 2009 cd and I think I also like it a little better than the 1987 cd. I don't have a high end turntable or pre-amp like real audiophiles, but to my ears, the new vinyl version is still missing something that I hear on older pure analog records that I have. However, I don't have an older vinyl copy of Abbey Road to compare directly. Kristi's dad did have a copy that he unfortunately gave away or sold for far less than it was worth a few years ago. I've played his copy before, but it was a while ago on a different stereo, so I can't really make a good comparison.
Independent of the sound, it is somehow more fun to play music on vinyl instead of cd. I suspect I'll probably buy some of the other new Beatles stereo records, and am really looking forward to the new mono ones being available next year. I've been thinking about buying more of my new music on vinyl, especially in cases where it comes with a digital download code. Unfortunately, for a lot of new music, is seems difficult to know if the vinyl has been mastered in such a way that it may be superior to cd audio. Most all artists record digitally these days, but usually at a much higher quality than cd audio (higher sampling rate and higher bit resolution), so it is definitely possible to create vinyl that has more info than a cd, but most new records don't seem to advertise whether they are sourced from analog or digital and if from digital, what the resolution and sampling rate were.
Now is also the time of year that a lot of new and upcoming bands release new singles to get noticed for lists of "ones to watch" for the coming year. Here is a quick list of a few new bands and songs I've found interesting: "Honey" by Swim Deep (who recently toured with Spector), "Best of Friends" by Palma Violets, "California Daze" by Peace, and "Vacation" by Splashh (who also were on that tour with Spector). Have you heard any new songs by new bands that you like?
Well, I think I've almost finalized my top ten albums list of 2012. I'll post it soon.
ReplyDeleteI also purchased another of the new Beatles vinyl releases, Revolver. I like the way it sounds, though I do still prefer the mono mix of that album overall. I think I'll get Hard Day's Night next because I prefer the stereo mix of that album, but don't like the sound of the remastered stereo cd. The other ones I'd like the most are Beatles For Sale and Magical Mystery Tour. I guess really I'd like to get all of them except for Help and Rubber Soul, since they are the 80's remixes of those two albums which I don't like at all. Oh, and making a vinyl version of the Past Masters collection seems kind of dumb - instead they should have made a set of vinyl 7" singles with the original single artwork - a lot more work to reproduce all that art work, but I'd pay for it.
Speaking of vinyl records, while looking through my collection, I found a 7" by Weezer of Pork and Beans. I must have gotten it for free with a cd purchase at Gray Whale sometime, but I don't think I'd ever played it because it is on really cool translucent red vinyl, and I would have remembered that. I discovered that it has a b-side which is a cover of "Are Friends Electric" by Tubeway Army (Gary Numan). I think it is really cool. I discovered that there are also two UK vinyl releases of Pork and Beans that have two other covers - one and early REM track, and the other "Love My Way" by the Psychedelic Furs. It would be cool to find those, though I found that you can purchase a digital Pork and Beans ep from iTunes UK that has all three cover tracks, so that would be a much cheaper way to get them. Have any of you heard these Weezer cover songs? I didn't really care for their cover of that Cars song on the Cars 2 soundtrack because it didn't seem to add anything over the original, but I like these three Pork and Beans b-sides.
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear the songs. My experience with Weezer covers is that they are really fun to hear a couple of times, but that I usually prefer the original. The one exception I'm aware of is Unbreak My Heart (Toni Braxton). Here is a super fun video of the weezer version playing along with the original's music video:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB_QjLlzg5o&feature=share&list=PLED91AFE88C7010F9
Yea, Weezer's version of Unbreak My Heart is only about 10 times better than the original.
ReplyDeleteHere are my top 10 Albums for the year, counting down:
ReplyDelete10. This Many Boyfriends - s/t debut album. The first track, "Tina Weymouth" is one of the best songs ever about music obsession, with lines like "You love songs about love more than being in love in the first place." and "... these films will go away and these records they might stay, though I might be a better person when I'm without them." Lots of other fun tracks with clever lyrics.
9. The Vaccines - Come of Age. An improvement on their debut album from last year, with lots of nice songs. My favorite is "All In Vain".
8. I Like Trains - The Shallows. Apparently the theme for this album is based on a book of the same title by Nicholas Carr about how using the internet changes the patterns of our brains. Interesting topic, but the main thing is that the songs are really cool.
7. Keane - Strangeland. This is by far Kristi's favorite album of the year and I have really enjoyed it as well (though not quite as much as the six above it :)). Overall I think it has stronger tracks than their previous album "Perfect Symmetry", though for some reason I don't love it as much.
6. Citizens! - Here We Are. Produced by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, and sounding somewhat like Franz Ferdinand fronted by Andy Mccluskey (OMD), its not hard to see why I would love this album. Besides sounding awesome, it also has a lot of great songs, especially "True Romance".
5. The Heartbreaks - Funtimes. Proving that classic British guitar pop can still be new and great. My favorite track is Polly, because songs that spell out names are always fun. (Hey, that reminds me of "Ouija Board" by Morrissey.)
ReplyDelete4. The Crookes - Hold Fast. This album is full of truly great guitar sounds and songs. "American Girls" and "Sal Paradise" are my favorites, but they are all pretty great. This album is a big step forward from their 2011 debut album, which I also quite enjoyed.
3. Pet Shop Boys - Elysium. This album is not as immediate as Yes, and took a while to grow on me, but luckily I've now realized how awesome it is. The production by Andrew Dawson (who produced 808's and Heartbreaks by Kanye West) gives this album a unique sound from any previous PSB album, and they are still writing great songs.
2. Spector - Enjoy It While It Lasts. I hate to only put this album at number 2 because it is so awesome. Every track is just incredibly great. Luckily this is still Liam's most requested album when going to bed, so we still here it most nights while he goes to sleep.
1. The Killers - Battle Born. It seems that no matter what direction they go, The Killers find it near impossible to write a bad song, and pretty easy to write a lot of great ones. Some of these took a while to grow on me, and I still miss some of the immediacy that was so prevalent on Hot Fuss (and Spector's debut), but after more listening, I realized that this awesome set of songs had to earn the top spot for my year's rankings.
One exciting thing that happened today was that I was able to buy 4 tickets to a concert Friday evening in Orem at the UCCU Center. Somehow we missed getting them originally before it was sold out, but the scalper prices are dropping this week and I was able to get them for close to the original price. There are a lot available on KSL, so I wouldn't be surprised if they drop below cost before the show, but I wanted to be sure we had them. We are very excited (Maryn, Nikkail, Kristi, and I - we haven't told the boys what we are doing yet, just that their cousin Brianne is babysitting them, which they are excited about. I assume they will eventually ask what we are doing and be a bit upset that they don't get to come with, but Kristi and I decided 12 was a good minimum age for a rock concert.)
ReplyDeleteShana and I will also be there.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! (I am assuming that comment is from Kevin,rather than that Shana has been cloned :) - I just ready The Prestige where the writers often refer to themselves and I and me because there keep being two of everyone). Hopefully you have better seats than ours (section 117, so could have some sight obstruction from speakers).
ReplyDeleteWe are general admission. Either that was me or Shana has now started referring to herself in third person and is going with herself.
ReplyDeleteWe are general admission. Either that was me or Shana has now started referring to herself in third person and is going with herself.
ReplyDeleteWait, now there are two of Kevin posting. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great movie reference!
ReplyDeleteUpdate on Beatles Vinyl: I now own 4 of the albums - Abbey Road, Revolver, Beatles For Sale, and Hard Day's Night. It is completely awesome to have stereo versions of BFS and HDN without the added limiting of the 2009 CD's (the earlier 1987 versions of these two cd's were only available in mono.)
ReplyDeleteIn many ways, I think that Beatles For Sale is the best sounding Beatles album ever. This is partially explained by the fact that they started using four track recording, and with more simple arrangements than they used on later albums, not nearly as much track bouncing was needed. (Its amazing to think that Sgt. Peppers and Rubber Soul were also made with only 4 tracks, but obviously these required a lot more track bouncing. Bouncing is recording three tracks, then mixing them down onto the fourth track to open up the first three tracks - By my calculations, if you also record a new live track during the mix downs, you can get 4+3+2+1 = 10 total tracks with a max of one bounce per track. I'm pretty sure that some things would have had to have been bounced multiple times for some of the Sgt. Pepper's tracks.)
However, I've never read any good explanation for why Beatles For Sale sounds better than Help, but to me it does a little. The guitar sounds throughout the album are awesome, my very favorite example being on the Buddy Holly cover "Words Of Love". This is definitely an album I appreciated far more after getting it in stereo (it is actually the only regular album that I bought on 2009 remastered stero cd, so now I own it twice on cd (mono and stero) and once on vinyl - I also used to own the 1987 mono cd, but I sold that as it had no advantage over the 2009 mono). I definitely prefer the stereo mixes of Hard Day's Night, Beatles For Sale, and Help, especially now that I have the first two without extra limiting (which boosts the volume and ruins the sound at the same time). I still like the mono mixes better for the first two albums, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Peppers (way way better in this case), and Magical Mystery Tour.
So, I'd still like to also get the new stereo vinyl for The White Album and Let It Be.
Ranking the Weezer Albums:
ReplyDeleteMy discovery of my awesome red vinyl 7" of Pork and Beans prompted a full scale revival of Weezer listening. I've listened to all the albums again, and I found I liked some of them more and some of them less than I remembered. I'm curious how others of you who like Weezer would rank their albums? Here is my current ranked list, in order from best to least good, followed by some notes:
1. Pinkerton
2. Blue
3. Maladroit
4. Green
5. Red (Deluxe)
6. Make Believe
7. Ratitude
8. Hurley
9. Death To False Metal
Notes: On one hand it is a bit sad that none of Weezer's output from this century comes close to matching the incredible genius of their first two albums. On the other hand, such artistic greatness is rare enough that I am just thankful they made those two first albums and that they are as good as they are. Luckily for the band, you only have to make one or certainly at most two truly great albums to ensure a large fan base will forever listen to everything you release with the ever slimming but never extinguished hope that glimpses of that greatness will be seen again in your latest work.
Maladroit and Green are actually also extremely good, with their biggest flaw being only that they aren't as good as the first two albums. The Red albums is a bit of an anomaly, in that it contains both some of their best and some of the worst songs they have ever recorded. It is somewhat impossible to estimate how much better that album could have been had they replaced tracks 5, 7, 8 & 9 with the four deluxe tracks and if Rivers sang "King".
Make Believe has a lot of pretty good songs, but overall just seems to be a bit average, and then after that the most recent three albums have nothing to make me actually ever listen to them, barring the occasional need to re-evalute them to make lists like this.
Here is how I would rate them.
ReplyDelete1. Blue
2. Pinkerton
3. Red
4. Make Believe
5. Hurley
6. Green
7. Maladroit
8. Raditude
9. Death to False Metal
I tend to rank higher albums that have great songs on them even if they have other songs I skip.
Also I haven't recently done a review of all of them, that may change my ranking.
Here is how I would rate them.
ReplyDelete1. Blue
2. Pinkerton
3. Red
4. Make Believe
5. Hurley
6. Green
7. Maladroit
8. Raditude
9. Death to False Metal
I tend to rank higher albums that have great songs on them even if they have other songs I skip.
Also I haven't recently done a review of all of them, that may change my ranking.
I think you both allude to the unevenness of several Weezer Albums, so rather than rank the albums, I prefer to list my ten favorite weezer songs at this time. I do not believe my ten favorites correspond with their greatest songs, these are just the ones I happen to really like.
ReplyDelete1. Heart Songs
2. The Girl Got Hot
3. Can't Stop Partying
4. If You're Wondering...
5. Tripping Down the Freeway
6. Pink Triangle
7. Photograph
8. Only In Dreams
9. Keep Fishin'
10. Island In the Sun
Those are not in order yet. I'll work on the ordering. I think it is clear that I like Ratitude quite a bit more than Mark and Kevin. Also, I think Make Believe is a waste of time and I haven't heard Death to False Metal.
Thanks for you lists Tina and Kevin! I learned some interesting things, such as that Tina likes a lot of the songs from Raditude much more than I do and Kevin likes Maladroit much less than I do. That makes sense though given his criteria of liking albums based on great songs - to me Maladroit seems really solid throughout without really containing many really great songs except for "Slob". I tend to appreciate albums based on the overall feel and flow of the entire album. I also really like it when you can find recurring themes that tie some of the songs together.
ReplyDeleteIts harder for me to rate individual songs, as it's easy to like different things about different songs at different times. Some of my current favorite very songs by Weezer are "The Good Life", "Say It Ain't So", "El Scorcho", and "The Greatest Man Who Every Lived".
ReplyDeleteJust listened to "Lullaby For Wayne" on Dusty Gems and Raw Nuggets. That was a pretty good track - too bad they never recorded a finished version of it.
ReplyDeleteI am currently working through all The Killers music. I only listen when driving so it is taking me a little bit of time.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, this Weezer album ranking post showed up on NME.com this week:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=1&p=13080&title=weezer_rank_the_albums&more=1&c=1
This list matches mine at positions 1-3 and 5, with the biggest difference being that he, like Kevin, seems to like Hurley a lot more than I do.
I really like the new video for Miss Atomic Bomb. I love the cartoon.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great video. I hadn't had a chance to watch it yet until your post reminded me it was released this week. I really like how the cartoon turns into a re-creation of the set from the video of Mr. Brightside, and then when the cartoon characters become real, they are played by the same people as in the Mr. Brightside video. The video does a very good job of showing the song as a sequel, which was already strongly hinted at by the re-stating of the original opening guitar riff of Mr. Brightside in the bridge. Very nice!
ReplyDeleteI love the new Miss Atomic Bomb video - I keep watching it again.
ReplyDeleteI listened to the album again today and realized more then ever how religious the songs after "Miss Atomic Bomb" are. "The Rising Tide" seems to be about a personal struggle against the rising tide of anti-religious sentiment and lack of morals in our society. "The Heart Of A Girl" is a pure gospel song about prayer and getting answers. "Be Still" seems to be written by Brandon as words of encouragement to his sons as the grow up. Then the title track, while it takes its name from the Nevada state nickname, is obviously about the entire United States of America - how our society is declining but encouraging us to not give up in the fight of good vs. evil. I like the lines "Come on show your face, come on give us one more spark, sing a song of fire, lest we fall into the dark." Powerful stuff, and amazing that Brandon can fit these sentiments onto such a well selling (#3 US, #1 UK) and popular album.
I don't understand what you guys like about the Miss Atomic Bomb video. Isn't it just really sad? And it's not clear to me exactly what happens. The dancer girl cheats on him, so he doesn't propose to her, and then he imagines that she wrote him a letter, but what does the letter say?
ReplyDeleteYes, it is just really sad, but I guess I like sad stories.
ReplyDeleteI think that the video doesn't tell more of the story, not just because it is a short music video, but because the point is that there is no more story to tell. It doesn't matter what the letter said - whether it expressed regret about what happened or not - it is too late to make any difference, oh and in fact it was just imaginary. She destroyed his world, and he is stuck wishing and fantasizing for the rest of his life that things had gone differently. It hints that she doesn't end up happy either, but the story doesn't suggest any chance of redemption for the characters. It is a romantic tragedy that is beautiful in its sadness.
Reading all the online music magazine and site end-of-year best of albums lists is depressing and monotonous. There are all sorts of shades of wrong, but absolutely no one has even come close to getting it right. But luckily for us few that read this site you get my list above - of course I think its a lot better than all the others. Here are some other good 2012 albums that could help round out a nice top 20:
ReplyDeleteToy - Toy
Muse - The 2nd Law
Hives - Lex Hives
Various Cruelties - Various Cruelties
Field Music - Plumb
Hot Chip - In Our Heads
Cribs - In The Bully Of The Brazen Bull
After a lot of further listening to my favorite 2012 albums, I still feel pretty good about my top 8 above, but were revisions allowed, I'd now replace 9 and 10, both of which have really dropped in value for me. I'd put The Cribs album In The Belly of the Brazen Bull at position 9 and Some Nights by Fun at the 10th spot.
ReplyDelete