And That’s It

One last post here, kids. Yup, Revolutions Per Minute is shutting its doors. Fear not, however, the blog will continue its life (sort of) over at Heccubus.Blog, where I will be continuing to muse about music irregularly. In the meantime, please feel free to (finally) take a look at my Best Albums of 2008 list. This one was a seriously tough call, and a lot of really great albums were left out in the process. Check out the list here, and feel free to check out the following honourable mentions as well:

• Blood Red Shoes – Box Of Secrets
• Brian Eno & David Byrne – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
• Disfear – Live the Storm
• Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
• Girls In Hawaii – Plan Your Escape
• Hair Police – The Certainty of Swarms
• The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
• The Kills – Midnight Boom
• Nachtmystium – Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1
• The Walkmen – You & Me

So long, everyone. Be sure to update your bookmarks and keep reading over at heccubus.com. It’s been real.
-Heccubus

Anticipating 2009

While I work on polishing off the last of my Best of 2008 list, I’ve compiled a fairly cohesive list of most of the stuff coming out this year that I’m excited about. If I miss anything, or you have any additional recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments:

• A.C. Newman – Get Guilty
• …And You Willl Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – The Century Of Self
• Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
• Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion*
• Annie – Don’t Stop
• Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light*
• Art Brut – Art Brut Vs. Satan
• Asobi Seksu – Hush
• Black Lips – 200 Million Thousand
• Bruce Springsteen – Working On A Dream
• Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – Advance Base Battery Life
• Dälek – Gutter Tactics*
• Dan Deacon – Bromst
• The Decemberists – The Hazards Of Love
• Deftones – Eros
• Fever Ray – ???
• Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
• Goblin Cock – Come With Me If You Want To Live
• Handsome Furs – Face Control
• Jay Reatard – ???
• The Juan MacLean – The Future Will Come
• Kid Sister – Dream Date
• KTL – IV
• Mastodon – Crack The Skye
• Matt & Kim – Grand
• Morrissey – Years Of Refusal
• MSTRKRFT – Fist Of God
• Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
• The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
• Patrick Wolf – Battle
• The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die
• Röyksopp – Junior
• Six Organs Of Admittance – RTZ*
• Sonic Youth – ???
• Swan Lake – Enemy Mine
• Thunderheist – Thunderheist
• Thursday – Common Existence
• Wavves – Wavves
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs – ???

* Indicates that I already own this album.

The Worst Albums of 2008

It’s that time of year again; the time of year when I start running through my collection of albums released in the past 12 months to come up with a couple of lists that no one could possibly care about. First up this year is my picks for my least-favourite and most-hated albums of 2008.
Click here to view.

WARNING:
The above list is likely to offend people who aren’t comfortable enough with their own tastes to realize that other people may feel differently. If you have a hard time accepting that not everyone agrees with your taste in music, you probably shouldn’t read it.

An Issue Addressed

Y’know, for all the ragging on Pitchfork that people seem to take so much joy in, I honestly have to say that if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have the taste in music that I do. That website alone has introduced me to more music than any other source that I’ve ever used in discovering new artists. Just today, they turned me on to a band that I can’t believe I’ve gone so long without: The Gaslight Anthem. The list of musicians that I’ve discovered purely through coverage on that website is too long to really get into here, and would likely take me days to compile.
I can admit that their reviews are a little….pointless at times. Certainly there are a select few writers there that have a tendency to drone on endlessly about an album without really saying anything worth noting, but I don’t necessarily think that all of the content follows that suit. My point basically is this: it’s just a music website. If you really think it’s worth your time to sit and bitch endlessly about it, then you probably don’t serve much of a useful role on this planet.

Things I Cannot Stop Listening To

Okay, at least give me credit for trying to get back into a regular update schedule. Once in a while when I don’t really have that much to say opinion-wise, I’m going to do this little thing where I just list off a bunch of stuff that I really, really like right now. This week–hell, this month, this year, this everything–I am obsessed with:

Mariah Carey – “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time (Designer Drugs Remix)”
Okay, seriously, Designer Drugs. Can you guys like…fuck off? You’re too damned good at what you do. Every remix is a killer, every original track just pounds the shit out of everything else I get into when they drop. You’re literally killing my entire collection of mixes just by existing. By simply not ceasing to exist, you force me–force me–to include you in every single mixtape that I throw together. Stop it. Just fucking stop it. Do one shitty track. Just one, enough to make me stop thinking of you two as some sort of terrifying dancefloor gods.

Deerhunter – Microcastle
Every album that Deerhunter release just gets better and better. I mean, okay, their debut Turn It Up Faggot was pretty lousy. I mean, really lousy. But then last year they plunked Cryptograms down in front of me and said “Eat it, bitch” and I was hooked. Microcastle heads for a more straightforward pop sound without losing the band’s noisier edge. Absolutely one of the year’s best albums.

Mansion
No particular track (no albums yet either), just…Mansion. Their music is like old-school house music blended with the current trend of harder electro and fidget sounds. They single-handedly saved MSTRKRFT’s “Bounce” from becoming a tired, over-used mix staple into a truly bouncy (see what I did there? Wokka wokka wokka.) house track that comes close to surpassing the original. They did this, of course, by eliminating most of N.O.R.E.’s questionable rhymes, while retaining the bulk of Thunderheist leading lady Isis’ woefully uncredited vocal contributions. And speaking of Thunderheist…

Thunderheist
Expect the mighty VanHeisten to make an appearance on every single one of these lists for the conceivable future. I can’t get enough of these kids, and their recently released “Jerk It” EP is probably one of my favorite dance records of the year. So fucking good.

Tim and Eric – Awesome Record, Great Songs
As a big fan of “Tom Goes To The Mayor” and “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” you can imagine my excitement when I found out that they’d released an album compiling almost all of the music from the latter. Having a hard copy of “Sports!”, “I Sit Down When I Pee”, “Time Travel”, “Here She Comes”, “Beaver Boys”, and “Pizza Boy” (sung by the imitable and awesome David Cross) makes it one of the oddest things I could possibly call one of my favourite albums of the year. And it is. It’s just that awesome. Plus the bonus stuff tacked onto the end is, at least for the time being, a rather neat novelty. Especially the tracks featuring The Shins and Built To Spill, and the remix of “One For Pep Pep” by… Flying Lotus!?

AC Slater – Jack Got Jacked
Sampling the house classic “Can You Feel It?” by Mr. Fingers, “Jack Got Jacked” takes its source material’s instantly recognizable vocal part and turns it into a hard-hitting “fuck you” you dance music elitists. Where Mr. Fingers’ original featured a lengthy spoken word vocal that came to be considered the very definition of house music, New York DJ AC Slater turns it into a simple, short snarl:

“In the beginning, there was Jack, and Jack had a groove–”
*sound of several gunshots*
“Fuck Jack. Jack got jacked.”

Couple that with the driving, heavy-handed instrumental, and you have what is absolutely one of the year’s best individual dance tracks.

Santogold – “Creator”
It took me a while to really “get” Santogold. This track was what finally did me in, and won me over to her side. Twisting dubstep, dancefloor bangers and her intense (and at times, slightly bizarre) vocals into a hefty, sharp-toungued cocktail of awesome. That said, however, I am still sort of stuck on what to say about the rest of her self-titled solo debut.

Well Well Well…

With the multitude of crazy crap that I have going on, I seem to have forgotten about this little thing…  Well anyway, there’s a reason I’m writing here today.

As autumn begins to trudge onward toward its latter half, that means that it is time for me to begin going over all of the albums I’ve acquired in 2008 and start working out my list of the best, the worst, the underrated gems, and whatever other random crap I manage to make lists of. Now in years past, this was a daunting enough task as it is. However, this year I’ve managed to build up a list of about 300 (and counting) albums released this year alone. So far I’ve picked out 26 releases that I have temporarily dubbed “Good”, 29 that I’m calling “Bad” and then…well the rest I either need to come to a decision on or actually get around to listening to. So, if you want to maybe track what I’m listening to, and have yet to listen to, you can check out this page right here, which I will be keeping updated as I sort through everything and decide on what I think of it. The actual lists won’t be coming around until January or so, but until then, watch the 2008 page and maybe start a betting pool on what you think I’ll be ultimately choosing as my best and worst albums of the year!

Say, Then…

“…how much do you have to listen to, there?” This is the question I was asked after posting that last article on here outlining my favorite albums of the year so far. So, to the person who asked me, don’t say you weren’t warned:

• Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. – Recurring Dream and Apocalypse of Darkness
• Alina Orlova – Laukinis šuo dingo
• Anthony Braxton – Quartet (GTM) 2006
• Atmosphere – When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
• Averse Sefira – Advent Parallax
• Azeda Booth – In Flesh Tones
• Bauhaus – Go Away White
• Be Your Own Pet – Get Awkward
• Beck – Modern Guilt
• Black Devil Disco Club – Eight Oh Eight
• The Black Dog – Radio Scarecrow
• The Black Ghosts – The Black Ghosts
• The Black Keys – Attack & Release
• Black Pus – Black Pus 4: All Aboard the Magic Pus
• Bloc Party – Intimacy
• Blood on the Wall – Liferz
• Bodies of Water – A Certain Feeling
• Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Lie Down in the Light
• Brazilian Girls – New York City
• The Breeders – Mountain Battles
• Brendan Canning – Something for All of Us…
• Calexico – Carried to Dust
• Cansei de Ser Sexy (CSS) – Donkey
• Cat Power – Jukebox
• Clinic – Do It!
• Conor Oberst – Conor Oberst
• Constantines – Kensington Heights
• The Cool Kids – The Bake Sale
• Crystal Stilts – Crystal Stilts
• Cult of Luna – Eternal Kingdom
• The Dandy Warhols – Earth to the Dandy Warhols
• Dead Child – Attack
• Dead Meadow – Old Growth
• Deadbird – Twilight Ritual
• Del tha Funkee Homosapien – Eleventh Hour
• Delays – Everything’s the Rush
• Destroyer – Trouble in Dreams
• Dirty Pretty Things – Romance at Short Notice
• DiskJokke – Staying In
• DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist – The Hard Sell
• The Dodos – Visiter
• Don Caballero – Punkgasm
• Eat Skull – Sick to Death
• The Faint – Fasciinatiion
• Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
• Flying Lotus – Los Angeles
• Foals – Antidotes
• Foxboro Hot Tubs – Stop Drop and Roll!!!
• French Kicks – Swimming
• The Futureheads – This Is Not the World
• The Game – LAX
• Gnarls Barkley – The Odd Couple
• Grails – Take Refuge in Clean Living
• The Gutter Twins – Saturnalia
• Hair Police – The Certainty of Swarms
• The Harpeth Trace – On Disappearing
• Harvey Milk – Life… The Best Game in Town
• Have a Nice Life – Deathconsciousness
• Hawksley Workman – Between the Beautifuls
• Hayden – In Field & Town
• The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
• The Horror The Horror – Wired Boy Child
• Human Bell – Human Bell
• Human Highway – Moody Motorcycle
• Islands – Arm’s Way
• Jaguar Love – Take Me to the Sea
• Jandek – The Myth of Blue Icicles
• Joan of Arc – Boo! Human
• John Zorn – The Dreamers
• Jon Mueller – Metals
• Justus Köhncke – Safe and Sound
• The Kills – Midnight Boom
• Krallice – Krallice
• KRS-One – Maximum Strength Two Thousand Eight
• Ladytron – Velocifero
• The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement
• Leviathan – Massive Conspiracy Against All Life
• Lindstrøm – Where You Go I Go Too
• The Long Blondes – Couples
• Made Out of Babies – The Ruiner
• The Magnetic Fields – Distortion
• Mates of State – Re-Arrange Us
• Matmos – Supreme Balloon
• Matthew Sweet – Sunshine Lies
• Mercury Rev – Snowflake Midnight
• Meshuggah – obZen
• Mike Patton – A Perfect Place
• Mogwai – The Hawk Is Howling
• Motörhead – Motörizer
• Mudcrutch – Mudcrutch
• Mudhoney – The Lucky Ones
• My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges
• N.E.R.D. – Seeing Sounds
• Nachtmystium – Assassins: Black Meddle Pt. 1
• Nas – Untitled
• Neon Neon – Stainless Style
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
• Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I-IV
• Nine Inch Nails – The Slip
• No Age – Nouns
• Nortt – Galgenfrist
• Ocrilim – Annwn
• Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping
• Thee Oh Sees – The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In
• Thee Oh Sees – Thee Hounds of Foggy Notion
• Okkervil River – The Stand Ins
• Opeth – Watershed
• Oppenheimer – Take the Whole Midrange and Boost It
• Patti Smith & Kevin Shields – The Coral Sea
• Phantom Planet – Raise the Dead
• Poni Hoax – Images of Sigrid
• Ponytail – Ice Cream Spiritual
• Pop Levi – Never Never Love
• The Presidents of the United States of America – These Are the Good Times People
• Protest the Hero – Fortress
• Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line
• Re-Up Gang – Clipse Presents: Re-Up Gang
• Retribution Gospel Choir – Retribution Gospel Choir
• RZA – Digi Snacks
• Sam Sparro – Sam Sparro
• Shai Hulud – Misanthropy Pure
• Sigur Rós – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
• Skullflower – Desire for a Holy War
• Sload – Parallel Play
• Snoop Dogg – Ego Trippin’
• Spark Is A Diamond – Try This on for Size
• Spiritualized – Songs in A&E
• Ssion – Fool’s Gold
• Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Real Emotional Trash
• Stephen O’Malley & Attila Csihar – 6°Fskyquake
• The Stills – Oceans Will Rise
• Strategy – Music for Lamping
• Sun Kil Moon – April
• {{{Sunset}}} – Bright Blue Dream
• {{{Sunset}}} – The Glowing City
• The Sword – Gods of the Earth
• Tapes ‘n Tapes – Walk It Off
• These New Puritans – Beat Pyramid
• This Will Destroy You – This Will Destroy You
• Tokyo Police Club – Elephant Shell
• Torche – Meanderthal
• Truckasauras – Tea Parties, Guns and Valor
• Underoath – Lost in the Sound of Separation
• Vampire Hands – Me and You Cherry Red
• Venetian Snares – Detrimentalist
• The Verve – Forth
• The Walkmen – You & Me
• Why? – Alopecia
• Wiley – Grime Wave
• Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
• Zach Hill – Astrological Straits

So I have some listening to do.