—The Voices
TOP ALBUMS OF 2011
And so, we’ve reached the end of the year, and it’s time for the annual roundup of the year’s albums. This year’s total number came out to 46, for some reason. We’ll be counting down the albums to number one this whole month.
22. Outlandish Scandals - Soft Powers
Soft Powers might be the best band you’ve never heard of. They’ve released a few things over the past year or two, and most of it has been drastically different from what preceded it: you can tell just from listening to their excellent Bad Pop EP, and part of their Baby Blue House Sessions. There’s really no continuity here except for awesome tracks, and that was evident in even the band’s earliest moments. Bad Pop exhibits a certain level of raw power that probably comes from lackluster recording, but those tunes clicked, particularly “Just Like Tropica-L” and the opener “Moon Culture.” Those songs were so catchy that it was surprising no one had written them before, and for a longer while you couldn’t hear me listening to nothing else. Outlandish Scandals steps up that game more than you’d ever expect, and it’s a bit scary at first. Gone are the simplistic melodies and even more simplistic set-ups, and raw power behind those original tunes has transformed into a nearly space-age power behind the songs. There’s a feeling of Fiery Furnaces’ experimentation, LCD Soundsystem’s ball-busting beats, and even Neil Diamond’s hopeless vocals. And this is all encompassed in rock-electronica, which seems almost like too much for one song. But “Blanc-Ramayana” pretty much gives it to you in its opening moments, when they occasionally let the beat drop and then pick you back up - it’s what you want dubstep fans to be listening to when they talk about awesome moments from songs.
But more than that, the album has a flow to it that you wouldn’t really expect from such a young band. Each song can stand alone as a track, but also as part of a whole - take “Bodhisattva” for example. It’s a short intro to the album, but it allows to us to understand what’s to come, the sadness implied by the tracks, and the reasoning behind what these guys want. And, of course, that leads into the energy of “Blanc-Ramayana,” which is followed by “Cuda,” maybe the best song on the album. That track makes you want to dance and lie down at the same time, and a lot of that is due to the whispering chorus backed by a twinkling computer tune - it’s pretty invigorating. “Violence” is an easier song, but one that makes you feel a little bit closer to maybe a Chad VanGaalen earlier track, in its aimlessness. And then there’s “Panic,” which pulls you right back into the feelings of “Cuda,” showing the band’s talent for writing both well-versed melodic songs and also solid jams. “1,300 Decibels” is a extravaganza which feels like a cleaned up version of a track from Bad Pop, but it’s welcome here all the same. No part of this album feels wasted or unused or like a place filler, that’s what most surprising about the band as a whole - that every track here matters. Even as we get towards the end of the album, as things fall into obscurity to a certain extent, it makes sense with the chaos that’s proceeded it, harkening back to “Bodhisattva” in terms of how an album should be put together.
Outlandish Scandals doesn’t really ask you for much, and it gives you a lot in return. It’s an easy album to like, feeling a bit like a new age version of something The Clientele might released if they stepped into a computer lab. It seems like an effortless debut, with not much feeling behind it - you’re not so worried about the guys behind it as you would be on, say, a Sufjan Stevens album, but it’s fun all the same. It might not pluck at your heart strings as much as a thought-provoking album might, but it’s a collection of well-written songs put together in a thought-provoking way. And since this is hopefully only the beginning for the group, it’s to be expected that in the future, what will come for the band is more awesome songs with an even more meaningful feel. But until then, we can enjoy Outlandish Scandals for what it gets right, and that’s some really fun tracks.
21. Channel Pressure - Ford & Lopatin
Obviously, the differences between Ford & Lopatin and Lopatin’s 180 degree project Oneohtrix Point Never is enough to get both albums on an end of the year list. Personally, I find Channel Pressure more appealing in it’s immediate listenablity, but other people tend to find it too based in eighties-noir and campiness rooted solely in feelings of nostalgia. That might be true, but Channel Pressure doesn’t laugh at itself in anyway that suggests these guys aren’t serious. In fact, the main difference between eighties music and Ford & Lopatin is that these guys got it right. Instead of being something we can watch on VHS tapes and laugh at, Channel Pressure is an ode to what is so great about that generation, and how amazing the music could have been. Comparisons to the past are obvious, and it’s obvious within the music, however Channel Pressure is much more than anything like that, and that’s why it’s such a great album. In addition to that, the songs are incredibly catchy and danceable, and Ford & Lopatin’s ability to make them this way without falling into the chasm that is popular music is a feat in its own.
Early on in their career, Ford & Lopatin had to change their name from Games to Ford & Lopatin - probably one of the most bizarre controversies in recent history - and it’s said that it was because of rapper The Game (now: Game) threatened to sue. This seems a bit extreme when thought about, that a rapper who created “Hate It Or Love It” would feel threatened by two guys with a gigantic music collection, but when you think about the possibilities that lay within Ford & Lopatin, it becomes a bit more clear. Not only are they talented musicians, remixers, samplers, and singers, they’re also good songwriters. The original single was “Emergency Room,” which essentially samples itself over and over into infinity, and a song that is just as catchy as it is interesting. It isn’t a laugh at itself or anything of the kind, and neither are the more interlude-based tracks like “Rock Center Paranoia” or “Green Fields” or even “Scumsoft,” which all add to the overall album that is larger than life. It’s an album that belongs in a pavilion, on loud speakers, on louder instruments. It’s album that’s like Daft Punk for people who are sick of Daft Punk. It’s an ode to technology that has overtaken us (look that that album cover), and the problems with it - you can hear it moments like “When I go to sleep, I leave the TV on” and “Now I’m alone and the TV’s on” and others. The whole things feels like its sick of itself, and it’s one of the best parts about the album: it’s using technology to say, “I’m sick of technology.” And for such a big comment like that, the album better deliver, and it does. When you listen to tracks like “Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me),” you become aware that these guys are both musical geniuses and guys capable of writing a dance song that you want to listen to over and over. The middle section of “Too Much MIDI” lets us into that world for a second: “They say I’m crazy, making sure these cuts are right.” And in the end, they do seem crazy, but the song are a homage to the fact that they got it right.
There might a level of overproduction to what Ford & Lopatin do, but that’s all part of it even more so. You get a song like “The Voices” and you’re expected to understand that it’s all too much while listening to a song that is musically too much. It combines the feelings of acoustic guitars with drums rights with reverb whispered voices, and the overall message is how alone we feel inside of it. And I suppose that maybe Ford & Lopatin don’t mind if you get that or not, because in the end their music is about simply making awesome songs and pushing things even more forward than before. It’s an obvious choice to create music like this - after you’ve heard Lopatin’s other stuff - but it’s a choice that’s worth it. Not only does Channel Pressure deliver you with repeat-worthy songs, it delivers you a message that you can’t turn away from, a message from musicians in a time when musicians shouldn’t be giving you messages.
