Adios

Future updates to ruxpintunes will be found and the new mothership blog. Adios.

OMG!

OMG the long-awaited live album Sacha Sacket and the Ladykillers Live from the Zone is out, and what's most shameful for me, has been since December 9! I hope Mr. Sacket doesn't take away my fanboy credentials for my shocking late arrival to the party. This is terribly exciting news...Really, I'm not being facetious. I am more than a little hot & bothered about this. Yes, I have a little bit of a crush. You'll have to excuse me, I'm a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourself. Here's a topic: Why can't ruxpin ever manage to make it to a live show of Sacha's despite his constant trips to L.A.?

More anon.

'tis the Season

It's that time of year, when lists are all the rage. My methodology is as follows: what does iTunes say I listened to most? What can't be right about those results (it can't be trusted)? Massage, massage. Lather, rinse, repeat. Look back at December 07 and see what carried over. Wipe away embarrassments aplenty. Massage, massage. Lather, rinse, repeat.

With no further ado, here's my top 100 tracks, 1 to 100, with comments where I have 'em:

1. Lyrics Born - Don't Change

• I still recall vividly seeing the posters pop up announcing this album in downtown San Francisco, and the visceral thrill that I felt knowing new Lyrics Born was coming. The hip-hop event of the year.
  

2. Everybody Get Dangerous - Weezer

• Yes, Weezer. Yes, it's that delightful.
  

3. Trouble's What You're In - Fink

• Fink is, simply put, the Bomb. Run, don't walk, to buy his albums.
  

4. I Will Possess Your Heart - Death Cab For Cutie
5. This Is The Thing - Fink
6. Black & Gold - Sam Sparro

• So much for preconceptions. They flew out the window when I saw the video and discovered, much to my surprise, that Mr. Sparro is a skinny little white boy. You wouldn't know it from his amazing tour de force album, deeply packed with flashes of riffs worthy of Prince, classic Michael Jackson, you name it. This kid's got mad skills.
  

7. Pocketbook (Feat. Ludacris) - Jennifer Hudson

• ...and Ms. Hudson's got mad pipes.
  

8. Being Bad Feels Pretty Good - Does It Offend You, Yeah?
9. Grace - Will Young
10. If Only - Fink
11. Brandon Boyd - Sacha Sacket

• Awesome L.A.-based musician. Not to be missed.
  

12. Will You Return? - Avett Brothers

• Granted, I'm no concert goer, but of those I've seen, the Avetts blew the roof off the joint.
  

13. Little Weapon - Bishop G/Lupe Fiasco/Nikki Jean
14. Ready For The Floor - Hot Chip

• What's not to love about quirky emotional intelligent Brit dance music? Hot Chip mopped the floor with the competition.
  

15. A&E - Goldfrapp
16. The 1 (featuring Missy Elliott) - Janet Jackson
17. Mirror - Supreme Beings of Leisure

• New Supreme Beings = Joy everlasting.
  

18. For Our Elegant Caste - Of Montreal

• The quirkiest weirdest funniest track of the year.
  

19. Spiralling - Keane

• Keane can rock! Who knew?
  

20. Viva La Vida - Coldplay
21. Long Division - Death Cab For Cutie

• This album's so deep with good tracks, you'll need your scuba gear.
  

22. Make It Good - Fink
23. Bitch Went Nuts (Doublin' version) - Ben Folds

• So our beloved Ben Folds released an EP, Doublin', full of tracks with titles matching those of his later full-length LP. But the songs while sharing names are anything but similar. I'm coming around to the LP, but the EP had me from the get-go. This was the standout track.
  

24. Shake A Fist - Hot Chip
25. Discipline - Nine Inch Nails

• Mr. Reznor celebrates freedom from his record label with a free album to his fans. And it's not some throwaway, it's the Real Deal. An approachable, hook-laden delight.
  

26. Troublemaker - Weezer
27. Blueberry Pancakes - Fink
28. Move - C.S.S.

• C.S.S. so completely owned 2008.
  

29. Baby (Feat. Betty Wright) - Stone, Angie
30. Bring It On - Jean-Marie, Leon
31. Happy - N.E.R.D.
32. 4 Minutes (feat. Justin Timberlake and Timbaland) - Madonna
33. F.U.N.K. - Prince
34. Speed Up (Radio Edit) - Funkerman
35. Dr. Yang (Way to Normal version) - Ben Folds
36. Pretty Little Thing - Fink
37. My People - Presets, the
38. I Fly - C.S.S.
39. Better Than This- Keane
40. No Sunlight - Death Cab for Cutie
41. Play With It - Angie Stone
42. Lovers Are Losing - Keane
43. Pork and Beans - Weezer
44. Give It 2 Me - Madonna
45. Dita Dimoné - Pop Levi

• His sophmore solo album hit the mark where his debut did not. A keeper.
  

46. I Would Be Sad - Avett Brothers
47. Beat Goes on (featuring Kanye West) - Madonna
48. Paralyzed - Elf Power
49. Reckoner - Radiohead
50. 1,000,000 - Nine Inch Nails
51. Down Is the New Up - Radiohead

• In Rainbows owned the first half of '08, and when it began to wane, along came the second disk. The gift that kept on giving.
  

52. Midnight Madness - Chemical Brothers
53. Jai Ho - A. R. Rahman

• The movie of the year: Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. And this is the track that wraps it up beautifully.
  

54. The Frown Song - Ben Folds
55. Maybe You Can Save Me (from You) - Sacha Sacket
56. Violet Hill - Coldplay
57. All Summer Long - Kid Rock

• Proof there are indeed second acts in American music. The track was unavoidable, well, all summer long.
  

58. Blind - Hercules and Love Affair

• And from some alternate dimension, one lush with house grooves and ethereal singers, emerged Hercules and Love Affair. The most distinct unexpected delight of the year.
  

59. Yes - Coldplay
60. Brainwascht (Way to Normal version) - Ben Folds
61. Jager Yoga - C.S.S.
62. Nine in the Afternoon - Panic! At the Disco
63. Good - Supreme Beings of Leisure
64. Pocket - Sam Sparro
65. Keeps Gettin' Better - Christine Aguilera
66. How I Became Paranoid - C.S.S.
67. Echoplex - Nine Inch Nails
68. Living Well Is the Best Revenge - R.E.M.

• The comeback of the year. Pity radio & MTV seem to have moved on. Not to be missed.
  

69. Lost - Coldplay
70. Everything & Finally - Pop Levi
71. One Pure Thought - Hot Chip
72. Get Your Share - Fink
73. Spotlight - Jennifer Hudson
74. Out at the Pictures - Hot Chip
75. Diamond Hoo Ha Man - Supergrass
76. Wannamama - Pop Levi
77. This Boy's in Love - the Presets
78. The Best Revenge - Fischerspooner

• But where's the album, Fischerspooner?
  

79. Funplex - the B-52's

• Time away did them good. The second best comeback album of the year.
  

80. The Bomb - Bitter:Sweet

• As if a new Supreme Beings of Leisure album wasn't blessing enough, we also got this delightful disc from offshoot group Bitter:Sweet.
  

81. Judy (for Shame) - Sacha Sacket
82. So Many Roads - Fink
83. You Don't Know Me (featuring Regina Spektor) - Ben Folds
84. Don't Dance - Hot Chip
85. Caravan Girl - Goldfrapp
86. Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love - Coldplay
87. What You Are - Sacha Sacket
88. Slice of Heaven - Magnet
89. Better Get to Livin' - Dolly Parton

• God bless Dolly Parton. And at her advanced age, inspiring to see her claim the reins with her own new label, solid album, and intact optimistic spirit. A treasure.
  

90. All I Need - Radiohead
91. The Girl You Lost to Cocaine - Sia
92. Teen Lovers - the Virgins
93. Gamma Ray - Beck

• I tried so hard to like this album. I did. But it's no Midnite Vultures. Still, this track's a great groovy throwback to better days.
  

94. Ride - Supreme Beings of Leisure
95. Hold on - Hot Chip
96. Dancing Now - the B-52's
97. Ali in the Jungle - the Hours

• A holdover from late '07. The Hours are the real deal, ya'll.
  

98. Bangers and Mash - Radiohead
99. Walcott - Vampire Weekend
100. Go to Sleep - Avett Brothers


...and that's that. Usually I have a much harder time narrowing down the list (it's actually 300 tracks total, but my fingers are tired.) This year took hardly any whittling at all to reach 300. Not sure if music sucked this year, or my attention was merely spread more thinly across multiple pursuits. All I know is that of the top 300, a mere twenty albums dominated decisively. Here they are, in no particular order:

Radiohead, In Rainbows
Fink, Distance and Time
R.E.M., Accelerate
the Presets, Apocalypso
C.S.S., Donkey
the Avett Brothers, Emotionalism
Lyrics Born, Everywhere at Once
Madonna, Hard Candy
Sacha Sacket, Lovers and Leaders
Hot Chip, Made in the Dark
Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs
Coldplay, Viva la Vida/Prospekt's March
Sam Sparro, Sam Sparro
Nine Inch Nails, the Slip
Ben Folds, Way to Normal/Doublin'
Supreme Beings of Leisure, 11i
Pop Levi, Never Never Love
Keane, Perfect Symmetry

And a very merry '09 to ya'll.

The Avett Brothers, Canopy Club, September 7, 2008

Just caught the Avett Brothers show at the Canopy Club here in Champaign-Urbana, and they blew the roof off the joint. I have to say I was somewhat taken aback at the turnout. I'd only recently turned on to them with their new CD, and had tentatively pegged them as a cool bluegrass punk (for want of a better catchphrase) sound, but not one that would pack the house. Having seen them bring the packed house down tonight, I stand corrected. I'm delighted the young 'uns have such an eclectic taste, it gives my old heart hope that "popular music" might be expanding just a wee bit in the years ahead.

So if they're not bluegrass punk, what are they? Hmm. There is a heavy blast of Irish influence mixed in there (a little Breeders/Pogues touch I find welcome), yes they inescapable bluegrass banjo sound, but also unexpectedly compatible Asian cello bits, and even a south of the border barnstormer "Salina" from their new Emotionalism major label release to close the set. Wilco channeled through the Grand Old Opry with a heavy splash of pop bubbling underneath. I like it.

This will be taken by some as the height of insult, but halfway through the set I leaned over to a drinking companion to say, "you know, they're pop enough that I can see them being packaged as another quirky Green Day type of act, and having success at it," to which she heartily agreed. Perhaps the Green Day reference is a bit much; I merely meant as a benchmark for popular success, not style. They're that good. I hope for their sakes they prove that successful, too.

Recent Additions of Note to the Celestial Playlist

Jean-Marie Leon, "Bring It On." But pity the rest of the disc largely falls flat.

Sam Sparro, "Black and Gold" and the WHOLE FRIGGING (eponymous) ALBUM. Maybe I'm just in serious Prince withdrawal, but this sure sounds like the barnstormer I've been lacking. Ferocious.

Keane, "Spiralling." Looking forward to the upcoming album, we'll see what rehab did to their lead singer. This unexpectedly rocking track teases that perhaps we have something a little less drowsy in store...

The Faint, Fasciination is frankly a disappointment. "The Geeks Were Right" suggests we can expect more of the same great Faint sound, but the album is surprisingly sluggish. "Forever Growing Centipedes" an exception amongst quite a few loser tracks.

So too, exceedingly disappointing, is the Black Ghosts LP, which we have been feverishly awaiting e'er since "Tears from a Gun" popped up as a freebie on iTunes o'er a year ago. That track fails to appear, but much of what does is somehow cranks up the annoyance factor in each track enough that I've grown bored quickly. A few standouts tracks: "Anyway You Choose to Give It," and uh, hmm. That's about it.

Beck's Modern Guilt has been back burner cookin' in my main playlist for a couple months, but I've failed to ever engage with the material much. It's a snoozer akin to Sea Change which bafflingly gathered accolades whilst brilliant Midnite Vultures has been cast a failure in the discography. This is a cruel world. Still, a few Guilt tracks percolate up through the back door: "Gamma Ray," and uh, hmm. That's about it. Sensing a pattern here this summer.

I am still wrestling with the new C.S.S. album. Have to get back to you on that one.

Ben Folds! "Bitch Went Nuts"!!! There is a God, and He is Good.

Caesars' "Strawberry Weed." And better yet, "No Tomorrow."

Finding the Charlatans' You Cross My Path a delight so far. Will dig deeper and report back.

Same deal for bizarre Pop Levi's Never Never Love. Odd little tadpole. Scratch & sniff.

Hello ruxpintunes.

Hello ruxpintunes. listen

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early June harvest

Viva la Vida snapshot review: the boys dialed up Eno's and ordered the Joshua Tree special. This is a messier album than X & Y and I think it's to its benefit. And the lyrics thankfully are less "You, you, you" than last go-round: Mr. Martin has darker stuff on the brain this time out. Solid A, not even A minus.

Next up to pick or pan: N.E.R.D., Weezer, the Dandy frigging Warhols, the Pharrell-produced Kenna album, the National EP, Kylie's X, new Kaskade and Booka Shade to boot. At least I'm not hurting for tunes to travel with!