Bojangles Top Ten CDS!!

Well friends, it has been a fine year for music. To choose the ten tops of the year seems to be an exercise in futility--but why bother then? I say we should create an exercise of fertilityand drink the drink of the Gods while compiling a list of 10 fine albums. Among the strongest in recent memory. There will be some fantastic music left off this list. This will also be the first time in Bojangles life that Animal Collective is not the number 1 CD in a year where they have an album. This is not to say that Strawberry Jam isn't brilliant. In fact, it surpassed expectations I had. I was, however, more taken with other music this year. Some would say that the old horizons have been expanded. Without further ado, I bring you my top 10:

1. Beirut. The Flying Cub Cup.

This doesn't have a weak moment in it. This prodigy made the most accessible, most impressive and most addictive album of the year. Hands down. It never slows down and has the prettiest arrangements I've ever heard. Nostologic, but also ageless.

2. Burial. Untrue.

Perfect for long drives on rainy nights, preferably while in a contemplative mood and cutting yourself. Archangel might be the best song of the year and the CD flows together seamlessly. I'm not sure what "dubstep" means, but this recluse does it well.

3. Animal Collective. Strawberry Jam.

There most satisfying CD ever, if maybe not their best. This one has no dead, ponderous moments that the other one's do. This is a different breed, it fully marries their eccentricities with their pop sensibilities in a beautiful way. 'Fireworks' is perfection, as is the CD. This CD has Aveytare dominate Panda Bear in many ways, but it fully shines when Panda Bear is let out of his cage to scream at the moon in his joyful way.

4. Panda Bear. Person Pitch.

This is what you get when the aforementioned Panda Bear is let loose. Pure bliss.

5. Frog Eyes. Tears of the Valedictorian.

I earlier talked of Burial having the best song of the year. Archangel is the first song of that CD and serves as an intro to the listening audience. "Bushels", in contrast, is the last song on this album and undoubtedly one of the strongest, strangest and most emotional things ever produced. He does wondrous things with his voice in this song and ties the whole CD together in this 9 minute long croon to youth, death, family, music and just about anything else that he can think of before smashing into an acopella climax that dizzies the mind. The song wouldn't work so well, if it wasn't for the previous songs on the cd being so strong, as well.

6. Radiohead. In Rainbows.

A purely addictive CD with some stunning songs. Just as good as the Ok Computer and Kid A if not better.

7. Sunset Rubdown. Random Spirit Lover.

One of those CDs where every song bleeds into the next for an immediate effect. Spencer Krug is one of the most experimental and best songwriters around today and he shows it here. Listening to the whole CD on one sitting makes for a fun expererience.

8. Of Montreal. Hissing Fauna, Are you the Destroyer.

Great CD, which is also anchored by a sweet song. This one is right in the middle, an 11 minute hate letter.

9. Jens Lekman. Night Falls over Kordelia.

Funniest singer around. He make Neilly giggle. Has a strange mixture of soul, Sweden, folk, humor. He funny.

10. The National. Boxer.

Solid.


Honorable mentions: Besnard Lakes. Les Saavy Five. Caribou, Dan Deacon, Deerhoof, Iron and Wine, Okkervil river, St. Vincent, Tough Alliance.

Oh No!!

I forgot about Sweeney Todd!! Oh, boy....I'll never be able to make a list. Maybe I should include an honorable mention section to stretch my list...

oh No!! too many movies

I just saw Juno and it might be top 10 material! Good gravy! How am I ever going to compile my top 10. And I am Legend is supposed to be good. There Will Be Blood also!! Oh brother. I won't even give Charlie Wilson's a chance. I don't want that to be good too! Oh, what's a boy to do. And there's so much music! Oh, Raspberries.

Thrills, Chills and Spills...Lance Brickland Style!!

Lance Brickland doesn’t ask questions. He raises ideas about a time not so far gone. A simpler time. A land before time-- this burdensome technology. Through his pain he relates to the small man. The working man. Screwdrivers come in handy only after the time of chaos has embodied changes in gender. Lance Brickland, man of grace, man of time, travels to areas of absurdity where only he can rule the legions of microscopic alibis. Where only he can succumb to gushing aplomb that treats us all with not a little love, but a lot.
This second, in a series of 9 stories about Lance is not really a story at all. It’s a brand, it’s a question, a riddle to solve. Only Lance can solve a riddle so troublesome. How? Through asking questions, through investigating different and despondent sources, through shifting paradigms and altering world views. Only then can true knowledge rear its ugly head. Why ugly? Why anything? You can’t fix a predisposed value on an abstract entity which is time:

Lance Brickland and the Case of the Howling Mule

This story begins where the last one left off…in hell. But as we all know: “Hell is people.” Lance is no different. He is a man to and for superstition. A man that knows plenty, yet says little. Words come as spare as the change that the modernization of the Western World ushered in like a page late for the theater, but early for the movie.
Pardon that digression, but wait…here comes another. Lance had heard unsubstantiated rumors involving ‘them’. Who are ‘them’? To be grammatically correct we will now refer to ‘them’ as ‘they’. Lance didn’t have time for grammaticians. His first love labored over commas and colons too much for Lance’s taste. Lance had only to wave his wand and all was forgotten. The proctologist didn’t understand the gyst of his argument, but who really does? …

preview of review

Soon the masked bojangly bastard will make top 10 lists of music and film. What will be on it. Yee Gods. After having seen more than 50 films and listening to as many albums. oooh. This will be the toughest challenge ever. CDs will come up in the 1st week of Jan and movies will come up after the bojangly bastard watches Juno, Charlie Wilson's War and There Will be Blood and maybe renting Zodiac. Oh boy! And I'll also probably download some shit from year end lists!!