DISQUS

I'm not expecting Dylan to be anything other than Dylan. But the "new sound" is really just the old sound slathered in accordion, the album middling at best. I'm not expecting "Desolation Row" but "It's All Good" which carries the portent of one of those blasted-landscape finales ( like"A'int Talkin, from Modern Times) is more outline than song. I'm a fan but his travels in "old, weird America" seem pretty tepid.

I don't think you have to be a Dylanologist (which I'm not) or an "obsessive critic" (whatever that may be) to think Together Through Life is barely a pastiche. Really, he's been mining this stuff way too long. Love and Theft was many things, breezy, funny, even offhandly apocalyptic. Modern Times was ok too. But Together seems to barely exist: "My Wife's Home Town," "Shake Mama Shake" are throwaways, "Life Is Hard," and "If You Ever Go To Houston" labored and generic. Even "All Is Good" is kind of a Sharpie-like sketch for something greater like, say, a sequel to "Desolation Row." "I Feel A Change Comin On" is indeed beautiful, "Forgetful Heart has some presence, and some of the melodies are memorable but mostly Together seems cobbled from a bunch of obvious, indistinct parts. And I don't think it's "dark" in the least. David Fricke's remark that this sounded as if it was made in Touch Of Evil's border town: oh, if only the album sounded that desperate.

Jason, gotta agree with you about the Who. I loved their early records (Sings, Sell Out) and I still occasionally listen to them, but for the most part anything later kind of makes me queasy. I go on jags myself but I try to intersperse other things or I would lose my mind. Been on a Miles one lately: mostly electric (almost endless) plus other stuff like the Braxton box, the Franco reissue. Plus new stuff. Always new stuff. Discovery is what its about for me whether it's new or old. Though it's impossible to stay completely current at a time when a zillion records come out each year, I try to listen as wide as possible. There are times when I never want to hear another roots rock record. But then I hear Drive By Truckers or Miranda Lambert and I put that aside for awhile. Anyway, that's a few of my habits.

" But unless you’re the hipper than thou type who needs your rock angst-ridden or not at all, you may find, as I do, that this is Springsteen’s most listenable album of original tunes in many years. "

Ah, the old angst-ridden, hipper than thou types. If you don't like Springsteen's incessant recycling, you must be one of those hipsters. Sounds pretty condescending to me.
Twenty-two years ago I really took to Tunnel Of Love (it was tough, tender, funny, modulated somewhere between Nebraska and Born in the USA, and on "One Step Up" heartbreaking) but I cannot fathom what he's been doing since. Tom Joad is dullsville to me. The Rising, an admirable failure with a few worthwhile stabs at 9/11, but too much of his usual corn/nostalgia thrown in as well. Devils and Dust was slow, arid and not very compelling. Magic had "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" and "Long Walk Home" but "Radio Nowhere" was as clueless as "57 Channels." As for the new one, I've heard it twice and it sound pretty tepid to me. "Outlaw Pete" is what, exactly? And the title cut is not slight, it's transparent, invisible, not there. ("CCR chug?" Now I know why I no longer read Jon Pareles") Really, I don't get any of this. Even in his early days when I didn't fall exactly in line behind a record I still understood his appeal, found him funny (say "Darlington County") or overwrought ("Jungleland") or devastating ("Atlantic City") the music was there. Over the past two dacades much of what I've heard sounds listless, tired, reworked. (You mention "Sinaloa Cowboys," which is a great idea but a dreary execution.)

Absolutely, House of Mirth. Would make my own list of a dozen or so this decade.

Brighter's good, to me their best since Decoration Day which is still tops by me.Since these guys like narrative so much I wish a bunch of these cuts had more exposition/didn't fade out so quickly. I do prefer Hood's songs to Cooley's but they do compliment each other fairly well. Gonna check them out live in a few weeks...

Jason, you coulda conjoined your grammy post to this one and saved alot of time. I hate the R&R HOF because its another tired industry showcase for the wealthy. Remember Robert Plante's Zep acceptance speech, how "We thought we'd always be rebels" and such to a thou-a-plate crowd? Any Hall with Joel, the Eagles, Mellencamp, James Taylor, etc, ain't my kinda place.

The Grammys like the Oscars and the rest, have always been terrible but everyone knows that. Yeah, there's no center anymore, and there probably never will be again outside of Boomerville, where the focus is on the past and reunions and whatnot. Music mutates too quickly these days for that "shared cultural identity" to mean much but there's plenty around to listen too, even if the Grammy's remain clueless.

Mulholland Drive is still the best thing I've seen this decade, instinctual, moving, self-referential in the best sense. Inland Empire is, as one critic put it, a You-Tube nightmare, too long, taxing, and as far as I'm concerned, beautiful. But, like OOC i am not out to convert anyone to Lynch's wavelength. IE comes closer to mapping the processes of (distressed)thought (from the inside) better than anything I've seen, and Laura Dern holds all these personae (shards, really) in place expertly, until the rabbits upstage her.

D. Boon (Minutemen)

I'm with you on Countdown To Ecstasy, Pretzel Logic, and most of Katy Lied. "Bodhisattva" sure, plus "My Old School" but I'd add "Black Friday" from Katy Lied, not the most propulsive solo but one tied to the most vicious song they ever wrote, which gives it an extra kick.
I can't get with most of what follows (Royal Scam, Gaucho, Aja,
etc) which is way too tasteful. Their "slickness" which plays off the solos/lyrics on those early records seems to dominate the latter ones.

"Smiles Of A Summer Night" is the Bergman for me. Also: "Shame," "Monika," "Persona" and probably "The Silence" But there is also alot of things that seem stilted or dated ("The Seventh Seal," the death/nightmare imagery in "Wild Strawberries," and "The Hour Of The Wolf")or needlessly pious.
I agree with weepingsam: Hou, Lynch are still young enough to break new forms/modes, Marker's always in search of a subject, and maybe DeOlivera can live to 150. (Has Oshima made anything since Taboo?)

Funny post Dan but most of your targets (Joel, Eagles, The Police, Bruce Willis, Jonathan Franzen) are fish in a barrel, way too easy. Thing is as much as I dislike all the above I doubt I could work up much HATE for any of them. Joel is utterly innocuous, sure, the Eagles a combination of genteel melancholy and fast last schmaltz, and Franzen merely the most annoying prestige novelist around. Still, I doubt they are worth the bile. Criticism sure, but hate? Nah. Way over the top. Sting? Possibly, (his self-importance makes Bono's look quaint) if I spent any time thinking about him.
Also: Rick Moody was Dale Peck's whipping boy, but Peck moved on to bigger targets: Joyce, DeLillo, Stanley Crouch (who slapped him in the face in an encounter in a restaurant)in his book "Hatchet Jobs"

Jason--
I haven't heard the new Tinariwen but I'm looking forward to--their last one was a grower--a bit reticent at first but one of my fav's of 05.

I like "Toxic" too. The whole notion of "authenticity" and "sincerity" seems beside the point. JT's promblem's not "computer-driven" but persona driven, he seems like a cipher with a measure of talent unsure of what he wants to say. I like guitars as much as anyone else around here but the whole punk rock playbook is all but exhausted and there are times when I think I never want to hear another roots rock record again. Until someone rewrites the rules, (not an easy thing to do at this late date) the template is just too narrow.
But there is still plenty to listen to. Rock as a commercial force may be stone cold dead, but its basic components, guitar, bass drums, power-chords, etc. travel well and have been assimilated for the past two decades (at least) by any number of indigenous musics from the Balkans to Algerian rai to Japanese psych and beyond.

How about "The Furies" or "Night Nurse"?

Ooc, I believe its Annie Hall.

A few of the albums I've been listening to alot: Battles, "Mirrored" ("Atlas" in particular), The National's "Boxer" ("Mistaken For Strangers" and "Fake Empire" esp,) Miranda Lambert's "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" two albums by the Japanese guitarist Michio Kurihara, ("Sunset Notes," and "Rainbow") and two "blues" albums, the Moaners "Blackwing Yalobusha" and the new (frustrating) White Stripes.
The Battles album is a bit too whimsical at times but at least it sounds like it was made in , and for the 21st century. The National is way moodier, with songs about losing your illusions and feeling miserable at 2 am, but the drummer kicks the songs home pretty well. The two Kurihara's couldn't be more different: the former sounding like soundtracks to imaginary Leone movies, the latter, a collaboration with his psych friends Boris. The two White Stripes cuts I've played the most are the title track and the fairly ridiculous "Conquest."

Jason wasn't trying to sell you on P-Funk--I was reminding the rest! And yes Public Enemy deserves a mention. They've been thru so many incarnations, and still there's SOMETHING going on (though their sound is starting to date some.

There's far more to Sonic Youth than "intellectual novelty" whatever that means. Noise (and innovation) is only part of the package; hooks (see pretty much anything from Daydream Nation on) and genuine beauty show up too. They've done it for a quarter century, and what's more they rock harder than The Smiths or U2 ever could. And unlike the latter they actually have a sense of humor.

I like Workingman's Dead, American Beauty and I think Live/Dead is beautiful but I never cared much for their traveling roadshow. I'm with OOC on Sonic Youth (25yrs and counting), Velvets, Television, etc. And what about P-Funk? "One Nation Under A Groove" not American enough?

I just watched in again recently and I think it still holds up pretty well (barely remember the Martin version). The best thing I've read on Pennies is by the critic Howard Hampton in his book Born In Flames.

When I was 7 yrs old I loved the Mannix theme, (Lalo Schifrin, like Misson Impossible), I also liked The Wild West, Mary Tyler Moore (kinda precious just like Mary herself), Dr. Who, Good Times. Do spoken word themes count like that annoying control voice on the Outer Limits? Or The Twilight Zone?
Last TV theme to get stuck in my head: Nerf Herder's taut, Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Good post. The moment in Army of Shadows that hit me hardest was just after Gerbier's yes, "all too-miraculous" escape. He holes up in some country home or cottage, amidst rain, wind, mud, dirt and, most of all, silence. A ghost, passing thru our world on borrowed time, he seems utterly destitute, utterly blank. If you consider yourself dead already does it lift the anxiety, the burden, of waiting for that day to come? I doubt it. I'm not sure if this is what Melville intended, it may have just been a transition, but coming after the near-fantasy of his rescue,
(so well timed! so grandiose!) his weather-beaten existence felt like last rights to me.

I'm with Dan on this one. This is like those Rolling Stone lists they wheel out every decade or so to make sure everyone knows their "blue-ribbon" panel is resting comfortably. Great to know that they find Toy Story, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption and oh, name any other of the 20 or 30 middlebrow diversions more memorable than
Mulholland Drive. Hope their CBS tie-in got the applicable ratings.