It's been multiple months again since I updated this blog. It's not that there isn't anything interesting to write about; it's just that i'm too lazy to actually stop and write anything. Sorry. My bad. On the bright side, none of you actually read this blog anymore, so it doesn't matter (what a deep sentence).
So another year done. What a year 2005 was. My life has changed in myriad ways in the last 365 days, from that first day when I was dealing with a rocky relationship and spending a snowy holiday in Kyoto with my friends from Fulbright, to the last night when I found myself 8-months single and dancing with a princetonian at a hotel party in Chicago with friends from work. A lot of ridiculous shit happened in between, a good amount of which was tough to deal with. It was a rebuilding year.
And things are looking up. I'm looking forward to 2006. I think in 365 days, my world could be completely different again.
Oh yeah, and this girl from Sendai is visiting me right and she's making me a little crazy. Please send her away. Please?
Since I haven't written an entry in awhile, I figure I can be obnoxious and toss some opinions out there, so here are some bests for 2005:
Top 3 Fondest memories:
(3) Seeing her here in Chicago and having things change, even if for one night. No more said. And don't read into that because you have no idea what it means.
(2) Ending my stay in Japan: It was special saying goodbye to everyone I know in Tokyo and Sendai, especially because this time I felt like instead of going home, I was saying goodbye to my home. When I went to Japan, I was worried I would discover it wasn't a place I could spend an entire year in. When I left, I realized it was a place that I would love to spend many years in.
(1) USC-Notre Dame with my family: I often refer to that night as the most emotional night of my life. And while people laugh when I say that, I hope they know I am DEAD SERIOUS. To be at one of the greatest games in college football history with my family was nice; to have USC win it in such dramatic fashion, with feelings going from bottom to top to bottom and back to top again. Complete chaos on the field. One of the great rivalries with a meaningful game again. Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush combining to save the game. Me hugging complete strangers and jumping up and down in jubilation. I recently watched the dvd of the game and it almost made me sick to watch despite the victory because of the extent to which it brought back the gut-wrenching feelings I had during the fourth quarter. Or maybe it's because watching it taped on a tv set will never be able to compare to the memory of being there, 4th and 9, hope fading and shock about to descend upon a stadium.
Best songs of 2005:
Arcade Fire - Wake Up
Arcade Fire - Power Out
Sufjan Stevens - Come on! Feel the illinoise! Part I: The World's Columbian Expostion/Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In a Dream
Stephen Malkmus - Pencil Rot
Stars - your ex-lover is dead
Spoon - i turn my camera on
The New Pornographers - the bleeding heart show
The New Pornographers - the jessica numbers
M83 - don't save us from the flames
Franz Ferdinand - you could have it so much better
Cool Calm Pete - Cloudy
Bright Eyes - goldmine gutted
Bright Eyes - first day of my life
The Game f./ 50 Cent - hate it or love it
二階堂和美 - 脈拍
Ratatat - Breaking Away
ウルフルズ- 暴れだす
ネーネーズ - 平和の琉歌
Best Albums of 2005:
(10) Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs: One of the multi-instrumental troubadours of this list, Andrew Bird released his best, and probably most beautifully odd, album yet. He played essentialy every instrument on the album, which is pretty amazing if you actually hear the complex orchestration of the musical web he spins.
(9) Spoon - Gimme Fiction: Spoon followed up one of 2002's best albums with an album that only made the top 10 rather than top 3 of the year. There was no perfectly crafted track like "Paper Tiger", and the album loses some steam as the band regresses to its pre-Kill The Moonlight sound, but Britt Daniel's slight disappointments sound like someone else's triumphs. He's in phenomenal form, though, imitating Lennon on The Beast and Dragon Adored and Prince on I Turn My Camera On.
(8) M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us: Just breathtaking. Makes you want to fly over skyscrapers at night while colorful electricity flies all around you. Much like the cover of the album and the car commercial that commodified this disc.
(7) Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth: He's Pavement-ish again. His dry voice, dry humor, and pretty messy-great guitar playing were great to have back.
(6) Stars - Set Yourself on Fire: I looked at this CD about 10 million times in Tokyo before actually buying it in Chicago. And its wonderful. Stars are a Canadian mirrorball band - the rest of the nation's stars reflect in its sound. Most apparent are the two other indie collectives: the New Pornographers and, more directly, their friends Broken Social Scene.
(5) Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary: The band from that other scene in Canada (the one with The Arcade Fire at its epicenter), this album suffers from a lot of hype-driven backlash. But it's actually better than a lot of people play it off as, and it sounds even greater live. It probably should have been sequenced differently though.
(4) Cool Calm Pete - Who said Asians can't rap? After Jin flopped all over the Ruff Ryders, Pete the art student from New York and Babbletron member dropped this junk. And its a sick album of thoughtful rhyming, and not just cuz he calls himself "Korean Buddy Holly" on the song "Windsprints", though that helps.
(3) Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning: I'll admit, I was really disappointed by this album at first. It was not "Lifted" enough for my tastes. But then I listened to it on repeat for about 12 months straight and realized how great it is. The maturity Conor displays in creating good ol' Americana about the most rock'n'roll city in the country (New York) is impressive. I just hope it wasn't a fluke.
(2) The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema: This album also disappointed me after it seemed like Carl Newman and the rest of the squad were tired from Electric Version and Carl, Neko, and Dan all released excellent solo albums in 2004. But then I listened to the album and realized that I was wrong - they had somehow pulled it together and made an album that was better than them all, and won the award for best Canadian release of the year (and half of the albums in this list are Canadian. oh my!). The band takes its poppy game through the gamut of emotions and manage to utilize all of their bandmates, from back to three-headed front, better than ever.
(1) Sufjan Stevens - Come on, Feel the Illinoise!: This was one of those unbelievably fateful releases. Sufjan, continuing his rather insane plot to write albums about all 50 states (he should be done by the age of 160 at the pace he's moving) with a remarkably ambitious work (even the paragraph long song titles are ambitious), he not only managed to top all of his albums, but he made them look almost immature in the process. Created mostly in his Brooklyn basement, Illinois retains the delicate majesty and orchestration of Michigan and warm intimacy of Seven Swans while improving everything: the instrumentation, arrangments, singing, lyrics. And let's not forget he played over twenty instruments in the process. The album is almost exactly like Michigan in structure, from the quiet piano opening, the second song that kicks up the speed, and complex composition. But where Michigan was characterized by the melancholy, wintry sound Sufjan created out of vibes, wind chimes, bells, keys, and restrained melodies, Illinois is a burst of discovery and development. Not that it's a happy album, but it's less depressed (Illinois is a happier state than Michigan afterall. From what I hear). There is enough energy here to apparently warrant Sufjan to have his group the Illinoisemakers perform in 1950s era U of Illinois cheerleading uniforms (not exactly your Gwen Stefani's cheerleaders). But when I hear this album, I hear less human pyramids and more stage production. From the junior high drama set piece-like artwork in the foldout liner notes, to the winding, straight-out-of-the orchestra pit arrangements, to the cast-of-players vocal performances, this is, like, the best school play about a state you've ever seen. You can practically see the guy come out wearing the Abe Lincoln costume to debate Stephen A. Douglas. Even with some of the theatrical silliness on this album (Decatur, anyone?) what makes this production so amazing is the way Sufjan goes about singing about this country - his project, whether or not he's serious about it, is clearly meant to honor America. But he's willing to honor every part of the U.S. in as much detail as possible, unafraid to evoke both the beauty and the ugliness of our past and present. And that makes a greater, more meaningful, more lasting, and more poignant tribute than any blindly and histrionically "patriotic" music ever could be. And the even more powerful aspect of Sufjan's writing, and the reason why his project seems even half-serious and greater than some people would give him credit for, is his skill as a writer. He manages to take all of that history and all of the weight of his study in music and culture and relate it universally to each person in an intimate and moving way. The title track is a gargantuan 2-part production that begins with a book report on the wonder of the Great Columbian Exposition of 1893 and beautifully transitions musically and thematically into Sufjan reflecting on the difficulty he faces as an artist shouldering the burden he has chosen and the importance he places on getting it right. He follows that with a song that not only has you sympathizing with serial killer John Wayne Gacy, but also realizing how similar we might be to him. And that's only like 1/10 of the album! Cuz it's LONG.
But I have yet to mention the reason this album means so much to me. The OBVIOUS reason - it came out the day I started my career and the rest of my life in this new city and state. When I found out it's release date earlier in the year, I had a feeling it would end up being a pivotal album to me, and it didn't disappoint. It gave me an automatic soundtrack for my life as I struggled to get my footing here these last six months. And at the center of the album sits a song whose music beautifully captures the motion of the city on a sunny day and whose lyrics concisely express the melodramatic alternating of regret and redemption only the cognitive dissonance of a transplanted 20-something can produce. That song's name, set amongst the forest of run-on-sentence titles on this album, is simply and appropriately one word:
Chicago.
