Test of the Boomerang - Top Ten of 2008

I will dispense with the usual bullshit “Let’s take a look back…” year-end review. USA Today will have that shit in spades for the next four to six weeks. Nothing is ever truly over. There is no true end. Nor is there a true beginning.

Dramatic music swells in the background

In these past twelve months I have seen horror and I have seen wonder. I have seen triumphs

Cymbals crash

and I have seen the agony of defeat

Trumpets

and no doubt we shall see more. The utter collapse of our financial institutions and increasing aggression and war. I have seen the naked face of evil…

photo montage now strikes up of Sarah Palin and Ashley Todd shooting at wolves from a helicopter, Dick Cheney strangling a rosy-cheeked orphan with a telephone cord, John McCain eating a big greasy cheeseburger while his wife does a line of coke off of a small mirror, George W. Bush with a jet pack…

and I have seen images of hope…

Barack Obama and Joe Biden riding on a soaring magical eagle over a beautiful stretch of California coastline as the music comes to a soaring peak…

But enough of all that. Let’s get to the music, shall we?

My Top Ten of 2008.

10. Sunn O))) - Dømkirke 2-LP (Southern Lord)

Say what you will about the mighty Sunn O))) — at their fundamental core, deep beneath the waves of feedback and within their black robes, O’Malley, Anderson and company are a live band. Part performance, part transcendental experience. This limited edition double-vinyl set documents a performance by the band at a Gothic cathedral in Bergen, Norway. If that wasn’t perfect already, the band composed an actual piece of music specifically for the performance. Church organs, horns, strange electronics, vocals both sublime and guttural, soar within the old cathedral like a  medieval plague. Haunting, intense, (beautifully packaged) and definitely my favorite Sunn O))) release thus far. (more…)

There’s an episode of The Simpsons that, bizarrely, brings Bob Mould to mind. It’s the one where Homer, in an attempt to get some recognition and glory, winds up on the Space Shuttle. All aboard nearly die due to his bumbling, but at the last moment, he jams an inanimate carbon rod into an open hatch door, saving all from being sucked out into space. When he gets back home, who gets the adoration, praise and parade? The rod, that’s who (or what.)

Okay, so I’m stretching the parallel to the thinnest degree here, but consider this: Bob Mould left iconic punk band Hüsker Dü and created one of the finest albums of the 1980s, his solo debut Workbook. Critics nearly broke their collective ankles falling over it, and as well they should. Even with Mould’s rather square-jawed vocal delivery, the pop pops, the emotions are real and the instrumentation is spot-on. That Mould could graduate from the awesome fury that was Hüsker Dü to this was a feat.

Not everyone thought that way, though, certainly not a lot of the diehard Hüsker fans hoping the band would crap out on their Warner Bros. entries and slink back to SST Records with new, angry fire. What should have been more than a notable entry in the catalog of 1989’s releases rather remains that way to this day. I do recall an insurance company picking up the once top-ten modern rock track “See a Little Light” for use in an ad campaign, a move that usually fills me with a sense of disgust and indignation, yet I was actually pleasantly surprised. Someone other than me knows this song, I thought… Well, put one up in the plus column. But like I said before, the whole album is one plus after another. (more…)

Mind if I freak you out here? Yes? Too bad; I have nothing else to write about. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have a lot to write about, judging by all the files I’ve put up on the handy-dandy Popdose FTP.

1) No, you cannot have access to the Popdose FTP.

2) I mean it, NO, you cannot have access to the Popdose FTP.

See, when you write for a forum such as this, you can overload yourself fairly early, clogging the works with all those notions you’d like to tackle, restraint be damned. Then life gets in the way and you find yourself getting all topical and current and, very quickly, your digital cabinets runneth over. So I think it is time to do a little spring cleaning, with an added bonus of providing outlet for democracy.

(Get to the point, damn it!)

There are a few candidates on my list that I’m just not going to get to. As much as I love the music from these artists, it just seems more and more unlikely that they’re going to get their day. That’s where you come in. Your petty little vote may not mean much when compared to a mighty Superdelegate, but it means something to me. I swear, and not just because I’m trying to get to second base with you. I’ve decided to give you a choice for whom I next tackle. Simply drop a comment with your choice from the following artists and the act with the largest popular vote gets an expanded column. It’s that simple, and you’ll respect yourself the morning after. And yes, you have lovely eyes.

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