David Medsker:
As a rule, music lovers begin their journey square in the middle of the mainstream, and once they’ve gotten a taste for more adventurous fare, they take off for the fringes, often never to return. Over time, I’ve slowly found myself coming back to the middle. I have to say, I never thought this would happen. But then again, I never thought I’d move back to Ohio after over a decade in Boston and Chicago, but that’s life for ya: it changes you in ways you can’t anticipate.
This is all a roundabout way of saying that my list, much like last year’s list, isn’t exactly hip, or edgy, but that’s mainly because I’m not hip or edgy. I like what I like, whether it’s Massive Attack or Mandy Moore. And here are five albums from this year that I really, really like.
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Metric: Fantasies
I am admittedly late to the Emily Haines Show – a friend of mine persuaded me to download Live It Out a few years ago, but it never hooked me – but their latest is a monster blast of New Wave-tinged DOR that Garbage would kill for. Metric – “Stadium Love”
Epic, sky-high pop that recalls the best of the Verve, Keane and even the Wonder Stuff in singer Antony Genn’s delivery. The title track is a “Common People”-style slow burner and one of the finest pieces of British pop I’ve heard in years. The Hours – “Big Black Hole” (more…)
Here in the etherworldly state of Serious Pop Culture Fandom, Internet division, it’s traditional to set impossibly high quality standards and then smite with mighty (and snarky) blows any album/film/novel that isn’t up to snuff. But sometimes you happen upon an artist whose work gnaws away at you, even though you know it’s not all that great — maybe because you can respect the intention behind it, or maybe because you can spot a glimmer of greatness buried in what’s really only a pretty-good vocal. And sometimes you just want to cut an artist some slack.