Haven't written much about music lately. Must have gotten it out of my system, or something. Whereas 2005 and 2006 were dominated by analytical urges, desires to parse and examine my own instinctive or reactionary idiosyncrasies, and 2007 spent in evangelical furor, pushing whatever recent revelation I'd found to completely uninterested third parties with no rational, systematic thought beforehand, 2008 was a year of follow ups, and innovations therein: the quickie EP eclipsing a band's second LP in import, overblown indie hype darling-ism surging to new heights of preposterousness, more love for 'Lil Wayne. My personal proclivities were sasitiead above and beyond all expectations: more Wolf Parade, more Okkervil River, more Destroyer, more Shearwater, more Ryan Adams, more Will Oldham, more Mark Kozeleck, more Of Montreal (of which there will be much to say, later), more Boris (excuse me, BORIS), more Chad VanGaalen, more Constantines, more Mountain Goats. That's... kind of all I listen to, if we throw out classical music, which we are, because no one seeking out my writing cares what the performance of Mahler's ninth symphony I saw earlier this year was like.
At least give me this one sentence indulgence, a simple summation of my feelings towards the Ninth. Here goes: Listening to the final movement is like getting a preview of your own death, first terrifying, then mysterious and hopeful.
The trouble is, tradition dictates that I write some kind of music-y wrap up for the calendar year 2008 -- best of list, pithy introductory essay, that sort of thing. This would be the fifth anniversary of the livejournal post that started it all. To let yet another youthful, exuberant tradition wither in light of my growing apathy towards the internet in general and blogging in particular is just not an acceptable way for me to behave. But I don't have to be happy or rational about it.
So, whatever happens in the next few posts, happens. No backsies.
THE WHY THE FUCK IS THIS HAPPENING MOMENT OF THE YEAR
Skeletal Lamping, Of Montreal's grotesque, ambitious document of Kevin Barnes disappearance into his own asshole, might be the worst fucking thing ever conceived, musically or otherwise. The one positive quality the album possesses: it doesn't kill people, like the hydrogen bomb or the Soviet gulag. That's good news. However, just because the LP has yet to perpetrate mass murder does not exclude the possibility that it could.
Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer, especially the second half, was about as successful as any white indie rock group is ever going to be at Prince mimicry, coming at the aural and the pansexual qualities of Prince from the perspective of a skinny white dude trying to get over his failing marriage. You wouldn't have thought it at the time, but Hissing Fauna was a remarkably cohesive and restrained record, and much better for it. Because, Christ Almighty, Skeletal Lamping.
Barnes, fairly early in the record, sings "I'm just a black she-male," and indeed, he wants us to believe it. Now, that shit is ballsy, but in execution it's an incredibly shallow conceit, pandering, and half-hearted, and if you're going to occupy this persona for an insufferable 58 minutes like Prince occupied all his different persona, remember that it was Prince's complete, heedless ownership of his words that made him a singular genius. When he wanted to be Camille, well - there she was. If he was going to get a hummer on his wedding day from his bride's sister, by golly, he was okay with it, because it didn't constitute adultery. No second thoughts, no ironic masking, just dirty, smutty, spoogy joy.
Oh, also: the songs were good. Prince created actual music, and you could dance to it. But Skeletal Lamping is a very personal record, I guess, because Barnes withholds from us any musical hooks to which we can use to drown out that other bullshit. Every time a halfway serviceable bit of songcraft manages to rise above all the ear fucking, like with "An Eludiarian Experience," some burst of nonsense comes from nowhere to derail it. Worst, it's like Barnes is taking a perverse joy from purposefully exploding his best instincts, gawking at us with the same bemused look on the face of a guy showing someone "2 girls 1 up," and videotaping their reaction.
This is hopefully a detour in the Of Montreal catalogue, something like "Metal Machine Music," because I would hate to see one of the interesting guys making pop music today continue self-sabatouging himself like this. We already have one Rivers Coumo.
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