I'm so moving on....

Yeah, I know, I know….I said no more writing about music here. Well, I’ve said a lot of things. I said I was quitting smoking and, while I’ve made a valiant attempt, I definitively still puff away. So there….

This week the Pazz and Jop winners came out. Since this list comes out in February, a good month after everyone else has stopped making lists, I’m usually all over it. But this year I just don’t really give a damn. I hemmed and hawed over my on choices for best albums of the year, which I published here in December, and each time I turned them into a different employer they changed a little. But since the start 2006 a whole month ago, I’ve been bombarded with CDs and I just don’t feel like rehashing 2005 anymore. I’ve moved on. I’m busy embracing the Talkdemonic record or the Mystery Jets EP (and, yes, still salivating over the Jenny Lewis album). I don’t want to talk about “Golddigger” anymore. I’m tired of Sufjan Stevens. (Who, I’m sorry, is just too Jesus-y for me. And any indie-rocker out there who is enjoying the music but ignoring the Jesus aspect, is missing a lot of the point.) Yeah, I’m also a little bitter. I know and work with (or have worked with) like 100 of the 800 participating critics and yet I’m not asked to participate. Whatever. Once you’ve actually worked on Pazz and Jop—which I did last year, inviting critics to participate, inputting and checking results—it sort of loses its magic. Plus every critic votes one of two ways: Either by picking the most hip or esoteric records they heard (hence the high placement of stuff like MIA and Konono No. 1) or by trying to seem like a proletariat everydude (c’mon if you make your living reviewing records and the only thing you can see fit to vote for is Mariah Carey or Young Jeezy, I’m kinda sad for you). It’s just so unsurprising. Check out the winners for yourself. Kanye swept it. I suppose rightfully so. The best thing about Pazz and Jop is the singles category because the usually uptight rock critics have to admit that they liked that major label hip hop jam or that oversung girl pop song that dominated the airwaves. I mean there are people who vote for tracks on their favorite esoteric album, but really it’s a category for embracing the best of what gets played on the radio. That’s the thing, while I am kind of offended by people who are trying to seem “down” by rating Mariah Carey’s album as the best of the year, I am equally offended by people that can’t get off their high horse long enough to realize that she put out some of the best SINGLES of the year. In fact, if I HAD been asked to participate in Pazz and Jop my singles ballot would’ve looked something like this:
10) Galang- MIA
9) Helena- My Chemical Romance
8) When The President Talks To God- Bright Eyes
7) Daft Punk Is Playing At My House-LCD Soundsystem
6) Blue Orchid- The White Stripes
5) Feel Good Inc- Gorrilaz
4) Banquet- Bloc Party
3) Shake It Off-Mariah Carey
2) Golddigger- Kanye West
1) Since U Been Gone- Kelly Clarkson

Aside from the Bright Eyes song which I just think is smart (I remember hearing it at the show with Adam last year and I just fell in love with it), these are all just tracks that, when I hear them, make me wanna dance and sing along and just generally go apeshit. So, that said….you should totally take me with a grain of salt.

Also the roommate and I went to go see Match Point on Monday night and, I must say, I am still upset about it. It is 2006 people! Must every film about infidelity end up like Fatal Attraction? That is just so misogynistic. I don’t want to ruin the movie for those of you who haven’t seen it so JUST STOP READING HERE…..
That said, is it too much to ask that a movie about being unfaithful doesn’t turn the “other woman” into a shrill, sex-crazed villain who must be killed? And why must the little wife-y be so mousy and plain. In real life I suspect these situations are just three people in a mess. Not a man who is tempted away from his plain, sweet wife and then tormented and stalked by his attention-starved, crazy lover. That man DROVE his mistress crazy. He pursued her and wore her down and then once she loved him, he didn’t want her anymore. I accept that storyline—it happens all the time, I’m sure—but I don’t want to watch that woman be villainized and murdered. I didn’t like how Woody Allen made us root for the man to get away with everything. I think he did that by writing women who were unlikable. Anyway, it made me sad.

Now, for Adam, who asked that I still write about music here so “he would know what to keep an eye out for,” here is my list of what I’m listening to these days…..
Talkdemonic (s/t)
The Boy Least Likely To (the Best Party Ever)
Controller.controller (X-Amounts)
Mystery Jets (Flotsam and Jetsam EP) ****Soooooo good, these guys are the next NME darlings.
Two Gallants (What The Toll Tells)
The Duke Spirit (Cuts Across The Land)