Best songs and biggest disappointments of 2008

2008 wasn't a great year for music. Take a look at several year-end lists. There is no great rock and roll or hip hop to be found. Instead, we got lists of record-collector-nerd indie rock that most of you will never hear, and I can't say that it is essential that most people ever do. I don't know if this says more about the laziness of music critics or the sad state of music in 2008. I think it's a little of both.

I'm hoping that in 2009 there is a resurgence in music. It would be nice if the auto-tune phenomenon disappears from hip hop and rappers actually start rapping again. Here's hoping that new Eminem and Dr. Dre albums will actually come out and they'll be as good as they should be. The industry needs a reminder how rap is done well. Heck, even Kanye West released a crappy auto-tune-filled album this year, and this was after I spent years going around telling everyone he was a genius after his early work on Jay-Z's The Blueprint.

I'm hoping we hear a few rock albums (punk, metal, alt, anything that rocks) that knock us on our asses with how damn good they are. This year we all we got were Metallica and AC/DC albums that some people wrongly praised simply because they weren't embarrassments, and a Guns N' Roses album that was wrongly praised for simply surfacing.

Even with my complaining, there was music I loved this year. Not enough full albums to make an honest list, but many individual songs. Here's my list of current favorites for the year. There are others I like quite a bit - Jenny Lewis, MGMT, Teenage Bottlerocket, Okkervil River, My Morning Jacket, etc. - but these are five that are probably most replay worthy.

1. Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma. I love this song. The whole album is pretty damn great, and that was a rare thing this year. This is simple minimal pop music, but it is done very well in an original way that make the melodies refreshing and unexpected.


2. Conor Oberst - Lenders in the Temple. Conor released a solo record this year, which may seem slightly unnecessary since he is the major uncontested force in Bright Eyes. If anything, this album made me long for the lush accompaniments that Mike Mogis gives to many Bright Eyes songs. The songs weren't as consistently great as the last few Bright Eyes albums, but there were a few great songs. I love this one, and it wasn't even the single. Damn shame.


3. Weezer - Pork and Beans. No doubt about it, The Red Album is easily the weakest album in the Weezer catalog. At their best, Weezer makes great catchy pop songs with loud guitars. At their worst, Weezer can sound like they forgot their own simple formula and are clueless as to how they should proceed. I suppose it didn't help that Rivers Cuomo let up on his dictatorial bandleader qualities and let his bandmates contribute a song or two, but even his songs weren't always up to snuff this time around. Still, even Cuomo is too good to go an entire album without displaying a little brilliance. Cuomo wrote Pork and Beans after the record company said they didn't hear a single in his latest batch of tunes. Lyrically, he gave the record company his best middle finger response, but musically he fell right in line and gave them one of the catchiest songs of his career.


4. She & Him - Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? If you need yet another reminder why most actors and actresses shouldn't sing, go check out some clips on YouTube of Scarlett Johansen's awful album of Tom Waits covers. By covering Waits, Johansen was clearly trying to make an artistic statement rather than a cash grab, but she's not strong enough of an artist to be making any statement at all.

On the other hand, Zooey Deschanel has an incredible voice, which as an actress she briefly displayed as Will Ferrell's love interest in the movie Elf. This year she teamed up with M. Ward, who is an amazing songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist on his own. His self-produced albums are filled with gems that display guitar and vocals of unmatched warmth. While he left Deschanel to handle the songwriting and vocals as he stuck to guitar work and production on their first album as a duo, Volume One, his style is a perfect match for her voice. I don't think Deschanel is quite the songwriter Ward is yet, so some of his compositions would have been nice. Still, there are moments where their pairing is absolutely perfect.


5. Pink - So What. This was the best radio song of the year if you ask me. Pink and Max Martin are a damn good combination. Hell, Max Martin makes a good combination when paired with anyone. (Hopefully Kelly Clarkson now realizes that after ditching the Since You've Been Gone tunesmith when making her last album for an unsuccesful attempt at writing her own material.) Pink can sing her ass off, and this year she had at least one great catchy song to sing.

The Cult of Kenny Rogers

No doubt about it, I love me some Kenny Rogers. I'd rather listen to Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town than almost anything, even if Kenny's lyrics leave me a little choked up. One of the finest moments in The Big Lebowski is the montage featuring Kenny's First Edition hit Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In). Heck, I've been known to rock out to the Islands In The Stream clip on YouTube.

But every now and again, in my never ending quest to view every last entry in Wikipedia, I'll run into a fairly recent picture of Kenny. I can't decide if I'm more disturbed by the burn victim look of his skin or the crazy eyes. Those eyes freak me out. Kenny says they freak him out, too. Turns out, his eyelids are stretched so tight he has a hard time blinking.

Damn.

I know one thing. I haven't seen a case of the crazy eyes quite so bad since cult leader Marshall Applewhite made the news for convincing 38 of his followers to poison themselves so they could ascend their bodies and chase after a comet.

Now, as far as I know, Kenny's never tried to poison anybody, but I did have a wicked case of the shits after eating at a Kenny Rogers Roasters once in the nineties, so beware the next time you're in a far flung corner of the world where one of Kenny's eateries is still in business.

I really think Kenny could learn a thing or two from fellow aging country star Hank Williams Jr. No, I'm not talking about revitalizing his career by rewriting one of his former hits as a psycho propaganda tune.

Instead, like Hank, Kenny needs a permanent pair of $10 truck stop sunglasses. Hank has rarely been seen without his since smacking his head while rock climbing in the seventies. Maybe that traumatic brain injury partially accounts for his fucked up world view. I'd bet a look behind those sunglasses would reveal the craziest eyes of all. (As I watched the above clip, I quietly prayed for Hank to ingest some of Kenny's shit storm-inducing chicken and a big vat of cult-leader-approved cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.)

But, back to my point. Sunglasses, Kenny. Invest in some, and the rest of us will continue to enjoy your countrified easy listening jams in peace.

Alan Colmes vs. the Harlem Globetrotters

Yesterday while reading random news stories online, I clicked on a news story documenting the announcement by Alan Colmes that he would be leaving Hannity & Colmes, the political discussion program on Fox News where he has served as Sean Hannity's liberal punching bag for the past twelve years.
Can you blame the guy? He's the Washington Generals of political debate. The Washington Generals are the poor schmucks who play the Harlem Globetrotters every night. And every night they lose in grand fashion while they get depantsed at the free throw line and have balls bounced across their foreheads. Crowds watch the Globetrotters miraculously stage dribbling exhibitions through the legs of patsy Generals players who are in too much of a need of an easy paycheck to object. Still, losing every night while a roaring audience cheers you looking like a buffoon has to get old eventually.

Maybe it finally got old for Colmes. I swear, he makes Sean Hannity look like a regular Meadowlark Lemon. As Colmes haplessly sits back in interviews and misses easy jabs that even Larry King wouldn't miss, Sean Hannity puts on a regular trick shot exhibition. Hannity and his conservative cronies bounce verbal shots off Colmes' dumb noggin as he looks on in a daze. Heck, that show is about as fair and balanced as the Generals 13,000-odd game losing streak since 1971.

Good riddance, Colmes. Have fun in the graveyard of weekend Fox News programming. Who knows how long you'll last? Who the hell would want to see the Washington Generals display their incompetence without a Globetrotter like Curly Neal throwing bounce passes at their nuts? I know I wouldn't!

Obama, Republicans and a Question of Morality

While I sometimes fall short of my own expectations, I try to lead a moral life and exist as a good person. The political causes I support are largely based on simple moral beliefs. This is why I have been so disappointed to see the Republican Party stake a claim to being the moral political party. Now, I'm not foolish enough to say that Democrats are right on every issue, but I think that if we balance the issues that amount to real quality of life, the Republican party has gone astray.

These are the issues that matter to me:

The Iraq war is wrong. It was wrong from day one. It was sold to the American public on bad intelligence, and the Bush administration used fear echoing from 9/11 to drum up support. We acted as the world police and removed a secular leader and have left the country in the midst of a civil war. Young American soldiers are being torn from their familes, scarred for life, or are losing their lives. At the same time, we're virtually ignoring the real strongholds of terrorism, Afghanistan and Pakistan. This war is a shameful stain on the history of our country, and I hope the world forgives us.

Global warming is a crisis. It is caused by humans. We are ruining the planet for future generations. Republicans consistently have blocked progress in combating global warming.

Public schools need our help, not our scorn. I teach middle school students out of a text book published well before they were born. Many computers in my building are so ancient that checking email is a challenge. Still, I try to prepare quality lessons (even though I'm still smarting over the county denying us pay raises we deserved last year). I also give regular standardized tests that are mandated by No Child Left Behind, even though teaching to these tests stifles my creativity as a teacher. I completely disagree with solving the problems in our educational system by spending government money on private school vouchers. Instead, let's make improving public schools a real priority. Public school teachers are largely a dedicated, underappreciated bunch. Although I agree teachers should be held accountable, I'm disappointed that this is the first line of attack John McCain often takes when addressing the failure of our education system. We need to work at making public schools in our country great. The National Education Association endorses Barack Obama on the basis of fifteen different topics that relate to quality education. I agree with them on all fifteen.

The poor are ignored in our country. The Republican Party has consistently supported a philosophy where we only look out for the rights of the shareholder. The working poor deserve human rights and equality that we simply haven't been willing to give them. The fact is that we are the only wealthy industrialized nation that doesn't provide health care for all. In a nation as great as ours, this is just wrong. Business profits go to a small few, and simply haven't trickled down. Having grown up in a small town I was somewhat oblivious to the horrors of poverty in an urban setting. I no longer have that comfort. I now am glad to hear Obama supporters such as John Edwards and Colin Powell say that we need to take major steps in helping the poor in both our country and the world. Also, while I'm no fan of abortion, I think there are real issues of human suffering that need to be resolved before any of us can claim any moral high ground on that issue. We should, and can, help to alleviate the conditions that afflict many scared young women before we look down on them concerning their choice on this issue.

We need more rational gun control. I think we can honor the rights of sportsmen and law abiding citizens who want to protect their homes while also passing strict laws that keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Republicans have continually supported positions on guns that leave our cities unsafe. How could we let an assault weapons ban expire? Why not close the gun show loophole? I hear another police helicopter flying over my apartment as I type this. I fear sending a child out into these gun infested streets.

Gay people don't deserve to be discriminated against. If you are morally against homosexuality, don't engage in it. My feeling is that many conservatives have latched onto issues concerning homosexuality and have used a supposed Biblical perspective to justify bigotry. As the Republican Party has moved further to the right, I feel the base of the party has become too concerned with the judgment and ridicule of gay people.

Government spending has gotten out of control. Bill Clinton left office with a budget surplus. The national debt has doubled under Republican control, and is now at roughly $11 trillion. This endangers national security. This endangers the hope of a quality existence for workers in this country in years to come.

I think the Republican Party has been hijacked by people that have lowered the standard of political debate and discussion. If I honestly believed in the real core principles of the Republican Party, I would be outraged by this. Colin Powell obviously is. Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and the like have become superstars by lowering the standards for political discussion so low that their followers are unable to engage in any political discussion based on real issues. I've been disappointed in the arguments people have offered me as they state reasons for supporting McCain. People have forwarded me racist images of things like "Obama Bin Laden," showing Obama's face Photoshopped onto Osama Bin Laden's image. People have forwarded me bigoted information claiming Obama is a Muslim, as if there would be something wrong with that. I've watched the political rallies on television where someone yells "terrorist" and instead of that person being corrected, it's used as some sort of rallying cry. I choose to believe John McCain is probably sickened by the bigoted, small-minded turn many Republicans (including his running mate) have taken in opposing Obama, but it still doesn't excuse it.

I think we have a real chance to swing the political pendulum back the other way. The Republicans have really lost their way, and I think that in the weeks and months to come many will admit to that. Today I'm gladly casting my vote for Barack Obama. I honestly believe he's a good man who wants to make the world a better place. I have no way of knowing if he'll fulfill his promises and make a good president, but I know that when he speaks he inspires me like no politician I've ever seen. By voting for him I feel I'm making a truly moral decision.

Sarah Palin is too stupid to be Vice President

After watching Tina Fey's comedic take on Sarah Palin's CBS News interview, I was curious to see the actual piece. It was just kind of amazing to see.

You'd think that her handlers would have briefed and coached her at least a little bit on some of these issues. She just looked like a deer in the headlights for much of this interview. She either stammered, deflected, danced around the questions, or relied on extremely basic talking points. I almost felt bad for the woman until I remembered that come January she could be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

I watched Friday's presidential debate in its entirety and thought Barack Obama proved that the same fears that many people like myself have about Palin don't apply to him. He was knowledgeable, had well defined opinions, and was able to speak off the cuff. I honestly don't see how any people who aren't absorbed by anti-Obama rhetoric that is largely rooted in racism wouldn't have found themselves at least slightly more comfortable with the thought of an Obama presidency after watching that debate.

The fact is that John McCain is 72 years old, which would make him the oldest first term president in history.  He has already survived four instances where skin cancer was removed from his body. There is a huge likelihood that by electing John McCain president we could face a situation where Palin would have to finish his term. As Matt Damon said, this is an almost unbelievable scenario. I believe he likened it to a bad Disney movie where a hockey mom becomes president. As much as I've always been a big Obama supporter (with good reason), at one point I wasn't horrified by the thought of a McCain presidency. Well, No more.

Face it people, Palin would be no better as president than you are I. Hell, If you'd given me a few days of preparation time with the best Republican handlers, I would have done a better job being grilled by Katie Couric. And that's really scary.