My first post to the Slate roundtable on the year/decade in music is up now, including my personal top 45 tracks of 2009, from Destroyer’s 14-minute “ambient disco” song to “Auto-Tune the News” to Persian rap. Bonus musings on periodization, the divergent ascents of the single and the concept album, and armchair psychoanalysis of dudes who name their bands after collective nouns for chicks.
2009 in Review: The Year’s Stars on 45
December 9th, 2009
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View Zoilus without Toronto-specific content → Top Toronto Shows
View Zoilus without Toronto-specific content → Top Toronto Shows
- THU SEPT 2
JASON AJEMIAN'S WHO CARES HOW LONG YOU SINK?, CASTLEMUSIC, COLIN FISHER, Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), 10 pm, pwyc. - ASHKENAZ FESTIVAL w/ GEOFF BERNER, MICHAEL WINOGRAD TRIO, Lula Lounge.
- JONAS BROTHERS, DEMI LOVATO, Molson Amphitheatre, 7 pm, $35.50-$99.50.
- FRI SEPT 3
FLYING LOTUS, ULTRAGAMMA, MYMANHENRI, Phoenix, $20.25. - Never Forgive Action w/ P-PLUS, LISSA MONET, DALIA, NUMERIC, Augusta House, 11 pm.
- JONAS BROTHERS, DEMI LOVATO, Molson Amphitheatre, 3 pm, $35.50-$99.50.
- LIONESS, Double Double Land.
- MARTIN BISI, THE HOA HOA'S, SNOWBLINK, THE MERCURYMEN, The Garrison, 8:30 pm, $7.
- SAT SEPT 4
SAM AMIDON, Drake Hotel, $13.50. - Ashkenaz w/ THE OTHER EUROPEANS, Harbourfront, 9:30 pm, free.
- SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN, TELEKINESIS, El Mocambo, $12.
- QUEST FOR FIRE, THE KILLER ELITE, Horseshoe, 10 pm.
- GLORIA GAYNOR, THE DRIFTERS, RICK SHEPPARD, CNE Bandshell, 7:30 pm, free w/ admission.
- SUN SEPT 5
TOMASZ KRAKOWIAK (percussion) & STEVE WARD (trombone), ODRADEK, The Central, 3 pm, pwyc. - Ashkenaz w/ BALKAN BEAT BOX, Harbourfront, 9:30 pm, free.
- Ashkenaz w/ DAVID BUCHBINDER'S ODESSA/HAVANA, Harbourfront, Brigantine Room, 7 pm, $15-$18.
- TUE SEPT 7
VAMPIRE WEEKEND, DUM-DUM GIRLS, BEACH HOUSE, Molson Amphitheatre, $30.75-$55.75.
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early influence - Das Damen?
big up the Vibez Cartel pick. Such a good Ne-Yo beat, without Ne-Yo’s saccharine song on top!
it’s funny — i really want to hurl myself guns a-blazing against the critical praise of paisley and lambert as lyricists and say that everyone’s just automatically giving them a million points for even trying; but i myself am pretty damn excited about taylor swift and on paper it’s hard to say what exactly she has going on for her as a writer other than good intentions, so i guess maybe paisley and lambert just have some remarkable vibe that i’m not getting.
I prefer Swift to Lambert too, Peli, by a pretty far shot, but I think Lambert has her powerful moments. As for what Swift has going for her as a writer, I guess it would be a keen sense of emotional space? Her narrative timing is really good, and so is her sense of proportion - it comes across that what’s going on is a young person’s dilemma, that it’s not the most grave thing in the world, but that it matters a lot to the protagonist of the story - and it all adds up to the listener empathizing and sharing in the mourning or celebrating or striving going on in the song.
really good take on swift. also, i think there’s some glint of that creeley kind of quality in her, where you get this really nice sense of writing-as-thinking-through — a sense of process or effort. similarly, i’d say that while she’s just adequate with metaphors she has an uncanny gift for metonymy, for communicating a rich world through cleverly selected bits and pieces. that’s (maybe) why the grandly metaphorical ‘love story’ is kind of cringe-inducing but ‘teardrops on my guitar’ is her best songs and one of the most metonymy-heavy pop songs of recent years. plus, well, my admiration is partly proleptic — she already mastered basic pop lyricism at 18, so i can’t wait to see where the next 10 years will take her.
plus, i love how ‘fifteen’ takes the abstinence anthem format and makes it about how the worst disease that you can get from sex is inertia
On the female-named dude-band tip, note also the metal bands Priestess and Baroness.
Autotune the news is my favorite meme of the year, I’m really impressed with a lot of their newstunes, but I think I like the idea even more. And the single tear of the angry gorilla.