2008 was a great year for music.
It's become an annual rite of passage in the music business. …
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Best of 2008: Counting Crows, Oasis, Black Keys, Dave Carter, B.B. King, The Bittersweets, Mudcrutch, R.E.M., Coldplay, Gutter Twins, Glen Phillips - Comments Page 2
Part of: Best Albums of 2008
Article comments
26 - Josh Hathaway
I'm not offended, Zing, and I could a fuck if you want to decry my taste. I don't live in a universe where music or sound has to have "advanced" by some margin on some scale to be good or to be the best or to be worth noting. On one hand I could say there's nothing new under the sun and everything has been done before. I've heard people use M&M wrappers as percussion instruments and if that gets you off, you can have it. I don't feel like my taste is undermined if I'm interested in the old reliables like melody, harmony, rhythm, and lyrics. Cutting edge isn't always better. New isn't always better. ProTools and a tube of toothpaste may be able to make something I've never heard before, but that doesn't make it good or something that I want to hear. I'm interested in good. These are good and great records and they were released in 2008.
I'm not opposed to new, either, mind you. New is simply that: new. It's not inherently good or bad. I feel the same way about cutting edge. It's not inherently good. Some experiments go wrong. Some of them are bad. Some are best forgotten. Many ultimately are.
27 - Mark Saleski
and we're all looking forward to brian's list of "Best F*cking Metal Bands of 2008 w/Singers Who Sound Like Cookie Monster"
28 - Glen Boyd
For whatever its worth, I think Zing and Gupster blasted my list too Josh, with much the same reasoning. Like you, And I just called em as I saw em...even to the point of explaining that this wasn't a best of list, but rather a list of the stuff I liked or listened to most. Gup has a real hard-on for Coldplay (and in my case, Metallica on my "second ten"). Guppy also really enjoys the use of the word "shite".
And Zing...really likes saying "fuck buttons".
-Glen
29 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Hey Mark, I just realized why you don't like the growling vocals...You're not a Metalhead. *Hmmm*, I don't know why it took so long for that to sink in.
30 - Glen Boyd
...At least you included BB King, thus avoiding the wrath of Bicho. ;>p
31 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Yea...I always sport wood for tone deaf retards and all that shite!! *Smirk*
32 - Glen Boyd
Saleski loves growling vocals. Hes a Tom Waits fan.
-Glen
33 - zingzing
oh, josh. you certainly do sound offended. if you truly aren't, i'm glad. it wasn't my intention. and it's not particularly YOUR taste that i'm against, because that's yours and you can have it, but it's the fact that a large majority of people--and i'm not saying you're necessarily a part of that majority, but this list certainly is--are willing to just sit back and passively listen.
i don't think "new" is necessarily good either. but it's never bad. anything that advances the art of music is a good thing. and that happens to be what i look for in music. you may not. it doesn't even have to be new right now. it just has to have been something new when it was created. i go back and look for the origins of ideas in music. i also look for music where an idea has been perfected, or has moved towards that perfection in a significant manner.
maybe, and almost certainly, i approach music in a different way than you do. that doesn't make my taste better than yours, it just makes it different. maybe even opposed in certain ways.
that's the point i'm making. really, i'm just trying to have an argument about music, which i think is a grand old pursuit.
34 - Josh Hathaway
Zing, you just don't know me. It take heaps more abuse before I get offended. Criticism is also a lot easier to take when you know you're right to begin with. :D
It seems we do approach things differently. I don't think we're necessarily in opposition to one another, though. I may not see new as an essential ingredient for good, but I don't see it as the enemy, either.
I don't think I'm a passive listener, either. I do take an active role in my music. I actively seek out new artists or at least artists I haven't heard of before. I also from time to time go back and listen to artists or albums I didn't like the first time to see if my thoughts have changed. I do challenge myself but I also love music and I like to spend time listening to music that I love rather than always searching for the next mountain. It's not such a bad thing to find something you love and listen to it.
I think having this discussion has been great and that's why I'm still here. When I stop posting it means I've either gotten pissed off or bored (or both). I'm still here because I think this is interesting and worth going back and forth.
35 - El Bicho
"there is no reason on earth that a "best of 2008" has to be topped with oasis and counting crowes."
It does if it's Josh's list because those are his choices.
"it's not about trying to prove your cool or be trendy or elitist. it's about going to the cutting edge of music, where it actually is fresh and new."
Are you honestly unaware of how you just contradicted yourself with these two sentences?
"the best music of 2008 is that with new ideas to explore, where it's challenging and takes chances."
No, that's "your" best music not "the" best music of 2008. I like the Fuck Buttons a lot, though their name shows unbelievable immaturity, but they aren't doing anything "new". No one does. It's all the same old stuff in new packaging.
36 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
but they aren't doing anything "new". No one does. It's all the same old stuff in new packaging.
I'm glad that not everybody thinks this way or I wouldn't have anything to look forward to.
37 - zingzing
"It does if it's Josh's list because those are his choices."
just trying to start an argument, which i did, and very well, thank you very much.
"Are you honestly unaware of how you just contradicted yourself with these two sentences?"
what's trendy, elitist or cool about seeking out advancements in an art form? it's just appreciating that which makes the form exciting. it's not a contradiction in the least, unless you approach finding new methods of expression as some sort of exercise in looking good or smart. which i don't. so it doesn't apply.
"No, that's "your" best music not "the" best music of 2008."
there's some truth to that. but that's the way i approach things. it's what makes music compelling. sure, there are physical reactions to music, and there are pieces of music that comfort, or sounds one just likes in general. but that doesn't make something truly astounding, or something that opened up new views on music.
"I like the Fuck Buttons a lot, though their name shows unbelievable immaturity, but they aren't doing anything "new". No one does. It's all the same old stuff in new packaging."
i don't think their name is all that important. sure, it's immature, but it's also genius marketing. it's a striking name, a bit crass, maybe, but it fits them, whether they like it or not.
if you can name me another album that is this blatantly noisy and harsh, but has such an incredible undercurrent of pop sensibility and ends up being beautiful despite the origins of the sounds, i'd like to hear it. name it for me, please.
and also, what about the packaging isn't important? the sound is one of the ideas, and it's an important part of the whole. that's what music is.
38 - zingzing
josh: "Zing, you just don't know me. It take heaps more abuse before I get offended. Criticism is also a lot easier to take when you know you're right to begin with. :D"
glad to hear it, and you're damn right being right makes it easier.
josh: "I do challenge myself but I also love music and I like to spend time listening to music that I love rather than always searching for the next mountain. It's not such a bad thing to find something you love and listen to it."
true that, or else you'd never listen to anything more than once. i still listen to artists i grew up with, but not all of them. and a lot of them don't fit the profile of the type of music or artist i would be interested in these days.
and i'm not going to pretend that i ONLY listen to music that is formally or ideologically innovative. shit, i like disco for god's sake. (not to say there weren't any impressive ideas in disco... one of the reasons i like it so much is because of its formal and technological breakthroughs... everything from the 12" single to the remix, sequencers, blah, blah... and it was also the mirror image of punk in a lot of ways. it bucked trends and embraced rigid dogma in much the same way. blah.)
that said, i do feel like your list is something of like the exact opposite of what i look for in music. and i wonder what you find so appealing about it. is there really anything there you hadn't heard before (and probably better)?
"I think having this discussion has been great and that's why I'm still here. When I stop posting it means I've either gotten pissed off or bored (or both). I'm still here because I think this is interesting and worth going back and forth."
but then i'll have won! (and i've been known to completely change my argument just to keep it going. it's a fault. ask the late michael j. west.)
39 - Josh Hathaway
i wonder what you find so appealing about it.
I guess I need to take some time and re-read this article because I'd hate to think I didn't make clear what it is I liked about each of these albums. Maybe I didn't.
is there really anything there you hadn't heard before?
I hadn't heard any of these albums until I heard them. ;) You know I guess I don't know how to answer that. These albums pleased me. I got something different from each of them, but I did get something from each of them. I listened to a lot more than these 10 albums that were made in 2008. I listened to a lot of albums made sometime before 2008 this past year. These were the albums that I thought were the best that I heard that were made this past year.
Life and music are filled with surprises. What you say are albums that are "more of the same" had little treasures hidden for me. These bands may not have created sounds never before captured by human ears, but not all change has to be drastic change. I was enriched by the songs on these albums in ways I've been enriched by other songs, but also in ways that were new to me. All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. The chemical reaction that happened with me and the music was real and different. Maybe I did a poor job in communicating that.
i still listen to artists i grew up with, but not all of them.
Certainly. There are bands I used to love that I've abandoned and there are bands I never thought I'd like that are essential listening for me.
40 - Mark Saleski
this is interesting because, as i'm fond of saying, sometimes the reasons why something resonates with a person are completely mysterious.
take the tune Atlas by the group Battles. i know why i liked it...because it was really, really freaky.
but then there are other more 'normal' songs...i'll use the tune "Miss You Til I Meet You" by Dar Williams (i'm using this partially because i'm pretty sure that i sent it to josh)...i'm not a lyrics guy but there's something about the story of this person searching for and talking to their future 'match' that got to me immediately. but it's more than that...because there are parts of the song where the combination of just a few words combined with the music just about overwhelmed me. when Dar sings "...like waving hands..." it just chokes me up. i still don't know why.
41 - zingzing
hrm. i certainly wasn't trying to say your article didn't tell me WHAT you like about these albums. so you don't need to go re-editing. not that you would have anyway.
i'm trying to get at the why of the situation. for instance, i found the oasis album totally bloated, all overworked sound and none of their great (if stolen) melodies remaining. the rhythms are sluggish and tired, the guitars are a messy mass of tunelessness and even liam is sounding like a rich old "angry" man at times. and noel must be running out of "inspiration," because his songwriting has fallen apart to the point that it doesn't even sound like a good facsimile of his targets.
of course, i'm not an oasis fan, but even i can admit that there was enough damn good stuff on their first two albums to make one great one. by this point, they're not even good at being oasis.
so how on earth is this one of the best albums of the year? what's really enjoyable about it?
but i don't want to make this about oasis. i'm not a big oasis hater. i just think they're past their prime.
have you heard... ok, here's where it gets funny, but trust me, it's just coincidence... fucked up's "chemistry of common life?" that's a guitar rock album that had passion, innovation and drive. the guitars are absolutely huge, the songwriting convoluted and complex, the melodies are breathtaking... the singing i can take or leave, but singing styles never bother me if the lyrics are up to the task.
fucked up come from a hardcore background, but have grown into some sort of hardcore faust (the german band), with elongated structures and ideas appropriated from avant guard music. those ideas are recontextualized within punk music and made fresh. i've heard rumors that there are up to 70 guitar tracks... but that's not a good thing on its own... that leads you to "be here now."
fucked up aren't an avant guard band... they sound like punk music. but really great punk music that ingests ideas and pukes them up in a gloriously new way. (the album starts with a flute solo. then moves into a glen branca-esque guitar sculpture that seems to breathe.)
blah blah blah.
so what's so great about oasis? they make you pine for 1995? they're still serviceable? they're coasting. what really separates this album from the one that came before it, or the one that came before that? what new ideas have they had, even for themselves?
42 - zingzing
mark, "atlas" is incredible, isn't it? such a strange mixture of sounds. i saw them do that live this past summer. the singer likes to start his arm down at his side and slowly raise it far above his said when he sings that "whoa-ah-oh" bit. and the crowd, as if by command, stands on their toes, or jump, or raise their hands...
it's a bit of a religious experience. if i could have one.
that song is a perfect combination of technology and looney tunes.
43 - Mark Saleski
what really separates this album from the one that came before it, or the one that came before that? what new ideas have they had, even for themselves?
good question. i'm not sure either and i actually liked the record a lot...and this is coming from somebody who has had absolutely no use for anything they've done before.
44 - Tom Johnson
ZZ, I think you need to just relax. Many of the albums that you've derided on Josh's list have been pretty much universally accepted as excellent, especially the BB King album. Slamming that as "in a holding pattern" should get you banned from all music sites for 90 days, at least. It is a masterwork. The Counting Crows and Oasis albums are being hailed as returns to form - as albums that equal their big successes, and I agree, especially with regard to the Crows album. Just because they may have their biggest days behind them doesn't mean they aren't going to release incredible music. And just because a band has "Fuck" in their name doesn't mean they're noteworthy, either. Stop reading Pitchforkmedia and their ilk and start just listening to music for the sake of music. I would also advise the staffs of Pitchforkmedia and others like them to stop reading their own crap writing and learn how to enjoy music.
45 - Christopher Rose
I don't agree with the argument that "rock" doesn't need to bring something new. Back in the day it always did but that hasn't been the case for many years now unfortunately.
The music championed in this article may well have been good to listen to for fans of that kind of music but, as El Bicho said above, albeit re Fuck Buttons, "they aren't doing anything "new". No one does. It's all the same old stuff in new packaging."
That's true for the majority of bands working in that field, big as that field may be. It's not true for lots of other genres though, where new ideas and sounds still come through quite often.
Most of the artists named are incredibly old, is there anybody even in their 20s, let alone any teenagers?
46 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
I agree with Christopher but I will take it one step further. The "Nothings New" mindset is cliched & comes from people/musicians who are f*cking tired. These are the same people,as Zing put it ever so accurately,that listen to music passively and no longer have an ear or drive for passion,creativity & musicianship.
Honestly, the people who buy into whatever is being "hailed" as anything great "universally" need to take a step back and see that these albums are pretty much schlock(with very few exceptions)! Personally, I think Oasis & The Counting Crows were Top 40 drivel even when they first came out but that's because 90's music in the US sucked big time anyways. All these angst ridden drug addicts that could hardly play a note stormed the airwaves which made it easier for these melodic hags with a hook to get popular.
Sorry, but when I think of the best for 2008, I think of bands across multiple genres & countries that really had something to say with their lyrics & instruments. AND,unfortunately, this article doesn't cover one of them.
47 - Pico
"Fuck Buttons" is an incredibly lame name.
"Button Fucks" on the other hand...
48 - zingzing
john thompson: "And just because a band has "Fuck" in their name doesn't mean they're noteworthy, either. Stop reading Pitchforkmedia and their ilk and start just listening to music for the sake of music."
straight up, fuck you. or stop paying attention to names. it's no difference. just because "fuck" is in name doesn't mean a thing. so shut up. at least about that. idiot.
really, i don't know you, but that's some idiotic shit to say. i hope you are ashamed. who gives a shit, really?
49 - zingzing
whoever: "ZZ, I think you need to just relax."
nope.
"Many of the albums that you've derided on Josh's list have been pretty much universally accepted as excellent, especially the BB King album. Slamming that as "in a holding pattern" should get you banned from all music sites for 90 days, at least."
but it doesn't, as it's an opinion. therefore, it's alright.
"The Counting Crows and Oasis albums are being hailed as returns to form - as albums that equal their big successes, and I agree, especially with regard to the Crows album. Just because they may have their biggest days behind them doesn't mean they aren't going to release incredible music."
you can have your opinion, i can have mine. the counting crows are music for people who's girlfriends were listening to sarah mclachlan (or whatever her name was) in college and they were just trying to compete on some level of something. i don't like counting crows, i don't like music like counting crows, i don't like music that tries to act like they're counting crows, as if that would exist. they're a tired band beyond their belabored point.
"Stop reading Pitchforkmedia and their ilk and start just listening to music for the sake of music."
fuck you twice. that is one of the music sites i read for music. i do check out what they suggest, but i don't discount other stuff just because of a bad review by pitchfork. they review a bunch of stuff.
but i also pay attention to a lot of other sites. you think pitchfork satisfies my interest in music because counting crows doesn't? come on.
grow up.
"I would also advise the staffs of Pitchforkmedia and others like them to stop reading their own crap writing and learn how to enjoy music."
my god. there's a point where anti-hipster becomes hipster, and you're clearly crossing that line, probably without trying, which makes you such a hipster anti-hipster hipster, and you don't even know what you are anymore.
"pitchfork sucks!"--battlecry of the brooklyn hipster, 2008.
recognize what you are.
50 - zingzing
chris: "I don't agree with the argument that "rock" doesn't need to bring something new. Back in the day it always did but that hasn't been the case for many years now unfortunately."
damn right.
but hell no. we've had this argument before. you're just on some fringe of music where time has passed you by because you stopped. music moves in circles. and you haven't kept up. it's not hard, now that the music is free.
that's the problem with some of (not you, chris, really) you old assholes: you're old.
gonna argue?
how old are you that are arguing against this? rock music needs to make continuous strides forward. the 60s are over. so are the 70s. you'd rather forget the 80s. you don't want to admit that the 90s existed. the 00s? can't even name them.
i'm not saying you have to be young to argue the point. but jesus, don't make it so damn obvious that you're not listening to much of anything new at all.
i'm not going to say everything is new in my music. right now, i'm enjoying henry cow. it's not new, but it was new when it was around, and it enjoyed that territory, where no band had been.
poop.
51 - El Bicho
"what's trendy, elitist or cool about seeking out advancements in an art form?"
this is you just looking to argue for the sake of arguing right?
"just because "fuck" is in name doesn't mean a thing."
right. that's why the only bands you mention have 'fuck' in their name. do you like any band who doesn't have someone from a repressed background that they lash out with such a cliche as having 'fuck' in there name? I guess they are so cutting edge and inventive in their music that they have no imagination left for their name.
52 - zingzing
bicho--
no, that's not an argument just for the sake of argument. it's a question, with an obvious answer.
and i could mention a lot of other band names. and i made the coincidence between fuck buttons and fucked up quite clear, so whatever. go read something before you comment.
but just for your convenience, yes, all the bands i like have "fuck" in their name.
except it's obvious that they don't. you need a map to get around your room too?
music equals not band name. hope you can appreciate, el bicho.
53 - Mark Saleski
that's the problem with some of (not you, chris, really) you old assholes: you're old.
first you tell us to grow up, and then you act like a 12 year old.
so much for an interesting discussion.
54 - Christopher Rose
Eh? I missed that, Mark. Where did you get the impression that zingzing was telling anyone to grow up from that quote?
55 - Mark Saleski
in #49, where it says "grow up"
56 - Josh Hathaway
I guess I'm going to have to go listen to the Fuck Buttons and here what's so new about what they're doing. I have a hard time believing I'll hear anything being done with an electric guitar that hasn't been done before, but I'm open to surprises.
If one accepts the idea that something new can be done, that still doesn't make "new" synonymous with "good." Maybe there are reasons nobody did what you're doing before. Some new ideas are really, really terrible.
And I'm sorry, but fuck off with what age the artists are or the decade in which they started recording music. That's a contrivance I just don't have any patience for. Good music is good music. What happened to just loving a record because it's fucking good? That's what this list is. That's what COAF is. It's a guy falling in love with music. There are no other rules or guidelines worth following. All the rest is just bullshit. Okay, so yeah I know BB King is 83, but I don't know how old Hannah Prater is. I don't know how old Dan Auerbach or Dave Carter are. I don't give a fuck. It doesn't matter. I listened to the records and they're great fucking records. Lost in all of this poo-flinging -- which is getting real old -- is the music. I could give a fat lady's snatch if these guys weren't born in the right decade. Man, talk about narrow-mindedness. You can talk about this "skewing" old but I disagree. There are artists from the '50s, '70s, '80s, '90s, and '00s on this list. I didn't do that on purpose, but it's there. This list has jazz and blues and different flavors of rock.
There's diversity here and you don't have to look too hard to find it. You talk about Tom being anti-hipster-hipster or whatever the fuck that was, but you're bringing your own "this shit ain't new enough/cool enough" for me vibe to this discussion. I don't care how many cool points my picks get. These are great albums. The rest of this is just noise.
57 - Mark Saleski
to give Pitchfork a little credit, most of the writing is pretty good. and they actually talk about the music quite a bit, instead of just the lyrical themes.
on the other hand, they traffic in all manner of stereotype-flingin. i mean, in a review of the latest My Morning Jacket:
"After listening to Urges, I wonder if My Morning Jacket might just be satisfied following in the footsteps of labelmates Dave Matthews Band: nestling into a comfortable niche and aiming for the Starbucks carousel with rootsy New Age romanticism."
the whole starbucks thing is such crap....exactly like pinning a description on a 'typical' fan of Counting Crows. i happen to like the new record and somehow you know me? no you fucking well don't.
i'm likely to go and listen to Peter Brotzmann next. does that mean anything either?
i tell you, the impetus to slap on these labels? THAT means something.
58 - Josh Hathaway
to give Pitchfork a little credit, most of the writing is pretty good. and they actually talk about the music quite a bit, instead of just the lyrical themes.
I don't think the writing is particularly good, but I'll leave that aside. They traffic too often in stereotypes to have much time to talk about music or lyrics and I'm sorry because I know you and I go 'round and 'round about this but if you're going to put lyrics in a song the lyrics you put there matter. Anyway.
Mark, you said more clearly what I was trying to say. These labels are bullshit. It's the music that matters. My age and the age of the artists are irrelevant. People can bring that up as many times as you want but it neither validates nor invalidates the music.
59 - zingzing
oi. sorry, mark, etc. i was ridiculously drunk last night. that was 5 am when i wrote that, and i had gone to two parties and three bars, as far as i remember. there's a sea of beer bottles and broken glass in my living room and i don't know why. i certainly was acting like a child. a drunk child, i guess. my apologies. i haven't been drunk in a while. by this hangover, i'm guessing it was quite spectacular.
but, i must say that those who think everything has been done have given up, or are old. not everything has been done. if it had been, there wouldn't be any future whatsoever. i believe it was einstein who said that "the only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen all at once."
josh: "I have a hard time believing I'll hear anything being done with an electric guitar that hasn't been done before, but I'm open to surprises."
there aren't any guitars.
"Maybe there are reasons nobody did what you're doing before. Some new ideas are really, really terrible."
but trying and failing is better than just doing the same old thing and getting nowhere.
"You talk about Tom being anti-hipster-hipster or whatever the fuck that was, but you're bringing your own "this shit ain't new enough/cool enough" for me vibe to this discussion. I don't care how many cool points my picks get."
i only called out tom because of his silly little "yer a hipster!" bullshit. and of course, the hipster who rejects hipsters is the most hipster of all hipsters. and i never said anything about being "cool enough." that's just silly.
"The rest of this is just noise."
nice reference there. (hipster?) i like noise.
and as far as pitchfork goes, it's a tool. things they like are often good. things they review (even badly) are albums i often haven't heard of before that. like anything else, it's what you take out of it that matters. pitchfork is what it is, and nothing else.
60 - Josh Hathaway
but trying and failing is better than just doing the same old thing and getting nowhere.
I find flaws in that statement. First, I reject that these are the same old thing or that they got nowhere. Second, I reject the premise that a failed experiment is better than no experiment. I reject that an experiment that fails is better than music that is good.
61 - zingzing
well, of course an experiment that fails isn't better than music that is "good." but there's more music out there than you could ever hope to listen to, so why bother with just "good?" if you're looking for greatness, then someone has to really reach for it. i'd rather see 100 artists fail than hear the same damn thing again.
62 - Josh Hathaway
I'd rather hear great, and an artist failing isn't great. Failure isn't great. It's great when music can be new and great, but that doesn't always happen.
This is starting to get repetitive and circular.
63 - zingzing
ha. true. but i said "i'd rather SEE 100 artist fail," not "hear." there is a distinction. and i'm no masochist. although i do seem to like punishment.
64 - Josh Hathaway
Fair enough, there's a difference. I'm still not going to put the bands that fail on my Top 10 of 2008.
65 - JC Mosquito
Hmmm......... got this one late - I agree with both zing and Josh. I liked the crows and oasis both - I think they have better albums, and i dont mean the blockbusters. They would've made my top 20. But I make n bones about it - although there are a lot of genres about which I can discourse rationally, I prefer classic style rock music to pop, punk, jazz, country regardless whether it's new or not. So it's wherever you're at, right? Everything in context.
Right no I'm working through all the Monkees' recent Rhino reissues - talk about retro. But, having said this, apparently Headquarters was remixed - sounds very contemporary in some ways. See - everyone can be happy after all!
66 - Glen Boyd
Now if they were only called the fuck monkees....
-Glen
67 - Pico
Now if they were only called the fuck monkees....
too late ;-)
68 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
How 'bout "Jesus F*cking Christ, The F*cking Monkees" - From all the times I had to change 103.3 when they would come on.
69 - Jordan Richardson
I can already see my Top 15 of 2009 list forming: all sorts of fucks from all fucking sorts of different fucking backgrounds with different fucking instruments and different fucking genres to fucking fuck around with.
I can't f*cking wait!
70 - Alexander Ghali
It's not a prerequisite for music to be innovative to be great. Yes, it's wonderful when you come across something magically enchanted that's unlike anything you've heard before, and it touches something deep within your soul. But I can be just as easily moved by a tune that's strictly by-the-numbers- it's not pushing the envelope that makes a song truly great, but rather it is the method by which it conveys its passion and deep emotion, speaking to you sonically and lyrically- and THAT has nothing to do with a fresh new sound a band has managed to invoke, which morons purport to be a sign of the times, and worthy of mention as the most spectacular of tunes of the year due to that simple fact. Music and media evolve and they reconfigure what has been done before, and even if at most a band could be said to be important for being one that contributes to a new genre with their respective media contributions, it most certainly does NOT automatically place them at the top of the heap for product for the year. It's about QUALITY, not innovation, and what's good is good, whether the artist has the staying power to survive in the entertainment business or not.
It's just music, after all, and though it may make you hungrier, angrier, and lose total control, or on the flip side cripple you with tales of the misery in love with tales that parallel your own, whilst still allowing the vision to see the beauty of that sadness, or songs that all at once fill you with joy and lust for life, craving every moment as if it's your last. Music, films, all media should aim to leave its mark on you for days of insight and reflection, and while I call that crafting "art", it is at often merely the studied practice of leaning to push the right buttons (and vocal heights) to manipulate its audience's emotions in a calculated fashion.