Tag Archives: Aaron’s top albums

by Aaron Brophy | December 23, 2014 · 7:54 pm

Aaron’s Top Albums Of 2010

The Black Angels’ Phosphene Dream

This is my official Top 10 album list for 2010:

10. Arcade Fire The Suburbs

This made the list at #10 because of a begrudging acknowledgement that, yes, technically it’s a very good album. I can’t, however, shake the notion that the subject matter (restless youth, suburban angst) is something that pop-punkers have been singing about for 25 years. Which makes it not nearly as brave and world-shattering a concept as many would suggest.

9. Band Of Horses Infinite Arms

I haven’t listened to this album since 2010 and I see no reason to do so now.

8. Gord Downie And The Country Miracles The Grand Bounce

I’ve always had a tremendous appreciation for Gord Downie’s solo records. After all, to eschew his easy cash register gig in The Tragically Hip to do something like record freak-out hash rock poetry with Dale Morningstar (Coke Machine Glow, 2001) is incredibly bold. The thing is, as Hip albums become increasingly infrequent, Downie’s complimentary solo records are regressing to the mean in terms of musical adventure. And while The Grand Bounce has its moments — “The Drowning Machine,” in particular, reveals Downie’s often hidden dark side — I can’t help but feel it’s the beginning of Downie’s solo output oscillating towards the bar blues he’s better known for.

7. Black Mountain Wilderness Heart

It’s vitally important that Black Mountain exist. After all, without them there’d be a generation of Broken Social Scene-weaned hipsters who’d never think to listen to their dad’s old Zeppelin, Sabbath and Deep Purple albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmbmOVunEcc

6. The Schomberg Fair Gospel

In truth, it’s the idea of The Schomberg Fair — a punk-powered, banjo-plucking, hallelujah-hollerin’ rock revival — that I appreciated more than the actual music they released. This #6 spot is probably more about hope than actual love for Gospel.

5. Sunfields Palace In The Sun

The subtle charms of this soft-ish rock album from sometimes-Dears member Jason Kent certainly won me over at the time. In the end though I mostly cared about a song called “Desert Son.” If I redid this list today the album would probably be lower.

4. The Black Keys Brothers

Over it.

3. Gorillaz Plastic Beach

It took me almost a decade to realize that Gorillaz — a joke band made up of cartoon characters — was just as good as (and perhaps even better than) Damon Albarn’s other band, Blur. Granted, it took an album with outsized cameos from Snoop Dogg, Bobby Womack and Little Dragon to figure this out, but the fact I even got there is what really matters. “Stylo” is one of the best play-it-really-loud songs I’ve heard in ages and “Empire Ants,” my favourite from Plastic Beach, inflames the imagination.

2. The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night

The initial reason why I loved Are The Roaring Night was because my hockey team went on a huge winning streak when I’d listen to “Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent Pt. 2: The Innocent” as a psyche up song before each game. Gifts like these from the Hockey Gods need to be supported, after all. More recently, though, I’ve been reading a lot of John le Carré books. And while this has given me a suspicious fear of the United States and the nagging sensation that everyone you look up to will invariably let you down, it’s also done a lot to romance the whole idea of Cold War spies and their “tradecraft.” So now when I listen to Are The Roaring Night I not only enjoy the music on it’s surface sonic level, but I can also dig deeper into the loose spy concept/narrative that’s going on in the record as I peruse German daily newspapers waiting for coded messages from Czech operatives.

1. The Black Angels Phosphene Dream

When I looked back at this list and saw the #1 my first instinct was, “Why?” So I listened to it again and reconfirmed that, yeah, this is one badass record. Now, my loyalty to the album isn’t so strong that I wouldn’t consider flipping it with the Besnard album if I redid this today, but “Entrance Song,” “Bad Vibrations” and “Phosphene Dream” all explore that darker, more dangerous side of psyche rock I find so exciting.

Other album lists…

2015 Top Ten — SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart is #1
2014 Top Ten — Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There is #1
2013 Top Ten — M.I.A.’s Matangi is #1
2012 Top Ten — Dirty Ghosts’ Metal Moon is #1
2011 Top Ten — Timber Timbre’s Creep On Creepin’ On is #1
2010 Top Ten — The Black Angels’ Phosphene Dream is #1
2009 Top Ten — Gallows’ Grey Britain is #1
2008 Top Ten — Portishead’s Third is #1
2007 Top Ten — Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Ashtray Rock is #1
2006 Top Ten — My Brightest Diamond’s Bring Me The Workhorse is #1
2005 Top Ten — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Howl is #1
2004 Top Ten — Morrissey’s You Are The Quarry is #1
2003 Top Ten — The Dears’ No Cities Left is #1
2002 Top Ten — Archive’s You All Look The Same To Me is #1
2001 Top Ten — Gord Downie’s Coke Machine Glow is #1
2000 Top Ten — Songs: Ohia’s The Lioness is #1
1999 Top Ten — The Boo Radleys’ Kingsize is #1
1998 Top Ten — Baxter’s Baxter is #1
1996 Top Ten — Tricky’s Maxinquaye is #1

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Tagged as Aaron's top albums, Aaron's top albums 2010, Arcade Fire, Band of Horses, best albums, best albums 2010, Black Mountain, Brother, Gord Downie, Gord Downie And The Country Miracles, Gorillaz, Gospel, Infinite Arms, Music, Palace In The Sun, Phosphene Dream, Plastic Beach, Schomberg Fair, Sunfields, The Besnard Lakes, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, The Black Angels, The Black Keys, The Grand Bounce, The Schomberg Fair, The Suburbs, Top albums, top albums 2010, Wilderness Heart

by Aaron Brophy | December 20, 2014 · 9:33 pm

Aaron’s Top Albums Of 2009

Gallows’ Grey Britain

This is my official Top 10 album list for 2009:

10. Bat For Lashes Two Suns

I pretty much only like the song “Daniel” from this album. And it’s not like an intense gut-deep like, either. It’s just a, “Yeah, that’s pretty good.” Really, I’m not sure how this made it onto the list.

9. Dan Auerbach Keep It Hid

The Black Keys hadn’t quite really become THE BLACK KEYS yet, so I didn’t really know the name “Dan Auerbach” and took this record in on first listen with little preconception. The result? I dug it. Funny, if this same record came out right now I probably wouldn’t be as open to diggin’ its blues rock. This is perhaps my own failing.

8. The Veils Sun Gangs

Only recently did I learn that former Suede pillar Bernard Butler produced part of this album. It makes sense. The Veils are a high drama band and the music on Sun Gangs is perfectly designed for those predisposed towards flinging themselves onto their day beds when they catch the vapors. “It Hits Deep” is pretty sublime.

7. Lhasa Lhasa

I burn with rage when I think of this album. Not because it’s bad — it’s truly, astoundingly, deeply beautiful — but because my peers on the Polaris Music Prize jury didn’t think enough of the album to vote it to the 2009 Short List. This, even with the shouldn’t-officially-matter-but-definitely-does narrative juice of Lhasa de Sela’s advanced cancer at the time.

6. The Flaming Lips Embryonic

This album was cool and all, but we’ve pretty much reached peak Wayne Coyne, right? A good decade-long time out for the Lips would probably be just about right for everyone.

5. D-Sisive Let The Children Die

There aren’t exactly a wealth of truly “classic” Canadian rap albums, but Let The Children Die might be one of them. If not full classic, then it’s at least a pioneering disc. Listen carefully to almost any hoser rap record released since then and when that inevitable heart-on-sleeve, song-about-the-struggle comes on you can fairly argue it exists as a direct lineal descendant of the songs on Let The Children Die.

4. K-Dot-O-Dot The Life And Times Of Lucha Lonely

Between this album and Let The Children Die I was convinced Canadian hip-hop was on the vanguard of some brilliant new mope-rap scene/sub-genre. It would be all about this inward-searching, deeply confessional personal insight and less about whatever worst case typecasting you’d want to assign to the worst bits of late-’00s urban music. I ended up being half right. There was a shift to this sort of intense, soul-bearing hip-hop… except it ended up manifesting itself in the much higher gloss form of Drake and all his subsequent shade-of-grey, marketshare-powered spinoffs (see The Weeknd). Apparently sad-sack raps from fat, drunk losers were not what the kids wanted to hear.

3. Alela Diane To Be Still

If we’re being dismissive, Alela Diane is just another in an endless line of School of Joni balladeers who are oh so common on the fringes of coffeehouse open mic nights. To do that, though, would be to miss out on a truly sublime voice. “The Ocean” in particular is a brilliant, melancholy exploration on what it means to sacrifice love for a dream.

2. Timber Timbre Timber Timbre

This was the other album I was super-furious about the Polaris jury not giving more love to. Sure they made up for it by short-listing the next Timber Timbre record, but that felt at least halfway a make-up call.

1. Gallows Grey Britain

It takes a lot for a heavy music record to affect me. I’ve got the requisite rage in my soul, but most of the time hard rock just doesn’t get it right. Not Grey Britain, though. This album speaks. And not just to me. It’s for the millennials left behind, the ones who aren’t cool enough to navigate Tumblr memes, whose parents can’t afford to let them go to school for seven years. It’s for those kids who get scheduled for 18 hours a week at work and when they ask for 40 hours they get laid off. It’s for the kids who’ve looked around, realized everything’s fucked and just want to set it all on fire.

The only reason I can think for Grey Britain not being as big as Nevermind is there’s too much truth for people to handle.

Other album lists…

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Tagged as Aaron's top albums, Aaron's Top Albums 2009, Alela Diane, Bat For Lashes, best albums, best albums 2009, D-Sisive, Dan Auerbach, Embryonic, Flaming Lips, gallows, grey britain, K-Dot-O-Dot, Keep It Hid, Let The Children Die, Lhasa, lhasa del sela, Music, Recollections, Sun Gangs, The Flaming Lips, The Life And Times Of Lucha Lonely, The Veils, Timber Timbre, To Be Still, Top albums, top albums 2009, Two Suns

by Aaron Brophy | December 18, 2014 · 11:06 pm

Aaron’s Top Albums Of 2008

Portishead’s Third

This is my official Top 10 album list for 2008:

10. Sam Roberts Love At The End Of The World

I’ve long maintained that Sam Roberts doesn’t quite get the respect he deserves because of his adoption by the Kee To Bala set, but he does good work. Love At The End Of The World is a little bit more about “songs” than Chemical City‘s wicked cosmic jams, but “Them Kids” and “Detroit ’67” are where it’s at.

9. The Dears Missiles

This version of a radically reconstituted Dears painted with a far less bombastic brush than on previous albums, but there was still enough world-weariness to compliment the rest of their discography.

8. Lykke Li Youth Novels

Going to see Lykke Li live on this tour was an oddly awkward sociological experience. See, the audience for her show was a divided one. The front half, squished towards the stage and separated from the back by a very pronounced barrier was an all-ages crowd of teenage girls. On the opposite side of the barrier, in the licensed area, were me, a smattering of couples, and a bunch of solo old dudes. And, by virtue of my status as a no +1 reviewer, I too was a solo old dude. Which, by extension, meant I looked an old creeper leering after some Scandinavian pop star in a room full of teenage girls.

I wasn’t, though. Because I was — and am — much more interested in Lykke Li’s Bergman-ian worldview than what sort of hot pants she’s wearing. And songs like “The Trumpet In My Head” affect me in ways that have nothing to do with lurid intent.

At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HvH2pmVaVQ

7. The Moondoggies Don’t Be A Stranger

The Moondoggies are a bit of a mystery to me. I don’t follow them, I don’t read about them and I don’t know much about them beyond the fact they’re from Washington and I think hippie types like them. This is probably for the best. Sometimes the more you know about a band, the less interesting they become.

6. David Vandervelde Waiting For The Sunrise

There’s an unofficial micro genre that exists these days where acts like Midlake and Fleet Foxes try capturing that Laurel Canyon sound from the late ’60s. Vandervelde’s Waiting For The Sunrise might be the best contemporary articulation of that vibe. When you listen to it you just want to throw on a poncho, grab some wine and hang out.

5. Graveyard Graveyard

Being a sucker for doom metal and pretty much everything that sounds like Black Sabbath meant I was already predisposed towards Sweden’s Graveyard. Thing is, Graveyard aren’t just rote Sabbath imitators. Their sinister blues rock feels like its own thing, and Joakim Nilsson’s vocals are more intense than most of what Ozzy’s ever committed to.

4. Cancer Bats Hail Destroyer

What I like about the Cancer Bats is that their improbable posi-hardcore never wavers into dork territory. Instead, it’s more about well-directed rage, which is something I can respect. Also, “Lucifer’s Rocking Chair” rips.

3. D-Sisive The Book

This was D-Sisive’s back-from-the-dead album. Its intensely personal narrative, breadth of pop culture reference and sense of gravitas are things I now see getting bit hard by a legion of next gen graspers. I can see you, copycat bitches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRFoTe11Owg

2. The Last Shadow Puppets The Age Of The Understatement

A grandiose, symphonic rock trip, The Age Of The Understatement felt like a series of lost Bond anthems come to life. I listened to this album endlessly when it came out and I haven’t really heard anything similar sounding since then.

1. Portishead Third

I’ve given out, max, a dozen 5/5 album reviews in all the years I’ve been writing about music and this is one of them. Intense, confounding, unique, sinister… Third is the articulation of some kind of sonic menace, a mad clanking machine that lumbers dangerously around your heels. It’s scary, dangerous and unquestioningly beautiful.

Other album lists…

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Tagged as Aaron's top albums, Aaron's Top albums 2008, best albums, best albums 2008, Cancer Bats, D-Sisive, David Vandervelde, Don't Be A Stranger, Graveyard, Hail Destroyer, Last Shadow Puppets, Love At The End Of The World, Lykke Li, Missiles, Music, Portishead, Portishead Third, Sam Roberts, Sam Roberts Band, The Age Of The Understatement, The Book, The Dears, The Last Shadow Puppets, The Moondoggies, Top albums, top albums 2008, Waiting For The Sunrise, Youth Novels

by Aaron Brophy | December 5, 2014 · 3:57 pm

Aaron’s Top Albums Of 2007

Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Ashtray Rock

This is my official Top 10 album list for 2007:

10. Magnolia Electric Co. The Black Ram

Picking just The Black Ram was a bit of a technical cheat as this record was part of the three-album, one-EP Sojourner box set Magnolia Electric Co. released that year. That said, of the four discs it’s definitely the one I listened to the most. In fact, the title track, “Will-O-The-Wisp” and “A Little At A Time” all rank in my Top 25 most played songs in iTunes. What this all probably means is that because I was pretty deep in my Magnolia fandom at the time, as a conscious act to not look like such a fanatic I ranked this album lower than I felt it deserved in my heart. In truth it’s probably a top five record.

9. Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare

If I’m to be completely honest, I still don’t feel I know this album all that well. I was mostly enamored with the song “505” and had approached the band with more open ears on this album because the hype train for the Monkeys had receded to the point it where wasn’t annoying anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJjYIOgs1DA

8. Two Hours Traffic Little Jabs

I listened to this record a lot for a month or two and it fits solidly in a Can-Rockpop lineage that includes Sloan, By Divine Right, Limblifter, Zuckerbaby and their ilk. Since then, though, Two Hours Traffic have become extremely irritating to me. This is because of the disproportionate amount of times iTunes tries to play their songs when I’m listening in “random” mode. I have thousands upon thousands of songs. I’ve got the full Neil Young and Bob Dylan discographies. And yet, with peculiar frequency iTunes tries to serve me up songs from this album. The only reason I can guess for this is that one of the band members had a computer engineer cousin who worked at Apple and was in the department that developed the iTunes random algorithm. It’s the only explanation and it’s definitely tempered my enjoyment.

7. Buck 65 Situation

Buck 65 seems to suffer from a bit of Rodney Dangerfield can’t-get-no-respect-ism and Situation is a pretty good example of this. A concept album focused roughly around the year 1957, the songs on Situation deftly traverse topics like crooked cops, Bogart and obscenity trials. The fact that the subject matter is so unlikely — not just for a rapper, but for any type of modern music maker — just makes Situation all the more intriguing.

6. Neil Young Live At Massey Hall 1971

This show may represent the most perfect version of “solo Neil.” It’s a historic document and a brilliant setlist. In cold scrutiny, though, it’s probably not a best of 2007 album. This ranking probably says more about how much I’m willing to jockey parameters because of my Neil love than anything else.

5. Jens Lekman Night Falls Over Kortedala

Night Falls Over Kortedala is an entirely fine album, but this #5 rank is almost entirely attributable to one song, “And I Remember Every Kiss.” A soaring orchestral ballad, the song captures all the fire, all the intensity, all the passion of that nervous, electric first kiss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OODVK5ThWIE

4. Cuff The Duke Sidelines Of The City

Someone recently told me Wayne Petti basically tries to copy The Inbreds’ Mike O’Neill when he’s singing. Fascinating, right? And it explains why I like Cuff The Duke. I don’t listen to this album anymore, though, and I don’t remember why I had it ranked so high.

3. Feist The Reminder

The sort of person who can remain unmoved by “My Moon My Man” is the sort of person I would look upon with great suspicion.

2. Amy Winehouse Back To Black

“Me & Mr. Jones” was really what hooked me on Back To Black. Here was this jazz singer going on about Slick Rick, plus ones and “fuckery” (which has since become a core swear word for me), all with an air of stumbling, drunken tragic romance. I was won over immediately.

A lot of the songs and albums and artists I love have something I’ll define as “turbulence of the soul.” The world, for them, is just a bit tougher, a bit more painful and a bit more difficult than it is for the normals. It was clear from the first listen of Back To Black that Winehouse was one of these people and it reflects beautifully/uncomfortably in these songs.

1. Joel Plaskett Emergency Ashtray Rock

A teenage love triangle that breaks up the band and breaks up a friendship. It seems like such a small narrative to build a concept album around, but Ashtray Rock, like a less morbid Quadrophenia, works perfectly. You feel there when the drunk teenagers party down at the Ashtray Rock and when you’ve got nothing more to say to these people… well, it’s like a grayscale closing scene capturing the back of the jean-jacketed protagonist walking down a slushy sidestreet. Alone.

Other album lists…

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Tagged as Aaron's top albums, Aaron's top albums 2007, Amy Winehouse, Arctic Monkeys, Ashtray Rock, Back To Black, best albums, best albums 2007, Buck 65, Buck 65 Situation, Cuff The Duke, Favourite Worst Nightmare, Feist, Feist The Reminder, Jens Lekman, Joel Plaskett, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Little Jabs, Magnolia Electric Co., Neil Young, Neil young Massey Hall, Night Falls Over Kortedala, Sidelines Of The City, Situation, Sojourner, The Black Ram, Top albums, top albums 2007, Two Hours Traffic

by Aaron Brophy | January 2, 2014 · 12:00 am

M.I.A.’s Matangi Is Aaron’s Top Album For 2013

M.I.A.’s Matangi

This is my official Top Ten album list for 2013:

10. Elephant Stone Elephant Stone

One of the themes that appears to have emerged from my favourite albums this year is appreciation for the latest crop of jean-jacketed psych rock. This Elephant Stone record exemplifies that perfectly, drifting between Brit-pop and something more kaleidoscopic thanks to Rishi Dhir’s deft use of the sitar in various places.

9. Midlake Antiphon

I wavered numerous times about putting Antiphon on the list because there’s no real anchor moment that I love. But the album’s subtle Moody Blues-meets-Pink Floyd vibe has a beguiling effect and I found myself going back to it a surprising amount.

8. Murray Lightburn Mass: Light

The other major theme that appears from this year’s list revolves around adventure and experimentation. We’re not talking Wire magazine-style experimentation, rather it’s about relatively conventional musicians doing something bold and brave. The Dears’ lead singer Murray Lightburn’s album Mass:Light certainly fits that description. For a guy known for epic rock songs to switch up and make a one-man electro record that doesn’t blow is an achievement.

7. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats Mind Control

A sludgy triangulation of early Sabbath, Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter and the Harvard Psilocybin Project, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats’ Mind Control represented a rare spot of true danger.

6. D-Sisive The D.ark Tape

It’d be easy to pass off D-Sisive’s The D.ark Tape as another “indie rapper has sour grapes” album, but that does this record a tremendous disservice. The D.ark Tape is a diary of frustration, loss, false hope and failed promise. Through it all, though, D-Sisive remains defiant, lashing out at critics, biters, haters and anyone else in his line of fire. Which is exactly the fighting spirit you want him to have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I73DlC7ZEo

5. Kanye West Yeezus

I hate myself for putting this on the list, but there are so many fascinating things about Yeezus. The lyrics are ridiculous, the production borders on bizarre and Kanye’s peculiar sense of self-worth is head-shaking. But for a mainstream pop-rap album this is worlds removed from anything else that came out this year. And it’s that audacity, that oddly guileless sonic adventuring that I appreciate.

4. The Highest Order If It’s Real

For most of this year I thought The Highest Order’s If It’s Real was my #1 album and it’s only on deeper scrutiny where it’s dropped down just a bit. The cosmic Unintended-style country rock supplied here by Simone Schmidt and her gang hits all my trip-out buttons, but the individual songs are a bit less successful than the “vibe.” That said, being in the neighbourhood of perfect is still a great place to be.

3. Austra Olympia

My three favourite Depeche Mode albums are Black Celebration, Music For The Masses and Violator. Those three albums define that band and they’re the blueprint for a certain melancholy dance-your-pain-away sort of electronic music that’s just so moving. On Olympia‘s best moments I get that same swirling, twirling feeling.

2. The Black Angels Indigo Meadow

The Black Angels’ Indigo Meadow pretty much defines the term “psychedelic outlaw” music.

1. M.I.A. Matangi

M.I.A.’s Matangi was the only album put out this year by a pop star that had any streak of rebellion. It’s actually embarrassing when you compare her to other contemporary pop stars and starlets (Bieber, Drake, Thicke, Perry, Spears, Gaga, etc). For the most part they stand for nothing. Or, at best, some conveniently benign social and/or charitable cause. I’m not 100 per cent with everything Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam stands for, but at least she stands up for something. She takes sides and does so without fear. I love that.

It also doesn’t hurt Matangi‘s production is so contemporary and worldly. There’s no other album I heard this year that feels this “now.”

Other album lists…

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Tagged as Aaron's top albums, Aaron's top albums of 2013, Austra, best albums, Best albums of 2013, Best music, Best music of 2013, D-Sisive, Elephant Stone, Kanye West, M.I.A., Matangi, Midlake, Murray Lightburn, Music, Recollections, The Black Angels, The Highest Order, Top albums, top albums 2013, Uncle Acid, Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats, Yeezus

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