Interlude: Best Music of 2018

It's the day after Christmas. The year is drawing to a close. It's time for me to stop fiddling with the list of what I believe represents the best music to come out in 2018. More accurately, it's the music that I personally enjoyed the most.

I hope everyone had a great year, discovered some new bands, and heard something new and great from beloved artists. There's a lot of stuff out there, so please let me know: what's the best thing you heard this year? Which of these songs or bands do you hate/love?

Best Songs of 2018

1. Belly "Shiny One"
2. Janelle Monáe "Make Me Feel"
3. Kero Kero Bonito "Only Acting"
4. of Montreal "Paranoiac Intervals /Body Dysmorphia"
5. Lily Allen "Trigger Bang (feat. Giggs)"
6. The Pom-Poms "I Got that Boom"
7. Big Freedia "Rent"
8. Poppy "Time is Up (feat. Diplo)"
9. Sylvan Esso "PARAD(w/m)E"
10. CHVRCHES "Get Out"
    --------------------------------------------------------
11. Tune-Yards "Heart Attack"
12. The Decemberists "Severed"
13. Holly Miranda "Golden Spiral"
14. MGMT "Hand it Over"
15. Dr. Dog "Go Out Fighting"
16. Snail Mail "Heatwave"
17. Mikaela Davis "Other Lover"
18. Bishop Briggs "River"
19. Lissie "Best Days"
20. Brandi Carlile "Whatever You Do"
21. Kacey Musgraves "Butterflies"
22. Rising Appalachia "Resilient"
23. Twisted Pine "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'"
24. Old Crow Medicine Show "Flicker & Shine"
25. Kamasi Washington "Fists of Fury"
26. Zeke "Hellbender"
27. Sleep "Sonic Titan"
28. Spiritualized "I'm Your Man"
29. Perfume "Let Me Know"
30. Demi Lovato "Sober"

Honorable Mentions
Soul Cannon, Lindi Ortega, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Low

Best Show

Zeke (@Metro Gallery in Baltimore)

Best New Artist
Mikaela Davis

Best Album

Janelle Monáe Dirty Computer

and Playing over the End Credits of 2018
Calexico "Under the Wheels"

"Defy the system
And avoiding the eyes that stay well hid
Surrendered the words while the lovers leap
Out of the fray and into the infinite

Deep
In the war regime
Always someone else's schemes
Show me a sign
When the world falls apart
Coming together from all of the corners tonight
From the core to the seams
From the threads that we seek
The threads that we seek

Oh

Find me some peace, a mindful heart
A break in the tide when the fighting starts
Power's down and the town goes dark
When the words fail we scatter"

Aimee Mann

The Safeway by my house is notorious for the weird and wonderful music it plays: an eclectic mix of pop and obscure hits from the 60s through 90s. I was shopping there recently with friends when the song "Voices Carry" came on the radio. I did not recognize the song at all, even when the friends told me all about the hype around the crazy video and controversial topic. We're trying to figure out who sings the song that they know and I don't, and the band turns out to be 'Til Tuesday, at which point I say, "Oh, isn't that the band that Aimee Mann was in?" They respond, "Who is Aimee Mann?"

It turns out Aimee Mann is known to some people  (if at all) only as the lady from that new-wave band from Boston, 'Til Tuesday. However, that has not been my experience. In fact, I had only ever heard of 'Til Tuesday as the band that Aimee Man had previously fronted, which is a slightly different experience. In this regard, she perhaps may even be underrated as an artist in some circles, and maybe even previously from my perspective, although she did win a couple Grammys and NPR called her one of the greatest living songwriters. It's not NPR-editors and -listeners that are in danger of undervaluing her work though. I suspect many of her fans listen to NPR, and vice-versa.

To start things off, I cheated a little. Although not technically part of her solo career chronological discography, I gave a bonus listen to "Time Stands Still" by Rush. In 1987 Rush saw Mann playing in 'Til Tuesday, called her up, and asked her to sing on the track. I have often wondered: How and why did Aimee Mann hook-up with Rush? She's not even Canadian! However, there's apparently not much to the story. Her vocal line in the chorus is totally sweet and it works wonderfully. It's a special moment for a band that so rarely is anything more than just those three guys playing.  Not only is that her voice on the track, that is her floating around in the extremely new-wave video. This track predates her entire modern solo career, but of course I heard it long before anything else she put out herself or with her band, without even realizing who was singing on the track until many years later. She breaks up her new-wave band to start her much longer solo career; the drummer, who wrote "Voices Carry," becomes her manager, and is still to this day. Those two actually had been in a relationship (and before that she dated the guitarist from XTC), but since 1997 she's been married to Michael Penn, a legit singer-songwriter in his own right and brother to actors Sean and Chris Penn. New Yorkers! For a lady that seems to struggle with relationships and mental stability (or maybe it's just the characters in her songs), staying married since 1997 to a rock star while simultaneously being a rock star is an impressive feat. Actually, despite the drama of the yarns she spins, she seems like a relatively grounded person, especially for someone who originally got some attention for having crazy hair. 

'Til Tuesday ~1986: guess which one is Aimee Mann

My actual, pre-blog listening experience with Aimee Mann begins with "Red Vines," a memorable track from her third album Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo (2000). However, I knew the song from some wonderful, random Virgin Records compilation CD that also introduced me to the The Dandy Warhols. Prior to that I might have scanned a Rolling Stone article about her first two albums, but I didn't hear them. They are both good. 1995's I'm with Stupid is perhaps a more fully-realized vision than the first one, Whatever, which she put out in 1993 to critical acclaim and modest sales. That first album actually makes the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die list, which was somewhat surprising: the songs are good but they didn't gel into something more than a mere collection of tracks for me. The song writing is very clever, as are the musical hooks, but these aren't the songs that made an impression on me as much as her later works did. "I Should've Known" is the single, I guess. Roger McGuinn strums a 12-string on one song on the first album, and Squeeze appear on several songs on the next album. There's also some wonderful, sunny backing vocals contributed by Juliana Hatfield on "You Could Make a Killing," a fine song that some may recall from the 1999 soundtrack to Cruel Intentions, sitting there alongside Fatboy Slim and "Bitter Sweet Symphony". "That's Just What You Are," another single, is an additional good song that shows up on the soundtrack to Melrose Place. She once covered "Come Sail Away," and they used it in an episode of Community. 

The soundtrack work culminates in one of her greatest works, music from the Paul Thomas Anderson movie, Magnolia. Far more than merely contributing some songs for the film, the soundtrack is virtually an Aimee Mann album. Some of the songs end up on her on subsequent album. I adore her take on instrumental pieces for the soundtrack. There are just a couple other artist on there, including Supertramp. One can hear the appreciation for Supertramp in Mann's sound; it's kinda adorably dorky that someone, a famous rock star and gifted song-crafter no less, would be unabashedly into such a cheesy band. (Remember, she likes Styx too.) The soundtrack is deeply entwined with the film, with Anderson saying the film was inspired by Mann's music. I haven't seen it in a long time, if ever. Maybe I saw it in college, but I should see it again. Apparently at one point the actors actually sing one her songs. The track "Build that Wall" has an unfortunate modern resonance. "Save Me" is the single, and what a great song it is. It narrowly misses out on the Best Original Song Academy Award to Phil Collins for his song from Disney's Tarzan. Boo!! The really kicker is her remarkable, trippy cover of the song "One," which some will recognize from the proto-metal version that Three Dog Night did, although it is a actually a Harry Nilsson song, of course. Mann originally did it for a Nilsson tribute album and interpolates several of his other songs in her fantastic version.

While on the topic of stage and screen, it should be noted that Aimee Mann has a striking physical appearance and she's done some acting. She's one of the nihilists in The Big Lebowski - the one that sacrifices her toe! She played at the Bronze on Buffy, which sorta counts as acting (she does utter a line, something about how she hates playing in vampire towns). She's had other small roles here and there, and recently voiced a character in an episode of Steven Universe. And she was in a legitimately hilarious Portlandia skit staring Aimee Mann as herself, a struggling musician. Maybe you can still watch some of it here:
                                  

She puts out Lost in Space  in 2002, and a guy like me is going to be disappointed that with a title like that there aren't more beeps, whirls, electronic whistles and bells. Mostly we get a straight-ahead band, but there are occasional keys and strings. It's fine though and sits well here at the peak of her work.

After Magnolia there's a good live album and then my favorite, The Forgotten Arm, a concept album she puts out in 2006. Sure, it wins a Grammy, but for best packaging, which is nice. Characteristically, the album I find "best" is the one absolutely savaged by the very critics that made her a darling. I'll confess to being unfamiliar with Prefix magazine before this moment, but they said it has "Enough bending guitar licks to satisfy the yuppiest of thirtysomething businessmen and enough mellow ballads to satisfy your Dixie Chicks-loving mom." Damning with faint praise indeed! E! said it reveals "how straight-up dull Mann's country-tinged songs can be," and fair enough, but how did you not know that going into this? This album is better, not worse, because it is a concept album. Maybe part of me still thinks that The Wall is the greatest album of album time because it works on so many levels, and most of me knows that isn't true. However, the legit attempt at a full on actual concept album is nothing to scoff at, and this one works well as far as I'm concerned. The other thing I like is the mellow consistency. As much as I like synths and weirdness, the straightforward instrumentation and production on every track works. (It reminds me of the time Ryan Adams decided to quickly cover Taylor Swift's entire 1989 album while leaving the production exactly the same on every song so the guitar tone and drum sounds never change.) The simple production is warm, reassuring, and doesn't get in the way of the storytelling. The storytelling doesn't get in the way of the songs, to my ears, as it did for some reviewers. I appreciate the narrative around addiction and the depths of despair. In a weird-twist, the album's final lyrics allude to happy ending in a distant future, but a bonus track on an import version of the album ambiguously suggests a less rosy ending. What is this, House of Leaves? Seriously though, something about this shockingly straight-ahead rock music makes me like it a lot. I even tolerated the Christmas Album afterwards; it's a timeless-sounding, loungey affair that at least includes that Grinch song. Another couple solid albums follow before her most recent one, Mental Health, which is as much of a downer as the title suggests. It is easily her most sparse album. Although the harrowing topics are handled ably in her insightful lyrics, it was musically a disappointing anti-climax to her discography. I've heard enough though, particularly on that hard rocking live album, to have some confidence that Mann will come roaring back again anytime now.

As her career proceeds the songwriting seems to gain an ever greater gravity and seriousness, at times even a sadness. Her songs always dealt with emotional turmoil, but some of the cleverness gets stripped away eventually and replaced with emotional depth. I came to deeply appreciate the insights she brings to troublesome personal relationships and heavy issues like addiction. I see why she is praised as a songwriter most of all. And yet the music would have to be there for me to care about good songwriting...and it is. That band is not just strumming chords behind her on the live album: she rocks. And I dare say Aimee Mann is the Queen of the Countermelody, whether the synth on near-classic "Freeway" or the slinky melodica(?!) on "Save Me", her good lines and clear melodies are consistently made even more salient by a good ear for counterpoints. Great synths abound in "Charmer" from the latter-day album of the same title. This musical element is even a piece of her overall longevity and success: it highlights her charm in being just weird enough to be equally interesting and accessible.

a-ha

Alphabetically, shouldn't this band be the first 'A'? Well, here we are. Another one hit wonder? Yes. And no. They name is stylized in lower-case, and sometimes one of those three letters is italicized, but not consistently.

While many listeners will be familiar with "Take On Me," which is actually their first ever single and the first song on their first album, the band has continued slowly but steadily to make music since 1982 through the present. They are a national treasure in their native Norway. They have at least ten albums and well over a hundred songs. I had previously heard literally none of these songs other than "Take On Me." I've subsequently been led to believe that both "The Sun Always Shines on TV" and "Hunting High and Low" were mild hits that other people actually know; I can see why: both tracks grew on me, but despite being enjoying they were still utterly unknown to me before this listening. "Crying in the Rain," actually a cover version of The Everly Brother's 1963 single, also had minor charting success, although that one failed to register much with me. "Stay on These Roads" barely cracks the hits category, but I like that one. Actually, I liked a lot of these songs, and I found all of it surprisingly tolerable. They are far more lush and cinematic than I ever gave them credit for based on limited exposure, but perhaps the sweeping impressive nature of their most famous video should have been an aesthetic hint.

OH boy that video was a big one. Most people of a certain age will remember that video. Some of us remember the cute girl. Some of us remember the cute boy. Some of us remember both. It was from before my time, technically, in 1984, but it must have remained in heavy rotation on MTV for decades because it was still around for me to see years later. I love the keyboard part(s), and the urgency of the drums in the chorus, which is basically electro-clash.

In the iconic video the song becomes much more than whatever it originally was about. It becomes the soundtrack to an epic and engrossing adventure, albeit an incredibly concise one. The narrative itself is brilliant storytelling and compelling salesmanship. Not only do we get a whole story in three minutes, we are introduced to the band via their catchiest number and meet its beautiful blonde Nordic cute people not just as musician but, especially in the case of lead singer Morten Harket, as compelling characters in a brief drama. Oh and that chemistry you're seeing between actress Bunty Bailey and Harket is very real - she also stars in their next video (I'm not gonna lie- learning that is when I decided to google it) and she subsequently had an actual relationship with Harket. She was also in a Billy Idol video, but not much else. Surely, she and director Steve Barron, who also shot Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean," get some credit for the song's enduring staying power. MJ was supposedly at the band's first US concert and invited them to Neverland Ranch....I bet.

Harket has got a pretty incredible voice that can be both smooth and also hit really high notes without screeching. He's actually in the Guinness World Records book for holding the longest live note: 20.2 seconds in "Summer Moved On." Not bad at all for a come-back single, which in May of 2000 was their first new music in six years. You're not gonna believe this, but they also hold the world record for having the biggest rock concert attendance of all time: 198,000 at Rock in Rio. That's a lot of people. This band was huge throughout South America in the late 1980s but also in the 90s! Their fans editing Wikipedia want us to know that 198,000 people is three times the audience that George Michael, Prince, and Guns n Roses performed for at the same event in 1991...and that when despite breaking the record the international press ignored them for younger acts it was demoralizing for the band. There's actually a whore series of bad things that gives this band a bit a persecution complex. First they don't win the Best New Artist Grammy in 1986, then when they play the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 1998 their bit is cut from the televised highlights, then nobody wanted to talk about their record breaking concert attendance, then they play Live8--which is a big deal as Pink Floyd reunited at it--and they have technical problems that make them have to scrap one of their four songs, then they played the iTunes festival in 2009 and everyone's set except theirs was available for download...

AllMusic has an excellent line about one of their albums, which could apply to any of them: "a nicely crafted collection of songs...while not an album one can discuss at length, it's an album that's a pleasure to listen to." So true. It's effective, if not necessarily intriguing or complex. It's pop music that matters because it was crafted by humans that care about what they are doing and do it well enough; it's not created, packaged, and sold by committee thinking trying to cash in on the latest trends.

Their James Bond song is a memorable title-track from The Living Daylights, which might ring some bells for casual fans. Everything after their
1993 album Memorial Beach is available in America only as an import, which is weird and somewhat shocking. That's several albums. They might not have all the urgency and consistency of the earlier albums, but they aren't bad at all.

They were supposed to end on a high note in 2010 with a final world tour that hit six continents. They came back in 2015 and even recorded another album, Cast in Steel, which again I must say is pretty good. It straddles 80s-nostalgia and more modern sounds brilliantly. One thing they do well is that none of their many albums sound like a major departure from their previous work. While the sound has evolved, it's been an organic and smooth transition, almost imperceptible until one listens to their first album compared to their most recent. Even some of those altered sound might be attributed to changing production standards.

The band seems determined to emphasize that they are the same band they've always been all this time. It is still the same original three guys performing together (the drummer always seems to be just whoever). To that end, their most recent, and some would say crowning, achievement is a career-spanning acoustic re-imagining of their catalog. Their episode of MTV's Unplugged takes place at an obscure location on the summer solstice and is everything that series was supposed to be but eventually got away from: incredibly intimate, unfamiliar versions of familiar songs. Hearing these beautiful, organic versions of the songs gives them an impressive timeless feel, instead of anchoring them to the anachronistic sounds of the 80s. It's clear the band put time and effort into these arrangements that are fascinating in their newness while revealing the strength of the underlying songwriting, highlighted by the stark instrumentation. Several European and American performers join them for the show, including Ian McCulloch, who joins them for one of their songs and then helps them aptly cover "The Killing Moon," by his own band, Echo & the Bunnymen. The modern-yet-nostalgic clip of them playing "Take on Me" as the finale had already gone viral even before the song was used in Deadpool 2, which they tell me is hilarious. And damn these Nordic men age well!

If they stopped now it would be a kinda beautiful circular closure as that last song on their last album is "Take on Me." In some ways the song is synonymous with the 1980s. As evidence, here's just one of many pop culture examples where the song is literally used to indicate the historical setting of the 1980s: in this case an obligatory Simpsons reference, albeit a foreign dub. It's been covered by many people include Tori Amos, Sara Bareilles, and Reel Big Fish. Yes, the ska version is excellent.  Still, I'm not entirely sure what to make of their mixed legacy. They seem to remembered almost wholly for their singular cultural contribution that's emblematic of the 80s, rather than as a full band with multiple songs and albums. Chris Martin of Coldplay as spoken highly of them, for better or worse. Adam Clayton of U2 has defended them. So did Pitbull. He notably samples "Take on Me" in this song with Xtina; it's hard for me to watch and even harder to listen to, and really just makes me want a hard-house remix without this joker clowning around on the track. They do get Jason Lytle (Grandaddy) dropping their name, especially referencing the often forgotten Cast in Steel, which is really nice. They aren't entirely forgotten for their musical contributions. The band has not exactly run away from their one hit wonder, but there is a slight bittersweet tragedy if that's all they are remembered for. So, if you like that one song then check out some of their other stuff! If not, then don't bother. 

[My 7-year-old daughter just came up to my desk and said, "Good-- you're finally writing about A-ha so we can stop listening to them."]

The Aggrolites

If there is one defining feature of this wicked-fun reggae band it is that they are so consistently awesome. I didn't really hear a Single or a particular stand out track on any of their five proper albums, but that's not meant to be an insult. It is because every single song is equally fantastic and entertaining. I never got tired of hearing them, even when they lingered on my phone for months before I got around to blogging about it.

Their other defining characteristic is that they are so shockingly authentic sounding. I can't claim to be all that familiar with old-school reggae and dub, but what I have heard sounds remarkably similar to this stuff. It's fairly impressive how fully they embody dub in their song structures, instrumentation, singing style, and even recording aesthetic. (Allegedly, their debut was recorded in a single day of all first-takes.) Then again, maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about or listening to when it comes to reggae. (I enjoy reggae when I have the opportunity to listen to it, but-- Bob Marley? That's pretty much all I got.) This musical blind-spot may have been confirmed when I recently heard that their newest album is going to be a "return to the sound of the earlier albums." This was perplexing to me, having discerned no significant difference between their first song and their last. Their lack of prolificacy is actually a boon. While they only have five albums, plus a live one, all are extremely good albums full of great songs. I have difficulty identifying the best one. However, if forced to choose I might select their 2006 self-titled-non-debut, despite frustration with the lackluster title. (Their most-recent fourth album is sadly entitled IV.) Their conciseness helps make them a damn-near flawless band, or as close to flawless as any rock band can get. Are they better than Pink Floyd? No, not really. But when a band has over a dozen albums there are bound to be a few clunkers in there. Not so with The Aggrolites, even though they've been around for 15 years at this point. Every. Song. Rocks.

Is this ska? Is this reggae? The band is born as a re-formation of a ska band and a reggae band from LA that both broke up, so that clears that up. They call it "dirty reggae," which alludes to the funk and soul influences. It does get extremely groovy. I wouldn't call this a ska band (their are only rarely horns), but they play the ska circuit. Special hat-tip to my friend who gave one or more of these guys a ride to some ska festival - and they were super-cool!

We might particularly appreciate the great vocalist, Jesse Wagner, who also plays guitar: nice when he needs to be and nasty sometimes too. The vocals are raw and unrestrained, with some of the lyrics being just the title of the song or some improvised shouting. There are occasionally nice backing vocals too. Who doesn't love shout-y male-female vocals? Even though the band is all guys, they get the audience to sing along (even on some studio tracks) and shout things out: Pop the Truck! Spelling out the band name on their theme song!  Reggae Hit LA! My only weird complaint is that he often yells something or other random on even the most sparsely-worded song; otherwise so many of these tunes would have ended up on my exclusive, and frequently-played wordless playlist.

A special nod goes to the keyboardist here, Roger Rivas, also a founding member and songwriter. There are keys on every song, and every organ sound selected is just perfect for each song; each song gets just the tone it so desperately needs. It varies appreciably between gravelly roars with just enough distortion, to delicate and warm sounds, and even some great synths. It really ties the songs together and keeps them interesting.

I should probably have listened to the album they made as the backing band for Tim Armstrong (of Rancid and Operation Ivy), but I will when I get to T. They've put some stuff out on his Hellcat records. Their best known song is the titular "Dirt Reggae" from a Hellcat compilation. In fact their genesis is traced to backing up reggae icon Derrick Morgan, whom I had to google and had not appeared in my music library. Their other popular track is "Work To Do," because it was on the soundtrack to the film 50/50, but it would fit well on a party playlist or a children's mix. Again, I love it, but they are all great songs.

The live albums make me want to see them live. It sounds so raunchy and joyous. The opportunity to yell back things is always fun. Plus they recreate live this absolutely fantastic musical trick wherein the song starts (as do the album and the live performance) with a steady funk beat that than morphs smoothly into a soulful reggae beat. It's sick, and you don't have to like reggae to appreciate it, but being a musician will help. Here's a decent example of it from YouTube:

So, yes they are skinheads. But the good kind! 

It's been a few years (since 2011) since they release fresh material. I am ready for more, and eager for the chance to see them live outside their native California. Dirty reggae!

Afroman

One hit wonder? No way! I am here to write In Defense of Afroman. He's multitalented and entertaining. His chronological discography tells the compelling true story of his life, his rise and fall, and (perhaps) rise again. He's much more than an insatiable party animal, although he remains persistently indulgent to this day. He raises really interesting notions of music's sense of place. I'll admit to having no prior familiarity with Afroman's repertoire beyond the two songs I heard when they first came out in 2001. I loved those songs, forgot all about this guy, then just rediscovered he's been out there doing his thing the whole damn time since then, and with relatively great results. As of today I consider myself a fan and would run, not walk, to catch any opportunity to see this man do his thing live.

I discovered Afroman the same time everyone else did: when his first and only pop single "Because I Got High" hit big in 2001. In 2001 I had a job in New Orleans with a couple friends delivering what was generously described as a "guide to gay night life." Our burned mix CDs for the weekly route to virtually every one of the city's gay bars and porn stores were usually made up of punk and metal, with some pop bubblegum thrown in. However, we had one CD that was all rap: Outkast, Lil' Kim Lil' Romeo, Lil' Bow Wow. Basically a bunch of "Lil"s plus all that No Limit and Cash Money stuff. Not only did "Because I Got High" turn up on that mix, and become one of our memorable favorites, but, "Tumblewood," another equally great Afroman song revealing a complex relationship with recreational drug use, turned up on a catch-all disc we had with a little bit of everything on it; and I still have it (as evidenced by this poor photo):

Despite many people knowing Afroman only because of "Because I got High" (improbably nominated for a GRAMMY) both that and "Tumbleweed" would eventually be eclipsed in sales and popularity by "Crazy Rap (Colt 45 and 2 Zig Zags)," which in retrospect is a deserving classic. It's so catchy that upon hearing it a mere several times as remixes and live versions while hearing the discography I could now probably rap every word of the memorable chorus, to say nothing of the outrageous tale told in the verses. I probably won't. "She Won't Let Me Fuck" is his other song that is still well- regarded and remembered; that is to say, people are still downloading/streaming it with high frequency. It's worth noting that all four of those songs appear on his first of many album.

Talk about getting in just under the wire before September 2001, "Because I Got High" should be considered a 90s rap song, regardless of the year it gets released in. As this was during the Napster days, it's not like a ton of people were physically buying his album. I didn't know that it was played on the radio much, but I guess it was: apparently by Howard Stern first and foremost. I also forgot that it showed up in several movie soundtracks that same year: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Disturbia, and The Perfect Score, which might otherwise be a completely forgotten film if not for that one famous shot of Scarlett Johansson sitting at the computer in her underwear. Was there even a video for the song? Yes, but I never remember seeing it even once. This was post-MTV-actually playing music but pre-YouTube. So he lands in that weird culturally transitional time-period, but is also arguably ahead of his time in terms of both marketing himself independently and providing true parody that tackles serious issues with humor. We can look back at Public Enemy or NWA now and realize some folks have been woke the whole damn time, but check out the dark-comedy social commentary in "Because I got High":

I was gonna run from the cops, but I was high
I was gonna pull right over and stop, but i was high
Now I'm a paraplegic, and I know why
because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

That's some nth degree satire right there! It is incredibly ironic that a guy who built a career around rap songs praising weed began his career with a song about how weed ruined every aspect of his life. And he doesn't even rap on it! Afroman is actually a pretty good singer, even if he always does so dripping with irony and cheese. It works. The man has a great sense of melody, even if the melodies are frequently lifted from old songs. ("Hush," with the great line, "I know I'm high but it sounds like Jesus is calling my name," is based on a song his grandfather used to hum, not the Deep Purple tune.) It ventures to an almost do-wop sounds with him doing plenty of his own harmonies. It's often a one man show: later it's clear that he got some kid with a laptop to program some modern beats and breaks for him, but initially the beats are thoughtless, and it doesn't matter. Nobody shows up to listen to Afroman for clever beats, and it's actually a distraction when he tries to modernize with a more glitchy sound later in his career. It just goes to show that he's survived various sounds and eras of pop music while plowing right through with his pro-malt liquor and -weed agenda. Whether its singing or even playing the guitar, this guy does his own hooks, and there's something impressive and delightful about that. You know those guitars that are, like, double guitars? He plays one of those! OK, so maybe he's no Lauryn Hill, but he's at least as good at the singing/rapping thing as someone like Kesha, which is not a knock on Kesha at all. If you enjoy scream-singing along with Biz Markie, and you somehow missed Afroman, then you are in for a consistently pleasant surprise. Explore his whole catalog. Why not.  

I'm not really comparing them, but think about the way David Lynch makes great films because he doesn't just direct them; he gets involved in every aspect from directing, music, sound design, to building the freaking on-set furniture. That's what an Afroman album is like. He is an underrated musical auteur, and his prolific output makes it seem easy. Like, name something and this guy can bust a rhyme about it in no time....especially if that thing is weed or booze or low-rider cars. He can cut a record LIKE THAT. He can cut a record with like a dozen tracks most of which are pushing 5 minutes long, no problem. And I guess it's prolific if he puts out a dozen or more albums, even if they are mostly all about the same thing. He's got two Christmas albums. TWO! And they are both as consistently hilarious and insightful as the best of his other stuff. 

His backstory even starts interestingly because although he's a West Coast guy, clearly steeped in NWA, Snoop Dogg, and stuff like that, at the moment his first album drops he relocates to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, of all places. Having spent some time in Hattiesburg during my New Orleans-era, I can actually imagine what that's like: surprisingly complex if not sophisticated. They can't all be racist, especially not if half the town is Creole or black and what not. Weed was undoubtedly plentiful, if not impressive in quality. His unique placement is reflected in his flow that is so West Coast, yet he's also talkin' that country grammar with references to Creoles and backwoods and other things that might arise for a West Coast rapper in the deep South. He's also still talking about California too. He's obsessed with his home turf of Palmdale, which seems interestingly situated as a more middle-class alternative to the inner-city Los Angeles he was apparently born and raised in. Thus he's bringing different perspectives to different places, singing and rapping about how someone from one region might respond to a very different place. He keeps that up throughout his later albums, continuing to hype not just Palmdale and Mississippi, but also singing the praises of the far-flung places he's toured: hilarious songs about all the women he's been with in specific cities in "Idaho" and "Kentucky" (of all places!), "Fun in Washington," and "Pumpin' Pennsylvania."

Anyway, the rest of his story goes like this: after "Because I got High" goes Platinum(!) Universal Records signs him up for a 6-records deal. Most of us first heard him on his major label debut The Good Times, which compiles his earlier recordings. Although he plays some high-profile gigs, something goes wrong because he never puts out anything else on Universal and gets dropped. I suppose we could speculate about what happened to the record deal and what went wrong...., but by 2004 he is releasing his stuff independently online. It makes me a little sad that the website he so vociferously promotes on his mid-to-later day albums, afromanmusic.com, is now dead. More specifically, the account is apparently suspended. Well, the Napster era is over anyway.  "Fuck the Corporate World" as he says. Amidst his rise, his fall, and then his somewhat-rise-again he takes the whole thing to another level - claiming to embody  the American Dream, explicitly at points("I am the successful failure!"), and damn if he doesn't have a point. We get those six albums and then some after all. The first one is the effortlessly named Afroholic...The Even Better Times, which has many songs about weed and beer over two discs. Then he gives us a Christmas album. His fourth album is A4fro20 or someshit; it could have been from 1999 if not for the addition of "Check out My Website." There's more. I listened to this album Fro-Rider that's not even mentioned in his wiki profile; it's expands his thematic material somewhat to include cars: weed and low-riders. I'll admit, I had to urban dictionary "hitting switches." There's another Christmas album that contains such holiday hits as "We Wish You Would Roll a New Blunt" and "Deck My Balls". In 2009 he releases FroBama: Head of State, which is less political than it sounds. His live album is hilariously amateurish: he stops songs when he gets bored of them, there is frequent feedback and other audio problems, and he's basically living in clip, but it sounds like a really fun time. I have to say - all these albums are good entertainment. Other than modernizing the beats, nothing much changes from 1998 to now. I swear he makes that crazy chicken sound on every song on every album. I'm not really complaining; it kept making me laugh

I'd like to say the whole thing came full circle with 2014's remake of "Because I Got High" that re-frames the song in the context of the now well-established medical, social, and psychological benefits of responsible, adult marijuana consumption. Sample line: "Hand me that vaporizer." It's actually an awesome song on which he talks about quitting cigarettes and booze. And it was put out in association with NORML to legit raise awareness around the issues of legalization and medical cannabis benefits. However, he was not even close to done. A year later he puts out a socially conscious EP The N-Word, the basic premise of which is summed up by the song "I'm Not the N-Word." There's three, maybe four actual songs on the EP but the album has like 15 tracks because of intros, interludes, and interviews about why he doesn't use the N-word in his song,. It's a surprisingly refreshing stance from a modern hip-hop artist.

We must also note an unfortunate incident in 2015 when he punched a fan on stage, but he did both try to explain his actions and apologize while ultimately admitting an error and seeking court-ordered anger management (and drug testing?! wonder how that all played out). The video evidence is fairly damning, except that he clearly didn't see who or what he was punching behind him...until that poor girl was out cold on the stage. I'm trying to reconcile the incident and that footage with the guy who has consistently preached positivity and nonviolence for nearly two decades of performing. While his action is inexcusable, there is no evidence of a broader pattern of such violence, and I do find his apology acceptable.

Wikipedia would have us believe it all ends there in 2015, but, having recently started following Afroman on Facebook, I assure you he is still up and running. He tours consistently, though mostly on the West Coast, and has continued to put out fresh material: 2016's Happy to be Alive, on which he both finds Jesus (more?) and continues to smoke weed, and a full album of (mostly) new material that came out in late 2017. In another full-circle moment, Snoop Dogg actually appears on a new track, alongside numerous additional remixes of his classic songs. And yes, even though he's made some questionable choices and actions (I still cannot abide by "I Drive Better Drunk" or "I Don't Want No College Degree"), is maybe past his prime, and is prone to playing meandering guitar solos, I'd still go see his show in a minute. He should at least get plenty of airplay every April 20th.

[Vape] if you got'em!

AFI

I first became aware of AFI when I was teaching teenagers in the late 90s and I asked them what AFI  meant on all their black t-shirts. Turns out it stands for "A Fire Inside," which kinda made me roll my eyes and worry about what the music might be like before I even heard it. Then I traded iTunes music libraries with one of these young people and acquired the entire AFI catalog. It's not exactly my thing, despite some occasional hard rocking. The affectations and drama are meant to appeal to someone far younger and more emotional than I am. 

They seem to embody that weird period for rock-radio in the early 2000s when the influence of Green Day on pop music had become inescapable. The 90s were over but modern-rock radio was just getting started. These guys certainly found a home in that niche. My understanding is that there are radio stations still devoted to this type of rock music: more Buckcherrry than Led Zeppelin. I'm looking at you 98 Rock. 

AFI does not want to be called an emo band. However, in a statement regarding the band's 9th album, AFI frontman Davey Havok said, "This record is of silence, and the burials that result from that silence. It's of betrayal, cruelty, weakness, anxiety, panic – deep and slow – despair, injury and loss. And in this it is shamefully honest and resolutely unforgiving". You, sir, are in an emo band! No matter how many times you and your fans keep changing wikipedia to say "rock band," you will always be in an emo band. Own that shit. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure this is exactly what an emo band looks like.

It was vaguely fascinating to listen in order and hear this band morph subtlety from a straight-on punk rock band to a pop-rock juggernaut. Being from California, they sound very West Coast, Second Wave Punk on their early albums. It sounds incredibly similar to Pennywise, specifically, but maybe I am just saying that because that's a touchstone of West Coast punk for this mostly-East Coast guy. Actually, at their best, in the early years they sound a bunch like The Misfits, especially in the vocals sometimes and with all the woo-ohh-ohhs backing vocals and sing-along choruses. In fact they end up covering "Halloween" on an EP. Hot tip: if you're going to cover a punk classic it should come out fast and shorter, not longer and slower. 

By the time they achieve commercial success they had already begun to drift away from the punk sound. They say 2003's Sing the Sorrow brought them mainstream success via the singles "Girl's Not Grey" and "Silver and Cold," but I don't remember hearing those songs when they came out and couldn't distinguish those two tracks from any of the others I listented to now. Similarly, their seventh album debuts at number one and contains a hit single "Miss Murder." Again- no idea what that song was or why it was a hit; it didn't stand out when listening to the album. It's the perfect example of a song I would hear while channel flipping, and keep right on flipping. I was travelling in very different musical circles than these guys by the time of their mainstream super-stardom in 2006, despite us both starting on pretty much the same page. I know I'm supposed to hate emo, and I mostly did, but I don't wanna go to hard on these guys for some reason. They are playing The Victim, The Misfit, The Outcast, and it is working. Many of us have been there, right? It is still too polished and commercial for music that is supposed to be extreme. It's always a little too earnest, but that's what they are going for, so who am I to judge? Their live album highlights their legions of devoted fans, and good for them. Everything is relative: it was in many ways more tolerable than Aerosmith. Nonetheless, it's still pretty annoying at times: their most recent album, their tenth, is self-titled. Come on!

Frankly, I'm trying hard to avoid getting too worked-up about this band so that I can move on to the next artist. I don't dispute the great value in what they provide some listeners, but it is difficult to imagine adults listening to this stuff on purpose. 

The Afghan Whigs

I remember Gentlemen, of course, but the song more than the full album. It's a pretty great song from 1993: a little early for me, but it was still floating around college radio by the time I got there a couple years later. I was shocked to see that "Gentlemen" is actually their second most popular streaming song. "Retarded," a college-radio hit that predates their major-label debut, is actually #1. I'm not sure how I feel about that title. In fact, I'm not sure how I feel about a bunch of the things the band has to say. I really don't care for the cock-sure swagger or the creepy vibe evidence in the videos and song. It seems to almost revel in its misogyny. Front-man Greg Dulli delivers every sneer as if to say, "Come on baby, you know you like it." For better or worse, the anti-hero charm offensive sorta worked. He's a famous rock star. It's not just that I can't name anyone else in the band off the top of my head. He's got both the simmering good looks and writes most of the songs. Still- I don't like the attitude.

Actually, besides knowing the song "Gentlemen," prior to this listening the only other Afghan Whigs song I could truly name was "Fountain and Fairfax," which is on the same album, but I knew it from the My So-Called Life Soundtrack. It just plays briefly in the background when the kids go to a club at some point, but being on that soundtrack CD put it in heavy rotation, right next to Juliana Hatfield and Buffalo Tom.

Dulli is incidentally also the only guy other than Dave Grohl to play anything on that first Foo Fighters album. They would play together again in the Backbeat Band, playing as the early Beatles for the Backbeat movie soundtrack. That is some truly excellent material with Grohl on drums and Dulli ably handling most of the wild vocals. He's also got this whole other thing called The Twilight Singers, that plays during Afghan Whigs's hiatuses. Plus he plays with Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees as The Gutter Twins.

His first band was called The Black Republicans (LOL). He formed The Afghan Wigs in Cincinnati all the way back in 1986, so good for them to still be making music to this day without burning out or starting to suck. The long breaks worked. Dulli originally said he wanted them to sound like "a cross between the Temptations, the Band, and Neil Young with Crazy Horse," which is actually both a great concept for a band and not that far off from what they actually sound like. Their first album is self-produced and gets them signed to Sub-Pop (they toured with Mudhoney).

Their first EP audaciously ends with a track called "Rebirth of the Cool," which is presented as cover but has got to be tongue in cheek. Then 1992's Congregation ends with "Miles Iz Dead (Bonus Track)," so something's going on there. I'd say there are pre-rock influences, but they are subtle: watch that live video (above) of them playing "Retarded" and tell me how soulful they are. Yet critics have noted "the combination of Stax and Motown influences with indie-rock sonics." Yes, it is there. When "Retarded" comes out they are kinda a big deal on MTV, and although I missed all that completely, they were right there touring the U.S. with Teenage Fanclub, just when I was super into Bandwagonesque. Thus their major-label debut, Gentlemen (1993) is released on Elektra and recorded in Memphis's Ardent Studios, just like Big Star, Dylan, and Zeppelin. Critics go nuts for it, but partially maybe the band just got lucky because people were hungry for something other than grunge, which was heading towards saturation. I get that, but I also see them being incapable of escaping grunge's influence too, at least early on. But then later stuff like this happens. Although particularly strong songs don't exactly jump up at me after a single listen, Up In It and Congregation were fine, and there is somewhat of an evolution towards Gentlemen. . It hit a nerve and resonated at the time for sure. While it is a fairly unique rock sound, especially for the time, I found it hard to get excited about individual tracks without the zeitgeist at their back. The next album, Black Love, follows in the same vein; it is supposed to be a good one too, but I didn't find it any better or worse than than the previous album, if anything a tad less impressive. The conceptual elements don't always come through clearly, but there's a definite darker theme. OK, when they draw attention to it with a killer performance on Letterman, I noticed "Going to Town" is a good one from Black Love.  They toured extensively, despite being post-peak here, even opening for Neil Young (along with Jewel). 1965, recorded in New Orleans after they leave Elektra following disappointing sale and charges of managerial neglect, might be a disappointment itself if I was looking for more, but it was fine too; my expectations were moderated. I wasn't always underwhelmed. A consistently good rock band is nothing to scoff at.

They split amicably in 2001. They reform a decade later and start recording and touring again. By some point the drummer has switched out and the original other guitarist has left. Their cryptically named Do to the Best is their first in 16 years and a return to Sub Pop, which probably makes more sense for them. It was the album that I finally recognized this evolving sound people were always talking about with them. It's clearly a more mature, evolved sound- and it works. It's dark still but fresh and engaging. The songs are deeper and more complex, and the overall shift in sounds is reminiscent of the way the Dandy Warhols's sound evolved as they grew from pop-indie darlings to grizzled veterans of the scene. While these new Afghan Whigs were similarly more likely to get spacey and deep, some will inevitably bemoan the loss of their more jagged punkish aggression. I, for one, appreciate the more complex emotional pallet. It's not just mean sneering anymore, but the topics are still generally ominous. Their latest, In Spades, came out in 2017 and continues the positive trend of the reformed band, but it just didn't resonate with me as well as Do to the Beast did, even though I was excited for it by the previous album. Guitarist Dave Rosser, an original member who had been around for both reunion albums, died shortly after the release, so it might turn out to be their last album.

People seemed to particularly appreciate the concept that this is an indie rock band that listens to stuff like rap and soul, occasionally letting such influences slip into their college-rock. Ten years later this musical blending would be de riguer. So they must get some innovation points for that. They are clearly a well-playing rock band that gels and keeps it interesting for several albums over many years. They even get some Rolling Stones comparison, particularly regarding the influence of black music, that is to say the contributions of African Americans to popular music come through similarly in both bands. OK- sure. And lots of times when they do covers they are old soul and R&B numbers. I also hear they covered The Wall in its entirety, or at least "Another Brick In the Wall," which is somewhat unexpected. In 2012 they were covering contemporary R&B rapper Frank Ocean.  They can be considered influential in a sense, maybe, but only on a narrow field of fairly recent bands of the late 90s or early 2000s. In fact they are frequently references as 90s alt-rock heroes, which is weird for me: 90s alt-rock is my bread and butter, but I just barely missed the window in which to worship these guys. Or maybe it was the pervasive mean attitude that turned me off. It's not to say I don't like aggressive music, but I suppose I want to keep the menace with the punk and metal albums, and my indie rock to be alternately cerebral, uplifting, or mopey. I'm trying to not be rigid yet explain away my distaste for tropes here that I would find tolerable in less-accessible, more-extreme music. Dulli seems downright cruel on occasion, with a complex relationship with women. Or just misunderstood? Their fan sites will have us believe that their albums (and perhaps this what makes Gentlemen most famous) are noted for "frank and uncomfortable exploration of masculine tropes and expectations." OK. At the time, I just thought Gentlemen was creepy, and trying to be so. Now I'm even less likely to see it as critique of this extreme masculinity; it comes across as a ironic celebration, which muddles the message. It might be the frequent use of first person voice that adds the consistent tone of menace. Is that him, the lead singer, talking about his personal life in such creepy detail? Is that a Voice? Is there a consistent character telling these stories, a coherent persona?

As their classic-yet-eerie album cover alludes to, these guys seem eager to publicly simmer in their own creepy vibe. What are we seeing here on the famous cover of Gentlemen? Children recreating an unhealthy relationship: the female looks enamored with the indifferent (at best) male. Why? The lyrics seems to support this preoccupation with seedy relations. The lyrics are personal yet vague and always snarled meanly. They aren't goth, but it's really mostly all creepy stuff. Cruelty towards women seems like an all-too common theme. I do appreciate a consistent theme, but...Why should these guys get a pass for some of the same meat-head shit that I held Aerosmith accountable for just because they are indie darlings? I mean, I'm not trying to view all pop culture through the lenses of 3rd wave Feminism and Marxist New Historicism...but I am who I am. I also don't know how to process the fact that in 1998 they opened for Aerosmith.

I'll never be a super-fan. Still, it's good rock music that matters, and I'm glad I finally got to listen to it all because it is theoretically in my wheel house but had slipped through the cracks, perhaps with reason.