Straight Up Hood Rich

Decade Retrospective: Year 2009

This is a bit of a false entry, in a way. It’s false because I’ve already written about my top album of the year and I don’t want to go into detail about it again and bore the shit out of you. To me, the best album of the year was the gorgeous, well-crafted literary concept record Hospice by The Antlers.

Instead, I’m just going to talk about a few other highlights from the year. It’s been a decent year for music; mostly good records speckled with some really special ones, and also a few overrated guys thrown into the mix. But this is a time for celebration, so we won’t talk overrated. We’ll just talk about the good shit.

Top albums (other than Hospice) after the jump. Continue reading…

Welcome Back

Pretty Tony hit up some sweet new design elements. And I’m finally shaking off the holiday rust. I very seriously raped my insides this weekend, and I apologize for taking some time off.

As for posts, I’ll deliver a Hiatus Watch sometime this afternoon/early evening, so stay tuned. For now, indulge in what I ended up doing this entire weekend: consume mind-altering substances, sit on a comfortable chair, and play this track on repeat:

Animal Collective – Street Flash

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Don’t Believe the Hype, Ep. 3

This week’s column concerns an album that’s a bit more of an “instant” classic, and by instant, I mean the past two years. It was released in fall of 2007, so it’s a bit more recent than our previous installments, but there’s good reason for it.

As it’s the end of the decade, every cunt with access to a pen and paper is making their “Best of the Decade” lists and I’ve noticed something on all of these lists that’s been a bit disturbing: the presence of Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. Now, it’s not because this is a less-than-stellar album. Far from it. Merriweather is a brilliant album (although I usually contend that it’s difficult to properly judge an album within the first year of its release, therefore making its presence on a decade list somewhat troubling). It’s disappointing because of a notable absence on just about every list I’ve seen: their previous (and much better) album, Strawberry Jam.

Strawberry Jam is suffering from a post-hype machine hangover, struggling to get out of the shadow of its excellent successor. But, that’s why I’m here. To make sure you don’t get caught up in the critical circle-jerk and remember to enjoy the great shit that doesn’t get the treatment it deserves. Continue reading…