NO GENRE

The thing that made 2010 such a remarkable year was the fact that the democratization of taste (thank you, internet) has continued unabated.  Everyone has the same access to every album, every artist, every song.  It’s in no way weird to like both Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” and Salem’s “King Night.”  And with this, genre distinctions are becoming increasingly meaningless.  The balkanization of genre into ever-smaller units of sounds and artists means that they tend to less impactful and more ephemeral.  It’s no coincidence, then, that the best albums of the year were the albums that played with your genre expectations.  You wanted a funky hipster throwdown with LCD Soundsystem?  Tough luck pal, here’s the best record that David Bowie never got around to writing.  Kanye West wrote an emotionally devastating album that barely features a potential radio hit; Crystal Castles recorded the best punk rock album by completing ignoring guitars.  Here We Go Magic tried to resurrect motorik-driven Krautrock for the masses, and How to Dress Well casually re-invented 50 years of R&B tradition with a 4-track machine and some spare time.  And the most recognizable DJ of our time is a goofy guy who simply holds a mirror up to our culture so we can see it for all its strange glory.  But this has been the story of popular music for the past decade, and this is not a new thesis.  I’m just thankful to be living in the most productive, most generous era of pop music in history.  More people are doing more awesome things than ever before.  Here’s the proof: forty albums that were stunning and disquieting, revelatory and cathartic, destructive and piercing, redemptive and exhilarating.

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As much as I enjoy geeking out by building best-of album lists, song lists are infinity more interesting.  A song is a high-wire act: one slip, one faulty step and you’ve got a mess on your hands.  Albums, almost by their very nature, are more forgiving: great albums still have awful, awful songs.  So a list of the best songs of a period tend to be more inclusive of different types of talent.  Quite a few of these bands here don’t have enough of it to sustain an album (yet?), but they have enough to absolutely crush one.  So, culled together with scraps of time over the past week and crafted with a fair amount of thought and consideration, I humbly submit 40 songs that have it pretty well locked down this year.  Comments, omissions, counter-arguments all certainly welcome.

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The take-the-cake biggest cliché in music journalism is that every year is a great year in music.  And, of course, this is true because music is one of our lastingly great contributions as a species.  So, just how great is 2010 going to be?  Pretty fucking great.  After the jump, check out my best/favorite albums of the year so-far.

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A little context:  Laura Burhenn released a solo record in 2004 that is so middle-of-the-road that it is entirely forgettable.  Then, she formed a band with John Davis (Q and Not U) called Georgie James.  They were a sort of inoffensive update of Todd Rundgren’s equally inoffensive pop.  There was absolutely nothing exciting about them.  Now, three years later, Burhenn signed with Saddle Creek and released another record under the moniker The Mynabirds. There was no reason whatsoever to expect that The Mynabirds’ debut What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood should be as engagingly pleasant as it is.  There is nothing in her back catalogue to suggest that she is capable of singing sunny, heartbroken country-fried pop that makes Zooey Deschanel sound like a muppet.

The record’s center of gravity is Burhenn’s voice: it’s rich and soulful and confidently controlled.  In fact, she kind of sounds like Fiona Apple covering Cat Power, if you can imagine such a combination.  She draws you in with the album’s titular opener, singing impressively restrained verses before belting out towering choruses that showcase her pipes.  There’s never a moment when her voice sounds thin or weak and Richard Swift’s crisply balanced production bolsters all of its pleasingly husky qualities.  But her voice would be nothing if the songs weren’t perfectly composed vehicles for it.  “Numbers Don’t Lie,” the lead single, has enough twang to keep from being a maudlin breakup song.  Instead, it’s a salty fight in progress: ““If you want to be right/I will let you be right/You know that the numbers don’t lie/Two wrongs will not make it right.”  Later, we get “Wash It Out,” an upbeat stomp of counter-recriminations: “Pinning all the blame on someone never made much sense/We’re all convicts from a point of view.”  Elsewhere, “Give it Time,” relies entirely on the slow burn of Burhenn’s husky voice to deliver the sassy punch of the song:  “I don’t wanna talk/So keep to yourself.”  Not every song, though, is the work of a woman scorned.  “L.A. Rain” is a pleasant and cheery ride through southern California.  And the jazzy “Right Place” finds Burhenn is her most contented mood.

I caught a little shit a while back for grappling with my stance on She & Him.  Since hearing Vol. 2, I am less ambivalent: the band is a well-supported costume drama, a period piece referencing a time that never quite existed.  What makes this fact disappointing is that I am not opposed to a 70s AM country gold revival.  In fact, I wish more people would spend time with Bobbie Gentry and Dolly Parton.  All of this is the to say that The Mynabirds’ debut What We Lose in the Fire, We Gained in the Flood is everything I have ever wanted or expected from She & Him: an effortless record that combines country and soul and gospel in a package that isn’t a clever or reverential retread.

Rating: 7.5 / 10

The Mynabirds “Numbers Don’t Lie”

When She and Him release Vol. 2 on March 23, they will most likely be showered with accolades again. I don’t think there’s a critic, male or female, that could look into Zooey Deschanel’s face and tell her that music is too cute by half. And there’s no doubt that they deserve quite a bit of this love. But while The Mynabirds‘ debut is still 3 months out, I already feel bad for the band. The inevitable comparisons to She and Him are tiresome even before they begin.

It’s not hard, though, to see the legitimacy of such comparisons. The Mynabirds’ lead single “Numbers Don’t Lie” is a beautifully produced piece of golden AM pop. But the key difference here is in the voices. Zooey Deschanel’s voice is as precious as it is strong. But Laura Burhenn, a golden-haired chanteuse, has a voice that is husky and breathy in equal measure. It croaks and squeaks in all the right places. And the voices ultimately define the tenor of these projects. She and Him is cute in its relentless resurrection of Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry. The knowing little winks at the irony of the project always bothered me (though I did really like the album). But the substance of Burhenn’s voice gives the whole song a kind of sincerity that She and Him frequently lacks. She actually sounds like an heir to Springfield or Gentry instead of a reverential tribute artist.

And whereas She and Him dealt primarily in elementary emotional distinctions (I love you or I wish you loved me or I miss you), The Mynabirds paint with a more nuanced brush: “If you want to be right/I will let you be right/You know that the numbers don’t lie/Two wrongs will not make it right.” Burhenn sounds contentious here; she wants the fight to end so she’s willing to compromise but she can’t help but pointing out one final time that she’s right. This woman is no supplicant to the whims of love.

The Mynabirds’ debut What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood is out on Saddle Creek on April 27th, which cannot possibly come soon enough.