The Balboniest Albums of 2024

This man needs no introduction. His name is Steve Balboni.

As you all know, Steve “Bye-Bye” Balboni played first base and slugged 36 home runs and stole 1 base for the 1985 Kansas City Royals, the world champions of baseball. But he was so much more than that. Did you know that he’s also a three-time world champion of Hungry Hungry Hippos? And an admiral in the Nebraska Navy? And a gifted seamster? And the 87th pope? Balboni is a man of science, who was the first to expose the fallacy of washing fruit in his seminal 1984 article, “It’s Just Fruit, Dude. You Don’t Need To Wash It.” He is a genius inventor and entrepreneur who glorped us with such innovations as the solar-powered spoon, boiled waffles, aardvarks, Soap Soap (the soap that you use to wash your other soap), and the word “glorp.”

But as you surely remember, when Oprah asked Balboni what he’d most like to be remembered for, he gave a pregnant pause, squinted skyward, and softly replied, “My music.” Specifically, his jingles. Sure enough, along with his myriad other achievements, Balboni also spent 27 years in advertising, anonymously ghostwriting some of America’s most beloved jingles. In the industry, he became known as the “Male Monarch of Jingles” for such classics as “Carpetland USA,” “Murray’s Shoes,” “Matt’s Spatulas,” “Cotton Candy (It’s Not Just for Breakfast Anymore),” and his controversial masterpiece for Coca-Cola, “Pepsi Is Poison.”

Thus, in honor of the Great Balboni, who wore #45 for the Royals, here are 46 of the glorpest albums of 2024.

PART 1: FAVORITE DISCOVERIES

(in order of favoritude)

1. Winona Riders – No Hagas Que Me Arrepienta

When I was 18, I was in love with Winona Ryder; I’m now 48, and I’m in love with Winona Riders (Editor’s note: and his wife). You know those bands that appear out of nowhere and you immediately love them so much that you can’t decide whether to tell everyone about them or keep them all to yourself? Meet Winona Riders, a muy bárbaro cosmic garage band from Betelgeuse (by way of Buenos Aires). I know almost nothing about them, but I plan to rectify that as soon as I regrow my brain, which is currently incubating in the Instant Pot after I had to scrape it off the wall while listening to their spectacular album No Hagas Que Me Arrepienta.That title means “Don’t Make Me Regret It,” which must be ironic, because I promise that you’ll quickly come to regret not discovering this band sooner. The album is an hour and ten minutes long, and my only complaint is that it’s too short. Butcher one Tame Impala, sprinkle with a little Limiñanas and a jigger of King Gizzard, add a tablespoon of Yo La Tengo, mix in some Mars Volta, a modicum of Mogwai, a scintilla of Ty Segall, a bottle of BJM, then add a dash of dance punk, mix well, and heat with space lasers for six hours. Then take it out of the oven and THROW IT ON THE GROUND, because it’s still nowhere close to Winona Riders. I give you permission to check them out, but don’t even think about falling in love with them, because they’re mine!

2. The Drin – Elude the Torch

Writing about Jorge Luis Borges, Rivka Galchen said, “To love a text: isn’t that just to find oneself helplessly casting about for something to say in return?” Ever since I heard Elude the Torch by The Drin, I’ve been helplessly casting. Why do I love this beguiling little album so damn much? I don’t know, I don’t know, don’t I know, know I don’t? Because of how the guitar meanders over the monochrome mumbles and rippled beats. Because of that hypnotic kiltered strum and nested laps of beats, mise-en-abyme, drifting me in slant directions. Because it’s that old sweater you love because of its holes, not in spite of them. Because I close my eyes and see slow-motion replays of fireworks in black and white. Because these damn Cincinnati kids are skinny dipping in my stream of consciousness. Because they’ve got the scruffy, tossed-off charm of early Wilco, late Uncle Tupelo, or something in between, maybe Califone with a head cold. Because they take me back to the 1970s, specifically the latter half of 1975, when I was in the womb. Because they got that ineffable jenesaisquoi that ionizes my particular particles. But mostly because on November 5, when the abyss was staring back at me, this was the album I played, back to back, to lead me back. This may not be the best album of the year, but it was my most beloved album of the year.

3. Melt-Banana – 3 + 5

“Hey, I just found a new mole on my face!”

“Oh my God. Maybe you have skin cancer?”

“Nah. I’m just not that observant.”

I’m pretty comfortable in my rut. So comfortable that I typically can’t be bothered to pay attention to any non-rut activities, no matter how appalling or pertinent they may be. You say my country’s been overrun by fascists? OK. Jews are bombing babies? Uh-huh. Kid Rock was named Secretary of the Treasury? How bout that. But at least I’m not the only one. Unobservativity, better known as apathy, seems to be a chronic affliction among slomo sapiens. If God held a press conference today announcing that it was galactic platypus named Glen, most of us would spend the next six minutes thumbing “OMG” jokes to our imaginary friends before getting back to our busy schedule of staring at screens and googling ourselves (and I ain’t talking about a search engine, hey ho!). But thank Glen that my rut was interrupted this year by Melt-Banana (how I adore that hyphen), a Japanese band that has been around since the early 1990s that I’ve somehow never listened too. And what a brain-boggling blast of a band they are! When I was a kid, I saw a movie called Slumber Party Massacre 2 about a psychopath who killed horny teens by playing a guitar with a massive drill attached to the end. If that guy had a band, it would be Melt-Banana (also assuming that he was a Japanese woman who slayed figuratively, rather than literally). Every song is barely contained aural chaos, saturated with so much feedback that it becomes feedfront, along with an explosion of helter-skelter guitars, detonating drums, and squeaky shouts in a mix of Japanese, English, and Chipmunk. At times it seems like there’s 7-8 records playing at the same time, some of which are playing at 78 rpm. This is a band for whom those annoying internet descriptors like bonkers, batshit, and—dare I say— bananas actually apply. One of the biggest regrets of my life is not listening to Melt-Banana until now. But that’s OK, because I’ve got my whole life ahead of me!*

*Other than my whole life until now.

4. Caput Medusae – You Can’t Negotiate With Zombies

For years, people’ve been telling me, “You should really try meditation.” When I hear that, my go-to response is a polite smile, followed by a quick knee to the midsection. My back-up reaction is to lie and say, “I’m a very busy human. Where can I find the time to meditate?” But six weeks ago, I found the solution: medidefecation. That’s right, I meditate and defecate AT THE SAME TIME. Whenever I feel the need for a movement, I go into the bathroom, shut the door, turn off the lights, light a candle, then take a seat and ponder the deepest questions of existence while my bottom makes poo-poo: Did you know that “eat” is the middle word in “death”? Is a “pigeon assassin” someone who kills a pigeon, or a pigeon who kills someone? Why do we call our asses “bottoms” when they’re in the middle of our body? How can a brand new album already sound so familiar to me? I’ve been thinking a lot about that last one, thanks to Caput Medusae. Every few years, we’re blessed with an album that arrives fully formed and flawless, chiseled into the ether as if it had been channeled into Mother Nature’s belly button while Baby Earth was in her womb. When I heard You Can’t Negotiate with Zombies for the first time, it had already permeated my consciousness. My theory is that this is the reverse temporal residue of all the times that I’m going to listen to this album in the future. Spooky groovy 80s goth-gaze perfection, the soundtrack to a lost John Carpenter film about electronic pod wraiths that hypnotize their victims by hula-hooping. The only way this album could be more goth is if some parts were sung in German; oh wait, they are. Guaranteed to have everyone at the monster party dancing matter-of-factly and delighting in succulent dread.

5. Fat Dog – WOOF.

When it comes to music, I’m a simple man. I have simple tastes. I don’t need no stinking experimental drone-core compositions, or post-rockabilly sound poems, or field recordings of a decomposing fox corpse, and you can take your pompous genres (e.g., chillwave, avant-prog, indietronic, dissonant sludge, egg punk, etc.) and cram ‘em up your hamhole. Just blast the bass at the precise rate of my beating heart, pummel the guitar like you’re punching a rabid moose, bark out a bunch of gibberish about dogs and slugs, and add a dash of squalling brass that sounds like angel farts. In other words, be Fat Dog! This band sounds like a nonstop club remix of Viagra Boys, so just think of them as the Molly Boys. If someone put a potato gun to my head and said, “Pick just one album from 2024 to listen to right now!,” I’d let them fire, because hey, free potato. But if they had a real gun, I’d choose Fat Dog, and then by the end of the first song I’d be so hulked up on endorphins that I’d take their gun and eat the bullets like it was a Pez dispenser. Forget dance punk, these songs make your pants drunk, turn your pelvis into a pendulum. The perfect album for those “easy-like” Sunday mornings when you wake up 90% nude in a puddle of corn syrup, surrounded by traffic cones with possum piss in your hair and a tattoo of a caterpillar on your pancreas. Bonus points to Fat Dog for blessing us with the best lyric of the year: “If you think I’m crying for you/I’m not crying for you/I just watched Karate Kid 2.”

6. Dame Area – Toda La Verdad Sobre Dame Area

Let me take a moment to dispel the fallacy of “creative” writing. I don’t care if you’re Bill Faulkner or Phil Baulkner (author of “Fuck Bill Buckner”), what you’re doing is not “creative” writing. You’re writing the same way people have been writing since the Babylonians, i.e., using a pen or keyboard to form words out of letters. What’s so creative about that? If you really want to be creative, try writing without words. Try writing with the bubbles of a shark fart. Try writing with detached toenails, or the scent of burning acorns, or desiccated cakes of beard yeast. Let me tell you, if you hope to describe Dame Area (Dah-meh Ah-ri-uh), you’re gonna have to find a whole new way of writing, because they have devised a whole new way of making music. While most bands play music by twitching their hands across steel strings or slapping tympanic membranes like freshly tasered walrii (i.e., the plural of walrus), Dame Area play music by reaching into your earhole and scrubbing the interior of your skull with a cinnamon-covered sponge while motorboating your left eyeball. Toda La Verdad Sobre Dame Area (“The Whole Truth About Dame Area”) is turbo-charged electro-Catalonian fury, staccato synths that knife you in the sternum while concussive percussion defibrillates you back to life. Imagine post-industrial death flamenco on crack, if the crack was on PCP! Know what I mean? No you don’t, because I’ve only explained it to you in writing. How can I represent the whole of Dame Area with these fractured letters, so riddled with holes? Language is a frosted fish.

There are no known photos of Swamp Thug, so here’s ChatGPT’s version.

7. bromethugzine (Swamp Thug & bromethazine) – THUG ZINE Issues 001 & 002

Being an artist consists primarily of convincing other people that your gibberish is wisdom. And over the last six months, I’ve become convinced that Swamp Thug’s gloriously persnickety gibberish is the food of the gods, manna avocado toast with nectar and ambrosia. Let me stress that I know nothing about Swamp Thug, I found his music by accident, and I don’t understand what he’s talking about much of the time. But even the fissured glimpses of his missives that make it through the murk are pure divine, inscrutable mandates not meant to be apprehended or obeyed, merely absorbed and contemplated. On every verse, Swamp Thug sounds like he’s somnambulantly speaking in tongues while gargling a thesaurus. I’m left belovedly befuddled, savoring his salmagundi of wise, weird, and what the fuck? Each of these short EPs is a thesis in cognitive linguistics, a TED talk by Ted DiBiase, an urban version of Ulysses ad-libbed by Hanif Abdurraqib over Gerry Rafferty on lean. Imagine if Lil B, Earl Sweatshirt, and MC Paul Barman made sweet love and had quintuplets that Voltron-ed into a supreme MC named Lil Bearl Barsweat. That’s Swamp Thug, and in honor of him I have composed this verbal hymn:

To these nincom-p’s wanna fuck with Swamp T,
I bequeath a HUG, tell ‘em “You complete me.”
Your lexicon be sloppy, unpolished.
All my lyrics are prolix and polysyllabic.
To my supremacy they remain resistant,
But my fuckwithability stay nonexistent.
While I scorch the sky like a neutron bomb,
You Skywalker in the sauna: Luke warm.
You stand in a row like a syzygy,
While I stand for the whole like synecdoche.
When I break it off, ya’ll say God damn it!
These line breaks kick ass! That’s some fuckin’ enjambment.
In sum, ya’ll very pathetic, I’m peripatetic,
Keep prevaricating the talk while I perambulate the walk.

8. Aili – Nandakke?

Quick, what’s the Belgian word for “funkydoobigroovilicious”? Trick question, they don’t have one. Of course, they don’t have a word for anything else either, because there is no Belgian language, you schmoofus. But if the Belgians ever decide to make a language, the first word should be “Aili,” meaning “übergroovy.” This duo is named for lead singer Aili Maruyama from Japan, who is joined by Belgian producer Orson Wouters, also known as Transistorcake (I kid you not). Like a Belgian waffle slathered in syrup and wasabi, Aili will fill your tummy with sweet and spicy grooves, enough to make the old dude from Up get down. When I’m listening to music, I always hope for that moment when the momentum of the groove takes over and you’re suddenly tuned in with your body, rather than just your ears, and this album is a non-stop parade of those moments, complete with Shriners in tiny cars. If we can judge music sheerly by the sheer glee it engenders, by the degree to which it enhances your sensory experience of the world, by its capacity to transform grimaces into smirks, then Aili have made a masterpiece.

9. Shaboozey – Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going

I’ve said it before and I’ll type it again: writing about music is like murdering a family of gnats while a dandelion sprouts from your naval. You don’t need me to explain why, so let me explain why:

  • 1. Music defies linguistic description.
  • 2. Music is the epitome of personal taste, so my thoughts on the matter matter only to me.
  • 3. Part of the joy of music is not caring what other people think about it, or better yet, enjoying it in spite of what others think.
  • 4. Part of the joy of music is the unexpected path of discovery, which is infinitely diminished if said path leads back to some random (white straight middle-aged) dude on the internet.
  • 5. Trying to describe the music you love to others usually saps its power, for both you and them.
  • 6. There is no objective qualitative scale for evaluating music.

For all of these reasons and many more, I’m often tempted to evaluate music on a purely quantitative scale, wherein the “Best Album” of any year is simply the album that you listened to the most. By this metric, it somewhat pains me to admit that my Best Album of 2024 was Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going by Shaboozey. Most Sundays, I take a one-hour bus ride to get to my baseball game, and most of those most Sundays, I listened to Boozey on the way, because he’s guaranteed to stamp a smile on my face, pump me full of positive energy, and maybe even get me two-steppin’ on the bus (I don’t need a dance floor). That’s pretty remarkable since I’m not really one for, you know, like, expressing emotions and stuff. I know everyone and their wiener dog has heard “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” a megallion times by now, but there’s a bunch of other ridiculously fun and compulsively kinetic tracks on this album. Thanks to Shaboozey, I now look forward to my bus ride to baseball more than the game itself.

PART 2: GOURMET PAIRINGS

Master & Disciple(s)

This is actually the last entry I wrote for this, the longest and least-read blog post in history, because this was the entry I’ve been dreading the most. As you can (hopefully) tell, this year I was blessed with so much joy, beauty, energy, movement, peace, and insight from thousands of hours of new music, but all of that ecstasy was almost entirely eclipsed by the tragic loss of Ka on October 12. Kaseem Ryan was without question one of the greatest MCs of his or any other generation, but he was so much more than that. He was the embodiment of the best that hip-hop can be, the exemplar that I wish every artist was striving to become. A voice that was immediately recognizable over hushed and haunting self-produced beats. A soulful sound that was utterly unique, spitting the type of knowledge and truth that deserves to canonized as scripture. An ingenious poet, a master of wordplay who somehow kept conjuring impeccable rhymes that hit you with sheer surprise and delight, and were chiseled in stone the moment they left his breath. Beyond the music, he was a living legend in his neighborhood, a captain in the New York Fire Department, a first responder on 9/11, a self-made local artist who sold his records and CDs on the street, a dearly beloved husband. Like wrestlers, rappers have a disturbingly short life expectancy, but Ka should’ve been an exception, because he was the antidote to the FAB infection (fake-ass bullshit) that has afflicted rap for the last 30 years, a well of wisdom and humility in the desert of buffoonery about guns, drugs, and big butts. When you lose your beacon, the darkness can feel especially overwhelming. But luckily for us, darkness is just the absence of light (rather than the opposite), and the light always returns in time. Even the tiniest spark can penetrate the darkness, and one such spark was Lived and Born, the new album from New York rapper Sunmundi and California producer klwn cat. As soon as I heard Sunmundi (back in March), I had two thoughts: this kid is sick and he sounds kinda like Ka. Sure enough, just days after Ka’s death, Sunmundi posted a tribute track in mourning for his greatest inspiration. Ka will never be replaced, but his light and lessons have been passed to beaming young talents and truth-speakers who refuse to dumb it down or traffic in fakery, like Sunmundi, Rhys Langston, Swamp Thug, Nappy Nina, Hester Valentine, and every artist on the Backwoodz roster. While they carry on Ka’s legacy, we still have so much to learn from the man himself, who blessed us with an expansive canon of life lessons that we have not yet begun to tap.

Won’t peep weakness though my scars show,
Disappear in history or be the hero on that Argo.
Some bail, set sail with every hard blow,
I’d rather stand and be the man the gods know.

Favorite Bands

Let’s travel back to 2019 (if only we could). That was the year I first heard both Fontaines DC and Chat Pile. When I first heard Fontaines DC, I remember thinking, oh great, another pompous Fall facsimile reading prose poems over indifferent rhythms (this opinion quickly changed). When I first heard Chat Pile, I remember thinking, this is the greatest song about Arby’s ever written (apologies to Citric Dummies). But at absolutely no point did I think, in five years, these will be my two favorite bands. But then again, I also did not think I would spend the next two years in my apartment, survive a global pandemic, and then watch in horror as the soulless ghoul who exacerbated that pandemic was returned to power. So that’s on me. Thank goodness I have these two musical paladins to push me onward, nurturing my hurt with rousing Irish anthems and bruising Oklahoman ear assaults. 

Favorite Solo Artists

Here in Korea, people are semi-obsessed with MBTI, a personality test that supposedly shows if you’re a “thinking” person or a “feeling” person. I don’t need to take this test, because I am the T’est of the T’s, as in, I think I might have feelings, but I’ve never actually used them. Nevertheless, when listening to certain musical artists, I have been known to experience strange corporeal sensations akin to emotions, i.e., to start weeping like a Jordan meme. Two of those artists are Father John Misty, the gregarious godfather of sardonic and self-deprecating folk, and Waxahatchee, the smirking Southern siren whose vocal twangs seem tailor-made to fit my brain receptors. Of these two, it is Waxahatchee who has truly solved the calculus of my heart. More than any other singer I know, she seems able to convey her presence through her voice, with odd cadences and fluctuations that never fail to surprise and captivate me. Listening to her last two records, I feel my soul rise from my body, then use its spectral tendrils to dance me like a puppet. Yet Father John Misty hit even higher heights this year, bequeathing us with the BEST ALBUM of 2024. Over the years, Josh Tillman (FJM) has become so reliably incredible that I started taking him for granted, but Mahashmashana doesn’t just stand out from his canon of contemporary classics, it leaps out, hits a Triple Lindy, and does the splits. Simply one of the my favorite writers in any form or genre, although I’m still anxiously waiting on that novel he promised us 12 years ago. Whatever else I try to say about these two records will only delay you (and me) from listening to them, so I’ll shut up now. 

Favorite Typing Music

I have a confession to make: I suffer from alethophobia, the fear of honesty. No I don’t. I have another confession to make: this list of albums is somewhat disingenuous. Most of the albums on this list are loud, lyrical, and boisterous. They are the albums that electrify me, that make my head stop hanging and start banging. But in truth, the majority of music that I listen to is actually much calmer and less intrusive, because that’s what I need when I’m sitting down pressing buttons, which is what I do approximately 8 to 28 hours per day. When I’m working, I require tunes that won’t distract me with words or wiggles, which typically means ambient, electronic, or jazz. But this year, my two favorite albums of typing music came from a pair of British rock bands that seem to have been named after characters from a Tolkien fan-fic novel: Gnod and Smote. Gnod has been on my radar since at least 2018, when their song “Donovan’s Daughters” combusted my skull, but they’ve always been known as a post-industrial noise band. Make that “post-post” now, because they’ve entered a new realm with this swirling and hypnotic sonic submersion, complete with Benedictine monk chants, which is somehow haunting and hopeful at the same time, and gets better with each listen. Smote is a new find for me, pulsing strata of smoldering yet semi-jaunty Wiccan folk-drone that covertly coils around your brain like a snake entering hibernation. Both are guaranteed to boost your speed and productivity on the keys.

God Bless X-Ray Spex

If you don’t know about Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex, go put on Germfree Adolescents and you’re welcome. One of the greatest punk albums of all time, which still gets better every time I hear it. But even if you do know about X-Ray Spex, you might not know about Lora Logic, a founding member of the band (when she was only 15!), who played saxophone on their first single before leaving to form the band Essential Logic. Like X-Ray Spex, Essential Logic released only one album (while in their prime), which was Beat Rhythm Logic, which got a deluxe re-release this year. It’s a treasure for anyone who loves neo-no-wave or pre-post-punk. Essential Logic lasted only a couple of years, at which point Lora Logic became a Hari Krishna and basically disappeared from the music world for 25 years, although she has recently put out a slew of new releases under the Essential Logic moniker. Hopefully, Ms. Logic will someday hook up with LIV.e, the Texas chanteuse who has spent the last few years stacking acclaim for her woozy leftfield R&B. But with PAST FUTUR.e, LIV.e took another left and left the field altogether, channeling Poly Styrene on a rollicking new-wave record with croaked vocals and frisky synths within a rhythmic blizzard of blips and bleeps. Definitely one of the strangest and most delightful surprises of the year.

Magnets, How Do They Work?

(aka Opposites Attract)

What was this year’s best punk protest album by a terminally angry British/Irish artist named after an American cultural icon? Easy, right? Humble as the Sun by Bob Vylan. Wrong. It was Songs for the Deceased by Meryl Streek, which sounds like an awful pop punk band from Kalamazoo, but is actually one awfully mad and madly talented dude from Dublin who launches a blistering visceral attack on Irish authorities and apathy. Meryl’s music is absolutely essential and infectiously intense, but his themes are relentlessly distressing (e.g., suicide, the homeless, the deadliest fire in Irish history). Thus, to help you recover from your downer, you’ll need an upper in the form of a comedown, and Dr. Kiwanuka has your prescription. Michael Kiwanuka’s music is every bit as urgent and socially conscious as Meryl Streek’s, but he takes the exact opposite approach, preferring the velvet glove to the iron fist. And that voice is so soothing that it gives me the munchies.

My Midwife Is Having a Mildlife Crisis

When making a sandwich, I always use non-consecutive slices of bread. And I align the slices caddywhompus, like a star of David. That’s how I slapped together these two marvelous artists who happen to have very similar names and wildly different sounds. Midwife, the one-woman project of Madeline Johnston, is beguiling soporific slowgaze that oozes through your ears before solidifying in your soul. Meanwhile, Mildlife is milky Melbourne funk, a set of seven cosmic corkers that start out a bit shy and sheepish before blossoming into rump-rattling rippers.     

Favorite Failures

My “favorite failures” are the albums that earned my deepest respect for being innovative, intelligent, empathic, and unconventional, but which I probably won’t be revisiting too often in the future. Nicolas Jaar is still my favorite electronic artist ever, and the news that his incredible duo Darkside will be touring next year fills me with hope that some new music from them might be on the horizon. This year Jaar gave us the monumental Archivos de Radio Piedras, which is five and a half hours long, much of which consists of a radio play in Spanish. I listened to the whole thing twice, and I DON’T HABLO SPANISH. That’s how much I love this man and his music. He also donated most of the proceeds from this release to Palestine and Wallmapu (indigenous people of Chile, Jaar’s home country), and he later released just the music from this project as Piedras 1 and 2, which I heartily recommend. Next up is Ness by Hayden Thorpe, former lead singer of Wild Beasts, who possesses one of the few voices that I’ve ever swooned to. If I had a nickel for every album like Ness, then I wouldn’t have change for a dime. It’s an operatic ode to Orford Ness, a former British military site that is now being “re-wilded,” based on the words of naturalist Robert Macfarlane. What that entails is a lot of almost acapella warbling about the hushed and mysterious beauty of pebbles, seagulls, lichen, and drift. This man’s voice turns my eyes to puddles and my guts to gelatin, so I’d be thrilled to hear him sing the phone book, but I’m hoping his next project is a little less hippie and little more hippy.

PART 3: GOING, GOING, GENRE!

TOP 5 METAL ALBUMS

1. Thou – Umbilical

Along with pubes, pimples, and body odor, musical taste also develops in adolescence. What you listen to as a teen becomes the benchmark for musical appreciation for the rest of your life. Although I’ve strived to cultivate a rich and diverse sonic palette, the fundamental core of my musical taste remains regressive (like so many other things about me), trapped in my 17-year-old self, which is a truly terrifying domicile to spend eternity in. When I was 17 (I drank some very good beer…), the only thing that mattered in my life was Nirvana. In Utero came out in September, and in October, I saw Nirvana obliterate the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, which might still be the peak of my oh so lucrative career as a music lover. The New Orleans doom deities Thou have always waved their Nirvana flag proudly; hell, they put out an entire album of Nirvana covers. And their new album Umbilical hearkens back to those decidedly non-halcyon days of filthy riffs and flannel mosh-pits, dragging 17-year-old Phil out of hibernation, putting a big smile on his face, and then ripping his head off and using it to play croquet.

2. Ὁπλίτης (Hoplites) – Π​α​ρ​α​μ​α​ι​ν​ο​μ​έ​ν​η

Rumor has it that, through the course of human history, there have been occasional periods when, under certain conditions, one could in fact fuck around without finding out. This is no longer the case. All loopholes with regards to fucking around and not finding out have been inextricably cinched by Hoplites. If you don’t know about this band, then you didn’t read my Best Albums of 2023, jerkface! Busted! Just like your cochleae will be busted by this cacophonous one-man barrage from China, who has now apparently added brass to his already ridiculous repertoire of musical talents.

3. Lord Spikeheart – The Adept

Through the course of evolution, how did sleep become viable? How the hell did creatures who spend one-third of their existence unconscious ever survive? If we truly want to progress as a species, I believe it’s time to start weaning ourselves off sleep. Enter Lord Spikeheart. I’m not sure if he actually composed these songs or just opened a portal to hell inside the studio and recorded whatever pandemonium ensued. Listening to this album is the aural equivalent of sumo wrestling a semi before your shattered carapace is devoured by a plague of locusts. But in a good way! For the sake of humanity, every person should be required to listen to this infernal masterpiece, which is guaranteed to banish sleep from your schedule for the foreseeable future.

4. Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja

In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, both of which were carrying a “Golden Record” that includes greetings in 55 different languages and a bunch of excruciatingly boring music. When someone gets around to launching Voyager 3, the only payload it requires is Muuntautuja, which conveys a very clear message in an unearthly language that our alien neighbors might actually understand: keep off my dang lawn. At first, this churning cauldron of cacophony sounds totally discombobulated, but after a few spins, you start to perceive the genius of its covert combobulation. The best metal band on Earth, or anywhere else in the galaxy.

5. Zeal and Ardor – GREIF

I don’t know the first thing about babies. They cry. Alright, I don’t know the second thing about babies. They shit. Alright, I don’t know the eighth thing about babies. They cry, shit, sleep, stank, suckle, shit some more, break easily, and can’t change a tire. Fine, I know a lot about babies, and I thought I knew a lot about Zeal and Ardor, but this album exposed my ignorance. Manuel Gagneux has somehow propelled what was supposed to be a one-off novelty side project into one of the most exhilarating and essential bands on the planet. If their self-titled 2022 album (one of my top 5 albums of that year) showed that they can swing a sledgehammer, GREIF demonstrates that they’ve mastered the rest of the toolbox as well. While it cannot match the immediate brunt-force crunch of the 2022 album, its impact gains strength with every spin, and thus seems destined to last even longer.

More Metal Magnificents (alphabetical)

  • Akhlys – House of the Black Germinus
  • Black Curse – Burning in Celestial Poison
  • Blood Incantation – Absolute Everywhere
  • Spectral Wound – Songs of Blood and Mire
  • Sugar Horse – The Grand Scheme of Things

TOP 5 RAP ALBUMS

1. Tierra Whack – World Wide Whack

When I’m evaluating hip-hop records, one of the main things I think about is whether or not I’d like to hang out with the MC, and I can’t think of any rapper I’d rather get a few beers or a stack of pancakes with than Tierra Whack. While so many of today’s most popular women rappers sound like Ludacris with a clitoris, Tierra Whack sounds like her own beautiful, buoyant, brilliant self, infusing every song with such infectious bounce and effervescence that it takes a couple listens to realize that she’s dealing with some truly serious shit, like being abandoned by her father as a child and contemplating suicide. The album alone is a joy, but her gloriously goofy and ingenious videos are the proverbial icing on the pancakes.

2. NAHReally & The Expert – BLIP

So many rappers claim to be the “realest,” apparently without realizing that any such claims represent a complete departure from reality. But NAHReally REALLY is the realest rapper out here (“here” meaning that I hear). Eschewing the usual delusions about crackheads, cracking heads, and getting head, NAHReally gets into your head with songs about stuff that we (i.e., I) can all relate to, like bubble wrap, refrigerators, that stack of unread books on your nightstand, getting old (in your forties), and what to do with your hands while rapping on stage. He speaks truth to cowards (i.e., me), which is mad rare, like an enraged unicorn.

3. Elucid – Revelator

99% of today’s rappers don’t meet the first qualification of being an MC: have something to say. Elucid has the much more enviable problem of having too much to say. That’s why 99% of MCs are disposable and Elucid is indispensable. Open your ears and pick any random bar from this album, and it will fill you with more awe and insight than a landfill of the insipid trash that now poses as rap music. Oh yeah, and Elucid also happens to be one of the illest producers this side of El-P and Kenny Segal. Some of the beats on this record are so sick that they need to be euthanized. Why settle for irrelevant when you can have revelatory?

4. Ceschi – Bring Us the Head of Francisco False (Parts 1 & 2)

We inherently admire the traits that we lack; hence our reverence for the dead. The main ingredient of sainthood is dirt. I don’t know who died to set Ceschi (chess-key) off, but this incredible double album is a heart-pounding homage to them, making your heart pound in revelry one second and then pounding it with misery the next. While it was certainly intended as a memorial to specific loved ones, its magnificence extends to encompass the all of our deceased, especially those who knew they would die and yet didn’t see it coming. Wikipedia tells me that “Francisco” is Ceschi’s middle name, and I know that he announced this as his final solo album, two facts that frighten me. I pray to People (my only deity) that this eulogy won’t double as an autofiction epitaph. But that’s hard to imagine, since this man radiates more life and love and acumen, more abundant musical talent and lyrical dexterity than any three MCs you’d care to name. And this album is not a dirge or lament! It’s a strident, life-affirming howl into the void that echoes louder than it left, a maximum opus that flexes every fecking skill in Ceschi’s vast arsenal to magnificent effect. My only knock against this album is the cost. It’s only available on Bandcamp, and only for a fairly steep price, which I kinda get since Ceschi is probably the most profitable artist on his own label, Fake Four records. But it means that only those of us who already cherish Ceschi and his music will hear it, and this deserves to be heard by everyone with ears. Please go listen to the album, buy it if you can, support Fake Four, support your favorite indie labels and musicians, because music is an essential, elemental force for truth and good, which we need now more than ever. Now, would you like a glass of wine with that cheese?

5. Nappy Nina – Nothing Is My Favorite Thing

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Nina’s mad mic skills and Swarvy’s dope rhythms. These are a few of my favorite things about Nothing Is My Favorite Thing. Nina is one of the best writers alive, always striking the perfect balance between self-assertion and self-reflection. She needs to change her name to Next-Level Nina, because this ain’t just hip-hop, it’s a pelvis pole vault.

More Rapturous Rap (alphabetical)

  • Aler Himself – Sweet Ablutions and Anything Helps No Drugs
  • B L A C K I E – Noise God
  • Hester Valentine – Valenta
  • Quadry – Ask a Magnolia
  • ShrapKnel & Controller 7 – Nobody Planning To Leave

TOP 4 ROCK ALBUMS

1. Rosie Tucker – UTOPIA NOW!

Like EVERY human ever, I use myself as my primary evidence of how I think other humans probably think and act. Why do I assume that everyone loves Ursula K. LeGuin, the Orlando Magic, baby tapirs, and Reese’s peanut butter cups? Because I love those things. How do I know that EVERY human ever does this? Because I do it. If you’re confused, refer back to the first sentence. But after listening to UTOPIA NOW!, I have doubled my evidence of how other humans think and act, because I now feel like I know Rosie Tucker better than I know myself. Why provide a slice of life when you can deliver the whole cake? Only the most genius lyricists can communicate with such truth and humor, casually alternating nuance with nose punches as she succinctly summarizes this hideous glorious boisterous vexatious monotonous stupendous circus called “us.” If you’re not instantly smitten with songs like “All My Exes Live in Vortexes,” “Gil Scott Albatross,” and “Paperclip Maximizer,” then your capacity for smittenness is dangerously low. As a bonus, she has a dazzling mastery of her voice, effortlessly sliding from smirking banter to swooning anthem in a single verse. Her voice suffuses you, gradually transcending the words to become sound, sublime, leaving you entranced by every tremor, gasp, and flutter. How do I know you’ll love Rosie Tucker? Because I do.

2. Obey Cobra – Mwg Drwg

Although I think most conspiracy theories are utter turd slop, there is one sinister secret that I believe the government has been hiding from us since the Polk administration: bus curtains and airplane blankets…are the exact same thing. Think about it! They’re both just gruish-blay flaps of pebbled felt, permeated with untold quantities of transit dredge and human dander. And have you ever seen a bus curtain and an airplane blanket in the same room together? Didn’t think so. Well, Obey Cobra and Bruxa Maria are the bus curtains and airplane blankets of British experimental-alternative-sludge-post-industrial-noise-core rock. Some of me might remember Bruxa Maria from last year’s favorite albums list, and this year Obey Cobra slammed me with the same brand of damage, going from head-banging riffs to head-scratching “what-the-fuck-is-this” from one track to the next. We can only pray that these two bands will someday get together to form a super group called Bruxa Cobra. Like plane blankets and bus curtains, Obey Cobra will gladly wrap you in whisper-thin layers of woven filth or hijack the light on its way to your eyes.

3. Soft Kill – Escape Forever

I sometimes open my front door spontaneously, just in case there’s someone there. Did I mention that I live in a garage? On one occasion, Soft Kill was there, cosplaying as the new and improved version of The Cure that The actual Cure are so obviously not, despite what those OTHER best albums of 2024 lists might try to tell you. Escape Forever might have the best opening three tracks of any 2024 album, culminating with “Joy Is a Crime,” one of my favorite songs of the year.

4. PyPy – Sacred Times

I sometimes hear people described as “fun-loving.” Well, let me tell you, I’m a fun-hating guy. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s fun. Because fun is a thing, like a spatula or baby bear. But I gotta admit, spanking a bearling with a spatch would be fun. You know what else is fun? Listening to PyPy. Spunky pop punk from Montreal with a brain and a sense of humor. The first song on the album is about a lonely sock searching for its solemate, and it only gets better from there.

TOP 5 WHAT THE GLORP IS THIS?

1. Mabe Fratti – Sentir Que No Sabes

It’s like that time I dreamt that I was eating a rotten tomato. Then I woke up to discover that I was chewing my pillow. Then I died. Then I bounced back from death and was worshipped as the third coming of Christ (after John Stamos), at which point I realized that I don’t even like tomatoes. Boy, was my face red. That’s a question. Was my face red? How should I know, I can’t see my own face. This episode somewhat summarizes my frazzled incoherence the first time I listened to Mabe Fratti. At the time, I didn’t know I was looking for a cello-synth-horny-keys concoction (en Español!) that would squeeze a steady stream of gasps and sighs from my heart with a pair of tongs. But I was. Sentir Que No Sabes (“Feeling like you don’t know”) is a delectable pepián of ethereal operatic vocals, ominous-luminous horns, and the unearthly sounds of a cello being maliciously tickled or lovingly sawed to death. Every year, I read a rave review for an album on Pitchfork and go, “Pitchfork likes it? Ha ha ha, fuck Pitchfork, and puck Fitchpork, and fuck that album! I don’t even need to listen to it to know it sucks!” And then I listen to it and ineluctably melt into a quivering lump of skin and sobs. This was my that this year.

2. ØKSE – ØKSE

No two snowflakes are the same! Yeah, but they’re all really, really similar. Sadly, that’s how I felt about most new jazz records this year. As always, I dabbled in jazz throughout the year, but when it came time to pick some favorites, my skull was a shell with no clam. Luckily, however, there was one gigantic pearl in there: ØKSE, a collective of four artists from around the world: NYC based drummer Savannah Harris, Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen, Haitian electronic musician Val Jeanty, and Swede Petter Eldh on bass, synths, and sampler. This is not your grandpappy’s jazz, as they lean hard into the samples and electronics, and four of the tracks feature rap verses from some of Backwoodz finest MCs (billy woods, Elucid, Cavalier, Maasaai). But Rasmussen’s sax is usually the dominant sound, dipping and twirling around like a moth at a rave. While most jazz artists are playing checkers, ØKSE is playing four-dimensional Connect Four.   

3. Meril Wubslin – Faire Ça

A spellbinding Swiss variant of “slow core,” or as they say in French, “le slow core.” If I spoke no French at all or if I spoke fluent French, I probably wouldn’t like this album quite as much as I do. But mon pauvre français enhances its mesmeric, melodic charms. Merci, Mademoiselle Biallas! Bonus points for some of the best album art of the year.

4. Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum

Ever feel you weren’t given the right equipment for the task you’ve been assigned? Some skill remains unlearned or appendage unattached. That’s how I feel pretty much all the time, but especially when listening to Avalanche Kaito, a singularly spectacular trio consisting of Kaito Winse, an “urban griot” from Burkina Faso, and two European electronic experimentalists, Nico Gitto and Benjamin Chaval. Every song is an adventure that you are absolutely unequipped for, taking you to the precipice of panic before depositing you back safely so you can do it all over again.

5. Ana Lua Caiano – Vou Ficar Neste Quadrado

Back in the 80s, Huey Lewis and certain members of the News extolled the social virtues of a quadrilateral existence in their undisputed masterpiece “It’s Hip to Be Square.” However, their paean to polygons with four equilateral sides has now been eclipsed by Portuguese songstress Ana Lua Caiano with her new album Vou Ficar Neste Quadrado (“I Shall Stay In This Square”). Like many of my favorite singers (e.g., Björk, Thom Yorke, Waxahatchee), Ana Lua Caiano has some ineffable tremulous quality to her voice that makes it seem as if she is right there in the room with you. She radically enhances traditional Portuguese folk music not only with her electronic instruments, but with that electrifying voice.

TOP 1 SOUL/R&B EP

1. Baby Rose & BADBADNOTGOD – Slow Burn EP

Isn’t it great that I can take credit for the achievements of other people? I can say “WE” put a man on the moon, as if I contributed. I can say “WE” invented the electric light bulb, the electric toothpick, the electric battery, or the electric spatula, but I didn’t have shit to do with any of those. Although I did invent the Swatula, the spatula that’s also a flyswatter (now with feathers!). If human progress depended on me, our greatest achievement would be reaching level 36 on Candy Crush. With all that in mind, I can proudly say that “WE” made the most sole-stomping, soul-buttering, psycho-pomping, butt-fluttering EP of the year with Baby Rose and BADBADNOTGOOD. I’m almost never a fan of albums that emphasize the vocals and carry on about love stuff, but this is an indisputable instant classic guaranteed to sooth and captivate even the most fraught souls, including yours truly. You’re welcome.

20 Magnificent Songs

(in order of magnificence)

1. Armand Hammer w/Benjamin Booker – “DOVES” – If the eyes are the window to the soul, then the ears are the door. And this song kicks in the door and walks right in, plops down on your couch and puts its feet up on the coffee table.

2. Decemberists – “Joan in the Garden” – This is some long Decemberists, and there’s reason to believe, that this song is way better than the rest.

3. Father John Misty – “She Cleans Up” – I made a mental rule that I wasn’t going to have any crossover between my “best albums” and “best songs” lists, but this is the exceptionally exceptional exception that makes the rule. However, I am a bit peeved that FJM stole a bunch of my dance moves in this video.

4. Porridge Radio – “God of Everything Else” – As someone who’s been very happily married for 18 years, I feel guilty loving a break-up song this much.

5. Sugar Horse – “Space Tourist” – Some people want to be buried with their loved ones; some people want to have their ashes spread over the ocean; some people want to be stuffed and mounted; I want to be entombed inside this song.

6. Rakim w/KXNG Crooked, La the Darkman, Canibus, and Chino XL – “Pendulum Swing” – This song gives us the best and saddest rap verse of the year from Chino XL, who broke my brain with his epic rapid-fire rhyme diatribe, but then broke our heart by committing suicide just 3 days after the album’s release.  

7. Sentries – “How Many Fools Can I Kill Today” – This riff is a petroglyph; it has always existed.

8. Soft Play – “Punk’s Dead” – The band formerly known as Slaves kicks off their first album as Soft Play by going nuclear on all the ignorant arseholes who whined about their name change. Well (soft) played.

9. Fcukers – “Homie Don’t Shake” – If you click the link, this stupid strutty little hook will be a sliver in your brain for the rest of ever. Ya been warned.

10. Giygas – “Moonside” – The riff that kicks off at 1:15 is GIYGA-ntic.

11. 070 Shake – “Winter Baby / New Jersey Blues” – What if the Beach Boys were a Butch Girl?

12. Midwife – “Rock and Roll Never Forgets” – But this spellbinding slowgaze serenade will make you forget rock and roll.

13. Young Scrolls feat. Aia Arria – “Secret Service” – By far the best rap song cobbled together from Elder Scrolls samples that I’ve heard since the last Young Scrolls song.

14. The Monolith Deathcult – “The Demon Who Makes Trophies of Men” – Predator-themed industrial death metal? I’m gonna have me some fun.

15. Kneecap – “Rhino Ket” – Who needs ket when you have this melon-melter? I just wish it was 30 to 60 minutes long.

16. Cassandra Jenkins – “Aurora, IL” – I pray that one day when people find out I’m from Aurora, they’ll say “Cassandra Jenkins!” instead of “Wayne’s World!”

17. Good Looks – “If It’s Gone” – The year’s best impersonation of peak War on Drugs or Wilco.

18. Kim Gordon – “BYE BYE” – On her new solo album, Kim Gordon saved the best for first. Track 1 destroys, then it’s diminishing returns after that.

19. Buttechno – “Trancer” – Shut up. Just shut up, OK? You had me at Buttechno.

20. Waxahatchee w/MJ Lenderman – “Right Back to It” – Chosen as the best song of the year by the readers of Pitchfork. You know it’s gotta be good if I agree with them.

MY FAVORITE 46 ALBUMS of 2024

  1. Father John Misty – Mahashmashana
  2. Winona Riders – No Hagas Que Me Arrepienta
  3. The Drin – Elude the Torch
  4. Melt-Banana – 3 + 5
  5. Caput Medusae – You Can’t Negotiate With Zombies
  6. Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood
  7. Fat Dog – WOOF
  8. Dame Area – Toda La Verdad Sobre Dame Area
  9. Fontaines DC – Romance
  10. bromethugzine (Swamp Thug & bromethazine) – THUG ZINE Issues 001 & 002
  11. Thou – Umbilical
  12. Aili – Nandakke?
  13. Tierra Whack – World Wide Whack
  14. ØKSE – ØKSE
  15. Chat Pile – Cool World
  16. NAHReally & The Expert – BLIP
  17. Mabe Fratti – Sentir Que No Sabes
  18. Rosie Tucker – UTOPIA NOW!
  19. Elucid – Revelator
  20. GNOD – Spot Land
  21. Shaboozey – Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going
  22. Ceschi – Bring Us the Head of Francisco False (Parts 1 & 2)
  23. Ὁπλίτης (Hoplites) – Π​α​ρ​α​μ​α​ι​ν​ο​μ​έ​ν​η
  24. Meril Wubslin – Faire Ça
  25. Baby Rose & BADBADNOTGOD – Slow Burn EP
  26. Avalanche Kaito – Talitakum
  27. Ka – The Thief Next to Jesus
  28. Obey Cobra – Mwg Drwg
  29. Lord Spikeheart – The Adept
  30. Ana Lua Caiano – Vou Ficar Neste Quadrado
  31. Sunmundi & klwn cat – Lived and Born
  32. Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja
  33. Zeal and Ardor – GREIF
  34. LIV.e – PAST FUTUR.e
  35. Midwife – No Depression in Heaven
  36. Aler Himself – Sweet Ablutions
  37. Meryl Streek – Songs for the Deceased
  38. Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes
  39. Smote – A Grand Stream
  40. Soft Kill – Escape Forever
  41. Blood Incantation – Absolute Everywhere
  42. Nappy Nina – Nothing Is My Favorite Thing
  43. PyPy – Sacred Times
  44. ShrapKnel & Controller 7 – Nobody Planning To Leave
  45. Two Shell – Two Shell
  46. Robber Robber – Wild Guess

I’m not even gonna pretend anyone made it this far. Hey me, thanks for reading what you wrote.

And Glen bless Steve Balboni.

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The Yellow Handkerchief

In order to keep the cockles of our hearts from frosting over during this age of ubiquitous irony, it has become necessary to sporadically ingest stories of integrity and redemption. However, certain cockle-warming candidates, such as the tear-soaked tales of Nicholas Sparks or anything with a dog that dies in the end, may provide too potent a dose of sentiment for those of us who are lachrymose-intolerant.  Thank goodness for a film like The Yellow Handkerchief, which presents a completely implausible road trip with three entirely plausible characters, and promises to send you out of the theater feeling better than when you stepped inside.936full-the-yellow-handkerchief-poster

William Hurt stars as Brett, a taciturn convict who gets released from prison and almost immediately finds himself heading south towards New Orleans with a pair of teenage misfits, a disheveled beauty named Martine (Kristen Stewart) and a frenetic chatterbox named Gordy (Eddie Redmayne). Perhaps these three are types we’ve seen before, but they are as recognizable for the traits they share with us, the viewers, as those they hold in common with characters from other texts. A series of semi-absurd road stops and coincidences keeps them in the car together long enough to hear the sad tale of Brett’s path to imprisonment, as they roll through Southern landscapes dotted with eccentric detritus such as a school bus graveyard and a tree hung with multi-colored glass bottles. Hurt carries the film effortlessly, letting his weary eyes do the bulk of the work as he plaintively observes the combustible swirl of certainty and confusion between his adolescent companions with a mix of amusement and regret. Eventually, the characters and the audience must balance Brett’s present morality, reflected in his moments of chivalry and snippets of carefully chiseled wisdom, against the sins of his past, which are parceled out in bits and pieces. Though director Udayan Prasad makes some dutiful attempts to withhold information and keep the audience guessing about the nature of the trio’s final destination, the narrative does not hold many surprises, nor should it. The purest pleasure of watching a film with genuine characters who are struggling through trouble and confusion lies in having our recognition and empathy of those struggles affirmed as we observe fate’s inexplicable means for responding to our behavior.

The Yellow Handkerchief is not likely to garner any gold statues or pop up on anyone’s top-ten list at the end of the year, but it does promise a little bit of insight about life and a few laughs along the way. And it will definitely keep those cockles warm and cozy.

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Tokyo!

This triptych of short films about Asia’s most misunderstood metropolis features three directors known for cinematically capturing the uncanny, showing the individual oddity and anxiety which lurks beneath the surface of our smooth social interaction.

Michel Gondry’s “Interior Design” depicts Hiroko and Akira, an aimless artistic couple who overstay their welcome in a friend’s tiny apartment. Their illusions about finding success in Tokyo are gradually dissolved by the reality checks of their abysmal apartment search, some severe parking violations, and an embarrassing screening of Akira’s shoddy debut film. Hiroko’s antidote for her disappointment is to forcibly fluctuate the boundaries between reality and her perception, which ultimately results in an unusual transformation.Tokyo! movie poster

“Merde,” Leos Carax’s contribution, is the most memorable of the trio, but also the least coherent. Denis Lavant plays a grotesque miscreant who periodically emerges from the sewers to terrorize the city. The sequence itself becomes a monstrous barrage of symbolism, as Carax variously invokes Tokyo’s issues with immigration, terrorism, technology, translation, and the memory of war.

Bong Joon-ho’s “Shaking Tokyo” is a slow ode to the subculture of “hikikomori,” Japanese agoraphobes who refuse to emerge from their homes. A shut-in played by Teruyuki Kagawa lives a contented life in his immaculately ordered apartment, marked by the straight lines of his stacked books and the harmonious circles of paper towel rolls and water bottles. When a series of earthquakes and an encounter with an alluring pizza girl force him to venture outside, Bong begins to blur the sharp defining lines and edges within the frame, washing out the crisp focus with an ethereal surge of light.

While Gondry and Carax simply relocate their favorite themes and cinematic tricks to Tokyo, Bong more successfully allows the city to dictate the style and content of his segment.

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The White Ribbon

movie-the-white-ribbon-by-michael-haneke-poster-mask9When university film students are studying the career of Michael Haneke in 50 years (and they will be), it seems likely that The White Ribbon will be seen as the crest of his impressive career. However, the film represents a pinnacle in terms of reception, rather than execution. Certainly, it will be difficult for Haneke to duplicate this film in terms of hardware, having already garnered the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the trifecta of Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenwriter at the European Film Awards, with Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for best foreign film promising the possibility of more accolades in the near future. This film is easy to praise, with its gripping and thoughtful examination of the foundations of fascism in a German village just before World War I, delivered through the lush austerity of Christian Berger’s striking black-and-white cinematography. With time, however, the impetuous consensus which has agreed to herald Haneke as the cinematic master of this moment in film history will dissipate, revealing that The White Ribbon is frayed and blemished, though Haneke himself would likely agree that such defects can only increase the film’s ability to intrigue.

The film opens with the voice of a narrator, who warns that the story he’s about to tell may not be entirely true, an assessment which is manifested by the fact that the majority of the action happens behind the groaning doors and sturdy shutters of the village, meaning that no single character has access to all of the relevant events. An unknown perpetrator strikes at the moral heart of the Protestant village with a series of vicious pranks and brutal assaults, until the villagers’ trust of one another is gradually eclipsed by suspicion. Having no other outlet for their fear and frustration, many of the villagers, particularly the town pastor, flex their authority by tightening the vice of discipline on their children, who in turn become the carriers of their parents’ parasitic malice. Haneke employs some ham-handed devices to reinforce his theme, including a prominent Biblical quote and the metaphor of the film’s title, which is nakedly explained in a central speech. At times, he resorts to scenes of benign banality which seem better suited to a television sitcom, as one young boy adopts a wounded bird while another innocently queries his older sister about the nature of death.  It is unthinkable that Haneke intended to single-handedly decipher something as seminal as the rise of German fascism, but one of his central assertions is that people will often forego moral struggle in favor of simple reproach, and it seems likely that audiences will do the same as they digest and interpret The White Ribbon. In life, “this” never quite blossoms into “thus”—the causes of complex events can never be truly elucidated, only endlessly examined. Haneke has made a noble effort in this direction, but in the end his attempt at lucidity inevitably draws us further from the essential nature of fascism, rather than nearer to it.

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The Secret in Their Eyes

Several critics initially expressed surprise and even some resentment that Argentine director Juan José Campanella’s The Secret in Their Eyes claimed the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film over European favorites The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke) and A Prophet (Jacques Audiard), often with the disclaimer that they had not actually seen Campanella’s film yet (to say nothing of the other two nominees, Israel’s Ajami, directed by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, and Peru’s The Milk of Sorrow, direct by Claudia Llosa). Since the Oscars, those voices of dissension have diminished considerably, perhaps because our miniscule cultural attention span has latched onto a thousand other distractions, or perhaps because the award led to an increased number of screenings of the film for critics, who can now admit, however begrudgingly, that The Secret in Their Eyes is fully deserving of its statuette. This is an odd case of the award, and its ensuing controversy and publicity, serving to enact (or at least expedite) its own justification. The argument over which of the five nominees is the better film is still in question and will only be settled by time, but it can be said with absolute certainty that The Secret in Their Eyes is an outstanding film that merits a wide audience, which it is now more likely to receive.secret in eyes

The film delights, frightens, and intrigues on multiple levels, beginning with its narrative, which provides an innovative examination of two entirely conventional plot elements — love and murder. Protagonist Benjamín Espósito, portrayed by Campanella’s quintessential star Ricardo Darín, is a retired investigator who decides to write a book about his most haunting case, the brutal rape and murder of a gorgeous young housewife that occurred some 25 years earlier. Espósito’s superior, Irene Menéndez Hastings (Soledad Villamil), is still working at the law office they once shared, and when he goes to seek her approval and assistance on the project, she is simultaneously pleased to see him again and anxious to send him on his way without her cooperation. Campanella uses the device of Espósito’s book to institute the tried-and-true structure of alternating flashbacks with present action, but also to complicate the layers of depiction, perception, and interpretation within the film. The foundation of the mystery that propels the plot is presented in the flashback sequences, which ostensibly take place entirely within Espósito’s memory, but they include multiple scenes where he is not present to witness and record the action. Meanwhile, the contemporary scenes gradually reveal the nature of his relationship with Hastings and his ulterior motive for writing the book, thus calling into question his reliability as a narrator. Eventually, the two timelines grind away at each other until the audience comes to realize that the portrayed events are versions of a truth that is no longer available in whole.

If one knows something about the social and political atmosphere in Argentina during the 1970s, this glitch in the authenticity of the action takes on further meaning. It is important to note that the flashback scenes are set in 1974, two years before Jorge Rafael Videla used a military coup to seize power and initiate the “Dirty War,” wherein tens of thousands of dissenters, foreigners, and left-wing militants were “disappeared” — a euphemism for kidnapping, torture, and murder. Such suppression and violence had begun to accumulate in the years just before Videla took power, placing the characters of the film in an eerie realm where they are just becoming aware of the impotency of the law they are sworn to uphold.

Campanella, who was also nominated for an Academy Award for his 2001 film, Son of the Bride, has perfected his pacing and shot composition directing many episodes of American television series, including House, Law & Order: SVU, and Strangers with Candy. His scenes are consistently visually interesting and provocative, and occasionally spectacularly so, as exemplified by a jaw-dropping sequence that takes place in a soccer stadium, which will have audiences begging the projectionist to rewind the film for a second look. Any attempt to describe this stunning act of cinema would only serve to negate its astonishing effect — suffice to say that Campanella has thrust himself into competition with Orson Welles (Touch of Evil), Mikhail Kalatozov (I Am Cuba), and Jean-Luc Godard (Weekend) for the second most impressive (or at least most audacious) shot of all time (Aleksandr Sokurov’s Russian Ark retains the title in this category), though we have to deduct points for digital enhancement.

The Secret in Their Eyes supplies ample ammunition for ardent supporters of Haneke and Audiard to load their cannons with. Though the characters are bracingly genuine in most of their interactions and behavior, they occasionally slip into speech that is obviously scripted, and the split time structure adds some noticeable artifice to the scenes in the present, as the characters awkwardly avoid revealing details of the plot which are known to them, but not the audience. There is also a gratuitous plea for insight and sentiment involving a note which Espósito hastily scratches down while he is sleeping and spends the rest of the film trying to decipher. In spite of these missteps, the film is a devastating pleasure and an utter triumph. Although it was thrust into cinema history very suddenly and unexpectedly, it should retain its eminence long into the foreseeable future.

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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

pippa leeWith this terrific film, Rebecca Miller announces her ascendance into the upper echelon of American directors and sends a message to every author who’s ever lamented Hollywood’s desecration of their book—if you want it done right, do it yourself. Working from her own novel, Miller beautifully translates literature into cinema, allowing the necessary specificity of film to animate her title character in ways that surprise and delight, while retaining space for the audience’s imagination. The version of Pippa Lee who emerges from Miller’s script and the glorious performance of Robin Wright Penn is simultaneously definitive and open to interpretation. Pippa is Hollywood’s most endangered species–a character who could be human.

Pippa Lee is married to an older man named Herb (Alan Arkin), a successful publisher whose recent health problems have forced him to move, with her in tow, from New York City to a retirement community in Connecticut. In the film’s first scene, Pippa is defined for us as “the ultimate artist’s wife,” but she lets the other characters debate her many merits while she herself remains notably silent. The rest of the movie represents her own revision of this fallacy, as she gradually unveils how her current persona as a wife and mother has effectively smothered her more fundamental experiences as a daughter, a niece, a runaway, and a single young woman indulging in debauchery. The young Pippa is played by Gossip Girl Blake Lively, who glistens with a shy vibrancy which belies her desire for sympathy and discipline, even as she struggles to assert her independence. Miller elegantly sways between the past and present, so that Pippa’s memories of her developing dysfunction are matched by the inexorable blossom of cracks in her contemporary domestic façade. Every scene ripples with tender insight or rambunctious humor, or often both, ricocheting off one another as Pippa samples the succulence of social transgression. Miller often brilliantly manipulates her mise-en-scène to enhance the entertaining antics of the narrative with deeper relevance. Watch what she does with the reflective blur of the trees on the windshield of a moving car, a trick which pays off nicely in the final scene.

Perhaps Miller’s most impressive achievement is directing her cast full of stars into an ensemble, as Maria Bello, Julianne Moore, Winona Ryder, and (especially) Keanu Reeves all deliver wonderful supporting performances which serve the film, rather than their own careers. For a change, none of the performers seem to be auditioning for an Academy Award, though it would be a shame if Wright Penn and Miller did not receive nominations. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee taunts us with the benevolent hope that our personal anxieties might dissipate if we can find the courage to expose them to the world.

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The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond

All one really needs to know about The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond is that Tennessee Williams, the above-the-title star, wrote the screenplay “at the height of his late-1950’s heyday,” according to the film’s publicity. Williams died in 1983, meaning that he had more than 20 years to either publish or produce his screenplay and chose not to. If your curiosity has not yet been quashed, it is also worth noting that the film debuted at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival, and then drifted in cinematic limbo for a year before finding a distributor.  Still interested? Then, by all means, read on…the_loss_of_a_teardrop_diamond_movie_poster

Bryce Dallas Howard plays a poor little rich girl from Memphis named Fisher Willow, whose social life has been severely impaired thanks to her mean ol’ Daddy, who long ago drew the wrath of the town by dynamiting the levee to protect his own land from flooding.  But Fisher is a spirited gal who refuses to let a little scandal keep her from having a good time, so she hires a somewhat thick-headed hunk (Chris Evans) to serve as her escort at local shindigs. The audience is ostensibly asked to believe that Fisher’s principle crisis is that she is unduly constrained by the rigors of Southern society, yet she inexplicably decides to inflict similar constraint on a subordinate in order to continue to participate in the very society which is oppressing her. After being merely uninteresting for the first two acts, the film devolves into outright embarrassment in Act III, as Fisher and her doltish beau get dolled up to attend a Halloween party. During the course of the evening, Fisher loses her aunt’s precious earring, but finds a crippled spinster played by Ellen Burstyn, although giving an actress of Burstyn’s caliber a Southern accent and a physical disability to flaunt is akin to hiring a neurosurgeon to patch up a paper cut. After swapping boorish monologues with the old woman, Fisher proceeds to guzzle some opium-enriched cough syrup, giving the filmmakers an excuse to break out the bacchanalian masks and distorted lenses, before she launches into an entirely unmotivated and disturbingly spasmic piano rhapsody. Meanwhile, Williams violates a cardinal rule by allowing a character introduced in the final act to become essential to the plot, as the story collapses into a series of inane arguments and awkward attempts to diffuse conflicts which never really existed in the first place.

To be sure, there is entertainment to be had from The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, though it comes mostly at the entertainers’ expense. When Howard wistfully declares that “Music is so much nicer from a distance” or inquires “How could I be chilly in my leopard-skin coat?,” it seems doubtful that amused snorts are the intended response, but that is what will likely be heard in the theater–just above the more mournful sound of the earth steadily churning as Tennessee Williams methodically turns in his grave.

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The Escapist

escapistThere is a long tradition of films about prison escapes, such that any new venture into the subject is compelled to add some form of innovation to the well-known narrative elements. The audience expects to see a motley crew of cons discern a subtle seam in the prison’s security, which they then exploit with an ingenious combination of resourcefulness and subterfuge, using handmade trinkets to chisel through the walls and into the underground, which represents the darkness just before the dawn of freedom. THE ESCAPIST wraps this familiar package with a beautiful new bow, using a unique structure and a metaphysical twist to freshen up the formulaic plot. The opening scene, which veritably screams references to Guy Ritchie’s SNATCH, shows the felons breaking through the first barrier, and director Rupert Wyatt then alternates the thrilling depiction of the escape with earlier scenes depicting the planning stage of the breakout. Thus, Wyatt dictates the amount of knowledge the audience requires, such that questions about certain aspects of the escape (How did they get through that steel wall? Why did they bring that new guy along?) are then systematically addressed by subsequent scenes of the earlier action in the prison. Gradually, everything slips nicely into place, arousing a false sense of mental confidence in the viewer, which will again be shattered before the end of the film. Brian Cox is outstanding in this rare lead role, effortlessly evoking the fatigue and surrender embodied by Frank Perry, a man who has spent the better part of his life in confinement. Other notable performances include Damian Lewis as Rizza, the confidently effete leader of the prison population, Steven Mackintosh as Rizza’s creepy weak link of a brother, and Joseph Fiennes as the thug thief who provides the muscle to enact Perry’s master plan.

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The End of Poverty

end povertyWriting a negative review of a documentary on world poverty is akin to booing Santa Claus at the Thanksgiving Day parade, but “The End of Poverty?” does not present many exemplary qualities for a stringent critic to applaud. In the end, the film is an informative experience, and people will definitely emerge from the theater a bit smarter than when they entered, which is more than can be said of the vast majority of cinematic fare these days. Director Philippe Diaz and the producers have assembled a sporadically compelling PBS-style history of poverty which clarifies a great deal about how the gap between the haves and the have-nots has become so appallingly wide. Experts such as Nobel Prize-winners Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz, economic “hit man” John Perkins, and political science guru Chalmers Johnson provide prescient information revealing how the three C’s of global oppression (colonialism, capitalism, Christianity) have enacted and supported economic patterns which absolutely ensure that former colonies will remain the equivalent of indentured servants to their former occupiers. Unfortunately, almost none of these great minds are asked to expound on how these afflicted nations might possibly escape from these entrenched patterns in the future. The information is almost entirely historical, and it is piled on in such quantity that even the most altruistic viewer is left with a grim cynicism that poverty is the result of an impaired economic system which will remain impervious to individual attempts at counteraction. By the time an expert named Clifford Cobb, who happens to be the film’s executive producer, finally gets around to (briefly) outlining a plan for trying to rectify more than 500 years worth of brutal economic subjugation, the seed has been drowned by a deluge of history and statistics. Also, while the filmmakers provide detailed coverage of several impoverished nations in South America and Africa, Asia is mysteriously absent from their analysis. In particular, it certainly would have been relevant to consider the complex and extraordinary case of South Korea, to examine how a war-torn, third-world nation somehow transformed itself into a financially solvent world power in little more than 50 years. Despite these problems, the film deserves to be seen, and if every person in America paid to see “The End of Poverty?” rather than “Saw VI,” the world would benefit immeasurably.

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The Damned United

A film about Carlton Fisk’s game-winning home run in the 1975 World Series or Joe Namath’s heroics in the 1969 Super Bowl likely would play to empty theaters in Great Britain. Likewise, many Americans may roll their eyes at the thought of seeing a film about the 1974 Leeds United soccer team, but The Damned United is thoroughly entertaining and, for those of us without extensive knowledge of English pro “football,” a captivating bit of sports history.damned united

To say that former British soccer coach Brian Clough (rhymes with “rough”) was outspoken is like saying that European soccer fans are a bit spirited. Clough, who between 1967 and 1972 took Derby County from the bottom of the Second Division to the League Championship, was downright arrogant and audacious. He openly insulted anyone whom he felt threatened the sanctity of English football, but he saved the worst of his ire and bile for his rival coach Don Revie, and his team, Leeds United. Clough lambasted the popular Leeds team and their legendary coach, calling them bastards, thugs, and cheats, so when Clough was hired to replace Revie with Leeds United in 1974, most of England thought it was a recipe for disaster—and they were right.

Director Tom Hooper and screenwriter Peter Morgan split the film between Clough’s doomed 44-day stint with Leeds, and flashbacks of his years moving up the ladder in Derby County, which allows them to alternate scenes of Clough’s ego swelling, via his success at Derby, and then deflating during his dismal tenure in Leeds. The key relationship is between Clough and his longtime assistant Peter Taylor, who many felt was the key to Clough’s success because of his uncanny ability for scouting talent. The film includes several set pieces featuring reenactments of prominent events, such as a volatile joint television appearance between Clough and Revie, but the scenes work well even for Americans, who likely won’t be distracted by the impulse to evaluate the accuracies and discrepancies between the film and history. Michael Sheen’s mesmerizing performance as the charismatic Clough and the cathartic delight in watching a brash champion fail so completely are more than enough to carry the film. To paraphrase a Brian Clough quote (about his own coaching ability), The Damned United may not be the best soccer film of all time, but it is in the top one.

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