Best Of

At my 'day job' over at JVBackups.com, the site's owner and operator, Brendan 'Booz' Langen, decided to do highlight some of his favorites from 2010. Being that imitation is a form a flattery, allow me to flatter my boss.

Best Of 2010:

Albums (in no particular order):

The Age of Adz - Sufjan Stevens: Sufjan Stevens has fairly and unfairly been compared to Bob Dylan. The new age master of Hipster Folk pulled a Dylan in 2010 and plugged in. Some synths, some auto tuning and a song that includes the audio definition of cacophony later and Stevens proves folk can can be more than a banjo and whispered lyrics.

This Is Happening - LCD Soundsystem: James Murphy proves yet again that dance music can have a soul. Murphy's third try at perfecting his electro sound takes a So-Cal feel and dances it's way through a range of emotions while remaining pertinent, poetic and irreverent.

False Priest - Of Montreal: If it weren't for Kevin Barnes, James Murphy or Sufjan Stevens would be my favorite musician. Barnes latest record shows his willingness to evolve his sound from record to record. His two collaborations with soulful sistas Solange Knowles and Janelle Monae take this already outrageously funky pop fiesta to a new level. The dude is a mad genius and creates the most innovative psychedelic dance pop this side of 1976.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West: Say what you will about ol' fish-sticks, he makes the best hip hop albums of his generation. After a very poor showing in a depression laced and over-auto tuned fourth album, Kanye got back to doing what he does best: innovating rather than imitating. It is rare that the louder and closer you listen to a hip hop album, the better it gets but that is precisely the case with the arrangements that sprinkle MBDTF. Only Kanye can make such layered hip hop with such amazing hooks, lyrics and guest artists.

Odd Blood - Yeasayer: Not everything on this album is great, but the best is amazing and the worst still shows signs of untapped potential. It's danceable, complex and unique all while maintaining a feel that something greater should be coming down the pipe from this young band. I hope they can keep together for a while, their upside is up there with Hockey and MGMT (whose 2010 release, Congratulations, was good but just a little too intentionally inaccessible for my tastes).

Concerts (in order):

Phoenix - Lollapalooza: Finally consummated my French love affair. This band is one of my favorites and meant a lot to me in college. After waiting almost a year and a half to finally see them, I was able to catch my French Connection at my yearly excursion to Grant Park.

Cyprus Hill - Lollapalooza: Because of this cloud of smoke and this amazing kid. That's all you need to know. That and they kicked out the mother fucking jams...

Of Montreal / Janelle Monae - The Riv: An Of concert is always a great concert, they try to play as many songs in their allotted time possible and it's always a dance party, but the Michael Jackson medley featuring all of Of and all of Janelle Monae and her band as the encore was A.MAZE.ING.

Best part: the 40 year old guy in front of me who tried to Shazam PYT. Dude, you're twice my age, you should know what PYT is... idiot.

Hockey - Lollapalooza: It was just a super fun, super chill concert for one of the best bands I discovered in 2010.

LCD Soundsystem - Pitchfork: I didn't stay for more than a handful of songs, but I danced to my heart's content for the the 30-45 minutes I stayed for.

•Flaming Lips - IU Auditorium: Best concert I payed for and never went to. Hawks win, Hawks win...

Songs (in no particular order):

All Of The Lights    - Kanye West: Talk about your all star anthem... Just a well layered hip hop jam with a great hook and a really cool horn fanfare.

Runaway   - Kanye West: This is what Kanye does that no one can emulate. Watching Kanye perform this surprisingly simple, yet wonderfully complex song at the MTV music awards was amazing. Listening to it at full volume with headphones on makes it better.

All I Want   - LCD Soundsystem: James Murphy does sincere well because he maintains vitality and fun. Even when he's at his least exciting and fun, he's still danceable and/or masterful. 

I Can Change   - LCD Soundsystem: He's also one of my favorite lyricists.

ONE   - Yeasayer: If the chorus don't move you (pun sort-of intended), the bubbly dance beat will. It's like some bizarre combo of Afrocentricity and electronica and I want more

Tighten Up   - The Black Keys: The best thing to come out of Akron since... well, let's not talk about that. 

Enemy Gene   - Of Montreal: Kevin Barnes + low end base + Janelle Monae = the best moody, funky soul jam in decades.

Sex Karma   - Of Montreal: This is a love song only Barnes could write:

"I know that you want to scream / Run and touch my everything / Because I look like a playground to you, playa / Close your eyes and count to three / I'll kiss you where I shouldn't be / Because you look like a playground to me, playa"

I Want To Be Well   - Sufjan Stevens: It's pretty rare to hear the somewhat overtly-religious Stevens say the f word, which is why hearing him repeat it like 16 times is a bit of a shock to the system. Something tells me he's not fucking around...

Get Real Get Right   - Sufjan Stevens: As said before, Stevens' foray into the electric goes very well, and this song brings his compositional prowess to the forefront of Adz. And Sufjan is seems to be learning himself somethin' fierce.

"I must do myself a favor and get real / Get right with the Lord"

•Cousins   - Vampire Weekend: Close to the top 10 but the single was released in 2009 while the album was released in 2010. Still, it's just too much fun. This is dance-pop I want from VW.

Music video:

This isn't even a competition. This is the best music video in years. I have no idea what's happening or why, and I'm not sure anyone else does either:

A Post On Posters

I have always been someone who has to be collecting something.

When I was a kid it was Legos, Beanie Babies and Micro Machines. I had almost all the major Lego Star Wars sets - including this one, I had over a hundred Beanie Babies - including quite a few rare ones - and I had more Micro Machines than could choke a preschool.

When I grew up, the obsession became baseball hats, of which I still have two plastic containers of old ones I don't wear anymore.

Then I moved on to instruments. I have a trumpet, a keyboard, a drum set, a mandolin, a bodhran (Irish drum) and a bell set. I can play these ranging from very well to barely at all.

Early in college, some of these collectibles weren't even tangible. I used to listen to two hour-long radio shows a week whether or not the content interested me. While hanging my clothes after doing three weeks worth of laundry, I would plug in my headphones and listen to the sonorous voices of Ira Glass and friends until the show was over.

Now, I still love those shows but find myself listening to them on anything but a regular basis.

As of the past few years, I've moved on to new habits, new collections - my favorite being art posters.

The picture top right is exactly why I love art posters - especially concert posters. That poster might be the perfect summation of the band Of Montreal. If you know that band - what their sound is, how they act, what their songs are like - you can then understand the artist's rendering. And only 74 people beside me will be able to own this image.

Most of my posters are like this. Many of them are painstakingly screen printed, rare, numbered works but all of them have some sort of story or background, like this Of Montreal poster that I searched to find for close to three years, that make them uniquely personal.

This poster was commissioned for a show which was the first time I had ever seen Of Montreal perform live - they are one of my favorite bands and one of the best live shows around. It was the first time I had ever been inside the Metro in Chicago, now one of my favorite venues because of the great memories I have there. It was also the first time I had heard of MGMT, an opening act that night and prior to their first album release.

After the show, the poster was sold out so I bought a concert T-shirt (which, incidentally, is another thing I seem to collect) but I kept looking. In fact, I bought the poster at the top right six months or more after this concert because I had resigned myself to the fact that this poster was gone. It was going to have to serve as a surrogate.

However, after looking around the web a few years later, I found out who had made the poster for that night and contacted them directly. They quickly responded and offered me the option to purchase one of their last two copies (they only printed 50) that they had in their private collection for a price they let me name. Finding the poster was completely worth the three year wait just to find out how cool the people were who made it.

Upon receiving the poster in the mail, a nice little handwritten note on the printout PayPal receipt slipped out from the cardboard packing tube. It was from the employee I dealt with throughout this process - he thanked me for my support and had also sent me a non-commissioned piece they had done for free.

Both posters hang on my wall in prominent positions and the note on the receipt is attached to the back of one of them. Whenever I look at them, they remind me of a singular moment when I realized how generous and wonderful people can be and how easy it is to do so.

This act has kept me a close follower of this company. I have bought other art from them, other posters of bands I like and even of bands and events I do not know much or anything about (some of those were packaged in a sale where you got 5 posters at random for the price of one and a half - pretty cool stuff). Yet, they are all really striking and beautiful art.

I have other concert posters that are unique. I once went to a sold out show for the Black Keys at the Metro and was able to get this poster on the artist's website a few days later (once again I waited too long at the show). In this case, I'm not quite sure the Akron, OH rock duo quite jibe with a part wood rooster but the artist, Dan Grzeca (jet-sah), is amazing.

The last concert poster I got in person was for a Dead Weather concert at the Vic in Chicago. Jack White's heavy rock band didn't disappoint and neither did the poster that is made entirely of old guns except for the piercing yellow eyes which glow in the dark. Needless to say, this poster kicks ass and once again it sums up the sound, image and message of the band it was created for.

This Wilco poster, while not as rare as those mentioned above (it is a poster for about 10 concerts listed at the bottom), it reminds me of one of the best weekends of my college career. While this tour poster for Nickel Creek is a token from the last time I saw them before they split up (that poster is a bit girlie but so are some of their songs, which I unabashedly love, so I guess I have to respect the accuracy of the image. Plus it glows in the dark which is totally boss).

This poster isn't a concert or tour poster, it is a promotional poster for LCD Soundsystem's album Sound of Silver. I cannot find this poster anywhere else on the web as of recent so I have no idea how rare this actually is.

Now, not all of my posters are so unique and personal. While some of my collection I would consider art, some of it is more like mass produced pop art. My Lollapalooza posters fit this mold.

My friend Mike Marshall and I have been to every three day incarnation of the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago (that is to say 2006-2010, so far). For Chicago natives and music lovers like us, it is a perfect fit. It also helps us make sure we see each other at least once during the summers since we have both had school, travels and jobs since we left high school.

The posters they have at Lolla are mass produced and aren't always silk screen printed but rather are digitally printed - but that does not make them any less special or interesting to me - which is why I make sure to get the official poster each year.

For instance, you may recognize this image. You most certainly recognize this one. And those were both created by the same artist who did the 2006 Lollapalooza poster (which is pre-HOPEama).

2007's poster is one of the funniest images I have ever seen and I get to look at it every day.

And while 2008, 2009 and 2010 all remind me of the weekend of fun I had in Grant Park that year, the creative imagery is what keeps me buying the poster rather than a T-shirt or something else.

And I think that's what gets me to buy any of my posters. To me they are modern - and by that I mean current - art.

My most recent addition to my art collection is something I think is even more lasting than any of the other images I have hanging in my room. This poster, a replica of an advertisement from the 1920s, is indicative of a few of my loves; the city of Chicago, Modernism and Art Deco. Together, along with the beautiful script and composition, the poster symbolizes more than what it says.

And that's why I love all of my posters: Because I have defined them in terms of what defines me.