... listening to music in 2009

Top album released by Pearl Jam this year

Backspacer was Pearl Jam's Who's Next, a restatement of purpose, a rock album that wasn't afraid to turn it to 11 ("Supersonic") or be kinda funny ("Johnny Guitar"). But it wasn't the best album the band put out this year. No, that was the "official bootleg" of the Toronto show, a concert that reminded you that passion is no ordinary word in rock. Being there also drove home a very valid point: You can keep your multiple stages, bridges, fiberoptic screen, expensive videos and costume changes - Pearl Jam does more with a simple light set up and a backdrop than all those bands combined.

Album I so wanted to love, I really did...

I had been hearing about Glasvegas on BBC 6Music for about a year, and finally got their album right before they were nominated for the Mercury Award. "Flowers and Football Tops" sounded good...as did the song after it....and after it...but then I noticed that they were sounding good because they were almost indistinguishable from each other. It was just the bridge of most Jesus and Mary Chain songs over and over again. It might yet grow on me, but as of right now it feels very unessential.

The Horrors, on the other hand, do the same thing but blow the doors off the joint. Get that one instead.

Oh she wore a funny costume and that makes he an artist? Yawn!

He doesn't just look like a skinny Elvis Costello: Jarvis Cocker has had a long career where he's flitted from style to style, genre to genre, and been an astute observer of Britain's class system. He's also got an encyclopedic knowledge and appreciation of pop style and is so damn smart he doesn't even have to tell you he is. His appearances which have included lectures, and performances as part of spinning classes have puts the boots to a certain someone's concept of "pop art" without even trying. Also, Further Complications is the best album you probably didn't buy, or even know existed, this year.

Daniel Kessler of Interpol also put on a personality this year for Julian Plenti is...Skyscraper. The difference between him and her lady the con artist: Kessler actually likes music and uses this personality to explore different styles that he can't really do in Interpol. Also, he's not in love with his reflection.

Even I didn't think I'd like this album this much

I go bonkers every year when the Mercury nominations come out, and one of the first I bought was the self-titled release by The Invisible. Because they are led by a black guy with a beard and have a white guy, people call them Britain's TV on The Radio. The Invisible are arty, but they're much more jazzy. On the first few listens the album faded a little in the background. Around the third listen I suddenly noticed something: This album is fracking amazing.

Canada has them too!

We've been trying our own version of the Mercury here in the Polaris Prize. Sadly, they haven't learnt that nominating Broken Social Scene members will just encourage them to keep making records as opposed to getting more productive jobs as meter maids. But this year the Polaris Prize did something that not even the Mercury has done: Give the top prize to a band as uncompromising as F*cked Up (ed note: I'm trying to keep things a little clean....). F*cked Up takes hardcore and actually ramps it up, but the dudes can play! It hits that sweet spot between punk, heavy metal, and progressive rock that's always been hardcore's crazy aunt in the attic.

The second big surprise from the Polaris Prize was Hey Rosetta!, a band from Newfoundland which is basically Arcade Fire light. But, it's nice to see a band from the rock not feel the need to do overplayed, sound-alike "Hey nanny nanny, Hey nanny hey" music.

Hey, there's a pop song I like!

Most pop has become as formulaic now as it was in the mid 70s. Not making it any better is the overuse of autotune and processed guitars. However, in the middle of this, "Fireflies" by Owl City came out. Sure, it's a Postal Service rip off, but it's a good one, and is actually, you know, structured like a song, unlike pretty much every other song that hit #1 this year. (I'm look at you, Wil.I.Am.)

They're growing up, those little boys of ours

If you're not taking Arctic Monkey seriously yet, get Humbug. Then take your socks off, you're just cutting out the middle man.

Also, Wilco: The Album proves that Wilco the band is so good that they can release an amazing album that gets overlooked because, well, we've come to expect amazing from them.

A non-Pearl Jam concert I loved

I think if I had to relive any concerts from this year, I'd be hard pressed to choose between The National (spotty, but gained strength) or Yeah Yeah Yeahs (total revelation). I think I give it to Yeah Yeah Yeahs if only because It's Blitz is the best album to come out of NYC since CBGB's closed.

Believing your own press

Editors have always had "21st Century Joy Division" hung about their neck. On In This Light and In the Evening they pretty much tried to wonder what would happen if Joy Division could have recorded a reunion album in 2009. The result: something that just has a lot of good parts, but sadly is a bit of a letdown from a band that I feel is capable of a lot more, as The Back Room suggested, and no really subsequent album has proved (although "Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors" off of An End Has a Start is simply awesome - Chris Martin would give his right arm for that image and hook)

My hope for next couple of years

Kings of Leon should pull an In Utero or Tusk and release an album so daring that we can get rid of the bandwagon jumpers, and so that the band can regain that immediacy with the fans and its music that made the first three albums totally essential. I don't resent them getting famous, I just hate that it's for such a bland album.

... looking at TV in 2009

Yeah, everyone's doing it, their silly little 2009 lists. I don't know much about anything, but I know what I kinda likes, so I'm-a gonna spend the next little bit talking about some of the things I've watched, seen, and listened to. Let's be honest, it's just a way to keep writing for a week or so!

First of all, let's get one thing out of the way: these aren't so much best and worsts as they are what I did and didn't like. If your choices aren't on this list, or are the reverse of your choices...well..start your own blog. Just link to me is all I ask.

So let's talk television.

Stay up late on a school night

Mad Men is still defying the PVR. I rarely watch TV live anymore, preferring to watch things when I have a free moment, or just binge on Friday and Saturday. However, I've often made it a point to stay up late when I can to at least watch the first half of Mad Men every week. No other show, even the competitive ones with definite spoilers, don't get that treatment. The best way to think of Mad Men is like a novel: Wait until the whole story is told before you try to really put it together.

Best reveal of the season

Dexter's cat and mouse game between Dex and Trinity salvaged a season that felt like a greatest hits parade of the past couple (Dexter's lies to his family, Deb falling in love with the wrong people, Vince is a perv). But I don't think any one moment on a show stunned me like Betty Draper opening the dryer and finding Don's key to his secret drawer on Mad Men. It was a moment fans of the show waited for, knew had to happen some day, but were still surprised when it happened, and knew that nothing was going to be the same after. What we didn't know, however, was that it was going to completely change the focus of the show.

From Zero to Hate

There's a great line in High Fidelity when Barry, in a moment of music-snob-pique says to Rob "How can someone with no taste in music run a record store?" When Glee came on the air, critics picked on its misandry/misogyny and bevy of unsympathetic characters. For some people, such as myself, that wasn't a big deal. What became a big deal the more I watched it was the completely literal and un-inspired song choices. Most of the time it seems that they just picked a song based on the title and not its relevancy to the plot - "Smile", a song about watching a philandering ex looking for mercy sex and turning him down, was used to try to get a secret crush relaxed for a picture. "You Can't Always Get What You Want", one of the darkest songs on the Stones darkest album, was used to show perseverance over odds. Does anyone on the show actually LISTEN to the lyrics? And even worse - as soon as I saw in the first episode that there was an overweight African American girl I was worried that before we knew it we'd have to hear "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going." Sure enough.... So I ask Glee, how can a show that hates music be a musical?

Happiest surprise

One show that I love is Top Chef. Now, we're not finished it here in Canada, but it's been amazing that Kevin, who looked - literally looked - like someone who would be eliminated in the middle stages turned out to be one of the most amazing chefs. He's a great example of having a consistent vision and style and not giving into the Voltaggio peer pressure to be something he's not.

Are you watching the same show?

The hip thing has been to pick on 30 Rock, which is only natural for a show that's become as critically acclaimed as it has. What these people are missing, however, is that the show has started slow every season, and it best viewed as a whole set of pieces rather than individual episodes and plot lines. When people think of the best 30 Rocks, they don't often point to an episode but to a series of events, almost like skits. The sum of the parts has always been greater than the whole. Trust me, at the end of the season people will feel the same way about the show as they do at the end of every other one.

An argument for giving a show time

People love to note that Hill Street Blues and Cheers started at the bottom of their ratings and were in danger of cancellations. People note it, but don't remember it. Thus last year they were crying for the cancellation of Parks and Recreations and this year were telling you you were stupid for giving up on it.

An argument for giving a show time, pt II

Sit Down Shut Up was never going to be the second coming of The Simpsons or Arrested Development, but it was certainly going to be more cohesive and better thought out than the show that replaced it, The Cleveland Show, which took its main character out of an environment where rape is considered funny and into one where dated racial stereotypes are considered funny. I guess that cleans it up a little. (Deaf people and homosexuals, however, are still fair game) If you can catch the late Saturday night repeats/burn offs of Sit Down Shut Up, do so.

No one asked

I watched the remake the The Prisoner while writing/doing other things, so I'll admit that I didn't follow it as closely as I should have. Even if I had, I think I would had found it confusing for confusing's sake, and with a payoff that really wasn't worth the time invested to get there. If there's one thing I hate, it's any plot that takes a surreal situation and tries to resolve it by saying 'Well, it's all in the subconscious.' It's lazy writing. It also made me think that Wild Palms was ahead of its time.

A great moment of Hubris, full stop

On the Oscar telecast this year, Ben Mulroney was talking to Melissa Leo about her nominated role in Frozen River. Since he only knows what people tell him, he tried to talk up the movie by saying it was a cast of amateurs. This brought out righteous indignation on her part, where she educated Mulroney on what it means to be an actor, that these were people who worked their heart out and were trained and not iditots savants or noble savages. Mulroney was kinda of flabbergasted but didn't have a chance to embarrass himself more before her handlers moved her on to someone else. Delicious.

... is talking about the weather

So I'm sitting in my home office now, wearing a sweater, writing this and listening to Blue Rodeo. But I'm not really listening to Blue Rodeo. Instead I'm listening to the wind rush between my house and the neighbor's. It gusts strong, like nature trying to remove a pesky bug from its shoulder. When it does, it whips around the plastic covering the wood that is for burning from time to time this winter. If I were to go and look into the back yard I'd see about a centimeter of snow lit up by the lights on the little street next to us. I'd also see the big chestnut tree that no-one seems to love but me, seeming to hop up and down like a kid trying to reach a cookie.

I lived in Barbados for three years, but I spent about 5 holiday seasons there. You want to talk about cognitive dissonance? Try to image seeing a choir of people who have never seen a jacket, let alone snow, singing "Frosty the Snowman". I remember trying to describe snow to people there, and it was tough to explain how it fell, how it stuck to things, how it accumulated. It was also impossible to explain the expanse of it, how it would stretch the horizon out, how it made things brighter, how it made things quieter, how it made you feel coddled but also isolated. Never mind trying to explain how a lake could freeze; that was out of the question.

What was surprising was how much I became a novice about it all when I moved back to Canada. I remember the day after the first snow storm, waiting for the bus to take me to school and just standing by the side of the country road, my mouth agape, looking at the pine trees that seemed to have grown a full foot from all the snow on them. I had forgotten how the top of something, like a branch, would be snow covered while the bottom would be completely exposed, almost like nothing had happened. I also forgot the sound of walking on snow that had been packed down, how it was like some kind of natural styrofoam. I had remembered what snow was, but I forgot about how it really changed the world around you.

It changed things so much that I was like a kid again. There were two reasons to love snow back then: days off and snowbanks. We had long driveways in Minto, and there was a guy who came around with a snowplow to clean them all. My brother and sister, when they were home together, would get out not too long after and we'd start working on the snow forts, with tunnels and steps and little outlooks. And then I'd go over the Trevor's and we'd work on his. And this would go on all day, until we finally came in all apple cheeked, soaked through with melted snow, the only thing really keeping me in being the promise of a nice hot bath.

As much as I like to pretend there is no sentimental part of me (HA!) I still get like a kid every time it snows a significant amount. I like looking out the window and seeing it fall in the streetlight, at watching it fly sideways in the wind. When it's not too cold, I actually feel a little bit more alive when my cheeks freeze on the way home from work, and love how my legs feel cold while my torso is nice and toasty warm, thank you very much beloved peacoat. Even right now, every time the wind dies down and I can't hear it I feel the same way I do when my absolutely favourite song has stopped playing on the radio: I know it'll come back, but I missed the time I had when it was here.

Oh sure, I know in a few weeks I'll be signing a different song, complaining about my glasses fogging up when I go inside, my eyes watering and freezing, and snow getting into my boots when I'm shoveling. And by March I'll be going stir crazy wanting to see actual earth. But there will always be part of me that likes looking out the window, watching the wind and thinking "Wow...and to think that wasn't here this morning!"