My Year in Lists (Anyone Catch the Reference?)

Rather than post something about whats the blah blah blah best music of the year blah blah blah, here is what i actually through worth downloading in 2009:

• Coraline Soundtrack (Bruno Coulais, Various Artists)
  
• Bitte Orca (Dirty Projectors)
  
• Around the Well (Iron & Wine)
  
• Its Not Me, Its You (Lily Allen)
• My One and Only Thrill (Melody Gardot)
• No One's First, and You're Next (Modest Mouse)
• Living Thing (Peter Bjorn and John)
• Realm Dwellers (Terrior Bute)
• Its Blitz! (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
• Merriweather Post Pavilion (Animal Collective)
• Actor (St. Vincent)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Phoneix (Phoneix)
• Here Comes Science (Audio + Video) (They Might Be Giants)
• The Boy Who Knew Too Much (MIKA)
• Embryonic (The Flaming Lips)
• I Told You I Was Freaky (Flight of the Conchords)
• Manners (Passion Pit)

Okay, from this list here's the top 5 that's worth listening to:

1. My One and Only Thrill
2. Living Thing
3. Here Comes Science (especially the videos)
   
4. Merriweather blah blah blah
5. Bitte Orca

I am going to let the music speak for iteself, save two comments:

1. Not many people are familiar with the young Neo-Jazz musical wonder that is Melody Gardot, but she brings a such a refined level pure talent that's worth listening to. 
2. Here Come Science is more than a children's album. Well, okay, I may only like it because it has geeky sciencey references that I get and find hilarious, but I think its just the knees of bees (or the coops of mustards)

Please comment with:

"guys what the fuck. you forgot [this band i really like], and the glaring omission of [this other band that i really like that i try to get all my friends into] is outright inexcusable. don't even get me started on the absence of [this other band i really like that no one else knows and make me sound elite]"

An Attempt at an Artsy Photo

The Adventures of Flat Stanley

 

The Stanley's in Havard Square

 

The Stanley's Ride the T

 

The Stanley's Find Pretty Lights

The Stanley's Find Santa in front of Cheers

 

The Stanley's and a Cannoli

The Stanley's Post-Cannoli

 

The Stanley's at Mike's Pastry

A Perspecitve on Commonplaceness

I hate Starbucks. Its awful coffee, but for some reason unbeknown to me, people flock to their cozy little corner shops to drink the vile manure they call Starbucks Coffee. Starbucks, in a sense, has become a part of a standard way of living, a commonplace in our society that populates our cultural subconscious.  I guess these kind of "standards", per se, populate all walks of our lives. In literature, we have Harry Potter, Twilight (vomit), Dan Brown, and the rest. In music, we have your characters like Beyonce, Miley Cyrus, among other vapid, genetically engineered Disney child stars. In film, you have your run of the mill romantic comedies (Meet the Morgans).  All of which are lacking in at least one aspects, and often more.
Many critics have denounced these things as being gaudy, low-brow, and generally in bad taste.  Indeed, several of these pieces of culture are dismissed because they are so kitschy. However, I don't think we should necessarily denounce these things that have made America such a cultural wasteland. I'm not saying that we should all go and support these thematically devoid films or books, but rather we should pay attention to how it has effected our society.  We have come to value the shit put out by Stephanie Meyer over some really good films. Okay lets take a look:


New Moon Receipts: $281,930,000  Metacritic Rating: 83

Fantastic Mr. Fox Receipts: $18,377,799   Metacritic Rating: 44


So, we have two movies, each aimed at a younger demographic (albeit one a little younger than the other), but the movie that was actually good didn't get near as much as a film with a cult following.
My point being, we have seen a dramatic shift in our culture from valuing something worthwhile, to valuing something worthless.  These cultural phenomena shouldn't just be pushed aside, but looked at in a new light: why are we transfixed with a piece of shit like Twilight?  This generation is being taught to uphold the awful and denounce anything that is "artsy", yet we (the people whose opinions matter) say, "ehh, its terrible and I hate anyone who likes this shit, but what am I gonna do about it?" I think its time we put aside apathy and try to talk some sense into the listless Twilight sheep (or at least show them some culture) and come down from our high horses of snobery and elitism and try to teach the common man what real culture is.

hmmm,
So i guess this constitutes a blog post.