2012's Most Disappointing Records

Let me start out by saying that I don't believe music criticism should ever be malicious or cruel, but there certainly is an inevitability where expectations overpower the actual material, and this is one of the toughest aspects of music: living up to the hype. None of these albums are bad, by any stretch of judgement, they just didn't meet their heightened expectations, and all the large scale blogs were the ones setting them. These are some albums that fell short of affirming early expectations. 

Big Boi - Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors

I still believe Sir Lucious Left Foot the Song of Chico Dusty was the best album of 2010, a year that saw Cosmogramma, The Monitor, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, This Is Happening, etc. That album is a masterpiece of songs. Big Boi is known for his vast taste in music - his favorite artists are Bob Marley and Kate Bush - and this release is a testament to that. VLDR definitely has a wide pallet of songs, but nothing seems to stick with the listener. "Shoes for Running" features Wavves and Big Boi spitting machine gun flow, though it never displays a wow moment. It's obvious to say I had extremely high expectations for this album, which seems unfair considering how long Big Boi's first solo album took to come out - not counting Speakerboxxx as a solo effort, despite being mostly a Big Boi album. This is a good album, better than a lot of rap albums this year; it's just not as good as it could be.

The xx - Coexist

To say Coexist is minimal would be severely understating how stripped back the arrangements are on the trio's follow up to 2009's excellent debut, xx. Early singles "Angels" and "Chained" showed promise, but it was the album's lackluster second act that bored me to frustrated tears. Jamie XX had the blogosphere thinking Coexist would have a much more salient club music presence, though what the effort came to be was spacey, languid, and meandering - none of those comments a compliment. This is isn't so much a sophomore a slump as it feels, well, kind of lazy. I loved the balance on xx, the silence was an instrument in itself, but there doesn't seem to be much music here, besides Oliver Sim and Romy Croft's angelic voices. The xx evolved into a hype band following the band's first record, which set them up for an even higher fall, although I hope this won't be the last we see of the London trio.

Animal Collective - Centipede Hz

Don't even get me started on how disappointing this record is -- well, I guess I have to go into why, as that is the subject matter of this post. I, like everybody else on the Internet, got an early listen through a "radio" service the band set up on a website. "Today's Supernatural" is still an excellent song - the obvious choice for the first single - except it doesn't do a great job of foretelling what Centipede Hz actually sounds like, which is sort of like playing all of Animal Collective's other songs all at once, and then having Deakin show up and add some digital interference. There are only a few songs that can be taken away from this muddled mess - the aformentioned single, "Applesauce", "New Town Burnout", and "Monkey Riches" - and added to an otherwise stellar discography, although "New Town Burnout" just sounds like something that could have come off of Tomboy, BUT WITH DEAKIN NOISES! Is this a flop from a band riding high from a commercial sense, one that was super freaking weird and coherent at the same time, Merriweather Post Pavilion? I doubt it, although I'm still kind of pissed off, months later. 

Passion Pit - Gossamer

I don't know if I expected this to be a great album or I was just curious, after Michael Angelakos made dubiously suicidal comments, but I was certainly interested as to what Gossamer would sound like. A depressed Passion Pit album? A song on a Taco Bell commercial? The hype certainly captured my attention. First single "I'll Be Alright" is romping and bouncy, certainly a highpoint, but the rest of the album is so "meh" that I forgot about it, until I had to start making year end lists. This might be the whitest album of the year - honkeys and their keyboards. I've always been sort of a cursory Passion Pit fan, though Gossamer seems like it'll be my last effort to like the Cambridge band, and, assuming Angelakos wasn't just trying to arouse more hype around the sophomore release, it might be his last too. 

I guess high hopes should never preface an album, but it's nearly impossible to protect yourself from any sort of media coverage nowadays. These albums might end up being some favorites of mine, save for Centipede Hz, despite the fact that, right now, I consider them disappointments. I have already started listening to some of next year's albums, and with those come another set of expectations, so as much as I hate to have a piece of art overshadowed by press, it will continue to be an indelible facet of music criticism. 

Leaky Pipes: A First Look at Grizzly Bear's Shields

2009 saw Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest play bridesmaid to Merriweather Post Pavilion on more than a few year end lists, including Metacritic's all important total list - Grizzly Bear took eighth that year of all music, second in critics' top lists. This year we see Animal Collective, Baroness, Mount Eerie and Dirty Projectors all come out with records; the only difference in 2012 is that Grizzly Bear is in pole position to take more than a couple year end lists.

Shields, from the moment "Sleeping Ute" starts to where "Sun in Your Eyes" ends, is abrasive, gorgeous, and fully engrossing, never feeling hindered or forced - the first time I previewed the album my jaw gave way. The album, in a year where Indie's heavy hitters all planned releases, far exceeds any expectations I had for it - and my expectations were extremely high, having been severely disappointed by both The xx and Animal Collective.

On the surface, Grizzly Bear haven't done much to change up their sound, not like Animal Collective seeing the reunion with Deakin ultimately producing a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation and maximalist poppycock. It's still the same full band that released Yellow House in 2006, but Grizzly Bear continues to grow. Songs like "Yet Again" and "What's Wrong" perfectly blend elements from Yellow House and Veckatimest, while "Adelma" sees the band's first use of a purely instrumental interlude track, one that has its own movement and doesn't request a skip; Shields is perfectly planned out and executed to be an album, and entity.

While Veckatimest was dark, at some times even brooding, Shields seems much more cheerful: a band comfortable with its current state of affairs. Grizzly Bear has always impressed me with its use of acoustic and electric guitar - a formula so traditional that I try to avoid any music labeled as such - but they always sound fresh and inventive, despite their tried and true formula. The non-traditional tunings, brittle electric guitar tones, and syncopated rhythms are what make Grizzly Bear unique in the already too specific freak-folk genre.

I can see Shields taking a lot of critics' top spots on their year-end lists, not just because of how inconsistent this years' followup records were, but certainly by its own accord. A gigantic display of raw talent, originality, and growth are what make Shields my favorite record of the year so far -- so sorry, Mr. Ocean.

Final Grade: A

P.S. Check out singles "Sleeping Ute" and "Yet Again" below, and don't forget to pre-order at the band's website.

Leaky Pipes: A First Look at Coexist

The xx - Coexist

I have obtained a leaked copy of The xx's Coexist. After a couple of listens all the way through, I have reached a conclusion on my first impression of the album: It's lackluster.

What made The xx so interesting was their use of minimalism to inspire such a burning, grand sound. Every track glistened or was so covered in darkness, only an outline of something larger was broadcasted. It was the beautiful dichotomy between songs like "Shelter" and "Crystalized" that drew a listener into a constant rotation of the record. XX bloomed; Coexist sprouts, revealing an almost unfinished product. 

All of these dark, sparse songs come as a huge surprise considering Jamie XX, the band's producer and beat maker, revealed what would be the first details about Coexist, in an interview with Pitchfork:

I think it will definitely sound different than the last album and anything I've ever done, just because our ears have been opened to so much music. Two years ago, I wouldn't have dreamed of listening to most of the stuff I listen to now. Like, I wasn't interested in techno and house at all before but, when I was in Chicago, I bought a bunch of Dance Mania records from the 80s and 90s, and I've listened to a lot of that.

I had Coexist pinned to be more of the dance inspired bass music Jamie XX was doing solo, or the Gil-Scott Heron remix album. I was sure the record would be a lot more of the stuff I loved off of XX, but with more "danceability." What Coexist does do is create a dark veil over the music, one that I'm sure will eventually lift, revealing a melancholic beauty, but for the first time through, it feels too shrouded.

With singles "Angels" and "Chained", The xx displayed the usual slow build, but with shifty, unpredictable drums. These features only make slight appearances in the other songs on the album, "Missing" being a highlight of this; you can feel the heartbeat, uncertainty, and hurt in the production. "Try" starts off with an eery guitar riff, yet it seems to stay at the same pace and never really excites. A lot of other songs, like "Tides" and "Our Song", feel almost like sketches or outlines for a larger song, never fully building into anything.

But maybe this is exactly where The xx is going, a starless yearning that is never fulfilled. It certainly doesn't produce anything you can show to someone and have them instantly latch onto, much like what XX accomplished. For right now, after a half-dozen listen throughs, Coexist feels more like an "honorable mention," for what it aims for, than a "best of," because of what it accomplishes.

Grade: B-