December 28, 2007

Great unknown musicians.

The 10 best of the year.
No They Do is the all-robot musical collective led by musicologist and "future's Alan Lomax," XJ3. Its album is the soundtrack of the inevitable future, in which robots destroy the human race, discover acoustic guitars and play robot folk music.

And that's just #10.

13 comments:

Ron said...

hmmm...liked the Le Loup, not so much No They Do, and the Yeasayer was the most interesting to me...

workin' on the rest.

Ron said...

Will someday the robotic Todd Haynes make the robot version of "I'm Not There?" Will we never be free of robot Dylan, or will he be the musical MS-DOS of the robot world?

KCFleming said...

I can tell my time is passing in the world, not least by the fact that these lists and new music used to excite me, almost like falling in love. I chased the next thing with abandon and yet purposeful, as if on some quest, perhaps for the perfect song.

New music began to matter less and less to me, slowly over time. I still enjoy new songs, and play some too often, and begin despising their familiarity.

It's a sign to me that the world spins yet, that there is hope and life ahead, whenever new and fascinating music by young people arises. Now I see how that will continue without me, and how wonderful that is.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. Not anymore.

rhhardin said...

Gak. Awful, all of them.

Tiffany Eckhardt, unknown in the US, is more like it. World's best songwriter.

Note that the form of the piece is a barcarolle.

From _Looking for Signs_

Danny said...

Thanks for the tip! The Ben Sollee song is blowing my mind, and the previous poster clearly needs to invest in Q-tips.

John said...

Isn't critics list and great unknown musicians one and the same? Read any year end top ten best record list by any critic no matter how mainstream the source and you will lucky to have heard of two of them. What is really funny is to go back and read the top ten list from say 25 years ago. Records that are popular and still listened to and relevent are rarely on those lists and records by bands to were forgotten, if they were ever known in the first place, two days after they were released are all over the place. It is difficult to think of a more irrelevent profession than pop music critic.

Danny said...

Irrelevant? The acerbic words of Pitchfork make gold-selling grammy winners out of otherwise unknown acts from anytown, usa (canada/france/uk/brazil). I'd argue that the old guard of music critics is merely ceding territory to those with the time and energy to search out the next brilliant orchestral-electronic-pop band from Winnipeg.

Anonymous said...

"I fought the Three Laws and the Three Laws won." --XJ3

Trooper York said...

The least appreciated of the Jackson 5, Tito was actually adopted by Joe Jackson while on a tour of Europe with Ike Turner. Originally a native of Yugoslavia, he was considered a musical prodigy and composed most of the songs currently attributed to his more famous brothers and sisters. This was never revealed as it would be considered a scandal to have a white member of the most famous black singing family of the ‘70’s and ‘80’. A solution was devised by Keith Richards’s personal physician who arranged for a melanin transfusion between Tito and his brother Michael who was originally the blackest member of the family. Unfortunately the procedure went awry and Michael current appearance as an elderly white woman is a testament to a brother’s love.
(The Jackson 5, E True Hollywood Story)

Gordon Freece said...

The 1900s are the best band in America right now. They're out your way, Ann; Chicago or something.

Great songs, great hooks, they can sing (not just stay on pitch), they play together like a real band, and the arrangements are a joy to behold. Nobody puts that kind of thought into arrangements any more. There's seven of 'em on stage and they never get in each others' way.

I don't suppose they'll ever sell any damn records, but they're the Real Thing.

Trooper York said...

Unfortunately, the treatments had to come to an end after 1989 when all of the blackness had been drained out of Michael. Tito could no longer tour with the band as his vestigial white skin had returned and he was forced to perform in his secret identity as Michael Bolton.
(The Jackson 5, E True Hollywood Story)

tony said...

rob gonzalez!!!

http://www.myspace.com/robgonzalez

Kev said...

Did anyone else have problems with that media player? For me, it would play for about 20-30 seconds and then have to stop to rebuffer. I hadn't had that happen since I was on Mac OS9 and dial-up Internet, listening to Amazon song clips on RealPlayer. A few of those bands sounded promising, but it was hard to enjoy them with the constant interruptions (this happened on both Safari and Firefox, BTW).

And they would have been more straightforward if they had named the piece "Top 10 Great Unknown Pop-Rock Artists of 2007," since it's not like any other genres were represented there (saith the jazz guy).

Incidentally, my favorite new "unknown" jazz group of this year is Darcy James Argue's Secret Society. They haven't recorded any CD's yet, but all their live performances are available as downloadable mp3's at the link I provided. They don't perform a lot (which is the usual case for a big band), but when they do, they tend to be at a place called the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC.