Allo Darlin’: “Tallulah”

i should wait to post this tomorrow, so it can be melodrama monday instead of melodrama sunday.

The Gloria Record: “Tired & Uninspired”

I shouldn’t be hard to find… 
I’ll be the one with my big mouth moving; 
my big words, saying nothing. 
I hope you know 
it’s not my father’s fault I’m such a bore, 
and so afraid of everything. 
I’m keeping inside; living in my mind; 
hoping that the telephone don’t ring
with, “It’s all right… pain is universal, baby”
and worrying about what I’m going to sing. 
I’m staying in, and saving up my energy. 
I know my day is coming. 
And when I find it, I will rewind it 
(and play it over again a hundred times). 
And when I hear it, I will not fear it
I will say it back again, and say, “I’m fine.” 
(“Relief!…” “Relief!…”) 
“I’m fine.” 

La Sera: “Please Be My Third Eye”

There is, of course, a whole argument/discussion/whatever to have about the value of nostalgia, and I’m not immune to that kind of navel gazing either, but this is the navel gazing I’m choosing at the moment. I’ve been playing it (and the rest of the album) incessantly. Hopefully you feel the same.

Youth Lagoon: “17″

Unicycle Loves You: “Failure”  (redacted by request of the band. replacement song below, which is also great, but maybe you should just go buy the album in any case)

Unicycle Loves You: “Wow Wave Cinema”

- John Lennon

If a band’s albums are the musical path they choose to chart, their b-sides are often the unexpected detours that, I’d suggest, reveal a bit more about their tendencies than the thoughtfully recorded and carefully sequenced documents they release every two years or so. (Except for the White Stripes, who seemed to care not too much at all about being careful or deliberate.)

In the case of the Hold Steady, their debut is the hard-charging introduction, Separation Sunday is the ambitious mission statement, Boys and Girls in America is the beginning of the party, Stay Positive is the start of the come-down, and Heaven is Whenever is a band trying to figure out what to do next. The contemporaneous b-sides and ephemera, however, paint a different picture.

The oddest detour comes right at the beginning, with the 5 tracks included on the Australian edition of Almost Killed Me. I don’t know which songs were written when – it’s possible that all 5 of these songs predate the songs written for Almost Killed Me, hence their exclusion. Either way though, almost all of these songs, with the possible exception of “Milkcrate Mosh,” are superior to most everything on that album. They’re catchier, more fun, and arguably more lyrically deft. They’re also prescient, in a way, projecting much of the band’s future direction – “You Gotta Dance (With Who You Came to the Dance With)” would fit in perfectly on Boys and Girls and “Modesto is Not That Sweet” would slide in pretty nicely to replace a weaker number on Stay Positive (maybe “Magazines”). Meanwhile, “Curves and Nerves” is more of a look back at Lifter Puller than a look forward, and “Milkcrate Mosh” really deserves a proper spot on Almost Killed Me.

The Hold Steady: “Curves And Nerves”

Separation Sunday is the only Hold Steady record to be free of non-album tracks, which makes sense considering how carefully crafted it is.

Boys and Girls is the complete opposite of Almost Killed Me in that it’s the weakest crop of b-sides by far. Every song here makes total sense as a b-side and would displace something stronger on the album, with the possible exception of “Girls Like Status,” which enjoyed a bit of live exposure as well. All in all, the b-sides here are the lazy cousins of what is otherwise the Hold Steady’s strongest album and most purposful distillation of what they do – good time party rock with amazing lyrics.

The Hold Steady: “Girls Like Status”

Stay Positive is a rebound in the ephemera department, with one of their strongest songs so far in “Ask Her for Adderall,” even if it is a bit of a rewrite of “Same Kooks.” The other two are pleasantly boozy and right in the band’s wheelhouse.

The Hold Steady: “Ask Her for Adderall”

It’s a hopeful sign that the band’s weakest album would also spawn the best b-sides, collectively, since their debut – “Ascension Blues” is a speedy, riff-driven banger that would fit nicely between Separation Sunday and Boys and Girls, “Touchless” is textured and fantastic, and “Separate Vacations,” from the band’s iTunes Live EP is the best slow song they’ve done since, well, ever.

The Hold Steady: “Touchless”

In a way, Heaven is Whenever seemed to kind of close a circle – the Hold Steady have done everything that you could imagine being in their mission statement. And so the next step is maybe a little uncertain from a fan’s perspective – do they stretch out, make a throwback record, go full concept… who knows. In the meantime, we have the songs that didn’t quite fit in, but that are, collectively, as fun and satisfying as anything they every committed to LP.

Poster Children: “Chain Reaction”

The narrative for Attack on Memory is that it’s more abrasive, louder, less in thrall to traditional pop tropes, and I guess that’s true, but so far, Baldi (much like Spencer Krug, albiet with a completely different musical vocabulary) seems unable to make music that isn’t endlessly, riotously catchy. This is not a bad thing. And something that can be said for Attack on Memory vs. his self-titled sort-of debut is that the extended song lengths and more outré ambitions give his songwriting and gift for melody more time and space to develop. “Heartbeat” is amazing, as I’ve mentioned before, but it’s also barely a minute long – Attack on Memory is only 8 songs long, and while only one of the songs is actually “long,” the whole effect is bracing and not quite as breathless, this time around.

Anyway, although the whole thing is basically one long highlight, I particularly like “Separation” – a 3-minute instrumental that kind of reads like a mission statement for the record – “bash the shit out of everything in sight, but keep it catchy and tight.” It’s pretty amazing.

Cloud Nothings: “Separation”

Which is why this new Craig Finn record is such a pleasant surprise – it doesn’t sound unlike a Hold Steady record any more than an Extra Glenns (Lens) record sounds unlike a Mountain Goats record (i.e. not much at all) as much as it sounds like an interesting sidestep from the pressure of making a record under the appellations of those bands – the pressure to make something that SOUNDS like a Hold Steady record.

So if it isn’t different, exactly, it’s interesting in its non-difference – the lyrics sound like classic Finn, but almost like he’s auditioning a new cast of characters, to get free of the ones that have haunted Hold Steady songs for nearly a decade. And the music wouldn’t be out of place on a Hold Steady record, but here everything is just a little bit muted, letting things play out calmly – fewer fireworks and more meditation.

Its the kind of thing that, in the end, feels like a risky way to make what is, essentially, a risk-free gambit. After all, I doubt anyone really cared if Mick Jagger made a crap solo album as long as the next Rolling Stones album was good – in the end, these kind of albums are usually, by definition, for fans only. The trick Finn pulls here, in all it’s laconic pacing and soft-rock instrumentation, is to make an album that will actually satisfy those fans as much as if he were releasing a new Hold Steady record. Nice trick.

Craig Finn: “When No One’s Watching”

Mogwai: “White Noise”

M83: “Wait”

(my pick for best album 2011)

Cut Copy: “Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat”

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart: “Belong”

Future Islands: “Before the Bridge”

Telekinesis: “You Turn Clear in the Sun”

Maritime: “Air Arizona”

Handsome Furs: “Memories of the Future”

The Joy Formidable: “The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade”

(recycled but still <3)

Explosions In The Sky: “Trembling Hands”

St. Vincent: “Cruel”

True Widow: “Skull Eyes”

Metronomy: “The Bay”

Cults: “Abducted”

Pete & The Pirates: “Winter 1″

Atlas Sound: “The Shakes”

John Maus: “Believer”