Songs of the Year - "Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings)," Silversun Pickups

A mini-epic from Silversun Pickups - another song that sounded great on the radio in 2012.  Good enough that I bought the album, which is also worth your time.

Songs of the Year - "Rocky Ground," Bruce Springsteen

When history renders its verdict, I suspect that "Wrecking Ball" will be regarded as the best album Bruce recorded following his return to the road with the E Street Band in 1999.  It's not exactly as if he is covering new ground, but he is definitely covering it in different ways.  "Rocky Ground" is the song that puts the lie to the tired refrain from Bruce skeptics/haters (there are a lot of them, and they're pretty vicious in their commentary) that everything he does sounds exactly the same.

It's a great song, one of several on "Wrecking Ball."

Songs of the Year - "Love Sick," Mariachi El Bronx

"Chimes of Freedom" was the rare cover tribute that did justice to its honoree and staked out a claim of its own.  That doesn't mean that every song was perfect - Carly Simon's rendering of "Just Like A Woman" is damn near unlistenable, and others were various shades of disappointing and/or embarrassing.  But for the most part, the covers honored their source, while not being reverential. 

This take on "Love Sick" by Marichi El Bronx is a great example of that.  A new twist on Dylan, and one of his bleakest songs.

Songs of the Year - "Split Decision," Bonnie Raitt

"Slipstream" was the best Bonnie Raitt album in quite some time, and this was my favorite song on it.  If this doesn't make you want to jump around a bit or run a little faster, then you may be in a coma.

Songs of the Year - "Better Than The Truth," Patterson Hood

Another great one from Patterson's "Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance," one of the best albums of 2012.  I especially like it for these lines:

"...and he said "I'm only looking for an acceptable level of bullshit I can live with
but something's got to give..."

and,

"...and if I wrote it in a movie it would all end differently 
and be better than the truth
Better than the truth..."

Songs of the Year - "Disappear," Patterson Hood

Patterson Hood, the erstwhile co-leader of what has become in recent years one of my all-time favorite bands - Drive-By Truckers - released an outstanding solo album in September, and not surprisingly it was one of the year's best.  And this is one of the best songs on it - "Disappear."

The Last 2012 Netflix Wrapup

Because we all love lists, don't we?

Top Ten Pre-2012 Movies Seen on Netflix in 2012

1. Margin Call - watched it six times, enjoyed it every time.
2. Traffic
3. Amelie
4. The Limey
5. The Secret Life of Bees
6. Out of Sight
7. Moneyball
8. Hanna
9. Taking Woodstock
10. Tell No One

Also Enjoyed

Bernie, The Adventures of Tintin, London Boulevard, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Bronson, Charade, The Wedding Banquet,  The Women on the Sixth Floor, El Bulli, Eat Drink Man Woman, Tortilla Soup, Blackthorn, Being Elmo, Billy Elliot, War Horse, My Week With Marilyn, J. Edgar, My Life So Far, Water for Elephants, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Mamma Mia, Erin Brockovich, Solaris, Dan in Real Life, Dark City, Burke and Hare, 30 Minutes or Less, The Warriors, Crazy Heart, Mr. Brooks, Sexy Beast, American History X, The Rum Diary, The Informant!, Shine, The Reader, Attack the Block, Fracture, Midnight in Paris, 50/50, The Ides of March, Iris, The Help, Under the Tuscan Sun, Kinsey, A Single Man.

Meh

Muriel's Wedding, Anonymous, The Shipping News, The Good German, A Dangerous Method.

Songs of the Year - "45," The Gaslight Anthem

In his liner notes for "Something/Anything," Todd Rundgren wrote of "I Saw the Light," "If there's a single on this album, this is it, so I put it first like at Motown."

You could say the same thing about "45" - it's the perfect song to kick off an album, and if we had Top 40 radio like we did back in the day, it would have been the single.

It's just a great, rocking song.

"Les Miserables"

First things first: I'm not what you would call an aficionado of musical theater or film, and I've never seen a stage production of "Les Miserables" (haven't read the book either, but was generally familiar with the story just based on what I've read and heard over the years).  Going to see the movie, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, and I wasn't even sure that I'd like it that much.  So from the get-go, you should know that these are the observations of a non-expert.

With all that out of the way...

I liked it, quite a bit.  My attention never flagged during the film's nearly three hour running time, and though I wasn't on the edge of my seat like I was during "Django Unchained" or "The Dark Knight Rises" (films of similar length), that's still a good sign.

I thought Hugh Jackman was great as Valjean.  And while I don't disagree with the opinions of many that Russell Crowe can't sing a lick, I give him enormous credit for trying and thought that his approach - just belting it out, as best as he could - lent Javert a sense of believability (and gravitas, a word that has been used a lot with respect to the role, in reviews both pro and con); this viewer, at least, could understand the doggedness of Javert's seemingly illogical pursuit of Valjean, and that in part was due to Crowe's performance.

Now this is the part that will get me in trouble - while I agree that Anne Hathaway was great, I'm not quite sure I understand the intensity of the response to her performance.  You won't hear me complain when she wins the Academy Award in February (which seems a foregone conclusion), but frankly I wish her nomination would be for "The Dark Knight Rises," a performance that everyone seems to have forgotten in light of her Fantine.

Tom Hooper's direction - from what I've read, he's being criticized for all the close-ups, but I can't say that they bothered me much.  The other decision that's getting a lot of ink is the live singing, which is impressive.  No, none of these performers are great singers, in the classical sense.  But having them sing live adds an immediacy to the work that otherwise would have been lost.

Overall, I'd be fine if "Les Miserables" captures the Best Picture Oscar.  It's not my favorite movie of the year, but it's a much greater accomplishment than last year's winner, "The Artist."  Good job, all.

Songs of the Year - "Narrow Way" and "Tempest," Bob Dylan

It would appear that there isn't a single decent video for either one of these songs, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.  Dylan's "Tempest" was one of the most talked-about and written-about albums of the year, and after living with it for a few months, I'm confident in saying that it was also one of the best albums of the year.

Together, these two songs clock in at almost 22 minutes (7:28 for "Narrow Way," and almost 15 for "Tempest"), but they're such strong songs that even with those lengths, when they end you're left wanting more.  The former song is a fast one, and the band locks into a groove at the beginning and then pushes it as far as they can, never coming up for breath until the end.  Dylan's voice is coarse and raspy - he sounds almost like Howlin' Wolf on much of the record - and he delivers lines like these:

Ever since the British burned the White House down
There's a bleeding wound in the heart of town
I saw you drinking from an empty cup
I saw you buried and I saw you dug up
It's a long road, it's a long and narrow way
If I can't work up to you, you'll surely have to work down to me someday

The latter song tells the story of the Titanic, and it never flags once - on each listen, you find yourself listening for, and finding, more and new details.  The music is beautiful, and Dylan's voice comes as close to "pretty" (which admittedly isn't very close) as it can these days.

Great songs, both.

Songs of the Year - "Gallows Pole," Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Just the existence of an album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse in 2012 would have been reason for celebration, but this year we were lucky enough to be graced with two - "Americana," a somewhat oddball collection of old songs fitting into the theme of "American music," and "Psychedelic Pill," a somewhat oddball collection of songs ranging from three minutes long to 27 minutes long (with two others clocking in near the 20-minute mark).

I haven't quite gotten my arms around the latter album, but the former was a lot of fun.  This song, "Gallows Pole," is the one that had the heaviest rotation on my iPod this year.  And it has the distinction of being the oldest song on the list - dating back to Leadbelly's first recorded version in 1939.

Songs of the Year - "Hypocritical Kiss," Jack White

I thought Jack White's "Blunderbuss" was one of the best albums of the year because of its modesty.  Even on his best work with the White Stripes, there was always an element of "look at me! I'm a major guitar player!" involved.  Not so on "Blunderbuss," where White let the songs speak for themselves, and didn't feel the need to show off his chops every 2 minutes.

"Hypocritical Kiss," Jack White.

Django Rising

When you leave the theater after watching a Quentin Tarantino movie, you feel exhilarated, you feel exhausted, and you begin thinking about the "moments" that every Tarantino film seems to have.  Moments like the opening scene in "Inglorious Basterds," and the basement tavern scene from the same movie.  The first "Kill Bill" movie?  Comprised almost entirely of such moments.  I could go on, but you get the point.

"Django Unchained" has moments like that - the dinner scene at "Candie-land" comes to mind - but more than other Tarantino films, "Django" tells a story, one with a beginning, middle and end.  The story is right there at the top of the poster to the left - "life, liberty and the pursuit of vengeance."  Jamie Foxx plays Django, a slave who is liberated by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a dentist turned bounty hunter who initially takes on Django because he needs him to identify his next targets, but then quickly realizes that Django has a talent for bounty hunting.  The good doctor makes Django an offer he can't refuse - work with him through the cold winter, and in the spring, they'll seek Django's wife, and liberate her.

Eventually, the two end up at the plantation of one Calvin Candie, certainly one of the most evil, least likable characters ever committed to film.  With this role, Leonardo DiCaprio erases the last vestiges of his  "Titanic" legacy - essentially, the character represents everything that was evil and abhorrent about slavery, and DiCaprio pulls it off with aplomb.  Spike Lee is already on record that he won't see the movie because he believes it to be disrespectful of his ancestors.  I don't really feel qualified to comment on that, except to say that it strikes me as a bit strange to reach that conclusion without having seen the work in question.  There's certainly nothing about the movie that tries to portray slavery as anything but abhorrent, despicable and inhuman.  If anything, Tarantino takes it a notch too far, with as much extreme violence as I've ever seen in one of his movies.  Yes, there is probably less blood in "Django" than in the "88 keys" scene in "Kill Bill," but the violence in this movie feels real, whereas in the earlier film it felt like you were reading a comic book.

As he seems to be in everything that he's in, Christoph Waltz is amazing, and Jamie Foxx is very strong in the title role.  I've read criticism that he plays it too understated, but it seems obvious that he's doing his own take on "the man with no name" made famous by Clint Eastwood, and when you consider the role in those terms, it makes perfect sense.  There's also room in the movie for a veritable Who's Who of veteran character actors, including Walton Goggins, Don Johnson, Bruce Dern, and many others.

It's too early to tell whether "Django" resides at the top of the Tarantino pantheon, but there certainly isn't a dull moment in it.

Songs of the Year - "Helena Beat," Foster the People

And completing the "radio trilogy," we have Foster the People with "Helena Beat."  I can't quite figure out the weird, "Mad Max"-like video, but I still think the song is great.

Songs of the Year - "I Don't Care," Icona Pop

This is the kind of silly, loud and bordering on stupid pop song that I love.  Remember, you're talking to the guy who, in the middle of all those classic vinyl albums by old white guys now in the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, has four albums by Bananarama.

So just think of this as Bananarama for the 21st Century - "I Don't Care," Icona Pop.

Songs of the Year - "Carry On," Fun

Today, I'm going to focus on the songs that grabbed me on the radio.

Up until this year, I wasn't much of a radio listener, but when the tape player in my 1997 Honda Accord (220,000 miles and still going strong, thank you very much) gave up the ghost, I didn't have much choice.  So my listening time is devoted to an oldies station that broadcasts traffic reports every 15 minutes (kicking off the morning commute), and a station without DJs that does a pretty good job of approximating what constitutes today's version of a Top 40 - with some oldies thrown in for good measure, and a nice dollop of listener feedback.

"Carry On" by Fun is one of the songs that never failed to grab me, and one which almost always resulted in my reaching for the knob to turn up the volume.  Not to mention, it's a great song to hear after a long, tiring day at work.