en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 60 http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal The Last.fm journal for BrendanZietsch. Last.fm journals are a place to talk about all things music. http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2012/12/18/5p5rmj_top_12,_2012 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:38:51 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2012/12/18/5p5rmj_top_12,_2012 1. Sun Kil Moon – Among the Leaves
2. Twin Shadow – Confess
3. Frank Ocean – Channel Orange
4. A.C. Newman – Shut Down the Streets
5. Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel
6. Japandroids – Celebration Rock
7. Tallest Man on Earth – There’s no Leaving Now
8. How to Dress Well – Total Loss
9. Beach House - Bloom
10. The Shins – Port of Morrow
11. The Smashing Pumpkins – Oceania
12. Wild Nothing - Nocturne]]> http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2011/12/19/591j6z_top_12,_2011 Mon, 19 Dec 2011 03:34:10 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2011/12/19/591j6z_top_12,_2011 1. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for my Halo
2. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
3. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
4. War on Drugs – Slave Ambient
5. Grouper – AIA
6. Destroyer – Kaputt
7. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
8. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
9. The Weeknd – House of Balloons
10. Cut Copy – Zonoscope
11. Raveonettes – Raven in the Grave
12. Atlas Sound – Parallax]]> http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2010/12/15/43q4kk_2010_top_10 Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:13:46 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2010/12/15/43q4kk_2010_top_10 Great year, couldn't separate the top 6 albums...

1. Tallest Man on Earth – Wild Hunt & Sometimes the Blues...EP

1. Sun Kil Moon – Admiral Fell Promises

1. Twin Shadow - Forget

1. The National – High Violet

1. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest

1. Frightened Rabbit – Winter of Mixed Drinks

7. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

8. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today

9. How to Dress Well – Love Remains

10. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs



Close behind…

The Radio Dept. - Clinging to a Scheme

School of Seven Bells – Disconnect From Desire

Wild Nothing - Gemini

Avi Buffalo – Avi Buffalo

Morning Benders – Big Echo

Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record]]> http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2009/12/15/38v71n_2009_top_10_albums Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:51:24 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2009/12/15/38v71n_2009_top_10_albums 1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

2. Animal Collective - Meriwether Post Pavilion

3. The Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

4. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish I Were an Eagle

5. The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control

6. The Horrors - Primary Colours

7. Cass McCombs - Catacombs

8. Atlas Sound - Logos

9. Pearl Jam - Backspacer

10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It’s Blitz!

Honourable mentions:

Lisa Mitchell - Wonder
Passion Pit - Manners
Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light]]> http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2008/12/15/2c3p3e_2008_top_11_albums Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:04:28 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2008/12/15/2c3p3e_2008_top_11_albums 1.Bon Iver – Emma, Forever Ago

Certain melody notes or harmonies or chords or sounds make me feel like my heart is dissolving or something, and I feel like I need a deep breath and a lie down. This album has more of those moments in each song than most good albums have in their entire duration.

2.TV on the Radio – Dear Science

This band and this album are Just Soooo Cool. But they’re also wildly experimental and adventurous, and sound nothing like anyone else. And to boot, this album is also pretty accessible. Good combo.

3.Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight

Oh, the pain of it all… How can so much talk about hormones and fucking and heartache be so poetic? And the melodies are so catchy. And it’s all so Scottish – aside from the great regional accent, something about the guy’s self-harmonising, breaking voice reminds me of bagpipes… in a good way.

4.The Walkmen – You & Me

With a standard rock group setup they’ve created an amazingly unique, authentic sound, consistent across the whole record. It sounds like it could be from any decade, and almost every song has the feeling of a classic.

5.Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours

It takes a lot to make me want to dance around in a circle flailing my arms, but this dance/shoegaze hybrid really does it for me.

6.Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

A really beautiful, organic vibe to this whole record – I’m going to see them live soon, and I hope they have some barrels of hay lying around on the stage as props, cos it’ll fit my mental image of them playing in a farmyard barn. Maybe if they could have a little goat up on stage that’d be good too.

7.MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

The most exciting new band out. They’ve found a totally distinctive sound to wrap great pop songs in – a mixture of psychedelia, exuberance, fear, uncertainty, and cheese. This would be my soundtrack if I was to make a movie about a group of rebellious kids trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world.

8.Sun Kil Moon – April

Lacks any songs up there with his very best [correction: Moorestown is], but it seems that Mark Kozelek can’t help creating those knee-weakening, breathtaking moments - they’re still scattered heavily throughout this sleepy, half-interested sounding album.

9.Deerhunter – Microcastle

Druggy, hazy pop songs, interludes, and tangential ideas. This sounds like they woke up hungover and semi-clothed in the studio one morning, and thought they might as well release as an album the unidentified mastertape that was found sticky-taped to the singer’s forehead.

10.Scarlett Johansson – Anywhere I Lay My Head

Well this isn’t a joke, I love this album. I read somewhere that David Sitek wanted to make this sound like a slowed-down music box doing Tom Waits songs, and he succeeded. It sounds weird but great, and I couldn’t get enough of it for months. And though ScarJoh doesn’t have the most melodic voice, it’s still a big change to hear the melodies actually being sung rather than growled or vomited.

11.Sigur Ros - Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust

Great album, but I couldn’t squeeze it into the top 10. Didn't want to leave it off the list though, so it's a top 11 instead.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/12/17/2gr8f_brendan%27s_2007_top_15_albums!__and_top_4_let_downs... Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:12:01 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/12/17/2gr8f_brendan%27s_2007_top_15_albums!__and_top_4_let_downs... 1. The National – Boxer
The first two songs are just unfeasibly great, and the rest is consistently good. The sonorous vocals and fantastic drumming and production make for a really dark, sexy sound – in a masculine way, which is weird for me…
2. Radical Face – Ghost
For once, a concept album works…
3. Loney, Dear – Loney, noir
Gets the dual award for worst band name and worst album name, but makes up for it with an achingly pretty album sounding like a very twee version of Neil Young.
4. Blonde Redhead – 23
Great shoegaze album which doesn’t forget to have songs as well as atmosphere
5. The Besnard Lakes - … are the dark horse
Not quite the all-conquering masterpiece I thought on first listen (I think I must have been in a strange mood), but fantastic nonetheless
6. The Clientele – God save The Clientele
Ah those dreamy tremolo arpeggios…
7. Sunset Rubdown – Random spirit lover
Not a great deal different to Modest Mouse, but better, at least for their 2007 album
8. Field Music - Tones of Town
Beatles pop with crazy time-signatures
9. Shout Out Louds – Our ill wills
Very Cure-ish album of great pop songs
10. Panda Bear – Person pitch
Psych-pop. Futuristic version of Brian Wilson
11. Of Montreal - Hissing fauna are you the destroyer
More psych-pop, but less sprawling and more song-oriented.
12. Battles - Mirrored
Very creative, hard edged, heavy math-rock
13. Band of Horses – Cease to Begin
A collection of generic but very good indie-rock songs.
14. Dungen – Tio Bitar
Similar fuzzy 60’s feel to its brilliant predecessor, but with less hard rock and even more psychedelia
15. St Vincent – Marry me
Packing as many instruments into a pop album as a solo artist can reasonably achieve

Ammendment: Joni Mitchell's album Shine was released in 2007, but I didn't have it, or didn't get into it, until 2008. It should have been very high in this top 10...


2007 let downs

1. Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist
hmm… Billy C seems to be stuck in adolescence in a number of ways, but it’s the teenage tendency to think that music has to be heavy and angsty to be cool that causes his downfall here. Alternatively, it may be that he is cynically exploiting that teenage tendency, and is trying to make more money by giving them what they want. The latter hypothesis would be supported by the ridiculous money-grabbing way he released the album (with a different bonus track on the CDs to be sold at each big retail chain).
2. Radiohead – In rainbows
Homogenous album of completely forgettable tracks. Radiohead by numbers. A train wreck would have at least been interesting, but this isn’t bad, it’s just boring, which I would never have expected from these guys.
3. Interpol – Our love to Admire
Basically just a really ordinary album. The rhythmically complex and syncopated interplay of the bass and drums, which had set them apart from a lot of similar-sounding bands, is mostly absent here.
4. Arcade Fire – Neon Bilbe
Pretty good, but nothing compared to Funeral.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/07/05/2gr4d_top_5_for_first_half_of_2007 Thu, 5 Jul 2007 05:21:06 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/07/05/2gr4d_top_5_for_first_half_of_2007 The much anticipated first-half-of-2007 list:

Loney, Dear - Loney, Noir (oh, the twee joy)

Radical Face - Ghost (several songs of home-made perfection)

Blonde Redhead - 23 (otherworldly but real)

Besnard Lakes - Dark Horse (this year's version of Return to Cookie Mountain)

Field Music - Tones of Town (Beatles pop with crazy time-signatures)]]> http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/04/12/2gr33_another_great_album_-_blonde_redhead Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:05:01 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/04/12/2gr33_another_great_album_-_blonde_redhead 2007 is dominating 2006, with four fantastic records by the start of April - Blonde Redhead is the latest entry with an unbelievably great record, 23. Alan Moulder has done his best ever production work I think, the whole album has a magical sound. Some of the songs are just gorgeous - Silently is my favourite. Check it out.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/03/15/2gr1f_3_great_albums_of_2007_so_far... Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:47:37 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/03/15/2gr1f_3_great_albums_of_2007_so_far... Field Music - Tones of Town (not quite as spectacular as the next two, but very high quality)

Besnard Lakes - Dark Horse

Radical Face - Ghost (god, I am just obsessed with this album... so great)]]> http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/02/25/2gr04_besnard_lakes Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:22:35 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/BrendanZietsch/journal/2007/02/25/2gr04_besnard_lakes Just finished listening to the Besnard Lakes' new album... I'm totally blown away, it's completely amazing. I want to make ridiculous claims about it being the best album ever and things, but I should calm down and listen to it many more times before I do anything like that.]]>