Archive for Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List

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Tulip Frenzy #10 Album Of 2012: Patti Smith’s “Banga”

Posted in Music with tags , , on November 23, 2012 by johnbuckley100

For the first time since we began our Top 10 List, Tulip Frenzy has included Patti Smith, whose Banga is a delightful return to form.

In June, we stated, “Banga is a remarkable album because it connects in a straight line to Horses, released, what, 37 years ago, and to virtually every bit of great music waiting to be played in the great Jungian juke box.  It’s  not just hearing Tom Verlaine play lead on “April Fool” that produces the rapture — yeah, rapture — this classic album inspires.  Maybe it’s the thought that unlike Dylan, who when he produced Love and Theft had lost the voice that could really do the songs justice, Smith still can sing, those years spent inactive paying off now, as like a pitcher with a fresh arm stemming from a late start, she can come in and finish the game without the seeming accumulation of age.

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Election Shocker: Tulip Frenzy Model Shows Woods Taking Lead Over Ty Segall For “Album Of The Year”

Posted in Music with tags , , , on November 5, 2012 by johnbuckley100

This just in.  The Tulip Frenzy 2012 Album Of The Year Forecasting Model now shows that Woods’ Bend Beyond has taken a very narrow 51-49 lead over Ty Segall’s Twins.  While the Tulip Frenzy model is simply an averaging of the Tulip Frenzy World HQ staff’s voting, which is subject to change depending upon factors such as: how many times each staff member has listened to the album, whether or not they are in a jangle mood or a hard rocking mood, etc., the fact that, this close to the publication of the Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List ™ Woods has taken a lead, is meaningful.

Tulip Frenzy polling director Nick Argentina said, “There still are factors in play.  First, the gender gap.  While many of the women in the office think Ty Segall is far cuter than any member of Woods, they do seem to like those chiming guitars, and Jeremy Earl’s voice is growing on them.  Second, when we put together Segall’s Twins with Ty Segall and White Fence’s Hair, and run them as a ticket, the polling goes completely haywire.”

Clearly, with just a few weeks to go, this race is tight as a tick, it all depends on turnout, and who knows whether the polling is skewed by the whole staff having just seen Woods’ amazing show Friday night at the Red Palace.

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What Was Missing From The Tulip Frenzy 2011 Top Ten List: BRMC and The Vaselines

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on January 3, 2011 by johnbuckley100

Usually by January 1, we’ve been turned on to several bands we missed that should have been on our Top Ten List.  This year there wasn’t a lot on the Uncut list that we would have put on ours — c’mon, Joanna Newsom #1? Not quite as bad as Portishead the other year, but yick — and as it turns out, our only regrets were not having been able to have put in Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or the Vaselines.

BRMC released both an excellent studio album (Beat The Devil’s Tattoo) and an exceptionally vivid live album.  Why didn’t they make it?  Why don’t we take ’em seriously enough?  Hard to say.  Maybe it was the way their entry point seemed too derivative of the Jesus and Mary Chain.  For some reason, we don’t take ’em seriously enough, yet we listen to their music, a lot.  A friend once referred to Oasis as a guilty pleasure, and I understand, though I’ve never doubted Oasis’ essential greatness.  I don’t think of BRMC as a guilty pleasure; I think of them as a superb band, and if you doubt just how great they really are, go to their website and for a pittance download their live album.

The Vaselines are another story altogether.  Tagged by no less than Kurt Cobain as his favorite band, it took a generation for them to get back into the studio, and after listening to Sex With An Ex, we’re sure glad they did.  Funny, wry, tuneful, smart, the Glaswegian duo reentered the scene without leaving a greasy contrail.  Too bad there wasn’t room for ’em on the TF Top Ten List.

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Tulip Frenzy’s #7 Best Album of 2010: Dean & Britta’s “13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol”

Posted in Music with tags , on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100

What is this link between Dean Wareham and Andy Warhol?  Yes, they both glommed The Velvet Underground’s vitality, and Luna’s version of “Season Of The Witch” first appeared on the soundtrack of I Shot Andy Warhol.  But there is something deeper at work here, which is why it was brilliant of Andy Warhol’s museum curators to have commissioned Dean & Britta to record songs for showing during an installation of Warhol’s films.  Having adored Luna, and been somewhat less than enamored of Dean & Britta’s post-Luna output, we were more than pleasantly surprised by this record when it came out.  The obscure VU song they covered, “Not A Young Man Anymore,” is as catchy as “Plundered My Soul” or anything by Chappo, and we’ve found ourselves humming it all fall.  The best thing was the way Dean & Britta play with a kick, for even on Britta’s songs, there’s nothing fey about these performances.  Lou Reed and John Cale’s Songs for ‘Drella was a drag; this tribute to Warhol was one of the best albums of the year.

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Tulip Frenzy’s #9 Best Album of 2010: The New Pornographers’ “Together”

Posted in Music with tags , on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100

To paraphrase Justice Stewart, we know a great New Pornographers album when we hear one. When they released Twin Cinema back in 2006 2005, some cool cats bemoaned the lack of caffeine.  Not us.  We saw it as the Album of The Year, and thought it would be hard for them ever again to reach such heights.  And they haven’t, not with Challengers, and not with this year’s Together. However, even though we expressed a little disappointment when Together was released, they’ve still got it, and with a song like the breathtaking “We End Up Together,” emotional resonance trumps cleverness and Glee-like theatrics.  Our guess is that after solo albums by Neko and Carl, the songwriting well may have been two fingers shy of a tankful.  The fact that they’re back out on the road leads us to believe the next time they go into the studio will lead to good things.

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Tulip Frenzy’s #10 Best Album Of 2010: the black ryder’s “Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride”

Posted in Music with tags , on November 30, 2010 by johnbuckley100

Technically, the black ryder’s superb debut album launched in 2009, but things move slowly from the antipodes, and by February, when it hadn’t arrived Stateside, we took out a second mortgage and bought the import, and were glad to have done so.  So when we reviewed it in February, it may not have been new to Melbourne hipsters, but it was new to us, and based on the traffic to TF, new to our readers.  Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride was the road not taken by The Morning After Girls, the BJM-infused, dreamier aspect to the band that was largely  jettisoned on Alone.  With an impeccable pedigree and great chops, the black ryder takes shape amidst gauzy sonic guitar pop, and gallops straight into your foreheard.  A great debut, and here’s hoping that in 2011, they release something new in North America.

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On Why The Re-Released “Exile On Main Street” Won’t Be Tulip Frenzy’s Album Of The Year

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , on November 29, 2010 by johnbuckley100

There’s no question that the remastered Exile On Main Street, with its incredible unearthing of songs long presumed buried in Villefranche-sur-Mer, was the album we most anticipated, and it’s possible that “Plundered My Soul” was the best song released by any band other than Chappo.  It may well have been the music event of 2010.  And with those new tracks, it could even qualify as a “new” album.

But two years ago, when Dylan’s magisterial Tell Tale Signs was released with a few “new” songs but mostly rearrangements of songs that had been released earlier, we were moved to declare it #1 on Tulip Frenzy’s Top Ten List for 2008.  After all, we reckoned, when the history of 2008 is written, the release of Tell Tale Signs will be considered its landmark musical achievement.  And yet, in so doing, we screwed others.  We specifically screwed Kelley Stoltz, whose Circular Sounds, but for Dylan’s re-release, would have captured the top slot, going away.

And so we take this stand: we won’t list Exile as 2010’s top album, because in actuality it was 1972’s top album, and would have been so designated then by Tulip Frenzy if the gang hadn’t been more concerned with, like, passing Algebra 1 than publishing a blog.  This will offer justice to those young pups who deserve to be known as the makers of the Tulip Frenzy #1 Top Album of 2010.  We know who they are.  They are, for the record, younger than Mick’n’Keith, who while not quite needing walkers, certainly don’t need any more accolades than they get already.

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Uncut’s Top 10 List Is So Predictable

Posted in Music with tags , on November 28, 2009 by johnbuckley100

Over the past five years, no single publication has turned me on to more good music than the British slick Uncut. Through their good auspices, I discovered Black Mountain, The Black Angels, Blood Meridian, Oedipussy, Kelley Stoltz, the Felice Brothers, and it’s possible that First Communion Afterparty became known in these parts through Uncut‘s writing.

But there is a downside to paying too much attention to the magazine’s recommendations, and it is their sometimes championing bands so dreary and boring it defies belief.  Last year they gave their #1 Album of the Year ranking to Porishead.  Portishead!  And so of course they gave their top slot this year to Animal Collective.

I would rather be mauled by grizzly bears — not Grizzly Bear — and have weasels rip my flesh than have to listen to Animal Collective’s Merriwether Post Pavilion.  In fact, I would probably rank it the Most Boring Album of 2009.

But Uncut declares it the champ-een on the world.  And of course they do.

If you’d like a glimpse at a myriad of Top Ten lists, check out this compendium from Largehearted Boy Top Ten Lists Galore.

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The Ones That Got Away: 2008 Albums Tulip Frenzy Wished It Had Noticed

Posted in Music with tags , , , , on November 18, 2009 by johnbuckley100

As the gang at Tulip Frenzy World HQ gets ready to prepare the 2009 Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List, let’s just acknowledge that long about February, we’ll already be playing music we missed from this year and saying, “Damn, how did we miss that?”  So just to clear up some  loose ends, let’s put down the list of music from 2008 we flat out missed.  There was a lot of good music that came out in 2009, but here’s what we listened to from 2008, regretting it took us so long.

First Communion After Party

How it was we missed the best record by a new band in 2008, we may not know, and we’re not too proud to admit it.  FCAP’s Sorry For All The Mondays and To Those Who Can’t Sing was the best debut since, dunno, Echo and the Bunnymen?  The Pixies? This neo-psychedelic powerhouse from Minneapolis was on the iPod all year long.  Too bad we couldn’t have given them their due.  And boys and girls?  Time to get back in the studio and crank out a new one.  After all, since we consider you as good as, if not better than, Black Mountain, the Black Angels, the Warlocks, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, and have been telling this to everyone we meet, it’s time to pick up the slack and crank out new tunes!  We want you to put out the best album of 2010!

Tift Merrit

We really like Tift Merrit, we just got a little sick of her circa Bramble Rose. Somehow last year she came out with a killer album, Another Country, and it wasn’t until this year that we went, Who was that?  And sure ‘nough, it was Tift.   Who uncorked a scorcher of a country’n’torch song soulfest.  Love it.

Darker My Love

Straight out of the BRMC school of fuzztone punk, kickass beat, and solid, throbbing mid-tempo songwriting, Darker My Love released their second album in 2008, imaginatively entitled 2, and we missed it.  Fortunately, we got on the bandwagon and discovered their even better eponymous first album from 2006 (they save their creativity for the studio, not titling their albums.)  Wish we hadn’t missed ’em, glad it wasn’t a permanent error.

King Khan and The Shrines

We’re not even sure we missed them last year; it may have been the year before.  After all, one of the two or three greatest garage rock songs of the last decade is their “Outta Harms Way.”  But if you go sleuthin’, you’ll find it shows up on various albums spread out over a couple of years.  The one on the obscure Serbian label may have come out first, or was the Burkina Faso version?  Anyway, the version we first heard came out last year.  Missed it.

Okay, enough admission of fallibility.  We’re not planning on going on a self-lacerating kick.  It happens.  Wait til next year… when we review what we’re about to miss when compiling our list of the best of this year…

 

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Uncut’s Top 2008 Album List Produces One New Entry on Tulip Frenzy’s Top 10 List: The Felice Brothers

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , on December 14, 2008 by johnbuckley100

It happens every year: Tulip Frenzy publishes its Top 10 list, and within days, some new band or album turns up on someone else’s list, and we go, “Damn, how did we miss that one?”  Uncut Magazine has just come out with their Top 50 list, and honestly, there is no way we would revise ours to feature Portishead as the Best Album of the Year. (Portishead?  Oh, come on.) But the Felice Brothers, yeah, how did we miss their eponymous sophomore offering?  It’s a beaut.  The Felice Brothers sounds like a lost recording session in Big Pink with the Rock of Ages horn section visiting the Band for a cloudy weekend fortified by beer and hearty stew.  That the Bros. hail from Woodstock way makes it even better.  We have long since accepted that Uncut‘s taste in British music doesn’t jibe with ours — hence the Portishead and Elbow kisses — but they do have a knack for unearthing prime Americana, from The Willard Grant Conspiracy to, now, the Felice Brothers.  These guys are so good, they just knocked Ry Cooder out of the #10 spot.  Honestly, given The Felice Brothers’ authenticity, we don’t think he’d mind.

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