Welcome to the grand final of the official ten best albums of 2011. If you’ve somehow missed the past two entries where we looked at the first five albums and the ones that not quite made it, or just feel too lazy to go back to the front page, you can access them easily via making a handy new browser tab from this tag list.

What will be #1? Does anyone but me care? Click the cut or scroll down to find out!

#5: TV ON THE RADIO – NINE TYPES OF LIGHT

I have little prior experience about TV on the Radio; I only got into them this year through Nine Types of Light and it took me until December to actually hear any other albums of theirs. Thus it’s impossible for me to see Nine Types of Light as a part of a bigger context, to hear its changes and nuances in comparison to the band’s past history. Who are TV on the Radio and are they really a group I’ll fawn over for years to come? Too early to say. But I love Nine Types of Light, enough to make me want to hear everything else this band has done because there’s no way something as good as this can be a fluke.

Nine Types of Light is an album of two sides. On one hand it’s tender and gentle, as evidenced through its choice of relaxed grooves and occasional balladry. On another, there’s a hulking rock beast churning underneath and occasionally appearing all rumbling and tumbling through some notably more assertive, and even aggressive, songs. What makes the album so special as a whole is that both sides lend their strengths to eachother and thus form a whole new sound. The pounders are enveloped in an atmospheric haze, while the gentler moments have the same tight, muscular backbone that their louder siblings work with:  “Will Do” is as hard-hitting as a ballad can be and “New Cannonball Blues” is far spacier and relaxed than you’d imagine it being in the hands of someone else, as an example. The brilliant production, filled with its own nooks, crannies, twists and details, gives the songs the perfect finishing touch.

With my limited knowledge I can’t ramble on about how Nine Types of Light reflects upon the band in general, but the fact that it’s an album that’s made me fall in love with the band instead of just the album despite it being my first touch of them should hint that it’s a very, very strong album indeed. Nine Types of Light is all-around expertly done, and bits like the horn explosion of “New Cannonball Blues”, the frantic repetition of “Repetition”, the grown man ache of “Will Do” and the Peter Gabriel-esque groove of “Second Song” are all among my top song moments of the year.

Will Do

Also check: Second Song / New Cannonball Blues

#4: GUILLEMOTS – WALK THE RIVER

I’ve raised the notion before, so apologies for repeating myself, but Walk the River is an album of true rebirth for Guillemots. It’s the new sound and band chemistry that Red messily demonstrated, married with the cohesive magic that was one reason for why Through the Windowpane is a modern classic. If Red was a practice round for a new sound, Walk the River is what you get when you’ve mastered that sound. And like Windowpane, it sounds like it’s busy building it’s very own world that it wants to invite the listener into.

At best, which is often, Walk the River is straight-up enchanting. The songs frolic through the space they inhabit, gracefully growing from baby steps to grand statements in a fashion that makes everything seem that much more exciting. The fantastic, almost classic melodies and hooks are back and they’re working tightly together with a deeply dreaming sound to create something that could be best described as euphoric. The choice of band image up there isn’t just me taking the first up-to-date image I could find of the band: the lighting and mood of the image perfectly represent the sound of Walk the River, and that bright light cracking through the mist is the frequent revelationary delight you get when the songs suddenly kick yet another gear up a notch. It’s dynamic, vibrant, alive and often quite spellbinding and hair-raising.

Walk the River effectively creates Guillemots a whole new musical world to operate in. It’s a fascinating land where everything seems a bit unreal and somewhat weird, but in an oddly comforting way, and it’s covered in a dreamy haze. If Red disappointed you, rest assured – Guillemots are officially back as one of the new millennium’s most excellent acts.

Walk the River

Also check: I Must Be a Lover / Sometimes I Remember Wrong

#3: RADIOHEAD – THE KING OF LIMBS

How can album so unwilling to make a big fuss out of itself be so captivating and attention-grabbing that you’d think it was the loudest sound in the world? From the sudden release to the low-key mannerisms that have (hardly) surrounded it after its release, The King of Limbs refuses to make a big deal out of itself. It simply feels like Radiohead gathered into the same room together, realised they had accidentally come up with some new songs and then decided to release them with a “might as well” tone. The album’s eight songs follow suit: they never reach for any grand statements, never try to push any new borders. In a lot of ways, you could imagine The King of Limbs being the result of Radiohead finally relaxing a bit.

And yet, such an inconspicous album is one of this year’s most captivating, hypnotic releases. Its eight songs may not kick up a much of fuss about themselves but they’re stealthily strong compositions: manic rhythms and relentless grooves transcending into shining gold. Nearly every song locks into a tight, rigid and fairly active rhythmic groove filled with loops and percussive clatter, which then acts as not only as the backbone but also as one of the main spotlight layers in each song: while there’s all sorts of details to look out for, it’s the multiple-layered percussions and basslines that move from stylishly organic to throbbing depth that are thrown in the forefront, replacing the usual melodies and harmonies as the leading stars. he constant movement from one heavily-emphasised beat and rhythm to another acts hypnotically, locking the listener into the feel of it all. Songs become movements inside a single unity, changing forms but keeping the hypnotic embrace, effectively turning The King of Limbs into an album which is hard not to continue once started. And with the relatively short length (although 37 minutes isn’t particularly minimal either) it becomes all too tempting to hit play again after the end to keep the loop going. And furthermore, despite how efficiently the songs work together to serve an unified purpose, all eight of The King of Limbs’ tracks still sound completely unique and individual, each one filled with several memorable moments that you fall in love with.

The King of Limbs isn’t out to prove anything and its low-noise release mirrors that: it sounds like eight tracks of the band simply grooving out in front of some recording equipment for fun, rather than something that sounds like a deliberate mission to create another album. In a strange way, despite its tight and almost mechanic sense of rhythm, The King of Limbs carries the sound of Radiohead letting loose in their own way. In a slightly neurotic, pent-up way, but that’s Radiohead for you. You shouldn’t confuse with low-key and lack of fuss for inferior quality and a desire to brush things off: The King of Limbs is one of 2011′s landmark albums both in terms of the songs and in terms of how they’ll hypnotise you to play them over and over and over again.

Lotus Flower

Also check: Bloom / Separator

#2: MOBY – DESTROYED

Destroyed is the ‘soundtrack for empty cities at 2am’. The description, given by Moby himself, is a good thing to repeat whenever talking about the album because it instantly evokes what kind of Destroyed is. Like an urban jungle it’s dense and active, constantly pulsating with technological life in the background. But when the human element of those urban metropolii go to sleep, you’re left with an oddly melancholy ghost of the city’s former self: once-packed streets are suddenly empty and the sound of life has faded away, resulting in an enchantingly eery feel that the few travellers and signs of life that’ll always be there only add to. Which is also where Destroyed picks up its inspiration from: its shimmering, vibrant electronic soundscapes reflect upon that eeriness of watching a city fall asleep, merging the oft-dancelike rhythms with a sense of melancholy and weariness.

Which would be a result for an amazing album in itself, but Destroyed takes its quality even further by being Moby’s strongest since his immortal classic Play and the first album of his in years where he both plays up to his strengths and delivers something unlike anything else in his discography. Ever since moving onto his own label and deciding to stop attempting to create the sort of hits people were expecting from him, his inspiration has increased ten-fold. This was already clear in Wait for Me (2009) but it’s Destroyed where it glows. Moby’s always been criminally underrated as a songwriter and throughout his career he’s been a master of atmosphere: Destroyed shows him at his peak in both.

Destroyed is fantastic all-around.

Sevastopol

Check also: The Low Hum / Victoria Lucas

#1: BRIGHT EYES – THE PEOPLE’S KEY

Is The People’s Key an obvious classic? No, and if we’re honest I’d have to do a double-take before pronouncing it as a classic myself – despite it being by and far my number one album of 2011 and an album that I’ve passionately obsessed over for a good chunk of last year, falling in love with it over and over and over again as I keep re-realising its strengths. All the over-the-top fawning and hyperbole over I’ve layed over the other albums in this very entry wouldn’t suit The People’s Key: my usually overimaginative writer struggles trying to come up with some really corny super-optimistic adjectives to use from it. Does it sound like your typical grand return comeback statement you’d expect after five year’s worth of absence under the Bright Eyes moniker? Doesn’t sound like there’s been any extended leave between this and the last album. Nor does it have the faintest hint of the final Bright Eyes album that Oberst slyly hinted about eons ago and which no one knows whether it’s still true.

But what it is, is an already fantastic band being in absolute top form. Everything that have ever made Bright Eyes great is present on The People’s Key, and not just represented but downright underlined. It’s an album which takes a great big arrow sign and points it at the band, stating “this is why we are fantastic. This is why you love us so much. This is everything that makes us great”. Everything. Oberst’s naturally brilliant frontman act and voice. His lyrics. The musicianship. Mike Mogis’ production style and skills. The songwriting. The evocative quality. The emotional impact. The self-referentialism. The traditional trademark quirks. The musical styles. The reasons that made you love Bright Eyes in the past, be it for a few albums or the entire discography.

That’s what makes The People’s Key special and a Bright Eyes classic. That’s what makes it both the perfect comeback album and the perfect possible final album. On surface it may not seem to do much – it’s not even a big stylistic leap – but from the very first listen it sounds close already. It’s an entirely new and unique Bright Eyes experience but it distills everything that makes the band so amazing within its ten songs. It’s such a perfectly crafted run of ten songs that despite my unabashed love for everything else in these two top 10 entries, The People’s Key is the only album that’s made me go “wow” each and every time it’s finished.

The People’s Key is the album of 2011, by a long shot.

Jejune Stars

Check also: Shell Games / One for You, One for Me

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And that was 2011. Good job all around for everyone involved. Except you My Morning Jacket and Coldplay. You’re still bitterly disappointing.

The top 10 countdown of 2011 proper begins now! After the cut, the bottom quintet of great 2011 music.

#10: RUBIK – SOLAR

Solar, Rubik‘s third album, is the first one of theirs not to throw a curveball. After starting out with some heavily OK Computer-inspired moodtastic rocking, 2009′s amazing Dada Bandits had the band suddenly transform into a caleidoscopically colourful and wildly frolicing prog-pop band that bounced madly around in unabashed glee. Solar then continues on Dada Bandits’ footsteps rather than changing the formula drastically again, changing very few things from the style of its predecessor. Yet the changed parts are surprisingly significant. The layered melody parades of Dada Bandits have now been toned down and instead the spotlight is on rhythm. Tempos change suddenly, time signatures frolic about and the drums take a step towards a more central role. A major part of most songs lies in their powerful backbone and in some it becomes the very core and essence, most notably on “Laws of Gravity” where all the other elements of the song are almost drowned by the army of various percussion constantly pounding and banging for their lives. here previously the songs sounded larger than life simply because they were so loudly covered in all manners of awesome things, they now sound so because they’re powered by massive rhythmic strength.

Additionally, Solar tones down the whimsy and takes a slightly more grounded attitude. Not too much – this is still vibrant, playful music with a big heart – but enough to move the approach from constantly bombarding the listener with new twists and twirls to a more serious approach at crafting an album. Musical parts and lyrical themes are shared and the track sequence plays a more important role than ever before, culminating in a handful of songs that sound a wee bit off if you were to first hear them outside their context but which make perfect sense when surrounded by their companions. As far as I know there’s no great sense of a genuine concept album going around, but Solar is one of those albums that sounds like it could be one.

Yet the band’s greatest weapon still is the sheer excitement and joy that flows through their music. Despite appearing early on in the year, Solar still makes me feel giddy as if it was all fresh and new when I listen to it now. The oddball twists and turns still delight, the quirky lyrical hooks (only this band can make things like “combination error” and “black fortress, evil empire” into singalong hooks) never fail to invite me to sing along, the fantastically poptastic melodies still make my body groove along. The music itself sounded so excited and giddy itself that it is impossible not to join along in the fun. Solar might not be another curveball, but it solidifies Rubik’s status as one of Finland’s best acts right now. They’ve found their true nature and it’s wonderfully infectious.

Laws of Gravity

Check also: Sun’s Eyes / Storm in a Glass of Water

#9: REGINA – SOITA MULLE

With Soita mulle, Regina establish themselves as one of those bands who do not really have a trademark sound but who manage to make everything they touch sound perfectly like their own. After two albums of somewhat similar artsy electronica-tinged indie pop it was almost dead-certain that they had found a nice slot to fit in, but here they go switching gears big-time again. Participating in the current 90s revival that seems to have began to raise its head this year, Regina switch drum machines and twee keyboards to some summery 90s-vibed guitar pop, complete with the faint trace of shoegaze to make it all dreamy and ethereal. It’s the sort of music that will make anyone who grew up in the 90s feel incredibly nostalgic; the sound of carefree summer vacations and innocent childhood days. It’s at the same time both something radically different from Regina as well as something that sounds like natural progression and something that was always in them.

At little over half an hour, Soita mulle is a short and snappy package of guitar indie pop that time forgot; if there’s a flaw to the album it’s that it feels painfully underlong, but then again further exposure could have dimmened the magic it displays. And what magic it is: Soita mulle is immensely feel-good, sounds wonderfully daydreamy and packs a ton of utterly irresistable hooks and melodies within its nine songs. Iisa Pajula’s whispery vocals are the perfect accompaniment to the soft, adorable music. There’s something gorgeously innocent and soft to Soita mulle: it’s the musical representation of a daydreaming on a grassy field during a summer’s day, watching the clouds drift by and enjoying the still moments of life.

I know there’s a high chance they’re just going to change gears again for the next album, and by now that’s become a part of this band’s charm, but a part of me wishes they didn’t. The feel and sound of Soita mulle is the perfect fit for Regina, to the point that it’s without a doubt their strongest album.

Unessa

Check also: Jos et sä soita / Lepään aalloilla

#8: BON IVER – BON IVER, BON IVER

The first and foremost side of Bon Iver, Bon Iver, its most defining feature in fact, is the aura of peace and tranquility eminating from it. It’s strong enough to create a bubble of stillness to even among the strongest traffic or the wildest public rush, and when played in a quiet room with nothing distracting you from it it enhances the moment of peaceful solitude and makes the moment seem magical and worth treasuring. It’s particularly powerful in the early morning, the hazy and waking world working perfectly alongside the lush music, making dawn seem immacutely serene. It’s beautiful. It’s also, like said, the album’s key draw – anyone who loves atmospheric music will find themselves in bliss with the second Bon Iver album.

All this wouldn’t be possible without the layers upon layers of delicate sounds and masterfully crafted subtleties that the self-titled bring to the Bon Iver table. The sparse debut For Emma, Forever Ago made it clear that Vernon knows how to create something beautiful even with only his oft-falsetto’d voice and an acoustic guitar: going this deep into full-band mode after such a stripped-down start was a risky move but in doing so he gets the chance to really show off his talent for creating something mesmerising. Bon Iver Bon Iver is packed with sound in every single moment but never feels crowded or suffocating, and instead all the delicately picked guitar melodies, ambient keyboard textures, double drumkits and triumphant horn sections sound light as air and work in perfect harmony. The contrast with For Emma Forever Ago is immense and without Vernon’s distinctive singing style it would be hard to think the two albums come from the same source, but while the shell has transformed the most important part – the fragile, intimate core that was the source of much of For Emma’s magic – has remained the same.

Where For Emma Forever Ago came with a fleshed-out backstory (romanticised and exaggerated or not) and was effectively a musical snapshot of one specific moment in one man’s life, Bon Iver Bon Iver acts more like the camera taking the snapshot of whatever moment you want it to take. It creates moments whenever it’s on, transforming mundane contexts to feel like something special for a while. It’s not a full-points perfect album itself but it creates perfect personal snapshots of life.

(the right answer to this year’s burning question of whether “Beth/Rest” is amazing or terrible in its shameless embracing of 80s AOR pop: of course it’s bloody amazing)

Calgary

Check also: Holocene / Perth

#7: ELBOW – BUILD A ROCKET BOYS!

Elbow are at peace. For the first time ever they’re in a perfectly comfortable position. Their critical acclaim has been matched by commercial success, families have began to grow around the members, life is perfectly peachy. Rather than to fight against the tide, the quintet flow with it: Build a Rocket Boys! is the band’s most peaceful and relaxed album, with the sort of genuine calmness that could only come from people who have decided that for once simply sitting down and enjoying life is the most appropriate thing to do. There’s nary a loud chord or musical chaos in the album (closest it gets is the triumphantly noisy final stretch of “Neat Little Rows”) and Guy Garvey finds inspiration in the nostalgic haze of youth and the good memories of the past.

Build a Rocket Boys is a subtle album filled with hidden strengths. It’s not one to go around tooting its horn in your face: it simply plays the music and lets you come to the sound instead. Nearly half the album consists of mood pieces of various kinds where little rhythm or energy is found and much the rest is similarly calmed down. That’s why it’s an album that can take a lot of time for it to really dig in: it’s music that’s lost in a hassle and which best reveals itself in happy calm. Ironically for such a grower, it’s also Elbow’s most inviting album. It’s a heartwarming hug and a celebration of friends and family and good times. As the album goes on, the overall statement becomes clear: years come and go, people grow and change, but there’s always a warm seat waiting for you at home and everyone is ready to greet you with a smile.

From the majestic opener “The Birds”, whose celebratory orchestral explosion is one of the year’s crowning musical moments, to the rested bow-out closer “Dear Friends” that could move the toughest grown man to happy tears with its genuine care and love, Build a Rocket Boys is a wonderful collection of songs from five people who feel happier than they’ve ever been. Quite often in music, particularly in my listening habits, a lot of emphasis is placed on melancholy and sadness and their incredible evocative powers that make us feel that much closer to the artists; the less often mentioned flipside is that genuine feel of peace and restful happiness (in contrast to the over-the-top happyhappyjoyjoy school of upbeat music) can be just as evocative, just as touching and just as sentimental. Elbow have long since proved themselves to be the masters of the former, and now that they’ve tapped onto the latter it’s clear that they’re just as adept at transferring those emotions across their sound as well.

Lippy Kids (live)

Check also: The Birds / Dear Friends

#6: R.E.M. – COLLAPSE INTO NOW

I admit I’ve got difficulties trying to come up with something new to say from what turned out to be R.E.M.‘s swansong, considering I’ve already written about in length both before and after the break-up announcement. There is little left for me to analyse on or to expand upon Collapse Into Now. A band that has been making amazing music throughout their whole career did another great album and despite its occasional slipups, most notably Stipe’s lyrical stumbles, it holds his head proudly up high. It’s an album that musically alludes to most parts of the band’s history throughout its twelve songs; songs that easily showcase the members’ talents. It’s an album that’s great because of what it actually contains, not because of its emotional impact as the trio’s final statement. It’s already, after such a short time, began to sound like a musical friend just like the rest of the band’s discography does to me.

I’ve drained my ability to come up with some new way of nutshelling Collapse Into Now with words and of that I apologise. But do not let the shortness of this entry compared to the others in any way deceive of Collapse Into Now’s quality compared to its companions here on this list. It’s the natural conclusion and perfectly fitting final chapter in the tale of a band with a long, legendary history, and when you consider what a daunting, nearly impossible feat something like that is, you truly realise how good the album is. Long live.

Überlin

Check also: It Happened Today / Discoverer

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The grand finale coming soon!

Man, I only just now realised how 4/5 out of the albums in this update are all about joy, serenity, happiness, peace, giddiness and other such things. Looks like 2011 might have had some sort of an overaching theme to it.

Happy new year ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another year of infrequent random updates by yours truly. Maybe this year I’ll even get a new banner sorted that isn’t as horribly five-minute-photoshop-rush-work as the current one (not to mention the amazing Irfanview work on the official best of banner above).

As is tradition among the music writing world, it’s time for best of 2011 lists. Well, for me – most of the world already released theirs in December but I like to stretch it to January, if only to give me more time to think about the whole thing while listening to the albums over and over again. This year it’s been especially hard – 2011 was a very good music year. Whilst it lacked the sort of albums that legends are made of, it produced an overwhelming number of great, exciting and constantly rewarding releases that made music snobbery such a fantastic pastime throughout the 12 months. In fact, the number was so overwhelming that when it came to making a top ten list it became downright painful to strip away some albums from the coveted ten slots.

So I came up with blatantly stole this idea: runner-ups and honourable mentions. Albums that didn’t make it to the top ten but which nonetheless form a big part of why the year was such a good one. So before we tackle the medal winners, we’ll first touch upon five albums that didn’t quite make it to the finals but which are definite highlights of the year for me, one reason or another. Presented in alphabetical order.

KATE BUSH – 50 WORDS FOR SNOW

50 Words for Snow was the closest one in this list to make it to the top 10 – in fact, moving it here was a very last minute decision and a result of a lot of contemplation: the latest in Kate’s sporadic reappearances is a genuine thing of beauty and as such it feels odd not to include it among the year’s best highlights. Released at the very last legs of the year, it begs for a winter atmosphere to go with it. It’s music of snowy landscapes, frozen air, dark evenings and warm fireplaces, made to soundtrack the idyllic calm of a white fairytale winter. Kate strips down her music out of everything that could be considered excess, focusing on magic between her voice and piano, with other instruments mostly relegated to faint, sparse background appearances. The extended suites (7 songs, 50 minutes) go through wholly different variations on the wintery theme, from catching snowflakes to making love with a snowman. It’s a haunting, beautifully melancholy album save for the lead single “Wild Man”‘s off-curve groove and the genuine fun of the fantastic title track (which many seem to find as excessively repetetive but what joyless creatures they are). For an artist whose every album seems to be some sort of a landmark title, 50 Words for Snow doesn’t disappoint.

The reason for its relegation in this update is that its sheer dedication to the sound it goes for makes it something to cherish only at specific times. The set of seven songs here aren’t for everyday listening, it’s not an album you can simply pick up from your shelf and put on. A right setting is required. It’s a great album and when you put it on at the right moment, it’s a downright marvellous one. In comparison to the more ‘universal’ capabilities of nearly everything else that’s going to be talked about in this and the next few updates, it’s slightly chained by its wintery sparseness. Even the idea of listening to it outside winter is bizarre in itself. 50 Words for Snow isn’t an album that’s meant to be listened to endlessly – but when you do finally get the chance to hear it where it’s meant to be, it’s hauntingly magical. And of course, it has to carry the weight of “Snowed in at Wheeler Street” – a song that could be amazing if it didn’t make the mistake of including Elton John and his melodramatic wailing, turning the song from a potential highlight into an eight-minute speedbump.

Snowflake

KEMOPETROL – A SONG & A REASON

On the other hand, here’s an album that never really had a chance to get to the top 10 (for all its strengths, it does carry a couple of significantly weaker moments too) but which has become one of my surprise sleeper hits of the year, despite its occasional shortcomings. Most excitingly, it gives me a reason to be excited about Kemopetrol again. After their great and truly inspired 2000 debut Slowed Down, the band’s been going through more and more motions with each album, seemingly unsure what to do or where to go. The result has been a steady supply of nice music but with little fire behind it: songs that could be enjoyed, but nothing that would give a reason to love or follow the band outside some general curiosity. With A Song & A Reason, they’ve finally regained that fire. All of a sudden the music seems to truly matter again; it feels important and like there’s a genuine reason why you should be listening to it. For a long time now I’ve had no hope for getting a captivating Kemopetrol album, and now one has arrived just as when I was least expecting it.

To achieve this, they’ve gone for a new sound which suits them perfectly. A Song & A Reason embraces atmosphere and instrumental space, leaving behind the clear pop tendencies of the past and digging somewhere deeper. There’s a lot to thank for keyboardist/primary songwriter Kalle Koivisto’s sudden rise to the spotlight. In the past he’s always surprisingly been in the  background, but here not only do the layered keyboard patterns get a lot more time in the sunshine but he even takes frequent vocal cues. Not that he’ll even threaten Laura Närhi’s lead vocal position, but his voice works excellently with hers and adds yet another layer of depth into the mixture. The pop hooks are still there but they’re working subtly underneath the dreaminess and thick atmosphere. It sounds lovely.

A Song & A Reason makes me want to hear more from Kemopetrol again.

No Horizon

LADY GAGA – BORN THIS WAY

Born This Way is, without a doubt, a gigantic clusterfuck. An insane mess of over-the-top ambition and over-reaching overly serious idealism. The work of either someone who feels like they’re the most important voice of the generation, or who uses her current spotlight to try and become one. Political and equal rights commentary sharing the space with sex and lust. Every little snippet of information before its proper release seemed to be another arrow ready to shoot straight in the heart, from the downright insane cover image to the political posturing and the moments where you could almost believe that Gaga herself was deadly serious with each new grand statement she made about her legacy and work. Born This Way is a far, far reach from the fairly innocent dance pop she introduced herself to the world with or the ambitious pop statements that she became a critical darling with. By all rights, it’s an insane album.

And that’s why it’s great. It’s not even because of the cheaply obvious attribute of simply how different and refreshing it feels among the current, rather insanely inbred crop of the chart pop world. It’s because Gaga is a genuinely great songwriter who is at her best when she’s going bonkers. When she’s more conventional she’s hit and miss. On one hand you have the likes of the title track which may go down to pop history due to its completely unashamed bluntness about its equal rights message, but definitely not because of its tune; on the other you’ve got pop monsters like “The Edge of Glory”. The real gold on Born This Way however, and the reason why I’ve been playing it so much throughout the year, is found in its more insane moments. The flamenco-disco-politics of “Americano”; the hard-banging euro hell of “Scheisse”; the shrieking stomping “Government Hooker”; the bizarre mixture of hard rock riffs and 80s bubblegum pop found on “Bad Kids”; the otherwordly dance glory of “Heavy Metal Lover”. It’s pop brilliance.

It’s an insane mess of an album. It’s an excellent insane mess, however.

Heavy Metal Lover

MICHAEL MCCANN – DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION OST

I always feel slightly awkward about including soundtracks, game or film, in my yearly countdowns. They are, after all, works that are not meant to stand alone. They’re simply a piece of something and the music is inherently tied to its main body. When ranking it alongside works that were always meant to stand alone, the lines between being able to judge things properly begin to blur: there’s always going to be songs that aren’t truly that good as individual moments per se, but thanks to the power of the context they appear far stronger. A runner-up list like this is a good compromise: it both is and isn’t a part of the yearly countdown.

The original Deus Ex is one of my top favourite games of all time and one of life’s sacred cows for me. It already had a sequel once upon a time; it was so dreadful it more or less killed the series. The fact that Deus Ex: Human Revolution not only turned out to be a worthy successor but a jawdroppingly amazing game in its own right was the cause of one of this year’s most joyous moments. It’s truly a marvellous game, and much like its legendary predecessor it’s armed with an excellent score. The largely ambient and electronic score (“Mass Effect 1 meets Blade Runner”, as described by someone else) reflects its world perfectly: it’s futuristic and shiny, yet underneath all the surface sheen there’s an inherent melancholy to it. It sounds like the game looks and evokes a barrage of mental images and memories as the soundtrack disc progresses through. It’s ultimately like every other soundtrack, an excercise in atmosphere and sinking into a mood rather than a tale of invidual hit songs, and it contains a number of songs that only truly make sense in their context rather than outside it. Nonetheless, it’s one of the best game scores in recent memory. And while the main theme “Icarus” comes nowhere close to the legendary main theme of the original game, it’s one of the year’s landmark musical moments nonetheless.

There was once a moment in the game where I dropped everything I was doing to stop and stand around to listen to the music. It’s a great show of the score’s power.

Icarus – Main Theme

WILCO – THE WHOLE LOVE

Wilco’s eight album is a Wilco album. It seems that at this point Wilco have become a band who are happy to continue doing what they’ve been doing for a while now, and keep releasing new albums that reflect that. There’s always going to be some faint little stylistic changes that differentiate the albums from another but true change or experimentation seems to be out of the question. Wilco are masters of wilcorock and they have little desire to rock that boat. It’s fine by me. Sure, there may not be any surprise curveballs thrown around anymore but after a lifetime of lineup changes and stylistic explorations the good ship Wilco has finally found a crew that works in perfect harmony and it shows in the sound: a new Wilco album might not be a revolution but it’s guaranteed to contain a bunch of really good music that a Wilco fan is guaranteed to enjoy.

The Whole Love is bookended by two tracks that belong among the year’s very best. “Art of Almost” is a dip back to their denser, artistic side and sounds so fantastic in its layered haze that you’d wish the band would decide once again to go a little deeper in that direction next. “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)” on the other hand is such a perfectly Wilco-like song that it could only have come from a band who have found a perfect place to settle down. Its 12 minutes of peaceful, downright serene melodic bliss and Tweedy’s wistful storytelling may not be particularly adventurous but the combination of Tweedy’s voice, immortal melodies, expert musicianship and warm production turn it into an evocative gem that’s arguably one of the band’s best tracks in their whole career. Elsewhere, The Whole Love is a standard latter-day Wilco album. There’s some particularly delicious highlights (the rollicking lead single “I Might” and acoustic mood moment “Black Moon” in particular), one controversial tracklist choice that’s going to be a thorn on many listener’s sides (the rather cringily twee-country “Capitol City”) and a lot of good, highly enjoyable Wilco songs that breathe the essence of the band. All the pieces fall into place – once again.

By now the trademark Wilco sound is like a friend. There’s no surprises anymore between you two and it’s a joy every time you meet. The Whole Love might lose points when it comes to innovation or exploration of the new, but it doesn’t particularly matter: it’s a solid, good album that’s going to last a long time. It’s a very Wilco album.

One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)

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The real top ten begins someday soon, in two parts as usual.

Rambling Fox is taking an appropriate Christmas / New Year’s break, and will be returning some time in January with all the obligatory best-of-2011 lists. Hope you have a great holiday season! After the break, some tasty Flint-approved Christmas treats to tide you over the season.

Time for another roundtable of the Viola Music Club releases for the past year; changed opinions, evolved thoughts and such alike. Which also seems to be like the last roundtable for a while, after the duo’s recent announcement about going on an indefinite hiatus. Which is a bummer. Viola‘s been one of those names I’ve followed since their debut album and it’s always been rather nice to have some new release of theirs coming around the corner, especially with the monthly treats on VMC. Still, they’ve left us with loads of fantastic songs with a lot of great memories involved, and the faint optimistic glimmer of some more music coming up someday is still there.

Each VMC year so far has had its own distinct personality in terms of the general style and nature of the songs. For the third year, there’s a sense of adventure and exploration in the music. The whimsical freedom of expression that VMC2010 was filled with has been retained, but is now being used in a more cohesive sense to serve an overall vision rather than going off on random sidepaths. While you have the token giddy summer songs and other occasional sidepaths, VMC2011 is mostly about atmosphere and mood: taking the moodiness that Viola have often been good at and stretching that into grand, evocative soundscapes. A lot of songs break new ground in terms of sound, but most of them emphasise the same aspects. There’s a cohesiveness to VMC2012 – whether planned or simply my delusions, it’s hard to say.

Without further ado, Viola 2012 according to moi.

JANUARY: NEWEST HOTTEST WHATEVER

In a nutshell: Opening the year with a dancefloor smash

More elaborately: One hell of a start for a new VMC year. I was grabbed by “Newest Hottest Whatever” from the very first time I heard it and it’s still firmly one of my favourite moments of this year’s Viola cuts. It’s so cool it’s almost overwhelming – it’s the guy who wears sunglasses even at night just to keep up the stylishly nonchalant image. Riku’s deadpan vocal delivery and the tongue-in-cheek cynicism of the lyrical matter meet a relentless dance beat, and it’s decorated with deliciously hard-knocking loud-rocking guitar rev ups to really make it hit hard; in particular the quick guitar stabs that begin appearing in the choruses on the second half of the song are one of those musical details which, despite being incredibly small, really make the song stand up.

Verdict: The only reason I’d stop grooving along to it would be if I had to ask the DJ what it was called.

FEBRUARY: THE LONERS

In a nutshell: Acoustic romantic beauty from the dusts of history.

More elaborately: “The Loners” harks from Viola’s past: it’s an early song that, despite prominence in live sets, never got recorded. Until this year, that is. It bears the trademarks of early Viola and shares a lot in common with the group’s earliest releases, most notably the more stripped-down and down-to-earth sound more closer to the traditional bedroom musician sound than the adventurous hi-fi escapades of today. Prominent acoustic guitar, some hazy organ work and a simple drum beat to end the song with: The Loners doesn’t brag with a multitude of elements but it gives space and weight to what it does use. It’s been one of the slow-burners of the year for me: the more pieces of the moody puzzle of the VMC2012 year that have joined its company, the stronger its presence has become. Back in February I didn’t think much of it, but it’s grown on me throughout the year and now in the dark December winter it sounds at home. And in the VMC2011 playlist, it’s the prelude for what’s coming ahead after the explosive start.

Verdict: An enjoying nod with eyes closed and head firmly focused on the headphones.

MARCH: SUDDENNESS

In a nutshell: Peacefully sinking into moodiness.

More elaborately: When you find a lovely mood you can easily sink into, you want to stay in it for a long time. A lot of amazing atmospheric moments are amazing because of their extended lengths, allowing the listener to flow with them for ages. But, almost in an irrational way, sometimes that doesn’t work. Sometimes the length simply feels like padding. “Suddenness” is one of those cases. It’s a good song – I find it easily enjoyable and its minimal and moody groove, largely based on a deep bass wobbling together with a simple rhythm, works quite well. It never, however, quite justifies its five-minute span and by the end it seems like it’s somewhat stuck in a loop, unsure if it’s time for it to go or not. It’s not a big wonk, and it’s only one of the very few audible wonks in the entire VMC year, but overstaying its welcome somewhat makes the song’s otherwise highly pleasant feel and flow feel a little less excellent by the final minute or so.  Suddenness is a good tune, and I’m always up for some delicious atmosphere, but it’s one of the few songs this year where I can actually find some minor niggle to pick at.

Verdict: Our hero escapes the buzz of the world into it and enjoys what he hears, but cannot help but check the duration on his portable music player after a while.

APRIL: ELÄMÄN ISKELMÄ

In a nutshell: Viola embrace their Finnish roots with some schlager.

More elaborately: Another April, another April Fools style-switch. I’m still in the firm opinion that last year’s April attempt at death metal was a poor song largely because such music isn’t my kind of thing at all, and that opinion seemed to get a a tiny bit of criticism about it after my little blog post got noticed by others. Fear not, other people – I do so adore Viola’s attempts at schlager! I can’t say I’m a fan of the genre itself but in the recent years I’ve grown a weird fondness towards it – largely because the cringy, cheesy and cornily wistful pop tunes of the Finnish schlager scene resonate with a strangely heartwarmingly homely feel these days as I live outside Finland. There’s something nostalgic to it. Viola nail the genre excellently: those particular guitar tones, the cheap default preset keyboard sounds, the overly melodramatic lyrics, the nonchalant backing harmonies, the overall feel… it’s exactly the sort of fluff that Finland’s #1 schlager radio is crammed with. And it’s adorable. It’s lovely. There is an element of everything being a bit tongue and cheek in the sound but at the same time the song’s being treated with exactly the sort of seriousness you’d expect any schlager writer to treat their latest masterpiece. Who knows, perhaps Viola have secretly been ghostwriting schlager for other artists all this time…

Verdict: I would state my satisfaction if I wasn’t too busy to sing along to the la-la-las.

MAY: BREAK THE NEWS GENTLY

In a nutshell: Viola go to the 80s.

More elaborately: From that ever-familiar compressed snare drums to the saxophone solo, “Break the News Gently” breathes the 80s spirit. It does a pretty good job at it and it’s ultimately the retroisms that are the song’s strongest point. As a song in itself it’s a bit of a throwaway pop song, memorable but far from essential and something someone else would call b-sidey. The fact that it’s an 80s pastiche gives it a large helping of charisma and personality, turning it into a more interesting blip in the catalogue. It’s not enough to mask that the actual tune isn’t one of Viola’s strongest and when it comes to the list of songs where Viola attempt to express a specific classic sound, it’s one where the concept comes before the actual song. Enjoyable, still, but arguably this year’s weakling.

Verdict: “Yeah I do like that, was a nice b-side. Could see why they left it off the album, mind you”

JUNE: HEARTSTRING THEORY

In a nutshell: Viola with violas.

More elaborately: It’s such an obvious idea it’s weird how it never came to fruition before this year, but the hypothetical wait was worth it. A Viola ballad where the sole music backing is a sextet of viola players. Drama and melancholy expressed by a group of heartbreakingly beautiful string instruments lamenting with grace. “Heartstring Theory” is a stunning piece of work. Sometimes simple and stripped-down is incredibly powerful. And I still say this greatly reminds me of the fantastic score for Arcanum – a strong plus in my books.

Verdict: On my next Valentine’s Day card list.

JULY: SUMMER SHENANIGANS

In a nutshell: This year’s token summer song. Upbeat pop-bounciness ahead.

More elaborately: Speaking of game soundtracks, this is essentially a theme tune from a jungle level out of a 2D platformer that decided it had dreams beyond being in the background of sprite trees and colourful death traps, moved to the big city and turned itself into a fully-fleshed out pop song. Strip away the vocals and do some creative Tubedubbing over Palmtree Panic / Angel Island Zone / et al and you’d have a perfect fit. In terms of straight-up hooks and strength of the structure “Summer Shenanigans” pales slightly in comparison to the two previous Viola summer smashes, but it has everything it needs in its sheer feel. It has the sound of having carefree fun in the summertime and it works that sound all over its composition, choruses and verses and instrumental breaks all flowing into one unified stream like a water slide. It’s a surprisingly subtle track and somewhat underwhelming at first, but it’s got a strong ace up its sleeve that works wonders. Before you know it, it nicely takes its place alongside its two brothers. It’s the token summery upbeat pop moment, but it sounds completely different to the other two.

Verdict: Good enough to withstand constantly playing it on loop while you shuffle through video walkthroughs of platformer levels just to prove your hypothesis.

AUGUST: I LIKE SAD SATELLITES

In a nutshell: Ambient drama.

More elaborately: For the year’s covers month, Viola took Sissy Spacek‘s “I Like Sad Satellites” and replaced its deliciously 90s rock balladeerisms with understated ambient waves. It’s a song to float in the night with, looking at the stars and thinking about all the wonders of the space around them. The string swoons that appear throughout the song give the song an additional dramatic kick, filling all that ambient space in the song with beautiful sound for a brief, elusive moment. Viola’s cover months have always produced some of the VMC year’s best moments and this is no exception: in fact, I’d say this is probably the greatest one so far and easily one of VMC2011′s highest moments in general. It’s a dream filled with bittersweet, wistful beauty: hopeful melancholy that rings gorgeously in one’s ears. Marvellous.

Verdict: One of those covers that are so great you actually check out the original band beyond the covered song, while secretly wishing it was an original track.

SEPTEMBER: INFORMAGEDDON

In a nutshell: Viola + dubstep. Vubstep.

More elaborately: And not the breakdown-fetishising “brostep” thing, mind you. The wob is there, pulsating in the background, but it’s only one element of a surprisingly hard-stomping yet still calm little moodpiece. In a way it reminds me of a dubstep remix of March’s “Suddenness”. The best part comes with the small details: that bright, simple guitar melody that appears in the choruses is a great contrast in its lightness to the otherwise dense, fully crammed sound of the song and adds a touch of delicate prettiness to the wob and the woom. It’s a good song overall, if a bit underwhelming after the last three month’s massive offers.

Verdict: A mixture of an enjoying mmmm and a relieved sigh that it’s not bloody WOBWOBWOBWOBWOB.

OCTOBER: MAYBE YOU’RE DREAMING

In a nutshell: Toning down the experimentation and going for the traditional route.

More elaborately: after a year mostly filled with all sorts of sonic explorations and aural discoveries, “Maybe You’re Dreaming” tones it down a notch and goes back to the basics. This is a Viola track through and through: the sort of energetic, yet slightly bittersweet, mixture of classy guitar pop and some fancy synth and electronics work that we’ve come to associate with Viola for quite some years now. I’m not holding it against them. While it’s not a song that’s going to be raised on pedestal much, it’s a standard-good Viola ditty with plenty to enjoy. Amusingly, listening to it in a VMC2011 playlist actually gives it a stronger punch than when giving it a play outside any context. Alone, it’s a Viola song among many. But put together with the moody, atmospheric and rather atypical (positively!) class of ’11 it’s the anchor point that acts as a reference to their past lives: not only does it feel good from the thematic bullshit kind of view, but it also makes the traditional Viola style feel nicely fresh and different.

Verdict: a recommendable thumbs up

NOVEMBER: SADDENED YET HOPEFUL

In a nutshell: The violas return.

More elaborately: Viola recorded two tracks with the viola player ensemble and this is the second one. The great difference is that rather than the violas getting the star billing for the second time, in “Saddened Yet Hopeful” they share the space with other instruments: while they’re still by far the most prominent element in display, the classy piano and some stylish live drums that accompany it are very much in the spotlight with them. As a result the song comes closer to Viola’s usual material than “Heartstring Theory” did, with the exception that the usage of only live instruments separates it from the more synthetic paths Viola have taken. The result is another great song, and it’s indeed because of the more fleshed-out sound: the violas play their elegiac melodies in the background and provide the backdrop and texture for the melody of the piano and the backbeat of the drum kit, mixing into a very effective last song of the night. It has effortless elegance and beauty to it.

Verdict: A gentlemanly hat tip followed by a hearty recommendation.

DECEMBER: GOODBYE VIOLA

In a nutshell: The final bow and the bittersweet wave, though not without its surprises.

More elaborately: The final Viola moment, for now. It’s, of course, a ballad – this is after all a group who started their career with a release stating that pop music will break your heart, and thus a little tearjerker slow moment is the most fitting ending there is. It’s not a funeral march, far from it. Moreso it’s the credit roll after a great game or a film, where you feel somewhat sad that the adventure is over but at the same you remember all those amazing moments you had with it. It’s the goodbye, not a farewell, of watching the plane of your loved one taking off into the air. The instrumentation is stylish and filled with lovely details and some great sounds, the lyrics are self-referential in the sort of way that makes them all the sadder and… and then the song bursts into a superhappy, caleidoscopically colourful dance party. The melancholy blue of the song’s bulk is switched into rainbow colours, the mirror ball is brought out and the song decides to ride into the sunset while having fun. It works perfectly: the duo’s upbeatness and sense of humour became one of their big defining things especially during the VMC years and celebrating their life with a dance-off to the end is the perfect send-off. It still feels a bit wistful and in fact the insanely happy groove only enhances the feeling, but it does the trick of switching the mood from “oh god this is the end” to “well, if this is a goodbye to Viola then long live Viola!”. From an emotional goodbye to a celebration of everything that came before. It’s the VMC year’s best song, hands down. It’s sad that the inspiration for it was due to the duo going on an indefinite hiatus, but they did a great job at what was arguably the most important song they’ve had to write. Absolutely amazing.

Verdict: Gives the exact same amazing feeling I got recently when going through the credits of a couple of personally important games that proved out to be just as special as I hoped for them to be.

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I’d lie if I said that Viola were one of the most important bands of my life. They were great, but not that great – I loved the music but it never had the sort of huge personal impact that shapes a man. But what’s special in the relationship between me and Viola is that they’ve always been there. Tearcandy, the debut, came out in 2004 – roughly the year when my hunger for music grew further from the few bands I surrounded myself with, resulting in an insanely exponential growth of my once-meager CD collection. Tearcandy was one of the albums I snagged around that time; partly because of the sample songs offered online, partly because one of the members happened to be on the same forum I was and as a result there was a lot of buzz and pseudo-hype there that piqued my interest, resulting in a recently music nerdified teenager guy picking up the album on a whim. The years passed, my tastes went through a lot of expanding and experimentation and I grew as a music fan, and Viola continued to always be there. Albums were bought on release day, old EPs were tracked down, and eventually each month was met with a brand new song. As such, it’s going to be somewhat weird to not have Viola around for now. No, they might not have been a duo that I’d count among as my all-time faves, but they’re someone who were always going to leave a hole when they decided to pack it in. That hole is there now.

Kiitoksia musiikista ja kaikesta.

“Goodbye Viola. They weren’t that bad”.

Though I wish I didn’t have to.

“”So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night”

There’s a time and place for everything and our time has come to put this project aside for the time being.

Starting next year we will be some thousand miles apart from each other so making music as Viola will be quite difficult for now. Still, we wanted to bring the third calendar year of Viola Music Club to completion.

This is not definitely the end of Viola. We might surprise ourselves and you by suddenly activating ourselves at some point of time, but that’s all in the unforeseeable future for now.

So with a song we bid you adieu.”

Oh for sod’s sake, I only just got over R.E.M. splitting up and now I have to get used to months without new Viola songs?

The official goodbye song has been posted on the website. Thoughts about it will follow when I do my end-of-year Viola roundup. Thoughts about the whole thing in general will probably be there too.

Have a great future whatever it is you’re doing next, guys!

Moby, Moby, Moby…

MOBY – AFTER

Moby is gracing us with more than one video this month after his poll asking for fans to choose the next single off this year’s Destroyed ended with a tie, leading to a double A-side. Once again (he already chose the last single the same way) my choice for the next single evades the coveted status (it’s “Blue Moon”, obviously) but “After” is a good choice as well. It certainly sounds different from what your usual Moby single sounds, catches your ear the very instant you first hear it and is catchy enough for radio play. The video seemingly features the two kids from the cover of M83′s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming trapped in Black Mesa or something while someone’s managed to leave a baby on the computer table, causing our heroes to run through the plant to get the damn thing off the switches and buttons before it breaks everything and presumably blows up the place. Which isn’t a bad theme for a video really.

MOBY – THE RIGHT THING

November’s second Moby treat gives us an incredibly passionate karaoke performance. I’m a bit in two minds about the choice of the slowly grooving “The Right Thing” as a single – it’s a good song and I can understand why someone would think it makes a good single, but I don’t find it stand-out enough to really make a proper impact in its intended, commercial way. But it is a lovely little slow-burner nonetheless, starring some smoky souled-out vocals and a lovely bassline. Plus, for some reason, I really like the video. It’s not really a great thing in itself perhaps but it nails down the mood of the song excellently and has enough of an intrigue thanks to all the sidestories to make you keep watching.

NOAH AND THE WHALE – GIVE IT ALL BACK

Noah and the Whale release their five-hundreth-and-sixty-eight video off their slightly disappointing style-switcher Last Night on Earth and quite frankly I’m really surprised about it. I realise that in this digital age single releases mean basically sod all but the amount of them still usually showcases to some degree whether the album has been a success (ie larger single numbers -> more striking when the iron’s hot), and the fact that this album keeps spewing out singles must mean it’s at least something of a minor hit. Which catches me by surprise because I’ve heard nothing about it after its release and it generally seems to have left public consciousness fairly soon after “LIFEGOESON” stopped being in the charts. But it must’ve done something right to receive yet another single. Alternatively, considering most of these single releases have amounted to little else than designating a selected song as a single and releasing a low-budged video for it, they might just be chucking them out for the sheer hell of it. In less grumpy news, “Give It All Back” is a single release that should’ve been one at least two songs ago due to having one of the best choruses of the entire album and thus I happily welcome its arrival. Its video isn’t half-bad either! Sure, it takes the predictably literal (and slightly corny) path of enacting the song’s lyrics on screen but hey, it kinda works for a song that was a bit cheesy in a heartwarming way to begin with. As a bonus, Charlie Fink actually looks animated and happy for once rather than looking like a statue with a bitter frown forever installed upon his face.

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS – MONARCHY OF ROSES

Speaking of correct single choices! Very glad that the RHCP management didn’t go with the rumoured “Ethiopia” and instead opted for the album’s stand-out highlight. It may not be a flawless album, but that disco’d up chorus is sheer brilliance. The video isn’t as great as the song might deserve but does its job well nonetheless. It might not be the most memorable entry in the band’s rather memorable video catalogue, but it’s entertaining enough to bear watching and is definitely hell of a lot better than the lazy and corny rooftop gig one they did for the last single.

Seriously good, out of the most unexpected and random things.

You know, we could really do with another Frusciante solo album now that he has so much free time.

It would be a very wonderfully dramatic way to start an article by saying that R.E.M. have now officially released their very last release, with the advent of Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage which contains three brand-new/final songs, but we all know that’s not a very likely scenario. For one, there’s already been confirmation that the recent line of deluxe edition re-releases are going to stretch to the Warner releases as well, and quite frankly at this age of re-releases the idea that Automatic for the People etc won’t get their super special anniversary versions is rather bizarre. Second, I want the label to further cash in on the legacy; more accurately, I want a b-sides/rarities/unreleased treasures compilation. The bigger the better.

Still, this is where we are now. I can’t say I’m 100% happy with how Part Lies Etc turned out. Of course, trying to sum up over 30 years of music into two discs is more or less insane in itself and of course there was always going to be problems with that, but some of the decisions are still baffling. The lack of “E-Bow the Letter” which is a crime upon itself, the inclusion of “Sitting Still” and “Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter” (both perfectly good album tracks but really not songs for a retrospective, especially when all the other album track inclusions on the comp are excellent and logical) and passing over a fair few albums with only one song from each (and, in the case of Up, that song being completely unrepresentative of its parent album) are all rather daft decisions and ones that can get fanboys grumbling quietly to themselves for ages. But nonetheless, regardless of said grumbles, it’s a wonderful testament to 30 years of amazing musicianship and immortal songs: there’s always something special in listening to career-encompassing retrospective comps after a long time of being a fan, and doubly so when dealing with something as monumental as R.E.M.

But of course, there are the three new songs which is what an old fan is most interested in. This trio represents the band’s final signatures on their legacy, and they have an immense pressure on them due to closing off a retrospective of glory. Which is why “A Month of Saturdays” is a rather awkward start: it screams if not throwaway then a b-side. It reminds me a lot of the band’s instrumental studio jams they’ve spammed their singles with throughout the years, albeit with vocals this time. You could argue that it showcases the fun side of R.E.M. to fill that slot in the band’s final trio of songs, but it could do that with a stronger tune. That said, the other two songs more than make up for it. “We All Go Back to Where We Belong”, the VERY FINAL FOREVER single, is a perfect send-off for the band. It’s wistful without being sad, sentimental without being soppy and powerful without being in-your face. In fact, it’s a very somber and understated song instead of the sort of tearjerker epic you could expect as a band’s very last single. It’s the understatedness that makes it so powerful: it’s simply a beautiful, peaceful and incredibly lush song, with some immortally good melodies, typically R.E.M.-esque feel and some wonderful orchestration. It’s the perfect walk into the sunset. Which it technically isn’t because there’s still “Hallelujah”, a gloomy and introverted pseudo-rocker that twirls in its own word rather excellently for a while before disappearing into the ether. A guaranteedly good R.E.M. song, even if not perhaps a great one.

My perfect send-off for this retrospective series was placed after the last part. Rather than wasting time repeating myself again, or trying to come up with another final paragraph (my nemesis) about R.E.M. quitting, I’m simply going to say I’m overall very pleased with the finish we’ve been given. R.E.M. bows out with grace and one hell of a compilation.

One of the very greatest bands ever.

1) The tradition of informing people of a new Viola release each month dates back to Indie Paws, the previous blog I worked on with a bunch of friends. IP was our attempt at a source of both opinions and news; RFox on the other hand has from the get-go been solely an opinion piece, an outlet for me to chat about what I think about stuff for my own pleasure. The way I see it, if you’re a music fan you honestly do not need some random twerp on the internet relaying the exact same piece of news that everyone else is doing, including the major music news networks. While a new Viola song isn’t (yet) such massively huge news on the net, it’s always felt a bit awkward to act as a news outlet on this matter and nothing else. Which is where you could come with the angle that I could just present my opinion on them but…

2) but it’s really, really hard to form coherent, rational opinions as soon as the song’s been pushed out of the oven. Some songs which have sounded great have felt a bit less spectacular after a few months; similarly songs that I somewhat half-arsedly listened to and reviewed on the day have become genuine highlights when I’ve actually given them the time they deserve. Pushing out instant opinions has never been my thing: hence why you frequently have reviews and rambles on things that appeared months, sometimes even years ago here.

So, basically, the decision I’ve made is this: not going to bother with monthly news broadcasts, everyone knows the deal fully well already. Instead, I’m going to focus on periodical reviews after I’ve actually had the time to focus on things. I’ll be pulling out a yearly review in mid/late December like I did last year, but starting from next year I might do bi-yearly review roundtables. They’re more fun to do, I can actually talk about stuff, etc.

I realise no one probably cares about this but I thought I’d give it an explanation rather than just randomly not talk about things I’ve been talking about for the past x years.