music listening in 2005 & beyond...

I don't have 10 favorite albums released in 2005..i probably don't have any real stone cold classics i heard released this year...not more than a very few anyways..

but I doubt this is because there weren't any classics released this year!....

more than likely its that my listening tastes have evolved away from modern rock/alternative or what have you.... the arcade fire or bloc party releases are probably as great as pitchfork says they are (though i must submit i find their reviews and critical writing horribly annoying...its the tone/language they use to express themselves..that sarcastic holier than thou one) but i never heard them... the arcade fire may mean the same thing to today's young people as "sticky fingers" did to its generation and a few that came after it.... and while there are hundreds of rock and roll records i love and play once in a while (less frequently i admit) i look at modern rock as "kids music" lacking the complexities and intricacies of jazz...i just don't appreciate them in the same way....i can't appreciate the new franz ferdinand the same way as a record by art blakey...and when frank black or black francis or charles sumner sing or even bob dylan i can no longer deny it does not hit me in the same way as billie holiday twisting a phrase..

so in 2005 my tastes continued to drift towards jazz and away from rock/folk/country and pretty much anything else....the exception is international music... i've been getting more and more into the latin music and brazilian music and any other cool sounds from around the world...i think there is a lot of great international music to discover and get more into.... cuba's beny more.... or say nigeria's fela kuti...or that recent lp bamako dimanche i think its called which manu chao produced..

i thought seu jorge's "carolina" album from 2002 was one of the better things i heard and thats as brazilian as brazil... an argentine modern rock band, babasonicos, put out a record- "anoche"- which i heard a few weeks ago and i think is one of the few modern rock albums i actually enjoyed...

i've held for a long time that rock is de-evolving and has been turning on itself for a while now... the punk explosion of the late 1970s may go down as the last gasp of rock and roll....i still think the year 1994-1995 was a great one what with guided by voices, pavement, liz phair, jon spencer, and a million new acts breaking out with their best records...but the jury is still out on how great or lasting these records will prove to be... i was surprised recently on checking out the matador records bulletin board and seeing a post on how great the current crop of matador artists was compared to what had come before.. i had to laugh...but then upon thinking on it maybe i'm wrong.. maybe 1994 was a great year for a twenty something obsessed with his walkman who now prefers a bud powell record from 1954?

when the strokes "is this it?" was released to acclaim in 2001 i enjoyed it tremendously.. at the same time i emphasized its derivativeness....in retrospect that may have been one of the last rock and roll records which i truly enjoyed, which i think holds up, and on which i and the rest of the society agreed...... if i really wanted to criticize modern rock i might point to the fact that its increasingly irrelevant to degrees never seen before...hip hop and overproduced kitsch pop dominate the airwaves and sales and even concert receipts with rock , save for a few stalwarts (the U2s or Rolling Stones), doomed to small clubs..

and this is not supposed to sound or read negative.. i'm excited about discovering artists like willie colon, barretto and the great fania records salsa roster from the 1970s... i'm looking forward to giving a listen to a bunch of new argentine rock releases... and i will continue to scour the earth and ebay for those elusive wunderjazz lps.....but i doubt i will stumble upon something new from rock that entrances me like say the pixies trompe le monde or belle and sebastian's "if you're feeling sinister".... and thats partly because i don't need it as much but also partly because i think its less likely to exist....

but if somehow..through miracle of christmas miracles a band like 1970s AC DC arose from the ashes i'm pretty sure i'd be loving it!...