Year-End Bullshit: Top 25 Songs of the Year

All right, let's get down to it. 2007: the year of the 7+ minute song...?

25. The Arcade Fire - "Keep the Car Running"

I can understand if someone stopped caring about the Arcade Fire when they got all Bruce Springsteen-y this year, but they nailed the "Dancer in the Dark" vibe with this one. The obvious highlight from "Neon Bible".

24. Kelly Clarkson - "Never Again"

Ridiculously underrated single; look, you can bitch that it doesn't stack up against "Since U Been Gone", but most songs don't. "Never Again" is a worthy sequel; give props to that operatic bridge, please.

23. Bone Thugs N Harmony ft. Akon - "I Tried"

Another great Bone Thugs single with Akon finally understanding what it means to be understated. That piano intro, that line "I'm havin' a hard time... stayin' on track, man"... we all need more Bone Thugs in our lives.

22. Los Campesinos! - "You! Me! Dancing!"

Not the best song ever, but a damn fun one. In a year where Architecture in Helsinki sucked as a whole, Los Campesinos! filled the niche well.

21. Justice - "D.A.N.C.E."

A lot of people have said a lot of things about this song, but the thing that always makes me gravitate toward it is how unashamedly good-natured it is. Not a hint of malice on this dance floor, ladies and gents.

20. Fall Out Boy - "Thnks Fr The Mmrs"

The sound of a band becoming masters of their own domain? Maybe. Punk-ass video aside, this single is the sound of FOB executing everything well, and making the hard-earned seem effortless.

19. UGK - "International Player's Anthem (I Choose You)"

Hip-hop in "classic" mode, but maybe it feels so retro just because it blows the rest of commercial radio-rap (MIMS, Souljah Boy) the fuck away. At least Pimp C bestowed this upon the world before leaving it.

18. Lil Mama - "Lip Gloss"

Proof of the theory that, if you've got some explosive percussion, a female snarl, and conviction to whatever you're rambling about, you can make ANYTHING sound cool. ...Watchu know bout me?

17. Feist - "1,2,3,4"

Like "Float On" and "Crazy", a crossover hit that absolutely deserved it. Unstoppable chorus + illogical counting = boat load of fun; wonder when Feist will fade back into obscurity!

16. Kanye West - "Can't Tell Me Nothing"

A definite grower, this song works much better as a "Graduation" album track than a single, probably because it's so brooding and narcissistic. But that's Kanye, in all his insecure glory. Brutal honesty.

15. Burial - "Archangel"

It's a ghost of a song, really. Distorted vocals and barely-there beats make great singles nowadays? But this is both disturbingly personal and vaguely anonymous at the same time, and captures everything great about "Untrue". "Tell me I belong," indeed.

14. Spoon - "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb"

Motown now consists of a skinny white boy gyrating and spitting out words in a sandpaper voice. That's okay. All swagger and cola fizz, Britt Daniel and co. basically master an entirely different genre of music in a tad over three minutes.

13. Jay-Z - "Roc Boys (And the Winner Is...)"

No, "American Gangster" is still overrated and a conceptual mess, but this is Hov's best banger since maybe "The Blueprint" era. The horns are admittedly tremendous, but it works because Jay spits fire and makes a case that he's still relevant.

12. The National - "Brainy"

"Boxer"'s most near-perfect song is a (surprise!) muted one, with gentle woodwinds hidden by hair-trigger drumming. It's like a lot of other songs on the album, but here, everything comes together in a combination so sleek and modest you'll be shocked how much you love it.

11. Rilo Kiley - "Silver Lining"

There is nothing overly special about "Silver Lining": instrumentation's kinda plain, and Jenny Lewis' vocals and lyrics are unremarkable. Good thing the track's got hooks out the wazoo. It's just a well-written single, really, and wrings every last drop of excitement out of a time-worn arrangement.

10. LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends"

It's always difficult for me to give props to James Murphy. The guy makes self-effacing, conceited music, and although this is not his tortured masterpiece, it comes damn close. The piano hook somehow becomes more thrilling through repetition, and the lyrics try to cut to the bone, and mostly succeed. I don't think it will hold up as well as everybody else does, but right now it's pulse-racing.

9. Spoon - "Don't You Evah"

Every inch of this song bleeds calculated joy. The wah-wah guitar solo, the snap-pop cymbals, the handclaps -- dear God, those fucking handclaps -- and Britt Daniel's boxstep voice, which pierces so many sound bytes that it eventually circles back on itself. To suggest a minor alteration to the song is to pull at a thread that could unravel its very fabric; it's like a theorem you couldn't disprove if you wanted to.

8. Battles - "Atlas"

I don't feel capable of handling this song. No. Analyzing "Atlas" is not meant to be easy, because much of its effect is meant to be unspoken. The drive of this song is primal; it beats down upon you, grinding you with proggy delight until you have to just shut the fuck up and groove. The fact that the lyrics are a goopy, chipmunk-y mess is irrelevant; this stuff is too soul-shattering for the brain to process.

7. Animal Collective - "Fireworks"

If "Strawberry Jam" finds AC at their most accessible (but still weird), "Fireworks" is their most emotionally coherent song to date. Avey Tare's usually obtuse songwriting buckles down and goes straight toward the heartstrings, and luckily, he's got the explosive arrangements to double its effect. Animal Collective is an inconsistent band, but this proves that they can be the Decade's Best Band, like so many believe them to be.

6. DJ Khaled featuring Everyone, "We Takin' Over"

The best hip-hop summit since "Slow Jamz", this rap wrecking crew was relentless in declaring its no-bullshit mission statement. Face it, hip-hop is becoming devoid of stars, and this joint effort is impressive if only for the assurance injected into every word. Yeah, Weezy became a hero, but that was a foregone conclusion. Simply put, if these 6 dudes DID take over, and MIMS was eliminated forever, I'd be okay with that.

5. The Twilight Sad - "Cold Days From the Birdhouse"

I want U2, or a band like U2 (I only said U2 because of the accent), a band that's been around forever and still commands dinosaur-packed arenas, to write an anthem with as much intensity and craftsmanship as this. A band like The Twilight Sad -- and I admit, I'm not a big fan of their album -- wastes this song playing in front of 100 people; this is meant for grander scales. Huge clobber follows soothing passage like it's no big deal, if only because the atmosphere's as big as a blimp before a single cymbal crashes. The Twilight Sad need to get huge, if only so this song can be played in front of thousands, where it belongs to be heard.

4. R. Kelly - "I'm A Flirt (Remix)"

And this year, a long-assumed quality was confirmed to be truth: R. Kelly is made of butter. His sole purpose in the world of music (supposedly) is to try to make a single hott enough that, by association with it, he will melt. "I'm A Flirt (Remix)" is so hott that, by the time Robert confirms himself to be a "a dog on the prowl", T.I. looks pretty and slings some relationship advice, T-Pain orgasms in vocoder, and R. comes back with some "IT'S.... THE... REEEE-MIX!" shit... oh look, R. Kelly has become a puddle on the floor, a calorie-loaded liquid that's optimal for pouring over popcorn or naked ladies. You can lock this man up, but he'd be too slippery anyway.

3. Fall Out Boy - "The Take Over, The Break's Over"

As we are undoubtedly in the middle of the nasal-voiced rock era, it's tricky to define something as legitimately good, instead of good when compared to the other dreck in its genre. Fall Out Boy proved themselves the former this year, thanks in no small part to this song, which can only be described as a magnificently produced pop song. This is the grace of heaven a band like this should not have in them: split-second vocal overlaps, bouncing guitars, barely noticeable piano twinkles, claps that might as well be boxing punches to the gut. The ringleader is Patrick Stump, tortured bastard, warbling nonsense lyrics and keeping the rest of his competitors in a whiny headlock. Dudes are for real.

2. Lil Wayne - "Back On My Grizzy"

The mere notion that Lil Wayne would bury a song that resembles actual flames in the middle of disc 2 of his mammoth mixtape suggests two distinct things: 1. he doesn't give a fuck about sequencing, because it's a MIXTAPE, and 2. Weezy captures fire in the studio so frequently that he can afford to spread that shit throughout 29 tracks. It's comparable to the rest of his output, of course, but "Back On My Grizzy" is the most crystallized illustration of Lil Wayne absolutely SLAYING shit: the beat, the art of freestyling, his competitors, an entire genre of music, etc. The three separate crescendoes are ineffable beauty, both slowing words down to bullet-time and speeding up the mind until it simply cannot handle a flow this filthy. It's the song that convinced me to give Weezy F. Baby the crown.

1. Frog Eyes - "Bushels"

A lot of the songs on this list are better-made songs than "Bushels", probably. Bands like Spoon and Battles operate on meticulousness, and rely on deliberate timing and expected shifts to weave their stories. Frog Eyes, for better or worse, do not do any of these things, and seem to operate instead on the last batch of adrenaline in Carey Mercer's writhing body. "Bushels" is not an nifty little sugar rush, but a rickety roller coaster ride, where the car can fall off the tracks at any given loops. There are breakdowns, build-ups, whispers that become shouts, phrases repeated endless times, and instruments that rough up the song like big bullies with jagged teeth; it's exhausting stuff, really. It's also the most emotional, honest music I have heard all year. When the line "When am I ever gonna feel the sting of your sun?" staggers out of Mercer's mouth, statues could be expected to crumble into weeping messes. When the chorus of ghosts return, the music races back, and Mercer goes batshit over the word "home", it's like the solution to every problem in the world has been found. It's about a band laying everything out on the table, squeezing every drop of themselves into nine minutes and thirteen seconds. They succeed.

Year-End Bullshit: Top 10 Albums That I Discovered This Year

It's the day after Christmas, and I STILL haven't really gotten into the meat of my year-end lists? It's been a tough couple weeks for me, finishing finals at school, jumping back into work when I got home, getting sick and currently being bed-ridden. Fuck. And I guess the realization that nobody really cares about this blog except me and the three or four friends of mine I bug to read it is always lingering. We get enough year-end bullshit during this month, and what difference does my opinion bring to the table?

But may that's missing the overarching point of why I enjoy writing this blog, and why I enjoy writing about movies/music/pop culture in general. It's mine. I may be shouting into the abyss, but you never know how many people out there may, for some reason, overhear a single shard of my voice. And even if they don't, at least I've thoughtfully composed some musings about the pieces of art that move me, or provoke some sort of reaction within me, whether it's unabashed love or bitter hate or mild indifference. I can look at what I've written in the past and be okay that I've put something out there, just for the hell of it, for no reason other than the fact that I love writing and I love music/movies and I love combining them in a format that's this off-the-cuff.

So paradoxically, this list is completely meaningless, but it means a lot to me. I'm still discovering albums from the past that millions of people already cherish, and I still haven't even really grazed the the discographies of, say, Pavement and The Smiths and New Order and the Talking Heads, which even more people worship. Maybe I'll come to love these bands one day, during one year, and maybe I won't. But in 2007 I stumbled upon a lot of rich material, and most of it shaped the way I view music. Even if this list is compiled completely for personal reasons and you don't feel like reading it, fuck it, this is a blog. To anyone who continues reading and has been touched by these albums in a similar way: enjoy.

10. Spiritualized - "Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space" (1997)

I've listened to this album a lot, and there have been times where I have really gotten into its warped flow, and other times where I've found it long, pretentious, and even a little arrogant. But whenever I listen to it, I can't help but admit how unbelievably brave it is. Jason Pierce and his posse have a lock on the scope they have for this project, and it is larger-than-life, to put it modestly. It's a space album that tries to break the barrier between emptiness of what's beyond the clouds and the promise of what God should be. It's got harmonica solos, call-and-response choruses, and "Come Together", an almost criminally thrilling track. I really had no idea what to expect when I first heard this, and by this point I still don't have the best grip on the material. All I know is that, when people refer to this as a masterpiece, I can raise my glass high and say, "Yeah, you might be right".

9. Booka Shade - "Movements" (2006)

It's difficult for me to name all of the albums from last year I discovered during 2007 that did not make my year-end list at the time. Discs by Asobi Seksu, Marit Larsen, and Annuals have all earned special places in my heart by now, but that "Movements" speaks to me so much more, using only a handful of words. You can keep "From Here We Go Sublime" and "Orchestra of Bubbles" and any other recent techno albums that have cut through the mainstream; "Movements" is better. Using carefully manufactured beats that exist in the dankest of corners in night clubs, these songs come alive, tell a story, explain the subtleties of the rest of the body to the ears. Perfect for walking alone on a cold night. Can't wait to see what Booka Shade throws at us next.

8. Bjork - "Post" (1995), "Homogenic" (1997)

2007 may not have been the most prosperous year for Bjork; "Volta" was admittedly disappointing, especially with the promise of Timbaland and Antony collabos. But maybe it was just a bummer for me because I was still digesting these two '90s classics from the Icelandic chanteuse. Bjork might not ever own the kind of reverie I shower upon Joanna Newsom; I got on the bandwagon pretty late, and while I can recognize how great these records are, they probably won't burrow within me as deeply as other artists on this list. Still, I'm pretty sure that: the one-two opening of "Army of Me" and "Hyper-Ballad" on "Post" is hard to match; someone should write a musical with "Joga" as the centerpiece; and "All Is Full Of Love" makes me smile, a lot.

7. Belle & Sebastian - "If You're Feeling Sinister" (1996)

Should have gotten around to this one sooner. I don't know, after listening to "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" and "The Life Pursuit" for a while, I was always a little curious/hesitant to see what made "Sinister" the group's indisputable classic. Half of me expected a complete shift from what they were making now, but surprise, everything was just a little more scaled-down and the songwriting was a lot tighter. More and more with each listen, "Sinister" seems like a very capable band simply composing ten extraordinary songs, not really mind-blowing stuff but just a lot more solid than anything around them. Do I think "If You're Feeling Sinister" is a classic? Probably not. But it is a great album full of hypnotic hooks that is very, very easy to like. I guess it was just hard for me to immerse myself in when I was digging its biological parent, for all intents and purposes, which is number 5 on this list.

6. D'Angelo - "Voodoo" (2000)

Yeah, I know, I already gushed about D when talking about "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" a few weeks ago, but I refuse to believe that this album is not still important today. I would never call myself an expert on modern R&B ( I wish I could, I really do), but this is the most crystallized version of the genre I have come across, making poppy John Legend bullshit seem immature by comparison. Every song on here -- every song -- sounds crucial and poetic and deeply personal, filled with clapping drums, slick bass, and falsetto. It is the classic that Stevie Wonder hasn't been able to produce in this musical era. Sex, grit, and sweat: man, do I treasure this album.

5. Nick Drake - "Bryter Layter" (1970)

This was one of those rare cases of me avoiding my crippling music snobbery and actually heeding a recommendation from a friend who has, oh, a fine music taste, I suppose. She was all about Nick Drake, and I had never heard of the bloke, so I proceeded to listen to "Bryter Layter" without any knowledge of his early death in the '70s and newfound cult status. I guess the fact that I had no contextual information helped me create unadulterated opinions of his music, but it's more telling that I believed this was a recently released album when I first heard it, and that Drake was still living as a little-known indie folk singer. I guess it was a bummer to hear that Drake had been dead for decades (I found this out after listening to "Bryter" for about a month), but it also revealed the music to be already as timeless as I thought it should be. There are themes of frustration and angst here, but the gentleness of Drake's voice and jazzy atmosphere keep each song accessible and shimmering with soft-spoken beauty. Astounding work. Next up for me: "Pink Moon".

4. Tom Waits - "Rain Dogs" (1985)

The first time I heard Tom Waits' voice, as it rasped out the opening line to "Singapore", I thought it was a joke. Seriously. I'm a big advocate of weird, silly voices, and will defend the pipes of Antony, Jens Lekman, and the chick from Deerhoof with equal conviction. But there was no beauty in Waits' hangdog growl, which I've compared to the singing voice of the mayor from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" on more than one occasion. It took me a listen of "Rain Dogs" in its entirety to get past the eccentric vocals and see the honesty with which each song was composed. This album throttles the environment it's trying to capture: dingy city life, filled with back alleys and busted street lamps and motel rooms no one should stay in. And there's Waits in the middle of it all, the mad hatter exorcising his demons with a half-empty bottle of bourbon in his paw. Each track is a vignette, but that doesn't mean it's all dour: I approve of any "classic" album that's got "Big Black Mariah" tearing shit up in the middle.

3. The Books - "The Lemon of Pink" (2003)
It was summer. I was listening to "The Lemon of Pink" on my ipod in the backseat of my dad's car as we drove on some main highway. My family and I was on vacation, and I was feeling physically tired after walking up and down the Atlantic City boardwalk for the better part of three hours. We were driving back to the motel we always stay at in Wildwood, and my sister was asleep, and my parents were talking about the song that was on the radio. I turned my ipod up. The song that was playing was "There Is No There", and I had already heard it a handful of times, but this was the first time I really listened to it, ya know? And it got to that part where everything disappears, and that found-sound voice starts talking about Gandhi, but I noticed that the simple beats behind it make the words seem gigantic, and truth instead of opinion. The song regains its footing, and after a couple seconds, at 1:42, the guitar started rushing toward my eardrum. I remember closing my eyes, hearing the pattern deepen and strengthen, feeling the chopped voices surround it after a few seconds. I kept my eyes closed and listened. I think that's all the Books ever wanted me to do.

2. R.E.M. - "Murmur" (1983)

The thing about "Murmur" is that it busted all of my preconceived notions of R.E.M. that had been previously based on "Losing My Religion", their godawful newest album "Around the Sun", and Michael Stipe's dancing. I heard that "Murmur" was their first CD, it was really good, and it sounded nothing like the current version of R.E.M., so I checked it out. To this day I'm not really 100% sure why, but when I first heard it, I was blown away. I thought this album was INCREDIBLE -- not to say that I dislike it now, but after a few months' worth of rust it's lost some of its lustre. For a solid month, this baby did not vacate the CD player in my car. I learned practically every word to every song, and touted songs like "Laughing" and "Sitting Still" to my friends, who couldn't seem to care less. I think what fascinated me about "Murmur" is the whole indie-before-indie aura it gave off: Stipe's vocals are inscrutable and lilting, the drum and guitar work are muted, and the melodies are knowingly fundamental. It's an internal record, sure, but it's damn fun to sing along to, and I'll pop it in every now and then to relive that month of my insane "Murmur" love.

1. Talk Talk - "Laughing Stock" (1991)

2007 will be, always and forever, the year I discovered Talk Talk, the year that "Laughing Stock" became one of my favorite albums ever. Some of my previous favorite albums: "Big Willie Style", "Significant Other", "American Idiot". Not the best track record. But I feel like I'm still going to be listening to "Laughing Stock" (...and "Big Willie Style") when I'm forty. For one, I first heard it about eight months ago, and I still listen to it ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. Like, more than an album I just bought two days ago and love wholeheartedly ("Big Doe Rehab", I'm lookin at you!) "Laughing Stock" is the closest thing to a perfect album I might have ever heard. I've listened to it so much that I can tell you that my favorite moment on the entire album comes at 1:52 on "New Grass", when Mark Hollis stretches the line "A hunger uncurbed by nature's calling" for an unspeakably gorgeous amount of time. The way this album radiates emotion, and religion, and love, and at times, silence... it's a brilliant piece of art, that's all I can say. I'm still getting into "Spirit of Eden", which appears to be just as completely awesome, as well as Mark Hollis' self-titled solo album. I want more "Laughing Stock", all the time. I fucking adore this album.

Who knows what I'll pick up and listen to in 2008? I've heard good things about the new Kid Rock.

What Went Wrong: Architecture in Helsinki's "Places Like This", Most Disappointing Album of 2007

Yep, we fucked up

Maybe it's a little cynical to begin my year-end hoopla with the declaration of the most disappointing album of this year. After all, as derisive as I sometimes am, I would always prefer to praise the hell out of something instead of drive it into the ground. But the way I figure it, let's get the glum stuff out of the way now, so there's just the best of the best left. I think the Most Disappointing Album of the Year award is a fascinating one that not enough publications select; sure, they select the WORST album of the year, but what fun is it dissecting Keven Federline's "Playing With Fire"? I'd much rather take a look at an album that should have been good, from an artist that's either clearly great or right on the cusp of greatness. People take missteps all the damn time, why shouldn't the most talented of us? 2007 saw a high amount of disappointing releases, but none can hold a candle to Architecture in Helsinki's "Places Like This", one of the most misguided albums in recent memory.

Oh sure, bigger artists messed up this year. Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" may take the silver just for being really boring, while "Volta", "A Weekend In the City", "The Stage Names" (damn, that one hurt), and "Voxtrot" all deserve honorable mention. And all of those albums are deeply flawed, but none of them are uniquely bad. "Places Like This" is bad. It's really, really bad. I love Architecture in Helsinki, and had a great time at one of their shows this summer. And I can't even listen to "Places Like This".

So let's figure out why. Architecture made a huge sonic leap between their first and second albums, ditching the beautiful found-sound minimalism of "Fingers Crossed" for the righteously goofy pop of "In Case We Die". I'm not ashamed to admit that "In Case We Die" was instrumental in introducing me to indie music, and remains one of my most beloved albums. "Fingers Crossed" really is an overlooked accomplishment, but listening to "In Case We Die" again, it STILL sounds like the perfect blend of meticulousness and downright fun. Songs like "It'5!" and "Wishbone" were gleeful twee, sure, and I can understand someone getting easily annoyed at its "Hey kids, let's eat some Cocoa Puffs and have a GOOD TIME!" vibe, but there was just a ton of heart in each track. The glimpses at the emotional center the band established with "Fingers Crossed" were fewer and farther between, but when they broke to the forefront, the album's sickening joy was given a point. From the third part of "In Case We Die pt. 1-4", the end of "Wishbone", and, fuck, the entirety of "Maybe You Can Owe Me", "In Case We Die" injected the smiles with a sense of profundity. Yeah, this was "Fingers Crossed" on meth, but it wasn't hard to recognize that these were still the same guys, just a lot more up-tempo.

"Places Like This" sounds like Architecture in Helsinki finally deciding that, although they weren't annoying on "In Case We Die" despite getting sorta-close to that point a few times, they were an annoying band at heart, and they should make the most downright annoying album of the year. It's a laughable concept, I know, but if you hear this album, you'll know what I mean. Everything from "In Case We Die" is back, but is multiplied by ten; shit just sounds bigger on "Places Like This", and pretty soon everything gets cluttered. And when I say everything, I mean every whizz-bang sound that Architecture is constructing: loopy synths run into space-rock guitar riffs run into cowbells run into swirling vocal chants. It's just a mess, and sharply contrasts with the surprisingly ordered instrumentation of "In Case We Die". What's really staggering is that, even when a billion things are going on at once, some of the songs are just insanely dull. "Feather In a Baseball Cap" is the best example of this: tons of synths and horns and other gizmos they're surely using combine for a massive line that becomes unbearably droning after twelve seconds. It's almost unthinkable to say that there's not enough going on in these songs, but using 38 instruments doesn't necessarily bulk up substance.

But no, by far the most crushingly irritating aspect of "Places Like This" are the vocals. I remember, not too long ago, Architecture were making songs like "Imaginary Ordinary", with singing that you could describe as "discreet" or "hushed". They greatly expanded the use of vocals on "In Case We Die" to coincide with the pop tendecies of that album, and while they became a bit more flamboyant, there was still time for some tenderness in "Tiny Paintings" and "Wishbone", among others. To put it bluntly, "In Case We Die" contained vocals that were unorthodox and at times off-color, but they were still, ya know, human. "Places Like This" further elasticizes the vocal ranges of AiH's various singers until they become so contorted that you don't know whether to laugh or cry. The near-identical singing on "Red Turned White" and "Hold Music" make those songs practically unlistenable; the guy sounds like a mix between the dude in the B-52's who makes all the dumb lines in "Love Shack" and Miss Piggy. It's fucking dreadful. If anyone actually likes these songs, I salute them ten-fold, if I can even physically do that.

And it's not just the vocals themselves; it's the way they're arranged, and on a broader scale, the arrangement of the songs themselves. Take a song like "Heart It Races". This is AiH in steel-drum-and-tribal-chant mode, and the hooks are comprised of them either yelling "HEART IT RACES!!!" in the most nasal voices ever, or wacky scatting. There's some lyrics, and a breakdown at the end, and whatever, but it's all so fucking pointless. The song can't escape its structure, and almost immediately fails. I also want to take some time to discuss "Like It Ar Not", literally one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Seriously. I'd rather listen to "Don't Phunk With My Heart" 6 times in a row than this sing-along turd.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh on Architecture in Helsinki, but it's just that, to me, "Places Like This" really isn't "oh well, maybe they'll do better next time" disappointing, it's plain awful. I've counted a total of one good song -- "Nothing's Wrong" is pretty solid -- but other than that, "Places Like This" belongs in the toilet. It's had two lasting effects on me, though: I appreciate "In Case We Die" more than ever (really, take another listen to it, it's awesome), and I really, really want to know what's next for this band. Obviously "Places Like This" wasn't as critically admired as their first two efforts, so will they revert back to their humble beginnings, or keep going down this hellish trail of smiley music? My guess would be the latter, but you never know; neither of their follow-ups have been anything as expected. This band certainly has got a few tricks up its sleeve, but let's just pray it doesn't have another train wreck.

Good Songs People Forget About: D'Angelo, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"

Over the past few months, I'd been trying to find a copy of D'Angelo's 2000 album "Voodoo", convinced that it was a good R&B album that contained the single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", which I remembered liking when it was released. I finally snagged a copy of "Voodoo" a few weeks ago, and after listening to it a few times straight through, I realized it was really a fantastic R&B album -- this is a set of slow jams, no doubt, but D'Angelo has the presence on the microphone to prevent the songs from sounding like carbon copies of each other. Each track sounds like both a remolding of classic soul music and an original, 21st-century jam that puts contemporary, poppy R&B artists to shame. There's not much emphasis on lyrics, but that's fine. "Voodoo"'s heart is its throbbing percussion, gliding horns, finger snaps, smooth-as-motherfucking-silk vocals, and the sweat dripping from every note. It might be a little silly to compare an R&B album to MBV's "Loveless", but like that album, "Voodoo" practically radiates warmth.


Anyway, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" was its third single, and the one that made the most commercial impact, mostly through its video. It is entirely comprised of D'Angelo naked, singing to the camera as it explores his ripped body. The video was both decried for its lewdness and hailed for its artistry, and was nominated for 4 Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year (it lost to "The Real Slim Shady"... which I'm sort of okay with). My opinion of the video is mixed -- it perfectly captures the song's minimalistic tone, but I would never claim it a work of genius. It's an interesting concept, I guess. But what I'm much more interested in is the song itself, which is the most baffling choice for a single imaginable.


The album track is over seven minutes long, but it was cut down to a little over four minutes for the single, I guess because the video director figured that was enough time to see D'Angelo naked. It's a shame, because it really should be appreciated in its original form. "Untitled" begins as the quintessential sex song: a little bit of cymbal-tapping, bass set on "funk" mode, simple piano figure, and an electric guitar lick that Prince should have thought of. In fact, D does a nice job mimicking the Purple One on the track, singing almost entirely in falsetto. He creeps over the bass line, careful not to puncture it; it's almost as if, at the beginning of the song, D'Angelo knows he's eventually gonna tear this bitch up, but for now he's just gonna work the melody. Vocal tracks are consistently layered over his vocals, making it sound like Boyz II Men just invaded the studio, but he always brings the focus back to his aching pipes. Even during the sing-along chorus, D'Angelo is interjecting some dead-serious come-ons, convincing everyone listening that, yes, he wants to have some sex.

But D'Angelo... he keeps it smooth. The interplay between the verses and the choruses is what keeps this song fresh at its gargantuan running time. Each verse is light as air, with D hovering over his boundless emotion before plunging head-first into it during the chorus. The musical shift isn't that jarring, but when that choir comes in to ask, "How does it feeEEEeel?", it's like the sun charging through a sea of gray clouds. Thematically, it represents the moment when thoughts become meaningless, and movements are instinctive. After spouting out reassuring lines like "I can provide that you desire" and "Won't you come closer to me baby" in that heavenly falsetto, D'Angelo becomes tired with talking, and just wants to know how it feels, how she feels, how everything feels. The tempo doesn't pick up, and if the electric guitar becomes more noticeable, the effect is slight. The chorus is decidedly simple, primal, cutting straight to the bone, the moment where D'Angelo just shuts the fuck up and takes it all in. It's a brilliant conceit, and it's hard to imagine it being done more effectively.

But the song is seven minutes long, so it has to go somewhere, right? Right. The bridge basically exists in a pool of ether -- just that drum tapping away, maybe a piano note here, a guitar squeal there. "I wanna... lay you down," D'Angelo whispers, as if he wants the line to be so personal he doesn't want the mic to pick it up. It takes a while for things to become more immediate, but then the backing vocal harmonies slowly swell up, and D'Angelo lets out a glorious wail, and the chorus charges back to the forefront. It's practically the same as every chorus thus far, but something's different. As D'Angelo promises to "take you away from here", it becomes very apparent that the stakes are higher now, that each note is being sung with more force and D is filled to the brim with feeling. And then everything bursts at the seams: with 29 ticks left in the song, D'Angelo lets out one of the most impassioned, beautiful, hypnotic sounds to ever escape a person's mouth, a searing scream that he continues to smother the melting chorus with until the end of the song. It's the song's indispensable climax, and represents one of my favorite moments in any song. And before you've decided whether to smile or to cry, it's all over -- in fact, it ends mid-word, as the choir of voices utters "How does it FE-", and everything goes black. This behemoth of a song burns brightest before becoming extinguished.

I'm sure some people remember this song, but it didn't surprise me that a lot of people don't. First of all, you have to REALLY like R&B to enjoy it; this isn't radio-ready rhythm & pop in the vein of Ne-Yo, this is a crushing soul jam that drips wax. You also have to keep in mind that D'Angelo isn't the most prolific of cats. After releasing "Voodoo" seven years ago, he's been charged with possession, in and out of rehab, and almost died in a car accident. He's supposedly recording a new album, to be released next year, but I won't hold my breath. And you know, it's not unforgivable that people don't know about this song or D'Angelo, but I do find it a little surprising because "Voodoo" really was a big success. It debuted at #1, has gone platinum, and went on to win two Grammys, but I don't see it, or "Untitled", getting the kind of conscious recognition that Lauryn Hill still receives for "Miseducation". Maybe it's because that album was much more accessible, and maybe because Hill decided to become a recluse instead of a screw-up, but I still think D'Angelo's "Voodoo" stacks up higher when compared to it. But even if D'Angelo never records a follow-up and "Voodoo" fades into obscurity, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" is still a tremendous song, a moving song, a track that deserves to be listened to and appreciated and studied. And that video... well, it's something that D'Angelo can look back on to appreciate his appearance, now that he looks like this.

What Went Wrong/List Madness: Top Five Immediate Reactions to the Grammy Nominations

Well, the Grammy nominees were announced today, and this really interested me, because it forced me to put down the new Ghostface album and recognize what is going on in mainstream music right now. Obviously my personal tastes differ wildly from what is usually selected as the year's absolute best music by the most official music awards show (although the VMA's are always more fun to watch). Here were my five immediate reactions to the list of nominees, or the list of the nominees that matter:

1. Paul McCartney really, really shouldn't win anything.
The Grammys have always been notorious for rewarding artists who used to be really important but are now sort of irrelevant (Rolling Stone does the same). This year is no different, with John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, and Bon Jovi all getting fatuous nominations. I don't really mind this, because it's absolutely expected, but I just can't stand seeing Paul McCartney, who is nominated in three major categories for work off his new album "Memory Almost Full", take any trips to the podium. "Memory Almost Full" is a piece of garbage, and this is an example of someone's name snagging nods for how big it is. REALLY, Paul, do you NEED to win for "Only Mamma Knows"? On a side note, Beck MUST win the Solo Rock Vocal Performance category, since he's going up against McCartney, Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, and, goddammit goddammit, John Mellencamp for "Our Country", the one in the commercials. I haven't even heard Beck's song "Timebomb", but it just has to fucking win. Probably gonna go to Springsteen, though. Which leads to...

2. Visible Snubs: Bruce Springsteen, Fall Out Boy, Fergie, Robert Kelly
Actually, I don't think Springsteen got snubbed, because I believe his album "Magic" was released after the Grammy deadline in early October. If not, though, I'm shocked that "Magic" didn't play like a wet dream to Grammy voters; next year it's probably going to own every category, so next year's gonna be a sad one. I'm not gonna discuss Fall Out Boy's complete omission now, because I'm going to give them such huge big-ups on my year-end album list, but their lack of a single nomination is a damn shame. As for Fergie, yeah, she blows, but with the exception of Akon, was there anyone more authoritative in the pop music landscape this year? She's only nominated in one major category, and for an awards show that admittedly rewards popularity, that's just not enough. Finally, I don't know if this is some courtroom backlash bullshit, but how the hell can R. Kelly be nominated in only one major R&B category, and for his collabo for Usher, "Same Girl"? I don't care if the man's out of his mind, "Double Up" is much more quality R&B offering than stuff from Emily King, Fantasia, or Raheem DeVaughn, whoever the hell that is. I guess my dream of seeing a performance of "Sex Planet", featuring R. Kelly dressed as horny alien, is shattered.

3. Most Interesting Category - Female Pop Vocal Performance
It's difficult to pick an intriguing category, because even the best horse races are typically cluttered with no-shot nominees, but this one's got five solid gals in the running: "Candyman" by Christina Aguilera, "1234" by Feist, "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie, "Say It Right" by Nelly Furtado, and "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse. You could easily pick "Rehab" as the front-running nomination, but since Winehouse got five others, voters might go a different route. "Candyman" is a fun song that's generally well-received (and appeals to older voters), and "Say It Right" has little buzz but some bravado Timbaland production. Although they're clearly dark horses, both have a shot to win. "1234" is an interesting nomination and certainly not the flashiest song here, but it's got the indie cred factor, and the Apple ads and surprisingly multiple nominations for Feist boost its profile. And then there's "Big Girls Don't Cry", the biggest song in terms of radio play, and Fergie's only major nomination. My gut is going with "Big Girls Don't Cry", but all of these nominations are pretty strong, and I'm happy with the category.

4. Impossibly Bad Best New Artist Nominations
Last year's Best New Artist, Carrie Underwood, was a really solid choice, because she was an actual new artist who was just beginning to release some well-accepted material. Also, Imogen Heap was nominated, and though it didn't make sense, it was definitely cool. This year's nominations... are baffling, to put it lightly. Taylor Swift, Paramore, and Ledesi are three of the five; I've sort of heard of the first one, and don't know anything of the latter two. Now, I know obscurity is no reason to bar someone from this category, but couldn't they nominate a new artist who is kind of well-known? Maybe some Plain White T's? Lily Allen? Lil' Mama woulda been awesome? Justice got nominated at the VMA's, why not throw them a hipster bone? The other two nominations are Feist, who's just been around for a while, and Amy Winehouse, who is sorta new enough to be nominated and inevitably nab this award. And for some reason I have a problem with this. Maybe it's because she's overhyped, maybe it's because she's bound to give up recording/living soon, but I cannot imagine naming Amy Winehouse best new artist of this year. But speaking of Amy...

5. "Rehab" will win Record of the Year, Kanye West's "Graduation" will win Album of the Year... probably
There is no doubt for me that Winehouse's song is gonna win her the award for the best song of the year. "Umbrella" poses some stiff competition, but my immediate reaction is that Winehouse is 2nd in nominations, and her album's not strong enough to win Album of the Year, so Record of the Year for the ubiquitous "Rehab" just seems logical. That leaves Kanyeezy to nab Album of the Year, and although I haven't discussed it, I really wanna give the Grammys props for consistently overlooking Kanye West's out-of-studio behavior and realizing he's a fucking genius. Giving "Graduation" 8 noms makes it loud and clear that, after 2 straight losses for Album of the Year, he's got a good chance to finally lock it in. His competition is pretty soft, too: Foo Fighters, yeah, okay, probably the most puzzlingly respected band of our generation, and their nom gives the Grammys rock cred, but I can't see them voting for something as big and loud as their latest effort. I'm not going to pretend I know anything about Vince Gill, and Herbie Hancock... oh good God. As soon as I saw his name attached to the Album of the Year list, a chill went down my back. Fuck. Hancock is a legendary blues artist, and he's collaborated with Miles Davis. Even if his album was a bunch of static, that gives him a huge edge. With the Grammys, street cred is determined by how old/close to death you are. Yeah, but it's okay, it's Kanye's year, just because a guy's old doesn't mean he can win.

Then I saw the album he was nominated for: "River: The Joni Letters", which is a JONI MITCHELL TRIBUTE ALBUM. Oh dear God, Hancock, you may have just stumbled upon a checkmate. Grammy voters love the combination of old people and tributes -- witness the Ray Charles tribute album inexplicably winning Album of the Year three years ago -- and you've just combined two respected old people into one tribute! But then, Herbie Hancock, you thought, "Ay yo, fuck it, if I'm goin for Album of da Year, I'm goin all out!" And you did what only the most evil man could: you brought in Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Tina Turner for guest vocals! Jones and Rae form two parts of the four-part Grammys Wanna Have Our Babies foundation (John Mayer and John Legend the other two), while Turner is yet another old, respected artist.

So let's see: legendary old jazz musician brings in beloved young talent and other legendary old artists to perform a tribute album to another legendary, old artist.

Wake up, Mr. West. You just got F'ed in the A.

God, I hope "Graduation" wins, and I really think it will, but it's hard to compete with the perfect storm of Grammy bullshit. Herbie Hancock is probably in some lair right now, laughing sinisterly and thinking, "Why even have any other nominees at all?" Goddamn you, Herbie Hancock.

The Great Debate: Worst Jim Carrey Movie, "The Cable Guy" vs. "The Number 23"

"I swear to God, I'll play this saxophone all night, you ingrates!!"

It's hard to let go of things. Jim Carrey was my favorite actor for years, and what's funny was that he seemed to mature as I did, almost paralleling my growth from stupid child to slightly smarter teenager. When I was ten, "The Mask" and "Dumb and Dumber" won many awards that I made up, and I was spouting "Ace Ventura" catchphrases like the idiot he played in the film. On June 5th, 1998 -- I still remember the date, I know -- my parents and I went to see "The Truman Show"; it introduced me to more thought-provoking, dramatic fare and quickly became my all-time favorite movie. I must have seen "The Truman Show" a dozen times the first year it came out, and although I haven't seen it in a few years, I'm still pretty certain I can recite most of the dialogue.

Time past. Carrey did Milos Forman's "Man on the Moon", another brilliant film that challenged me and my taste in movies. Jim Carrey was fucking it for me: he blossomed from the hilarious stupidity of yore to the dramatic bravado not even I thought he had in him. And I mean, of COURSE it went downhill, because everyone stumbles, and even Kevin Spacey made "K-Pax". "Bruce Almighty", "Fun With Dick and Jane," "Me Myself and Irene"... all comedies I would have appreciated at ten years old, but they now churn my stomach. And I mean, he made "Eternal Sunshine" and he MADE "Eternal Sunshine" just because Jim Carrey is still one of the most talented actors on this planet and can dabble in greatness whenever he damn well pleases. I like to think of "Eternal Sunshine" as his warning shot, tipping us all off that, after he stops making shitty studio flicks, he will be reincarnated as a hip indie actor and work with Richard Linklater or Alexander Payne. The point is, right now Jim Carrey doesn't know what to do with his career, and when he starred in Joel Muthafuckin Schumacher's "The Number 23" this past February, many people dubbed it his worst feature, and held up red flags for career resuscitation.

The topic tonight: IS "The Number 23" his worst film, or does Ben Stiller's 1996 film "The Cable Guy" still take the cake? Even Carrey would probably admit that these are his worst offerings, although some would mention "The Majestic" or "Fun With Dick and Jane" in the conversation. To them I say: "The Majestic" is misguided and retarded but with its heart in the right place (the Al Sharpton of dramas...?) while I remember literally nothing about "Fun With Dick and Jane". No, seriously. Not a damn thing. Do you? Does it even exist?

So let's start with "The Cable Guy", a god-awful penis wart of a movie that makes you hate Jim Carrey with every inch of your cowering soul. He plays a cable guy (duh!) who becomes obsessed with hanging out with Matthew Broderick, reaching a "Fatal Attraction" point when he does some stuff to piss Broderick off and then crosses a line with his girlfriend and abducts her, or something. I don't remember much about the actual plot, but I remember key scenes very vividly: Carrey and Broderick playing basketball and pissing people off, Carrey and Broderick jousting at a Renaissance restaurant, Carrey playing a naughty party game with Broderick's parents. Throughout all of this, Carrey plays his character as the most annoying person in the entire planet. I know that this is a black comedy (Ben Stiller's dickfaced humor wouldn't expand to mainstream yuks until "Zoolander") and the cable guy is supposed to be more creepy than laugh-out-loud, but it's difficult to have any interest in a character that you downright loathe. Broderick sort of stumbles through this awkwardly, and Leslie Mann shrugs her way through the part of the girlfriend, but this is a Jim Carrey vehicle whose script Homer Simpson once attacked for "almost ruining Jim Carrey's career", and he's right. This isn't just a misfire that sent audience home dissatisfied, though. "The Cable Guy" is monumentally bad, to a point that you thought Carrey would never breach again. No, he COULD never breach again.

Until now. After working on "Batman Forever" together, Carrey and Joel Muthafuckin Schumacher decided to hook up again for a thriller, a genre which the actor had never touched before. "The Number 23" is about a lot of things, but mostly about the number 23. His character, Walter Sparrow, is a dog catcher. He comes in contact with a mysterious book called "The Number 23", in which an author named Topsy Kretts explains how the number 23 is around a lot, and Sparrow becomes obsessed with it as well. He starts having fantasies as the book's sexy/silly protagonist, a man by the dashing name of Fingerling. He has a tattoo, plays the saxophone, and generally fucks shit up. Well, Sparrow starts going crazy, and threatens his wife, and tries to find the author of the book to understand its meaning, and catches a dog or two (damn dogs, sometimes they just need to be caught!) Then the movie starts going to hell, and key plot points involve a man stabbing himself in the neck, an evil dog who is the pup version of the Grim Reaper, and the skeleton of a woman who died on her 23rd birthday (coincidence...?) I wish I could reveal more, especially the ending, where the entire plot of the movie is carefully explained and everything still sounds like a laughably convoluted mess, but you'll just have to check it out for yourself. "The Number 23" may not be Joel Muthafuckin Schumacher's worst film (shout-out to "Batman & Robin"!), but this is Carrey's most ridiculous role that isn't trying to be ridiculous. It's unbelievable that this even got made.

Ah, but is it worse than "The Cable Guy"? It's hard to say. "The Number 23" is definitely constructed worse than "The Cable Guy"; while "Cable Guy" just falls completely flat as a comedy, there is something fundamentally wrong with "The Number 23", and I don't think it could have ever worked, no matter how many times it was retooled. But "The Cable Guy" is far more annoying than "The Number 23". It makes you angry while watching it, like a black hole that absorbs any inch of happiness. "The Number 23" just sort of rolls off you as a hilarious bomb, and may even evoke a hint of sympathy here and there, just because there ARE some talented people being wasted here (Virginia Madsen, coming off of "Sideways", apparently decided that the best way to follow up an Oscar nomination is to lose your fucking mind and be in "Firewall" and "The Number 23"). The same can be said for the actors in "The Cable Guy", probably even more so. It's got Broderick, Mann, Jack Black, Ben Stiller, George Segal, and Janeane Garofolo and David Cross even drop by. But the problem is that it stays with you. After you watch "The Cable Guy", you just wanna kill something, so that the small part of you that died with the movie will have some company.

And to clinch the win, Jim Carrey is ten times more unwatchable in "The Cable Guy"; in "The Number 23" he just runs around confused a lot, like most dog catchers do, while in "The Cable Guy" he is constantly mugging for the camera, making contorted expressions, and talking in a searingly bothersome lisp. Even if "The Number 23" was a worse movie, there is no way in hell Jim Carrey gives a worse performance in it than in "The Cable Guy". Jesus, just thinking about "The Cable Guy" gets me pissed off. "The Number 23" may be a horrendous film that succeeds on no level, but at least it doesn't damage the world as a whole, something "The Cable Guy" inevitably does. Therefore, "The Cable Guy" is still Jim Carrey's worst movie. By the way, I am seeing the number 23 everywhere: on Michael Jordan's basketball jersey, on a number line after 22, etc....

So Jim Carrey is no longer my favorite actor, and it's sad that I don't really have one anymore (top of the heap right now is Bill Murray, Ryan Gosling, Jason Schwartzmann, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and John Cena), but I'll always take notice when he's in a new movie. Like I said, he's unbelievably talented, and once he pulls his head out of his talking ass, he can accomplish great things. I would be shocked if Carrey didn't go on to win at least one Oscar. But probably not for "The Number 23 II: The Number 24", which I really hope gets made.

Just to add, Walter Sparrow's son in "The Number 23", played by Logan Lerman, is named Robin Sparrow. I don't think enough people appreciate how awesome that is.

Things I Like/Dislike About Ron Howard And His Family: Clint Howard, "(New Wave) Dog Day"

It's hard just to look...

Project: The 1983 song "(New Wave) Dog Day", by the Kempsters

Howard Involved: Clint... lead singer of the band

Description of Project: Dear God. Clint Howard, world's coolest ugly guy, our most clearly personified example of nepotism, was the lead singer of a rock band named the Kempsters. Currently opening for the Who, the Kempsters have achieved multiplatinum... nah I'm just kidding. They're a simple instance of a rock band getting a shrivel of the spotlight because a member is (arguably) famous. The song is called "(New Wave) Dog Day", and it's a by-the-numbers punk song from the '80s.

Clint Howard's Role In Achievements/Failures: Sorry Clint, "(New Wave) Dog Day"'s flaws are all on you, buddy. You'd expect the song of a Clint Howard to sound pretty ragged, but it actually is sort of bouncy with a simple surf-rock structure. The guitar lick is pretty catchy, and the rest of the instrumentation is fairly tight. The reason that "(New Wave) Dog Day" is terrible seems to solely rest on Mr. Howard. As a lead vocalist who doesn't play an instrument, you need to be able to sing, and sadly Clint Howard has pipes that even Chad Kroeger would even shake his empty head at. The song is performed in sort of a snarl, with Howard repeatedly mugging in the video and barking orders to the millions of people watching. As the rest of the band plays their instruments dutifully, Clint dances around them like a goading monkey, commanding his troops with unsightly bravado. The lyrics aren't too savory either: "Acting this way too long! I don't tell the room to run! I'd blow out my brains to get away from the pain, but it wouldn't be much fun!" is a sample verse, and sung/talked by Howard, it's unlistenable. I mean, I don't wanna take potshots at the guy, but c'mon, he doesn't contribute one good thing to the song.

Interestingly, I enjoy watching "(New Wave) Dog Day"'s makeshift video for several reasons. First of all, Clint Howard has hair: it's orange like Ron's and stringy like Bozo's. Also, the enthusiasm from the rest of the band is pretty surreal. You can sort of tell that they fucking worship Clint, and think he is the coolest guy in any room. I'd also like to point the drummer's facial expression at 1:13, because it terrorizes my dreams regularly. Everyone's wearing referee-esque black-and-white stripes, and Clint is sporting some spiffy suspenders. Finally, the dancing that Clint Howard performs in the video is absolutely worth giving the video a look. He sort of spaz-dances, but in an assured way: constantly shaking the mic that he's holding in his gnarled hand and weaving from left to right, as if to pounce at any second, Howard is admittedly awkward but is enjoying the hell out of himself. My personal favorite part is at 1:27, where it looks like he's lost control of his shoulders and is trying to see how far he can go with that development.

Like/Dislike: Oh hell, how can you NOT like this? The song sucks, sure, but that was a given. Howard knows that the band is bollocks, but you know, he's really having a ball with his soon-to-be-departed hair. Plus, there's a reason that this will go down in history: it forever dispells the myth that you have to look good to be the lead singer of a band. If you show me a picture of someone you think is uglier than Clint Howard, I will proceed to tear up the picture and direct you to my laptop's tiled background of a Clint Howard picture, which shall burn your eyes with the heat of a thousand suns. No, Clint Howard is ugly's spokesman, and he was the lead singer of the Kempsters! Sure, it immediately doomed the band from attaining any kind of success, but it still has to be looked at as groundbreaking. Clint Howard basically does whatever the hell he wants, and if he wants to be the lead singer of a shitty punk band, no one can stop the man. No one should. He continues to be an inspiration. "(New Wave) Dog Day" makes me like Ron Howard and his family significantly more.

Yeah, we'll see. Just wait until I discuss "Lady in the Water".

Overrated: Every Song on Robyn's "Robyn" Except "Be Mine!"

Konichiwa, bitches!

I first heard that Swedish pop singer Robyn, who scored a couple forgettable hits in the U.S. with "Do You Know (What It Takes)" and "Show Me Love" in the late '90s, was still alive in 2005, when Stylus Magazine (R.I.P., homeboys) praised the hell out of her new disc. They named "Robyn", which was apparently a huge hit in Sweden, the fourth best album of 2005, unthinkably (to me) pushing it above "Illinois" and "I Am a Bird Now". They also put the album's lead single, "Be Mine!", at #4 on that year's singles list, and basically called it a perfect pop song. When I read these year-end lists, Stylus had already exposed me to the beautiful pop tendencies of Annie and Hello Saferide, so needless to say I was anxious to hear an album like this, which they so clearly loved. So I looked for it online, and dammit, I couldn't find the thing anywhere.

So I waited and waited, and kept searching for the album. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and after a while I resigned myself to never finding the album and stopped searching for it. Then, by some genius stroke of luck a few weeks ago, I found it, and eagerly downloaded it. I was really, really excited for this thing. When it finally landed in my iTunes, I listened to the whole thing straight through, starting, of course, with "Be Mine!".

And after weeks of dealing with "Robyn", I've realized that Stylus got it half-right: "Be Mine!" is an absolutely fantastic song, arguably one of the best of the decade. The rest of "Robyn", though, sucks.

Well, SUCKS is a harsh word, and the album certainly is not terrible. Maybe it just sounds a lot worse to me because I built it up so high in my mind, especially after hearing "Be Mine!" But there's nothing here that connects to me. A lot of the tracks are examples of faceless glitch-pop, with uninspired arrangements and simple lyrics. Also, the personality Robyn establishes on the album -- girl in control! victim of love problems! -- is just tired and downright annoying at points. Half-decent songs like "Bum Like You" never fully develop and repeat their choruses until they're driven into the ground. Other tracks such as "Who's That Girl", which Stylus' Jessica Popper praised as "one of the best electro-pop singles I've heard recently", simply fail at everything they try to accomplish. The chorus is trash, the synths are distracting, and the line "Good girls are pretty, like all the time/ I'm just pretty, some of the time" reeks of a concept that hasn't panned out. "Good girls are happy, and satisfied/ I won't stop asking, until I die." Yeah, Robyn, you're unique, you're freaking amazing, you kick ass, we get it.

But that's what most of "Robyn" is: telling us, and not showing us. Witness "Konichiwa Bitches", which is basically a list of ways Robyn is fucking better than you. She will take you on if you rumble in her jungle; if you mess with her on the North Pole she will ice you, son; saw you in half like a magician, as well as count you out like a mathematician (...?); she's even more sweeter than a cherry bomb (...???); and finally, you have nothing on her, because, alas, you knows you a bum. This song sucks, and delves into creepy David Banner territory with the line "Cummin in your mouth, make you say 'yum, yum!'" Like "Konichiwa Bitches", most of the other songs on the album are just musically boring. It's as if Robyn dodged a trip to the Synth Store and instead rummaged through Kylie Minogue's garbage, pillaging from her rejected beats. Ideas are half-complete, and the structure of each song is so similar that it's difficult for one to stick with you. I don't know, maybe I'm just not hearing something that Stylus did, but Robyn feels like a caricature, and "Robyn" feels rushed. I mean, it's got "Cobrastyle" on it! It can't be that amazing.

But fuck it, if I saw "Robyn" in a record store (and apparently it'll be available in the States soon), I'd probably buy it, just to own "Be Mine!" on some sort of disc besides the multiple mix CDs I've made for myself and others. This song will blow you away. I've tried listening to other contemporary, and personally beloved, girl-pop songs like Annie's "Heartbeat" and The Pipette's "Pull Shapes" and I keep coming to the conclusion that "Be Mine!" is ten times better than them. Every time I hear Robyn declare "It's a good thing tears never show in the pouring rain" over those racing strings as the curtain goes up and the song begins, my heart skips a beat. The song is pure sugar.

What's remarkable about "Be Mine!" from a contextual perspective is that it basically achieves what every other song on "Robyn" fails to. Robyn is still the strong-willed heroine from the rest of the disc, but the song's admitted vulnerability adds a different shade to her two-dimensional persona. The voice is quivering, not assured, and we realize that Robyn actually is human. Jesus, Robyn really wants the guy she's singing about. The lyrics are very direct and all the more powerful because of it. "You looked happy, and that's great... I just miss you, that's all," she says, wide-eyed and full of regret in a spoken-word bridge. And compared to the dance-mongering blips of the rest of the album, the strings on "Be Mine!" sound urgent and indispensable. Building as the song progresses, they cut deepest into you at the chorus, then spiral back down. The chorus doesn't disappoint, either: it may be the song's most simplistic section lyrically, but the line "But you never were, and you never will, be mine" is the song's emotional climax, and the refrain is vital rather than stiff.

So I can disagree with Stylus' overall analysis of the album, but I can't disparage them, because I never would have discovered "Be Mine!" without them. Maybe I'll never understand what they saw in "Robyn", but I give them huge props for giving me another piece of pop magnificence.

TV Me: "America's Psychic Challenge"

And I have seen Hell, and it was on Lifetime...

So I had a pretty shitty weekend. Went to the Eagles game (they got F'ed in the A), lost in fantasy football, saw "American Gangster". And although "Mighty Joe Young" is on TBS right now and things are improving, what I really wanna do is vent right now, so I'm going to turn my attention to the disturbing fascination the Lifetime (television for women) network has started to develop for psychic shows.

There was a terrific episode in season six of "South Park" that dealt with Jon Edward, who was the popular television psychic around that time. I won't go too deep into the episode, but it basically showed that Edward was using cold-reading techniques to trick people into believing he had a special power. At the end of the episode, he gets taken aboard an alien spaceship and brought to an intergalactic awards ceremony, where he wins the honor of "Biggest Douche in the Universe", to his whiny chagrin. The best part of the episode was actually the commentary on the DVD of season six; most of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's commentaries are uncensored and hysterical, but this one was particularly special. Parker explained why he believes that people like Jon Edward, who fake telepathy and profit off of the misplaced beliefs of others, are the absolute worst people in the entire world, and he was dead serious about it. Parker says something to the degree of, "there is nothing worse that you can do. Nothing."

I used to think that Parker was exaggerating, but after watching the first episode of "America's Psychic Challenge", now I'm not so sure. The show hurt me and offended me on every level. Usually the only show on Lifetime to do this is "The Nanny". Not anymore.

The basic premise of the show is simple and silly: group four psychics together and make them jump through hoops to see who is the most legitimately "psychic". Already the show is flawed to me. If you're, ya know, legitimately psychic, aren't you just COMPLETELY psychic? In other words, couldn't you just perform all of the activities the show has lined up without breaking a sweat because they all require simple psychic ability, which you apparently possess?

But no. With the use of some wacky voice-overs and tool host John Burke, "America's Psychic Challenge" inadvertantly disproves that none of its contestants are fa real. On the show's first episode, we meet blonde girl Jackie, bald dude Jamie, creepy lady Karyn, and bespectacled gal Zenobia, who all are 100% positive that they are psychic. However, they all fail the first exercise miserably. Burke takes them, like a douchebag, to an almost-empty hospital, and they have to use their powers to guess which one room out of thirty holds a person sitting in a chair. The correct room is 215, and I kept waiting for one of the psychics to walk into the hospital and casually say, "Duh, the guy's obviously in 215." Unforunately, all four contestants guess wrong, although bald dude Jamie is really really happy because he guessed 214, which gets him 10 points. Wait... what? But... he guessed the wrong room...

Later, the contestants are taken to a room with a big wall in the middle, and are challenged to guess which "celebrity" is behind it, using only their minds and a folder with a picture of the celebrity in it, which they cannot open. Okay. The "celebrity" is Lisa Williams, who happens to have her own psychic show on Lifetime! Suddenly I'm thinking, "Oh great, all of these idiots are gonna guess it right, because they're psychic and she's psychic and she'll obviously help them by sending them brain signals." But again I was wrong: not only did they not have to guess what specific celebrity was behind the wall, but all they had to do was vaguely describe this person. Things such as "The eye, I see something with an eye..." and "Something with music, they have some involvement with music" were said. Lisa Williams was impressed: "Yes, I WAS involved in some way with music!" she uttered, astonished. Creepy lady Karyn did not understand the test, so she got visibly frustrated and started standing very close to John Burke. She later professed a deep resentment for the test, begging for me to say, "Hate the player, not the game!" and my friends to eyeball me strangely.

I should at this point mention that, before each commercial break, us TV watchers were given our own psychic tests! One of them featured four face-down playing cards, and a voice-over asked, "Can you locate the jack of diamonds?" Another showed a woman walking down the street and the voice-over smugly prodded, "Where is this woman from? Washington, Minnesota, or New York?" The answers were revealed after the commercial break; my friend got the second one correct, so she left the room to pursue a career using her own psychic ability.

None of the preceding events on the show are very dumb, but none could be classified as offensive. It is unfortunate, then, that the show's third segment tested my faith in humanity as a whole. Like an idiot, Burke led the four psychics to the residence of the Martinez family, whose son had been killed in a drive-by shooting a few years earlier. The family decided that they wanted to reach out to the psychic community, as a sort of last resort to bring the boy's killer to justice. The challenge for the contestants (and I'm not making this up, I swear to you, all of these things happened) was to walk around the residence and use their psychic abilities to identify as much as they could about the death, about which they had been given no information. They each walked around the living room and front yard, closing their eyes and taking guesses about the nature of the death. Bespectacled Zenobia got the closest, saying that the death was a murder that had occurred in the yard, while the other three psychics were pretty much way off. The Martinez family, watching the psychics on a video screen, started tearing up with emotion. They liked Zenobia so much that they decided to bring her back for a private reading, which was (of course) captured for us to see. When asked about whether their son was okay in the afterlife, the confident Zenobia assured them that he was, and that he was very "proud of his family". The Martinez family then asked whether or not the killer would ever be brought to justice, and Zenobia said that she sees a courtroom in the future, and that progress would indeed be made. The family, fully relieved, hugged Zenobia and thanked her from the bottom of their hearts.

This scene made me start to agree with Trey Parker. I don't care if these lying nutjobs want to flaunt their psychic powers in childish little tests (that they couldn't even kind of pass), but why the HELL would you allow people trying to find a little more screen time tinker with the emotions of a family still grieving from the loss of their son? And why would you then broadcast this shit as Lifetime original entertainment?? This is the business of profiting off of the vulnerability of people grasping at straws for answers, and it's deeply shameful. Don't these people secretly know they can't talk to the dead, and that it's all been just an act? How can you do something like this?

After the challenge, two "winners" were crowned, and it was announced that they would move on to the quarterfinals of the show. I'm guessing that this process will be repeated until the show has found someone either legitimitely psychic and all-knowing, or really fucking good at guessing things. But for me, it's already down the drain. Lifetime (television for women), I don't care how many quips you allow Bea Arthur to release on your network, this is just inexcusable. "America's Psychic Challenge" isn't even fun to make fun of... it's just sad.

Although I do enjoy an occasional ribbing of host John Burke. Man, that guy's a dickwad!

Good Songs People Forget About: Third Eye Blind, "Never Let You Go"

That girl IS like a sunburn...

I've always addressed Third Eye Blind in a similar fashion to the way I react to Matchbox Twenty, or Smash Mouth. They seem like nice-enough guys who amicably trotted out a few huuuge rock songs in the mid- to late- nineties, and these songs were either overstated in their happiness or pensive in their emotion. Okay, come to think of it, Smash Mouth were just always on the bright fucking side, but as for 3IB and Matchbox Twenty, you could either smile or cry. Matchbox had "The Real World" to brighten yer day, and "3 A.M." and "Push" to shove you to the ground. Third Eye Blind was even more black-and-white to me: on their first album (the one everybody bought), "Semi-Charmed Life" redefined happy-go-lucky, while "How's It Going To Be" and "Jumper" were Mope City. On their second album (the one nobody bought), "Never Let You Go" brightened the mood, and "Deep Inside Of You" killed it. I think you get my point. These bands operated in one vein or the other, and this worked because, after luring in the masses with their inoffensive ditty, they got them to "relate" with their pseudo-ballads. I could also talk about the Goo Goo Dolls, but who the hell ever wants to talk about the Goo Goo Dolls?

Like I previously mentioned, Third Eye Blind's second album, "Blue", didn't sell very well, and this is not due to the quality of the songs, but because "Never Let You Go" never connected with a wide-enough audience, so "Deep Inside Of You" went unnoticed. Oh, they got some radio play, sure, but nothing even close to "Semi-Charmed Life" and "Jumper" levels. This time around, Third Eye Blind's bait didn't work, so they didn't have anything to reel in. It's a damn shame, for two simple reasons: "Deep Inside Of You", if not as hooky as "Jumper", is still a better-written song, and "Never Let You Go" is the best song Third Eye Blind will ever create, and one of the best pop songs I've ever heard. Take another listen. It's perfect.

It's physically difficult for me to talk about just how right Third Eye Blind got it with this one, because all of the elements of this song are indescribably flawless. In order to understand how catchy, fun, dumb, honest, relatable, and positive this song is, you just have to listen to it. But I'll try my best to replicate the feeling into words, I really will.

The whole effect of the song can be summed up within the first eight seconds: a guitar strums a few simple chords, then an electric guitar barrels onto it before the drums kick in. Singer Stephen Jenkins can be heard letting out a "WHOO!" as the cymbals crash down, as if the celebratory exclamation was the only way he could formally react to the small musical climax. God, there's already so much joy in this song before one lyric is uttered.

The verses? The verses are irrelevant, my friend. Yeah I know, that's silly, but it's true for this song. Each one is composed of four lines, and the lines are usually no more than six syllables. Witness verse two: "You say that I've changed/ And maybe I did/ But even if I changed/ What's wrong with it?" Hack writing, you're thinking. And that's understandable, but you're missing the point: if Third Eye Blind could have just made this song three and a half minutes of the chorus, they would have. The verses are placefillers with gee-golly lyrics, just so there's SOME gap between the blissful chorus. Personally, I think the simplicity of the verses adds to the divine sing-along effect of the song, since nearly everyone can figure out the lyrics after a listen or two. Less big words, less chance to screw up!

Oh then there's the chorus, which is soaked in Stephen Jenkins' glorious, glorious falsetto. He starts by simply outlining that he will, in fact, never let you go, and repeats this three times just so you're not confused. Jenkins sings these lines with such boyish charm that you can't help but think, hey, he WON'T ever let me go, what a great/devoted guy! Then he ALMOST says it a fourth time, but transitions into, "I never let you turn around your back on each other/ That's a good idea, break a promise to your mother/ Turn around your back on each other". More rocking-out falsetto, and it's perfectly delivered, with the words "turn" and "good" stretched out for added effect. The chorus is repeated many, many times, and instead of getting sick of it, you grow to love it a little more each time.

It helps that the song's structure is more complex than the verse-chorus set-up. After the second chorus, there's some fist-pumping guitar work, and Jenkins comes in with the bridge, "And all our friends are gone and gone/And all the time moves on and on/And all I know is it's wrong it's wrong/ And all I know is it's wrong..." The last part is echoed, and cuts straight to the third verse, which is only guitar and vocals. This is obviously the "sensitive" part of the song, and Jenkins' words of hope ring out with severe vulnerability. The sunny chorus then bowls it over, reassuring you, the listener, that everything will indeed be okay.

After about nine more choruses, you get to the end of the song, which is still shocking to me to this day. The guitar riff plays out one more time, and then... Stephen Jenkins starts sort-of rapping!! But it's not whiteboy Bubba Sparxxx rapping, no, not at all. Jenkins playfully fucks with the theme of the song and talk-sings about... well, everything. The stupid things! The mood rings! The bracelets, and the beads! If I meet somebody and they don't know every single word to this breakdown, it's difficult for me to befriend them. It's my favorite part of the song, it's your favorite part of the song, it's the best thing Third Eye Blind ever recorded, it's the best part of ANY song...? No, probably not, but I cherish it as a piece of pop heaven.

So why wasn't this as revered as "Semi-Charmed Life"? Because it doesn't have that intangible element that makes it instantly identifiable to a large number of people the way "Semi-Charmed Life" had that "do, do, DO! do, do, DO, DO!" part. Listening to "Never Let You Go" now, though, I just find it depressing that there are no more songs like this on FM radio. If you want rock, you have to be insufferably ironic (Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy to a lesser extent) or middle-of-the-road tough and awful (Nickelback, Hinder) to make the pop station. I know these things work in cycles, so I'm guessing we're about 2 years away from the next onslaught of boy bands and the newest incarnation of Britney Spears, and hopefully they will also bring the happy-go-lucky modern rock bands back to the charts. I know you hated Smash Mouth, but c'mon, is HINDER better?

Third Eye Blind is playing in Philly in less than two weeks. Trading in my indie cred for one night to see them wouldn't be that bad... right?

Underrated: Posters For Leslie Nielsen Movies

Need I say more?

It Is TV. It's HBO/ List Madness/Down To "The Wire": Top Ten Coolest Characters on "The Wire"

Way down in the hole...

This post has been a long time coming. I have been back at school for about six or seven weeks now, and I have watched every episode of "The Wire" -- all 50 hours -- in that time period. I sort of messed up and (knowingly) started with season 2, because I couldn't find season 1 on any torrents and I figured that the difference between starting at 1 or 2 wasn't that huge. Boy, was this retarded. By the time I knocked off seasons 2-4, I basically knew everything that happened in season 1 (D'Angelo almost flipping, Wallace getting got, Avon being busted, etc.), so watching the entire first season in the past four days has been sort of anti-climactic.

But the past few months have been sort of miraculous nonetheless. I'm not going to talk about how "The Wire" is the best television show maybe ever, because you could read any other review of it to tell you that. Plus, when the fifth and final season starts up in January, I'm gonna be talking about that shit and giving it imaginary awards all day. No, right now I just want to pay tribute to it -- for providing me with such provocative, poignant, gritty entertainment over the past month and a half. I have composed a list of the top ten coolest characters on the show.

This is surely a flawed list: if Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce) didn't make it, it would have to be. Every character on the show is brilliantly acted, so this is not an acting award. These are the ten characters on "The Wire" that both entertain and effortlessly handle their shit. You laugh with them, root for them when they gun people down, and you cry when they catch a bullet. It's "The Wire" way.

I want to quickly justify some glaring omissions and shout-out some almost-made-it's, too. I found Avon Barksdale too stupid to be that cool (part of the reason I found season 1 the weakest), and his nephew D'Angelo too wooden. Brother Mouzone may be my least favorite character, because he doesn't exist within the believable parameters of the show's world. And policemen Herk, Carver, Rawls, and Valchek are too asshole-ish to admire. On the other hand, a few characters were SO CLOSE to making this list (just a quick rundown: Daniels, Bunk, Cheese, Bubbles, Slim Charles, Bunny Colvin, and all the kids in season 4) that I have to give them props. For those of you who don't watch the show, you're probably completely lost by now. I apologize (sorry Chris).

10. Councilman Thomas "Tommy" Carcetti -- played by Aiden Gillen

Carcetti is a staple character in seasons 3 and 4, and an odd choice for this list, because it's hard to be cool when you're running for mayor of Baltimore. Still, Tommy is a captivating character because you want to believe that the guy is actually a politician who's not full of bullshit and means what he says. Introduced as a hard-nosed councilman who bribes the police commissioner and sleeps around (not with the commissioner -- yet), Carcetti has evolved into a likable mayor with the help of cool motherfucker Norman Wilson, who deserves his own place on this list. I dunno, Carcetti's just sort of the man.

9. "Proposition Joe" Stewart -- played by Robert F. Chew

Another thing season 1 was lacking was the watchful eye and Southern drawl of Prop Joe, certainly the biggest character of them all. Frankly, it sucks that Proposition Joe isn't given that much to do in the show besides act as a level-headed mediary; even his pivotal plot at the end of season 2, where he organizes a deal with Stringer behind Avon's jailbird back, focuses more on how pissed-off Brother Mouzone gets by the whole ordeal. Anyway, Prop Joe is probably the smartest gangster in Baltimore's game; dude knows how to handle business without getting dirty or violent. He even has the sense to buy back the truck-sized package that Omar stole from him without batting an eye! If Jay-Z's line, "I'm not a businessman, I'm a business... man" refers to anyone on "The Wire", it's Prop Joe.

8. Det. Kima Greggs -- played by Sonja Sohn

Kima is the only female character on this list (Rhonda Pearlman was pretty close to it too), but it's hard to outshine a lady when she is as completely awesome as Greggs. The detective is pretty, tough, gay, and loyal, and although she does cheat on her girlfriend, her girlfriend's insufferably boring, so it's understandable. Maybe it's just me, but Kima Greggs is the one character I would wanna hang out with most in real life. I'm also glad that she's a lesbian, for some reason. Just adds to her awesomeness.

7. Marlo Stanfield -- played by Jamie Hector

Marlo Stanfield is a scary motherfucker. Characterized as an out-and-out sociopath, Marlo is made to be the sort of dude who will shoot his uncle in his balding head if he gets interrupted while watching "Access Hollywood"; if homeboy wants you toast, you're toast. But while this untouchability was once boring, season 4 opened Marlo up as a classic villain, even humanizing him through his relationships with Chris and Snoop. It helps that, for my money, Jamie Hector is the best actor on the show. Hell, the way Marlo Stanfield stands -- shoulders stretched back, like he's ready for battle -- is pretty cool. It'll be interesting to see how he's brought down in season 5.

6. Jimmy McNulty -- played by Dominic West

West is the "main character" of the show, which means absolutely nothing on "The Wire". If you don't believe me, check out the way he does NOTHING in season 4... and that's okay. McNulty is a flashy character, but his idiosyncrasies are better displayed when the spotlight's off of him. Yeah, we know he's a drunk, and a hound, and a damn good cop, but he's a lot more interesting when he's looking impatiently at his ex-wife or angrily throwing a file folder across a room when a witness dies. He's a well-drawn character, and compared to other protagonist cop shows, he's clearly the most relatable. Also, huge props for getting with Beadie Russell, who got crazy hot after the docks case, I guess?

5. Lester Freamon -- played by Clarke Peters

Lester is the coolest cop on "The Wire". Period. What could have been a tired Morgan Freeman impersonation is instead a fantastic example of the show's attention to detail. Over the course of the four seasons, Lester has been an essential part of the unit, whether it be busting into D'Angelo's pager or finding Marlo's bodies in the boarded-up houses. Not only is his backstory intriguing -- stuck it to the system, got put in the pawn-shop unit for thirteen years until they "forgot about him" -- but his current role as the wisened cop is so comfortable that it's impossible not to love the guy. Lester knows his shit, and nobody messes with him. Cedric Daniels didn't make this list because Lester Freamon IS Cedric, only cooler.

4. Preston "Bodie" Broadus -- played by JD Williams

Man, I did not see Bodie's death coming at the end of season 4. And I gotta say, I was more upset than I thought I should have been. But then it hit me -- Bodie, the corner stalwart who rolled with the Barksdale crew until it fell apart, is such a real character that you don't even notice his presence until it's taken away. Bodie is not the most likable guy (damn, why'd you have to do Wallace like that, B?), but he's the most unflinchingly honest portrayal of what happens when the corner chews you up and spits you out. Bodie's legacy will be slinging, and he knows it, but he's diligent and good at what he does, which traps him. As a character, Bodie is equal parts hilarious and ruthless; his swagger kept him afloat for a while. I'm gonna miss him.

3. Dennis "Cutty" Wise -- played by Chad L. Coleman

Shocking that I put him up this high, but let's face facts, people. Cutty's season 3 storyline, which chronicled his struggle to stay out of the projects and find his place in Baltimore after finishing a long bout in prision, was so un-"Wire"-like that it's hard to justify its huge presence as anything but "Cutty's just an awesome guy". His rebirth as a boxing coach is just so blissfully pure amidst the depressing arcs of "The Wire" that it's like rays of sunshine breaking out of dark clouds. Seriously, it's unbelievable to think that "The Wire", which is dedicated to exploring the decaying public systems of Baltimore, would give this guy such a positive outcome. Cutty is just a great guy. I will continue to unabashedly love him when the show returns.

2. Omar Little -- played by Michael Kenneth Williams

You gotta be kidding me. Omar? Not at #1? He's an openly gay gangsta with a big-ass scar on his face who robs drug lords of their stashes with the help of a shotgun! He cooperates with the police to give McNulty one of Barksdale's soldiers! He sometimes whistles "The Cheese Stands Alone" before an execution! Not even Marlo can pin a murder on him to get him convicted! Well, Omar's not #1 because he KILLED my choice for #1, but that's besides the point. Omar Little is a hero on the show, and adds a wild-card dimension to the entire Baltimore drug operation. Everything about the guy is superfly, like a Shaft who likes dudes (no pun intended). The only reason Omar's not dead by now is that the writers couldn't afford to lose his bravado. Can anyone bring this guy down??

1. Russell "Stringer" Bell -- played by Idris Elba

Oh Stringer. I hate the fact that Stringer Bell, Avon's second-in-command and brains of the Barksdale operation, is nowhere to be seen in the final two seasons of the show, but we'll always have those first three. Stringer Bell is one of the most enigmatic television characters ever created. He is surely a bad dude, but at times it seems like the good outweighs the evil. Sure, he runs the Barksdales while Avon's locked up, but he's more understanding than power-hungry, sharply contrasting with the irrational blood-thirst of the Stanfield crew in season 3. Stringer is college-educated, savvy, and really tall, but that's not my favorite thing about him. I love the fact that Stringer can do some terrible things, but they never seem grandiose; everything he does seems reasonable. Stringer hates the dirt he does, and wants nothing more than to soak in what he's accomplished and be satisfied with his winnings. The way he tries and inevitably fails to get out of the game by going legit is heartbreaking. After watching Omar and Brother Mouzone gun him down, I could barely breathe, and had to pace around my room for twenty minutes. "The Wire" constantly tries to create overreaching character arcs that connect with the audience and resemble tragic Greek figures. With Stringer Bell (who was wonderfully played by Idris Elba, by the way), the show accomplished this in stunning fashion.