Fact: When Guided By Voices, my favorite band of all-time, announced that the classic line-up was gonna release their first new album in 15 or so years, I wasn’t excited. I wasn’t surprised, either, but I also wasn’t jumping up and down.  I told friends and such that I didn’t want this to happen, I wanted them to just keep playing all the classics.  Bob had my permission to play as many shows with Toby, Mitch, Greg and Kevin as he wished, but the sometimes dreaded reunion album was the last thing I wanted.

They played their “final show” at Hopscotch in September, and I was there, forever grateful to maybe see them for the “last time ever in a live setting”. A few weeks later, the announcement came that not only was their a new album coming, but that it was already in the can.  Recorded in secret to the public eye during 2011, the album was titled Let’s Go Eat The Factory, and would be released on New Year’s Day 2012.  My initial reaction was sad; I didn’t want the men who wrote/recorded/got drunk to some of my favorite songs of all-time, the men who sat with 4-tracks in basements and garages playing the first things that came to them, to attempt it in 2012.  I wanted it to stay in the 90s, those 90 second blasts of rock. In a present day where lo-fi is faked through recording techniques, I didn’t want them to have to do the same to get back the sound they would eventually make (dare I say) popular.

The first single came out: it was called “The Unsinkable Fats Domino”, and I was surprised.  It was good, like really good.  The crunchy guitars, Bob’s vocals, the melody, it was as if they picked up where they stopped with 1996’s Under The Bushes Under The Stars.  And by the time they dropped second single, “Doughnut For A Snowman”, with it’s tip of the hat to the classic GBV move of tacking an unknown song at the beginning of another song, I was ready for this album.  And it’s actually good, really good, dare I say great even?  They touch on the albums the classic line-up made in the 90s (the lightning charge guitar of “Cyclone Utilities”), and even touch the early 2000s for a second (the barreling out the gate with “Laundry & Lasers”).

Of course, there are a few songs that just seem odd fitting, almost like a waste of space, including a string of bits near the end of side two.  But near the end you also get the set’s highlight, if not the highlight of this entire reunion, in “Chocolate Boy”.  It’s got everything GBV is known for and loved for, a catchy melody sharing space with Bob’s ever-so-strong vocals, and its succinct 90 seconds it lasts.  These are the moments a fan like myself lives for, knowing that nearly 30 years after they were founded, and 16 years since they put out an album together, that they still have it.  Now to wonder if the follow-up, Class Clown Spots A UFO,  will be just as good when it drops in May.

Let’s Go Eat The Factory is out now digitally and is in stores January 17th.

Oh, and if you didn’t see the fall felt through Ed Sullivan Theater the other week…

And so here we are, my annual list of what I think are the 50 best albums of the year that is coming to a close, in this case 2011.

For this year’s big reveal, it is all here at once. Rather than draw it on posting and rambling on about one album a day, I’m tipping a nod to my days writing for Stranded In Stereo. I give you the whole list, with some detailed insight on my Top 10.

But before the list, I guess it would make sense to mention those few albums that were good, or alright, or just didn’t make the cut but for some reason I feel like noting their existence this year.

THE 2011 HONORABLE MENTION OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT
CANT - Dreams Come True - Terrible
Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost - True Panther
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Mirror Traffic - Matador
Megafaun - Megafaun - Hometapes
Portugal. The Man - In The Mountain In The Cloud - Atlantic

And then, there were the more important 50…

Welcome to the annual edition of the big reveal, my lists of my favorite songs and albums of the year that is about to finish.  Here is the schedule of said events:

TODAY: RUSTY NAMES HIS TOP 30 SONGS OF THE YEAR, 2011 EDITION *complete with Spotify playlist*
TOMORROW: RUSTY NAMES HIS TOP 50 ALBUMS OF THE YEAR, 2011 EDITION

So, without further ado, click away already!

These are three songs I can’t get enough of right now, from album’s I am pretty fond of at the moment.

1. Atlas Sound - “Modern Aquatic Nightsongs”

2. Future Islands - “Balance”

3. Real Estate - “Green Aisles”

That is all.

This mix started right after the last one went up around my birthday.  It started as a summer mix, songs slowly creeping together on a playlist to eventually make some sort of order.  As the summer went on, songs came, songs went.  As of a few weeks ago, i came up with the idea of the mix being more of a transitional thing: the first half being more end of summer songs, leading in to a more fall-esque ending.  In the end, a text file on my desktop named ‘shitty’ held the list of potential songs and multiple running orders, and from that came this mix.  What started conceptually as a 17 song summer mix, three different running orders later, we came to the final 15 version.  From the initial conception, 29 different songs came and went.  The closest that I came to the summer one was about 15 or 16 songs, and of the songs to make the first running order, 3 songs made it.  It finally came together last Thursday in a fury when the first song came to me, and I felt I finally had a mood for said mix set.  And now that you’ve read this paragraph of my mumbling, you can download it now!

01 “Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die” by The Flaming Lips
02 “Scandinavian Crush” by Craft Spells
03 “Head For The Country” by John Maus
04 “Misery” by Big Troubles
05 “More Than Muscle” by Luke Temple
06 “Dreamdaddy” by World Leader Pretend
—
07 “Lament For Morning” by Raleigh Moncrief
—
08 “Images From The Lighthouse” by Porcelain Raft
09 “Easy Water” by Caveman
10 “Baby Missiles” by The War On Drugs
11 “Air” by Ben Folds Five
12 “Polish Girl” by Neon Indian
13 “Off He Goes” by Pearl Jam
—
14 “My Spot” by Yo La Tengo
15 “Farewell  Transmission” by Songs: Ohia

Download: Fall. 2011. [ZIP]

I’m turning 27 this weekend, and I thought I’d share a mix with you that I have been slaving over for the past few months.  Is started out as two separate mixes: the first a collection of poppy catchy tunes, the other being a noisy racket.  I started with a handful of songs for each, most of which didn’t even make the final cut after many changes (the final change being made two hours ago, when it was cut from 27 songs to 20.)

So, over time, the initial concept (poppy mix being 17 songs, noisy 10) comes to a leaner 20. 11 form the first part, while the noisy, in your face catastrophe I tried to build ended up at 9.  That one was supposed to be only 10 songs to begin with, and it was a struggle to find 10 that I would classify as “punches in the face” or something.  It went from being a bunch of short concise songs battling for space with longer songs to what it is: 31 minutes of what I think is something interesting to listen to. Maybe?

(I)
01 “Skin And Bones” by Foo Fighters
02 “Woods” by The Rosebuds
03 “Replace Me” by Chad VanGaalen
04 “Parentheses” by The Antlers
05 “A Chore” by Tom Vek
06 “Song In Three” by Here We Go Magic
07 “Cookies” by City Center
08 “Black Hills” by Gardens & Villa
09 “Everything Goes My Way” by Metronomy
10 “Through The Floor” by Crystal Stilts
11 “Dogs Got A Bone” by The Beta Band

(II)
12 “False Ending” by Yo La Tengo
13 “Hold Hands And It Will Happen Anyway” by Liars
14 “Lee Majors Come Again” by Beastie Boys
15 “Atticus Finch” by Paint It Black
16 “Little Word” by Times New Viking
17 “New Brigade” by Iceage
18 “Sport” by Die Princess Die
19 “Calvary Scars II, Aux. Out” by Deerhunter
20 “Vapor Trail” by Crystal Antlers

Download: A Stache For All Seasons [ZIP]

Last Fall, the Canadian group Women (which features no women at all, mind you) got in to a little bit of a fight onstage and apparently broke up.  Or went on an indefinite hiatus.  Either way, members of the band were pinning back others from socking themselves anymore and I have been sad ever since.

And then today, I heard this new song, “Bullfight”.  Assumptions are that it was from the sessions for Public Strain or before the strained relations, but it might just be their finest song yet.  It opens with a drum shuffle that more or less is the same that opens up Can’s “Mushroomhead”.  From there, the Krautrock continues on with that drumbeat just roaring on behind chiming guitars all amidst this delicate, peaceful atmosphere.  If they are in fact done, and this was their swan song, so be it.  Better to go out with a great song as opposed to a fist to a jaw.

Download: “Bullfight” [MP3]

1. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Roc-A-Fella

2. Foals - Total Life Forever - Sub Pop

3. Menomena - Mines - Barsuk

4. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks - Matador

5. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest - 4AD

6. Twin Shadow - Forget - Terrible/4AD