In reconstructing my blog after its brief foray into the Twilight Zone of the blogosphere, I noticed that a few posts went walkies somewhere along the line. Because I’m the only person who actually reads this blog and I can’t bear the thought of those posts out there in Blogovian limbo, I’m going to attempt to reconstruct the ones I can remember. Here’s the first of them, not verbatim (it would be a little scary if it were verbatim, now that I think of it):
At the end of 2004, my husband decided to compile a list of people’s favorites of the decade-so-far on a music e-mail list that we were then both on (I have subsequently left in a huff, or maybe it was an hour and a huff, or perhaps a taxi). I threw my list together quickly, shortly after his initial request to the list, because I knew that otherwise I would spend weeks agonizing over it; this way, I spent only a few hours agonizing over it. I think if I put the list together again right now, it might be slightly different, but again wanting to avoid those days of agony, I’m going to post my original list:
I had a really hard time limiting this to ten, but this is what I came up with. Subject to revision numerous times, starting ten seconds after I post:
1. Dolly Varden, The Dumbest Magnets
2. Allison Moorer, The Hardest Part
3. Robbie Fulks, Couples in Trouble
4. Scott Miller, Thus Always to Tyrants
5. Sam Phillips, Fan Dance
6. The Libertines, Up the Bracket
7. Scott Miller, Are You with Me?
8. Dixie Chicks, Home
9. The Delgados, Universal Audio
10. Jay Farrar, The Slaughter Rule soundtrack (my edited version)*
I posted my ten shortly after there had been a discussion on the list about whether or not there was a valid difference between “best” and “favorite.” My feeling is that there definitely is, and the above list confirms that. I don’t know if I can seriously, rationally argue, for example, that Dolly Varden’s The Dumbest Magnets is objectively the best record released since January 1, 2000, but I can state pretty unequivocally that it’s my favorite, in the sense that it’s the record that’s meant the most to me; although I’m capable of evaluating it objectively as a superb (if imperfect) record, my feelings about it, for various reasons, transcend any objective measures and move int the purely passion-based. Objectively, I think The Hardest Part–like The Dumbest Magnets, probably a once-in-a-lifetime peak of brilliance by an artist who is nonetheless capable of creating many more great records–might be a better record, but The Dumbest Magnets is still my favorite.
*I might eventually–in the unlikely event that I find myself with lots of spare time or the more likely event that I find myself wanting to duck schoolwork or work-work–write a little mini-essay on each of the records, because doing so would give me great pleasure, and I don’t really have any other forums to write about music much at the moment, now that I’m not actually subbed to any purely music-related lists. For the moment, though, I’ll just note that my special customized edition of the Slaughter Rule soundtrack is the regular version minus the Freakwater song and the Vic Chesnutt song. I’m not a Freakwater fan in general, but the torture they inflict on “When I Stop Dreaming” should be a prosecutable offense. I’m not exactly a Vic Chesnutt fan either–more of an admirer, a picker-and-chooser from his catalog than a real fan–but I like a lot of what he does, and his dirgelike, barely audible version of “Rank Stranger” was a big disappointment to me, so I left it off my version of the record. Those are two pretty much canonical songs that really should be treated with more respect, IMO. I’m pretty open-minded when it comes to covers: there are note-for-note faithful covers that I love, and there are complete reinventions of songs that I love, and I’m not a purist either way. But I do balk at outright desecration of great songs, and that’s how those two strike me.
Okay, end of rant; this is supposed to be a list of my favorites, after all, and absent those two songs, the Slaughter Rule soundtrack is a magnificent work. I say that as someone who would not have expected to put an almost all instrumental record on any best-of list, much less a (mostly) Jay Farrar record, since of all the many things I love about Jay Farrar, his voice is probably first and foremost. But it’s a gorgeous, atmospheric, imaginative work that does something many soundtracks can’t: it actually makes the movie better.
Having said all that, I’m not positive that if I redid the list right now, I wouldn’t swap out Terroir Blues, Jay’s most recent record (with vocals!), for the Slaughter Rule soundtrack; every time I hear that record, I like it better, and if I compile a list like this again in a year or two, I won’t be surprised to find Terroir Blues on it. But this was the one I came up with initially, so here it is, with no apologies–it’s not like there are any records on it that I’m not proud to have there.