I Pity The Haters

The most intense and divisive conversations I have with people nearly always begin with, "I have a song I want to play you."

Pop music is a litmus test in the process of young adult coolness authenticity: "You listen to Bon Iver?" [You're cool.] "You listen to Kylie Minogue?" [You're lame, unintelligent, out-of-the-loop, immature, self in-actualized.]

Essentially, pop music can be enjoyed by girls aged in single digits, so if you listen to pop music you have the taste of a nine year-old. Of course, there are exceptions. Lady Gaga, for instance, has been scratched off the Guilty Pleasure list by Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, the birthplaces of indie cred and tectonic divergence zones for what is and is not acceptable to have on your iPod. Other exceptions involve music sites like Hype.fm and Pandora. ("If Taylor Swift plays in my Pheonix channel, I can't help that. I only have so many songs I can skip per hour!")

You can also be so out you're in, like Fergie. I'm not sure how that works, but everyone loves Fergie. I know cokeheads and band agents and American Apparel employees alike who will lose their shit when "Glamorous" comes on. "This is my jam!"

The irony is that many artists with a massive "underground" (i.e. depressed hipster) following like Uffie have pop sensibilities stronger than major aboveground musicians. "DVNO" by Justice is more radio-friendly than anything Gwen Stefani ever released, and she has multiple #1's and a legion of teenage fans.

Acceptable music acts like The Gossip, Tokyo Police Club, and Surfer Blood are the aural equivalent of nails being repeatedly driven into my skull. If I was a cave man, I'd love the grating chorus line of "Keep The Car Running" by Arcade Fire, but I heard Britney Spears' "Crazy" as a preteen inside a Chuck E. Cheese and know that pop music can change your life.

Pop music doesn't alter your life in the same way Fiona Apple does, however. Pop music is so frothy you don't even need to filter the lyrics. With our intellectual webs disabled, pop music hits directly at our pleasure (or pain) centers. The sensation can be so real even the most jaded of hipsters will, I guarantee you, dance when "Rude Boy" plays. They will belt out Mariah's "We Belong Together" in private. They will play Katy Perry's newest single, "Teenage Dream," and tear up in their rooms reflecting on high school memories.

"Teenage Dream" is a perfect example of Pop That Changes Your Life: "You say I'm pretty without any makeup on/...let's go all the way tonight." Damn. Have we not all lived through this? Why cast hate on a story told through this medium? As if hipsters speak more eloquently than most pop music is sung. "You make me/ feel like I'm living a/ teenage dream." There's no pretense. Come as you are, listeners, because we've all been teenagers and you don't need a degree from Columbia and a longtime pretend relationship with "a fashion designer from Brooklyn" to appreciate the first time you woke up and realized you were a little less innocent than you were the day before.

I pity anyone who can't appreciate the sugar rush of Kylie Minogue's "Get Out of My Way" or the electric bounce of Leighton Meester's "Your Love's A Drug." A good pop song, on first listen, can be better than sex. Just as pop can give life, however, pop also taketh away; I remember listening to Usher's "Love In This Club" (a painfully mediocre pop song, really) in the car for the first time and nearly getting into a wreck due to my temporary ecstasy.

We cheat pop music out of whatever potential it has to effect people when we label it the way we do; "deep art" can often be even more transparent than pop, which has a sense of irony and is rarely serious. There's more humor in Perry's "California Gurls" than in any song The Heartless Bastards ever conceived, more tangible emotion in Robyn's "Should Have Known" than any sculpture in the MoMA. (This may or may not be an exaggeration.)

I can't convince anyone to like pop music. You understand the appeal or you don't. However, like someone born with a poor sense of smell can never understand the appeal of French food, I can only try my best not to rub it in.

10 Happiest Albums of the Decade

Two-thousand through 2010 was a thrilling decade for entertainment. Videogames continually defied storytelling expectation, film delivered both brains and brawn (albeit more clumsily), television consistently impressed both the public (the behemoth that is American Idol) and critics (Big Love), and novels like and Away and The Post Birthday World proved great authors still exist. The most creative growth, however, took place in the realm of music. From the anthem pep of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Stadium Arcadium (2006) to Britney Spears' darkly futuristic pop in Blackout (2007), Shania Twain's genre-bending Up! (2002) and the solemn free-by-download In Rainbows by Radiohead (2007), music in the 2000s was as diverse as it was frighteningly similar. Shimmering electro-pop (Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor, 2005) and slinky throwback (Solange's Sol-Angel and the Hadley Street Dreams, 2008) were trends both widespread and pervasive, from superficial pop to underground hip-hop. But ten albums stand out in my mind as excellent, innovative from a creative standpoint and, as is most important to The Happiest Activist, a hell of a fun listen.

10. Kings of Leon, Only by the Night (2008)


















It's rumored Caleb Followill wrote Only in a single night, beginning with the haunting, desperate "Closer," about a vampire looking to feed. This is not their Happiest record of the decade, but the general tone and musicality of the album wins with major style points.

Happiest Track: "Revelry"


9. Sam Sparro, Sam Sparro (2008)


















Sparro's debut is unabashed 80's-style pop, but occasionally-deep lyrical content appears when least expected.

Happiest Track: "Too Many Questions"


8. Robyn, Robyn (2008)

















Simple, perfect pop.

Happiest Track: "Handle Me"


7. Feist, Let It Die (2004)

















Happiest Track: "Inside and Out"


6. Lady Gaga, The Fame Monster (2009)
















I was tempted to rank this higher on the list--no other female pop record was quite as fun in the 2000s--but the album is still fresh.

Happiest Track: "Bad Romance"


5. The Postal Service, Give Up (2003)

















Possibly also the Happiest Album Art Award?

Happiest Track: "Nothing Better"


4. Lily Allen, Alright, Still (2006)


















Lily Allen was and still is the most believable pop music brat. And her brand of humor has been copied again and again...(Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Kate Nash...lot's of K's, for some reason)

Happiest Track: "Knock 'Em Out"


3. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine (2005)


















Happiest Track: "Better Version of Me"


2. The Killers, Hot Fuss (2004)


















There are a lot of faux-Brit rockers in the music world, but none as slick, sexual or pared down as Brandon Flowers and his less-relevant band members.

Happiest Track: "Smile Like You Mean It"


1. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black (2006)


















Cutting selections from this list--which began much larger than the ten you see here--took a lot of careful consideration and research. I wanted to include a Madonna album, simply for the impact she's had on my life in the past decade, but no single album is better than the above ten (2000's Music came close). I also wanted to throw in Rihanna's Rated R (2009), which is altogether a better record than The Fame Monster but, let's all be honest, the Lady deserves a spot here. There were a hundred others--Shakira (for She Wolf, 2009) and John Mayer (Continuum, 2006), M.I.A. (Kala, 2007) and even electro-pop goddess Annie for the dazzling, whirling disco of Anniemal (2004). But when I had to make a choice for Happiest album, there was no doubt in my mind. Amy Winehouse is a legend in the making. She has a voice without peer and an ability to write lyrics as sharp as shattered glass--and as heartbreaking as the worst breakup you've ever been through. Paired with Mark Ronson's addictive beats and as-of-yet-unmatched talent at mimicking the rasp of vintage recordings, one can only hope her heart is broken again. And that's black.

Happiest Track (of the Decade): "Back to Black"

Music Update: It's shiny

Annie. Oh, Annie. What is going on in your world? One day you're signed to Universal, releasing weak-ass singles and dying your hair an increasingly lighter shade of blond, and the next time I look you're releasing weak-ass singles without Universal. Oh, well. The Old Annie may be gone, but New Annie still has something to offer.

"Anthonio," off Annie's delayed and likely inferior sophomore album Don't Stop--it's gotta be real, it's even got cover art!--is a blitzy, synth-filled track high on lyrical drama and low on originality. It's a step up over "I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me," a song I covered last summer, but that's like saying Lindsay Lohan is a step up over Hilary Duff; one is just a bit more exciting.

Now, as the Megan Fox to the Duffs and Lohans of this post, a friend of mine recently turned me onto the best DJ I've heard in 2009, a Brit named George. George Lenton, that is! Apparently new to the international scene, Lenton has one thing most "famous" (a.k.a. sell-out) DJs like Seamus Haji and even the Justice duo have not: a fresh perspective. Remixed tracks like Bob Marley's "Island in the Sun"--transformed by Lenton from stoner jam into dizzying dance track at just the right tempo--and MGMT's "Weekend Wars," you'll gladly sacrifice your car speakers for Lenton's amorphic beats.

He's got some nice original work, too, like "Refresh," the track Paul Oakenfold wished his Brittany Murphy disaster "Faster Kill Pussycat" had been. "Your Love," another throbbing club track, is his most traditional but also his dirtiest; the bass is sketchy and rough, but the piano bars throughout the track keep it accessible. He's remixed Yelle and a few more obscure artists, but "Island in the Sun" is his most surprising and most danceable selection off his recent EP. You can check him out here, and as a gift to my readers, a link to "Island in the Sun."

...and "Refresh"...and "Your Love"...and "Weekend Wars"...

New Music from London (Where else?)

After work today I stopped in a few stores to purchase some organizing supplies. I walked out with a few white boxes--long, flat and pristine. As I (re)organized my shelves, again, I played my favorite new-old song: Third Eye Blind's "Never Let You Go." That is a beautiful song. It came out in the late nineties, but sounds completely modern. The secret to good music--lasting music--is the sincere emotion of the artist. "Never Let You Go" is sincere. I actually took the time to read about the band a bit, and they're coming out with a new album this fall. I'm actually excited.

Moments like earlier today, when I'm, well, cleaning and listening to great music, I feel a deeply resonating happiness. It's contentment. I'm thrilled I at least feel self-sufficient--that's the power of individuality. Controlling one's actions, feeling really really in control? Powerful stuff.

Was that a Carrie Bradshaw moment or what?

On to music. (Not much to say in the way of clothing. Until I get a job-job, The Sartorialist is my only indulgence.)

As music lovers, we should all bow down to Island Records. I love them. I really do. They have guts, releasing artists like The Killers back in the day, current artists like Annie, and all the while Capitol Records is shaking in their boots with Katy Perry. I mean, Perry's a sure-fire deal (beautiful, talented, kind of a dirty streak...). Just imagine how Capitol would feel signing Beck in the mid-nineties? Or Fiona Apple?

Scratching for every buck does not an innovative record company make.

Leon Jean Marie, hailing from the ONLY place for good music in the 21st Century (London, that is), is a creativity booster shot to the rear of R&B crooners Usher and Ne-Yo. Ironically, I downloaded Ne-Yo's new craptastical single this morning, thinking I'd dig the dance-y vibe, but I was wrong. This afternoon I found what I was looking for.

LJM's first (ahem) European single off Bent Out Of Shape, "Bring It On," is a multifaceted piece of work, stirring a bit of Justin Timberlake (sans Timbaland), Amy Winehouse, and even Sam Sparro into a rich, syrupy batter of darkly shimmering blips, lazily churned vocals, and a subtle yet essential horn track. I'm trying to lose the food metaphor (am I cooking pancakes? Brownies? I don't know), but the song is so smooth--like pouring warm butter in your ears.

(Admit it--that turned you off. Come on now, if it didn't you're a total pervert. Welcome to my blog!)

The song is--can I say this?--groovy, but has a tangible maturity to it. I've read an article that compared him to Lenny Kravitz, a comparison I agree with. I think Kravitz is a bit edgier than Marie, but "Bring It On" is a seriously thick track. Her Madgesty's critics say "Bring It On" is one of the album's weaker tracks, and if that's true...well, there's no stateside release planned as of now, so there are few legal alternatives...

Another artist signed to Island, also mentioned like three paragraphs up, is the hard-to-google Annie. I've been into her for about three years now, kind of phasing in and out of interest with each and every song on her last album Anniemal. (Download "Me Plus One" and "Greatest Hit," the latter featuring a Madonna "Everybody" sample.) She's talented, though, as both a DJ and a vocalist, and retains a sexiness throughout all of her work. Other female DJ-gone-pop stars, like the unfortunate and derivative Colette, can't always hold their own when faced with writing lyrics and performing vocally. How is it that Annie was so blessed to be born so freaking cool? She's hot, she makes music, and she's a DJ.

"I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me," Annie's first single off her September album Don't Stop, is pretty standard fare for Annie listeners. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun song--her vocals are saccharine-sweet, like some kind of musical candy (NO MORE FOOD METAPHORS!)--but it's been four years. I expected something a bit more future-sensitive, or at least more current. She's clearly heading for a more radio-friendly sound, so she might as well cash in on her good looks and position herself for super-stardom.

I'm being hard on her. "Girlfriend" is accessible pop. There's nothing wrong with that. As to whether she's still got the magic trifecta (coolness, hotness, DJness), we'll see in September for what I'm sure will be a full-album review.

[If you want to download LJM's "Make It Right," another song off Bent Out Of Shape, visit his Myspace and click the link. It's free if you (lie) and say you're British! Do they seriously think people will be stopped by a "U.K. Residents Only" notice??]