Best of Music 2009

Everyone puts out their end-of-the-year lists in November. Have they no patience? What if something really good comes out in the last week?

Anyway, here are my picks for the best of 2009 in music.

Best Children's Album
They Might Be Giants
Here Comes Science

This album works on a lot of levels. First, it has great songs that kids and grown-ups will enjoy -- but this is TMBG's fourth kids' album, so they're good at this by now. Then, the science content covers a lot of ground: biology, physics, astronomy, engineering. I think I can now name five different jobs that the bloodstream does!

But the most encouraging thing is that the songs have an appropriately skeptical bent, even referencing religious dogma as being inferior to the scientific method. Lyrics from the title track:

I like those stories about angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like those stories as much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge either simple or abstract
The facts are with science

This is a great TMBG album, maybe their best.



Best Classical Album
Catrin Finch
Goldberg Variations

Mastering Bach's Goldberg Variations on piano made Glenn Gould famous in the 50s. Now Welsh harp virtuoso Catrin Finch has scored and performed her version. This alone should be enough to merit her place in the classical pantheon. (Not to mention, I love the rock chick look. Brings in the young folks.)

Finch performed the work live several times over the last year, which to my thinking constitutes some kind of marathon of skill and concentration.



Best Album I Missed Last Year
The Daysleepers
Drowned in a Sea of Sound

Saying that this album is Lush meets Cocteau Twins doesn't cover it, even though it's true. The surprise here is how good this shoegaze revival sounds. Smooth yet engaging.



Song of the Year
Lusine
'Two Dots'
A Certain Distance

Compulsively listenable. It's a little unusual to hear vocals on an ambient electronic track, but here it contributes to make 'Two Dots' part IDM, part chill, and very sophisticated.




Album of the Year
The Leisure Society
The Sleeper

I found out about this amazing band via fans of the Lilac Time, and it's not hard to see the connection. Both bands feature beautiful bucolic (and unmistakably British) folk-tinged music. Both use a diverse range of instruments. And the Leisure Society, like the Lilac Time, makes music that is unfailingly pleasant, and melodic to a degree I haven't heard in quite some time -- every song has its own hummable melody that seems not so much written, as having always existed.

Take the title track. Structurally, it begins and ends with a quiet meditation of mortality and the transience of human achievement.

Someday we all shall cease to exist. 
Someday our towers will fall. 
Roots will reclaim the bricks that we lay. 
Worms will reclaim the soil.

But the middle opens up with a beautiful revelation: 'Sometimes you need someone.'

At the time I discovered the Leisure Society, I was conducting my own meditations on mortality, and this album provided a soulful but joyous soundscape, perfect for walking, meandering, or dancing down a quiet Perth street. Any life would be enriched by this magical music.

Loony v loony

I was disappointed in the video of the Pope Attack, but only because I got it wrong: I thought the Pope had attacked someone. You must admit, it would be worth watching. When Popes Attack. Instead, a crazed loony jumped him like a LOLcat on a tree ornament, and he only got his pointy hat knocked to the ground.



That's okay, but it's even better when you apply the Benny Hill soundtrack to it. Now that's comedy gold!

Jokes aside, I can't condone an attack on an elderly virgin, even from a fellow loon. I want the Pope to disappear as much as anyone, but this kind of thing won't help. Just as Jason and Freddy will only die when audiences refuse to watch their movies, the Pope will only cease to exist when people stop believing in him. Sorta like Tinkerbell. And I don't mean the outfit.

White Wine in the Sun

I got the chance to see Tim Minchin's show 'Ready for This' last week. Highly recommended, if you ever get the chance to see him. I've always enjoyed his musical comedy with a skeptical bent. What I hadn't expected was how accomplished a pianist he is. He was really ripping up and down the keyboard.

And as a special treat, the encore was his lovely Christmas song, "White Wine in the Sun". Have a listen.



I like to imagine the family gathering he's describing -- not a bad description of Christmas in Perth, I must say.

When people talk about the 'true meaning of Christmas', they usually mean a certain dead Palestinian. That's not the case for me anymore. Now Christmas is about music (I do a lot of singing), but also being with the people you love, and who make you feel safe.

A lovely song. Follow this link to buy it from iTunes -- part proceeds to autism research.

Who would have thought?

Talk the Talk: The language of global warming

A timely interview on RTRFM, this time about the hidden persuaders in language about global warming.



Watch out for that link; it plays immediately, so make sure your speakers are at the right level. As always, I'm on about 5/6ths of the way through.

One day I'm going to say this.

People think god agrees with them

It's not a new idea that people construct their god based on whoever they are. Nice people, nice god. Horrible people, horrible god. Homophobic people, homophobic god. The god of the Hebrews was obsessed with details about animal sacrifice. The Christian god is obsessed with the sexual behaviour of other people. What else do you need to be convinced that gods are a creation of their people?

But even if you'd already cottoned on to this idea, it's still exciting to see it verified experimentally.

For many religious people, the popular question "What would Jesus do?" is essentially the same as "What would I do?" That's the message from an intriguing and controversial new study by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago. Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning, he has found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God, they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs.
...
Religion provides a moral compass for many people around the world, colouring their views on everything from martyrdom to abortion to homosexuality. But Epley's research calls the worth of this counsel into question, for it suggests that inferring the will of God sets the moral compass to whatever direction we ourselves are facing. He says, "Intuiting God's beliefs on important issues may not produce an independent guide, but may instead serve as an echo chamber to validate and justify one's own beliefs."

When people changed their opinions, they thought god changed his opinions, too.

In another study, Epley got people to manipulate themselves. He asked 59 people to write and perform a speech about the death penalty, which either matched their own beliefs or argued against them. The task shifted people's attitudes towards the position in their speech, either strengthening or moderating their original views. And as in the other experiments, their shifting attitudes coincided with altered estimates of God's attitudes (but not those of other people).

And finally, they used fMRI to detect any differences in brain activity when considering their opinion and god's opinion. The difference being 'none'.

The takeaway: people get themselves and their god mixed up. You'd think it would be a warning sign when your god agrees with you all the time. Maybe they just think they're really 'in tune'.

The world is a confusing place sometimes.

There are times when the news throws up some story just ambiguous enough that I don't know what to think. Here are my current sources of mental torsion.

Switzerland's War on Architecture

You know what? Minarets are annoying. About as annoying as church bells. First off, minarets tend to have either a muezzin or loudspeakers, either of which is noisy (though the Swiss minarets are supposed to be the quiet kind). Also, if we allow minarets today, we'll have a caliphate tomorrow, and then falls Europe, or something like that.

But I can't get behind the Swiss ban on minarets. As long as zoning and noise ordinances are obeyed, I think people should be allowed to be as big of idiots as they want, including practicing their religion and building buildings. Yes, churches are stupid, but if they're not free to get their religious groove on, I'm not free to get my anti-religious groove on.

No, I'm not going soft on Islam. I still think Islam is currently the worst religion in the world, though other religions could easily pass Islam up. I mean, think of what you could accomplish if you had two million people working together. You might be able to stop the murder and violence against women that your religion engenders. Instead, they just do stupid shit like this.

Two Million Muslims to Stone Devil at Hajj

Two million Muslims are headed to Muzdalifa, Saudi Arabia, to cast stones at the devil in the most dangerous part of the annual hajj pilgrimage, Reuters reported.

Once the Muslim pilgrims get there, they will collect pebbles to throw at walls of the Jamarat Bridge to symbolize the rejection of the devil's temptations.

Friggin' jerks.

But towers aren't where the fight is. We should be fighting to stop the formation of parallel justice systems based on what religion you are. We need to fight laws intended to punish criticism of religion. The minarets are only scary for people who are easily scared.

Meat in a vat

I already blogged about this when it was an idea, but now it seems they've gone and done it.

SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. Experts in Holland used cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a petri dish.

The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.

Would I eat meat if no one has to die to make it? Is the image of muscle growing by itself in a vat of fluid too offputting? Why won't the scientists try eating it? Will it taste like chicken? This is confusing on many levels.

Australian Liberal party changes drivers

They've dumped their leader Whatsisname. You know, the one who wanted to work to prevent climate change. Now they've guaranteed their irrelevance for the next ten years. This would normally be good, but I have nagging fears. What happens if the Liberal party does manage to sink climate change legislation and the Australian public isn't pissed off at them?

Hot Mormon Muffins!

You've seen young Mormon hunks in the Men on a Mission calendar, but you've also thought, "What about the ladies? Will there be a cheesecake calendar full of sister missionaries?" Sadly for you, a calendar of sexy sisters was just a little too hot. They've decided to send up an image that's equally ripe for satire, Mormon motherhood. It's messing with my head because I'm imagining ladies from the old ward in Cheney, in vintage poses. With doilies.

Ta to Snowqueen.