10 Songs with Awesome Outros

I use the term "outro" loosely because a distinct outro as in a coda is less common than an intro. "Songs that end awesomely", basically.


1. Fairport Convention - Matty Groves


2. Built to Spill - Broken Chairs


3. The Beatles - I Want You (She's So Heavy)


4. Pixies - No. 13 Baby


5. Deerhunter - Nothing Ever Happened


6. Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator)


7. The Rolling Stones - Can't You Hear Me Knocking


8. Augie March - Brundisium


9. Hunters and Collectors - Run Run Run


10. Sonic Youth - The Diamond Sea

Related:
10 Songs with Awesome Intros

Top Ten of 2010

Here it is, and only two months into the new year.



10. The Arcade Fire - The Suburbs


I'm not sure I want to meet people who think The Arcade Fire have had a consistent career. They're probably the sort of intense, tightly wound people who can't even enjoy Spongebob. The Surburbs is the kind of Grand Statement you'd expect from a bunch of guys who championed Obama even though they couldn't vote for him, but it's better than Neon Bible because despite its apocalyptic allusions, it doesn't sound as if they thought the world would end if it didn't end up exactly as they'd imagined.





9. Janelle Monae - The Archandroid

Oh boy is this album pretentious, and that's coming from someone with The Arcade Fire and Owen Pallett in his list. But that's OK, because a) ambition is enough these days, even if it crosses over into pretension and b) this chick knows how to have fun with a concept. It's long, jumps from hip-hop to rock to showtunes to funk while maintaining cohesion, and its concept - something about robots and cryogenics - is handled with knowing winks where appropriate, but never treated as a mere novelty.






8. Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky

I don't think I can sum it up better than my review, so just look at that.













7. Maximum Balloon - Maximum Balloon

Some might say it's a coincidence that the only TV on the Radio side project I've listened to so far is the one from the white guy, but I swear it's just because I'm a vile racist. Maximum Balloon is stick-in-your-head-for-days synth pop, like Devo's latest album wanted to be.










6. Big Boi - Sir Lucius Leftfoot: The SonTale of Chico Dusty

I don't know much about hip-hop, so I don't know what to say about this album. Some might say it's because I'm new to the genre, but I swear it's just because I'm the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. When my Aryan minions wipe out the lesser races, I will have Big Boi killed last.









5. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

Halcyon Digest divides its time equally between guitar-derived soundscapes and traditional songcraft. It's hard to say if it's their most accessible album, it's definitely not their most cohesive, and if you don't "get" Deerhunter, it's unlikely to change that. On the other hand, it confirms a certain predictability on Deerhunter's part: the pleasant predictability of knowing that they're likely to infiltrate many yearly top 10s throughout the decade.






4. LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening

James Murphy has been dropping hints that This is Happening will be the last LCD Soundsystem album - for example, if you put the CD in a modern car stereo, the title will read "Last Album". It'll be shame if that turns out to be true, but it'll be a hell of a high point. Fans might call it his "pop" album and detractors are probably calling it his "sellout" album; either way, "Drunk Girls" and "I Can Change" are massive hits in a paralell universe.







3. Owen Pallett - Heartland

It's a concept album about a 14th Century farmer in a land called Spectrum who is fully aware that he is a fictitious creation of Owen Pallett. "E" might be for "Estranged", but do you know what "P" is for? But who cares? You can attempt to decipher every nuance if you want, or you can just enjoy Pallett's string arrangment skills.









2. Autolux - Transit Transit

Call me superficial, but after a six year wait I could have used some more "Turnstyle Blues" type songs to bang my head to. Hey, I said "a few"; you've gotta admire Autolux for not falling back on the Future Perfect formula, especially when it worked so well. Instead, Transit Transit is more about weird loops and a slower, more contemplative (but never ponderous) approach. And Carla Azar still gets to drum the shit out of that bitch.







1. Richard Thompson - Dream Attic

Mediocre musicians, a man almost as old as my dad is kicking ass and taking names while you're doing the reverse. I'm not going to go into Thompson's history - you either know it or you should - but basically he's been around too long to be topping top 10 lists, especially on the merits of the album itself and not just because there was nothing better. Dream Attic covers all the bases, yet sounds more inspired than any Thompson's done in at least a decade. Hey, if I knew how he did it I'd be out there tearing it up folk rock style instead of sitting here and writing about someone else doing it.

Ten Great EPs

To say that the EP is becoming a lost art is stating the obvious. More to the point is the fact that I was born in the wrong time to appreciate them. There are probably many classic EPs from the 60s, 70s and 80s that have been lost to the ravages of time. I've probably absorbed some of them through reissues and compilations, and if that's the case, you probably won't see it in this list. This list is for EPs I enjoy in their own right, on their own terms. There are some obvious ones I've left out, and in most cases I've done so to allow space for some less appreciated EPs.

Alice in Chains - Sap (1992)

For most of its existence, Sap has been most readily available with its successor Jar of Flies as a 2CD set. Both are mostly acoustic and make great companions. Jar of Flies is an excellent EP and well deserving of being included in this list, but I chose Sap because it is the more concise of the two. Ignoring the goofy secret track, Sap is four tracks long, each of them excellent. It's hard to pick out a single highlight when presented with the anesthetising dirge "Am I Inside", the melancholy "Brother", the almost bluesy "Got Me Wrong" and the supergroup singalong "Right Turn".











Augie March - Waltz (1999)

Waltz obeys the two rules of releasing a second EP before your debut full length: it has to be better than the first EP, but also has to leave room for the LP that follows to refine your sound even further. Having said that, "Rich Girl" and "The Mothball" have seldom been surpassed. By anyone, I mean.











Boards of Canada - In a Beautiful Place in the Country (2000)

After the classic, more than hour long Music Has the Right to Children, Boards of Canada proved they could work in a more limited space. In contrast to the serene nature of the music, the EP and track titles and the artwork were inspired by David Koresh and the Branch Davidians.











The Breeders - Safari (1992)

EPs typically don't sell well, and this 12 minute one, released a year before The Breeders' breakthrough Last Splash LP, didn't fly off the shelves. However, it become a cult favourite and matters greatly to me because within it is my favourite Breeders song "Don't Call Home", an initially mostly acoustic number that climaxes in a squall of noise.











Deerhunter - Flourescent Grey (2007)

Deerhunter is one of the few bands around these days that really understands the EP format and how to best utilise it. The sound is appropriately somewhere between the second half of Cryptograms and Microcastle, and the title track is arguably the best song the band had written up to that point.











Gomez - Machismo (2000)

Gomez followed the overlong Liquid Skin with a concise EP whose character was unlike its predecessor or any other Gomez release. The title track uncovers new ground with its use of samples and effects, but it's the 13 minute Meddle-esque closer "The Dajon Song" that elevates this EP to exceptional status.











Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls & Marches (1981)

Arranging for the six songs that comprised the original tracklist of this EP to all appear on a single release brings to mind the setup of The Usual Suspects. It was a very strong lineup to begin with, but then Rykodisc reissued it two extra tracks, including the band's debut single "Academy Fight Song". An EP just isn't supposed to have two songs of the caliber of "Academy Fight Song" and "That's When I Reach For My Revolver", but then Matador reissued the EP again in 2008, adding another two tracks, this time putting all four bonus tracks at the front. It's more of an album than an EP that way, and it's almost as good as their debut LP Vs, and despite its relative obscurity and lack of easy availability, of theoretically wider appeal, leaning as it does closer to the punk side of post-punk.











Radiohead - My Iron Lung (1994)

Every Radiohead EP after their debut LP is a roundup of b-sides and/or other unreleased tracks, but that's usually not a problem when you're talking about a band whose castoffs are better than most band's album tracks. The songs span a few years; the very Sonic Youthy "Permanent Daylight" had plenty of time to have been included on Pablo Honey (and would have been one of the best songs on it if it had), while "Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong" looks ahead to the atmosphere of OK Computer.











REM - Chronic Town (1982)

This is probably the most obvious selection here, but justifiably so. Chronic Town is such a clear portent of what was to come that you'd swear REM recorded it after their third album, put "1982" on it and surreptitiously slipped it into record store shelves. If there's one criticism I have of Chronic Town, it's that the mix is a bit timid and reluctant to put the band's obvious talent on full display. Peter Buck's serpentine arpeggios, Mike Mills and Bill Berry's secretly hard working rhythm section and the enigmatic mumble of the young Michael Stipe are all here; Chronic Town isn't a record of a band searching for its sound, it's a record of a band that has found it and is ready to improve on it.











Spoon - Soft Effects (1997)

As great as A Series of Sneaks is, it just doesn't have the energy of Telephono. Soft Effects, released in between those two albums, definitely does. It traverses the entire sphere of the Spoon sound of the time, from the terse pop song "I Could See the Dude" to the fuzz-heavy "Get Out of the State".