Dean Peteet's blog

Well it's been a while since I posted so I think now I might actually have something to say. Now Of course it’s also the end of the year, which means it's Top Five time. However because such an enormous amount of good music came out this year were going to make it the Top Ten.

Music:
#10 Band Of Horses: Cease To Begin This bands sophomore effort definitely outshines their debut with a much more solid batch of tunes, with it's brand of melodic rock reminiscent of Neil Young, as well as The Red House Painters, and even some older U2.

#9 The Good, The Bad, & The Queen: Damon Albarn that British wearer of many hats (Blur, Gorrillaz)with the help of former members of the Clash, and the Verve gives us one of the most authentic sounding London records made since about oh I'd say 1994.

#8 Bat For Lashes: Fur and Gold At first hyped as a Bjork wannabe we begin to see through the course of the record (even though there obviously needs to be some growth in the lyric department) there is a really captivating artist here that appears to have a lot of potential up her sleeve.

#7 Andrew Bird: Armchair Apocrypha The former Violinist for the Squirrel Nut Zippers now on his third record as a solo artist continues the glorious trend we see this year of artist's returning to beauty, well executed orchestration, and song craft.

#6 The National: Boxer This melancholy band sounds born to play smoke filled rooms with it's brand of beautiful sadness sounding like New Order Melodies channeled through the voice of Leonard Cohen.

#5 Modest Mouse: We were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank Well, If Pirates were rockers or rockers were pirates they would probably sound a lot like this record. Apologies to Tom Waits and Keith Richards. Oh, and Johnny Marr plays guitar on this record.

#4 Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga if there is such a thing this year as a pure rock’n’roll record, it comes in the shape of the tight swagger of this Austin Texas Quartet's new offering.

#3 The Arcade Fire: Neon Bible Probably the second most anticipated record of this year. For myself as well as others this record seemed at first not to live up to the preconceived expectations some of us had, but over time I noticed that it merely transcended them.

#2 Grizzly Bear: Yellow House Yes I know technically this record came out last year, but I just heard it this year. Wow, very few records come along these days that are both beautiful and innovatively brilliant, as well as being as eccentric as the old lady with the glass eye that lives up the street. Three cheers for Grizzly Bear, they pull it off well.

# 1 Radiohead: In Rainbows Yeah we know all about the pay what you want download, but is the music good? Yes it is. The irony of the In Rainbows controversy is that this album is probably the band's most accessible record since the bends. It is full of lush melodies and orchestration as well as one of their best rockers in years (Body Snatchers). The lyrics are a lot more straightforward on this one as well.

Well there you have it my Top Ten in music for this year. So what were the low points this year? Well I would have to say that this year you definitely saw the final death knell for the Post-Punk/New Wave revivalism of the last four or five years. Starting with the bland, tuneless record Weekend in the City by Block Party, then the over the top new fiasco of a record called Sam's Town by the Killers, where they claim that they were trying to channel Bruce Springsteen, but in actuality sounded more like they were channeling another New Jersey band but who had bigger hair. Lastly this year saw my favorite band from this era Interpol release their third record, which was terribly disappointing. I can't remember the last time I heard a record where you could almost hear the steam leaving the studio. With only a small handful of memorable tunes composed by bass player Carlos D. the rest of the record sounds like a bunch of B-sides from their last record. If they were really smart in the future they’ll put Carlos in charge.

Stay tuned next time for my top 10, Urm I mean my top 5 list of movies. Now I just have to figure out what came out this year that I actually liked.

I recently went to see the film "Control". This is the story of Ian Curtis the lead singer of the Post-Punk legends Joy Division who on the eve of their first American tour, hung himself. The film was directed by famed Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn who was also a friend of the bands before and after Curtis's death. The film was partly based on the book "Touching from a distance" the biography of Curtis written by his widow Deborah. Deborah Curtis was also an executive producer of the film as well.
Now, not only was I privey to the above information before viewing this film, but I was also a fan of the band's material, as well as their later post-Curtis incarnation New Order. On top of this I had also seen and enjoyed Michael Winterbottom's 2002 picture called 24hour Party People which was about the Manchester music scene and contained a pretty large junk of Joy Division in the film .
What I expected to see was a bleak depiction of an angry morose kid who was full of himself. As the film would progress I would begin to see Curtis immersing himself into the rock'n'roll lifestyle of drugs, adultry and the usual bio-pic/behind the music spiral downward into suicide. Along the way I would also get to hear some great Joy Division tracks. So what I am trying to say ,is that I was pretty much prepared for what I was about to see. Or so I thought.
What I got instead was a beautifully photographed black and white film about a young and nieve David Bowie fan who married at 17 and joined a band shortly afterward. He soon discovered that he was epileptic and has seazures frequently. On top of this while experiencing musical sucess he was also now a brand new father. As the bands success increases his relationship with his wife becomes more distant and he soon succums to the pressure to engage in an extra-marital affair, which only deepens his fall.
What I saw in this film that I was'nt expecting, more than anything else was heart which was'nt hard with such a wonderful job done by newcomer Sam Riley. No this is not the self indulgent self-loathing punk I thought I knew, but someone falling underneath the crushing blows of life itself. This was So much the case that I found myself aching to pull Ian out his world and into mine to protect him from this disaster of a life that he was going through.
It has been quite a while since I've seen such a powerful portrayel of the lostness and disconnectedness someone can feel when he has nothing to turn to. Anton Corbijn does not revel in the all too common chic morbidity that is so prevelent in many Idie music bio-pics today(like 24hour Party People) ,but instead we see an authentic morning for someone who did reflect true broken-heartedness.

A recent blogger brought to my attention the book "The Sceptical Enviromentalist" which does acknowledge that global warming is happening but it isn't as severe as the media hypes it up to be. Although I haven't read this book yet I plan to ,I would hope those who have would read books like these would A. First of all question who funded people like these research,and B read other material that has opposing view points as well. Too many times we have a tendency to go straight to the books that will back up a philoshical presupposition or agenda that we already have or want to have, before reading something that might actually challenge that prior agenda. This is what defines good critical thought. Also earlier when I posted that global warming the blogger commented that the author of the book thinks that while right now global warming is prority #2 it should in actuality probably be prority #9 or 10. I do think #2 is high, but #9 or 10 is way too low. #4 or 5 sounds a bit right.

I read recently in another blog about the interesting phenomenon between the political left and the political right that illustrates this toxic polarization that threatens our national/international security as well as our children's future on this earth and continues to damage the mission of Jesus Christ to our country and the rest of the world.
What I am talking about is the supposed "War on Terror" conspiracy theories posited by the left and those "the sky is falling" global warming conspiracy theories touted by the right. This is once again another example of how dangerous it is to get caught up in the deionization trend that is so prevalent in not only the news media and the blogasphere but just in regular every day water cooler conversation between each other's political and ideological allies.
Here's a news flash for you guys on the left and right, there is no Left wing global warming conspiracy to set up a huge government regulated plan to get rid of all privately owned business and set up a socialist state. And there is no right wing War on Terror conspiracy to strike fear and panic in everyone enough to where we will let the republicans set up a militaristic theocratic state ruled by Pat Robertson.
No. Guess what, these are not conspiracies, they are true. In other wards people it is not a matter of I am a conservative Christian therefore I must believe that fanatical Islam is a real and present danger and global warming is a hoax. Or I am a Christian progressive therefore I must believe Global warming is a clear and present danger, and I Fanatical Islam is a hoax. No! It means that fanatical Islam is very real threat to our immediate reality but it also means Global warming is a very real threat to us and our children's future. I mean good grief National Review came out and admitted Global warming was happening a couple of months ago. We have got to wake up about this. As deeply committed Christians we have got to step out of our insulated red and blue bubbles and think biblically for a change. As Christians we are to love God with our minds and I think that means being good critical thinkers and not just following the party line on all of these issues.
So what does that look like? It means we should read a plethora of different viewpoints not just our own particular political disposition. In other wards for the more progressive Christian don't just read books promoted by Noam Chomsky or Naomi Klein , or for you conservative Christians don't just read books published by Regenery. Also we should try to regulate our image of our political opposition and remember that we are all image bearers of God. This means not believing that all progressives are little Michael Moore's running around, or all conservative Christians are as mean and venomous as Ann Coulter. These are the worst of the worst images and we should not play into this game. Finally we have to remember that our allegiance should be to Christ and Christ alone. Not to Focus on the Family or Jim Wallis. Not to the Republican or the Democratic Party. We are to follow Christ first which means we should treat all people from all lands with dignity and respect and that includes not just the American soldiers dying in Iraq but the Iraqi civilians dying there as well. This also means being prepared to sacrifice business opportunities for protecting and preserving God's creation with yes potential tax dollars.

So if you haven't purchased In Rainbows by Radiohead via the internet yet, it's imperative that you do so with the quickness. It is I'd have to say their best recording since OK Computer. And I am not just saying that because of the intitial euphoria that comes with owning any new record by Radiohead . I am saying this because it is a great body of work with great songs along with a diverse palat of styles and moods. And yet it still retains a good cohesive musical theme.
Also ever present is Thom Yorke's fragmented cut up lyrical content, with it's frantic cry for something that's not there. But with that said even the lyrics on In Rainbows seem to suggest a more subjective honesty that could even be seen, dare I say as an earnestness that hasn't been there in the past. Wow Radiohead without Irony, how Ironic.
Gone now also are alot of the trippy experimental filler and the clumsy eletronic attempts at innovation (I think Thom Yorke might have gotten some of that out of his system with the Eraser last year) that permeated the last three records.
Not that I have disliked all of these types of songs from those particuliar records, Its just that it feels like sometimes that the need or desire to be inovative for the sake of being inovative, can hinder the beauty and authenticity that comes directly from the artist's own individual pool of creativity. In other words doing good work artistically can come naturally without the need to feel like you have to be an ARTIST and "do something that has never been done before." Because no matter how hard you try, chances are somebody has already done it before (See Eclesiastes).
Perhaps it's this philosophical presupposition that artists are taught in the artistic/pop culture and even academic world, that claims that making really good art has to be completely different from one's own previous material. The artist ( and the audiance for that matter) then can become so self-conscious about how relevant he or she is that it becomes easier for them to fein boredom about their own work, and look for novelty and shock as a means to relieve their boredom while making them feel important at the same time. Unfortunately most of our current day post-modern gallary art and literary fiction greatly reflects this ethos.
It's here where I think Jerram Barrs makes a good point when he talks about the goal of the Christian Artist should be to be imitators of God's creative presence, not inovators. Meaning that inovation implies creating something out of nothing and no matter how creative someone thinks they are, nobody but God can do that. Innovation in actuality is the God given individuality that each one of us brings to our own work without ever intending it to be innovation. Generally whenever someone tries to be innovative as a means to an end, their work suffers and often times becomes either portensious, dated, or it ends up being more like propaganda than art.