In case "What's this world coming to?" was not rhetorical.

“Let us not listen to those who proclaim that the world is at an end. Civilizations do not die so easily, and even if our world were to collapse, it would not have been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair.”

----Albert Camus, “The Almond Trees”

                I had a spectacular 2011, and I feel just awful about it.
                Based on a lot of the year-in-reviews I’ve read over the past couple months, nobody appears to have thought much of 2011 as a year overall. Let’s have a quick run-down of the awful (and you’ll sadly note I may miss something): Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis; Norwegian massacre; African famine; Belgian shooting; Slave Lake fire; Philippines earthquake; Arizona shooting; Texas Christmas Day murder/suicide. Oh, and then there are the matters of opinion: Harper majority; criticisms of Occupy Movement; Middle East uprisings (the continually un-aptly titled “Arab Spring”).

                I found it to be a hard year as well, despite the personal highlights. Norway and Japan hit me especially hard because there are people in my life who were in those places. I had a cousin on the island of Utøya. It was hard to wake up one morning last May and face four to five years of my country in the clutches of capitalism-trumps-all conservatism.

                I’d like to answer to the cynics, to the idea that things are constantly getting worse. (If you’re a frequent visitor to my blog, consider this a sequel to a piece I blogged last August: http://vikingpaul.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html)

                Declaration: The world is not becoming worse. The apocalypse does not at last looming on the horizon. (Sorry to the gun/canned-food hoarders out there). 

                Bad things have always happened, natural or man-done. 2011 had a bucketload of crap in it, no doubt, but I would caution those who despair from throwing in the towel on the human race or on this planet. Give up fighting and you quite simply lose. That’s it, easy Math.

                It is nothing but stupid to look at the past as civilized and the present as a time where hell is busting at its bindings. Murder has always been there. Senseless massacres have always been there. Natural disasters made the planet what it is. (Hello Gulf of Mexico, g'bye dinosaurs). Teenagers are no more selfish and no more disrespectful now than they were 1000 years ago, they’re simply disrespectful in new ways. How they rebel is always different than how the generations preceding perceive as proper. It would meet with a little more approval if it was traditional rebellion. Yeah, if that ain’t an oxymoron . . .The world is not getting worse, it’s just different than it once was.

                A sign of aging, of course. Every generation that has ever aged has stared down its inheritors and at least once declared that the world is troubled/doomed/fucked. Yet we still manage to plod on.

                Most of my news comes to me via radio or the Web. In both cases, stories often end with invitations for public response. On the radio, a selected group of choice responses are played; online, the right story can draw hundreds of comments, with new argument threads being drawn that have little pertaining to the original news item, appealing to our Facebook-inspired need to debate EVERYTHING through comments, with only the harshest or most vile deleted by a mediator. If you pay close attention to the responses—and it becomes exponentially more true the more horrifying the news piece was (and let’s face it, most of the news that gets our attention IS the bad stuff)—you’ll see that most of them decry the shoddy state of our planet and society, and that things are just going to continue to get worse.

                Media pieces, Facebook stati, tweets . . . all variously worded versions of “What’s this world coming to?” Hell, I didn’t tell my own wife about the Christmas murders in Texas when I first heard about them because I know she is sometimes given to worrying about what kind of a world we are raising our children in.

                I won’t say I’m not prone to a little worrying about the future myself. I’m tempted to despair when I consider the state of our environment, and our apathy towards it, when I look at idiotic New-Thing-Now capitalism, or when I look at those who define their entire lives around the acquisition of wealth. I try to allow it to only be a fleeting despair by doing something to make my corner better. That's the key for me. 

                Those who are aware of the state of our world yet do not give over to despair, and yet are not hopeful or productive in enacting change—indeed they intentionally stand in the way of change—have avowed to attack idealism wherever they see it. They claim the maturity of “realism” (as opposed to cynicism), but what it thinly hides is a justification for being greedy, lazy and immoral. It’s been a trend in the 21^st Century. Idealism, hope, and proactive change have all existed before now, but what I find singularly disturbing is the habit to treat them as childish things. (I.E. “If you’re under thirty and you vote Conservative, you’re heartless. If you’re over thirty and you don’t, you’re an idiot”). The wise stand aside and shake heads full of wisdom and old salts about life requiring a helmet and all that rot, while stroking an icon of Kevin O’Leary. This isn’t the worst, though. The worst is the desire to attack idealism, to decide that, for some reason, the current youth have no right to rebel, to protest, to believe they can make change. The war between idealism and greed has been fought before, but because the Boomers and the Xs didn’t win their battles, it’s as if the Millennials are to accept that the war is over, lost, and they’re that last bastion of soldiers living at the top of a mountain awaiting orders, unaware that their side surrendered years ago. The youth are being told they shouldn’t be optimistic, they shouldn’t hope, they shouldn’t protest, they shouldn’t Occupy anything. That’s just not mature.

                Because worrying, we know, is like a rocking chair. It seems that there are three types of people in this present future, or future present: those that figure we’ve made it this far, may as well go on consuming, spending, polluting, watching Entertainment Tonight. There are those who see the bad in the world, despair, and then bury their heads in the sand. I try to be the third type: aware, so cautious. Active, so hopeful. Not self-satisfied--understanding that one man can only do so much, but that this should not prevent me from doing it. Those who are not willing to let despair stand in the way of being the change they want to see in the world.

                Can one man have a dramatic effect? Many have always seen naiveté as my great flaw, but I do believe that one man can be a stone dropped into a still pool. Better to happily do, than to despair and do nothing, or to deny and destroy.

“If you look out at the city you live in and see that it’s full of garbage you should whistle a happy tune like a character in a Disney cartoon and start collecting the garbage.”

----Pete Townshend

2011 in Music

     I think this year I have to qualify my annual list of the year's albums. This is not a comment on the most popular music of the year. A cursory glance at Rolling Stone, Billboard or the MuchMusic Countdown tells me that I don't like popular music. Almost all of the above charts are populated with American R and B acts, rap, or pop divas and Idol castoffs singing through Autotune. (Oh and Glee, God help us all.) My own encounters with pop are usually coincidental--though I do like Lady GaGa, for what it's worth. Kanye West and Jay-Z had me giggling incessantly with their choice to name their collaboration after the place I think most of their music belongs: the toilet. Kanye, sheesh. The only dork on this planet who could make me consider listening to Taylor Swift just because I think he's a scumbag.
     Anyway, I'm mostly a rock dude. This isn't exclusively a rock list, but that's where I come from in the first place. I've heard that rock has been getting pretty mellow, and based on my list I have to agree. We're due for a revolution, though. Some kinda 1991-esque shaking off of all this Rihanna and Bieber glut. Here's hoping the Mayans were just predicting Grunge Part 2.
     For my money--thrones and Glee compilations aside--2011 was a fantastic year in music, much better than 2010 and easily as good as 2009, which I thought was one of those 1977/1994 once-in-a-generation lightning blasts. So much good music, in fact, that I'm breaking with tradition. I'm going to list the good and great albums first (and for the first time ever I'm going to tell you what I consider the best album of the year, plus some honorable mentions.) I'm also going to give you a list of other albums, the lessers I encountered, shall we say. Some were okay, some were disappointing. I'm not saying they were all bad, necessarily, but they just weren't what I thought they would be. Except for the unforgivable Black Keys and Dream Theater. Th'hell, guys, th'hell?
     Onward:

The Good and Great of 2011

The Best Album of 2011: 
Collider by the Sam Roberts Band.

This was honestly a bit of a surprise. His last album was good, but had that feel of the slow slide down after two brilliant first albums. It happens. A band knocks it out of the park once, twice, misses a step with their third, and then for the rest of their career just sort of mails them in. So, imagine my delight when this gem showed that Sammy-Boy not only still has his chops, but is also willing to use them on all new meat. (I don't understand idiomatic language well enough to know if I mixed m'metaphors there). Still firmly a folk-rock act, SRB throws some stellar work on here featuring unusual time signatures, some horn sections, and good ol' rock outs.

Choice track: Yikes this is a hard one. I hope the rest of this list doesn't take me so long to find that one song, that beautiful image. I'm gonna give the nod to the head-bobber "Let It In," but please don't lead that to cause you to ignore the opening gem "The Last Crusade."

Honorable Mention 1: Nine Types of Light by TV on the Radio

This was a trend for me this year: a band that's been around for years that I've never totally appreciated. Man, am I glad I picked this sucker up. This was my favorite wake-up album of the summer. Nice and mellow, yes, but also gets you singing along to the "Oo-oo-oos" in the confusing opener "Second Song." This was one of the most fun albums I heard this year.

Choice track: Yeah, let's go with that one. "Second Song."

Honorable Mention 2: The Social Network Soundtrack by Trent Reznor and some dude named after Scout's dad in To Kill a Mockingbird (but I file it under Nine Inch Nails)


If you've followed Trent lately, he's been a little less angry and a little more experimental with sound, even letting his supermodel wife sing on an album in a Yoko-esque move that I also file under NIN. In fact, if you've listened to Reznor's instrumental Ghosts I-IV, you've got a good sense of what this album is about. Some of the same arrangements appear on this as on Ghosts, which should have compromised Reznor's chances of winning the Oscar for Best Original Score, but it didn't. (Shh.) Certainly a case where the music is vastly better than the film it was recorded for.

Choice Track: This is an album to listen to late at night, all at once. It's not about single tracks. But if you have to get an appetizer, try out "In Motion."

Honorable Mention 3: Sigh No More by Mumford and Sons

Yes, it's two years old. However, I, like many, many North Americans, did not discover this stellar UK folk group until 2011. So sue us. Yes, you knew about them first. Congrats, you're smart or something. Sorry that I have kids and a job and so if I hear something, sometimes it's not on its release date. It's a little formulaic, yes, with nearly every song starting as a soft ballad until beating itself into a banjo-friendly folk frenzy, and yes, there's a lot of singing the unusual "har" syllable, but this is good, uplifting music. I have not tired of this at all yet. Good music, and happy.

Choice track: "The Cave" is my favorite sing-along of the year.

Honorable Mention 4: King of Limbs/Supercollider &the Butcher/ The Daily Mail &Staircase by Radiohead

When sat next to In Rainbows (and its collection of bonus tracks), King of Limbs is a little disappointing. However, it's still Radiohead doing what they do best, with simplified sounds and complex drum tracks, understated guitar work, and great lyrics. They took a lot of heat for this one, mostly because everyone but me and the missus doesn't like trees I figure, but I've got to say following up In Rainbows was a near impossible task for anybody but the band who overpowered OK, Computer with Kid A. My only real complaint is it's far too short, but this was somewhat improved by the four extras songs they released as the year wore on.

Choice track: And it's one of these non-albums I like the best. "Supercollider."

Honorable Mention 5: Songbook by Chris Cornell

This is me eating some crow. A big Soundgarden and Audioslave fan, me, the recent performances of Cornell's I'd seen on TV and online had caused me to declare that he was washed up, that his voice was not up to the nickname he'd once earned as "The Robert Plant of Grunge." Okay, I don't know if anyone besides me ever called him that. Point is, I'm sorry. Dude can still sing. This collection of live acoustic performances from his recent tour has proven that he has come through his many transitions of the past decade and is still one of the most talented post-Seattle musicians going. I lucked onto this thing, and it was one of the most pleasant surprises of my year.

Choice track: Hear what he does on the stripped-down Audioslave rocker "Doesn't Remind Me."

Let's pause for moment to consider that three of Canada's best guitarists re-formed their blues fusion bands . . .

A. The Ground Cries Out by Jeff Martin/777

In March, I saw him in a teeny auditorium in Airdrie, playing this new album with a new band that, like all of his stuff since The Tea Party, sounds just like The Tea Party. In November, I saw him at Flames Central with the reunited Tea Party, playing mostly the same set lists as ten years ago and promising a new album in 2012. Sorry Jeff and Stu, but Jeff Martin was The Tea Party, and this album (his third solo-ish venture) shows it. He's a bit of a douche, sure, but Jefft Martin plays mean-ass guitar, and is one of the more philosophical songwriters in our nation's history.

Choice track. "The Cobra." Yes, it's about sex. Whaddya expect, it's Jeff Martin.

B. Revolution Per Minute by Big Sugar

Apparently Reggae is like the red onion in the fusion-sound salad, because they've always sampled it in the past but on this disc it's all I can taste. I mean, this is BIG Sugar, the loudest band I ever saw live. Gordie Johnson could make a six-string roar and introduced a lot of us to the purity of the blues. This is a fun album, sure, and I throw it on a lot because it's got great melodies for which to make my kids breakfasts in the morning. There, you hear that? MELODIES! The guitar, the Big Sugar sound, has taken a bit of a back seat to all out Marley-channeling. It's good, it's solid, but if you like Big Sugar for the reasons you should, it'll surprise you.

Choice track: "Roads Ahead."

C. No Bad Days by Wide Mouth Mason

Yay, Saskatoon! What a year for your bands! I thought these guys broke up. What, they did? And Gordie Johnson is playing bass for them? Then they toured with Big Sugar and Gordie played the whole shows for both bands? What, was he worried Jeff Martin was showing him up, work-ethic and band-compromise wise? Hmm, maybe that's why the guitar is so toned-down on BS's own release, because Gordie was too damn tired to solo. Or maybe because Shaun Verrault is intimidating, because that young lad is the best Canadian blues guitarist this side of Colin James. This is probably the most overlooked album of the year you need to hear.

Choice track: "Only the Young Die Good"

The Rest of the Good

Bon Iver by Bon Iver

Here's another of those groups I've heard about for a long time that I finally decided to get into. It's maybe a sign that it's a touch mellow for me that the best track is the one where they rock out a little, but this is good late night music. And I mean that in the 30-something sitting in your chair reading a book at 11:30 sense, not the dorm room after the bar sense.

Choice track: "Perth"

Metals by Feist

My, I guess I'm feeling mellow. Okay, it's not The Reminder, but it doesn't fall that short of it. It is what you have come to expect from this talented former Calgarian. Clever lyrics, one of the only good whisper voices in the game, and it's something you don't get in trouble for listening to when your wife's in the room. She has some of the best song titles out there, too.

Choice track: I've only had this album a little while, but I like "The Bad in Each Other" thanks to Newsboy.

James Blake by James Blake

This is part of the Dean trilogy. Three albums (the other two were Mumford and Sons and Fleet Foxes) that were introduced to me by my pal Dean on a visit to Seattle. This is by far the weirdest, but I like it. Even much more than Radiohead, this is an acquired taste. It sounds really good on high-quality bass systems, or expensive headphones. He does some weird stuff with his voice, but it all works. In this age of minimalism (where combining the White Stripes and Black Keys all you get is ONE full keyboard), this one works.

Choice track: The improperly-conjugated "I Never Learnt to Share" will give you a proper sense of his shiver-inducing simplicity.

So Beautiful or So What by Paul Simon

Yeah, I have Graceland, but this is the first Paul Simon album I ever went out for. Yeah, forty years into his career. Yeah, I know he's talented, but this is my mom's music. But my mom has good taste. I saw him perform last spring on Saturday Night Live, and I was stunned at how unbelievably refreshing his songwriting is, and he's been doing it since the 60s! It also doesn't hurt that he surrounds himself with some of the best musicians he can find (any Paul Simon album is a lesson in bass guitar). Some of the best selection of sounds, that is the actual composition of music, all year.

Choice track: "Rewrite"

Learn and Burn by the Sheepdogs

I've already written about these guys: http://vikingpaul.blogspot.com/2011/09/this-whole-sheepdogs-thingy.html It's a cool enough album with amazing dual-harmonic soloing and these funny little transition mini-songs.

Choice track: "I Don't Know." It's the song.

21 by Adele

I do not care if you're sick of hearing about her, she's amazing. My GAWD what a voice. And what fantastic arrangements! Blues, R and B (the good kind, not the booty kind), and the kind of vocals that make you wonder why anyone listens to Kei$ha.

Choice track: "Rumour Has It." Yeah, I know how good "Rolling in the Deep" is, but "Rumour" here needs to be concentrated on to listen to. Listen to how those tracks are used. Two vocal layers "Oo"ing, the drums, the lead vocals, then the bass. Wow, what she can do with layering.

Bad As Me by Tom Waits

Again, never bought anything by him before (no, not even Mule Variations). Much more aware of his work than I was with Bon Iver or TV on the Radio, but still hadn't taken the time to actively listen. He's like scotch. You've gotta be in the mood, but, son, if you're in it, there's not much better than a dram. That voice, those thumping sounds that pass for rhythm. Pure passion.

Choice track: "Hell Broke Luce"

Love Pt. 2 by Angels & Airwaves.

I still haven't seen the movie because I'm waiting until m'boy Arjay has a free night, but the second half of this "soundtrack" is as good as the first. A&A is one of those rare bands (Audioslave was the only other one I could think of) I like better than the original. When I heard Blink-182 was back together singing its "I wish I was 19 forever" nonsense rock, I thought this stuff was gone for good. Thanks A&A, for still pumping out good tunes. Hope the movie is worth seeing.

Choice track: "Saturday Love"

How to Train Your Dragon  and Rio soundtracks by John Powell

A year ago I had no idea who this composer was, and I listen to a lot of movie scores. Why do I even have these? My kids. I watch these movies with my kids. HTTYD struck me as good enough to buy after seeing it, but Rio has to be mentioned just because it is in the van. And it was one of the first things our 1 1/2 year old could sing. "Rio, Riiiiiiooooo." Every damn time we get in the van.

Choice tracks: HTTYD: "Test Drive". Rio: "Real in Rio." Play this last one a thousand times straight and you're in my hell. Even my dad knows the words.

PJ20 Soundtrack/Live on Ten Legs/"Ole"/Fan Club Holiday Single by Pearl Jam

What a year for these boys. Yes, I'm a fanboy, but I had to make note of the amount of good music (much of it live) my boys have been churning out after twenty years. Awesome, just awesome. And if "Ole" is any indicator of the new album, things are gonna be just fine in 2012. Oh, and see the movie.

Choice track: I dig the cover of Neil Young's "Walk With Me" performed with Neil Young on PJ20.

The Meh

They don't all suck. In fact, some are okay--they just fell way short. You disappoint me, I don't put your picture. That's the rule.

Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes
A lot of people like these guys. I don't not. I just don't like the whole Beach Boys meets Simon and Garfunkel thing as much as I thought I would. Considering the number of mellow albums I was into this year, I can't totally tell ya why I found this less than foxy. Just doesn't have a sound to me.

Hope and Ruin by The Trews
This one hurt my feelings. These guys are by far one of my favorite Canadian bands, and they've run pretty parallel to Sam Roberts. Ask me which I thought likelier to produce a sub-par album, I wouldn't have chosen the Trews. This isn't good no matter how hard I want it to be. The strong vocals and guitars are still there, but after three straight albums of constant hooks, it's hard to believe they could release one with none. I just hope they have a better one in them for next time, because I won't give up on them.

Megalithic Symphony by AWOLNATION
When I heard "Sail," introduced to me by a kid I teach, I thought this was the next big thing. But the rest of the album couldn't sound less like that awesome track. Funny enough, this kid also introduced me to Owl City's one song. Shoulda seen it coming.

Ukulele Songs by Eddie Vedder
See, I can be biased! Well, no. It's still pretty good. I like every song on it, just not all in one sitting. A whole album of ukulele is a little hard take, even when delivered by my musical hero.

Revolutions Live at Wembley by Biffy Clyro
First rule of recording a live album: screw around. Don't play the songs exactly as they appear on your albums, or it's just a greatest hits. Maybe an okay thing for those of you who have never appreciated this great band before--a little boring for me.

Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 by the Beastie Boys
If you're my age, you can remember when a Beastie Boys release was the event of the year. What the hell is this thing? I got through it twice, before realizing it was only getting worse.

El Camino by The Black Keys
I have to admit that I may have been the only person who didn't think Brothers was the Second Coming, just a really good album. Still, this falls way short. No, what it does is expose this band for what they are: uncreative. Simple, repetitive sounds are only further exposed as mediocre when they are this overproduced. Oh, and fellas, a song that sounds like Anthony from the Red Hot Chili Peppers singing for the Who ("Little Black Submarines) is like musical gender confusion. Just sayin.'

And THE most disappointing album of 2011:

A Dramatic Turn of Events by Dream Theater
Okay, maybe this makes you go "Who?" If so, choose that Black Keys shitstorm as numero uno. If you do know these guys, though, follow along. I was once obsessed with this band. Their last album Black Clouds and Silver Linings was okay, but it showed that they were starting to spin their wheels a bit. Even though Mike Portnoy was my favorite member, when he left, leaving a gap in half their songwriting and taking one of the best drummers in the world, I thought Dream Petrucchi would take advantage of this and . . . well I hoped they wouldn't use the Dream Theater name anymore. But since they did, I hoped they would go in a bold new direction. This  . . . thing is nothing but a declaration that the new band has no idea where to go. Sounds like someone trying to sound like DT's first few albums. So bad, from now on I'm going to start spelling their name the Canadian way. Screw you, what remains of Dream Theatre.

There, 2011, you're assessed.

Booklist 2011

As always, I've kept a list of the books I read over the year:

January

The Top 100 Canadian Albums by Bob Mesereau

The Forest Laird by Jack Whyte

Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd by Mark Blake

The Top 100 Canadian Singles by Bob Mersereau

February

The Worst Thing She Ever Did by Alice Kuipers

Maus by Art Spiegelman

WE3 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

March

The White Raven by Robert Low

Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Louis Riel by Chester Brown

April

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

The Village That Moved

May

The Wars by Timothy Findlay

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

Deathwatch by Robb White

100 Photos That Changed Canada by Mark Reid

June

The King’s Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

July

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley

August

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Flow Beyond the Weir by George Freeman

Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel

September

      26. The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson

      27. The Music of Yes by Bill Martin

October

     28. Grunge is Dead by Greg Patro

     29. Of the Butterfly by Audrey Gene

     30. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

November

     31. Ottawa by James Hale

     32. Getting Things Done by David Allen

     33. Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

     34. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (started in July)

     35. Can’t Buy Me Love by Jonathon Gould

December

     36. John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman

     37. The Prow Beast by Robert Low

     38. PJ20

     39. 5x1 by Lance Mercer
     40. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt