The Year in Music, Part 2: The Top 5 Albums of 2011
Yesterday Landon and I posted our respective Top 5 Songs of 2011 lists.
Today we bring you our top five albums.
The album is a luxury in times like these. So much music–like so much life–is spliced up into episodic units for consumption during the commute or the wait at the doctor’s office. Maybe this has raised the bar for songwriting and maybe it hasn’t. It’s definitely made it more difficult for a music consumer like me to experience a collection of 10-15 songs as a unified work. This list is something of an effort to listen to music with ears tilted in that direction.
To make it onto this list, an album has to be enjoyable from beginning to end–no skipping around to the three of four tracks on it I like. By that standard the first one on the list blows all the others away. Something of a perverse irony registers at this point, because a really good album demands a sustained investment of attention, and lacking the emotional or intellectual energy, or lacking the time, for such an investment means that a great album doesn’t get listened to all that often. It’s like a really good wine or a limited edition Snickers Dark.
The other side of that perverse irony is that albums containing a couple of dynamite songs may never get the benefit of a complete listen. That’s why an album like Thao and Mirah isn’t on this list, because I didn’t have the patience to give every track not titled “I Dare You” a fair shake.
Here they are, then: the five albums from 2011 that I’d feel most confident putting on without interruption for a long road trip, a party, or a quiet evening at home. Here’s the link to Landon’s list (bonus points for whoever finds the Album on both our lists)
1. Destroyer, “Kaputt”
It’s almost hard to tell independent tracks apart on this album, and the whole thing feels like it could have been released in 1986. But that doesn’t make it gimmicky. It’s smooth and melodic and catchy and engaging and so, so interesting from beginning to end.
Sample: “Savage Night at The Opera”
2. Bon Iver, “Bon Iver”
I resisted this one because indie music fans are supposed to adore Bon Iver in the same way Star Wars fans are supposed to worship George Lucas. But resistance is futile. It’s so good. Justin Vernon’s falsetto, the electronic tinkering, the marching band-like percussion–it’s very compelling, and there’s no one track that takes attention away from the others, even if “Holocene” got a Grammy nomination (a fact that is supposed to enrage the bearded bespectacled faithful?). Whatever. This album is full of depth and texture, and it’s beautiful.
Sample: “Holocene”
3. David Bazan, “Strange Negotiations”
That David Bazan was the frontman of a Christian rock band and now writes songs full of profanity was an intriguing intro to this record back in June. I totally missed his first solo album, but music writers had a blast writing it up as Bazan’s break-up with God. Bazan’s reasons for falling out of faith (if that’s indeed accurate) are his own, and, frankly, I don’t really care. “Strange Negotiations” is a gritty product in its own right, and it is diminished by parsing its tracks for evidence of a religious beef. I listened to this album almost daily for about two months and kept discovering lyrics and notes I hadn’t appreciated before. It’s pretty intellectually rigorous (“I know it’s dangerous to judge/but man you gotta find the truth and when you find that truth don’t budge/until the truth you’ve found begins to change/and it does, I know”), which is what I most like about it.
Sample: “People”
4. The Decemberists, “The King is Dead”
The last time I got all geeked up for a Decemberists release I was left feeling flawed because I didn’t like it, and there’s this flannel-clad vibe out there that leads you to believe that if you don’t like The Decemberists it’s not a flaw in the music but in your intellect. “The King Is Dead” is the most mainstream thing The Decemberists have ever done, so I’m a little embarrassed to have liked it so much. On balance, it’s not as epic as “Picaresque“, and it doesn’t have any fist pumpers like “The Rake’s Song,” but it’s supremely listenable without compromising the narrative identity that makes this band such a cultural gem (i.e. “We all do what we can/we endure our fellow man/and we sing our song to the head frame’s creaks and moan”). Also, I saw them in concert this year, and the broad smile that show put on my face for two hours hurt for a week).
Sample: “Calamity Song”
5. Dolorean, “The Unfazed”
It doesn’t feel like an album like this is written with year-end-list ambition. It’s full of uncomplicated melodies on which hang cigarette pack lyrics delivered by serviceable vocals. I feel like any two of those qualities without the third would make “The Unfazed” pretty pedestrian, and, thankfully, that’s strictly hypothetical. All the tracks on the album gel together in a really pleasant whole that’s not overly ambitious. I don’t know how many times I put this record on at the house on a constant loop, humming along to melodies for which I hadn’t yet learned the words. Also, I felt like I was recommending the album to almost everyone I talked to about music all year.
Sample: “If I Find Love”
There you have it. Thanks for reading and listening. Please chime in with your favorite music of the year.
The Year in Music, Part 1: The Top 5 Tracks of 2011
I used to blog about music, but I quit, because I realized how little I like reading music blogs. Why add one more?
I’ve left myself one music blogging indulgence, though: the year-end lists. I love year-end music lists, like this one. I used to pilfer these lists in January and get caught up on all of the previous year’s music. Then I decided to make myself into a more proactive music consumer and to measure that standard by my ability to assemble my own list in December. This is my third set of lists.
This list has the added benefit of being something of a collaboration with my musical compatriot, Landon. The two of us text one another music recommendations a couple of times a week, and so we decided to share our year-end lists as well. Here’s the link to Landon’s top 5 song list.
Two lists, then, both of them super short: top 5 songs and top 5 albums of the year. This post is the songs.
1. “Country Clutter” by Dolorean
“You know good n’ well/the way you treated me.”
It’s been my go-to since it came out in January.
2. “How Dare You?” by Thao and Mirah
“I swear it happens better/when it happens again.”
I listened to this about 15 times during a July trip to San Diego and back.
3. “We Don’t Eat” by James Vincent McMorrow
“We don’t drink until the Devil’s turned to dust.”
Landon and I actually discovered this one together when he was in CA last January. It stuck all year.
4. “Don’t Move” by Phantogram
“I’m not your drinking problem.”
This track is the perfect length for my commute to the church.
5. “Bye Bye Baby” by Hayes Carll (skip ahead to 0.50 for the start of the song)
“You kissed my hand and said you were beside me.”
What can I say? I’m a sucker for a banjo.
That these are my favorite songs of the year simply means that these are the ones I listened to most often, the ones I sought out, either by skipping to that song in my car or navigating to it on MOG or Rdio. There’s a much longer list of great tracks from 2011, and I’m happy to share that, but the fun of this exercise is having to choose five.
What are your top tracks from this year?
Watch here tomorrow for the top 5 albums of the year.
The Agony of Loyalty
I recently wrote here that, at least as it pertains to sports fans, doubt of one’s team need not equal disloyalty to that team. In fact, the claiming of doubt may be a greater indicator of loyal fan-hood than ardent professions of confidence. As Exhibit A I cited my Denver Broncos and their Tim Tebow and his devoted supporters, who, at the time of writing, were professing belief that our guy could beat anyone on any day. As a loyal fan, I demurred, predicting a Broncos’ defeat in their next game.
That defeat indeed came to pass, and that leads me to a make a companion observation. If loyalty can be measured by doubt, then it can also be measured by pain. I watched most of yesterday’s game, and even though the scenario unfolding before my eyes was the very thing I predicted, I still hated it and I still hung on every snap in the hope that I would be wrong.
This, then, is what loyalty is made of, in sports (and who knows what else?): sincere doubt and sincere hope operating in tandem.
The Loyalty of Doubt: On Tim Tebow
I am a Denver Broncos fan, born and raised. The Drive and three Super Bowl losses shaped my youth. A Super Bowl victory punctuated my senior year of college, and another one fit nicely into my year abroad in Northern Ireland. My first ever sermon used John Elway’s hall of fame induction as its main illustration.
I got serious Bronco fan creds.
And I’m not buying Tim Tebow. I don’t think that makes me a bad fan, but a good one.
In sports, as in much of life–relationships, politics, even faith–doubt and skepticism are better measures of loyalty than outright defense. Tebow and the Broncos have become the staging ground for a vigorous cultural conversation about doubt and faith, as evidenced by Les Carpenter’s column this morning that declares:
I believe we have evolved from apes. I believe in dinosaurs. I also believe the earth was created from debris surrounding the sun that clumped together into a spherical shape. And I believe it all happened in more than seven days. But I also believe in Tim Tebow because there is no scientific explanation for what is happening to the Denver Broncos
What is happening is really remarkable, and a fan’s dream. Who doesn’t want their team to be the subject of every national sports talk show? Tebow, the unproven superstar celebrity, took over a 1-4 team and has lead a 6-1 resurgence, including a never-before-seen string of comeback wins: road wins, wins wrested from the jaws of defeat in the final two minutes, overtime wins. All of a sudden, the Broncos are leading their division and stand a very, very good chance of making the playoffs. Impressive stuff, to say the least.
Yet the teams the Broncos have beat in this stretch have a combined record of 39-52 (including losses to Denver. The record absent games against the Broncos is 39-46). The NFL is a tough league, but it needs to be asked whether slogging through a below average field to emerge the best of the worst deserves all the accolades.
The pattern is well-known by now. Tebow and the Broncos offense spin their wheels for three and a half quarters while the defense keeps the game close, setting the stage for some improbable last minute heroics. The heroics are great, but how heroic is it to merely stay in the game against bad teams so that you can pull off a buzzer beater? It’s kind of like the outfielder who loafs after a routine flyball only to make a spectacular diving catch. The fans love it, but it shouldn’t have had to be spectacular.
Anyway, this isn’t a sports blog, so to my point: I don’t think all of this is real, and I expect the reckoning to come next Sunday when the Broncos play an elite team, the New England Patriots. Yet I’m contesting that this disbelief is an exercise in loyalty to my team. There are a lot of factors beyond Tim Tebow’s leadership and (wince) “belief” that are contributing to what’s happening, and I think the faithful fans are the ones who can take an honest look at reality and celebrate their team’s wins while still expecting them to lose.
Which I do. Next Sunday. Against New England.
The church application here is that things go right and work well in our faith communities for lots of reasons, many of them practical and many of them mysterious. The same thing happens in the lives of our people, and it is a good pastoral care to help people take a clear-eyed account of a complex reality before urging them to “let go and let God.”
A good pastor can say, “There’s a lot going on here that we can’t see and don’t understand. Some of that may be God’s doing, and some of it may be sociology/psychology/economics/(insert your academic discipline here) playing out in was that other people do understand.”
A faithful thing to do, then, is to help people listen to those other people and try to learn from them, rather than viewing their account as lacking in faith.
The Fellowship Theology Draft
Yesterday I posted my response to the Fellowship of Presbyterians’ Polity Draft. This post will briefly summarize and respond to the companion Theology Draft released at the same time on the groups’ website.
The Theology Draft does three things: it addresses the question of a theological standard (namely, confessional statements) for the New Reformed Body, articulates some Essential Tenets, and then asks some critical questions about the theological practices that will shape the group’s life together. I don’t consider myself a participant in the Fellowship, but I’m taking them at their word that they want public input.
I’m most interested in the Essential Tenets. The current Book of Confessions of the PC (USA) is the proposed answer to the question about standards and statements, which is sure to please many and rankle others. The third section of the Theology Draft sketches out the “theological friendships” that the Fellowship hopes will become a normative part of the life of pastors and elders in their new denomination. But, to me, the Essential Tenets are what deserve the closest attention.
And not really the tenets themselves. I have plenty to say about them, but I think the most significant fact is that they’re offered at all and that they’re given such weight in the Polity Draft. The Fellowship clearly expects adherence to these tenets to create a kind of theological cohesion that they are disappointed does not presently exist in the PC (USA). I have serious doubts about that expectation, both in its intent and likelihood.
As to their intent, the authors of the Theological Draft write in its foreward:
a collection of confessions lends itself to the wisdom of identifying what is essential within them. our theological ideas and inclinations as a church are far too diffuse to unite us. we reject the proposition that theology divides. instead, we affirm the proposition that truth tends toward unity, yet we are the first generation of presbyterian officers who do not have in the same ordination question the words truth and unity. identifying essentials necessarily and rightly focuses our theological conversation and our life together.
That “a collection of confessions lends itself to the wisdom of identifying what is essential within them” is a questionable assertion. The move to name essentials within the Reformed theological heritage strikes me less as an imperative driven by wisdom as one driven by efficiency. An agreed upon list of essentials is a useful rubric for determining membership in a body and for establishing the boundaries of its teaching. But I don’t think it follows that wisdom dictates such a move.
Wisdom compels people toward what is good, right, true, just, and honorable–not necessarily what is essential. There’s a lot in the Book of Confessions that is good, right, and true, and our life as confessional Christians ought largely to be taken up with mining that gold for Christian formation and mission. But the essentialist project wants instead to select a few confessional gems and convert them into plastic rulers for measuring fidelity to the covenant of church membership and ordination. To do so cheapens them.
Here, then, is my greatest objection to the Theology Draft: it’s inelegant. It’s a rude instrument for assessing (or even coercing) the “rightness” of faith. It’s full of the language of Reformed theological tradition (see the wordle below) and sentences like, “In his essence, God is infinite, eternal, immutable, impassible, and ineffable.” But it reads like an ordination exam. It reads like something written by someone who’s hand shakes as they write because their disapproving teacher is lurking behind them and peering over their shoulder.
This is how Essential Tenets must read, like traffic citations. And that’s why I don’t like them and don’t want them. But to those in the Fellowship who seek in them a ground of covenantal unity and who will press them into the service of concentrating a self-selected group of Christians into a theological corps bound together by its agreement in faith’s fundamentals essentials, may you find what you seek.
The Fellowship Theology Draft as a wordle
The entire Book of Confessions as a wordle
The Fellowship Polity Draft
The Fellowship of Presbyterians (about whom I’ve written here and here) released drafts yesterday of the polity and theology documents that will guide their January gathering in Orlando. This post will lift up the most prominent characteristics of the polity draft.
I tweeted my highlights of the document on my first read-thru, and you can see those quotes here.
Here’s what the document looks like as a wordle:
Clearly the local congregation is the most important entity in the polity that will shape the Fellowship’s New Reformed Body. Fellowship leaders have said as much, and they’ve been accused of being Congregationalist in their polity. They’re rebutted that claim. At the very least, it’s fair to say that this polity draft establishes that its most important function is to serve the mission and ministry of local congregations.
For comparison’s sake, here’s what the PC (USA)’s Form of Government looks like as a wordle:
Congregation is one of the most prominent polity element there too.
Some of the highlights of what congregations do in this polity:
- receive, hold, encumber, manage, and hold property: 4.0101(a)
- prepare required annual review and mission narrative documents for the presbytery: 3.0103(m)
- request transfer or dismissal from their presbytery or from the New Reformed Body at a called congregational meeting: 1.0503(d)
The other big element in this polity is the presbytery. It defines a presbytery not as a “corporate expression of the church” as in the nFOG of the PC (USA), but as a “covenant community” of congregations. That may seem a pedantic distinction, but I think its significance lies in the fact that, as it does with members of congregations, the Fellowship polity makes voluntary participation in a covenant the substance of participation in a church body.
The presbytery also has a much more active role to play for the Fellowship in the coaching and encouraging of its pastors. The mechanism for this is a peer review process (2.0402) that must be completed at least annually by every installed pastor. The substance of the review is pastors’ health and future ministry goals, as well as the sharing of best practices and insights.
The controversial stuff about church denominational affiliation pops up in the fifth chapter, titled “Ecumenicity And Union.” What’s described there is a process by which congregations or presbyteries may affiliate with the Fellowship’s New Reformed Body through a union arrangement or by joining a new entity called an Affinity Network. The process laid out requires a 2/3 majority vote of either the congregation or the presbytery respectively, as well as the consenting judgment of the PC(USA) body to which it is currently subject. And in the case where PC(USA) and Fellowship rules butt heads, “the less permissive rules shall govern”(5.0202 and 5.0203).
A few other interesting tidbits:
- There’s no General Assembly. The Synod is the highest council in the NRB
- Pastors “ordinarily” shall hold an MDiv. degree from an accredited seminary
- No CPM: presbyteries come up with their own credentialing and calling mechanism for pastors
- Members of congregations are called “Covenant Partners” (see note about presbytery membership above)
- Honorably Retired pastors can’t vote at presbytery
Finally, a word about the Essential Tenets. I’ll review those next, but they appear in the polity draft often and they clearly play a unifying role. The Fellowship clearly expects members of churches, congregations, elders, deacons, and pastors to adopt the Essential Tenets they’re laying out, and even to do so “without hesitation” (2.0103c). The lack of a uniform theological standard has been a constant critique of this group, and this polity draft clearly intends to establish the Essential Tenets document as the norm to which everyone must subscribe in order to belong.
Desmond Tutu to The PC (USA): Good Work
One of the prominent arguments against ordaining gay men and women to church office is that the “global church” finds the move unconscionable. Conservatives in America have become enamored of the “global church” of late, often claiming that departing from it in this matter is nothing short of theological arrogance.
Now, a letter addressed to Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA) by none other than Desmond Tutu casts serious doubt on this “global church” position. Tutu is a retired Bishop of the Anglican Church in South Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his efforts to fight apartheid. He wrote to Parsons to express his support for the PC (USA)’s recent change to its constitution that will permit gay ordination. Here’s an excerpt:
I realize that among your ecumenical partners, some voices are claiming that you have done the wrong thing, and I know that you rightly value your relationship with Christians in other parts of the world. Sadly, it is not always popular to do justice, but it is always right. People will say that the ones you are now willing to ordain are sinners. I have come to believe, through the reality shared with me by my scientist and medical friends, and confirmed to me by many who are gay, that being gay is not a choice. Like skin color or left-handedness, sexual orientation is just another feature of our diversity as a human family. How wonderful that God has made us with so much diversity, yet all in God’s image! Salvation means being called out of our narrow bonds into a broad place of welcome to all.
That a prominent churchman from another part of the global church community supports the change in ordination standards does not, of course, mean that the issue is settled. Many brothers and sisters across the globe do not support it and find it deeply offensive. But Tutu is an important voice of reason in the conversation. His letter disqualifies blanket appeals to the global church as, in and of themselves, conclusive.
On Singing at Chick-Fil-A
Today we took the junior high group to a local Chick-Fil-A, as promised. They sang their song, ate their chicken, and got a really great welcome from the staff. The manager knew we were coming, so she had prepared this quote to share with us about why Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sunday:
I was not so committed to financial success that I was willing to abandon my principles and priorities. One of the most visible examples of this is our decision to close on Sunday. Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and of directing our attention to things that mattered more than our business.
Truett Cathy, Chick-Fil-A founder
A New Culture of Chicken
A few weeks ago I used this video with our junior high mid-week guys group:
(serious hat tip here to The Youth Cartel and their weekly YouTube You Can Use resource for this, which was an entry into a conversation about Sabbath and rest—Chick Fil-A is closed on Sunday).
The following week I caught a few guys singing extended portions of the song. Then they started asking if we could go to Chick Fil-A as a youth group. I made them a deal: come back with a performance of “See You on Monday” and we’d go.
Well today they did just that. This time next week I’ll be gnawin’ on a Char Grilled Chicken Deluxe.
The episode has me thinking about the New Culture of Learning I blogged about back in the spring as I tried to scratch the itch of student motivation; if a New Culture of Learning is about marrying an unlimited information resource with a learner’s intrinsic motivation, how do you surface that motivation?
Um, chicken?
I actually think it’s more than that. This whole encounter has been a platform for these students to do something they think is fun. They actually practiced this, and they employed a certain level of discipline and coordination in pulling it off. I had nothing to do with it.
I’m thinking our trip next week will be an opportunity to continue the conversation about rest and Sabbath, which by now should be a conversation they feel a large ownership stake in.
Is this an overly optimistic way of viewing this?
Monday Morning Quarterback, Senior High Edition
Our High School Youth Group has a new motto:
Follow Jesus or Die.
It emerged from our study of Mark 8:34-36, where I asked them to paraphrase what Jesus is saying. One of our adult leaders offered “Follow Jesus or Die,” and for the rest of the night the phrase was a mantra. I’m not encouraging it, but I’ll give it it’s own legs and see where it goes.
In a telling contrast to the junior high students who thought “deny yourself” meant to do something you’re not supposed to do, the high school students get this. In fact, our study followed an enneagram panel, where four 9′s were given hypothetical situations and asked to respond to them. It gave us an opportunity to talk about self-denial in the interest of peace and group cohesion, since that’s something 9′s are prone to. Healthy 9′s, these authors suggest, learn that self-assertion is not aggression. They begin to stand up for themselves rather than deferring to everyone else as a way to effect the peace they long for.
Would Jesus have us sublimate all of our wants and desires to those of others in every situation? Is it ever okay to assert your will?
One student reported that Jesus’ exhortation to self-denial made her think about her own quest for jazz band supremacy in a new light.
Then someone shouted, “Follow Jesus or Die!”
I’ll take it.
