Month: July 2020

Back to 2011 (Re-Ranking the Best of Lists)

Back to ...
Jason Tate

I used to think about the idea of ‘re-living’ a year. The mental game of knowing what you know now, and seeing what differences you could make in your life with various changes and the superpower of hindsight. After 2020, I don’t think about that much anymore; there are years that should be burned and the ground they’re buried within salted and forgotten. 2011 is a year like that for me; a year I’d spend years getting over.

As I look over the AbsolutePunk staff list from 2011, I’m reminded most of all these little dramatic moments this year inspired. Blink-182 finally released their reunion album, Neighborhoods, and it was instantly polarizing. Was it a great return? Was it garbage? Did the band desperately need an outside producer? Should they be forced to all be in a room writing together? It was virtually instant drama, swift speculation, and all of the excess noise seemed to hum louder than any real discussion of the music itself. And that wouldn’t be the only polarizing release this year. Thrice released Major/Minor, the only album of theirs I don’t unequivocally love, and would soon after take a hiatus. Thursday released No Devolución, a record many thought was a departure from their core sound (but one I’ve long championed as their best work), and then would also take a hiatus. Manchester Orchestra would release Simple Math, and to this day, I can’t tell you what the consensus around that album is. Is it loved? Hated? I feel like I’ve read every single take about that album and still don’t know how it’s thought of within the Manchester Orchestra fanbase. Patrick Stump went solo with Soul Punk, and arguments of selling out and comparisons to Fall Out Boy were inevitable. And then there were The Dangerous Summer at peak Drama Summer. They were one of the buzziest, most talked about, and most adored within our community bands. But those assholes just couldn’t seem to get out of their own way. War Paint is an undeniable album, but I look at my list from 2011, and I have it all the way down at number twenty-eight. I just couldn’t divorce the antics from the music and was so sick of their shit.

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Why Music Still Matters

Craig Manning

It’s easy at a time like this to start viewing music as trivial, as inessential, as disposable; as something we can cancel and forget. The last few months have been tough. They’ve delayed tours, eliminated annual festivals from the calendar, and left artists unable even to play bars for half-attentive audiences—let alone arenas for hordes of fans. They’ve cleared concert halls, halted opera and symphony seasons, and shut the lights down on Broadway. They’ve made album release days feel almost frivolous, because how can we spend our days talking about or digesting new music when the world seems to be falling apart around us? They’ve caused music writers in my Twitter feed to ponder out loud whether their jobs have meaning or relevance at a time like this. Amazon indirectly labeled books and music as inessential by calling a temporary halt to shipments of physical media like vinyl and CDs.

And yet, in other ways, the past four months have underlined why music matters so much. People in countries like Italy and Spain were quarantined and locked down, unable to interact with one another or even leave their homes. They found solace, connection, and communal emotion by playing or singing together from their balconies. We’ve perhaps never been so cognizant of the physical distances between us. I certainly can’t recall another situation where keeping apart from others was not just a personal choice but a mandate. And yet, music has been forging invisible bridges across those gaps in the air, allowing hearts and voices and melodies to join even in a year where “social distancing” has become a part of our collective vocabulary.

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