The 2014 Jimmy Awards: Album of the Year

 

Saturday night. Rickshaw theatre. The most anticipated show of the year. The album, Singles by Future Islands, had only come out two months before but it had gripped us, kissed us, picked us up and kicked us. Tickets were hard to come by but by hook or crook everyone was there. The energy outside the venue was palpable. We had seen the Letterman video, we knew all the words, we were full of PBRs and Jamesons and love for each other and the music we were about to hear. It was all very exciting and a little bit overwhelming and Serge was getting anxious.

Slurring slightly, Serge asked a man outside the venue for a shhhhigarette. The man said sure, he was withered and looked like he was waiting for the #20 bus down Hastings to sleep at the Astoria Hotel. Hat pulled down over his eyes, long army trenchcoat, he pulled out a bag of Drum and rolled up a smoke and handed it to Serge, their eyes catching for a second. “Are you….?” asked Serge, astounded. Yes, the man said. It was Samuel T. Herring, lead singer of Future Islands. Milling around with the hipsters and hangers-on outside, smoking hand rolled Drum, looking like a Main and Hastings bum. Your music, said Serge, I love it. Mr. Herring humbly said thank you, it is our passion, and disappeared into the crowd.

Passion indeed.

Later on stage, dressed in his customary tight black T-shirt and jeans, Herring was transformed. He looked like a young Bob Seger. He and the rest of Future Islands put on a show that left us breathless. Herring pounded his chest and moved around like he was on a ski machine while the synths carried us up and up and up. We held each others' clothes to keep from getting trampled in the mosh and felt the way we did every time we listened to the album, full of love and happiness. Precious commodities these days, those two, and "Singles" supplies them in abundance.

NLG's Albums of the Year

1.  Future Islands - Singles

2.  Caribou - Our Love

3.  War On Drugs - Lost in the Dream

4.  Alt-J - This Is All Yours

5.  De Lux - Voyage

6.  First Aid Kit - Stay Gold

7.  Bahamas - Bahamas is Alfie

8.  Jungle - Jungle

9.  Little Dragon - Nabuma Rubberband

10. Peaking Lights - Cosmic Light

The 2013 Jimmy Awards: Album of the Year

By Serge Eon

At first listen to The National’s Trouble Will Find Me, one might mistake the offering as a sign that lead singer Matt Berninger had stayed down a vodka-soaked rabbit hole a little too long. Like Serge on a Monday morning, it was dark, boozy, and breath tinged with Belmonts and regret. Although this is exactly what we have come to expect from The National, this time we thought they might have gone a little too far – resembling Serge’s mood on what Gene empathetically refers to as Suicide Tuesdays. Forgive us, Berninger & Co., if we were a little reluctant to follow you into the rabbit hole at first listen. The rest of the world was getting high on the fidelity of the album that “gave life back to music” (courtesy of Pharrell Williams and a couple of helmutted Frenchmen) and we were distracted. 

When we woke up from that inevitable hi-fi hangover underneath the proverbial tree, it wasn’t a helping hand that Trouble Will Find Me held out to us, it was a tall glass of dark humour poured over elegant and rich musical constructions. It was like a Gin Pahit on ice and we drank until we felt warm on the inside. But it wasn’t the booze that made us feel warm, it was summertime and the fact that this album was so grand in scale yet so completely relatable. Somehow, Trouble Will Find Me became the perfect accompaniment to a perfect summer. Songs such as "Don’t Swallow The Cap" and "Demons" became soundtracks for public indecency and joy rides to the local nudie beach with a young Minnie Driver – rather than theme music for sitting alone with Tylenol and beer or trips to the methadone clinic, as their names might suggest. With these songs and others such as the dance party darkhorse "Graceless" forming the plotline of Serge’s summer, and the thrilling crescendo of a rain drenched late-September performance at the PNE delivering a fitting finale, the selection of Trouble Will Find Me as Album of the Year was an easy one to make.   

1.  The National – Trouble Will Find Me 

2.  Arcade Fire – Reflektor

3.    Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

4.     Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away

5.     Haim – Days Are Gone

6.     Sigur Ros – Kveikur

7.     Foxygen – We Are The 21^st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic

8.    Kurt Vile – Waking on a Pretty Daze

9.     The Strokes – Comedown Machine

10.   Phosphorescent - Muchacho

The National - Don't Swallow the Cap