My Favorite 100 Songs of the Aughts - #98

Yeasayer - 2080

All Hour Cymbals, 2007

Brooklyn. That's right, Brooklyn. Among independent music fans, no single locale is more divisive, inspires more eye-rolling, begets more teeth gnashing than this borough. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, I suppose.

Brooklyn is the hottest music scene in the world right now and appears to be (at least according to my less than empirical indices) awash with artists and musicians (or perhaps more precisely artists/musicians). Even Pitchfork, that once stubborn champion of all things Chicago, has a Brooklyn office.

In a recent review of Suckers, I wrote that the world needed another band from Brooklyn like I needed a hole in my head, but perhaps I spoke too soon. What the world doesn't need now is a Creed reunion tour (Who asked for this? Who is the market for this so-called reunion? The millions of people trying very hard to forget they ever owned a copy of My Own Prison?). Another band from Brooklyn? Well, in light of the alternative (enormo-domes awash with the nu-metal squall of leather-clad, coke-fueled, pseudo-Christian onanists), that sounds fine to me.

Unlike Manhattan in the early Aughts, Brooklyn doesn't have a defining sound so much as an overarching ethic/philosophy; more a confederation of similarly-minded auteurs than any sort of sonically-linked scene. There seem to be no rules save that there are no rules. Nope. Just a restless, wanton creativity empowering almost any mode, medium and manner of musical expression. This, of course, is both a good thing and a very bad thing. After all, one fan's inventive is another hater's atavistic, and at times, it seems "Brooklyn", at least among its detractors, is merely a derisive, convenient shibboleth for indulgent, inscrutable art-rock. Assuredly, more than a few of these bands take themselves way too seriously, and unapologetic experimentalism is often the last bastion of the less than talented, but, occasional solipsism aside, some of the most inspiring and exciting music of the past five years has been fashioned by bands calling this borough home.

Yeasayer is such a band, and their global/indie fusion is a fair reflection of the kaleidoscopic, free-wheeling nature of many of Brooklyn's best bands. Nevertheless, this group remains somewhat singular even among a musical cohort noted for its boundless creativity. I recently saw Yeasayer at the Pitchfork Festival, and while the songs were a little uneven, I was amazed by the quality of the musicianship. It's sad to say, but contemporary indie rock is hardly known for its technical proficiency. It is a genre much more concerned with expression than dexterity. Standing in a light rain in a crowded field somewhere in Chicago, it occurred to me that Yeasayer is a band with the unique potential to appeal to indie fans and jam band devotees in equal measure. A strange and rather expansive demographic divide to straddle to be sure.

I love "Wait for the Summer" but there is a certain magic about "2080". It is about as pleasant and infinitely listenable as an armageddon document/renaissance pronouncement/carpe diem declaration can be. Did you know that our extant geopolitical turmoil was largely the result of the absence of the Berlin Wall? Well, consider yourself served.

"2080" has all the emotional urgency and immediacy of an anthem, but it's the music, not the message, that really makes this song. The deft, empathetic interplay between the guitar and the bass. Chris Keating's percussive cadence. The shimmering, stuttering high-hat. The loping, polyrhythmic gait. It's a little strange to dance to a song boasting the line, "I can't sleep when I think about the times we're living in/I can't sleep when I think about the future I was born into" or "In 2080, I'll probably be dead, so never look ahead, never look ahead", but such is the talismanic nature of Yeasayer's charm. It may be the end of the world as we know it, but you know what? As long as this song is playing, I feel fine.

Watch the video here (via Takeaway Shows).

Up next - #97 - Phoenix's "Too Young"