Matt Hunziker

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Cardinal classic: The basketing of balls

This column originally ran March 26, 2009.

Page Two Classic: The Basketing of Balls

This column originally ran on March 26, 2009.

Offensive speech the key to democracy

2007-10-11

Page Two Classic: The Basketing of Balls

Honorable Mention - LCD Soundsystem

The past decade saw an overflow of tightly wound dance music and hilariously sharp lyricists, but no one in the past ten years was tighter or more incisive than James Murphy, aka LCD Soundsystem.

#2- Radiohead

It would sound absurd to call platinum-selling, arena-filling, most-critically-beloved-band-in-the-world Radiohead an underground act. But on the other hand, they don't operate or sound anything like a mainstream, best-selling rock band (even the ones that have gotten popular aping mid-90s Radiohead): You'll hardly ever hear them on the radio or see them on TV; their idea of promoting an album is mentioning it on a blog ten days before it comes out; and they've built their reputation on some of the strangest, most original music of the past two decades.

Honorable Mention - M.I.A.

The music of Mathangi Arulpragasam (aka M.I.A.) finally broke through to the mainstream in 2008 when two of the year's biggest movies—""Slumdog Millionaire"" and ""Pineapple Express""—helped bring her joyous, Clash-sampling single ""Paper Planes"" to TVs and radios everywhere. But for anyone with more than a passing interest in pop, rap, indie rock, electronica or dance music, M.I.A.'s aggressive, genre-hopping jams had already been a fact of life for several years.

#6- Arcade Fire

When most of the musical world became acquainted with Arcade Fire via their 2004 debut Funeral, there was no trend or gimmickry by which someone could easily characterize the band; they weren't wearing futuristic costumes, rehashing '60s rock 'n' roll, or auto-tuning their vocals. All anyone could talk about was how fucking good the album was—like, astonishingly, breathtakingly good, and even more-so because just a month earlier, almost no one had heard of the band.

Honorable Mention - Sigur Ros

Before the 2000s, post-rock music was virtually unknown to anyone other than serious music geeks. Sigur Ros changed that when their second album, Agaetis byrjun, was released internationally at the beginning of the decade. It was the first almost anybody outside of Iceland had heard of the band, and in the history of first impressions, it was a landmark moment.

Matt's last column childishly vandalized

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