By the end of January my Christmas romance had ended because, quite reasonably, the guy only wanted to date someone with a beard. Somehow I got it into my head that it was OK for me to be in charge of my appearance. Roosevelt’s third album Polydans had been teased in 2020 with gorj ballad “Sign” and funky epic “Echoes,” where he did that very Roosevelt thing of giving you sad, we are about to break up birthday cake sex in pop song form and — just when you’re utterly satisfied and reaching for a smoke — moving into a delirious coda of hope for the future. Expectations were high for Polydans, and he did not disappoint. There’s something so Euro-nerdy about little Marius: like ABBA, his soulfulness is chromed and buffed to perfection every time. His songs are like Douglas Sirk melodramas rendered in quick sketches, and his lyrics have an ESL / Italo Disco quality — like wow, this is so deep but um, is it on purpose? He’s got a knack for turning out what should be monster pop hits, but his Germanic innocence keeps him firmly in the indie end of things.
Yol by Altin Gün, released on the same day, was my personal party of the year. Like Roosevelt, they seemed to have been beamed into 2021 from a lost-decade Eurovision contest; they molded dancey new wave a la Tom Tom Club into a middle-eastern idiom, with gleaming production. They’re from Holland, they’re multicultural, they sing in Turkish, they’re silly and seductive (their video for “Yuce Dag Basinda” involves eating bananas and smashing grapes, oranges and a watermelon with a hammer). Yol was wall to wall bangers, and the party kept on going into the summer with another excellent album, Alem.
French band Reymour turned on the French cool with Leviosa and the mighty, Mod-sounding “Je Te Tiens, Tu Me Tiens,” a song that’s impossible not to pout and strut to. They brought back sweet memories of Stereo Total.
Brijean dropped seriously summery good vibes with “Hey Boy” and the Feelings album.
The gods ordained a much needed re-release of Geneva Jacuzzi’s first album Lamaze — tart as Lene Lovich bathing in milk that went sour circa 1980. Him: “I love you.” Her: “You’re just stoned.”
Vaccines were becoming available, prioritized for high risk people, and I did the waiting in line for a leftover dose at the end of the day several times, but no dice.
I did a deep dive into Japan, the Tin Drum album in particular. Back in the ‘80s I had dismissed them as a Roxy Music rip-off; I bought the Oil on Canvas album mostly for the cover, and had to admit “Gentlemen Love Polaroids” was a jam. But goddamnit it turns out that band is like the ultimate in British velvet and chandeliers rock, perfumed with menace. I must’ve played “Sons of Pioneers” a kajillion times.
Bittersweetest of all was the smart-alecky fun of Lines Redacted by Mush, which paired John Lydon-esque sneering vocals and a guitar that veered from juicy rockabilly tones to Buzzcocks strumming to inventive post-punk dissonance. Guitarist Steven Tyson died before the album was released, and listening to the anthemic final song, “Lines Discontinued,” really got to me — I lost it thinking about how his beautiful playing and the words “discontinue the line,” repeated over and over at the end, served as actual end credits for his life.
I got my first vax on March 17, with a hook up from an old friend. We were working with on a documentary about a political activist group we were part of 30 years ago.