It sounds like a snide, elitist thing to say, but the New Pornographers weren’t built to last. They were that rarest of animals: a supergroup not only didn’t suck, but actually produced two classic albums and a passable third before becoming adult contemporary claptrap.

You see, it would’ve been wonderful if they never really formed a band as such, just produced Mass Romantic, toured, and then went their separate ways. Sure, Electric Version is a spectacular album and I wouldn’t want to forget how fantastic it was to see them play those songs, too, but it’s just that it’s hard to look back on those albums and see them in the same light as they were made. Together, and it’s predecessor, Challengers, are shockingly boring mid-tempo affairs that make you wonder how the New Pornographers ever packed so many hooks into “To Wild Homes.”

The pace of their career makes me think they released those great albums, split briefly, and then reunited to produce two more lackluster albums, only to disappear into obscurity. Maybe it’s for the best. That way future generations might discover the unbridled joy when they first hear Neko Case wail on “Letter From an Occupant.”

I’ve been reading about this set all over the web, most recently at An Aquarium Drunkard. Unsurprisingly, understandably, everyone’s fallen in love with one of the greatest albums ever all over again.

I got the deluxe remastered edition for Father’s Day and I’m still working my way through it, but something really struck me as I listened: do we have the Stones to blame for Blueshammer and their ilk? I mean, would Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny Lang have been possible without the Stones paving the way for guys like Stevie Ray Vaughan?

I’m eating crow this morning thanks to my friend Marc Masters. He’s mentioned them a few times in his Twitter feed (follow him here) and I’m finally getting around to check their Daytrotter session out. I’m also loving eMusic’s Best Albums of the Year…So Far list, which takes me once again through the musical underbrush to discover stuff I haven’t even heard about until now. Which is all to say that I do sometimes miss the manner in which I was exposed to a frightful and delightful amount of music when I was a struggling freelance guy that I just don’t hear now that I’m paying more attention to the tabloid news media.

As an aside, I have to admit that since Lala.com shut down May 31st, I’m coming around to the various legitimate ways to hear new music. Everyone’s recording people now, whether it’s places like Daytrotter or it’s an NPR stream and I’m okay with that. Instead of feeling as I once did that putting a full album stream at MySpace was an invitation to piracy, I’m hopeful that more people are okay with the idea of just listening and enjoying what’s out there and supporting the artists they truly enjoy.

Helen and I are going to see Erykah Badu June 8th at the Tower Theater. Janelle Monae is opening. Am I excited? Hell yeah! Just picked up Erykah’s latest LP at AKA Music. Love her music so much. She’s also one of my favorite entertainers these days. Doesn’t hurt that she’s playing fast and loose with the great sounds Parliament Funkadelic introduced either.

I know I haven’t posted anything music-related here lately. I got myself wrapped around the axle there for a bit about the future of music and couldn’t find a way to unwind. Pretty sure I’ve put that behind me and will happily be posting more stuff that I like here.

So Free Energy? I’m really into their lead single, “Bang Pop.” I know it got a whopping 8.1 on Pitchfork, yet it’s failed to really catch fire online, at least from where I sit. Does it reinvent rock music? Nope. Is it still a ton of fun? Yup! If I weren’t on baby duty tonight I might’ve snuck over to the First Unitarian Church tonight to see them in person. If you were looking for a summer jam that’s not by Ludacris or Katie Perry, you’ve probably found it in this gem.

I was lucky enough to see Sparklehorse during that fateful CMJ festival that got pasted together in the wake of September 11th. He performed in front of a gigantic American flag the owners of the Bowery Ballroom hung at the back of the stage. He seemed really uncomfortable with that. I’m sure at least some portion of the audience did, too. I know I did.

I’m sorry to say I don’t remember much of the set. It wasn’t particularly long. He opened with ‘Homecoming Queen,’ but forgot the words. The audience jogged his memory by chiming in. He played the hits passionately. I’m reminded that he covered GBV’s ‘Smothered in Hugs,’ which you can listen to over at Chromewaves. It was amazing.

I have to admit that I expected some of the guests from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ to join him onstage. I don’t know what I was thinking. I had only been in NYC for a year and I truly believed that that sort of thing might happen. He didn’t tour much. He was in New York. What else was Nina Persson doing that night?

I didn’t think much of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ at the time. I had fallen in love with Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot and Good Morning, Spider over a few troubling summers, working jobs I hated while saving money for school in the fall. Those songs were anthems to my ears, the perfect soundtrack to anyone who’s shuffling along in the twilight of joblessness and underemployment.

I’m not sure why I never really got his next album, It’s a Wonderful Life. The guy made a living off of wildly uneven albums, but something about this one didn’t quite connect. I loved songs like ‘Piano Fire’ and ‘King of Nails,’ but some of the cameos just didn’t work for me. I shelved it.

I haven’t listened to Sparklehorse much since. I went back to those records after news broke of Linkous’ death and found them to have the same amazing qualities they did when I first listened to them almost a decade ago. I can still picture myself making a 120 mile roundtrip commute in my decrepit Dodge Shadow, blasting Good Morning, Spider at top volume and it still makes me shiver.

I heard an interview with the band last night that made Transference more appealing than it is. Daniel and Jim Eno made the album’s weaknesses sound like strengths. There’s no hiding the fact that their efforts to make an “uglier” record succeeded, so why not embrace it?

They knew what sound they wanted and produced the record themselves, but that’s not the issue. Transference is immediately recognizeable as a Spoon record; the problem is that it’s not a very good one. You’d have to go back to the daring, equally uneven Kill the Moonlight to hear something as infuriating as this. Sequencing, not production, stops Transference in its tracks.

Spoon buried the best songs in the middle third of the album, starting with “Written in Reverse” and ending with the plaintive strains of “Goodnight Laura,” a song that veers dangerously close to maudlin which wouldn’t be so bad if this weren’t a Spoon album.

We’ve come to expect great things. Their sound might be best described as Billy Joel songs as reimagined by Wire. Songs like “Sister Jack” and “The Underdog” burnished their reputation as a band on the cusp of greatness. There’s nothing of that caliber here.

Transference should’ve been Spoon’s magnum opus, the product of two decades worth of hard work from a band at the height of its power. Instead it’s the album you can tell the uninitiated they can safely ignore.

I got the chance to talk to punk phenomenon Jay Reatard after his SXSW ’08 set. He had a tremendous vitality and frenetic energy that was contagious. His reckless abandon and go-for-broke spirit will be sorely missed.

Without getting bogged down in all the hows and whys, I’m really excited for 2010 already. Two of my favorite bands, Spoon and Liars, have albums out this January and it’s the time of year where I obsess over these releases, often at the expense of ignoring worthy albums that come along later in the year’s promotional cycle.

I used to think it was stupid for bands to release albums this time of year. Boy, was I wrong! When LCD Soundsystem releases albums in the dead of winter, they capture more attention than they would if they tried to shoehorn their stuff into the March and October gluts. It’s the perfect time of year to really get familiar with a record. You’re trapped in the house or car anyway, so you might as well crank up the stereo.

I celebrate the new year in music by deleting everything in iTunes and starting over fresh. Right now I’m listening to Spoon, but I’ll be checking out new music from Yeasayer, Ted Leo, Liars, Blood Feathers, Vampire Weekend and Gil-Scott Heron (!) soon enough. What a great way to start 2010!

Wilco played the soundtrack to a number of significant moments in my life. I was floored when I saw them with Helen at Cooper River Park in September 2000 (setlist here). As the sun set behind the stage, I knew I’d seen a band on the cusp of bigger things. Little did I know that he’d be out of the band within a year. I continued to love the band, and saw Sonic Youth open for them in 2003, but it just wasn’t the same. I stopped listening to their music shortly thereafter. The cult of Tweedy proved too much to take.

I winced when I first saw Sam Jones’ I Am Trying to Break My Heart. Now I just feel betrayed by it. Is it possible that both Bennett and Tweedy were megalomaniacal jerks hell-bent on their personal vision for YHF, neither better than the other? Jay Bennett’s character assassination in that film will forever preserve the notion that he played Hedwig forever after to Tweedy’s Tommy Gnosis, Bennett often playing — coincidentally? — the same town on the same night as Wilco, albeit at a much tinier venue.

Bennett’s fall was the only truth Jones captured. Watching him reinvent himself in tiny clubs after contributing to a band on the verge of their greatest success still feels like a punch in the gut.

Now I’m listening to his last album, Whatever Happened I Apologize, which you can download free from Rock Proper here. Like his other solo efforts, it’s a stripped-down affair that isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but one can’t help but listen to the song “Talk and Talk and Talk” and think that he’s addressing Tweedy, though that may be overreaching a bit. If he is, it only points up how profoundly hurt he was by their split. Now they’ll never be able to reconcile whatever differences they may have still had.

I may be interviewing Wilco as they do press for their forthcoming record, Wilco the Album. I’m hopeful that they’ll be able to talk about Jay and help us better understand who he was.

Jay Bennett died Sunday. He was 45.