DETROITERS TOP EMUSIC'S "BEST OF" LIST

By Bill Holdship

Dec 16, 2008 at 2:48 pm

Audio By Carbonatix

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'Tis the season for "Best of the Year" lists, and Detroit music fans should be pleased to note that two of our own homegrown artists placed No. 2 and No. 3 on emusic's "Best Albums of 2008" list.

Out of 86 artists, Motor City electronic-pop god Deastro was number two with his Keeper's album, while the amazing Rodriguez continued his "comeback of the year" by finding his Cold Fact LP at number three on the emusic list. The two were beat by only Gasoline Anthem, who placed first with their The '59 Sound LP (and it's a really good album...but I'd argue it's not as good as the two Detroit albums it beat....).

At any rate, emusic had the following to say about both discs:

Deastro, Keeper's:

The 22-year-old Randolph Chabot is Deastro, a one-man machine synthesizing Death Cab for Cutie, M83, LCD Soundsystem and other future-rock practitioners into a glitzy world overflowing with regret. Keeper's' ten songs are culled from demos and home recordings Chabot pieced together in his parents' basement, a land decidedly far from the dance floors and neon-lit city streets of his music, a place where his bald yearning and incredible talents find no boundaries, a place where he still lives. Like any dreamer, Chabot's imagined world is infinitely better than the one where he resides, "a place where I am free," as he sings in "The Goodman of the House." After learning more and more of his life, I can't help but to think of Chabot as Bastion of The Neverending Story, a young man subtly shifting from spectator to hero in a world of his own creation.

Rodriguez, Cold Fact

History is a funny thing. While for us in the States the pinnacle of '60s music remains Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, it's not necessarily so elsewhere. A Hispanic Detroit folk-rock singer by the name of Sixtoo (Sees-toe) Rodriguez might be the best example of such mutability. The album Rodriguez cut with guitarist Dennis Coffey (he of "Scorpio" fame), Cold Fact, was received with indifference stateside, yet inexplicably crossed oceans to become a smash hit in Australia and South Africa (even going platinum in the midst of Apartheid). In those countries, Rodriguez verges on legend, a songwriter who contains the sneer and outrage of Dylan, the folk lyricism of Donovan and the rhythmic sensibility of fellow Detroit resident Marvin Gaye (he even has a song called "Inner City Blues"). As Cold Fact makes abundantly clear, while his voice does contain such strands of these icons, Sixtoo stands as his own man. He's gritty and hard-nosed on "Hate Street Dialogue," sly, macho, and slightly possessive on "I Wonder." Opener "Sugar Man" is retroactively considered a dusty-fingered classic of soul/ rock, so that you wonder how history might have been rewritten.

And in case no one noticed, Rodriguez's Cold Fact also placed amongst the Top 10 reissues of '08 in Rolling Stone's year-end issue, currently on the stands, as well as in "The Best Thing I've Heard All Year" issue of MOJO magazine.

Congratulations to both deserving artists! You can see the entire list by clicking here.

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