My Top 10 Anticipated Releases

1. The Strokes - TBA
They're back in the studio in January, so maybe they'll be able to release an LP before the fifth anniversary of their last passes. Given the quality of their members' solo albums and the passage of time since Is This It, it's a testament to The Strokes' lasting influence that so many are so anxious for something new from the whole band.

2. Hot Chip - One Life Stand (has it really been almost two years since their perfect last album?)

3. LCD Soundsystem - TBA

4. Los Campesinos - Romance Is Boring
It's apparently going to be less frenetic and more mature than their prior output, which is to be expected now that most of the band is out of their adolescent years. I'm biased on this one, as I once had a blast in an intimate indie mosh pit with the band and two hundred other fans.

5. The Hold Steady - TBA (whatever they release, it had better be less overwrought than Stay Positive)

6. Interpol - TBA
Will anyone but hardcore fans care after Our Love To Admire flopped and Paul Banks' solo debut was mostly solid? I'm afraid Interpol's alt-rock chart-topping days may be over, and they may be headed for a Sonic Youth or Yo La Tengo-type future: solid live following and steady sales, but no meaningful mainstream presence. Basically, NPR reviewers and listeners could be their most loyal demographic. (This is a problem for all of the early '00s "return to rock" bands, except for NY's most polished and Detroit's most prolific.)

7. Liars - Sisterworld
Their last, self-titled LP was disappointing after the solemn, dreamy Drum's Not Dead. Hopefully they'll get their Thom Yorke-tipped mojo back for their new release.

8. Spoon - Transference
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was over-hyped, never delivering the band the top-of-the-pops push it deserved and that critics expected, so maybe they'll just worry themselves with making an album with more than a few great songs this time.

9. Vampire Weekend - Cousins (Because mall clothing shops desperately need new, safe indie hits to play in-store and on their TV commercials.)

10. The Rolling Stones - TBA (No one's really clamoring for it, but isn't it time for some plastic to peddle prior to another tour, even if it's mediocre like the last?)

Albums I am not anticipating:
MGMT - Congratulations
Their debut swung for the indie crossover hit fences and flied out. The problem was it had only three classic tracks, two of which were actually leftovers from their first EP, plus seven forgettable acoustic guitar ditties given the full Lips treatment by David Friedman. Still, radio and festival audiences ate them up.

U2 - TBA
U2 thought No Line on the Horizon would spawn several chart-topping hits while their follow-up, made up of longer, ambient outtakes from those same sessions, would be more artsy and "difficult." Now that No Line flopped due to an inexcusable lack of editing, U2 are left wondering whether to go ahead with their planned release of those guaranteed-to-fail outtakes, or to start from scratch. If history is any guide, starting from scratch means another five-year wait for new material. So maybe they should just dump the old material on a now-suspecting public, if only to provide new tracks to spice up another tour.

Stereogum's 25 Most Anticipated Albums of 2010!

A few days ago Stereogum, one of my favorite indie music websites to haunt, released a list of their 25 most anticipated albums of 2010. They recognize that 2009 isn't yet over and there are a few bands with albums to be released before the year is out, but neither Stereogum nor I are exactly overcome with anticipation for 30 Seconds to Mars' next lamely named LP, "This is War" (whose cover art looks like a new OS release from apple). So anyway, here's the deal, using Stereogum's list, I will list in order from 1 - 10 (most - least) my 10 most anticipated albums of 2010. You do the same. Yes, I know many other bands are releasing albums next year, but that would take forever to consider them all.

1. Hot Chip - One Life Stand

2. Vampire Weekend - Contra

3. The National - TBA

4. Interpol - TBA

5. MGMT - Congratulations

6. Massive Attack - Heligoland

7. Yeasayer - Odd Blood

8. Toro y Moi - Causers of This

9. LCD Soundsystem - TBA

10. Beach House - Teen Dream

So there it is. Love it. Hate it. Criticize it or whatever.

P.S. Check out Vampire Weekend's fun new video for their single "Cousins."

A "Sinister Mirage in the Desert"

I remember being collected from the airport and within minutes speeding through the glittering nighttime streets of the Middle East's supposed Shangra-La. Amongst the giant buildings on either side of me, I thought this was unlike anything I had seen before.

Dubai is indeed unlike any other city on the planet. The breathtaking architecture, the incredible wealth and the wonderful diversity of people living there overwhelm any visitor. Posh clubs and five-star restaurants are just the beginning. The world's tallest building, the world's only seven-star hotel, the world's largest indoor ski resort and more. Then there's the fact that the government levies no income tax. No wonder Westerners have flocked there to set up shop. For awhile it seemed like Dubai had the perfect model for business and like it was the leading contender for the world's banking and financial center.

That was then. This is now. I began hearing stories from friends living in the region of Westerners whose fortunes had been lost in the economic collapse, driving to the airport in their Ferraris, buying one-way tickets back home, leaving everything behind forever. You could go to the parking lot of Dubai's airport and see hundreds of Italian and German sports cars abandoned there because their owners' desperation to leave the city. See, there is no bankruptcy law in Dubai, so when you are unable to "pay-up," there exists no process by which one can remedy the situation. Instead you go to jail. Besides not wanting to go to jail in Dubai (not a nice place as it were), there is no reason to stay in place where the cash flow has dried up.

But Dubai's financial woes are common knowledge. The Independent published an article today by Johann Hari that brought to light something I have been talking about for a long time. See, after my night out in Dubai, the light of day revealed what Sheikh Mohammed probably doesn't care for anyone to know. Here's what Hari says,

If you go there with your eyes open – as I did earlier this year – the truth is hidden in plain view. The tour books and the bragging Emiratis will tell you the city was built by Sheikh Mohammed, the country's hereditary ruler.

It is untrue. The people who really built the city can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes. They were conned into coming, and trapped into staying.

In their home country – Bangladesh or the Philippines or India – these workers are told they can earn a fortune in Dubai if they pay a large upfront fee. When they arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised.

They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside Dubai, where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police.

What Hari is describing is the classic debt trap. Trapping these people and making them invisible is all by design. Human Rights Watch calls it slavery and so would I. And it is slavery on a very large scale. Only 15% of the population in Dubai are native Emirates. Some are foreign businessmen and women. But the vast majority are poor immigrants who left their home country for something better and found something much worse.

Hari mentioned that embassies were told to stop counting how many workers die in these conditions every year after they figured it topped more than 1,000 among the Indians alone. What he doesn't mention is the astronomical suicide rate among these slave laborers, literally working all hours of the day and night. I have witnessed poor Sikhs from northern India working on the Burj Dubai at 3am, who told me the same thing: they were all there for their families. It is likely they will never see them again.

In the words of an old professor of mine, "Dubai was built on the backs of slave labor, and no one pays attention." The wonders of Dubai can distract you from the slaves in distinctive blue jumpsuits. But like with anything bright and shiny, the luster wears off eventually. And right now, Dubai is looking pretty shabby.

Introducing the "Shit List"

We here at RCB want to make sure that people, organizations, institutions, etc. are held responsible for their actions. Accountability is one of our greatest virtues and it is about time someone did something about it. That's why starting today, Realpolitik is a Cold Brew will make a concerted effort to document all acts of stupidity everywhere. Should you feel someone or something deserves to be on the Shit List, let us know and we will consider it.

The first entry onto the Shit List will be Spin Magazine for their article blasting Radiohead for being too innovative and awesome (see previous posting).

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from everyone here at RCB.

Spin libels Radiohead

Read if you dare

Key bit:

He made the exact same point with his actions during Radiohead's encore at All Points West. After a two-hour set, with the crowd screaming for more, Yorke retook the stage alone, sat at a grand piano, and played a quiet, minimalist nocturne. For five minutes. Before 20,000 people. The song, "Cymbal Rush," from his 2006 solo album The Eraser -- titled in an apparent gearhead reference to some sonic effect or software patch (probably between "Amp Fuzz" and "Element Isolator") -- amplified the sense that this man was so far up his own formalist ass we might as well have not even been there.

I'm too outraged to comment. I was 6 years old when "Creep" came out. I was not impressed then, and I'm not impressed by it now.

Solution in Afghanistan: A Good Taliban?

On the heels of President Obama's authorization to send nearly 40k more American troops to Afghanistan, journalists and politicians have been scrambling to weigh in on the current situation in the subcontinent. What is stopping progress in Afghanistan? Should we even be there? Essentially, what is the endgame? and how do we get there?

Deepa Narayan argues in an op-ed in the NYTimes that real change in Afghanistan will happen at the local level. Up to this point, success in Afghanistan has been tied to the success of the central government, headed by the fraudulently elected Hamid Karzai. Narayan argues that their fates are not necessarily shared. Democracy may not have been a high priority for Karzai, but free legitimate elections took place all over Afghanistan. Narayan reports that 22,000 villages have been enlisted in a project to elect local councils, and that overwhelmingly the Afghani people trusted these councils more than the religious councils, and certainly more than the government in Kabul.

You have to think that this all makes sense. Afterall, Afghanistan's collective tribal mindset will be the greatest challenge to overcome. Right? Maybe not. Maybe it will be what holds Afghanistan together. We've put so much faith into the idea that strengthening and legitimizing the central government in Kabul will be the first step in turning the corner in Afghanistan. And that by building a strong central government, tribal lines will be erased leading to a stable Afghanistan. Have our efforts been misguided? Maybe a little. I think it will be a stable central government allotting local governments as much freedom as they can, whilst providing the country with reliable security that will change Afghanistan. Changing the hearts and minds of Afghanis does not translate into stripping them of their tribal identity, but rather giving them a reason to work together with other groups, and trust that the central government has their backs. There are a number of examples of rival groups working together to decide how best to use government funds. It is through these interactions that the Taliban will find the people no longer need to turn to them for help. Through iterated interactions and the building of trust, a sort of "good Taliban" could develop.

Starting from the bottom up makes much more sense than trying to use a top-down approach. Afghanistan is a country so disjointed that any attempt to impose from the top without first securing up the bottom will fall short.

Right now, growing poppy or joining the Taliban are the two most lucrative occupations in Afghanistan. We've known this for a long time. We've also known that in order to budge the Taliban and al-Qaeda out of the picture we need to find a way to disincentivize cooperation with the Taliban. Perhaps the answer lies in the country's tribal loyalties and trusting the Afghani people to determine what's best for them.

That being said, Obama's choice to send 40k more troops is probably the right choice. Granted, he should have decided this months ago, instead of waffling for so long. I don't like the idea of 100k American troops in Afghanistan for an indeterminable about time, but for now, we have to give the Karzai government a chance, a chance to secure up the government in Kabul and lend its support to the local governments, whom the people trust. And maybe with enough time, by extension, the people can trust Karzai.

Just in case, don't hold your breath.

Welcome to "Realpolitik is a Cold Brew"

"Realpolitik is a Cold Brew" is a new blog created by two friends interested in sharing their banter on politics, music, and beer with the world. Now we're curious what the rest of you have to say. RCB is a place for debate, discovery and drinking beer.  We're well informed, opinionated, and argumentative, so deal with it.

Achtung! Dilettantes, philistines, and all manner of imbeciles will be promptly made examples of. Post at your own risk. That being said, we encourage the contribution of all ideas and viewpoints.