«<1/27/11 UPDATE: Much props to Jeremy for putting a Grooveshark playlist together»>
1. Grab a cup of coffee or eggnog + rum if that is more your style and get comfortable.
2. Ctrl-click the youtube links to start playing the songs in new unopened tabs.
3. Settle in to this meandering stroll through my favorite recorded music of 2010.
Best Coast - Crazy For You (album)
-Melodies (and melodrama) for days. California’s younger, more emotionally unstable, female answer to Teenage Fanclub. Like Teenage Fanclub, all of the songs on this record run together and little varies from track to track. If you like the first song, you’ll love the whole thing.
-Song: Boyfriend [youtube]
Tokyo Police Club - Champ (album)
-This album sounds like their other records, which is great if energetic and catchy Canadian noise pop floats your boat.
-Song: Breakneck Speed [youtube]
Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt (album)
-Sensitive guy-with-a-guitar singer/songwriters, Kristian Mattson is coming for you. Remember those years when Wayne openly claimed to be the best rapper alive? He said it and then spent years convincing everyone else it was true until we actually believed it. Kristian’s playing, singing, songwriting and performances suggests he is on a similar mission in his musical neck of the woods. He is also Swedish, adding to the long line of badass musicians from that country. File this music under yet another American genre co-opted and better executed by a foreigner. See also: The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Radiohead.
-Song: The Wild Hunt [youtube]
Jonsi - Go (album)
-Androgynous, Sigur Ros-like soaring yet fragile vocal melodies. The percussion sounds like Aphex Twin abandoned his computer for a kitchen’s worth of pots, pans, and silverware. I think there are some interesting interviews floating around the internet about how they got drum sounds, which apparently involved lots of banging on cardboard boxes.
-Song: Go Do [youtube]
Birds and Batteries - Panorama (album)
-You know how rappers are constantly reminding you that “money ain’t a thing”, i.e. they are rich enough to not bother concerning themselves with their spending habits? (Usually, 95% of these major label rappers are lying their asses off as they lean on rented lamborghinis in BET videos). That type of wealth is not part of my lifestyle, but if it was I know how I would carelessly distribute piles of money: I would shower Birds and Batteries with cash such that the band members never needed day jobs. I want those cats holed up in the studio recording iteration upon iteration of Mike Sempert’s voice, pedal steels and analog synths </digression>
-Criminally underrated band releases record that tweaks their singular (literally; no one else pulls this off) rock sound drawing from country music traditions and software bleeps. If you are new to Birds and Batteries you would be better served to start with I’ll Never Sleep Again or Nature vs. Nature; Panorama is a little weirder in terms of chord structures and musicality. But hot damn it’s good.
-Song of the Year: Strange Kind of Mirror [streaming at Magnet mag]
Yelawolf - Trunk Muzik mixtape
-Believable, tough talk white guy southern rap that worships cars, deftly avoids sounding like Eminem, and helps us forget Bubba Sparxxx.
-Yelawolf’s ascension and the decline of Asher Roth further suggests lessons learned from Eminem: white rappers have a better shot if they can convince listeners that they came up from economically disadvantaged rough and tumble backgrounds. Yelawolf also has something interesting going in that he embraces his rural southern roots. He makes most of his beats too.
-Song: Speaker Sects [youtube, slightly nsfw audio]
Nero - BBC Essential Mix
-Yanks still aren’t sold on dubstep but damn if this ain’t a great entry point. The best mix I have heard all year. Like a lot of dubstep, this mix is best listened to in the dark with isolation headphones and no interruptions.
-Minutes 14:00-20:00 are the best part but the whole thing is solid
-Full mix is here: Nero BBC Essential Mix
Land of Talk - Cloak and Cipher (album)
-More Canadian music. Terrible band name, great album name. Wistful, yearning female vocals balanced by plenty of amp noise. She is a touring member of Broken Social Scene and it shows in all the right ways.
-Song: Quarry Hymns [youtube]
Lil Wayne - Right Above It (song)
-Classic Weezy: anthemic and free-associative at the same time, this song is still amazing even though he looks like Yoda in the above cover art.
-Song: Right Above it [youtube]
Katy Perry - Teenage Dream (song)
-Annoying, shrill, sold-out genetic lottery winner gets a lot of things right on this song: Avalanches/Dre-style underwater sub bass on the chorus break, inescapable verse and chorus melodies, and harkening back to high school lust make this song work. The other songs of hers will wear on your ears and give you a headache something fierce.
-Song: Teenage Dream [youtube]
Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill (album)
-Ambient, gauzy female vocals. Pretty much the opposite of Katy Perry, this music sounds like a depressed Gillian Welch stuck in the bottom of a well, wailing in slow motion. Alternate, more far-fetched metaphor: If humans evolved from despondent whales instead of tool-using apes (thus making whalesong our traditional music) this record might be what our popular music would sound like. This will be most appreciated by the sad music = beautiful music camp. And people who like lots of soft noise. And sheesh, talk about an evocative album title.
-Song: Disengaged [youtube]
Trends and random thoughts on music:
-This year’s list is disproportionately full of women (Grouper, Land of Talk, Best Coast), Canadians (Tokyo Police Club, Land of Talk, Drake (see below, at least), and give-it-time-they’ll-grow-on-you male vocalists (Birds and Batteries, Tallest Man on Earth).
-This is the year I gave up on Diplo (just can’t get on the Major Lazer train), embraced dubstep, continued loving french electro, and listened to a lot of subpar LCD rap.
-I am going to spend the holidays streaming So Many Shrimp David’s youtube playlist of the best regional rap of the year and hopefully those songs will salvage 2010 rap for me.
-As for radio rap, I am thankful that Drake blew up this year: when mainstream rappers delivered uninspired rhymes he swooped in and redeemed songs with great loverman chorus hooks.
-Really missed not getting an album from Sound of Arrows this year.
-Really hope the Burial puts out music in 2011.
-I still don’t understand why people thought “Only Built for Cuban Linx Part II” was that great.
-Liked but didn’t love the Kanye record. The best part about Kanye is that a) he is chasing G.O.A.T. status harder than anyone and b) we get to watch the pursuit. Sure, Zeppelin/Prince/The Beatles chased it and won the crown. But my generation was too young to see or understand those artists’ climb to the genre summit. Despite the fact that I prefer recorded music over live music, it is thrilling to watch recorded music unfold over time in the popular consciousness. We get to sit back and observe how artists’ output fares in the sea of listeners. It is even more interesting when barriers to entry (distribution channels, costs of tools of production) get erased and the playing field is open to anyone.
-I am ready for bands and websites to get better about streaming full albums on release dates. This is the best way to hear new music (even better than rapidshare sites) to decide if you want to fork over cash money on new releases.
-Cool Austin news: Musician friend Greg Vanderpool of Milton Mapes and Monahans wrote a beautiful, sparse song called “The Only Sound that Matters” a few years ago. Rock and roll legend Robert Plant took a liking to it and the song was the single on Plant’s 2010 record: Robert Plant and the Band of Joy: The Only Sound That Matters.
-As for music writers in 2010 nobody did it better than Pitchfork Reviews Reviews and Passion of the Weiss.
To all my music-making and music-listening friends, it’s been great. See you next year.
