This part’s the most fun. In compiling the selections for this year’s best-of I came to the realization that this year was LONG on catchy, and somewhat short on pretty (James Blake and Bon Iver notwithstanding). Doesn’t mean there was any shortage of truly great songs. I sequenced the list but the order isn’t that important so you can either play it straight through or hit the shuffle and see what you get. It’s been a lovely first year of hMsM, and I’m psyched to share this with you.
Monthly Archives: December 2011
The best of 2011, Volume 2, Songs
Often the best songs of a given year say more about the cultural landscape than the best albums. These are songs that, for one reason or another, seemed to soundtrack 2011. They’re kind of all over the place, and you probably won’t find too, too many of them on anybody else’s top list, but all of them are great, and I’ll do my best to convince you why.
10. Nicki Minaj, “Superbass”
When she eviscerated our minds on Kanye‘s “Monster“, we were all pretty sure she was for real. When “Superbass” came around, there was no longer a doubt. Nicki Minaj, all youthful exuberance and oozing goofy sex, had quite a year in 2011. This song, like another one on this list, is sung from the perspective of a girl who’s ready to give you everything, and all you have to do is appreciate her. [of course in Nicki’s case you also have to be a large, physically fit, well moneyed black man with a very loud sound system in your nice car]
9. Fleet Foxes, “Grown Ocean”
Helplessness Blues was a hard pill for me to swallow. It’s not a bad album by any means, but it lacked something essential that made Fleet Foxes special. “Grown Ocean” is undoubtedly the defining moment. There’s something about this song that makes me happy to be a Mainer, maybe it’s the idea that “children grown on the edge of the ocean” are cut from a different cloth.
8. Drake, “Dreams Money Can Buy”
I’m tempted to just type the lyric sheet to this song. I did a complete one-eighty on Drake this year and this track was largely the reason. The beat (which is fully dope) becomes an afterthought because Drizzy flows with such ridiculous swag it’s hard to argue with the claims he makes. “I throw my dollas up hiiiiigh/ and they land on the stage you daaaance on / we got company comin ovvvaaaa / would it kill you to put some paaaants on.”
7. The Antlers, “I Don’t Want Love”
If there’s one thing you can say for Brooklyn’s The Antlers, they know how to sing about interactions. “I Don’t Want Love” is the story of a tepid one-night stand between two friends. From the singer’s perspective, it sounded like a better idea at the time…
6. Foster the People, “Pumped Up Kicks”
There was a point this year when this song hit a saturation level that totally baffled me. It’s a real success story; what happens when a single on a random Californian indie band’s album is just so ridiculously catchy it explodes into the public consciousness? The horrendously tactless lyrics notwithstanding, this is a GREAT pop song. It was inevitably overplayed, and has lost some of its luster, but let’s all remember where we were the second or third time we heard it and said “what IS this?”.
5. Lana del Rey, “Video Games”
Lana del Rey is the product of collective nostalgia for a decade nobody remembers. The 50s are now far enough removed from the average music listener’s memory that the glamorization of the decade’s fashion and pop culture mores was inevitable. Enter Lizzy Grant, a starry-eyed and beautiful 20-something with a penchant for nonchalance. She decides she’ll change her name to Lana del Rey and pretend she’s a 50s starlet. Sounds dumb right? Well she hasn’t released a full-length LP yet, so the jury’s still out on the idea, but “Video Games” is pretty remarkable. The fact that it was her first single and the two she’s released since have been good-but-not-as-good doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence going forward, but we’ll remember that in 2011, if only for a moment, we all wanted to live in whatever year Lana chose.
4. James Blake, “A Case of You” (Joni Mitchell cover)
“Whaaaaat do you expect us to say after that… that was amaaazing”. That was the response from Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 when James Blake finished an in-studio solo piano cover of Joni Mitchell‘s Blue classic “A Case of You”. Where the original version had an almost calypso-y bump, Blake’s version is true to what he’s been making this year: quiet, emotionally wrought, and arrestingly gorgeous. That BBC version was so good, in fact, that Blake decided to feature that one-shot take on his late 2011 EP Enough Thunder. Blake’s self-titled solo album topped this year’s hMsM Best Albums of 2011, but this is the best recording he released all year, and as Lowe said in studio after the fateful performance “now you’ve given us a really good indication of where you can go”. Well he’s only 23, so that’s a pretty exciting prospect.
3. Radiohead, “Seperator”
I feel a little silly ranking this song so high. Not only has it been totally unacknowledged by critics, but everybody seems to forget that Radiohead made an album this year. “Seperator” is the final track on The King of Limbs, a record that was probably better than it was given credit for; at this point anything less than perfection is a let down to Radiohead fans. When I initially reviewed The King of Limbs I noted that this was probably the happiest song Radiohead has ever made, and it’s at the end of their saddest album. The music evokes warmth, clear water, “flowering fruits”, paradise. The introduction of a seemingly trivial guitar riff at the 2:30 mark gives the song exactly the lift it needs and by the end it’s hard not to feel washed clean, blinking into brilliant sunlight, in whatever paradise comes to mind.
2. Purity Ring, “Ungirthed”
Purity Ring is Megan James and Corin Roddick, two young Canadians with a whole lot of ideas about what the future of pop music should sound like. In fact they describe their sound as, um, “future pop”. They’ve only released three tracks but a full length is on the way in the next few months. “Ungirthed” utilizes the Burial-style ghost voices that have been cropping up in a lot of electronic music over the last several years, but this is perhaps the first time those voices have sounded like they belong to blithe spirits. There’s SO MUCH happiness in this track it’s bubbling out like soap suds, and I can’t wait to get my hands on a debut LP.
1. M83, “Midnight City”
Anthony Gonzalez’s magnum opus Hurry Up We’re Dreaming opens with the best 1-2 punch of the year. “Intro” sets the tenor exceptionally grand; it’s one of those moments where you imagine a performer saying “just try topping that”, to which Gonzalez clears his throat, takes a deep breath, and starts making bird noises. This vocal riff is not so much catchy as it is contagious; everybody I play this song for is taken by it. If the riff is the waves, “Midnight City” is the sea. Gonzalez’s lyrics occasionally float to the surface but more often the track is an exercise in atmosphere. In a year like 2011, where so much is uncertain (North Korea, the presidential election, the Middle East, the return of Community) we need heroes, and this year M83 rose to the occasion.
Well that does it for tracks, stay tuned for the Best of 2011 playlist, coming soon.
The best of 2011, Volume 2, Songs
Often the best songs of a given year say more about the cultural landscape than the best albums. These are songs that, for one reason or another, seemed to soundtrack 2011. They’re kind of all over the place, and you probably won’t find too, too many of them on anybody else’s top list, but all of them are great, and I’ll do my best to convince you why.
10. Nicki Minaj, “Superbass”
When she eviscerated our minds on Kanye‘s “Monster“, we were all pretty sure she was for real. When “Superbass” came around, there was no longer a doubt. Nicki Minaj, all youthful exuberance and oozing goofy sex, had quite a year in 2011. This song, like another one on this list, is sung from the perspective of a girl who’s ready to give you everything, and all you have to do is appreciate her. [of course in Nicki’s case you also have to be a large, physically fit, well moneyed black man with a very loud sound system in your nice car]
9. Fleet Foxes, “Grown Ocean”
Helplessness Blues was a hard pill for me to swallow. It’s not a bad album by any means, but it lacked something essential that made Fleet Foxes special. “Grown Ocean” is undoubtedly the defining moment. There’s something about this song that makes me happy to be a Mainer, maybe it’s the idea that “children grown on the edge of the ocean” are cut from a different cloth.
8. Drake, “Dreams Money Can Buy”
I’m tempted to just type the lyric sheet to this song. I did a complete one-eighty on Drake this year and this track was largely the reason. The beat (which is fully dope) becomes an afterthought because Drizzy flows with such ridiculous swag it’s hard to argue with the claims he makes. “I throw my dollas up hiiiiigh/ and they land on the stage you daaaance on / we got company comin ovvvaaaa / would it kill you to put some paaaants on.”
7. The Antlers, “I Don’t Want Love”
If there’s one thing you can say for Brooklyn’s The Antlers, they know how to sing about interactions. “I Don’t Want Love” is the story of a tepid one-night stand between two friends. From the singer’s perspective, it sounded like a better idea at the time…
6. Foster the People, “Pumped Up Kicks”
There was a point this year when this song hit a saturation level that totally baffled me. It’s a real success story; what happens when a single on a random Californian indie band’s album is just so ridiculously catchy it explodes into the public consciousness? The horrendously tactless lyrics notwithstanding, this is a GREAT pop song. It was inevitably overplayed, and has lost some of its luster, but let’s all remember where we were the second or third time we heard it and said “what IS this?”.
5. Lana del Rey, “Video Games”
Lana del Rey is the product of collective nostalgia for a decade nobody remembers. The 50s are now far enough removed from the average music listener’s memory that the glamorization of the decade’s fashion and pop culture mores was inevitable. Enter Lizzy Grant, a starry-eyed and beautiful 20-something with a penchant for nonchalance. She decides she’ll change her name to Lana del Rey and pretend she’s a 50s starlet. Sounds dumb right? Well she hasn’t released a full-length LP yet, so the jury’s still out on the idea, but “Video Games” is pretty remarkable. The fact that it was her first single and the two she’s released since have been good-but-not-as-good doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence going forward, but we’ll remember that in 2011, if only for a moment, we all wanted to live in whatever year Lana chose.
4. James Blake, “A Case of You” (Joni Mitchell cover)
“Whaaaaat do you expect us to say after that… that was amaaazing”. That was the response from Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 when James Blake finished an in-studio solo piano cover of Joni Mitchell‘s Blue classic “A Case of You”. Where the original version had an almost calypso-y bump, Blake’s version is true to what he’s been making this year: quiet, emotionally wrought, and arrestingly gorgeous. That BBC version was so good, in fact, that Blake decided to feature that one-shot take on his late 2011 EP Enough Thunder. Blake’s self-titled solo album topped this year’s hMsM Best Albums of 2011, but this is the best recording he released all year, and as Lowe said in studio after the fateful performance “now you’ve given us a really good indication of where you can go”. Well he’s only 23, so that’s a pretty exciting prospect.
3. Radiohead, “Seperator”
I feel a little silly ranking this song so high. Not only has it been totally unacknowledged by critics, but everybody seems to forget that Radiohead made an album this year. “Seperator” is the final track on The King of Limbs, a record that was probably better than it was given credit for; at this point anything less than perfection is a let down to Radiohead fans. When I initially reviewed The King of Limbs I noted that this was probably the happiest song Radiohead has ever made, and it’s at the end of their saddest album. The music evokes warmth, clear water, “flowering fruits”, paradise. The introduction of a seemingly trivial guitar riff at the 2:30 mark gives the song exactly the lift it needs and by the end it’s hard not to feel washed clean, blinking into brilliant sunlight, in whatever paradise comes to mind.
2. Purity Ring, “Ungirthed”
Purity Ring is Megan James and Corin Roddick, two young Canadians with a whole lot of ideas about what the future of pop music should sound like. In fact they describe their sound as, um, “future pop”. They’ve only released three tracks but a full length is on the way in the next few months. “Ungirthed” utilizes the Burial-style ghost voices that have been cropping up in a lot of electronic music over the last several years, but this is perhaps the first time those voices have sounded like they belong to blithe spirits. There’s SO MUCH happiness in this track it’s bubbling out like soap suds, and I can’t wait to get my hands on a debut LP.
1. M83, “Midnight City”
Anthony Gonzalez’s magnum opus Hurry Up We’re Dreaming opens with the best 1-2 punch of the year. “Intro” sets the tenor exceptionally grand; it’s one of those moments where you imagine a performer saying “just try topping that”, to which Gonzalez clears his throat, takes a deep breath, and starts making bird noises. This vocal riff is not so much catchy as it is contagious; everybody I play this song for is taken by it. If the riff is the waves, “Midnight City” is the sea. Gonzalez’s lyrics occasionally float to the surface but more often the track is an exercise in atmosphere. In a year like 2011, where so much is uncertain (North Korea, the presidential election, the Middle East, the return of Community) we need heroes, and this year M83 rose to the occasion.
Well that does it for tracks, stay tuned for the Best of 2011 playlist, coming soon.
The best of 2011, Volume 1, Albums
We music nerds do love our lists. So much so that deriding the best-of lists of other music nerds — especially when the collective comprised of those nerds has become a whipping boy for everything wrong with the current state of music criticism — is exceedingly fun and gratifying. So let me go out on a fairly sturdy limb here and say, Pitchfork really dropped the ball this year. Bon Iver was such a safe choice it makes my stomach turn. Excellent album, over-hyped maybe, but deserving of some accolades. Best album of the year? Pffffttt…. Below you’ll find my top 10, in order.
Honorable Mention:
I went back and forth on whether to include what is, for all practical purposes, a reissue album of songs that were recorded over 40 years ago. I arrived at the decision that though these songs have existed for years, and though Brian Wilson recorded his own version of Smile a few years back, this is the first time Smile has existed EXACTLY as it should. The sequence is perfect, the takes selected as “album cuts” are perfect, everything about this album is perfect, maybe even better than Pet Sounds. Maybe the most remarkable thing about this whole reissue is how gratifyingly weird the album sounds. The shelving of it back in the day is totally understandable based on the standards of pop song craft that existed in the mid-60s. What’s endearing is the fact that even by today’s standards this is an experimental album. It’s out there, man.
10. 9th Wonder , The Wonder Years
Continuing with the Pitchfork slamming, this album was glaringly absent not only from their year end best-of list, but from the site entirely. Granted, the quality of 9th Wonder’s releases has been scatter-shot since the Little Brother days, but damn, recognize game. With a rotating cast of collaborators including legends like Raekwon and Warren G, 9th does his best to encapsulate 25 years of hip hop culture within a 60-minute framework. It would be pretentious and overblown if it didn’t work, but it does, and it’s one of the best, if overlooked, hip hop albums of this or any year.
9. Youth Lagoon, The Year of Hibernation
Youth Lagoon is Trevor Powers, an anxiously earnest 22-year-old from Boise who makes dreamy bedroom synth pop in a way that manages to be totally candid and emotionally transparent without sounding wimpy. This is a gentle album, but that doesn’t mean it’s lacking intensity. Powers struggles with chronic anxiety and depression and these songs universalize a personal experience without really trying. Don’t know what to expect from this kid in the future, but said future looks pretty good if the front to back excellence The Year of Hibernation is any indication.
The most intriguing thing about Cults (aside from the music) is that they traffic in the kind of image-centric je ne sais quoi that usually requires some apologetic detachment. A lot of bands push for being totally “cool” but seem to have to “not take themselves too seriously” or we, the listener, won’t. The music on this album is almost impossible to lump into a genre, one moment there’s a 50s do-wop vibe, the next moment you’re rocketed in to a Japanese post-tech world where only girls with cute voices survived. Cults are not concerned, apparently, with who their peers are. They’re totally self-assured, even if they aren’t sure what they’re sure about. And really, is there anything more hipster than that?
7. Kurt Vile, Smoke Ring for My Halo
Kurt Vile is brooding and sometimes morose, but he’s got a great sense of humor too. In that way he makes some of the most self-concious (in a good way) music imaginable, poking fun at himself while he reinforces his stoicism. The album is meticulously crafted and produced, a facet missing from his earlier lower-fi recordings. Even when he’s at his most desperate, Vile retains that Eeyore-like drive to keep pushing, and this album is the sound of an artist fully coming into his own.
Let’s not wet ourselves, For Emma was better. As of this morning, with all the Grammy nods and Pitchfork’s top album of the year ranking, I think it officially became cool to hate on this album. That’s kind of like throwing a knife at a pillow. In moments it’s totally breathtaking, the scope of Justin Vernon‘s ambition doesn’t confuse his purpose. To me one of the coolest things about this album is the closing track “Beth/Rest”; it sounds very little like the rest of the album and it’s been praised and bashed in equal measure. Basically it’s a Bruce Hornsby song, sung by Bon Iver. I’m down, it’s about time Bruce gets some love. The rest of the album is comprised of what Vernon aptly and unpretentiously described as “soundscapes”. Impressively, these songs really do have the power to conjure visual images. The album as a whole succeeds because it’s purposeful and manages to instill the feeling the Justin Vernon has a lot more tricks up his sleeve.
“I be hearin’ the shit you say through the grape vine / but jealousy is just love and hate at the same time.” There are any number of soooo dope one liners that can be pulled out of Drake’s body of work from 2011 (“I never seen the car you claim to drive / well shit, I seen it you just ain’t inside” is another favorite). There’s a lot of things I could say about this record; it’s understated, it’s melodic, it strikes a previously unthinkable balance between cockiness and humility. The biggest thing to take away though is probably Drake’s confidence. The album is executed so self-assuredly that it’s hard to imagine Drake has any regrets. “I blew $6 million on myself and it felt amazing”. Guess not…
As anyone who has heard Hospice, The Antlers sprawling 2009 concept-masterpiece can tell you, Peter Silberman and company have the ability to make such deeply affecting music it can bring the listener to tears (yes I cried at the end of Hospice multiple times, whatever, you guys have no souls). It was somewhat refreshing, then, when “I Don’t Want Love” appeared a month or two before the release of this album. Shedding the grandiosity of its predecessor, Burst Apart is a searching album. It’s the sound of a band unsure of what it wants to sound like in the future, but perfectly content to try a few ideas and see what works. It lacks the emotional depth (has there ever been a more emotionally deep album than Hospice?) of its predecessor, but through its gentle duration it shows off a band with a lot of room to grow, and a lot of directions to do it in.
3. Frank Ocean, nostalgia / ultra
2011 was something of a breakout year for Frank Ocean. Being a contributing member of Odd Future certainly helped, but largely he did it on his own. He lent his vocals as the only credited guest on Watch the Throne, especially imperssive since he was the primary writer of both the songs on which he appeared, and they’re two of the catchiest songs on that album. He’s also penned tunes for Beyonce and (yes) even the Biebs.
nostalgia / ultra appeared rather quietly; it was given away as a free “mixtape”. And the album does have that feel; there aren’t a lot of seams between songs and the whole thing has a stoned-out dream like quality. But these are R&B songs at the core, and even when Ocean does his quasi-covers — on the album there are three songs with the original instrumental and Ocean coming up with his own vocal melody and lyrics — he has a stylish but vulnerable delivery. If this guy doesn’t become a bonafide star it will be a real shame; this is one of the best debut albums I’ve ever heard.
2. M83, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
In an interview with the aforederided Pitchfork from right around the time Hurry Up was released, frontman Anthony Gonzalez was questioned about the impossibly catchy vocal hook from lead single “Midnight City”. Was it a moment of satisfaction, the instant when the musical stars aligned? “No. Honestly, when I first made that, I felt stupid. [laughs] It’s my voice under heavy distortion, and I was feeling so dumb doing those high-pitched vocals while my girlfriend was sleeping downstairs. Now, I love it.”
Listening you get the impression Gonzalez started with a rough idea of what he wanted to create and let it spring to life of its own accord; the music is just at the edges of his control. Memory is a powerful thing and the album is feverishly paced, as though Gonzalez is telling a story and keeps remembering more details. There’s even an ever-so-precious interlude about hallucinogenic frogs and the world coming together as one that ends up being one of the most beautiful things on the first side. The music of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s had a baby, and its name is Hurry Up We’re Dreaming.
So yeah, 2 discs, exhaustingly gorgeous, wrestled with the possibility of this being #1…
It’s probably become uncool to listen to music and think “this is the future!” since at this point we humans are capable technically of producing music that sounds like pretty much whatever we want. To say 23-year-old James Blake’s debut comes directly out of left field would be an overstatement. There are definite influences at work here, but this is the best album of the year because it manages to sound completely new. Blake hasn’t been shy about the way American producers like Skrillex and Bassnectar have basterdized the idea of dubstep into a bass-rumble-pissing-contest.
To answer, Blake crafts an incomparably intimate album that manages to be a singer-songwriter affair and a dubstep record, something previously unthinkable. Through his three 2010 EPs Blake showed off his penchant for smart production and an uncanny skill with the use of silence. All that aesthetic sense sticks around for James Blake but we also get his heart. And though the album still feels slightly aloof and mysterious one gets the sense he did exactly what he wanted to here.
This album may not be the most enduring on this list, but it’s certainly the most exciting. Blake could go in any number of directions now, he’s already mutated with another EP since the release of the album. James Blake creates a new kind of music; it’s the future, and it couldn’t be more of the moment.
Well thanks folks, it’s been a great year of music, I’m hoping to get the top 10 tracks up soon!
Classic: Neil Young "Unknown Legend"
Good songs have the ability to unfurl a landscape in the mind’s eye. Great songs can impress the importance of that image without really having to try. Neil Young‘s Harvest Moon is an album that was criticized at the time of its release because it took Young’s music out of the arena and pushed it back out on to the prairie. “Unknown Legend” is a mystery. To where did the beautiful woman from the diner disappear? She’s vanished and left behind a memory of unspoken unrequited love. The singer knows that “somewhere on a desert highway she rides a Harley Davidson, her long blond hair flying in the wind.” Will he ever find her again?
Happy Music Sad Music 