A Thousand Thoughts Decline Away...

Sorry for the delay here folks… it was a horrible idea to promise the rest of this list on New Year’s Eve. I would have posted it last week but then I got CancerAIDS aka tonsillitis so that delayed things even further. Hey at least I’m gonna finish this, unlike my top 20 TV shows of 2010 list, where I wrote up half of the last 10 but it was longer than War & Peace at that point and I couldn’t finish. *sad trombone*

Also some folks (aka my friend Mitch) have been hating on how I seem to criticize a bunch of the songs and bands that I put on this list anyway… to that I say sooooorrry. Not everything’s perfect and I’m just commentating on what works and what doesn’t. Don’t fret the last batch here is basically all around awesome.

Anyway…

20) James Blake - “The Wilhelm Scream” from James Blake (indie/electronic/dubstep)

So this dude is apparently the savior of electronic music (even though Radiohead are still doing their thang). He sounds like one of The Righteous Brothers, though his vocals are much more haunting. This song especially lingers in one’s head probably because of the repeating lyrics and how it just builds and builds to display one simple point driven by one repeating melody. I decided to feature the live version of the song because it’s even better than the OG recorded one as the reverb here is out of its world and the guitar flourishes are a nice added touch.

19) Givers - “Up, Up, Up” from In Light (indie/indie pop/afro pop)

Yup another band I found out about because of the wonderful FIFA 12 soundtrack, as it has a nice Afro-pop vibe ala Vampire Weekend. Yup, in theory this band is something to laugh at since it’s a bunch of white kids from Louisiana playing wannabe black music, but the beats are creative enough that it all works out OK in the end. The female singer in particular is pretty damn good, but I think this song benefits most from some groovy bass guitar that keeps everything bouncy the entire time. It’s called “Up, Up, Up” for a reason, so props to the band for prioritizing the rhythm and percussion above all else. The album as a whole is pretty damn good too, so I’m hoping these guys get big in the future.

18) Drake - “Take Care (featuring Rhianna)/Marvin’s Room/Buried Alive (Interlude)” from Take Care (hip-hop/rap/indie)

Yup, I’m definitely cheating here by counting two songs from Take Care as one, but I really can’t listen to one without the other since they compliment each other so well since they follow each other sequencing wise. But these songs are most indicative as to why this is probably the best hip-hop album of the year, as Drake isn’t afraid to express his most existential worries over these two tracks that make me think of him as some sort of hip hop lounge singer torn between moving on from his past and dwelling in the moment over both fame and the same ol’ bullshit that people in their 20’s most commonly deal with today.

“Take Care” features Rhianna (who seemed to be on every song in existence in 2011) doing a great job of complimenting a worn out Drake lamenting over people not getting over their previous damaging relationships (his included), backed by some great pounding percussion and a poignant sample from a great remixed piece from Gil Scott Heron. This particularly hopeful track flows seamlessly into the extremely dark “Marvin’s Room” centered around a Drunk call from Drake and lyrics full of (irrational) jealousy, rage and envy that most young adults go through when letting go of a previous damaging relationship. There is nothing positive about this track, just honest scorn and selfish resentment,  common feelings for any jaded young man to deal with. The authenticity present on both tracks is why Drake succeeds here and no amount of typical hip-hip machismo and bravado (which to be fair is present on a number of other tracks on the album) can displace this honesty.

17) Battles - “Ice Cream” from Glossdrop (indie/experimental rock)

This is up here because the weird keyboard riff is one of the most infectious things I heard all year and the music video is stimulating as all hell. I really have no clue what the song is about (hell the lyrics aren’t in English most of the time since the guest singer on this track is from Chile), but I do know that it’s catchy as fuck and was the perfect song for the summer. Anyway, enjoy the karate and the hot hipster chicks here.

16) Nicki Minaj - “Super Bass” from Pink Friday (hip-hop/pop)

I don’t know if this song is technically a guilty pleasure or not, but I do know that Nicki spits hot fire here and the chorus is massive. I got to see her twice this year thanks to my cushy arena job, and it was pretty crazy to see Ms. Minaj progress as a live artist in literally a two month span. Anyway, I appreciate the fact that she can legitimately rap, sing pretty damn well and be a pretty good feminist role model for all them young gals out there. But damn, props to this song for having that awesome beating heart breakdown near the end, as it really does make things go “boom ba doom boom, boom ba doom boom beh” then. I listened to this track way too much this year.

15) Thrice - “Words in the Water” from Major/Minor (alternative/post-hardcore)

If you look at my Last.fm statistics, you will see that Thrice is my number one most listened to artist by a mile. Yet the sad part is that I soured on the band after the bland Beggars, and didn’t think they’d be able to re-win my love with another straight up rock/blues record. Well they actually decided to return to their anthemic form on Major/Minor, highlighted by the moving “Words in the Water.” For those of you who do not know, every member of the band unfortunately either lost a parent in the past year or saw one get stricken with cancer. Obviously this affected their musical output, as each track on the album seems to be about embracing the moment and enjoying the time you still have left on this Earth (though this also may be about how the band was going to inevitably break up after its recording, which did seem to happen since singer Dustin Kensrue has now accepted a job as a church leader in the OC). This track especially focuses on how helpless one can feel when stricken with such an affliction (thank you drowning metaphor), but the chorus and outro are so damn triumphant that you can’t help but feel hopeful and in control despite these wretched circumstances. This album may be Thrice’s swan song, but I’m glad they left us with yet another record filled with an emphasis on authenticity and existential hope that should stay relevant for years to come.

And got damn, this live performance I posted here is powerful as hell.

14) Bon Iver - “Calgary” from Bon Iver, Bon Iver (indie/indie folk/80s/indie rock)

Welp, here’s the first track featured from my personal favorite artist of the last couple years. Justin Vernon’s project has seen alot more attention given to it in the last year thanks to his help in writing Kanye West’s amazing last album and the fact that his first album was a folk masterpiece, so there were some pretty heavy expectations regarding how his next album would sound like. Well he decided to break out a pretty epic-folk/80s/alt-country opus that was still somehow dominated by his famous serene falsetto. He combined sounds that definitely didn’t seem like they should go together with some of the most esoteric and possibly incomprehensible lyrics around and somehow still succeeded at making one of the most emotionally affecting albums of the year. “Calgary” in particular is pretty confusing lyrically, but it sure does build into quite the rockin’ track, thanks to its layers of brass instruments and double drums. Once the so-called “chorus” breaks in the middle of the song, with that driving guitar riff, you can’t help but wanna scream along to it.

I’m featuring the live version of the song on the Jools Holland show here because it’s awesome to see each random instrument— from the baritone sax solo to the cool black dude who plays the weird stones/triangle — make the song the layered, moving beast that it is.

13) Skrillex - “First of the Year (Equinox)” from More Monsters and Sprites (dubstep/house/dance/brostep)

Welp, I finally decided to embrace the beast that is dubstep (in Skrillex’s case, brostep) for all the crazy Transformers morphing sound that it is. What helped especially was this catchy layered track that starts with a simple reggae melody and evolves into a dense piece full of heavy breakdowns and sonic shifts. In theory this stuff is just remixed metalcore music (since Sonny Moore aka Skrillex comes from that background), but it works surprisingly well as dance/house music, so I guess I have to dig it. It also helps to be drunk as fuck in Vegas and hearing this stuff for the first time with the speakers pointed right at your balls, meaning you are forced to feel the rhythm shaking you to the very core. Just from enjoying this track I found that Skrillex made a bunch of other songs — from “In For The Kill” by La Roux to “Cinema” by Benny Benassi — way better than they ever should be so I reckon that means the dude has to have some talent. Here’s to hoping the dude is more than a novelty act and can keep me entertained for years to come.

12) Fleet Foxes - “Helplessness Blues” from Helplessness Blues (indie/folk)

Robin Peckhold has one of the best voices around and this 5 minute epic may be the best demonstration of his talents just yet. The driving beat is ridiculously catchy and the way it all culminates at the 2:48 mark is a thing of beauty that rivals the vocal melodies of the Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel. Just like the previous album from this Washington band, the lyrics are primarly pastoral, but the deeper subtext points at a need to get away from the newfound fame the band’s success and acclaim has brought to Peckhold, as he ponders a future where he just chills in a country setting that is free of the demands of urban society today. Hence the song title and why he feels stuck in the machinations of daily American living. I find Fleet Foxes to be at their best when they deliver their most epic songs (while their more folky, acoustic numbers bore me), and the title track here definitely satisfies my desire to see this band deliver songs that tell stories that no other band can.

11) Crystal Castles (featuring Robert Smith) - “Not in Love” from II (indie/dance/electro-pop/gothic)

Technically this track was released in 2010, but I’m allowing it here since it was released as a single in April 2011. Like I said in my previous Song of the Day post, I’m not a big Crystal Castles fan (sing like a normal person dammit!), but I am a huge Robert Smith fan, and their cover of this 80s classic is freaking perfect. From the verses wrought in despair, to the massive dance-house chorus, the track is a total success and I still haven’t gotten sick of it 5 months from where I first heard it. Its weird how this track can be perfectly fine as a gothic piece that no one would care to know about or a giant dance track that would be just at home at EDC or something.