
2012: ALBUMS
1 Tame Impala - Lonerism
2 Com Truise - In Decay
3 Grimes - Visions
4 Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d. city
5 Beach House - In Bloom
6 Chromatics - Kill for Love
7. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - Trouble
8. Allah-Las - S/T
9. Hot Chip - In Our Heads
10. Jon Talabot - fin |
2012: SINGLES
1. Grimes - Oblivion
2. Nas - The Don
3. Bear in Heaven - Sinful Nature
4. Julio Bashmore - Au Seve
5. Hot Chip - Motion Sickness
6. Actress - Caves of Paradise
7. Santigold - Disparate Youth
8. Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
9. Disclosure - Latch
10. Kendrick Lamar - Swimming Pools (Drank) |
FULL LISTS AND PRETENTIOUS ESSAYS
2012: THE MORE THINGS WHATEVER, THE MORE THINGS WHATEVER
I have an announcement: Party Ben believes in change. Okay, sure, everybody does, Obama got reelected, yay change. But it's harder for me to say that than you might think. There was a time back in college when I'd become convinced the Western ethos of ever-advancing society was a myth, and that history was actually cyclical, doomed to repeat itself ad nauseum. This semi-stoned collegiate viewpoint, a rejection of the linear narrative of inherent progress, has a silly name, "postmodernism" (sigh), and it was both kind of full of crap and made for some really awful architecture back in the day. At best, though, its theorists imparted the lesson that ignoring history is egocentric and, of course, risks repeating its mistakes, and that acknowledging and even referencing past work can perhaps bring more lasting (if incremental) progress and understanding than flat-out revolution. It's an important admonition for Americans who think we're invincible.
Of course it's also important not to get so wrapped up in overthrowing late capitalist dogma that we forget a basic fact: things change. Evolution is real. Things move forward even if it's due only to mindless random mutations that happen to catch on. Gay marriage goes from an oxymoron to an inevitability, amoebas develop light-sensitive patches that eventually become eyes that can look at iPhones, and musicians, even though the notes are the same as they ever were, can still make new sounds. Sure, everything's recycled, we're all rearranged stardust, blah blah. But I believe there are infinite novel arrangements of our stardust atoms, to say nothing of the things us rearranged stars might do. I believe in the new.
So, history doesn't really repeat itself, but looking back at times that were unquestionably similar can help us understand where we are. And, to my ears, it's pretty easy to say that we're more like the early '80s, musically, than any other popular music era. Dance and electronic sounds dominate the landscape, and "indie disco" (or whatever you want to call it) openly cribs the corniest of '80s tropes and fills Soundcloud with its synth-pop chords. It was actually when I was listening (or, um, trying to listen) to the new Godspeed You! Black Emperor album that I realized how just how out of place apocalyptic, heart-rending doom rock sounds right now, and I'm somebody who actually likes that sort of thing. The musical mood seems, more than anything, ruled by escapism, whether it's rich electronic soundscapes or psychedelic navel-gazing or rave-based ecstasy. I'd even suggest that a couple notable absences from my list, Frank Ocean and Fiona Apple (who are a bit sonically dull and lyrically affected for my cynical and geeky taste) fall under the rubric of escapist romanticism, at least. Why would we need escapism? The economy's back on track, Obama just got reelected, everything's awesome, right? Well, sure, and back in the '80s, it was morning in America, too. Don’t forget that back then, nuclear holocaust was at the forefront of all our minds, a fiery oblivion that seemed just a button-push away. It's hard to believe we lived with that almost unfathomable terror just outside of consciousness day after day (not that, ahem, we have any fewer nuclear weapons now). No wonder "Tarzan Boy" and "Safety Dance" went to #1—we were desperate for a little distraction, a salve for our tortured psyches. I might theorize that these days, underneath the sheen of Obama-era hopefulness, apocalyptic fervor is more intense than ever. The apocalypse(s?) we face may be less cinematic, but more real: global warming, economic ruin, terrorism. And even worse, as car-driving, iPhone-addicted Americans, we're all culpable in our own demise, we all know we're destroying ourselves, and we can't do anything about it. I can't imagine listening to Nirvana with that weighing me down—maybe in a couple years when we all get angry again—but I feel like anger is a luxury you don't have when you're scared. For now, I'll take some pretty, noodly synths and one cocktail, please.
BEST ALBUMS OF 2012
1. Tame Impala - Lonerism
Two years ago, in naming Tame Impala's InnerSpeaker my #5 album of 2010, I wrote that psychedelia could be criticized as insular, solipsistic, and even (ahem) masturbatory. (I'm not sure what you'd call quoting your own music reviews on your own useless website. "Awesome.") So, what did Tame Impala do, in response to this, er, challenge? Did band leader and all-around multi-instrumental svengali Kevin Parker set out to disprove my hypothesis with an album of biographical songs called Wow, I Just Love Interacting With Other People? No, no he didn't. Lonerism takes InnerSpeaker's navel-gazing and intesifies it even further: the word itself evokes either a political philosophy or an affliction. But Tame Impala's quite happy there, thank you very much, although when I say "happy," I of course mean "miserable," as the lyrics on Lonerism are hymns to loneliness and the twisted logic of yearning and self-loathing. Friends? "I don't need them and they don't need me," Parker sings on "Why Won't They Talk To Me," they "wouldn't care too much if he'd just disappear" on "Elephant." These are songs that mope, and mope hard.
Weirdly, though, when I say "miserable," I think I may also mean "happy," or at least "happily miserable." Lonerism is a musically joyous affair, something always present in Tame Impala's intoxicating sound, but here for the first time they tackle electronics and studio trickery in a way that connects the dots with the Chemical Brothers' druggy experimentalism. Opener "Be Above It" is an audacious statement of intent, with its crunchy drum pattern and looping vocal sample almost an open homage to the Chems' own (slightly-too-obviously-Beatlesy, in my opinion) "Let Forever Be." "Above" is a stunning, bonkers track, using huge buzzing noises and tripped-out delay that in less expert hands could easily collapse into an irritating muddle, but here it's ecstatic, delirious. Even when we get our familiar (and gorgeous) guitar chords on Track 2, "Endors Toi," they're accompanied by a soaring Moogish synth line, and "Apocalypse Dreams" rolls to a halt at one point like the tape player just lost power. If implicit in the criticism of psychedelia's insularity is an accompanying musical traditionalism, and if one could ever accuse Tame Impala of wallowing in Beatles-era tropes (a criticism one could, by the way, extend to a lot of other artists if one so desired), Lonerism feels like a brashly, proudly contemporary work.
Most of all, though, it's just so much pure fun to listen to. Whether it's, as NME said it its review, "escapism that comes from a desperate place," I'm not sure; music that's about misery doesn't necessarily have to be miserable, or made by miserable people. "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" may be one of the year's most rapturous musical moments, with a melody even the most virulently sober would have to love, and "Mind Mischief's" guitar riff is infectious and hypnotic. Perhaps "lonerism," this school of thought, dictates that by diving into the depths of the self one can best discover that which gives you the purest joy, or maybe, said less psychedelically (and bringing us full circle to the aforementioned self-pleasure) learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all? I'm tempted to contrast this "lonerism" with its linguistic opposite, communism, and concoct some theories about the nature of the individual in late capitalist society and how this album may not be just about the socially awkward nerd but the isolation and alienation of all of us 99%-ers in the inescapably hierarchical economic machine, but I should probably go smoke a bowl before I attempt that. At the very least I think we can all be glad that Mr. Parker isn't such a loner that he didn't share this great album with the rest of us, out in the world
2. Com Truise – In Decay
I once read that DJ Shadow refuses to buy reissues of vinyl albums he was searching for and would instead force himself to continue to search out original pressings, which suddenly made me feel guilty for buying that reissue of "Doolittle" years ago. But I have my own rules for my stupid year-end charts, like, the album has to have a release date in that calendar year, and I can't go back and change the list after December 31st (even if I realize later, hello Boards of Canada "Music Has the Right to Children," that an album should have been up on top, it's too late, rules are rules). But what to do about new releases of old material? It's new to me, right? Well, even if some of the sounds on In Decay might have turned up before 2012, and it's supposedly more of a "collection" of "odds and ends" than a conceptually-unified full-length work, it was one of my most listened to albums of the year, so here it is at #2. While releasing "rarities" might seem odd for an artist with only one album to his name, I think I see why he did this – there are fascinating musical twists and turns here that speak to a musical breadth beyond last year's great Galactic Melt. Yes, "Blade Runner" and Boards of Canada suffuse Seth Haley's work, but the bass guitar on "Dreambender" and "Alfa Beach" hints at Joy Division and New Order, and some of the gothier tracks like "Yxes" trump current darkwave from Purity Ring or Grimes. In an embarrassingly fawning interview with Haley, I tried to theorize about what separated his music from Boards of Canada's, and one idea I had was "sex," which only served to made the conversation even more awkward. But another different is, Com Truise kind of rocks, like on Track 1, "Open," which feels like it could be performed on guitars for a screaming stadium (before it, um, dissolves into a Boards of Canada-esque atmospheric interlude). At the very least, In Decay only solidifies Haley's stature as a composer and sonic experimenter of the first order, and I can't wait to hear what he does next.
3. Grimes – Visions
To a ravenous music fan like myself (and whose own musical productions I consider more like "commentaries" than original works) the songwriting process still seems like a magical mystery to me. There are so many melodies in my head that every one I come up with only reminds me of one that already exists. That's why it's heartening to hear Grimes, aka Claire Boucher, confess the secret to coming up with stuff: "I try to imitate things, and then I fail horribly," she told an interviewer. In that sense, she's successfully imitating some of history's musical greats, who have found themselves so inspired by the blues or techno they tried to make it themselves and instead came up with something brilliantly different. When Visions came out earlier this year, I initially lumped it in with the piles of odd-female-singer goth-pop that seems to be the sound of the moment, and sure, it's sort of that (there is after all a crazy hand-drawn skull on the cover along with the Russian for "I Love" above "Grimes). But the more you try to pin Visions down, the more you realize it's something else: "Genesis" is like an uncovered Kraftwerk gem, "Vowels = Space and Time" veers towards '80s R&B, and (as I detail more effusively below) "Oblivion" throbs with cartoonish prog-pop surrealism. What Boucher self-effacingly calls "failing horribly" seems, in fact, more like a gleefully confident ability to allow random mutations to proliferate. It's a shoot-the-moon strategy: by doing everything wrong, you win the game.
4. Kendrick Lamar – good kid m.A.A.d city
When I was a wee lad back in Nebraska, I looked forward to trips to Omaha (4 hours away in the 55-mph era) both for a chance to spend my saved-up allowance at an actual record store, and to tune in to the "black station" and tape it on my boombox. I forget what frequency it was, some 88.1 sort of thing, and I distinctly remember it was in mono—obviously this must have been a North Omaha zero-budget community station of some kind. But it was the early '80s, so what they were playing, late at night as our marching band bus drove away down the straight line of Interstate 80, was the first wave of hip-hop, and I was mesmerized. While the urban, black experience could not have been more different than my small-town upbringing, it was the sound that drew me in: the menacing Prophet synth line in "The Message," the ice-cold radar ping in "Space Is the Place," the Kraftwerk mechanism and robot voices in "Planet Rock." It's this sonic experimentalism that's been missing from a lot of recent hip-hop, in my opinion, enough so that I've wondered where exactly the genre is going. But just like back then, the sounds in good kid m.A.A.d city are what initially drew me in: the phased snares and spooky, almost churchy organ pad in opener "Sherane," and, of course, the Beach House (see below) sample in "Money Trees." It's California hip-hop through a bizarro lens. Of course, hip-hop is also about storytelling, and good kid is like a Tarantino-helmed biography, with a non-linear narrative that inspires even as it lays bare the bleak environment of Compton.
5. Beach House – Bloom
Funny how in a time when artists are filtering and altering even organic elements to sound mechanical, Beach House manages to take the artificial—drum machines, synth strings, plucky keyboard dings—and make it all sound organic, warm, and human. There was no more rhapsodic intro to an album this year than "Myth," whose arpeggios give Coldplay's "Clocks" a run for their money. Mostly, though the warmth comes from Victoria Legrand's voice, a voluptuous tonal embrace, soaked in gorgeous reverb. As Pitchfork pointed out, Flying Lotus notoriously tweeted his distaste for Bloom, saying it sounded like a bunch of other records, and sure, Mazzy Star was a thing that happened. But that tweet illustrates both what is wrong with Flying Lotus (whose latest album is notoriously absent from my list this year) and what's right about Bloom: these are songs, songs that actually give you pleasure, as a listener. Pleasure isn't even a strong enough word for this album, I have to go back to Pitchfork's review for the right one: "reverie."
6. Chromatics – Kill for Love
Nice to see Neil Young getting so much indie disco love these days, what with Poolside's admittedly hypnotic rework of "Harvest Moon," but that version is more akin to Saint Etienne's classic reimagining of "Only Love Can Break Your Heart": a nearly unrecognizable reinterpretation. Nothing doing for Chromatics, whose version of "Into the Black" is almost perfectly faithful to the original for its first few minutes, vocalist Ruth Radelet even sounding eerily similar to Young's delicate falsetto. Of course soon enough Chromatics add in a Kraftwerk-like synth line that's barely there, but changes the whole mood—suddenly you're in a car driving down a freeway on a rainy night. It's these subtle touches that make Kill For Love stand out above the aforementioned goth-electro-pop-whatever crowd. The title track turns Joy Division into M83, fuzzy guitars thankfully intact, and "Lady," with its Prince-like gender inversion has, come to think of it, a Prince-like sonic minimalism. But unlike M83, the overall mood is somnolent, not ecstatic or nostalgic, and it's haunting.
7. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – Trouble
A lot of the time, with these pointless year-end lists, I understand very well that some of my picks are, well, a bit iconoclastic, and I don't expect them to show up on the Big Lists. But I totally don't get why TEED isn't more lauded on this side of the Atlantic. First of all, the guy's name is, for reals, Orlando Higgenbottom—what's not to love there? But more importantly, this is music that's both amazingly strange and wonderfully accessible, made by a guy who's clearly absorbed even the most recent developments in dance music, mainstream and otherwise, but appears to have seen them from the perspective of a head-cocked alien who doesn't realize boosh-boosh electro isn't for awkward, pathetic expressions of love ("you still look shit all alone"). He can't even get this human-mouth-talking language right ("I could be the dog to your bone, or something"). It's like—hear me out—Modesto noodlers Grandaddy on ecstasy: profoundly personal, mumbly and quirky, but working it all out at the rave.
8. Allah-Las – S/T
Here's another idiosyncratic pick for the Party Ben Chart Systems: garage-rock throwbacks from LA, obsessed with a sound I'd kind of forgotten about, a sort of alternate-history chilled-out Dick Dale, or the Raveonettes without the foreign, modernist quirkiness. What they do have is a meticulous attention to songwriting craft, especially apparent on the first song I heard, "Tell Me (What's On Your Mind)," a track whose restrained 4-chord jangle immediately grabbed my attention on a KCRW morning full of typically wan, soothing electro-glarp. What's amazing is that every song on the album equals or exceeds the promise of that single, especially the strutting singalong "Catamaran," whose lyrics compare the lonely singer to a boat on the water, and the winking "Don't You Forget It," which claims, boldly, "I've found a girl I can talk to." This is garage rock, after all, so there's the requisite instrumental, the bouncy "Sacred Sands," but it's the hypnotic, melancholy tracks like "No Voodoo" and "Catalina" that kept this album on repeat for me for a few months this year. I have no idea if this is Important Music, but it's ridiculously, richly enjoyable.
9. Hot Chip – In Our Heads
With In Our Heads, Hot Chip cement themselves as (the?) torchbearers for New Order, in the best possible sense: masters of melody and dancefloor propulsiveness, enticing lyrical obtuseness, and a commitment to sonic exploration. I'll talk more about "Motion Sickness" and its "Regret"-like sound below in the Singles chart, but there are other places to hear the New Orderiness here: "Don't Deny Your Heart" is the cheery pop of "World In Motion," and "These Chains" a darker "Crystal." But they aren't just copycats: album standout "Flutes" takes what appears to be a looped sample of (African?) children singing and turns it into a hypnotic minimal techno masterpiece (enough so that Sasha saw fit to remix it). There are dull moments—ballads, specifically—but skip those two and you still have a really good 9-track album.
10. John Talabot – ƒin
Since I was a kid, I'd dreamed of visiting Barcelona, whose trippy Gaudi architecture and beachy lifestyle seemed unfathomably lovely, but when I finally had a chance to spend a few days there in the midst of a European DJ tour a few years ago, I had a terrible time. I had just come from a cancelled gig in Portugal and was feeling morose, and my ultra-low-budget hotel had walls as thin as paper and was a 15-minute trek to the nearest subway station. The city seemed to turn its back on me, and it was a strange sensation to walk through its sunny magnificence while feeling so glum and alone. It's a mixture of emotions that's fully present on ƒin, an album constructed of the building blocks of Balearic house music but turned to melancholy introspection instead of Ibizan beatitude. "Oro y Sangre" could almost be a Cure B-side, with dark, droning chords, and even uptempo "When the Past Was Present" feels wracked with sadness. Of course it's the transcendent "So Will Be Now" that stands out, its lovelorn sorrow floating over an insistent, driving beat.
11. Santigold - Master of My Make-Believe
A wildly ambitious and diverse collection of wry songs that allude to current events in a way that's reminiscent of fellow New Yorkers TV On the Radio.
12. Twin Shadow – Confess
The Smiths are dead, long live Twin Shadow.
13. Alt-J - An Awesome Wave
Geeky yet uncompromising obscurantist alt-rock.
14. Django Django – S/T
Neo-'60s psychedelic jangle-weirdness merges with contemporary electronica.
15. POLICA - Give You the Ghost
Hypnotic, bleak electronic torch songs.
16. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
Stridently political hip-hop that nods to the sonically rich production styles of yesteryear (thanks to El-P).
17. Lone - Galaxy Garden
Gleeful neo-rave that takes me back to 1991.
18. Grizzly Bear – Shields
Richly textured folky tunes that seem strangely timeless.
19. DIIV – Oshin
Serious shoegaze bizness.
20. TNGHT – S/T EP
Simultaneously created and destroyed trap music.
21. Black Moth Super Rainbow - Cobra Juicy
22. Daphni - Jiaolong
23. Andy Stott- Luxury Problems
SINGLES
1. Grimes – Oblivion
Here's what I love about "Oblivion." In its opening 24 seconds, when the bassline is most clearly audible, there are a couple moments where the song sounds like it's been ham-fistedly time-stretched, like glitches in the Matrix. It reminds me of a story I heard about Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill;" that she programmed ever-so-slight imperfections into the thudding drum machine toms to add an element of humanism to the track, and if you listen closely, you can hear that the "da-da-dum, da-da-dums" aren't perfectly arranged. This young Vancouverite has the self-assurance not only to include "errors" but foreground them, in service of a deceptively jaunty song about being stalked and murdered on a dark night.
2. Nas - The Don
To this day, I continue to be flabbergasted by hip-hop that uses vocal samples as its background loop—I'm reminded of Lil Wayne's "A Milli" or Jay-Z's "On to the Next One," both similarly intense and forceful songs. Here, the sample of Super Cat's "Dance Inna New York" gets brilliantly rearranged to insist "Nas the don," like some sort of religious chant. Just when the tense cacophony seems almost overwhelming, we get a Tribe Called Quest-reminiscent jazzy breakdown, full of wandering chords, a nod to the old school, but then things get serious again. Head-banging hip-hop at its finest.
3. Bear in Heaven - Sinful Nature
I had a theory, back in 2000, that the Queens of the Stone Age's "Lost Art of Keeping a Secret" was about closeted homosexuality: "We've got something to reveal/no-one can know how we feel." See? Sure, this might just be wishful thinking—call me, Josh!—but it's a rich textual vein to mine, and as Morrissey knew, lots of straights can identify. I'm sure that's not really what "Sinful Nature" is about, but I can't help but hear it: "Your friends don't know what you go through." More importantly than my pet theories is the sound, the joyous, ecstatic sound; there was no more sonically immense moment in music this year than the last 90 seconds of this song, a wall of reversed-out guitars and synths to rival the finest moments of shoegaze.
4. Julio Bashmore - Au Seve
What is the deal with this guy? Last year's immense "Battle for Middle You" came out of nowhere to both define and upend the mood of house music, and here on "Au Seve" he does the same thing only different, utilizing familiar, granular building blocks from house music's history—big fat hi hats, "Oh baby" diva vocals, and a fat bassline—in a way that sounds profoundly, elementally cutting-edge. What's most inspiring about Bashmore's work is how it sounds, well, human-scaled, like anyone could make it, even without the latest sonic plug-ins and studio trickery; this is just great ideas, brilliant composition, and sheer chutzpah.
5. Hot Chip - Motion Sickness
I'm sure I'm reading too much into it, but when I hear the opening lines of "Motion Sickness," "Remember when people thought the world was round," I think of Fox News and the accelerating American penchant for, well, believing bullshit; this seems like a depressing imagining of that into an Idiocracy future, when people have devolved to believing in a flat Earth once again. Of course this is Hot Chip, so the lyrics are more of a stream-of-consciouness compendium of random thought bubbles, and soon Alexis Taylor is singing "Remember when we first heard the wall of sound" instead. Sonically, this is kind of nostalgic stuff, like an update to New Order's "Revenge," complete with odd synthesized saxophones and funky acid breakdown, but it takes its time over its five and a half minutes, only giving us a final rapturous chorus at the very end.
6. Actress - Caves of Paradise
I've always loved radio, probably because growing up in such an isolated locale, it was a musical connection to the outside world. But there's something strangely attractive about fuzzy radio broadcasts just from a purely sonic perspective, the static fading in and out, the weirdly faraway, echoing sound. It's something that's captured almost magically on "Caves of Paradise," from its awkward start mid-measure to its throbbing, whooshing soundscape. Mostly it sounds a late night discovery from another world.
7. Santigold - Disparate Youth
Perhaps taking a cue from MIA's "Paper Planes," this is the sound of Santigold emulating the source of Maya's sample, i.e., the Clash: reggae through a punk rock lens. Witness the strident call-and-response guitar notes in the verses, almost angry in their intensity. But strangely enough, this is an uplifting song; I'm not sure if "the odds all stand beneath me" is a thing people say but I know exactly what she means.
8. Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
The high point on an album full of, er, high points (weed joke), "Backwards" had the most infectious melody and most accessible structure, jumping right into the chorus. It's where Tame Impala's Beatles influence is most audible and yet most irrelevant, in the same way as the greatest Oasis moments, standing on the shoulders of giants.
9. Disclosure – Latch
When I interviewed this young duo a few months back, they insisted they've never tried to make underground dance music, and never really felt a part of dance culture in the UK (despite being obvious fans of olden-days garage and 2-step). What they really want to do it just make great pop songs. Well they've accomplished it with "Latch," a track that's already a surprise with its hard left turn to the triple-time shuffle rhythm after a slew of 4/4 house jams. But their predilection for soaring minor 7th chords is still intact here, and a vocal turn from Sam Smith that sends shivers up the spine doesn't hurt either.
10. Kendrick Lamar - Swimming Pools (Drank)
"Swimming Pools" does something I'd always thought about doing in a mashup: putting a rap vocal over an eerie, hypnotic Boards of Canada track. They've got the hip-hop tempo, but their mysterious creepiness seemed like it might not fit under any lyrical flow, so I was always kind of scared to try it. Leave it to Kendrick Lamar to make it work, with lyrics perfectly suited to the anxiety of the unexpected, spooky chord pattern: there was no more chilling pop music moment this year than this devastating inversion of party-rap cliché, diving in a pool of liquor becoming drowning in poison.
11. Allah-Las - Tell Me (What's On Your Mind)
Entrancing retro garage rock that jangles like it's 1964.
12. Baauer - Harlem Shake
Profoundly fun instrumental hip hop that's absorbed the lessons of current electronic music.
13. Jai Paul – Jasmine
Like the greatest '80s R&B single you never heard played underwater.
14. Kanye West & Jay-Z – Clique
The return of strutting, universe-dominating, infectious hip-hop.
15. Grimes – Genesis
Like a weird Canadian girl singing over Kraftwerk's "Autobahn."
16. Daphni - Yes I Know
Like an alternate-universe "Barbara Streisand," disco-meets-techno on planet Xenon.
17. Chromatics – Kill For Love
Joy Division-level two-chord dream-rock.
18. Jon Talabot - So Will Be Now
Spellbinding Balearic sad-house.
19. Todd Terje - Inspector Norse
Like a nu-disco "Eple," cartoonish and effervescent.
20. Purity Ring – Lofticries
The finest example of narcotic pop since Groove Armada's "At the River."
21. Grizzly Bear - Sleeping Ute
22. TEED - Tapes & Money
23. Finnebassen - Touching Me
24. Hot Chip - Flutes
25. Tame Impala - Elephant
26. Duke Dumont - Need U (100%)
27. Duke Dumont - The Giver
28. Lone - Crystal Caverns 1991
29. Orbital - Wonky
30. Cat Power - Ruin
31. Moon Boots - Aretha
32. TNGHT - Higher Ground
33. MUJUICE - Ghost Friend
34. Death Grips - I've Seen Footage
35. Polica - Lay Your Cards Out
36. Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe
37. Major Lazer - Get Free
38. Rick Ross - Stay Schemin'
39. Miguel - Adorn
40. Sleigh Bells - Comeback Kid
|

2011
FULL LIST & COMMENTARY HERE |
ALBUMS
1. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
2. Little Dragon - Ritual Union
3. Com Truise - Galactic Melt
4. TV On the Radio - Nine Types of Light
5. Radiohead - The King of Limbs
6. Tycho - Dive
7. Low - C'mon
8. SBTRKT - S/T
9. Machinedrum - Room(S)
10. The Field - Looping State of Mind
SINGLES
1. Gil Scott Heron & Jamie xx - I'll Take Care of You
2. PJ Harvey - Words that Maketh Murder
3. Lil Wayne - Six Foot Seven Foot
4. Julio Bashmore - Battle for Middle You
5. The Drums - Money
6. James Blake - Limit to Your Love
7. M83 - Midnight City
8. SBTRKT - Wildfire
9. Washed Out - Amor Fati
10. Jay-Z & Kanye West - N****s in Paris
|
2010
FULL LIST & COMMENTARY HERE |
ALBUMS
1. KANYE WEST - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
2. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - This Is Happening
3. THE NATIONAL - High Violet
4. CARIBOU - Swim
5. TAME IMPALA - InnerSpeaker
6. VAMPIRE WEEKEND - Contra
7. BONOBO - Black Sands
8. ARCADE FIRE - The Suburbs
9. HOT CHIP - One Life Stand
10. GORILLAS - Plastic Beach
SINGLES
1. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - Dance Yrself Clean
2. BIG BOI - Shutterbug
3. KANYE WEST - Power
4. ARCADE FIRE - The Suburbs
5. MAGNETIC MAN -
I Need Air
6. GORILLAZ - Stylo
7. TENSNAKE - Coma Cat
8. ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI - Round and Round
9. JANELLE MONAE - Tightrope
10. CARIBOU - Odessa
|
2009
FULL LIST & COMMENTARY HERE |
ALBUMS
1. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – Merriweather Post Pavillion
2. THE XX – S/T
3. FLAMING LIPS – Embryonic
4. BIBIO – Ambivalence Avenue
5. THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART– S/T
6. BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW- Eating Us
7. BLOCKHEAD – The Music Scene
8. MOS DEF – The Ecstatic
9. BAT FOR LASHES – Two Suns
10. LITTLE DRAGON – Machine Dreams
SINGLES
1. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – "My Girls"
2. PHOENIX –"1901"
3. MAJOR LAZER – "Pon De Floor"
4. GRIZZLY BEAR –"Two Weeks"
5. JOY ORBISON – "Hyph Mngo"
6. MIIKE SNOW - "Animal (Fake Blood remix)
7. BAT FOR LASHES – "Daniel"
8. LA ROUX– "In For the Kill" (Skream)
9. MASSIVE ATTACK – "Psyche (Flash Treatment)
10. JAY-Z – "Empire State of Mind"
|
2008
FULL LIST & COMMENTARY HERE |
ALBUMS
1. PORTISHEAD – Third
2. TV ON THE RADIO – Dear Science
3. LIL WAYNE – Tha Carter III
4. M83 – Saturdays = Youth
5. HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR – S/T
6. THE VERY BEST -Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit Are the Very Best
7. SANTOGOLD – S/T / SANTOGOLD VS. DIPLO – Top Ranking
8. FLYING LOTUS – Los Angeles
9. BEACH HOUSE – Devotion
10. KANYE WEST – 808s and Heartbreak
SINGLES
1. SANTOGOLD "L.E.S. Artistes"
2. LIL WAYNE "A Milli"
3. MGMT "Time to Pretend"
4. GLASVEGAS "Geraldine"
5. FAKE BLOOD "Mars"
6. KANYE WEST "Love Lockdown"
7. VAMPIRE WEEKEND "A-Punk"
8. DJ MUJAVA "Township Funk"
9. PORTISHEAD "Machine Gun"
10. CUT COPY "Hearts on Fire"
|
2007
FULL LIST & COMMENTARY HERE |
ALBUMS
1. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM Sound of Silver
2. RADIOHEAD In Rainbows
3. M.I.A. Kala
4. LIL WAYNE –Da Drought 3 / The Carter III
5. OF MONTREAL – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
6. KANYE WEST - Graduation
7. BLONDE REDHEAD – 23
8. JAY-Z – American Gangster
9. CARIBOU – Andorra
10. GUI BORATTO – Chromophobia
SINGLES
1. Rihanna – "Umbrella"
2. LCD Soundsystem – "All My Friends" / "Someone Great"
3. Battles – "Atlas"
4. M.I.A. – "Boyz"
5. Kanye West feat T-Pain – "Good Life"
6. UGK feat. Outkast – "Int'l Players Anthem"
7. Amy Winehouse - "Rehab"
8. Timbaland feat. Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake – "Give It To Me"
9. Justice – "D.A.N.C.E."
10. Dude N Nem – "Watch My Feet"
|
2006
FULL LIST & COMMENTARY HERE |
ALBUMS
1. J DILLA Donuts
2. TV ON THE RADIO Return to Cookie Mountain
3. SONIC YOUTH Rather Ripped
4. BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT S/T
5. GNARLS BARKLEY St. Elsewhere
6. THOM YORKE The Eraser
7. THE FLAMING LIPS At War With the Mystics
8. GHOSTFACE KILLAH Fishscale
9. YEAH YEAH YEAHS Show Your Bones
10. THE KNIFE Silent Shout
SINGLES
1. GNARLS BARKLEY "Crazy"
2. HOT CHIP "Over and Over"
3. NELLY FURTADO w/ TIMBALAND "Promiscuous"
4. CHRISTINA AGUILERA "Ain't No Other Man"
5. SILVERSUN PICKUPS "Lazy Eye"
6. THE FLAMING LIPS "The W.A.N.D."
7. RIHANNA "SOS"
8. JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE "My Love"
9. JUNIOR BOYS "In the Morning"
10. THOM YORKE "Black Swan"
|
2005
FULL LIST & COMMENTARY HERE |
ALBUMS
1. M.I.A. Arular
2. THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS Twin Cinema
3. BLOC PARTY Silent Alarm
4. BECK Guero
5. ENGINEERS S/T
6. KANYE WEST Late Registration
7. TOM VEK We Have Sound
8. VITALIC OK Cowboy
9. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM S/T
10. DANGER DOOM The Mouse and the Mask
SINGLES
1. GORILLAZ "Feel Good Inc."
2. (Tie) KANYE WEST "Gold Digger" / The Legendary K.O. "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People"
3. M.I.A. "Bucky Done Gun"
4. AMERIE "1 Thing"
5. TOM VEK "C-C (You Set the Fire in Me)"
6. DAVID BANNER "Play"
7. CIARA feat. LUDACRIS "Oh"
8. LADY SOVEREIGN "Random"
9. PAUL WALL feat. BIG POKEY "Sittin' Sideways"
10. KELLY CLARKSON "Since You Been Gone
|
2004
FULL LIST & COMMENTARY HERE |
ALBUMS
1. BLONDE REDHEAD
Misery is a Butterfly
2. FRANZ FERDINAND S/T
3. KOMEDA Kokomemedada
4. AUTOLUX Future Perfect
5. DANGER MOUSE The Grey Album
6. AIR Talkie Walkie
7. THE STREETS A Grand Don't Come for Free
8. TV ON THE RADIO Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes
9. DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 You're a Woman, I'm a Machine
10. ARCADE FIRE Funeral
SINGLES
1. FRANZ FERDINAND "Take Me Out"
2. JAY-Z "99 Problems"
3. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM "Yeah"
4. NINA SKY "Move Your Body"
5. M.I.A. "Galang"
6. TV ON THE RADIO "Staring at the Sun"
7. SNOOP DOGG FEAT. PHARRELL "Drop it Like It's Hot"
8. FAITHLESS "Mass Destruction"
9. ELTRO "Motorboat"
10. ERIC PRYDZ "Call on Me"
|
2003
|
ALBUMS
1. THE WHITE STRIPES Elephant
2. NADA SURF Let Go
3. DIZZEE RASCAL Boy In Da Corner
4. THE RAVEONETTES Chain Gang of Love
5. RADIOHEAD Hail to the Thief
6. LUNGFISH Love is Love
7. SOFT PINK TRUTH Do You Party?
8. YEAH YEAH YEAHS Fever to Tell
9. HIDDEN CAMERAS The Smell of Our Own
10. THE STROKES Room on Fire
SINGLES
1. OUTKAST "Hey Ya"
2. THE WHITE STRIPES "7 Nation Army"
3. 50 CENT "In Da Club"
4. PANJABI MC "Beware of the Boys (Mundian to Bach Ke)"
5. THE CURE VS BJORK "Hidden Forest" (GordyBoy bootleg)
6. JUNIOR SENIOR "Move Your Feet"
7. LUMIDEE "Never Leave"
8. ELECTRIC SIX "Danger! High Voltage"
9. ADAM FREELAND VS. NIRVANA "Smells Like Freeland"
10. BEYONCE "Crazy In Love"
|
2002
|
ALBUMS
1. THE STREETS Original Pirate Material
2. QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE Songs for the Deaf
3. INTERPOL Turn on the Bright Lights
4. 2MANYDJS As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2
5. DOVES Last Broadcast
6. SLEATER-KINNEY The New Beat
7. COLDPLAY A Rush of Blood to the Head
8. WILCO Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
9. DJ SHADOW The Private Press
10. FELIX DA HOUSECAT Kittenz and Thee Glitz
SINGLES
1. THE WHITE STRIPES "Fell in Love with a Girl"
2. FISCHER SPOONER "Emerge"
3. MISSY ELLIOTT "Work It"
4. EMINEM "Without Me"
5. THE STROKES VS. CHRISTINA AGUILERA "Stroke of Genie-us" (Freelance Hellraiser bootleg)
6. THE HIVES "Hate to Say I Told You So"
7. KHIA "My Neck My Back"
8. KYLIE MINOGUE "Can't Get Blue Monday Out of My Head"
9. NELLY "Hot In Herre"
10. YEAH YEAH YEAHS "Bang"
|
2001
|
ALBUMS
1. Low Things We Lost in the Fire
2. Spiritualized Let It Come Down
3. The Strokes Is This It
4. Beta Band Hot Shots II
5. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club S/T
6. New Order Get Ready
7. Richie Hawtin DE9: Close to the Edit
8. Radiohead Amnesiac
9. Basement Jaxx Rooty
10. The White Stripes White Blood Cells
SINGLES
1. Missy Elliott - Get Ur Freak On
2. Gorillaz - 19-2000
3. System of a Down - Chop Suey
4. Nelly - Ride Wit Me
4. (tie!) Jay-Z - Izzo (HOVA)
5. Groove Armada - Superstylin'
6. Madonna - Don't Tell Me
7. The Faint - Agenda Suicide
8. Tool - Schism
9. Weezer - Island in the Sun
10. Utada Hikaru - Traveling
|
2000
|
ALBUMS
1. GRANDADDY The Sophtware Slump
2. RADIOHEAD Kid A
3. GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR! Levez vos Skinny Fists Comme Antennas to Heaven!
4. QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE Rated R
5. PRIMAL SCREAM XTRMNTR
6. DOVES Lost Souls
7. AT THE DRIVE IN Relationship of Command
8. EMINEM Marshall Mathers LP
9. YO LA TENGO And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
10. OUTKAST Stankonia
SINGLES
1. Zombie Nation "Kernkraft 400"
2. Aaliyah "Try Again"
3. Madonna "Music"
4. Queens of the Stone Age "Lost Art of Keeping a Secret"
5. Armand van Helden "Koochy"
6. Azzido Da Bass "Dooms Night"
7. Storm "Time to Burn"
8. Belle & Sebastian "Legal Man"
9. A Perfect Circle "Judith"
10. Detroit Grand Pubahs "Sandwiches"
|
1999
|
ALBUMS
1. The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs
2. Sleater-Kinney The Hot Rock
3. Moby Play
4. Death in Vegas The Contino Sessions
5. Low Secret Name
6. Queens of the Stone Age S/T
7. Built to Spill Keep It Like a Secret
8. Godspeed You Black Emperor! Slow Riot for New Zero Canada
9. Royal Trux Veterans of Disorder
10. Underworld Beaucoup Fish
SINGLES
1. Ginuwine "What's So Different"
2. Underworld "King of Snake"
3. TLC "Silly Ho"
4. Basement Jaxx "Rendez-Vous"
5. Aphex Twin "Windowlicker"
6. The Roots w/ Erikah Badu "You Got Me"
7. 702 "Where my Girls At "
8. Len "Steal My Sunshine"
9. ODB "Gimme My Money"
10. Moby "Bodyrock"
|
1998 - LOST!
|
1997
|
ALBUMS
1. Spiritualized Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
2. Built to Spill Perfect from Now On
3. Pavement Brighten the Corners
4. The Chemical Brothers Dig Your Own Hole
5. Yo La Tengo I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
6. Radiohead OK Computer
7. Primal Scream Vanishing Point
8. Roni Size Reprazent New Forms
9. Fatboy Slim Better Living Through Chemistry
10. Dandy Warhols The Dandy Warhols Come Down
SINGLES
1. The Verve "Bittersweet Symphony"
2. Blur "Song 2"
3. Roni Size / Reprazent "Share the Fall"
4. Fatboy Slim / Pierre Henry "Psyche Rock"
5. Cornershop "Brimful of Asha"
6. Oasis "D'You Know What I Mean"
7. Dandy Warhols "Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth"
8. Gus Gus "Believe"
9. Notorius B.I.G. "Hypnotize"
10. Bjork "Joga"
|
Why yes, all these are charts I made at the end of each respective year. In retrospect many of them are, obviously, incorrect. |
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