So like any self respecting blog I'll post my end of year tracks. Actually this is sort of the best time of year for blogs - If you surf around a bit, you'll find all the good tidbits of the year. Not sure if it's been one of the better years, but a lot of good stuff has surfaced. Considering this has been a year of the clash I'm amazed at the relatively few classics that have been born of that genre.
Without further delay the top 15 for 2008:
15 - Wale - W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E. In a year dominated by Justice this was clearly the best version of twee-house classic D.A.N.C.E. Wale effortlessly rides the beat in way normally reserved for Michael Laudrup dribbling down the center of Nou Camp - It's so natural you wonder why they don't do all music this way. The tracks is from the excellent Nick Catchdubs mixtape by the way - Find that if you haven't already.
14 - Rex The Dog - Circulate (JBAG Edit) It wasn't the year everyone was hoping for - Rex didn't conquer the world with easy digestible eighties electrobeats. The natural crown prince of Mylo didn't have a huge output and ended up being forgotten. This track is fire though - Great buildups and hopelessly lost in 1984!
13 - Junior Boys - Like a Child (Carl Craig) A remix that only the Craig could provide - One of the best structures of a song for years, the little freak out at the end pure genious.
12 - Copyfokking - Knippelsuppe Knippelsuppe is Danish for a police beating with night sticks which is the perfect description of this song. Slow and powerful, it's gonna beat you into submission. Like an evil mute twin of the Knife's Heartbeats, it comes sneaking up upon you and whammo! Down you go.
11 - Rufus Wainwright - Tiergarten (Supermayer Remix) The Supermayer was not as good as I'd hoped, but this track makes up for that. It's delicate and done with the utmost sensitivety. The sneaking beat, Rufus' voice, the point where the bass drum kicks in, the sound of rain, the highlights are numerous, if this song had been released earlier this year, it would have been my number one.
10 - Kleerup feat. Robyn - With Every Heartbeat Seems like we have to have one good song about a beating heart every year from one of the Nordic countries. I'm not complaining, if they can keep up this standard then it's a good tradition.
9 - Superpitcher - Lick The Pipe This was the perfect start to the year (or maybe end of last year). Superpitcher remains vital, interesting and of tune. It's understated as hell, while still maintaining a powerful beat. It's not peak-hours, but I'd love to listen to it anytime.
8 - Junior Senior - Headphone Song The grocely unnoticed Junior Senior EP Say Hello, Wave Goodbye had what I rate as some of JS's best material. Finally they deliver their B52's promise of protein positive dance rock. This song is one long chorus which you wish would never end.
7 - R-Kelly - Real Talk do I know your friend who? at a club? who was there? Girl I wouldn't... wait a minute, calm down. I was at the club with who? Get tha fuck...man, u know what. Girl I'm not about to sit up here and argue with you about who's to blame. I call no names, real talk. See girl, only thing I'm trying to establish with you is not who's right or who's wrong, but what's right and what's wrong, real talk!
6 - M.I.A. - Paper Planes M.I.A.'s was anticipated by quite a few blogs, communication managers, fashion designers, music magazines and other people peddling hot air and trends. Thankfully these balloons of hot weren't as hollow as one could fear, and Kala was actually almost better than the first album. Paper Planes with it's Straight to Hell sample and cash registers and gunshots the stand out track.
5 - Burial - Etched Headplate Burials new record was tremendous. This is the best sound of the big city I've heard in years. Etched Headplate is the prime example of the soulful twist of the new album, and it's the sound of England anno 2008.
4 - LCD Soundsystem - All of My Friends Great album which should have lodged them in popular mainstream, more funky than Le Chic and more electronic than Kraftwerk. All of My Friends the happy killer song on a killer dance album - in the future all music will sound this way! Honorable mentions go to Get Innocuous of this album as well.
3 - Hot Chip - Ready for the Floor Do it, do it, do it now, say it, say it, say it now. I'm totally excited by the prospect of a new Hot Chip album - on iTunes my most played song this year is still Over and Over which is pretty telling. This is the preview of the album released in January I think.
2 - The Field - A Paw In My Face Everyone loves this song. It's easy to digress into some intellectual discussion on the Lionel Ritchie ending, but in all fairness this just a perfect piece of pop-music. It's like racing down and uncoiling a ball of yarn, finally you succeed, and you're left hanging there in mid-space. Best ending of a song this year.
1 - Arcade Fire - Keep The Car Running One my top highlights of this year was this song at an otherwise pis wet Roskilde Festival. Exuberant, joyful, catchy like hell.
Now if I could just get rid of the feeling of having forgotten something... Oh yeah and for the zombie lovers among you: sorry, couldn't find a link between Mike Ness and Distortion Disco.
And for those of you who missed it - Bruce delivered Magic this year!
I've been really slow to get into the new M.I.A. album (Kala - out on XL) - It's been really hard finding the right angle from which to approach this latest foray in world music. Finally the other day I got around to hearing Paper Planes which, despite my initial reservations about the gun shots, is mindblowingly catchy. The thing about M.I.A. is that her political mission at times seems a strained mix with her more artzy side. On the one hand it might be that it at some level is lacking substance, I won't be the judge, but it sometimes comes of a bit too speculated. Many artists and bands have tried to ride this razor edge and many have failed. On the other hand being that M.I.A. is an artist I find it absolutely legitamete not to have a hammered out manifesto Manics-style. Musically the new album is less Brazil more India. She has definetly moved away from the Baile-funk drum heavy Bucky sound and into a more, dare I say it, world music orientated sound. The result is simply put that Kala probably has more staying potential (In the lack of a better word), but not quite as many bangers as her first album.
If you sit back after listening to Paper Planes and think: Hmmm I know that melody in the background - Good for you! It's The Clash at the peak of their reggae punk powers. The use of the sample actually fits really well with the original Strummer banter. Like M.I.A. in general this song is a classical condemnation of the era mainly directed at the plethora of American influenced problems in the world (for a nice walkthrough go here).
M.I.A. apparently got royally pissed at pitchfork (here) after they gave Diplo the main production credits for her last album. According to the young world idealist it was a joined venture and on the new album the big Dipper is only a small fixture not to overshadow the work of especially Switch - To be fair Paper Planes is actually a Dip' masterpiece with extra Switch helpings. Here a nice remix of dubstep famed Skream:
Two things I'm looking forward to this year is the new Björk album, and the M.I.A. album. I usually don't care that much for Björk, but hearing that the album is produced by none other than Timbaland does make you rather curious. It's a thing that basically can go both ways. Timbo's albums normally aren't that great, and Björk is always dangerously close to the loony bin. This odd-couple in a studio though might be a match made in heaven (or it might be totally crap). A more safe bet is the forthcoming M.I.A. album, apparantly called Power Power, which should drop pretty soon. I think we're going to see more in the vein of the Bird Flu song which is like the old M.I.A. with a bit more of everything added. Judging by M.I.A.'s collaboration with Timbo it's going to be good, and it also shows that Timbo still knows how to twiddle them knobs (he is consistantly one of the best producers in the game). Timbo's new album, from which the track of the day stems, is out on April 3rd.
Sometimes weekends really are the best. During the week you almost forget the pleasure that it is waking up in your bed (or someone elses?) without having a days worth of work and labour ahead of you. To celebrate this momentous occasion here are some tracks making my weekend even better. I won't do a big writeup on the them. Suffice to say that you should really own everyone of them.
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