Once every three months I list the best of what I heard in albums/songs/remixes for the quarter. I do this to personally keep up with all the awesome music I hear, as it ultimately helps me at the end of the year when I do my overall listing for the previous twelve months. I also do it to introduce you cool cats to tunes you may have missed independently.
Once every three months I list the best of what I heard in albums/songs/remixes for the quarter. I do this to personally keep up with all the awesome music I hear, as it ultimately helps me at the end of the year when I do my overall listing for the previous twelve months. I also do it to introduce you cool cats to tunes you may have missed independently.
Today I continue my ten-part series showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of last year.
40. Phoenix – Lisztomania
It’s been a long time coming, but thanks to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the French quartet are now a festival circuit band and one of the biggest groups in the world. Their jazz-fused, stream-of-consciousness take on upbeat pop is clearly expressed through this track, featuring an unconventional chorus that, like so many things Phoenix, works perfectly, even if it’s a bit outside the boundaries of what we normally hear on CHR.
Today I continue my ten-part series showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of last year.
60. tUnE-yArDs – Sunlight
Simple, repetitive, and one-note at first, but the tracks then grows with an excellent chorus and layers of bass and guitar after the listener gets used to the unique drum pattern. As we continue listening, more layers of sound surface, including what sound like sampled background vocals. The song builds to an final explosive chorus that, by this time, you should be able to sing along with. An unusual, but powerful, demonstration of progression in pop, “Sunlight” is a treat every time.
Yesterday’s post got me all riled up, and since I love lists, I figured I’d go ahead and start yet another analysis I should have posted months ago – this one won’t take as long. Today is the first post in a ten-part series looking at my personal favorite tracks of last year.
100. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll
I wasn’t a huge fan of It’s Blitz – definitely my least favorite from this group. I saw them at Monolith 2009, and, to say the least, they were disappointing. Turns out I’m not as big a fan of Karen O and her “animated” stage antics as I thought. Pretention is something I can’t get past, no matter how rocking the music behind her is….but since they were playing mostly ballads from their latest effort, that wasn’t the case. All this being said, this track is pretty damn catchy. Karen’s try at Blondie was hit or miss for me, but the highlight of Blitz is three and a half minutes of complete dancing hysteria.