WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'GROUP BY year(post_date), month(post_date), dayofmonth(post_date)' at line 1]
SELECT DISTINCT post_date FROM wp_posts LEFT JOIN wp_post2cat ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_post2cat.post_id) LEFT JOIN wp_categories ON (wp_post2cat.category_id = wp_categories.cat_ID) WHERE 1=1 AND category_id IN (13) AND (post_type = 'post' AND (post_status = 'publish')) AND ID NOT IN (165,157,166,172,174,190,204,202,212,214) GROUP BY wp_posts.ID GROUP BY year(post_date), month(post_date), dayofmonth(post_date)
Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites!
It’s a song about KKK cops! I’ve been listening to this song for ten years and never actually thought about it, or understood the chorus. Embarrassing.
Semisonic’s drummer Jacob Slichter indicates that (the song “Closing Time”) is, instead, about being born: the place that is closing is the womb, and the mention of alcohol is a reference to pregnant women not drinking. This can be seen in the lines:
Time for you to go out to the places you will be from
…
This room won’t be open ’til your brothers or your sisters
comeNote: In a show in which he opened up for Sondre Lerche, Dan Wilson noted that the song was written for the birth of his child, in an attempt not to be one of those annoying songs that an artist wrote for the birth of a “jr,” he made sure the meaning was abstracted.
Download them here (135 MB)
Falling Away From Bond Street - RIAA
Some giddy fun here. Burt Bacharach’s saucy horns under Jonathan Davis’s bizarro nu-metal-scat makes for one of the oddest, catchiest songs you’ll hear this year.
Bathroom Gurgle - Late Of The Pier
Seldom does one song deliver so much in structure alone. Bathroom Gurgle is a multi-part pop epic (can you tell I miss the 8-part songs of the Unicorns?) that jumps between a threatening swagger to a Meatloaf-y rock chorus and back likes it’s no big deal. Late Of The Pier finishes this song as only it could be finished: with prolonged falsetto howling.
Atlas - Battles
In interviews, Battles almost refers to Atlas as their evangelist, drawing the young kids to the shows where they can learn the true beauty of Battles: math-inspired rhythms, spidery guitars, and all. But truth be told, Atlas is the show-stopper on Mirrored, a 7-minute house-shaking tribal dance honoring some unseen Smurf God.
Phantom Pt. II - Justice
The two-part Phantom is Justice’s manifesto for their trademarked sound. Impossibly crisp synths dive and shake behind Michael Jackson string stings, forming a perfectly hip dance track. What’s odd is that even with all the effects and sonic glory, the track sounds great on terms of melody alone.
Tenderoni [Mstrkrft Remix] - Chromeo
Maybe I just like hearing synth with distortion on it, but I thought the rockier interpretation of Tenderoni was fantastic. Stripping out all of the 80s cheese (I’ll miss you, 80s cheese), the remixers turned this into a solid, powerful dance track that urges listeners to play the air-drums on their desk/dashboard.
All The Thugs I Know - The Carps
The Carps brought a unique sound this year: The nu-metal crunch, stuttering indie basslines, and heartfelt R&B vocals fit together into perfectly puzzling songs that still manage to rock rock rock.
Me & U (Siik Remix) - Cassie
Me & U was a great 2006 track, Crips was a great 2005 track by Disengage favorites Ratatat. Put them together, and you get something more than the sum of both parts.
Mother Knows Best - Crystal Castles
Mother Knows Best is one of those rare tracks that transcends its sound and scene (the rising 8-bit music community) and really becomes something scary and vital. Part of it might be Alice’s uncannily earnest vocals, part of it might be the intentional suppression of the “retro” vibe that infects the genre…either way, Mother Knows Best is a solid rock song made from, essentially, Nintendo parts and a girl yelling about herpes.
I Believe - Simian Mobile Disco
Almost as if in Justice’s shadow, SMD has put out remixes for years, and followed up the buzz this year with a full dance album. What’s surprising is their continued devotion to “old-school” electronic music; Simian Mobile Disco still eschews thick synth and guitars to deliver Orbital- and other 90s-style electronic hits. I Believe is a great example of a few pure sounds, a great intro, and a great melody coming together to make an instant classic.
Stars - Ulrich Schnauss
Structureless and drifting, Stars hardly has a place in a club or even workout mix, but it has a lure just the same. The dizzying ethereal quality behind the echoing vocals and wailing synths makes for a six-minute punch of wonder and nostalgia. At least, for me.
The Crystal Cat - Dan Deacon
Dan Deacon has quite a range on Spiderman Of The Rings - from the nearly-acoustic Pink Batman to the show-stopping chorus on Wham City - but the one that sticks with me is always Crystal Cat. Once that drum starts to accelerate, there’s always a huge rush of adrenaline: Oh boy! Here comes the rest of Crystal Cat!
Black Wave / Bad Vibrations - Arcade Fire
Something about the center of this song always knocks me down. “Nothing lasts forever, that’s the way it’s gotta be, there’s a big black wave in the middle of the sea.” What’s more final, more devastating and freeing than that?
Someone Great - LCD Soundsystem
It’s been a long road for James Murphy: from producing for math/metal band Six Finger Satellite to running a fanatically-followed dance label with the band’s lead singer…Someone Great has trademark Murphy aspects like a crisp, repeating sample that grows on you and too-smart-to-dance-to lyrics, but finally, the song moves past “cool” and actually sounds sincerely hurt and alone.
Beggin’ (Pilooski Edit) - Frankie Valli
It says something about the fantastic state of pop music when Pilooski can moderately edit a song from 40 years ago and release it to rock clubs all over Europe. The re-edit of Beggin’ builds tension wonderfully, and adds just the right amount of aggression to the backing music, resulting in a fantastic, weird relic.
Phantom Limb - The Shins
The new Shins album had four great songs and a bunch of stinkers, all marked by sub-par production choices (when compared to previous albums, at least). It was hard to choose, but I guess Phantom Limb was the one that I played the most this year.
Archangel - Burial
Just heard about this one recently, but I knew it was going on the list when I woke up at 5am humming it to myself. With a bare minimum of elements, anonymous artist Burial has done something amazing with Archangel, and I expect it’ll go on to match Massive Attack’s Angel as the “amazing terrifying sexy British song” in TV ads and movie previews.
Song 4 Mutya (Kissy Sell Out Remix) - Groove Armada
Okay, structurally, this is a mess. Still, Kiss Sell Out has a way with the keys that is beyond mere mortals, and the sparkling synth falling out of this track is like diamonds, DIAMONDS I SAY.
Paper Planes (Remix ft Bun B & Rich Boy) - MIA
Paper Planes is hands-down the best song made this year, and I think most people knew it the second they got to the chorus. Oddly, Bun B and Rich Boy actually improve on the track, adding some masterful and relevant rapping to the latter half of the track. Rich Boy actually pulls off my favorite rap moment of the year, setting up his entire cameo for one big payoff.
Killing In The Name Of SebastiAn - SebastiAn
French electronic artist’s re-edit of RATM’s Killing In The Name Of. This is little more than replacing some guitars with keys and adding in some computer voices, but good God, I can’t stop listening to it.
Heartbroken - T2 featuring Jodie Aysha
I always begin this track in a “maybe I’ll skip it” malaise, but that 14-second mark hits and then I have to listen all the way through. A nice example of how a single instrument can make or break a whole song.
Truck - The Octopus Project
Come on, this track is pure joy. DOOT DOOT DOO-DOOT, DOOT DOOT DOO-DOOT!
Can You Let Me Know - Lupe Fiasco
Whoever composed the backing track of this song, with it’s lurching piano and snare drums, is a goddam genius.
The Class Of 73 Bells - Prefuse 73
So what if Prefuse didn’t deliver on a full album this year? The single Class Of 73 Bells had the weirdest and most enthralling opening of any other track, easily.
Reckoner - Radiohead
The only In Rainbows track that gets immediate repeats, Reckoner is really quite unique in sound and melody. And. I just love it.
St. Vincent - Now. Now.
It is too late and I am too tired to accurately describe this wonderful, entirely surreal song. What initially sounds like a twee oddity evolves into a progressively smarter and sharper song, culminating in a riotous guitar solo and complete awesomeness.
Justice
Justice put out their long-awaited album this year, and it tore up my iPod. After their eclectic remixes and D.A.N.C.E and Nazareth singles, I wasn’t sure what direction the full album would take, but it broke off and did something amazing. In a year when everyone wanted to sound like Justice, Justice wanted to sound like Super Justice, Italian film soundtracks and super-amplified synthesizers and face-melting rhythms and all. Dance music with no drums! Rock music with no guitar! On top of the album, Justice turned out (or Vice Records releases MP3s for) even more remixes this year, including a fantastic take on Daft Punk’s Human After All.
Youtube / Song link: Phantom Pt 1
Dan Deacon
Baltimore’s own seizure-inducing Dan Deacon blew our minds when he opened for Girl Talk in the Spring. Who is this man with the thick, red glasses, who insists on setting up his instruments in the crowd? What are these weird machines, relics from 80s TV production studios, sending his voice careening through the room at a dozen different pitches? Deacon makes hyperactive sugar-coated future-shock music, and he rocked the Ottobar (and a full album, brilliantly entitled “Spiderman Of The Rings”) way more than Girl Talk and Cex did when he appeared with them. One of his songs (the Mark Mothersbaugh-esque Pink Batman) even got some play at our wedding reception. We love Dan. Listen to him.
YouTube Video: Crystal Cat
Joanna Newsom
More like an “artist I forgot last year,” harpist/genius Joanna Newsom spent more time in my headphones in 2007 than almost anyone else. Ys only had five songs, but what songs they were: Joanna constructed five songs that should go down in history, five songs so deeply complex and engrossing that you can’t help but listen again after they end at the nine-minute mark.
YouTube Video: Emily (Live), which is nowhere near as amazing as the album version.
Chromeo
I sure did listen to Vice Records band Chromeo a lot this year. Part of it was due to remixes: Chromeo’s songs got fan-tas-tic remixes from the likes of Mstrkrft and Guns And Bombs this year, elevating simply silly pop songs to dance masterpieces. But part of it was due to Chromeo themselves, turning songs like Momma’s Boy into ridiculously great pop gems, full of weedy swagger and cheesy keyboards.
YouTube Video: Bonafide Lovin’
RIAA
And here I must plug RIAA’s brilliant and free album Dirt Bacharach, which rocked me like so little else this year. RIAA mixes the horror of late-90s-depress-o-rock with the horror of the mid-60s strings-and-flute pop cliches, and the result brings out the best of each.
A quick rundown:
Always Something Rollin’: A Limp Bizket song so bad that it was good, even upon initial release, mashed up with the orchestral overkill of Always Something There To Remind Me. Brilliant.
You Oughta Shut Up: Alanis Morrissette’s most irritating brilliantly leads into the Cranberries’ most irritating.
Falling Away From Bond Street: Korn’s absurdly over-the-top vocals vs. Bacharach’s ridiculous Bond Street. Fun ensues.
Magic Moments: One of the world’s sappiest songs, mixed up with inner-city kids talking about their lives. Beautiful.
It’s officially crisp here in DC, which means it’s time for some more music. So here you go: Five bands that might be new to you, with ten tracks that seem to linger at the top of my playlist.
Download all twelve here (ZIP file, 70mb).
The Carps
“Ladies and gentleman, stand away from your speakers, please, I beg of you…this just might be the rawest thing you’ve ever heard.” So begins The Carps’ “Let’s Fall In Love, four minutes of raging drums, staccato bass, and over-the-top R&B vocals. And the thing is, they just might be right.
I can barely find a mention of Toronto’s Carps in indie circles, but they’re the friggin’ hottest new act I’ve heard this year (and I got turned onto them by gotta-check-it-every-day blog Eardrums Shall Fail). All the over-sincere banter (during a bridge, the lead singer breathlessly asks “Hip hop, I loved you as a boy…where have you gone”, possibly while burning his copy of Elements of Style) might push these tracks too far into irony-land, but it gets held back by that crazy bass: A staggering, stammering off-rhythm monster that’s constant a half-beat before or after the vocals. LISTEN TO IT.
Kissy Sell Out
British DJ Tommy Bisdee makes dance music out of silly old early-90s synth, but, sped up to some Justice-level insanity. These remixes of Groove Armada and Human Leagues are packed with energy and ridiculously complicated keyboard riffs. I must see this man live.
Battles
The best album I’ve bought in forever, “Mirrored” is a magical mathrock journey through musical experimentation. Barely a minute of “Mirrored” goes by without trying something completely crazy, from the hyper-vocal intro of Ddiamondd to the lurching samples at the end of Atlas. Somehow, despite all the weird rhythms and shifting musical scales Battles crams onto the album, it solidly rocks from start to finish. “Atlas” is probably the most accessible track, but I’ve found that the other songs have grown on me exponentially with each listen.
RIAA
RIAA’s Dirt Bacharach is a free download, 15 tracks of the best of the worst of the 60s crossed with L’il John, Limp Bizkit (seriously, go download it just for “Always Something Rollin’.”), Alanis Morrissette, Korn, and, well, the best of the worst of my college years. Both sources are jarring: Burt Bacharach’s orchestral flourishes are absurd and otherwordly; so ridiculous that you can hardly believe they were ever recorded, but then, so is a song in which the chorus is “Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ whaaat? Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ come on!”
SebastiAn
Another genius on the Ed Bangor label, SebastiAn’s been remixing Daft Punk, Uffie, and the like for a while now, constantly appearing here or there and rocking my headphones. None of these remixes somehow match the simple ferocity of his “Killing In The Name Of” remix, a solid block of distortion and laptop vocals. My only complaint is that I think he mis-heard the best line in the song, and this fact is very distracting for me.
Recent Comments