You’re welcome, America! I’ve decided to put my Top Lists of 2011 on Spotify. You can access them below. Keep in mind, as amazing as it may be, Spotify doesn’t have everything. Notable exclusions include songs and albums from The Weeknd, Tennis, The Babies, Modeselektor, Dum Dum Girls, Sic Alps, The Beets, Azealia Banks, Work Drugs, James Blake, Tech N9ne, Perfume, and Mord Fustang.
NOTE: Okay, I know how embarrassingly late this is. I’m a phony blogger.
It’s been sort of upsetting to me to see this year’s Best-of lists start to roll out, knowing how different my own list was going to be. This is obviously going to fall on dead ears. and most likely would even if anyone read this blog, but some of this year’s most celebrated releases are total snoozefests. Look, I like Justin Vernon, I think he’s a really cool guy, I love Gayngs and I love his involvement on Kanye’s last few records. But 2011′s Bon Iver is a boring record, and despite multiple publications heralding it as this year’s best, you won’t see it on this list. I don’t really know how other people gauge what the “best” releases of the year are supposed to be. Bon Iver’s record is beautiful and polished, an immaculately produced album – yes. But the most powerful reaction it stirs in me is something along the lines of, “Hey now, this is quite pleasant.” Oneohtrix Point Never’s record is interesting, sure… PJ Harvey’s record is quite inspired and elaborately conceived… but it’s like all of the music publications are just giving out A’s for effort. Are the stereogum and Pitchfork offices really bumping these records all year? Is “Sleep Dealer” getting stuck in all their heads, while I can’t get “Till The World Ends” out of mine?
I guess they probably are… or I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least. But it seems like if a music site was going to rank this year’s releases based on sophistication and complexity of artistic vision alone, it would probably look pretty similar to the year end lists knocking around the net right now. Sure, part of me feels bad ranking the Britney Spears record above, say, Atlas Sound’s, when I know Britney’s own involvement in Femme Fatale was minimal at best, and Bradford Cox had to get his heart broken to write, perform, and produce all of those songs – but that’s really a moot point. When I rank albums, I’m trying to determine what’s more sonically compelling – what gets at me more, what sticks with me. And secondly, I’m looking for consistency and cohesion – no throwaways, no filler. Effort and artistic purpose inevitably shape my opinion, but they aren’t the determining factors.
I don’t really feel the need to justify my choices (though I’m doing just that) — but it’s frustrating that all of these great not-so-experimental records are being universally ignored or underrated, while the most boring are revered. So without further bullshitting, these are, actually, the best records of 2011.
NOTE: I say “albums” because I think it will be better Googled – but there are EPs and mixtapes on this list. Deal with it.
1. Beyonce – 4
This record is a masterpiece. Every song is an instant classic. 4 harkens back to a time when pop albums could be emotionally mature, slow and thoughtful. Beyonce breaks rules here. On emotional peaks in her ballads, she lets her voice break. On “Countdown”, there are ten different parts and none of them are clearly “chorus” or “verse”. She writes one song insisting that women are the dominant gender in society, and in another espouses the joy of cooking and cleaning for your man. 4 isn’t really one of those “sign of the times” type situations – this record doesn’t represent a positive change in pop music necessarily. Beyonce is just one-in-a-million, the type of icon that doesn’t play by anyone else’s rules or let herself be defined by her generation. She defines her own generation. All that said, it is certainly an inspiring thing that as the pop industry moves further and further away from the days when icons’ careers were nurtured and shaped, when time was taken with these records, when things just moved slower…. that an album like 4 can come out, a single conversation and perspective in a single piece of music, representing the speed and chaos of its generation through its content, but created with an old-fashioned work ethic and attention to detail.
2. Siriusmo – Mosaik
Nobody can do it like Siriusmo. Similar to Beyonce, he is an artist without peers. Mosaik is a true mosaic, a collage presentation of the German artist’s various styles and techniques, and it’s all over the place. But no matter how many directions Siriusmo wanders, he always finds himself somewhere completely original. This is an album worthy of the ten year wait before Siriusmo found the courage to put himself out there. For the unfamiliar, Mosaik is the perfect introduction to the brilliant work of a modern musical genius who has gone overlooked for far too long. You can see my full review of this album here.
3. Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde
Dye it Blonde is such a surprising record. This is also an album that I went into further detail about here, but stated simply, here is a band that rose to indie prominence in 2010 with a self-titled debut recorded cheaply, producing a crude, lo-fi character of sound that happened to be enormously popular at the time. Like so many other bands, they wanted to move past that sonic aesthetic to avoid being pigeon-holed, but unlike most, their initial foray into lo-fi was a sound built out of financial limitations and necessity rather than an artistic choice. So while certain lo-fi acts’ sophomore attempts end up losing what’s made them special, the Smith Westerns were able to create the record they were always trying to make with a larger production budget. This record glitters and shines, and is the sound of a band discovering themselves and the amazing things they’re capable of.
4. Toro Y Moi – Freaking Out EP
Toro Y Moi’s latest is a real stunner. Although his talent is unquestionable, I’ve always had a hard time really getting behind Toro Y Moi because the project is so varied in style and form. His full-length of this year, Underneath the Pine, which falls in at #29 on this list, is another example of an artist taking a bedroom sound and expanding it, as well as — and here’s the difficult part — finding just the right place between lo-fi nostalgia and the cleanest, crispest production that is available to an artist like Chaz Bundick. It’s a release that’s full of beauty and creative curiosity, but it lacks a sense of togetherness, something binding each track to one another. Freaking Out has the benefit of limited length as an EP, but here Bundick is able to form something cohesive in what is essentially a dance record. Sure, there’s a lot going on here – a 70s-era Michael Jackson influence in song structure, made up of 80s era electro beats and synths, encapsulated by a fuzzy layer of chillwave. But the end result is a perfect piece of indie pop, and the most promising release we’ve seen out of one of today’s most promising rising stars.
5. Britney Spears – Femme Fatale
If Britney Spears was ten years younger, I wouldn’t be the only person going nuts over this record. Femme Fatale is a phenomenal pop album, one that realizes the trajectory of this disorganized handling of the appropriation of electro house for American pop consumption that has been going on since 2007 or so. The person who really deserves the credit here is Dr. Luke, the exceptional producer who seems to be handling all of this year’s most successful pop-electro appropriations (e.g. Rihanna’s “You Da One”) and has previously collaborated with Britney on 2009′s Circus. On Femme Fatale, Dr. Luke serves as one of the executive producers of the album, and his guidance and control on the release doesn’t go unnoticed. If you want proof of the intelligence of this sort of strategy, go look at the producer credits for this album and for, say, one of Rihanna’s last two releases. The strategy that the Rihanna team usually goes for is a clusterfuck of top producers and songwriters, assembled quickly in mass assemblies to pen a hundred different songs, eventually wittled down into seventeen or so songs to rearrange across a handful of “deluxe” releases — the assembly of which is most likely determined by the TRCKORDER3000 or some other such industry android. By letting an established producer with an established relationship with the artist take creative control over Femme Fatale, the result is an organic collection of songs representing the best of what 2011′s version of pop music has to offer. Not an art record, not Kanye’s Dark Twisted Fantasy or the record that takes this list’s #1 spot – just mindless, danceable pop music done right, when far too many people are doing it wrong.
Okay, so it should be pretty apparent by now that I’m a phony blogger — I’m terrible at keeping this thing up. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use it as an excuse outlet opportunity to share my top songs of 2011 with you all! I’m also going to embed as many videos as I can for my top 50 songs of 2011, so check out the top 5 here, and the rest after the jump.
1. The Weeknd – “What You Need”
This song has the ability to completely control me as soon as it comes on. Haunting. A complex combination of fear, intoxication, malice, and lust – feelings you can’t shake even after the song has stopped playing. As soon as I heard this song, I knew The Weeknd were going to have a powerful effect on indie music — I didn’t guess he’d turn up on half the songs off Drake’s new album.
2. James Blake – “I Mind”
This song comes on my headphones when I’m on the train and I get chills. Profoundly beautiful song. The best creation to date by an artist forging into never-before-known territories of electronica and all the genre is capable of. Also, a handsome young piano crooner.
3. Beyonce – “Countdown”
So much energy packed into this song. A veritable pop masterpiece. Braver than an artist like Beyonce has any need to be. We didn’t know pop could do this. Art music. Also one of the most amazing videos of the year.
4. Metronomy – “The Look”
Simple, tight, perfect – Metronomy continued to amaze this year. How the 2005 electropop band of yore evolved into this soft and pleasant thing is truly dumbfounding. Indie pop at it’s best – stripped down, nostalgic, partially electronic, and danceable.
5. Twin Sister – “Daniel”
Twin Sister was the artist I had the hardest time bending to my “one-song-per-artist” rule – if I hadn’t, you’d see “Bad Street” directly below this. “Bad Street” is a song I couldn’t stop playing this year, an ultra-catchy number that perfectly characterizes what’s cool about this band. But “Daniel” has to win, because “Daniel” breaks my heart. The most heartbreaking part is hearing Andrea Estella smile as she sings lines like, “It hurts so bad…” Continue reading
Perhaps due to it’s proximity to New York City, the festering hotbed of indie breaker-throughs that it is, Albany, NY rarely gets its proper recognition as a music scene of its own. That’s what’s so exciting about Restoration Festival, a two-day concert event kicking off August 28-29, entirely assembled by proponents of the local scene, like sponsors All Over Albany, Keep Albany Boring, and the Historic Albany Foundation. The lineup is also predominantly made up of artists off the local B3nson Records label, another principle mover in getting this thing off the ground. The festival was able to gain such momentum in part due to a good cause – 25% of the proceeds will go towards restoring St Joseph’s, the historic church that has been a landmark in Albany’s Arbor Hill district for over 150 years. To make things more interesting, St Joe’s is also the venue for the festival, giving Albany residents the chance to see some of their favorite local bands (plus a few impressive headliners) in a remarkable building that has, for the most part, been closed to the public for decades.
As you can see from the poster above, the festival includes performances from local acts including Railbird, Scientific Maps, Sgt Dunbar & the Hobo Banned, Matthew Carefully’s Undone Ensemble, and Barons in the Attic. There will also be headlining performances from indie darlings Deer Tick and Titus Andronicus, as well as critically-acclaimed weirdos The Music Tapes and A Hawk & A Hacksaw. This ecclectic bunch of headliners actually does a good job encapsulating the sound of many of the local groups. If there was a uniting element to Albany bands, it would be called something like world-dork-folk, a hodgepodge of multi-instrumentalist folk artists channeling a bevy of international influences over a strong foundation of Americana. Check out the highly affable, unfortunately-named We Are Jeneric, for example, who can come off as a scaled-down I’m From Barcelona or a more whimsical Beirut. From track to track, these guys bounce around from the Balkans to New Orleans, frequently centering their songs around sweet indie folk melodies, and occasionally tearing it up with a raucous brass section.
The headliners and experience at St Joseph’s should be enough to convince any indie music lover to shell out the ridiculously reasonably-priced $30 weekend ticket, but if you have not already done so, the real opportunity here is getting a chance to see all these great Albany acts under one roof. If you’re in the area, don’t miss the chance to see what Albany’s indie scene is all about. You can purchase tickets here.
Mr. Dream may be New York City’s coolest new band of 2011. Sure, everyone’s been repping 90s nostalgia these days, but these guys are going straight for 1989, the year Nirvana released their debut Bleach and Pixies released the seminal Doolittle. These influences are tapped to the point of undeniable homage (Frank Black’s mug even shows up on the first page in a Google image search for “Mr Dream Trash Hit”), and on tracks like “Trash Hit” it’s as if Mr. Dream stepped into Bleach’s recording sessions and asked to lay down a few originals. Sonically, from the droning bass line to the crisp snare snaps, “Trash Hit” recalls early Nirvana to a tee, and a time in rock’n'roll when everyone was dirty and they weren’t doing it to be trendy, but to oppose the gaudy grossness of trends like hair metal and new wave. Somehow Mr. Dream evokes this aesthetic in 2011 with full earnestness and without pretension — even though they’re apparently a band made up of former Pitchfork writers.
Watch Mr. Dream drive home their grungy motif in their latest video for the title track off their debut LP, Trash Hit. In the video, the band walks down the grimiest streets in Brooklyn they could find, collecting trash and throwing it at other trash. If you’re just now hearing of them, it’s the perfect introduction to the Brooklyn trio.
Attention everyone! Feed the Dog is seeking new writers to help fill the long and awkward lulls between postings! I’m mainly looking for writers interested in writing quick posts for track and video reviews, or, alternatively, news postings. If you’re interested in writing reviews, I’m open to the idea, if you’re an excellent writer. Here are the guidelines:
- If you’re interested in writing for us, send me an email at feedtheblog@gmail.com with a few writing samples and a resume if you have one. I’d also like to know five of your favorite releases of 2010, and five new releases you’re excited about in 2011. It would be great if you could make reference to specific artists or subjects that we’ve written about on the site, so I know that you’re familiar with our writing and our tastes/interests.
- If I like you and your writing, and we seem to be compatible taste-wise, then we can move forward in one of two ways. There are a lot of things that I know I’m interested in writing about that I don’t find time for, so if you’d like, I’d definitely be able to give post assignments to cover a given track, video, or album. Alternately, you could select your own topics and submit them to me. Know that in either case, I’ll be reviewing your writing before giving you permission to actually publish it. I won’t alter anything you’ve written without your permission, and assuming I don’t have any issues, I’ll try to publish anything you send us right away. And of course, anything you write will be credited to you. I’m also down to add your information to our About Me section, and I’m open to linking to your info (like Twitter or something) elsewhere on the site.
- Know that I’m not going to post anything on this site that I have a considerable disagreement with. If you think something’s a 70, and I think it’s a 75, I’m not gonna come down on you — you took the time to review the album, and I didn’t have the time, so I’m thankful. But, say, if you wanted to slam the new Babies record or nominate King of Limbs for album of the year, I’m going to have a problem with it. Track/video reviews should be far less contentious – generally a “this is cool, check this out!” type description should suffice.
I’m not necessarily expecting any responses, since it’s pretty difficult to convince people to write for no money and very little glory – but if you’re someone like me, who’s trying to make a name for yourself as a music writer/blogger and want an easily accessible/aesthetically pleasing reference point to share with potential employers, etc, this could be a great opportunity, and I can tell you it’s not easy going it alone. Let me boost your legitimacy, while you ease some weight off my shoulders. I will be accepting applications constantly. If you’re reading this a year after I posted it, I’m probably still interested. Send me your stuff!
I gotta admit, more frequent blogging was not one of my new years resolutions for 2011. I’ve had a real hard time writing as many reviews as I’d like to this year, and part of the blame lies in my own poor handling of procrastination and the like, and another part of the blame is that there’s been simply too much good music to write about. I was really excited about the Smith Westerns album when it came out in January, and I wanted to write about it — but it had to wait until I finished writing about Tennis. When I had already begun putting notes together for a Smith Westerns review, the Siriusmo album dropped. Then Radiohead came out. As soon as I knew I had to review each of them, I couldn’t begin reviewing any of them. It only got worse as more time elapsed.
So instead, I’ve decided I’m going to write mini-reviews for all my favorite albums of the first quarter of 2011. I must admit there are a number of significant releases this year that I haven’t gotten the chance to really listen through, as well as records that haven’t been fully digested. But the following are the records that have been getting all of my attention in 2011 so far.
(I’ll be doing this in multiple rounds — I initially intended to make this one monster post, but I’ve had these first few reviews sitting in my Drafts for over a week, so I thought it would be best to do over several postings. My new excuse – I’ve recently become gainfully employed! This is extremely exciting for my personal life, but makes blogging time even harder to come by.)
Siriusmo – Mosaik (2011)
A+ It’s no secret on this blog that I’m an enormous Siriusmo fan, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that I’m in love with this record. Although the quality and consistency of Siriusmo’s last EP, The Plasterer of Love, was as solid as ever, the record found the German producer in a transitionary phase, stylistically, and I wasn’t sure how he was going to end up defining himself on his first-ever LP (after a decade of singles and EPs, for those who haven’t been following his career). Luckily enough, upon hearing Mosaik for the first time, I remembered I should never doubt Siriusmo’s perfectionism and meticulous process. As the electro genius explained in a recent interview with Electronic Beats, he pays his bills with the money he makes as a painter, and as such his music is simply a labor of love. After ten years making music casually and blowing off friends like Modeselektor trying to get him to go on tour, Siriusmo is finally ready to release a true album, and he’s even lined up a few European tour dates with Modeselektor and crew. Naturally, then, he certainly has the music to back up his emboldened actions. This is an incredibly exciting time to be a Siriusmo fan – since I first started listening to the guy in 2007, I’ve been waiting for him to get over his stage fright and go on tour — so he might eventually somehow end up in the United States, preferably the East Coast. In 2011, Siriusmo is finally taking his music career as seriously as I have been.
And Mosaik is a gorgeous record. Here are productions as beautiful and intricate as Siriusmo has ever produced, every track dripping with sonic tightness, colored in the rhythmic flourishes and morphing synth melodies that make up the producer’s enviable fingerprints. Siriusmo is flexing all over this album, putting every dubstep artist in the U.K. to shame on the track “Bad Idea”, a perfect balance of thick unrelenting bass, and insistent yet restrained syncopated rhythms. On mirror track, “Good Idea”, as well as on the brilliant album-namesake track “Mosaik”, Siriusmo raises the bar (that he himself has set) in the genre of melodic electro music, assembling bouncing synth melodies, whistles, hand claps, and choppy drum beats to points of aural catharsis and revelation, harnessing euphoric, hypnotic beats. There’s also an exceptional balance on this record, bringing back past hits like “High Together” and “Nights Off” for your heavy chill-out tracks (ala Daft Punk’s “Voyager” or Justice’s “Valentine”), backing “Bad Idea” up with heavy electro-bangers “Feromonikon” and “Feed My Meatmachine” (which sounds exactly like it sounds), and giving into pop penchants on songs with frequent collaborator, vocalist Dana, “Einmal In Der Woche Schreien” and “Goldene Kugel”. Siriusmo also maintains a constant sense of playfulness and experimentation on the record, like on the jilted glitch number “Lass Den Vogel Frei!” or the contemplative “Signal”, which moves intermittently between a thumping house beat and a rolling drum march to accompany its warm, twinkling synths.
I can’t say enough about this record, except that it’s an incredible delight from my favorite producer, and is without a doubt my favorite record of the year so far. Anybody who considers themselves a fan of music owes it to themselves to check out this remarkable, extraordinarily underrated producer named Siriusmo. His latest, Mosaik, is a masterpiece.
Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde (2011)
A This is a really brave sophomore album from the Smith Westerns. Similar to Tennis, this is another group whose momentum was boosted by sonic allegiances with a greater hype – in their case, the lo-fi garage sound. But as they proved here on Dye it Blonde, and explained to John Norris in an interview on Noisevox.org, the lo-fi sound on their first release was truly an aesthetic chosen out of financial necessity. Here, on their second attempt, with a label’s backing and a professional recording studio, this is an entirely different Smith Westerns — the band, it turns out, that they were trying to be all along. And I say it’s a brave album because Dye It Blonde is, essentially, a fairly straight-forward rock album released to an indie fanbase in 2011. And for the past few years in indie rock, that’s been a somewhat difficult thing to pull off. Similar to Free Energy, the principle influences on this record are classic rockers like Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac, and those influences are felt throughout the record, in the specific choices of guitar tone and drum beats that breathe classic rock nostalgia through the entire record.
I’d say what sets Smith Westerns apart from a band like Free Energy, however, is in their brilliant songwriting and a more realized character of sound. Dye It Blonde is a record with a personality and a soul, as cheesy as it sounds, but it’s a real achievement and something I have to comment on. And by honing their own specific voice as such, the record sounds modern just as it reminds us of the past. It’s also in the psychedelic overtones and flourishes that color the record, and a good deal of Wilson and Lennon/McCartney-esque harmonies and song constructions. The sound on this record is at times huge, the polar opposite of their former lo-fi scene, and as disastrous as that all should be, it comes together beautifully and brilliantly. Fantastic pop songwriting, plain and simple. Couple that with a sophisticated understanding of their pop and rock predecessors (each decade, 60s-00s are all specifically referenced here), and the boldness and taste to reference these sources in an enchanting, intriguing new way, and you have yourself one of the most exciting new voices in indie rock today. I’m expecting really big things for these guys, beyond the hype they’ve already managed to build for themselves.
Britney Spears – Femme Fatale (2011)
A+ Sorry Gaga, but there is only one queen of pop, and the seat is already taken. Britney defends her title in 2011 with the strongest album of her career, by far. You have to understand what is incredible about this album, beyond the fact that it’s a collection of catchy, original pop hits and dance floor bangers without a single filler track. It lies in two principles that I have discussed more than once on this blog: 1) That based on a single-heavy music industry and an irresponsible handling of talent by labels and producers, making a good album, even if you’re a talented artist, in today’s pop music world is near-impossible. And my definition of a “good” album in this context is an album that you can listen to, start to finish, without wanting to skip to the next track, or stop the turntable. An easy example – I think Rihanna’s recent singles “The Only Girl In The World” and “What’s My Name?” are some of the best of her career – and “S&M” is pretty catchy too. But they’re also 3 out of only 4 tracks on Loud (2010) that have any replay value whatsoever. And Rihanna is one of the most talented pop artists around today – though she doesn’t have the deep tracks to prove it, and never has.
2.) That ever since circa 2007, when club music was suddenly trendy again (partially picking up the slack for mediocre hip-hop, partially the emergence of fresh new talent), and every DJ was playing Justice and MSTRKRFT songs and people were going nuts, the pop industry has decided that they had to commodify electro-house and trance music into all of the current artist’s records. And for the past 4 years, I’ve been listening to all of these assholes get it completely wrong. I suppose producers were told to go “more electronic” and had no idea what that meant – most referenced the cheesiest of 90s club music, and absolutely no one used pleasant-sounding synths or made any attempt to hone their beats. They just changed their old melodies over to different midi sounds and over-produced the shit out of it. As this was also during my own personal heyday of electro, house, and techno obsession, it was a constant source of frustration to hear nimrods get paid to bastardize a perfectly good opportunity to take catchy, commercially viable dance music and let someone famous sing over it, make millions. So naturally the first time I was listening to pop radio and “Womanizer” came on, I was jumping out of my seat.
The truth is Britney Spears and Rihanna are the only artists in the past few years to incorporate electronic dance influences tastefully into their sound, and do so in a natural way. I suppose to be fair, as much as I hate him, will.i.am is also someone who gets it, but he still intentionally blands out his productions to give them broader appeal and make more $$, which is part of why he’s so dastardly in the first place. Will.i.am produces and is featured on one track on Femme Fatale, “Big Fat Bass”, and it might be my least favorite track on the record, and that might just be personal bias — but it’s still not a bad track. For will.i.am it’s actually remarkably tasteful. But I digress.
So if it’s not painfully predictable, what’ remarkable about this new Britney Spears album is that A.) it is a pop album with a cohesive sound, fluid progression, and no filler tracks. Even Circus, with its incredible roster of singles, was about 40% filler. B.) It is a pitch perfect handling of electro-house, dubstep, and trance influences and incorporating them into a pop persona like Britney Spears’s character and sensibilities. Without a doubt, Femme Fatale‘s lead singles “Hold It Against Me” and “Till the World Ends” are the standout tracks. I expect to see “I Want To Go” follow as the next single, “Inside Out” or “How I Roll” after that. They’re all brilliant pop songs – and more than that, they’re a dynamic set of tracks, compelling melodies and skillful production. All the sounds and tones are spot on, every bass drum kicks, every break delivers. I know I could do a track by track, and I haven’t really discussed the actual music on this album that much, but these are supposed to be mini-reviews and this is probably my longest one yet. If I haven’t convinced you to check this album out yet, fuck it. You don’t deserve it.
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