It’s that time of year when every single magazine and print goes list-crazy. Not one misses out on the trend. So does Airboy. But we kept it minimalistic and only thought a TOP 5 would do. As you know, we’re uber-lazy here. So we’ve trimmed down our favourite of the year. Based on my last FM charts, the songs that meant something at a particular moment, tracks that associated with an event or just because we felt is was worthy of another mention here on the blog. You will notice how down to earth my music tastes are. Nothing too geeky, nothing too predictable. We will however aknowledge a brilliant comeback from misses Spears. In less than a year she went from a bald-junkie to a sexy circus orphan. With her hit single Womanizer, she managed to turn things in the right direction.
We also have honors for Beyonce Knowles for putting together one the kinkiest dance routine of the year with her “Single Ladies” video. She sure knows how to deliver. I haven’t seen any one wiggle their derriere that way in a loonnnng tiiiiiiime !
Well well well, enough nonsense for today, here is my Top 5. You can comment and add your personal year-end list in the comments. You can also turn me onto bands or artist I should of heard… Links to MP3 appreciated. Voili, Voilou mes ptit’ loulous. Have a nice Thursday evening. By the way I’ll be in Beijing tomorrow, yeeepppee !
1 – Santogold – “Santogold”
On her awesome genre-blurring debut, Brooklyn singer-MC Santi White (a.k.a. Santogold) wrestles with the challenge of self-determination. As she puts it, “I pay for what’s called/Eccentricity and my will to evolve.” Her set celebrates the joys, and burdens, of making weird-ass street jams like “Creator,” a dancehall joint engorged by overmodulated freak beats. White shuffles styles as matter-of-factly as your iPod; “I’m a Lady” nods to both girl groups (the Ronettes) and boy groups (TV on the Radio), and “Lights Out” could be a lost Pretenders single. Exploding R&B with rock and other styles, that track recalls Res’ How I Do, a visionary album that White co-wrote. The touchstone for her tough rhyming and sultry singing is the U.K.’s 2 Tone movement, which mixed punk, ska and dub into a post-racial pop idyll. But like M.I.A. and Erykah Badu, Santogold ultimately sounds like her own damn movement.
2 – MGMT – “Oracular Spectacular”
This dazzling electro-psych band is two arty Brooklyn dudes who derive keyboard lines from the jumpy gait of a praying mantis and dress up in matching capes. Their buzz single “Time to Pretend” — a booming, tongue-in-bong sendup of the rock biz — sounds like a Flaming Lips outtake, with good reason: Lips producer Dave Fridmann helmed MGMT’s debut disc, fluffing their glitchy daydream rock into an intergalactic odyssey. There are hints of Joy Division and Sixties nostalgia both acid-tinged and bluesy, but Oracular Spectacular’s playfulness and remarkable density are best displayed on “Electric Feel,” a surprising bit of funk featuring the original come-on “Ooh, girl, shock me like an electric eel.”
3 – Kanye West – “808’s & Heartbreaks”
Imagine if you took an album’s worth of blues lyrics and removed all the blues. That’s what West does on this hastily produced record about the death of his mother and the dissolution of his recent engagement. The words are brutally introspective (”Chased the good-life, all my life long/ Look back on my life, all my life gone”) but they’re sung through the anonymity of Auto-Tune over beats generated mostly by the ancient Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, one of the first drum machines, so you’d expect their power to be muted. Instead, West turns his gimmick into an innovation; the effects make him sound ghostly and sad (and better, since he can’t actually sing). Not everything on 808s & Heartbreak works, but what does is fascinating — and haunting.
4 – Lykke Li – “Youth Novels”
Would Abba have posted a YouTube video of themselves busking on a Stockholm street with a toy piano? Well, that idea works for their oddball homegirl Lykke Li, a charming, globe-trotting hippie kid whose Abba-rific debut shows how dance pop and quirky indie invention can co-exist happily. Producer-collaborator Björn Yttling of Peter, Bjorn and John helps to make this record even more irresistible than his own group’s debut. “I’m Good, I’m Gone” puts a New Wave spin on the chuck-a-chuck-a groove of Lee Dorsey’s 1966 hit “Working in a Coal Mine.” A quietly intoxicating electropulse drives the reluctant lover’s confession in “Little Bit” while Li memorably rhymes “legs apart” with “tainted heart.” The singer’s frosty squeak is a limited instrument, but she works it, mixing adorable playground scats with spoken-word whispers and parched coos that barely sketch her sugary melodies. The arrangements also dress simple tunes in surprising ways, with odd choral bits and percolating percussion webs that should tease movement from even reluctant hips. No surprise that, as YouTube confirms, Lykke Li is also a freaky dancer.
5 – Friendly Fires – “Friendly Fires”
In the vein of funky white guys like Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem, these British lads take disco and rock, rave and pop, groove and melody, and Cuisinart them into an airy froth. But unlike many dance-rock peers, this trio never actually stretch out for the high-steppers at the discothèque: Only one cut on their 10-song, 37-minute album goes past the four- minute mark. At heart, they are strict pop formalists, packing each track with peppy hooks (”On Board,” as heard in a Wii ad), gushy New Romantic choruses (”Jump in the Pool”) and Talking Heads-style nerd funk (”In the Hospital,” which sounds like “Crosseyed and Painless” as sung by Ron Weasley). From the outside, they’re buzzy, club-ready jams, but singer Ed MacFarlane sounds more like a softy than a player — he wants to cuddle you, not freak you.
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