2011 | Best Of | Music | Albums: Top 10 from ’11

My ‘Top…’ lists are never cohesive. The choices on the lists never complement each other, they feel like a handful of names strewn around the page, thrown together, without much thought, into a bullet point list.

Let’s not break that pattern now with this list.

I’d say my top three criteria for this list are cohesion as a body of songs, artistry that breathes fresh air into Music (yes, with a capital M), and, most importantly, the capacity to strike a chord within my cold and bottomless pit of a heart.

The following albums are not necessarily the best in terms of production, songwriting or lyricism. No, if anything’s made it onto this list, it’ll be because I enjoy listening to it (though excelling under the aforementioned criteria will undoubtedly grant brownie points).

That is how I rate albums. Consider: it takes so much effort for me to listen to a new artist/album that everybody has massively hyped. So much effort. And ridiculous amounts of patience as well, as I wait for the waves of supposed jaw-dropping amazement to hit me, since my expectations have been raised to ridiculous levels by hype. This, especially with the artists which almost every single living hipster blogger seems to be in love with (this year it seems to be tuneyards, St Vincent, Fleet Foxes, Girls, M83 etc etc). I listen to a bit of an album, I get so tired of having to pour my whole soul and mind into absorbing, and being absorbed by, the music and lyrical content and heart of the album that I just press stop and switch to some Lady GaGa. Or maybe Beyoncé. I don’t know, it’s an ongoing battle in my heart between these two divas.

But essentially, an album needs to hold onto your attention. And if my attention isn’t completely devoted to an album, that may be because of the excessive hype it has received, and my consequent wariness of its potential for scoring brownie points in my eyes. I am still a pretty prejudicial girl, what with my apparent need to be different from both the hipsters and from anything mainstream, and therefore I by default am wary of most over-hyped things. So, it is my aim next year to ignore what everyone’s saying and listen to new music with an open mind. BIG AIM, YEAH.

So, with that outpouring of my deepest, most burdensome and most painful of secrets, I present to you my top 11 of 2011.

10. Beyoncé – 4

I really like the direction Beyoncé has taken with this album, and I’d say that, if her music were human, it has now developed into a grown woman. Despite the definite let-downs on this album, ‘Love On Top’, ‘I Miss You’ and – the one accompanied by an excellent video (in fact my favourite video of the year) – ‘Countdown’ outshine the albums’ flaws, and make it – most importantly – fun to listen to. I for one like ‘Girls’ though I recognise it’s not the most brilliant, and despite being a little slow at times ‘1+1’ is nevertheless fantastic.

Love On top

9. SBTRKT – SBTRKT

Perhaps not the most cohesive of albums, yet SBTRKT still succeeds to move me and move my body, with its brilliant production and feet-movin’ tunes.

Something Goes Right

8. Tennis – Cape Dory

Best find of the year, and the most charming premise for an album (husband and wife sold all their posessions and embarked on sailboat adventure straight after college, and made an album recounting their experiences). It is not at all a perfect album, but is filled with smile-inducing tracks which take you back to bygone times and for this I loved it because it provided a starkly positive contrast to most of this year’s other records.

Long Boat Pass

7. Cults – Cults

Continuing the theme of albums which bring a smile to your face is this wonder. I had the good fortune to see them play at Reading and they were even more enchanting on stage than on record. Nostalgia is fused with twee, dreaminess and energy on this lo-fi pop album, with excellent use of glockenspiels.

Bumper

6. Yuck – Yuck

A big fan of Cajun Dance Party, I was wary about Yuck, worried that it wouldn’t live up to CDP’s calibre. Any of these worries were extinguished by this record’s surpassing of the standards set by Cajun Dance Party. With its catchy melodies and spellbinding guitars, Daniel Blumberg & co. have constructed a beautiful record.

Operation

5. Youth Lagoon – The Year of Hibernation

It seems I can’t get enough of ‘cute’. But Year of Hibernation isn’t just about the (cute) sound. It also does terrible, terrible things to your heart. Trevor Powers’ voice, the delicate melodies, the achingly beautiful bits that catch you unawares, they all contribute to the terrible mess my heart was left in by the end of this painfully short album. All this is achieved while sounding ridiculously joyful, which makes it all the more admirable.

Cannons

4. Drake – Take Care

When I listened to this album, I finally understood why so many critics had ripped Thank Me Later to shreds. At 18 tracks, it is too long and thus seems a little overdone and excessive, yet Take Care is far superior to its predecessor with its honesty, lyricism, and the right guests whose contributions neatly fuse their own styles with that of Drake.

Practice

3. Lady GaGa – Born This Way

For the greater part of this year, I shunned Lady GaGa. The birth from the egg, the video of Born This Way, ‘Judas’, my brief love affair with The Edge of Glory, her album – enough with the antics already, Lady, I sighed exasperatedly. Her stuff was all over the place (not in a good way) and her publicity stunts were getting wearisome. When I finally got round to properly listening to the album, it slowly but surely tickled my fancy. And then the Marry The Night video came out, and I stopped hating. At times Born This Way feels like a roughly heaped-together collection of songs, some brilliant, some dispensable, thus it could be cut shorter, and the track order could have been given more consideration so as to make a more flowing listen. The Madonna influence (/imitation, however you want to see it) is undeniable, but there is that slightly mad tinge to the music which could only inhabit a Lady GaGa album. Anyway, adding some Madonna can only do good, right?

The Edge Of Glory

2. Frank Ocean – Nostalgia, Ultra

How is such a beautiful soul possible? Tell me, how? He gets the beauty spot-on, not too disgusting, just enough to make you love him. And it’s partly the falsetto that coaxes the love from you, but the music more so. Hey, he sings songs to get at women. The only reason this doesn’t get to #1 is because there are too many samples in this mixtape and this niggles at me a little because I can only imagine from his original material (Songs for Women, Swim Good, even I Miss You produced for Beyoncé) how much he can achieve without help from music that isn’t his own.

Songs for Women

1. The Weeknd – The Mixtape Trilogy

What an empty, damaged soul this mixtape trilogy evokes (yeah, the English Lit terms are coming out). And yet I – and probably you – can’t get enough of it. Really, imma let my inner hipster out as I admit that I desperately want this guy to remain as elusive as he did in the outset of his musical career, because that really kept the focus on the music. Music to empty your soul to. For me, it goes 1.House of Balloons, 2. Echoes of Silence, 3. Thursday. The lo-fi quality of this R&B won me over on first listen, nine months ago, when Wicked Games began being circulated online. I never looked back.

What You Need



2011 has been a good year in music. I remember at the beginning of this year writing on this blog that something was going to change in music and I guess it has, since there’s been a major move away from guitar music. The Weeknd and Frank Ocean are set to take over the world. Goodbye 2011.

2011 | Best Of | Music | Tracks

5. Jamie XX – Far Nearer

4. SBTRKT – Wildfire

3. Lady GaGa – The Edge of Glory

2. Childish Gambino – Break (AOTL)

1. Jai Paul – BTSTU

Finally, as usual, here’s DJ Earworm’s mashup of the top 2011 tracks. His 2009 mashup will probably be my favourite. But this year’s one ain’t too shabby.

2011 | Best of | Music

Thus commences the obligatory end-of-year onslaught of ‘Best Of’ lists.

This year I’ve kept up with current cultural affairs – or at least it seems that way in my head – particularly with albums, probably because of my involvement in student radio. I say this every year, but I am quite convinced that this year my music tastes have fully opened up to all genres, especially those under the electronic umbrella. I have moved significantly away from pop-punk and NME-type indie rock and more towards urban (see the top 2 in my top 11), electronic and pop. Still, as my top 10 demonstrates, rock was not at all absent from my music library – especially since this year I fully embraced the Beatles and Queen.

My best musical discovery of the year has to be Brenmar. Although Frank Ocean, the Weeknd and Childish Gambino did bring back a nostalgic wave of R&B love, it is Brenmar who, with his mixing of oldschool R&B tracks, solidly cemented my unashamed appreciation for R&B. I was lucky enough to catch him on his ‘Visions’ UK tour. I left the club slightly annoyed that he’d just stood at the side giving the impression of being grumpy and obnoxious. But looking back on it, his actual set was great and I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to see him again.

Brenmar – Let Me Know

Brenmar – What’s My Name (orig. by Rihanna)

And so it’s not surprising that Brenmar was my best live act of the year. However OFWGKTA at Reading comes at a close second, even though there was that fleeting moment of ‘I hate everything to do with OFWGKTA right now’ because I’d lost my phone during their set, but thankfully this was done away with by my miraculous reunion with my phone at the end of the set. I thought I’d experienced some pretty mad live sets but this topped them all. I was surrounded by taller, more muscular guys who could easily have crushed me, it was generically different from the usual acts I saw live, and the tent was filled with an atmosphere where it was much more easy to be overcome with a mob mentality, because of the lyrical content of their music.

Tyler, the Creator – Yonkers

I’d say this is tied in first place for best music video of the year, with Beyoncé’s ‘Countdown’. Bursting with colour, fashion, art, and dance, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from this video. Alright, it was somewhat discredited in my eyes by the plagiarism controversy, but not enough to dismiss the fact that it is an excellently produced video.

Beyoncé – Countdown


Perhaps it has something to do with Kanye West’s growing success, but it does seem as though the blogosphere and music lovers around the world this year welcomed more R&B and pop into their embraces. Just hipsters being hipsters and having to adhere to the ‘I like all kinds of music, man’ image.

Top Albums of ’11 over here.

HARRY POTTER: Deathly Hallows pt.II midnight viewing

The endless debate of whether or not it actually is over. What is ‘it’ anyway? The whole Harry Potter fandom, saga, or franchise? Just a few hours ago I found an article claiming that WBros. are gonna hang on to the ‘franchise’ for as long as they can, and expand into museums, more theme parks, video games… But the books, and dare I say even the films, were the real deal for the Harry Potter generation. Anything created with the name of Harry Potter after this will just be memorabilia. So yes, for me, something is now over, and that is the ability to look forward to these big release events, and to share these unique good times with friends.

Though I know full well it’s over, it really hasn’t sunk in and I don’t want to accept it – at all. (A Harry Potter shrine is under construction in my – new! – bedroom)

The midnight viewing last night was quite something, and had me at my most excited that I’ve ever been about a Harry Potter film. Hardly had the film started, the ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt II’ sign appeared, that my heart was thumping twice as fast – for real. I so so wanted to like the film, so hoped that it would do the book, the series, the fandom justice.

And what an ending. It was full of almost all the action, battle, suspense, reflection, emotion, humanity that I wanted from it. The Hogwarts battle was epic but the interlude with Snape and the Forbidden Forest was much-appreciated as it slowed down the pace. My favourite parts have to be Neville killing the snake (what a BAMF), the sequence f’rom the dragon escape to Harry reading Voldemort’s mind after the Gringotts episode, and the sequence from the Pensieve leading up to the Forbidden Forest. Favourite quote? “I’ve always wanted to do that spell!”

Criticisms? So many, but only because I’m comparing it with the book: watching Hermione trying to pass off as Bellatrix was excruciating, King’s Cross wasn’t as shocking, revelatory, or satisfying as the book chapter was, why didn’t they use the Cloak more?!!, Molly-Bellatrix duel was anticlimactic, as was Ronmione’s kiss, I’d liked to have seen a re-enactment of the Grindelwald-Dumbledore-Aberforth-Ariana scene, why did Harry snap the Elder Wand, the Great Hall scene was a bit of a cop-out and they should have just kept it how it was and used the Room of Requirement as the entrance into the castle, FRED WEASLEY WHY DIDN’T WE SEE YOU DIE… My biggest issue by far is how they changed the final battle between Voldemort and Harry. And then there was the Epilogue. Oh the Epilogue. It was always inevitably going to be awful so I just have one pressing question – why did the guys, especially Ron and Draco, look twenty years older than their wives?

As usual, Voldemort was a cringeworthy villain, Daniel Radcliffe’s acting was a little less wooden in parts but he’s still got the wrong perception of Harry as a somewhat awkward guy who has a permanent facial expression of indifference to the world, Gambon is not fit to be Dumbledore…

But as a Harry Potter film, it was great- Harry saying bye to Hermione and Ron broke me, the Resurrection Stone scene killed me.  The Rowena Ravenclaw scene surprisingly stands out in my memory, the part where the trio slide off the dragon into the water and Harry reads Voldemort’s mind was a beautiful sequence, the Malfoys leaving Hogwarts together was strangely thrilling to watch, Harry and Voldemort both sensing the destruction of the diadem Horcrux was heartwrenching… Alan Rickman, you were beyond outstanding. You managed to raise Snape’s death to a whole different level in my mind, conveying all the pain, love, shame, repressed truths that death unleashed from him, and if I could have, I would have stood and given you a standing ovation right then and there.

Final gifs to sum up my thoughts about this film?

but also

…. and so it only remains for me to say:

Mischief managed.

p.s. This neatly summarises my thoughts about the Room of Requirement/Malfoy scene:

[EDIT: This has been on repeat on my laptop-

Disclaimer: this post was not conceived to be a quality review. 

Weekend Madness

This weekend was a long one. A really good long one. Mainly, revolving around Harry Potter.

Trying to use his guitar to pick up a pair of frilly thrown-onto-the-stage knickers

Starting early, on Thursday, with the great Born Ruffians gig. I was expecting quite a mellow show, and it did have its really dreamily peaceful moments, but the band really got the crowd going – a crowd with many more rough fans than you’d expect of a band like Born Ruffians… a mosh pit (well, it’s a mosh pit by BR’s standards) actually started behind me! Let’s just say I feared for my earlobes, as I’d cleverly chosen to wear dangly earrings.

Luke LaLonde’s live vocals are spot on and brimming with enthusiasm, but in a way that makes you want to give him a massive hug. But nobody can top the enthusiasm of the bassist, who comes out with dance moves even Usher couldn’t beat. The drummer proves himself to be the father figure of the band, making sure the band gets the right amount of stage time when the techie guy seems to warn them that they’ve already played too long. He’s a bit like a teddy bear too..

‘Little Garçon’

‘Sole Brother’

Next- Harry Potter!

For those of you who didn’t know, I went to the World Premiere in London last week (it was appallingly disappointing, I won’t go into details. Oh well ok, since you asked – I ended up next to the red carpet that was reserved for the non-celebrities, after having waited 13 hours in the cold and rain. From where I stood, it looked more like an X Factor premiere than a Harry Potter one. I’m actually quite fine with that, since at the last premiere, I got autographs from JK Rowling, Emma Watson, Alan Rickman, so I am satisfied for life. Plus DanRad, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, David Yates did eventually come over to our loser red carpet for a bit.)

I always get really excited about the films in the lead-up to the release dates, but then I always retain a sense of scepticism and never know what to make of Harry Potter films straight after I’ve seen them. I always feel like I, a Harry Potter fan, have to be extremely harsh, but also should be empathetic towards the fact that film adaptations will always be shittier than the books.

I’ve never been one to get annoyed at things being left out of the films because I’ve resigned myself to the fact that films can’t contain all the details Harry Potter fans want them to. But this one really aggravated me cause it left out important plot points like (SPOILERS:) the Dursleys scene (ok, this isn’t a necessary  scene but I loved that chapter), the Taboo, Harry finding Lily’s letter, Lupin’s attempt to join the trio on their adventures, Harry and Hermione disguising themselves as Muggles and hiding underneath the Cloak on their visit to Godric’s Hollow, and Voldemort going to Godric’s Hollow… (END Spoilers)

I did really like the Tale of The Three Brothers animation, and quite liked the dance scene between Harry and Hermione. In fact I liked all of what they did with the relationship between Harry and Hermione, and Ron’s perception of it. Rupert Grint was excellent. While in the others you mostly saw funny, sweet, dopey Ron, this film allowed him to be really nasty, and he mastered that, as well as the later (comical) attempt to redeem himself, and to win over Hermione.

I’m seeing it again tonight, so I guess it’ll be a chance for me to form a proper judgement.

And according to my uni’s Harry Potter Society, I belong in Hufflepuff. Yeah. I’ve signed up for Quidditch though, that’ll be exciting.

xxxx