Not sure why but Don’t Let Me Down by The Beatles has been in my head all morning.
Category Archives: Music
My Top Songs of 2015
For some reason 2015 was for me the year of the female rocker. Every year, I try to listen to new music and not fall into the trap of listening to the same White Strip songs over and over again. (Not that they’re not good, but variety is the spice of life, or whatever.)
Anyhow, the top songs I enjoyed from 2015 turned out to be from female rockers, lead by Courtney Barnett. If you haven’t checked her shit out, I highly recommend it. Not each of these songs were released in 2015, but most were:
My Top Albums of 2014
It’s been an interesting year in music for me. So much great stuff tumbling out of Spotify, it’s been hard to keep up! (I did pull together mixes based on my favorite tracks from the spring, summer and fall.) With all of these great songs, there really haven’t been many albums that have kept my attention.
But the one that did were great! Here were my favorites:
Ex Hex – Rips
I love the meta description from their website: “Ex Hex is what your older brother’s friends listened to. It’s what your babysitters listened to.” My description (to my brother): the Ramones crossed with Sleater-Kinney. (His response, “isn’t that what Sleater-Kinney is?”)
St Vincent – St Vincent
As discussed before, it’s an electronic, rock, vocal mix of songs that really catch me.
Spoon – They Want My Soul
Great album from one of the all time great bands. If you haven’t read the New York Times Magazine article on them, I suggest you check it out.
Todd Terje – It’s Album Time
Loungy (loungey?), moody and strange. Caused my assistant to come into my office and say “what is that you’re playing.” But captivating at the same time.
Real Estate – Atlas
These ‘surf rock’ dudes fill an important ecological niche in my household: great sounding music that isn’t too ‘hard’ for the kids and Veronica. Managed to push Jack Johnson off the radio.
I took a quick gander at Metacritic and it seems that some top albums are represented on their Best of 2014 list: St Vincent was #2 and Ex Hex was #18. Well, at least I didn’t like A.K.A. by Jennifer Lopez, their lowest rated album of the year!
Fall 2014 Mix
Winter is coming. But let’s enjoy fall with my mix on Spotify in the meanwhile.
I don’t think I ever got around to putting up a blog post about my Summer 2014 Mix of new music, but here’s what’s on the heavy rotation thus far this Fall:
The beauty of Spotify — besides being a Taylor Swift free zone is that the playlist will change as I update the mix.
Lyric from Prince Johnny by St. Vincent
What great lyrics. Here’s a sample:
Remember the time we went and snorted
That piece of the Berlin Wall that you’d extorted
And we had such a laugh of it
Prostrate on my carpet
Spring Mix 2014 Style
Neon Trees, one of the bands featured on my Spring 2014 Mix
Spring of 2014 has been a great one for new music. Past favorites like Beck, The Black Keys, Ray Montagne and The Roots all released new albums, and I discovered new to me favorites like Neon Trees, Cloud Nothings and The War On Drugs.
Most of all, Man Man’s 2013 song Head On [Hold On To Your Heart] was played over and over:
Anyhow, here is the mix of music I really enjoyed this spring, all just for you:
Oh, St Vincent!
For the past week or so, pretty much the only music I’ve been listening to can be heard on St Vincent’s new album, eponymously titled St Vincent.
It’s an electronic, rock, vocal mix of songs that really catch me. The song Birth in Reverse, is a bouncy dance track, littered with mini-guitar solos and electronic fuzz, and it’s about … well, who knows what:
Like a birth in reverse
What I saw through the blinds
You could say that I’m saying phenomenal lies
On the cosmic eternity party line
Was a birth in reverse in America
But it’s as catchy as hell.
For more about St Vincent, check out Sasha Frere-Jones’s piece in the New Yorker, or take a listen yourself:
Yes (the band), not as bad as I remembered
Reading my old journal from 2003 – 2005 this evening, and I came across an entry that commented on how bad the band Yes, was.
Thanks to Spotify, I could fire up Owner Of A Lonely Heart and Roundabout and take a fresh listen… and I was pleasantly surprised. I’m not going to “star” the songs on Spotify, but certainly better than I thought.
Welcome to Japan
The Strokes are stuck in my head again this morning, and mostly Welcome to Japan.
Key quote:
I didn’t want to notice
Didn’t know the gun was loaded
Didn’t really know this
What kind of asshole drives a Lotus?
Acoustic “Hey Ya!”
Wow. An acoustic and somewhat country version of OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” which is pretty good. Definitely worth a listen.
My Favorite Tracks of 2013
I can’t believe it’s late January, and I haven’t published this blog yet.
Anyhow, 2013 was a year of transition for me in the way that I consumed music. I guess you can say I went “all cloud” by basically only listening to Spotify and no longer buying MP3s from iTunes or Amazon.
Being liberated from buying and downloading music seemed to widen my taste and give me many — perhaps too many — options to chose from.
The full playlist can be found here, but here are some highlights:
Daft Punk – Lose Yourself to Dance and Get Lucky
Was this the year of Daft Punk or what? After being an underground or indie band for a long time, they broke out and then whamo, Get Lucky goes through the roof. These songs will always say “2013” to me.
More Pop and Dance Sounds
Perhaps this comes with having a broader palette available, or perhaps a sign of the time, but a whole bunch of pop and dance tracks jumped out at me this year:
I know Blurred Lines is so pop, but it’s also a great song. I’m totally sick of it by now, but hopefully it will sound good in 2015.
I’m not exactly how to categorize St. Lucia, except that Pitchfork called them “electro-pop”. All Eyes on You is a catch tune that has interesting lyrics unless you look too closely at them:
Know that I will take what I can
When you are there standing by
Soft, spoken in the dead of night
All eyes on you
But enjoyable none-the-less.
Alternative Rock and Indie
You know I’m not really sure what goes in what categories anymore, but in 2013 there were quite a few great tracks by bands who only use uppercase like CHVRCHES & MGMT
Some of my long-time favorites Of Montreal, The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand put out albums that while not changing the world, were worth listening to and featured some great song:
and then of course the was Lorde, who wrote and performed the shockingly great Royals:
Hope you like the songs, and let me know what your favorites of 2013 were.
Of Montreal’s lousy with sylvianbriar
If you haven’t listened to Of Montreal in a while, I don’t blame you. Their last few albums had some good tracks like Feminine Effects and and, well, hmmm, but were basically unlistenable.
Anyhow, Kevin Barnes must have read my texts because in this new album, he actually writes songs that have a structure that’s pleasing to the ear. The new album is filled with songs that are filled with his typical dense lyrics about who knows what exactly
From Obsidian Currents:
There is a virus in your tenets / Don’t be naive, you know it’s true / And if you don’t protect yourself / Obsidian currents / Will devour you
But it’s catchy, interesting and a fun album. Worth a listen to.
Pitchfork rated lousy with sylvianbriar a 7.4 (out of 10), quite a step up from their previous reviews of 5.8 and 4.6 for Daughter of Cloud and Paralytic Stalks.
