taste my kids

dead whitney

2012-02-13T02:58:00.001-05:00

EARL IS FUCKING HOME

2012-02-10T04:06:00.001-05:00

http://terttlefer.com/ !!!!!!!!!!!!!@@@!@!

!@@@!!!!!!!!@!!!!!!@@!21@1

"Stupid Hoe"

2012-02-05T03:22:00.003-05:00

In honor of the only charting song to specifically mention the 2012 Super Bowl, we felt it was only necessary to post this... It's an intensely creepy video and probably the most polarizing song that's currently on the radio. People fucking HATE this song...

We think it's the best song of the year so far... We don't plan on watching 4 hours of football and commercials at any point today, but it's looking like she's supposed to sing this song at some point during the broadcast. For the sake of her fan-base, it would probably be in her best interest to choose the boring/safe "Super Bass" as her song selection instead of "Stupid Hoe." Either way, Nicki has finally won us over.....

P.S. We just checked Billboard stats out of curiosity, and it turns out that this song is barely charting... While it's currently appearing on 5 Billboard charts, it's below #50 on 4 out of those 5. WEAK. Average people don't like exciting music. It's official. Although, perhaps we're in a slightly better direction than we were in 12 years ago when Outkast's "B.O.B." failed to chart on the Hot 100 and only reached #69 on the urban chart...

"OG Simpson"

2012-02-05T01:58:00.003-05:00

In honor of Super Bowl Sunday, we'd like to post our alltime favorite song about football...

We remember enjoying Moistboyz back when we were in our "complete-ist Ween discography / must collect every Ween thing ever" phase, which was prolly around late-1998.... At the time, there were only two Moistboyz LP's...

However, throughout all of their releases, the only one of their songs that ever stood out to us as memorable is the non-album A-side "OG Simpson," mostly thanks to Dean Ween's sick guitar-riff and Dickey Moist's admittedly brilliant lyrics (which we're almost ashamed to label as such)... A few of us still have the words completely memorized... Looks like this is the only copy of this song on the entire internet as of this moment, complete with OJ rants, although the original rant is still the A+ version: "Mickey, I can't believe this BULLSHIT they doin' to OG, my man OG, they used to call him The Juice! He was runnin' down the sideline man.. He was a Moistboy one-hundred percent! He had the 411!" (Warning: This guy says "the n-word," but it's punk rock, so we can forgive them...)

David Lynch commercials

2012-02-04T14:29:00.003-05:00

Still searching for more excuses to use the "David Lynch" tag... http://www.openculture.com/2012/02/david_lynchs_surreal_commercials.html

Here's a good Playstation commercial he did a few years back...

don't do it Ringo!!

2012-02-04T00:33:00.002-05:00

question everything

2012-02-03T02:29:00.009-05:00

We love Adbusters. http://www.adbusters.org

It contains probably the best photo-journalism out of any magazine we've ever seen, and their articles are always articulate and concise, and usually left-leaning. Despite their political stance, it's obviously put together by some really smart people who seem to be pushing the boundaries of what to expect from a print-magazine. Last summer, I was happy to find a book-bound journal compiling their collection going back from the past few years.

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/99/cleaning-toxic-areas-our-mental-environment.html A December 28th 2011 article points out progress made in lawmaking regarding the regulation of advertising, which we're all for, although a few of these points seem pretty fucking ridiculous....

McDonald’s Happy Meal toys are outlawed in San Francisco, killing the top-selling Happy Meal promotion in the city. City Council ruled the toys unfairly manipulate children into purchasing unhealthy and obesity-causing foods.

Sounds like a good idea, until you realize that children aren't the ones "purchasing" Happy Meals... Parents have the right to feed their child any delicious foods they see fit for their kids, regardless as to who's giving away free toys. If I saw commercials for McDonalds giving away free toys as a child and my mother never took me there, I wouldn't have known the difference. Good parenting is always a stronger influence than advertising.

SpongeBob SquarePants is proven to make your child dumb and agitated. An American study shows that “children who watched nine minutes of the show scored significantly worse on assessments designed to measure memory and self control than children who watched a slower paced cartoon or kids who spent nine minutes drawing.” The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has launched a campaign to stop Nickelodeon marketing the cartoon to children under six.

Seriously fucking absurd... Say what you want about Spongebob, but it's still one of the most creative kids shows on television. (Remember Teletubbies? A tediously slow-paced kids show with basically no educational value whatsoever, and even that was on fucking PBS. I'd argue that show did FAR more damage than Spongebob ever did.) Parents have the ability to sit down with their children with flashcards and play memory games, and watching 9-minutes of a silly cartoon isn't going to simply ERASE that experience. I don't know enough about child-psychology to know how much influence a TV show might have on "self control" but once again, I'd be willing to bet in 99% of cases, good parenting is always a stronger influence.

Alcohol advertisers have been targeted in the campaign to combat fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in South Africa. SA is proposing a total ban on liquor advertising across the country as five percent of the school-age population is now listed as having alcohol-induced birth disorders.

This has a million times more to do with education than advertising!!! We're not convinced.

almost Friday

2012-02-02T22:29:00.002-05:00

While we wait around for Friday Friday, here's some sick vids...

Shit Eating Porn Starring Zooey D

2012-02-02T02:31:00.001-05:00

Japandroids update

2012-01-30T16:37:00.000-05:00

from 4 minutes ago...

HEY GANG // BRIAN HERE // JUST DELETED OUR MYSPACE PAGE // I'M GOING TO TRY AND KEEP THIS FACEBOOK PAGE MORE UP-TO-DATE // 2012 IS GOING TO BE CRAZY/FOREVER // X

HEY GANG // BRIAN HERE (AGAIN) // I FORGOT TO MENTION WE'VE FINALLY RECORDED ENOUGH SONGS FOR A NEW RECORD // I'M LITERALLY FINISHING OFF THE ARTWORK FOR IT RIGHT NOW // DETAILS SOON // X

"Hank Is Dead"

2012-01-30T16:19:00.001-05:00

Awesome new video!

HOT GIFS

2012-01-23T03:00:00.004-05:00

We finally found more excuses to use the "Gifs" tag.

Start your week with the right attitude.

T.Scene Newsletter: Jan 2012

2012-01-23T01:03:00.014-05:00

We haven't written as much about "t.scene" in a while, probably because the term has lost some specificity in the past few years... We used to sporadically post T.Scene news on the Geocities version of this web journal.

But we'd like to bring it back officially as of this post, partially because we're self-absorbed and we like to write about our bands and our friends' bands, but mostly because T.Scene has unexpectedly become VERY active of the past few months, which has been sparking our interests.

So this will be the first post in what hopefully becomes a monthly feature that we're titling "T.SCENE NEWSLETTER" (in conjunction with T.Scene releases), a new feature-ette with news & info on unsigned bands who we just happen to be friends with. It will mostly include straight-up news and not as much sarcasm. And we'll BOLD certain words to make it look more official.

Our top story at this hour is the "8TH ANNUAL BERFEST," coming next weekend to Brooklyn, Boston and Danbury. Its curators set up a badass lil website listing all the bands and venues: http://www.berfest.com. The roster includes artists who appeared in Hot Mix 2011 (i.e. GRASS IS GREEN) and a few who appeared on our T.Scene comps (i.e. HOVERAL).

The second night of Berfest is surely Boston's hottest ticket for this coming Saturday (we're not joking about that). But it also (sadly) will include a "farewell" set from OVLOV, who last week announced "indefinite hiatus." Also prior to officially calling it quits, they unleashed one last EP onto Bandcamp comprised of two unreleased studio tracks that were frequently performed in their live sets...

Here's the hot new posthumous Ovlov...
Not the Same Without You by Ovlov

"Chicken Coop" was one of their first songs from 2008, while "Small Voices" started appearing in sets as early as February 2010. In case anyone's starving for other non-released Ovlov tracks, Youtube has live performances of "Gargamel" and "Car Commercial" as well as covers of Fountains Of Wayne's "Sink To The Bottom" and Nirvana's "Been A Son."

Day 3 of Berfest should prove exciting as well, with planned reunion-sets from HOME MOVIES (who have performed sporadically since 2008) as well as a reunion from HOVERAL, marking their first live-set since February 2003...

T.Scene has been planning on hosting a Hoveral compilation at some point, and there's a good chance it's coming in 2012... Get ready for that. In the meantime, Bernie's official demos collection is still available (as long as Mediafire doesn't get raided by the feds). ("Bernie [demos]" is essentially "Hoveral's early demos" prior to their switch from a 4-piece to a 3-piece, and their name-change, in the fall of 2000.)

Along with Ovlov's recent split-up news (as well as similar split-news from T.Scene fav's QUILTY and CASIOROSSI), Northampton's GRAPH played their final two shows last weekend in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, but not before unleashing one final EP for the kids, happily titled "EP 3," which rules since it appears to actually be their 5th EP (unless we're missing something)...

Here's the hot new posthumous Graph...
EP 3 by Graph

In happier news, a new addition has arrived to the T.Scene family in the form of SPEEDY ORTIZ (currently including former members of Quilty, Graph and Ovlov). Now a 4-piece band, their first ever set as a 2-piece from November 2011 was recently uploaded to Shea Stadium's blog. We posted a link to the set back on December 30th. We hope to post copious show announcements from these guys in future T.Scene Newsletters, but for more frequent updates we recommend liking them on Facebook.

THE SMOOTH HANDS have joined forces once again, lovingly embracing for the first time since god-knows-how-long-ago (probably 3-4 years) for a Christmas EP. It's obviously no longer Christmastime, but The Gift Horse will surely be treasured by every young child with sparkling eyes for future Decembers...
The Gift Horse by The Smooth Hands

In celebration of the new release, they've also uploaded their gorgeous 2005 LP I Love You So Much onto Bandcamp: http://thesmoothhands.bandcamp.com/album/i-love-you-so-much. All joking aside, this is probably the magnum opus of the entire T.Scene catalog... Like "top albums of the 2000's" kinda shit. But don't tell them we said that. (R.I.Y.L. Daniel Johnston, Guided By Voices, songs about relationships, porn). At some point in 2012, T.Scene also plans to release a live LP from The Smooth Hands taken from a set in 2007. The package (hopefully) will also include a bonus live set from their one-time-only collaborative performance with TATER NO! (one of those bands where all the songs were about cats).

Coming in February (if all goes well) we just might have some info on LOWT IDE's long-awaited 5th LP Tag Sale (in the works since late-2009), as well as news on DEAD WIVES' forthcoming live EP.

That's it for this hour... Once again, we'd love to make this a monthly feature, and we hope none of our friends hate us too much for writing about their bands. WORD UP.

5 Seconds of Every #1 Billboard Hot 100 Hit From 1993-2011

2012-01-11T19:49:00.002-05:00

Not complaining, just observing... But you can totally tell which songs AnthonyDC has heard before and which ones he didn't recognize... Fun game, count how many you don't recognize, the one with the lowest number wins...

5 Seconds of Every #1 Billboard Hot 100 Hit From 1993-2011 by AnthonyDC

Old Fangs

2012-01-11T03:22:00.001-05:00

SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKE.

Please Say Something

2012-01-11T03:19:00.002-05:00

The soundtrack on its own is basically unlistenable, but this is still one of the best shorts we've seen yet...

Xemoland

2012-01-11T03:14:00.002-05:00

Word... This is the short with The Swirlies. The 90's nostalgia was a big part of why we dug this one, honestly, but it's also a funny story...

Tord Och Tord

2012-01-11T03:08:00.002-05:00

Looking for excuses to use the "animation" tag.... We don't have any Sundance 2012 coverage, so instead we'll just post clips from some of the animation shorts we saw over the past 3 years.... There was this one where they used The Swirlies in the soundtrack that we're specifically searching for, but in the meantime here are some other fun clips...

Tord och Tord Trailer from Niki Lindroth von Bahr on Vimeo.

Hot Mix 2011 (Big List)

2012-01-10T23:28:00.006-05:00

Skip the lame blurbs. Check the big list. "Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

100 LMFAO "Sexy And I Know It"
99 Crash Of Rhinos "Closure"
98 Earl Sweatshirt "Dat Ass"
97 Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera "Moves Like Jagger" / Maroon 5 "Never Gonna Leave This Bed"
96 Radiohead "Bloom"
95 Big Talk "Getaways"
94 Pill "Ridin' On Dat Pole"
93 The Horrors "Endless Blue"
92 Wild Flag "Electric Band"
91 Slices "Modern Bride"

90 Fucked Up "A Little Death"
89 Milk Music "No Life"
88 The Cars "Sad Song"
87 Cave "W U J"
86 Ke$ha "Blow"
85 Kreaayshawn "Gucci Gucci"
84 Radiohead "Separator"
83 Toro Y Moi "Still Sound"
82 Jonny "Candyfloss"
81 The Strokes "Under Cover Of Darkness"

80 Pusha T featuring Tyler The Creator "Trouble On My Mind"
79 Ringo Deathstarr "Day Dreamy"
78 Dope Body "Enemy Outta Me"
77 Chris Brown "She Ain't You"
76 Bombay Bicycle Club "Bad Timing"
75 Adele "Someone Like You"
74 Yuck "Rubber"
73 Avril Lavigne "What The Hell"
72 Rebecca Black "Friday" / Pharrell "Fun Fun Fun"
71 Iceage "Broken Bone"

70 Broken Water "Normal Never Happened"
69 Frank Ocean "Thinking About You"
68 Kavinsky "Nightcall"
67 Panda Bear "Slow Motion"
66 Metronomy "She Wants"
65 The Weeknd "High For This"
64 Smith Westerns "Only One"
63 Diehard "Barflies"
62 Meek Mill featuring Rick Ross "Ima Boss"
61 Beyonce featuring Kanye West & Andre 3000 "Party"

60 Grass Is Green "Tongue In Cheek"
59 Radiohead "Little By Little" / "The Daily Mail"
58 Wilco "I Might"
57 Jay-Z & Kanye West "That's My Bitch"
56 Katy B "Movement"
55 Curren$y "She Don't Want A Man"
54 Pet Milk "Phantom Lovers"
53 Rob Crow "Prepare To Be Mined"
52 Jill Scott featuring Anthony Hamilton "So In Love"
51 Rival Schools "Choose Your Adventure"

50 Gotye "Easy Way Out"
49 Passenger Peru "Your Hunger"
48 Real Estate "It's Real"
47 Jamaica "Short and Entertaining"
46 Milk Music "Beyond Living"
45 Foo Fighters "Rope"
44 M83 "Midnight City" / Neon Indian "Fallout" / Hooray For Earth "No Love"
43 The Drums "Days"
42 Fabolous "You Be Killin' Em"
41 Ringo Deathstarr "Other Things"

40 Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi featuring Jack White “Two Against One"
39 Tyler The Creator featuring Frank Ocean "She"
38 Action Bronson "Get Off My P.P." / "Albino Gorilla"
37 Bon Iver "Perth"
36 Neon Indian "Polish Girl"
35 Metronomy "The Look"
34 LMFAO "Party Rock Anthem"
33 Drake "Marvins Room"
32 Frank Ocean "Songs For Women"
31 Nas "Nasty"

30 Rival Schools "Shot After Shot"
29 A$AP Rocky "Peso"
28 Jay-Z & Kanye West "Why I Love You"
27 Foster The People "Pumped Up Kicks"
26 Mr. Dream "Trash Hit"
25 Yuck "Holing Out"
24 Big Sean featuring Nicki Minaj "Dance (A$$) (Remix)"
23 The Drums "Book of Revelation"
22 Guided By Voices "The Unsinkable Fats Domino"
21 Frank Ocean "Novacane" / Jay-Z & Kanye West featuring Frank Ocean "No Church In The Wild"

20 The Horrors "Still Life"
19 Broken Water "Heart Strings"
18 Yuck "The Wall"
17 Smith Westerns "Weekend"
16 Frank Ocean "Swim Good"
15 Fucked Up "The Other Shoe"
14 Azealia Banks "212" / "Liquorice"
13 Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats "I'm Here To Kill You" / "13 Candles"
12 Tyler The Creator "Yonkers"
11 Merchandise "Kill The Light"

10 The Drums "Money"
09 Lil Wayne featuring Rick Ross "John"
08 Neon Indian "Hex Girlfriend"
07 Ringo Deathstarr "Do It Every Time" / "So High"
06 The Go! Team "Buy Nothing Day"
05 Katy Perry "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"
04 The Weeknd "Wicked Games"
03 Yuck "Get Away"
02 Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats "Ritual Knife"
01 Jay-Z & Kanye West "N***** in Paris"

Hot Mix 2011: #10 to 1

2012-01-10T16:30:00.025-05:00

"Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

10 The Drums “Money”
The “economic climate” theme overshadows a less obvious one about separation, or a blockage from expressing affection. Obstacles get in the way, and “there’s nothing to be done.” Obstruction. #UNFAIR The Drums said “Money” was inspired by the basslines in The Wig, who they called “The poor man’s New Order.” Also, “I want to buy you something, but I don’t have any money” is our new favorite horrible pickup line since “You must work for UPS, because I swore I saw you checking out my package.”

09 Lil Wayne featuring Rick Ross “John”
More like an apocalyptic/Halloween song to us, as opposed to "Getting pumped before the big boxing match" music. "John" is a Rick Ross song (originally titled "I'm Not A Star") with vocals added by Lil Wayne, which we feel was a huge improvement from the original. We assumed a Roman-numeral appeared towards the end - “YMCMB Double M / We rich forever” - as another faux-illuminati shoutout, but turns out that it stands for "Young Money Cash Money Billionaires” and the “double M” is “Maybach Music” which is way less exciting than we'd hope for, but either way it's fun as fuck for screaming along while blasting in the car.

Also, congrats to Lil Wayne, Drake and Nicki Minaj for being the most active participants in our least favorite rap trend of the year, removing the word "like" from metaphors, which Kanye West has defended by labeling it "hashtag rap." Here are our picks for the most infuriating offenders:

"Have it your way: BURGER KING"

"Tools on deck nigga: HOME DEPOT"

"Ima hang you out to dry: TOWEL RACK"

"I like to keep my drinks real cold: FREEZER"

"She wax it all off: MISTER MIYAGI"

"Here's another hit: BARRY BONDS"

"I still turn heads: POLTERGEIST" (wrong movie asshole)

"I keep her runnin' back and forth: SOCCER TEAM"

"I lay 'em down: TEMPURPEDIC"

"She's all over my skin: LOTION"

"I got her: GROCERY BAG!" (Actually this one is good because it makes no sense.)

08 Neon Indian “Hex Girlfriend”
Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space... Staring into the stars & making out forever... The Cure’s influence on Neon Indian doesn’t get enough credit as one of the main reasons his appeal has been so widespread, with “Hex Girlfriend” as probably his trippiest moment yet.

07 Ringo Deathstarr “Do It Every Time” / So High”
The droning, distortion and delay borrowed by RDS wouldn’t mean much to anyone if they didn’t have awesome songs to back up their ambitions. Normally we break ties within the top 10, but the start of this album is so strong that it’s just about impossible to break apart tracks 2 and 3, surely among the best shoegaze since Loveless. P.S. We had no idea super-cute-bass-chick (turns out her name is Alex) looked like that under her fashion-dresses, but we fully support more topless photo shoots in 2012. Go team Ringo.

06 The Go! Team “Buy Nothing Day”
The lost Phil Spector epic of 1964, although 60’s pop hits normally weren’t as fragmented as “Buy Nothing Day,” which goes through individual A, B, C and D sections as opposed to a verse/chorus format. (The solo section includes additional mini-hooks that don’t appear elsewhere in the song.) The singer from Best Coast was a great choice for this; although we find her boring while singing her own songs, her innocent “untrained” aura completely syncs. Mom would like this song. P.S. Adbusters article about 2011's actual Buy Nothing Day.

05 Katy Perry “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”

We’d like to know how The Strokes and Phoenix feel about “Last Friday Night,” since this is probably the most money their sound will ever earn from a radio single. The use of “epic fail” initially hurt our eardrums, but it’s strangely morphed into our favorite timestamp of the year. (Once upon a time, Paul Simon wrote a song about feeling groovy, which probably sounded equally stupid in 1965.) Rhyming with “ginger ale” didn’t make sense at first either, but then about 6 months later it dawned on us that it’s commonly used to help with upset stomachs. #hangoverpart2 Congrats to the marketing genius who realized this had “summer jam” written all over it and put a hold on sending it to radio until May 2011, nearly a full year after Teenage Dream’s release date.

04 The Weeknd “Wicked Games”
Nasty, organic raunch... “Motherfucking” is used just often enough in the lyrics that they essentially translate to straight-up dirty sex-talk, complying with ultra-porno production. But “Wicked Games” isn’t simply throbbing boners pounding juicy vag... It’s the darkest sexual encounter of your life. The ultimate sin. In a year with an unprecedented plentiful abundance of ultra-darkness in our pop music, The Weeknd achieved the absolute blackest.

03 Yuck “Get Away”
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, we disagree with Yuck’s “90’s-retro” tag, which was invented by rock-journos and was never confirmed by the band themselves beyond their list of influences, which just happens to include Yo La Tengo and Dinosaur Jr. But we do agree with the reviewers who reacted to its youthfulness: They sound like they've just discovered that loud guitars can help mend a broken heart; throw on "Get Away", and you're back in high school, headphones on in study hall, pissed at the world, breaking pencils as you use your desk for a drum. (source) Now it all makes sense... It doesn’t “sound 90’s” nearly as much as it “sounds like high school,” but these reviewers all went to high school in the 90’s, so they can’t tell the difference. Case closed.

02 Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats “Ritual Knife”
"Rise up from black smoke / Eyes ablaze with fire." Official “Best band / Worst bandname” combination of 2011... Blending all the loudest and best elements from “Helter Skelter,” the self-titled Black Sabbath album, Abbey Road and Hendrix should have been a more obvious combination by now, except “Ritual Knife” is a case where someone finally figured out how to do it correctly. Enough of these angry old people sitting around pissed off because “nobody knows how to rock anymore.” These people need to experience psychedelic-doom. We’re very interested in J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph’s opinions on Uncle Acid.

01 Jay-Z & Kanye West “N***** in Paris”
We’ve had a year to digest My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and it still sounds labored, containing great songs that mostly suffered due to bloated song-lengths and over-production. Nearly every track contained “intro” and “outro” sections, with layers that built upon each other as the songs progressed, falling in line with the most heralded LP’s of the past five years: it “sounds good,” but it’s just not fun. Ultimately, it’s the only Kanye LP that we have no desire to ever actually listen to.

And we’re probably among the minority (the 1%?) by stating with pride that Watch The Throne is a huge improvement, but facts are facts: Hiphop is always best when it’s spontaneous, playful, and raw. And it’s not like Kanye had to sacrifice brilliant production in order to put together a spontaneous-sounding LP. The complexities are still intact, but far more subtle, and thus, easier for everyone to appreciate, as opposed to removing all subtlety and shoving the complexities in everyone’s faces. “Because I am a genius, I have ascertained that fish have gills!”

This is why “N-Words In Paris” (lul) is still getting played on rap stations every 30 minutes or so, and it still sounds amazing every fucking time. The masses have spoken. We’re having trouble remembering any verses from MBDTF, while “Paris” is probably the first single since “It Was A Good Day” that a shit-ton of people entirely memorized without trying. Not every line is classic, but about 89% of them are. Jay-Z’s verse is probably his best since “Roc Boys,” while Kanye’s is shockingly the better of the two. #CRAY #GoinGorillaz #SufferinFromRealness #FishFilet #DrugsMyDilla #MaryKateAndAshley Fuck, this might actually be his best verse, period. The production matches the tightness of the lyrics, including the slow backwards-piano chord that comes out of nowhere a few seconds before the enormous slow-dubstep coda. And of course the Will Ferrell samples included to justify the entire world of “brilliantly dumb hiphop lyrics” in less than 5 seconds, including “that shit cray.” It gets the people goin’...

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

Hot Mix 2011: #20 to 11

2012-01-09T14:53:00.012-05:00

"Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

20 The Horrors “Still Life”
We previously brushed these guys aside as more of a novelty band. But their 2011 transformation from punk-goth to psychedelic-goth seems like one of those career-defining decisions, along the lines of "Radiohead gets more depressed." The backwards guitars and horn section in “Still Life” suggest nothing short of a perfect marriage between Joy Division and Magical Mystery Tour.

19 Broken Water “Heart Strings”
One of our brightest “bands to watch” suggestions for 2012... Half-Sonic Youth, half-MBV, with various injections of punk and 60's garage to match the band’s personal specifications. It’s not exactly “cheering up” music, but 2011 was just that kind of year...
Heart Strings by Broken Water

18 Yuck “The Wall”
Once again, Yuck sounds like a non-90’s band on “The Wall” - in this case, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The song presents a paradox, becoming increasingly complex in its simplicity, churning in the same 4 or 5 lines of lyric sung over and over... This all comes to a head within the last minute or so, with the vocal “screams" suggesting desperation that cuts even deeper, possibly the true "key" to this song.

17 Smith Westerns “Weekend”
Distorted guitars... And yet Smith Westerns don’t receive a “90’s-retro” tag. Tyler The Creator threw "Weekend" on a summer mixtape from last July, which was thoughtful of him. But from where we stand, “Weekend” sounds just as good at any time throughout the year. It sounds like the type of song that would show up at the conclusion of a "feel good" movie just as the narrator says "So everything worked out. Everything was gonna be a-ok." And then it fades to black, and this song continues playing over the credits.

16 Frank Ocean “Swim Good”
“I’m about to drive in the ocean / I’m about to swim from something bigger than me.” It’s hard to ignore the use of “Ocean...” Self-exploration? Escape from pain? We’re thinking this might be another drug song like “Novacane,” but if so, it’s more ambiguous and shoots way deeper and darker...

15 Fucked Up “The Other Shoe”
“Dying on the inside / Dying on the inside / Dying on the inside / Dying on the inside / Dying on the inside / Dying on the inside” over a seemingly endless pummeling of (dare we say “epic”) chord-changes. With a few years hindsight, the great sprawling double-LP’s of this era - such as The Suburbs and David Comes To Life - will be embraced among rock historians just the same as The River and London Calling. In the meantime, songs like “The Other Shoe” are Fucked Up’s answer to a pop single. 2012 totally needs more songs like this.

14 Azealia Banks “212” / “Liquorice”
Favorite song of 2011 with the c-word (12 times by our count). Crush of the year. All her strengths in under 3:30. With so many hugely memorable hooks, who needs a chorus? You couldn’t ask for a better introductory single. Her new kickass jam “Liquorice” leaked 2 weeks ago, just before year’s end. It’s too good to not include it here, although 90% of this placement is all about our love of “212.”

13 Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats “I’m Here To Kill You” / “13 Candles”
Side B of Blood Lust contains crazy-ass super powers. At the party, you don’t play Side B of Blood Lust towards the end of the night after everyone’s wasted as fuck. And it’s not “let’s get this party moving” music. Side B of Blood Lust is the secret weapon. You pull this shit out right in the fucking middle of the party, right when shit’s about to get REAL AS FUCK. Tony Iommi? J Mascis? They would love this album just as much as every old dude who’s stuck in 1985 or earlier, longing for the days when rock music kicked serious ass. Sadly, none of these people will ever hear the best psychedelic pop-metal album of the last 20 years, and we hope to be proven wrong on that prediction...

12 Tyler The Creator “Yonkers”
Dank, squirming, gruesome production... The music morphs over the stagnant drum beat like Gregor Samsa morphing into an insect. Tyler gets to yell about his obsession with Adventure Time and cinnamon, and he indulges more into his Eminem obsessions by going off about his deadbeat dad (no one cares... maybe he should rap about Earl instead), as well as the first of his many empty (yet poignant) threats to Bruno Mars. Anything but derivative.

11 Merchandise “Kill The Light"
Our most anticipated LP of the moment is probably the next release from the dark, noisy and 80’s-goth sounds of Merchandise. They posted an unheard 2008 demo on their blog a few weeks ago. With such a fat bassline, this is probably the most Cure-sounding thing they’ve done yet, which got our attention VERY quickly.

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at.the.drive.in reunion rumors

2012-01-09T14:39:00.003-05:00

Big news from unreliable sources, but if either of these sketchy-ass links are worth anything...

http://www.altpress.com/news/entry/breaking_news_at_the_drive_in_to_reunite

http://atdimusic.com/

New Post: New Music "New Clothes, New Shoes"

2012-01-09T14:33:00.003-05:00

More news about Pill from RapFix.Mtv.Com:

Two weeks ago the Atlanta MC hopped on Twitter and expressed his frustration with his label. Many believed that Pill’s tweets were aimed at Rick Ross and his Warner Bros. distributed-label, Maybach Music Group, but that isn’t exactly the case. Pill revealed to MTV News that he was never technically signed to MMG even though he was featured heavily on MMG’s Self Made Vol. 1. The rapper’s contract he says was directly with Warner. "I never signed any paperwork with Ross. It was just my deal was over at Warner already," Pill revealed to MTV News Tuesday.

So the full-length that we've been endlessly waiting on is due to legal/record label issues? LAME. He hasn't even released one LP yet. Save the drama for yo mama.

On the positive-side of things, a new Pill mixtape called The Epidemic is scheduled for release very soon.

In the meantime here's Pill's new video, showing the lonelier and more paranoid aspects of hustling:

Pill - New Clothes, New Shoes (Official Video) from PIDoubleL on Vimeo.

Hot Mix 2011: #30 to 21

2012-01-07T15:01:00.021-05:00

"Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

30 Rival Schools “Shot After Shot”
Remember Jimmy Eat World? We assumed Rival Schools' comeback single was a forgotten track from the same era that produced albums like Clarity and Designing A Nervous Breakdown, but the band have confirmed that all 10 songs on 2011's Petals are recently written material. If they can tap into their old ways so effortlessly, this gives us hope that a Quicksand reunion would blow minds apart.

29 A$AP Rocky “Peso”
Slooow-burn. We appreciate the codeine-swag thing, but really this song is here because of the hypnotic beat. Lava-lamp psychedelia. Welcome back, New York hiphop. We missed you.

28 Jay-Z & Kanye West “Why I Love You”
We love love love the back-and-forth rhymes between Jay and Kanye, and the chorus is fun to scream/sing along. However, like many of 2011’s best songs, the major flaw was its coda. Neither weak nor unnecessarily elongated like the year’s worst culprits, the last 30 seconds of “Why I Love You” was still an awkward way to close Watch The Throne. It kinda sounds unfinished or leading up to an anticlimax...

27 Foster The People “Pumped Up Kicks”
#studlydudes #donjohnson #indierockdreamboats The band got its name because the lead singer’s name is Foster. (Gross.) The outro is about two minutes too long. Also, whistling is the anti-handclaps. (Handclaps are super-fun, which means whistling is anti-fun.) “Young Folks” could’ve been huge if Peter Bjorn & John looked like The Backstreet Boys. With that said, even though the vocal effect on the verses sounds like shit, we still love the first 2:30 of “Pumped Up Kicks” enough for it to place here: #1 The “hair’s on fire” part (totally underrated), #2 Awesome hazy keyboard lightly seeping into the intro section, and obviously #3 the earworm chorus. Apparently the lyrics are about going on a hipster killing spree, or something... But thanks to their marketing and promotion - suggesting anything but sincerity - they might as well be singing “Give me just one night, una noche” for all we care...

26 Mr Dream. “Trash Hit”
“Rock journalists are failed musicians.” We’ve been hearing that a lot lately. Mr. Dream are actually successful at both... 2 of the 3 band members have written for Pitchfork. “Trash Hit” and “Walter” are probably the two songs on their newest album that merit The Jesus Lizard comparisons. “Winners” even suggests some Big Black influence, although the last song on their album is way too similar to Shellac’s “A Prayer To God” to not raise suspicions. Either way, we’re happy that rock’s balls are finally growing back. Death to the glockenspiel. Praise Jesus.

25 Yuck “Holing Out”
We’ve begun taking offense to the “retro 90’s” tag because most rock-journos seem to use it with a scoffing undercurrent, quietly projecting negative connotations. Yuck’s songwriting and production are no more influenced by 90’s rock than a large majority of current widely-known indie-bands. It’s odd to us that the only ones singled out also play loud guitar chords...

“Holing Out” is the one song on Yuck’s self-titled where we stopped for a second and thought “Wait a sec, this one actually sounds 90’s.” The chorus modulation is our favorite part, straight-up Yo La Tengo/Dino Jr awesomeness. (By the way, YLT and Dinosaur have both been around since the 80’s and are still releasing music, so singling out their sound as 90’s just makes reviewers sound ignorant.)

24 Big Sean featuring Nicki Minaj “Dance (A$$) (Remix)”
#HotAssBeatClap #HAMMER! We haven’t heard a massive-beat/massive-lolz combo like this since Ying Yang Twins whispered “Wait’ll you see my dick.” We’re guessing Big Sean and his producer-bros were all “stoned off their ass” in the studio at 4AM when out of nowhere they just all started chanting “ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS,” cracking themselves up, clapping and headbanging, and started cracking up even more when they realized it had hit potential. That part when Nicki Minaj is like “Wakikiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii” is the real Nicki. She should stick to more stupid fun shit on her guest-spots instead of obnoxiousness like the uber-lame fake-British accent that kicks off My Beautiful Dark Twisted Bunghole. We never really enjoyed her before she freed herself from the “I’m trying way too hard” motif.

23 The Drums “Book of Revelation”
We assumed there was something deeper here than “another song about religion” but The Drums confirmed that it’s pretty much about aetheism. But how can we be sure? There’s no way to know?! Also The Drums are American. (LAME.) Regarding "The Book of Revelation" itself, it wouldn't have been 2011 if we didn't have at least 3 instances when "the end of the world" was supposed to happen. Too much excitement. Maybe 2012 will be boring. We can only hope...

22 Guided By Voices “The Unsinkable Fats Domino”
GBV are still drunk. Bass player bro ate shit on Letterman the other night, and the show producers were all like “we can make it look like that never happened” but instead the band was like “nah bro, leave it, that shit’s LMAO.”

21 Frank Ocean “Novacane” / Jay-Z & Kanye West featuring Frank Ocean "No Church In The Wild"
Odd Future always fronts. Tyler often raps about weed and coke, but he can’t touch the stuff due to medical conditions. Frank also fronts on “Novacane.” Songs about “pain” don’t score hits on hiphop stations as often, but “Novacane” might have been the beginning of a new trend where rappers and singers are preferring to discuss drug use itself as opposed to “we got pies flyin out da spot!” and “just bought a caddalick!”

It wouldn't surprise us if Kanye was directly influenced by "Novacane" when "No Church In The Wild" was getting put together, since the two are so similar in texture. The druggy/psychedelic guitar sample has a tendency to get stubbornly brainlodged.

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Hot Mix 2011: #40 to 31

2012-01-04T14:01:00.017-05:00

"Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

40 Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi featuring Jack White “Two Against One”
We were surprised to learn that Jack White actually had nothing to do with the songwriting on the Rome LP. He owned the vocal performance so hard that it was tough for us to tell the difference. It sucks that White Stripes called it quits this year, but if the past few years have been any indication, Jack should continue appearing in our “best of the year” as long as he keeps up with more badass collabs like this one.

39 Tyler The Creator featuring Frank Ocean “She”
2011 was the year the word “swag” lost its swag. We can all thank @fucktyler for that. "Swag" also superfluously appears in "She," possibly the creepiest and most sinister-sounding single of 2011. With a beat like a severely warped R. Kelly slow-jam, it sounds like eating out a chick while tripping on mescaline. Truly unique, much like its video. Tyler is without question his own biggest fan, proven by his Twitter account where he often posts his own lyrics, like “You So Mothafuckin Gorgeous” which partially assisted in reminding us of this song’s existence a month or so after GOBLIN’s release. From that point forward, the bizarre keyboard hooks were brain-lodged for at least a month. Say what you want about Odd Future, but they produce some of the most unexpectedly musical and well-structured hiphop in recent memory.

38 Action Bronson “Get Off My P.P.” / “Albino Gorilla”
Such an amazing year for hiphop... A year when a fat ginger dude seems lined up to be the next Ghostface Killah. And to help matters, the samples REALLY sound like RZA. We especially love the tambourine in “Get Off My P.P.” Underground is coming up from behind in a big way. We mentioned this often in last year’s list also, but it wouldn’t surprise us if the next underground revolution starts taking-over very soon. All we need is “The Nirvana of Hiphop” which we assumed was OFWGKTA, but over the past year they started to seem more like hiphop’s Fugazi. Either way, abundance of fresh talent gets us psyched. (We can't find "Albino Gorilla" streaming anywhere, but it's on the official Hot Mix 2011 Spotify playlist!)
Get Off My PP by Action Bronson

37 Bon Iver “Perth”
Except for “Perth,” the songs on Bon Iver’s 2011 album aren't particularly memorable after the first listen. However, we still haven’t shaken the memory of “sitting at the computer and crying” due to being completely unprepared, since no one told us this was the most emotionally-drenched LP since Sigur Ros’s "parenthesis" album. Apparently, people really love crying, because this dude got fuckin REAL paid in 2011. Great job Bon. You made everyone cry, and then you took their money. There’s a word for that... I believe that word is ASSHOLE.

36 Neon Indian “Polish Girl”
We’re not sure if it’s “Polish” like a girl from Poland, or if it’s “polish” like furniture-polish. Or maybe it’s intended to be mysteriously ambiguous. In either case, we love Neon Indian for being possibly the first artist to incorporate 8-bit Nintendo patches for something deeper than gimmickry. Subtle Nintendo noises effortlessly flow through some druggy shoegaze. Also we love tape-warp. MORE TAPE-WARP.

35 Metronomy “The Look”
We’re not sure if it’s “Metro-Nomy,” like when Wesley Willis used to sing “This band played at The Metro / About 3000 people were at the show / The jam session was awesome / The show was a knockout.” Or if it’s like “Metronome-y,” like when N*E*R*D used to sing “You were the heart I owned / the beat just like a metronome.” Shit... We’re running low on ideas here. “The Look” was another one of those songs like “Pumped Up Kicks” where the outro went on for too long, although we like the outro in this case, so whatever...

34 LMFAO “Party Rock Anthem”
Does he say “Led Zeppelin?” LMFAO wins because they wrote one of the most enormously gigantic choruses of the decade. It’s fucking so awkwardly massive that everyone was like, “great, now that we have this huge chorus, what do we do with it?” Simple enough answer: You party all over it, with the option of crazy dancing, preferably like LMFAO dances in their videos, although Andrew WK-esq headbanging is also acceptable.

33 Drake “Marvins Room”
Kavinsky, Frank Ocean, The Weeknd... Drake fell right in line, getting super-dark on his tribute to late-night drunk-dialing. Most of the song sounds like he might actually be exuding universal emotion, easy to relate for anyone who’s experienced “the one who got away.” But then at the very end, he adds “I’ve had sex four times this week, I’ll explain / Having a hard time adjusting to fame.” And it’s at that exact moment when “Marvins Room” becomes Drake’s Pinkerton, although Pinkerton’s lyrics were bizarre enough that many people didn’t initially realize Rivers Cuomo was writing about his own life, whereas Drake is more blunt and direct, and as a result, more annoying. (Compared to “Marvins Room,” Pinkerton is as cryptic as “Heart Shaped Box.”)

It may also go without saying that Drake is embarrassingly desperate to gain street cred. His “life” and the “problems” he sings about are pretty much all bullshit. No one should be proud to include him in their “best of the year.” We very much want to hate him, but we can’t deny this as one of the definitive songs of 2011. Maybe he’ll jump the shark next year. We can only hope.

32 Frank Ocean “Songs For Women”
“I couldn’t play guitar like Van Halen.” So instead, he steals your girlfriend singing like like Frank Ocean. “Songs For Women” was our introduction to Frank just prior to Nostalgia, Ultra getting posted as a free download. He was initially described to us as Odd Future’s answer to Drake, except Drake’s a fucking nerd who tries too hard, whereas Frank exudes copious coolness and charm. He can even make chicks laugh with his silly “la da dada daaaaa.” Elsewhere, we found that Frank is also a misunderstood rebel without a cause. But when he needs to lay it down for the ladies, you know it’s on. LIKE LA DA DADA DAAAAAAA

31 Nas “Nasty”
We wish Nas would drop singles like this more often. He hasn’t been this on-point since “Made You Look,” which was like, what, 9 years ago? Sick beat too. “The actress that played Faith Evans.” Also we can’t believe it took Nas this long to release a song called “Nasty.”

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Hot Mix 2011: #50 to 41

2012-01-04T01:38:00.021-05:00

"Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

50 Gotye “Easy Way Out”
This reminded us of “Freetime” by Kenna (keeping with the 2001-nostalgia). A reviewer on The Singles Jukebox - a song-review site compiled by too-cool-for-school pop-nerds - notes the appropriate sequencing on Gotye’s LP with “Easy Way Out” sounding like it ends about 2 minutes too early, signaling a relationship that's ended too soon and leading into the record’s most popular song, the indie-harp male-female-duet “Somebody That I Used To Know” which hit #1 in Australia earlier this year.

49 Passenger Peru “Your Hunger”
From the ashes of Pet Ghost Project comes Brooklyn’s Passenger Peru. We don’t know a lot about this band, but if the impressive half-LP on their Bandcamp.com page is any indication, they will be worth getting to know over the next year. (Our thanks goes out to Exploding In Sound for keeping us informed.)
your hunger by passenger peru

48 Real Estate “It’s Real”
Sometimes a song just “sounds” nostalgic even though it doesn’t evoke any specific memories or time-periods, such as Supertramp’s “Take The Long Way Home” or Washed Out’s “Feel It All Around.” “It’s Real” seems to be the same type of song, delivering pensive melancholy along with vague nostalgia. “Sometimes I feel that I don’t know the deal...” Yeah, same here...

47 Jamaica “Short and Entertaining”
Following in the path of bands like Phoenix and Tahiti 80, Jamaica are another distinctly French pop band who named themselves after a spot on the globe where it just happens to be hot all the time, with their production value placing emphasis on pristine clarity. Jamaica differs slightly in their stance toward incorporating distorted muddy guitar patches and hints of the same type of dissonance that wouldn’t be out of place on a Nirvana b-side.

46 Milk Music “Beyond Living”
Milk Music’s stock began to soar just slightly, after they unexpectedly received a profile on Pitchfork a few months back, so congrats to their promotion manager or whoever set that up. They totally deserve it, and we’d be incredibly happy if this lead to more awesome bands from Olympia receiving similar treatment in 2012. (Broken Water anyone?)

45 Foo Fighters “Rope”

Man, we’re so stoked man... The whole gang’s back together again. Well, except for that Sunny Day Real Estate drummer dude, but no one remembers him. The woop-de-doo Grammies and Rolling Stone really loved this album for some reason, even though “Rope” is its only awesome song, and probably their strongest single since “The Best Of You.” Which reminds us, we were unaware that "The Best Of You" was such popular meme topic... (We’re also happy to report back from our associates that Foo Fighters are still one of the best arena bands, and still opening live sets with “This Is A Call" as of November 2011!)

44 M83 “Midnight City” / Neon Indian “Fallout” / Hooray For Earth “No Love”
The universally beloved “Midnight City” sure is a doozy. Golly, what a humdinger. It has the same soft-loud structure as “Kim & Jessie” from 3 years ago which is also a great song that lots of people thought sounded 80’s when it actually didn’t. (Using 80's synths does not equal "authentic 80's.") And check out these sick stats: Pitchfork's #1 "track" of the year. PopMatters #1 best song of the year. Paste's #2 best song of the year! Yowza. While we thoroughly enjoy M83, we don’t really get why this is “song of the year” material as opposed to most other positively-reviewed chillwave singles like “Fallout,” or any recent chill-keyboard-indie like “No Love.” From where we stand, both are very strong singles, and just as good as “Midnight City.” (Kudos to SPIN's Charles Aaron who not only similarly tied the song at #12 with another chill-synth single, but was also somehow correctly able to identify the 80s-synth as a Korg.)

43 The Drums “Days”
“Days go by...” Isolated.. Singular bass-guitar notes carry about half of this song. Singalong chorus. Much later, we learned The Drums are not from Europe, and to make matters even more frustrating, we learned they’re American. Also they’re LP wasn’t exactly “solid,” while it did produce three of the year’s best singles, which very few bands can say. “Good sounding” albums without memorable songs aren’t worth as much to us as bands like The Drums who can get our attention with a handful of great singles.

42 Fabolous “You Be Killin’ Em”
#NICE. Among the hottest beats of the year... More 90’s beats plz. And it would’ve placed higher had it not been for “the shitty boring coda section,” another strange hiphop trend in 2011. #Shoe-icide. Also, weird video... The hot chick played by Kanye’s bald ex-girlfriend literally “kills” people (or something). P.S. “Bald chicks” is now officially the worst fashion trend in human history, and just FYI looks awful on approx 99.99999% of chicks. You used to be pretty; now you’re not. Awesome concept.

41 Ringo Deathstarr “Other Things”
When people hear bands like Yuck or Japandroids and say “hey these bands must be way into 90’s-nostalgia because the songs have loud guitars,” these same people should stop reviewing music because they clearly have a very bad memory about what music during the 90’s actually sounded like. Ringo Deathstarr remembers... They were there. (Well, the 2 dudes probably were. We’re pretty sure the super-adorable bass player chick is barely drinking age.) And they helped to prove 2 things: #1 Songwriting chops DO matter, since 90’s songwriting sounds different from most current songwriters. And more importantly, #2 if you’re actually gonna go for a “90’s” sound, production is key. With that said, “Other Things” is our favorite 90’s jam from 2011.

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2012

2012-01-03T23:39:00.004-05:00

Well we made it to the end of the world.

As of the start of 2012, we now have access to more "news" stories than ever.... With more people on planet Earth than there have ever been, combined with more quickly available news sources thanks to technology being as fast as it has ever been, the beginning of 2012 has more "news" than humankind has ever imagined.

Possibly as a result, the past week or two has revealed some of the most depressing news stories we've ever seen all at once... We'd rather not bum everyone out by posting these, but man... Major bummers.

We say this as a prelude to something slightly happier, our first song-post of 2012, Ringo Deathstarr's "Sailin' On," which is a tribute/fundraiser track in response to a friend of theirs from Texas who was killed over New Years... More bummer news, but at least the song kicks ass... Info on their fundraiser is available at soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/elliottfrazier/sailin-on
Sailin' On by ElliottFrazier

new years

2011-12-31T19:41:00.004-05:00

We were kidding earlier. This is our last post of 2011. For real this time.

Edit: Oh cool... Our last post of the year was a fail because we thought we could fix the embed to start at 21:32 which is the best part if you're drunk.

Hot Mix 2011: #60 to 51

2011-12-31T14:10:00.019-05:00

Looks like this will be our final post of 2011... It's been real. We got half of Hot Mix 2011 done this year. Top 50 will be posted next year. See you then! (We're in a rush, so yeah... minimal effort...)

"Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

60 Grass Is Green “Tongue In Cheek”
On Chibimoon, Grass Is Green continues banging out their specific brand of cathartic progressive-hardcore, carefully selecting more bizarre guitar patches, chords and rhythms seldom heard elsewhere (possibly all invented by the band themselves) making it sound like they've got some serious demons to battle. "Tongue In Cheek" is probably our favorite example from their 2011 material, although we're damn good and ready for GIG to take it a step further on Ronson, their forthcoming LP set for release early next year.
Tongue in Cheek by Grass is Green

59 Radiohead “Little By Little” / “The Daily Mail”
We fucked up last week by waiting until just now to check out Radiohead’s new single which has been out for 10 days or something.. So we haven't really given enough digestion time for either song. We’ve decided to impulsively include “The Daily Mail” after only discovering it a few hours ago (just to be on the safe side) for three reasons: #1 Cool song, #2 Shockingly discernible lyrics, and #3 It sounds like it could’ve been on Amnesiac. Perhaps this single was purposely released late in the year to suggest more traditional rock upon their next LP??

“Little By Little” is the one TKOL track that beckoned us throughout 2011 and a big reason why we ended up easing into the other seven songs. Like most people, we got into this record by “listening to the album” (weird concept, we know), as opposed to odd promo TV appearances like SNL or The Colbert Report - fun to watch for Radiohead fans, although we’re doubting it won them any new followers since the music is pretty much inaccessible to Joe Football Beer D-Bag.

58 Wilco “I Might”

Did Jeff Tweedy cheer up? “Art Of Almost” suggests “no,” while “I Might” suggests “maybe.” We preferred “maybe,” with it’s awesome fuzz bass and keyboard sounds. Wilco may have accidentally sunk into dad-rock territory, but their 2011 songs were anything but ordinary. An effort much appreciated.

57 Jay-Z & Kanye West “That’s My Bitch”
With its James Brown samples and Q-Tip’s production assistance, “That’s My Bitch” is the most accessible song from Watch The Throne, although not necessarily the most radio-friendly. Funk-beats (unfortunately) have no place on current hiphop stations (which is the exact reason why it SHOULD be a single... Another huge opportunity lost due to shit marketing...). Kanye gets to brag (what else is new) about enjoying life among the 1%: “I paid for them titties, get your own.” “My dick worth money.” Gross. No one wants to hear about your Kanye-wang. Keep it in your shorts next time.

P.S. Technically a 2010 song which fell under our radar WITH A GOOD EXCUSE: It leaked 11/22/10, the same day as MBDTF’s release date. (The album version sounds better anyway.)

56 Katy B “Movement”
We gave Katy B’s On A Mission a shot for being a "critics favorite." “Movement” won us over pretty quickly since it's the one that sounded most like Kylie Minogue (and because we LOVE handclaps). It's definitely a solid full-length thanks to super-slick production and Katy's knack for vocal hooks, although we disagree with it's tag as a “dubstep” record. More like "2-step," a genre we haven't heard nearly as much since the early-2000’s.

55 Curren$y “She Don’t Want A Man”
More super-dark-sounding hiphop... Love love love. We’re lost for a decent critique this time around (unless we discuss the hot chick in the video which would be cheap), so instead we’d like to say how happy it’s made us that Beavis And Butthead called 3Oh!3 “asswipes.” God, it’s about time they really ripped on someone, and if anyone deserved it, it’s 3Oh!3. In a way, this is the moment of B&B’s return that we’ve truly been waiting for... Back to Curren$y, we're not sure if Weekend at Burnie's or whatever it's called was a mixtape or an official release... It kind of doesn't matter, we're just filling space so the picture fits n stuff..

54 Pet Milk “Phantom Lovers”
We finally learned one fun fact about Pet Milk, which is they're from Philadelphia. We knew zero fun facts last year when "Cherry Outline" placed at #56. Improvements are fun. Their 2nd EP includes more jangle-guitar, more pop elements, and higher production value, and we're hoping for more new shit from them in 2012. Also we now love 2 bands with the word "Milk" in their name (along with Milk Music).
Phantom Lovers by PET MILK

53 Rob Crow “Prepare To Be Mined”
#MoreHandclaps! The stream of quick guitar riffs in this song sort of help it to sound like the younger distant cousin of Pinback's “From Nothing To Nowhere” (probably our favorite song from 2007). We’re considering this a REALLY good sign for next year... (Rob Crow LP’s always show up less than a year before Pinback records... Plus they released two 7-inches in 2011. Get ready.) Also you should follow Rob on twitter.

52 Jill Scott feat. Anthony Hamilton “So In Love”
Our most sincere congratulations goes out to Tyler The Creator who wrote on twitter “I Ate Out Jill Scott” at least twice in 2011. We’re hoping it’s true. This song reminds us of the badass smooth jams that get played on WBLS (Today’s R&B and Classic Soul) out of New York. For some reason this is the most irresistible “soul” track we’ve heard in years (probably because it resembles late-70’s/early-80’s grocery store jams).

51 Rival Schools “Choose Your Adventure”
Quicksand reunion? Let’s hope that’s coming. In the meantime, we’ll take Rival Schools, who unexpectedly owned the fuck out of their 2nd LP after a 10 year hiatus. Except not THAT unexpected since curveballs are a normal thing these days... The artists who we most anticipate usually don’t release the best albums anymore. Who would’ve suspected Rival Schools? Not us. “Choose Your Adventure” kinda sounds like if Muse decided to tone down on the theatrics and start kicking serious ass. (The bass somewhat resembles “Supermassive Black Hole,” but in a good way.)

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Hot Mix 2011: #70 to 61

2011-12-30T16:17:00.013-05:00

"Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

70 Broken Water “Normal Never Happened”
More monster/end-of-the-world jams from Olympia. The “A” section is the tearing-down-buildings part, followed by the “B” section in which pensive-Godzilla wonders about why he exists and the greater questions of life...
Normal Never Happened by Broken Water

69 Frank Ocean “Thinking About You”
“Do you not think so far ahead? ‘Cause I’ve been thinking ‘bout forever...” Lonely 2AM... The fadeout after only 3 minutes suggests the ambien mercifully kicked in rather quickly. We haven’t heard a soulful falsetto like this since young Al Green. (Give him some time; he might actually reach “mature Al Green” caliber.) We’re confused about the lack of a second Frank Ocean mixtape including this song and “Swim Good.” (Wikipedia reveals “Thinking About You” was actually written for a female R&B singer who renamed it “Thinking About Forever...” Ehh... Frank’s version is WAY better...)

68 Kavinsky “Nightcall”
We very badly wanted to love CSS’s latest LP... We’re hoping they can bring back the excitement from their self-titled at some point, but in the meantime, we have “Nightcall.” Huge 2011 trend: Dark, lonely songs about delirious late-night drunk dialing someone you miss terribly. This one got backed by some hot Boards Of Canada beats. Also we wish we were watching Drive right now.

67 Panda Bear “Slow Motion”
Sounds like he might be singing about drowning? We’ve been reassessing Person Pitch throughout 2011, and it’s way better than we originally thought. (It appeared in our favorite 2007 albums somewhere around #23, and it should’ve been top 3.) Part of the reason why we gave it another chance arrived after we heard Tomboy and surprisingly wished that it sounded as trippy as Person Pitch. Depending on our POV, “Slow Motion” was the obvious album highlight. (Pitchfork didn’t think so, but what do they know...)

66 Metronomy “She Wants”
We probably would have loved Metronomy’s The English Rivera even more if there were more songs like “She Wants,” which appears to be an homage to Wire’s Chairs Missing and 154 (two of the greatest albums ever). Also the “noooo” part (or was it "ohhhh") towards the end is like straight-up gangsta shit.

65 The Weeknd “High For This”
This might be the first year when so many free unofficial “mixtape” releases have been considered for such high acolades, such as Frank Ocean’s Nostalgia, Ultra and The Weeknd’s House Of Balloons. The Weeknd especially evokes a raunchy darkness that we never realized was so essential to modern music, as if 90’s R Kelly collaborated for some slow jams with Keith Flint, the spikey-haired “lead singer” character from Prodigy’s “Firestarter” and “Breathe” videos.

64 Smith Westerns “Only One”
#ImpossibleToReview As much as we appreciate the strong hooks on Dye It Blonde, Smith Westerns are still another one of those bands that sound like Wincing The Night Away (like Surfer Blood but better) with a style as generic as indie-rock gets these days, making it nearly impossible to generate any type of unique or interesting critique. Nothing too crazy... Just good songs.

63 Diehard “Barflies”
Diehard's DIY-funded The Times We Didn’t Have Fun accordingly presents a progression in songwriting and production from their first 2 EPs, leaving a path wide open for even more seriously ass-kicking loud-rock on future releases. The songs “Diehard,” “Christine,” and “Barflies” (among others) seem to totally point in that direction, with the latter striking us as a favorite mostly because we’re suckers for bass distortion and the frequent-yet-subtle “shit” and “fuck” in the lyrics.
Barflies by Diehard

62 Meek Mill featuring Rick Ross “Ima Boss”
VH1’s 2-hour special on crack’s association with hiphop was one of our favorite TV moments of the year, partially because it included interviews with “Freeway” Ricky Ross, who expressed disdain for the rapper who he claims stole his identity. A lot of people who love 90’s hiphop are probably not enjoying the current era of mainstream rap that Rick Ross’s Maybach Music branding has partially ushered, but from where we stand, 2011 introduced more fresh talent and hope than almost any year since the mid-90’s.

61 Beyonce featuring Kanye West & Andre 3000 “Party”
Andre, come back... We need that dude. “Party” sounds sorta-90’s to us. Overall, it’s probably the least-party-sounding song with the word “Party” in its title from 2011. It’s closer to a 30-something get-together where people who secretly wish they were more adventurous drink champagne and discuss stock options, and then later they get down and dirty for some boring-ass 30-something missionary. But at least they’re getting laid. “Internet buzz” suggests that Beyonce fans consider this a weak single-choice, which makes us love it even more. (The hugely overrated “Countdown” was seemingly only enjoyed by music critics with a throbbing hardon for Beyonce. Someone had to say it.)

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| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

Hot Mix 2011: #80 to 71

2011-12-30T01:22:00.021-05:00

"Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

80 Pusha T featuring Tyler The Creator “Trouble On My Mind”
#ProudOfTyler Relatively unknown throughout summer 2010, Tyler was not only nominated for VMA’s the following summer, but was also awarded the opportunity to create music alongside his idols. That’s how quickly it works these days, resting among our favorite “We won” moments of the year. We still maintain that “Chad Hugo’s pupils” was intended to be a weed reference - not a racist Asian joke - but we’re apparently the only ones who think so.

79 Ringo Deathstarr “Day Dreamy”
As much as we enjoy the (equally) unfortunately named The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, they still sound very much like a product of their time compared to the painstaking authenticity of RD’s Colour Trip. A SHOE-IN for our SHOE-GAZE LP of the year (See what we did there?), it may prove to have more longevity thanks to the loud songs having much harder punches, far trippier aspects on the dreamy songs such as “Day Dreamy,” and (arguably) better songwriting overall...

78 Dope Body “Enemy Outta Me”
With respect to (an awesome noisy rock band called) The Men and the past year of abundant loud catharsis, Dope Body still claimed possibly our favorite noise single of 2011 with “Enemy Outta Me.” We recall its Youtube comments claiming that it ripped off Nirvana’s “Mr. Moustache,” so it's possible a subconscious connection helped out in this case, although we don’t necessarily hear the connection...

77 Chris Brown “She Ain’t You”

Chris Brown is clearly among the most loathsome assholes in pop music, and frankly we’re getting tired of seeing so many respectable artists working with him, helping to justify his scumminess. To make matters worse, “Look At Me Now” got its dick sucked because Busta Rhymes was asked to insert an irritatingly endless “fast-rap” cameo that impressed lots of really dumb people. If there were any justice in this world, chicks would not be lining up at 5AM to see Chris Brown perform on The Today Show or whatever shitty morning show he sang on wearing his gay little bowtie. He’s a fucking piece of shit who does not deserve success.

With that said, “She Ain’t You” is a testament to the power of “Human Nature,” a song we slightly regret not including in “80 Jams From The 80’s” a few years back. There’s something about combining elements from SWV’s “Right Here” along with the MJ original and creating something fresh out of it... As scummy as he is, we still found the concept irresistible and among our guiltiest pleasures of the year...

76 Bombay Bicycle Club “Bad Timing”
Familiar in a good way... The singer totally sounds like the guy from The Secret Machines. (Whatever happened to those guys? Ten Silver Drops was so badass.) And although the rest of their album doesn't sound much like Silversun Pickups, we're detecting SP in "Bad Timing." Also, sick outro... Hitting us in a vaguely nostalgic area...

75 Adele “Someone Like You”
The immense success of “Rolling In The Deep” can be partially attributed to Donna Summers fans and disco-nostalgia. We never really “got” Donna Summers, which is probably why we merely rated it as marginal. Not long afterwards, we ignored the buzz about “Someone Like You” prior to its release as a single, and so it took us by surprise after the video debuted, far too universally deep to strike us as anything other than among the most depressing things ever. We think Adele needs a hug, you guys...

74 Yuck “Rubber”
A big black mass of antimatter gloriously devouring everything in its path. If there’s a single 90’s band we hear in “Rubber,” it’s Space Needle. Besides that, we hear tons of No Age (a loud-guitar band from the 2000’s who somehow unjustly avoided a similarly lame/false “90’s nostalgia” tag... What the fuck...) Also, we’ve been told the video includes boobs and vag... Okay, we just watched it, and yeah, they're in there alright...

73 Avril Lavigne “What The Hell”
We love Avril Lavigne so fucking much. Like seriously. She is the shit, especially since she divorced that mushy-faced has-been dude from Sum 41 and turned into our favorite slut of the 2011 year. We don’t even know what any of her other recent songs sound like... except for her super-catchy medium-sized hit “What The Hell.” Somehow she’s still scoring hit singles. Strange, but whatever... (“She look good.” - Jay-Z) We also love handclaps, which tremendously helps her case past the superficial aspects. The weird organ reminds us of Ceasars’ decent 2003 single “Jerk It Out” or Smash Mouth’s “Walking On The Sun,” a song we loved when it was brand new and then never enjoyed ever again.

72 Rebecca Black “Friday” / Pharrell “Fun, Fun, Fun”
"Let's forget all that bullshit and have a fuckin' rager!!" "Gonna have a good time, c'mon c'mon y'all..." While Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall is the greatest album to include this theme, Andrew WK’s I Get Wet unexpectedly became one of the most influential LP’s on 2011 pop. Who would’ve thought? Def not us. Years later, “Friday” and “Fun, Fun, Fun” both seem to have been considered by their respective songwriters as “throwaways,” with neither producer fully realizing the potential of all their best elements. No matter what anyone has to say about it, the chorus of “Friday” got stuck in everyone’s heads for a fucking reason: BECAUSE IT’S AMAZING. And we wouldn't be surprised if “Pato” (the writer of “Friday”) took inspiration from “Fun, Fun, Fun,” a children’s song Pharrell wrote for Dispicable Me a few months prior.

71 Iceage “Broken Bone”
These guys are like the Foster The People of the underground punk scene. But we’re really only saying that because “internet buzz” suggests that girls are into them because they’re all like 19 and young and exciting n stuff. We forgot what country they’re from.

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Speedy Ortiz "Live At Shea Stadium"

2011-12-30T01:02:00.003-05:00

Lots of good stuff at the Live at Shea Stadium blog... And we're totally pumped to see Speedy Ortiz set from a month ago has joined their archives. (!!!!!!!!)

IIRC the set was something like:
1. "Taylor Swift"
2. "Cutco"
3. "Swim Fan"
4. "Doomsday"
5. "Thank You"
6. "Not Too Amused" (Sebadoh)
7. "Hexxy Sadie"
8. "Ka-Prow!"

Speedy Ortiz - Live @ Shea Stadium by LiveatSheaStadium

Hot Mix 2011: #90 to 81

2011-12-27T02:09:00.019-05:00

"Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

90 Fucked Up “A Little Death”
Who doesn't want a little death in their lives? We're confused about the history of the songs on David Comes To Life since there are several Fucked Up songs dating as far back as 2005 (on the "Mix Tape Volume One" release) with titles that allude to a character called "David" including one song titled "David Comes To Life" (from their debut LP). They've done a great job of confusing us and rocking the fuck out of our worlds. Also, Damian's interview with BrokeNCyde from about a year ago is now among our favorite internet oddities, mostly because he appears to be a genuine fan...

89 Milk Music “No Life”
We're happy to notice lots of asskicking rock coming from Olympia over the past year or two. Possibly as a result of their recent profile on Pitchfork, Milk Music's Bandcamp.Com page appears to have been removed, which is some serious ass bullshit... Whatever. Buy the album.

88 The Cars “Sad Song”
The intro of "Sad Song" evokes smiley nostalgia, totally ripping off The Cars' own "My Best Friend's Girl" and "Let's Go" in a way that couldn't possibly get anyone upset, which is essentially the atmosphere throughout their 2011 reunion LP. The late Benjamin Orr's contributions are sadly missed, although Ric Ocasek's first Cars' songs in 25 years still sound as if the band never split up. Recommended for any casual fans.

87 Cave “W U J”
2011 was the type of year when a revival from a genre as obscure as krautrock wouldn't have surprised anyone. It hasn't truly taken off yet, although signs have been pointing in that direction considering Can's surprising surge in popularity along with 2009's self-titled Beak> LP and Cave's Neverendless from a few months back. P.S. What the fuck, ANOTHER band whose Bandcamp.Com page seems to have disappeared??? Well at least their video is interesting...

86 Ke$ha “Blow”
This might be Ke$ha's first ever placement in a year-end list ever since we initially placed "Tik Tok" as the fourth worst song of 2009, a poor decision in hindsight. "We R Who We R" and "Blow" have assisted in viewing her first few singles from a different perspective, one where she seems totally in place with the world of 2011 pop alongside the enormous recent influence of Andrew WK and, strangely enough, Rebecca Black's "Friday," the ultimate trifecta of "Party Hard" (just in case any concert promoters want to score an historic triple billing in 2012). We also don't really understand what's happening in the video with Dawson's Creek, but whatever... Ke$ha has proven herself. She's pulling her weight. We love the build in the middle of this one, with "We're taking over!" spoken through auto-tune.

85 Kreayshawn “Gucci Gucci”
Random shit about Kreayshawn:

Possible one-hit-wonder, although someone already made a videogame about her.

The beat of "Gucci Gucci" reminds us of Bruno from Da Ali G Show.

Left Brain from Odd Future is in the video. They're friends or something.

The video makes it look like she walks up to a random chick at the beginning and motions as if to say "I like your style," and they hang out and dance horribly for the next hour or so, although Kreayshawn's description makes it sound like the other girl (played by her sister) caught her attention by walking out of a Gucci store, which conflicts with the lyrics of the song.

She's also cute and wears anal beads around her neck.

Did we mention we love their amazingly horrible dance moves? They sure do enjoy waving their hands around. (Fuckin white chicks, man...)

84 Radiohead “Separator”
If TKOL were instead released by Add N To (X) or Burial, everything would've been a-okay and we could have all jerked off to this album in unison. But since it was released by the same band who made The Bends, everyone's all like "UuuUhuuhhh" and making grunt noises without bothering to hear any of the songs. Once again, "Separator" is another jam completely indebted to Colin Greenwood's sick basslines. The only real complaint we have with King of Limbs is that the same band took less than two years to record OK Computer and its 9 b-sides, whereas we waited for longer than double that time for an 8-song LP and a handful of less-than-stellar non-album tracks. The question remains, will Radiohead dust-off their guitars and record the next great rock record? Stranger things have happened...

83 Toro Y Moi “Still Sound”
We love Fender Rhodes so much. So fucking much, you have no idea... Moon Safari influence doesn't hurt either. Toro Y Moi's 2011 awesomeness seems far more attributed to production elements than to songwriting, which is a good thing, digging up some of those sounds from what we like to call "grocery store jams," borrowing elements from the AOR of the late 70's and early 80's.

82 Jonny “Candyfloss”
Jonny is a sort-of supergroup featuring dudes from Teenage Fanclub and former members of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. If you're familiar with these two, you know exactly what to expect... "Candyfloss" mostly made us nostalgic for John Peel's Festive 50, as both bands frequently placed. We're still confused by the false ending, unsure whether it's a mistake or how the song is really supposed to sound...

81 The Strokes “Under Cover Of Darkness”
Early-2000's nostalgia has started creeping up on popular culture. We previously mentioned the emo-revival featuring new releases from Yellowcard, New Found Glory, Rival Schools, Saves The Day, Thursday and a shitload of bands that we didn't know were still around... Also, The White Stripes split up, and The Strokes ended their five-year hiatus with their least impressive LP yet. "Under Cover Of Darkness" is the only song that came close to the magic on their first three records, specifically the chorus and the guitar solo. If they can get their shit together in time for album #5, the impending early-2000's revival will be hugely welcoming of new asskicking jams from these guys.

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Hot Mix 2011: #100 to 91

2011-12-26T15:40:00.039-05:00

Something's starting to suggest that completing this will totally suck...

We'll be doing our best to post Soundcloud and Youtube links. And for the super-cool humans, we started a sick Spotify playlist in case anyone wants to listen along as we unveil the results: "Hot Mix 2011" On Spotify

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

100 LMFAO “Sexy And I Know It”
Our favorite uncle-nephew team of 2011 somehow seem less awkward singing about their alleged "sexiness" than the two incredibly gay men in Right Said Fred did (exactly) 20 years ago, probably because LMFAO's message is far more omnisexual, instead of specifically targeting "gay." Partying knows no sexuality. Fun doesn't know what sex it is. It just parties. Everybody party. NOW.

99 Crash of Rhinos “Closure”
Closure by Crash Of RhinosWe'll get more into this as the mix continues, but "Emo" (and emo-nostalgia) started making an unexpected comeback this year. From the more hardcore end, Crash of Rhinos (probably from Europe) got our attention with the brutal Distal LP...

98 Earl Sweatshirt “Dat Ass”
We know they have many releases planned for 2012, but we're still disappointed in Odd Future, mostly because of the rapid-fire series of (mostly amazing) mixtapes from 2010, followed by like TWO in 2011. (Re-releasing the MellowHype LP on Fat Possum sans the Earl Sweatshirt track doesn't count.) Hope: In two months Earl will be turning 18, so we're guessing the sudden slowness of their release schedule may be awaiting his return as part of their 2012 takeover.

97 Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera “Moves Like Jagger” / Maroon 5 “Never Gonna Leave This Bed”
Yo, fuck whistling. No one likes whistling, unless you're an asshole. (This is probably not true.) Also, we're still not sure if Xtina Aguilera's sweet ass actually appeared in "Moves Like Jagger" but she's probably in there somewhere. Both songs feature sick hooks that hang low like yo momma's titties. Fun Fact about Maroon 5: Their drummer sucks, so when they were recording their first LP, the producer was forced to call in Matt Chamberlain, the same guy who completely owned on Fiona Apple's When The Pawn LP. More Fun Facts: Taste My Kids' special ops team has obtained solid confirmation regarding mass suicides directly linked to that fucking godawful Gym Class Heroes song featuring Adam Levine or whatever that asshole's name is, and we are demanding an immediate cease-and-desist for future radio airplay. Accordingly, several #OccupyWallStreet protesters have planned to raise awareness of this issue in future demonstrations.

96 Radiohead “Bloom”
A long time ago, SPIN outrageously claimed that TLC was inspired to write "Creep" partially because of the Radiohead single of the same name. While this is more than likely untrue, the "Rappers sampling Radiohead" trend didn't truly sprout until 2007 when CRS's "Us Placers" sampled "The Eraser," and the trend expanded even farther in 2011. It's only a matter of time before one of these actually scores a huge hit for some new-school rap dude. The band seems to be encouraging this, especially after their IDM-leanings became more obvious than ever on The King Of Limbs, without question "The most underrated LP of 2011." Colin Greenwood's bass continues its "secret weapon" status, and we wish we could say the same for Thom Yorke's ever-increasingly obscured vocals. As much as we enjoyed TKOL (accurately rated by P4k as a 7.9), we long for the days when we could actually "sing along" to Radiohead and remember how the words go... Ironically, Thom was a far better vocalist when he was unsure of himself and lacking confidence.

95 Big Talk “Getaways”

The Killers' outstanding mid-decade run of singles appears to have subsided. For whatever reason, the drummer dude who looks like In Utero-era Krist Novoselic released a decent LP on his own, mostly comprised of songs that sound exactly like The Killers. The "Replica" video weirded us out, but "Getaways" is still the standout...

94 Pill “Ridin’ On Dat Pole”

The mainstream rap game turned a new avenue late last year around the time of "Black and Yellow," "No Hands" and this new Maybach Music thing with Rick Ross behind the controls. We've been waiting on Pill's first official full-length for over two years now. "Still takin' my time," he says. We didn't realize this would turn into another Chinese Democracy."Ridin' On Dat Pole" seems directly influenced by MM's new direction, indicating what may be in store if Pill's takeover actually happens in 2012. Fingers crossed.

93 The Horrors “Endless Blue”
Our previous perception of The Horrors as a jokier tongue-in-cheek "goth" thing didn't sit well with us, but that changed after hearing their new direction on Skying, which surprisingly includes LOTS of hidden gems. "Endless Blue" really starts to take off about 90-seconds in... Wait for it........

92 Wild Flag “Electric Band”
Ass kicking 90's indie-rock chicks from Helium and Sleater-Kinney formed like Voltron and spawned Wild Flag. We were among those who were sorely missing the presence of both bands within the rock-music spectrum, so a combination of these two were hugely welcomed. Had this mix been expanded to 200 songs, at least half of this LP would have placed.

91 Slices “Modern Bride”
We don't know a whole lot about the loud awesome punk rock in Slices, but their album art is among our favorite of 2011 simply because we were convinced that the window reflection was actually behind us, and then we turned around and it totally wasn't there.

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| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

"Azz Everywhere"

2011-12-26T14:29:00.002-05:00

Impatiently awaiting the launch of "Hot Mix 2011" or whatever it's gonna be called.

Taken from our sister website Late Night Noise our associate Dave Rohlf posted possibly the best camera commercial I've ever seen. I now want the camera they used to shoot this video. Also fucking amazing video obviously....

Five Awesome Songs Not Included in "2011's Greatest Hits"

2011-12-26T01:33:00.008-05:00

2011 single from 2010's hugely overrated My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, not included due to being issued to us in December 2010:

Included on a recent EP from Mobb Deep, released just in time to make the deadline... We're more interested in whether they have a full length ready for 2012...

Our favorite radio jam of the past year was unfortunately not released in 2011:

Also sadly not from 2011:

One thing we were hoping to avoid in our top 100 list is placing a song just for the sake of including our favorite artists, which almost happened here... Great song though.. prolly would have been #101:

The big list will kick off soon!

Five Songs from 2011 Reissues

2011-12-26T01:15:00.006-05:00

Here are selections from our 5 favorite reissues......

The Beach Boys Smile:

Sebadoh Bakesale:

Archers of Loaf Icky Mettle:

Can Tago Mago
We would have preferred to include one of the live tracks from disc 2, but it doesn't look like they're on Youtube...

Louvin Brothers Satan Is Real mostly because we're positive this has been reissued previously, and also for the badass artwork... We're actually not all that familiar with the music beyond a quick peruse a few years back, but honestly we'd rather include this than Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins...

Big List Of 2011 Lists (Now With Bigger Lists)

2011-12-26T00:52:00.004-05:00

Our description of "2010's Greatest Hits" from December 2010 still seems pretty accurate regarding the process of putting together our year-end wrap-up, which we've decided to call a "Mix" because it sounds cooler...

"Minimal effort" still applies: http://tastemykidsblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/list-of-lists-2010-now-with-more-lists.html

So we have 2 mini-lists which we'll post tonight, and then one big list which will unveil itself throughout the next several days, hopefully finished within the first week of January, if not sooner... We apologize to you list-haters out there.

"Lisa"

2011-12-26T00:30:00.003-05:00

A few tracks from Alone III: The Pinkerton Years have been leaking onto Youtube... The fully formed songs appear to be the most rewarding listens, as opposed to the song fragments that create what we initially assumed were a pair of "Side 2 of Abbey Road" suites, but instead they sound closer to the just recently uncovered demos from The Beach Boys Smile sessions (providing further evidence that Pinkerton just might have been the 90's answer to Pet Sounds).

Either way, it's definitely worth a listen, if you can find it.

The set also includes "Lisa," the only unreleased song from Weezer's series that included "Jamie," "Mykel & Carli" and "Susanne," all songs written for chicks who helped Weezer and were apparently very nice to them while they were in the process of getting signed and on the road to superstardom....

christmas stuff

2011-12-24T03:42:00.003-05:00

More "20th anniversary of 1991" shit... Pearl Jam's first "Ten club" release included what we think is one of the best Christmas songs... A lot of people who don't like Pearl Jam tend to enjoy this one...

This is mostly the sound of John Lennon going through heroin withdrawal...

1991's 20th anniversary comes to a close

2011-12-24T03:18:00.003-05:00

December 30th will mark the 20-year-anniversary of the first time I ever heard "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred, taped off the radio. The cassette is dated with pencil as "12/30/91." The "Top 10 at Ten" was a big deal to me in those days. So anyway, I'm fairly positive "I'm Too Sexy" was probably the last "new" song that I heard in 1991, in case anyone cares.

December of '91 specifically seems to have been the big pivotal month of that year... Communism had fallen, and the U.S. entered a war that lasted less than a month, possibly to boost morale among the population. Clarence Thomas was essentially the Herman Cain of 1991. Rodney King was beaten by cops. Freddy Mercury and Magic Johnson both announced that they had HIV; one of them died two days later, while the other is now alive after 20 years and possibly still one of the healthiest human beings in North America.

Actually not all of this happened throughout that December... I lost track of the point of this. Fuck.

But Nirvana "happened" in December... The Christmas rush was a huge part of what famously pushed them ahead of Michael Jackson's Dangerous LP. Tons of parents bought Dangerous for their kids. During the week between Christmas and New Years, more than a few Dangerous's and Color Me Badd CD's were returned at the CD's the stores and exchanged for Nevermind.

Strangely enough, "alternative rock as a profitable commodity" actually has a 20th birthday: December 26, 1991.

"D.D."

2011-12-24T03:15:00.003-05:00

http://the-weeknd.com/

The brand new Weeknd mixtape kicks off with a Michael Jackson cover.. This won't be making our 2011 best-of so we'll just post it here...

In the original "Dirty Diana" we always thought he was singing "and I fuck out the key." The Weeknd's version seems to comply with this. Also we were anticipating some raunchier production...

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #01: Beastie Boys featuring Santigold “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win”

2011-12-19T14:42:00.003-05:00

So we made a mistake once again... This is not the best video of 2011, although it kicks serious ass. Similarly, "Make Some Noise" (a.k.a. "Fight For Your Right Revisited") is not the worst of 2011, but this post wouldn't be complete if we didn't mention the tedium we experienced watching the 30-minute version earlier this year.

With this in mind, we were initially going to start this post by stating "It's not often the same group premieres both the best video of the year and the worst video of the year, but somehow that's what happened." Except neither statement is true.

So here's the truth: "Make Some Noise" is essentially one of those SNL sketches that people who still watch SNL masturbate to. Celeb cameos makes their giney tickle, so whenever there's a shit-ton of celeb cameos, it's like preparing for the orgasm of a lifetime.

"Make Some Noise" had the adverse effect on us. It made us sick, while "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win" is like the antithesis of "Make Some Noise," exuding endless creativity and expert film-making aspects that we should expect from Spike Jonze, who started hinting at this return to music videos last year with his video for The Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs." We're seriously hoping this happens. We would love nothing more than for Spike to return to music videos. The world needs this kind of excitement right now...

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #02: Nunslaughter "God"

2011-12-19T14:34:00.002-05:00

There seems to be some mistake. Somehow our #2 has been listed as a blackmetal video that may or may not have been thrown together by Tommy Wiseau himself. In fact, most of the people in this video resemble characters from The Room. "God" is probably not the 2nd best video of 2011, although it's definitely in our "most recommended" list... We would rather people watch "God" than most other promo videos from this year.

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #03: Underground Railroad To Candyland "We Aren't The World"

2011-12-18T13:23:00.003-05:00

Performance aspect, check. Puppets, check. Puppies, check. And even better, it looks like it was thrown together by people who actually know how to make videos correctly... Super huge check bonus. P.S. Why isn't Season 1 of Sifl & Olly on DVD yet?

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #04: Lil Wanye featuring Rick Ross "John"

2011-12-18T13:05:00.002-05:00

Here's one of our associate's description of "John" from over the summer:

"One of the girls in the new Lil Wayne video has a spatula."

"He talks about pissing in his own ass."

"Rick Ross sits in a wheelchair in front of buckets of toxic waste."

"Things are just falling off the roof and shit."

"And then Lil Wayne says You fuckin with a nigga who dont give a fuck."

This got us interested, and we were amazed at the amount of tires that were included in the set design. So all of this should be an adequate reason to include this at #4.

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #05: The Living Sisters "How Are You Doing?"

2011-12-18T12:46:00.002-05:00

Now that he's a super in-demand feature director working in big bad Hollywood on stuff like The Green Hornet and Dave Chappelle documentaries, we assumed our favorite video director ever would never return to the world of music vids. However, he threw together a couple nice clips this year, after being relatively absent for the past 5 years... One for Bjork (also posted below) and one for a new group called The Living Sisters (featuring members of The Decemberists and The Bird and the Bee) for a slightly upgraded version of Cibo Matto's "Sugar Water", minus the awesome palindromic visual aspect, but including more of the crazy-life-perspective that's become a staple of his videography, which is helpful for The Living Sisters since this is a song we normally wouldn't care to hear under normal circumstances. But with Gondry in control of the visuals, we're down for pretty much anything...

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #06: Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats "Ritual Knife"

2011-12-15T16:09:00.003-05:00

We normally stray from praising videos without any element of artist performance, even if it's only a few seconds of lipsynching or guitar strumming. We're especially prejudiced against videos that simply recycle easily searchable stock clips from Youtube. However, Uncle Acid is shrouded in mystery, so they can't show their faces. It's debatable whether they've played a live show, so they wouldn't have been able to perform anyway. But most importantly, "Ritual Knife" kicks so much ass, and the clips were so obviously chosen with care by someone who was painfully searching for a very specific atmosphere. So basically, they got away with murder.

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #07: Rammstein "Mein Land"

2011-12-15T15:50:00.004-05:00

Jonas Akerlund and Rammstein is pretty much always a winning combination. It's hard to recall the last time Jonas didn't have a video in our annual top 10... Similarly, Rammstein continues to prove themselves as worthy among the all time greatest video artists. We thought they had peaked with "Pussy" back in 2009. We were wrong...

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #08: Tyler the Creator featuring Frank Ocean "She"

2011-12-15T02:43:00.008-05:00

A quick one before passing out drunk... If any of this doesn't make sense, it's because I drank beer.

We think this one may have been a bit underrated... People accordingly went nuts over "Yonkers" a few months earlier, but "She" was our favorite summer '11 video, a neatly executed clip met with almost no fanfare, other than its relentless spins on MTV-U, which we've learned don't count for shit...

In "She," fantasy elements encourage an extension of beliefs on behalf of the viewer. Frank Ocean pulls out an uzi which just happens to be allowed on the bed of a suburban chick who lives with her dad. Cops arrest Tyler for no apparent reason and then get distracted enough for him to sneak out of their car. And yet it's not necessarily a flawed narrative... Every image, especially the strongest ones, fit the song and project creativity as vividly and sinister as Tyler projects throughout Goblin, and it's nothing like any other rap video we've seen before or since.

The only uncool part is showing the chick as Tyler calls out the c-word... That made us uncomfortable. But it was censored on TV, so no big deal.

Sick Vids Brah 2011 (HM): Kool Keith, Azealia Banks, The Weeknd & Tyler

2011-12-14T19:46:00.002-05:00

Here's the rest of our Honorable Mentions... All but one of them have already been posted throughout the past year...

Kool Keith's "Bushman" represented his long-awaited return to WTF-level awesomeness...

If there was a single video from the past year when we fell in love at first sight, here's the one...

The Weeknd's reign of raunch...

And of course, "Yonkers"...

Sick Vids Brah 2011 (HM): Gil Scott-Heron "New York Is Killing Me"

2011-12-14T19:34:00.006-05:00

HM stands for "Honorable Mention." In this case, we have a 2010 video, just barely missing out on the deadline.

Similar to Mark Romanek directing Johnny Cash's "Hurt" so soon before Johnny's passing and only a year before Romanek's hiatus from video directing, Chris Cunningham made a return to video directing (after remaining silent for about 5 years) for a three-screen IMAX presentation centered around a song from what ended up becoming Gil Scott-Heron's last album. His passing ended up seriously cranking up the "depth" knob on this one. Personally, we think it's way better than the "Hurt" video...

R.I.P. Gil

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #09: The Horrors "Still Life"

2011-12-14T16:46:00.003-05:00

We're about half-way settling by including "Still Life," a video that we claimed we would only place if there was nothing else to fill the Top 10. Although, we're watching it again right now, and it looks pretty awesome, juxtaposing the band's 80's-goth chic with the type of psychedelic images that might have been ripped from The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour or "Strawberry Fields" video, or possibly from Pink Floyd Live At Pompei. Big ups to drugs.

Sick Vids Brah 2011 #10: Rihanna "We Found Love"

2011-12-14T16:23:00.007-05:00

We're at an unfortunate spot here, because we're "settling." Under different circumstances, "We Found Love" would not have made our list, but we haven't found a whole lot of 2011 videos that caught our attention. (And we've been relentlessly searching, so it's not our fault...)

We're actually upset about this video because of the song itself. Calvin Harris' production is decently exciting enough to match the intensity of the images, but the vocal melody is just too bland. Once upon a time, there was a video by Prodigy called "Smack My Bitch Up" which is essentially the same video as "We Found Love" done 1000x better.

Honestly, this video is noteworthy for only one reason... Around 4:02, there's a quick shot of her vomiting some type of neon glow-in-the-dark substance, giving the impression she ate about 50 of those lime green Laffy Taffy's and another 50 blue raspberry Laffy Taffy's, and then chased it with a pint of Jameson and a fifth of Dewer's. And if this was the case, then we admire her dedication.

(Everyone probably wants us to say we chose this video because Rihanna looks sexy as fuck, which we'd be happy to state as noteworthy had there not been about 900 other videos we saw this year with nice-lookin ladies. As Jay-Z once said about Rihanna, "She walked in. Played me the tape. She look good. Signed her that day." So yeah, she look good. But that's not why we chose the video.)

Sick Vids Brah 2011 (HM): Rebecca Black "Friday"

2011-12-14T14:44:00.006-05:00

We we we so excited to kick off our year-end festivities by crowning Taste My Kids' official "Thing Of The Year Award" to the "Friday" video - truly a piece of internet history - and the gleeful path of mess and disorder left in the wake of Hurricane Rebecca... And we still love her, even though her two follow-up singles were predictably unable to replicate the magic that somehow congealed itself to "Friday." Regardless, nothing can take her moment of glory away from her (or from us, more importantly)....

Friday March 11/Saturday March 12: Late Friday going into the morning hours of Saturday, 4chan discovers a new hero for their meme trove.

Sunday March 13: This is when we first viewed "Friday" about 12 times. People seemed to have a hard time disassociating the song with the video, and so numerous reviews were immediately posted claiming the song is about "riding in a convertible sports car on the way to school," even though the lyrics clearly mention choosing a seat on a school bus.

Monday March 14: By this point, the song is completely brain-lodged, and has somehow magically succeeded in temporarily transforming our miserable lives into a world of joy. We quickly realized that "Friday" is probably the catchiest pop song of 2011, while also wondering if the kids at Rebecca Black's school teased her in math class by singing "Pi Day, Pi Day" since March 14th is 3.14-Day.

Tuesday March 15: More parodies were posted, such as the "Bob Dylan" version, which sounds more like Lou Reed to our ears, but nobody notices or cares... (Our favorite is "Gang Fight", uploaded about a week later.) Much of the mystery surrounding Ark Music and "Friday" had been fully exposed by this point, due to curious, bewildered humans demanding to know how something like this could have ever happened.

Wednesday March 16: As we waited around for Friday, we realized we were stuck in "the longest week of 2011." In fact, there probably hadn't been a week as enormous since we were Rebecca Black's age. We decided the youthful "long week" feeling is a positive thing, which made us love Rebecca even more. Most of the world continued to hate, however. She had been a trending topic on twitter non-stop for several days with most people saying "she's pretty but sings bad" and other angrier an0ns saying they want to rape and/or stab her. As a result, she decided to become a spokesperson for "bullying," one of the most annoyingly overexposed PSA's of the year.

Thursday March 17: Rebecca is championed by Tyler The Creator on Twitter, who says "This Little Bitch Is Tight! Friday Friday" The timing of the song worked nicely as well... Everyone was pretty much ready to be finished with "the worst winter ever." It was just starting to get warmer, a nice time to have such a happy song playing in our heads upon waking up every morning for a week straight. We also realized that Patrice Wilson's "rap" section is the true key to this song, and one of the decade's most outstanding artistic accomplishments.

Friday March 18: This was the payoff day for all of us... We finally made it to Friday, Friday. Victory was ours. Thank you Rebecca.

SICK VIDS BRAH 2011

2011-12-14T14:22:00.004-05:00

Quickly running out of time... The year has less than 3 weeks remaining, and so it's probably a good idea to get started on "Sick Vids Brah 2011," even though we haven't yet found 10 promo videos that strongly presented an attachment between its song and pictures... (We noticed a surplus of videos with strong images associated with shitty songs, or lackluster images associated with amazing songs.)

Ten years ago, MTV2 was the cable-source for 24-hour videos. Today, MTV-U is the equivalent. Unsurprisingly, when it came time for Mike Judge to pick videos for Beavis and Butthead to watch, many of them were in high rotation on this channel. Judge mentioned in a few interviews he enjoyed the past few years of videos better than during the 90's. While we would would love to agree with this (because it's always cooler to claim the best stuff as happening "right now"), the best period for videos was definitely 1997-2002, the span that followed B&B's 90's run, when Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham started kicking serious ass. It would have been interesting to hear their reactions to this era of videos, but it wasn't meant to be.

Some light emerged in 2010, including the one-two punch of "Bombay" and "Earl," two videos which were never shown on MTV that we discovered on Youtube within a few weeks of each other, seeming to suggest that videos actually were getting better. (At least two individual videos we saw during 2011 directly stole concepts from both of these.)

So let's have at it.... These probably won't be in the correct order, because we're going to be locating videos as we post them. Hopefully we'll have this finished within a few days, and then we can get started on "2011's Greatest Hits."

"Don't Cry" Feature at Spin.Com

2011-12-08T12:45:00.006-05:00

For some reason SPIN decided to list their 10 favorite videos of 1991 which includes Guns N' Roses "Don't Cry," a wise decision since it's possibly the greatest video of alltime...

http://www.spin.com/articles/i-want-my-mtv-authors-pick-1991s-10-best-videos?page=0%2C1

Here's our favorite quote from the brief interview:
Marks: Weren't [the Use Your Illusion trilogy] based on a book [Axl] read?
Tannenbaum: He wanted to do something with a friend of his... It's not Josh Richman, although he is credited at the beginning of "Don't Cry" as a co-writer. Which is another funny thing about "Don't Cry." It has opening credits? Which is just so fucking pretentious...

I suppose it's possible this guy hasn't seen any recent rap videos, since "Opening Credits" were probably the #1 biggest trend this year... There must have been at least 20 cases where a silent 30-second huge-font opening montage leads into the most typical-looking rap video you could possibly imagine. (They were all so typical that we can't recall which rappers were in the videos. Rick Ross was probably in most of them. "M-M-M-M-MAYBACK MUSIC.") At least "Don't Cry" had an opening credit that lead into something exciting.

And plus, there's 90-seconds of closing credits at the end of "Thriller," while Scorsese's 14-minute version of "Bad" had opening credits sneaking onto the picture 3-minutes into the video. And both of these videos pre-dated "Don't Cry." So what?

Here's our review of the "Don't Cry" video from a couple years ago...

"Best of 2011" preparation

2011-12-07T02:47:00.005-05:00

We're confused about how to handle our "Best of the year" bullshit that we usually do every year...

#1 2011 was the first year that simply made want to give up on searching for new stuff from the same resources we've used in the past, such as the music journalism blogosphere, major websites such as Pitchfork, music criticism forums such as ILM, or the "Best albums" and "Best singles" sections of RateYourMusic.Com. For the past 8-9 years, these resources have helped tremendously. However, in 2011, this was not the case.

#2 2011 was also the first year where the music made by people we know in real life was good enough to take up 30-40% of our "2011's Greatest Hits" mix, which we've usually avoided in the past because it feels like cheating. (2010's Greatest Hits included Merchandise in our top 10, as well as Pet Milk, a Philadelphia band who currently has about 280 Facebook fans. We don't know these bands in real life, and so our opinions on those bands are unbiased.)

When we used to read Buddyhead back in 2001-2003, their "Best of the year" purposely avoided the writers' own bands because their readers complained after they tried to sneak in stuff like The Icarus Line or Shat. And similarly, I think it's kind of cheap and big-headed of Paul McCartney to list "Hey Jude" and "Strawberry Fields" in his 10 best 60's songs. We don't wanna be like "that guy"...

We considered ranking a top 10 or top 20 only made up of our friends bands, except that would be sort of like going through your friends and ranking them from best to worst. This isn't MySpace.

#3 We've also been struggling to find our place amongst the music-bloggers, which was never the intention of this website when it launched. We're not supposed to be a music blog. We've been accused of this more and more as of late, because people see "blogspot" and see that we're writing about music, and then assume that we're trying to do the same thing as gorillavsbear or whatever the fuck people are reading these days... The "bloggers" do their thing way better than we do their thing. In fact, we don't do their thing at all. This website is its own thing. It's not really a music website. But we usually end up writing about music. We don't want to fit in. We are not hipsters. We don't wear skinny jeans and we hate big black glasses. We listen to Pearl Jam. HIPSTERS DON'T LISTEN TO PEARL JAM.

This is not supposed to be a music website. It's more of a journal, and we'd like to make more of an effort to write about TV or politics or whatever, but the "write about what you know" thing points us in certain directions more than we'd like.

#4 Because of these reasons, 2011 might be the last time we do a big huge "best of the year" thing. In fact, it might not even happen this year. A similar thing happened in 2007, because we simply weren't feeling the music of that year. And it's happened again. It was a brilliant year for albums... An amazing year for unsigned rock and young rappers... But our thing is singles. We love radio singles. And this year, there was like, nothing.... So we're not sure what's gonna happen just yet, but it will happen soon enough...

80's Guilt Mix: #50-#01

2011-12-06T19:49:00.003-05:00

We usually forget about how annoying it is to get these things finished once they've been started... Somehow the "2000's LMAO" mix from over the summer was finished within 4 days, while this one took 2.5 weeks (a period of life which mostly sucked). Whatever... It's finished and probably looks way better in this format than in the individual posts...

#50 Def Leppard "Armageddon It" (1988)
#49 The Pursuit of Happiness "She's So Young" (1989) / Utopia "Crybaby" (1984)
#48 Bobby Brown "On Our Own" (1989)
#47 Alice Cooper "Poison" (1989)
#46 DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson" (1989)
#45 The Jets "You Got It All" (1987)
#44 Climie Fisher "Love Changes (Everything)" (1988)
#43 Benny Mardones "Into The Night" (1980)
#42 Toto "Africa" (1982)
#41 Kajagoogoo "Too Shy" (1983)
#40 Janet Jackson "When I Think Of You" (1986)
#39 The Alan Parsons Project "Eye In The Sky" (1982)
#38 Tommy Tutone "867-5309/Jenny" (1982)
#37 Cheap Trick "Tonight It's You" (1985)
#36 New Edition "Candy Girl" (1983)
#35 Mr. Mister "Broken Wings" (1985)
#34 REO Speedwagon "Keep On Lovin' You" (1980)
#33 Pink Floyd "Learning To Fly" (1987)
#32 Richard Marx "Should've Known Better" (1987)
#31 Tracey Ullman "They Don't Know" (1983)
#30 Timex Social Club "Rumors" (1986)
#29 Wang Chung "Dance Hall Days" (1984)
#28 Bruce Springsteen "I'm On Fire" (1984)
#27 Ready For The World "Oh Sheila" (1985) / Sheila E "The Glamorous Life" (1984)
#26 Billy Joel "Laura" (1982)
#25 The Outfield "Your Love" (1986)
#24 Debbie Gibson "Shake Your Love" (1987) / Rick Astley "It Would Take A Strong Strong Man" (1988)
#23 Heart "These Dreams" (1986)
#22 The Jacksons "Torture" (1984)
#21 Paul Davis "Cool Night" (1982)
#20 Spandau Ballet "True" (1983) / Johnny Hates Jazz "Shattered Dreams" (1987)
#19 Swing Out Sister "Breakout" (1987)
#18 Bryan Adams "One Night Love Affair" (1984)
#17 Lindsey Buckingham "Trouble" (1982)
#16 Foreigner "Urgent" (1981)
#15 Dokken "In My Dreams" (1985)
#14 Teena Marie "Lovergirl" (1984)
#13 Huey Lewis & The News "The Power Of Love" (1985)
#12 Mike + The Mechanics "Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)" (1985)
#11 L'Trimm "Cars With The Boom" (1988)
#10 The Eagles "I Can't Tell You Why" (1980) / Don Henley "The Heart of the Matter" (1989)
#09 America "You Can Do Magic" (1982)
#08 Rick Springfield "Love Is Alright Tonight" (1981)
#07 Hall & Oates "Guessing Games" (1982)
#06 Michael Jackson "Man In The Mirror" (1988)
#05 Howard Jones "No One Is To Blame" (1986)
#04 Madonna "Dress You Up" (1985)
#03 Winger "Seventeen" (1989)
#02 Wham! "Freedom" (1984)
#01 Philip Bailey & Phil Collins "Easy Lover" (1984)

1980: 3
1981: 2
1982: 8
1983: 4
1984: 9
1985: 7
1986: 5
1987: 6
1988: 5
1989: 6
The last half of the decade seems pretty evenly distributed. Early decade did not fair especially well, while mid-decade kicked slightly more ass than we expected. 1982 did very well, unsurprisingly, since it's the best year of the 80's.

It's finally done.

80's Guilt #01: Philip Bailey & Phil Collins "Easy Lover" (1984)

2011-12-06T18:59:00.002-05:00

There's no reason to be ashamed about Philip Bailey. He sang in Earth Wind & Fire. His existence in the world of 80's pop is justified. For this reason, it's hard to completely dislike "Easy Lover," even though it's tainted by the vocals of Phil Collins, the uncoolest - and possibly the douchiest - rock star to ever exist.

Don't you just wanna wipe that smug-ass fucking smirk off his face and tell him to sit down and shut the fuck up?

The obvious argument that people could throw back at us is the song "In The Air Tonight," which is admittedly well-written, dark and weird, and includes one legit-awesome 5-second part where the drums enter after the third verse. If it were a brand new song, it would be one of the best songs of 2011. But it wasn't... It's from 1981, back when there were tons more great singles and albums getting released on a weekly basis. There was more competition to get music heard in those days... There was no world wide web, and musicians were hungrier. During that time, it was easier for a song like "In The Air Tonight" to be just another one of those awesome songs that was released a few weeks ago.

We also have a soft-spot for "Against All Odds," partially because it's his only earnest ballad, and partially due to our appreciation for songs that sound epic and gigantic even though they're only 3 minutes long. (Also see Chris Bell's "I Am The Cosmos.")

"Easy Lover" is the only other interesting thing Phil Collins has done. Sounding like the themesong to some forgotten early-80's cop-drama series, it presents several curious paradoxes not unlike Mr. Bigg's "To Be With You," our #1 in the "90's Guilt" mix. The intro has loud electronic drums crashing and a paranoid-sounding keyboard loop. Only two possible images could coincide that intro: A car chase, or flying helicopters. (The video director agreed.) The 80's-TV sound continues as they head right into the chorus and awesome EW&F-style falsetto on the verses. Thankfully, Philip Bailey appears way more often than Phil Collins, who seems to have been on his best behavior while singing the pre-chorus as soulfully as possible, within the confines of his limited vocal capacity. By the time it's over, it's surprising how easy it is to entirely overlook his presence, making this the last of his three good songs...

80's Guilt #02: Wham! "Freedom" (1984)

2011-12-06T18:25:00.003-05:00

The song "Faith" is arguably just as beloved among 80's pop fans as "Kiss" by Prince, and George Michael's solo career took an unexpected turn when he got slightly angrier and refused to appear in the "Freedom '90" video. However, Wham's image lacks anything that could possibly doubt their extreme gayness, with a discography that continues to emphasize every possible definition the word "gay" currently possesses.

Interesting info from Wikipedia: "Faith" was actually intended to be the sequel of "Freedom." We also never realized the intro of "Faith" is actually "Freedom" played on a church organ!

We had considered tying "Freedom" with 2 of the singles from Wham's follow-up LP The Edge Of Heaven. We'll link to them below, but they aren't nearly as gay as "Freedom," without question the gayest song from the most awesomely gay 80's pop group (even though it's written about girls).

80's Guilt #03: Winger "Seventeen" (1989)

2011-12-06T00:39:00.005-05:00

We don't hate musical proficiency... We just hate when it's used for evil instead of good. While we'd love to call "Seventeen" evil, there are far too many "so bad they're good" moments...

Amazing lyrics lmao

The straight-up pop-metal chorus is catchier than that credit it receives and better than anything Kiss has ever written.

As Kip Winger has pointed out, the hidden prog-metal elements are intensely complex. Youtube comments have been quick to point out that he doesn't actually play in the video, while those who know better can probably tell his bass-fills are anything but novice.

Whatever, fuck this... We just love Stewart. That's why "Seventeen" is #3.

80's Guilt #04: Madonna "Dress You Up" (1985)

2011-12-05T23:56:00.004-05:00

In the imaginary alternate bizarro-universe where Madonna somehow faded into obscurity or retired from music after the True Blue LP, she is considered the greatest 80's female pop singer. But in our universe, she got increasingly irritating between 1989 and 1996, leaving behind a bad taste in our mouths. While her efforts to keep things interesting were appreciated, her 90's songs simply weren't as good as they were in the beginning, even though everyone pretended they were just as good or better. (Britney Spears is currently receiving suspiciously similar treatment, an artist who coincidentally also peaked within her first three LP's.)

In 1999, a year after after Madonna released Ray Of Light and entered a (predictably calculated) phase where she showed "maturity," MTV started airing GAP commercials where models creepily stared into a camera and sang in unison to songs such as Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough," Donovan's "Mellow Yellow," and "Dress You Up", a single which was popular during the 80's but somehow lost popularity after not being chosen to appear on 1991's The Immaculate Collection.

The GAP commercial (coincidentally well-synched with the launch of Napster) was the first time many people had heard "Dress You Up" in nearly a decade, shedding new light on her early forgotten singles "Burnin' Up" and "Angel" while also pumping some freshness into previously stale singles such as "Lucky Star," "Borderline" and her early movie-soundtrack-ballads "Crazy For You" and "Live To Tell." We'll post a few of these here...

80's Guilt #05: Howard Jones "No One Is To Blame" (1986)

2011-12-05T23:31:00.005-05:00

Howard Jones hardly gets credit as one of those production-based New Wave dudes because of his cred-crippling connections to AOR. For example, the radio remix version of "No One Is To Blame" was produced by none other than Phil Collins himself... Thankfully, Howard Jones sings a lot more like Robert Smith than Phil Collins.

Another well-structured example of sweet songcraft, which seems to be dominating the 80's Guilt Mix... Lyrically full of contradictions to explain the paradoxes pulling apart two people who are immensely attracted to each other... How lovely.

Not a total grocery store jam, but we've heard it played at grocery stores in the past... (keeping in mind we've also heard Weezer, The Strokes, Spice Girls "Wannabe" and various album tracks from Air's Moon Safari in the produce section).

80's Guilt #06: Michael Jackson "Man In The Mirror" (1988)

2011-12-03T03:48:00.003-05:00

Still drunk... Gettin' a little woozy. But we're up to an easy one... Real quick before I pass out...

Michael Jackson is amazing because he was able to take songs that would have been boring otherwise, songs such as "Say Say Say" or "State Of Shock" or really anything he sang on during the 80's, and add his literal midas touch into turning them into something otherworldly...

Michael Jackson didn't write "Man In The Mirror," so it just as easily could have been a single by Whitney Houston or Phil Collins or Peter Cetera or whatever bullshit they were foisting onto thirtysomething listeners in those days... But MJ had the ability to OWN. He owned everything his name was attached to and made sure every ounce of his own soul was invested into the recording, which is why "Man In The Mirror" was saved from being one of the worst songs of alltime into an exceptional listen.

The part with "nananaaa nananaa..." on its own might have been enough, but mostly in the last two minutes (after you think the song is over), you really get to hear him embrace his soul and pull out these MJ fills... There's a couple other spots on Bad where he starts getting into similar territory, but the "Man In The Mirror" outro is arguably the best point on that entire LP.

80's Guilt #07: Hall & Oates "Guessing Games" (1982)

2011-12-03T02:52:00.002-05:00

Still drunk, and using this as an excuse for lackluster postings. There weren't many album tracks on the 80's Guilt Mix, but if there was an album to be represented it has to be H20 by Hall & Oates, two dudes who met in an elevator after they were in a gang fight. They were so badass, they even smoked cigs............

Yo, guess what... we love Hall & Oates. The only bad thing about Hall & Oates is their guitar player was that fucking douchebag G.E. Smith from SNL, but besides that they're just as good as Big Star or Teenage Fanclub. Sort of... "I Can't Go For That" and "Say It Isn't So" are fairly close to being in the same zone of "holy fucking shit awesomeness" as "September Gurls" and "Alcoholiday."

Impromptu Ten best Hall & Oates songs. Find them on Spotify and understand their power...
10. "So Close" (really didn't want to include this because there's an association with Bon Jovi but we are gay so it's here anyway)
9. "Crime Pays"
8. "Dreamtime" (Hall solo)
7. "Wait For Me"
6. "One On One"
5. "Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid"
4. "Delayed Reaction"
3. "Guessing Games"
2. "Say It Isn't So"
1. "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)"

When you think of a really awesome Side B that has 6 songs where the middle 2 songs are fucking amazing, you really should consider the third and fourth songs on H2O, "Guessing Games" and "Delayed Reaction," and so we are actually going to tie those two songs. We could totally understand how some people would prefer one over the other, since "Guessing Games" is like sugary as fuck and "Delayed Reaction" has a slightly more badass nature. Also, the intro with the acoustic guitar is easily confused with the intro of Joy Division's "Love With Tear Us Apart," except they wind up in entirely different directions. Both songs should have been huge hits. We will thusly post both.

80's Guilt #08: Rick Springfield "Love Is Alright Tonight" (1981)

2011-12-03T02:35:00.009-05:00

Alcohol and heroin usage are often attributed to heartfelt pain, which Rick Springfield was reported as feeling often throughout the past 20 years. Some of that pain was surely behind the immense gun-to-the-head tension heard on Working Class Dog, one of the most unjustly unheralded power-pop albums of the 1980's.

People do heroin so they can feel no pain. Living on the brink, second by second by minute by minute.

On the day Aaliyah died in late-August 2001, two of my friends and myself who were going through some serious-ass State/Stella withdrawal took a train into Manhattan to see Wet Hot American Summer which was probably the first time I heard "Love Is Alright Tonight" since possibly 8 years prior (and the time between age 13 and age 21 is fairly enormous, so it was a really long time) and it was an unexpected "holy shit" kind of feeling combined with witnessing one of the most amazing movie montages that has ever existed...

This album also includes "Jessie's Girl" which is just as good as "Your Love" by The Outfield, except possibly better, and anyone who thinks "Don't Stop Believing" is a better song than "Jessie's Girl" can eat a plate full of a week's worth of my own shit. I will personally shit on a fucking plate and feed it to you.

80's Guilt #09: America "You Can Do Magic" (1982)

2011-12-03T02:25:00.003-05:00

We thought this was titled "Magic" which often got this confused with "Magic" by The Cars and "Magic" by Pilot, and we're happy to state this is the best "Magic." America is an often misunderstood group. This is a grocery store jam. I'm on my 9th beer.

Edit: America didn't write this song. But they killed it anyway. Close your eyes and pretend it's being sung by M83 or The Antlers or like fucking Cults or some shit, and we bet you won't be able to tell the difference...

songs that sound like cartman

2011-12-02T13:25:00.003-05:00

White Fang "Grateful To Shred" is in the same key and has the same melody as "Make, make it right, 'cause Jesus wants me to have a clean slate."

Decent video anyway...

80's Guilt #10: The Eagles "I Can't Tell You Why" (1980) / Don Henley "The Heart of the Matter" (1989)

2011-12-02T02:12:00.003-05:00

The way these "guilt" mixes work is that the songs are supposed to get more embarrassing as the list progresses, and #10 is surely the most embarrassing entry yet, so we're probably on the right track.

This might go without saying, but we hate The Eagles almost as much as The Dude from The Big Lebowski. "I Can't Tell You Why" is their only song that we'll even marginally accept, probably because it wasn't written or sung by Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh or Don Henley, but rather by their bass player who hasn't really sang on much else, although his Wikipedia entry reveals that he played bass on Toto's "Africa," which makes this his second appearance in the 80's Guilt Mix. Congrats.

After we recalled "The Boys Of Summer" appearing in our "80 Jams From The 80's," we quickly skimmed through Don Henley's "Greatest Hits" album as a "just in case" measure for the 80's Guilt Mix. And shockingly, we ended up not hating "The Heart of the Matter" enough to include it here. Not surprisingly, it's the only other Don Henley single besides "Boys of Summer" with a co-songwriting credit from Mike Campbell, the guitar player from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Now it all makes sense. (Awesome structuring with the pre-chorus and chorus sections, and we're totally ashamed to admit that we kinda love the lyrics as well...)

Neither video was on Youtube for some reason, so we linked from alternate sources. But it's not like anyone's actually gonna watch either of these, so this paragraph is meaningless...

80's Guilt #11: L’Trimm “Cars With The Boom” (1988)

2011-11-30T18:24:00.004-05:00

Whoa... L'Trimm is hot. We had no idea. If anyone knows of girls who dress like L'Trimm please leave comments with their phone numbers and what kind of flowers they like. Thank you.

P.S. Watch out ladies: Hunky luscious mullet dude at 1:30...

80's Guilt #12: Mike + The Mechanics “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” (1985)

2011-11-30T17:59:00.003-05:00

Paul Carrack on lead vocals, who also sang Squeeze's "Tempted," Ace's "How Long," and another really awful Mike + The Mechanics song called "The Living Years," although he didn't sing on their other hit "All I Need Is A Miracle."

"Mike" is one of the members of Genesis who isn't Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel.

This video is really fucking weird... Turns out that it's associated with a movie soundtrack.

Say what you want about "Silent Running," but to us, it sounds way better and more sincere than 99% of those 80's-nostalgia VHS-obsessed chillwave artists that have been embraced by Pitchfork and Altered Zones for the past 2 years.

We posted "Shattered Dreams" by Johnny Hates Jazz in an earlier entry, and we've found it very easy to get these two songs accidentally mashed together as they play in your head. (The lines "Can you hear me" & "and now you're giving me, giving me..." are the exact same notes and played in the same key.)

80's Guilt #13: Huey Lewis & The News “The Power Of Love” (1985)

2011-11-30T17:25:00.006-05:00

Our mandatory Huey Lewis entry could have gone in a number of directions. We initially chose "Walking On A Thin Line" due to the sick bassline in the intro. We also considered the album track "Finally Found A Home," which we remembered being a much better song than it turned out to be when we located it on Spotify just now.

Patrick Bateman is a huge fan of "Hip To Be Square," which never hurts. And plus we heard Huey Lewis on TV a few years ago saying the deadpan lyrics were supposed to be sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek, and he resented that it was embraced by 80's douchebags, which gave the song a hint of depth we hadn't expected.

But we've come to realize their biggest song, "The Power Of Love," was their best. We don't know why... It just is. We like when he says "Credit card."

Now watching the video... We're remembering that every Huey Lewis video had a fucking 9-minute introduction... At least this one is ok because it has Christopher Lloyd, but if it were anything else, we'd recommended skipping ahead. If we had to choose a favorite member of The News, we'd have to go with the bass player chillin' in the back wearing sunglasses & smoking cigs...

80's Guilt #14: Teena Marie “Lovergirl” (1984)

2011-11-30T16:53:00.005-05:00

Much like many other listeners, we were surprised to learn that she's not black. We've heard "Lovergirl" used in a few movies. But when Teena Marie's death was reported a few months ago (followed by sad RIP tweets from Tyler The Creator), we didn't realize she was the same singer. Throwing together this 80's Guilt Mix has helped us with officially falling in love with her for the first time, making her death seem all the more depressing and tragic.

We were also initially confused as to whether or not she was one of Prince's proteges. She was definitely talented and pretty enough where that would have made sense. Towards the end of "Lovergirl," there's an amazing little section with some off-beat/dissonant vocal harmonies that could have been pulled straight from "1999." We also recall seeing posts on Wendy & Lisa's twitter where they expressed bereavement, so a Prince/Teena Marie affiliation wouldn't surprise us... (Edit: Wikipedia says she was actually discovered by Rick James.)

80's Guilt #15: Dokken “In My Dreams” (1985)

2011-11-30T16:20:00.002-05:00

One of our favorite videos ever... So many amazing slow motion shots, more than a few including simulated rainfall and hair flying all over the place... Also watch out for the bass player's genius lipsynching at 1:02, George Lynch's solo, Don Dokken's hat.. We don't wanna give away too much...

80's Guilt #16: Foreigner “Urgent” (1981)

2011-11-30T15:41:00.003-05:00

80's Guilt #17: Lindsey Buckingham “Trouble” (1982)

2011-11-30T15:08:00.006-05:00

Damn, "Trouble" rules, although the intro of the video still makes us very uncomfortable. In fact, the shittiness of the video is probably a big reason why the song was considered for the 80's Guilt Mix.

In case anyone cares, we prefer Tango In The Night to Rumors or Tusk, which we understand is not a popular opinion. However, we recall seeing "Big Love," "Everywhere" and "Little Lies" on Nick Rocks (the video request show on Nickelodeon) which could probably be enough to push any album into our zone of favoritism.

"Big Love" is essentially a Lindsey Buckingham song. (The "female" vocals in the song are actually his voice sped-up.) And so we considered that song and "Everywhere" to be included with this entry, except both songs are far too good for true "80's Guilt." And "Little Lies" was already included in "80 Jams From The 80's." But we'll link to the videos anyway...

See also: Fleetwood Mac "Everywhere" http://www.youtube.com/embed/iQlWe0SwAuw
See also: Fleetwood Mac "Little Lies" http://www.youtube.com/embed/VyVVcQPJLgU

80's Guilt #18: Bryan Adams “One Night Love Affair” (1984)

2011-11-30T14:23:00.008-05:00

On VH1 a few nights ago they played a special about Steve Barron's music videos... He's the guy who directed "Money For Nothing," "Billie Jean" and "Take On Me," as well as "Summer of '69." He was pretty much the Spike Jonze of the early 80's. And they showed Bryan Adams stating that his song wasn't supposed to be about a specific summer, and that he chose "69" purposely as a reference to the sexual position, which we had assumed for years, and now finally have confirmation. Thank you Bryan Adams.

However, throughout the years, I've always liked "One Night Love Affair," "Somebody" and "Run To You" better than "69," never able to understand why "69" was the big huge hit from Reckless.

This next part isn't that important, but anyway.. At work they used to let us watch TV, and a few years ago, Spike TV was doing one of those "Movies That Don't Suck" things and they played that 80's movie where Val Kilmer is a genius... Fuck, what's it called...

IMDB says it's called Real Genius. Fair enough. So about 20 minutes into it they start playing "One Night Love Affair" and that was the first and only time Bryan Adams made me nostalgic for anything. I owned the 45 of this song when I was 4 years old. Actually I feel like digging it out real quick, because I attempted to make my own picture sleeve for it...

It looks like I considered the song title to be too long, and so I put the words "Love Affair" in parenthesis. There's also a "2" written over the A&M logo in blue ink, which I did one evening when I went through about 20 records because I was planning on making a mixtape (that never got taped) and I wanted them to be in a specific order.

Bryan Adams' Reckless was also the first CD my Dad bought (along with Steve Winwood's Back In The High Life and The Beatles Past Masters Volume 2) after we bought our first CD player in 1988. I was very excited.

80's Guilt #19: Swing Out Sister “Breakout” (1987)

2011-11-30T02:18:00.007-05:00

Sunshine! Wow, this band is having so much fun. We were surprised to learn Swing Out Sister derived from the UK, which doesn't really help to explain why she's singing as if English is her second language, but whatever... She's so adorable that it makes up for it. This actually got us thinking if there are any current female singers who project this much fun...

Ke$ha is too drunk or hungover to be fun.

Nicki Minaj is too busy making retarded faces and wearing awful clothes to be fun.

Gaga takes herself too seriously and is too involved in making a fashion statement to be fun.

Katy Perry is too busy trying to be all things to all people. And it's painful to watch her try to make jokes. That's not fun.

A lot of people would probably claim Beyonce's "Countdown" is fun, but when a song is so involved in trying to be artistic that it confuses you to the point where you can't tell whether or not it has a chorus, that's not fun at all.

Britney is too burnt out.

Adele is depressed as fuck.

Rihanna's too busy battling her demons.

There's also that weird UK chick Jessie J, but nobody cares about her.

So that pretty much leaves us with our new best friend Azealia Banks and her amazing new video that we posted yesterday, which is probably the only example from the past two years of a chick singer who isn't afraid to have as much fun as Swing Out Sister.

Well thankfully we were able to think of ONE video, or else we would've gotten pretty upset...

The moral of the story: When people claim pop culture in the 80's was always smiling, this video would be some good evidence.

See also: Katrina & The Waves "Walking On Sunshine" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPUmE-tne5U

80's Guilt #20: Spandau Ballet “True” (1983) / Johnny Hates Jazz “Shattered Dreams” (1987)

2011-11-30T01:00:00.002-05:00

I bought a ticket to the world / But now I've come back again
Why do I find it hard to write the next line? / Oh, I want the truth to be said.

The third line may have been a cop-out after the writer was unable to think of anything else to say. Or maybe this is just what Spandau Ballet wanted us to think, as a way to distract the world from noticing how outstandingly gay they appear in the video. While we understand androgyny and sexual ambiguity were fashionable at the time, Spandau Ballet presents neither of these. No grown man sings the way this guy lipsynchs. Ever. They look like men trying to attract other men.

Johnny Hates Jazz was included for similar reasons. While "True" is one of the most recognizable one-hit-wonders of the 80's***, "Shattered Dreams" is the better song. We appreciate the repeated lines from the verses and bridge during the fade out ("So much for your promises..") and obviously the lack of an obnoxious saxophone solo. (And P.S. what's up with saxophone solos making a [hopefully brief] comeback in 2011? We're with Johnny on this one... referring to Smooth Jazz anyway...)

***Real quick... We take issue with people who are anal enough to dispute obvious one-hit-wonders simply because the band's record company made an effort to create some career artists... After the relatively huge success of these two songs, an unremembered follow-up single which charted at #31 for one week is considered a FLOP, not a hit! In the case of both "True" and "Shattered Dreams," this is exactly what happened. (In the United States anyway... Both bands were considered career acts overseas.)

80's Guilt #21: Paul Davis “Cool Night” (1982)

2011-11-29T17:02:00.002-05:00

"Cool Night" peaked at #11 on Billboard. We get confused when hearing songs like this, compared to those that chart in 2011. Clear obvious songcraft is involved within the music of guys like Paul Davis, whereas today, if the same amount of craftsmanship is involved, do these writers and producers put effort into removing any evidence that actual time went into their songs? Take "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO for instance: Awesome chorus, and then that's pretty much the entire song. Had Paul Davis thought of that chorus, he probably would have included a clearly defined verse and pre-chorus with the option of adding key modulations, so that the various sections of the song can sound refreshing to the ear. Is refreshment dead? It seems we're currently at a point when huge songs contain one solid hook instead of several hooks. We wouldn't be surprised if bands like LMFAO are doing this on purpose, similar to how Rivers Cuomo is obviously capable of writing another Pinkerton if he really wanted to, but never will, because of "what sells" vs "what doesn't."

Yeah anyway... "Cool Night" is another hot grocery store jam. We wouldn't be surprised if Ariel Pink was a huge fan of this dude. We had no idea this is what Paul Davis looked like... We assumed he looked more like Don Henley or Phil Collins, and less like a white Rastafarian member of the Allman Brothers.

80's Guilt #22: The Jacksons “Torture” (1984)

2011-11-29T16:56:00.003-05:00

When Beavis & Butthead watched this video, for some reason they got really excited when Tito came on the screen, shouting "TITOOOOO!!" We're not sure how they recognized him. This video kinda rules because they got a Michael Jackson impersonator to play his part. And this is also the song that Jermaine used to defend himself after Michael said "shut up, you suck Jermaine!" which actually didn't really happen, but we love Planet Jackson so much that we like to pretend it's true...

80's Guilt #23: Heart “These Dreams” (1986)

2011-11-29T16:31:00.002-05:00

Nancy Wilson (the singer of this song) is married to Cameron Crowe, the director of Jerry MacGuire, Almost Famous and Vanilla Sky, a dude who we've sort of had a vendetta against for quite some time. For some reason, the idea that he's "special" enough to get Led Zeppelin into his movies has bothered us, since his movies are just kinda ok, usually filled with an overabundance of awesome ideas that are poorly executed, not typically the type of movies that deserve special treatment just because he happens to be friends with The Eagles and Lynard Skynard. And we normally take advantage of most opportunities to make sure this gets mentioned.

From our perspective, the chick-vocals from Ann & Nancy Wilson were too pleasant-sounding to fit for the gritty guitar rock in "Barracuda" and "Crazy On You." They seem much better suited for adult-contemporary, which is why "These Dreams" worked so well. Regarding how they look in the video, we saw 5 minutes of Heart's Behind The Music the other night, and apparently the 80's metal hair was totally not their idea.. or at least that's what they claimed...

"212" & "The Chill$"

2011-11-28T20:01:00.003-05:00

omg FINALLY

this chick's smile is pretty awesome and she says the c-word a lot.
we're pretty sure we love her.

80's Guilt #24: Debbie Gibson “Shake Your Love” (1987) / Rick Astley “It Would Take A Strong Strong Man” (1988)

2011-11-28T16:00:00.004-05:00

In August 2011, over the course of 3 or 4 days, VH1 Classic aired an amazing 12-hour programming loop called "MTV30" in celebration of MTV's 30th birthday, a series of old MTV clips which succeeded in giving us boners for an entire weekend. Two of these clips were pulled from Club MTV, both lipsynching performances complete with interviews by Downtown Julie Brown. (This helped us become curious about their clip selection process since neither of these are among their respective singer's most popular songs.) So just FYI, Rick Astley's inclusion has nothing to do with the Rickrolling phenomenon and everything to do with how we shockingly enjoyed hearing both songs for the first time in over 20 years.

It would've been nice if Viacom had left the MTV performances on Youtube, which we'd have preferred for this post...

80's Guilt #25: The Outfield “Your Love” (1986)

2011-11-28T15:15:00.003-05:00

This somehow became another case of "Don't Stop Believing," an 80's jam that magically received an enormous push in popularity since the mid-2000's, partially evident by a decently-sized list of covers in its wikipedia entry, the earliest dating only as far back as The Decemberists in 2005. It's hard to say why it didn't transcended as heavily during the 90's (GTA: Vice City?) since that main hook is so universally beloved, embraced across multiple generations of music fans, from metalheads to hipsters to pop fanatics. (Fuck, that bridge section deserves more credit.)

We haven't heard The Outfield's 1st album Play Deep just yet, but from what we've read, every song (supposedly) sounds a lot like "Your Love" and includes similarly huge hooks.

So then, if this song is so awesome, then where's the guilt?... It could be attributed to the polished-sounding production, but we're really not sure. It just somehow feels like it SHOULD be a guilty pleasure...

80's Guilt #26: Billy Joel "Laura" (1982)

2011-11-28T02:34:00.009-05:00

Before getting into the nerdy stuff, we'd like to state that "Laura" is (musically speaking) possibly the best homage to The Beatles by any artist during the 1980's. The production and piano intro specifically are straight-up McCartney/Wings, with the vocal melody sounding as if it was pulled from one of Lennon's Revolver-era demos, and a guitar-solo that's surprisingly NOT a guest-feature from George Harrison himself.

We might have completely forgotten about "Laura" had it not been for Chuck Klosterman... Between Chapter 4 of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs and a 10-page Billy Joel interview/profile in Chuck Klosterman IV (link), he managed to shed light on Joel's catalog of deep album cuts that we hadn't imagined would sound interesting ever again. We don't ever listen to Billy Joel. But prior to turning 11, we indulged in a few Billy Joel's LP's. This simple familiarization seemed embarrassing at first, but the Klosterman essay was so good that it helped us gain an odd sense of pride and helped to define the two types of people who appreciate Billy Joel:

#1 There's the vast majority who know every word on Greatest Hits Vol 1 & 2 by heart. While we very badly would like to associate this album with only frat-boys and soccer moms, the stats don't lie: It's the 3rd biggest album of all time, a slow burner with most of its copies sold between the early-90's and the present.

We fall into category #2, those who accidentally enjoyed his album tracks during a naive period in our lives and have nostalgia for songs like "Rosalinda's Eyes" and "C'était Toi (You Were the One)," two songs chosen for a 1999 episode of Freaks and Geeks as opposed to his bigger hits, an accurate reflection of what people were really listening to in the early 80's.

Chuck Klosterman helped us realize that Billy Joel deserves a compilation of his strongest album tracks, particularly those released between 1978 and 1982 on 52nd Street, Glass Houses, The Nylon Curtain, and among the re-recordings found on the the live LP Songs In The Attic. (Honestly, not much outside of this 5-year span is of interest to us.)

The two profiles also helped us to realize that The Nylon Curtain is his strongest LP, and the album's first two songs, "Allentown" and "Laura," are the two best Billy Joel songs. We took this into account when choosing songs for the 80's Guilt Mix. It's somehow infinitely nerdier and more embarrassing to defend Billy Joel by praising his deep album cuts, which is why "Laura" had to be here. (And the lyrics are also depressing as shit. When you hear him sing "Here I am, feeling like a fucking fool" and it sounds so sincere that you can't help feeling it in your gut... It's so sincere that we're uncomfortable posting about it...)

P.S. Also LOL:

80's Guilt #27: Ready For The World "Oh Sheila" (1985) / Sheila E "The Glamorous Life" (1984)

2011-11-28T01:43:00.004-05:00

This entry was originally intended for "Oh Sheila" on its own, but it's difficult to ignore how closely the song resembles "The Glamorous Life," specifically the 3-chord cadence used in every other bar. It's definitely reminiscent of Prince's "Minneapolis" sound as well, which is noteworthy as Sheila E was yet another of Prince's protege's around the time of Purple Rain, an album released within the same year as both singles.

Prince's female protege prior to Sheila E was Apollonia 6, but Prince realized that Apollonia didn't have the singing chops to pull her own weight, and so the project was abandoned. The songs intended for their album included "17 Days" (the b-side of "When Doves Cry"), "Manic Monday" (later released as a single by The Bangles), "Take Me With U" (originally not intended for Purple Rain) and "The Glamorous Life." If Apollonia had the talent, we're guessing this would've been one hell of a record.

Ultra-suckness week part deux

2011-11-28T01:39:00.004-05:00

The past week totally could have sucked way worse... It still sucked, but it's possible the anticipated ultra-suck has been postponed until the current week as a result of daylight savings time or some shit...

And if it sucked that badly we would have finished the 80's Guilt Mix by now. We'll add a few more jams to the mix before bed...

80's Guilt #28: Bruce Springsteen "I'm On Fire" (1984)

2011-11-26T00:28:00.009-05:00

Fun fact: On each of his albums, The Boss makes sure to sing at least 7 songs about driving around New Jersey in a Buick, comprising about 60% of his catalog, with "I'm On Fire" being the best one of them all. It was also used during live sets as one of the big moments when The E Street Band would quietly play the intro for 8-9 minutes while Bruce tells rite-of-passage stories to all of his adoring Bruce-heads: "My dad kicked me out, and I remember I used to use a payphone to call my girl. Then one day, I came back. And my dad asked me, what happened? I thought you joined the army. And I said, well, they didn't take me. And my dad looked at me. And he said, that's good son." *CHEERS/APPLAUSE*

We love the howls at the end. It's too bad the song fades so quickly.

The video includes some shockingly decent acting from The Boss himself:

Also, from when Ben Stiller was funny:

80's Guilt #29: Wang Chung “Dance Hall Days” (1984)

2011-11-25T01:50:00.004-05:00

Most people are unaware this song and the abysmal "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" are by the same band. There was a good Thomas The Dancing Bug comic about 10 years ago which had some history on the catchphrase Everybody Wang Chung Tonight which we assumed was a joke and not a genuine catchphrase.

Apparently this is included in GTA: Vice City, and thank god for videogames or else half of the world's 80's music would never have been embraced by nearly as many young people (for better or worse).

This song has not one, but two horrible videos, and so we chose one at random.

Good mullet juice for the kids.

80's Guilt #30: Timex Social Club “Rumors” (1986)

2011-11-25T01:31:00.004-05:00

Hear the one about Michael / some say he must be gay
I try to argue, but they said / if he was straight he wouldn't move that way

We're watching the video, and it looks like they're not singing about Michael Jackson, which we had assumed for some reason... forgetting that this was 1986 and Michael Jackson was still beloved by women. Unfortunately, the video does not include the entire song, and so to make up for this, we've also included two Cameo videos.

80's Guilt #31: Tracey Ullman "They Don't Know" (1983)

2011-11-25T00:53:00.005-05:00

Damn, this song is way better than we had remembered... Time for bullet-points:

60's nostalgia was a profitable commodity in 1983, the same year The Kinks unexpectedly scored their highest charting single, and The Beatles appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone for the first time in 12 years. "They Don't Know" made sense as an obvious hit, sounding like a perfect combination of Dusty Springfield and The Temptations. As a result, it's currently heard often on Sirius 25, Little Steven's garage-rock channel.

Written by Kirsty MacColl who's most famous for singing on The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York." If you wanna read a heartbreakingly fucked up Wikipedia entry, head in this direction...

Vivid memories of the first time we heard Bart Simpson yell "What the hell?!" on The Tracey Ullman Show and thinking it was the most groundbreaking and hilarious thing that had ever been on TV... We were also confused about whether she was the same Tracey Ullman who sang "They Don't Know."

Weak video, but in 1983, most of them were... The single was on a punk label, so it's likely the budget was limited... although for some reason Paul McCartney makes a cameo at the end.

80's Guilt #32: Richard Marx “Should’ve Known Better” (1987)

2011-11-24T23:53:00.005-05:00

Richard Marx's mullet is probably within our top 5 mullets. He's certainly up there with Uncle Jessie and that biker/leather-jacket teacher dude on Boy Meets World. Wikipedia reveals that as a songwriter, "Should've Known Better" was one of the songs he wanted to save for himself to sing instead of giving it away, which was probably a smart decision. Production-wise, it's reminiscent of "Danger Zone" from Top Gun, or something equally gay, which does wonders to increase the lulz-factor.

We also recall John Mayer playing a prank around 2004 where he convinced a few of his fans that Richard Marx wrote all of his songs. This got us wondering, what other hits had he actually written (besides his own)? After checking Wikipedia, the only ones we recognize are Vixen's "Edge Of A Broken Heart" and N'Sync's "This I Promise You," amongst dozens of unheard album tracks, making it seem like he gets most of his work as a result of name-recognition, to assist with album filler as opposed to scoring huge hits.

80's Guilt #33: Pink Floyd "Learning To Fly" (1987)

2011-11-24T03:31:00.003-05:00

We considered heading in a wackier direction for Thanksgiving morning, but since no one will be reading today, we decided instead to talk about 80's Pink Floyd since they're already so boringly overdiscussed that we really have nothing original to say anyway...

Taste My Kids presents: A brief history of Pink Floyd

Syd Barrett-era (1965-1968): Their best era. | "Lucifer Sam." | "See Emily Play." | This shit RULES. Album one is their best.

Everyone contributes-era (1968-1972): Their 2nd-best era. | "The Nile Song." | "Echoes." | Syd started going crazy and eventually leaves the group. They brought in David Gilmour, and for their next few albums almost every band member had a significant hand in their songwriting. There's a lot of weird rewarding shit and odd experiments.

Mostly Roger Waters-era (1973-1985): Their 3rd-best era. Waters took control of their focus for 5 albums and as a result they sold like 100 billion records. Many of the most exhausted and overplayed songs on classic rock radio are released during this time, although radio still ignores their 2nd best album, 1977's Animals.

David Gilmour-era (1985-1996): Their weakest era. Waters attempts to end the group, but everyone else wants to keep it going. Gilmour takes over the focus and they released two extremely boring records in 1987 and 1994.

So the best song from their weakest era was probably "Learning To Fly." (Either that or "What Do You Want From Me.")

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies / Tongue-tied and twisted Just an earth-bound misfit, I

Misfit? Tongue-tied? What do any of these things have to do with flying? Why can't he keep his eyes from the skies? And why are they circling? Ending a statement with "I"? So fucking awkward...

It's quite a drop in quality from Gilmour's contributions on The Wall and Animals. But as a pop single, it gets the job done... Just catchy enough that the lyrical imperfections don't really matter all that much.

80's Guilt #34: REO Speedwagon “Keep On Loving You” (1980)

2011-11-23T19:22:00.004-05:00

We regret to inform any readers that REO's fellow arena cohorts Styx and Journey will not be appearing in the "80's Guilt" mix. Styx is simply too gay (and if you don't think "Come Sail Away" is gay, you're not paying attention). And while Journey's musicianship is admirable, their songs don't especially transcend to us in the same way as REO.

(The only possible exception would be "Lights," and NOT "Don't Stop Believing," which we appreciated far more before half of America attempted to adopt it as the new working-man's national anthem... We want to make sure our stance on this is clear before continuing... "Don't Stop Believing" is ok - not especially bad or great - with admirable musicianship and song structure. But like most of Journey's output, it's fucking LAME, and it's been so overplayed since the mid-2000's that we would prefer to not hear it again until at least 2016. It's the #1 iTunes download of alltime. It was played in the final 2 minutes of the last episode of The Sopranos. And it's the only shitty 80's corporate rock bumout that was included in The Pitchfork 500, their perceived canon of the modern era's 500 best songs, a list that would not have included the song had it been published 5 years earlier or 5 years later, but rather because it just happened to be considered trendy at the time.)

What sets apart REO Speedwagon is really nothing extraordinary. Their Hi Infidelity LP from 1980 has been cited by Scott Lucas as an influence on Local H's album sequencing, what he called "10 songs, 10 singles." Others have labelled this concept as "All killer, no filler." And they bring up a good point... Six of the album's ten songs were played on the radio and charted in Billboard. For us, side A specifically stands out as "all killer":

Side 1
1. "Don't Let Him Go" (3:47)
2. "Keep On Loving You" (3:22)
3. "Follow My Heart" (3:50)
4. "In Your Letter" (3:18)
5. "Take It On The Run" (3:59)

Before settling on its biggest hit, we strongly considered "In Your Letter" and "Take It On The Run," and so we might as well post those below as well... "Keep On Loving You" is the most perfectly structured, and it doesn't get all sappy and lame like "Can't Fight This Feeling." We'd rather not detail and masturbate over its structural elements any further, even though it's hugely tempting, but this is already our douchiest post in months, so we should probably move on at this point...

LOL:

80's Guilt #35: Mr. Mister “Broken Wings” (1985)

2011-11-23T18:58:00.002-05:00

We tried our best to locate video of this song in MacGruber, but no dice. It's prolly been yanked from Youtube. In either case, the major yuks associated with "Broken Wings" only increases with time, encapsulating a dead-on caricature of sleek corporate-minded 1980s. White blazers and tinted aviators... That whole thing. By the time the early 2000's arrived, we were laughing so hard that it was easy to overlook the badass bass hook until it was posthumously borrowed by Tupac 5 years after his death.

more new shit

2011-11-23T13:23:00.002-05:00

Ultra-suckness week 2011 still sucks pretty hard. However, more 80's Guilt is on the way, and we actually have access to a few computers that don't crash every 10 minutes, so we were able to locate a few awesome new rock bands from our friends at Exploding In Sound, possibly the best treasure trove of undiscovered new rock bands that currently exists...

This is our favorite one we found today:
passenger peru by passenger peru

80's Guilt #36: New Edition “Candy Girl” (1983)

2011-11-22T14:33:00.002-05:00

A year before he formed NKOTB, Maurice Starr wrote and produced "Candy Girl" as a obvious intentional ripoff of Jackson Five's "ABC." We were saddened to learn that the pre-pubescent MJ-wannabe lead vox belong to Ralph Tresvant, the most boring and least famous member of New Edition, instead of a young Bobby Brown or Johnny Gill, or one of the members of Bel Biv Devoe.

NKOTB turned into Starr's major focus from 1984-onward, which worked out much better, since New Edition probably wouldn't have been remembered as fondly had they been associated with "Hangin' Tough" and "Please Don't Go Girl."

80's Guilt #37: Cheap Trick “Tonight It’s You” (1985)

2011-11-22T13:55:00.006-05:00

Cheap Trick's "The Flame" seems fairly equivalent of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing," power ballads that weren't written by the band themselves, released years after they had established themselves as badass rock dudes, and both became their only #1 singles. They're also far from the group's best, and not typically fan favorites. Especially in Cheap Trick's case, it ultimately seems to have turned into a curse on their live sets, as they've since felt an obligation to perform a song that they don't want to play, nor do their fans want to hear.

While "The Flame" isn't a horrible song, it simply doesn't present as many paradoxes and odd complexities as "Tonight It's You" from a few years earlier, which is why we've opted for its inclusion as a true guilty pleasure. (It's also probably their least popular song that made the cut for Cheap Trick's The Greatest Hits.)

"Tonight It's You" is noteworthy for its enormous pre-chorus and chorus sections, a HUGE payoff after drudging through a murky and completely forgettable intro and verse. In fact, the intro and verses are shitty enough (compared to the chorus) that if you haven't heard it in a few years, you might be convinced you're listening to the wrong song. (At least that's what happened to us.)