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Once again we find ourselves trapped... The list has been started. There's no turning back until it's finished. And it would never have started had it not been for the blizzard. BLAME THE BLIZZ.
60. Japandroids “Shame”
In these parts, the idea of the great JPNDRDS covering PJ Harvey can generate some serious chubbs action.* Luckily, they killed it, and the chubbs were justified.[Note: This may require some explanation. When popular music-crit news pages hear of certain artists releasing covers of other well-known artists, we the readers get the opportunity to witness a phenomenon known as “the chubbs,” which results in a given “news” section immediately crowning it with top story priority. For example, Jann Wenner got “the chubbs” when he heard that Alanis Morrisette covered Fergie. Even though really nobody cared about this at all, it became top news at RS.Com. Wenner’s chubbs turned into full sex-splosion when he heard about Green Day covering John Lennon. “Chubbs” has far more to do with idea of two artists merging than it does with the way the cover actually sounds. Like My Bloody Valentine covering Wire... That’s some fuckin’ chubbs action right there.]
59 Merchandise “I Get Lost”
This album just came out not even two months ago, and there’s already a huge disclaimer at their label's website under the album cover stating “SOLD OUT” in huge capital letters!? I'm not kidding here, I was all damn good and ready to make a $9 purchase with actual money to have this unit shipped to my doorstep so that I could own a physical copy and won’t have to feel like I’m stealing from an asskicking new rock band. But nope; "SOLD OUT." This is what it's come to. This is why illegal downloads exist. The good shit is not sold at Best Buy. However, the good shit is usually downloadable from blogs such as icoulddietomorrow.. And seeing as how there is no internet web stream for "I Get Lost," we might as well post this here:http://icoulddietomorrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-katorga-works-releases-merchandise.html
Thank me later.
58 No Age “Fever Dreaming”
It’s 100% No Age, but it’s also 50% Ramones, 63% “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter,” 26% The Fall, and 19% Nuggets boxed set, which adds up to 158%, which is 58% more than the average song. I’m not sure what this means. Read Pitchfork’s review instead. It's equally nonsense, but they get paid and we don’t.57 Wolf Parade “What Did My Lover Say (It Always Had To Go This Way)”
There’s a few Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown tracks that you can totally tell would sound that much better performed by Wolf Parade, for example when they took the Sunset track “I'll Believe In Anything,” already awesome to begin with, and then Wolf Parade rocked that shit the fuck out and turned it into one of the greatest songs of the past ten years. This is what I’ll miss most in the wake of their recently announced “indefinite hiatus.” I somehow can’t imagine “What Did My Lover Say” being improved as a Sunset Rubdown track. With all due respect to their side projects, they’re best within Wolf Parade and simply greater than the sum of their parts.56 Pet Milk “Cherry Outline”
I really know absolutely nothing about this band whatsoever, other than their 4-song demo EP is super rad. That’s literally it. I’m assuming they’re unsigned. No webstream either, but this song does have a video...
http://vimeo.com/16384090
55 Hooray For Earth “Surrounded By Your Friends”
Hooray For Earth toured this year with Surfer Blood, which is really the only reason they're being compared here. When Surfer Blood was discussed back at #84, it was noted that their music suffers from wussy-production, whereas Hooray For Earth, with their spacey/dreamy synths, received a correct balance of wuss/rock ratio, one that serves their music adaquately. “Surrounded By Your Friends” is their best song yet, and there's a good vibe going around that there's more where that came from. New LP in 2011 hopefully...54 Stars “I Died So I Could Haunt You”
Their most recent album highlight includes the drums from The Cure’s “Close To Me,” which also made a recent appearance on the No Age album. Along with the Hooray For Earth track at #55, "I Died So I Could Haunt You" is surely among the loveliest synthpop tracks of 2010.
53 Big Boi feat. Yelawolf “You Ain’t No DJ”
Big Boi was clearly not choosing his guest-vocalists based on how "cool" they look. "Bewildered" might be an adequate term to describe a first viewing of the videos from Chico Dusty and realizing the extreme lack of "cool" exuded by the likes of Vonnegut and Yelawolf. In the case of "You Ain't No DJ," the beat was luckily so blazing hot (courtesy of none ofter than that genius mofo Andre 3000 himself!) that it pretty much made 0% of difference. Also of note: I thought the skit at the end of this one might have been the "David Blaine" one, but sadly that was from a different song. Sursly tho.. David Blaine: Skit of the year.52 Robyn “Dancing On My Own”
No one is really sure if she’s actually the heartbroken introvert she so convincingly plays on her albums, but Robyn’s brilliant Letterman performance of this song touched our hearts like almost no other TV performance this year. A few weeks later, someone decided to try and recreate this magic on the VMA’s, a program which hasn’t made a single correct decision in 6 or 7 years, so of course it was a bit frustrating to witness her 15 seconds of lipsynching and dancing like a crazy girl... as they segwayed into more Kia and Taco Bell commercials. Thanks for nothing, MTV. Stick to what you’re good at, a.k.a. sucking Snooki’s dick.51 The Arcade Fire “Rococo”
“Using great big words that they don’t understand.” The American Suburbs is not exactly uncharted lyrical or musical territory, which may have come to an alltime peak somewhere between The Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane” single. In this case, Arcade Fire have invoked musical elements from all three of these, most noteably the “chaotic outro” motif, signified in “Rococo” with some lovely, ferocious guitar feedback.|Continue To Page 6|
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