We're expanding at #METASWAG. Last year's list was of a meager 10 songs. This year will feature 25, because I'm writing before midnight and because I worked extra hard this year to listen to way more music than I can even remember. It's something strange to look back on last year's list and already feel distance from the writing. In just twelve months, I feel much more confident in my voice, having honed my skills to write professionally for the IDS. I'm sure twelve months from now I'll look at this post and smh all over again. I guess that's how growth works. Reminder: this is a music blog.
Bonus Awards
Best Dance Song
> "Till The World Ends (Remix)" - Britney Spears (feat. I'm Nicki Minaj & that's Ke$ha)
Best Song I Avoided For Political Reasons
> "Video Games" - Lana Del Ray
Objective Top 10 Songs List From Last.fm
> Just 9 tracks from Grouper's A I A and "Lost In The World"
... and now, without further ado:
the Top 25 Songs of 2011
25 | "212" - Azaelia Banks
In keeping with #METASWAG tradition, the first song on the list is practically brand new to me. My dear friend Allison sent me a link to the video about a week ago, and it's been stuck in my head ever since. Azaelia Banks seems to me the female equivalent to A$AP Rocky (another savvy East Coast rapper getting by on an unpolished but confident flow thanks to his perfect image). The song itself, and the video especially, announces Banks as the first real challenger to Nicki's title of Baddest Bitch. She can spit and she can sing and "212" is a head-turner. Seems like she's poised to be the next big thing. That's alright with me.
24 | "NH" - True Widow
Either the most doom-laden stoner metal or the most stoned doom metal, True Widow turns up the volume and tunes down its guitars for "NH", the sludgiest slice of sun-baked noise I've heard all year. When the height of summer was face-meltingly oppressive, this song would make the air hang even heavier. It's not pretty, but it's got gritty charm. The vocals are stretched thin over the colossal waves of guitar, which crash and roll over the dumbed down drum beat. When I played the song for a friend, he asked me if I had slowed it down. I think True Widow would take that question as a compliment.
23 | "Death Major" - 13 & God
Their latest record Own Your Ghost might not be a total triumph, but 13 & God find the perfect balance between wicked pop and death-obsessed rap on the banging and terrifying "Death Major". Doseone spouts off one of the best verses of the year over a devilishly skittish beat, starting off with a slow menace before launching into an arresting double-time flow. It's a catchy and propulsive song, which almost distracts from the totally morbid lyrical content. Almost.
22 | "The Clearing" - Krallice
Even though black metal became "hip" this year, I doubt many of you are immersed in the genre or eager to explore its often stigmatized dread. To me, Krallice transcends the trappings of genre to deliver an undeniably moving piece of intense ambience. It's difficult to do justice to the charging guitar and drums of "The Clearing" while still acknowledging how atmospheric it all sounds. They're explosive. They're powerful. They're unstoppable. They're (pardon my nerd) epic. This is incendiary music that can't be beat when you're looking to roam the more radical parts of your headspace.
21 | "Abducted" - Cults
Spoiler Alert: you won't find Cults' debut record anywhere on my Top 50 Albums list this week. They couldn't quite deliver on the promise of last year's pitch-perfect "Go Outside" - except for "Abducted". The lo-fi jangle of its acoustic intro betrays a sense of comfort and kitsch before kicking into overdrive with a rollicking bass line and stir-crazy vocals. The conversation between the two leads simply portrays the tragic dissonance of heartbreak. Here's a rare pop gem that sells its emotion without forcing it. It sounds great too.
20 | "How To Love" - Lil Wayne
I didn't expect my favorite song on Tha Carter IV to feature acoustic guitar fit for Bruno Mars and perhaps the cheesiest chorus of the year. Weezy sells it without irony. I'd be lying if I said I didn't listen to this song on repeat at the beginning of the summer, singing through my tears in a drunken stupor. It's a dumb single, but when Wayne strains his voice to ask himself for the nth time how to love, something clicks, and the words mean more than they should.
19 | "Fast Peter" - Moonface
It starts with fast keyboards. Then a warm, pulsing organ creeps in. Then Spencer Krug croons, "So Peter loves a girl/The way that only Peter does." That's right, another story of star-crossed love from the master of narrative songwriting, probably featuring animal imagery and archaic language. But something is different here, more grounded than the usual theatrics of Sunset Rubdown and loftier at the same time. Listen to the song slow down for the repeated reflection, "She's the one/The one that he thinks of when he thinks of 'her.'" This is personal longing made universal wonderment. Whimsy without the cliche.
18 | "Next To You" - Chris Brown (feat. Justin Bieber)
Vanilla pop song or anthem of the year? They call me the Belieber. This song would be remarkable for Bieber's emerging lower register alone, but it also contains some of the tightest songwriting of the year. The hobo chic Biebs wears in the video can't even distract from how talented he is. Let me once more remind you that I hate Chris Brown. The song becomes more bearable lyrically if you imagine it being sung by Andrea Dworkin to Catharine MacKinnon. Take that, heteronormativity!
17 | "Lammicken" - Braids
Let's be real: dat bass. The morphing textures and rattling cries of this song work because dat bass is ferociously burning beneath it all. I only mention it first, because the obvious standout of the song is the earth-shaking vocal performance of Raphaelle Standell-Preston. Her voice is downright omnipresent on this track, screaming across a blazing plain like the angel of death. The only lyric ("No I can't stop it") takes on a different meaning with each regurgitation by Standell-Preston. It might be the only statement that matters. Hearing this song performed live, I think my heart broke when her voice did.
16 | "Motivation" - Lil B
Like Ebeneezer Scrooge, this list will be thrice visited by ghosts over the course of the night. The ghosts here are not spirits of Christmas, but rather sublime beats by Clams Casino (#METASWAG's Producer Of The Year). First we have the standout track from Lil B's first proper release, Angels Exodus. The Based God somehow breathes even more life into the beat's already-immortal boom-bap. Clams provides the musical support necessary to capture the transcendence of Lil B's final lines: "Swear to God niggas fuck with Satan/Fake shit/That's motivation/The plans for the revelation." Thank You Based God. #TYBG.
15 | "Believer" - John Maus
Because John Maus is a graduate professor, you trust that the couplet "Jackie Chan flashing all across the world/Hulk Hogan flashing all across the world" has to do with post-colonialism or something. Because John Maus sounds somewhat pained the whole time, you trust that the mantra "They call me the believer" has to do with his weary optimism for self-improvement out of self-criticism or something. Whatever he really means, the track really means something because it simultaneously sounds so warm and cold, so beaten down and so hopeful. They call me the believer.
14 | "Break Inside" - Ford & Lopatin
I'm just assuming this is the music Michael Jackson would've made if he had been preserved as a cyborg in some dystopian future. The vocals are tortured both in their emotiveness and in their screwedness. Barely a line escapes the cold choppiness of the production. Babies squeal, drums stutter, keyboards bloom and fade. The whole thing sounds like what was going through Obi-Wan's head as he fumed, trapped between force-fields while Qui-Gon fought to his death. Or maybe it sounds like the perfect confession of tragic apathy, the deadened stare into the unrelenting glow of computer screens. Or maybe it sounds like the best pop song of the year?
13 | "The Wilhelm Scream" - James Blake
The vocal melody is catchy. The lyrics are infectiously simple. But what this song is really all about is the stuttering, horrible wall of noise that crawls into this cavernous production. The mixture of white noise and organ makes for something unnaturally menacing, and it sounds like Blake captured the sonic essence of self-doubt. It's the pink ooze from Ghostbusters II, transliterated as metallic keyboards and stuttering bass beats. If it sounds scary, it's because uncertainty is scary.
12 | "Heavy Pop" - WU LYF
The triumphant finale to one of the best records of the year, "Heavy Pop" sums up exactly what makes WU LYF such a special band for me. Here is their gutsy sentimentality. Here is their raw power. Here is their rollicking goofiness. "Heavy Pop" opens with shimmering, moody piano that is almost forgotten by the time the song comes to its near-rockabilly crescendo. The band grooves over an infinite church organ chord and beneath the unintelligible and totally self-evident vocals of Ellery Roberts. The indecipherable screams ring genuine, not hollow as the band crawls to the top of the mountain. There's no room for irony when you put your entire body into a song like this.
11 | "Stickers" - Sleep ∞ Over
I still don't really understand how this band's debut sounds like the masterwork of seasoned veterans. Like, they should've needed their equivalent of Isn't Anything to produce their Loveless. Instead, Forever is a rare freshman classic. Its earthy coolness is best exemplified by the deranged shuffle of "Stickers", whose whispers tease at a lustrous glow buried under hazy hills. Not to mention the constant breaking of synth waves that keeps the song going. It all sounds airy and indifferent until the world cracks open and a muted guitar's twisted hollers pour out of the song's shadowy facade. You know the difference between every other shoe-gazing chillwave band and Sleep ∞ Over? They make this sound good.
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Read more of Listmas 2011:
The Top 50 Albums (coming soon)
Oh good choice 212 is great!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I like that our blogs are in competition right now.
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