From the first mellow acoustic guitar sound heard on title track Sigh No More followed by the haunting Fleet Foxesstyle harmonies, you know that Mumford and Sons have you wrapped into their world of love, heartache and emotion.
This tale of hope and defiance is a reference to Plato's Allegory of the Cave in which the Greek philosopher argued that the invisible world is the most intelligible and that the visible world is the least knowable, and therefore the most incomprehensible. Plato believed that the soul exists in a realm apart from the body and the thinker is separate from the world he thinks about.
The Cave starts with an acoustic guitar before a variety of instruments accompany it and the song bursts into life. With quick riffs, tapping drum beats and that infamous banjo, Mumford and his band of merry men have re-created folk music.
There’s something of Dexys Midnight Runners in the way the music goes bounding forward while the lyrics seesaw between misgivings and affirmations. “I will hold on hope/And I won’t let you choke on the noose around your neck,” Mr. Mumford vows as Winston Marshall’s banjo plinks briskly behind him. “And I’ll find strength in pain.”
Sigh No More is a triumphant, hopeful debut and has the power to capture and convey your own emotions as well as those of the band. If you’ve been waiting for that near-perfect debut of 2010, at long last – here it is.
11 Girl I Love You - MASSIVE ATTACK FT. HORACE ANDY
They remain one of our most fascinating, extraordinary bands. Startling as this may be to thirtysomethings who grew up in prescribed awe of Massive Attack, but a whole new generation has arisen in the 12 years since their last pivotal album, Mezzanine, a generation to whom the Bristol duo are at best peripheral. So while an army of griping fans and sniping critics will argue that Heligoland doesn’t match their early triumphs, or break as much new ground, there will be younger listeners who hear it as something entirely new and recognise it for the gloomily, beguiling beauty it is.
GIRL I LOVE YOU features the vocals of roots reggae master Horace Andy, who is a long time associate of Massive Attack.
The haunting horns under Andy's vocal are pure genius from the minds of Grantley Marshall and Robert Del Naja: creepy and danceable.
"Some people have said in reviews, 'Oh, this is classic Massive and Horace doing what Horace does.' And I've thought, 'well actually that's not quite right', because, with Horace, you've got to understand the depth of the man. He's really coming from this kind of reggae, lovers' rock, Studio One type of background and we've taken him out of that and got him to do completely different things with us. Horace would love us to do lovers' rock. He goes back to Jamaica and his old-skool sparring partners over there are like, 'what is that weird white-man music you've been making with those boys in Bristol again...?'. They don't really understand that s--t at all. And Horace is like, 'why don't you make me a hit single, so I can have a big hit in America like Shaggy?'. And we're like, 'shut up Horace, we've done this minimal tune'. But he loved the results. It's fun working with him." - Robert "3D" del Naja
Massive Attack spent their first 12 years as breathtaking pioneers, while 99.9% of their rivals might manage ten minutes of such inspiration. They may never be as original again, but as long as they make albums as rich, textured and seductive as Heligoland they will remain one of our most fascinating, extraordinary bands.
10 Dance Yrslf Clean - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
This brooding nine minute epic is the opening track from James Murphy's third and perhaps last studio album, This Is Happening.
Dance Yrself Clean opens with a naive vocal melody accompanied by 8-bit curlicues, before bursting into a gigantic breakbeat-driven block-rocker.
"Talking like a jerk except you are an actual jerk, and living proof that sometimes friends are mean," Murphy mumbles to himself. His lyric touches on the same territory as All My Friends, the narrator’s hedonistic impulses shaded by an awareness that he’s too old to still be feeling this way. It’s as wry and emotionally resonant as it is physically bone-shaking, and nothing else here comes close to matching it.
9 You've Got The Love - FLORENCE + THE MACHINE FT. THE XX
The original version of this song is based on a 1985 Chicago House recording by Jamie Principal & Frankie Knuckles called "Your Love." This song that claimed to be the first ever House Music track was never released on vinyl but tapes were circulated round the clubs. Record producer John Truelove aka The Source combined it with an acapella Gospel track sung by Candi Staton and "You Got The Love" became a huge international club in 1986.
More than 20 years later the talented Flo Welch and Company decided to record a slightly retitled "You've Got The Love" version of this classic as a bonus track for their 2009 debut album LUNGS.
"As a kid, going to clubs and raves, this song made me feel love. At 2008's Bestival we were top of the bill on that stage, so we were thinking of an amazing cover we could do, and I thought of Candy Staton. Even in rehearsals, playing it was just the most euphoric feeling. Then playing it live and seeing everyone's arms in the air, and the faces – it was the best feeling ever! I was dressed as a genie sea-monster, and I remember looking at my guitarist as we played the first chords, and then there was the reaction and it was like tearing ourselves open and just exploding on the crowd, and then they all did it back. It's a feeling you couldn't express. I'm really excited that now in our live shows I'm going to be playing one of my favourite songs ever, loads." - Florence Welch
After the XX supported Florence on her sold-out UK tour, a plan was hatched for them to remix "You've Got The Love". And while she is known for her over-the-top pop moments, the XX's quiet and whispery approach meant this was always going to be an exciting prospect. The result? Well, the reaction speaks for itself. Within hours of its appearance, it became the most popular track on the internet. On the airwaves, DJs of all over the world have heralded it their remix of the year. And justifiably so. If you had to pick a track that's captured the genre-splicing sound of rave in 201009, it's this. Taking elements of classic 2-step garage, UK funky, and bass-line, with the famous Candi Staton lyrics being mumbled by the male-female duo of the XX, against Florence's high-pitched parts, this truly is a remarkable piece of music.
Most remixes probably don't deserve their own videos, but this clip, which was made just by editing the clip for Florence + the Machine's original cut of "You've got the Love", its the xx's dubby remf ix of the track so well that it's certainly justified in this instance. Though, to be fair, footage of Florence doing her whole diva thing on a sequined moon probably goes well with just about everything.
8 On Melancholy Hill - GORILLAZ
'On Melancholy Hill' is a fine example of a stress-relieving, carefree, relaxation-session song. After the dubious 'Stylo', this song comes up trumps and reminds us of how brilliant the Gorillaz are with a tune.
Laid-back synths, a slight buzzing sound, spongy drums, and a pretty electric string riff that can't help but bring a smile to your face and give you a wave of goose-bumps are all the Gorillaz provide on this track, but what a track it is... Stuart's vocals appear muffled and sleepy, but have just enough charisma to come across as charming, backed up with lyrics like "You are my medicine, when you're close to me", and "Does anybody know, if we're looking out on the day of another dream?", that’s when the true beauty of the melody, production and lyrics beams up.
This is a hazy pop gem with the sugary 80s sparkle of Strawberry Switchblade or early Lightning Seeds.
Damon Albarn get away with conducting a project as sprawling, daring, innovative, surprising, muddled and magnificent as Gorillaz' third album Plastic Beach: not just one of the best records of 2010, but a release to stand alongside the greatest Albarn’s ever been involved with and a new benchmark for collaborative music as a whole. The scope and depth of Plastic Beach is staggering. For anyone frustrated that Blur never quite managed their White Album, look no further.
7 Airplanes - LOCAL NATIVES
Local Natives (formerly known as Cavil At Rest) are an LA band formed out of high school by Taylor Rice (vocals/guitar), Kelcey Ayer (vocals/keys/percussion), and Ryan Hahn (guitar/vocals), who then added Andy Hamm on bass and Matt Frazier on drums. Their debut, Gorilla Manor, named after the house in which they lived together, was released in late 2009/early 2010 (depending on where you live.) Interestingly, Local Natives were signed by a UK label before a US label, but have made up for it in the States this year, the highlight coming at SXSW in Austin, Texas through March where they played a whopping 9 shows in 3 days.
Airplanes was released as the third single of Gorilla Manor. It begins with some piano noodling, before the vocals soar atop the steady percussive drum beat. Everything about the chorus here is perfect; each time I hear “I want you back,” I just get this chill; it’s the execution of the perfect song.
This song is actually about keyboardist Kelcey's grandfather. He died when Kelcey was two years old, so he only knew him through stories that his father told. And I think it's very funny because people (including me) think it's a romantic song about a girl.
Local Natives have spent a great deal of time honing their craftsmanship, and Gorilla Manor is the ultimate reward for listeners and the band alike. You’ll find that the differentiation and light changes will keep you interested all the way until the end, allowing you to finally spend time with a solid record you’ll want to listen to time and time again.
6 Rill Rill - SLEIGH BELLS
From savage metal and school teaching to dance-pop and online hype, the Brooklyn pairing's journey has been winding. They met in a New York restaurant; Derek serving the food, Alexis dining with her mother.
"We struck up a conversation," says Sleigh Bells lead singer Alexis Krauss. "I was teaching at the time so I wasn't involved in music but my mum was like, 'Oh, Alexis is a singer'. So we exchanged emails and we got together later that week."
This was summer 2008, when dance-pop twosome Sleigh Bells was born. So-called because "everything else is taken".
Derek (guitars and beats), who'd moved from Florida a few months previously, followed up their meeting by messaging Krauss. They hooked up.
Shortly after he quit his table waiting job, she quit teaching 10-year-olds at a school in the Bronx, New York, so the pair could take things seriously.
Treats, their debut album is a thrill ride: It's aggressive but not macho and smart without losing its sense of fun. Most of all, it's somehow both an aural assault and a piece of pop candy, albeit one in a overblown wrapper. In Sleigh Bells, Derek Miller is responsible for the excessively compressed beats and abrupt guitars, while singer Alexis Krauss provides a melodic counterpoint, with a sweetness that can turn fierce.
“Rill Rill” recontextualizes a Funkadelic hook into a summertime jam for high school romances. It's a sassy, country-tinged guitar song that finds Krauss singing about “wondering what your boyfriend thinks about your braces”. It won’t be Sleigh Bells’ signature song, and rightly so – it’s the sonic mayhem that’ll get them noticed. But like Crystal Castles before them, it suggests they’ve got content beyond the chaos.
Treats is just a whole goddamn lot of fun to listen to. It’s a supremely raw and visceral pop masterwork, one appropriate to rocking out with headphones on, windows-down bumping on car stereos, four-A.M. warehouse dance parties and countless other summer moments that’ll soon have soundtracks courtesy of Sleigh Bells.
5
All I Want - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
Murphy delighted in listing his inspirations and influences on the first LCD album, and elements of Bowie, Eno and Reed had clearly been folded into LCD’s own style on Sound of Silver. Here, however, the influences aren’t so much discernible as obvious to the point of distraction.
"I kept oscillating back and forth between this John Cale version and this country version I had in my head. The song nearly killed me for two-and-a-half weeks, but I couldn't get my head around it. I hated it, then fell back in love with it. - James Murphy
All I Want is a passable power ballad containing some great waspish one-liners, but first you have to get past how much the guitar part sounds like the distinctive sustain created by Robert Fripp for Bowie’s “Heroes”. Joined by another aping the effect-slathered tones of Eno’s St Elmo’s Fire, these strong aural borrowings overpower everything else. It’s as if Murphy took those two records as a starting point for his own composition, then forgot to go anywhere.
4 The High Road - BROKEN BELLS
Part Kanye West, part Brian Eno, producer-musician Brian Burton — a.k.a. Danger Mouse — has defined himself with his excellent taste in brilliant misfits. His biggest smash was Gnarls Barkley, with whom he turned oddball former Dirty South rapper Cee-Lo into a falsetto swinging soulman on the sublime "Crazy," triggering moving karaoke performances worldwide. He's helped blues-rock freaks the Black Keys find their groove; helped midcareer weirdo Beck locate his mojo on 2008's Modern Guilt; even molded his mash-up sensibility to the arty David Lynch soundtrack project Dark Night of the Soul.
His latest one-off, Broken Bells, could be his biggest stretch yet: It pairs him with career introvert James Mercer, the sublimely melodic singer-songwriter of the Shins. The two have a little history — one track together on Dark Night — but Mercer might seem an odd match for the producer whose first big idea was combining the Beatles with Jay-Z, and whose trademark move is melding hip-hop-rooted samples and beats with vintage psychedelia. It turns out the two pop-science geeks are a perfect match. Danger Mouse pushes Mercer's gorgeous, existential tunecraft outward with Day-Glo dynamics.
The High Road is a wonderfully crafted song and Mercer makes the song complete with his lyrics that rightfully fit the vibe. The song juxtaposes an uplifting melodic chorus with a depressing lyric about not knowing if the dead can talk, or even not knowing if you're alive. The duo likes it that way. "I gravitate towards darker, minor sounds. That's where I feel comfortable," Burton told The London Times. "The High Road is a lament," Mercer added. "Is this person happy? I'm in hell now. Sometimes you just repeat it over in your head — I'm screwed, I'm screwed, I'm screwed."
3 Zebra - BEACH HOUSE
Beach House has been steadily making a name for itself with its narcotic dream pop, and “Zebra,” the leadoff track to the band's Sub Pop debut Teen Dream, finds the Baltimore duo setting their ambitions ever higher. But despite the track’s thicker arrangements and quicker pace, the band retains its praise-worthy knack for winning melodies and minimalist arrangements. The band's ode to the “black and white horse” is a shimmering display of slow, hand-plucked guitar and woozy vintage organs, anchored by lead singer Victoria Legrand’s smoky and intoxicating vocals.
“Zebra” grows and grows within the space it is given, and though we are not talking about the epic scale of, say, The Arcade Fire, they are not too far off either. Legrand and Alex Scally create a sound that is much bigger than the two-piece that they are, helped by the fact that Legrand can carry a song on her own with her powerful voice.
Beach House is clearly ready to step out from the shadows and play timeless music intended for dreamers and romantics, the kind of dreamers and romatics that you would find in a Staten Island's Music School Program. These kids are great!!
2 Midnight Directives - OWEN PALLETT
After extensive touring and arranging string-type things for Beirut, Pet Shop Boys, and Arcade Fire, Owen Pallett is back with his long-in-the-works LP, Heartland. The 45-minute album features the Czech Symphony along with Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara.Heartland is the first of Pallett's records to be released under his own name, rather than his recording moniker of Final Fantasy. This was out of concern of creating confusion with the Final Fantasy video games in Japan and to avoid infringing on any trademarks.
Talking about the album in a press release, Pallett said, "The songs themselves form a narrative concerning a farmer named Lewis and the fictional world of Spectrum. The songs are one-sided dialogues with Lewis, a young, ultra-violent farmer, speaking to his creator".
I appreciate Pallett’s sci-fi meta-fiction conceit, but at least early on, I find it difficult to pay much attention to his lyrical games when his arrangements are so dazzling on a purely musical level.
“Midnight Directives” is an agile, flamboyant tune that builds from a hum to a symphonic sweep without losing an essential lightness. Pallett is working with a broad palette, but he’s a deliberate, decisive arranger, and he employs sound in a gestural manner that reminds me of the way great cartoonists imply a lot of information in simple, well-placed lines. Even without the high concept, this is incredibly ambitious pop music that deftly avoids the typical traps of symphonic indie music.
This is a brilliant composition, the sort of piece that is urgent in tone, yet reveals itself upon repeated listening. The melody swoops and soars, but its a rather chilly sort of bombast — it’s a drama of intense thought, not physicality. I find myself often rewinding and going back over that final climax in the vocal section, just before the instrumental resolution: “For a man can be bought, and a man can be sold / and the price of a hundred thousand unwatered souls…” In context, that bit sounds defiant, thrilling, and terrifying all at once.
Coming up... LA NUMERO UNO of the First Half of 2010!!
In the US, Nashville country-rock trio Lady Antebellum have become monstrously big with indecent haste. This second album shifted well over a million in its first month and is still flying. It’s up there with Grammy-magnets like Beyoncé and Gaga.
Need You Now is a huge hoary pop seduction, with a chorus it’d take a heart of stone to resist. Immediately, it announces itself as power-anthem paradise, evoking such guilty-pleasure godhead as Alone by Heart or I Drove All Night by Roy Orbison/Cyndi Lauper.
It's maybe the most romantic song ever written about a drunken booty call. Singing about the draw of an old beau on a lonely night, singer Hillary Scott is emotional but not too dramatic: a Carrie Bradshaw type, making do with diminished expectations. Answering her, Charles Kelley sounds more old-fashioned. He croaks, he growls, he spits out the crow he's eating.
You’ll briefly, secretly love it with a passion for about three weeks before TV talent-show kids start devaluing it. That is one belting chorus. “It’s a quarter after one, I’m a little drunk but I need you now...”
Been there, done that...
19 It Kills Me - MELANIE FIONA
Melanie Fiona Hallim is a Canadian recording artist from Toronto, Ontario. She was born to Guyanese immigrant parents (mixed with black, Indian, and Portuguese ethnicities) and grew up in the inner city of Toronto. Living in a music filled household, Fiona says she always knew music was her passion. Her father was a guitarist in a band and would allow her to sit on the stage when she was younger as he practiced, and remembers her mother playing music at home; everything from The Ronettes to Whitney Houston.
Her debut album The Bridge was released in the summer of 2009. "It Kills Me", became her breakout song on the Billboard Hot 100 where it cracked the Top 50, along with topping the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The song earned Fiona a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. The Bridge also earned her a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding New Artist.
18 Bad Romance - LADY GAGA
Lady GaGa's songs do not exist to please you, why should they? You have to look after yourself when you enter Lady GaGa's world, and if you do not, you may find yourself impaled on a spike. The spike could be made of latex or rubber or stainless steel or shiny plastic or even human hair, but it will hurt like hell and the inevitable pool of blood will make a mess.
Lady GaGa does not appreciate mess, unless it has been made by Lady GaGa.
The amazing thing is that even though all of the above is true, there's still a bleeding, fragile beating heart at the core of this song which anyone can relate to. A song which is about a failing, obsessional kind of passion for someone who is clearly bad news. And it's a passion which is strong enough to reduce GaGa to gibbering nonsense syllables, and speaking in tongues (assuming French counts, of course). These are the best bits of the song, naturally:
"ra ra ah ha ha, roma roma mah..."
"Bad Romance" was the moment where the music didn't just live up to the (self-inflated) hype, but surpassed it. The track is epic in construction-- by the time she gets to the bridge, more than three minutes in, the realization that there are hooks yet to come is thrilling. It helps that RedOne's production matches the songwriting's torrential drama; the churning, earth-shifting low-frequency synths are a programmatic reflection of the singer's unsteady, perhaps unwise, infatuation. But it's Gaga's performance, the wholly unapologetic fools-rush-in carnal energy, that commitment to emotional bravery in a context of increasingly twee chart pop, that makes this song feel so necessary.
Bad Romance, which features cheesy rave synths, the now typically Gaga stomping beat and a controversy-lite lyric (“I want your ugly, I want your disease”). Melodically, it recalls Black Celebration-era Depeche Mode and keeps up Gaga’s habit of referencing herself in her songs. Admittedly, Warhol would have loved it.
17 Excuses - THE MORNING BENDERS
In a smart bicoastal alliance, the Morning Benders — a band from Berkeley, Calif. — enlisted Christopher Taylor from Grizzly Bear to produce its second studio album, “Big Echo”, along with Chris Chu, the band’s leader. Their shared fondness for California pop gloss with experimental underpinnings, from Brian Wilson and psychedelia to Fleetwood Mac, has transformed a straightforward, 1960s-loving, folk-rock and Merseybeat band into one whose songs exult in texture. Now Mr. Chu’s voice is awash in vocal harmonies, electric and acoustic guitars, exotic keyboards and ripples of reverb. Sometimes lush, sometimes turbulent, the arrangements make Mr. Chu’s melodies more luminous while they open up mysterious spaces behind lyrics that ponder continuity and collapse. It’s a splendid transformation — and now the band has moved to New York City.
In this song, Christopher Chu's warbly croon floats along with a kind of lazy charm, and later an a cappella break accentuates a distinct 1950s doo-wop influence.
"Excuses" possesses a simple sweetness, proving you don't have to be "difficult" to sound so gloriously complicated.
16 One Life Stand - HOT CHIP
The title track of HOT CHIP fourth's LP is an otherworldly fusion of infectious tropicalia and synth drone, and the kick/snare drumbeat is the extra push that makes it a toe-tapper.
The nerdy/sexy/sweet electropop lads open ONE LIFE STAND the way Basement Jaxx might, spare bass and synth portending some sort of explosion, but then it turns to slick dance rock territory, the disco guitar, Joe Goddard’s molasses-coated backing vocal, etc. The hook is sweet, because Hot Chip’s got a way of mixing their booty shaking with genuine pathos. Alexis sings “I only want to be your one life stand / tell me do you stand by your man.” It’s a bit heavy for a club-floor come-on, but then Taylor’s already spent an album sounding the warning, and another telling you he’s ready for the floor.
15 Odessa - CARIBOU
Dan Snaith is a Canadian electronic musician who records under the name of Caribou. This is the opening track and first single from his 2010 album, Swim, the follow-up to his 2008 Polaris Music Prize record, Andorra.
ODESSA's main reference point is the icy geek disco of Hot Chip, Junior Boys, and Erlend Øye. Dan Snaith tricks out the sound with ESG-style sound bombs, a little chicken-scratch guitar, clanging polyrhythms playing off a globular bassline, and eventually, a piano cribbed from an early-90s house track that feels right at home. Snaith works with restraint, riding the beat for all its worth and keeping his affect more or less in check.
Like Hot Chip, Caribou’s new disco bent doesn’t focus on that hot club ecstasy so much as a weird, strangely melancholy sensuality. Added to the video – a woman stumbling and driving through fog, smoke, and ghostly, disconnected memories, “Odessa” tells a strange, captivating story of love, loss, and escape. And it works like a charm.
14 Giving Up The Gun - VAMPIRE WEEKEND
"I got the idea for the song from a book my dad gave me called Giving Up The Gun. It's a history book about the time when Japan expelled all the foreigners from the country, closed off all trade and stopped using guns and reverted back to the sword. It seems unimaginable now that humanity could willingly go back to an older technology. It got me thinking about whether you could give up all the things that you have and go back to a simpler way of life."
Frontman Ezra Koenig
13 Afraid Of Everything - THE NATIONAL FT. SUFJAN STEVENS
Brooklyn’s The National are the absolute antithesis of an overnight success. Together for over a decade, the group’s slow ascent to international acclaim has been emotional. While several critics have clicked with albums of swollen heart and bruised soul, a handful have mistaken deliberate, delectable languor for dismissible listlessness. But those who’ve embraced Matt Berninger’s baritone, and subsequently each fascinating detail that trails in its wake, have discovered a band for life – for love and loss, euphoric highs and exhausting lows. For everything, always.
"Afraid of Everyone" is anxiety and paranoia and not knowing how to deal with it. It's desperately wanting to defend yourself and your family from the chaotic forces of evil, and you don't even know what they are, or who's right or who's wrong and what to believe.
Detroit singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens handles harmonies on this track.
"Sufjan came in one day when we were struggling with 'Afraid Of Everyone' – that song was very difficult to make happen – and he just started playing the harmonium and singing along with it. He made up this little melody and he layered it four times – that gave the song a whole different dimension. That was his contribution."
Guitarist Aaron Desner
12 Little Lion Man - MUMFORD AND SONS
Folky music doesn’t stay quiet in the hands of Mumford & Sons, an english band that is part of the latest iteration of trad-rock from Britain. They have rediscovered the modal melodies and unflinching lyrics of traditional songs as foundations for their own. Marcus Mumford, the band’s songwriter and lead singer, merges those folk roots with the often glum but upbeat rock of Dave Matthews, showing a similar grain in his voice.
Together, Mumford & Sons — the four band members are not related — reach back to the way British families once harmonized closely on traditional songs. Their tunes echo sea chanteys, Celtic ballads, and jigs and reels, while also reaching across the Atlantic for bluegrass. They play mostly acoustic instruments, with plenty of guitar strumming and banjo picking. Yet their dynamics aim for settings much bigger than porches or parlors; the songs are as volatile as grunge.
Mr. Mumford sings about soul-searching, pondering troubles that intertwine the romantic, the spiritual and the existential. He’s not exactly easygoing; in the songs on this album every doubt is a chasm, every breakup a disaster.
The rousing chorus of “Little Lion Man” admits, “It was not your fault but mine,” with a tune as jovial as a pub singalong. For all the torments and uncertainties, Mumford sings about on this album, there’s the momentum of a hoedown to carry him through.
Personally I’ve long enjoyed the song, but felt much more moved by the video . A rougher, more emotional performance is conveyed in the clip than comes across in the song itself. There is a sense of urgency that adds depth that wasn’t recognizable prior.
50 Here Lies Love - FATBOY SLIM & DAVID BYRNE FT. FLORENCE WELCH
Included in the seft titled concept album by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, about the life of the former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos, Here Lies Love is the prologue to the Imelda tale, as sung by Florence Welch, singer of Florence and The Machine.
This song acts as a prologue and is sung from Imelda’s point of view in a style reminiscent of mid-to-late-’70s club music. She’s whooping it up at a disco, and at the same time she’s looking back on her life, her achievements, her sacrifices and her childhood. She’s also thinking ahead, imagining her legacy, what it might be.
“Here Lies Love” is nothing like Welch has recorded thus far; a kind of swelling, closing credits theme song mashed in between modern disco beats and timeless, romantic strings.
49 Hollywood - MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS
The quirky and flamboyant Marina Diamandis is gaining a following for her inventive songwriting, theatrical stage shows and dazzling style. If a young Liza Minnelli was starring in a Broadway musical telling Tori Amos's life story, it might sound like this.
In her teens, she auditioned for girl bands and cruise liners, dropping in and out of university to fund her ambitions with student loans.
Frustrated by failure, the Welsh-Greek chanteuse realised she needed to strike out on her own. So she taught herself piano and began writing spiky, memorable pop songs under the stage name Marina and the Diamonds.
Fearless, ambitious and stylish, her debut album The Family Jewels is a compelling pop confessional. Comparisons to Kate Bush and Siouxsie Sioux have been plentiful - but, on tracks like Shampain, she also channels the harmonic dazzle of Abba.
On HOLLYWOOD she sings about who she was: "Hollywood infected my brain and I really valued the wrong things in life, but I changed dramatically. This obsession with celebrity culture is really unhealthy. I don't want to live my life like that, and I don't want to be a typical pop star".
48 I Feel Better - HOT CHIP
Boybands, screaming fans, a lazer-breathing Christ-like figure and a floating head, The perfect formula for what I consider one of the best and most funniest videos of this year (so far).
What a great way to end this (long) first season. The Glee kids went back to their original JOURNEY inspiration and we saw Rachel and Finn declaring their teenage love FAITHFULLY. Somehow it felt like Danny singing to Sandy and we all Gleeks come together for this finale. Can't wait for Season Dos!!!
46 My Baby Left Me - ROX
Roxanne Tataei is a half Iranian, half Jamaican Londoner who makes nourishing soul music and counts Lauryn Hill and Sade as her biggest inspirations.
Her musical training came at church as a child before she enrolled in the Brit performing art school, the former stomping ground of Leona Lewis, Adele, Kate Nash and Amy Winehouse. With a powerful, jazzy voice, she is likely to get this year's Amy comparisons.
MY BABY LEFT ME was produced by Al Shux, the man behind Jay-Z’s and Alicia Keys’ number one hit “Empire State of Mind". Rox seems mainly interested in turning out a memorable pop tune, and that is exactly what this is.
45 Tightrope - JANELLE MONAE FT. BIG BOI
This James Brown-style funk workout by the futuristic R&B showstopper Janelle Monáe was the first single taken from her second album, The ArchAndroid. Monae's voice is a tough, confident rat-tat-tat, more Katharine Hepburn than Erykah Badu. On the verses, she tosses out tight, controlled couplets with the sort of speedy idiosyncrasy that mentor Big Boi must appreciate. But when the chorus hits, she switches up into a classic soul-singer wail, the type of immediate retro yowl that keeps Sharon Jones in fancy shoes. And after Big Boi struts on in and rhymes "NASDAQ" with "ass crack", she ups the ante, rhyming "alligators" with "rattlesnakers," "another flavor," and "Terminator." It's just a star performance all around, and god knows we need those lately.
44 Hard - RIHANNA FT. JEEZY
43 The Pursuit of Happiness - KID CUDI FT. MGMT & RATATAT
This song features the New York based dance punk act MGMT and was produced and co-written by New York electro duo Ratatat.
"It was a dream come true, and I was excited to be that artist to bring them together and really do it in the proper way." "THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS is the epitome of what you would imagine a Ratatat-engineered Kid Cudi song would sound like. And these songs came about fairly quickly – we went in the studio for hours and hours and hours trying to just do this one song and figure out a first verse, I wrote it down really quickly, and that was the whole method behind the entire album, just movin' off of that creative spark right away."
42 Watching You - INSTRA:MENTAL
Here is a beautiful piece of music that I had to share with all of you. Instra:mental has really dug themselves into a nice little sub-genre in the past few years with their minimal approach to drum and bass music. Al Bleek and Kid Drama are the highly acclaimed duo that have been testing the boundaries of drum and bass with a unique style that is unrestriced by tempo.
This is a stunning tune, built more for home listening and journeys than the club. Haunting and emotional, this is wonderful music.... love it!
41 Hey Soul Sister - TRAIN
This is 2010's best selling digital with 3.4 million, making it the only tune to shift more than 3 million this year. What a great come back for this band that gave us the unforgettable DROPS OF JUPITER back in 2001.
40 Halcyon - DELPHIC
Indie guitars and euphoric electronica have rarely gone together well, but this Manchester group make them a natural fit. Hypnotic songs are driven by pulsating beats as frontman James Cook sings infectious hooks. Their motto is: "The guitar is dead, long live the guitar."
This is what would have happened if New Order embraced ambient techno, or Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant had spent his time at raves. Great tune!!
39 Cinnamon - STONE TEMPLE PILOTS
STP is back!! And even when this song hasn't be released as a single yet, it's the best tune of the new Stone Temple Pilots self titled/come back album. CINNAMON it's psychedelic, man. It's fun, poppy, light-hearted, totally grooving - the flipside to STP that they don't often show people.
Stone Temple Pilots, the album marked the first time that Dean DeLeo and his bassist brother Robert had written together since Army of Anyone's self-titled album in 2006.
Dean explained:
"We were working on the song, and during a dinner break my brother Robert grabbed a Tele and asked Eric (Kretz, drummer) to lay down a single beat, and in a matter of minutes they had the song tracked. It's pretty much my brother's song. Even though I play the solo on the record, Robert wrote it. The whole thing is very joyous."
38 She Said - PLAN B
This finger-snapping tune is the second single from The Defamation of Strickland Banks, the sophomore album from British singer/songwriter and rapper Ben Drew, who records under the name of Plan B.
Once upon a time, Plan B was a startling proposition, a sweary UK rapper with a penetrating stare, dragging an acoustic guitar behind him. That's right, an acoustic guitar. Here's this tough kid with tough rhymes and street-hardened scowl standing on stage with an instrument more commonly associated with weedy singer-songwriters and their endless tales of slightly-disappointing love, basically the essence of SHE SAID.
37 Nothin' On You - B.O.B. FT. BRUNO MARS
B.o.B., who is known to his friends and family as Bobby Ray Simmons or Bobby Ray, is a rapper and producer from Atlanta Georgia. After signing to Atlantic Records through Jonsin's Rebel Rock on October 3, 2006, he recorded several mixtapes and EP's before the release of his debut album B.o.B presents "The Adventures of Bobby Ray" in 2010.
This melodic track that was originally slated for rapper Lupe Fiasco is the first full single release from his debut album and it features the vocals of R&B singer Bruno Mars.
Lyrically on this smooth number, the singer is assuring his girl that she has nothing to fear from other women as they've got "Nothing on You".
"I'm still young, but in the song I'm reflecting on my younger days when I was all about chasing girls. I was a hopeless romantic and made a lot of stupid decisions. It's about those days. I'm compiling my observations of myself and putting them on a record. I feel like it was a happy marriage between the lyrics that Bruno sang and what I'm doing because he pretty much summed it up and I just had to elaborate on it in my way. I switched up my vocal inflection. It's different; a lot of B.o.B. fans didn't notice it was me on first listen."
Here's some cool trivia for you:
B.o.B. is the first American act whose name is a palindrome to top the Hot 100. The other two who did so prior to the Atlanta rapper were both Scandinavian groups. They were ABBA, who reigned with "Dancing Queen" in 1977, and A-Ha, who led with "Take On Me" in 1985.
36 Rude Boy - RIHANNA
This was released as the third single from Rihanna's Rated R. "Rude Boy" features Rihanna dancing and singing in front of a green screen, with a rainbow of Jamaican-flag-inspired colors animated in during post-production. According to MTV News, Rihanna claims the vid was inpsired by the Pop Art movement, and there's definitely some Keith Haring homage in the clip.
But there seems to be some other inspiration at work here, as well. That of M.I.A.'s vibrant video for "Boyz."
The colorful, purposely lo-fi animation, the color palette. Nothing particularly wrong with it; heaven knows there's a hundred videos of dudes playing guitar in the desert.
No less an authority on M.I.A. than Diplo has noted the similarity in this tweet: "anyway.. riri is lookin soo damn hawt in this video but its super boyz boyz boyz #howmaydere ? yahmsayin?"
35 Telephone - LADY GAGA FT. BEYONCE
Video of the year (so far)?
When was the last time a pop video became a global talking point? Lady GaGa’s all-singing, all-dancing, lesbian-prison-sex and mass-murder promo for Telephone has stirred up the kind of pop sensation not seen for a decade or more. It has featured on television news bulletins and the front pages of newspapers, as well as predictably tearing through the internet, breaking records on YouTube, trending on Twitter and inspiring frame-by-frame analysis and vigorous pro and anti blog commentary.
Can a video really tell us about the times we live in? If anything, GaGa’s video seems to refer back to the excesses of the Eighties, the supposed golden age of the music video, when bigger was better, and decadence and transgression were the standard currency of pop.
In a move boldly contrary to the credit-crunch spirit of the modern music business (where the average pop video budget has fallen to under £10,000), GaGa’s big production is on its way to becoming one of the most watched videos of all time, clocking up 17 million views in its first four days, and that’s not counting its massive television audience. It propelled her song to the top of charts around the world on downloads alone.
This, after all, is how videos began: as a promotional tool. The Beatles were among the pioneers of the genre, when they realised they could send clips to US television shows rather than cross the Atlantic in person. In 1965, they shot 10 black-and-white promos in one day at Twickenham film studios. But it was with their avante-garde, backwards film for Strawberry Fields Forever in 1967 that something new was born, something more than just an advertising tool, effectively a visual extension of the song itself.
MTV was launched in 1981 to exploit the new medium. Then came Michael Jackson and Madonna, visually intuitive pop stars for whom video was the sharp point of their attack on global consciousness. More than any artist before or since, video defined them.
If necessity has been the mother of video invention, Lady GaGa threatens to turn back the clock to an era when nothing succeeded like excess. I don’t expect it to start a new video budget arms race, however, partly because there isn’t another pop star today who could pull this kind of thing off.
With the musicality and showmanship of Michael Jackson and the powerful sexuality and provocative instincts of Madonna, Lady GaGa might just turn out to be the ultimate video queen.
34 Under The Sheets (Jakwob Remix) - ELLIE GOULDING
Hands down, The best remix that I've listened in the last 6 months!
Singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding came out on top of the BBC Sound of 2010 list, which showcases the best rising music stars for the coming year.
Born in Hereford, the 22-year-old's "folktronica" sound mixes a traditional acoustic approach with a more cutting-edge electronic style.
Ellie Goulding was discovered at a talent contest in her home town of Kington, Herefordshire, and began as a traditional acoustic singer-songwriter.
But while studying drama at university in Canterbury, Kent, she hooked up with dance producers Frankmusik - who appeared on the Sound of 2009 list - and Starsmith, and the results soon gained a following on MySpace.
Goulding has also received the Brit Awards' Critics' Choice prize and said she was "absolutely honoured" to be at the top of the Sound of 2010 list.
"I didn't expect to get anywhere a few years ago," she said. "I didn't even expect to have a record deal, let alone be put in such a prestigious thing so I'm very happy. I think the list this year is great and I really believe in a lot of the acts."
As far back as the summer, people were touting her as the next big name. She looks good, she's got a good story and her songs are great - haunting, ethereal, but somehow catchy, like Cocteau Twins go pop, or something.
33 Everlasting Light - THE BLACK KEYS
The Black Keys — singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney on drums — are a two-man combo with a big-band mind. On Brothers, their first studio album after a year of offshoot affairs (Auerbach's solo album, Keep It Hid; Carney's side group, Drummer; a hip-hop project, BlakRoc), the Keys make a thick, dirty racket, overdubbed but never overstuffed. "Everlasting Light" has hive-of-bees distortion, corn-pone harmonies and an Auerbach falsetto that suggests Prince singing through a mummy's gauze. This tune dips, drives, and plunges, a series of pelvic thrusts under a fuzzy falsetto. It doesn't speed up, it doesn't slow down; it's confident (charmingly cocky?) enough to persist at a medium pace, well aware that forcing it never does the job.
32 Pass Out - TINNIE TEMPAH FT. LABRINTH
Tinie Tempah's real name is Patrick Chukwuem Okogwu Jr. But by the age of 13, he had invented his stage name. He explained to The Independent: "I looked up 'anger' in the thesaurus and I was starring at 'temper.' I thought, 'this is a little bit aggressive'. I didn't want to scare anyone off. So I added Tinie. By playtime, Tinie Tempah was born."
This debut single was co-written by the London MC and producer Labyrinth.
"We tried out so many different things by going in the studio and having fun. It wasn't like we just put a drum & bass ending on it and then thought, done! We tried out so many things, guitars, reggae bass; we were having so much fun. That track at least took 24 full hours to put together. Me and Labyrinth both tired, with Red Bulls in hand, were like this track is sick. Labyrinth had two of his stylists in the studio and by the time the track was done they were singing the bass rhythm and the chorus. The drum & bass mix up was a trialled and tested method. Once we put it in there everyone went crazy in the studio and that's why we thought we would keep it there."
The perfect tune to have fun, dance (for a little bit), get drunk and PASS OUT!
31 Born Free - M.I.A.
If you thing Gaga makes the most controversial videos, wait 'til you watch this video.
She might not have many nice things to say about Lady Gaga lately, but M.I.A. freely admits that her controversial "Born Free" video took more than a little inspiration from Gaga. Like, way more than a little.
"With our video, we were really copying 'Telephone,' " M.I.A. told the New York Times Magazine in a feature set to run on Sunday (May 30). "Both our videos are road movies. We kill people, and they kill people. They start out in a prison, and we start out in a squat, hunting people down."
But the (sorta) pleasantries end there, as M.I.A. went on to land another jab against Gaga. "All I'll say is, it's upsetting when babies say 'ga-ga' now," the British/Sri Lankan artist told the magazine. "It used to be innocent. Now, they're calling her name."
She said she gets annoyed when LG is praised for her originality — saying she mostly borrows from ABBA — and positively livid when her rival is compared to Madonna.
"You can't really say that Gaga is culturally a change," she said. "Madonna was truly unique."
Of course, in the same feature, M.I.A.'s pal — and "Born Free" director — Romain Gavras gets far nastier, joking to the Times' Lynn Hirschberg that "Madonna was pretty. ... Pop stars should be pretty."
M.I.A. explained that she and Gavras had originally intended to shoot the "Born Free" clip on the U.S.-Mexican border, but ultimately had to move production to Los Angeles because, as she put it, "Interscope won." And she told Hirschberg that she purposely avoided showing the completed video to the folks at the label (to which both she and Gaga are signed) because "the Interscope lawyers will want to send [it] to a censorship board." (Of course, Interscope head Jimmy Iovine told the Times that not only did he see the video, but that it "was more than fine with me. ... I didn't even have a blink.")
Building on that concept, M.I.A. said she's planning a stage show based entirely on censorship, with the audience's every move monitored and recorded, and individuals singled out and asked to leave if they violate certain rules.
"I want to be like the government," she said. "It could be interesting."
30 The Only Exception - PARAMORE
Paramore, who usually write and record darker material, mainly of the alternative and emo genre, had, musically, gone in a different direction with "The Only Exception"
The song's lyrics pertain to the protagonist not believing that love exists and trying to live without it, mainly to avoid rejection, but eventually realizing that it does.
"The Only Exception" features singer Hayley Williams forging a connection instead of simply spitting out her feelings, while the band locks in at a sympathetic simmer behind her.
Falling in love with someone is hard, we have doubts, we rethink ourselves, we make up excuses. But then we find that exception, that one person who makes it all worth it. The one that is finally worth the risk.
Not only I know it, I feel it... You are the only exception...
29 World Sick - BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE
This tune was the first single to be leaked for their "Forgiveness Rock Record" released on May 4th. I can’t say anything bad about Broken Social Scene they are without a doubt the heart and pride of Canadian indie music. It’s a great rock song, not too heavy on the guitar heavy on the drums and just the right amount of everything. An epic tune.
28 My Boys - TAKEN BY TREES
This is “Young Folks”/ex-Concretes singer Victoria Bergsman's (aka Taken By Trees) gender-specific take on the Number 1 Song of 2009, Animal Collective's “My Girls”.
"My Boys," sticks with the repetition of the original but this time it sounds like hand claps and bongo drums. The insistent bass in the original becomes a synth key here, and the whole thing suggest tropicalia.
THIS ONE IS DEDICATED TO MY BOYS KEVIN AND ED!!
"I don't mean to seem like I Care about material things, Like a social status, I just want Four walls and adobe slats For my boys..."
27 Good Intentions Paving Company - JOANNA NEWSOM
"I regret how I said to you, 'Honey, just open your heart,' when I've got trouble even opening a honey jar," she twists, the piano and organ that have been pulsing and pealing behind her relenting to a playful banjo-and-guitar gait. She teases her own nervous disposition, segues "Auld Lang Syne" into "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours", and compares her love-stricken state of mind to a fistfight with the fog.
Actually, love takes the other lead here. As Newsom, the passenger, and her new partner, the driver, head toward a gig through what seems to be a treacherous mountain pass, she confesses that she's committing: "I fell for you, honey, easy as falling asleep," she sings when she knows they're safe, her voice more tempered and casual than it's often been. She admits she's tried to control her heart, describing the limbo-- to love, or to run-- with a zest for syllables worthy of a backpacker rapper and a Rickie Lee Jones-like knack for shaping bits of verses into little hooks. The song keeps shifting, and each piano line pulls her like rope to a simple romantic conclusion: "I only want for you to pull over, and hold me, till I can't remember my own name."
This is a rare thing, then-- an unapologetic love song that feels, you know, new.
26 Stylo - GORILLAZ FT. BOBBY WOMACK AND MOS DEF.
This was the first single from animated quartet Gorillaz's third studio album, Plastic Beach. The song features R&B singer Bobby Womack crooning the chorus, as well as rapper Mos Def, who joined Gorillaz as an animated character named "Sun Moon Stars" on the album.
Womack told Q magazine March 2010 that he gave the band a scare during the recording of this song. He said:
"I'm diabetic, and after an hour I could feel myself passing out. Last thing I remember is thinking, Lord, don't let this happen to me. They walked me to the couch and gave me a banana. In two or three minutes I woke up and said, 'Let's go again.' They said, 'No, we got it on tape.' I know it musta freaked them out because it freaked me out. Murdoc kept a straight face. He said, 'I'm telling you, man, you're my idol.' I said, 'well don't kill your idol.'"
Bassist Murdoc told The NME: "This is a new sound for Gorillaz. An electro-ish 'crack funk' sound, with a little bit of politics and a lot of soul going down. With 'Stylo', I wanted the music to feel euphoric, whilst still putting across how precarious our tightly packed situation is now, worldwide. Where we're at as a species on this overpopulated planet ('Coming on to the Overload. Overload. Overload')."
UK reggae artist Eddy Grant alleged that this song plagiarises his 1977 track "Time Warp" by using the same keyboard section as his hit. "This is pure piracy, it is an obvious infringement of my song," he said. "Anyone who knows 'Time Warp' will know this is 'Time Warp' with people singing and rapping over it, [along] with funny little noises. 'Time Warp' is a very popular song and has been a staple of the DJ scene for many years and I feel total disrespect from Gorillaz and their management company. It's such an obvious copy that from day one the band and their management should have taken control of this situation with EMI Publishing. I would like the outcome to be that the band admits that they have lifted my song, that I have a full credit for the song and an apology from the band."
25 O.N.E. - YEASAYER
"I had this idea about writing a song about addiction — alcoholism — but kind of relating it to a way you'd get rid of a girlfriend or something. So we worked on that song for many months Upstate, in Woodstock, and threw a big beat over it. It became kind of like a early-'90s era Beck song, with a break beat over it. And then when we brought it to the live setting, with our new bandmates, Chris [Keating, vocals and keyboards] kind of said, 'It's not a dance song,' and we were talking about how, on this album, we wanted to commit to certain styles for an entire song and not jump around. So, finally, I caved in. I only caved in after the Bonnaroo audience was so excited by our live version, and I was like, 'OK, I guess I lost that argument.'"
Guitarist Anand Wilder on the "One is Not Enough" song
24 Just Breathe - PEARL JAM
Eddie Vedder said Backspacer was meant to be a more optimistic album, having stated, "I've tried, over the years, to be hopeful in the lyrics, and I think that's going to be easier now,” and I think ‘Just Breathe’ couldn’t have made that comment more accurate, with lyrics: “Oh I'm a lucky man, to count on both hands the ones I love / Some folks just have one, yeah, others, they've got none”.
Unlike many other recent Pearl Jam singles, it is the absence of fanfare that really makes 'Just Breathe' something worth listening to. A paced bass line and a subtle layer of strings laid over the guitar adds further texture to the basic tune. The gentle calm of the melody, and raw honesty in Eddie Vedder’s lyrics, are completely engaging, and the delicate song seems to flow naturally from the grunge rock legends.
For me this is the song that describes this wonderful feeling that have been experienced since the beggining of this year. February 21st was the day that happiness re-appears in my life and it hit me with a double shot. Life should be this easy and enjoyable.
"Oh I'm a lucky man, to count on both hands, the ones I love... Some folks just have one, others, they've got none... Stay with me, Let's just breathe..."
23 Soldier of love - SADE
According to the rumor mill, Kanye West and hip-hop's newest "it" boy, Drake, reached out to Sade, the reclusive chanteuse, for a possible collaboration. She said she'd have to do some research to find out who they were before she could say yes. The story is apocryphal at best, but is spreading at an urban legend's pace because, like the best urban legends, it confirms what we already thought. Sade, the notoriously press-shy songstress who has stingily parceled out music since the mid-'80s, seems like the type to have never heard of Kanye West. She doesn't keep up with music; music keeps up with her. YES!!!
For Sade’s most ardent listeners, the time between the present and Lover’s Rock (2000) has lasted an eternity. When “Soldier of Love” surfaced online at the beginning of this year, news of a new Sade song fast ignited a blaze of exclamation points across blogs and Facebook pages all over the world. The excitement stirred by “Soldier of Love” has made Sade’s latest release the first hotly anticipated album of the ‘10s.
Sade can casually drop back in to a warm reception because she has built the pop-music equivalent of a luxury brand.
Part of the Sade brand just comes from who she is: born to a Nigerian father and English mother, raised in London, blessed with a beauty that looks barely weathered at 51. She's the exotic, alluring foreigner. Her music is essentially pop, but heavily flavored with music styles favored by the elite.
It comes as some surprise, then, to hear Sade loosing up-to-the-minute martial beats on the title track of her new album, Soldier of Love. The video finds the 51-year-old in a spangly catsuit, swinging a lasso over a smoking wasteland. Succinct, masterful and adventurous!!
When you’re not trying to stay in fashion, you can concentrate on doing one thing extremely well and not worry that people will find it dated. Sure, the production on Soldier Of Love sounds a bit tougher and chunkier than the band’s early work, but the classic Sade vibe we love is still front and centre.
Waiting 10 years between albums usually means a crisis in confidence. In this case, it seems to have been the opposite – they’ve got nothing to prove, so they can just relax and take their time.
22 Older - BAND OF HORSES
On 2007's Cease to Begin, Band of Horses became more of a one-horse town, with frontman Ben Bridwell carrying the load in the wake of partner Mat Brooke's exit. He sounds less lonely on the group's third set, which adds singer-songwriter Tyler Ramsey as a full member, and sees multi-instrumentalist Ryan Monroe growing as a songwriter. Suddenly, the band has blossomed into something more like the Band, with rich harmonies — even when Bridwell just multitracks his own voice — and fuller arrangements. You can also hear some Fleet Foxes, a soft-rock shift that may bum out older fans. But for tuneful chilling out, it's like a fine old couch.
21 Let's Go Surfing - THE DRUMS
This local band from Brooklyn have said their song 'Let's Go Surfing' isn't about surfing at all, but is, in fact, is an ode to American president Barack Obama.
In a track-by-track guide to their self-titled debut album, Frontman Jonathan Pierce and guitarist Jacob Graham explained that they wrote the track on November 4, 2008, the day of the last presidential election.
"We actually wrote it on the day that Obama won the election, and everyone was so excited," said Graham. "We're not very political and we don't usually know what's going on, but in America you couldn't really help but know what was going on and get excited about it. The whole country had suffered eight years of feeling like we were in prison or something and then Obama came through and it was impossible not to get swept up with the whole nation, so that's when we wrote 'Let's Go Surfing.'"
Pierce added that the second verse of the song is a direct reference to Obama.
"There's a new kid in the town / Honey, he's moving into the big house / Remember / When I was so very hopeless / Darling, he's gonna make it all better."
