20
Pretty Wings MAXWELL
Heartbreak is a constant in popular music, and with good reason; Maxwell is among the billions across the globe who have had their hearts broken at one time or another, but his latest record, BLACKsummers'night, is a deeply moving and evocative record that finds the singer expounding on this universal feeling like few can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZJYW4odlm0
Although Maxwell has always seemed preternaturally mature, there is something new in this, his first piece of the BlackSummer'sNight trilogy, a depth of emotion appropriate for this level of heartbreak.
"Pretty Wings", the lead single and album centerpiece, doesn't work in simple binaries or reductive ideas; it lays out a fair yet confused examination of a relationship's fall.
Maxwell even acknowledges his own mistakes after an indictment of his partner's, creating a realization of loss and all of the intricate personal responses that implies. But what is truly powerful is that it is just as musically complex as a relationship's disintegration is emotionally.
Maxwell's patience allows him to effectively write such paens to devotion; it is as if he wanted to catalog every aspect of this very human breakdown, identify each strand to create a song that fully captures, laid bare, the complex emotional terrain that wells up during such an exceptionally difficult and human experience. This level of detail carries with it a lived-in feeling, a convincing truthfulness simply because the emotions are too specific to be anything but real.
Music this effective is difficult, and only someone as passionate about music as they are the human heart could so successfully produce work that reflects well on both.
19
Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) BEYONCÉ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY
Love has always been a high-stakes business transaction for Beyoncé, ever since that lousy boyfriend maxed out her credit card in "Bills, Bills, Bills." "Single Ladies" is her definitive statement on that subject.
The beat, courtesy of The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, is irresistible and exuberant, the vocal hook is stormy and virtuosic, and her lesson is blunt: Seal the deal. With a shiny ring. A lesson learnt by some of my dear girlfriends in 2009.
Bulletproof LA ROUX
Some people in pop music are banking on eccentricity right now: When the BBC announced its influential "Sound of 2009" list back in January, it was striking how many of the performers on it-- La Roux, Little Boots, Frankmuzik-- presented themselves as quirky, described themselves as making pop, and had come at it using netroots tactics. La Roux in particular has become a bona fide smash in Britain, her shrill homebrew electropop heralding a surprising return of the DIY ethic to the pop mainstream.
Bulletproof is a bright, bouncy slice of Yazoo-ish electropop with a chorus every bit as immediate as 'In For The Kill'. Jackson's vocals are less shrill this time around, but she comes off just as formidable.
17
Daniel BAT FOR LASHES
With a knack for high-concept storytelling and a distinct visual aesthetic to accompany her rich, moody pop, Bat for Lashes' Natasha Khan may be the closest thing to a video star in today's indie realm. Though perhaps not as iconic as her Donnie Darko-inspired clip for 2007's "What's a Girl to Do?", the video for "Daniel", the standout from her Two Suns LP, matches the song's hope and longing. In it, Khan wrestles with sorrow (in the form of faceless, black-clad dancers) as she races toward the titular character and the track's skyward chorus.
16
Two Weeks GRIZZLY BEAR
15
When Love Takes Over DAVID GUETTA FEAT. KELLY ROWLAND
Kelly Rowland was never going to find it easy forging a solo career. Even before the demise of Destiny's Child, Beyoncé crowned herself the Queen of R&B, leaving her former bandmates scrambling for a piece of the action. But every cloud has a silver lining, and after her second album Ms. Kelly failed to impress, Rowland drafted in dance duo Freemasons to spice things up. Confident she can 'Work' the club scene again, her latest single is another dancefloor-filling stomper.
14
On this Remix of Day N' Nite, The Crooker's music is engrossing and Cudi's angst genuine but his raps get pedestrian. And asserting ad nauseam that he is a "lonely stoner" is just annoying — a hipster boast masquerading as a confession.
13
Just Dance LADY GAGA FT. AKON & COLBY ODONIS
12
Panic Switch SILVERSUN PICKUPS
"For some reason, when we were mixing it, we kept playing around with this visual thesaurus that had a computer voice, and [bassist] Nikki [Monninger] and I kept typing up weird words, trying to find the dirtiest ones we could. So every time I listen to that song now, I just keep hearing this computer voice saying all these dirty words. Anyway, it's our dance song. We wrote it later on in the process — really close to the end, because we were seeing how the album was shaping up. I remember coming into the rehearsal space and just told everybody, 'OK, we're locking it down,' because we had a lot of songs to work with. And then the next day, I came back like, 'Hey, hey, wait, there's one more song to fit in.' And it's a very bizarre song. There were no verses in it. ... Hopefully it conveys a theme on the album, which is basically a nervous breakdown. It's pretty chaotic, and of all the songs on the record, that one represents that [theme] the best."
Silversun Pickups' frontman Brian Aubert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQeJPb7VbKk
Panic Switch became the third independently-distributed song ever to reach the #1 position on the Hot Alternative Tracks of Billboard Magazine's chart. The other two to achieve this feat were The Offspring's 1994 debut hit "Come Out and Play" and Everlast's "What It's Like,"which had a nine-week run at the summit in 1998-9.
11
You Belong With Me TAYLOR SWIFT
Remember the night that Kanye West became the biggest Douche Bag in the entire world?
It was the night when this song's promo won the 2009 MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video, beating Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it)" amongst others. Taylor Swift's victory apparently did not meet with the approval of Kanye West:
"Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'll let you finish, but Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!"
A stunned Taylor was timed out and consequently unable to complete her acceptance speech. Later when "Single Ladies" won the show's top honor - Video of the Year, Beyoncé showed her class by calling back Swift to the stage to finish her speech. "I would like Taylor to come out and have her moment," she said.
Billboard magazine reported on 24th September 2009 that with an audience of 117 million, The Video Music Awards made this tune the most heard song on US radio that week. The song was the first country crossover track to achieve that feat since tracking firm Nielsen Soundscan's started keeping records in 1990.
09
Dog Days Are Over FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE
Florence Welch marks a clear break from the contentious-yet-fruitful Lily vs. Amy era. And that's not only because this self-professed "real geek" is a redhead who'll take harps over horns. Whereas Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse worked their way through the tabloids while breaking down life's troublesome bits into startlingly candid profundity on record, Welch aims for little but the outer reaches on her debut LP, Lungs. Welch hovers high above her native London's seedy back alleys-- and she's looking skyward.
Lungs is a cloud-headed introduction to Welch's world, where It Girl hype, coffins, violence, and ambition combust on impact; it's a platinum-shellacked demo reel drunk on its own hi-fi-ness.
Instead of giving this gothically pale 22-year-old with megaphone vox some classy pop-soul to work with à la Duffy or Adele, Lungs takes the smorgasbord approach. Welch bursts mouth wide wide over garage rock, epic soul, pint-tipping Britbeat, and-- best of all-- a mystic brand of pop that's part Annie Lennox, Grace Slick, and Joanna Newsom. A lesser talent might fall prey to such veering stylistic change-ups (cough, Kate Nash, cough), but Welch powers through, her ear-snapping alarm call of a voice making Lungs sound like the work of a courageous artist rather than a group of well-paid producers. Of course, well-paid producers are still involved-- specifically, James Ford (Simian Mobile Disco, Arctic Monkeys), Paul Epworth (Bloc Party), and Stephen Mackey (Pulp).
08
No You Girls FRANZ FERDINAND
Album number one: “music to make girls dance”. Album number two: “music for girls to cry to”. Album number three, in your own words Mr Kapranos?
“Music of the night: for the dancefloor, flirtation, for your desolate heart-stop, for losing it and loving it, for the chemical surge in your bloodstream… for that lonely hour rocking yourself, waiting for dawn and it all to be even again”.
07
1901 PHOENIX
Phoenix is a Grammy nominated French alternative rock band started during their childhood by Thomas Mars, Deck D'Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz in the suburb of Versailles, in the same culture that produced late-'90s bands such as Air and Daft Punk.
When "1901" debuted on the Phoenix website with animated pink shards slashing across a black backing, it looked like the track's error-message synthesizers were clawing a neon marquee out from underneath the sooty abyss. And the song itself is similar restoration, layering sloppy guitar jangle into a propulsive motor and goosing the synthesizers into an air-raid crescendo until the whole mess is a glass-smooth shiny bauble. People in indie rock circles often talk about hit singles in alternate dimensions, but Phoenix prove you don't need quantum theory to make pop out of indie rock ingredients... you just need to be from Versailles.
According to lead singer Thomas Mars, the song is about early 20th century Paris:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL548cHH3OY
06
Use Somebody KINGS OF LEON
"The meat of song was written on tour. When I came up with 'I could use somebody,' I didn't know if I was talking about a person or home or God. I felt immediately that it was a big song, and it scared me away. Then, when we were writing the record, Matthew kept sayin', 'What's that song, man?', and I acted like I didn't know what he was talking about. Then, finally, I went, 'All right, we'll do it,' and as soon as we started playin' it, the producers looked up and said, 'Whoa, that's a good song.' I was like, 'OK.'"
05
For about a year, she was nothing but a lot of talk and a badge-- only without the badge. She filled her résumé and interviews with style icon namedrops-- Andy Warhol and his notions on celebrity, the denizens of New York's downtown arts scene, and avant couture designers like Thierry Mugler-- but her singles betrayed none of the artistry that she insisted was part of her package. "Poker Face" had about three big hooks, but next to her other singles-- which ran the gamut from forgettable fluff ("Just Dance") to "Muffin Top" ("LoveGame")-- it seemed like a fluke. Then, between the VMAs and "Paparazzi", she came into her own. And on "Bad Romance", the lead single from The Fame Monster, she became kind of awesome.
Like Madonna or Prince, it's impossible to separate the song from the performer. But unlike those artists, Lady Gaga isn't particularly attractive, and she uses this to her advantage by suppressing her vanity and making herself a slippery figure. She's still largely unknowable and also almost unrecognizable from moment to moment, as she contorts, disguises, masks and maims her face and body like a Matthew Barney or David Cronenberg creation.
Her first 21st Century Classic, the international hit "Just Dance" was predominately electropop, "Poker Face" carries a dark sound with clear vocals on the chorus and a pop hook while combining the synths from "Just Dance" and the more dance-oriented beat of the next single "LoveGame".
The tune carries the pleather-and-sequins vibe of the downtown New York scene out of the underground and onto the FM dial without losing its smut and sass.
Whether Gaga can keep up the streak is another matter. Maybe she'll get chewed up and spat out in the end, or maybe her chameleonic image changes are just Madonna's career at the speed of the Internet era and we're seeing all of her ideas at once. But all of a sudden, for a brief time at least, she's the only real pop star around.
04
Zero YEAH YEAH YEAHS
Beginning with a synth pulse straight from Studio 54, ‘Zero’ was immediately, grippingly the sound of Yeah Yeah Yeahs emerging from their red booth in the shadows onto the dancefloor. Not just emerging either: as the song stepped up its disco beat with Karen O exhorting you to “climb, climb, climb high up”, then exploded into an ecstatic, multiply-climactic thriller, it was apparent they were storming the floor astride a strutting...
03
Moment Of Surrender U2
"I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice but to lift you up," Bono declares early on this countdown, in a song called "Magnificent." He does it in an oddly low register, a heated hush just above the shimmer of the Edge's guitar and the iron-horse roll of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. Bono is soon up in thin air with those familiar rodeo yells, on his way to the chorus, which ends with him just singing the word "magnificent," repeating it with relish, stretching the syllables.
But he does it not in self-congratulation, more like wonder and respect, as if in middle age, on his band's 11th studio album, he still can't believe his gift — and luck. Bono knows he was born with a good weapon for making the right kind of trouble: the clean gleam and rocket's arc of that voice. "It was one dull morning/I woke the world with bawling," he boasted in "Out of Control," written by Bono on his 18th birthday and issued on U2's Irish debut EP.
He is still singing about singing, all over No Line on the Horizon, U2's first album in nearly five years and their best, in its textural exploration and tenacious melodic grip, since 1991's Achtung Baby.
Most of the great — and biggest-selling — U2 albums have been confrontational successes: the dramatic entrance on 1980's Boy; the spiritual-pilgrim reach of 1987's The Joshua Tree; the electro-Weimar whirl of Achtung Baby; the return to basics on 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Produced by the now-standard trio of Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite, No Line on the Horizon is closer to the transitional risks — the Irish-gothic spell of 1984's The Unforgettable Fire, the techno-rock jet lag of 1993's Zooropa — but with a consistent persuasion in the guitar hooks, rhythms and vocal lines.
The rising-falling effect of the harmony voices around Bono in the long space-walk "Moment of Surrender" is a perfect picture of where he really wants to be, when he gets to the line about "vision over visibility."
It's amazing that U2 can still write a song this incredible 30 years down the road. Their best song in years, PERIOD!! Moment of Surrender is the Bad of the 21st century. It has that same unsettling but incredibly moving atmosphere, and Bono seriously sings the flaming hell out of this thing. Surrender's meaning is meant to be pretty ambiguous, different things to different people, like One was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5OEIBSH1FQ&feature=related
No Line On The Horizon is an album that for many people takes time. The first time I listened to it I was hooked, but I have found that it has grown on many people who wrote if off because of "Get On Your Boots" as the first single. "Magnificent", "Moment Of Surrender", and "Breathe" are three of the greatest songs U2 has ever written and deserve to rank among their all time classics.
Bono knows he was born with a voice. He also knows that without Mullen, Clayton and the Edge, he'd be just another big mouth.02
In For The Kill (Skream's Let's Get Ravey Remix) LA ROUX
2009 will somehow be remembered as the year that the 80s made a noteworthy comeback. This Eighties spirit is reflected in new music and after decades of dourness and plastic perfection, pop has become shameless again with artist like Lady Gaga, Little Boots, Ladyhawke, Empire Of The Sun, etc.
An electro duo fronted by a pale, skinny, androgynous young red headed woman with a big quiff, tailored suits and garish make-up, her high strung vocal blaring over cheesy synths and chintzy drum machine as she insists she is coming in for the kill... NOPE! Not the Eurythmics, circa 1983, but breakthrough British stars La Roux.
La Roux are red haired singer Elly Jackson and her studio partner Ben Langmaid, who is a veteran of the 1990s dance scene.
When the original version of In For The Kill was released as the second single of their debut album, it proved to be a huge hit for the electro-pop duo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ1Mi77nogQ
"None of us expected it to do that at all. Me and Ben have had faith in it and we always thought it had potential to go far but we were never sure if other people were going to feel the same or if other people were going to like it. We know it has a Marmite effect vocally. Some people don't like it or they find it a bit annoying which is totally fine. We knew that when we wrote it that it was going to be a love/hate thing. It's just always really lovely when music speaks for itself like that."
Elly Jackson
In For The Kill is an emotional leap of faith set to stabbing synths. Strangely powerful yet angel-wing-light at the same time. This will still sound staggering in a decade’s time.
The "Let’s Get Ravey" version remixed by Dubstep Producer Skream transformed this tune from La Roux’s most accessible chart hit to the darkest remix to ever come from England. Simply A MASTERPIECE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq5GdutCRo8
Coming up, The NUMERO UNO OF 2009!!
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