Came across this track last night. I love when beats and synths seem to be tripping over each other but in some lockstep sort of way. Basically I love the UK garage sound.

Although I didn’t pay too much attention to the first Best Coast album, I’ve been coming back to their new single over and over for the past few weeks. It’s the perfect California summertime jam.

 Oh yes. Refused is back.

Back in the days when I used to go to the library and rent albums in order to build my music collection, Refused were one of my gem punk discoveries (up there with Scatter the Ashes.) And when I saw that they were on the poster for this year’s Coachella, I flipped.

I am unbelievably excited for this comeback show.

When you see a crowd jumping like at 1:50 of this video, you know something’s going right.

I saw Black Bananas and Sleigh Bells play last night to a sold out Terminal 5, and it was a hell of a show. This is the third time I’ve seen Sleigh Bells (1st: Gobi Tent at Coachella, 2nd: Mojave Tent at Coachella), and every time they seem to hone their craft even further. With music as fast-paced and aggressive as this, the show has to be super tight, not too long, and have perfectly placed mid-tempo songs. Without a doubt, Sleigh Bells are 100% aware of what their image is, what their ‘sound’ is, and how that sound should translate in a live setting. Flawless execution.

It’s been eight months since I’ve written about a show! While don’t have much of a clue as to how that’s happened considering that I’ve been to tons of shows in the meantime, seeing Santigold with a little bit of Spank Rock (I got there a bit late) last night has made me jump back into this.

So yes, last night I went to see one of Santigold’s sold out shows at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. It’s been four years since I saw her back in 2007 at Steve Aoki’s Neighborhood Fest in Expo Park. Back then, her amazing debut album hadn’t come out yet, but she was building on the success of the early Creator/L.E.S. Artists EP (I had no idea what the L.E.S. was until I lived there three years later.) Not to get too nostalgic or anything (that was the first show I went to as a freshman at USC), but I only spent $40 to go to a show with Spank Rock, Santigold, Crystal Castles, Chromeo, Kid Sister, DJ AM, and The Faint! I think Spank Rock, Chromeo, and The Faint were the only artists with legit LPs out, and I remember thinking that Crystal Castles with Alice chugging a handle of vodka on stage were pretty out-there.

Back to last night’s show. It was exactly what I wanted it to be: fun. Obviously, you go to different shows with different intentions and expectations. I don’t always expect to have fun at the shows I go to. For example, I saw Girls and Real Estate on Saturday, and while it was a great show (Girls reeeaallly got their stuff together with their live show for the new album), I wouldn’t describe it as fun.

Santigold started off with “Go”, and Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs came out to do her spot on the song! From there, the setlist continued with a majority of the songs off the first album and probably about four new songs that’ll be on her upcoming sophomore effort. Stuff like “Creator”, “L.E.S. Artists”, “Lights Out”, and “Say Aha” went off perfectly. The new material all sounded great. I remember thinking that while the beats were fast, her delivery was more laid back – like she was riding the beat more than on her first album. But that’s just a first judgement of songs heard live. We also got some of the tracks that aren’t Santigold originals like Major Lazer’s “Hold the Line” and “B.O.O.T.A.Y.” was the finale of the whole show with Spank Rock coming back out to perform it alongside her.

Aside from the awesome music, Santi has really put together a fully-fledged show for her upcoming tour. Along with two costume changes, she had two backup singers / dancers who had choreographed moves for every moment of every song. She also had a three piece band consisting of a drummer and two multi-instrumentalists backing her rather than just a DJ. And in my opinion, the difference that this makes is hard to overstate.

Like I said, it was a fun show. The crowd was dancing throughout, and it seemed like everyone knew her first album really well. Shows are so much better when the crowd knows the material. The artist loves that the crowd loves them, and the crowd loves that the artist is having a great time. That’s exactly what happened last night.

• Decibel Magazine – Top 40 of 2011
• Pitchfork – Top 40 Metal Albums of 2011
• The Guardian – The best albums of 2011
• Chicago Tribune – Top albums of 2011
• FACT Mag – 50 best: albums of 2011
• NPR – The Best Metal Albums of 2011
• NPR – The Best Outer Sound Albums of 2011
• Paste Mag – The 50 Best Albums of 2011
• Idolator – 2011′s Best Albums
• Q – 50 Best Albums of 2011
• NPR – NPR Music’s 50 Favorite Albums of 2011
• The New Yorker – The Best Music of 2011: The British Singers
• FACT Mag – 50 best: songs of 2011
• FACT Mag – 10 best: labels of 2011
• New York – The Top Ten Albums of the Year
• Stereogum – Top 50 Albums of 2011
• Altered Zones – 2011: Albums
• Uncut – 2011: The Top 50 Albums
• MOJO – Top 50 Albums of 2011
• Rolling Stone – 5o Best Albums of 2011
• Sub Pop Blog – Label’s Artist’s Top 10 of 2011
• Sub Pop – Staff’s Top Picks of 2011
• Sub Pop – Top 10 of 2011: Friends of Sub Pop Edition
• NPR – Ann Powers’ 10 Favorite Albums of 2011
• NPR – Bob Boilen’s 11 Favorite Albums of 2011
• NPR – Stephen Thompson’s 10 Favorite Albums of 2011
• Reddit – TOP ALBUMS OF 2011 AS VOTED BY REDDIT
• Spin – 40 Best Rap Albums of 2011
• The New Yorker – The Best Music of 2011: The American Singers
• NPR – The Best Jazz Of 2011
• Pitchfork – The Top 50 Albums of 2011
• Pitchfork – The Top 100 Tracks of 2011
• Pitchfork – Guest List: Best of 2011
• NPR – Listeners Pick Their Favorite Albums of 2011: The Complete List of 100
• NME – 50 Best Albums of 2011
• Spin – 50 Best Albums of 2011
• AllMusic – Favorite Blues Albums of 2011
• AllMusic – Favorite R&B Albums of 2011
• AllMusic – Favorite Electronic Albums of 2011
• AllMusic – Favorite Indie Pop and Rock Albums of 2011
• AllMusic – Favorite Rock Albums of 2011
• BrooklynVegan – Favorite Albums of 2011

5. U2. -346

Seven out of ten times, Coldplay sound almost exactly like U2—the U2 that exists now, not the wiry, feral U2 of 1980 (which would be a decent idea). U2 have not broken up. This is inefficient. Coldplay should consider copying Big Star or The Monkees.

(via The New Yorker)

Update: Pitchfork has interviewed Chris Martin. I repeat: Pitchfork has interviewed Chris Martin. This reminds me of when Pitchfork interviewed U2 after giving “No Line on the Horizon” a 4.2. Both come off as massively successful musicians giving interviews like they genuinely wish that this blog – that consistently pans their current output – loved them like it loves Arcade Fire or M83.

I’ve been somewhat music-deprived here in India. Wi-fi is nearly impossible to come by, so the flow of new music reaching my ears has slowed significantly.

Zomby’s new album Dedication is a monster. I’ve gone through his first two albums numerous times, but this one outdoes both the 90s hardcore tribute Where Were You in ’92 and the weird videogame sounding dubstep of One Step Ahead of the Other. It sounds like the spectrum of Zomby’s sounds instead of a hyper-focused collection surrounding one or two ideas.

Bjork’s single “Crystalline” is making me really anxious that I don’t have better access to a fast internet connection because I can’t see all of the multimedia that accompanies the new album. As people have said, the song’s sound is reminiscent of Homogenic, but the left turn into nutso d’n'b has me excited for more new material.

So about a week into the trip, we all started to get pretty paranoid of all the ways that we could get sick or injured around here. It doesn’t take much to recognize that getting sick is part of the experience. Mosquitoes carry malaria, it’s a crap-shoot whether or not your bed will have bedbugs (yeah, “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” – a whole lot of good that’ll do us), many of the patients have scabies, the water is like poison to a westerner’s system, yesterday it flooded -you don’t even want to know what’s in the streets, etc.  And then it hit.

I could tell something was up during work, but there was no way I wasn’t going to see the last Harry Potter on release day. Correction – there was no was I wasn’t going to see 3/4 of the last Harry Hotter on release day. Just at the end of Snape’s story, my body decided that it had had enough, and I made my way to the bathroom. Fast-forward through that scene (and almost passing out twice), I grabbed M&A after the movie ended, and they saw me back to health through the night. I was such a good patient that I gave my doctor my illness as payment! Ashley was sick through the night, so Saturday turned into recovery day, and Marissa avoided our bug altogether. Fun stuff.

It’s been raining a lot lately. That means flooding. Sudder Street was a sorry sight yesterday as the rain took over, but it was pretty cool to finally see what everyone talks about when they speak of the crazy monsoons in India. Not that this was was particularly nuts, but hey, the road flooded, that counts for something, right?

Now we only have a week left before we board another train back to New Delhi and go our separate ways. The volunteers who showed up around the same time as us (early July) are starting to leave, so it seems like goodbye dinners are an everyday occurrence. Aside from the work we do during the day, hanging out with all of the volunteers here have been some of the best times in Kolkata.

PS: don’t know how I almost skipped this one: a new M83 single. “Midnight City” is a power track. After seeing him/them perform with the L.A. Phil, M83 can do no wrong.

I know this is old, but I just got around to watching it. Like everyone else on the internet has said, the video is far more interesting than you might think it would be.

Album art for Son Lux's We Are Rising

There has been a lot of high-profile/0n-my-radar music released in the past few weeks, and for some reason only a small portion of it is living up to my expectations. One album that surpassed what I expected is Son Lux‘s sophomore album We Are Rising. I’ve mentioned Son Lux before, but I really think that this new offering deserves further note.

For an album made start to finish in 28 days, We Are Rising shines in so many different ways. I love the orchestral arrangements Son Lux (aka Ryan Lott) has put together. It’s obvious from the beginning that he’s a classically trained musician fully capable of composing very complex pieces, and he doesn’t shy away from his abilities. “Let Go” – a short track near the end of the relatively quick 38-minute run time – is one of my favorites not because of any pop sensibilities Lott shows off, but because of the fact that multiple tempos overlap through different instruments and phase in and out of each other until the end when tracks are stripped away until a simple beat is left.

Other standouts include the bombastic “All The Right Things” and the Portishead-reminiscent “Leave The Bones.” But We Are Rising really should be listened to in its entirety. I’ve gone through it many times since its release last month and don’t plan on letting it slip out of rotation any time soon. Lott’s deep constructions will give me new facets to discover for quite some time.

this girl definitely looks like Skrillex

I deplore Skrillex and the music he makes. I cringe when people say things like, “I love dubstep! Have you heard of Skrillex?” Sure, you could make the argument that (like Deadmau5) he’s bringing people to electronic music that otherwise would have kept listening to Kings of Leon and Jack Johnson. Right. Because those are the kind of people I want at a Chemical Brothers or Aphex Twin show.

Tumblr is a wonderful thing. It gives us gems like this.

(via the infamous Coachella Forum)

I just want to point out a few things that I discovered while researching the production of her album.

1. Bloodshy & Avant = 2/3 of Miike Snow. Now I understand why Miike Snow makes great pop music: the guys in the band wrote Toxic.
2. Benny Blanco, the guy who did a filthy, “raunchy, megahorny hip-hop” album with Spank Rock that I listened to a few summers ago writes songs for Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Justin Bieber, and Ciara, to name a few.
3. Darkchild kinda seems like a self-absorbed loudmouth.

The Odd Future collective just DGAF

Is it wrong that I think of Odd Future as 2011′s Die Antwoord with way more staying power? Regardless, that’s how I approach these guys.

Quick facts: OFWGKTA stands for Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, which is shortened to Odd Future. Odd Future is a collective of about ten 17-23 year-old rappers and producers seemingly headed by Tyler, the Creator.

I first listened to Tyler, the Creator’s “Yonkers” after seeing Kanye West’s tweet declaring the video for the song “The video of 2011.” I have a thing for stark, simple, black-and-white videos (“Single Ladies“, “My Love“, “Drop It Like It’s Hot“, “On To The Next One“, I could go on…), and “Yonkers” keeps pace with the rest. It’s unique, and it keeps with Odd Future’s reputation as spouting shocking and ridiculous imagery through their lyrics.

The collective has been quite prolific since late 2008 (Pitchfork has a great review of their mixtapes), but hadn’t garnered a ton of attention until late last year. I’ve only just started going through the mixtapes and watching their performance at SXSW, but I’m hooked. I can’t pass up the allure of young energy breaking new ground without much regard for their elders. I’ll definitely be catching their set at Coachella this year.

Update: Pitchfork just posted an interview with Odd Future. It’s loaded with gems. My favorite is…

Pitchfork: Did you ever imagine you’d be playing at festivals like Coachella and SXSW a year ago?

Tyler, the Creator: I didn’t even know about Coachella a year ago. I knew about SXSW because N.E.R.D. played here. It was never my goal or intention to play one of those, and I never realized how important it was until recently. I’m a believer that if you keep saying shit’s gonna happen it will. Like, I always talked about how I wanted a trampoline, and now I have one.

Update 2: If this isn’t the best interview ever…

Coachella 2011 Lineup, it's amazing

jj kills

I’m no expert on jj. I’ve listened to jj nº1, nº2, and nº3, but I still don’t have a firm grasp on what it is that they’re doing. Maybe that’s the point. On one hand you have Ecstacy and on the other you have Let Go. Is it beautiful indie pop or is it beautiful indie pop covers of hip hop songs?

With the release of the Kills mixtape, the question changes again. Is it beautiful indie pop covers mashing up a bunch of hip hop songs? I don’t know, but it’s incredible. Genres, who needs ‘em?

Tracklist

1. STILL
2. DIE TONIGHT
3. KILL THEM
4. KILL YOU
5. NEW WORK
6. BELIEVE
7. PRESSURE IS A PREVILEGE
8. ANGELS
9. BOOM
10. HIGH END

jj kills

MOG Music's new web app brings its interface up to speed with competitors like Rdio

I consume a lot of music, and there’s no way that I could ever afford to purchase every album I listen to for $14.99. That’s where music subscription services come in. As a recent convert to MOG (from Rhapsody), I get excited every time I get even just a weekly update in my inbox letting me know what music has been added recently. But the announcement of an entirely revamped web app launched into Google’s brand new Chrome Web Store is something that anyone who loves music should pay attention to.

To get you acquainted with what it is exactly that MOG offers, here’s a quick summary of the $4.99 /month service (for $9.99, you get the mobile app too):

Unlimited Music: Access to over 10 million songs and close to one million albums, on-demand.
High Quality Audio: Music is streamed at 320 kbps; better than any other music service.
Best-in-Class, Personal Radio: The most powerful music discovery engine on the planet (powered by MOG Mobius).
One-click Access: With one click, get instant access to New Releases, Top Artists, Top Albums and Editor’s Picks.
Anytime, Anywhere: Unlimited access to the MOG app from any computer using Chrome or Safari browsers or on your TV (Roku and GoogleTV).

The Good (a.k.a. why it’s better than what it was)

So why is this new web app a good thing? Because the way that we interface with MOG’s library has been vastly improved. For starters, the browsing of MOG’s huge catalog and the managing of the ‘Play Queue’ all happens in the same browser window now. Where you used to click a button in one window to add a song to the queue in another pop-up, now an addition to the queue affects the window you’re looking at. This really unifies the user experience and brings MOG up to speed with the user experience that competitors like Rdio already offer.

Another improvement is the way in which you now browse and discover music on the site. When you click on an artist’s name after you either search for them or just happen upon them while browsing the site, a dropdown summarizing the content pertaining to that artist is shown. From here, you can view that artist’s discography, see their top tracks, play a radio station built around their sound, or dive deeper and see the individual songs that make up an album. Because the site is built as a web app meeting to the (relatively) new HTML5 standards, the absence of pageloads makes browsing the site super smooth. Jumping in and out of artist pages is quick and painless.

The Bad (or hopefully ‘The Temporarily Left Out’)

The site isn’t perfect though. As a beta release, this is understandable, but there are a few things that I hope are in the pipeline to be implemented soon. The first thing that stuck out to me was that playlists are nowhere to be found. When someone gives you unlimited access to a 10 million song catalog of music, you want playlists. In a larger context than just music discovery, the curators of today’s information landscape provide a great service to the communities that they belong to: they help content of value bubble to the top for everyone to enjoy. Leaving out playlists leaves out the ability for quality music to surface. Only a small fraction of the catalog is ever seen.

Another addition that I’d love to see is the ability to see more than just the music content offered by MOG when viewing an artist’s page. When I’m in a discovery mood, I want to know everything I can about an artist: their bio, maybe some photos, a few similar artists, etc. Last.fm does an incredible job of bringing this information forward on their artist pages.

Finally, I can’t scrobble any of the music I listen to with the new web app! I have no idea what percentage of MOG users are also Last.fm users, but this issue is bordering on being a deal-breaker for me. I’ve been OK with the inability to scrobble songs on my iPhone, but if I can’t scrobble on my desktop either, then I’m left in a pretty bad situation. This seems to be such a small feature to implement, I hope MOG throws this in very soon.

The All-In-All

So where does this leave the music subscription space? Rdio has a great interface and iPhone app but no catalog. Rhapsody has a gigantic catalog but the worst interface out there. MOG offers it all: the ideal UI, a large (and quickly growing) catalog, and mobile apps that are winning awards as fast as they can be awarded.

• MOG.com (the old interface)
• The MOG Walkthrough
• MOG Music – Chrome Web Store

Welcome to my aggregation of the 'Best of 2010' lists that are floating around.

Yet another archival post. I love pouring over ‘Best Of’ lists every December. Why? Because there’s so much great music that’s released every year that I’m bound to miss tons of it no matter how hard I try to keep up on the new release schedules every week. So much creativity, so little time.

I’ll keep this post updated as I come across new lists.

• NPR Music’s 50 Favorite Albums of 2010 (Eclectic)
• NME Top 75 Albums of 2010 (Indie/Alt/Punk)
• Decibel Top 40 of 2010 (Metal)
• Paste Magazine The 50 Best Albums of 2010 (Indie / Alt)
• SPIN The 40 Best Albums of 2010 (Pop/Rock/Hip Hop)
• Rolling Stone Top 30 Albums of 2010 (Pop/Rock)
• Rolling Stone Top 50 Singles of 2010 (Pop/Rock)
• Stereogum’s Top 50 Albums of 2010 (Indie/Experimental/Rock)
• The New Yorker Songs of the Years (Best of forever ago)
• NPR Listeners Picks 2010 Top 100 (Eclectic)
• MTV Best 20 Albums of 2010 (Pop, Indie relevance?)
• Billboard Top 200 of 2010 (Pop)
• Spinner 30 Best Albums of 2010 (Indie / Alt)
• FACT magazine 40 Best Albums of 2010 (Reeallly Indie/Hipster)
• The Music Slut Top 25 Albums of 2010 (Indie)
• Noisevox Top 25 Albums of 2010 (Rock / Indie)
• NPR Viking’s Choice: 2010′s Best Metal and Outer Sound (Metal / Indie / Weirdo)
• Carrie Brownstein’s Top 10 (Plus One) for 2010 (Alt)

AllMusic Loves 1956

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AllMusic Loves 1990
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