By now you've made your way through all the end-of-year lists you can stomach, I'm sure. But wait! There's more: my favorite songs of 2011. I've made a mix of my 24 favorite tracks, excluding anything from my favorite albums of the year because it's a given that those albums each contain multiple favorites. The tracks below are not ranked, but are ordered for an ideal two-hour mix. (And for what it's worth, I don't think a lot of these tracks showed up on others' lists, so hopefully a lot of this will be new to you.) Click [...]
I found a lot of great music this month, more than I can (or wish to) fit on this playlist. I purposefully ignored everything I featured in this post , also all discovered this month and highly recommended (and ps, some of these songs come from the same sources). Shugo Tokumaru: Lahaha [via Rawkblog ] Centro-Matic: Only In My Double Mind [via Pop Headwound ] Jason Urick: The Crying Song (Album Mix) [...]
Aside from the first two albums on this list, December was, for the most part, spent catching up on other people's end-of-year lists in hopes of finding that perfect record that slipped past me in the last twelve months. I found a lot of great songs ( some here , some to be listed tomorrow, some to be listed in my final EOY roundup of favorite 2011 songs, soon), and was compelled to pick up a handful of full-lengths for further investigation. Here's what I came back with, in the order I acquired them this month. I can't [...]
I was listening to Nicolas Jaar's Space is Only Noise when "Keep Me There" came on. The song opens with two low, kinda dopey voices harmonizing on a simple melody, "duh, duh, duh-nuh-dee-duh." The thought passed through my mind that the languid electronica track would make a nice soundtrack to some druggy montage in a movie existing somewhere at the center of a venn diagram of The Big Lebowski , Pineapple Express , and Trainspotting . Nicolas Jaar: Keep Me There [...]
Imagine: it's 3 am on New Year's Eve, and a drunk Rod Stewart is in a closed-down bar but refuses to leave the stage. He's vibing on "Auld Lang Syne" and nursing a heartache. Wait, no: it's the Walkmen. No Christmas While I'm Talking Seven Years Of Holidays (for Stretch) The North Pole While I Shovel [...]
The War on Drugs: Slave Ambient My Morning Jacket: Does Xmas Fiasco Style (2) Bing Crosby: Christmas through the Years Where has the week gone? Somehow I listened to almost nothing, other than a few Christmas songs and a couple of attempts to hear the War on Drugs. I've not been in the vicinity of one listening device—my headphones, my car stereo, my home or work set-ups—long enough to listen to more than a song or two at a time. My Morning Jacket: [...]
There are lots— lots —of end-of-year lists out there right now. I've sifted through so many lists for so many years that the very prospect of ingesting them all has become too tedious to bear. That said, there are a handful that I find to be pretty dependable every year, and that always yield at least a couple of finds for me. I've spent some time cycling through the tens (hundreds) of songs/albums on the lists below and have come away with something worthwhile from all of them. (Related, a couple of weeks [...]
Nicolas Jaar: Space is Only Noise (4) Bing Crosby: Christmas through the Years (3) Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas Harmonia: Musik von Harmonia Julia Holter: Tragedy Cluster: Zuckerzeit Simon & Garfunkel: Sounds of Silence Tis the season for 2011 over-indulgence, but also tis the season for Christmas songs. Bing Crosby: Happy Holidays/Holiday Inn
Among the 62 albums I acquired in 2011 , many were old albums I'm only now catching up on. Some stuck with me better than others. Here are my (unranked) favorite new-to-me albums of the year. Harmonia: Musik von Harmonia and Cluster: Zuckerzeit 2011 was kind of a Clustery year for me. I acquired Zuckerzeit as well as an earlier Kluster album (terrible), two solo albums from Hans Joachim Roedelius (both not bad), and Harmonia's debut (Harmonia is Cluster + Neu's Michael Rother). Of them all, Musik von [...]
Above is every album I acquired (in order) in 2011. That's a total of 62 Number of Albums Acquired (by Year/Decade) 2011: 28 2010: 4 2000s: 10 1990s: 2 1980s: 2 1970s: 11 1960s: 4 1950s: 1 Number of Albums Acquired (by Genre) Indie Rock: 26 Ambient: 13 Krautrock: 10 Electronic: 4 Alternative: 2 60s Rock: 1 70s [...]
Fleet Foxes: s/t and Helplessness Blues Tinariwen: Tassili Julia Holter: Tragedy (2) The Caretaker: An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (2) Nicolas Jaar: Space is Only Noise Disappears: Guider Nico: Chelsea Girl Brian Eno: Music for Airports Much of this week was spent listening to albums I came across via other people's end-of-year lists—Tinariwen, The Caretaker, Julia Holter, Nicolas Jaar. Probably the rest of the month is going to be spent doing [...]
When I was compiling my rundown of favorites for the year, making some attempt at a ranked list, a curious thing happened—the list shook out by genre. My three favorite albums of the year were all song-based albums—and, incidentally, by artists I was already familiar with. However, I probably listened to #4–6 as often as #1–3, if not more: these are the ambient records, which I tend to put on while I'm writing and/or working and/or looking for something to sink into, sonically. Finally, the psych rockers pulled up last—Disappears and Moon Duo. I fell a little harder into this [...]
As Cooper's second birthday looms, he's finally aged to the point where he has developed some bona fide opinions about music—or at least latched onto a few favorite songs. Being that this is a household that emphasizes songs the whole family can enjoy (while not wholly outlawing outright kids' music), the majority of the songs on this list are simply oldies for young'uns . These are the songs (especially of late) that Coop asks for by name, and/or can "sing" on request. The Beach Boys: Barbara Ann The [...]
Simon & Garfunkel: Sounds of Silence (2) Les Paul & Mary Ford: Best of the Capital Masters The Millennium: Begin Low: C'mon Brian Eno: Music for Airports Dillard & Clark: Through the Morning, Through the Night (2) Disappears: Guider Moon Duo: Mazes For my birthday on Wednesday I did two things I haven't done in a long, long time: I saw a movie in a movie theater (The Descendants), and I shopped [...]
I joked the other day that my ideal blog would be a perfect mixture of drone, old-timey country, and Feist. Not a joke: I guess that's kinda what Pretty Goes with Pretty is, though my ideal blog would update more frequently. The truth of the matter is that I pilfer all my best musical finds from a handful of other blogs working harder than me. So, here are the blogs that have been conveniently pushing my tastes along in 2011. If I could figure out how to put 'em all in a blender and create one super blog that publishes [...]
It's a short mix this month—I didn't hear a lot that got to me—and it's a bit somber, too, starting with the stunning version of "Cotton Eyed Joe" by Terry Callier. Terry Callier: Cotton Eyed Joe [via The Rising Storm ] Fennesz Sakamoto: 0318 [via Pitchfork ] The Louvin Brothers: Knoxville Girl [via For the Sake of the Song ] Grapefruit: Phase Accidents [...]
Given the approaching end of year, I thought I'd be spending November catching up on records I missed earlier in the year, for maximal list-making capabilities. Not so, for whatever reason. I'm just as tuned out as ever, apparently. Only picked up two new-to-me albums this month. Sort of an odd pairing for a blog post, but so be it. Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica I spent most of November listening to this album over and over, trying to love it more than I did. Only in the last week or so have I finally [...]
Hank Snow: The Hank Snow Hit Collection Gene Clark: Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers Neko Case: Middle Cyclone Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas Eleanor Friedberger: Last Summer Feist: Metals Thanksgiving is over. You better believe that means Christmas time is here. Vince Guaraldi: Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal)
Feist: Metals (2), Let It Die , and The Reminder Junip: Fields Panda Bear: Tomboy The Everly Brothers: Best of the Everly Brothers Moon Duo: Mazes Tom T. Hall: Country Songs for Children Hank Snow: The Hank Snow Hit Collection Can it be that only a week ago I saw Feist in concert? It feels ages ago. Anyway, it was a terrific show and only made any "adult contemporary" references to this new album [...]
Despite calling myself a huge Cat Stevens fan—his songs have been a part of my life since I was a child—I own very few actual Cat Stevens full-length albums. Rather, I grew up with two greatest hits albums, and sometime in my twenties acquired a third greatest hits album that had a bunch more songs. Why don't I own any outright albums? It goes back to my first record store job, back when I was 19 years old and a sophomore in college. I was able to check out used albums from [...]
Pretty Goes with Pretty
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Metric Debuts Album via Synthetica Hide+Seek, Tickets On Sale Now For Fall Tour
