I drove so many thousands of miles and listened to so many hours of radio this year that this mashup is like an instantly recognizable condensed version of the past year of my life.
3: it's amazing, right? listen to the earlier ones for an even eerier experience; I think he started in...2008 maybe? when he uses one word from each of four songs to create a single line (I think it's "can't take my soul") it's a bravura effect. he's a master. download "all day" too, it's awesome.
Whoa, I see what you mean. The first one seems to be 2007, but he doesn't seem to really hit his stride until 2008. I think the one that works best as a single thematic unit is 2010.
I assume everyone here knows about the crowd-funded "Girl Walk" album-length music video for "All Day", but if not, well, now you do.
6: I feel like I ought to love it but I'm sort of medium on it.
I didn't like the first chapter much. 3 and 5 were a lot better, I thought.
"Night Ripper" and "Feed the Animals" are both better than "All Day", though. The recentish (last year, I think) Doomtree album "13 Chambers" is genius.
All Day is such a masterpiece, girl talk really has nowhere to go but down. Earworm seems to have a talent for using shitty songs, which is wizard cocksucker and all, but nothing I've heard really matches what GT gets out of good ones, like Rock Boys/Paranoid Android off Feed the Animals.
I've listened to '11 and '10 so far, and yeah, I definitely prefer '10. Aside from the Lady Gaga ones, I'd never seen any of the music videos from 2010, so that was interesting, too. I found the scenes with Katy Perry in some weird Candyland setting deeply unsettling.
Yeah, I hadn't seen most of the videos in any of the Earworm mashups. The Katy Perry one (which turns out to be the actual video from California Gurls) is pretty weird.
I guess the idea is "California = Candyland," which is reasonable enough, but still.
8: OK maybe I didn't watch far enough. agreed that DJ earworm's thing is turning trash to treasure for the most part, but the beyoncé vs tom petty song is genuinely great. using good music=better music, thus girl talk is better. still maybe my favorite of all is from so long ago, dsico's missy elliot vs new order "love will freak us." 2002 or some shit. is there still get your bootleg on? remember that? people would throw up their tracks for critique. required patience but was sometimes very worthwhile.
The newest element of Jewish Christmas, discovered last year and restaged this year, is driving up to the roof of the Arclight parking garage for a dance party with the first track of All Day blasting out the Prius. Move, bitch, get out the way!
so much with the braces. I just didn't dig it. but really, I hate katy perry. where do people even see videos now? on youtube, I guess, looking it up if you like the song. I suppose that's why I've watched all those lady gaga videos, plus my children made me. well, I watched them first to see whether they were OK for the kids to watch. it pales compared to the horrors of k-pop, though, let me tell you. andrew sullivan also often posts videos, such as this one.
15: awwwww, yeah. that's practically my favorite part: "you about to get ran the fuck over!"
15, 17: I've always enjoyed the incongruity of blasting that track from the speakers of my phone as I very slowly creep up a hill on my bike.
Adele's album has gone from being some inoffensive and pleasant soully pop to something that'll prompt me to turn the radio off, due to the sheer ubiquity of it this year.
Anyway, I think my favourite [non-jazz/classical/obscure] albums this year were Metronomy [link overkill]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-x6nQZGwVg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icn8g1JY91w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFrNsSnk8GM
And Gruff Rhys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usGdERPWoPU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwr6c2Ws1yI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26FoPz5YWiA
Lots of the stuff on 'year end' lists I couldn't really get on with. Azari & III, Destroyer, PJ Harvey, etc. Azari & III: nice voice, retro-house goodness, but, meh. People are raving about it as if it was the second coming. The PJ Harvey left me cold -- it'd be nice if she started singing properly, again. And Destroyer, I think there are better 80s pastel-suit/yacht/loafers albums around, Metronomy's for one, and the afore mentioned Gruff Rhys's Neon Neon of a couple of years back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzI5hj86uWE
The girl has some serious pipes, but I just hate the production of all her music ever.
This. I didn't notice her voice (or pay her any attention, really) until she did At Last at the inauguration.
FWIW, not a fan of her music, but I kind of like the production on 'Crazy in love'.
19: I know what you mean about the adele, ttam, and I'm sure it was worse in the uk, but it actually is a good album. maybe you can go back to liking it in like 4 years. thanks for the links I'll check them out.
20: listen to the linked song, I swear to god it's one of my favorites. she displays her entire range and, I don't know, selection of timbres you'd say or something.
So just now, I was sitting at the computer with my 4-yr-old, listening to The Unlovables, and the chorus of the song includes the line "I want a boy of my own".
C: She wants a boy?
Me: Yeah, you know, like a boyfriend.
C: [Nodding sagely] Ooooh, like a boyfriend. Maybe she should type in boyfriend dot com.
belief in the magic of the internet: it's not just for grownups anymore.
also, the 2010 mix is superior but contains ke$ha, so.
re: 22.1
Yeah, I like the Merry Clayton touch to the production and vocals on 'Rollin' in the Deep'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCyTqnizcvI
^ pipes.
22.2: I did. I couldn't help but notice that in addition to being a talented singer she is rather attractive.
The song I really couldn't get over was Lana Del Rey's Video Games. Just so affecting.
beyoncé is really blindingly beautiful.
re: 27
It is a great song.
Another one, not sure if it came out this year or late last, but whenever it came on the radio I found myself really liking was the Crystal Castles tune with Robert Smith:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf6I5qZFoHI
When the trancey section comes in it's both epic and cheesy at the same time.
29: That's a good one too. Robert Smith's voice continues to sound startlingly young.
Not a new tune [1953, I think], but:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwXCci6d8Ew
[Still working on a pre-56 mix]
That Bon Iver record is SO INCREDIBLY AWFUL. The songs literally do sound like Air Supply, Peter Cetera, and Michael McDonald ballads. That's not a funny joke, it's an objectively accurate description of the sound he used all his skill to craft. It's like that damn American Beauty movie. If a critic puts it on his top ten list, I put that critic on my dunzo list.
re: 32.1
Yeah. I don't much like the Bon Iver record. Sometimes a bit of cheese-necromancy can be fun, though.
The mini-wave of French bands [Phoenix, for example] reviving the guilty-pleasure/shitty side of 80s big budget AOR, a decade or so ago, was fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvamJU_coUw
27: I'm more partial to "Blue Jeans", but "Video Games" is really good too. I find the backlash against her baffling.
And "All Day" left me completely cold. The choices of source material felt lazy, and the juxtapositions didn't reveal anything new.
re: 34.1
The usual punk-derived/revived bullshit obsession with authenticity, I think. It's not her real name, the persona is an invention, big deal.
The girl has some serious pipes, but I just hate the production
That was my feeling about Adele's 19. I tried to like it but I just couldn't get past the way the piano was mixed (it was so pushy -- it wasn't accompaniment, it felt like it was a co-lead in a way that just seemed wrong). I haven't listed to 21 yet.
The song in 27 is great.
listen to the whole thing; when she gets to "it's a little too late..." at 3:02 shit gets real.
Both this and "Video Games"reminded me of really liking "Every Man I Fall For" after hearing in a movie soundtrack.
I think it's a good song and was also interested by the partial explanation that he gives for choosing to write and sing a torch song (and I don't know anything else by the singer or band):
"Coming from a divorced family, my mom was very important to me," Willett says. "And I've always been very sensitive to a woman's... to how women just, they generally get more screwed by relationships, be it marriage or dating ones, than men do. And even that -- is that a very sexist thing to say? I don't think so. I think it's just generally true."
I like the newest entry in the catchy-song/decline-of-western-civilization musical biathlon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Jv9fNPjgk
re: 38
Ubiquitous (in a slight edit) on late night radio here for a while. It is catchy.
Re 32
I can't get 30 seconds into a Bon iver song without turning it off. That is some boring music.
Michael McDonald is a good singer though.
Autotune a scourge upon this earth.
I agree but there are dissenting opinions.
re: 42
Yeah, the ubiquitous autotune as an effect has gotten very tired. I'd bet it's used on a fair number of records you like, though, in a more subtle/devious way.
I remember linking this a while ago, and Sifu thought the autotune was annoying/boring:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXzMPd9pib0&ob=av2e
I might be slightly inured to it, as I guess UK radio has more dance-based pop on it as a general rule.
Oh yeah, there are definitely autotuned songs I like. Lots of them even where it's used in an obvious way. It's the use on every single mediocre song, yielding that hard-edged, metallic sounding voice, that I find so awful.
Auto-Tune was initially created by Andy Hildebrand, an engineer working for Exxon.
Probably cackling fiendishly the whole time about those poor bastards in Alaska that got oil dumped on them. We know now why this technology is evil.
Katy Perry's cute.
Don't judge me.
....she frequently uses fruit-shaped accessories, mainly watermelon, as part of her outfits
I lover her already. Is she a singer or something?
Adele is East British music. As in East German. The DDR decided to get rid of Wolf Biermann by letting him go on tour, and then revoking his citizenship while he was away and turning him back at the airport. Obviously someone had to appear in the Top 40 and keep the State Music Publishing Company going.
And that's the impression I get - if Stalinist Britain had decided to get rid of Amy Winehouse, Adele would be the weaksauce ersatz version. Roughly similar but amazingly inoffensive.
re: 50
Heh.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/oct/08/adele-new-boring-ed-sheeran
Who is the Colin Farrell-looking singer?
re: 52
In the link? I assume you mean Matt Cardle? He won the X Factor last year. And then promptly released a bland cover of this song (with the title changed to avoid scaring the grannies):
Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh3LocS_Bh8
Cover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bTesvOLhfA
Emo-tastic.
Is that the same dude as at 1:19 in the DJ Earworm clip? (If so, damn, the video makeup artist did well.)
No, the guy at 1:19 looks like Enrique Yglesias.