Favorite Songs of 2012

My favorite 10 songs for 2012 may closely correspond to the only songs I know from 2012. I admit I've been kind of out of it culturally this year due to not being on the radio and working more hours, and other stuff. Anyway, thanks G for asking the question about 2012 and forcing me to actually make this list!

Sheila: Memory Tapes

Here's what I like about Memory Tapes—he uses all the buttons. First it's the Space Pad, then some kinda galloping bass that dreams of Joy Division, then the angelic choir... and that's just in minute one. Many more noises come along, and I love all of them, mostly because I love Tomita, and therefore love anything by Memory Tapes. Grace/Confusion out on Car Park Records.

Memory Tapes - Sheila by Carpark Records

 

  

That's What's Up: Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

Everybody loves them, right? Because of "Home" a few years ago. That NPR-friendly boy-girl affirmation was such a great song--"Home is wherever I am with you." Yes! I like this new song because it reminds me of Home.

   That's What's Up by Edward Sharpe Mag Zeros

 

The Theory of Relativity: Stars

Such a serious intro, Stars! As much as I want to think you're not still bringing it after a dozen years of loving you (witness my problems with U2 and REM), you ARE bringing it. Thank you my fellow Canadians.

   The Theory of Relativity by Stars

 

Genesis: Grimes

Montreal brilliant songstress/synth lady strikes again with her third album. Why have I not heard of her before this? Even New York Magazine name-checked Grimes in Nitsuh Abebe's year-end wrap-up. Good Canadian stuff.

   Grimes - Genesis by The Vinyl District

 

Faster Horses: MNDR

MNDR sounds like Goldfrapp, which is good. She/they also sounds like Mark Ronson's Bang Bang Bang, and that's good. I think I might like MNDR a little bit extra because she/they have a good social media campaign and bug me just enough via email for me to pay attention. Voila!

MNDR - Faster Horses (GRVRBBRS Remix) by GRVRBBRS

 

All I Heard: Mitzi

Just last night my beloved was telling me about the idea of a lost decade that occurred between 1979 and 1980, and how we may be getting messages and artifacts from that never-lived era. I would submit this song by Mitzi, label-mates of Cut Copy (and fellow Australians) as proof. This song is a wonderful fry-up of disco and 80s sounds and hidden what-all.

Mitzi - All I Heard by future classic

 

 

Only in My Dreams: Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

How does Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti keep turning out these totally retro and charming songs? (And how do they make me keep typing out "Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti"?) This song makes me feel like I'm at a sock hop or something. I'm sure I'm getting my era wrong, but if there's a song this year that Mr. Buddy Love might like, I bet it's this one.

 

 

The Guillotine: The Coup

"We got the guillotine! We got the guillotine, you better run!" In the video The Coup are dressed up like Wizard of Oz characters, so presumably this song has something to do with the fakey over-industrialized establishment. That's right, right?

 

 

Ruin: Cat Power

Two things about this song. One is that it reminds me of her songs from 1998's Moon Pix, and I've been missing that sound with all the sparkle and Lagerfeld she's been up to since then. The other thing is that I'm fascinated by the simple lolloping piano subject of this song. It sounds easy, but it's syncopated and skips around measures and the effect is stirring and propulsive. Nice.

Cat Power - Ruin by artsandcraftsmx

 

 

Gangnam Style: Psy

Because of course.

Favorite Songs of 2011

Nuclear Seasons: Charli xcx

I haven't ranked these songs, but "Nuclear Seasons" is pretty far up there for me this year. British electro-pop sensation Charli xcx nails this one with a dark late 80s sound reminiscent of the days when good, strange music could only be found through someone who knew someone who was on college radio.

CharliXCX - Nuclear Seasons by charlixcx


Hey Sparrow: Peaking Lights

Slow and wispy, this is a little like "Heart & Soul" played on a kalimba--there's a nice plinky, repetitive thing going on. Breathy background music.

Hey Sparrow by Peaking Lights


Better Off Without You: Summer Camp

This song makes me laugh. It has the boppy throwback sound that seems to be going around (like the Dum dum girls). Also it's a breakup celebration song. I'm so happy you're gone! Stop calling! Tee hee.

Summer Camp - Better Off Without You by Webzine Obstacle


Thankless Thing: Wild Beasts

This is mostly on my list because I love Wild Beasts and their forays into the falsetto-sphere. This song is quite mellow for my taste, but also gorgeous and pretty irresistible. Find them on Facebook!

Wild Beasts - Thankless Thing by DominoRecordCo


Yellow Missing Signs: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

I posted about this on Facebook and it was pointed out to me that it seems to be about justice for serial murder victims. Which is not a bad thing, but I'd only been listening to the music, some excellent raw synth pop straight out of 1985.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Yellow Missing Signs by Polyvinyl Records


100 Other Lovers: DeVotchKa

DeVotchKa have a lovely happy gypsy-ish sound. Apparently they came to fame on the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack. This song is quietly propulsive.

DeVotchKa - 100 Other Lovers by antirecords


Beat and the Pulse: Austra

Toronto's Katie Stelmanis seems just amazing. Super-talented, the unplugged piano sessions released in the fall prove she can make awesome electro-pop without even needing the electro. This song is another big 2011 favorite.

Austra - Beat And The Pulse by bluepumpkin aka antennica


Bunhill Fields: Amor de Dias

Bunhill Fields is a London cemetery for dissenters apparently. The song seems appropriately pensive and atmospheric, with the occasional sweeping cello and piano statement. It's lovely pop.

Amor De Días - "Bunhill Fields" by OctopusWindmill


Don't Stop: The Dodos

These two guys worked with Neko Case on their album, though this song is just them. And it's great! They have some interesting percussion things going on... drumsticks? Don't Stop has a lot of layers and noise and energy, appropriate for the name.

The Dodos 'Don't Stop' by Wichita Recordings


Let's Go: Mike & Cody

Every best-songs list has to have a big club banger, right? This song makes me want to jump up and down and drink gin & tonics made fluorescent by the club black lights. Let's Go!!

Let's Go! by mikeandcody

"Slaughtered": EP from Memory Tapes

You know how some people choose a perfume or cologne, then purposely wear that scent every single day so that it becomes their scent? And every time you get close to them, you can smell it? And every time you smell it somewhere else, you think of them?

Here's what I'd like to do. The same thing, but with audio. I want to hook up tiny speakers and perpetually broadcast music, very softly but very constantly, so that whenever someone is close to me they can hear it. And if they hear something like it elsewhere, they'll think of me. I also have the music selected, it is Memory Tapes. Particularly the new Modular People EP release called "Slaughtered." I just want this on around me all the time, rising off me like a signature scent.

The track is over 22 minutes long, but here's a tiny taste someone posted on Soundcloud. If you like, go download the whole thing! It is delicious! Thank you Memory Tapes for this damn fine free EP.

Memory Tapes - snippet of Slaughtered by jobsmit

Song of the Week: Das Racist

Sometimes I'm ashamed when I find out about popular music by reading The New Yorker. Shouldn't I already know these things from, like, legitimate hipster channels? But Sasha Frere Jones does a good job keeping up with these things and keeping me informed, so I'm grateful. For example one of my favorite songs of 2010, Shutterbugg by Big Boi, would not have been on my radar without my man SFJ.

So that's where I read about Das Racist, who everybody else has known about for a million years already. SFJ told me several things, like the "Das" is kind of fake patois for "That's," not a German thing. Also he explains the lyrics to their early (first?) song "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell." I love this song. It is pretty silly. But also a trenchant commentary on contemporary commercialism and the ubiquity of branding. Don't you think?

Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell by dasracist

Summertime, by Janis Joplin (song of the weeeeek!)

It's been stuck in my head and it's one of my favorite songs. I love George Gershwin's "Summertime" anyway, but Janis Joplin really puts her mark on it in this version. It is so languid, so gorgeous, so haunting. Janis of course sticks in some of her weird scatting to make sure it can never really be replicated. (I really REALLY love Janis Joplin. She was there for me at a tender time in my teens when I needed a rough-yet-soft anti-role model with a crazy life and an amazing voice.) Do you think the pizzicato guitar at the beginning sounds a bit fugue-ish, a bit like Bach?

I sing this song to my children all the time as a lullaby. My version leans more toward Sarah Vaughan. I like to drawl the "easy," (eazaa-a-ay) and tone-paint up an octave on "high" (hi-EEEE). It is a great lullaby. I love the lyric "Your daddy's rich/ And your mama's good-looking." So reassuring. Rise up singing people!



Last note: Sean Penn uses this song to great effect in his 2-hour-plus epic Indian Runner. I like to brag about Indian Runner because it's when I first fell for Viggo Mortensen. YEARS before he caught everyone's eye as Aragorn son of Arathorn. I saw him first! ;-)

Song of the Week: Rum Hee

Remember Rum Hee by Shugo Tokumaru? It's been around for almost 2 years, and was apparently used in a VAIO ad campaign in 2009. This guy is awesome. If you miss spring, and summer, and all things happy and sprightly, if you need some tinkling bells and jolly sounds in your life, press play right now.

Shugo Tokumaru - Rum Hee by souterraintransmissions

Shugo Tokumaru has an album out, Port Entropy, that contains Rum Hee plus other adorable songs like Lahaha. According to various websites, Port Entropy came out in April 2010, or maybe it came out last week, it's hard to tell. It's out now though.

Cut Copy—New Song, New Album

AAAAh! This week I was thinking of dedicating my new "song of the week" feature to Cut Copy and the track they dropped last July, Where I'm Going. Reason being: The Coachella 2011 lineup* was just announced and it's pretty exciting. It includes Cut Copy of course, right there on the poster in 3rd largest type, on April 15. If you are a long-time reader or listened to my radio show in 2008 you might recall I was practically foaming at the mouth that year with love for Cut Copy, especially their 2008 album In Ghost Colours. And now they're back.

But wait! In the last 24 hours, a new song has appeared on the internets as a taste of the new disc, Zonoscope, that drops in about 10 days. It's called Need You Now. I listened once twice and am going for it again. Please join me--press play! What do you think? (They are on tour in April, if you live between NOLA. NYC and Toronto and want to see them, visit cutcopy.net for a dates.)

Cut Copy - Need You Now by cutcopymusic



*Here's a fantasy game: If through some miracle of space and time you could see every band you wanted to at Coachella, who would you be interested in seeing? My list (in order of the poster):

• Chemical Brothers
• Crystal Castles
• Cut Copy
• Tame Impala
• Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti
• !!!
• YACHT
• Titus Andronicus
• Animal Collective
• Broken Social Scene
• The London Suede (that's the same as "Suede," right?)
• Scissor Sisters
• New Pornographers
• Daedelus
• Two Door Cinema Club
• Foals
• Radio Department
• Yelle
• Thao with the Get Down Stay Down
• The Joy Formidable
• Here We Go Magic
• Freelance Whales
• Bomba Estereo
• The Strokes
• Duran Duran
• Ratatat
• The Presets
• HEALTH
• CSS
• Delorean
• Menomena
• Rye Rye

Yeah... that's all.

"Fences": Phoenix

I'm still taking a break from my weekly radio program, Beef Jerky Time, formerly broadcast on WVEW-LPFM 107.7 Brattleboro, VT. But I haven't stopped listening to music and wanting to share it. So I'm starting a new "Song of the Week" column here on the Cabinet of Prof. Kitty. Yo yo welcome 2011!

This week I'd like to pay attention to "Fences" from Phoenix's 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. I find this song both driving and mellow. I love the falsetto-y vocals going on. There's a smidge of disco in the background (wait.... hear that tiny handclap? Like around 1:31?). The fact that these guys are from Versailles makes the music extra awesome for me. (I understand that if you're actually from Versailles it's totally lame. But I'm not! And so!)

Phoenix-FENCES by reptart

DJ opinion: I would say this would be a good song for driving into a sunset wearing mirrored aviators, nestled in a playlist between the Strokes and Don Henley's Boys of Summer. Wait, I'll stick those below too so you can see what you think.


Someday by The Strokes: Soundcloud track got yanked so here's youtube




Boys of Summer by Don Henley. As above, the Soundcloud track is gone so here's youtube. I don't mind
though because this video is rad. I love the built-in nostalgia of the recurring running-on-the-beach clip.

Favorite Songs of 2010

I divided this list into two sections, as seemed natural: "regular new" and "smacks of the 80s." Also I'm trying Soundcloud this year so you can just listen right off the page. (Give it a few secs.)

Regular New 2010 Songs

Subliminal Message: Happy Birthday

This band is from the town where I live. That is remarkable because Brattleboro, Vermont only has about 12,000 people. Yet I did not discover Happy Birthday through word of mouth, or at the bar, or at a show. I found them the way I find everything--on the Internet. It was only after I picked this song for my radio show that I learned they're from like, down the street. Anyway, I love the glides (glissando)--that thing where, like the beginning of "Rhapsody in Blue," the notes swoop from low to high, sounding a bit like a classy siren going off. Nice.

Happy Birthday - Subliminal Message by subpop

Let's Get Out of Here: Les Savy Fav

A song about going home together. "I just want you to want me right now." It's like a grunge ballad--sweet but still rockin.

Les Savy Fav - Let's Get Out of Here by Wichita Recordings

Boy: Ra Ra Riot

This band from Syracuse was also on my 2009 list (remixed). I just love their sound I guess--joyful, propulsive, perfect pop. Very crisp guitar lines, nice strings, beautiful pogo-sticking from the bass & drums. This song always makes me smile. No idea what it's about.

Ra Ra Riot - Boy by Arts & Crafts

Real Life: Tanlines

This is like club music gone psychedelic, plus tabla. I love it. The lyrics play to my drippy nostalgic side: "You might think I'm still that way. It's only natural. It was a past life thing, it was a past life thing. It wasn't anything at all." I also love the apparent shout-out to Missing Person's "Destination Unknown." You guys are awesome.

Tanlines - Real Life by musicmule

Bang Bang Bang (f. MNDR & Q-Tip): Mark Ronson

MNDR & Q-Tip are a great pair on this track. It is super catchy, with a very pleasing stutter-synth that is a real earworm. I don't know what MNDR is saying but her attitude is so cool that I sing along with her anyway. "Shake it to morella!" Or whatever.

Bang Bang Bang (Feat. MNDR & Q-Tip)- Mark Ronson by kmdskier

Landscapes: Gregory and the Hawk

Sweet, quiet vocals from Meredith Godreau and some instrument I can't quite identify. Hammered dulcimer? Some gamelan thing? Wait, is it a KOTO? No matter, it's lovely. Her voice makes me want to hang out with her, maybe get some tea.

Gregory and the Hawk - Landscapes by FatCat Records

Shutterbugg: Big Boi

This song got me running again after baby. I'd cue it up on the iPod and go. It is not even close to electro-pop. Big Boi's rapid rapping, the goofy "buh-buh-buh-buh" bass, the foul language--all great to get you up and moving and singing. Sasha Frere Jones calls it "sparkly and irresistible" and he is correct.

Big Boi- Shutterbugg by darkbloom

Loxtep: Annuals

They're from North Carolina, but this song has a fabulous Latin vibe (besides being quite beepy, which is how I like it). "Your line around my neck keeps pullin' pullin'"... and then the pretty children's chorus!

Annuals - Loxtep by IndieHearts

Songs that Smack of the 80s

Your Woman: Cats on Fire

They're Finnish! This cover is amazing, yet with kind of a classic sock-hop sound and lyrics. "I could never be your woman," explains the lead singer. "Why did you play me that way?" Except I'm pretty sure the lead singer is a guy. Apparently this is also true of the original version by White Town (1997). The guitar on this really slays me, it sounds like if Johnny Marr is playing the balalaika. Too delicious.

Cats on Fire - Your Woman by joolsjoyce

Not In Love: Crystal Castles

What better way to make your song sound authentically 80s than to get the guy from The Cure to sing for you? Robert Smith's voice immediately transports me to cold teen Novembers of mild misbehavior and pining to be grown up. This is one of several songs here with lyrics that make me sentimental like a 3-hanky movie: "And we were lovers, now we can't be friends." (The Internet tells me this was a Platinum Blonde song from 1983. BACK IN THE DAY.)


Crystal Castles - Not In Love (Feat. Robert Smith) by Posh Magazine

The Mall & Misery: Broken Bells

The team of Danger Mouse and the guy from the Shins (OK, I know his name, it's James Mercer) formed Broken Bells and released a like-named album in March 2010. It's as good as you might expect. (That is, very.) This particular song starts out a little bit twangy country, then a sweeping string section comes in after 30 seconds, and only after almost a minute does the beat and all the rest kick in. My favorite parts--the little soap bubble pop sound in the background during the verse. Best of all, the raw and twangy Joy Division guitar thing that shows up. Egad!


Boo, the Soundcloud track got taken down, so here's Youtube.

I Can Change: LCD Soundsystem

Do you like Yaz? Gary Numan? How about Flock of Seagulls? If so, then you will love "I Can Change." This song is almost too 80s even for me. But not quite! I can take it!

LCD Soundsystem - I Can Change by IndieRockReviews

I also really liked:

Living Days: Let's Kiss (Youtube)
I Feel Bonnie: Hot Chip f. Bonnie Prince Billy (rcrdlbl)
O.N.E. (XXXChange remix): Yeasayer (The Fader)
A Million Miles: Don Diablo (SoundCloud)
Summer: Atypicals (Bandcamp)
Julius: Starf••ker (Myspace)
Tom Cruz: Plants & Animals (KEXP)
Dissembler: Woodhands (Spinner ***extra stars for video that makes me homesick for Toronto)