2010 In Review

I don't wanna explain my shit.
Realistically, I spent *way* more time listening to old music than I did music released during 2010. Maybe it's because I'm old and bitter, but it's not like I'm just harping on the musics of my youth, but have rather been blown away by new (to me) material that's decades old. I don't feel like the bulk of contemporary artists are making the same caliber of music. Except Janelle Monae (and Joanna Newsom, even if I don't find myself listening to her too much).

Albums of the year:
1. Janelle Monae - The Archandroid
2. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
3. Wiz Khalifa - Kush and Orange Juice
4. Xiu Xiu - Dear God, I Hate Myself
5. Aziz Ansari - Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening
6. Ariel Pink - Before Today
7. Die Antwoord - $0$
8. Julian Lynch - Mare/James Black - CMYK
9. Sleigh Bells - Treats/Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (II)
10. Emeralds - Does It Look Like I'm Here?

Honorable Mentions: Tame Impala, Flying Lotus, Gonjasufi, Kanye.
Full Disclosure: I woulda been way more open to Kanye if he hadn't been the winner of 2010's unnecessary-hyperbolic-acclaim award. Flying Lotus and Gonjasufi are on Warp records, which could have been easily predicted simply by listening to 30 seconds of either, and since I've been listening to Warp records for the past decade, neither were really that new or surprising sounding (to me). They still get honorable mentions, however. I prefer the Gonjasufi, to be honest.
Tame Impala: nice heavy psych. I like it, but just didn't have enough room on the list.
Hey, speaking of that list, I just feel that the Sleigh Bells/Crystal Castles are too similar to give separate entries. They've both banging, they've both nasty, they're both one hard-working dude with a charismatic bitch for people to fawn over.
James Blake/Julian Lynch are both good, both really similar in my mind. Julian Lynch especially is making music that sounds like I could make it at home on my computer. So I am. (Watch for 2011's list to be full of my own projects, natch).

Naturally I didn't/couldn't listen to everything this year. This is what stands out among what I listened to. I'm gonna keep on being a crank, and submit that maybe some of these artists don't deserve "best of year XXXX" honours, save for the fact that their competition is so weak. Except for Janelle Monae. Unless someone gives me a reason to say otherwise, Imma keep up with my claim that it's the "best album" of the past 5 years or so.

I don't fucking forget about things (Fall 2010, or 2010.5)

I just get lazy, that's all.
Top artists of the past six months:

Byrds came in at #1, and are presently two plays out of the top 8, nipping at the tails of the flagging Papoose, whose plays haven't been able to keep up.
Otherwise, Janelle Monae creeps in at the bottom of the top 35, whose lowest-number-of-plays has risen to 364 from 216, where it was when last we checked in.



Otherwise, if we look at the top 8, we can see it's the same ol' artists, though slightly re-arranged, with Xiu Xiu and the Sun City Girls overtaking Neil Young, with Melvins and Jefferson Airplane overtaking Papoose. The Beatles slipped one position from #4 to #5. We can see a lot of inflation at the upper-echelons, with Sublime Frequencies gaining nearly a thousand plays in that time, and still coming in at #2 for most plays in the past six months.

With that in mind, let's recap which artists have entered and which artists have left the top 35:
There are a number of new entries, ten to be exact-ish, so let's give them a specific shout-out: The Byrds, Wiz Khalifa, Unsane, Dinosaur Jr., Mighty Boosh, Todd Barry, Gil Scott-Heron, John Fahey, and Janelle Monae. Let's call them the Freshman class of Fall 2010, shall we? Or maybe we can call it 2010.5? (as opposed to 2010.0?)

Here is the full list of place-positions as of today, 7 December, 2010.



Sublime Frequencies

Xiu Xiu (+3)

Sun City Girls

Neil Young(-2)

The Beatles (-1)

Jefferson Airplane (+2)

Melvins

Papoose (-2)

The Byrds (New Entry)

Ennio Morricone (+23)

Scrapbooker (New Entry*)

Sonic Youth (-1)

Wiz Khalifa (New Entry)

Silkworm (-1)

Madlib (-6)

Patton Oswalt (-4)

Bear McCreary

Flight Of The Conchords (-8)

The Jesus Lizard (+2)

Sebadoh (-4)

Unsane (New Entry)

Dinosaur Jr (New Entry)

The Mighty Boosh (New Entry)

Bob Marley & The Wailers (-2)

Pavement (-10)

Bob Dylan (-1)

Todd Barry (New Entry)

Gil Scott-Heron (New Entry)

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti (-11)

Ravi Shankar (-3)

Shellac (-11)

Grateful Dead (-13)

Hossein Alizadeh (-5)

John Fahey (New Entry)

Janelle Monae (New Entry)





Let's also take a moment to note those artists who didn't make the top 35 for 2010.5:
Nirvana, Sir Richard Bishop, Dangereus, J Dilla, Oxbow, The Kinks, Super Furry Animals, Bill Fay, and Fugazi. I personally wouldn't count any of 'em out just yet, and the scouts tell me that the Dangereus might be heading for a championship year in 2011, so keep your ears peeled.


Otherwise, this'll be the last update for the year, excluding my 2011 round-up, where I list my favorite albums of the year (but not necessarily albums released in 2010).



Peace out.

*Full Disclosure: I am in this band, so the number of plays is a bit unfair.

Week 10-ish

'cause there was no week 10, apparently.
YOU ACT LIKE THIS IS IMPORTANT (I hope)



...and that is where we stand this week.

Back to the grind

I'm back. Big whoop. It's not like you emailed me to say "Hey, what's up w/ the not posting?" anyway...

Plays as of February 1st, 2010:

And our new leader board, more or less the same. more or less.


A more comprehensive list.

Week 9.5: Moving

This weekend I was moving. So, y'know, naturally my life is in a state of disarray. I'll not be putting up a post today, but later this week I'll make up for lost time...

Week 9: S Bar X

Total plays as of December 14:
Total plays for the week of December 7-14: 385.

This week was pretty much just a Sebadoh lovefest, especially after I re-heard their cover of Nick Drake's "Pink Moon". Heck, I'm even thinking that my band should cover the same track (but in the vein of Sebadoh). So much Sebadoh listening that they managed to break into the leader board, while beforehand they didn't even break into the Top Artists list. While Sebadoh pushed out Bear McCreary to grab the 18th place position, Dinosaur Jr. were able to capitalize further on their previous gains, grabbing themselves a solid 13th place finish:


Looking further down the Top Artists list, we notice that this week marks the debut of J Dilla, who came in at 32nd place, while ...Trail of Dead and Oxbow both lost out. I wouldn't yet count-out Oxbow though, they're a consistent band who wont willingly be forced into the background, as opposed to ...Trail of Dead, whose best material is behind them, and for whom every listen is a reminder of how far they've managed to fall in the past decade.

Other than that, we have our top-songs list, which still remains unchanged, and continues to be dominated by Jefferson Airplane, and Silkworm.

Week 8: ...and as winter descends upon the town...

Total plays as of December 1:
Total plays this week: 448


Last week, continuing on from the week before, was dominated by Dinosaur Jr., and Farm particularly. But the renewed interest in Dinosaur Jr. ended up leading to a renewed interest in Sebadoh, who I'd only ever really appreciated before, and not listened to that much. (even though, thinking back, I've always had a copy of the Gimme Indie Rock! 7") I mean, I knew the choice cuts, like Cry Sis, or Gimme Indie Rock!, or The Freed Pig, but hadn't really begun to acquaint myself with much of the rest of their ouevre.
Doing so has given them the #1 spot this week, followed extremely closely by Dinosaur Jr.

So how does this resurgent interest in J and Lou affect the leader board? Well, as you can see, Dinosaur Jr. makes their first appearance after years of wandering the wilderness (read: that is, mostly haveing been listened to while I was in high-school before the advent of scrobbling). They are, unfortunately, not likely to hold on to this position for too long, as they're mired in the muck of the low-end of the top-artists, that most competitive of positions, since the leaders are fairly indisputable, save from themselves.

Which throws Dinosaur Jr up to the 14th place on the leader board. Other than that, the other new name to make an appearance this week is Bear McCreary, who has the benefit of an ouevre that lends itself to being listened to from beginning to end, and is just the bitchin'est soundtrack for anything you happen to be doing, whether it be playing videogames, or air-travel (as the case is with me).


Other assorted observations: Melvins overtook Madlib this week, but not so substantially that it couldn't easily be reversed. Bob Marley & the Wailers, Patton Oswalt, Shellac and Bear McCreary all fell one place this week in order to accommodate Dinosaur Jr.