Monday, January 16, 2012: M83 - Midnight City

OK, just one more holdout from 2011.

No, I take that back. We will certainly pepper the upcoming months with more outstanding tracks from 2011 that didn't make the cut in last weeks Official-Yet-Still-Rubbish "Year In Review"

The review was rubbish. Not the songs.

So, here's another non-rubbish song released in July, 2012, by the band M83.

Well, when I say "band", I basically mean French musician Anthony Gonzalez.

It's a glorious piece of 1980's pop-electronic pick-me-up to counter those hazy gray Monday morning blahs. If that glorious sax at 3:02 hasn't put a smile on your face, then you are in for a bad week.  Fact.

Enjoy!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

No blogging on a Sunday.

See you Monday!

Saturday, January 14, 2012: Lana Del Ray - Video Games

Lana Del Ray was one of the biggest stories of 2011.

There is little I can say here that hasn't already been commented about.

What I can do, however, is just give everyone a replay of "Video Games", the song.

Not the internet meme, not the questionable plastic surgery, not the hipster-blogger-meltdowns.

Just this song.

Probably the stand out track of 2011.

I do hope she's not a fake. I do hope she has staying power, which has been sort of a theme running through this very selective year in review.   We'll see.

I do hope her boyfriend gets off his ass, pushes the pause button on that video game, and gives his woman some love.

I hope we all can do that in 2012.

Before the end does well and truly come.

Friday, January 13, 2012: Skrillex - Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites

2011 was certainly a banner year for Dance/Electronica/Rave/Whatever music.

For me living here in Las Vegas, the Electric Daisy Carnival was about the only good thing to happen to our town in many a month.

It was also a banner year for this cat.

No, not THAT cat.

This cat.

Thursday, January 12, 2012: The Roots - Make My (Ft. Big KRIT)

I don't have to tell you that 2011 was a bad year.


I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.

We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy.

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'

Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!'

So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!'

Things have got to change.

But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Wednesday, January 11, 2012: Battles - Ice Cream (ft. Matias Aguayo)

Battles is an American group who had one album in 2007, then their singer left, then they released their 2nd album Gloss Drop in June, 2011.

I'm sure there is a more interesting way to write that, but I don't want you to read, I want you to go straight to this track.

This song is a pop-techno-prog-experimental-electronic-retro-funky-dance-jam that puts a smile on my face every single time I hear it.

Here is one of the most outstanding tracks from 2011, I love every second of this.

Enjoy

Tuesday, January 10, 2012: Emmylou Harris - The Road

Yesterday, we talked about an artist who I claimed had staying power because she has been making records since 1999.

So, now let's get real. Here's an artist who's been making records since 1970.

That, friends, is staying power.

In April, 2011, mulit-Grammy Award winning musical Icon Emmylou Harris released her 26th studio album, Hard Bargin.

For this album, the entire musical personnel are only three people:

Emmylou Harris – Acoustic guitar and vocals
Jay Joyce – Electric guitars, Acoustic guitar, Hi-string guitars, Bass guitar, Synthesizer, Piano, Omnichord, Ganjo, Mandolin
Giles Reaves – drums, Wurlitzer piano, Djembe, Picked piano, Pump organ, Vibraphone, Synthesizer, Marimbula, Moog bass, Rhodes, Organ, Piano. Shaker

How about that for keeping it simple?

Here is her ode to the late Gram Parsons, her musical mentor who died in 1973.

Cool, friends, hardly ever sounds better than this.