obsesso-songs 2011
Past years: 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003
This is a list of the songs that took over my head in 2011, presented more or less in order. It is not a representative sample of everything I acquired nor is it necessarily a complete account of the best (whatever that means) songs I heard. It is simply a list of songs that, for whatever reason, made me hit repeat a whole bunch of times. (Obsesso-songs that I am thinking about vidding are not included here.)
I've uploaded a .zip file with all of them; I'll leave the .zip up for a week or so until I remember to take it down. As always, please support the artists if you like the music!
For the record, I think this may be the batch of obsesso-songs that's the most completely all over the place in terms of genre. It was a weird year.
Frightened Rabbit, "Swim Until You Can't See Land" (The Winter of Mixed Drinks)
Call this a drowning of the past. January and February of 2011 were... not so good. This song's ambiguous optimism was weirdly reassuring.
Robyn, "Dancing On My Own" (Body Talk)
I just came to say goodbye. God, I love good dancepop. I picked up this CD right at the end of 2010 and it immediately went into heavy rotation for days when I needed to get out of my own head for a while and/or clean the house. Heh.
The Joy Formidable, "Whirring" (A Balloon Called Moaning)
All these things about me you never can tell. By far the best song on this EP; made me super-excited for the full length album, which did not disappoint (see below). I am always looking for more female-fronted rock bands, and TJF pushes a lot of my personal buttons in ways that make me very happy.
Delta Spirit, "Devil Knows You're Dead" (History From Below)
May the wind be always at your back. AKA that song from the Friday Night Lights finale montage. I would love the song anyway, but it's now indelibly associated with one of my favorite shows of all time.
Garrison Starr, "Beautiful in Los Angeles" [live] (Relive)
You make a pretty good case for that lost look on your face. The original version of this song is on The Sound of You and Me, which is... not Garrison Starr's best effort. So the song had never really pinged for me. But then she played it live when I saw her last spring, and I sat up and said whoa. I was really pleased to find it on the live album I'd skipped.
The Joy Formidable, "A Heavy Abacus" (The Big Roar)
All we have is this chance called memory. TJF's combination of melody and noise was exactly what I needed last April.
The Joy Formidable, "Cradle" (The Big Roar)
Get up off your knees. I spent weeks belting out this song while doing the dishes.
The Gaslight Anthem, "Stay Lucky" (American Slang)
Mama never told me there'd be days like these 'til it was much too late to recover. This is one of those CDs that felt like an old favorite before I even finished listening to it for the first time. I hit that point about halfway through this song, actually.
The Gaslight Anthem, "Boxer" (American Slang)
You took it all gracefully on the chin. I listened to this CD pretty much nonstop all summer. I love the whole thing, but this song never fails to send a little spike of joy-induced adrenalin straight to my heart.
The Lonely Forest, "Turn Off This Song and Go Outside" (Arrows)
You can listen to it later. For most of the summer, including most of my gardening time, when I wasn't listening to The Gaslight Anthem it was only because I was listening to this CD instead. This song's combination of energy and wistfulness and wry self-mockery ("vintage shirts and hundred-dollar pants") never fails to make me smile.
Elbow, "Dear Friends" (Build a Rocket Boys!)
You are the stars I navigate home by. I spent part of June in London; this album was an important part of my soundtrack for the trip.
The Vaccines, "If You Wanna" (What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?)
That's what all the friends I do not like as much as you say. I picked up this album while in London; this song was an instant favorite. I do love me some good neo-Ramones pop punk.
Digitalism, "2 Hearts" (I Love You, Dude)
It's like you are hopelessly in love. I liked Digitalism's Idealism well enough but certainly didn't love it, so I'm not sure what possessed me to pick up this album while in London -- but I'm glad I did, because wow, it's really good.
Nicki Minaj, "Super Bass" (Pink Friday [Deluxe Version])
You got my heartbeat running away. I've enjoyed Minaj's guest spots on other artists' tracks, but was underwhelmed by Pink Friday. Then this song (off the deluxe version of the album) got a thumbs-up in an AV Club post, I watched the video, and promptly had the song stuck in my head for the rest of August, which was apparently my Month of Dumb Pop Music (see below). I would love it if somebody vidded this song for Club Vivid, just FYI.
Pink, "Raise Your Glass" (Greatest Hits... So Far!!!)
Why so serious? Nathan Rabin, whose writing I love and for whose opinions about music I have nothing but respect, is absolutely right that this song is an example of "defiance and rebellion as a commercial pose and marketing strategy" in which "no actual authority is ever threatened at any point." But the song is so fucking catchy that I pretty much don't care.
The Head and the Heart, "Lost in My Mind" (The Head and the Heart)
Don't you worry about me. My first favorite song off this CD, and the one that I listened to nonstop for days and then sang to myself during a couple of weeks late in the summer when I really needed a shot of optimism. Makes a lovely folk/americana combo in rotation with Jeff Foucault's new CD (see below).
Glee Cast, "Teenage Dream" (Glee: The Music Presents The Warblers)
Don't ever look back. I started mainlining Glee after a conversation about it with
the_shoshanna at VividCon. I have... let's be generous and say mixed feelings about the music on Glee. But when I got to the episode featuring this song, sometime in late August or early September, I was so freaking charmed I could hardly stand it. Then I found out it's a Katy Perry song and almost committed ritual suicide in embarrassment. Then I caved and bought the cover and heard the actual first line (which is not featured in the show) and was even more charmed. Then, in a fit of morbid curiosity, I found the original on YouTube and attempted to listen to it, and didn't even make it to the one-minute mark because that shit is actually unlistenable. And now... now I'm basically at peace with the fact that Darren Chris has magical powers. IDEK, you guys.
Kid Finish, "The Beginning" (This Is How She Held Me)
So shout it out full force if you mean it. This CD was on my to-get list for years; I finally picked it up in 2011 and am simultaneously thrilled I did and annoyed with myself for waiting so long. This year may have been all over the place in terms of genre, but it's sort of reassuring to know that whiny white boys with guitars are still my emotional home base.
Kid Finish, "From Friends To Failure" (This Is How She Held Me)
I don't wanna be your shoulder to cry on. I love this song a truly ridiculous amount. I suspect I would love a cover version by The Bruises even more, but that's just getting greedy.
Mates of State, "Basement Money" (Mountaintops)
We don't give up. I first heard Mates of State years ago when they toured with Rainer Maria. Since then, they've improved so much; they're still defined by their quirkiness and boy-girl harmonies, but the songs are catchier and the sound's a lot fuller. Mountaintops may be even better than 2008's terrific Re-arrange Us.
Yellowcard, "With You Around" (When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes)
All I can think about is you and me driving with a Saves The Day record on. Remember that thing I was saying about whiny white boys with guitars? Yeah. Yellowcard is now on the short list of "favorite bands to which my students have introduced me."
Doomtree, "Bangarang" (No Kings)
I got my family here. I fell in love with this track pretty much instantly. One of my best music-related memories from 2011 is screaming myself hoarse with the rest of the audience at the Doomtree Blowout as we all did call-and-response to this song's hook.
Doomtree, "Fresh New Trash" (No Kings)
Let it go, let it roll on past. A great song and an amazing album-closer. Hot damn.
Matt Nathanson, "Room @ The End Of The World" (Modern Love)
Sad can't catch me. I listened to this one almost nonstop for the last week of the year, starting with my walk home from a Christmas Night party. I listen to it and feel like all things are possible.
I don't usually do a list of favorite albums; more often than not, I acquire albums at least a year after their release, so any list would be idiosyncratic at best. But in 2011, I actually picked up a fair number of 2011 releases. So what the hell - a list, in alphabetical order:
Adele, 21
I assume there's been music press backlash about Adele somewhere, because haters gotta hate, but this album is flat-out amazing: the songs are consistently good-to-fantastic, Adele's voice is astonishing, and the musical and tonal range is impressive.
Doomtree, No Kings
Jay-Z and Kanye's Watch the Throne is pretty good, but I like No Kings better. My list of reasons starts with the titles and continues through... pretty much everything about Doomtree. As always, I love the combo of hip-hop, punk rock, and electronica. If I had to pick a single favorite album from 2011, which thankfully I do not, this one would be a strong contender.
Jeffrey Foucault, Horse Latitudes
This is not my favorite of Jeff's CDs. On the other hand, Jeff on a bad day is better than most artists on their best days. I love half the songs on this album (especially "Passerines," which just kills me) and like the other half, and -- look, it's me, it's Jeff, nobody is surprised, right?
The Gaslight Anthem, American Slang
Technically this album's from 2010, but I'm including it anyway because no account of my musical 2011 could possibly be complete without it. This album may actually be my personal platonic ideal of a rock'n'roll record -- the hooks, the post-punk guitars, the raw emotion, the allusions that range from Charles Dickens to Counting Crows. Seriously, it's like these guys sat down and said "Let's make a CD that will push all of here's luck's buttons" and then, you know, did it. I approve.
The Head and the Heart, The Head and the Heart
The second half is markedly stronger than the first, IMO, but the whole thing's good. I love this album the way I wanted to love the new Fleet Foxes, and for some of the same reasons, especially the lovely harmonies.
The Joy Formidable, The Big Roar
The album title gets it right: this is BIG music, music to lose yourself in. TJF aren't afraid to be noisy, but they know their way around a melody. And the structure and pace of the album are amazing: the first and last tracks ("The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie" and "The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade") are two of the album's best, and the jab-cross of "A Heavy Abacus" (see above) followed by "Whirring" (updated from the earlier EP in a seven-minute version that would be self-indulgent if it weren't so brilliant) is not to be missed.
The Lonely Forest, Arrows
Six of the twelve songs on this CD became favorites as soon as I heard them, but this is another album that's greater than the sum of its parts. The sound is consistent, but covers a remarkable tonal range -- sometimes within one song, as with "Arrows," the final track, which begins as a noisy minor-key dirge and then transitions into something more hopeful both musically and lyrically: "Now this melancholy boy is gonna shine."
Matt Nathanson, Modern Love
I've liked Matt Nathanson's last couple of albums, but they tend to have two or three really catchy songs surrounded by a whole lot of (pleasant but forgettable) filler. Modern Love, by contrast, is stacked with terrific songs, and even the filler is generally a cut above that on the past albums. Nathanson is frequently accused of being bland, which I suppose is fair -- his lyrics certainly aren't setting the world on fire anytime soon, and I myself described "Car Crash" as the aural equivalent of M&Ms back in 2008. But, as I noted in that post, I like M&Ms, and I like hooky guitar-pop, so whatever; haters to the left. Plus Nathanson really can play and sing, and he has a charmingly self-deprecating sense of humor, all of which are on display in the improbably charming cover of Prince's "Little Red Corvette" that he recorded for the A.V. Club's Undercover sessions. His commentary on his own lack of funk is particularly endearing.
Sims, Bad Time Zoo
The Doomtree crew members have put out some astonishing solo albums in the past few years as they worked up to New Kings; I don't love Bad Time Zoo quite as much as I do A Badly Broken Code or Never Better, but it's still a damn good CD. Its major flaw is that the first five songs are non-stop brilliance and the rest of the album doesn't quite measure up. Then again, those first five songs alone are worth the price of the album, so everything else is a bonus.
Yellowcard, When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes
Yellowcard isn't quite as relentlessly charming as Jimmy Eat World, but works a similar post-punk-emo-pop sound in a way that makes me very happy. My fellow Jimmy fans should check this one out. (Also, I love the album title.)
Honorable mentions: Astronautalis, This is Our Science; City and Colour, Little Hell.
And three more albums from 2010 that I didn't pick up until 2011 and then listened to a lot:
Chris Pureka, How I Learned to See in the Dark; Two Door Cinema Club, Tourist History; Young the Giant, Young the Giant.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth
This is a list of the songs that took over my head in 2011, presented more or less in order. It is not a representative sample of everything I acquired nor is it necessarily a complete account of the best (whatever that means) songs I heard. It is simply a list of songs that, for whatever reason, made me hit repeat a whole bunch of times. (Obsesso-songs that I am thinking about vidding are not included here.)
I've uploaded a .zip file with all of them; I'll leave the .zip up for a week or so until I remember to take it down. As always, please support the artists if you like the music!
For the record, I think this may be the batch of obsesso-songs that's the most completely all over the place in terms of genre. It was a weird year.
Frightened Rabbit, "Swim Until You Can't See Land" (The Winter of Mixed Drinks)
Call this a drowning of the past. January and February of 2011 were... not so good. This song's ambiguous optimism was weirdly reassuring.
Robyn, "Dancing On My Own" (Body Talk)
I just came to say goodbye. God, I love good dancepop. I picked up this CD right at the end of 2010 and it immediately went into heavy rotation for days when I needed to get out of my own head for a while and/or clean the house. Heh.
The Joy Formidable, "Whirring" (A Balloon Called Moaning)
All these things about me you never can tell. By far the best song on this EP; made me super-excited for the full length album, which did not disappoint (see below). I am always looking for more female-fronted rock bands, and TJF pushes a lot of my personal buttons in ways that make me very happy.
Delta Spirit, "Devil Knows You're Dead" (History From Below)
May the wind be always at your back. AKA that song from the Friday Night Lights finale montage. I would love the song anyway, but it's now indelibly associated with one of my favorite shows of all time.
Garrison Starr, "Beautiful in Los Angeles" [live] (Relive)
You make a pretty good case for that lost look on your face. The original version of this song is on The Sound of You and Me, which is... not Garrison Starr's best effort. So the song had never really pinged for me. But then she played it live when I saw her last spring, and I sat up and said whoa. I was really pleased to find it on the live album I'd skipped.
The Joy Formidable, "A Heavy Abacus" (The Big Roar)
All we have is this chance called memory. TJF's combination of melody and noise was exactly what I needed last April.
The Joy Formidable, "Cradle" (The Big Roar)
Get up off your knees. I spent weeks belting out this song while doing the dishes.
The Gaslight Anthem, "Stay Lucky" (American Slang)
Mama never told me there'd be days like these 'til it was much too late to recover. This is one of those CDs that felt like an old favorite before I even finished listening to it for the first time. I hit that point about halfway through this song, actually.
The Gaslight Anthem, "Boxer" (American Slang)
You took it all gracefully on the chin. I listened to this CD pretty much nonstop all summer. I love the whole thing, but this song never fails to send a little spike of joy-induced adrenalin straight to my heart.
The Lonely Forest, "Turn Off This Song and Go Outside" (Arrows)
You can listen to it later. For most of the summer, including most of my gardening time, when I wasn't listening to The Gaslight Anthem it was only because I was listening to this CD instead. This song's combination of energy and wistfulness and wry self-mockery ("vintage shirts and hundred-dollar pants") never fails to make me smile.
Elbow, "Dear Friends" (Build a Rocket Boys!)
You are the stars I navigate home by. I spent part of June in London; this album was an important part of my soundtrack for the trip.
The Vaccines, "If You Wanna" (What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?)
That's what all the friends I do not like as much as you say. I picked up this album while in London; this song was an instant favorite. I do love me some good neo-Ramones pop punk.
Digitalism, "2 Hearts" (I Love You, Dude)
It's like you are hopelessly in love. I liked Digitalism's Idealism well enough but certainly didn't love it, so I'm not sure what possessed me to pick up this album while in London -- but I'm glad I did, because wow, it's really good.
Nicki Minaj, "Super Bass" (Pink Friday [Deluxe Version])
You got my heartbeat running away. I've enjoyed Minaj's guest spots on other artists' tracks, but was underwhelmed by Pink Friday. Then this song (off the deluxe version of the album) got a thumbs-up in an AV Club post, I watched the video, and promptly had the song stuck in my head for the rest of August, which was apparently my Month of Dumb Pop Music (see below). I would love it if somebody vidded this song for Club Vivid, just FYI.
Pink, "Raise Your Glass" (Greatest Hits... So Far!!!)
Why so serious? Nathan Rabin, whose writing I love and for whose opinions about music I have nothing but respect, is absolutely right that this song is an example of "defiance and rebellion as a commercial pose and marketing strategy" in which "no actual authority is ever threatened at any point." But the song is so fucking catchy that I pretty much don't care.
The Head and the Heart, "Lost in My Mind" (The Head and the Heart)
Don't you worry about me. My first favorite song off this CD, and the one that I listened to nonstop for days and then sang to myself during a couple of weeks late in the summer when I really needed a shot of optimism. Makes a lovely folk/americana combo in rotation with Jeff Foucault's new CD (see below).
Glee Cast, "Teenage Dream" (Glee: The Music Presents The Warblers)
Don't ever look back. I started mainlining Glee after a conversation about it with
the_shoshanna at VividCon. I have... let's be generous and say mixed feelings about the music on Glee. But when I got to the episode featuring this song, sometime in late August or early September, I was so freaking charmed I could hardly stand it. Then I found out it's a Katy Perry song and almost committed ritual suicide in embarrassment. Then I caved and bought the cover and heard the actual first line (which is not featured in the show) and was even more charmed. Then, in a fit of morbid curiosity, I found the original on YouTube and attempted to listen to it, and didn't even make it to the one-minute mark because that shit is actually unlistenable. And now... now I'm basically at peace with the fact that Darren Chris has magical powers. IDEK, you guys.
Kid Finish, "The Beginning" (This Is How She Held Me)
So shout it out full force if you mean it. This CD was on my to-get list for years; I finally picked it up in 2011 and am simultaneously thrilled I did and annoyed with myself for waiting so long. This year may have been all over the place in terms of genre, but it's sort of reassuring to know that whiny white boys with guitars are still my emotional home base.
Kid Finish, "From Friends To Failure" (This Is How She Held Me)
I don't wanna be your shoulder to cry on. I love this song a truly ridiculous amount. I suspect I would love a cover version by The Bruises even more, but that's just getting greedy.
Mates of State, "Basement Money" (Mountaintops)
We don't give up. I first heard Mates of State years ago when they toured with Rainer Maria. Since then, they've improved so much; they're still defined by their quirkiness and boy-girl harmonies, but the songs are catchier and the sound's a lot fuller. Mountaintops may be even better than 2008's terrific Re-arrange Us.
Yellowcard, "With You Around" (When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes)
All I can think about is you and me driving with a Saves The Day record on. Remember that thing I was saying about whiny white boys with guitars? Yeah. Yellowcard is now on the short list of "favorite bands to which my students have introduced me."
Doomtree, "Bangarang" (No Kings)
I got my family here. I fell in love with this track pretty much instantly. One of my best music-related memories from 2011 is screaming myself hoarse with the rest of the audience at the Doomtree Blowout as we all did call-and-response to this song's hook.
Doomtree, "Fresh New Trash" (No Kings)
Let it go, let it roll on past. A great song and an amazing album-closer. Hot damn.
Matt Nathanson, "Room @ The End Of The World" (Modern Love)
Sad can't catch me. I listened to this one almost nonstop for the last week of the year, starting with my walk home from a Christmas Night party. I listen to it and feel like all things are possible.
I don't usually do a list of favorite albums; more often than not, I acquire albums at least a year after their release, so any list would be idiosyncratic at best. But in 2011, I actually picked up a fair number of 2011 releases. So what the hell - a list, in alphabetical order:
Adele, 21
I assume there's been music press backlash about Adele somewhere, because haters gotta hate, but this album is flat-out amazing: the songs are consistently good-to-fantastic, Adele's voice is astonishing, and the musical and tonal range is impressive.
Doomtree, No Kings
Jay-Z and Kanye's Watch the Throne is pretty good, but I like No Kings better. My list of reasons starts with the titles and continues through... pretty much everything about Doomtree. As always, I love the combo of hip-hop, punk rock, and electronica. If I had to pick a single favorite album from 2011, which thankfully I do not, this one would be a strong contender.
Jeffrey Foucault, Horse Latitudes
This is not my favorite of Jeff's CDs. On the other hand, Jeff on a bad day is better than most artists on their best days. I love half the songs on this album (especially "Passerines," which just kills me) and like the other half, and -- look, it's me, it's Jeff, nobody is surprised, right?
The Gaslight Anthem, American Slang
Technically this album's from 2010, but I'm including it anyway because no account of my musical 2011 could possibly be complete without it. This album may actually be my personal platonic ideal of a rock'n'roll record -- the hooks, the post-punk guitars, the raw emotion, the allusions that range from Charles Dickens to Counting Crows. Seriously, it's like these guys sat down and said "Let's make a CD that will push all of here's luck's buttons" and then, you know, did it. I approve.
The Head and the Heart, The Head and the Heart
The second half is markedly stronger than the first, IMO, but the whole thing's good. I love this album the way I wanted to love the new Fleet Foxes, and for some of the same reasons, especially the lovely harmonies.
The Joy Formidable, The Big Roar
The album title gets it right: this is BIG music, music to lose yourself in. TJF aren't afraid to be noisy, but they know their way around a melody. And the structure and pace of the album are amazing: the first and last tracks ("The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie" and "The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade") are two of the album's best, and the jab-cross of "A Heavy Abacus" (see above) followed by "Whirring" (updated from the earlier EP in a seven-minute version that would be self-indulgent if it weren't so brilliant) is not to be missed.
The Lonely Forest, Arrows
Six of the twelve songs on this CD became favorites as soon as I heard them, but this is another album that's greater than the sum of its parts. The sound is consistent, but covers a remarkable tonal range -- sometimes within one song, as with "Arrows," the final track, which begins as a noisy minor-key dirge and then transitions into something more hopeful both musically and lyrically: "Now this melancholy boy is gonna shine."
Matt Nathanson, Modern Love
I've liked Matt Nathanson's last couple of albums, but they tend to have two or three really catchy songs surrounded by a whole lot of (pleasant but forgettable) filler. Modern Love, by contrast, is stacked with terrific songs, and even the filler is generally a cut above that on the past albums. Nathanson is frequently accused of being bland, which I suppose is fair -- his lyrics certainly aren't setting the world on fire anytime soon, and I myself described "Car Crash" as the aural equivalent of M&Ms back in 2008. But, as I noted in that post, I like M&Ms, and I like hooky guitar-pop, so whatever; haters to the left. Plus Nathanson really can play and sing, and he has a charmingly self-deprecating sense of humor, all of which are on display in the improbably charming cover of Prince's "Little Red Corvette" that he recorded for the A.V. Club's Undercover sessions. His commentary on his own lack of funk is particularly endearing.
Sims, Bad Time Zoo
The Doomtree crew members have put out some astonishing solo albums in the past few years as they worked up to New Kings; I don't love Bad Time Zoo quite as much as I do A Badly Broken Code or Never Better, but it's still a damn good CD. Its major flaw is that the first five songs are non-stop brilliance and the rest of the album doesn't quite measure up. Then again, those first five songs alone are worth the price of the album, so everything else is a bonus.
Yellowcard, When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes
Yellowcard isn't quite as relentlessly charming as Jimmy Eat World, but works a similar post-punk-emo-pop sound in a way that makes me very happy. My fellow Jimmy fans should check this one out. (Also, I love the album title.)
Honorable mentions: Astronautalis, This is Our Science; City and Colour, Little Hell.
And three more albums from 2010 that I didn't pick up until 2011 and then listened to a lot:
Chris Pureka, How I Learned to See in the Dark; Two Door Cinema Club, Tourist History; Young the Giant, Young the Giant.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth