The top 20 songs of 2011 Part 1: 20-11

So here is the first part of my top twenty songs of 2011. As an introduction, these songs are chosen purely because I liked them and listened to them a lot – nothing more, nothing less. Anyone who reads this blog knows I’m terribly out of step with fashion so you’ll find no Bon Iver, St Vincent or any of that guff here. Sorry, it’s not to be contrary but because that music doesn’t move me. Whatever, here’s the first ten:


20: Run The World (Girls) - Beyoncé
I have long been a fan of any pop song that goes crazy with drums and Lose my breathe was one of my favourite Destiny's Child songs for that very reason. I'm all for any militantly pro-female song and with the snare drum scatter attack of Run the World, I find this song irresistible. I still think Beyonce should have sung "who'll run this muthafucker? GIRLS!" but that's quibbling - a great song.


19: Please Take - Wire
Any song off the excellent Red Barked Tree album could have made this list but this one just sticks in your head. It moves languidly but with purpose and if you're not singing "Fuck off out of my face" by the second chorus, you just don't like music.


18: I'll Hit You Back - Jane's Addiction
I hesitate to write Jane's Addiction as the artist because on one level it doesn't actually sound like them. Perry's vocals seem to have a case of the auto-tuned removing the rough undercurrent that makes him so unique while Navarro tunes out his usual proto-metal snarl for something much more tame. However, every time this song comes on, I find it an irresistible pop confection and start singing along. It's not classic Jane's but it is a good song.


17: Curl of the Burl - Mastodon
Somehow sounding like Trés Hombres era ZZ Top siphoned through Black Sabbath with Queens of the Stone Age-esque swing, Mastodon moves away from their crazy ass mini-rock operas to more straight forward pop. A lot of fans hate The Hunter for this very reason but they’re missing out – the poppier Mastodon is infinitely more fun and their lyrics are just as weird as ever. Haters are going to hate but say what you will, Burl makes me want to dance and seems like a natural evolution in their sound to me.


16: Rumor has it - Adele
This song single handedly converted me to the cult of Adele. Its power might have been diluted somewhat by being violated by those Glee miscreants but I still think this is a great song. Somewhere between its blues-gospel hand clap compulsion and a guitar line that which wouldn't be out of place on a Tom Waits record, Adele's voice rankles and seduces. To be honest, we could do a lot worse than mainstream music embracing the white girl soul revival of Winehouse, Duffy and Adele and this is an exemplar of that genre at its best.


15: In the End – Anthrax
Whatever you feel about classic metal, Anthrax tick all the boxes in this little gem. It’s rare in this age to hear music these days so metal yet so sincere, it’s as if they wrote this song in 1986 and only got around to releasing it this year. Filled with a lot of chug, drum fills and a solo filled break down with guitars that squeal in that way that screams “MAIDEN!”, Anthrax provide us with a late era metal classic.


14: Supercollider - Radiohead
Spoiler alert: The King of Limbs is not even remotely close to making my top 10 albums of the year which seems almost heretical at any other time (a top ten list not featuring Radiohead? WHAAAAT?!) but ahem, it really wasn't very good. I much preferred the EP which came soon after and the slow, electronic glide of Supercollider is hypnotic and diverting. Best of all, Thom Yorke's voice is divine, an instrument of such purity and grace this song highlights just how special it is. I still think this could have been the centrepiece of a rethought Limbs and made it a better album.


13: Especially Me - Low
There is much to adore on Low's C'mon record but there is something simultaneously graceful, haunting and sincere about this song that makes it undeniably moving. Part caring, part accusatory, the song's deeper meaning is carried by understated strings and a winding riff that is instantly memorable. Sure it's got that terrible line about cake and is heavy on the drama but it is somehow perfect in every way.


12: No Church in the Wild (featuring Frank Ocean) - Jay Z and Kanye West
For me, The Throne was a bit of a dud, it just sounded like a couple of rich arseholes singing about how much better their lives are than yours. I guess that's pretty common in hip hop but there was something so unrepentantly decadent about it that it verged on obscene. However, both Otis and No Church in the Wild provided some biting respite from it all by just being awesome. No Church in the Wild is a dark rumination on the dark side of the hip hop life and Jay Z and Kanye have never sounded so committed or fluid than on this track. Kanye has the edge but that's because he's letting his freak flag fly a little bit higher than Jay's.


11: Shook Down – Yuck
Yuck are unrepentant 90’s American indie rock classicists honing the best of that decade with little care for originality while undertaking the task with a bevy of good tunes. Shook Down sounds like a long lost Lemonheads classic and while it isn’t going to displace Evan Dando’s best work, it reminds us of the pure joy of that country-indie-pop sound he exemplified. Packed with the requisite dreamy lyrics and J Mascis guitar toned solo, it’s the aural equivalent of your favourite comfort food.

Part 2 soon...

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Best cover songs of 2011

So, the best of 2011 lists starts here. While I will be listing my twenty favourite songs of the year soon, I purposely do not include covers in that list – no matter how good. This is mainly as when I’m talking about new music, I think it should be generally written and released in the year I’m talking about. Hence, my five favourite covers of the year. To be honest, Trent Reznor and Karen O could probably have snuck in there with Immigrant Song but as I only heard that in its entirety two days ago, I’ll stick with my original list:

5. Superchunk – Where eagles dare: Superchunk have made it a Halloween tradition to cover Misfits songs and while they’re probably not better than the originals, the indie veteran’s bring an undeniable bounce to the song. It takes seconds to start singing along with the chorus “I aint a goddamn son of a bitch” and enjoying a two minute blast of punk joy has never been so easy. It can be downloaded here.

4. Adele – Lovesong: OK, so Nouvelle Vague have been pulling off jazzy covers of punk and post-punk classics for years so there’s nothing new in a soul version of a Cure song. What makes this cover transcendent is Adele’s voice calling like a siren highlighting the longing and devotion of Robert Smith’s words. Even the hardest of hearts could not love a song with a chorus that goes “However far away, I will always love you”, particularly when it is sung as gorgeously here. I predict this will be the most popular wedding dance song for the next ten years.

3. Ryan Adams – Black Sheets of Rain: Of course there would be a Bob Mould cover! Black Sheets of Rain is the title track from Bob’s difficult second album, a record which is often seen as so miserable with a heavy air of depression hanging over the songs and sandpaper dry production to accentuate the misery. However, lurking under all the pain are some excellent songs and Adam’s makes the grinding murk of the original a distant memory with this elegant re-imagining. It’s incredibly beautiful and Adam’s reminds us that he is capable of producing heartbreakingly moving performances (also check out his cover of Heartbreak a Stranger – superb also).

2. Jack White – Love is Blindness: I spoke about this song recently and I still think it’s an incredible work. While there is an underlying hurt in the original U2 version that is palpable and real, White brings an off kilter rage to the song that lights it up like a bonfire. The solo can be best described as a shrieking animal caught in a snare and White’s vocal shows a man on the edge. A great, great cover of a great, great song.

1. James Blake – Limit to your love: Already sparse in its original form, James Blake breaks down Feist’s version into a subterranean gospel lament… with bass… deep, deep bass. As with all great covers, now I’ve heard this version it has superseded the original and any time I hear the Feist version, it sounds like a clumsy imitation of Blake’s fragile masterpiece. If you’ve never understood the buzz around James Blake, listen to this. If you still don’t get it, there’s a new Nickelback record out there for you somewhere.

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Just sayin': Adele

As I've said before, I'm a big fan of girly pop and for the last week I've been quite enamoured by Adele's record 21. Nothing pleases me more that her album is doing so well. While there are some lamearse songs on her album (mainly fluffy ballads that are sub-Beyonce/Christina strings and piano by rote), the best songs here are fierce assertions of female empowerment that embrace soul, blues and funk. Rolling in the Deep is a revenge fantasy with real malice - "Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your shit bare" is not really Katy Perry territory.

My favourite song, Rumour has it, is all soulful backing vocals, driving drums and handclaps with the chorus kiss off of "rumour has it he's the one I'm leaving you for..." What cuts above it all is Adele's voice - the thing is force of nature that recalls the classic 60's English pop singers - Dusty Springfield mainly but that's a pretty easy comparison to make. That Adele has struck a chord with this music which is so reminiscent of the music my Mum used to play when I was a kid makes me oddly happy. What makes me happier is that in a pretty sterile world of pop, this music has a bit of grit to it.

While I like the upbeat songs the most, there are some beautiful ballads here namely Turning Tables and Someone Like You. It's a shame she couldn't sustain the quality across the entire album (there's a really cheesy elevator version of the Cure's Lovesong - wrong on so many levels) but if you like a dose of quality pop, you could do far worse than this.

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In the rock news today...

1. The new Antlers album is quite exceptional.

2. The new My Morning Jacket is quite good.

3. The new Arctic Monkeys album is quite bad.

4. Coldplay have a new single called Every tear is a waterfall. Who the fuck are they trying to kid with this bullshit?

5. Adele has apparently single handedly arrested the decline in record sales. That’s what happens when you release an album both me and my Mum likes.

6. Pulp have reunited. I guess being on the dole finally got boring.

7. Lady Gaga is an artistic visionary with the worst photoshopped front cover of all time. Either it is high irony or it’s just shit.

8. My Bloody Valentine have still not released a new album.

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