Category: Music

It’s been a long time since I did a “songs I love” post, so here’s a 2-fer of songs I’ve been jammin’ on lately:

Gliss is a Danish band which moved to Los Angeles, where their debut EP, Kick in Your Heart, caught the ear of Billy Gorgan, who asked them to open for him on a European solo tour. I haven’t heard their early stuff, but the 2013 album Langsom Dans was called a “total departure” from their existing sound. Although I downloaded the album last year, I didn’t actually listen to it until a couple months ago… and instantly fell in love with it. Here’s a track called “A to B”:

Flunk is an electronic band from Norway; “Queen of the Underground” is the lead track off their 2013 album Lost Causes:

This song especially kicks ass!

If you’re a frequent visitor to this site, you’re probably sick of me exalting the virtues of Last.fm. And I wouldn’t blame you for that. But these “best of” lists generate a lot of traffic from new visitors, so forgive me if I offer a brief explanation of the service.

Last.fm is a website that keeps track of the music you listen to. You sign up for an account and download their software for your computer, smartphone or tablet. The software then uploads the names of the tracks you listen to; the site calls this “scrobbling”. You can then find artists similar to the bands you like, or find other users with similar tastes and see what they listen to. The site offers streaming radio based on several categories, including a particular artist you like, a genre you like, or your overall music preferences. And, if you’re a statistics junkie like me, you can just play around with the numbers. Go ahead and check out my profile if you wish.

Below is a bunch of information about my music listening habits of the past year, collected from December 15, 2012 until December 2013.

Artists

Here are my top artists of 2013. The number in parenthesis is the total number of times I’ve listened to the artist this year:

1) Marsheaux (741)
2) Saint Etienne (379)
3) The Raveonettes (317)
4) Washed Out (183)
5) CHVRCHES (130)
6) Owl Eyes (110)
7) Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (96)
8) Roxy Music (95)
9) Emilíana Torrini (66)
10) Le Blonde (55)

A couple of interesting points here: Owl Eyes and Le Blonde, two artists absent from my Best Albums of 2013 list, make this list, largely because of one song each. I listened to Owl Eyes’ song “Nightswim” over and over again, but the rest of the Nightswim album wasn’t nearly as good. And Le Blonde hasn’t released a full-length album yet; their only official release is a kickass cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Sisters of the Moon”, which I played over and over again the latter part of the year (this season’s American Horror Story: Coven helped).

Although Saint Etienne and The Raveonettes didn’t release new albums this year, it’s nice to see them hanging on to the #2 and #3 spots on the artists list. And Roxy Music is still hanging on after all these years, coming in at #8 with 95 plays during the year.

Songs

These are my most popular songs of the year, with the number of times played in parenthesis. This list is not limited to songs from 2013.

1) Marsheaux – “Secret Place” (102)
2) Marsheaux – “So Far” (96)
3) Owl Eyes – “Nightswim” (91)
4) The Raveonettes – “She Owns The Streets” (57)
5) Le Blonde – “Sisters of the Moon” (56)
6) Marsheaux – “To the End” (55)
7) Washed Out – “All Over Now” (49)
8) The Raveonettes – “The Beat Dies” (48)
9) CHVRCHES – “Recover” (44)
10) The Raveonettes – “You Hit Me (I’m Down)” (41)

As mentioned in my Best Albums of 2013 list, Marsheaux’s “Secret Place” really is my favorite song of the year! “So Far”, off the band’s 2009 album, Lumineux Noir, comes in a close second. Owl Eyes makes her sassy self known at #3, while The Raveonettes’ hit from last year’s Observator comes in at #4. The previously-mentioned Le Blonde cover comes in at #5. Two 2013 tracks from Marsheaux and Washed Out come in at numbers 6 and 7 respectively, while “The Beat Dies” (from The Raveonettes’ 2007 album Lust Lust Lust) is the oldest track on the list. I drove my girlfriend crazy with CHVRCHES’ “Recover”, which comes in at #9, while one more track from Observator, “You Hit Me (I’m Down)”, closes out the top 10.

Albums (Overall)

These are my top overall albums in 2013. They are not limited to 2013 releases. The first number in parenthesis is the number of plays, the second is the year of release.

1) Marsheaux – Inhale (383, 2013)
2) Marsheaux – Lumineux Noir (203, 2009)
3) Washed Out – Paracosm (145, 2013)
4) The Raveonettes – Observator (137, 2012)
5) CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe (116, 2013)
6) The Raveonettes – Lust Lust Lust (108, 2007)
7) Owl Eyes – Nightswim (108, 2013)
8) Saint Etienne – Words and Music by Saint Etienne (82, 2012)
9) Marsheaux – E-Bay Queen Is Dead (69, 2012)
10) Emilíana Torrini – Tookah (53, 2013)

Albums (2013)

These are my top overall albums of the year limited to 2013 releases only. The number in parenthesis is the number of plays,

1) Marsheaux – Inhale (383)
2) Washed Out – Paracosm (145)
3) CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe (116)
4) Owl Eyes – Nightswim (108)
5) Emilíana Torrini – Tookah (53)
6) Nightlife – Days in Other Days (49)
7) Soft Metals – Lenses (43)
8) Postiljonen – Skyer (43)
9) Julianna Barwick – Nepenthe (43)
10) Clubfeet – Heirs and Graces (32)

More single-track shenanigans are at work here. In addition to Owl Eyes and “Nightswim”, Nightlife makes this list on the strength of the track “Worried Bird”, and Clubfeet make it for the song “Everything You Wanted”.

2013 might go down as the year synthpop absolutely dominated my music life.

Maybe that’s because I’m 42 years old.

I grew up listening to bands like Duran Duran, Human League, ABC, OMD and the Thompson Twins. And synthpop takes me back to those happy days, only this music is new. Don’t get me wrong: I love the 80s and 80s music. But sometimes I wish 80s music would just go away. I’ll be out at a club or restaurant somewhere and hear some 80s song I’ve heard a million times, like The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” or The Smith’s “How Soon Is Now?” and I’ll twitch, twitch because those songs have been run into the ground. How can I be nostalgic for something that never really went away? Synthpop bridges the gap: new music that sounds like something from 1982.

On the other hand, a lot of new music these days is… meh. Except for a brief period when I was a teen, screaming guitars have never really been my thing, and these days loud guitars just give me a headache. Loud guitars and cheap beer is a guaranteed headache.

What’s worse, as I approach middle age, I just don’t give a damn to hear rich 19 year-olds tell me how bad life is. Oh no, someone broke your heart, Taylor Swift? Cry me a river! Get in your private jet, fly to Rome and drown yourself in gelato for all I care. Love sucks? No shit. Welcome to an exclusive club called “The Human Race”. We’ve all been dumped before; if you feel the need to talk about it, there’s a group that meets at the Y on Tuesday evenings – bring cookies. Miley Cyrus? One Direction? Blech. People listen to this manufactured, over-produced crap? Really? And by “over-produced” I mean “Martin Hannett is rolling over in his grave”. Arctic Monkeys? The Strokes? Better, but too damn loud. The Lumineers? Arcade Fire? Mumford & Sons? Do people actually listen to these bands when not trying to get a girl in a sack? The 1975? Are these guys old enough to get into a R-rated movie by themselves? Justin Timberlake? You mean the guy who gets to sleep next to Jessica Biel on a bed stuffed with $100 bills? Yeah, that’s relevant to my life!

I don’t know. I mean, I just feel weird. I’m obviously “too old” for MTV and Capitol Records to give a damn about me, and I’m fine with that. Relieved, actually. But I also feel waaaaayy too young to be joining the Michael Bublé fan club. I’m not ready to shop for records at Cracker Barrel, thank you very much. So synthpop is where I find myself at the moment.

Below are my Top 10 Albums for 2013. Remember, this list is about complete albums, not albums with just one or two tracks I really liked. More on the individual tracks I liked in a “Music By The Numbers” follow-up post, scheduled for 12/16.

*     *     *     

#10: Au Revoir Simone – Move In Spectrums

Brooklyn-based Au Revoir Simone formed in 2003 and have put our four studio albums, including one of my faves from 2009, Still Night, Still Light. London’s The Times newspaper called their music “a collision between The Waitresses, Stereolab and Kings of Convenience”, while one of their biggest fans, director David Lynch, called their music “innocent, hip and new”. This album certainly is new. While their previous albums were an unconventional take on conventional pop music, this album is… lighter, airier and freer than any of their previous efforts. About halfway through the album, the music seems to lose structure completely. And that’s not entirely a good thing. On the one hand, if you like experimental music, it’s right up your alley. If you don’t, you’ll be likely to skip the rest of the album, starting at about track 6. It’s still a good effort, though. Even though it goes off the rails, it’s good to experiment. But maybe they’re just not the band to do it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwvvlTKi5cE

#9: Emilíana Torrini – Tookah

Of course I was excited when I heard that Emilíana Torrini was releasing her first new album since 2008’s Me and Armini. And when I heard the first single off the album, “Speed of Dark”, I became SUPER EXCITED… because it reminded of her 1999 album Love in the Time of Science. If you know me, you know that Science is one of my all-time favorite albums. Produced by Roland Orzabal of Tears For Fears, Science was one of the best electronic albums, well.. ever. But then some bad things happened in Torrini’s life, and 2005’s Fisherman’s Woman was a mostly acoustic mopefest. It was still good, mind you. ANY Emilíana Torrini is a good thing. But I missed, so missed, the electronic Emilíana. The aforementioned Me and Armini was kind of more of the same: good, but not the artist I loved so much. It’s almost like… imagine if Human League decided to do slow, acoustic versions of their songs all the time. Maybe it would be good, or maybe it wouldn’t. But it’s not the sound you fell in love with. And sadly, Tookah is mostly more of the same, plodding Torrini we’ve come to know over the past few years. “Speed of Dark” is the only really “electronic” song on the album, except for perhaps the title track. The bulk of the album – “Caterpillar”, “Autumn Sun”, “Home”, “Elizabet” – is the same downtempo stuff she’s been doing for years. Which is fine. But not what I wanted. Having said that, it’s still good, though.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjO8MTeVVGg

#8: Carla Bruni – Little French Songs

Confession Time: I’ve fallen in love with songs sung (in French) by French girls. But it’s more specific than that. Oddly, the singers must be French; French Canadians, Belgians and Swiss need not apply (which is odd, I know, since Bruni was born in Italy). And the music must be mostly voice and guitar, with perhaps a few violins or accordions thrown in from time to time. This album is the perfect example of what I’m looking for. I first fell for Bruni’s music with “Quelqu’un m’a dit” from the album of the same name, as used in Hans Canosa’s 2005 film Conversations with Other Women. And this album is almost as good. maybe even better. Mostly written by Bruni herself, the album is light and breezy. If you speak French, you might find that the music is actually quite clever at times. For the rest of us, don’t fear: it’s lovely. In fact, the music on this disc is exactly what it says on the tin: “Little French Songs”. And that’s a good thing!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WpoOIz5H10

Continue reading “My Top Albums of 2013”

From the “This Is Why They Call It The Daily Fail” Department:

In the UK there’s a long-running TV show called University Challenge, in which teams from universities – especially posh schools like Oxford and Cambridge – answer ridiculously difficult questions for points. The team with the most points at the end of the show continues on in a knockout tournament not unlike March Madness.

Since 1994, the show has been hosted by TV personality Jeremy Paxman. And if you thought Alex Trebek was “snooty” and “condescending” when a Jeopardy! contestant gives a wrong answer… let’s just say that Paxman puts him to shame. This article in the Daily Mail refers to Paxman’s “withering put-downs” and “goading” of incorrect answers.

But it seems that Paxman got a comeuppance of sorts recently. A team from Claire College Oxford was asked to identify the composer of a snippet of classical music. They guessed, incorrectly, that it was by Bedrich Smetana. Paxman replied that it was Antonín Dvorak.

The problem? The music was from a piece by Dvorak, but the specific snippet the show played was actually an ancient plainchant (or, if you prefer, a Gregorian chant).

To give a modern analogy, it was as if the show played the first ten seconds of the Fugees’ “Ready or Not” (which is nothing but a sample of an Enya song called “Boadicea”), and the team answered “Enya” but were told they were wrong because it was the Fugees:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA1PAkKD3Q4

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKQwgpaLR6o

Anyway, the Daily Fail wrote the linked article, gloating that Paxman had gotten it wrong. But within their article – ABOUT HOW PAXMAN WAS WRONG – lies this whopper:

For those too lazy to click the thumbnail, the Mail asserts that “St Gregory the Great is said to have standardized [plainchant] in the mid 18th century”.

Pope Gregory I lived from around AD 540 until March 12, 604. Which, you’ll note, is not the mid 1700s. I’m not sure how the hell the Mail managed to make such a huge error. At first I was thought “maybe the author was thinking ‘seventh’ century and accidentally added the ‘-teenth’ at the end”. But then, most of what Pope Gregory did – if he did what he did – would have been done in the sixth century. And although traditionalists have long asserted that Gregory was the man who made them part of the Western Church, many scholars are convinced that the chants weren’t invented until AD 750 (and in France, no less), and that the chants weren’t standardized until the 9th or 10th centuries, well after Gregory passed.

Either way… good job, Daily Fail!

UPDATE: They have since corrected the error, and added another Paxman screw up on University Challenge to the linked article.

I like Parralox. I really do. But their new album is nothing but covers, and to say that covers “aren’t their strong point” would be too kind. This album is AWFUL. You’d expect an Australian synthpop band to do a crappy cover of Alan Parson’s “Eye in the Sky”… but (amazingly) their cover of Front 242’s “Headhunter” sucks just as much.

Imagine a bad German techno band covering some iconic rock and roll song, and even though you can’t stand AC\DC, and even though rednecks in AC\DC shirts used beat you up every day in high school, you just can’t bear to have “Highway to Hell” slaughtered this way. And even though you love synthpop with all your heart, there’s just something… fundamentally wrong about a crappy Kraftwerk knock-off turning “Born to Run” into a campy European dance club hit.

True story: I once went to a castle in Austria that had horrific statutes of disfigured animals all over the place. According to the tour guide, the Archbishop of Salzberg who built the place in the early 1600s sought out deformed animals and mated them with other deformed animals, just to see what would happen. He’d then commission artists to make statues of the poor creatures for posterity. And just as a three-headed cow shouldn’t exist, neither should this album.

 

Thanks to the good folks at Last.fm, here are my Top 10 songs for the first half of 2013:

1) Marsheaux – “So Far”
2) Owl Eyes – “Nightswim”
3) Marsheaux – “Secret Place”
4) The Raveonettes – “She Owns The Streets”
5) Anya Marina – “Whatever You Like”
6) Marsheaux – “To the End”
7) The Raveonettes – “You Hit Me (I’m Down)”
8) Marsheaux – “Alone”
9) Marsheaux – “Summer”
10) The Raveonettes – “The Beat Dies”

And here are my artist playcounts for the first six months of 2013:

1) Marsheaux (392)
2) Saint Etienne (297)
3) The Raveonettes (145)
4) Owl Eyes (73)
5) Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (69)
6) Nightlife (39)
7) Françoise Hardy (36)
8) Stumbleine (28)
9) Anya Marina (28)
10) Carla Bruni (27)

Billboard magazine is an American publication that compiles the official music charts for the United States. It was founded way back in 1894 as a magazine about outdoor advertising… hence the name. After a few years it started reporting on “outdoor amusements” – like fairs and carnivals – as these were a big thing in the days before television and movies. They were also one of the biggest billboard customers of the time. Billboard soon became the unofficial “newspaper of record” for amusement parks, circuses, carnivals and fairs.

When jukeboxes became popular in the 1930s, Billboard began publishing charts of the most popular songs in the country. On August 4, 1958, the magazine started publishing its famous “Billboard 100”, the list of the top 100 songs for each of three categories: Pop, Country & Western, and Rhythm & Blues.

Nowadays, of course, Billboard publishes a ridiculous number of charts every week: over 100 different charts at the time of this writing. “Pop” has now been subdivided into “Pop”, “Rock”, “Adult Contemporary”. “Adult Pop”, “Alternative”, “Hard Rock”, “Folk”, “Dance”, “World”, “New Age” and more. There’s the “Top Digital Songs” chart for downloads and “Top Streaming Songs” chart for sites like Spotify and Last.fm. There’s a chart for the week’s “Top Ringtones” (who knew that was still a thing?), “Top MySpace Songs” (ditto), “Top Catalogue Albums” (older albums like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, which are almost pure profit for record labels), as well as “Top Tastemaker” and “Top Heatseekers”, whatever they are.

One of Billboard’s first tweaks to their music charts came in the June 1, 1959 issue, in which it debuted the “Bubbling Under the Hot 100” chart. Usually just called the “Bubbling Under” chart, it featured the 15 songs that would have been numbers 101-115 on the Hot 100 chart. This way DJs and others in the record industry could keep up with new artists. Over the years, Billboard has changed the Bubbling Under chart to include 35, 10 or 25 songs (which is what it remains today).

The Bubbling Under chart of Billboard‘s June 16, 1979 issue of included a song called “Ready ‘N Steady” by a band called D.A.. And the funny thing about it is… no one has ever seen or heard a copy of the record!

Music historian Joel Whitburn – who has a massive underground vault containing a copy of almost every single 78, 45, LP and CD to make the Billboard charts since the 30s, and whose company, Whitburn’s Record Research, is the longest-running licensee of Billboard’s chart information – has looked into the matter with some depth. And, as a former record collector myself, I can see why: Whitburn owns a copy of every single that has ever appeared on the “Bubbling Under” chart… except “Ready ‘N Steady”.

In 1995, Whitburn said that he thought the band might actually be a girl-punk band from Chicago named DA! that was active in the late 70s and early 80s. He has since recanted this, presumably because DA! released a few records on a label called Autumn Records in 1981.

Whitburn has proof that Rascal, the label that released “Ready N’ Steady”, actually existed. He found a small ad for the label in the back of a punk rock “zine” (a type of self-published amateur magazine popular with sci-fi writers from the 1930s, but closely associated with punk culture in the 70s). Whitburn even hired a detective to go to the address listed in the ad – incidentally, a residential address – but the building was abandoned. I don’t know if Whitburn tried to do a title search on the property, or if he did and found that the home was a rental at the time or what. All I know is that it was a dead-end.

But perhaps the most titillating thing of all is that Billboard listed the catalog number of “Ready N’ Steady” as “RASCAL 102”. Presumably, there’s a completely unknown record out there with the catalog number “RASCAL 101”.

It amazes me that mysteries like these persist in the Internet age. You’d think that someone involved with the record – the band, the label, or a fan – would have come forward by now. After all, Ken Snyder’s By Request Only was thought to be a hoax for years… until it wasn’t. But it’s also possible that “Ready N’ Steady” was, in fact, some kind of hoax pulled on Billboard. But if so… why? Having a record appear on the “Bubbling Under” chart isn’t exactly the prank of the century. I mean, come on… the Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion? Now THAT’S a prank, my friend. Getting “Ready N’ Steady” on a minor Billboard chart? Not so much.