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koganbotHere's a list that isn't much different from the previous one, or the one before that, and so on. I don't believe my tastes are narrowing, so I think this says something about the world, too. But it is true, for instance, that I haven't been diving into the tributaries and sidestreams and backwaters of country these days, being so disappointed with what's occupying the main lake that I'm letting the whole genre slide by. What's Willie Nelson doing these days? He's always up to something.
Think I posed good questions in April, especially regarding popular music not having a viable or credible adulthood; but I haven't followed them up, have yet to reply to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
arbitrary_greay's thoughtful probing. To reiterate one point about CL of 2NE1: Can a performer like CL, who flourishes so well on the border of girlhood and womanhood, go on to a persona that's adult yet just as creative? What models are there for her in popular music? Who has taken this journey recently, with artistry enriched and an audience that hasn't evaporated?
Back in '07, in one of my even more tentative than usual Rules Of The Game columns, I — tentatively — gave an explanation and even hinted at a defense for why popular song lyrics continually replay the themes of adolescent romance. My hypothesis was that one doesn't outgrow the issues of adolescence so much as one finds provisional ways of going forward, routines of getting by. So in popular entertainment one can enjoy romance and romantic tribulations presented at a higher pitch than one actually wants to live them.
TOP SINGLES Mid Year 2012:
1. T-ara "Lovey-Dovey"
2. Trouble Maker "Trouble Maker"
3. ChoColat "I Like It"
4. Dev "In My Trunk"
5. Cassie "King Of Hearts"
6. Miss A "Touch"
7. After School "Rambling Girls"
8. 2NE1 "Scream"
9. Davichi & T-ara "We Were In Love"
10. Wonder Girls "Like This." Best of three recent, very interesting rhythm-heavy hits (the other two TaeTiSeo's "Twinkle" and f(x)'s "Electric Shock," all deserving writeups from me); on this one, producer JYP totally commits to using voices as beats. Good for him:
11. Sistar "Alone"
12. 4minute "Volume Up"
13. Yoon Jong Shin ft. Kim Wan Sun "I Love You All Days"
14. Sunny Hill "The Grasshopper Song"
15. Nicki Minaj "Stupid Hoe"
16. Clazzi ft. Koti & Jubi & MYK "Sexy Doll"
17. The Cataracs ft. Dev "Sunrise"
18. Rihanna ft. Chris Brown "Birthday Cake (Remix)"
19. Girl's Day "Oh! My God"
20. ChoColat "One More Day" (also called "Same Thing To Her"). Wailing passion fit to shimmering harpsichords that recall turn-of-the-millennium Shek'spere 'n' Kandi.
21. Kendrick Lamar ft. Dr. Dre "The Recipe"
22. Jess Mills "Pixelated People"
23. Tyga ft. Lil Wayne "Faded"
24. Lil Chuckee "Wop"
25. Teedra Moses ft. Wale "Another LuvR"
26. Melanie Fiona "4 AM"
27. T-ara "Round & Round"
28. Bella Thorne "TTYLXOX"
29. Blush "Up Up & Away"
30. Kara "Speed Up." Knee-buckling ache at the start that the chorus refuses to live up to. (K-pop having another strong year in Japan.)
31. Bobby Brackins ft. Iamsu & Roach Gigz "Golden State"
32. B.o.B ft. André 3000 "Play The Guitar"
33. Shinhwa "Venus"
34. Cloud Nothings "No Future/No Past"
35. Justin Bieber "Boyfriend"
36. Kang Mi Jin "MIA" (webrip)
37. Tyga "Rack City"
38. After School "Flashback"
39. Gangkiz "Honey Honey"
40. M.I.A. "Bad Girls"
41. Dawn Richard "Automatic"
42. Zebra Katz ft. Njena Reddd Foxxx "Ima Read"
43. Big Bang "Blue"
TOP ALBUMS Mid Year 2012:
1. ChoColat I Like It, The First Mini Album EP (Paramount)
2. T-ara Funky Town (repackage of Black Eyes) EP (Core Contents Media)
3. After School Playgirlz (Avex)
4. DJ Bedbugs Teenpop Lock And Drop Volume 2
5. Miss A Touch EP (JYP Entertainment)
6. E.via E.viagradation Part 1 (Black & Red) EP (Dline Art Media)
7. 4minute Volume Up (Cube Entertainment)
Think I posed good questions in April, especially regarding popular music not having a viable or credible adulthood; but I haven't followed them up, have yet to reply to
arbitrary_greay's thoughtful probing. To reiterate one point about CL of 2NE1: Can a performer like CL, who flourishes so well on the border of girlhood and womanhood, go on to a persona that's adult yet just as creative? What models are there for her in popular music? Who has taken this journey recently, with artistry enriched and an audience that hasn't evaporated?Back in '07, in one of my even more tentative than usual Rules Of The Game columns, I — tentatively — gave an explanation and even hinted at a defense for why popular song lyrics continually replay the themes of adolescent romance. My hypothesis was that one doesn't outgrow the issues of adolescence so much as one finds provisional ways of going forward, routines of getting by. So in popular entertainment one can enjoy romance and romantic tribulations presented at a higher pitch than one actually wants to live them.
TOP SINGLES Mid Year 2012:
1. T-ara "Lovey-Dovey"
2. Trouble Maker "Trouble Maker"
3. ChoColat "I Like It"
4. Dev "In My Trunk"
5. Cassie "King Of Hearts"
6. Miss A "Touch"
7. After School "Rambling Girls"
8. 2NE1 "Scream"
9. Davichi & T-ara "We Were In Love"
10. Wonder Girls "Like This." Best of three recent, very interesting rhythm-heavy hits (the other two TaeTiSeo's "Twinkle" and f(x)'s "Electric Shock," all deserving writeups from me); on this one, producer JYP totally commits to using voices as beats. Good for him:
11. Sistar "Alone"
12. 4minute "Volume Up"
13. Yoon Jong Shin ft. Kim Wan Sun "I Love You All Days"
14. Sunny Hill "The Grasshopper Song"
15. Nicki Minaj "Stupid Hoe"
16. Clazzi ft. Koti & Jubi & MYK "Sexy Doll"
17. The Cataracs ft. Dev "Sunrise"
18. Rihanna ft. Chris Brown "Birthday Cake (Remix)"
19. Girl's Day "Oh! My God"
20. ChoColat "One More Day" (also called "Same Thing To Her"). Wailing passion fit to shimmering harpsichords that recall turn-of-the-millennium Shek'spere 'n' Kandi.
21. Kendrick Lamar ft. Dr. Dre "The Recipe"
22. Jess Mills "Pixelated People"
23. Tyga ft. Lil Wayne "Faded"
24. Lil Chuckee "Wop"
25. Teedra Moses ft. Wale "Another LuvR"
26. Melanie Fiona "4 AM"
27. T-ara "Round & Round"
28. Bella Thorne "TTYLXOX"
29. Blush "Up Up & Away"
30. Kara "Speed Up." Knee-buckling ache at the start that the chorus refuses to live up to. (K-pop having another strong year in Japan.)
31. Bobby Brackins ft. Iamsu & Roach Gigz "Golden State"
32. B.o.B ft. André 3000 "Play The Guitar"
33. Shinhwa "Venus"
34. Cloud Nothings "No Future/No Past"
35. Justin Bieber "Boyfriend"
36. Kang Mi Jin "MIA" (webrip)
37. Tyga "Rack City"
38. After School "Flashback"
39. Gangkiz "Honey Honey"
40. M.I.A. "Bad Girls"
41. Dawn Richard "Automatic"
42. Zebra Katz ft. Njena Reddd Foxxx "Ima Read"
43. Big Bang "Blue"
TOP ALBUMS Mid Year 2012:
1. ChoColat I Like It, The First Mini Album EP (Paramount)
2. T-ara Funky Town (repackage of Black Eyes) EP (Core Contents Media)
3. After School Playgirlz (Avex)
4. DJ Bedbugs Teenpop Lock And Drop Volume 2
5. Miss A Touch EP (JYP Entertainment)
6. E.via E.viagradation Part 1 (Black & Red) EP (Dline Art Media)
7. 4minute Volume Up (Cube Entertainment)
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Top 10 Albums
Date: 2012-07-03 10:38 pm (UTC)My singles are, as usual, a derivative mess, but I love Gotye and Carly Rae and "Big Mouth" and "Stupid Hoe" and One Direction. Country seems to suck worse than my singles list. I'll cosign the Lionel Richie with Chuck, and First Aid Kit, two Swedish sisters recorded with retro flair by a Bright Eyes associate, are my favorite semi-country so far. Rascal Flatts album was not bad, which for them is like a masterpiece.
TOP 10:
Wadada Leo Smith - Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform)
Four-discs of free jazz (trumpet, piano, bass, two drum kits) but sometimes accessible modal jazz, with modern classical composition, strings savoring dissonances and timpani and whatnot. It’s a monument mostly to the Civil Rights Movement, though there’s also a 9/11 tribute. Song titles include “Thurgood Marshall and Brown vs. Board of Education: A Dream of Equal Education, 1954” and “Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society and the Civil Rights Act of 1964”. As ponderous as it is, I’m endlessly compelled to listen to this thing, and I’m currently making my peace with why that is. Has something to do with your lovely writing about Miles and Cosey a month ago: music as space, reordering that space with minute gestures.
Devin Gray - Dirigo Rataplan (Skirl)
Free jazz but SEXY! because led by the drummer, I think. Some of it sounds like atonal second-line New Orleans strutting.
El Doom & the Born Electric - El Doom & the Born Electric (Rune Grammofon)
Indie prog metal recommended by Chuck; need to listen more and I’ll have more to say but sounds GOOD.
Ja Rule - PIL2 (MPire/700 Hit Season)
Murky and weird, full of blasphemous meditations on fame and how it sucks, and I’m not sure whether he thinks he’s still famous. Beautifully clear-voiced hook singers, one of from Dirty Money, but Mr. Rule hides his words a lot. His big dumb sex song “Black Vodka” could’ve been a hit 10 years ago, but now you can barely understand what he’s saying, which is even sexier.
Wiley - Evolve Or Be Extinct (Big Dada)
Review: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/155754-wiley-evolve-or-be-extinct/
Big tour de force of varied production and fast rapping.
Yo Gotti - Live From the Kitchen (RCA)
Highly seductive orientation to the drug trade, I think. (If not, then what I just wrote is racist.) I need to get back to it. But smooth like Jeezy.
PO PO - Dope Boy Magick (Mad Decent) (indie)
Weird all mixed up indie rock on Diplo’s label, with stark sounds battering against nostalgic heartrending sounds and doped-out Marshall Crenshaw impersonator wafting over everything.
Van Halen - A Different Kind of Truth (Interscope)
Maybe Chuck can comment on whether their rhythm section has ever sounded so good. Little Wolfgang is playing bass now, and where I could once listen to them just for the guitar solos, now they’re worth listening to for the rhythm section. But there are some great songs, too. “You and Your Blues” is my favorite.
Skrillex - Bangarang (Owsla/Big Beat/Atlantic)
I don’t get why nobody likes this guy. Reminds me of Chemical Brothers big beat stuff.
Batida - Batida (Soundway)
Like Buraka Som Sistema, only with pretty Afro-pop samples and more rapping.
Re: Top 10 Albums
Date: 2012-07-04 02:58 am (UTC)http://www.spin.com/articles/fair-warning-best-and-worst-moments-van-halens-7-david-lee-roth-records
Wrote this album review for emusic too:
http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/music-news/review/album/van-halen-a-different-kind-of-truth/:
Albums I've liked more than any main Nashville lake ones this year that I'd probably count as country tributaries or backwaters, at least when Nashville Scene poll time comes: Elfin Saddle, Bhi Bhiman, Blackberry Smoke, Turnpike Troubadors.