Frank Kogan

Attempting to evaluate Jeremih's "Down On Me" ft. 50 Cent for possible inclusion in my e.o.y. Top 100; for seconds at a time it will seem impossibly pale but then - without changing - it will be impossibly beautiful, the paleness being the vehicle for the beauty. Might be an Autotune equivalent of dub: instead of the center being given to blank space and echoes, the sound is simply washed to paleness. At the very end the song goes to a moment of actual dub, albeit bass-free, and exquisite.

Track does an impressive job of eliminating the huge differences between how Fiddy and Jeremih sound.

So, turns out that Daddy Yankee's "Vida En La Noche" wasn't actually a single, though that's no concern for my singles list, seeing as how there were another twenty-six songs ahead of it that were also the Single Of The Year. But as I'd feared, the album turns out to be a genuine contender, wears its sugar glaze and Eurobeats well, without losing its force or its countermotion. So my settled and profound albums list may now be disrupted, though I make no promises..

In the meantime, here's another Single Of The Year:

P&J trek:

Listened to this year's Arcade Fire album for the first time, thought the tunes were almost always good, the playing and arrangements were usually good but with a self-defeating tendency towards recessiveness and obscurity, and the singing ranged from passably effective to borderline unbearable. And I paid no attention to the words.

So the singing. It actually doesn't range much at all, but its effect varies with the accompaniment, the poor happy smile of a gargle (that's how I described the singing to Alex O., and I didn't mean that it conveys or is meant to convey happiness, more like it's a frozen desperate smile that's used for all sorts of emotions, and I see no reason in principle that the style can't work) functioning somewhat effectively when the instruments are loud and/or fast, while being hopeless when the material is quiet and sensitive. Think the ending of "Rococo" is the one part where the singing doesn't need improvement: the voice, by being both strained and ethereal, places imperiled beauty within the rising instrumental menace that surrounds it (so this is where the tendency towards obscurity helps rather than hurts). The ragged vocals in "Empty Room" and "Month Of May" (which don't seem to be Win Butler's, though maybe he's just changing up) work really well at the start, and what goes wrong on those two promising tracks isn't the singing but the overall form, the group not willing to play pop-punk straight. Album's best moment is the start to "Modern Man," where the guitars strum with the same clipped tension as on Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl," the irresolute singing not a plus but not sabotaging the song either - the sabotage starts about a minute in, where the sound gets all diffuse and I wish I had "Jessie's Girl" instead.

In the comments (or if in Tumblr, reblog), please name the single best or your single favorite thing you wrote about music (etc.) this year.

Also, please name the single best or your single favorite thing that someone else wrote about music this year.

(I haven't yet figured out how I'll answer this, so you'll have to go to the comments to see my answer too.)

If possible, provide links.

Wrote this album wrap-up in response to Greg over on my singles thread, so might as well give it its own post. I've let album-listening slide, so I need to do lots of exploring. These are my top five:

Ke$ha's Animal: her vision or shtick is up my alley, and is pretending to come from an alley, but her lyrics could use stronger, more original images, and her voice is opening-act raw; yet somehow she's the only Top 40 star who knows what she's doing this year, the only one to sound like she's riding the current dance-pop mess rather than just trying to grab hold somewhere, balances ugliness and prettiness, storm and calm, etc. "Blah Blah Blah" is my favorite and after that the best stuff hasn't been singles: "Backstabber," a hint of Latin freestyle, the words being a bitch-fest about a gossip but the music bouncing the words around in the rhythm so much that Ke$ha hardly sounds unhappy; "Boots And Boys," which compares boys to boots, loves them both, tries them on, they got her looking rad, while a quagmire bass tries to pull her under but she floats blissfully above it; and "Party At A Rich Dude's House," sounding like Dr. Luke finally getting the loud-blaring-chorus-thing right, the melody lifting the song without blasting our ears off, except Luke actually had nothing to do with the song (is Ke$ha, Shellback, and Benny Blanco; but Luke restrains his own blare effectively on "TiK ToK" and "Take It Off"). In any event, for all the puke-slinging etc. the album is surprisingly pretty.

Marina And The Diamonds The Family Jewels, ridiculous lyrics coming across as if she's just discovered rebellion and originality, and she sounds like a heavily overburdened posh woman in the throes of letting loose, and I'm charmed.

Princesa Más Fuego, which Princesa herself posts on Mediafire for legal free download (all her links are on her Facebook); a reggaeton ball of fire from Argentina, got the ugly reggaeton yammering bit down but also what sounds like grief and dreaminess, even with a rough not particularly flexible voice; you may have heard the title track if you were following Argentina in the Pop World Cup.

E.via Must Have (EP), which even for an EP is scattershot in tone and quality, and through my cultural misunderstandings of Korea and my non-knowledge of the language I'm basically inventing her in my mind, so this account may have nothing to do with reality but... I imagine her as what I wish Gaga were, someone critiquing the sex sell while selling herself sexily in both a cute and threatening manner, and crucially she really can rap with force, while doing all the tuneful Asian chirpy things well.

Various Artists Shangaan Electro, South African speed dance with bubbling "marimba" keyboards; I like the fast burbles and the slow rich voices.

And that's all I've got for you, though I now possess the new Jamey Johnson without having had a chance to listen. Listened once to Chely Wright's Lifted Off The Ground and it feels like a potential grower, she now being more singer-songwriter than country, writing and singing with gentleness. Hurts' Happiness may also be a grower: only has one wonderful "Wonderful Life," but in general their dourness doesn't weigh down their prettiness as much as I'd feared, in fact the two facets sometimes work well together. Also intend to give Traband's Domasa and Kelis's Flesh Tone further listens, 'cause they have good stuff on them though so far they haven't hit me as much as they hit Chuck and Dave, respectively.

Disappointments: Little Big Town, Shontelle, A-Trak, Nina Sky, Lillix, though I've not listened all through the last two and only listened to the first two once.

Mid-Year Lists 2010

Singles First Half 2010: "Blah Blah Blah" is the big hairy dance-mess that's dancing over the world, while Aggro and Dizzee are the only other representatives here of 2010's dance-pop mess. Not enough country on this list, and at this time of year that's usually my fault, but this time I think it's country's. (Probably not enough dancehall or hip-hop or kuduro either, but vuvuzelas are represented.)

( Singles First Half 2010 )

New year's irresolution: I did not begin the year by saying to myself, "2010 will be the year when I actually like a Katie Melua single."

My tracks list (as opposed to this singles list, though with huge overlap) is over on poptimists.

( Country Singles First Half 2010 )

Albums First Half 2010: Hmmm. I think I've listened to a grand total of eleven new albums. Now, hearing a lot by a performer can definitely enrich my understanding of that performer, albums at times can feed and grow wonderfully as tracks interact, etc., but I'm swamped in music coming at me from all directions, and I just don't know where people get the time. Here's my list so far:

( Albums First Half 2010 )

Video: Here's a vid:



h/t Mat

The Top Six Singles So Far In 2010

I don't know what the status of "Night & Day" is, actually. If it's simply a leak by the artist it's a single; if it's also a future album cut it or if it's an unauthorized leak it isn't a single, unless it starts getting the attention due a successful single, in which case it is a single.

1. Lloyd "Night & Day" [single?]
2. I Blåme Coco ft. Robyn "Caesar"
3. Sade "Soldier Of Love"
4. Selena Gomez & the Scene "Naturally"
5. Nicki Minaj "Saxon" [single?]
6. Martina McBride "Wrong Baby Wrong Baby Wrong"

Resolution for the New Year: to write "ft." for "featuring" rather than to write "f."