We’ve reached the halfway point in the Top 50 Songs of 2011 countdown. I hope you’ve enjoyed this list, and Listmas in general thus far. Today’s set of 10 songs are probably the most eclectic yet, going everywhere from psychedelically weird to warm electronica to lo-fi to spoken word poetry to R&B to a pair of some of the most popular songs of the year. When looking back at 2011, it’s important to give some recognition to all those different types of music. For those that missed the first two installments of this Top 50 Songs list, here are a couple links to help you catch up:
When you watch as much television as I do, certain trends become blindingly apparent to you. Case in point, with the release of their new album “El Camino” this week, I’ve seen more Black Keys TV appearances than just about any other band in 2011. Sure, it’s a hot record that will likely reach #1 on the charts by this time next week, but there comes a point where it gets to be too much. From SNL to The Colbert Report to Letterman to a couple other shows, “Lonely Boy” and/or “Gold on the Ceiling” have been played at every one. Good for the band and their success, but I’m starting to get overwhelmed. So here’s a decidedly Black Keys-free edition of Pick Your Poison, as so many of them are. Tracks I’ll affix a gold star to today come from 813, Cass McCombs, Earthquake Party, Moist, Rocket From the Tombs and School of Seven Bells.
Welcome to Day 2 of Listmas, and my countdown week of the Best Songs of 2011. Yesterday was a lot of fun and naturally as the week progresses I expect that to continue to increase. One fun fact I’ll reveal to you in regards to my composition of this list is that I highly doubt you’ll be able to guess any of my Top 3 songs, which will be revealed on Friday. Feel free to guess in the comments section, but those final 3 are in some ways curveballs of the most interesting sort. There will likely be complaints. We’ll see how it all shakes out though. There’s still a couple days left before we get to that point. For today, there’s another interesting set of songs, and I’d actually say there’s nearly a theme to these 10. Save for a couple more left field choices, a handful of these songs were moderately successful and popular in 2011. That is to say, I heard a few of them on the radio, some even more than once. Do with that what you will. Click past the jump to read the list, my thoughts on each individual song, and stream or download all of them too. Oh, and here’s the link to yesterday’s 10 songs in case you missed them: The Top 50 Songs of 2011: #50-41
This really is the last legitimate record release date of 2011. There’s a handful of interesting albums coming out today, not the least of which is the new Black Keys effort “El Camino”, Other notables include records from Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover (of “Community” fame), The Roots, and Olafur Arnalds. The Cure are putting out a 2-disc Live at Bestival album that was recorded earlier this year, and Zomby have a new EP as well. Overall, a surprisingly good set of releases for the first Tuesday of December. The songs in today’s Pick Your Poison are great too. I’ll give a thumbs up to tracks from Christopher Paul Stelling, Evan Voytas, Gospel Music, Luke Roberts, Pond and Chicago’s own Unicycle Loves You. Chad Valley’s remix of Noah and the Whale is pretty decent as well.
It brings me great pleasure to welcome you to Faronheit’s Listmas 2011! For a couple weeks in December, the forward progress goes on hold to take a step backwards and examine the past year in music. Specifically speaking, this week marks the Top 50 Songs of 2011 countdown, and next week will be the Top 50 Albums of 2011. In the earliest Listmas editions dating all the way back to 2008, I’d also break down my favorite EPs, TV shows, movies, music videos and worst albums into lists, but most of that just doesn’t quite jive with the content you’d find on the site regularly, so those elements have been cut. If you want more information on those, email me and I’ll be more than happy to send those lists your way. I’ve got a couple special things planned beyond the two main lists I’ll be counting down as well, so keep an eye out for those when they emerge. In the meantime, we’ve got some hefty (but fun) business at hand. Coming up with a list of 50 and only 50 songs out of any given year is a monstrous task, particularly when you think about all the albums, EPs and 7″ singles that get unleashed week after week. After digging through pile after pile and sifting out only the songs that really stuck with me, I very well could have extended this list to 100 or more. Instead we’re left with only 50, and I’d like to think that makes them the best of the best.
There’s a reason why this list uses the word “song” and not “single”, and that’s because while commercially released singles are often the most pleasing to the ear, they’re not necessarily the best song on any given album or EP or sometimes even 7″ single (a b-side could hypothetically be better than the a-side single). If I start throwing around the word “single” when talking about this list, that limits it to what the commercial market dictates and not necessarily what quality does. Granted, many of the songs you’ll see here are also singles and have places where you can stream them or watch music videos made for them. If an mp3, audio stream or video is available for any of the songs on this list, I will do my best to link to it for your downloading/streaming/viewing pleasure. If you haven’t heard some of these songs before, naturally I encourage you to check them out in whatever way you can. It’s also worth noting that while some albums/EPs/7″ singles have a wealth of great material on them, I’m only allowing one song per artist on this list. The hope is to diversify as much as possible while also giving a little bit of credit to some of those “one hit wonders” that may have wowed with one song and then sucked with the rest. By that same token, some artists have crafted such perfection in terms of an entire record that choosing a single song from it feels a little criminal and distracting from the rest of it. Some albums are meant to be heard as one whole rather than broken down into three minute chunks. If we get to the end of this Top 50 Songs list and the artist responsible for your favorite album of 2011 doesn’t show up for some reason, I assure you I probably didn’t forget but instead couldn’t pick a single song because they were all so great. As a twist on that though, sometimes even the best albums have a song or two that jumps out at you just a touch more than the rest. You will get at least a touch of insight into some things that will appear on my Top 50 Albums list next week though. Try not to read too much into that, you may wind up deceived when this is all over. Okay, enough talking, let’s get right into the list. At a rate of 10 songs per day, here are numbers 50-41 on my list of the Top 50 Songs of 2011.
Hey everybody, it’s Monday and officially the start of Listmas here on Faronheit! Yes, for a couple weeks in December every year, I spend some time looking back at the previous 11 months and counting down my favorite songs and albums. This year is naturally no different, and the first official Listmas post of 2011 goes live shortly. In fact, by the time you read this it’ll probably already be up on the site. So if you’ve navigated to this page via a direct link, hit the top header for Listmas content and more! Pick Your Poison continues for at least another week. At some point it will be taking a short “vacation” at the end of the year, but currently things are continuing at a normal pace. Highlights today include tracks from Archers of Loaf (a classic), Big Fresh, Laura Warshauer, Satellite Stories and U.S. Girls. There’s a few good remixes in this batch too, with CSS remixing The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Nguzunguzu remixing Gang Gang Dance and Christian Strobe taking on Holy Ghost!.
It’s Friday, and like you I’m thrilled to be starting my weekend. So thrilled in fact that I’m not going to bore you with a lot of banter and just cut right to the chase. Highlights today include tracks from Black Bananas, Charles Bradley, COOLRUNNINGS, Josh T. Pearson, Sara Radle and Team Me. There are a couple interesting remixes/reworkings in the Soundcloud section you might like as well, so be sure to check those out. Have a great weekend!
Welcome to December, a month filled with rough weather and oh so many year-end lists. What constitutes the best of 2011? That will be a fun little examination I’ll be tackling in the coming weeks, and I hope you’ll join me for it. We’re going to have a lot of fun, talk about a lot of great music, and rank so much of it. In some ways it’s my favorite time of year, being able to not have to worry about what new record is coming down the pipeline and instead look entirely backwards to fond memories of the past. I call my annual December year-end wrap-up Listmas, and in addition to Top Songs and Top Albums, I’ve come up with a couple fun new ideas to explore. I’ll let you know when we get around to them. In the meantime, have a glance at today’s Pick Your Poison. Lots of good stuff in there, including tracks from Bleached, Bowerbirds, Deleted Scenes, Plants and Animals, Secret Colours, and Cap’n Jazz’s Victor Villarreal.
It’s the last day of November. Last month I seemed to indicate that it was “all downhill” in terms of the weather conditions for the next few months, but honestly there hasn’t been a whole lot of trouble beyond temperatures taking a steep drop. Cold is very unpleasant to deal with, but snow and ice are far worse. I consider it lucky, at least for most of America, that things have stayed pretty calm. That luck can only hold out for so long however. Remember to stay safe out there, even if you’re dealing with 65 and sunny in Los Angeles. Okay, so Pick Your Poison for today is pretty great, if you ask me. I can recommend tracks from Femme Fatality, Ha Ha Tonka, Little Dragon remixing Odd Future offshoot The Internet, Kid Sister, Pressed And, and A Weather. In the Soundcloud section, stream a remix of an Austra song, Cuff the Duke’s Arcade Fire cover, something new from Jonquil and a reworking of a Young Galaxy track.
In many ways, bands should be restricted from releasing albums of new material during the month of December. That last month of the year is pretty strictly reserved for the holiday album, the live album or the compilation album, all of which make for good gift-giving or as soundtracks to your Christmas parties. It’s also very much a list-making time of year, where everyone takes stock of the music they heard in the 11 months prior and admits to their favorites. Put out your record of original material in December and risk not being included in year-end countdowns, either because they’re already written and published in advance or there’s not enough time to give your record enough listens for proper consideration. Exceptions will always be made though, speaking specifically to 2010 and Kanye West’s super late release of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”. It was a year-ending blind side that essentially kicked the ass of virtually everything that came before it. A year later, do you think anyone regrets slotting that album at the top of their “Best of” list despite probably only hearing it a half dozen or so times? Sure it’s brilliant, and definitely Kanye’s most accomplished work to date, but is it “perfect”?
This year’s artist playing the late release game is The Black Keys with their seventh long player, “El Camino”. If you follow along with the details surrounding the recording of this album, you know the band entered guitarist Dan Auerbach’s new Nashville studio back in March and announced they’d completed the new record this past July. Apparently it takes close to six months to put a whole campaign together prior to an album’s release. That includes making a comedic promotional video starring Bob Odenkirk, setting up a hotline for people to call and coming up with your own viral music video. Admittedly, it’s a pretty smart and fun strategy to adopt, certainly better than a traditional album release. When you take such a novel approach, giving a little release date leeway is practically required, and better the first Tuesday in December than the last. The Black Keys have also been dealing with the “problem” of immense popularity. Their last album “Brothers” was a game changer for them, earning all kinds of radio airplay and higher billing on summer music festival lineups thanks to songs like “Tighten Up” and “Howlin’ for You”, the latter of which was still blasting from car stereos this past summer, a year after that record’s release. Not a minute had gone by towards lowering the band’s visibility when they struck again with “El Camino”‘s first single “Lonely Boy” a couple months back. It continues the tradition of infectious blues-driven garage rock they’ve been feeding us steadily over the last 10 years.
Arguably one of the biggest changes and best moves The Black Keys have made in the last few years was recruiting Danger Mouse to produce their records. After producing their first few records entirely on their own, Danger Mouse first got behind the boards for 2008’s “Attack and Release”, which actually yielded moderate success and some radio airplay with singles like “I Got Mine” and the psychedelic “Strange Times”. Though a slight variation on the style they had established with their previous records, “Attack and Release” was ultimately a strong example of a band still largely within the clutches of a creative slump. The hip hop infused Blakroc certainly suggested there was more to the duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney than previously believed, but the boys were also having some personal issues that fueled the sonic stagnation. After taking some time away from the band and pursuing other projects, they reconnected and rebuilt their relationship with one another. Their last album was titled “Brothers” to emphasize that they continue to love one another in spite of the difficulties they sometimes face. The record itself was also a bit of a challenge as well, but more in how it tackled preconceptions of the “Black Keys sound” and worked to revamp them. They had clearly learned something from their time with Danger Mouse and it showed both with slight twists on their style as well as a renewed energy that had been largely lost after 2004’s “Rubber Factory”. And while success certainly followed along with that, the record was still a bit clogged up with 15 tracks and a running time of nearly an hour. Sometimes careful editing and cutting the wheat from the chaff can be a good thing. Almost as if they’ve been listening to their critics, “El Camino” spans 11 tracks and 37 minutes, attempts to expand on the best elements of “Brothers” and appears to have forgotten that chaff even exists.
Given that “Tighten Up” was the big song that catapulted The Black Keys to a whole new level of popularity and it also happened to be the only track on their last record produced by Danger Mouse, the band sought to recreate that success across the entirety of “El Camino” by putting all of those elements together once again. The result is the band’s most energetic, poppy and generally fun record to date. Those concerned a buzzy earworm like “Lonely Boy” might be a lone standout needn’t worry. So many times on past records the band has tried to temper their approach by throwing a few quieter or more spacey psychedelic numbers into the mix, and more often than not those wind up being the weak spots. The only slow thing you’ll find on the new album comes courtesy of “Little Black Submarines”, which starts with just a plain acoustic guitar and some world-weary blues vocals, providing a nice respite from the ramshackle rock and roll of the first three tracks. The break only lasts a couple minutes though, because by the halfway point the electric guitars wake up with an intense fury that goes unrivaled on the rest of the record. Just because nothing else on the record slams quite as hard, don’t go thinking that the band’s fuzz pedal isn’t cranked up to 11 most of the time or that there’s not a whole lot of ballsy rock songs on “El Camino”. “Dead and Gone” hammers down a martial drum beat and then accents it with some xylophone, handclaps and a choir to back up Auerbach in the chorus. The choir and handclaps hold strong on “Gold On the Ceiling”, which incorporates some synths and has the chug of “Howlin’ for You” but plays it to more of a glam rock effect. The hard crunch of “Money Maker” has the heft and subject matter to soundtrack not only a million pole dances at your local strip club, but probably a couple dozen movie scenes in which some sexy girl character is introduced and you watch all the guys lower their sunglasses down their noses to get a better glimpse as she strolls by in slow motion. Yes, that scene happens in like half the movies released each year.
The second half of “El Camino” plays out a lot like the first, with plenty more riffage and uptempo numbers, though the use of the choir as backing vocals becomes far less prevalent. As the album works its way towards the finish line, there are moments that feel a little repetitive. “Hell of a Season” isn’t a bad song, but comes off almost like The Black Keys on autopilot. They’ve done songs like it before and will probably do songs like it again. The same can be said for the final two songs, “Nova Baby” and “Mind Eraser”, the latter of which might as well function exactly as its title suggests. The oft-repeated hook in that last song, and ultimately the last words spoken on the entire record are, “Don’t let it be over”. For something that started off so promising, by the time the full 37 minutes are up there’s this unerring sense that wrapping it up is probably a good thing. Basically the record teeters on the edge of becoming too long in spite of being one of the band’s shorter efforts. It’s that constant drive just hitting you over and over again with fuzzy guitars that pretty much tires you out. It is worth noting there are some fun second half bits. Carney gives his kit a severe lashing on “Sister”, which also happens to be one of the record’s bluesier cuts with a buzzing guitar and some sparkling keyboards snaking their way between the chords that make up the overall base melody. The light as a feather “Stop Stop” is a whole lot of fun as well, largely excelling thanks to some well-placed xylophone in the chorus. It’s a great late album reminder that the band does oh so much right on this record.
There’s a very good chance “El Camino” is the finest Black Keys record to date. To some of their most fervent supporters, i.e. all those “passionate” people that suddenly became aware of the band through “Brothers” and now call them “the new White Stripes”, this is the justification they’re looking for. Commercially speaking, there’s not a bad song on here. You could name virtually any track a single and it will do well on radio and in concert. That’s kind of the point, right? This is what the Black Keys wanted, or at least what their army of fans demanded of them. They are a better band because of this record, even if it distills their all-too-familiar sound and rather bland lyrics down to their core elements. This is the quintessential Black Keys album. Now that they’ve reached such a career peak, let’s hope they know what to do with it.
As we creep towards the end of the year, today’s new album release Tuesday is particularly sparse. If you’re looking to buy some new music, perhaps you might be interested in a singles collection from Gorillaz, a new EP from reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, or Mungolian Jet Set’s new record. Additionally, reissues of two classic Smashing Pumpkins records, “Gish” and “Siamese Dream”, are also available today with plenty of bonus material for hardcore fans. In the land of Pick Your Poison, enjoy some interestingly great tracks from Anomie Belle, Beat Culture, The New Tigers, Old Monk, Young Antiques and Yuzima. Star Slinger’s reworking of an ASAP Rocky track is pretty great too, and holiday music fans can download Tristen’s version of “Frosty the Snowman” or stream Red Wanting Blue taking on a Dr. Seuss classic.
Welcome back! Really that’s more self-congratulatory than anything else, as we were off for a couple days thanks to an extended Thanksgiving weekend. If you celebrated, I hope your turkey day was excellent and delicious. I also hope that if you went Black Friday shopping that you didn’t get too stomped on and found some great deals. With the economy in relative shambles, any good deals are better than no good deals. Today’s Cyber Monday, so if you’re looking to buy gifts online, I hope you find some great options that way. Here at Faronheit, every edition of Pick Your Poison is free. That’s the best deal you can get, right? Have a look at the tracks available below, and might I advise you to have a listen to songs from The 65s, Hunters, Morning Claws, Sharon Van Etten, Twig Palace and The Naked and Famous’ remix of White Sea (which is a side project of M83’s Morgan Kibby).
Sometimes even the crappiest of bands makes for the most engaging of shows. That’s not to suggest The Kooks or The Postelles are crappy bands, but to put it another way, neither one of them will generate a huge amount of underground hype, largely because their music isn’t diverse or experimental enough. You don’t need such things to become successful, but they certainly do go a long way when looking to earn some respect from intense music lovers. If your songs are bright enough and catchy enough though, a fan base will come along with them in spite of loads of indications (i.e. bad press) you should ignore it. It boggles the mind sometimes how a band like Nickelback goes on to sell millions of albums while bands like Real Estate or Destroyer continue to live in relative obscurity. For The Kooks, their success is easy to hear as they’ve essentially provided a modern update to The Kinks’ Britpop stylings. Hell, change the “oo” in Kooks to “in” and you get Kinks. The band’s first two albums were lovely in how plainly catchy they were, and apparently two crappy reviews from Pitchfork means your third record gets entirely ignored. But they’ve also been getting steady radio airplay around the world, starting with “She Moves in Her Own Way” and branching out to “Always Where I Need to Be”, “Shine On” and most recently “Junk of the Heart (Happy)”. Their star continues to rise, in spite of some rather intense criticism. Similar things could be said about The Postelles, though their road to success appears to be a little tougher. Sonically their self-titled debut also updates a classic sound, that of 50s pop in the vein of Buddy Holly with the flourishes of The Strokes. It should come as little surprise that The Strokes’ Albert Hammond Jr. liked the band enough to put them under his wing and produce a portion of that first record. The Postelles may be having more difficulty getting people to listen to their record, but once they do so many are won over. It helps as well that the band has been touring almost non-stop in the last year and have been building an audience with some high energy shows. Their touring with The Kooks feels like a match made in heaven, given their somewhat similar sound and fun live sets. So in spite of having rolled through Chicago earlier in the month while touring with The Wombats, The Postelles returned to the Windy City on Saturday night, opening up for The Kooks at The Vic. It was one wild time.
First off, I want to give a quick shout out to the Chicago band Yawn. I like those guys quite a bit, and they were the first band on the bill Saturday night when doors opened. Yawn was actually joining The Kooks on tour as Saturday night was also The Postelles’ last night on tour with The Kooks. But I missed Yawn’s set and can’t very well write about it, but having seen them before and being familiar with their latest record “Open Season”, they’re well worth keeping an eye on. Have a look at their official website to learn more about them.
After dodging some seriously heavy raindrops on my way to The Vic, I arrived with just enough time to shake the water from my hair and catch the start of The Postelles’ set. The crowd was surprisingly heavy already, though it was a sold out all ages show, so perhaps parents dropping off their kids just wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible. Just kidding, there was a good mixture of older teens and 20-somethings on the whole, but nobody much older than that. Spending so much time at 21+ shows has ruined me in some ways I guess, because the energy and enthusiasm of the rather youthful crowd was intense. Everybody seemed intensely excited to be there, the bands included, and at times the screams got so intense I felt they were giving me hearing damage. I expected such raucous cheering when The Kooks were on stage, charming British lads as they are, but things were just as lively for The Postelles. It makes more sense if you know their music and have seen them live though, because the hooks suck you in easily and make it a breeze to sing along to as the band gets extremely playful and moves around the stage like they want to engage you in every way possible. They had no reservations about climbing atop the monitor speakers at the front of the stage for a quick guitar solo or intense vocal moment, and every time they’d do it, there would be screams of excitement from the crowd. Their 30 minute set saw them powering through much of their debut album, hitting particularly hard with singles like “123 Stop” and “White Night” along with deeper cuts like “Stella” and “Hey Little Sister”. There were people standing around me that had never heard The Postelles before but wound up singing the choruses to half the songs anyways because they’re so damn catchy, and with so many clapping along and jumping around you’d have to be a real Scrooge not to have had a great time. Towards the end of their set they polled the crowd as to whether they should cover Elvis or The Ramones, and it appeared to be a relatively even split, so they chose The Ramones because they’d done Elvis the two nights prior. Their cover of “Beat on the Brat” was remarkably good, and if you’re interested in hearing a version of it, there’s a covers EP available for free download below (email required) with that and songs by The Smiths, Joe Jones and Wreckless Eric as well. Before closing out their set, The Postelles played one new song that will likely appear on their next record. Naturally, it wasn’t a change in direction but a continuation of their already established sound. And yeah, that was pretty catchy and fun too. You might not walk away from a Postelles show sharply impressed with the material you heard, but if you can switch your brain to the “fun summer popcorn action movie” setting rather than the “intense drama award-winning movie” one, you’re almost guaranteed to have a blast.
The Postelles Tour Dates:
December 6th – Bootleg Theater – Los Angeles, CA
By that same token, The Kooks have not only a lot of the same things going for them, but they’ve got more material and success to back it up. Their 90 minute set was a 21-song steamroller that struck a strong balance between old material and new, singles and deep cuts. They started their set with “Is It Me?”, one of the catchier numbers on the new record and a good slower, quieter build to a more energetic chorus. The crowd was into it, but perhaps that was more the result of general excitement over the band finally being out on stage. Cameras in the air everywhere, and Luke Pritchard hopping up on the monitors at the front of the stage really did the trick right off the bat. If that didn’t work out for them, they slammed into high gear immediately afterwards thanks to “Always Where I Need to Be”. Hands were in the air and people dancing like they just don’t care. That feels like a cliche thing to say, but it also happens to be true, so keep that in mind before you judge. The set list appeared to be designed as an effective parsing out of the band’s best known songs with a consistent atmosphere of energy in between. The middle of the set was when the crowd appeared most lost, what with a couple newer tracks and some deep cuts from earlier records. Pritchard’s solo acoustic version of “Seaside” was a definite highlight that provided everyone with a brief moment of calm before the second half of the set got even more nuts. The Kooks closed out their set with a 1-2-3 punch that built the crowd up to an extremely high point and naturally left them wanting more. The combination of “Ooh La”, “Shine On” and “Do You Wanna” was ultimately what pushed the show over from great to excellent, the band growing more ferocious and intense with every minute. Pritchard worked the stage like a young Mick Jagger, swaggering one minute and egging the crowd to cheer louder the next. There wasn’t a whole lot they could do in the encore to top what was accomplished during the main set, but it was smart of them to save a couple big ringers for last. Non-album cut “Saboteur” was an interesting choice to start the encore considering it was the only thing on the set list that wasn’t on any of the band’s three records. The title track and first single from “Junk of the Heart” scored big points given its constant radio presence in Chicago, and “Inside In/Inside Out” classic “Naive” ultimately closed out the evening. As the band quickly worked towards that finish, the crowd maintained their energy and enthusiasm the entire time. It was an amazing thing to behold, and probably a testament to both the band and their fans that so many just didn’t stop for a minute to catch their breath but simply jumped, danced and sang along like it was one of the greatest concerts they’d ever seen. For some of them, it probably was. I may not think the world of The Kooks’ music, but I have a certain appreciation for what they’re trying to accomplish. They may not be getting any better on record, but live they’re simply not to be missed. It wasn’t the best show I’ve seen this year, but it made me feel young and just a little bit…naive once again.
Set List:
Is It Me?
Always Where I Need to Be
Sofa Song
Matchbox
Rosie
She Moves in Her Own Way
Sway
Runaway
Eskimo Kiss
If Only
Seaside
Tick of Time
See the Sun
How’d You Like That
Mr. Nice Guy
Ooh La
Shine On
Do You Wanna \**ENCORE**/
Saboteur
Junk of the Heart (Happy)
Naive
Alright friends. It’s Black Wednesday, otherwise known as Blackout Wednesday. If you’re headed out drinking (who isn’t), stay safe. We’ll be taking the day off tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving, which I want to wish the best to you and your family on such a holiday. Enjoy plenty of turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Then, if you’re up for it, best of luck shopping on Black Friday. I’m still deciding whether or not to take an extended 4-day site vacation or post something on Friday. You’ll know it when and if it goes up. For now, enjoy this pre-holiday edition of Pick Your Poison. Highlights include tracks from James Leg, Justin Robinson & the Mary Annettes, Marissa Nadler (with not one, but TWO covers), and Micachu’s remix of Matthew Herbert. By the way, this holiday weekend, I’m thankful for YOU, dear reader.
What do you know about Kate Bush? The answer to that question isn’t necessarily age-specific, but undoubtedly the older you are, the more likely you are to know who Kate Bush is and what she’s all about. Ask you average 17 year old kid about her, and 99% of the time you’ll be met with a blank stare. The same probably goes for most 20-somethings too. Play the song “Running Up That Hill” for them though, and you’ll get some familiar nods and maybe even a few, “I thought that was a Placebo song”. Similar things could be said in regards to “Hounds of Love”, which The Futureheads to deftly covered a few years ago to much acclaim. And like it or not, Kate Bush continues to have a pretty big impact on new artists today, and perhaps the best, closest example is Bat for Lashes. Natasha Khan’s voice and her moody compositions in many ways makes Bat for Lashes the new Kate Bush, though time and quality of material will act as the official judges of that.
While the 80s had Bush at the peak of her powers, like any number of classic singer-songwriters her star has faded with time and a lack of the spotlight. After 1993’s “The Red Shoes”, she took about 12 years off from music. While many felt she had become a recluse and no longer wanted anything to do with people, fame and fortune, the truth is she gave birth to a son and decided to put her career on hold to raise him. It would be 2005’s “Aerial” that would mark her big comeback, something that’d ultimately be met with mixed enthusiasm. As great as it was to have such a prolific and interesting storyteller making music again, her songs primarily about her life during those 12 years away from music were minimalist and sluggish compared to her back catalogue. Earlier this year Bush also tried to pull a Peter Gabriel and give her career a kick in the pants via a re-exploration of her old material. “Director’s Cut” featured re-recorded and drastically reworked versions of songs off 1989’s “The Sensual World” and 1993’s “The Red Shoes”, the main idea being to give them a more modern adaptation to reflect current trends and also play more to Bush’s voice, which has gotten deeper with age. The reaction was again widely mixed, as you might expect from an artist messing with material some might consider to be “classic”. Appropriately enough though, Bush has one more trick up her sleeve in 2011, and it’s only fitting she unleashed it as the weather turns cold and most prepare for a long and brutal winter. You can’t quite call “50 Words for Snow” a Christmas album, but its wintry theme certainly makes for a stellar soundtrack in the months ahead.
It’s not quite as simple as saying a unifying concept was all Kate Bush needed to earn back the critical acclaim and respect that was bestowed upon her in the mid-80s, but evidence suggests it likely played a small hand in it. The focus it takes to write 65 minutes worth of stories about snow really appears to have worked for her, the overriding theme connecting beautifully with the delicate and primarily piano-based arrangements. One of the biggest surprises about “50 WOrds for Snow” is how at a grand total of only 7 tracks, the shortest song clocks in at just under 7 minutes. The average length is closer to 8 minutes, while the longest moment comes courtesy of “Misty”, finishing at around 14 minutes. That song tells the story of building, falling in love with, and essentially having sex with a snowman, only to wind up disappointed when it melts. It’s the sort of WTF idea that you’d rather write off as a joke given how absurd it sounds, but Bush treats it with the utmost sincerity and passion. The result is more “Lars and the Real Girl” than it is “Weird Science”, supported by the thought that in the absence of a perfect man, you can build one out of snow. Elsewhere on the record, opener “Snowflake” chronicles the path of one little white piece of frozen water, unique in its own way, falling from the sky towards the ground. A search for a lost dog is the plot of “Lake Tahoe”, and the title track has actor/writer/poet/comedian/brilliant British guy Stephen Fry slowly reading off all the different ways to describe snow as a skittering electro landscape backs him up with occasional interruptions by Bush singing a chorus to break up the monotony. And speaking of guest vocals, Elton John duets with Bush on “Snowed in at Wheeler Street”, where they play starcrossed lovers that can never stay connected through many key events in world history.
Outside of the wintry theme, the main connecting tissue between these tracks is an underlying darkness and earnestness in how they’re delivered. Bush sells every track by holding firm to her aesthetic choices and drawing upon brooding atmospherics to add a sense of dread to even the most innocent of songs. It’s what works best for her, and where she also sounds most comfortable. Undoubtedly Bush is no longer the goth-pop chanteuse straight out of the 80s, but is able to show how she’s evolved with the times. This is an adult record with an adult temprament, even as it gets in your face and asks you to suspend all rational thought in the hopes of inspiring just a little flight of fancy. You’re only as old as you allow yourself to be, and though “50 Words for Snow” can get pretty heavy and mature, you don’t have to take such things as truth. They’re only stories, after all, and with this record Kate Bush proves yet again that she’s one hell of a storyteller.
