Album of the Year
The album of the year has to be The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, it is an exciting, compelling album containing striking, memorable songs done in an eclectic style. It even has a couple of bona fide classics on it – songs like “We Used To Wait” deserve not only to be widely heard hits but have the potential to join the ranks of the truly great rock/indie songs of all time. Despite their increasing fame, profile and (presumably) wealth, the Arcade Fire are not only still producing albums that are worth hearing, but positively demand to be heard. Not just highly recommended – it’s essential listening.
But there is another reason why the Arcade Fire had the album of the year this year – basically, I just haven’t kept up to date with new releases beyond the bands (such as the Manics and their largely phoned in offering) I already like. Consequently, I don’t have much to compare The Suburbs with. So it is over to you, diligent reader, to help me out – what were your albums of the year, and what should I have listened to?
Labels: Arcade Fire, Music, Of the Year
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 9:14 am
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Thea Gilmore's "Murphy's Heart" - although I've also listened to too few new albums this year...
Saying that, i like it better than the Arcade Fire's, though i think that's good too!
Arcade fire are great,i also love their version of Guns of Brixton by the Clash,you can find that on youtube if you haven't already seen it.
I think my favourite Album of this year is Midlake (Courage of Others)Its excellent,relaxing some beautiful songs on that Album.Check them out....
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=midlake+rulers+ruling+all+things&aq=0
I always splurge on music this time of year and, like yourself, i've become a bit out of touch with goings on outwith the bands i already know. I end up using Amazons "People who bought this also bought..." function to find new music a lot of the time. Anyway here's a list of the albums i've bought over last week which you might like to check out:
Urban Myth Club - Helium
Lemon Jelly - Lost Horizons
Jon Hopkins - Opalescent
Daft Punk - Tron Legacy
Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
Bonobo - Black Sands
Boards of Canada - In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country
Mogwai - Ten Rapid
Amon Tobin - Chaos Theory
Kruder & Dorfmeister - DJ Kicks
Fang Island - Fang Island
Paloma Faith - Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?
Royskopp - Senior
Pendulum - In Silico
M83 - Saturdays=Youth
That's quite an electronica/ambient/dance heavy list but rolling with the fact your post highlights Arcade Fires new album the one you're most likely to enjoy from above is probably Fang Island.
Loved the Suburbs and Midlake's album, but this year I've mostly been enjoying Tuung's '...and then we saw land', a catchy 'folktronica' album; Broken Bells eponymous album, a great collaboration between the Shins' leadman and Danger Mouse; the National's 'High Violet', easily as good as their previous stuff; Goldheart Assembley's 'Wolves and Thieves', this year's 'Mumford and Sons'; Aloe Blacc's 'Good Things' (check out opening song 'I Need A Dollar).
Favourite for sheer wtf-factor is the Chieftan's 'San Patricio'. If you buy only one Irish/Mexican traditional music album this year, make it this one. It comes with a voiceover by Liam Neeson.
Hope that points you in the direction of something you've missed.
I don't buy very much contemporary music as I find it's almost all I can do to catch up with stuff released in earlier eras (right back to the bluesmen who are the founding fathers of what I listen to).
I should, however, observe that Drive-By Truckers produced another excellent release to add to their collection, which has been remarkably solid since the 1990s & will, crystal ball says, be listened to decades from now. I don't plan on having kids but if I did they'd be digging shite like this out in 40 years' time, seriously.
Costello (or anyone else), if you want recommendations have you got a last.fm profile? It logs what you listen to into a weekly chart & a chart of your preferences overall, then calculates what fans of their music listen to. I stopped using it because it does take up a lot of time, but it had a far higher success rate than anything else I've known.
Thanks for the tips y'all. That should keep me going for a while...
I did use to have a lastfm profile but it was very time consuming. Plus it would always crash the piece of shit computer I had at the time. Might try again when my current computer is working again...
TNL
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