10 December 2006

i was in the avalanche

so. listmania (and/or cabin fever) has got me playing catchup like a madman. so many ladies, so much bandwidth, not quite so little time, but still...!!

here's what i've d/led and begun to absorb the last couple of days:
Amy Diamond, This is Me Now [2005] and Still Me Still Now
Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
Bertine Zetlitz, (assorted tracks)
Charlotte Church, Tissues and Issues [2005]
Ciara, The Evolution
Firefox AK, Madame, Madame
Lily Allen, Alright Still
Jojo, The High Road
Margaret Berger, Pretty Scary Silver Fairy (and Chameleon)
The Pipettes, We Are The Pipettes
Puppini Sisters, Betcha Bottom Dollar

(also Tahiti 80, JusTim, The Blow, and, just for good measure, albums, or portions of them, by Beirut, Grizzly Bear, and the Decemberists. and Corinne Bailey Rae, who i'm enjoying more than i would have expected.)

[oh yeah, i've also been listening to wincing the night away and hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?...but i can't talk about them yet...but...yum...apparently the thing in 2007 will be having one-minute-long songs. and ridonkulous album titles.]

whoosh! i am actually processing a lot more of this than you might expect. certainly more than of against the day, at this point. and finding lots to enjoy, though i'm probably not going to let it affect my albums list much, but it's already affecting my mixtapery (more on which soon), and will probably affect my record shopping whenever i'm able to do that again. (if i'm lucky somebody will take pity and bring ol' crutchy to the tower recs for their 50+% off liquidation sale before the store disappears in a puff of smoke.)

i guess i can't offer much in the way of insightful commentary, except to say that there is a point (maybe not yet arrived, but imminent) when simply being a sirenic swedish synth-pop songstress won't be quite enough, on its own, to grant you a free pass to untouchable awesomeness. i am supposed to be saving my music-oriented prose energy for my EMP proposal. which will happen, very soon.

i did try to come up with a singles list for '06, and it turned out to be more straightforward than the albums list. (btw, i was invited to the idolator thingy too, for some reason. so that's nice. mr. matos seemed like a cool guy.) not 100% definite, but then what is:

you are LIST...ning...you are LIST..ening...
1. The Veronicas - 4-Ever
2. Paris Hilton - Nothing in This World
3. Peter, Bjorn and John (f/ Victoria Bergsman) - Young Folks
4. Aly and AJ - Rush
5. The Ark - One of Us Is Gonna Die Young
6. Pipettes - Pull Shapes
7. Justice vs. Simian - Never Be Alone
8. Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of this Country
9. Lupe Fiasco - Kick, Push
10. Christina Aguilera - Ain't No Other Man
11. Beyonce - Irreplaceable
12. The Pack - Vans
13. Charlotte Church - Moodswings (Come At Me Like That)
14. Hannah Montana - Best of Both Worlds
15. Cassie - Me & U
16. Jojo - Too Little, Too Late
17. The Similou - All This Love
18. Teddybears (f/ Neneh Cherry) - Yours to Keep
19. Jessica Simpson - A Public Affair
20. Cansei de Ser Sexy - Let's Make Love and Listen Death from Above

bonus trax/pinch-hitters:
Spank Rock - Backyard Betty
Lily Allen - LDN
Rihanna - Unfaithful
Sway - Little Derek
Timbaland - Give it to me
Belle and Sebastian - Blues are Still Blue

also:
i really want the knife to be on this list, but i'm having trouble placing them, since even though they're ostensibly pop (i guess), what makes their singles from this year brilliant is not their pop-song qualities. i'm also not sure which single to include: "silent shout" is a mindblowing production, and probably better overall, but "we share our mothers' health" [apparently that is the correct apostrophe placement, even though that doesn't make sense because the two members of the knife are brother and sister, and presumably have a singular mother] is sort of a better pop tune, and has better remixes, specifically the trentemøller mix, which would be nice to include since there's not really any techno on the list, my recent jams in that department having been tracks from last year or before. on the other hand, maybe their placement in the albums list is good enough, and i don't need to rep them here as well.

no duplicate artists: that wasn't actually by design, although i'm happy it turned out that way, even if it feels a little too neat to be truthful. not sure who would have been doubled though: i like "screwed" nearly as much as "nothing in this world", but it seems similar enough that they don't both need to be there (besides, it wasn't actually a single, was it?) "not this year" could grow on me, but probably not enough. actually, i feel a bit funny about placing "rush" so high, but it was stuck in my head a lot this year. "clamour for glamour"?...eh. one of the other 'ronnies singles, more likely. closer calls in the bonus trax actually - rihanna and sway especially - which may help explain why they didn't rank higher.

okay, your turn.

No comments: