DoDecaDance, or; YO2012O

OKAY, here it is.  the mix that nearly killed me, before i killed it.  Twenty-Twelve, in 80-minute dance party mix-up mash-up form.  i'd been equivocating between the above (kinda dumb) titles and then I remembered that it should just be called...

[i don't know about y'self, but] I'm Feeling 2012

i srsly agonized over this one, both before and after its very successful debut on new years eve.  upshot being a) i have zero psychic space/distance from it at this point however b) i think it's a darn good one. especially after being initially dubious about 2012 having really brought the goods (still feels a bit anemic on the mega-pop tip, but better than xpected, partly thanks to late-ish inclusions from bruno mars and katy perry, though not rihanna..)

felt a bit hip-hop dominated at times, and in initial drafts a bit uncomfortably profanity/misogyny-heavy (i slimmed back on that a bit, cutting out "bandz a make her dance" [a.k.a. "stripper-jamz a make him uncomfortable]" – and downgrading "amen" to instrumental form; also happily happened to use clean versions of "two reasons" and "young wild and free" which i emphatically prefer to the explicit versions anyway.  and danny brown's "grownup" is apparently only available in sorta-silly censored form? ha!)  still gets pretty narsty at times though.  (that angel haze, my my!)

so many moments i love on here, several of which already exist as long-form mash-ups ("thinking about daphni," "call me somebody (walter carly willyouse remaybe?)" – can't believe that one hasn't already been done.)  i need to do a longform edit of "i'm skanking" vs "inspector norse," already two of the most happy-making songs of the year on their own, which together achieve truly ludicrous levels of uplift.  [other mashtitles: "Locked out of Harlem," "2 Reasons to Topologize," "Plush Flutes (Pflutshtes)," "Taylor Swift vs. the indie records that are much cooler than hers," "JBiebs+Fiona4vr"]

h/ts in order to various year end lists, notably spin (for introducing me to/reminding me about katy, future, santigold, dj rashad, and especially mystikal!) and, for electronic stuff, resident advisor (bauer, s-type, pearson sound) and xlr8r (dubbel dutch, girl unit, and the excellent "vibrate" by dj slink which i didn't actually get to include.)  also to matt shuman for making me (re)listen to phedré.

oh, by the way...you might notice that there's rather a lot of hot chip on this mix.  ten songs in fact – every single track on in our heads (sometimes in remixed/demo form) except for one, "ends of the earth," which is on this sister mix instead... i decided not to duplicate anything from social smattering, which meant, sadly, leaving off le1f's "wut" and david byrne+st. vincent's "the one who broke your heart" – otherwise, nothing i was too sad about dropping, and allowed for some interesting alternate choices by artists represented there (d'eon, daphni, lindsy.)

so yeah.  enjoy!  share!  don't deny your heart!  put your hands together!  fuck up the fun!  and, call me...maybe?

you only 2012 once!  (or do you...)  

ASAP, Twelvy

0. Four Tet, "128 Harps"

0a. "2012 (It Ain't The End)" – Jay Sean ft. Nicki Minaj

0b. "2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)" – The Flaming Lips ft. Ke$ha

0c. "2012" - Richie Spice

0d. "Shaheem Reid Speaks" (from Rick Ross, Rich Forever)

1. Hot Chip, "Motion Sickness"

2. Azealia Banks, "Fuck Up The Fun"

3. Bonde do Rolê, "Pucko"

4. Evian Christ, "Fuck It None Of Y'all Don't Rap"

5. Mystikal, "Hit Me"

6. Four Tet, "128 Harps"

7. Hot Chip, "Night and Day"

8. Daphni, "Ahora"

9. Frank Ocean, "Thinking About You"

10. Pearson Sound, "Untitled"

11. Purity Ring, "Fineshrine"

12. Kanye West feat. [Big Sean, Pusha T and] 2 Chainz, "Mercy"

13. Pangaea, "Game"

14. Hot Chip, "Look at Where We Are" (Major Lazer vs. Junior Blender remix)

15. Girl Unit, "Club Rez"

16. Kendrick Lamar, "Swimming Pools (Drank)"

17. Meek Mill, "Amen" [instrumental]

18. Future, "Same Damn Time"

19. Rusko, "Somebody To Love"

20. Schoolboy Q, "There He Go"

21. S-Type, "Billboard"

22. Bruno Mars, "Locked Out of Heaven"

23. Bauer, "Harlem Shake"

24. M.I.A., "Bad Girls"

25. TNGHT, "Goooo"

26. Y.N.RichKids, "Hot Cheetos & Takis"

27. Jeremih ft. Fabolous, "Ahh Shit"

28. Santigold, "Disparate Youth"

29. Climax, "Usher"

30. DJ Rashad, "Twitter"

31. Angel Haze, "Werkin Girls"

32. MMM, "MMM Meets Tshetsha Boys"

33. Grimes, "Oblivion"

34. Traxman, "I Need Some Money"

35. Kanye West/Jay-Z/Big Sean, "Clique"

36. Squarepusher, "4001"

37. Katy Perry, "Wide Awake"

38. Nicki Minaj, "HOV Lane"

39. It's A Musical, "For Years and Years"

40. D'Eon, "Signals Intelligence"

41. Killer Mike, "Big Beast"

42. Chairlift, "I Belong In Your Arms"

43. Taylor Swift, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"

44. Kitty Pryde ft. Riff Raff, "Orion's Belt"

45. Hot Chip, "Now There Is Nothing"

46. Danny Brown, "Grown Up"

47. 2 Fingers, "Magoo"

48. Charli XCX, "You're The One"

49. Lana Del Rey, "Born To Die"

50. El Perro Del Mar, "Walk On By"

51. Miguel, "Adorn"

52. Dubbel Dutch, "Self Help Riddim"

53. Diamond Rings, "Day & Night"

54. Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa ft. Bruno Mars, "Young Wild & Free" (Clean Version)

55. Zammuto, "Too Late To Topologize"

56. Trey Songz ft. T.I., "Two Reasons" (Clean Version)

57. Woolfy vs. Projections, "Cellophane"

58. Mykki Blanco, "Wavvy"

59. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Wanz, "Thrift Shop"

60. DJ Raff, "Digital Rain"

61. Fiona Apple, "Hot Knife"

62. Justin Bieber, "Boyfriend"

63. Mac DeMarco, "Cooking Up Something Good"

64. Taylor Swift, "22"

65. Best Coast, "The Only Place"

66. Drake [ft. Lil' Wayne], "The Motto"

67. Gotye, "In Your Light"

68. Phèdre, "In Decay"

69. Diplo ft. Billy The Gent and Long Jawns, "Butters Theme"

70. St. Lucia, "All Eyes On You"

71. fun., "Some Nights"

72. Skrillex ft. Sirah, "Bangarang"

73. Matthew Dear, "Her Fantasy"

74. Toddla T., "Body Good" (Agitated by Ross Orton and Pipes)

75. John Talabot ft. Pional, "Destiny"

76. The 2 Bears, "The Birds + The Bees"

77. Yeasayer, "No Bones"

78. How To Dress Well, "& It Was U"

79. Hot Chip, "Always Been Your Love"

80. Solange, "Losing You"

81. New Build, "Do You Not Feel Loved"

82. Sky Ferreira, "Everything is Embarrassing"

83. Storm Queen, "Let's Make Mistakes"

84. Django Django, "Default"

85. Barker and Baumecker, "Schlang Bang"

86. Kelly Clarkson, "(What Doesn't Kill You) Stronger"

87. Pop Levi, "Motorcycle 666"

88. Tame Impala, "Elephant"

89. Daniel Maloso, "Shera"

90. Carly Rae Jepsen, "Call Me Maybe"

91. Gotye [ft. Kimbra], "Somebody That I Used To Know"

92. Hot Chip, "Flutes"

93. Tiga and Matthew Dear, "Plush"

94. Todd Terje, "Inspector Norse" 

95. Wiley, "I'm Skanking (The 2 Bears Remix)"

96. Simian Mobile Disco, "Put Your Hands Together"

97. Hot Chip, "Don't Deny Your Heart"

98. St. Etienne, "Tonight"

99. Benoit & Sergio, "Lipstick & Lace"

100. Dragonette, "Run Run Run"

101. Lindstrøm, "Faar-I-Kaal"

102. Scissor Sisters, "Let's Have A Kiki" 

103. Hot Chip, "These Chains"

104. Tanlines, "All Of Me"

105. One Direction, "What Makes You Beautiful"

106. Avicii, "Levels"

107. The Very Best ft. Seye, "Kondaine"

108. Teengirl Fantasy ft. Romanthony, "Do It"

109. Hot Chip, "How Do You Do? (Demo)"

110. Nicki Minaj, "Starships"

111. Icona Pop, "I Love It"

112. Death Grips, "I've Seen Footage"

113. Ke$ha, "Die Young"

114. Psy, "Gangnam Style"

115. Ill Blu, "Clapper"

116. Rye Rye, "Boom Boom"

117. Hot Chip, "Let Me Be Him"/"Let Me Be Him (Joe's Dub)"

2 x 12 x 2012

2 x 12: ALBUMS


1. Hot Chip, In Our Heads
2. The 2 Bears, Be Strong
3. Lana Del Rey, Born To Die
4. Jens Lekman, I Know What Love Isn't
5. Purity Ring, Shrines
6. Gotye, Making Mirrors [2011 non-US]
7. Justin Townes Earle, Nothing's Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now
8. New Build, Yesterday Was Lived and Lost
9. d'Eon, LP
10. Dragonette, Bodyparts
11. Traxman, The Mind of Traxman
12. Allo Darlin, Europe
13. Carsie Blanton, Idiot Heart
14. Cuddle Magic, Info Nympho
15. Bondê do Role, Tropicalbacanal
16. Lindstrøm, Six Cups of Rebel
17. Frankie Rose, Interstellar
18. David Byrne & St. Vincent, Love This Giant
19. Miguel, Kaleidoscope Dream
20. Zammuto
21. Barbara Morgenstern, Sweet Silence
22. Rye Rye, Go! Pop! Bang!
23. Kelly Hogan, I Like To Keep Myself in Pain
24. Rudi Zygadlo, Tragicomedies

2x12 SONGS*

1. Hot Chip, "Let Me Be Him"

2. The 2 Bears, "Church"

3. Carsie Blanton, "Smoke Alarm"

4. Jens Lekman, "The World Moves On"

5. AC Newman, "I'm Not Talking"

6. Lana Del Rey, "This Is What Makes Us Girls"

7. Mystikal, "Hit Me"

8. Django Django, "Default"

9. David Byrne and St. Vincent, "Outside of Space and Time"

10. Todd Terje, "Inspector Norse"

11. Allo Darlin, "Some People Say"

12. Jessie Ware, "Wildest Moments"

13. Blur, "Under The Westway"

14. Wiley, "I'm Skanking"/"I'm Skanking" (The 2 Bears remix)

15. Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa ft. Bruno Mars, "Young Wild & Free"

16. Diamond Rings, "Day and Night"

17. Rhye, "Open"

18. Lindstrøm, "Vōs-Sākō-Rv"

19. d'Eon, "Transparency Pt. II"

20. Katy Perry, "Wide Awake"

21. Zammuto, "Idiom Wind"

22. Taylor Swift, "22"

23. Sufjan Stevens, "Christmas In The Room"

24. Icona Pop, "I Love It"

3x12 HONORABLE MENTION

Bonnie "Prince" Billy and The Trembling Bells, "I Made A Date (With An Open Vein)"

Chairlift, "I Belong In Your Arms"

Cuddle Magic, "Disgrace Note"

Daphni, "Yes I Know"

Daydream Vacation, "Dare Seize The Fire"

Dragonette, "Untouchable"

Frank Ocean, "Thinking About You"

Frankie Rose, "Pair of Wings"

Free Energy, "Electric Fever"

The Garlands, "Things Just Sound So Easy For You"

Gotye, "In Your Light"

Honeychurch,  "Miko II"

Hortlax Cobra, "Vive Le Difference"

Justin Townes Earle, "Nothing's Gonna Change The Way I Feel About You Now"

Ke$ha, "Die Young"

King Tuff, "Bad Thing"

Kitty Pryde ft. Riff Raff, "orion's belt"

Le1f, "Wut"

Mac DeMarco, "Cooking Up Something Good"

Matthew Dear, "Her Fantasy"

The Magnetic Fields, "Andrew In Drag"

Miguel, "Do You..."

MNDR, "Fall In Love With The Enemy"

New Build, "Behind The Shutter"

Phedré, "In Decay"

Purity Ring, "Fineshrine"

Rye Rye, "Boom Boom"

Sky Ferreira, "Everything Is Embarrassing"

Sinead O'Connor, "The Wolf Is Getting Married" 

Simian Mobile Disco, "Put Your Hands Together"

Stars, "Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It"

Terranova ft Tomas Hoffding, "Question Mark"

Traxman, "Footworkin On Air"

Why?, "Sod in the Seed"

Yeasayer, "Henrietta"

Y.N.RichKids, "Hot Cheetos & Takis"

*limit one per artist.  longer lists on sidebar.  spotify playlist here:

2012: born 2 be strong

and we're off to the races! or the watering hole, i guess, to go by my basically arbitrary alcohol-themed sidebar ranking metaphor for the year*

2012! @)!@ [that's "2012" in "caps"] good stuff! after a kinda lackluster 2011 – at least, until the very end when i figured out what i'd been missing (though even then pretty much just singles, mostly in the dance/hiphop/rnb singles dept..) kinda feel like i and music alike are coming back a little refreshed. good things poppin' all over. it feels so good, it almost feels like 2010 all over again.

specifically, there are my two absolute hands-down favorite albums of the year so far – both of which i was already completely smitten with as of late january (both released 1/31, as it happens), and there's no real competition in sight. and the nominees for let's-just-call-it-a-wrap best album of 2012, yes already: be strong by the 2 bears**, and born to die by lana del rey

the 2 bears!! the 2 bears!! oh, my, god, the 2 bears. well. i know i'm a little weird and all, but why is nobody else running around the internet proclaiming this album the best thing since whatever? srsly. (yup, i've got officially the highest critical opinion in meta-land, by a solid 10 %pts.) (and lets not mince tapes here: this album is unquestionably a 10 in my book, but amg writers are basically not allowed to rate anything newly released at more than four and a half stars.) (and, ok, yes, pretty much every reviewer out there gave this 80% or at least 70%, but they're talking about "fun" like it's some kind of "novelty" or something. people, FUN is at the core of being don't you get it?)

but forget numbers. on the one hand, i basically already said everything i needed to say about be strong in my review. on the other hand, that review is just a lot of words put together, and words are pretty much boring. be strong is the opposite of boring. it has words, most of which are about music (and/or life, usually at the same time), but it says things about music (and/or life) that i couldn't hope to put to pixel with one whit of the oomph. and when it doesn't have words, it says those same things even better. okay, i need to stop this paragraph. just dance with me, ok?

[i just thought of: joe goddard's middle name should be "puts the god in"] [also: i had a fantasy of meeting hot chip, and telling joe and alexis how amazingly awesome i think they both are, but also having to tell joe, still in alexis' presence – after first, of course, telling him that i want to give him a bear hug – that he is the awesomest of the awesome. in fact, that he is hands-down my favorite person in music. especially now that james murphy is out of the running. though i guess that's not technically true.]

born to die, on the other hand... well, i said almost nothing i needed to say about it in my review. because, well, what can you really say in 75 words about something this ambiguously complex (/complexly ambiguous... that is: it's unclear whether it's really simple or really not simple.) [or even 90, since i totally went over word count and got cut; i'll post the full version hear when i get around to a round-up; we're about do.]

mostly, it's a hard album to write about. or, i should say, i have a lot of feelings about it which are hard to express. naturally i was pretty predisposed to like it (or, at least, have feelings about it) considering that it contains my #1 and #2 favorite songs of 2011. that's a pretty improbable head-start on my heart.

and i didn't know what to expect from the rest of it; "born to die" suggested it would be more like "blue jeans" than "videogames" – which turned out to be true, and which, to some extent, seems to be at the heart of the problem some people seem to have with the album. i can sympathize with that: an album more in the mode of "videogames" – one focused primarily around a smart, powerful, poetic songwriting voice – a voice with the degree of nuance and insight that song seemed/seems to contain – could have been something pretty incredibly great.

that's not really what born to die is. lizzie grant is, of course, a songwriter, and i would say a pretty good one, perhaps better, and she definitely has a hell of a voice (writerly that is, not to mention singerly) which is plenty powerful – or at least effective – in its way; which is full of – if not poetry, exactly, certainly poetics, and which, i am gonna say, is smart enough to know that there's more to being smart than being smart. (nuance and insight? i'll let that one slide for now.) but no, she isn't chan marshall. (which, honestly, i guess i'm just not a cat power person.) or whoever else "videogames" might have suggested. (in a weird way – in the way it discourses with melancholy, devotion, and indifference, perhaps – might i propose edith frost?)

instead, she wrote every song on the album with a collaborator – including "videogames," it turns out. (apparently, he supplied the chord progression. we'll probably never know how much of the lyrics on the album are solely hers, though it's certainly conceivable that most or even all of them are.) (which isn't to say that songwriters, of any caliber, can't collaborate while still maintaining their voice and self – that's probably a good hobblehorse to poke a few holes in one of these years.) (besides, forget "videogames" – after all, it was only my second favorite song of 2011. and it came to me at such a different time and with such a different set of associations that it doesn't really feel of a piece with the album anyway, yet, still.)

and, instead, born to die is an album of aesthetics, rather than an album of songwriting. damn is it ever. a super-pow wham-whomp aesthetic, full and fleshy and forceful – a musical aesthetic and a lyrical/linguistic aesthetic and a symbolic/poetic/conceptual aesthetic (not to mention visual, and also vocal) all of which fit together almost seamlessly, in a so-uncanny-it-seems-obvious way, though they could also stand separately, i think.

and basically, to get specific for a second, i think it's doing something really original, just in purely musical terms (setting aside, for now, any question of persona/content/context/subtext): there is nothing that sounds like this album. (is there?) really. it seems like such a basic, obvious formula – slow hip-hop beats, big gushing orchestral bits, and pop songs – but i can't think of anybody who's really made anything like it.

[matt proposed portishead and garbage, and yes i can see how those are prefigurations to some extent – and plus, it would be totally awesome if more bands decided to sound like those bands (and were actually able to do it) – but, no, not really, no way: portishead are spooky and alien and/or utterly detached/monotonically depressed, plus they don't really write pop songs; garbage are edgy and punkish and also schmaltzy and effusive and urgent, plus they are an electronic/rock band – lana del rey is none of these things, and more importantly she is hardly anything like either shirley manson or beth gibbons.] [here's one though: fiona apple. should have thought of that before, maybe. but i never completely loved her either...]

it's big, lavish, "produced," "pop," but it's not "pop" in any kind of familiar, narrow sense – it certainly doesn't sound like anything "on the radio" these days – the beats are sort of hip-hop (or possibly, if you like, trip-hop), as is some of the production personnel, but this is obviously not hip-hop music (even if, i will assert, lana does rap at numerous points throughout the album.) so, it's ...pop-by-default, i guess (cuz it's clearly not rock or folk.)

more interestingly though – and i have a little suspicion that this is lurking somewhere behind the issues/confusion/difficulty some people seem to have around the album, it's neither self-evidently "indie" nor clearly "mainstream" – in its sound, signifiers, anything. it's not readily recognizable as belonging to any particular established world/scene/concept. [<<it came from the internet....>>] even to hear her sing "i'm playing on the radio" feels weirdly incongruous (as in, how is this music that can coexist alongside other music?) – even if she probably actually is. (though, obviously, that's not the point... she is not actually telling us to "love [her] because she's playing on the radio." right? are you with me there?)

oh yeah, the words. i probably need to talk about the words. to be honest, i'm more interested in the lyrics of the album (or rather, they have, as yet, mostly presented themselves to me) as a collection of images; a lexicon of tropes; a bright smattering of clichés both old and newly-turned; a piecemeal articulation of an aesthetic or worldview (not, to be clear, one i would presume to ascribe to lizzy grant), than as direct, literal, content.

i would agree, sure, that there are some potentially substantially troubling things going on in these songs from a feminist/gender/sexual politics standpoint (not to mention from an emotional health standpoint.) and, yes, extremely similar lyrical themes are repeated quite frequently, ad nauseum perhaps (if you're prone to lyrical nausea) throughout the album. (in general, the album is extremely samey in most respects – something that definitely ties in with it having a strong, emphatic aesthetic – though that's not to say that the similar songs don't distinguish themselves as more individual – and some stronger, some weaker – with repeated listens.)

somehow, though, those things don't really bother me too much when i'm listening. maybe it's because almost nothing here comes across as "real": the album is so wholeheartedly wrapped up in fantasy, fantasies, of various kinds (wealth, fame, love, sex, youth, glamor, misery, hollywood...american dreams), it feels more like an exploration of fantasy worlds within worlds than anything really relevant to lived reality. (though, arguably, issues of sexual politics have as much to do with what's in our heads and dreams as anything else.)

anyway. forget the haters. screw the hype. i like it.

------
* not exactly sure how i arrived at that, or how "cheers (drink to that)" became the theme tune for it either – maybe i should switch it to "tubthumper"? – tho i do rather like it. but anyway h/t to bedbugs for the format; glad to see he's still using it. but why so samey, ernold?

**i called this "my favorite album of 2012, so far," and my roommate turned to me and said "um... it's like january 10th."