Cups to the Stars: 2013 in Review – The Mix(es)

I wasn't actually sure this was gonna happen this time, but...I made a dance mix.  All the tip-toppest 2013 jams.  Decidedly, willfully less elaborate than past year-end blow-outs (2012 felt like an untoppleable pinnacle anyway, why try harder?) – it ended up being probably more involved than I intended, but in a happy-medium kind of way.  It's probably a much better dance mix for not trying to be all fussy and cute.

It was finished (in the form you see below) well before New Years, and I could have pretty easily posted it then; failed again, but there you are.  Instead, hear it is now.  Tracklist below but as always don't look if you wanna be surprised.  Just pop it on at your next dance party (for ≥1 persons.) It'll work, trust me:

Dumb Disco Ideas 2013 by Rossoflove on Mixcloud

1. Four Tet: Your Body Feels

2. Jeri Jeri: Lignou Mome (Mark Ernestus Ndagga Version)

3. The Knife: Without You My Life Would Be Boring

4. Dungeonesse: Show You

5. DJ Rashad: Let It Go 

6. Miley Cyrus: We Can't Stop

7. Justin Timberlake: Mirrors

8. Machinedrum: Gunshotta

9. Congo Natty ft. Rebel MC, Tenor Fly, Daddy Freddy, Nanci Correia: Get Ready

10. Lorde: Royals

11. Débruit and Alsarah: Khartoum

12. Kitty: Barbie Jeep

13. A$AP Rocky ft. Drake, 2 Chainz, Kendrick Lamar: Fuckin Problems

14. My Bloody Valentine: New You

15. Drake: Hold On We're Going Home

16. Jagwar Ma: Uncertainty

17. Major Lazer ft. Busy Signal, the Flexican and FS Green: Watch Out For This (Bumaye)

18. John Wizards: iYongwe

19. D E N A: Cash Diamond Rings Swimming Pools (Lou Teti Remix)

20. Daft Punk ft. Pharrell: Get Lucky

21. Robyn Thicke ft. T.I. and Pharrell: Blurred Lines

22. Classixx ft. Nancy Whang: All You're Waiting For

23. Disclosure ft. AlunaGeorge: White Noise

24. Disclosure: When A Fire Starts To Burn

25. Todd Terje: Strandbar 

26. Franz Ferdinand: Right Action

27. Chance the Rapper: Pusha Man

28. Breakbot: Break of Dawn

29. Cut Copy: Free Your Mind

30. Daniel Avery: Water Jump

31. The Arcade Fire: Reflektor

32. Chvrches: Gun

33. Factory Floor: Turn It Up

34. Sophie: Bipp

35. Marek Hemman: Hooray

36. Cayucas: High School Lover 

37. Lindstrøm & Todd Terje: Lanzarote

38. Ylvis: The Fox

39. Holy Ghost!: Dumb Disco Ideas

40. Kowton (Livity Sound): More Games

41. Ciara ft. Future & B.o.B.: Body Party (Remix)

42. Special Request: Body Armour

43. M.I.A.: Come Walk With Me

44. Demdike Stare: Primitive Equations

45. Omar Souleyman: Ya Yumma

46. Kanye West: New Slaves

47. Chrissy Murderbot: Waffle House

48. Four Tet: Unicorn

key points:

• makes doubly good on the four tet rule by not only starting (in what ended up being a semi-shoehorned-feeling way, unfortunately) but also ending with killa kieran

• "mirrors"/"gunshotta" team-up pretty sublime, imho

• my bloody valentine and drake (x2!) – a mash made in heaven! – who knew?

• twenty-thirteen twinsies two-pack of pharrell daft and pharrell thicke, followed by classixx ft nancy/disclosure ft. alunageorge – in both of these cases i found i could hardly dj one of these songs without the other all year.  so fitting to have them all clumped together here.  dumb disco ideas epitomized.

• BIPP!  there were almost no last-minute year-end-list discoveries here, either because i was just really on top of things this year or just felt happy to stick to my familiar guns, but so so pleased i cottoned on to this in time.  what a bipp!

• glad i could slot in that crowd-pleasing novelty smash by everybody's favorite norwegian comedy duo, lindstrom & todd terje.  wait, what?

• what's that kanYe?  I kan't hear ye! sourrey man!

theoretical revision/addition wish-list:

• Janelle Monae, "Dance Apocalyptic" (was really trying to fit this in around the jagwar ma/major lazer moment, but just couldn't make it work.  robbed.)

• Vampire Weekend (probably would've been a better choice than Cayucas.  oh well.)

• Paramore probably

• maybe Beyoncé ("Blow" I guess?)

• actually, you know?  I'm really pretty happy with it.  the main thing would be to shave off ~40 seconds so it would fit onto an 80 minute CD.  I did originally but then I decided to let "Unicorn" finish playing out/slowing down.

Oh yeah, I also made a Favorite Songs of 2013 mix.  Pretty limited edition for now, but maybe I'll make some more (/revise?) sometime.  I can make you a copy if you want:

1. Neko Case: "Man"

2. Veronica Falls: "Waiting For Something To Happen"

3. Vampire Weekend: "Unbelievers"

4. Cayucas: "High School Lover"

5. Caitlin Rose: "Menagerie"

6. Little Daylight: "Overdose"

7. DENA: "Cash, Diamond Rings, Swimming Pools"

8. John Wizards: "iYongwe"

9. Classixx: "All You're Waiting For"

10. CHVRCHES: "Gun"

11. Superchunk: "Me and You and Jackie Mittoo"

12. Saint Rich: "Young Vultures"

13. Kacey Musgraves: "Follow Your Arrow"

14. Cass McCombs: "Brighter"

15. Devon Sproule + Mike O'Neill: "You Can't Help It"

16. Lucius: "Tempest"

17. Tegan + Sarah: "Now I'm All Messed Up"

18. Paramore: "Still Into You"

19. Bleeding Rainbow: "Waking Dream"

20. Free Energy: "Dance All Night"

21. Bibio: "À Tout à l'Heure"

22. My Bloody Valentine: "New You"

23. Dungeonesse: "Soon"

yummy yummy yummy

hey how about a good ol' fashioned thematic mixtape?  thanks to Mo for organizing a randomized mix CD exchange, and creating the opportunity for me to cook up this little number for Sage in Minneapolis (whom I've never met) (and who gets to enjoy the fluorescent hot pink of the cover art in a way that really doesn't come across in this scan.)  sequenced for maximum kitchen dance party potential.  Bon appetit!

menu

starters

1. cheese grater - ed's redeeming qualities
2. cooking up something good - mac demarco

3. vegetarian restaurant - aberfeldy

breakfast (served 24 hours!)

4. breakfast in bed - dusty springfield

5. starfish and coffee - prince

6. milky cereal - ll cool j

7. the breakfast song - annie

lunch?

8. chips-chicken-banana split - jo-jo & the fugitives

9. waffle house - chrissy murderbot

small plates

10. sliced tomatoes - just brothers

11. fresh strawberries - franz ferdinand

12. jam-eater blues - hayman watkins trout & lee

13. the onion song - marvin gaye & valerie simpson

14. cold bologna - isley brothers

15. crumbs off the table - glasshouse

dessert

16. savoy truffle - the beatles

17. hot sour salty sweet - the dirtbombs

18. chocolate raspberry lemon lime - muscles

19. apple pie a la mode - destiny's child

sides

20. bus stop bitties - rjd2

21. tapas - action bronson

beverages

22. strawberry shake - pop levi

23. please pass the milk please - tmbg

24. cocktails - hot leg

25. daiquiris - wiley

26. drink nothing but champagne - future bible heroes

27. he gave us the wine to drink - jonathan richman

remix...

28. in the kitchen - r. kelly

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)"

here, now, is nowhere

so, way back in March 2012, i made this mix, like you do, standard recent-listening favorites springtime selection.  (mostly nascent 2k12 tracks, and a few k11 holdovers – mayer hawthorne, big troubles, the embassy, herman düne – that somehow managed not to make it into my massive year-end mix flurry.)  i made one version of it (below) and then i made another rejiggered version of it (slightly less below) that mostly kept the perky poppy beginning and the smoove slinky soulful ending and most of the big rocky riffage in between, but cut out that nasty scandinavian techno stuff that nobody actually likes besides me (and james murphy), swapped out a couple of songs for others by the same artists probably for reasons of flow and space (and title alignment) that are now mysterious even to me, and that's the version (i think) that i slipped into people's mailboxes just pre-spring break, sorta like i used to do back the last time i was in school.

and now here are the track lists, long after the fact.  still good stuff, and a good snapshot of what was in my ears around that time (it's so interesting to me how particular musical-moments can take such particular flavors...this one's...sort of orangey maybe?  definitely bright, a little goofy but also comfy and homey.) 
 
the title, to which i made a silly self-referential allusion that nobody probably could have gotten in the title of a pre-sxsw post roughly contemporary with the mix itself, comes from the magical mystery mouth of elsa, as does the theoretical title of a theoretical companion piece (should i ever deign to actually make it), "the land of barely anything."  i have absolutely no recollection what she was talking about.

ok here you go:

Baby Steps to Nowhere
1. Gotye: "In Your Light"
2. Asteroids Galaxy Tour: "Suburban Space Invader"
3. The 2 Bears: "Time In Mind"
4. Lana Del Rey: "Diet Mt. Dew"
5. Allo Darlin': "Europe"
6. The Embassy: "You Tend To Forget"
7. The Magnetic Fields: "Andrew in Drag"
8. Mayer Hawthorne: "Hooked"
9. Explorer's Club: "Anticipatin'"
10. Hospitality: "Eighth Avenue"
11. Retribution Gospel Choir: "Feel It, Superior"
12. Free Energy: "Electric Fever"
13. Big Troubles: "Misery"
14. Veronica Falls: "Misery"
15. New Build: "Misery Loves Company"
16. Foxy Shazam: "Holy Touch"17. Honeychurch: "Tennessee Valley"
18. Frank Ocean: "We All Try"
19. Jamie Woon: "Street"
20. John Talabot ft. Pional: "Destiny"
21. Escort: "Makeover"
22. Terranova: "Question Mark"
23: Herman Düne: "Tell Me Something I Don't Know"

(Baby Steps to) Baby Steps to Nowhere  [step one]
1. Gotye: "In Your Light"
2. Asteroids Galaxy Tour: "Suburban Space Invader"
3. The 2 Bears: "Time In Mind"
4. Lana Del Rey: "Diet Mt. Dew"
5. Retribution Gospel Choir: "Feel It, Superior"
6. Free Energy: "Electric Fever"
7. Veronica Falls: "Steven"
8. The Embassy: "You Tend To Forget"
9. Todd Terje: "Mr. Norse"
10. Lindstrøm: "A Quiet Place To Live"
11. The Magnetic Fields: "Goin' Back To The Country"
12. Mayer Hawthorne: "Finally Falling"
13. Explorer's Club: "Anticipatin'"
14. Foxy Shazam: "Holy Touch"
15. Big Troubles: "Misery"
16. Honeychurch: "Tennessee Valley"
17. Frank Ocean: "We All Try"
18. Jamie Woon: "Street"
19. John Talabot ft. Pional: "Destiny"
20. Escort: "Makeover"
21. Terranova: "Question Mark"
22. Allo Darlin': "Some People Say"

bonus track list for another mix, from around the same time (actually, probably, around february 14th), drawing from mostly the same pool of material, which i actually kind of like better.  it's a love mix i made for elsa, a happy light-hearted love mix (though not without its share of sweet realism) which is not the easiest thing to come by mind you, and it feels pretty great.  there are some strikingly beautiful (as well as topical) songs here, tops maybe honeychurch and jens (along with mayer and herman) but nothing better than the simply amazing "church" by the 2 bears, which could well be the best song of the year, certainly has some of the greatest couplets:

<<i love your pretty face and your sweet determination//i love your body too, let's mate and make a nation>>

(and in tribute to which i titled this (did i really?)):

Love is Lovely
1. The 2 Bears, "Church"
2. Beyoncé, "Lay Up Under Me"
3. Escort, "A Sailboat in the Moonlight"
4. Jazmine Sullivan, "Love You Long Time" 
5. Miguel, "Sure Thing"
6. Kings Go Forth, "High On Your Love"
7. Jens Lekman, "So This Guy At My Office..."
8. Andrew Rose Gregory, "Your Love Is Better Than Wine"
9. Devon Sproule, "I Love You, Go Easy"
10. Lana Del Rey, "The Lucky Ones"
11. Drake ft. Rihanna, "Take Care"
12. Joe Goddard, "All I Know" (Radio Edit)
13. Kurt Vile, "Baby's Arms"
14. Honeychurch, "Miko II"
15. Real Estate, "Municipality"
16. Herman Düne, "Lay Your Head On My Chest"
17. Mayer Hawthorne, "You Called Me"
18. Gotye, "I Feel Better"
19. Foxy Shazam, "I Wanna Be Yours"
20. Explorer's Club, "Go For You"
21. Xylos, "Darling Dearest"
22. Acid House Kings, "I Just Called To Say Jag Älskar Dig"

the mix ends before the world

Happy February! So I guess I still owe us an albums list for 2011? I've sort of got one (check the sidebar) but I'm not particularly attached to it –I've switched things around a bit since completing my pazz'n'jop ballot and I'd probably rejigger it more (and possibly sneak in a couple of late-breaking discoveries straddling the 2011/2012 divide) if I were to post about it in earnest. We'll see.. Basically, 2011 felt like a pretty unexciting year for albums – in fact, I've already heard a couple of 2012 releases that I like way more than anything that came out last year (more on those soon...) And it kind of felt like an off year for music in general (though I've now come around to the feeling that it was an excellent year for singles, many of which I didn't fully catch on to until the final round of list-scanning and binge-downloading.)

In fact, I wasn't even sure if I was gonna make a year-encompassing mash-up dance mix this time 'round. But, of course, I did.

And here it is:

[now with a title!]
DANCE UNTIL THE MIX ENDS


[download here]

ETA: back once again with a tracklist:
Cults: Go Outside (2 Bears Remix)
James Blake: Limit To Your Love
Kelly Rowland ft. Lil Wayne: Motivation
Skrillex: Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
Britney Spears: How I Roll
Wiz Khalifa: On My Level
Magnetic Man ft. Angela Hunter: I Need Air
YC: Racks
Soulja Boy: Zan with that Lean
Sepalcure: Pencil Pimp
Chris Brown ft. Busta Rhymes: Look at Me Now
DJ Khaled ft. Drake: I'm On One
Reema Major: I'm The One
DJ Diamond: Decoded
Kreayshawn: Gucci Gucci
Miiguel: Sure Thing
Kei$ha ft. Andre 6000: The Sleazy Remix
Deerhoof: Super Duper Rescue Heads
Star Slinger: Mornin'
Charles Bradley: The World is Going Up In Flames
Beyoncé: Countdown
The Throne: Otis
Washed Out: Amor Fati
Das Racist: Celebration
Lykke Li: Get Some
Big Freedia: Y'all Get Back Now
M83: Midnight City
Adele: Rollin in the Heat (Jamie xx remix)
Africa Hitech: Do You Really Want To Fight
Architecture in Helsinki: Escapee
tUnE-yArDs: Bizness
Fool's Gold: The Dive
Atropolis: Huepa Je
When Saints Go Machine: Kelly
Pictureplane: Body Mod
The Bees: Gaia
Rebecca Black: Friday
Katy Perry: TGIF
SebastiAn: Tetra
St. Vincent: Cruel
Bullion: Magic Was Ruler
Escort: Cameleon Chameleon
Twin Sister: Bad Street
Hercules & Love Affair: Painted Eyes
Hercules & Love Affair: My House (Stopmakingme remix)
Beyonce: End of Time
Todd Terje: Snooze4Love
Cut Copy: Need You Now
Coldplay: Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall
The Rapture: Come Back To Me
Lana Del Rey: Blue Jeans
Lana Del Rey: Blue Jeans (Penguin Prison Remix)
DRC Music ft. Washiba: If You Wish To Stay Alive
Pallers: Wicked
Blawan: Getting Me Down
Yelle: Comme Un Enfant
DRC Music ft. Love: LOVE
The Very Best: Super Mom
Robyn: Call Your Girlfriend
The Kills: Nail In My Coffin
Kathryn Calder: Who Are You
Purity Ring: Ungirthed
Jamie xx: Far Nearer
Drake ft. Rihanna: Take Care
Benoit & Sergio: Walk and Talk
Lady Gaga: The Edge of Glory
Nicki Minaj: Super Bass
Azealia Banks: 212
Beyonce: Run the World
Nicola Roberts: Beat of My Drum
SBTRKT: Pharoahs
Peter Bjorn & John: Dig a Little Deeper (Mayer Hawthorne Remix)
Foster The People: Pumped Up Kicks
Big K.R.I.T. ft. Ludacris: Country Shit
Rihanna: S&M
Chrissy Murderbot ft. MC Zulu: The Vibe Is So Right
Jacques Greene: Another Girl
Maroon 5: Moves Like Jagger
Ill Blue: Meltdown
Rihanna: We Found Love
LMFAO: Party Rock Anthem
Omar ft. Don Lucenzo: Danza Kuduro
Buraka Som Sistema: Candonga
Jens Lekman: An Argument with Myself
Rustie: Ultra Thizz
Britney Spears: Til The World Ends
Four Tet: Pyramid
#OWS: 99% Chant

2011, all mixed up

In the past, I've had a policy of "saving" my emerging favorite favorite songs from an unfolding year – i.e. refraining from including them on mixes (or at least mass-distro mixes) and holding them back instead for a big bang-up year-end mix of songs. That delayed-gratification approach has resulted in some satisfying summing-ups which have stood up to time – notably, 2003's Such Great Heights [aka the duct tape mix]; Fun and Interesting: 2008 in Pop; and last year's H'010nanny! Other years I haven't made a year-end songs mix at all, or else I've made one that I didn't like much at that time and have forgotten about since (like the 2009 two-fer at the bottom of this post.)

This year, breaking my own rules willy-nilly, I made several mixes over the course of the year which did include most of my current-listening favorites – and what's worse I rejiggered the tracklists of these mixes and cherry-picked songs from them for use on later mixes – without necessarily ever settling on a finished stand-alone mix that I was completely happy with. (a similar process has happened with my year-end top ten lists this year – it's been that kind of year.) So in effect, I guess, my B3ST 0F 2oII M1XT@P3 has been a work-in-progress all year long.

Here are some tracklists – they may or may not exactly reflect the versions of mixes I may or may not have given you over the course of the year, but in the end why fuss; it's all good musik!

We Need a Mix*
1. Cults - Go Outside
2. Dom - Living in America
3. James Curd presents Ziggy Franklin - Shelter
4. Cornershop with Bubbley Kaur - Double Decker Eyelashes
5. Xylos - Not Enough
6. Britney Spears - How I Roll
7. Abigail Washburn - City of Refuge
8. David Wax Museum - Yes, Maria, Yes
9. The Kills - Nail In My Coffin
10. The Strokes - Taken For A Fool
11. Peter Bjorn and John - Dig A Little Deeper
12. Yelle - Comme Un Enfant
13. Zoey Van Goey - You Told The Drunks I Knew Karate
14. The Mountain Goats - Estate Sale Sign
15. About Group - There's A Way To End This Run Of Doubt
16. The Decemberists - Calamity Song
17. Deerhoof - Super Duper Rescue Heads!
18. Young Galaxy - B.S.E.
19. Revolver - Monk (Mini Mansions Cover)
20. Panda Bear - Slow Motion
21. Cut Copy - Need You Now (Architecture in Helsinki Version)

*titled in homage to the epic Okkervil River song which I liked [and whose title I especially liked, and took as sort of the thesis statement of their fascinating-but-not-quite-lovable album in my annoyingly non-linkable cowbell magazine article...come to think of it that album got weirdly and also unfairly shunted out of pretty much all year-end coverage i've come across, mine included...] but which I didn't manage to actually include on this or any mix...but equally as an appropriately descriptive/meaning-empty response to a slightly alarming feeling of having to do something with the already-overwhelming glut of sure-fine-yeah musical detritus that was accumulating in my 2011 headspace circa april, which must have been about when i made this.

i like the hipster/anti-hipster move of opening with two of the biggest blog hits of 2010, for the very sane reason that i was only just hearing/really getting into them. i also like lots of these songs, but ultimately the ones i really like the most are the ones that got pillaged for later editions...see below...

Summerville*
1. Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks
2. Beyoncé - Countdown
3. Mayer Hawthorne - Work To Do
4. The Cool Kids ft. Mayer Hawthorne - Swimsuit
5. Dennis Coffey ft. Mayer Hawthorne - All Your Goodies Are Gone
6. Sebastian ft. Mayer Hawthorne - Love In Motion
7. Pictureplane - Real Is A Feeling
8. tUnE-yArDs - Bizness
9. When Saints Go Machine - Kelly
10. Architecture in Helsinki - Contact High
11. Ford & Lopatin - World of Regret
12. Wild Beasts - Lion's Share
13. Rye Rye ft. Robyn Never Will Be Mine
14. Teddybears ft. Robyn - Cardiac Arrest
15. Nicola Roberts - Beat Of My Drum
16. Kissy Sell Out ft. MC Zulu - Turn It On
17. Austra - Lose It
18. Ada -Keep Me In Mind
19. Benoit & Sergio - What I've Lost
20. Allo Darlin' - Tallulah
21. YACHT - Shangri-La

*because what we really need most is a summer mix, and can't get much simpler cuz i didn't think i could really pull off the Mangumian po'etry of "Cum Trees in the Summerville Breeze" q.v. the ginkgos outside my Inman Sq. [but over the line] Somer sublet., which was the phrase in my head every time i biked up prospect street past the field (The Field!) etc.... anyhow this is more like it. Mayer Hawthorne and Robyn get to be MVPs even tho they hadn't (yet) even put out anything much new of their own in 2011... some versions of this also included Junior Boys' "Banana Ripple," which (like the rest of their album) i kinda like but mostly just don't know what to do with. the closing sequence is really the clincher; I played it to end our midsummer backyard pool Shlock Party, and I kept it for what is essentially a cannibalistic combination of the two above mixes:

Glow in the Dark, Arrow in the Heart*
1. Cults: Go Outside (Menahan Street Band Remix)
2. Beyoncé: Countdown
3. Mayer Hawthorne: Work To Do
4. Xylos: Not Enough
5. Young Galaxy: B.S.E.
6. Pictureplane: Real Is A Feeling
7. ANR: It's Around You
8. tUnE-yArDs: Bizness
9. Cornershop & Bubbley Kaur: Double Decker Eyelashes
10. When Saints Go Machine: Kelly
11. Architecture in Helsinki: Contact High
12. Wild Beasts: Lion's Share
13. Abigail Washburn: City of Refuge
14. Mark McGuire: Chances Are
15. Active Child: Hanging On
16. Hercules & Love Affair: Boy Blue
17. Ada: Keep Me In Mind
18. Benoit & Sergio: What I've Lost
19. Allo Darlin': Tallulah
20. Y∆CHT: Shangri-La
[packaged in a pink sleeve]

*maybe not my favorite lyric from "Kelly" (the whole thing really is brilliant, even perversely so), but it's certainly a potent summation of what the song feels like, and likewise the love of any good song or season or, sure, boy. when i made this it was just early fall and i was touring through the southland, so the working/burning title of this was dixieville. i could've jiggered it more (maybe swapping in a MayHawt album original for the Isleys cover from the EP, but it just didn't feel right) but decided to let it stand as-is as one-half of my "official" "best of 2011" mix-package, along with:

A Swastika In Your Cappucino*
1. Lana Del Rey: Video Games
2. Jens Lekman: Waiting for Kisten
3. Frank Turner: Peggy Sang The Blues
4. Wilco: Dawned On Me
5. Lykke Li: I Follow Rivers
6. Low: Try To Sleep
7. When Saints Go Machine: Add Ends
8. The Dø: Too Insistent (Trentemøller Remix)
9. Paul Simon: Love Is Eternal Sacred Light
10. Kathryn Calder: Who Are You?
11. Peter Bjorn and John: Dig A Little Deeper (Mayer Hawthorne Remix)
12. Cults: Walk At Night
13. Baby Dee: The Pie Song
14. They Might Be Giants: Cloissoné
15. Devon Sproule: The Warning Bell
16. Darren Hayman: I Taught You How To Dance
17. James Blake: Lindisfarne II
18. Gillian Welch: Hard Times
19. St. Vincent: Champagne Year
20. The Throne: Made In America (Ft. Frank Ocean)
21. Joan As Police Woman: Human Condition
22. Cut Copy: Need You Now (Architecture in Helsinki Version)
[packaged in a baby boy blue sleeve, though come to think of it maybe they shoulda been switched]

*probably is my favorite lyric from "Kirsten," which is equally the most brilliant, heart-wrenching and hilarious lyric of the year, even if the string parts do cannibalize his past work. not sure it's a great mix title, but it's a great image, mental or actual (i drew it on some copies.) i agonized over this for a long time in isolation, and i guess i'm pretty happy with it by now. might have actually been easier to slim down to a single disc of for-sure favorites, but i like having space to include things like "Add Ends" (a more representative and possibly of-greater-wide-interest WSGM selection) and "Cloissoné" (definitely the standout of the semi-let-downish Join Us) and "The Pie Song" (hard to satisfactorily integrate, but equally hard to safely ignore) and especially "Human Condition," which I'd mostly forgotten about but does include some truly poignant lines which have made me almost cry multiple times (the opening verse, basically.)

....and then... all the end of year lists and whatsits started coming out, and i went on my usual year-end catch-up downloading rampage, and started totally jamming out to all these awesome techno/hip-hop/weirdpop/rnb songs i'd mostly not even heard previously, plus a few poppier jams that hadn't quite fit in with other iterations. and, mostly, i just wanted to dance, and jam out. so i burned this one up quick, and gave it to some of you. it's a mix of my favorite songs in the history of the world ever, circa the last week of december 2011. and i would like it to be called:

Teeth Ring, Ears Click
1. Jai Paul: BTSTU
2. Purity Ring: Ungirthed
3. Miguel: Sure Thing
4. The Weeknd: The Morning
5. Kelly Rowland ft. Lil Wayne: Motivation
6. Jacques Greene: Another Girl
7. Jamie xx: Far Nearer
8. Adele: Rolling In The Deep (Jamie xx Shuffle)
9. Soulja Boy: Zan With That Lean
10. Big K.R.I.T feat. Ludacris & Bun B: Country Shit (Remix)
11. Azaelea Banks: 212
12. Ill Blu: Meltdown
13. Blawan: Getting Me Down
14. Don Omar ft. Lucenzo: Danza Kuduro
15. Modeselektor ft. Busdriver: Pretentious Friends
16. Lana Del Rey: Blue Jeans (Penguin Prison Remix)
17. Franz Ferdinand: No You Girls (Trentemøller Remix)

okay, i give up... maybe next year i'll just make some mix tapes for the sake of making some mix tapes, and leave it at that. or maybe i'll just make spotify playlists, once i figure out what that's supposed to be, exactly? i just joined, i'm intrigued...we'll see? well anyway, hope you like the music.

get the lowdown on my hoedown

[hey, did you ("you"?) notice how i haven't been making any references to last.fm in any of my 2010 year-end hoo-hah? ha!]

the magnetic fields were one of my very top last.fm artists in 2010 (#3 in fact, behind joanna newsom and hot chip, – isn't it nice when lists line up with reality like that?), and they're probably going to become my overall most-played artist in a matter of days, due to my preparations for the upcoming 69 love songs cover party (which will be amazing) [and which was also part of the reason they scored so many listens last year, along with needing to bring my girlfriend up to speed, getting excited about the movie, and an autumnal obsession with "100000 fireflies"] however i didn't even really listen to, or like, their 2010 album, realism, all that much. but, there was that one very (overly?) catchy song [hm, they're very tiny there] about scientology, which is sort of like the title track for this mix, except that it's not actually on it (cuz i ran out of space, but maybe it's better that way anyway):

title: H'010NANNY! [SONGS of 2010]
date: december 2010. the 22nd-ish? format: cd-r,+blogpost
packaged: with 2010isLove, at least most of the time, together in a devious white foldy.

come and take our personality quizzzzzzzz:
1. "When I Still Have Thee" – Teenage Fanclub
2. "Zorbing" – Stornoway
3. "Ain't That The Way" – Devon Sproule
4. "I Heart NY" – Samuel
5. "Heaven, Sittin' Down" – Phosphorescent
6. "Gloria" – Jonny
7. "'81" – Joanna Newsom
8. "Free Translator" – The Books
9. "Hang With Me (Acoustic)" – Robyn
10. "You Better Mind" – Sam Amidon (with Beth Orton)
11. "You Are Not Alone" – Mavis Staples
12. "My Heart Is A Drummer" – Allo Darlin'
13. "I Didn't See It Coming" – Belle & Sebastian
14. "Horchata" – Vampire Weekend
15. "All Yr Songs" – Diamond Rings
16. "Hormones" – Tracey Thorn
17. "Love And Do What You Will" – ceo
18. "Indeed" – Georgia Anne Muldrow
19. "Whole New Way" – Scissor Sisters
20. "All Matter" – Bilal
21. "I Can Change" – LCD Soundsystem
22. "Alley Cats" – Hot Chip

i didn't make a "favorite songs of 2010" list, not really. i made this mix, which has already been much acclaimed ("massive," somebody said, or maybe it was "major"), and which i am enjoying (still) surprisingly much (unlike last year's songs mix [scroll down, scroll down] which i was kind of already sick of by the time i made it, and have barely listened since.) and now, so that you'll have something to listen to, and look at, while i ramble on about the songs/artists/albums(?), it's now also a video playlist:


1. "When I Still Have Thee" – Teenage Fanclub

wow, what a glorious song! pretty close to perfect, i think. simple structure, simple chords that somehow sound fantastically fresh. i love the gradually expanding arrangement: first just clean, eternal, Byrdsian jangle guitar (and a bit of piano for emphasis), sounding like a fanfare, then the drums (and full band) crashing in (with "the rolling stones") for verse two, and then, surprise, even more!: warm, glowy churchy organ, (right on the word "hymn"!) for verse three. and a few more crafty details: sweet lil guitar solo that builds right up to and wraps around the penultimate refrain, then a nifty little cadence to bring it back around one last time. hard to believe it's well over three minutes; it feels so much like an elemental 2:30.

tremendous lyric too: again, quite simple but also wholly unexpected. yes, i enjoy mocking it for the preposterous pronoun in the refrain (which feels mostly like a blatant reach for a rhyme...though i suppose you could make an argument that it fits in with the "modern hymn" bit?) but it really just makes it all the more endearing(ly earnest.) elsa heard it as being about religion or god. it seems to be about several things at once which are really all the same thing: love, the goodness of life, and, most especially, music. specifically, [indie] pop, or rock and roll i guess; from the western isles to the tasman sea, i.e. scotland to new zealand, the heartlands of this particular strain of p!o!p!, incl. the name-checked go-betweens (who are australian) [and apparently this cornish band i have never heard of.] who knows what rolling stones song they're talking about [any wild guesses?], but i love that the singer describes it as being written "for him"...also, "a minor song in a major key" is reminiscent of erstwhile new world janglers the gigolo aunts but even better executed i'd say.

i never really paid too much attention to teenage fanclub, at least post-bandwagonesque (which i've liked but never loved), even though i always figured i should. and now, probably, i shall [also, see jonny, below.] i was surprised by how much their new 'un, shadows, sounded like the clientele (okay, a slightly more awake version of the clientele.) the whole album is pretty lovely, with lots of nice string bits and so on, but this one is far and away the standout for me...it's the kind of song, i knew right away, that will never lose its power to make me smile through any little heartbreak, and that is something to cherish. ok, on we go...


2. "Zorbing" – Stornoway

wow, what a glorious song! speaking of the western isles, stornoway is on one of them, though stornoway are not from there, they're from cowley, a part of oxford, which is mentioned in this song ["zorbing through the streets of cowley."] zorbing is highly fascinating, and i would love to learn more about it, but that's not really what this song's about. it's about love, of course, new love more specifically, and though zorbing is a pretty brilliant metaphor for the feeling (floating, tumbling, disoriented, inside a bubble), but wisely i think, they don't force it or make it fit too neatly, but find various other more and less outlandish ways (thunderstorms, sensory dissociation) to describe the same thing which are just as compelling.

this is one of those songs (like "when i still have thee," i suppose) that manages to express almost exactly the same feeling musically as it does lyrically; in this case an irresistible, barely controlled giddiness (the short eruptive trumpet breaks are almost too much – isolated from context they might be unbearably twee – but they provide exactly the release that the song needs.) another slowly building arrangement with wonderfully crisp details all arranged just so (love that slightly subliminal jaunty piano and of course the low laddish harmonies and bouncy bass.) and i haven't even mentioned the melody, which is a marvel unto itself.

this is the kind of song that, as i think rae said about hefner's "i took her love for granted" [which i wrote about at length here, and which it could probably argued is the solitary reason i am still a devoted darren hayman listener], makes me remember why i love indie-pop.

actually, for some reason [because this was technically first released in '09?] i'd intended to include "i saw you blink" instead, which is almost equally wonderful (the rest of beachcomber's windowsill, very very good as it is, is trying for something somewhat different and can't quite match these two pinnacles) but this fit better for some reason.



3. "Ain't That The Way" – Devon Sproule

wow, what a – well, actually this is a slightly different situation here. of course, it is glorious, like most everything the dazzling ms. devon does, plays or is. (even if the album this kickstarts, ¡don't hurry for heaven!, was a bit of a let down for me after her untouchably great last one.) this is a pretty astonishing piece of songcraft, right up there with "keep yr silver shined" and "plea for a good night's rest," which really could not have been written by anybody else. this one might actually be more immediately captivating and endearing than either of those. i don't know anybody else who does this thing, intricate and breezily poetic but homespun and humble at the same time, nearly the way dev can. actually, her poetics are less high-flown than usual here, and her virginny drawl (which feels maybe just slightly exaggerated on this one) makes it more feel even down-home.

not to get into too many of the little details, i'll just point out maybe my favorite lyric, in the surprise cyclical sorta-canon coda (which is all great), she hears on the way home "new ry cooder on the radio." then there are the little twinklies which lead us nicely into...



4. "I Heart NY" – Samuel
...a rather different vision of home. (hey, there's that word again...) a total out-of-nowhere hit for me (i have basically no sense of who or how many other people are even aware of it; i know next to nothing of this samuel, except that i think he's got a major label contract now. and i haven't heard any of his other songs, but i'm suspecting that maybe we all will in the near future?) an uncannily enchanting piece of candyfloss pop – unusually for this style [q.v. lenka, marit, etc.] sung by a male, which maybe tempers the candyflossness of it a bit (?) and partially explains why i hear a surprising degree of swag alongside the disney twinkles... could also be the zip-a-dee-doo-dah hip-hop beat (reminds me of "hard knock life" a bit) and the subject matter, not just that it's about new york (and a much more touching and cogent ode than, for instance "ny state of mind"), an unabashed celebration in spite of broken bicycles, pot paranoia, boredom and alienation. [also cf. hip-hop,] i like that "what makes [him] real" is the inexplicable queasiness he feels in his stomach.

p.s. i might have a soft spot for songs that mention coney island: "from out here," "strange powers," what else, lou reed of course, and that gybe! thing... (also, i was on coney island during a blackout!)



5. "Heaven, Sittin' Down" – Phosphorescent

aw sooky. another sweet groover. [nb. album version is better, but for some reason not on the yootoob...] the first time i heard this (on the train back from nj, as elsa was on her way moving up to boston) i was sure it was a trad. cover (partly because of the r.l. burnside album of the similar title, which i've not heard), but evidently no, it's a phosphy original, albeit based around a nicked line (cuz it is the title of a gospel oldie or sumpin.) well, add this one to the instant new sing-along standards pile, right on top of "wagon wheel" (and similarly, could easily see people just writing their own verses for this. i never even notice the verses anyway.)

i 'specially love the slightly loose, rushed scansion of that crucial, wrenching third line of the chorus ("i wish those nights of pleasure and those days of pain weren't so tightly bound.") never really thought about this, but the song sounds so jaunty yet is about utter exhaustion, so that's neat.



6. "Gloria" – Jonny

jonny = norman blake from teenage fanclub + euros childs from gorkys zygotic mynci, welshy goofball (though, as it turns out, maybe not quite as much of a goofy welshball as gruff rhys, cwwddyhthythgd.) seems likely he provided much of the goofiness of this song, but who knows. it's the first song from their free downloadable first ep (album coming soon, on merge!?) this is, awesomely, about gloria estefan, and if you hadn't noticed it's the third song on this mix so far to mention other musical artists by name, an appropriate unintentional theme for me. [i think there's two others still to come, unless james murphy slipped something by me.]

anyway, jonny, "gloria," short (!!) and sweet, couldn't resist. will probably be teaching this one at sing-alongs too.



7. "'81" – Joanna Newsom

sort of the obvious "single" from have one on me, i guess, in that it's short (but longer than the micro-sized "on a good day") and has a simple-ish, very catchy melody. "good intentions paving company" seems to be the consensus de facto standout, and it's also my favorite, in part because i love singing it and playing it on the piano. [but it's too long, natch, plus was already on the original (and frankly preferable) version of t-shirt weather. they're both spring songs, btw, unless this is summer.]

i love singing this one too – even though her phrasing is maddeningly difficult to pin down (slippery as a naked trout) – and i can almost imagine other people learning how to sing it as well, something i'd be hard pressed to say about any of her other songs (well honestly it's not true about this one either.) maybe it's more that i just want to sing it to other people, and have them hear it, and be comforted: "the unending amends you've made are enough for one life: be done. i believe in innocence, little darlin', start again; i believe in everyone."



8. "Free Translator" – The Books
equally as much comfort, utterly negligible sense. the story of this song is here. "Machines are dumb, but sometimes they do brilliant things because they can’t help themselves."

(also, the sufficient clues to the mystery of its palimpsestuous source material, which has had me curious for a while now, are in the comments to that tumbl. oddly enough – or not – this song does a surprisingly decent job of preserving the existential, open-ended feel of the unnamed original song which it "translates"; not unlike the semi-surrealist charlie king parody of said song i heard him sing years ago.)

i'd like to hear a bedtime story (a la "the story of hip-hop") or maybe a superhero comic about the instantly distinctive entities listed at the end of the song: the adventures of meteorological man and whirlwind girl, with their sidekicks, a careful goat and a talking plant. and a squid in a bag. etc.



9. "Hang With Me (Acoustic)" – Robyn

the best song of robyn's (aptly called) "magic 2010," i'm pretty sure. and, in this version, one of the few pieces of that output which comes close to matching the breathtaking, honest emotional nuance she achieved at the emotive peak (i.e. robyn's heart-stoppingly clear-eyed closing suite) of her magic 2005. [which isn't necessarily to say i like the disco single version any less.]

a subtly key moment: "i know what's on your mind/there will be time for that too": slyly, ambiguously supplementing her touchy-feely with some touchy-touchy, in a way that lets you know this couldn't have been written by anyone else (except maybe prince.)

oh, and just one little amendment i'd make, for my own selfish purposes: fall recklessly, headlessly in love with me; it won't all be heartbreak blissfully painful insanity.




10. "You Better Mind" – Sam Amidon with Beth Orton

awesome. [in the original, literal sense, even.] sam amidon was essentially new to me this year (though, turned out e's known him since they were at folksinging summer camp together), but this was maybe the most tragically overlooked alb of the year in my book. (even more than allo darlin', yes, because i recognize their somewhat more limited appeal, and because this is the more distinctive, original accomplishment.) this is both possibly my favorite cut (tho the sweetly sneaky r. kelly reenvisioning "relief" is close) and a good representation of the album as a whole. heard right, i think this song and this rendition just might be capable of putting the fear of god into ya. (also: nice to hear beth's voice again.)



11. "You Are Not Alone" – Mavis Staples

from old gospel sung by a young folkie to a song written by a young folkster for an old gospeller to sing. (and with moderately oppositional messages, to boot.) jeff tweedy wrote this for mavis staples' same-titled album, which he also produced, and much as you can absolutely hear the tweedy in it (the writing that is), staples and the song fit one another comfortably and completely. it's such an immediate standout (and instant classic) that it's a shame he didn't write more for the album.

message-wise, this isn't terribly far off from what joanna newsom tries to convey in "'81," and it's easily at least as powerful, probably more, particularly in the truly striking forcefulness the lyric adopts – taking on overtones of police aggression – in conveying its intent to get that message across: "open up this is a raid/i want to get it through to you: you're not alone." how fundamental that is, yet how hard to hear. by now we've seen quite a handful of old, faded (in terms of their visibility, at the very least) soul titans attempting to recapture some glory by basking in the genre's recent reflourescence, but this is one moment that really rises above the pack and manages to feel unambiguously vital.



12. "My Heart Is A Drummer" – Allo Darlin'

"deep down in the place where music makes you happiest," – i've said it before and i'll say it again: it's a place allo darlin' know well – do you really have life to waste on music that's less vibrant and direct and upfront than this song is? ok ok. it's not actually as good as graceland, and it doesn't have the carefully calibrated perfect-pop detailing of, for instance, the first two songs on this mix. (even the impressively convincing faux-afrique highlife outro, which in context doubles as a sly graceland nod, and which is the song's best showcase for bassman bill, the allo's greatest secret weapon – is more a triumph of feeling than of composition.)

no, this song's unabashed strength is in its personality, which, happily, is way more than enough to carry it. it's in the music, which positively bursts; it's in elizabeth morris' adorably accented vocal (notably, in the way she sings "telephieone"), and most of all, actually, it's in what she's singing. [also, it's in the fittingly handmade, albeit possibly too goofy, cankerblossom-esque video, which i hadn't seen until now – i've mostly avoided looking at the videos whilst writing these blurbs, probably for the best in the interests of ever getting this finished.]

"do i have to say i'm sorry for my happiness?" – she asks it almost weakly, as though it's actually a question. but there's more to the story than that: one of the things i love about this song is that it's about the comforting, satisfied self-knowledge of subtle, hidden depths of fortitude and resilience: the singer might seem all gushy and gooey as she slides her feet up and down the wall, but she's knows that she's actually stronger than you are. "baby, you don't know, but my heart is as strong as a drummer." (never mind that heart cancer might not be precisely what asthmatic smokers need to be mindful about.) some folks have pointed out the chorus' melodic similarities to cyndi lauper's breakout hit, which never really stuck out to me, but coincidental as that connection may be the two songs do have something similar to teach us: there is power in just wanting to have fun.



13. "I Didn't See It Coming" – Belle & Sebastian

polychrome in the 2010's
you go disco and i'll go my way

still not entirely sure how i feel about write about love as a whole (that is, whether i love-love it or merely like-like it) but this, track one, which just jumped out of the speakers from the first time i plopped it in, the day after it came out, at my birthday listening party, this just might be the best thing belle & seb have done since... well? waitress at least, though that's only two albums back. and this has a maturity and confidence that the closest parallels of that era ("your cover's blown"; "cuckoo," maybe; the excellent and overlooked "stay loose") don't quite.

eh, it doesn't really feel right to compare: in its stylistic freedom, formal adventurousness, impressionistic style, and fluid, unrepentant musicality, this consolidates many of the strengths of b+s mark 2; but then again, it also feels like something totally new. even if something about it (the lyric?) vaguely calls to mind "electronic renaissance." ["make me dance/i want to surrender" – what a dizzyingly potent little fragment.] anyway, it stands with the band's very best, of any era.

even if it flattens out a bit when it opens up (in the late-middle, before launching into the maddeningly beautiful tail-section that less-classically-versed music writers would probably describe as a "fugue"), and even though, when i'm listening to it, i wish it didn't fade out like that. or so fast. or ever. anybody can write about love: this song sounds like it. and the title makes it self-fulfilling prophecy.



14. "Horchata" – Vampire Weekend

my favorite songs from contra – an album that i adore for no real reason other than that i love listening to it, which sounds like a trivial statement but strangely doesn't feel that way [maybe it actually is as good as graceland?] – my favorite songs are all right at the end: "giving up the gun" (evidently my SotY), righteous banger "diplomat's son," and the momentously ineffable quasi-title track. but with the former well and adequately repped on both 2010islove and feet active vol. 1 (hm, i really ought to get that mix up here), and the latter on t-shirt weather, it was tricky to know what to rep contra with here, as few of the album's other great songs particularly stand out to me as being more great than the great rest. (according to my blog, the evidently-popular "white sky" was an early favorite of mine too, but i don't entirely remember that.)

i chose "horchata," even though it seemed a bit obvious, even though i initially thought it was overly goofy, because i really have continued to sing it, and it remains singularly playful and delightful, and also i liked the way it fit in to the belle&seb fade-out. at one point this song felt a bit like a hold-over from the sound of first album, but although it probably does work as a stylistic bridge to some extent it also definitely fits in, and works well as an opening statement.

my favorite things about this song are: the xylophones, the clattery offbeat rhythms, the full wistful singing on the chorus/bridge ("here's a feeling..."), the wormy, wiggly melody, the periodic mix-n-match drop-out-and-build-back-up that happens at the end, the all-over-the-place kitchen-sink arrangement, the sudden stop at the end. pretty much everything except for the lyrics, which are fun too.



15. "All Yr Songs" – Diamond Rings

i mighta overrated this album (i really wanted it to be reminiscent of warren zevon..), but this song is supa dope, any way. it's got a peppy fun cheap/sloppy bedroom fi steez but secretly it is really neatly and snazzily arranged. lots of subtle stuff going on. it has acoustic guitar breakdowns! it has beach boy "oohs"! it has (synth) bass come in on the second verse! it has bongos, mixed low on the chorus! and: it has a vibraslap! (like free energy's "something in common," absolutely one of my favorite songs of 2010 that didn't come out in 2010 because it was only on the ep and not the album for some crazy reason, but otherwise should totally be here. i want to keep a running tally of vibraslap songs but it's hard to remember, as they're best when used sparingly.)

this song is also totally sweet in the lyrics/sentiment department too. the sunscreen part always makes me think about best coast, but i don't like any best coast songs nearly this much. she should be more sing-songy. oh-woah-oh-oh-oh-woah-oh-oh-oh. i guess this was viral-ish in '09 but whatevs i didn't catch it until the album this year. woot!



16. "Hormones" – Tracey Thorn

hard to get past the attention-getting (and admirably non-traditional) subject matter [her menopause coinciding with her daughter's puberty], which tracey treats in typically frank, affecting, non-sensationalized fashion, but the music of this is pretty great too; nicely groovy, handclaps, neat piano riff, nice guitar punch-ups. it's probably the best song on love and its opposite for both reasons – though "oh the divorces" is also something pretty special. it's an album i can certainly appreciate and respect plenty, tho (and i don't think it's just b/c of my age) it didn't quite floor me like out of the woods did (and does.) but that's an unusually special recording. anyhow, tracey is still one of my favorite voices, and i'm happy to spread the love.



17. "Love And Do What You Will" – ceo

there is something so befuddlingly other about the tough alliance and, now, ceo – having spent plenty of time with their albums, and writing about them, and digesting white magic in particular (and it's not a long album), i still feel like; for instance, out of the albums in my top ten for 2010, ceo's is by far the one i'm least able to comprehend, or feel like i connect with, on a human level. which can make it hard to say exactly how much, or even whether, and certainly why, i like it.

but it's equally hard to deny that they/he make some pretty fantastic music, phenomenal both on its own terms and in its utter singularity. i'm also pretty sure that white magic is even better, and even more sui generis, than the tough alliance output to date. and it's great both as an album and as individual pieces. this song is great, for instance. i can't really tell you what's going on – there are tons of interesting sounds, an interesting, syncopated beat, a catchy melody, a catchy riff or two, some enthusiastic singing – but if we can "love and do what love and do what we want we will," [as someone once said of prince's equally inscrutable "7": if "together we'll love through all space and time,"] it can't be all that bad, can it?



18. "Indeed" – Georgia Anne Muldrow

though i sort of half forgot about her for a while – after i missed her show and left my copy of king's ballad in matt's cd player (which i should try harder to recover) – i was rocking the GAM jams pretty hard in the early part of the year, and this is definitely one of the sweetest and the fonkiest. it's an entirely touching, heartfelt, if not a little quirky, celebration of kids: "i love the mess out the children..." who can't get down with that?



19. "Whole New Way" – Scissor Sisters

i feel a little bad that i didn't find better ways to express my love for scissor sisters in 2010. night work is a pretty terrific piece of work from end to end, definitely a surprise and a step up for a group i'd all but written off – much as i loved their debut (and it's probably only gotten better with time), it somehow never seemed like they were fully able to live up to their potential. but this one is a total treat, chock-full of pop thrills, and i don't really understand why it was so overlooked.

for some reason it's a little tricky to take individual songs out of the context of the album, maybe because they have such a strong shared stylized aesthetic. this song (which is also shoehorned in at the end of 2010islove, paired up with "rude boy" for a deviant little quickie) isn't necessarily my favorite thing from the album (i think i like "skin tight" and "running out" slightly more, though it's a hard call), but it might be the best stand-alone cut. it's pretty delightful, either way. "subtext"-wise, the entendré-filled lyrics are winking pretty impossibly hard (ana matronic's overly labored live introduction/"apology" for this song, both times i saw them this summer [on the same day] was almost wince-inducing), but that's obviously a lot of the point, and the fun.



20. "All Matter" – Bilal

by contrast, i have pretty much no idea what this song is about. (apart than love, of course.) didn't know what to make of this cat when i saw him open for erykah badu this summer, and after a bunch of listens through the in any event staggering airtight's revenge, i still don't really know, but i think it's a good kind of making. as intriguing and often enjoyable as it is, there's been precious little in the recent wave of loose, clunky, atmospheric, post-dilla "broken-beat" electro-funk, whether instrumental or vocal (erykah, quadron, flying lotus, sa-ra – stuff that, for instance, andy kellman loves) that's really grabbed me. this one did it with just one little ineffable snatch of liquid vocal soul magic, which feels like i could listen to it forever. "you ain't even gotta try/all you've gotta do is realize..."



21. "I Can Change" – LCD Soundsystem

the new lsd screensaver album is bookended by towering standouts ("dance yrself clean", "home") or else the singles are the towering standouts ("drunk girls", "pow pow") or maybe it's all standouts (well, except, sorry, "somebody's calling me") or, i dunno, but this is the slyly crucial centerpiece after all, a quintessential "album cut" only in that it is fully and undeniably in and of its album, not that it can't work outside of it, and in any case it's the best solution to the quandary that "all i want" doesn't measure up to "all my friends" (quite), and nothing here touches "someone great" (even if "you wanted a hit" has the right feel for it), and yet this is happening is somehow a more complete and cohesive and consummate work than sound of silver, half of which now almost feels like throwaways in retrospect (actually, it felt that way at the time, tho i still loved it, and i still love it.)

"i can change" has only a few changes, but plenty of good lines (bad poetry my foot), if maybe not as many quotables as some others. but more than that its string of casual, lucid observations about relationships (which might or might not add up to a narrative sketch i've never bothered to really trace) add up to a vaguely wry, witty, alternately (or simultaneously?) cynical and hopeful meditation on modern (always modern) love that doesn't need much coherence to be curiously moving. and failing that, the bleeps and the beats – which, perhaps tellingly, barely change at all over the course of the track – offer some motion of their own.



22. "Alley Cats" – Hot Chip

one life stand is my favorite album of 2010. what is my favorite song from one life stand? "brothers"? the title track? "thieves in the night"? ["happiness is what we all want/may it be that we don't always want"...pretty hard to argue with that] earlier mixtape inclusions "hand me down your love" (on t-shirt weather) or "i feel better" (on 2010islove)? i'd almost be tempted to say the utterly sublime osborne remix of "take it in," although of course that's not on the album.

the truth is, i don't have one. this is about as close to a perfect album – not just in the sense of having no weak tracks, but having no tracks that are even notably weaker than any of the others – as i can think of in recent memory (a strange arrangement, my post-facto #1 of 2009, fits this bill too.) which isn't to say to say that all of the tracks are perfect: indeed, i could probably point to distinct, frequently lovable imperfections in just about every one. (that's called idiosyncrasy, and it's a large part of the appeal...though admittedly it's not nearly on the level of, say, kanye west.)

just at the moment, though, i'm having trouble coming up with anything that's particularly imperfect about "alley cats." it's not especially good for dancing to. joe isn't a technically brilliant singer. the words are quizzical and often hard to make linear sense of... but in this context, that last is actually a decidedly good thing (and probably the previous one too) – the lyrics feel warm and thoughtful and personal and as full of odd inscrutable private codes and pet references as an intimate chat between two lovers.)

one life stand, from its title on down, is overflowing with fresh, simple, unexpected and economical figurative yet immediate ways of talking about love, and this song has several: "we wear each others heads like hats"; "you painted a song...and now it is in my lungs"; the wonderfully succinct list of why people are like unhappy cats ("restless, needs attention, loses patience, seeks affection.") also, this song, like the album in general, recognizes that love is not only about two people: there are also pets, and parents, and plants, and even pop bands ("do you dig germs?"), and a whole lifetime full of those things together, even when the things you love want to kill one another, all of that, all together, is what makes up a life of love. that's all.

So I think it's time for us to have a post...

ok, here it is. 115+ tracks of pure, mashed-up 2010 dance bangers, from ~100 bpm all the way up to ~95, in just under 80 minutes.

download it here (it's just one long track, though if you want it broken up for some reason i might get around to doing that at some point...) or you can stream it below. tracklist is down there too, but don't read ahead if you want to be surprised...

it's time to cut a rug:



WELL, OBVIOUSLY WE HAVE A TRACKLIST IN MINCING PARK (spoiler alert!):
0. Cornelius / 2010
1. Four Tet / Angel Echoes
2. Kanye West / Runaway
3. Houses / Soak It Up
4. LCD Soundsystem / Dance Yrself Clean
5. Javelin / Vibrationz
6. The Books / The Story of Hip Hop
7. Big Boi / Shutterbug
8. RJD2 / Let There Be Horns
9. D'eon / Recession Proof ($40 Paycheque)
10. Gil Scott-Heron /New York Is Killing Me
11. Aloe Blacc / I Need a Dollar
12. Mayer Hawthorne / No Strings
13. Rihanna ft. D.R.A.K.E. / What's My Name?
14. Nicki Minaj / Your Love
15. YG / Toot It And Boot It
16. Los Rakas / Abrazame [Uproot Andy Remix]
17. Gyptian / Hold Yuh
18. Holy Fuck / Latin America
19. Liz Phair / Bollywood
20. Escort / Cocaine Blues
21. The Black Keys / Tighten Up
22. B.o.B ft. Bruno Mars / Nothin' On You // Nothin' On You [Villains remix]
23. Matthew Dear / You Put A Smell On Me
24. Sia / The Fight
25. Alphabeat / The Spell
26. Eli "Paperboy" Reed and the True Loves / Name Calling
27. Azari and III / Reckless With Your Love [Tensnake Remix]
28. Lindstrom and Christabelle / Baby Can't Stop
29. Marina and the Diamonds / Shampain
30. Copy / Real Scared
31. M.I.A. ft. Jay-Z / XXXO [Fulton Yard/Waltboogie Remix]
32. Daft Punk / Derezzed
33. Diskjøkke / Big Flash
34. The Arcade Fire / Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
35. The Books / I Didn't Know That
36. Taio Cruz / Dynamite
37. Caribou / Bowls
38. Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce / Telephone
39. Gorillaz / Stylo [Alex Metric Remix]
40. Ratatat / Drugs
41. Nas and Damian Marley / As We Enter
42. Tensnake / Coma Cat
43. Ke$ha / Tik Tok
44. VV Brown / Everybody
45. Bjørn Torske / Bergensere
46. Clive Tanaka Y Su Orquesta / Neu Chicago
47. the cast of "Glee" / Teenage Dream
48. Storm Queen / Look Right Through // [dub version]
49. The Roots / How I Got Over
50. Delorean / Real Love
51. Tanlines / Real Life
52. The Chemical Brothers / Swoon
53. Soulja Boy / Pretty Boy Swag
54. School of Seven Bells / Heart Is Strange
55. Robyn / Don't Fucking Tell Me What To Do
56. Sky Ferreira / One
57. Yeasayer / O.N.E.
58. Swedish House Mafia / One
59. Katy Perry / California Gurls
60. Far East Movement ft. Cataracs / Like a G6
61. Hot Chip / Hand Me Down Your Love
62. Hot Chip / I Feel Better
63. LCD Soundsystem / Pow Pow
64. Robyn / Dancing On My Own [Fred Falke Mix] // [Chew Fu Extended Remix] // [J-Wow/Buraka Som Sistema Smoked Summer Remix]
65. Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP / We No Speak Americano
66. R2Bees ft. Wande Coal / Kiss Your Hand
67. Shakira / Waka Waka (Esto Es África)
68. Jusa Dementor / African Air Horn Dance
69. ceo / Come With Me
70. Cee-Lo / Fuck You
71. Duck Sauce / Barbara Streisand
72. Kylie Minogue / Put Your Hands Up
72. Wiley and Chew Fu / Take That
73. The Russian Futurists / Hoeing Weeds Sowing Seeds
74. Kingdom / Bust Broke
75. Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris / Baby
76. Joe / Claptrap
77. Malachai / Snowflake
78. Sleigh Bells / A/B Machines
79. Dominique Young Unique / Show My Ass
80. DJ Zinc Ft. Ms. Dynamite / Wile Out
81. Ramadanman / Work Them
82. Vampire Weekend / Giving Up The Gun
83. An Horse / Camp Out [R.A.C. Mix]
84. Katy B / Katy On A Mission
85. Kingdom ft. Shyvonne / Mind Reader
86. Rick Ross / B.M.F.
87. Girl Unit / Wut
88. Ludacris / How Low?
89. Major Lazer vs. La Roux ft. Candy Redd / Independent Kill
90. Jonsí / Boy Lilikoi
91. Yelawolf / Good To Go
92. Belle & Sebastian / I Want The World To Stop
93. Die Antwoord / Enter The Ninja
94. Janelle Monae / Cold War
95. The Gregory Brothers and Antoine Dodson / Bed Intruder Song
96. Kanye West / POWER
97. Sleigh Bells / Rill Rill
98. Drake / Over
99. The National / Bloodbuzz Ohio
100. Willow Smith / Whip My Hair
101. Wiz Khalifa / Black and Yellow
102. Taylor Swift / Mean
103. Nicki Minaj / Did It On 'Em
104. Grovesnor / Turn Your Radio Up
105. The New Pornographers / Moves
106. Rihanna / Rude Boy
107. Scissor Sisters / Whole New Way
108. Bonobo / Kiara
109. Sade / Soldier of Love
110. The Knife with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock / The Colouring of Pigeons
111. Iyaz / Replay
112. Free Energy / Bang Pop
113. Liz Phair / Bang! Bang!
114. Mark Ronson ft MNDR & Q-Tip / Bang Bang Bang
115. Gold Panda / You
116. Javelin / Intervales Theme
"I like your beard" - Ke$ha

i've been making these year-end megamixes for five years now, and i really think this is the best i've ever done. it's probably the most consistently danceable; it's nicely varied and pretty well-balanced stylewise [with a fun and unanticipated abundance of clapping songs]; it's relatively technically smooth [my latest mixmethod – recording each track "live" in traktor separately and then importing the results into garageband for editing – adopted for the first time here mostly out of necessity – worked out really nicely and was surprisingly quick and easy, not that that stopped me from obsessively tweaking and fussing with things after the fact] and, in particular, it has a lot of extended blends that i really enjoy (many of which suggest mashy titles that make we want to break this down into individual tracks, like Coma Ke$ha, Swoon Swag, and my hands-down favorite, Snow My Ass, Babyflake.) even if it does get pretty out of control in the last ten-fifteen minutes, as i tried to cram in probably way too many of the still unused tracks on my must-use list.

i also like how it reflects certain extra-musical aspects of 2010, such as the continued ravages of the recession [tracks 9-11], the african world cup/vuvuzelathon [tracks 66-68], the ascendancy of glee [trk 47], and the [relative] absence of lil wayne.

i could probably go on about this mix for quite a while, but ultimately i think it probably more or less speaks for itself. i do, though, want to quickly acknowledge a couple of my sources for finding all these amazing songs... most of these inclusions were already favorites well before i started mixing, but part of the fun of putting these things together is also poking around and trying to find some things i might have missed. this year the resident advisor top 50 tracks list was particularly helpful and intriguing... tipped me off to "work them" and "claptrap," both of which i have been enjoying tremendously both in the context of this mix and outside. (i really should figure out a way to follow these things better...) the singles jukebox, a regular haunt of mine, was where i initially discovered plenty of these, most notably "take that" and "wile out," which have been solid faves all year, as well as "katy on a mission" and "toot it and boot it" (h/t to bedbugs for reminding me of the latter.) lastly, gregzinho, by special request, clued me in to "kiss your hand" and "abrazame (uproot andy rmx)" and also put in a good word for "we no speak americano," which probably wouldn't have made it otherwise. so, thanks guys! (and thanks jeff for getting me to shoehorn in "dynamite." wouldn't be the same without it.)