Mike Sholars
Features Editor
I am addicted to pop culture. I started young: Power Rangers, He-Man, Super Mario World, Big Willie Style. The times changed and I changed with them – I went from borrowing Archie Comics to buying graphic novels, and from fervently reading Blender to casually browsing Pitchfork. I can’t get through the day without dropping a Simpsons reference, and I have a 250-gigabyte hard drive solely for storing my music.
An addiction like mine can be problematic at times, but this past year, it’s been nothing but a blessing; 2010 was an excellent year for music, movies, books and video games. This is by no means a conclusive list, but everything here is absolutely worth checking out.
Here’s to 2011: may I remain a stunted man-child for another glorious year of consumer whoring.
The Roots –How I got over
The Roots are possibly the most talented musicians working today. Their fans know it, Jimmy Fallon sure as hell knows it, and this album makes the strongest argument for their raw talent and skill. Coming off of dark, angry and politicized albums like Game Theory and Rising Down, How I Got Over represents an excellent return to the lounge-friendly jams that brought The Roots their popularity in the ’90s.
And what a jam it is; the album plays like one long set, with tracks bleeding perfectly into each other. Where Rising Down was a story of anger and frustration about the modern black experience, Got Over is a story of new beginnings and renewed hope. Also, it’s got the best use of a Joanna Newsom sample we’re likely to ever hear in a song ever again. Don’t let their (substantial) hip-hop cred fool you; The Roots are for everyone who likes good music, period. Don’t miss out on this one.
Listen to these tracks: “Radio Daze,” “Right On,” “How I Got Over”
Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record
Oh, Canada. How do you critique our national supergroup? The sprawling jam band, with a rotating roster that hovers around 20 members at the best of times, hasn’t been in the business of making neat-and-tidy albums since… ever. While this newest album is cleaner than their self-titled 2005 LP, it still retains the mess and chaos that BSS fans have come to expect from the hometown heroes.
While all the songs still have a ten- dency to dissolve into a sonic soup, the melodies are strong and the lyrics are comprehensible. With cameos from members of Metric, Stars, Death from Above 1979 and Pavement, the album feels very much like Kevin Drew invited his musicians friends over for a jam session and recorded the results. Hell, I’ve seen their live show: that’s prob- ably exactly what happened. It works wonders though, and there’s enough depth in the record to keep you listening for another five years.
Listen to these tracks: “Art House Director,” “Forced to Love”
Fang Island -Fang Island
How do you describe music like this? The band itself has described its sound as “everyone high-fiving everyone.” A friend of mine, after first hearing the album, simply said “This is the kind of music that made me start listening to music in the first place.”
To throw my own description into the ring, listening to the Brooklyn- based indie rock group is like being slapped in the face with a confetti-filled balloon; it pops, it’s loud and you know a party is probably about to start. They play with passion, they scream like (impressively talented) children, and they know how to string together catchy melodies. This album makes you feel like you can accomplish things, and that your deeds will be worthy of a parade upon their completion. Listen to the whole thing in one sitting, but don’t expect to remain seated.
Listen to these tracks: “Sideswiper,” “Careful Crossers”
Sleigh Bells- Treats
The guitarist and the school teacher: who knew they’d be a match made in hipster heaven? This unlikely duo, brought together by the mysterious musical forces at play in Brooklyn, dropped their first album in the spring after months of online releases. Upon first hearing a track from the group, many people check their speakers for damage. The band’s blown-out, distorted power pop demands the attention of everyone in the vicinity, and the result is another album that simply feels fun. What the album lacks in subtlety it makes up for in volume and enthusiasm. Goes well with alcohol.
Listen to these tracks: “Crown on the Ground,” “Rill Rill”
Ratatat- LP4
These two gentlemen know how to make a beat. Fans have known it for years, and the New York-based duo gained mainstream recognition through collaborations with Kid Cudi. This album represents an interesting fusion of styles represented in their catalogue: it keeps the dance-party atmosphere from their first two albums, and integrates the inclination towards world music the band exhibited on LP3 without dipping into the darker tone of that same record. The result is a great record to just have playing in the background, regardless of the situation. Warning: this album may become the soundtrack of your day- to-day life.
Listen to these tracks: “Bare Feast,” “Grape Juice City”
Cee-Lo Green – The lady killer & stray bullets
Let’s clear the air: “Fuck You” is the best track of the year. The song was a revelation; it had a pitch-perfect Motown feel, but with the right amount of lyrical snap (and cussing) for a modern audience. That perfect mix of classic soul and modern sensibilities dominates the entirety of The Lady Killer. Every track is a showcase of Cee-Lo Green’s amazing range, his masterful beat selection, and some genuinely surprising song choices; he pulls off an excellent cover of Band of Horses’ folk-rock love anthem, “No One’s Gonna Love You.”
In every way that Lady Killer is a co-herent and streamlined package, Stray Bullets, the mix tape Green released online last spring, is a wonderful eclectic mess. This isn’t just a B-sides collection for Lady Killer, because the songs aren’t even thematically similar. This is Green at his weirdest, and everyone wins.
Take, for instance, the song “Cho Cha the Cat,” a four-minute vagina metaphor featuring the B-52s. If that isn’t enough, the mixtape showcases a side of Green that has been obscured for too long: his rapper side. “Night Train” is a reunion track for his old rap group The Goodie Mob, and it was worth the wait. Buy one, download the other, and listen to them back-to-back. This isn’t a suggestion, as much as it is an explicit order.
Listen to these tracks: “No One’s Gonna Love You,” “Fuck You,” “You Don’t Shock Me Anymore,” “Night Train”
Ear Worms
Songs that even alcohol can’t flush out of your brain
Willow Smith – “Whip My Hair”
Even by reading the title, the chorus is now playing in your head over and over. This is some high-level subliminal messaging; I am being overcome by the urge to get extensions, dip them in paint and just… I don’t know, paint a whole goddamn room with my flowing locks.
Far East Movement – “Like a G6”
Fun fact: the “G6” referenced in the song is the Gulfstream G650, a twin- turbine jet plane nearing the end of its development cycle at Gulfstream Aerospace. Sometimes, I like to pretend that the song is a PhD thesis comparing the new plane to its predecessor, the G550, or “G5.” The illusion never lasts, though, and I’m left trying to figure out how to properly spell “slizzered” and “syzzurp.”
Cali Swag District – “Teach Me How to Dougie”
Maybe I’m being unfair. It’s obvious that this song was not destined to be the Avatar of Southern rap songs; the music video looks like it was shot in a parking lot on a refurbished cell phone camera, and that’s because it most likely was. The beat sounds like a drummer having the world’s most boring seizure, and the lyrics sound like a creative reading of an ESL textbook. I’m kicking a (dirty south) dog when it’s down, but I don’t care; Soulja Boy opened the floodgates for these dollar-store “instructional dance” songs years ago, and this is simply the worst offender of 2010.
Singled out · best tracks
Kanye West – “Monster”
The entire album is stellar, but you already knew that. Kanye West continues to be an asshole-savant, but you already knew that, too. What you might not have known is that Nicky Minaj drops the best verse of the entire year on this track, and makes Jay-Z sound old and busted in the process.
Grum – “Heartbeats”
This track sounds more like Daft Punk than anything Daft Punk released this year (my apologies to the Tron fan in the audience), and it’s finally starting to get some recognition in the club circuit. It makes you want to dance, and it does so in the purest way: by being a great song. A word to the wise – YouTube is littered with extended remixes of this song, but the album version (this is the title track of said album) is the definitive cut, and worth seek- ing out.
Aloe Blacc – “I Need A Dollar”
The song so good that it was used as the theme song to HBO’s How to Make it in America nine months before the actual album was released, Aloe Blacc deserves every bit of hype this song generates. It sounds like something found in the burned-out basement of Motown Records, con- tinuing the pleasing resurgence of Neo-Soul we’ve seen this year. Blacc’s December performance of this song with The Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon only cemented his place as an artist to watch.
