Monday Mixtape 03/08/2009

Well well well if it isn't the unwelcome return of the Monday Mixtape. Today's theme, as I sit here surprisingly sweaty for a British Summer, is Summer and the Sun. Original? I thought so.

DATE: 03/08/2009
THEME: Summer
LENGTH: 38:56, 10 tracks

1. BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE - Looks Just Like The Sun (4:23) (You Forgot It In People, Arts & Crafts 2002)
2. GRANDADDY - Summer Here Kids (3:36) (Under The Western Freeway, V2 1997)
3. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - Summertime Clothes (4:30) (Merriweather Post Pavillion, Domino 2009)
4. FLEET FOXES - Sun It Rises (3:11) (Fleet Foxes, Sub Pop 2008)
5. JUNIOR BOYS - Under The Sun (7:02) (Last Exit, Domino 2004)
6. DJ JAZZY JEFF & THE FRESH PRINCE - Summertime (4:29) (Homebase, Jive 1991)
7. THE KINKS - Sunny Afternoon (3:35) (Face To Face, Pye 1966)
8. PAVEMENT - Summer Babe (Winter Version) (3:16) (Slanted & Enchanted, Matador 1992)
9. THE LIBERTINES - Don't Look Back Into The Sun (2:59) (single, Rough Trade 2003)
10. MORECAMBE & WISE - Bring Me Sunshine (1:55)

So, this list kind of sucks and was made by searching for tracks with "sun" and "summer" in them. I was going to ditch this but it made me realise that there's a Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince album called "Homebase", which for fans of DIY, is amazing.

What other people thought of 2008

Yeah, 2009's only five days old, and while there is still an Animal Collective album to look forward to (more of that later), I'm still going to dwell in the past a little bit and take a look at what other people and websites said were the defining albums of the year 2008 AD...

Drowned In Sound
top 50
DIS' top 50, while devoid of Kings Of The Hill, sorry, Kings Of Leon's polished pop work of Only By The Night, that "one who is better than Winehouse, oh no wait chasing what?" Adele and just-simply-really-bloody-annoying Ting Tings, the list is still fairly predictable. A mixture of the highly popular (MGMT in at 38), the unknown (Shearwater at 16) and the critics choice that no one listened to (Gang Gang Dance). So here is the top 5:

1. M83 - Saturdays = Youth
2. Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
3. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
4. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus!!! Dig!!!
5. Deerhunter - Microcastle
   

Oh and then they topped of the list with a distinctly average album that was made by a Frenchman. Crazy.

Fake DIY
top 10
Rather than the full-staff faffing of a top 50, instead, editor-in-chief Stephen Ackroyd simply lists his 10 favourites, reminding us that this is based on enjoyment rather than technical ability. Here's the top 5:

1. Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up 'Til It Was Light
2. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
3. TV On The Radio – Dear Science
4. Los Campesinos! - We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
5. Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke

If you are a regular reader of Fake DIY (and if you aren't, you should be) then you will know how refreshingly un-pretentious their approach to music is - they aren't there to "out-indie" anyone and know what they like when it comes to Indie-pop.

Pitchfork Media
top 50 staff picks
Benchmark for critical perfection and absolute pretention, Pitchfork combined both of the approaches of DiS and Fake DIY by having staffers do individual lists as well as an overall top 50. So I'm going to be lazy and look at their top 50. Here's the top 5:

1. Fleet Foxes - Sun Giant EP/Fleet Foxes
2. Portishead - Third
3. No Age - Nouns
4. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
5. Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.

Somewhat predicatable perhaps? Although the entire top 50, if you are a regular reader, pretty much is. Except Hercules & Love Affair at 9. No one could have predicted that.

NME
top 10
Where Pitchfork could be the last word in serious music journalism, NME is surely the last word in embarassing indie "gossip" and tabloid style "build them up and knock them down" journalism. See: Doherty & Winehouse's indefinite inclusion in every NME article ever, until they release a new album when they'll be everywhere else, too. Once again, the list is somewhat predictable:

1. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
2. TV On The Radio - Dear Science
3. Glasvegas - Glasvegas
4. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
5. Foals - Antidotes

The way they went on about Glasvegas, the only shock is that NME didn't put them at every position in the top 10 and be done with it. I have yet to meet anyone who is a fan of any of their songs, let alone the album, but hey, I could be in the wrong, right? I mean, its not like the record companies give NME money to talk about their bands is it, that would be crazy.

Metacritic
best of 2008 list
A brilliant website for simply collating what all those dirty journos think and condensing their answers into a single number. I sound bitter, but I'm really not. Honest. Their "end of year" feature is therefore as mathematical and neutral and a swiss alarm clock, and simply lists all the albums of the year in order of their metacritic score. Of course, this leads to some, odd (?) results.

1. Amadou & Mariam - Welcome To Mali
2. The Bug - London Zoo
3. Plush - Fed
4. TV On The Radio - Dear Science
5. Shugo Tokumaru - Exit

50 indie points if you've even heard of all those albums (TVOTR aside). 5000 if you own them all.

Last.fm
best of 2008
Last.fm (or audioscrobbler to us veterans) is the opposite of metacritic's narrow journo-based critical maths and instead simply has the top 10 listened to albums, artists and tracks of 2008 by users of their website. If you are or have ever been a member, you'll probably know that everyone listens to Radiohead and Coldplay on this website. Even if you don't have them in your library, your scores will be tallied with everyone elses. So:

1. Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
2. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
3. Portishead - Third
4. Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV
5. The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing

Coldplay and MGMT shared the honours with most listened to track (Viva la Vida) and most listened to new artist respectively.


So, Cut Copy and TV On The Radio appeared 3 times each in these lists, and I suppose could be declared to be the "winners". Interesting. No, really, it is.

So thats what everyone else thought. I would ask for your opinion, but I probably wouldn't take it on board. Instead, read what I thought and disagree silently.

Or if you like to feel like part of one huge great slushy cloud of loveliness and oooh glasvegas b-sides wow they are like, almost as good as the kaiser chefs!!!111 i luv dem, stay clean pete!111

then NME.

SATISFACTORY ALBUMS OF TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT

The late late edition. I'm getting worse and worse at keeping up with this. I could blame many things for this. The current state of the Middle East, for example, distracting me from listening to new music and instead relying on my musical library to cheer me up. Everyone current excuse of "y'know, the credit crunch and all that" which, if I hear as a phrase one more time (even in the form of the BBC's cautiously optimistic "economic downturn" complete with mainly downward facing arrows) I'm gonna scream.

I could also blame the mountains of university which I have also clearly not completed, even a small amount, or the endless hours of shifting sportswear to the ironically overweight for pennys. But in reality, I'm just lazy. 2009 is ages away, I said to myself, why worry about it now? Erm...bugger.

So here it is, my Top 15 (extra 5 from last year!) especially for you jolly good people that I banged out in about 15 minutes between getting home, eating my dinner and procrastining until the red dawn light. Enjoy:

15: Atlas Sound - Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
14: No Age - Nouns
13: Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
12: Portishead - Third
11: Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend Review

10: Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow & Blue Review
9: Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
8: Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles Review
7: Santogold - Santogold
6: British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music? Review

5: MGMT - Oracular Spectacular Review
4: Beck - Modern Guilt

3:

Foals - Antidotes
While my review didnt take particularly kindly to this album back in April, it has worked its way back to my affections on repeat play alone. There is something to be said about an album that I could sit there and listen to quite comfortably on more than one occasion. For a while it was my "go to" album of choice - what you listen when you can't think of anything else and are too impatient to use the shuffle function.

In April I criticised it, rightly, for not featuring Foals' two best tracks. Namely "Hummer" and "Mathletics"

2:

Deerhunter - Microcastles/Weird Era Cont.
Bradford Cox's second entry on this list, and none more deserved than for this fantastic album of shoegaze, noise and lo-fi perfection, with Weird Era Cont. winning the prize for best bonus disc of any album, possibly ever. But don't just take my word for it, read the original review here for the thoughts of me just one month ago. (or scroll down a bit)

1:

Metronomy - Nights Out
Joseph Mount's follow up to wonky debut Pip Paine finds his former solo moniker now including live partners Oscar Cash and Gabriel Stebbing this time around. And while the album has failed to reach the chart success it should, tracks such as "My Heart Rate Rapid" and "Heartbreaker" have proved dancefloor hits of their own.

If nothing else, Nights Out has blended pop themes and sensibilities with minimalist beats and an aching, awkward dancefloor noise.
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