Youtube Mashup

(via boingboing)

Siiiiick mashup artist, Kutiman, takes his samples from youtube clips. Be sure to check out the other vids in his "Through You" series.

It's Valentine's Day, So Why Not?

Clever vid featuring the j-pop/rock band Base Ball Bear. The bassist, Shiori Sekine, is the bassist in the movie, Linda Linda Linda (which is sick!). Subtitles rule:

Dummy!

I'm really lucky to have the friends I've got because it means I have an ever-present source of music-related news to consume and (sometimes) slowly digest. As a result, I don't travel very deep into the realm of the blogo-music-sphere. In fact, it's not uncommon for me to miss shit by months or years. And unfortunately, I have lots of facepalm moments where I am introduced or stumble across a sick act that I then realize I had heard about and passed up just months earlier, or sometimes years earlier. So yeah, this post is about Andrew W.K.

Well, I guess it's not totally about him. It's about how his first album, I Get Wet scared me away with its drippiness and I only just last week started to regret it. I kind of started to get a clue that all was not as it (bloody) seemed when I went to see Ted Leo & Rx's karaoke night and a super down-to-earth and all around nice guy Andrew W.K. was emceeing the event. Then the awesome Disgrasian blog posted about an album of j-pop cover songs. I should go ahead and just quote the man from his website:

I had never really heard music like this… At first it was hard for me to believe that these were the biggest hit songs in Japan - they sound so different from hit songs in the western world. But as I learned the songs and translated the lyrics, I fell in love with them and understood their appeal.

The album? It's effing awesome. Produced for the Japanese market, the thing unfortunately doesn't have distribution stateside. However, with some digging, you may be able to find it. And when you do, you'll find that j-pop standards translate super well into Andrew W.K.'s brand of party-metal. And once you've finished listening to the thing on repeat for a day or two, you may find like I did, that you have an itch to search out the source material. Which brings me to part 2 of this post: The Blue Hearts, who's track, Linda Linda, is included on AWK's cover album.


Debuting with their self-titled album in 1987, these guys apparently enjoyed some pretty mainstream success, with a couple of their songs even becoming classics (read: karaoke staples). Being a relative late-comer to the punk genre, I'll admit right here that I haven't got a very comprehensive understanding of punk history... but I can tell you that these guys are sick as hell. Lasting for 8 years and 7 albums has to count for something, right? There's also something to be said about having a movie written about a group of school girls learning to play covers of your punk songs. Anyway, on to the obligatory youtube embed:

Did you think I'd leave you without a tangible (audible?) sample of The Blue Hearts awesomeness? You were wrong.

Linda Linda - Andrew W.K.
Linda Linda - The Blue Hearts

Tonight

One of the cool things about working on this blog is occasionally hearing shit before it becomes two or more years old. Example: Lykke Li in 2008.

And then I get to do follow-up video-posts with like new music vids or some shit:


Lykke Li - Tonight from Lykke Li on Vimeo.

Our Very Own Amazian

For those of you who have never read the Disgrasian blog, do it now. It's okay, I'll wait.

So now that you have a taste of greatness, you'll probably feel almost as proud as I do for having our very own Bobby "The Biz'Ness"* Lin get a "Rock of Asian" music submission printed. On top of the usual "Thanks, [your name here]!" the boy got additional big ups in the story itself. Double proud!

And for the record, he did consider posting the David Choi thing for this site but felt it was a bit old and out of character, so it's okay.

*not a real nickname

Ted "the one that says bad motherfucker" Leo & the "hopefully won't mind getting compared to the roots" Pharmacists

On Wednesday, December 3, 2008, two things of note happened. The first, which is probably not so interesting to any of you, is that for the first time, I forgot to pay my credit card bill for the month. Shit.

The second, is that Ted Leo & the Pharmacists played a gig in Brooklyn called Indie Rock Karaoke, hosted by Andrew W.K.

THAT was a fucking trip. Featuring three hours of covers, sung by the audience and backed by Ted & the Pharmacists. Songs by the Stooges, the Ramones, the Misfits, AC/DC, the Cure, the Clash, Joy Division, David Bowie, Blondie, Minor Threat, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Steely Dan, and others. They even let tons of people switch songs and do their songs: a Colleen from the audience perform their song Colleen and a dude successfully requested to sing Where Have all the Rudeboys Gone even though it was already played earlier in the night.

Coolest songs? Aretha Franklin's Respect (voted best performance of the night by Andrew W.K.) and the Outfield's Your Love:



In case you forgot how that song went... link

Triple Threat

1. Is Q-tip done being pretentious? I'm not entirely sure, but Getting Up sounds miiiiighty nostalgic.

2. Anyone remember Common on Armand Van Helden's Full Moon joint? Well, the Universal Mind Control's electro groove is probably as close as dude will get to doing another house track (click through as embedding's been disabled).

3. Back when Black on Both Sides dropped, I remember listening to New World Water and thinking, shit, did Mos take ISF16 too? As supplementary material to my Cal course on technology and globalization, the track was totally on point. Mathematics is the new New World Water.

Canon Rock Revisited

Yo. Enoch claims I spend too much time wasting time on Youtube. But come on. You gotta love it when it keeps on keeping you mesmerized with the same shit, better and awesomer.

Oh, the Tyranny of Distance

Every summer, there are a number of concert series throughout the city of New York. River-to-River is a good one that features all free shows (I think). I remember seeing Rahzel & The New Deal perform together at one of their shows a few years back. Last Thursday, I hopped on the train and headed down to Battery Park to catch Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, described in The New Yorker as "heroes of the underground." I should have known, though, that the underground splits into numerous subterranean caves. While some of the inhabitants seem familliar, much of what's out there does seem foreign and uninviting.

Thursday, I found myself knee-deep in just such an underground body of water. A veritable sea of twenty and thirty somethings, reeking of for-the-sake-of-irony irony and malicious, self-serving condescention. Please don't stop reading, though, before you understand that I'm not trying to rag on the awesome Ted Leo & the Pharmacists. They were brilliant.


And the show was great. They played a terrific set, mixing old standards with all-new material. According to whitestrpsrock (since I'm horrible with Ted Leo+Rx song titles):

Heart Problems / New Song / Me and Mia / Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone? / New Song / Hearts of Oak / The One Who Got Us Out / Counting Down the Hours / Little Dawn / New - "There Goes My Brain" / New - "Gimme the Rock" / Annunciation Day/Born on Christmas Day / Bomb. Repeat. Bomb. / New Song / Bottle of Buckie / The Unwanted Things / Who Do You Love? / The World is in the Turlet / New - "Last Days" // Timorous Me / Hybrid Moments (Misfits cover) / Fisherman's Blues (The Waterboys cover)

While the stage was a little low, killing the view for anyone farther back than the third row, I did get a couple shots (of tiny Ted).


But back to the subject at hand, what pissed me off were the folks. I've never been more creeped out by a sub-section of society. Not by the punks, not by the goths, not by the preps.... Here's an exchange I overheard at the show:

Guy: Someone left a message on my myspace saying I should come to California and bring the whole band along. I checked her profile and our band is listed as her NUMBER ONE FRIEND!

Girl1: OMG.

Girl2: What a loooser!

Guy: I know!

All: condescending hipster laughter

Fuck a pack of ungrateful hipster musicians. Long live Ted Leo & the Pharmacists.

No Way to Ignore This One

The interesting thing about Weezer is that while they sometimes just get so damn boring, they sometimes also get so damn awesome. Over the years, my love for Weezer has waxed and waned with more irregularity than other perennial up-and-downers (i.e. Busta Rhymes). Currently, however, Weezer is enjoying an extended stay in my good graces. While the last album, the Rick Rubin-produced "Make Believe", received low scores from the critics, I loved (most of) it.

Consider that your disclaimer. Oh, here's another one: Pitchfork hated the red album. You've been warned. Are you willing to continue with me into the depths of Weezer/Youtube nerdom?

Pork & Beans (sorry, embedding was disabled post-post)

The fact that I love this video will come as no surprise to those that know me and know how much time I waste on YouTube (ok, well, maybe only Enoch and my girlfriend know that about me). But srysly. This mishmash of all the best(/worst?) that YouTube has to offer is just so badass. In fact, I think it deserves an annotated guide, cut by cut (w/a couple updated edits):

0:00 Funtwo's Canon Rock room reference

0:14 others claim: Split screen reminiscent of One Man Band (what?)

0:16 Numa Numa Guy (Gary Brolsma) 1st appearance

0:17 Ronald Jenkees reference in upper right frame

0:19 Dramatic Chipmunk group appearance/spoof

0:23 Afro Ninja (Mark Allen Hicks) 1st appearance

0:28 back to Canon Rock room

0:31 Diet Coke & Mentos reference

0:37 G.I. Joe Gay & Guy Catches Glasses With Face reference (tshirt sports Charlie the unicorn)

0:41 Mentos experiments again

0:47 Most T-shirts Worn (Matt McAllister) spoof, the tshirts also reference the references in the video: prarie dog, gi joe, pbj time, etc...

0:52 Mentos again

0:56 more Afro Ninja

0:59 Britney Defender, Chris Crocker 1st appearance

1:04 All Your Base Are Belong to Us

1:07 Mentos

1:10 Miss South Carolina (Lauren Caitlin Upton) 1st appearance

1:13 Lightsaber (no specific reference) 1st appearance

1:16 Numa Numa guy again (lyrical reference, too)

1:24 3 Guys doing the Soulja Boy dance

1:26 Evolution of Dance guy (Judson Laipply) appearance

1:30 Chocolate Rain singer (Tay Zonday) 1st appearance/video reference

1:37 Chocolate Rain video reference again

1:39 K-Fed's Popozao video footage

1:44 Tay Zonday again

1:47 Daft Hands (Austin Hall) appearance

1:52 Daft Bodies appearance/spoof (that Enoch showed us)

1:57 more tshirts

1:59 more Mentos

2:04 more Tay Zonday

2:06 Kiscie's Sex Ed reference/appearance

2:08 Afro Ninja back for more

2:11 Afro Ninja + classic Bruce Lee pose & camera zoom

2:12 Chris Crocker again

2:14 Mentos

2:18 Chris Crocker

2:20 Mentos

2:22 Chris Crocker & Tay Zonday playing with Mentos

2:24 more Daft Hands

2:28 Shoes crossdresser (Liam Sullivan) appearance/spoof

2:36 Chris Crocker

2:37 A room filled with everyone, plus appearances of: Sneezing Panda, Ryan & Dorkman, Mocap Donald Duck , mocap gorillas (King Kongs, according to Wikipedia), & the Haiti UFO

2:42 Afro ninja pulls the mask off of a ninja assailant to reveal...

2:43 Peanut Butter Jelly Time banana!!

2:44 back to the room with everyone

2:47 Evolution of Dance guy again

2:48 Numa Numa guy again

2:51 the room & alot of rubiks cubes on a desk

2:53 in the big room w/ Miss South Carolina and a Blendtec "Will it Blend" Blender, and Charlie the Unicorn appears in the background

2:54 Dramatic Chipmunk spoof again

2:57 the big room again

2:59 IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!!! b/w the Evolution of Dance guy's worm, feat. Daft Bodies

3:01 Tay again

3:04 the big room again

3:07 back to Mentos

3:14 end

Busting a Bus

I didn't really know anything about rap or hip hop growing up in New York City. It wasn't until I moved to the edge of Queens and started attending school in Long Island that I was confronted with Kriss Kross talent show performances and MC Hammer imitations by everyone and anyone who had the good fortune to need to tell someone to stop (hammertime) doing anything.

But one of the first music videos I ever watched on TV as a kid was Woo-Haa!! It showed up on that really fuzzy channel called The Box about once every hour. It was mesmerizing. But being the pre-napster age, once the video stopped getting airtime and (later) The Box vanished from the television set, I went back to listening to Ace of Base bootleg tapes.

It wasn't until I joined up with high school Track that the era of music sharing dawned in my life. Most people carried a short list of items in their bags to meets: running spikes/flats, sports drink of choice, a book they won't read, & CDs. Favorite pump-up album that I owned: The Offspring's self-titled album. Favorite pump-up album that I regularly borrowed: Busta Rhymes' Extinction Level Event.

Today I heard a track that took me back to those pre-apocalyptic days of The Coming, When Disaster Strikes, and E.L.E. It's called "Don't Touch Me" and it's sick.

Confessions

I haven't listened to 10 new albums that I liked enough to compile into a best-of list this year. In fact, there are only 5 that I can truly endorse from 2007. So with no other fanfare, I present to you my "Top 5 Albums of 2007" list:

Runner-up: Graduation - Kanye West
I really liked this. But couldn't put it in my list because I only listened to it maybe twice. I don't know any of the track titles. I can't even tell you what that song with the Daft Punk beat is called.

#5 OK - Zhang Zheng Yue
This Taiwanese singer/songwriter has eschewed the badboy rock and put out a new album featuring a mix of R&B-infused tracks hearkening back to his days of writing exclusively love ballads.

#4 Ronald Jenkees - Ronald Jenkees
The young gentleman in coke bottle glasses displayed his skill with a keyboard on Youtube. Now you can check out his FL chops on his first album, available on his website and in iTunes.


#3 Ultimate Victory - Chamillionaire
I haven't been listening to much hip-hop in general lately, and it's a testament to this fact that Chamillionaire was the only one all year to sustain my attention long enough for me to listen to an album all the way through. I'm glad, too, because this album was hot.


#2 Seimeiryoku - Chatmonchy
When I had $70 left in my checking account, I spent $38 to special order this album at Kinokuniya. I'm an idiot, but Chatmonchy is J-Pop perfection.


#1 Yours to Keep - Albert Hammond Jr.
You might think that this one isn't from 2007 as it's absent from pretty much every internet-music-blog-year-end-best-of-list... but it is! Lucky for me, because this is one of my favorite albums in recent memory.


And so there you have it. Kind of a small round-up though, innit? So I've prepared a second list. I put the year each album was released in parenthesis, so you know how hard you need to mock me for each individual item... Yup, "Top 10 Albums I Listened to for the First Time in 2007":


#10 Jarvis - Jarvis Cocker (2006)


#9 Classics - Ratatat (2006)


#8 Inhuman Rampage - DragonForce (2006)


#7 American Idiot - Green Day (2004)


#6 Sam's Town - The Killers (2006)


#5 Elements Pt. 1 - Stratovarius (2003)


#4 Fantasia - Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra (2004)


#3 Atmosphere - You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having (2005)


#2 Black Holes & Revelations - Muse (2006)


#1 Miminari - Chatmonchy (2006)

Pong+Tetris+MK+Pokemon+Zelda+Mario

=The Cal Marching Band

You can blame Guitar Hero for this one...

Alright. So where do I begin with this one? How has Guitar Hero changed my life? Let me count the ways... Well for one thing, it has turned something that should have been a passing fascination into a persistent obsession. Enoch called it a passing fancy and I agree -- metal is fancy! But I guess I should start at the beginning.

Basically, my interest in pop music didn't manifest itself until middle school. I was exposed to Ace of Base, then Greenday, then Third Eye Blind, then Linkin Park, etc, etc. Well, what I mean to say is that I missed out on the whole heavy metal phenomenon of the 80s and 90s. The first metal album I ever picked up was Metallica's S&M album senior year of high school. Too little, too late, you might say. For by the time someone is getting ready for college by buying extra long twin sized bed sheets at Bed, Bath & Beyond, it's pretty hard to convert oneself from Elvis Durant and the Z Morning Zoo listener to the dark side of double-bass pedals and keyboard/guitar solos. You'd think.


Well, luckily (or unluckily?), this is just about the time when nu-metal (umlauts optional) started to come into style with Linkin Park, Papa Roach, and Disturbed. This was also the heyday of Rage Against the Machine--the king of the legion. As with all good things, though, as RATM disbanded, so did my fascination with loud, screamy music. Wait, hold on, somewhere in there, you've got the other four-word group: System of a Down, arse all ready to sit upon a heavy rock throne vacated by the Zack-less RATM (who simultaneously blew fans' minds by announcing that the new front man would be Soundgarden's Chris Cornell?!).

Yeah, so thus started the age of Napster, freshman dorms, broadband, and pirate parties. Learned to love odd little things like Acid Jazz, Emo, J-Pop, Power Pop, Breakbeat, and Trip Hop. Well, you know how history likes to move in cycles? Metal wasn't through with me yet. Cue the Darkness.


Permission to Land was granted in 2003. Glam rock or British hard rock? Who can tell the difference? Serious or farce-faced? Who cares? These guys re-lit the dragon candelabra's black candle of Metal somewhere deep within my heart. For that, I am eternally grateful (don't mind Enoch's eye-rolling). Charisma plus ten to all! Two years later, to less fanfare, they would release another mind-numbingly-titled album: One Way Ticket to Hell and Back. What might, on an uneventful year, have been the hottest shit in Best Buy, was overshadowed, though, by a behemoth of a phenomenon, just two aisles over.


A revolution in rhythm-based gaming had arrived. Guitar Hero. That was 2005. Cowboys From Hell would become my anthem while it simultaneously proved to be my foil for two long years (finally beat it on expert earlier this year). Well, after the release of Guitar Hero 2 and Guitar Hero Encore: the 80s, I am now down with not just Pantera, but Slayer, Guns n Roses, Anthrax, Lamb of God, Dethlok, et al. The track list for Guitar Hero 3 has slowly been released as the October 28th release date draws near and here is where I get to the meat of this post. Last week I stumbled across a video displaying the hardest song in the upcoming melt-your-face-a-thon: "Through the Fire and Flames" by DragonForce.

As I ruminated over the subtleties of this masterpiece of dragons and wizards and flames, Enoch brought up an interesting question. How can you tell when a metal band is for real? Doesn't the whole thing just seem like one big black-t-shirted, flowing-long-haired joke? I thought about this and came to the conclusion that with this particular brand of metal, teh power metal, you've got to feel it in your soul. Because these guys are serious.


These guys are serious about things like dreams and destiny, eagles and rainbows. Man, I love power metal. Thanks to a little something called Pandora Radio (yes, ironic that I would blame everything on something named after the box that ruined mankind -- but don't forget, it left us with hope, and by association, power metal, too!), I was turned onto the awesomeness that is the Finnish power metal pioneers Stratovarius. If you're not sure about how well epic fantasy lyrics, keyboard solos, and double bass petal mix, you really have to look no further than their tour de force: "Eagleheart", to know if this music is for you.

Seriously, now. Just listen to these lyrics:

Heart of an eagle
He flies through the rainbow
Into a new world and finds the sun
Spreading his wings above all the sorrows
The glory of Eagleheart

'Nuff said. Now for the flurry of youtube music videos.




(And you're welcome!)






Now that's what I call epic.

Chamillionaire FTW

Ultimate Victory comes out on Tuesday. So apparently, this album was due out back in March, but was pushed back. It's a good thing, too. If it had come out on schedule, I probably would have totally passed over this gem. Seriously, the first time I heard of Chamillionaire, I literally laughed out loud. I thought it was a joke. A millionaire chameleon? And he raps?

Well, my attitude started to change after catching the music video for the album's first single, "Hip Hop Police". Interesting lyrics, dope beat, and clever video production made a follow-up the least I could do for the Chamillionaire. And now, after listening to the album, I gotta say that I'm sorry for having slept on dude for so long. This millionaire has got some skills. Ultimate Victory is the shit.

Out there in Jupiter, y'all...

Meet Ronald Jenkees, youtube keyboard virtuoso / beatmaker...





http://www.ronaldjenkees.com/cd-store

T. Pop

Unable to leave a-pop alone, I've got another chunk for you to chew on. This time, we're snacking on Taiwan. New Yorker is a new pop band that just put out an album in 2007 called Make You Happy. The title track:



The lead singer, Mei, actually works at the music shop where I used to practice and take drum lessons. Pretty nice girl. Unfortunately, the album suffers a little from being too pop. I guess it's a so-so-ness in the songwriting. One thing that kind of sticks out is that the vocals tend to try to carry the music. It works on some tracks: "Let It Be" and "Make You Happy", but sort of falls flat for others: "Kiss Kiss" and "Oh! My God!"

But still, this is a decent album. Not really standard Taiwanese pop, but belonging more to a new kind of independent pop status. It's a little rough around the edges, but it's not bad. I'm looking forward to future albums.

New Yorker - Make You Happy
New Yorker - Let It Be

A. Pop

I may have found myself back in the west, but my head is still in the east. I've got a couple bands on repeat right now. One is a three woman outfit out of Japan called Chatmonchy. Don't ask me what their name's supposed to mean. The only Japanese I learned in my three years as their neighbor was gleaned from fansubbed Naruto cartoons.

But back to Chatmonchy, we're talking about kickassness on so multiple levels. For one thing, they are a band. Drummer, bassist, and vocal/guitar. With melodies and hooks reminiscent of the J Pop superstar, Ai Otsuka, this group befits from a rock sensibility maybe borrowed from heavyweight veterans Puffy Amiyumi. Quite frankly, I wish I was in this band. This song is off their 2006 full length release, Minimari, and one of my favorites:

Chatmonchy - Koi no Kemuri

You can also find their music vids (called PVs in Japan) in their grainy, incomprehensible glory on youtube. Here's one of their most popular tracks to date:

Chatmonchy - Shangrila

2006: A Retrospective

Jerome's Top Albums:

10. Georgia Anne Muldrow - Olesi: Fragments of an Earth
Singer/songwriter/poet/producer/rapper Georgia Anne Muldrow's debut full length is filled with melodies and vocal stylings that may be unpredictable and unconventional, but the music is fearless and strangely engaging.


9. Killer Mike - I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind
Balancing hustling anthems with biting social commentary, Killer Mike takes no prisoners on this double disc monster of an album. Utter frustration with the current state of the game (be it rap or politics) has Killer Mike heated and with PATTG, Killer Kill has finally put out the sort of passionate and brutally honest music to match his fire and intellect.


8. The Roots - Game Theory
The Roots album I've been waiting for (or perhaps am settling for) since Things Fall Apart. The music finally sounds urgent and focused. (Props for bringing Malik B back into the fold too).



7. El Michels Affair - Shaolin Series 1, 2
As if the XM Radio live performance earlier this year featuring the Wu backed by El Michels Affair wasn't enough, Truth and Soul records decides to press these gems featuring El Michels interpretation of Wu classics. Bottom line: absolutely face melting material here.


6. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
Though the beats don't quite knock as hard as they did on Lord Willin', Pusha T and Malice have finally added a layer of vulnerability and paranoia to the drug raps they do so well, rendering HHNF a compelling character study of two of the drug rap game's most revered kingpins.


5. Various Artists - Soul Jazz Records Presents Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound
A vibrant and informative anthology, Tropicalia exudes the blissfully anarchic spirit of Brazil's Tropicalia movement of the 60s. Also, props to Soul Jazz for including some reading material on the movement with the CD.


4. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
As epic as the album sounds, Return to the Cookie Mountain's highest achievement might just be the bits of pop hidden under all that heady atmosphere. Impressive AND likeable you say? Ditto.



3. The Game - Doctor's Advocate
Left for dead by damn near everyone from his circle, the west coast's veritable lone soldier The Game re-ups with a banger of an album. Name-dropping be damned, the beats knock while Game desperately hurls lyrics of fury at those spitting on his name and those prematurely shoveling dirt on his career (guilty).


2. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
Sounding hungrier than ever, Ghost spits over fitting beats with the vivid soul and swagger to masterfully weave Fishscale's elaborate drug game narratives. This is the album that cements Ghostface as drug rap's proverbial slang operator. Fuck a Hip Hop Honors award show. Get on dini's level.


1. J Dilla - Donuts
A revealing and captivating look into the mind of a notoriously low-key beat genius in his last hours. Hip Hop, in all its youth has never, with the exception of perhaps 'Pac, quite captured these sentiments the way J Dilla has on Donuts.


Enoch's Top Albums:

10. Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine
In comparison to 2004's Fuckin A, the music's more complex, the lyrics are smarter, and yet, they don't miss a beat with the punk intangibles. This is the "American Idiot" Green Day should've made.



9. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
If one were to strip this album to its basic elements and released both an instrumental album and an a capella album, either disc would still be stronger than most of the shit that came out this year. In its current, grand form, it should come as no surprise that Cookie Mountain is omnipresent in end of the year lists; it is simply amazing.


8. Ratatat - Classics
Classics may sound a bit too similar like their eponymous debut, but hell, if it ain't broke, why fix it? Plus, the riff in "Tropicana" sounds like it came straight out of the Beatles' White Album.



7. Cat Power - The Greatest
Regardless of what the title was intended to mean, calling one's album The Greatest tends to elicit fairly high expectations. Cat Power, with the help of the Memphis Rhythm Band, does not disappoint. There's something for everybody, too. If most of the album is too uncharacteristically cheerful, check out "Hate" for that classic flavor of Cat Power melancholia.


6. Emilie Simon - Vegetal
While simultaneously squeezing out the score to the original French version of March of the Penguins, Ms. Simon turned Air's "Playground Love" into a full-length album and turned the sensuality up to 11. The beats and vocals are so fucking sexy that Vegetal should have a parental advisory sticker on it.


5. The Walkmen - A Hundred Miles Off
The Walkmen, one of the most bitchin' rock bands to emerge in the last five years, is consistent in one sense: they haven't written a bad song yet. Thankfully, the guys have moved out of the garage to make a serenely beautiful album that sounds perfect under a Tahitian moon.


4. We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
First, they get the easiest riffs. Then, they get the catchiest hooks. Then, the rest, as they say, is Scarface. Joke-album or not, With Love and Squalor has been one of the most enjoyable albums of the year. Plus, these guys have a wickedly funny website (warning: it can evoke a few WTF's along the way).


3. Pretty Girls Make Graves - Elan Vital
Is it possible to make a follow-up that is both more pretentious and more fun? PGMG invented the Kool-Aid martini, so suck on that.




2. J Dilla - Donuts
One expects to begin listening with a heavy heart, but the only word that can be used to properly describe this 44-minute experience is joy. If this is Jay Dee's legacy to the world, then he's already guaranteed to live forever.



1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
At least four songs have be argued for as being the next "Maps." Five were considered to be the follow-up to "Y Control." Eight have been seriously contentioned for their universal appeal as radio singles, and that's only because the other three are too gangsta. That's just how they roll.


Juliet's Top Albums:

In no particular order... [Sidenote: As I'm writing this, most of my cds were stolen. I still have two of the following cds so it's helped to have them to listen to; the other three I will pull out of my ass from what I remember of them.]

Cursive - Happy Hollow
I'm grateful they have kept so many instruments in the wonderful Saddle Creek Records fashion. Hell, after reading about them going on indefinite hiatus, I'm just glad they're back. For me, the song to put on repeat was "Bad Sects" (can you say an awesome, twisted, indie rock ballad?); I just love Tim Casher's crooning.


Brazilian Girls - Talk to La Bomb
Dance, dance, dance, strip! Honestly, I didn't like this album when I first heard it, but it slowly grew on me. It's edgier and jazzier than their other albums. "Never Met a German" and "All About Us" are my favorite songs.



Blood Brothers - Young Machetes
These guys blow me away when I see them live. Young Machetes is an awesome follow up to Crimes (my favorite Blood Brothers album of all time), as they continue to experiment with rhythm along with dizzying lyrics. Think of really good hip-hop gone screech super fast in young white guys (I understand that is a really bold statement to make, so hip-hop elitists, feel free to school me). I never know what to expect with these guys, and if you were to listen to their albums in the order they were produced, it's amazing how these guys continue to grow musically.


TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
My newest infatuation, I can't get enough of track 5, "Wolf Like Me." It's soulful, experimental and has wonderful beats that makes me want to learn how to play the drums (or go and buy a drum machine). The lead singer's stage presence reminds me of Saul Williams' live energy. They were one of the bands people talked about but took me forever to finally listen to, and I hate myself a little more every time I think about that.


Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat
I have been obsessed with this CD since it's been out. Thanks to my friend Doreen, I am a HUGE Rilo Kiley fan so when I heard she was doing a solo album, I was a little hesitant to hear it (I can only think of bad examples in both pop and indie bands that have disappointed me). The album has the right amount of songs that do Jenny's voice great justice. It's one of the few where everyone at my work (the coffee one) can agree to listen to. Jenny and the Watson Twins' voices are a match made in heaven and I look forward to more music by the trio.


Jerome's Top Singles (in no particular order):

Killer Mike "That's Life"
Lil Wayne "Stuntin' Like My Daddy"
Flying Lotus "1983"
Gnarls Barkley "Crazy"
The Game "One Blood"
E 40 feat Keak Da Sneak "Tell Me When to Go"
Snoop, Dre, D'angelo "Imagine"


Enoch's Top Songs:

10. Emilie Simon - Opium
9. Nine Black Alps - Cosmopolitan
8. The Pipettes - Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me
7. Dresden Dolls - My Alcoholic Friends
6. My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade
5. Tapes 'n Tapes - Jakov's Suite
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Dudley
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts
2. Pretty Girls Make Graves - Pyrite Pedestal
1. We Are Scientists - Textbook


Bobby's Top YouTube Videos:


I swear I decided to compile this list before Time featured YouTube on their person of the year cover and I admit that what made me decide to post today was a Boingboing writer's top 5 picks (the Maury pickle clip??). Though YouTube has been around for close to 13 months already, it's already hard to remember what the internets was like before it was around. Anyway, here they are:

10. 12 Days of Christmas just slipped in at 10 a couple nights ago when it was featured at the end of a boingboing year-end list (go figure). Just passing on the message.


9. A Special Christmas Box made it in in the eleventh hour. You can thank Enoch for this one. And NBC, for the uncensored version that was set loose on YouTube.


8. Noah Takes a Photo of Himself Every Day for 6 Years arguably isn't much about music and more about one guy who (if this is for real) is seriously bad ass. All the others who also did this (but posted later than him) must have been seriously pissed off when he beat them to YouTube.


7. Cop Ghost Rides the Whip had me scratching my head the first time I saw it on James' blog... and laughing on the floor after I finally understood what ghost riding was. Just wikipedia it if you need to.


6. Asian Backstreet Boys consisted of two guys lip-syncing in a dorm room. Their outfits matched and the third guy playing counterstrike in the back never once turned around.


5. Little Superstar is an awesome clip from a Tamil movie featuring a shirtless dude dancing for the amusement of a reclining man and a bunch of amused children. He even does the move Fatlip uses in his "What's Up, Fatlip" video when he's trying on clothes.


4. The Best Guitar Hero Video Ever is close to being the best video ever -- of 2006. Pizza suit, double-neck guitarhero controller, superfluous effects pedal, star power, go.


3. Canon Rock by Funtwo is video of a guy in a baseball cap playing a super clean version of Pachelbel's Canon in D that was arranged for electric guitar by a Taiwanese dude named Chris C. While other Canon Rock YouTube videos might contain performers with twice this guy's feeling, you'd be hard pressed to find one that is as smooth as this one.


2. Canon Rock 2 is an adaptation of the Chris C arrangement that Funtwo used. It is clear that this young asian man was sent to YouTube by the gods of shred in order to rip Canon to bits and give him a seat in the Canon Rock Hall of Fame.


1. Lazy Sunday was hailed as a glimmer of hope for a dying SNL when it first aired and later was hailed as a new benchmark for viral marketing. If you missed seeing or hearing about this video, you just about missed 2006.


Enoch's Hall of Fame (The Inaugural Class):

Ash - A Life Less Ordinary
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space
Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen in Love?
Weezer - Across the Sea
Elliott Smith - Say Yes

Expect these songs on every single compilation I make for everybody.