It amuses me that this will probably be the defining moment of Akon's career.

Great song.

Sweet Escape got hurt by coming out so early in the year.

And I'm looking forward to kmac using the last entry as an excuse to post his favorite Simian Mobile Disco video.

I'll never wear pants on xmas. Where else would they hang my stocking?

He's Got Two Left Feet And He Bites My Moves

#56.




Black Kids – Wizard Of Ahhs - EP

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Treble Review: "It all starts with an EP. It usually does. Show me the band that arrives in full-force without having handed out singles or home recorded demos at hometown shows and I'll call you a liar (supergroups consisting of established musicians excluded, of course). Any music fan can attest to picking up that $8 EP from the opening act they had never heard of yet soon became their new favorite band. I know I've personally had that happen several times, and it can be even more exciting than catching the headliners if you happen to go on a particularly good night. The internet has made marketing music easier, however, and not every band relies as heavily upon good old Econoline van cross-country hauling as they used to. Couple that with the chaotic state of the record industry/piracy/RIAA and it makes perfect sense that Jacksonville, Florida based indie pop outfit would make their debut via free download on their MySpace page.

At just about 15 minutes in length, Black Kids' Wizards of Ahhhs makes a concise but breathtaking opening statement. Composed of merely four songs, those four songs come wonderfully crafted, with easily enough hooks for each to become hit singles. Even without being marketed as such, "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend To Dance With You" has already become something of a blogger and mixtape favorite, just to prove my point. And there's three more songs of equal caliber, super catchy and more fun than most similar-minded bands sound like they're having this year.

Black Kids' hook delivery method is versatile, yet refined, impressively so for such a young band. Go! Team-style cheering and enthusiasm bounces back and forth between the earnest pageantry of The Arcade Fire and the gloom and glamour of mid-`80s Cure. Singer/guitarist Reggie Youngblood even vocally recalls Robert Smith at times, particularly on the laid back, yet still danceable "Hurricane Jane." What's more, Youngblood has the gloomy teenage attitude down pat: "It's Friday night and I ain't got nobody/ what's the use of making the bed?" Scoff at the emotional theatrics if you like, but that this band is actually capable of making me feel like a frustrated teen again is a particularly admirable talent.

"Hit The Heartbrakes" reveals a different side of Youngblood, as he sings of one night stands, and even drops an "it's not me it's you." Ouch. But such a sweet synth-pop nugget can only make that rejection go down a little better. Youngblood's guitar squeals with a raw, punk scratch that neatly juxtaposes Dawn Watley and Ali Youngblood's (Reggie's sister) keyboards. Youngblood confesses "you are the girl that I've been dreaming of since I was a little girl," on "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend To Dance With You," his gender-bending affectation meshing perfectly with the awesome new wave melodies. There's a pretty obvious reason why so many have already taken to this song: it's bloody amazing. But "I've Underestimated My Charm (Again)" isn't too shabby either, a Pulp-like pop track that jangles and struts with a great, tambourine-shaking chorus.

So, it starts with an EP, and this is a hell of a way to do so. Black Kids haven't signed to a label as of yet, but now they've gotten everyone's attention, which should make finding one just a bit easier down the line. The day they offer their delicious new wave pop in full-length form will be an exciting one, but topping this perfect, concise effort should prove to be quite a feat. "

Ranked Highest By: Paul (#11)

Can Be Most Easily Found On: Wizard of Ahhs

I suppose asking one to tolerate faux-naif humor *is* a bit much. I'll put on my literal panties for all y'all. "Srsly."

Back to the singles, eh?

This whole EP is really good, but make sure if nothing else you hear track 1, "Hitten."




Do You Really Think I Give A Damn Now That I Can Do Whatever I Want

#55.




Those Dancing Days – Those Dancing Days - EP

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Clickmusic Review: "The UK debut single from the impossibly young and talented Swedes, 'Those Dancing Days' is so much fun, it's no wonder the girls share their name with it. The five-piece bring their keyboards to the fore for this ditty, providing an organ melody conjuring fairgrounds and candyfloss that whirls all the way through. Singer Linnea provides the effortless, nonchalant, yet soulful, vocals, that seductively creep up on you and provide the subtle hook in the chorus.

'Those Dancing Days' whips itself into a ball of delicious pop frenzy towards its end; sweet without sounding twee, girlish, yet confident and bold too. An absolute joy."

Ranked Highest By: Campaigner (#2)

Can Be Most Easily Found On:Those Dancing Days

i dont know what the hell that is but the art is rad.

OTM

Wait a minute...

fact.

More EPs this year than in all years past?

Ep's are cool.

This could have placed on mine, but blatant pitch-shifting vocals get immediate disqualification from any of my lists, in any year, no matter how good the song is.

Bonefish.

#54.




Animal Collective – Peacebone / Peacebone (Pantha du Prince Remix)

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Pitchfork Forkcast Review: "Here's another taste of Animal Collective's forthcoming Strawberry Jam. The band started spreading the new tunes via live performances of new songs like "Cuckoo Cuckoo", and kindly lit up the Fourth of July with their "Fireworks". In the meantime, AC have also been chatting up Portuguese blogs. Now they've posted Strawberry Jam tune "Peacebone" to their MySpace page, and it's a whirling kaleidoscope of circus shouts, tribal rhythms, colorful lyrics, and weird electronic noises. In other words, it's a new AC song, ca. 2007. Watch out for your jugular."

Artist's Previous Rankings on Our Singles Lists: "Who Could Win A Rabbit?" (#50 of 2004), "Grass" (#57 of 2005)

Ranked Highest By: Plate (#2)

Can Be Most Easily Found On: Strawberry Jam

Glad to see this here, because I haven't heard them and continue to see mentions that make me think that I should've heard 'em much sooner.

And excellent job Paul!

#53.




Gui Boratto – Beautiful Life

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Pitchfork Forkcast Review: "Any critics who still say-- in 2007, no less-- that electronic music is too cold and lifeless obviously haven't heard "Beautiful Life", from Brazilian DJ and producer Gui Boratto's debut full-length for Kompakt. Its synth tones are both pastoral and euphoric, joining the blissed-out likes of Nathan Fake and James Holden in ridding mid-90s trance of glowstick raver stereotypes. This song prefers to celebrate, its live-sounding drums popping as the chords ascend in waves.

Like Sally Shapiro's Disco Romance, "Beautiful Life" easily transcends genre barriers to work as an indie-pop song-- music for headphones as well as the club. "What a beautiful life," a placid female voice repeats nearly halfway through this eight-minute track, but even before she enters, the song keeps us glued with its sharply melodic tones and pulsing beat. One aspect of the ecstasy era Boratto perfectly recreates: the surging serotonin levels. I couldn't be much happier."

Ranked Highest By: helmet52 (#1)

Can Be Most Easily Found On: Chromophobia

they are really excellent. mitchell up-ed cookies in the 2007 fish thread, i believe. and you've def. heard them on the tv... they are used in bunches of commercials recently.

Sweet.
Buy the album- whole thing is on the level of "Men's Needs". Great live band...playing at Double Door in March.


Awesome work Paul. Too bad my work computer has some funky controls where I can't download.

Nice placings for Mr Boratto and Those Dancing Days.

That Chromeo song is pretty goddamn catchy.

yeah...seriously, listen to the man...i had heard & liked the actual song "those dancing days" before, but "hitten" is really, really good

EDIT: wow..."hitten" is really, really good...i need to listen again

That Tingling Inside Was Gone

#52.




Bat For Lashes – What’s A Girl To Do / Sarah (reworked) / Tahiti

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Guardian Singles Club Review: "The first thing you'll notice about Bat For Lashes' new single is that she's opted for the same drum intro made famous by the Ronettes with Be My Baby back in 1963. Good choice - it's quite possible that boom-ba-boom...chsh, boom-ba-boom...chsh is the best beat ever beaten (and one you've got Phil Spector to thank for, actually). Save for that Wall of Sound intro, What's a Girl To Do is ethereal, creepy and forlorn in equal measures as Bat For Lashes (aka Natasha Kahn) describes how her lover no longer thrills her "bat-lightning heart". The spoken word verses are a tad precious and, when she does sing, Kahn sounds an awful lot like Björk, but that's not to suggest that What's a Girl... isn't a personal creation and an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable single."

Ranked Highest By: MitchellStirling (#4)

Can Be Most Easily Found On: Fur & Gold

Also, if I thought differently and generally voted for remixes that aren't just extended versions of dance tracks, I'd totally have voted Soulja Boy higher than I did. Travis Barker remix is something else.

Yech.

As much as I detest fucking Animal Collective, I am slightly intrigued as to what Pantha Du Prince remixing them sounds like.

That's When The Feeling Hits

#51.




Jens Lekman – Sipping On The Sweet Nectar

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Mixtape Maestro Review: "Disco is constantly dogged for it's producer-oriented focus and over-the-top gaiety, but everyone knows (whether privately or in public) that nothing can compare to it's blissful array of perfectly-layered sound. It's fizzy excessiveness is irresistible, especially when paired with breathtaking poignancy, like on the supper club/ Studio 54 fusion of Jens Lekman's "Sipping On The Sweet Nectar".

Like Barry White's most posh arrangements, the bubbly mix of Latin percussion, avian-like woodwinds and fluffy string/ horn pleasantness recall the assumed problem-free existence of the wealthy. Lekman approaches the ornate production in stark contrast, his dry baritone cutting through the fantasy aura of his surroundings as he stands at the tail-end of his life, wondering if he made the most ideal decisions when it came to love.

"I see myself on my deathbed saying/ 'I wish I would have loved less'", he regretfully croons, but then it suddenly hits him. No matter how things ended up, life is beautiful because of those moments. Succumbing to the candy-coated arrangement, Lekman opts for a more positive reflection in the face of his own dwindling mortality: "That's when the feeling hits/ So lick your lips," he sings, "These are the good times that you'll miss when you're sipping on the sweet nectars of your memories."

Sitting back in his old rocking chair, his conscious now soothed with a newfound cherish over a lifespan of minute tinges of happiness, he closes his eyes and takes his last breath. The ever-flourishing plush sonics lifting his soul into the white glow of the afterlife, he takes one last nostalgic look at the world he's leaving behind and proudly informs the people within it with one simply stated lingering jewel of wisdom: "That's when the feeling hits".

Who knew disco could bring you to tears like this?"

Ranked Highest By: Plate (#4)

Can Be Most Easily Found On: Night Falls Over Kortedala

*shrug* I remain anti-fun.

Those clapping furries on the bikes are what sold the tune to me. Really guys, thanks for introducing me to this one.

OTM, great tune. Sounds like if Pink hired the Pipettes' band. Now no one will download it!

Blastphemer!

-----------------------------

That Animal Collective song is pretty good, although it's probably one of my least favourite from that album.

Holy rockism, Batman. No wonder you and Solace have horrible taste. Yeah I said it.

#50.




Burial – Ghost Hardware - EP

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Stylus Review: "This 12″ is the follow-up to Burial’s self-titled “dubstep” LP from last year. These three songs feature unsteady rhythms that roll like banged-up wheels of hip-hop steel. It’s infuriating to listen to this metallic syncopation at first, because it’s so averse to headnods, and the accents are hard to pinpoint. The beat in “Shutta” is somewhere between 8/8 and 17/8 - I can’t tell - and there’s a series of three soft snare cracks in “Ghost Hardware” that seem to come out of nowhere again and again, just a split-second off from where they seem like they want to be. It’s not violent but it’s uncomfortable.

You don’t get a vocal hook anywhere either, or at least a complete one, so there’s not much of an anchor in this mess of rhythm. Instead Burial cuts up vocal tracks into short snippets (an Aguilera-like “Love you” and a Whitney-like “Yeah”) and orphans them in a fog filled with crackles, sizzles, and interminable echo. If you can imagine yourself cooking bacon in a forest somewhere at night, and every so often just shouting a bit from “Genie in a Bottle” because you thought you heard a motorcycle engine in the distance, you’re halfway there: alone but not yet lonely, fearful but not entirely hopeless.

The “love you” snippet stuff seems like such a self-imposed challenge for Burial too, i.e. How can I not make this sound too saccharine or cloying. I don’t know why it doesn’t bother me more, but I’m guessing Burial’s mixing has a lot to do with it: his kicks are never too pronounced, and the occasional turbo-skids of bass are always faint, hinting at something greater but never winding up front and center. Some sounds refuse to bring attention to themselves, others don’t have the energy to do so anymore, but try in vain regardless. Bleak stuff. Is it possible to mourn a sound?"

Ranked Highest By: vurt (#1)

Can Be Most Easily Found On: Ghost Hardware

There are 4 songs better than this on the new album.

haha

Title track's only like the fifth best track off the album, too...

That review is bizarre/amusing though.

I should have voted for that Burial EP.

Also, was "Archangel" really a single? I saw that Helmet voted for it, but I wasn't sure...

Oh hey, simian mobile disco made the list! guess i should post this rad video for "Hustler".

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Hot Water Bleeding Our Colors

#49.




Cold War Kids – Hang Me Out To Dry

US Chart Position: #26 Modern Rock

UK Chart Position: #57

contactmusic Review: "From the moment the first strains of the eeriest bassline since 'With Or Without You' echoed through the speakers like a battleship signalling its intent to a passing continent, 'Hang Me Up To Dry' is already a masterpiece in ascendance before a word is uttered.

Of course when the vocals do eventually kick in - or should that be slide into place with the efficiency of a proficiently serviced Volvo? - the song is already implanted in your brain like one of those immovable devices used to program robots and from that moment on, one's addictive tendencies fall hook, line and sinker for it in its entirety.

Singer Nathan Willett sounds like he really is at the end of his tether as his overwrought vocal struggles to get the words out, so engrossed and impassioned in the midst of one of the most intense pieces of music I've heard in ages.

And you thought this lot were the new Orson? Wash out your ears in shame, young man." 9/10

Ranked Highest By: kmac (#2)

Can Be Most Easily Found On: Robbers & Cowards

should be way higher. get hip somb.

Don't think so.

***

I used to be against auto-tuner madness (see: Robo Cher), but have really warmed to it in the last few years (see: RTX, Captain Ahab, Aly & AJ).

[edit] And I hope SOMB blurbs kick in soon, because the vast majority of these reviews are pure shit.

Fabulous song. In some ways, I regret not putting it at #1, but I still think "Read My Mind" is the best single of the year, the one everyone will be singing along to in 5 years when it's played on retro hit stations and people get over their complex about having to hate the Killers because Brandon Flowers is pretty than them (Boys and girls alike).




Exactly where I caught them. In case any of you weren't aware, Disney/Family Channel now plays more music than MTV. This was on one night after 8 Simple Rules (Totally underrated comedy) and I was asking my brother (Who's a nineteen-year-old who LOOOOOOOVES High School Musical and knows all that stuff which sounds much creepier typed out than it is in reality) who Aly & AJ were and was all prepared to make fun of the song/video because-hey!-it's Disney Pop. But, it turned out it was fucking good. The lyrics are fun, all wronged and annoyed, but rather than scream and cry like Kelly Clarkson, Aly&AJ tackle it with a more disaffected "Well, your loss, dumbass" vibe, like when they say rather than explain himself "Now all I want is just my stuff back. Did you get that? Let me repeat that. I want my stuff back." Awesome song which just goes to prove you never know where good songs are gonna come from. Did anyone hear the album? Is it as good as this?

Yeah, I don't think "Archangel" was a single. It made the 'best tracks' list in the misc. polls.

I maybe should have voted for "Hang Me Up To Dry," but it sounded like a scraggly band trying so. goddamn. hard. to write a catchy song and only sort of succeeding. Left a bad taste in my mouth.

See I'd think they were trying hard to be catchy if it wasn't for the piano being so absolutely random.

There's No Connection

#48.




The Shins – Phantom Limb

US Chart Position: #86 / #16 Modern Rock

UK Chart Position: #42

Pitchfork Review: "Even before, well, you know, the Shins were tops among indie rock's well-meaning sweethearts. They're still endearing on "Phantom Limb", but there's this sorta punk vibe to the single-- more-electric guitars, tambourines, a straightforward beat-- that smartly foils the song's depressed sentiment. The song recounts a night out on a rural northwest town; highlights include shooting lambs and looting houses. And these here "phantom limbs" stand for, among other things, the legs of sheep grazing over week-old snow-- a "Sunday ham" of white fluff wandering through a field. Mercer brings this flocked sheep metaphor back to the life of the narrator-- "a family portrait circa '95"-- and the town itself, and man that sounds sorta glum, doesn't it. The single is noticeably heavier than usual for the Shins, as if this is their way of announcing that more quote mature material is en route. Are we ready for this? Somewhere, Natalie Portman's head is exploding." 3.5/5

Ranked Highest By: Alkaline Drown (#4)

Can Be Most Easily Found On: Wincing The Night Away

wtf are burial and animal collective doing in the singles thread?

They start at #40.

Lol @ Shins having a punk vibe.

We're too cool to make the Braff joke, but here's the Braff joke.

Bitch ain't even that pretty. Too much make up.



Christ, CSPAN plays more music than MTV.

The Shins deserve to Braff-joked 'til the end of time. Not because they asked for it. Because they're terrible.