Top Music of the Decade: Honorable Mentions

So I put together a list of my favorite songs/albums of the decade a couple of days ago. I seem to have forgot a lot. But according to my convoluted logic, since I didn't remember it the first time around, they can't be on my "top list" but on my "honorable mentions" list.

So, here goes:

The band Fun. came out of nowhere this year and put an excellent album together called "Aim & Ignite". Here's "All the Pretty Girls" as a sample: (apologies in advance for the lead singer's pants. )



One of my new favorite Christian bands, Everyday Sunday, put out three albums this decade. I loved them all. Here's a sample, "Stand Up" from their debut:



I've long since lamented that radio in the metropolitan New York City area is abysmal. When I do listen to radio, 90% of the time, I listen to either Pandora Internet Radio or CFNY out of Toronto, cause I really hate NY radio. The two NY stations I do listen to are WRXP and WFUV (an NPR station). I did discover one new band from WFUV: Bell X1, and their song "The Great Defector". It's interesting to note, that it took WRXP 3 months to catch up.



Finally (for now, until I remember more), is the Welcome Wagon, an Asthmatic Kitty special with their song Sold! to the nice Rich man:

My Favorite Songs of "the decade"

So, everyone else seems to be putting together some pretty cool "best of" lists for the decade. Since I aspire to be a music connoisseur, I thought I'd start with my favorite songs.

Let me begin by saying that this is not intended to be a best of list, but a list of songs I enjoyed. I am a late arriver to the "ipod generation", having an ipod for the first time only a 2-3 years ago. So my primary judgement will be how much I listened to it. Consequently my list will be heavily skewed by the last few years.

Anyways, in no particular order:

Regina Spektor - Fidelity (Begin to Hope):



Andrew Bird - Scythian Empire (Armchair Apocrypha)



The National - (Boxer) This entire album is phenomenal. Here's "Fake Empire" as a sample:



Spoon - Underdog (Ga ga ga ga ga)



Editors - Smokers outside the hospital doors (The End Has a Start)



Mika - Grace Kelly (Life in cartoon motion)



The New Pornographers (Twin Cinema) This one I put on for the entire album. And before anyone yells at me for the name of the band, it is taken from a Jimmy Swaggert quote "Music is the new pornography". Here's "The Bleeding Heart Show" as a sample.



Jars of Clay (Good Monsters) Again, an entire album for the list. Here's "Dead Man" as a sample:



Steven Curtis Chapman - Heaven is the Face (Beauty Will Rise). Note, I'm not usually a SCC fan. In fact, historically, I've been an anti-SCC fan. But this song (and others from this album) are incredible.



Arcade Fire had two albums come out this decade: Funeral and Neon Bible. Both are excellent. Intervention is my favorite from both:



And last on this list is William Shatner's version of the Pulp's Common People (Has Been).

Babies, A Movie

The trailier below is from an upcoming documentary by Thomas Balmes, entitled "Babies". It apparently follows the lives of 4 babies from 4 vastly different places around the globe. The first I heard about this is from MPT's blog. It certainly looks very cool:



Background song: Sufjan Stevens, The perpetual self, or "What would Saul Alinsky do"

Tangent: I'm really becoming a fan of Sufjan. I really like all that I've heard of his music: (Just search youtube for more, or Elbows.)

Aerial photos from Dubya Dubya Two

Very cool. History preserved. A couple pictures below. The rest in the article. Remarkable detail. The 1st picture is the same as the 2nd, but zoomed in.

The Muppets do Bohemian Rhapsody

Someone has taken Jim Henson's legacy and run with it. These 4 videos were posted a few months ago. Now we have bohemian Rhapsody.

Covers Vol 2

I love listening to covers--one band's interpretation of another artist's songs. Here's an earlier entry spotlighting some cool ones.

I think I have enough new ones to do another post, but most of the links come from youtube. You may find MP3's of these on music blogs, so Elbows is your friend. (By the way, as far as I know, downloading from most music blogs is legal. but I am not a lawyer, so don't sue me.)

One of the cheesiest songs of all time is "I've got you babe", originally by Sonny & Cher. Some dude named Aidan Moffat has covered it very well.

Speaking of cheesy songs, Shawn Mullins (the guy who did lullaby) has covered Wham's Wake me up before you go go.

I really like what I've heard of The Editors so far (admittedly not all that much, but I especially like Smokers), but their cover of Road to Nowhere (Talking Heads) is pretty cool.

These days, John Mayer seems to be everywhere, probably because he released an album. His cover versions of Message in a Bottle (The Police) and Free Falling (Tom Petty) are so good that hipsters think that these are really his songs.

Anything Jack White and company does is sure to be cool, but the White Stripes version of Jolene (Dolly Parton) is awesome.

I love Tori Amos' voice; her version of Losing my Religion (R.E.M.) is haunting because of it.

Last one: if you've ever watched an episode of Cold Case, there's a 90% chance you've heard REO Speedwagon's song Keep on Loving You. Lisa Loeb & Dweezil Zappa cover it here.

Compendium?

So, I decided not to do compendiums anymore, then I posted one anyway. So today, I'm wading through my rss feeds and have decided to change my proclamation.

New decision: I will post compendiums when I can. I just don't want to be tied down into an "every friday" list.

That being said, here goes:

Can we put this guy in jail for child abuse? Please? Seriously.

Another example of retardness--there's piranhas in a Florida lake (they don't belong). solution? Poison the entire lake to kill them. The genius behind this belongs in Washington, not Florida.

It seems that Andy Serkis (Gollum from Lord of the Rings) is the voice of Screwtape, from C.S. Lewis' classic The Screwtape Letters. Sounds awesome.

The title of this says it all: Mind Blowing Hyper Realistic Sculptures.

Understatement of the day: "I'm in spot of a bother". I hope this guy is all right. I stopped reading after seeing the picture and realizing what actually happened.

Orca vs. Jaws

Very cool video:

Pigeon Impossible

Pretty cool animated short by Lucas Martell. It's his first, and it took him 5 years. Worth the 6 minutes.

A rookie secret agent is faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase.