Favorite "New" Music of Lately

I am well aware that I overuse the word "awesome."  On this blog, in my everyday speech, whatever.  I overuse the word.  Not to toot my own horn, but it just MUST be because I AM AWESOME!  Right?!

Well, whatever you may think about my awesomeness, it's not me that I'm talking about in this blog post.  It's more awesomely sweet music.  I absolutely love listening to and playing music.  I listen to music loudly in my room, and even louder in the car.  I firmly believe that for every situation in life, there's a song.  My dream job would be to handpick the songs to movies.  I think that God put me on Earth to do that.  I'm pretty sure I would do the job better than anybody else.  Unfortunately, my phone is not ringing with requests to do this, and so I'm a lowly Engineer.

Because I love music so much, I have to share with you my favorite albums of lately...  I'm like a one-man Campus Crusade for Christ... except I just want you to rock the fuck out, and we can leave religion out of it:

1.  Foo Fighters- Wasting Light
So I had written the Foo Fighters off as pretty much washed up... Their last albums have all had a good song or two, but have largely consisted of filler material.  This album is all killer, no filler.  There are heavy Queens of the Stone Age influences (see "Bridge Burning" and "White Limo") that I love, which makes sense because Dave Grohl kicks ass with them every now and then.  AND, even the radio-friendly songs are amazing this time around.  "Walk" is an awesome "redemption" song and I can't fault a band for making a radio-friendly song when it is THIS good...  This album belongs on everybody's record shelf/iTunes collection/Amazon Cloud Drive, because lord knows there's something everybody can enjoy here!  And while I'm saluting the Foo Fighters, if you look around on YouTube, you will notice that they have been playing shows in the garages' of their fans for the last couple months!  How sweet is that?!  AND, how awesome is the Beatles throwback below?  They are the shit.






QOTSA influence in full effect!  Compare and contrast!:




2.  Holy Ghost!
I saw these guys open for Cut Copy and they cranked out some very cool electro-y-disco-y tunes!  They were a crazy mix between Chromeo/Phoenix and good old fashioned 80s music.  The album is very fun, and is perfect for the approaching summer.  My favorite song off the album is below, but I should stress that the album as a whole has MANY songs that are this good!



3.  Metronomy
I had never heard of these guys... until I started religiously following a Swedish club's blog!  They have recently started posting Metronomy songs-  I like what I heard and so I downloaded the album.  Behold, one of my favorite songs of lately.  I have played the living shit out of this song (as Liz can attest!)!

Again, I highly recommend everybody pick up this album.  Especially you Adam since you dig the French.



And then there is this song with one of the ILLEST basslines I've heard in a long time...  Great album...



4.  Raekwon-  Shaolin vs Wu-Tang
 I'm 1/2 white, 1/2 Indian, and I love Wu-Tang.  Raekwon is my 2nd favorite Wu-Tang member after RZA and he is blessed with the ability to only make disgustingly sick albums.  Like all Wu material, this album is dabbled with kung-fu samples and pretty cool imagery...  Maybe I am particular intrigued by this album because I've been learning kung-fu for the last year and a half... but it's more than just that!







"Dressed in all black, perfect vision, and their movement is in silence... This is Shaolin..."





5.  Tame Impala-InnerSpeaker
So this album's >1 year old, but I just got to it lately... And it rocks.  It's very psychedelic, and filled with phaser and delay.  What's that?  It means the music sounds like a wave... In fact, after listening to this album on repeat for a while, I went out and bought myself a nice two-phase phaser...

Doesn't the music sound like how the video looks?



And for all you dancers, here is a phenomenal remix of one of my favorites from the album:



My badass phaser  :)



That's it for now...  I've got some sweet concerts coming up!

A-Trak
Crystal Castles
The Strokes
and
Tame Impala

It's going to be great.

A Belated "My Favorite Albums of 2010" List

A long time ago (last year), I occasionally pumped out a list of my favorite music of the moment, OR music from moments long ago that, in my opinion, has withstood the test of time.  


In that same spirit, here are my favorite albums of 2010.  Because everybody does a Top 10 list, I'm going to do a Top 8.  I'm counting down the albums that I have most "played to death" over the course of the last 376 days, saving the best for last:


8.  The Roots- How I Got Over


The Roots do not make bad albums.  Ever.  In life, you are guaranteed that you will pay taxes, die, and that the Roots will make good album after good album.  This one is no exception.





7.  Empire of the Sun- Walking on a Dream


These guys make some crazy ass videos.  When I first heard them, I thought they were MGMT.  They weren't.  They are a little more catchy, and frankly, a little bit more enjoyable (though I do love MGMT).  The chorus for the song below is SO DAMN CATCHY.  I am not sure if I will ever get tired of this song.  But anyway, in addition to the below video, you should check out the one for "Walking on a Dream" since it is equally wild.  Unfortunately, there's no embed code for it...





6.  Local Natives- Gorilla Manor


So if "Airplanes" isn't one of the best songs of this year, I don't know what is.  I find it interesting that such a sad song can sound so happy... It's a mindfuck.  





Luckily, the rest of the album is equally good, though it can be quite different.  I saw these guys at the 9:30 Club here in DC and they were pretty solid!  


5.  Crystal Castles- Crystal Castles II


Crystal Castles are a bit polarizing.  I happen to absolutely love them, but when I shared them with a friend (Hi Karl!)  he looked at me as if to say "This is the worst shit I have ever heard!"  To each their own I suppose.  I listen to quite a bit of electronic-y stuff so I guess it makes sense that I dig this band.  Their latest album is terrific if you are into this type of music!  Like every other album on here, this one has been in constant rotation.





4.  Kanye West-  My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (and the 10 or so free songs he released prior to the album dropping)  


Man!  Kanye West is just such a fucking douchebag. But in spite of that, he continually cranks out SICK music!  How is that?!  I think it's because he knows that he's a douchebag, he knows that you hate that about him, and then he flaunts both those things.  It's like some weird Jedi reverse psychology craziness.  


As much as I didn't want to be a lemming and jump on the "Kanye's new album is so sweet!" bandwagon, I am firmly on board.  


Not only is the album amazing, but he released 10 or so free songs before the album came out that were all REALLY GOOD.  In my opinion, the best song that he released came out as a free download a few weeks prior to the album release.  Maybe Kanye thought he needed to put out a bunch of free music to offset the intense negative karma he has from interrupting Taylor Swift and doing other douchey things.  After listening to this song, I forgave him for all of his sins:





3.  Big Boi- Sir Lucious Left Foot


My girlfriend can attest to this:  I played this album to death.  Usually in her presence, and usually the song "Tangerine."





Who can't get onboard with a song whose chorus is "Shake it like a tambourine!"?!?!?!?!?!


My girlfriend and I also argued about whether or not "Tangerine" was about a stripper.  She said it was. I said it wasn't.  But I knew it was.  It was a fun argument to have until the line "All I could see was tears, pussy lips, and ass cheeks" played.  At that point, she usually gave me a disapproving glance.  And/or hit me.  But it was my fault.  She hits me because she loves me.  Right?  Right?!    


Back to my point.  Big Boi is 50% of Outkast.  Outkast is infinitely awesome  So by math, Big Boi is 50%*InfiniteAwesomeness.  That is pretty awesome.  If you don't have this album, I don't know why.  Do you have it?  No?  Well then you're an idiot.





And this brings us to my top two albums of 2010!  I've saved the best for last!  Why?  Because these two albums are FREE and they are INSANELY GOOD!  It's fun party music and everybody should have it!  It's required listening!  The links to download them are below:


2.  Major Lazer and La Roux - Bulletproof
LAZERPROOF DOWNLOAD


This album is a mashup of Major Lazer and La Roux.  I think I've blogged about this before, but I'm too lazy to check.  You just have to get it.  It is free.  There are no excuses.  I lost track of how many times I've listened to this album.

1.  A-Trak-  Dirty South Dance 2
DIRTY SOUTH DANCE #2 DOWNLOAD


Ahhh... finally.  #1, and #1 for a fucking reason.  This mixtape RULES.  I got into A-Trak back when I was living in Baltimore.  One of my roommates (Hi Matt!) went out to see him play at a local club, and came back with a mix CD (Dirty South Dance #1) that they had been giving out for free.  I copied it, and fell in love with it.  So naturally, I had to get my hands on the second one when it came out, and it does not disappoint.  This mixtape is essentially a bunch of rap songs that you know, mixed with other songs that you probably don't know.  Sound confusing?  It's not really... What's important is that the end result is unfuckwithable.  Again, it's free.  So get a copy!