Best of 2011: Songs from September

When you're done watching that, I'll continue.  Go ahead, I'll be here all day.

Isn't that the  BEST thing EVER?! It's all I can do to keep myself from embedding it again.



This is City and Colour, the "band name" of Dallas Green. Get it?  Dallas Green /City and Colour. The u's because he's Canadian.  Anyway, this is a lovely song, that I liked the first second I heard his voice.



I've always loved Joe Purdy, but somehow this song had escaped me.  Purdy also sings one of the songs that I stayed on the repeat play list longer than maybe anything else....The City.

Best of 2011: Songs from August

I said when I started this list that many of these songs were not from 2011, and August's playlist really proves that. Two important things happened in my music-listening life back in August.  The first was that I finally got Spotify, after waiting for years for it to make it to this side of the Atlantic.  Spotify doesn't take the place of Pandora, but it does have some advantages, like listening to songs when you want to, instead of waiting for them to randomly show up.  The other advantage is the ability to make playlists and share them with friends, so if you've got a little Bill Withers obsession, like I do, you can share songs with other like-minded music fans.



The second thing happened, oddly enough, in a Starbucks, where I ran to get out of a storm.  I sat down, had a cup of coffee, and "Cry to Me" started playing.  And any child of the 80s knows exactly where they know this song from. So I took advantage of my newfound technology to set a retro playlist that kept me, well, grooving, as it were, through a very large stack of work. Here are a couple more songs from that Spotify playlist.





And in case you haven't figured out what playlists are good for, here's your final hint.

Best of 2011: Songs from July

Back in July I was pretty much still thinking about my birds and listening to Adele's "Someone Like You."  But when I wasn't doing that, I was listening to Over the Rhine, the Ohio based duo Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, who've been married and making music together for a couple of decades now.  I went to see them back in March, thanks to my buddy Juli Thanki over at Engine145. Linford tells great stories, and Karin sings her ass off, and that's pretty much what everyone's looking for in a concert right?  Well, not everyone, but, you know, everyone not looking for meat dresses.  "Days Like This" is from their recent album The Long Surrender, but my favorite OTR song is still "Spark" from the 2005 record Drunkard's Prayer.

Best of 2011: Songs from June

Who were you expecting?

I don't know what took me so long. The album came out in February, and I didn't get it until June. Obviously, this was a major oversight on my part.  By June, I was sitting in empty rooms belting out the lyrics, and feeling the pulse of ever beat ripple through my soul.  Melodramatic much? Have you heard this song?  This song makes me want to tear open a bag of flour and burn down paper cities.



From the first notes of the piano, before her voice comes in, I always catch my breath before releasing in a long, slow exhale.  When I first heard "Rolling in the Deep" I was pretty certain that it was the best song every in the world ever, ever.  Then I heard "Someone Like You."  Then they set it to a black and white video in Paris.  It's like they put a giant bow on it and said "To Lori." It was made for me. You'll never convince me otherwise.



There are so many great songs on this album, from Don't You Remember to I Found a Boy, to  a handful of other bluesy, heart-wrenching ballads.

But it's really Someone Like You that makes everyone tingle.  Well, everyone with a heart and an iTunes account.

Best of 2011: Songs from May

It seems back in May that I went pretty mainstream for a while.  I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am to see Mumford & Sons and Adele at the top of all the nominations this year.  I'm one of those people that tunes into awards shows just to see GaGa get all bat shit, just so I know what the hell everyone is talking about the next day.  Usually, most of the night is spent with me yelling phrases like "That's not music!" and "Kids these days!" Mumford & Sons gets extra credit because their lead singer Marcus Mumford looks like Stephen Fry's straight love child.

I really have to thank the people of this website for making this post so much easier to write, and also for validating my weird "celebrities that look like celebrities compulsion."

So, in conclusion, "Little Lion Man" is a contagiously great foot-thumping song.  If you don't believe me, watch Sara Bareilles do it.



Isn't your whole day better?



And here's another song that everyone loved at first, clapped along with, then slowly started to hate.  I'm still on the "Dog Days" bandwaggon because it'sjust a great song for walking around the city, and to be honest, that's really what I'm after in music.  Whether you love or hate it, or loved it and now hate it, or hated it all along, I'm going to make this one wager.  Ten years from now, you're going to be driving for some long distance, and somehow this song is going to sneak in the playlist, or whatever we're calling it then, and you're going to start singing along with abandon, nostalgic for the days you couldn't escape Florence + the Machine. Then you'll get on your whatever we're using then and download it from the Cloud or iForce or whatever. Then you'll come across "You've Got the Love" and say "Oh! I hated this one too" and immediately start jamming.  Enjoy yourself, ten-years-older you, enjoy yourself.

Best of 2011: Songs from April

"Her Beautiful Ideas" by Guggenheim Grotto is my favorite video of the year.  It's also in probably in my top 3 songs.  It's so energetic and happy but with terribly depressing lyrics like "I just can't seem to get out of bed anymore," as it retraces a relationship that has somehow fallen apart.  When they sing, "Once she let it slip that I was the best of her beautiful ideas" there's a little glimpse into the intimate, confessional moments of love, followed by all the peppy passion of "Let's get naked and get under the sheets" repeated until it sounds almost angry. And then everything dissolves into strings.  Perfection. Listen to when happy.



For a more acoustic look at the Irish duo, here's "The Universe is Laughing," another song that stayed on repeat thanks to its tight harmonies. Also, it's just full of feeeeelings.

If it's sunny outside and you're wanting to hit the pavement for a good run or just to head out for work full of determination, I highly recommend "Her Beautiful Ideas."  If it's raining or overcast, and you happen to find yourself staring out a window into the mist or watching the rivulets merge and diverge, maybe Marques Toliver is exactly what you need. Listen to when sad.



There was a great piece in The Guardian earlier this year that talks about Toliver's experience busking in New York and London, and being recommended to Jools Holland by Adele.

Best of 2011: Songs from March

In July of 2010, Back Ted n Ted, a solo project by eclectic musician Ryan Green, released "The Mirror," a rather mediocre album of electro-pop.  But right there amongst forgettable songs more fitting to a John Hughes soundtrack than, you know, the twenty-first century, "Lose Control" jumps out at you, surging with adrenaline and catchy hooks.  It's like a five-hour energy drink for your ears-slash-soul.  Sadly, there's not a video for the song, so I'm posting a fan made video full of a curious montage of beautiful women and Conan O'Brien with a watermelon on his stomach.  But, even with the weird images, the lyrics still speak for themselves. Over the synth and the drum machine and the clapping, lines like "Every time I see someone running I think it's you" come through, speaking of that universal, yet unnamed, experience of catching ghostly glimpses of someone you still love.  Even if you know there's no chance of running into the person who just broke your heart, you're still flooded with panic every time you see a face or silhouette that even slightly resembles her, and everyone resembles her.



So here's a question: what has been in British water for the past few years that it keeps turning out soulful singer-songwriters, from the bevy of retro songstresses like Adele, Kate Nash, Amy Winehouse, et al, to the raspy blues of James Morrison and Paolo Nutini.  As you can see from the Jools Holland clip above, Nutini was only 19 when "Last Request" became the big hit off the 2006 record These Streets.  I had heard the song a few times on Pandora in '08 or so, but somehow last March the music gods really wanted me to pay closer attention, and I did.



Yeah, I don't even have a back story for this one.  But like the Black Eyed Peas' "I Got a Feelin" and Flo Rida's "Club Can't Handle Me," it's just an irrepressibly happy song on an increasingly longer list of songs that I really have no excuse for loving; I just can't help myself. So go ahead, throw your hands up in the air sometimes. You know you want to.