Mr. Seven's Top 50 Songs Of 2011

[Halitosis Romantic]

 

JOY!

[WildSybianRider]

You heard akron/family, Seven?

[Mr. Seven]

I haven't, I'm afraid.

 

This will resume when d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-daz wakes up and sends me the blurbs he was working on.

[Au]

That Rapture song is terrible but the Azari & III one more than makes up for it, the only one on the list that I hadn't even remotely heard of so a great discovery.

[Mr. Seven]

"You're the key that got lost"

 

#35:'Bad As Me' - Tom Waits

 

 

 

d-d-d-dAz writes:

 

Sounds like: Mental illness. Good mental illness.

 

The title track from Tom Waits' first record of new material in seven long years serves as a perfect introduction into the world of Waits. It's music that bounces between melancholic ballads and recklessly energetic pseudo-blues freakouts on near enough every album, with the only constant being that his voice is used as an incredibly durable instrument in itself, he has an enormous amount of vocal traits that whether you like him or not, identify a record as Waits'. Bad As Me is a turbocharged look through the eyes of the nuttiest legend you may never have heard of. It's ace.

[patiirc]

"You're the key that got lost"

 

#35:'Bad As Me' - Tom Waits

 

 

 

d-d-d-dAz writes:

 

Sounds like: Mental illness. Good mental illness.

 

The title track from Tom Waits' first record of new material in seven long years serves as a perfect introduction into the world of Waits. It's music that bounces between melancholic ballads and recklessly energetic pseudo-blues freakouts on near enough every album, with the only constant being that his voice is used as an incredibly durable instrument in itself, he has an enormous amount of vocal traits that whether you like him or not, identify a record as Waits'. Bad As Me is a turbocharged look through the eyes of the nuttiest legend you may never have heard of. It's ace.

 

Does it come with a Hermiker Battle Jitney?

[Mr. Seven]

"Can't feel a thing"

 

#34: 'Novacane' - Frank Ocean

 

 

Sounds like: The problems of the 1 per cent.

 

And yet, you feel for him. Yep, his plight involves repeated sex with dead-eyed models and a steady diet of drugs, but Ocean has something that I don't quite get from the rest of his OFWGKTA cohorts - especially their defacto leader, Tyler, The Creator - and that something is conviction. Quite frankly I believe the guy, and that's something that's become hugely important to me when it comes to music and in a culture that is defined more by playlists and singles than albums, conviction goes a long way. Of course, there's always the possibility that he's just laughing at the rest of us. Either way, song fucking rules.

[Mr. Seven]

"Stand still, pause clocks"

 

#33: 'We Can Make The World Stop' - The Glitch Mob

 

Sounds like: Robots.

There's more than a hint of Daft Punk in 'We Can Make The World Stop' but L.A. noise merchants The Glitch Mob seem to revel in a more scuzzy approach. As such, every little swell and shift feels laced and lacquered with expertly-applied delay and reverb, the overall effect quite pleasingly head-melting. As for the bass kick-in? Holy fuck.

[Mr. Seven]

"Like gold hastily sold"

 

#32: 'The Last Living Rose' - PJ Harvey

 

d-d-d-dAz writes:

Sounds like: An ethereal riposte to the grim reality of austerity Britain.

 

The best track off of an album so good that it's almost musical fact that it was the best of 2011. The track itself is almost poetry, with the music serving as a muted accompaniment. The album follows in much the same vein, with the music not in itself underwhelming (in fact, it's an artists reaching her creative peak) but serving as a foundation to some of the most important, quintessentially British lyrics in an absolute age. PJ Harvey's record deserves it's place alongside 'London Calling' and 'The Queen Is Dead' as pieces of genius that belong to, and define, a specific period in British history.

[Mr. Seven]

"I guess that cunt gettin' eaten"

 

#31: '212' - Azealia Banks

 

 

Sounds like: Potentially the biggest new star of 2012.

There's something kind of special about Azealia Banks, and it's the same thing that might prove wistful. Unlike the fucking disgracefully hollow Lana Del Rey, there's the sense that Banks has zero media training and simply doesn't give a fuck about what she says or does. That all stands to change if and when a marketing team teaches how to do a proper interview, but even from the nervous energy she has displayed so far, there's the possibility that she may well retain her personality. And if '212' is any kind of evidence, it's a fucking huge personality . From her liberal use of the word 'cunt' to the sheer barrage of this track, every single thing on display here gives cause to be excited.

[Rob Edwards]

The Frank Ocean song rules.

 

212 would be top 10 for me, absolute choon.

[Mr. Seven]

Yeah, even typing up the blurb there I was thinking "This should be higher". Still I shall stick to my running order. That said, it's currently a three-way fight for the #1 spot.

[Devon Malcolm]

I'd only heard the PJ Harvey track out of this new batch - The Last Living Rose is just beautiful.

 

I found out that Mrs Small likes Tom Waits recently, which was a nice surprise. That's a cracking track. Not sure about Frank Ocean, might need to try that a bit more. The

's fantastic, though, and I liked the Stanley Kubrick reference. Love The Glitch Mob track, and 212 is fucking ace.

[WU LYF 4 LYF]

Ah, 212 and Novocane, two of the instant classics of the year. They're all over almost all EOY lists but deservedly so, although Azealia Banks is being ridiculously overhyped by many publications (well, NME) on the basis that she's fresh and has a shock factor. I'm not sure she'll merit it in the long run, a follow up to 212 called Liquorice has been out and about in the last couple of days and isn't nearly as good.

 

As for Frank Ocean, I probably like Swim Good and We All Try a little more than Novocane but the guy has tons of potential, great voice and a great songwriter. Of all the Odd Future guys he seems the most likely to crossover (unless you accept that Tyler has done so already as his album shifted a fuck load of copies considering what it is). The Nostalgia, Ultra album is really solid from top to bottom actually, excepting perhaps American Wedding which drags a little. Well worth checking out.

 

Not sure why people are so bothered about Lana Del ray being manufactured and hollow, it's pretty standard fare for me. A lot of the initial backlash seemed to be the music blogging community being angry that they'd been initially duped into thinking she was an intriguing independent artist working her way up, rather than the product of a clever major label marketing strategy. It's really no different to all the different Bowie personas or any number of popstars from the past, if you're looking for authenticity and credibility you're looking in the wrong genre of music. Blue Jeans is much better than Video Games in my opinion, the latter gets boring after a while. I'm confident her album will be pretty good at least.

 

As for PJ Harvey, not a fan of that record at all, thought it was no better than her other stuff and pretty overrated. And never got the Tom Waits love, which is strange because I love singer songwriter guitarists (John Martyn, Elliot Smith, Gram Parsons, Nick Drake etc). I never liked Nick Cave either.

[Halitosis Romantic]

Frank Ocean paled a lot of me once I discovered The Weeknd, who I have been banging on about ever since - High for This, and House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls are two of the greatest tracks of the year. My respect for Flaming June went way up when I found that he liked Ocean, though, and even more when I heard that he was on board with not liking American Wedding. I personally enjoy Nature Feels the most on the album, and I don't know why, probably because I like MGMT too.