Wild Flag “Endless Talk”

If you read what Carrie Brownstein is singing here on the printed page, it seems a lot more harsh and biting than it sounds on record. Which makes some sense – she’s addressing someone who is casually cruel and undermining, but never really goes beyond snide remarks. “Endless Talk” isn’t exactly a cuddly song, but there’s affection and respect in Brownstein’s voice, and the tune is far too buoyant, nimble and sparkly to convey much bitterness. If anything, it’s nudging this person to lighten up, to cool down, to drop the aggression and get back to the sweetness.

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Helium “XXX”

“XXX” is a revenge fantasy in which Mary Timony sings from the perspective of a prostitute who murders her johns. (Which is, of course, very much the opposite of how things typically go.) The song is effective in large part because Timony is so good at conjuring a sound that is as provocative and seductive as the image of her street walker vigilante: The guitar tone is totally lurid; it actually sounds like the male gaze. Her voice is overtly sexualized in the song, but her deadpan affect twists the knife at just the right moments, bitterly deflating masculine fantasies and ripping into the emptiness of her objectification: “You want to have me / you watch me like TV / you want to hold me / collect me like rubies / talk about me like a movie.” She’s never a real person to these men, just something to conquer and possess. So if her existence is meaningless to them, is it so different if their lives are meaningless to her? What’s the real difference between made to feel dead inside and actually being killed?

Atlas Sound @ Bowery Ballroom 12/18/2011

Parallax / The Shakes / Te Amo / Walkabout / Amplifiers / Recent Bedroom / Modern Aquatic Nightsongs / Mona Lisa / My Angel Is Broken / Terra Incognita / “No destination” // Artificial Snow / Flagstaff / Attic Lights

Atlas Sound “Te Amo”

In music parlance, you would say that Bradford Cox performed solo at this gig, but the more accurate word would be “alone.” Cox seemed small and slight at the center of an empty stage, filling out his songs with live loops and effects as he was surrounded by colored smoke. He’s become very good with the loop pedals, constructing elaborate layers of sound with great grace and precision, and building up compositions on the spot with remarkable drama. Most of the songs were extended, with intro sequences that gradually teased out the textures and themes before snapping together into a familiar form. (He played these 13 songs in just under two hours.) Cox was even more impressive when he would cut out the layers of sound, stripping bare his voice and acoustic guitar for brief moments in larger compositions, or for a striking, jaw-dropping rendition of “Amplifiers.”

It’s not uncommon to see people perform by themselves, or to use loop pedals, but it is rare to witness a performance that feels so personal and direct – at times, this concert felt almost unnervingly intimate. It was a very moving and intense experience. I saw a few different people near me break into tears at different points in the show. A girl behind me was bawling through “Attic Lights.” I haven’t ever seen a show quite like this one.

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The Smashing Pumpkins “Luna”

The liner notes for the new CD reissue of Siamese Dream includes comments from Billy Corgan about each of the songs on the album. They’re pretty interesting for the most part. For example, “Geek USA,” a song that features the best lyrics of Corgan’s career by a great distance, is dismissed as “Dadaist” gibberish. “Sweet Sweet” is apparently about a hobo. The bit that I found unexpectedly moving was his words about “Luna,” a song I have loved for most of my life but have never paid much close attention. Corgan all but spells out that the song is about Courtney Love, his on-and-off lover for much of the early 90s. “I am in love with someone that doesn’t love me,” he says of his state of mind at the time it was written. “My songs are better than hers,” he says, getting in a passive-aggressive jab that also serves to clarify that he wasn’t talking about his wife from the Siamese era.

There’s something about the Billy/Courtney dynamic that just kills me. Or, really, the Billy/Kurt dynamic. Think of this from Corgan’s perspective: You’re going through life convinced that you’re a visionary rock genius, and you know what? You basically are. But this other guy comes along, and not only does he steal all of your thunder, but he gets your girl too. And then, a few years later, he dies. He’s frozen in time, perfect forever, while you have to fumble through all the ups and downs that go along with carrying on and living. And no matter what you do, you can’t escape this guy. As far as the world is concerned, there is no context for your achievements without him. That is so sad and unfair! No wonder he is how he is.

It had never dawned on me to listen to “Luna” as a song of unrequited love. The “I’m in love with you” part at the end always seemed so confident to me, but now it just sounds defiant, as though he doesn’t need the feeling to be returned to know that he’s speaking the truth. The rest of the lyrics snap into place — the uncertainty, the promises, the risks. “I go along just because I’m lazy, I go along to be with you.” It’s a feeling that doesn’t hurt in the moment – you really believe it at the time – but in retrospect, it’s so crushing: The time, the love, the parts of yourself you give up in pursuit of something you can’t ever really have.

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Iron & Wine “Big Burned Hand”

A lot of people made up their mind about Iron & Wine a long time ago, and set songwriter Sam Beam down in a box marked “magnificent beard/sad folk.” Beam still has very impressive facial hair, but his music has developed quite a bit since the mid-00s, gradually mutating over his past couple releases into the classy, subtly artful soft pop of Kiss Each Other Clean. Beam’s in full-on 70s mode throughout the record, filling out his arrangements with rich harmonies and glossy textures that accent rather than pile on his gorgeous melodies. It’s one of the most tastefully produced albums of the year; almost overwhelmingly pleasant in its use of space and texture, and its delicate balance of implied warmth and dryness of tone. That dryness presents most every instrument with precise clarity, but he still tosses in a bit of distortion to great effect — in the case of “Big Burned Hand,” his typically immaculate and softly-rounded voice is just a bit in the red, lending it a slight edge of imperfection.

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INXS “Not Enough Time”

If some unknown band came out with this song today, would people consider it to be chillwave? The mood is right, but the sentiment – probably not, right? It’s too open-hearted, too bold, too obviously sexual.

Michael Hutchence’s greatest gift as a singer was this seemingly effortless ability to convey passionate romance without seeming corny and raw sexuality without coming off like a sleaze. He always sounds so completely there, so fully committed, and totally direct in his language. I first realized this when singing “Need You Tonight” at karaoke and nearly blushing at the lyrics. You need to rise to his level of confidence to sing those words effectively.

“Not Enough Time” may be the most romantic INXS song. Hutchence’s lyrics are heart-melting, the sort of thing you dream of saying, feeling, hearing from someone else. The song is grounded by its low end, a simple, gorgeous pulse that ranks among my all-time favorite bass lines. Even as the song swoops up for its quasi-gospel climax, that bass keeps the whole thing feeling small in scale. You never forget that this is song is about a moment between two people.

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This ten-disc, 183-song mix is a survey of some of the best and most notable music from 2011. It covers a wide range of artists and genres, and I think it’s as comprehensive as it possibly can be while focusing on my personal favorites and omitting stuff I either don’t care about or outright hate. I think you’ll find that this serves as both a helpful guide to some of the year’s most exciting music and a surprisingly listenable series of mixes. Discover new music, rethink familiar acts, jam out to nearly 13 hours of music. If you enjoy this, please do pass it on.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Beyoncé “Countdown” / Jay-Z and Kanye West “Gotta Have It” / Britney Spears “How I Roll” / Tune-Yards “Powa” / Lady Gaga “Yoü and I” / Neon Indian “Fallout” / Friendly Fires “Hurting” / TV on the Radio “Caffeinated Consciousness” / Battles “Sweetie and Shag” / Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire with Despot, Das Racist, Danny Brown and El-P “Huzzah! Remix” / Action Bronson “Larry Csonka” / Toro Y Moi “Still Sound” / Thao and Mirah “Rubies and Rocks” / Paul Simon “The Afterlife” / Iron and Wine “Me and Lazarus” / Lloyd with Andre 3000 and Lil Wayne “Dedication to My Ex (Miss That)” / Adele “I’ll Be Waiting” / Cass McCombs “County Line”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Slow Club “Two Cousins” / The Rapture “It Takes Time To Be A Man” / DJ Shadow featuring Little Dragon “Scale It Back” / Rihanna “We Found Love” / Handsome Furs “What About Us” / Cut Copy “Where I’m Going” / Holy Ghost! “Do It Again” / MNDR “Cut Me Out” / Patrick Wolf “The City (Richard X Remix)” / Azealia Banks “212” / Lonely Island with Nicki Minaj “The Creep” / Danny Brown “I Will” / John Maus “Believer” / Sepalcure “Carrot Man” / Beirut “Santa Fe” / Jessica Lea Mayfield “Tell Me” / Cults “Bad Things” / Gardens & Villa “Carrizo Plain”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

Florence + the Machine “Spectrum” / Wild Beasts “Bed of Nails” / Destroyer “Kaputt” / PJ Harvey “The Words That Maketh Murder” / Tyler the Creator and Hodgy Beats “Sandwitches” / King Louie “Too Cool” / James Pants “Every Night I Dream” / The Weeknd “The Party and the After Party” / Thundercat “Walkin'” / Radiohead “Separator” / Lil Wayne “Nightmares of the Bottom” / Little Dragon “Nightlight” / M83 “Claudia Lewis” / Yuck “Shook Down” / Smith Westerns “Weekend” / Matthew Friedberger “Shirley” / Cymbals Eat Guitars “The Current” / Society of Rockets “Plastic Stars”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

R.E.M. “Discoverer” / Wild Flag “Romance” / Purity Ring “Ungirthed” / Veronica Maggio “Finns Det En Så Finns Det Flera” / Planningtorock “I Am Your Man” / EMA “Milkman” / Atlas Sound “Mona Lisa” / Eleanor Friedberger “Heaven” / Real Estate “It’s Real” / Pistol Annies “Hell On Heels” / Pusha T “Raid” / ASAP Rocky “Palace” / Kelly Clarkson “What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger)” / AWOLNATION “Sail” / The Joy Formidable “Whirring” / Cold Cave “The Great Pan is Dead” / Mr. Dream “Learn the Language” / Sandro Perri “Changes” / Austra “Shoot the Water” / Bon Iver “Calgary”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

The Kills “Future Starts Slow” / Anna Calvi “No More Words” / Black Keys “Lonely Boy” / James Blake “The Wilhelm Scream” / Shabazz Palaces “Recollections of the Wraith” / Nicolas Jaar “Space Is Only Noise If You Can See” / King Krule “Portrait in Black and Blue” / Jack White “Love Is Blindness” / Cam’ron and Vado “Girls Cry” / Curren$y “This Is the Life” / Ludacris with Wiz Khalifa “What U Smoking On” / Electric Six “Psychic Visions” / Panda Bear “Last Night at the Jetty” / Drake “Marvins Room” / Kurt Vile “Baby’s Arms” / Feist “How Come You Never Go There?” / Cliffie Swan “Dream Chain” / The Decemberists “Calamity Song” / ‘The Book of Mormon’ Original Cast “I Believe”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Julianna Barwick “The Magic Place” / St. Vincent “Cruel” / Lykke Li “Youth Knows No Pain” / Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks “No One Is (As I Are Be)” / The Last Hurrah “The Ballad of Billy and Lilly (Parts 1 and 2)” / Thurston Moore “Illuminine” / My Morning Jacket “You Wanna Freak Out” / Fleet Foxes “Bedouin Dress” / Travis Garland and JoJo “Paint” / Yelle “Safari Disco Club” / Sebastian featuring Mayer Hawthorne “Love In Motion” / ARAABMUZIK “Golden Touch” / xxxy “Ordinary Things” / Tom Vek “A Chore” / Patrick Stump “Spotlight (New Regrets)” / Yelawolf “Good Girl” / Big K.R.I.T. “Time Machine” / Rewards with Solange Knowles “Equal Dreams”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Rebecca Black “Friday” / Das Racist “Michael Jackson” / The-Dream with Big Sean “Ghetto” / Ke$ha “Blow” / Katy B “Broken Record” / SBTRKT “Right Thing to Do” / Kelly Rowland with Lil Wayne “Motivation” / J. Cole “Work Out” / Justice “On’n’on” / Coldplay “Hurts Like Heaven” / Big Troubles “Misery” / Iceage “Broken Bone” / Liturgy “Generation” / Oneohtrix Point Never “Replica” / Kate Bush “Wild Man” / Charli XCX “Stay Away” / Gang Gang Dance “Sacer” / Lana Del Rey “Video Games”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Beastie Boys “Make Some Noise” / Nicki Minaj “Super Bass” / Miranda Lambert “Baggage Claim” / Los Campesinos! “By Your Hand” / The Strokes “Under Cover of Darkness” / Foo Fighters “Back and Forth” / Girls “Alex” / Guided by Voices “The Unsinkable Fats Domino” / Megafaun “Get Right” / Keren Ann “My Name Is Trouble” / Active Child “Hanging On” / The Field “Is This Power?” / Azari & III “Manic” / Frank Ocean “Songs For Women” / Unknown Mortal Orchestra “Little Blue House” / Kathryn Calder “Who Are You?” / Future of the Left “Polymers Are Forever”

DOWNLOAD DISC 9

Hauschka “Cube” / Mountain Goats “Damn These Vampires” / Sloan “Unkind” / Telekinesis “I Cannot Love You” / Wilco “Dawned On Me” / Gauntlet Hair “My Christ” / Cities Aviv “Coastin'” / Lil B “I Seen That Light” / Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame “Break Her” / Jamie xx “Far Nearer” / Skrillex “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” / The Dø “Gonna Be Sick!” / Lindsey Buckingham “In Our Own Time” / The War On Drugs “I Was There” / Wye Oak “Holy Holy” / Dum Dum Girls “Coming Down” / WU LYF “Heavy Pop” / Esben and the Witch “Marine Fields Grow”

DOWNLOAD DISC 10

Deerhoof “The Merry Barracks” / Craig Wedren “I Know” / Death Cab For Cutie “Codes and Keys” / Jamie Woon “Lady Luck” / Gotye “I Feel Better” / Raphael Saadiq “Stone Rollin’” / Tom Waits “Talking At the Same Time” / Björk “Crystalline” / Mary J Blige with Rick Ross “Why” / Kendrick Lamar “A.D.H.D.” / Washed Out “Eyes Be Closed” / Adventure “Smoke and Mirrors” / Bell “Meaninglessness” / Killer Mike “Ready Set Go” / Nicola Roberts “Lucky Day” / Madeon “Pop Culture (Live Mashup)” / Joe Goddard “Gabriel” / Phantogram “Don’t Move” / The Olivia Tremor Control “The Game You Play Is In Your Head, Parts 1, 2 and 3”

Gotye “I Feel Better”

I love the directness of these lyrics — it’s nothing you’ve never heard in a pop song before, but I can’t help but feel totally moved by this guy’s genuine, unguarded expression of joy after coming out of a period of loneliness and depression. If you’re lucky, you’ll find yourself relating, and tapping along to its quasi-Motown beat. More likely, you’ll just nod and think “wow, good for you, buddy!” There’s something in the grain of his voice that really sells this sense of hard-won optimism. The sentiment doesn’t sound like it came cheap.

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Danny Brown “I Will”

Danny Brown spends a lot of time rapping about his intense love for performing cunnilingus, and this track is pretty much his most enthusiastic ode to that act. Even though there’s a number of other emcees from Brown’s generation who are keen to boast about their love of going down on ladies, it’s still pretty refreshing to hear hip-hop music so focused on selflessly providing pleasure to women. Well, it’s not that selfless. Danny’s clearly having a grand old time down there, and the chorus about how he’ll do what some other guy will not suggests that this is just as much about competition with other dudes than it is about making his girl happy.

Get the mixtape for free from Fools Gold.

Rihanna “We Found Love”

The sound of Rihanna’s voice is very distinct and interesting, but she rarely conveys a recognizable persona in her songs. Her biggest hits tend to dispel with lyrics entirely, so her icy, metallic tone can carry purely melodic or rhythmic hooks. She often elevates so-so material just by showing up – in some ways, she’s like the vocal equivalent of a really cool effects pedal. “We Found Love,” her latest hit, makes use of that ineffable x factor in her voice, but it’s powerful mainly because it pushes her beyond her typical phrasing. The chorus is basically a mantra, but Rihanna’s reading is dynamic – she reaches into the high end of her register, and in the process reveals a vulnerability that rarely comes into play on her up-tempo numbers. Calvin Harris’ hard-charging Eurodisco track brings all of the heaviness here, while she focuses on sounding like a person who has truly found love in a hopeless place. She sounds elated, relieved and overwhelmed. It’s a breakthrough for her as a vocalist, and the best and most moving song of her career to date.

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Cities Aviv “Coastin'”

Cities Aviv’s verses here are mostly about his ambitions and desire to stand apart from other rappers, the chorus is about wanting to get to a level of success that doesn’t require him to work quite as hard. It’s something he hopes to achieve by the age of 25, but the melodramatic movie score strings signals a retirement much further along on the timeline. The mood of this track is incredible – from the very first time I heard it, I felt like I was instantly transported to this wistful, romantic, cinematic place. It works every time, though sometimes it feels more melancholy, and other times more tranquil.

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King Krule “The Noose of Jah City”

It can be so difficult to reconcile the sophistication and sexiness of this music with the fact that it was written and performed by a gawky teenage boy. Archy Marshall’s voice is immediately fascinating – it has the poetic English grit of a Joe Strummer or latter-day Elvis Costello, but a more elastic phrasing than either. “The Noose of Jah City” frames his voice with echoing guitar, shimmering keyboards and a dubby bass line; it sounds like the middle of night. The lyrics get rather morbid, but the sound and feeling is pure romance. And you know, even if the words aren’t about sex and love, there is a romanticism in imagining the end of your life, right?

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Action Bronson “Ronnie Coleman”

It’s pretty easy to listen to Action Bronson’s debut album and kinda lose track of things and find yourself thinking “Man, this new Ghostface album is terrific.” The vocal similarity is remarkable, but the skill levels are different – Bronson is witty and nimble, but Ghost’s flows are more eccentric and emotionally volatile. Bronson’s obsession with food gives his album Dr. Lecter a lot of color and character, and in “Ronnie Coleman,” he engages the dark side of that obsession with a lot of brutal honesty and humor. It’s almost impossible to find music that frankly addresses the psychological elements of dealing with obesity, so it’s sort of exciting to hear a song that nails it while being quite complex, funny and funky.

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Pistol Annies “Hell On Heels”

Cold-blooded country pop. This song benefits from being sung by a trio of vocalists – it might be a bit too static with one singer, but the dynamic improves the piece on a line-to-line level. The Miranda Lambert parts are most compelling, mainly because she conveys the least compassion for her character’s mark, but I think the relative sweetness of Ashley Monroe and the sassy tone of Angaleena Presley balances it all out. It’s a dark fantasy, but the suggestion of three separate faces for the same character adds a touch of humanity to what could just be cartoonish cruelty.

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Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire featuring Despot, Das Racist, Danny Brown and El-P “Huzzah! (Remix)”

My favorite rap tracks are usually posse cuts: a steady, repetitive beat and a series of verses, preferably with no chorus. The instrumental for “Huzzah” isn’t totally static – there’s a few flourishes to accentuate particular lines – but it’s not really the draw here. The dynamics are all in the vocal performances, and the contrast of very different rhyme styles. Despot and Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire bookend the piece with aggressive, rough rhymes, while the Das Racist guys are, respectively, lackadaisical and charmingly sloppy. The most remarkable performances here are by Danny Brown, who sounds more like a maniacal animated character than a human being, and El-P, who delivers a stunningly crafted verse containing a subtle escalating counting theme and a narrative about rioters in London. He might be the least magnetic rapper on the track, but seriously, those lyrics. Wow.

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Future of the Left “Polymers Are Forever”

The obvious thing that Andy Falkous is very good at is making his making his voice hit the speakers with a blunt, violent force. This is especially powerful when paired with a sharp, stabbing riff, like the one found in the first half of this song. The less obvious thing that Falkous does well – and really, that’s kind of an understatement, he truly excels at this – is in constructing songs that cycle through a series of hooks before moving on to other ever-escalating melodic patterns. It’s an unusually sophisticated strength for a guy who essentially makes heavy, venomous punk rock.

“Polymers Are Forever” is split down the middle – the first half is more bludgeoning, his voice alternating between nasal hectoring and throaty shouts. The second half seems to expand in scale, with a quasi-anthemic chorus that seems to stretch out from close-up to widescreen panorama. (Structurally and tonally, it’s rather similar to Wire’s classic “Map Ref. 41°N 93°W.”) In this section, Falkous’ voice is more distant and pitiless, like an indifferent god. With this contrast, the implied violence of the first part seems almost warm and intimate – undeniably human. The rest of it, though – it’s all science.

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U2 “Ultra Violet (Light My Way)”

“Ultra Violet” has been one of my favorite songs for 20 years now, and I find that I as I get older, I only love it more. This makes some sense: It’s a song about adult love, and a connection that endures so that both partners can show each other support in hard times. This could be a very trite song, but it’s not – Bono’s lyrics make it clear that none of this comes easy, and the band successfully convey a sense that this love is genuinely miraculous and invigorating. That passion and excitement comes through in the Edge’s unusually jaunty guitar rhythm, but that’s contrasted with a solemn, gorgeous bass line by Adam Clayton that emphasizes the intensity and romance at the heart of the piece.

The lyric that totally slays me comes at the climax of the final verse: “When I was all messed up and I heard opera in my head / your love was a light bulb hanging over my bed.” The sentiment is one thing, but the specificity of the language is what gets me. I picture this bulb dangling on a cord above a squalid mattress, the light casting about, warping shadows around the room as it sways.

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Grimes “Oblivion”

There’s a girlishness to the sound of Claire Boucher’s voice on this track that makes the music seem a bit twee, but there’s something a bit deeper and darker going on in the arrangement. The tune seems to tangle itself around a synth part that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Knife or Little Dragon record, the vocal melody sounding a bit like someone trying to sing “I Think We’re Alone Now” but not quite getting it right. The swirling piano-like sound and wordless vocals on the breakdown are another curveball – simple and innocent, but very sophisticated in its construction. The piece subtly mutates a couple more times after that without losing its shape. Tuneful, emotionally ambiguous stuff.

Visit Arbutus Records’ Grimes page.

Atlas Sound “Mona Lisa”

When I interviewed Bradford Cox last week he told me that of the songs on his new album Parallax, “Mona Lisa” didn’t mean all that much to him and that it mainly served a musical purpose in the overall composition of the record. This took me by surprise because since I got a copy of the album a month or so ago, it was the track I zeroed in on and listened to repeatedly, at the expense of the other songs. But thinking on it now, I can see why he’d feel that way: Whereas other songs on the album express specific anxieties and desires, “Mona Lisa” is very vague. It’s all melody and feeling. And that’s why I’m responding to – the way it sounds like a vague echo of George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord;” the understated beauty in the piano part and vocal harmonies. I’ve projected a lot on to this tune, but if pressed, I don’t think I could really explain what I’ve projected upon it. It’s one of those songs I know I’ll hear a few years ago and identify with this particular period of time.

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Pusha T “Raid”

I love the crispness of Pusha T’s voice – even aside from the careful construction of his rhymes, there’s something about his verses that brings to mind freshly laundered and neatly folded clothing. There are more nimble and graceful emcees, but I like the way he hits his marks – even, careful, obviously proud of his meticulous craftsmanship. He shines in tracks like this one, where the beat and accompaniment is just as clean as his vocals, and nothing crowds out the sound of his voice.

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