May 2010
9 posts
1 tag
WatchMay 2010 top ten, #2: Josh Turner, “Why Don’t We Just Dance”
Normative pop and rock singing is at middle frequencies. If you’re male, that means you earn your keep above middle C. Now, resonant bass notes have a fundamental appeal, but it’s hard to write a tune spanning more than an octave and a half without ungainly leaps, and ungainly is one thing Josh Turner, the...
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WatchMay 2010 top ten, #3: Vijay Iyer Trio, “Galang (Trio Riot Version)”
In retrospect the song was ripe for a jazz cover: hip original, fun rhythm, some melody but not too much, so that, lyrics aside, the interpreters are adding, not subtracting. Iyer’s piano is more angular on the Historicity album than previously, especially here: it’s “Galang”, you’re not...
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WatchMay 2010 top ten, #4: Ladyhawke, “Back of the Van” Ignoring what has been determined to be cool and uncool in the cultural capitals even if they live in one, women of New Zealand descent haven’t forgotten how to amplify the emotional cores of cliches. Natasha Bedingfield and collaborators structured the best non-Swedish Pop song of the 2000s around the words “I love...
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WatchMay 2010 top ten, #5: Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, “Ma Dou Sou Nou Mio” Yehoussi Leopold goes on permanent vacation. This is one of the busiest drumkit grooves I’ve heard on an Afropop track. Not as subtle as, say, Tony Allen on Fela’s “Confusion”, but a worthy rep for Benin in a Champions League.
WatchMay 2010 top ten, #6: Sonny J, “Handsfree (If You Hold My Hand)”
“If You Hold My Hand” is by one Donna Hightower: b. 1926, has an entry in Spanish but not English Wikipedia. This is basically a remix by one Sonnington James III, who by contrast seems destined for a Big in Greece fate (this hit top ten there, #77 UK). If that’s your nom de plume, you deserve what you...
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WatchMay 2010 top ten, #7: Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, “Noude Ma Gnin Tche De Me” The rhythm section leads the way, or at least that would explain why the backing vocalists get turned up so loud. The polyrhythms are straight funk: behind the kit, Yehoussi Leopold could be Clyde Stubblefield’s twin. Guitarist Bernard “Papillon” Zoundegnon is more distinctly West...
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WatchMay 2010 top ten, #8: Baroness, “A Horse Called Golgotha”
It was inevitable that Southern metal would become a distinct genre. Unlike with Mastodon, you could mix-and-match members of Baroness with those of the Drive-By Truckers and obtain coherent results. Of course, if Patterson Hood had written this song, Golgotha would be an allegory for Zell Miller and would get put down by a...
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WatchMay 2010 top ten, #9: Ladyhawke, “My Delirium”
Why didn’t I listen to Ladyhawke when Popjustice was pushing her in 2008? Turns out her album is the finest erotic-love artwork since Doctor Who 2006. Title aside, “My Delirium” doesn’t have her best lyrics — insomnia may be unavoidable, but it’s not worth doing it “for” someone even as a...
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WatchMay 2010 top ten, #10: Fever Ray, “Seven”
The detergent discussion (bet she uses a phosphate-free brand) might recall Bjork, but Karin Dreijer Andersson is closer to Kate Bush’s vision of Euroquirk. Their melodies are folk-shaped, both as one would write them and as she performs them. The difference: this is the 21st century and Karin will run every noise she emits through...
