Marley's music of 2011

A collection of songs and albums I found myself listening to this year. Some came out this year, some didn't. All are worth sharing. Here we go.

Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" (Eff you, Bon Iver). This one is first because I have no idea where else to put it and I just wanted to put it out there that this is a good song by a female artist and Bon Iver is boring. 

 

That one Adele song...tried the rest of the album...eh. She's got the
love Amy's got the squalor ...

Speaking of...I've been listening to a fuckton of Amy Winehouse for obvious reasons. RIP Amy, sniffle (unironic sniffle!!). 

None of the new tori cuz I'm a bad bad aging fangurl...and dont get me started on how Tori is aging. Her face does not look right.

 

Britney "I Wanna Go" is Femme Fatale's "Toxic"... actually the whole album is pretty good, even that song that sounds exactly like Supertramp's "Logical Song" is ok.

Robyn, obviously, but let's not forget this Robyn+ RyeRye remix because it's pretty amazing. (Nothing beats the "Call Your Girlfriend" dance but I fear this is being lost in the shuffle and it shouldn't be)

The Gaga record because it's perfect in how it is flawed (every song is 3 songs, it's all over the place, the lyrics are really ridiculous and contrived in some places, etc etc... but it's Gaga so it's all forgivable since you can listen to it while working out).

An illicit copy of the Sleep No More soundtrack including tracks I've named "creepy drone sounds," "entrance music for a film," and "creepy 30s speakeasy" (This version of Peggy Lee's "Why Dont You Do Right" with record crackles in the background=perfection) ...And because they operate in a similar vein, I'm lumping Esben and the Witch into this...at least "Marching Song." (Not so down with the video but just listen.)

The Throne, straight through twice and only twice, but "N*ggas in Paris" 3 times at the show in Atl
("Talk amongst your friends"). Also props to those dudes for slowing it down in the beginning Salem-style.

Oh Land before she got famous and went to the movies with Katy Perry... whatever I have a picture with her at SXSW 2011 before that happened

This JoJo Durk remix

SPF 5K especially this jammy...do not play it for your parents or even your open-minded aunt....but you should play it at your next dance party

Honorable mention for Today The Moon, Tomorrow The Sun's "We Were Wild" since I got to see it performed at Cameo in Brooklyn and Star Bar in Atlanta (the day before the video below was made, it's not great but you get the idea).

2nd honorable mention to Nicki Minaj because I can't put just her verse of "Monster" (again) and this video has her singing with Rihanna near an airplane wreck (weird "Fly"-association but ok) and then fighting ninjas. So, for general weirdness and wigs--kudos to Nicki. Also way to spread out 1 album in 2 years--this song is the 8th single (8th!?) and was released over a year after the first single. Dang.

And my bfs band, Silent Drape Runners, the most bloggable band ever.

autotune: how ke$ha will save us from ourselves

If you don't love Autotune with all your heart, I will fight you.

So-called music critics, hipsters and professional pop haters spend a lot of time and energy looking down their noses and tugging their trendy beards, aghast at how Autotune is used as a "cheap crutch" when an artist "can't sing." A few of these haters may have cut their teeth on Cher, and sneered a lot at T-Pain, but really began to warble when Kanye dropped 808s and Heartbreak, an outrageously solid album inexecusably missing from Pitchfork's Top 200 Albums of the 2000s. 

Indie darling Nick from the Islands tweeted that "non-stylistic use of Autotune was ruining music, and also I can't remember the words to my own songs, and have you any cocaine for me, dear sir?" (Maybe I'm paraphrasing a bit.) 808s was the most appropriate use of Autotune to date: Kanye West suffers for all of us, chief among his outrageous arrows the pain of losing his humanity. (Spike Jonze famously showed us a video of Kanye surgically removing his soul.)

The way I see it, the arguments against Autotune have nothing to do with style.

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