That top twelve in full

I mentioned Amy Winehouse in passing in the last post... I like that song a lot, and it occurred to me that I should do something very conventionally zine-ish [coming this year! slalom-speaking in hard copy...] and bung up a top ten of my favourite tunes from last year. There was going to be a brief digressive grumble about Nick Hornby and 'pop chartism' [because now downloads are included they 'mean something' again, it says here], and then I thought, actually, no, let's not give the slap-headed, boring shite novel peddling, list fabricating Arsenal fan fanny the satisfaction. There's only one thing in the world worse than being blogged about, Nicholas!

SO!

Twelve lovely tunes from 2006:

Amy Winehouse - Rehab
'Trying to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no.'

Admirable sentiments, Ms Winebar. And what an ambitious sound too. Now eat a pie, for god's sake, you're making me feel peckish.

Stereolab - Interlock
'Hey all the small ones now "explain" '

Off their album 'Fab Four Suture' from March, which collects singles and b-sides from the last few years... this is superStereolab plus brass, big band-ish drum and loop-sounding synths [this observation from the 'zero insight department']. Also has classic Laetitia Sadier lyric snippet 'consumorphic morality', which might be about defence mechanisms for those becoming that which they buy... I love the way Stereolab are vitally political without really sounding like it.

Otterley - In Camera
'Keep paying attention...'

Ooh this is great. Otterley are from Dundee, Scot-land, and they made this tune which you can download from their website and you should. Full of African-sounding guitars, lots of spangly swooshes and echoey vocals you can half make out. 'In camera' means in secret, literally 'in chamber' [latin], and it's an apt title for a number of reasons - it sounds like a forlorn tennis song of emotion [forlorn tennis: where it's never 'love/love'], describing hidden feelings, and it's from one of the millions of rooms off the corridors of myspace...

Prince - Black Sweat
'I don't wanna take my clothes off... but I do.'

Well, this was just great too. Filth made by a master filthster. Tune: Proper Rogers Nelson, deceptively simple. Urgent funk-o-rama groove and whistley synths... he wants to 'show you what's really good,' and by 'you' he means, doubtless, Justin T. The video even looks a bit like the video for Kiss, just to reinforce the 'classic bit of Prince', dirrrty sex fiend vibe. A reminder, should one have been necessary, that he kind of thought all this stripped down r&b with talky shit up.

Hot Chip - Over & Over
'Like a monkey with a miniature cymbal...'

Or 'like a monkey with inflatable pigeons' as I was singing at that early stage when you've just heard a song that you know is going to be unavoidable within weeks but you can't quite place the words. For my website: accompanies a great lost Flash animation, perhaps, an endless loop of an animated monkey whipping what looks like a balloon from a bag by its side, a few quick exhalations and an inflated pigeon is added to the growing pile by the huffing simian. And more filth! 'Joy of repetition' alluding to one o' Prince's longest, dirrrtiest songs, the music sounding like the Beta Band locked in a disco instead of the studio after 'The Three EPs' came out... what was not to like? [I include this over the other NME 'hit' I also dug, The Gossip's 'Standing in the way of control', for the sake of numerical precision and also because The Gossip track sounded like Dolly Parton guesting on the Wild Bunch's 'Danger! High Voltage', which is absolutely a good thing but life's full of tough choices, eh? NB I don't really consider any aspect of this kind of indulgent exercise 'a tough choice' in any meaningful consideration of the phrase.]

Booka Shade - In white rooms
'Dnn-dnn-dnn, dnn-dnn-dnn, dnn-dnn-dnn, dnn-dnn-dnn...'

Mmmmm! The bit about two and half minutes in where the pulsing bass picks up a melody has the relaxational/uplift properties of standing in a white room the size of the universe. Soaring, serotonic, crowd-pleasuring dance music that has not failed to lift my spirits and the hairs on the back of my neck each time I've listened to it since we first met, and that's a great number of times, by the way, should my enthusing be insufficiently explanatory.

Ladytron - International Dateline
'Let's end it here...'

Dramatic! I didn't hear this until well after it came out [end of 2005], but that virtually makes it from last year, so anyway... Helen Marnie's voice is so very distinctive/plaintive, the sound is much heavier than the 'Boys & girls' synths of stuff like 17, and it communicates perfectly the melancholy of transit between places, selves, and the heart-choking Rubicon pause [not the brief hiatus before swallowing a soft drink, although it could be that too I guess...]... this notion of invisible thresholds drawn arbitrarily around the planet, in the sand, in airports. Moments of momentous decisions that make or break everything, and every moment being like that.

Pissed Jeans - Ashamed of my cum
'Never satisifed even after I'm done...'

I have to include this, not just for the wilful obscurantism quotient, but also because their name, sound and song inspirations are brilliant. It makes me think of Guided by Voices with less whimsy... the Stooges with no fun at all... brutal, yet hilarious. Plus the chorus is amazing.

Claude Von Stroke - Seven Deadly Strokes [Patrick Chardronnet remix]
'Bloop-bloop bloop bloop-bloop, bloop boop bloop boop-boop...'

Proper personal stereo tune this. Pop it on when embarking on a bus or rail journey by night, or crank it up in the car and enjoy about eight minutes of your time amplified to timeless emotion of every time you've ever undertaken such an expedition. Reverbed sounds like trucks honking in the inside lane, electronic noises blink like indicators, planes on approach, lights on the all-weather pitches giving the trees a weird look.

Arctic Monkeys - Mardy bum
'It was all up, up and away, but it's right hard to remember that on a day like today, when you're all argumentative... and you've got the face on.'

We lived every word.

Gotan Project - Tango Cancion

Unfortunately I'm at a loss as to how to represent the accordion and string plucked elegance of this number. Makes me yearn for the ability to throw someone with scraped back hair and a big flouncy black & red dress on about in the dance hall, a long stemmed red rose clamped between the teeth.

And to conclude this retrofest,

Dirty Pretty Things - You fucking love it
'Yeah yeah yeah!'

Well, you can't argue with that.

Pop music! Saviour of the universe time & again. Do please share your own favourite tunes, if tunes you have and want to share.

If anyone wants a CD burning, just ask...