"'American Cinematographer' Poll Names 'Amélie' Best-Shot Film of 1998-2008"- American Society of Cinematographers
I was a bit surprised by the order of this poll at the top, but you can’t argue that any of these fifty deserve mention.
I probably would have gone:
1. In the Mood for Love (Doyle)
2. The Thin Red Line (Toll)
3. The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (Kaminski)
4. The Man Who Wasn’t There (Deakins)
5. Elephant (Savides)
At any rate, those guys and Robert Richardson are the ones you have to mention.
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"Cipha Sounds Presents: The 75 Greatest Tunnel Bangers"- complex.com
Familiarize.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
I applied for the vacant staff writer job at Pitchfork, and part of the process was ranking your top albums and songs of the year so far. Since I swapped things out and re-listened to music all week to prepare for the lists, I thought I would list them here.
I wanted to put Big Boi up there, but I had to be truthful. He’s still one of my favorite rappers ever, but I hate that stretch of the album from tracks 8-10 in which you barely even hear his voice. I never thought I would criticize his collaborative spirit, but there you go. Big Boi, I still like rap music, even if you don’t. I bought a Big Boi album, not a Billy Ocean one.
I would almost be disappointed if Pitchfork were to hire me. Really? No one cooler than me applied?
10 Favorite Albums from 2010:
10. Cam’ron & Vado- Boss of All Bosses 2.5
9. The National- High Violet
8. Band of Horses- Infinite Arms
7. Vampire Weekend- Contra
6. Local Natives- Gorilla Manor
5. Hot Chip- One Life Stand
4. Best Coast- Crazy for You
3. Free Energy- Stuck on Nothing
2. LCD Soundsystem- This Is Happening
1. Yeasayer- Odd Blood
10 Favorite Tracks from 2010:
10. Sleigh Bells- “Infinity Guitars”
9. Free Energy- “Bang Pop”
8. Harlem- “Someday Soon”
7. Joker- “Tron”
6. Tanlines- “Real Life”
5. Yeasayer- “Ambling Alp”
4. Drake feat. The-Dream- “Shut It Down”
3. Delorean- “Stay Close”
2. Japandroids- “Younger Us”
1. The Morning Benders- “Excuses”
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"The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s"- Staff- Pitchfork
Only one song per band? This is going to be crazy. I’m guessing the top fifteen will be something like:
15. Liz Phair- “Divorce Song”
14. DJ Shadow- “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt”
13. Bonnie “Prince” Billy- “I See a Darkness”
12. Beck- “Where It’s At”
11. Wu-Tang Clan- “Protect Ya Neck”
10. Nine Inch Nails- “Closer”
9. Notorious B.I.G.- “Juicy”
8. Aphex Twin- “Windowlicker”
7. Neutral Milk Hotel- “Holland, 1945”
6. Daft Punk- “Da Funk”
5. Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg- “Nuthin’ but a G Thang”
4. Elliott Smith- “Between the Bars”
3. Pavement- “Cut Your Hair”
2. Nirvana- [begrudgingly] “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
1. Radiohead- “Paranoid Android”
Those artists will all be near the top, but what’s so maddening about predicting these is that I could be completely wrong about the song Pitchfork chose. “Juicy”/”Hypnotize” is a toss-up. They could easily pick “Heart-Shaped Box,” though it would be ballsy to not include “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at all, and they could choose two or three other Pavement songs if “Cut Your Hair” is too outre. And the Pixies have to be somewhere. This is what I’m sticking with though. We’ll see how it shapes up.
Still, we’re only at 151, and Green Day’s already gone, not to mention En Vogue! This is madness!
(No. This is Pitchfork.)
"The Top Ten Rap Songs about Four Loko"- Nick Murray- Village Voice
While I’m not an expert by any means, I’ve witnessed and participated in a fair amount of karaoke. Just last weekend, I bypassed lots of rookie mistakes and performed a slightly above average version of “With Arms Wide Open” to a Houston crowd on whom most of the irony was lost. (The bar didn’t have “Careless Whisper,” which is my default specialty.) I was…perfectly adequate. And in an endeavor as unforgiving as live singing over tracks in the style of popular artists, every person should be so lucky. This is…
Your Guide to Being Adequate at Karaoke
1. If You Can Sing, Don’t Worry about This List- A small percentage of the population—five percent maybe—can actually sing. If you’re honest with yourself, you know whether or not you’re one of those people. If you are, you can do whatever you want without any of these rules applying to you.
2. Some Songs Are Off-Limits- Based on degree of difficulty alone, some songs are ill-advised. Unless you are part of that five percent, you have no business doing “I Will Always Love You,” “Don’t Stop Believin’,” or any song not named “Fat Bottomed Girls” by Queen. I appreciate the chutzpah, but you’re not going to come close to the original version of any of those. Don’t try.
(Showtunes are also off-limits, cat lady. No one cares.)
3. Know the Words- This seems obvious, but you wouldn’t believe how many people figure: “I’m sure my rendition of ‘La Bamba’ will go swimmingly. The words are right on this screen in front of me if I get into trouble.” You don’t know the words to “La Bamba,” bro. You know part of the chorus, and for the other seventy-five percent of the song, you’ll be glued to the monitor and boring your audience as you speed-read. If you don’t know every single word of a song—without reading from anything—do not attempt it.
4. Get In and Get Out- Especially if you’re doing poorly, your time in front of the crowd can feel like an eternity. Don’t make it worse by doing “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” or something. Keep your song under four minutes and leave the crowd wanting more. Or at least minimize your discomfort.
5. Forget Narrative Songs- In general, the more choruses a song has, the better. People want to sing along and get swept away. They certainly don’t care what happened to Bobby McGee. Even if the gradual development of the character and the irony of the final verse are the most profound things ever written, no one is really listening. It is not your job to expose people to great music they might appreciate; it is your job to deliver a song they already want to hear and not destroy it.
6. If You’re White, Rap Songs Are Dicey- First off, you probably don’t know the words. And even if you do know every word—not just “cooking MC’s like a pound of bacon”—White people doing rap songs always plays on the notion that White people should not be doing rap songs. That type of irony does not win over a crowd. If you’re going to do one, make sure that it’s not something obvious (“Baby Got Back” is outlawed.) and make sure that you can sell it. Even the most technically proficient rappers—and you’re probably not one of them—get by on charisma and force of performance. Tread lightly.
7. Go It Alone- I know. I know. “Islands in the Stream” says so much about you and your bestie. But chances are, you haven’t ever practiced it, and you don’t know who is going to sing which part, and you won’t effortlessly nail harmonies. You’re going to mess it up. If you’re the type who needs “all of your giiiiiirrrrrrlllllls” for support, you’re probably not strong enough to do this right anyway.
8. Put the Drink Down- Obviously, alcohol is a major component of all karaoke. That being said, having a drink in your hand restricts your movements on stage, and it seems like you’re making excuses before you’ve even started. Being drunk is acceptable and even encouraged, but go up as naked as the emotions you want to convey. Your beer can wait four minutes or less.
9. Read the Crowd- Nine times out of ten, all people really want is “Friends in Low Places” or some shit. What you listen to on your own time is not important. You know which songs people actually like; don’t pretend that you don’t. Don’t sing in a vacuum either: If two people have already done Madonna songs, don’t be the third. If someone did a hair metal song and received blank stares, don’t think yours will be any different. So much of this is common sense.
If you obey these basic rules, you will avoid cliche, embarrassment, and ill will. For example, the two shittiest karaoke songs of all-time are “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “American Pie.” Because they each break at least two of the rules listed above, you would never fall victim to their sway. I’ve just saved you a terrible night. You’re welcome, gentle reader. I will always love you.
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"The 50 Greatest Dipset Songs"- Complex
I forgot about a couple of these—the one with the “Movin’ Out” sample, for instance. Overall, a solid list, even if “Dipset Forever”/”I Really Mean It” are the clear numbers one and two.
Get familiar.
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"The Top 10 Rules for Making Top 10 Lists"- Will Leitch and Tim Grierson- Yahoo! Movies
I agree with most of these rules. It will be interesting to see what Leitch and Grierson do with this new outlet.
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At the end, I’ll include a zip file to download all of these. The links are to YouTube videos for now.
25. Freddie Gibbs- “National Anthem (Fuck the World)”- Imagining your song as, paradoxically, something that could represent an entire country and a kiss-off to the entire world is certainly ambitious, but it’s perfect for Gibbs’ throaty but effortless flow. While he has a way of jamming syllables where they shouldn’t necessarily belong, you also get the sense that he never wastes a word. The chorus, bolstered by some mighty plaintive whistling, is built on Tupac-recalling chest-pounding, but it also suggests an unparalleled personal hunger. You might recall another Gary, Indiana native who did similar things.
24. Cults- “Go Outside”- Every line from this New York duo sounds like a chorus. A xylophone is always a cheap trick for creating earworms, but nothing supplants the disjointed, arching melodies at the center of this Manic Pixie Dream Girl banger. It ends just as modestly as it begins, but in the middle there are worlds of hummable immediacy.
23. Perfume Genius- “Mr. Peterson”- This is an aching, funereal song about an inappropriate relationship leading up to a suicide, but it’s told with language and delivery elliptical enough to make you believe that it was the most natural thing in the world. Not many of us can return to the matter-of-fact, vulnerable tone that seventeen-year-olds speak with, but when Mike Hadreas sings, “He made me a tape of Joy Division / He told me there was part of him missin’,” he nails it. Rather than tragically plummeting to his death, the title character just “jumped off a building,” knowing “he was ready to go.” The song, which is really just a concentrated memory, seems to break apart by the end, as if it was only half-remembered. But that half that we get is fragile and moving.
22. Aloe Blacc- “I Need a Dollar”- This is such an authentic recreation of a vibrant, searching Bill Withers-esque soul song that it risks coming off as parody. In four minutes, Blacc manages to re-enact all of the important tropes of American Black Music, but that doesn’t mean that the song sounds overly studied. Instead, it’s full and expressive in a singular way. The way most people came into contact with this song was through its status as the theme song to HBO’s disingenuous, superficial show How to Make It in America. Part of why the show doesn’t work is that its most truthful moment can’t ever eclipse the silky perfection of the introduction. From the first few piano plinks, Aloe Blacc creates a tough act to follow.
21. Tennis- “Marathon”- One second this sounds like “Be My Baby”-style bass drum gathers and doo-wop harmonies. The next second it turns into fuzzed-out scales that suggest a more cuddly Liz Phair. By the end, after all of your fun, you realize that the only thing uniting all of those judgments together is great pop music, which Tennis definitely is.
20. Free Energy- “Bang Pop”- When I first wrote about this song in May, I said that it sounded like “stealing a bag of ice from a gas station just because you can.” That’s glib, but I think what I meant was that the music is carefree and loud and spontaneous and freeing in that same way that consequence-free bad behavior is. But that statement doesn’t hint at the weird alchemy of context-free Thunderbird speaker-shattering that Free Energy weaves. The greatest trick indie dudes ever pulled was convincing the world that Bad Company and Thin Lizzy didn’t really exist. And that’s why Free Energy’s debut is one of the most over-looked releases of the year. But if you turn on the radio even today, you still can’t stop Godzilla. (And that’s still glib.)
19. Kanye West feat. Rick Ross- “Devil in a New Dress”- In the past ten years, I’ve probably written more about Kanye West than I’ve written about anyone else. I’ll try to make this brief, considering that he’ll definitely show up on this list again. The fact of the matter is that, while he produces a handful of unforgettable moments on this, sometimes with his inflection alone (“Satann-Satannn-Sataan…”), the real star of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s most ethereal, breezy song is Bink’s elegant production, leaning heavily on a sample of Smokey Robinson’s surely expensive “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.” The addition of Rick Ross’ exasperated bark takes it to another level. His line “So many cars DMV thought it was mail fraud” is such a weird detail that you know it’s shit that actually happened to him, and you also know that Kanye, no matter how egotistical he seems, is a league leader in assists.
18. Titus Andronicus- “A More Perfect Union”- An Abraham Lincoln speech starts Titus’ ridiculously sprawling second album The Monitor, and it trails off with the line “As a nation, we men, we will live forever…or die by suicide.” That dichotomy often becomes the stakes of this breathless post-punk monument. It’s about The Civil War; being young; and, most of all, New Jersey. Depending on who you ask, New Jersey is either the home to the most dire crossfire of our nation’s poverty and violence or the place where MTV shoots Room Raiders. What Titus Andronicus finds across walls of power chord downstrokes and unsatisfied growls, as they “rally around the flag,” is that it’s both of those things. And much more.
17. Sleigh Bells- “Infinity Guitars”- This song is just as enormous as it is deceptively simple. It sounds as if this irrepressible duo mined ’80s trash culture for every tiny bit of catchy ephemera, and then spread those pebbles of cheerleading jean-jacketerring across two minutes and change. It’s no surprise that vocalist Alexis Krauss graduated from Lou Pearlman late-’90s girl-groups when you hear the simple power of her economic runs. This is fight music for after-school art clubs.
16. Big K.R.I.T.- “Country Shit”- Throughout his withered but assured debut K.R.I.T. Wuz Here, this Mississippi native proclaims who he is and what he represents with utmost certainty. The chopped-up vocal sample here does more to establish momentum and rhythm than any of the damp, skittering drums. There are songs on the mixtape that are more reflective, but few have the accessible swagger of this lead single. The chorus is “Let me tell you ‘bout this country shit”—as if he’s assuming that sharing his heritage with us is a privilege—and he banters about Gulf Coast signifiers with the rich depth of molasses, eager to accept that responsibility.
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