buddy, what scares you?

Youth Anthems ACTIVATE.

K, one of the main things I hate is the folklorisation of non anglophone cultures. Like if your from Botswana the only shit that western people will even think of checking out is their traditional music heavily anchored into the past. It just commercializes their ethno-cultural history and doesn't really push youngins to see their native tongue as being something vital that can thrive in a globalized world. I think the main goal of art is to go forward. We never hear of non anglo artists doing modern music in their own tongue. It's very rare for one to bust through and the french and spanish have been pretty much the only other languages to ever even register blips on the anglo-western music radar. Anyways. TEKI LATEX is quickly becoming one of the best french rappers lyrically and he has always been on the forefront of shit in terms of beats. Today we have a video with him and Swedish rapper ALEXIS WEAK. This might be the first time I have heard a Swede speak his language in a song. I give you a really well done swedish/french electro-ish rap video.

ALEXIS WEAK FEAT TEKI LATEX - INNE PA KLUBBEN



Next up is a generic lo-fi indie party punk band MIKA MIKO. They are pretty much all-girl so I'm liking it. Gotta support females playing instruments! The video is also pretty cool. I also want to add that pitchfork tv's new streaming video tech suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

MIKA MIKO - I GOT A LOT (NEW NEW NEW)



Since I was primed on a new Teki Tek video I decided to hit up a dope CUIZINIER/TEKI LATEX joint featuring the one and only GENEAVEN HEATHEN. He also has one of the best god damn blogs in the universe called SENSITIVE TOUCHING.

shout out kingz

I guess I am a "music" "blogger" so I need to come out with a douchebag year's best albums post. Because that's what ultra cool bloggers do, they fall asleep on Saturday night and wake up once it's too late to go out and post on the internet :(


10. H20 - Nothing to Prove

Rounding out the top 10 is NYHC band H20. This is a band that I have straight up NEVER liked over my years involved in hardcore. When my friend Jay-Hu told me to check out this album I treated it with a healthy dose of whatever. Man, was I wrong. H20 have made the perfect album about sticking with hardcore regardless of how "passé" it might be amongst hipsterdom. Where Fucked Up is popular for evoking first generation hardcore and merging it with bells and whistles, H20 gives us something devoid of any trickery. This is an extremely solid melodic hardcore album with great lyrics that really strike a chord with me. STAND OUT TRACK = STILL HERE.

9. Coeur de pirate -S/T

Young francophone songstress Coeur de pirate is making pretty big waves with her self titled debut. This is an album that I have had on repeat for full afternoons of writing, lying down and thinking of greener pastures. Like I said when I wrote about her a few weeks ago she sounds like a mix between Cat Power and Françoise Hardy which is maybe the best complement I can give to a woman. Now the question is can she avoid the guaranteed rock journalism backlash! STAND OUT TRACK = POUR UN INFIDÈLE


8. Cuizinier - Pour les filles vol. 3

TTC squadron keeps on pumping out track after track of quality. Yelle might have got a bit more buzz off her Cuiziner diss track but she has re-released that song 3 times now. All the while Cuizinier has been involved in a new album as well as THREE mixtapes. He says he will answer her eventually and I think it's gonna hit a whole new level of post-feminist fair game misogyny (which is totally awesome BTW). Anyways the 3rd mixtape is totally great. He's able to mix American hipster rap, French hipster house and mainstream B.E.T. r&b-hop and just make into something special. The song GIRLS showcases this perfectly. It heavily samples Blur and features Baile funk's biggest star Marina (formerly of Bonde Do Rolle). Young Cueezy holding it down. STAND OUT TRACK = GIRLS and MESSAGE PERSO.

7.Vivian Girls - S/T

You know I love theatre but a lot of times I'm sitting there and stuff goes way over my head due to extreme weirdness. Hard art is great and all but man 2 and half hours is long to sit through a bloody man foetus doing a one man show. That's why I love one acts. In and out and I get it! Vivian Girls play some beautiful weird music that harkens back to 60s girl bands and surf music. However it clocks in at less than 30 minutes which is amazing. This album creates a weird and mysterious world, doesn't overstay its welcome and leaves you wanting more. Up and coming indie bands take note of this. STAND OUT TRACK = TELL THE WORLD.



6.Dillinger 4- C I V I L W A R

Punkrock, Hardcore, whatever you want to call it is a the greatest drug man will ever know. I still remember my first time in an all ages space getting my mind blown square off by this full on sensory assault. Nothing can ever come close to equalling that first high. Dillinger 4's C I V I L W A R is not the second coming of Christ but damn is it a legit punk album. It's like a veteran junkie who's got almost no veins to stab but he gets his hand on some real good heroin. It's never going to be like the first high but damn is this good heroin and it's an afternoon well spent. C I V I L W A R is like that for me. It's also a perfect conclusion for the past 8 years we've all gone through. A perfect send off for G.Dubya... Bush punk at its finest! STAND OUT TRACK = AMERICASPREMIERFAITHBASEDINITIATIVE.


5. Diplo/Santogold - Top Ranking

A real late addition to my list but WOW! I'm surprised seeing Santogold's album in the top 10 of all these yearend lists as I have been listening to the tracks on that disc since 2007. This mixtape however is like a musical treasure chest, a pirate radio show from another planet! From the new Santogold tracks to the friggin intense ragga dancehall and the wonderful hip hop mashups. It might not be a conventional album but this is easily the most listenable album of the year for me. It's 70 minutes long but it feels like a maxi single as time flies when you are having fun! STAND OUT TRACKS = GUNS OF BROOKLYN and BIG BELLY GUNS.


4. Kid Cudi - A Kid Named Cudi

Mr. Cudi is the owner of the year’s best song DAY N' NITE and it's on this mixtape which does a lot to bring it up my chart. More than Lupe this guy is the next step in Kanye inspired hip hop evolution. The format of hip hop is surprisingly still very much underused in terms of what we can do with it; Cudi (like Kanye) is way ahead of the game here. This album is free and you should do yourself a favor and get it. If he's not a superstar in 2 years I will eat my hat. I believe in Kid Cudi. STAND OUT TRACK = DAY N' NITE and DOWN AND OUT.




3. Vampire Weekend - S/T

Oh man did I want to hate this, I just can't though. This is one of my most listened to albums of the year. I hate being on team-pitchfork or team-spin but It's just fun and good yo. I've had so many pathetic moments with this album. Like being on my school campus this spring while the song campus is playing and seeing a recently ex gf on the lawn in front of the theatre department, all the while feeling sad, wearing a keffiye and limited edition Nikes thinking about how god damn cliché I am, hahaha! Jesus I’m a loser, man fuck this band. STAND OUT TRACK = Almost all of them but CAMPUS and OXFORD COMMA


2. Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak

Kanye West is the most important mainstream artist of our generation. People just hate him for the sake of hating him. This guy puts in so much work and effort at being good that I can see how frustrating it must be to not receive the full appreciation from the music press. A bad break up and the death of his mother pushed him to completely forego a traditional rap album. Luckily this is something he can do because he's fucking Kanye West. It reminds me a lot of New Order and that is something I could have never predicted from Kanye. The only thing missing is Joy Division/New Order like killer baselines. In an interview he said he wanted be like a Thom Yorke you can blast in the strip club. What an amazing dude! I wish I could be part of his entourage I think we would get along real good. STAND OUT TRACK = ROBOCOP AND STREET LIGHTS.


1. Fucked Up - Chemistry of Common Life

One of the most important records in recent history. They have been getting some backlash in the hardcore community but fuck it. This thing is going to be remembered. I liked Hidden World but I think that album was a warm up session for what they wanted to do on Chemistry of Common Life. It's funny they are one of the best live bands out now yet this album is almost unplayable live. Which at the end of the day gives us two distinct "albums", them recorded and them live. It doesn't have as many listens as most of the albums on this list though; it's not an album that you can really listen to the tracks by themselves. I just put this on and drink a big old rum and diet Pepsi before going out to the bars. Neo-Neil Young in a lot of ways. STAND OUT TRACK = none, you should listen to it in its entirety. That being said, TWICE BORN.

you won't have to ask if i still care

It's time for some NEW MUSIC (sort of)! Since we are chained to the video format really new stuff is hard to come by. A lot of my posts are about older stuff so I decided to get hip to what young hepcats are jiving and bepopping to at the local jazz clubs and army legion. So we will be featuring videos that came out since at least June.

Ok first up is a group I recently got wise to, the MYSTERY JETS, from London. Their second album 21 came out in march but the most recent single (which I am really liking) HALF IN LOVE WITH ELIZABETH came out yesterday. The song is about dude seeing another girl on the side but they found a way to make the video pretty funny. Cool new band with a cool video means you get BIG BABIED.



Next up is one of my favorite new bands that I really tried to hate. That's how cool I am. I am on that next level hatred shit. VAMPIRE WEEKEND. They are so borderline whiteboy-worldbeat-ripoff-douchebags it's not funny. But it's like they barely stay inbounds of my love. Anyways they have been making a lot of noise and are music journalist darlings that will probably be SEVERELY backlashed on their second album (see teenage fanclub post). Anyways they are really catchy and easy to listen to (oh crap I made a reference to easy listening, kill me if I start listening to magic 100). The song is OXFORD COMMA, the single came out in May but the video premiered in late June. The vid seems to be influenced by the WES ANDERSON directed Mastercard commercial. It's a really beautiful video.



Next up is ESTELLE's most recent video. Apparently her album differs from the wicked first single American Boy feat Kanye. The video came out on the 18th. I post it because a small town welsh girl Duffy and the fat English girl Adele are getting a lot of love for their soul revival shit and Estelle called them out on appropriating her culture. Now being a white boy who constantly appropriates black culture I feel that if you're gonna do that you have to step the fuck up because you are gonna get much deserved scrutiny. Cuizinier is GOOD, Paul Wall is GOOD whereas Adele and Duffy are getting pushed like hell and Estelle is getting buried. Estelle is way better than those two. The track is called PRETTY PLEASE feat CEE-LO. Bow down to a soul singer that's greater than you.



BONUS

Final video of the day is a bit older (came out in may) it is called STRESS by French house band JUSTICE. It got banned by a lot of stations but in my opinion it's the VIDEO OF THE YEAR. It is the least dancy song on their great album Cross and the video goes in complete opposition of their previous squeaky clean efforts. It's inspired by the great French film La Haine. A MUST WATCH VIDEO.

thug motherfuckers with our microphones out

One thing that I want to use this blog for is to talk about music that I really love and some people might not know about yet. Cutting and pasting youtube links will be a huge part of this blog. So let's get this started.

First off we have Françoise Hardy if you don't like her you're fucking stupid. She is one of the most beautiful people to have graced our earth. On top of that she WROTE HER OWN MUSIC which was pretty rare back in 60's pop music. She was signed to a major label before she graduated high school. Most of her lyrics had to do with being sad and I being a guy that likes girls who are depressed makes me dig her times a million. I give you "Mon ami la rose" a song about the fleetingness of beauty and friendship... sigh.





Then we have a low budget video from Cuizinier (the C in the french electro-hiphop juggernauts T.T.C.). It's called "Message perso" it's about getting over girls. Extra points for including expensive street wear, Mario Kart and a PINK KITCHEN. I love Young Cueezy, if you didn't now you do.





And finally EARLY 90'S HAWDCORE. Hardcore is like a mix between everything you loved about fascism (cleanliness, toughness and discipline) and punk (rebellion, partying hard and fucking shit up). Judge might not be my favorite HC group but I thought this video looked good and had a good quantity of stage dives. Stage diving is the funnest thing ever. More exhilarating than having a 100% clean slate on an uncertain S.T.I. test!