Nature abhors a vacuum, and the music industry abhors a lack of lists. These days, it isn’t enough to just sit down in December and choose your favorite albums of the year — and so, with July 1 about to roll around, music writers everywhere have been amusing themselves makinglists of the best albums of 2011 so far. The same names seem to be cropping up everywhere — James Blake, PJ Harvey, Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, etc. — and while they’re all worthy choices, they also amount to a fairly homogenized consensus view that’s already starting to exclude a bunch of other fantastic albums that have been released over the last six months. As such, we thought we’d pull together a selection of albums that have been largely or completely ignored in the recent frenzy of listomania.
As you probably know by now, the end is near. In fact, it’s tomorrow — at least, according to these unquestionably sane and reasonable folks. So, while crafting a top-notch tinfoil hat or slapping together a stairway to heaven would also be perfectly defensible ways to prepare for the apocalypse, here at Flavorpill we’re celebrating by asking our contributors and some of our favorite music critics which song they’d most like to hear before they die. (No, nobody picked anything as obvious as “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.”) Read about and listen to their diverse, surprising, and fascinating picks after the jump.
We’re starting the week with another five albums that are streaming for free on the web, and there’s plenty on offer –- faux Italian film soundtracks, speaker-immolating, bitcrushed digital meltdowns, neo-Wildean fop-pop, jazz-inflected hard-bitten Scots cynicism, and a Gang Gang Dance album that defies categorization entirely. Listen after the jump.
This week’s mixtape brings genre-defying cuts from Mark Ronson and Wild Beasts, in addition to a boatload of fresh new faces (Winter Gloves, Strange Talk, Oh Land) that are about to make some waves in your ocean of noise. As per usual, Right Click + Save As your next ten after the jump and prepare to add to your list of favorite summer jams.
For all the new-found open spaces and rhythmic expansiveness on Wild Beasts’ Two Dancers, it’s still singer Hayden Thorpe’s majestic, preening falsetto that announces itself like a peacock in bovver boots. (Think Billy MacKenzie’s flamboyance plus Brett Anderson’s cocksure androgyny.) Whether filling harmonies for bassist/platooning singer Tom Fleming’s baritone or strutting out front, Thorpe’s theatrics elevate these slices of youthful hedonism to the level of high drama. On the lead single, “Hooting and Howling,” his dare to would-be rivals still somehow comes off like a dance of seduction.
It’s a Decadents’ manifesto, full of thuggish dandyism and glamorous machismo, and easily the best salve for “dead below the waist” indie to come along in years. As the Brits head into the Eastern leg of their first major North American tour, we caught up with Thorpe to chat about gangsta rap, Lady Gaga, and what gets lost in translation.
The August drought of album releases is coming to a close. This week’s Viva la Mix is about the death of summer and the rebirth of new albums come September. So give your fingers a little warm-up stretch and get ready to “Right Click, Save Link As,” because after the jump we present 14 essential downloads from our latest Viva Radio show that we consider required listening at Flavorpill HQ. Enjoy! Read More »
, it’s still singer Hayden Thorpe’s majestic, preening falsetto that announces itself like a peacock in bovver boots. (Think Billy MacKenzie’s flamboyance plus Brett Anderson’s cocksure androgyny.) Whether filling harmonies for bassist/platooning singer Tom Fleming’s baritone or strutting out front, Thorpe’s theatrics elevate these slices of youthful hedonism to the level of high drama. On the lead single, “Hooting and Howling,” his dare to would-be rivals still somehow comes off like a dance of seduction. 
