Big Boi and Kate Bush Collab is Happening

This is me jumping all around my room crying tears of joy. Go to 2:00 mark of video.

New Rian Johnson Movie featuring NAAAA

Every action movie trailer trying to NAAAAAA louder than the last - it's like, chill out action movies,  we all know you’re just compensating for some sort of emotional heart. Not you, Rian, you've got heart.

The Revolution Probably Won't Be Televised

The future seems to scare everyone except The Guardian. Or at least they're doing a decent job of pulling off the alpha-male act if they're actually scared. I don't know what I'll be doing or what my job will be post-everything, just like every other person out there lucky enough to actually be pulling off some sort of further education, but let me tell you -- I'm excited for the future (it's because I like twitter).

Joel Samson Berntsen (Almost Crimes -- Broken Social Scene)

Go listen to the New Cloud Nothings Album!

Cloud Nothings have a new album out that was produced by music legend Steve Albini (Surfer Rosa! Pod! Rid of Me! In Utero! Ys!) and it’s got some super great stuff on it. It's streaming over at complex right now . It's worth a listen or 20. Hyper-Hyping!

In Living Color: A 2011 Music Retrospective

2011 was the year the internet bleached music, and I don’t just mean the thousands of sans-color album covers. It was like some giant reset button in the office of music got reset by a bunch of kids that broke in to trash the place. And that's pretty much how I feel about 2011 in general. It was just a bunch of young talent yelling, "FUCK it, I am on one!" Starting with James Blake steamrolling his way into full blown consciousness to the sheer power of viral with Tyler, Azealia, The Weeknd, Lana Del Ray to Drake becoming America's favorite sweetheart (read: pussy) to the internet era of rap solidifying itself with the "Huzzah!" music video – the new talent was on a shopping spree of the meanest kind (the kind where they buy all the good, new cloths and stuff). They were all, “Fuck, let’s get back to the Beach cloths and Beach Boys. And Saxophone. You guys remember saxophone?” And then Christopher Owens wrote some really pretty songs. 

My Top Ten Albums of 2011                                                                   

10. Bon Iver – Bon Iver

9. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints

7. JAY Z and Kanye West – Watch the Throne

7. M83 – Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

6. Drake – Take Care

5. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

4. The Weeknd – House of Balloons

3. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

2. James Blake – James Blake

1. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost 

 My 30 Favorite Songs of 2011                                             

30. Last Night at the Jetty – Panda Bear

It’s like a fog that I can wonder through whenever I want.

29. Gotta Have It -- JAY Z and Kanye West

The number one key to my heart is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off references. The second is James Brown. Oh, James Brown (*Joel gets weak in the knees*).

28. Sublimation Hour -- Destroyer

Dan Bejar writes all my favorite New Pornographers songs, and while Kuputt didn’t really stick with me after the first couple listens, this song did (because it’s mostly a New Pornographers song).

27. Ronald Reagan Era – Kendrick Lamar

If there’s any part of you that liked the Marvin’s Room interlude, go download Section.80 now. Kendrick is my favorite actual rapper of 2011, whatever that means. Whoop-whoopty-whoopty- whoop whoop!

26. Radio Song – Danny Brown

Apparently this came out last year? I don’t even care.

25. July – Youth Lagoon

This was the first song I ever heard by Youth Lagoon, and it was something like love at first site, except I didn’t go see them.

24. Yuck – The Wall

I wasn’t tuned in enough during the 90s to know what 90s music was all about, but this was stuck in my head for all of summer, so I guess it’s pretty great. 
                                                                                               

23. Under Ground Kings – Drake

I be banging that Drake in Brandon’s car. 

22. Songs for Women – Frank Ocean

I would totally sing songs to get at women.

21. You Know What I Mean – Cults

Cults kind of got the shit-end of the stick with my lists by tittering on the fringes of both. They deserve more credit than they’re getting here. Anyway, this is my favorite song by them.

20. Jesus Fever – Kurt Vile

This song is what a perfect cup of coffee tastes like.

19. It's Real – Real Estate

Pringles.

18. Surgeon – St. Vincent

“I spent the summer on my back” is my third favorite lyric of the year, and the rest of this song is Brian Eno B-A-N-A-N-A-S. 

17. Holocene -- Bon Iver

“…and at once I knew I was not magnificent” is my second favorite line of the year.

16. Huzzah! (Remix) -- Mr. Muhfucking eXquire feat. feat. Despot, Das Racist, Danny Brown & El-P

“Huzzah!” is the wet-dream collaboration of the ‘11 soaked-era of internet rappers, and every one of them brought their A game (if by A-Game you mean a return to form for Das Racist, El- P’s One Sick Verse and a Holden Caulfield reference). 

15. "Swerve... The reeping of all that is worthwhile (Noir not withstanding)" – Shabazz Palaces

With a title like that, you had me before I even hit play. But let me hit play, and then let me hit it again, and again and again because I’m not even close to figuring out everything this song is about.  I might be able to decipher only a lyric or two with each listen, but don’t take that as a detractor –it’s like a rereading “To Kill A Mocking Bird,”  where you notice these small (or huge) things each time that are just perfect and you can’t believe you missed the first time. It’s like that only a five minute read that makes it so much easier to say, “oh, one more time can’t hurt.”

14. 212 -- Azealia Banks ft. Lazy Jay

“212” is the antithesis of “Super Bass,” in that it takes all the plastic-y, pretty-pretend lyrics of “Super Bass” and knocks them across the fucking head with a lethal dose of authentic 4-voiced (four count ‘em four) shit talk. Also, it's super pure pop rap!

13. Bizness – tUnE-yArDs

It doesn’t get nuttier than this. Also: Merrill Garbus has a very nice lady voice.

12. Just A Song – Girls 

It doesn’t get truer/prettier than this.

11. Niggas in Paris – JAY Z and Kanye West

This was the anthem to my apartment, because apparently being a bunch of white dudes in the middle of Missouri made us really relate to this song. But seriously, we listened to it all the time. Also, my apartment’s go-to party song.  

10. Look At Me Now – Chris Brown feat. Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes

2011 had so many all-star collaborations for label rap that it’s just plain bizarre that a Chris Brown song was my favorite out of the bunch. And even though the Busta Rhymes verse is obviously the best part, it’s still by-and-by a Chris Brown song. He sets the tone for the whole thing. Even Lil Wayne’s verse does something for me. I’m eating a bunch of humble pie.

9. House Of Balloons / Glass Table Girls – The Weeknd

The thick mystery of House of Balloons and The Weeknd didn’t really get answered with this song, but it sure has hell cemented my love for Abel Tesfaye’s voice/lyrics/style//lifestyle.    

8. Let Her Rest / Queen of Hearts – Fucked Up

I had a rough time getting into the actual epicness of David Comes To Life simply because I would just want to start it from the beginning again, which I did. Over and over and over.

7. Rolling In The Deep – Adele  

You know who first told me about this song? MY DAD. That’s how far my head is up my ass. Fortunately, that means I’ve never even come close to losing any love for this song. Thanks, ass.

6. Yonkers – Tyler, The Creator

I basically dropped out of Art History because I couldn’t stop watching this music video the night before the first test, and it was a lot more than just the Adventure Time reference that got me hooked.“Yonkers” is the perfect combination of the spite Odd Future trademarked with Tyler’s playful, in-joke-driven side. Plus, that beat. So simple, so creepy, so good.    

5. Midnight City -- M83

Even though Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is based on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, “Midnight City” reminds me way more of “Cherub Rock,” which isn’t really what it should be doing. But it does. And that’s because “Cherub Rock” has one of my all-time favorite guitar riffs ever. It’s simple and pretty and it says ‘fuck you, I’m never changing.’  “Midnight City” takes that idea of a perfect riff, keys it up a notch and then gets Victoria Secret models to, y’know, walk down a runway in underwear.

4. Video Games – Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey has been criticized enough by the internet and everybody else and I don’t really care about any of it. I only care about this song. And I don’t even have a copy of it on my computer. I’m just adding another view to the YouTube count every five minutes of my life.  

3. California – EMA

I constantly want to compare Erika M. Anderson to Kurt Cobain and Patti Smith, but that’s just diminishing to the full form of self she presents on Past Life Martyred Saints. But I’m still going to do it because “California” runs the course the usual Patti Smith track of soul-bearing, stream-of-conscious swan song I always fall head over heels for. And I fell hard.  

2. Vomit – Girls 

I am looking for love and it’s not in a hopeless place. It’s with Girls.

1. Helplessness Blues – Fleet Foxes

I blasted this song all summer long, driving home at night with the windows rolled down screaming out to the empty streets. But it wasn’t until I had a total character breakdown at the start of sophomore year that this song became a sort of weird, sacred anthem for me.

I heard that the pressure of producing the album Helplessness Blues caused Robin Pecknold’s girlfriend to leave him, but after hearing the album she basically understood everything he was going through and got back with him. I can’t claim Helplessness Blues (the album), but I sure as hell claim “Helplessness Blues” (the song) -- because Robin Pecknold knows what he’s writing about and I relate, which is what a song of year is all about to me. And at the end of 2011, nothing has summarized everything I felt, was feeling and currently feel about life, love and everything than this song. All my favorite lyrics of the year are in this song. It’s my song, and in the future  whenever I think back to 2011 -- this is the song that'll going be playing in the background.

Ok, we’re done here. Nothing else do see here.

Joel Samson Berntsen (Rave On -- Cults)

On Otis Redding, Who Deserves The Credit

St.Vincent, Goddess — "Strange Mercy": A

Annie Clark, who more or less is St.Vincent, strives at making music that remains reminiscent of her prior material. Take her performance at Our Band Could Be Your Life tribute concert where she covered Big Black’s “Kerosene”: dressed all in black, Clark shoved her typically maudlin-cool persona into the backseat and let a Jekyll-version of herself steer the song with a crackled, barking intensity. It would have almost been scary if wasn’t so damn fucking cool. But the thing about her performance was, even though she was covering someone, Clark was still completely herself; it was just a different side to her, which is something Clark fully capitalizes on in her third album “Strange Mercy.”

Part of Clark’s classic approach in the past rests in contrasting distinct sounds and ideas in her songs, and “Strange Mercy” takes that one step further by way of the record approach, which is to say there are two distinct sides to “Strange Mercy”: side one, a buzzing portrait of frantic intensity swooning with funk-texturized guitar solos (“Cruel”), falsetto crooning  and layered looping that rings of classic Brian Eno (“Surgeon”); and side two, a slightly-more gentle string of songs that’s power lies with the taught, eerie anxiety that makes them hit with a greater resonance than side one.   

And with the first listen, the divergence is so great it almost seems Clark should have been broken the album into two separate EPs, but the as the album marches towards the end, it becomes apparent that the two sides are completely complimentary. They are two different sides of the same coin, each presenting the different highs and lows that make Clark St.Vincent. The “White Light/White Heat” styled climax to side one ender “Northern Lights” marks the hysterical panic of an emotional break-through/breakdown whereas the Jeff Buckley-esque “Champagne Year” of side two gives a unnerving sneak into the truthfulness of Clark’s lyrics as she whispers to the listener “I make a living at telling people what they want to hear.”

The synthesis of the entire album, though, lies with the last track “Year Of The Tiger” which takes the best of both worlds — the creeping lyricism with Clark’s balls to the wall funk guitar — and smashes them together for one short peak at the future of St. Vincent music. It’s odd that an artist would provoke a desire for even more material with the release of a brand new album, but that’s exactly the kind of thing Annie Clark would do; and as she chants “Oh America, can I owe you one?” on the dauntingly short culmination to the closer, all the listener can really say is, “Yes, you can owe us one” and wait for her next album. It’s a strange mercy. 

Side One: Chloe In The Afternoon, Cruel, Cheerleader, Surgeon, Northern Lights.

Side Two: Strange Mercy, Neutered Fruit, Champagne Year, Dilettante, Hysterical Strength, Year Of The Tiger

Joel Samson Berntsen (Actor Out Of Work - St.Vincent)

joel samson berntsen & the Infinite Sadness