Musical Monday: My 2013 Triple J Hottest 100 Votes

It's the most wonderful time of the year!



We JUST had Christmas and New Years and right now is a magical time before all the optimism fades and you realize that it's the middle of winter, you don't see the sun anymore, and the S.A.D. sets in causing all sorts of melancholic ennui. Right now, the Triple J Hottest 100 happens.


Now what it this magnificent musical moment, you may ask?
How can I join this delightfully democratic delineation of the years best music, you want to know?
What's so special about this popular perennial poll to cause such annoyingly awesome alliterations?


Short Answer: Check out my past posts on 2012 (votes and recap) and 2011


Long Answer: Every year the Australian radio station Triple J hosts a worldwide poll of the greatest music released (in Australia) that year.  This means you not only can make sure artists you love get recognition, but you can also find great music that also puts you ahead of the pop culture curve. The top songs of years past have all gone on to be huge hits in the US the following year, yes that's right, our own musical culture is influenced by this vote and the Aussies who run it (wait, the US isn't the center of the cultural universe?!?!... well, it's still pretty close as last year Thrift Shop by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis was one of the first #1 songs to be big in the U.S. when the poll was happening, and those Haim sisters seem to be picking up momentum in Australia at the same time (but maybe slightly faster) as in the U.S.), example: Gotye, Kings of Leon, and Mumford & Sons had the #1 songs in the Triple J Countdown the years before they exploded across the US.

You can listen to the eligible songs here through spotify (might take a few days, but oh! what days they'll be)

Once you've heard enough, you can get instructions to submit your own vote here

But HURRY, voting closes in 6 DAYS!

My Votes:

*Matt Corby- Resolution*

*Gossling- Never Expire*

*Chvrches- Gun*

*Haim- Let Me Go*

*Daughter- Youth*

*Local Natives- Heavy Feet*

*Phosphorescent- Song for Zula*

*MS MR- Fantasy*

*The Postal Service- A Tattered Line of String*

*San Cisco- Get Lucky {Like a Version}*

Voting factors/explanations:

• Exposure for some lesser-known artists
• A solid track regardless of artist infamy
• I want my vote to make a difference so rather than write-in a few favorites I stuck with songs I thought had a chance to get into the top 100, but not necessarily what I think will make top 10
• My own arbitrary selection process

Unfortunately Triple J is no longer on Pinterest which means no cool icon/graphic for each song this year =(

But here's a spotify playlist of my selection (minus Gossling and the San Cisco cover of Get Lucky, both of which are currently unavailable in the USA).

Tune in online on January 26, 2014 to hear the whole countdown (it takes literally the whole day). Actually, scratch that, if you're in the US tune in January 25 since they're ahead of us on the whole time thing. If you're someone like me who needs sleep at night, never fear, they break it down into internet streamable chunks afterwards so you can listen to the beginning, sleep, and then wake up to finish the top 10 and then later fill yourself in with songs 80-11.

And don't worry, I'll be recapping it here after it all goes down.





Musical Monday: Best of 2013

So the arbitrary standard for "Best of" is that I craved listening to a song, and it came out in 2013.  There are plenty of earworms this year that happened to come out near the tail end of last year or even earlier. And there are plenty of other songs that were fantastic this year and are on everyone's "Best of" list (i.e. Vampire Weekend) That I just didn't connect to in the same way as these.

I divided them into categories as best as I could with maybe a tiny bit of fudging, just so every song had a category.

If you just want to hear the music, without my explanations you can catch the Youtube Playlist of (almost) all the songs HERE 

Upbeat Dance Jams
I am all about music that makes you jump up, bob your head, or dance with your shoulders (I do that a lot when driving and grooving) and these songs all got me moving, even if in completely different ways to the different genres.

Avicii: Wake Me Up

Memory Tapes: Sheila

Fall Out Boy: My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark

Zedd: Clarity (feat. Foxes)

Pharrell Williams: Happy

MS/MR: Fantasy

Love is Complicated
Really I could include almost any song on here, love is the songwriter's ultimate muse.  However, from the aggressive entreat of Fey Moth to be "conquered," Phosphorescent waxing a slow regret, the ladies of Haim venomously pleading to be let go, Gungor's take on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Oh Land's metaphor of love as passport, these songs all show how something so universal can be such a unique experience, as experienced through song.

Fey Moth: Alexander
There is no video for this song and the embedding code isn't working so head here to a past post highlighting this song

Phosphorescent: Song for Zula

Haim: Let Me Go

Gungor: Beat of her Heart

Oh Land: Green Card

Hits from Down Under
I love me some Australia. In fact, I;ll be posting on my favorite global music survey next week (as well as posting my votes) The Triple J Hottest 100. Two of my favorite Aussie artsts with new tracks this year make the cut, Matt Corby and Gossling both taking their sounds in a new direction in 2013. New Zeland gets a shout out too this year with the world's new favorite teen Ella Yenich-O'conner, AKA Lorde. New band FAIRCHILD also joins with a song that I almost put in the "Dance" section with Dancer. Their video inspired a lot of pretending I knew ballet.

Matt Corby: Resolution

Gossling: Never Expire

Lorde: Team

FAIRCHILD: Dancer

UK Beats
From the other side of the world The 1975, CHVRCHES, and Bastille show that HRH Baby George wasn't the only awesome thing to come from the Kingdom this year.

The 1975: Chocolate

CHVRCHES: The Mother We Share

Bastille: Sweet Pompeii

Close Your Eyes and Sway
Sometimes, you just need a slow jam. Whether it's about making it out of this world and into the presence of the Creator or needing your girl, music has a way of expressing longing, hope, expectation, loneliness, and "all of the feels" in a way that no other medium can. Also, inexplicably after the slow build through the bridge, the banjo and subtle beat drop at 3:36 was my favorite moment in a song all year.

Gungor: Finally

The National: I Need My Girl

What were your favorite songs on 2013? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter: @itzbizr

11-12-13

So its been 2 months, almost to the day, since I last posted on my blog. I'd like to day it's just cause life got busy, which it did, but it also was because I succumbed to a sense of ennui that had been attacking my productivity, and this blog was a place where I felt little accountability to continue once my effort evaporated.  And like Newton's second(? or was it first?) law that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, blogging just fell out of my life.

Well I'm back! And while I can't guarantee any sort of schedule (I'm bad at those, remember the blogtember that never was?) I'll try to keep up with Musical Mondays and Foto Fridays and maybe instead throw in some "Say What!?" Wednesdays or Thinking Thursdays or some other alliterationally appropriately titled posts.

So at least for the moment, I'm back and while I'm here I'll point you to some of the music that's gotten me through the fall so far:

Great Music Finds of Fall 2013:

HAIM: Days Are Gone

One of their older songs but it's still one of my favorites on the album.
I've featured this sister act (plus one unrelated male drummer), currently touring Europe with Phoenix, numerous times here. You Me & Charlie has championed them from the beginning, and Rolling Stone has an article on them this month. The album is solid and anyone with a penchant for 80/90s era rock, pop, and R&B will like their sound, filled with guitar riffs and infused with a millennial smoothness enhancing the throwback sound.

Oh Land: Wish Bone (full album streaming below)

Oh Land is spectacular. The end. Also, Green Card is an AMAZING song.

Gossling: Never Expire

I discovered Gossling the way most people did, as the singer for the hook on 360s Boys Like You, but have become a fan through listening to the evolution of her own sound. This single is one of her latest and has a deeper, more electronic, heaveir sound than her previous work but it works well complementing her airy voice.

Musical Monday: Labor Day Love of New Music!

Happy Labor Day! Unfortunately, as fate would have it I'm here at the office, but will be taking a half day, so I can try and get a little tan & help out more with wedding prep. I don't wanna get washed out by my bright pink maid of honor dress =)

Here are two songs I'm enjoying right now, even while stuck in the office a while longer.

Yuna: I Wanna Go

This Malaysian songstress is a smooth crooner over even smoother beats and melodies. She writes her own music and in the last two years she's been in the States recording with the likes of Pharrell. Her 2012 self-titled debut album broke into the Billboard Top 100

Gossling: Never Expire
An Australian indie artist I've championed on the blog before, her latest track takes her into a deeper full, beat-driven territory while keeping the poignant lyrics that stood out from her more acoustic beginnings.

My 2012 Triple J Hottest 100 Votes

So if you've followed my blog at all in the past year, you know how excited I get for the Triple J Hottest 100 Countdown. It's happening NOW!
If this is your first time reading my blog, and you're all "Triple wha?" here's the lowdown:
It's one of the world's largest public music polls started in 1989. Each person is limited to 10 votes & on Australia Day, they spend the whole day counting down the top 100 songs as voted by the people. Most of the top 10 songs on the poll subsequently become huge in the US the next year. I'm sure you've heard of a little known track called Somebody That I Used To Know by this guy Gotye? Yeah, #1 in the 2011 Hottest 100 (you can see my recap of that here).

Votes are also determined by songs that have come out in Australia, so a song I might LOVE just might not be eligible. Like the Husky song History's Door took so long to cross the oceans between Australia and the US, that even though I just discovered it, it actually came out there last year. Or one of my favorite bands Ramona Falls isn't well enough known in Australia to get on the voting list.

You can listen to the eligible songs here through spotify (might take a few days, but oh! what days they'll be)

Once you've heard enough, you can submit your own vote here

But HURRY, voting closes in 12 DAYS!

If you need some help on where to start to find some good artists or songs, here are my votes

(the graphic is giving me trouble but you can listen to my 10 songs here)

My 10 Votes:

Voting factors I took into account was wanting exposure for particularly lesser-known artists and recognition for plain old good tracks regardless of artist infamy, I also wanted my vote to make a difference so rather than write-in a few favorites I stuck with songs I thought had a chance to get at least at the top 100.

• 
  alt-J

  Taro
• 
  Angus Stone

  Monsters
• 
  Gossling

  Wild Love
• 
  Grimes

  Genesis
• 
  Japandroids

  The House That Heaven Built
• 
  Julia Stone

  Let's Forget All The Things That We Say
• 
  Kimbra

  Warrior {ft. Mark Foster & A-Trak}
• 
  Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

  Can't Hold Us {ft. Ray Dalton}
• 
  Matt Corby

  Lonely Boy {Like A Version}
• 
  Miike Snow

  Devil's Work

  
  

Alt-J: Taro

My favorite song of theirs, although it really was hard to single it out over the rest, something about this one just gets me, i think it's the Bollywood beat that drops with each chorus. It's also really epic if you open two windows on YouTube to the same songs of their and start it 5 seconds apart. Done right, it will blow your mind.

Angus Stone: Monsters

The banjo and trumpet inevitably won this song a spot in my top 10. If you doubt my love of banjos, just go here, I judge people based on their banjo appreciation level. PLus the wonderful imagery of the lyrics gets me: "In the dark, there's monsters that cry alone"

Gossling: Wild Love

A track I think is US-Radio friendly that evokes frontiers and wide-open spaces with a unique voice that balances out what could be just another country/pop song. Hopefully I'll hear it on the US-airwaves soon!

Grimes: Genesis

Between her lisp, whispy-high voice, and atmospheric vocal loops, Grimes is the Canadian poptastic alternative punky girl version of Bon Iver. It was really tough choosing between Oblivion and Genesis but in the end the vocal layering and range of the smooth Genesis won out over the more danceable Oblivion (and Oblivion was the first of her songs I heard but that was back in 2011, so it's more fitting to vote for the song I first heard in 2012)

Japandroids: The House That Heaven Built

Oh.oh.oh.Oh.oh.oh.oh.oh.... 'Nuff Said

Julia Stone: Let's Forget All The Things That We Say

The Stone Siblings are one of my most favorite duos in current music, alas they spent 2011 nad 2012 pursuing solo-projects. Julia pursued a more ballady-pop sound while Angus stayed with his guitar-strumming indie sound. While the Frenglish version is my favorite, this original deserves recognition

Kimbra feat. Mark Foster and A-Trak: Warrior

A gross oversight in my top songs of 2012, this track is FANTASTIC and helped me with Bar prep this summer (I've blocked so much of the summer out no wonder I couldn't remember it.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: Can't Hold Us

As much as I think Thrift Shop will beat this one out in just about any music poll, THIS is my favorite Macklemore & Ryan Lewis song. I spent 2 weeks driving to and from work learning this whole rap. It helped get me through my last semester of law school.

Matt Corby: Lonely Boy (Like A Version)

Such a different, deeper, heart-wrenching version compared with the original. I don't think I'll ever get over this song.

Miike Snow: Devil's Work

This one snuck in just over Sigur Ros and Metric, really just because I heard it a lot sooner and it had enough time to really get stuck in my brain. Plus Miike Snow is always fantastic.

Honorable Mentions: 

Icona Pop: I Love It

Metric: Breathing Underwater

Mumford And Sons: Below My Feet

Sigur Ros: Varou

I REALLY hope these songs make the Top 100, and if I had 14 votes, they'd for sure be included. Alas I had to pick only 10 or none at all. It was a tough decision

Musical Monday: Sad-Slow-Pian-Oh

So the power is out again, and since lack of electricity brings melancholy, and let's face it, Mondays in general can be rough, here are some slow-jamz on the ivory keyz to eaze (too many "z"s?) you into the thought of the 4 days between today and the weekend. Or maybe last weekend was a bit rough (mine involved about 25 hours on a bus, 6 of which involved the bus not working/me sleeping at a Pilot gas station, if I had the time, we'd have a full post about it) and you just need some recovery music. Also, for those of you realizing the bar exam is now within a month away, these songs are all kinda sad and can be used to lament time spent not studying (**ahem, cough** including time writing this blog post? oh my!)

Matt Corby: Made of Stone (Live)

From the Made of Stone EP you can download for free if you sign up for his mailing list (Super awesome, right?)

Gossling: Love Fall Foul (Live)

First verse breaks my heart Every.Time. From the Intentional Living EP

Goldmund: Evelyn

From the album The Malady of Elegance (how's that for an awesome name) I use this as the final meditation track in my Yoga class all the time, it's probably the most complimented song on my Yoga Playlist besides Angus & Julia Stone's Paper Aeroplane

Finals Study Music (LAST SEMESTER EVER EDITION)

First you're ready to go although something is missing and someone behind you is chewing loudly... you know you gotta have some dubstep/techno, to drown out the noise around you and to keep you awake on the late night library sessions

Nero - Promises

(and of course the totalitarian dystopian Orwellian video to match goes well with what we all feel about higher education during finals week)

mix it with some folksy/indie/hipster stuff to remind you how it's never to late to say "scew it" and run off to the west-coast and become a hippie...

The Lumineers - Ho Hey

Or run away to England:

Bombay Bicycle Club - Shuffle

until you remember those six-figure student loans.  So you want to go back to when life was simple and your parents did everything for you:

Lushlife - Teenage Dream

Then like any hopeless romantic you know it's time for something mildly epic love story to let you know you can always find love... once this paper is over.

Gossling - Wild Love

(holler at the red string, LAP classmates, you know where it's at)

Next thing you know you're listening to former Disney Channel star Selena Gomez and dancing at your carrel thinking

Selena Gomez & the Scene - Hit the Lights

And then you start to get a little crazy and find something like this:

Grimes - Oblivion

If you're me you think "I'm less than 6 months older than her, and I also have dyed my hair interesting colors yet she's a Canadian music star performing at SXSW and I'm about to finish law school, she's employed and I'm not."

To cheer yourself up from looming unemployment and studying for the bar you find this little gem:

Cosmo Jarvis - Gay Pirates

Even though if you listen to the lyrics the song is kind-of depressing, there are awesome lyrics like: "It's you my love, you're my land ahoy, yeah you're my boy" and I dare someone to listen to this without calling "Yo Ho Sebastian" out at least once!

And then this:

Luke Million - Arnold

After someone shushes you for laughing out loud in the library, you get to work...

Then pretty soon you decide you need to have a song for a montage to while browsing the internet, oops I mean studying your outline, which leads you to some 80s jams.

The Who - Baba O'Riley

Thinking about John Hughes passing makes you think existential thoughts and become sad so you listen to something that reminds you summer is coming, but also that you won't live forever

David's Lyre - Heartbeat 

For some reason, that does the trick and now you're refreshed and ready to work... only it's two hours later.  At least you have tomorrow to study-- oh wait, tomorrow's the final?
... and you haven't finished outlining cause you've been reading my blog?
...well there's always this classic to fall back on in times of need:

oh your final is on Virginia Procedure... whoops!
At least you've got some fun new music?

If you've enjoyed the small selection here, I'm always wanting to share music I love with people! Comment, e-mail or message me somehow & I'll give you some more recommendations!