Smitty's Best Albums of 2011

Merry Early Christmas!!! So I present my half of the top albums for me of this year...and where do we start? 2011 was one crazy year with pop princesses reigning supreme...rock bands hiding in caves...crazy year, anyways, here we go:


It's Britney Bitch!

Brit Brit returned this year with an incredible album, the dance floor ready "Femme Fatale" and while everyone knows that she may be "crazier than a ..." Brit Brit's music is always on the cutting edge of pop, she just knows how to do it right. The singles from "Femme Fatale," were indeed everywhere from the euphoria of "Til the world ends.." to the bouncier than bubblegum on a summer day of "I wanna go," you could not escape a Brit Brit song and the question is why would you want to?



It was definitely a year of women in pop, across the ocean to the island of Japan (doesn't that sound like really exotic?) Namie Amuro, raked up another hit and cemented her further stake as basically the Queen of J Hip Pop with her compilation album of colloborations "Checkmate," the virtually flawless all around graceful diva's "Checkmate" spanned over several years of Namie's biggest colloborative efforts with new singles "Unusual," "Make It Happen," "Superwoman," as well as remixes of already perfect songs "Want Me, Want Me." While "Checkmate" is not a thorough new album, the new singles already showcased that Amuro has no sights on slowing down. She toured in 2011 and is preparing for an album next year.



Dubstep was the key dance trend of 2011 other than Will.I.Am's domination and re-iteration of 90s eurostyle dance beats, dubstep became literally uncontrollable. Skrillex amongst others are ushering in the return of wub wub wub music. And while I can't say I particularly love dubstep, I did love one album that spawned from such a November monster and that was English pop singer Katy B. Katy B's "On a Mission," is a good example of what dubstep can be if it sticks to flourishes, accents and other-genre hooks and bells. "On a mission," was a flawless record as the smooth voiced Katy B sang over pulsating dubstep breakdowns without sounding like a bloodless robot. Dubstep done right.



Also across the pond another songtress snapped up my pop heart this year, the clever Natalia Kills. It's hard to say what will happen with Kills brand of dark murder pop (if she wants real street cred it's time to make a visit to Mr.Nick Cave) and while she aimed for perfection on her "perfectionist" album she fell short. The album suffered from too many cooks in the proverbial kitchen, however despite such a shortcoming the album was still a very good ride of pop hooks and catchy songwriting. More importantly with the re-release of "Perfectionist," and the insanely awesome "Lights Out," if Kills can get a chokehold on exactly what kind of music she wants to make it'll be for a really good time.



and there you have it :)



In keeping with a dark theme, it was really a year of the best times and a year of volatile ones. My favorite dandy with neurosis Chris Corner of IAMX released the heavily anticipated "Volatile Times," a follow up to baroque and Berlin-esque dance music with Corner's signature light as a feather, vulnerable as ever could be voice and highly introspective lyrics.

Wait...Which One Is It? Best Albums of 2011

The more I look at the best album's of the year lists the more I'm starting to realize that I was just not paying attention. While there was some overlap the majority of the albums listed, I either didn't realize existed or didn't bother to check out (Korn had an album out? Really? I so didn't need to know that Revolver)... so we're gonna try something different.

I'm currently combing over the lists picking out the overlap albums to check out...I'll pick 5 of the best ones and do a review here. If you wanna see what all the important cool kids think:

You can check out Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums of 2011 here.

If that's too indie hipster for you why not check out Spin's 50 Best Albums of 2011 here.

Or perhaps you'd prefer The Rolling Stones Readers' Poll on The Best Albums of 2011? Click here then.


But before I post that later in the week lets get into the albums I did listen to:

Taking Back Sunday-s/t
Released June 28 the bands fifth studio album marks the return of the original lineup. John Nolan and Shaun Cooper left after the success of TBS's first record Tell All Your Friends. Since reuniting the band has toured America twice, worked on and released said album. Surprisingly, the album is more hard rock than punk rock. Mature and yet extremely reminiscent of the bands humble beginnings, songs like "Best Places To Be A Mom" sounds like the next logical step bridging the gap from old to new. Although I loved the between albums listening to Nolan and lead singer Adam Lazzara's vocals together can make you heartsick and realize just how much we all missed the OG lineup.

Best tracks: "Faith (When I Let You Down)" and "You Got Me"

Freelance Whales - Weathervanes
Even though Weathervanes was released in 2010 Freelance Whales had a pretty big year. The song "Kilojoules" was practically on every indie kids mixtape and the band even got to play Coachella this year. The album itself is a combination of melancholy folk, wistful melodies, and cutesy synths. It's difficult to decide whether to feel somber or upbeat but the overall quality of the record isn't diminished by the fact.

Best tracks: "Hannah" and the dark and charming "Generator ^ Second Floor"

Cobra Starship- Night Shades
My boy Gabe can do no wrong. Teaming up with Sabi the single "You Make Me Feel..." has been all over the internet and radio. I even heard the song at my gym the other day. French rock band Plastiscines even feature on the track "Fool Like Me." Night Shades is a fun dancey record plain and simple. While exceedingly light-hearted, Night Shades almost has a multiple personality on the subject of love and relationships. At times positive and endearing like in "You Belong to Me" and the New Order-ish "Anything for Love," the band does a complete 180 singing about perfect yet wholly dysfunctional couples in "Disaster Boy" and the aforementioned "Fool Like Me." It's hard to know exactly where Cobra Starship stands on the subject but it's all in good fun... with a great back beat at that.

Best tracks: "Don't Blame the World It's The DJ's Fault" and "Anything for Love"


And finally, my album of the year is...

Patrick Stump- Soul Punk
I showed up late to the party on this particular album, but I can hardly remember anything from before this record. Soul Punk is the only album this year that felt exciting to listen to. While mainly narrative, songs like "Explode" mirror the artists sentiments about recording and performing solo. When Stump sings "if this is it I'm gonna go out with a bang" you can feel the risk he is taking. Subtle and strangely profound Soul Punk is fun and entirely engrossing.

Best tracks: "Allie," "Run Dry (X Heart X Fingers)," and "Spotlight (New Regrets)"


Upcoming records in 2012-

I don't know about anyone else but the only albums I'm concerned with hearing before the end of the world next year would be Say Anything and Scarling.'s upcoming releases. Both bands are in the studio now and I'm extremely happy. Now the waiting game.

Pop round-up

so we are finally back from hiatus, I hope you missed us :) :D

To get everyone to speed here is a little pop round up to get you acquainted with some news:

Britney Spears is now engaged! The femme fatale, coming off her amazing tour ending in south America twittered that boyfriend Jason Trawick gave her a special gift. The news spread like wild fire through the interwebs and many pop sources were speculating that "Godney" was indeed getting proposed to. Turns out, she is! My question is when is the wedding date and who's invited

One of my favorite Chanteuses's as of recently, English dark songtress Natalia Kills is re-releasing her debut album Perfectionist the re-release will include several new tracks including "Kill my boyfriend," and the INCREDIBLE "Lights Out" featuring Far East Movement. While Kills debut did garner lukewarm critical attention, "Lights Out" is a perfect dark pop masterpiece and it should have been the flagship single.

And last but not least....everyone's favorite pint sized Swedish diva, Robyn literally killed it on Saturday Night Live with two live performances "Call Your Girlfriend," and "Dancing On My Own." The performance was so incredible that it just awesome into a whole new level. You can't hate on Robyn, she's perfection.

Our bad

Wow, we've really been slacking on here. Life often gets in the way of good intentions so all we can say here at Shennantics is whoops, our bad.

It's my favorite time of the year: The best albums of the year and what to look forward to next year issues of music magazines. I'll be taking a look at each list and making my own top 11 of 2011 list so keep an eye out for that.

Until then, happy shopping guys.

Lady Gaga releases album cover for Born this Way

Oh Lady Gaga, When will you stop being soooooo low key?

......illuminati rumors?


Hmm.

This has to be the worst album cover of the year. It's awful. Even little monsters cant get behind this as fans have tweeted that she is obviously playing a joke on them.
I don't think it's a joke. Someone in the Lady Gaga camp thought this was brilliant.

This is the remix : Britney releases a surge of remixes

So, in Britland...after the release of her critically praised "Femme Fatale," Britney Spears is riding high on its success and doing things that um, SHE NEVER DOES. Such as teaming up with other female artists and doing features. In the day age of the collabo, Spears has rarely done features and this spring we've got two big releases.

First up the remix of "S&M" with Rihanna. When this came out, RiRi fans and Brit Brit fans well, their heads basically exploded.





Initially Brit Brit received a scathing attack for her "nasally" vocals in which haters basically decried "She sounds like Tommy Pickles!"

Okay she does a bit. But, her voice has always been paper thin with a touch of Southern drawl, does anyone else remember how "Hit me one more time.." sounded like?
Coupled with the fact that the producer of this remix seemed to autotune her vocals so much, it's kinda like what they didn't think she could handle singing her parts? Because Rihanna's vocals in comparison are overtly loud.

I've never been a fan of "S&M" because the jarring "na na na come on" felt too much like a battle cry that someone would use to wake you up. "SOLDIERS NA NA NA COME ON!" It was too much for me. The good thing about this remix is that, I do find Britney's little girl vocals to sort of not add to the craziness of the song. The production of this song is everywhere, I'm suprised they didn't add cowbell. It also needs to say that this song really does showcase that Rihanna has some vocal delivery even I'm not a fan of her music. The lyrics to "S&M" still remain largely too me waaay too simplistic for a subject matter like this, but hey that's pop music for you.

Thus bringing us to the other "WTF IS GOING ON?" moment, Britney teamed up with It-girls of the moment Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha. Like OMG. WTF.



Before I jump into this review, I want to state that both covers of these singles are absolutely terrible. Absolutely. What the hell????
You can autotune but you can't photoshop??


ANYWAYS...

I personally loved the original "Til the World Ends" I thought it sounded very now, very urgent and immediate. Britney's vocal sound good, like she actually didn't phone them in (hurr hurr). So, I had some lukewarm feelings once I heard about the remix specifically because I thought BOTH Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha would be too much in the production mix. You know like that old saying too many chefs in the kitchen? Too many pop darlings in the studio?> ***crickets**

I digress, the remix is VERY good. Nicki Minaj has dropped most of her annoying vocal pyrotechnics and did a straight flow. You have to wonder who she's dissing in her rap as the rap has nothing to do with a. dancing until the world ends. Basically it's an "OMG IM DOING A RAP FOR BRITNEY SPEARS DIE!!!!" ...sort of things.

Interestingly, Ke$ha's vocal involvement is pretty low. YAY. I mean, Oh. She's relegating to singing the hook which to me was a very smart move on the behalf of Dr.Luke (her producer by the way). So minimizing her to singing the hook worked out pretty well as you only get a smidgeon of Ke$ha's stop-rap vocal interaction and it sets it up for Britney to do basically the only singing in the song. The remix is a bit break down, heavier construction of the earlier version. This, was another wise move by Dr.Luke instead of hitting listeners with not only three different vocal acts, he basically slowed it down to give each a chance to live in the song as opposed to you know, a screaming match. You know how divas can get.

Both singles are good for dance clubs, but, Im going to give "Til the World Ends" the stamp of approval. Wise choices, cool handed Dr.Luke.

My Kind of Candy

I just read Rob Sheffield's review of the new The Pains of Being Pure at Heart album, Belong, and he pretty much hit the nail on the head. I felt the same way when I heard the first single back in November. The bigger sound captures everything the band wanted to say but couldn't before. Obviously, Rob and I were listening because the message rings loud and clear. I love that we agree, Sheffield is seriously dreamy.

Anyway, the new 'Pains album:

Honestly, I can't help but think that the more things change the more they say the same. That goes for 'Pains, but on a larger scale rock music as well. Listening to Belong is kinda like falling through time. Images of 120 minutes flow through my head like a lost memory. But the sound is in no way anachronistic. Maybe, we've just gone full circle?

Still, that hasn't stopped the most jaded of our community calling the album "sexless." Some critics have even gone so far as to say that the record is a blatant rip-off of The Smashing Pumpkins. But with Flood behind the scenes, its no wonder the influence shows. Its also fair to mention that Alan Moulder did the mixing. There is something of an allusion to the best of 90s alterna there, but as a mere nod and nothing more.

Seriously, Belong is more Cure than Pumpkins and there is nothing wrong with that really. As far as influences go, they could do worse (far worse). NME can go suck it.

The whole album flows with a sound that is bright and dreamy, with a twinge of heartache. Sometimes caring and collected ("Even in dreams/ I cannot betray you"), and at others ruthless with a smile ("Everyone is gentle and gone/But everyone's just everyone"), the lyrics turn from heartfelt to seeming apathy in the span of a second. But they're almost too sweet to be mean. Or even dark.

And sadly, the lyrics don't always deliver. In The Body, frontman Kip Berman whines that "you look so hot(?)/in fishnets and leather," sounding almost juvenile in the process. Luckily, this last only for a moment. It's still one of my favorite tracks even with that awkward line.

Berman and Peggy Wang's voices blend together so well its like they are one being. The harmonies weave in-and-out of the music creating a landscape of heavenly high peaks and low, surreal fields and valleys of sugarcane. The guitar fuzz tastes like cotton candy. The bass shimmers, overflowing into the warm, familar drumbeat. The keyboard swells are bittersweet. Pure pop perfection.

Tracks to listen to: The Body, My Terrible Friend