We’ve spent the last two days unveiling numbers 50-11 in our top 50 songs of 2011, and now the time has come to unveil what Muso’s Guide’s hefty panel of writers nominated as their top 10 songs released this year. It’s been a pretty diverse selection thus far, and the top end of the chart is no different. … Continue Reading
Last week we unveiled our top 50 albums of the year, but as regular Muso’s readers will know, we get just as excitable about the good old song as we do about full length albums. So with that in mind, over the next three days we’re going to be unveiling which songs our writers have voted their top picks of the year. Enormous thanks are due to Mitchell Sterling who did us proud in fulfilling his annual chore sifted through the emails from the Muso’s Guide staff, compiling them into something resembling a logical order. … Continue Reading
PJ Harvey
Welcome to the fifth and final part of our albums of the year countdown – for the rest of the week, we’ll be bringing you our favourite albums of 2011, as voted for by our writers. Earlier this week, we revealed 50-41, 40-31, 30-21 and 20-11. We’ll bring you our favourite songs of the year next week. All in all, 24 lists were totted up by Mitchell Stirling, and votes were cast by Tom Bolton, Paul Brown, Sam Cleeve, Jane Corcoran, Lucy Dearlove, Rosie Duffield, Ben Dufton, Paul Faller, Stephen Ferdinando, Paul Gettings, Alex Kavanagh, Dannii Leivers, Steve McGillivray, Kenny McMurtrie, Jim Merrett, Greg Salter, Natalie Shaw, Andrew Schagen, Harley Sherman, Stef Siepel, Mitchell Stirling, Stephanie Stevens-Wade, Antonio Tzikas, and Russell Warfield. This list, and everything else that we do, would not have been possible without them and all our other writers – thank you! … Continue Reading
Words by Natalie Shaw
We went to Leeds Festival, and wrote about seven things of note. Here they are:
1) Tom Vek is the best
Tom Vek stole Leeds Festival from under the rest of the line-up’s noses. His performance was a million miles from what I’d entirely unjustifiably imagined – a shy man in the corner hiding behind a laptop. Instead, we were presented with a supremely confident performer who continually switched up his moves as bold and bright as a gawky, obnoxious Beyonce. The monotone of his vocal was the only one-dimensional element of his performance.
While the new songs aren’t as fresh, with years of amazing music having come between them and Vek’s first mini-bout of fame, they’re in perfect context here at Leeds – whose bill has essentially been nabbed from the mid-00s. He takes us back to another micro-generation where we were twattishly precious, still learning – so much so that attendance feels like an ambition fulfilled; the sighting of a rare bird.
A voice that sounds so obscure – almost flooded by oddball beats and slides on We Have Sound – feels so rich and triumphant here that it’s almost implausible to think of where he’s been during that six-year hiatus. A venture into DnB on ‘A.P.O.L.O.G.Y.’, from the new album Leisure Seizure, sounds absolutely glorious – and opener ‘CC (You Set The Fire In Me)’ leaves a packed-to-the-brim Radio 1/NME tent beaming.
It’s only a few days until 2011 Barclaycard Mercury Prize, now entering a third decade of awards and with Mystic Meg’s News of The World hotline not being picked up we call upon Mitchell Stirling to gaze into a crystal ball or hack into the judges phones to find out who come Tuesday could be celebrating too. … Continue Reading
If you’re not a fan of The Horrors, turn away now. What follows is only likely to upset you; having likely had enough of the dangerously tight trousers and near hysteric levels of hype this album’s generating. It’s fair enough: the trousers are worryingly tight. However, for a band that courts a wide range of influences, it’s difficult to find much to disagree with on Skying. … Continue Reading
2009′s Primary Colours was something of a left turn for The Horrors, and we voted it the 7th best album of that year. Next week, on Monday 11th July, they release their follow up – Skying. Click below to stream the album in full. … Continue Reading
While we’ve given you plenty of editorial on our albums of the year (50-41, 40-31,30-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-7. 6-4 3-1), we’re keeping it simple with this list of what releases our gaggle of writers collectively voted their singles of 2009. How did we reach this list, I hear you cry? May I hand over to our trusty friend, Excel Guru, who was last seen pre-ambling our top 50 albums end-of-year thingamejig:
“Everyone sent in a top 10 list and the 50 singles with the most nominations were collected; tie-breaks were decided by how high up those lists the songs were. Then everyone chose 10 ordered singles from the list of 50 and they were ranked using the same criteria as the album poll.”
Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
As a companion piece to our 50-1 countdown that hit the internet gradually over the past couple of weeks (check the top three and work backwards), I’ve decided to do this piece on my own personal top 20. First person writing, the chance to eschew writing as voice of a consensus – my very own top albums of 2009 as some sort of deeper representation of what this here site’s all about.
The order is very loose, and I guess based on factors such as how and how much I enjoyed them. I could probably put these albums in a tombola, get them out re-ordered and still call it a fair representation of my year. That said, the top five would have to be the top five, and in that order. They are five incredible albums that have added a next-level fever to this year. … Continue Reading
We’re into the top ten! Is your favourite here? Are you shocked it’s not been placed higher? Are you outraged by some of our writers’ choices? Tell us. Don’t be a closet whiner.
10) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! by Rob Hastings
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
It’s been a bumper year for fans of Karen O. Not only can they chirp about her band’s third album being yet another humdinger, but they can also indulge in a debate as to whether her freak-folk soundtrack to Where The Wild Things Are is even better still. Those who plump for It’s Blitz!, however, have plenty of justification. While armies of pretenders continue to squeeze the life out the synth revival, this is an album showing how Korgs really should be used to complement Fenders.
From the moment ‘Zero’ first explodes into full-blown stomping, strobe-lit form, it’s clear Nick Zinner isn’t just lazily following a trend; as the lyric in ‘Heads Will Roll’ goes, the next nine tracks are truly “dripping in alchemy”.
By melding the neon elements of their new sound with their garage origins, YYYs have created an LP that is by turns breathlessly euphoric, profoundly delicate and downright barbaric. … Continue Reading
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