2012's Next "Big" Things: The search is on...

The hottest topic of discussion among music fans around this time of the year is usually which new bands have what it takes to become the next "big" things in the year ahead. Taking motivation from the many lists out there, we've done our research and we've come up with the following shortlist of five new bands that fit the profile of what we'd like to listen to more in 2012. Let's have a listen:

Friends

It's not the first time I'm writing about Brooklyn's five piece funk-pop sensations Friends. Their excellent second single "I'm His Girl" was the subject of this post and it also got them a place in the Top 20 of our Singles Of The Year list. Let's hope that in 2012 the band will be able to live up to our expectations and deliver an album full of goodies like this one:

2:54

This London-based group was formed a couple of years ago by sisters Hannah and Colette Thurlow who used to play in the punk band The Vulgarians. The name of their new band comes from their favorite moment in a Melvins song although their dreamy new sound has more in common with the early '90s shoegazers than with the sludge-rock of Washington State's proto-grungers. Check out the impressive video for the title-track of their recent EP "Scarlet" below, as well as earlier single "Cold Front" which is my favorite 2:54 song so far:

Scarlet

The History Of Apple Pie

If you loved Yuck last year then you should definitely lend an ear to London five piece The History Of Apple Pie. Their debut single "You're So Cool" was released last summer on Roundtable Records and here's the excellent "Mallory" which followed it at the end of 2011:

Milk Music

They come from Olympia, Washington and they make the sort of guitar noise we haven't heard since the SST days of Dinosaur Jr. Do I need to say more? If you know what SST stands for, I'm sure you're already trying to track down Milk Music's self-released debut 12" "Beyond Living". Here's the title track and here's the link to listen to them live on WFMU:

Grimes

Grimes, aka Montreal-based Claire Boucher, has already made waves with her first releases on Arbutus Records. Her recent signing to 4AD and the forthcoming, highly anticipated full-length "Visions" will undoubtedly make her lovely electropop sound known to a much wider audience. Here’s "Genesis" off "Visions", one of her finest songs so far:

1989: Top 50 Singles

And with this post our '80s Singles project comes to an end. Since last March, we've been posting monthly the playlists of our 50 favorite singles of the year from 1980 onwards and now we're finally standing at the doorstep of the '90s as we unveil our 1989 Top 50 Singles list which is topped by "Monkey Gone To Heaven", one of Pixies finest moments.

The environmentally conscious track was released as a single in March 1989, paving the way for Pixies' second full-length album "Doolittle". "Monkey Gone To Heaven", the band's first major label release in America (they had just signed to Elektra Records in the States, while they remained with 4AD in the UK), is also notable for adding for the first time strings in their explosive sound, using cello and violin to create the calm before the inevitable, apocalyptic guitar storm that follows this Monkey to Heaven as Black Francis counts from 5 to 7, from Man's to God's number.

Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven

Here's 1989's Top 10 Singles:

1. Monkey Gone To Heaven - PIXIES
2. Blues From A Gun - THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
3. Fools Gold - THE STONE ROSES
4. Kennedy - THE WEDDING PRESENT
5. Blew - NIRVANA
6. Just Like Heaven - DINOSAUR JR.
7. Dizzy / Santa Claus - THROWING MUSES
8. Cab It Up / Dead Beat Descendant - THE FALL
9. Fight The Power - PUBLIC ENEMY
10. Me, Myself And I - DE LA SOUL

Click here to see the complete Top 50 list and click play below to listen:

Next month our Singles projects enters into the '90s. Stay tuned...

The Big Pink in Session: The Future is coming

I hope you've enjoyed our 2011's Top Singles playlist (already our most popular post in the blog's 4 year history), time now to start looking for 2012's cool jams.

One of this year's most anticipated new releases is coming out this week and the latest installment of the 4AD Sessions series is giving us the chance to get a first taste of what to expect. London electro-rockers The Big Pink, whose excellent debut "A Brief History of Love" landed at number 11 of our 2009 Best Albums list, are releasing their sophomore work "Future This" this Monday. In their 4AD Session, filmed in 3 Mills Studios located in London's oldest surviving industrial centre (a fitting location for their futuristic industrial grooves), you can watch them perform four of their new songs (recent single "Stay Gold", the Laurie Anderson sampling "Hit The Ground (Superman)" plus the hip hop influenced "Rubbernecking" and "Give It Up") along with first album highlight "Velvet". Check out the whole set here:

The Big Pink 4AD Session

And here's a few Big Pink goodies for you to keep: By liking their Facebook page here you can get mp3s of first single "Stay Gold" and of its remix from AraabMUZIK, while the player below gives you access to a remix of "Hit The Ground (Superman)" by Forest Swords:

A preview of the whole album with commentary from Milo Cordell on every track is available from Spin here.

Top 100 Singles of 2011

Happy New Year from Cool Music Central! We're starting 2012 with the ultimate 2011 playlist containing no less than 100 excellent singles or EPs from the past 12 months.

The first half of our selection which makes up our official Top 50 Singles of 2011 list, has a ranking order and the rule of including just one single from each artist or group for a more varied and hopefully more interesting result. This rule does not apply for the second half of the selection which is presented in pretty much random order. All the songs here were either released as singles or EPs in the past year or given away as free mp3s which means that no album tracks were included in this Top 100. To find out some of our favorite album tracks of the year, check out our Listening Habits posts for 2011 here.

And now that you know the rules of the game, let's start the music - here's Cool Music Central's Top 100 Singles of 2011:

The Top 50

1.   The Words That Maketh Murder - P.J. HARVEY
2.   Future Crimes - WILD FLAG
3.   Blackout - ANNA CALVI
4.   Gangsta - TUNE-YARDS
5.   He Gets Me High (He Gets Me High EP) - DUM DUM GIRLS
6.   Bad Feeling - VERONICA FALLS
7.   Milkman - EMA
8.   Two Different Ways - FACTORY FLOOR
9.   Lonely Boy - THE BLACK KEYS
10. Under Cover Of Darkness - THE STROKES
11. Will Do - TV ON THE RADIO
12. Eat Yr Heart - HTRK
13. Vessel - ZOLA JESUS
14. Future Starts Slow - THE KILLS
15. My Mistakes - ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER
16. I’m His Girl - FRIENDS
17. I Follow Rivers - LYKKE LI
18. Go Outside - CULTS
19. I Heard You Say - VIVIAN GIRLS
20. It's Real - REAL ESTATE
21. Surrender - THE DUKE SPIRIT
22. Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair - ARCTIC MONKEYS
23. Two Against One (feat. Jack White) - DANGER MOUSE & DANIELE LUPPI
24. Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man - GRINDERMAN
25. On The Corner - THE TWILIGHT SINGERS
26. Uberlin - R.E.M.
27. This Is Why We Fight - THE DECEMBERISTS
28. You Are A Tourist - DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
29. Year Off - HIGH PLACES
30. Lazy Noon (Our Own Dream EP) - KEEP SHELLY IN ATHENS
31. Rill Rill - SLEIGH BELLS
32. Kaputt - DESTROYER
33. Weekend - SMITH WESTERNS
34. Belong - THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART
35. Through The Floor - CRYSTAL STILTS
36. When You Cut - MOON DUO
37. I Might - WILCO
38. Jejune Stars - BRIGHT EYES
39. Cuckoo - STILL CORNERS
40. How Deep Is Your Love? - THE RAPTURE
41. Throw Away This - TELEPATHE
42. Love Song - HUSBAND
43. The Butcher - RADIOHEAD
44. Mindkilla - GANG GANG DANCE
45. Yonkers - TYLER, THE CREATOR
46. Make Some Noise - BEASTIE BOYS
47. Post Break-Up Sex - THE VACCINES
48. Holing Out - YUCK
49. Austere - THE JOY FORMIDABLE
50. Face In The Crowd - CAT'S EYES

The Top 50 video playlist:

The next 50 in random play mode:

The Glorious Land - P.J. HARVEY
Desire - ‎ ANNA CALVI
~ (R E A L L O V E) - FACTORY FLOOR
Hauntin' Me - KEEP SHELLY IN ATHENS
Our Last Waltz - HOLD KISS KILL
Laptop Dog - THE FALL
Senator - STEPHEN MALKMUS AND THE JICKS
Satellite - THE KILLS
Marked - EMA
Friend Crush - FRIENDS
A Chore - TOM VEK
Gun Shy - WIDOWSPEAK
Common Burn - MAZZY STAR
Holding On To Black Metal - MY MORNING JACKET
Helplessness Blues - FLEET FOXES
Calgary - BON IVER
East Harlem - BEIRUT
Jesus Fever - KURT VILE
Repatriated - HANDSOME FURS
Two Minutes - WIRE
The Other Shoe - FUCKED UP
So High - RINGO DEATHSTARR
Buy Nothing Day - THE GO! TEAM
Chorea - ESBEN AND THE WITCH
Only The Lonely EP - UNKLE
Ego / Mirror - THOM YORKE / BURIAL / FOUR TET
Your Past Life As A Blast - OKKERVIL RIVER
Rollercoaster - BLACK MOUNTAIN
Bess St. - WHITE DENIM
The Great Pan Is Dead - COLD CAVE
Still Life - THE HORRORS
How It Ended - THE DRUMS
Young Blood - THE NAKED AND FAMOUS
Ace Of Hz - LADYTRON
Street Halo - BURIAL
San Pedro - MOGWAI
Sixteen Shades Of Black & Blue - FUJIYA & MIYAGI
Energy - SPANK ROCK
Everything Goes My Way - METRONOMY
Stilyagi - PURO INSTINCT
Mallory - THE HISTORY OF APPLE PIE
Calyer - BEACH FOSSILS
The Unsinkable Fats Domino - GUIDED BY VOICES
Rope - FOO FIGHTERS
Honey Bunny - GIRLS
Singularity - BRIGHT EYES
Long Live the King EP - THE DECEMBERISTS
Covers EP - FRANZ FERDINAND
Total Decay EP - THE SOFT MOON
I’m Still In The Night EP - SALEM

(mp3s via stereogum, pitchfork, gorilla vs. bear, matador and sub pop)