Killer Tracks: The 2017 Playlist Vol.2

A few weeks ago we presented a selection of ten tracks taken from some of our favorite releases of the year so far. As we are getting closer to the actual mid-point of the year, the list of excellent new albums increases and it looks that 2017 is going to be one to remember! Soon we'll have a more thorough presentation of all the albums that stood out for us in the last six months, but 'till that time comes, here are seven more great tracks you should lend an ear to, among them "Cleveland", the latest track to surface off Algiers new album "The Underside of Power", out next week, and Waxahatchee's "Silver" from the album "Out in the Storm", out on July 14th. If the strength of these two songs is any indication of what to expect from the respective LPs, them it seems we have already found two of the Albums of the Year for 2017!

Algiers - Cleveland (from the album The Underside of Power)

Waxahatchee - Silver (from the album Out in the Storm)

Priests - Pink White House (from the album Nothing Feels Natural)

Jay Som - Baybee (from the album Everybody Works)

Girlpool - It Gets More Blue (from the album Powerplant)

Cherry Glazerr - Nuclear Bomb (from the album Apocalipstick)

Amber Arcades - It Changes (from the EP Cannonball)

Killer Tracks: The Spring 2017 Collection

We're waving goodbye to spring and welcoming the summer period with a selection of some of the finest new tracks we've had the pleasure of listening to in the last few months. As we're reaching the mid-point of 2017, this playlist is also indicative of where we currently stand on the issue of the best releases of the year so far. Let's leave it to the music to do the talking:

Thurston Moore - Aphrodite

Mark Lanegan - Beehive

The Afghan Whigs - Oriole

Boss Hog - Ground Control

The Jesus And Mary Chain - Always Sad

The Black Angels - Currency

The New Pornographers - High Ticket Attractions

Spoon - Can I Sit Next To You

Kendrick Lamar - DNA.

Run The Jewels - Legend Has It

2012 Review: Top 50 Singles of the Year

2012 turned out to be the year of the Cat - Cat Power that is. Chan Marshall's triumphant return with "Sun", her excellent ninth studio album, was announced in June with the digital release of "Ruin", the surprising upbeat first single of the record.

Given that usually Cat Power's musical mood falls into the category of "bleak" and "gloomy" (to use allmusic's description) and the fact that this record was written around the time of a bad breakup, "Ruin"'s upbeat pop tempo and uplifting piano melody was certainly not what we had expected. Chan may be singing about "sitting on a ruin" but she's putting things into perspective. The message is simple: before you start bitching and complaining about your life, you better take a look around and see what's going on with the rest of the world. Maybe your situation is not as bad as you thought.

Before we proceed with the presentation of the rest of our Top 50, here are the rules of the game: 1) All tracks included in our list were either released as singles in some shape or form (digital or physical) in the past 12 months or offered as free mp3s. 2) Only one track from each artist or group is included in the Top 50 to ensure a wider musical variety in our selection.

With these rules in mind, it's time to unveil 2012's ultimate playlist! There's no Christmas without a Festive 50, so here is ours:

Top 50 Singles of 2012

1.   Ruin - CAT POWER
2.   The Gravedigger’s Song - MARK LANEGAN BAND
3.   Fineshrine - PURITY RING
4.   Genesis - GRIMES
5.   My Love Is Real - DIVINE FITS
6.   Lazuli - BEACH HOUSE
7.   Love Interruption - JACK WHITE
8.   End of Daze EP ("Lord Knows" mp3) - DUM DUM GIRLS
9.   Onwards To The Wall EP ("So Far Away" mp3) - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
10. Doused - DIIV
11. Creeping - 2:54
12. Lay Your Cards Out - POLIÇA
13. Know Me - FRANKIE ROSE
14. Elephant - TAME IMPALA
15. Keep It In Motion - GUIDED BY VOICES
16. Stay Useless - CLOUD NOTHINGS
17. The House That Heaven Built - JAPANDROIDS
18. Watch The Corners - DINOSAUR JR.
19. The Only Place - BEST COAST
20. Capricornia - ALLO DARLIN'
21. Kill For Love - CHROMATICS
22. Only in My Dreams - ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI
23. Gun Has No Trigger - DIRTY PROJECTORS
24. Brats - LIARS
25. Plague - CRYSTAL CASTLES
26. Wet Blanket - METZ
27. The Full Retard - EL-P
28. Put Your Sad Down EP ("Secret Days" mp3) - SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS
29. All Your Gold - BAT FOR LASHES
30. Youth Without Youth - METRIC
31. Off The Wall - LEE RANALDO
32. Brains - LOWER DENS
33. Lupine Dominus - THEE OH SEES
34. The Hill - TY SEGALL
35. Moonlight Mile - THE BABIES
36. My Heart Beats - VERONICA FALLS
37. Betty Wang - HOSPITALITY
38. Default - DJANGO DJANGO
39. R U Mine - ARCTIC MONKEYS
40. Motoring - TOY
41. Hey Jane - SPIRITUALIZED
42. Comeback Kid - SLEIGH BELLS
43. Big Beast (ft. Bun B, T.I., Trouble, & El-P) - KILLER MIKE
44. Mind Control - FRIENDS
45. Fireflies - STILL CORNERS
46. Shadow - WILD NOTHING
47. Leonard - SHARON VAN ETTEN
48. The Rifle's Spiral - THE SHINS
49. I Want You - PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL
50. Octopus - BLOC PARTY

(mp3s via stereogum, 4AD, kexp blog, Sub Pop, Matador, gorilla vs bear, insomniaradio, Rolling Stone)

Next week: We're giving 2012 a proper goodbye with our Albums of the Year list. Keep that champagne on ice!

The Best of 2012 so far

It's that time of the year again: the temperature's rising to dangerous levels (at least here, at Europe's Dirty South) and just before we take a brief summer break during which we'll fly over to Lisbon, Portugal for the Optimus Alive festival (check out the line up here and expect a full report next weekend), we have for you today our traditional mid-year report with our favorite albums and singles of the year so far. For even more recommendations, you can check out here the lists we post every two months in our Listening Habits series.

Keep in mind that the order in which we present these albums and singles is not random at all, but for these lists we prefer to avoid using numbers as the ranking is particularly fluid at this point in time, with new entries changing things around all the time (hello A Place To Bury Strangers and Metric). It's safe to say though that "Visions" by Grimes and "Bloom" by Beach House are clearly leading the album pack at this time and Cloud Nothings along with Mark Lanegan Band are following close behind. Cat Power's brand new song "Ruin" is our current obsession which brings it straight at the top of the singles' pile with a bullet, although there are several other equally worthy entries as you can see below:

Top 30 Albums (January - June 2012)

• Visions - GRIMES
• Bloom - BEACH HOUSE
• Attack On Memory - CLOUD NOTHINGS
• Blues Funeral - MARK LANEGAN BAND
• Blunderbuss - JACK WHITE
• Cancer 4 Cure - EL-P
• Worship - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
• 2:54 - 2:54
• Kill For Love - CHROMATICS
• Reign Of Terror - SLEIGH BELLS
• Give You The Ghost - POLIÇA
• Synthetica - METRIC
• Django Django - DJANGO DJANGO
• Ekstasis - JULIA HOLTER
• Between The Times And The Tides - LEE RANALDO
• Sweet Heart, Sweet Light - SPIRITUALIZED
• Open Your Heart - THE MEN
• Tramp - SHARON VAN ETTEN
• Europe - ALLO DARLIN'
• Ghostory - SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS
• Manifest! - FRIENDS
• The Only Place - BEST COAST
• Nootropics - LOWER DENS
• Animal Joy - SHEARWATER
• Interstellar - FRANKIE ROSE
• The Horror - POP. 1280
• Let's Go Eat The Factory - GUIDED BY VOICES
• With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery - MOONFACE
• Port Of Morrow - THE SHINS
• Master Of My Make - Believe - SANTIGOLD

Top 30 Singles (January - June 2012)

• Ruin - CAT POWER
• Genesis - GRIMES
• Fineshrine - PURITY RING
• The Gravedigger’s Song - MARK LANEGAN BAND
• Love Interruption - JACK WHITE
• Lazuli - BEACH HOUSE
• Know Me - FRANKIE ROSE
• Creeping - 2:54
• The Only Place - BEST COAST
• Youth Without Youth - METRIC
• Stay Useless - CLOUD NOTHINGS
• My Heart Beats - VERONICA FALLS
• Capricornia - ALLO DARLIN'
• Lay Your Cards Out - POLIÇA
• Brains - LOWER DENS
• Off The Wall - LEE RANALDO
• The Night - SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS
• Mind Control - FRIENDS
• Default - DJANGO DJANGO
• R U Mine? - ARCTIC MONKEYS
• Chocolate Boy - GUIDED BY VOICES
• You Are The One - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
• The House That Heaven Built - JAPANDROIDS
• Krokodil - ST. VINCENT
• Leonard - SHARON VAN ETTEN
• Little Girl - SPIRITUALIZED
• The Rifle's Spiral - THE SHINS
• The Full Retard - EL-P
• Disparate Youth - SANTIGOLD
• I Want You - PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL

Grimes - Nightmusic ft. Majical Cloudz 

Beach House - Lazuli

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)

The Best of 2011 so far: Top 40 Singles

It's half-time for 2011 which gives us the perfect opportunity to make a couple more lists. We are starting today with the selection of our 40 favorite singles of the year so far and until the end of the week we'll have that tricky album list which is currently under debate, although it's quite clear who's going to be at the top. The rule for the list you see below is to include only one single per artist for a more varied selection, while the ranking is only indicative as it's always changing. Here's how our Top 40 looks like this week, a few days into the second half of the year:

Top 40 Singles (January - June '11)

1.    The Words That Maketh Murder - PJ HARVEY
2.    Future Crimes - WILD FLAG
3.    Blackout - ANNA CALVI
4.    He Gets Me High EP - DUM DUM GIRLS
5.    Under Cover Of Darkness - THE STROKES
6.    Will Do - TV ON THE RADIO
7.    Milkman - EMA
8.    ~ (R E A L L O V E) - FACTORY FLOOR
9.    Future Starts Slow - THE KILLS
10.  I Follow Rivers - LYKKE LI
11.  I Heard You Say - VIVIAN GIRLS
12.  Two Against One (feat. Jack White) - DANGER MOUSE & DANIELE LUPPI
13.  Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair - ARCTIC MONKEYS
14.  Uberlin - R.E.M.
15.  This Is Why We Fight - THE DECEMBERISTS
16.  Only The Lonely EP - UNKLE
17.  You are a Tourist - DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
18.  Through The Floor - CRYSTAL STILTS
19.  Belong - THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART
20.  Glass Jar - GANG GANG DANCE
21.  Yonkers - TYLER, THE CREATOR
22.  Make Some Noise - BEASTIE BOYS
23.  Throw Away This - TELEPATHE
24.  Love Song - HUSBAND
25.  Our Last Waltz - HOLD KISS KILL
26.  Holing Out - YUCK
27.  Austere - THE JOY FORMIDABLE
28.  Post Break-Up Sex - THE VACCINES
29.  Face In The Crowd - CAT'S EYES
30.  Kaputt - DESTROYER
31.  A Chore - TOM VEK
32.  The Butcher / Supercollider - RADIOHEAD
33.  Ego / Mirror - THOM YORKE / BURIAL / FOUR TET
34.  Buy Nothing Day - THE GO! TEAM
35.  Villains Of The Moon - COLD CAVE
36.  Chorea - ESBEN AND THE WITCH
37.  Helplessness Blues - FLEET FOXES
38.  Calgary - BON IVER
39.  Hauntin' Me - KEEP SHELLY IN ATHENS
40.  So High - RINGO DEATHSTARR

Hit play below to listen to the Top 30 (for Hold Kiss Kill's missing "waltz" go here):

2010 Review: Top 100 Tracks of the Year (1-50)

So how was your Christmas weekend? I hope you all had a great time! C.M.C. started the celebrations on Friday with the unveiling of the first part of our Top 100 Tracks of the Year and we’re proceeding today with the presentation of our very own Festive 50.

The rules of this game were made clear in the previous post, so all that remains is to explain the difficult process of deciding our Single of the Year. In reality it’s a tie between two very different but equally loved tracks, The National’s "Bloodbuzz Ohio" and Dum Dum Girls’ "Jail La La". Both tracks were inducted in our Killer Tracks Hall of Fame in the first half of the year (see here and here respectively) and I still can’t get enough of either of them.

In the end, the decision for that all-important number 1 spot was not down to a flip of the coin but to the fact that I have yet to see a "Best of" year-end list with the Dum Dum Girls on top. One of C.M.C.’s many missions is, of course, to correct all music-related wrongs, so our Top 50 Singles list comes just in time to take care of that. Another factor that tipped the odds to Dee Dee and her band’s favor was the fact that if we didn’t have the rule of including just one track from each band in our Top 50, Dum Dum Girls would certainly have the most entries. Apart from their awesome Sub Pop debut 7 inch that claimed the top, the Girls released a series of ace singles in 2010 including "Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout" on Slumberland (included in the second half of our Top 100), "Stiff Little Fingers" on Hell, Yes! and a split with Male Bonding on Sub Pop with the excellent "Pay For Me". Not to mention the fact that each and every track on their great debut "I Will Be" would make for a first-class single release.

Without further ado, here’s our Top 50 Singles of 2010 accompanied with mp3 links where available and a player where you can hear and see videos for most of them:

Top Tracks of 2010: 1-50

1.   Jail La La - DUM DUM GIRLS
2.   Bloodbuzz Ohio - THE NATIONAL
3.   Bury Pts 2+4 - THE FALL
4.   Infinity Guitars - SLEIGH BELLS
5.   Written In Reverse - SPOON
6.   Worm Tamer - GRINDERMAN
7.   Ready To Start - ARCADE FIRE
8.   Barricade - INTERPOL
9.   Mirrorage - GLASSER
10. Proud Evolution - LIARS
11. Attack Music - THESE NEW PURITANS
12. Celestica - CRYSTAL CASTLES
13. Art Czars - JAPANDROIDS
14. Ego Death EP - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
15. Old Fangs - BLACK MOUNTAIN
16. Norway - BEACH HOUSE
17. Can’t Feel Born EP - HIGH PLACES
18. King Night - SALEM
19. IxC999 - WHITE RING
20. Intuition - LONELADY
21. All To All - BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE
22. Giving Up The Gun - VAMPIRE WEEKEND
23. Everybody’s Under Your Spell - THE DUKE SPIRIT
24. Doubt - THE CORIN TUCKER BAND
25. Semi-Precious Stone - WOLF PARADE
26. Odessa - CARIBOU
27. Water - PIT ER PAT
28. Here Sometimes - BLONDE REDHEAD
29. Let’s Get Out Of Here - LES SAVY FAV
30. Digging for Something - SUPERCHUNK
31. Glitter - NO AGE
32. Undertow - WARPAINT
33. Boyfriend - BEST COAST
34. Skinny Little Bitch - HOLE
35. Blue Blood Blues - THE DEAD WEATHER
36. C'mon - THE SOFT PACK
37. Sleep Forever - CROCODILES
38. Babelonia - SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS
39. Blue Blood - FOALS
40. Lying - FACTORY FLOOR
41. Born Free - M.I.A.
42. Pow Pow - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
43. Latin America - HOLY FUCK
44. Slow - TWIN SHADOW
45. Golden Haze - WILD NOTHING
46. Fool's Day - BLUR
47. Get Some - LYKKE LI
48. Next Girl - THE BLACK KEYS
49. Solitude Is Bliss - TAME IMPALA
50. Forever & Ever Amen - THE DRUMS

Listen to the Top 50 here:

Next weekend: All you ever wanted to know about C.M.C.'s Top Albums of 2010!

(mp3s, flvs via pitchfork, stereogum, KEXP or the relevant record labels)

2010 Review: Top 100 Tracks of the Year (51-100)

As usual, I started trimming down the long list of our favorite tracks of the year trying to decide what to include in Cool Music Central's Top 50, but it became obvious that I was leaving out too many great ones. Therefore, this year we're expanding our singles list to a Top 100 split into two parts: today we're presenting in no particular order the tracks between 51 and 100 and on the 26th we'll give you our Top 50 Singles of 2010.

As it is also usual, there are a couple of self-imposed rules in the compilation of this list: 1) All tracks included here were either released as singles in any shape or format (digital or physical) in the past 12 months or given away as free mp3s (which is a modern and more effective way of getting your music noticed than hoping that the radio will play your single). 2) Only one track from each artist/group is included in the Top 50 to ensure that a wider array of music is represented in our list. This rule is relaxed for the second half of the list which we are presenting today, meaning that some of the artists below will make a second appearance in a couple of days, when we'll unveil the Top 50. So, now that the rules are clear, let's get on with the show:

Top Tracks of 2010: 51-100

Not In Love (feat. ROBERT SMITH) - CRYSTAL CASTLES
Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout - DUM DUM GIRLS
Tremel - GLASSER
Chaos - NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB
Pigeons - THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS
AM/FM - !!!
Hoola - ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT
Don't Ask - BLOOD RED SHOES
Jezebel - ANNA CALVI
Hotel Room - SMOKE FAIRIES
Round and Round - ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI
The Overachievers - LIARS
Hide It Away - RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR
Crash Years - THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS
Scissor Runner - JENNY AND JOHNNY
Compliments - BAND OF HORSES
Revival - DEERHUNTER
Let Them - JJ
Fixed - STARS
Hey Cool Kid - CLOUD NOTHINGS
Romance Is Boring - LOS CAMPESINOS!
Found Love In A Graveyard - VERONICA FALLS
Natural Selection - UNKLE
Lemonade - COCOROSIE
Stylo - GORILLAZ
High Road - BROKEN BELLS
Siberian Breaks - MGMT
Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums - MOONFACE
Ayisha Abyss - SERENA MANEESH
Seed, Crop, Harvest - PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL
Swim - SURFER BLOOD
Night - ZOLA JESUS
Rattling Cage - FOREST SWORDS
Sing - FOUR TET
O.N.E. - YEASAYER
I Feel Better - HOT CHIP
Tighten Up - THE BLACK KEYS
Anyone's Ghost - THE NATIONAL
Month Of May - ARCADE FIRE
Heavenward Grand Prix - JAPANDROIDS
We Want War - THESE NEW PURITANS
Ashes to Ashes - WARPAINT
Dear God 2.0 - THE ROOTS
Gold Guns Girls - METRIC
Tonight - THE BIG PINK
Zebra - BEACH HOUSE
Real Live Flesh - TUNE-YARDS
Mind Eraser, No Chaser - THEM CROOKED VULTURES
Commotion - THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS
Hearts (oOoOO EP) - oOoOO

Listen to a playlist including most of the above tracks plus the festive (?) "Merry Christmas, Baby (Please Don't Die)" by the Crocodiles and Dum Dum Girls (hint: make sure not to miss the smoking hot last video on this player!) - enjoy:

(mp3s via pitchfork.com or the relevant record labels)

The Best of 2010 so far (part 1): Top 50 Singles

Yes, it's that time of the year again! Amidst World Cup matches and summer holiday plans, we have managed to find the time to compile our traditional middle-of-the-year “Best of” lists with our favorite singles and albums so far. We are starting today with the unveiling of our Top 50 Singles released in the first half of 2010 and in the second part of the presentation we’ll deal with the best albums.

The majority of the tracks in our Top 50 were released as proper singles, but we have also included a few outstanding album tracks which were also available as free mp3s, a fact that qualifies them as singles for our purposes. Also, as it’s usually the case with our "Best Singles" lists, we only allow one track per band in order to maximize the variety of our selection. With these rules in mind, here’s the list of Cool Music Central's Top 50 Singles of 2010 so far:

Top 50 Singles (Jan.-June 2010)

1. Jail La La - DUM DUM GIRLS
2. Bloodbuzz Ohio - THE NATIONAL
3. Written In Reverse - SPOON
4. Bury Pts 2+4 - THE FALL
5. Tell’em - SLEIGH BELLS
6. The Overachievers - LIARS
7. Forced To Love/All To All - BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE
8. Norway - BEACH HOUSE
9. Giving Up The Gun - VAMPIRE WEEKEND
10. Attack Music - THESE NEW PURITANS
11. Intuition - LONELADY
12. Water - PIT ER PAT
13. Celestica - CRYSTAL CASTLES
14. Art Czars - JAPANDROIDS
15. Ego Death EP - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
16. The Ghosts That Wake You - FOLLOW THAT BIRD!
17. Can’t Feel Born EP - HIGH PLACES
18. Don't Ask - BLOOD RED SHOES
19. Skinny Little Bitch - HOLE
20. C'mon - THE SOFT PACK
21. The Crash Years - THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS
22. Hide It Away - RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR
23. Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums - MOONFACE
24. Latin America - HOLY FUCK
25. Odessa - CARIBOU
26. Chaos - NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB
27. This Orient - FOALS
28. Lights - INTERPOL
29. The Suburbs/Month Of May - ARCADE FIRE
30. Die By The Drop - THE DEAD WEATHER
31. Compliments - BAND OF HORSES
32. Shark's Tooth - ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT
33. Ayisha Abyss - SERENA MANEESH
34. Sing - FOUR TET
35. Born Free - M.I.A.
36. This Desert EP - THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS
37. Fool's Day - BLUR
38. Forever & Ever Amen - THE DRUMS
39. Fixed - STARS
40. Romance Is Boring - LOS CAMPESINOS!
41. Swim - SURFER BLOOD
42. Found Love In A Graveyard - VERONICA FALLS
43. Lemonade - COCOROSIE
44. High Road - BROKEN BELLS
45. Siberian Breaks - MGMT
46. Natural Selection - UNKLE
47. O.N.E. - YEASAYER
48. Stylo - GORILLAZ
49. I Feel Better - HOT CHIP
50. Drunk Girls - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

Go on, make your day - press play and listen to the Top 25 below:

2009: Top 50 Tracks Of The Year

It doesn't really feel like Christmas without a Festive 50. So, after careful consideration and losing several hours of sleep, I finally managed to narrow down a really long list of favorite tracks to the Top 50 you see below. I'm not saying that these are the absolute best tracks of the year but it's a very good sample of the music I've listened to and enjoyed the most over the last 12 months. As usually, there are some rules that I tried to follow in order to make the final selection. The first one was to include only tracks that were released as singles (in some shape or form) but I have to admit that I broke this rule on a few occasions and I have included a handful of indispensable album tracks that I feel they would have made killer singles (perhaps after reading this post - illusion of grandeur alert! - the relevant artists will realize their mistake and make amends). Anyway, the way things are going it seems likely that in the near future there will be no more albums and all songs will be downloadable digital files for mobile multitasking contraptions, so this singles-only rule starts to feel very 20th century. The second rule (which I did manage to follow) was to include only one track from each artist or band in order to have a wider spectrum of music represented in the Top 50. So, it's safe to assume that several artists in here could have more tracks in this list, but only my favorite from each one made the final cut.

The top spot of our 2009 Top 50 Tracks list goes to "Help I'm Alive", the lead single off Metric's excellent fourth album, the rocking "Fantasies". The song got its first digital release a year ago (on December 23rd, 2008 in Canada and on January 1st, 2009 in the US) and later on it was also released as a good old-fashioned 7" vinyl single. The opening galloping drum beats set the frantic pace of the song as Emily Haines expresses her existential angst in a sweet, desperate voice. As the rhythm shifts gears, the panic builds up and when the Pixies-like guitar kick in you know from the very first listen that you're dealing with a classic song that's going to stay with you for years to come.

Cool Music Central's Top 50 songs of the year are the following:

Top 50 Tracks of 2009

1. Help I’m alive - METRIC
2. So fine - TELEPATHE
3. Daniel - BAT FOR LASHES
4. Zero - YEAH YEAH YEAHS
5. Sacred trickster - SONIC YOUTH
6. Young adult friction - THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART
7. Ambling alp - YEASAYER
8. Seven - FEVER RAY
9. My girls - ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
10. Die slow - HEALTH
11. In your heart - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
12. Dominoes - THE BIG PINK
13. Stillness is the move - DIRTY PROJECTORS
14. I was born - HIGH PLACES
15. Islands - THE XX
16. Disco - HTRK
17. Hang you from the heavens - THE DEAD WEATHER
18. Death bells - SOULSAVERS
19. Black hearted love - P.J. HARVEY & JOHN PARISH
20. Ulysses - FRANZ FERDINAND
21. 1901 - PHOENIX
22. First communion - GANG GANG DANCE
23. I’m confused - HANDSOME FURS
24. Troubles like mine - GUN OUTFIT
25. Over it - DINOSAUR JR.
26. Sea within a sea - THE HORRORS
27. Departure - CRYSTAL STILTS
28. Feel like taking you home - BRENDAN BENSON
29. People got a lotta nerve - NEKO CASE
30. French navy - CAMERA OBSCURA
31. Rabbit heart (raise it up) - FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE
32. Digital hearts - HOWLING BELLS
33. Got nuffin - SPOON
34. The rake's song - THE DECEMBERISTS
35. Something is squeezing my skull - MORRISSEY
36. Angela - JARVIS COCKER
37. Panic switch - SILVERSUN PICKUPS
38. House of flying daggers - RAEKWON (Feat. GHOSTFACE KILLAH, INSPECTAH DECK, METHOD MAN)
39. Life in marvelous times - MOS DEF
40. Ecstasy - JJ
41. Frost - SALEM
42. Wolf cub - BURIAL & FOUR TET
43. These are my twisted words - RADIOHEAD
44. Bye bye bayou - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
45. Dancing choose - TV ON THE RADIO
46. Walkabout - ATLAS SOUND (Feat. NOAH LENNOX)
47. The end is near - THE FIERY FURNACES
48. Mykonos - FLEET FOXES
49. Cornerstone - ARCTIC MONKEYS
50. 11th dimension - JULIAN CASABLANCAS

Metric - Help I'm Alive

Listen to our top tracks of 2009 at MySpace Music here.

Meanwhile Dandelion Radio, the internet radio station that continues John Peel's tradition of the annual Festive 50, has just started broadcasting on a daily basis the results of this year's poll. Go here to listen to the complete list and check out below the tracks that make up 2009's Top 10:

1. There are listed buildings - Los Campesinos!
2. Young adult friction - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
3. My girls - Animal Collective
4. Surf solar - Fuck Buttons
5. I'm here to see the clouds of blood - The Chasms
6. I am Grimaldi - Nightingales
7. Whirring - The Joy Formidable
8. Cougar - The Brownies
9. The sea is a good place to think of the future - Los Campesinos!
10. Murder music - Ste McCabe

Los Campesinos! - There Are Listed Buildings

Listening Habits 11-12.2009

A brief break to the presentation of our Top 20 albums of the '00s for a look (and a listen) at the latest additions to our favorite albums and tracks of the year. November was the month of Nirvana for us, thanks to the release of the CD/DVD "Live at Reading". It was recorded on August 30, 1992, when Nirvana headlined the Reading Festival for the first and only time. The weather was terrible, mud was everywhere and rumors abound that the band was going to cancel. None of this mattered when Cobain took to the stage on a wheelchair, wearing a hospital robe, to kick-start with "Breed" an amazing show that turned out to be Nirvana's last ever performance on British soil. This CD/DVD combo is the document of that historic night, a night that yours truly had the privilege to witness first hand, and it is undoubtedly a necessary addition to the collection of every fan of 20th century's last great rock band.

The news of the release of Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt II" were certainly intriguing for hip hop fans everywhere, as the first part was one of the best rap albums of the '90s. What's even greater is the fact that the new album lives up to the expectations and it's an indisputable addition not only to the year's top releases but to the decade's greatest hip hop albums as well.

Other noteworthy recent releases included Vivian Girls' excellent sophomore effort "Everything Goes Wrong", a highly addictive noise trip where the Ramones are reimagined as a shogaze girl group, Brendan Benson's richly melodic "My Old Familiar Friend", the hi-octane rock of Alberta Cross and Them Crooked Vultures (the second album in our Top 10 featuring the mad drumming skills of Mr. Dave Grohl), the latest efforts of The Raveonettes and The Cribs (time for album number four for both bands who keep up the good work without managing to surpass their previous efforts) and solo works for Lou Barlow and Julian Casablancas. Barlow revisits his lo-fi roots with "Goodnight Unknown", presumably to take a breather from all that Dinosaur noise he helped create earlier in the year, while Casablancas finally tries his luck without The Strokes with "Phrazes for the Young". Synthesizers and dance beats in tracks like the single "11th Dimension" differentiate Casablancas sound from that of his group, but it's the more Strokesian tracks like "Out Of The Blue" and "River Of Breaklights" that do the trick for me.

Top 10 Albums

1. Live At Reading - NIRVANA
2. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt II - RAEKWON
3. Everything Goes Wrong - VIVIAN GIRLS
4. My Old Familiar Friend - BRENDAN BENSON
5. Broken Side of Time - ALBERTA CROSS
6. Them Crooked Vultures - THEM CROOKED VULTURES
7. Phrazes For The Young - JULIAN CASABLANCAS
8. In And Out Of Control - THE RAVEONETTES
9. Ignore The Ignorant - THE CRIBS
10. Goodnight Unknown - LOU BARLOW

Top 12 Tracks

1. Ambling alp - YEASAYER
2. I was born - HIGH PLACES
3. Keep slipping away - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
4. River of brakelights - JULIAN CASABLANCAS
5. Can't get over you - VIVIAN GIRLS
6. ATX - ALBERTA CROSS
7. Planting seeds - BUILT TO SPILL
8. Feel like taking you home - BRENDAN BENSON
9. One machine, one long fight - LOU BARLOW
10. House of flying daggers - RAEKWON
11. Dead end friends - THEM CROOKED VULTURES
12. We were aborted - THE CRIBS

And here are the videos for two of the singles of the year:

Yeasayer - Ambling alp (the album "Odd Blood" is coming in February)

High Places - I Was Born from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

Counting Down The '00s: The Best Of 2008

Ranting 'n' Raving for the 100th time

And with this post, the 100th since starting this blog in March 2008 (hooray!), we approach the culmination of our little tribute to the best music this decade had to offer.

In the "Counting Down The '00s" series of posts we presented the lists of our 30 favorite albums and singles for each year of the '00s (the noughties, the aughts, the two-thousands, the zeroes...why can't we all agree on a name, this is getting ridiculous!) from 2000 to 2008. In December we are going to present our review of 2009 in a manner similar to last year (check out here the relevant posts from last December) culminating with the unveiling of our favorite albums and singles right at the end of the month. In parallel to all this fun stuff, starting tomorrow we'll start revealing our Top 20 Albums of the Decade one by one. In this little game, organized by the All Gone blog, more than 80 other bloggers from this part of the world will be presenting their own picks for the best albums of the decade and the year. You will be able to see the aggregated results here. As I've written before, the Top 20 that we are going to present now is only the prequel to our final full list that is going to appear in Cool Music Database when the time is right. And the right time, contrary to the current media obsession with the subject, I think should be sometime near the end of next year, after we take the time to better evaluate what this year had to offer. Which, of course, means that by then this Top 20 might be slightly different.

Moving on with the subject at hand, the best of 2008 (a year characterized by an abundance of excellent first-time efforts), you can check out below the updated Top 30 Albums and Singles lists and you can read more about them here.

Top 30 Albums of 2008

1. Dig, Lazarus, dig!!! - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS
2. Dear science - TV ON THE RADIO
3. Antidotes - FOALS
4. Neptune - THE DUKE SPIRIT
5. Crystal Castles - CRYSTAL CASTLES
6. Midnight boom - THE KILLS
7. Consolers of the lonely - THE RACONTEURS
8. Saturnalia - THE GUTTER TWINS
9. Third - PORTISHEAD
10. Beat pyramid - THESE NEW PURITANS
11. Oracular spectacular - MGMT
12. A certain feeling - BODIES OF WATER
13. Songs in A&E - SPIRITUALIZED
14. Loyalty to loyalty - COLD WAR KIDS
15. Stay positive - THE HOLD STEADY
16. Box of secrets - BLOOD RED SHOES
17. Vampire Weekend - VAMPIRE WEEKEND
18. Conor Oberst - CONOR OBERST
19. Intimacy - BLOC PARTY
20. Santogold - SANTOGOLD
21. Velocifero - LADYTRON
22. Re-arrange us - MATES OF STATE
23. Imperial wax solvent - THE FALL
24. Beautiful future - PRIMAL SCREAM
25. Saint Dymphna - GANG GANG DANCE
26. Donkey - C.S.S.
27. Partie traumatic - BLACK KIDS
28. The bake sale - THE COOL KIDS
29. Narrow stairs - DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
30. Lookout mountain, lookout sea - SILVER JEWS

Top 30 Singles of 2008

1. Idle hands - THE GUTTER TWINS
2. The step and the walk - THE DUKE SPIRIT
3. To fix the gash in your head - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS
4. Courtship dating - CRYSTAL CASTLES
5. Machine gun - PORTISHEAD
6. Devil’s trident - TELEPATHE
7. Swords of truth - THESE NEW PURITANS
8. Cheap and cheerful - THE KILLS
9. Paper planes - M.I.A.
10. Time to pretend - MGMT
11. Salute your solution - THE RACONTEURS
12. Dig, Lazarus, dig!!! - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS
13. Cassius - FOALS
14. Can't go back - PRIMAL SCREAM
15. Jigsaw falling into place - RADIOHEAD
16. Nothing ever happened - DEERHUNTER
17. Hit the wall - BRENDAN CANNING
18. Rat is dead (Rage) - C.S.S.
19. L.E.S. artistes - SANTOGOLD
20. 88 - THE COOL KIDS
21. Knickerbocker - FUJIYA & MIYAGI
22. Mercury - BLOC PARTY
23. I will possess your heart - DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
24. Sequestered in Memphis - THE HOLD STEADY
25. You lie you cheat - SPIRITUALIZED
26. You bring me down - BLOOD RED SHOES
27. A-Punk - VAMPIRE WEEKEND
28. In a cave - TOKYO POLICE CLUB
29. Something is not right with me - COLD WAR KIDS
30. Hang them all - TAPES ‘N TAPES

Tomorrow, December 1st, you can find out our choice for Album Number 20 for the '00s (as well as a hint of what lies below). Meanwhile, here's a video interview of Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo revealing to The Boston Phoenix his Top 3 albums of the decade, as well as his favorite Sonic Youth release for the aughts (a choice that finds me in agreement):

Counting Down The '00s: The Best Of 2007

In 2007 we had no less than four records that equally deserved the number one spot of our "Albums of the Year" list. In the end the honor went to Les Savy Fav who made their spectacular comeback with a work of amazing variety and impressive punk-rock dynamics. This is what we had to say about the album in our end of the year review: "It was certainly the most impressive comeback of 2007. A decade since their debut and six years since their last full-length, Les Savy Fav resurfaced with the magnificent “Let’s Stay Friends”. It is their fourth and best album so far, a stylistically diverse, powerful record that achieves that rare, perfect balance between aggressive, pedal-to-the-metal punk rock intensity and melodic, even danceable, pop tunes. “Patty Lee” is perhaps the best example of this precarious balancing act, followed closely by “The Equestrian”, “The Year Before the Year 2000” and the single “What Would Wolves Do?”".

Equally impressive was Blonde Redhead’s “23”, the definitive album of their continuously evolving career. Here’s a quote from our review: "The New York based Japanese-Italian trio started in the mid-90s making glorious noise under the mighty shadow of Sonic Youth. They kept experimenting, continuously evolving their sound, and by the turn of the century, with album number five “Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons”, they had developed their own, unique voice. “23”, their seventh LP, is their masterpiece. A majestic dream-pop landscape where new wave and no wave meet and live happily ever after!".

The other two top releases of the year came from The White Stripes and Grinderman. Jack and Meg returned to form with the classic rock powerhouse that was “Icky Thump”, in my opinion their best album of the decade along with “Elephant”, while Nick Cave returned to the wild sound of his frenzied Birthday Party days with the first Grinderman album.

Modest Mouse delivered another excellent work, this time with the help of '80s guitar legend Johnny Marr, and successfully claimed a place in our end of the year Top 10 list for the third time in this decade. Equally successful was Interpol’s third release, Spoon continued full speed ahead with their sixth LP, while we also had four very important sophomore releases from Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem.

Dinosaur Jr. proved that there was a very good reason for their reformation by delivering “Beyond”, an astonishing album that picked up exactly where the original line-up had left off 19 years ago with “Bug”. Mark E. Smith surprisingly offered his best work for the year not with The Fall but with Von Sudenfed, the product of his collaboration with German electronic experimentalists Mouse On Mars.

The particularly strong Top 20 of the year also included albums from El-P (“I’ll Sleep When You're Dead” was our favorite hip hop album of 2007), The Go! Team, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Bright Eyes, Kings Of Leon, The Shins and Radiohead who questioned the established way of distributing music by trying out a pay-what-you-like model. Personally, I decided to download the mp3s for free to decide if I liked the album and then, after approving of what I had heard, I paid for the cd. Call me old-fashioned, but paying for low quality digital music files makes no sense to me. Having something tangible in my hands and, more importantly, of high sound quality is what deserves my money, in my opinion.

Top 30 Albums of 2007

1. Let’s stay friends - LES SAVY FAV
2. 23 - BLONDE REDHEAD
3. Icky thump - THE WHITE STRIPES
4. Grinderman - GRINDERMAN
5. We were dead before the ship even sank - MODEST MOUSE
6. Favourite worst nightmare - ARCTIC MONKEYS
7. A weekend in the city - BLOC PARTY
8. Neon bible - ARCADE FIRE
9. Our love to admire - INTERPOL
10. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga - SPOON
11. Tromatic reflexxions - VON SUDENFED
12. Baby 81 - BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB
13. Beyond - DINOSAUR JR.
14. I’ll sleep when you're dead - EL-P
15. Sound of silver - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
16. Proof of youth - THE GO! TEAM
17. Cassadaga - BRIGHT EYES
18. Because of the times - KINGS OF LEON
19. Wincing the night away - THE SHINS
20. In rainbows - RADIOHEAD
21. Boxer - THE NATIONAL
22. Under the blacklight - RILO KILEY
23. Boss - MAGIK MARKERS
24. Curses - FUTURE OF THE LEFT
25. LP - HOLY FUCK
26. Myth takes - !!!
27. Spirit if… - BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE PRESENTS: KEVIN DREW
28. Mosaic - LOVE OF DIAGRAMS
29. Lose all time - YOU SAY PARTY! WE SAY DIE!
30. A Place To Bury Strangers - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS

Top 30 Singles of 2007

1. The prayer - BLOC PARTY
2. Four winds - BRIGHT EYES
3. Is Is EP- YEAH YEAH YEAHS
4. Reformation - THE FALL
5. Icky thump - THE WHITE STRIPES
6. No cars go - ARCADE FIRE
7. The Heinrich maneuver - INTERPOL
8. Hang me up to dry - COLD WAR KIDS
9. Dashboard - MODEST MOUSE
10. Fledermaus can't get it - VON SUDENFED
11. No pussy blues - GRINDERMAN
12. Brianstorm - ARCTIC MONKEYS
13. It's getting boring by the sea - BLOOD RED SHOES
14. 23 - BLONDE REDHEAD
15. Mistaken for strangers - THE NATIONAL
16. Weapon of choice - BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE
17. Chips ahoy - THE HOLD STEADY
18. What would wolves do? - LES SAVY FAV
19. What's a girl to do? - BAT FOR LASHES
20. Grip like a vice - THE GO! TEAM
21. North American scum - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
22. Golden skans - KLAXONS
23. Men’s needs - THE CRIBS
24. Charmer - KINGS OF LEON
25. Threshold apprehension - BLACK FRANCIS
26. Been there all the time - DINOSAUR JR.
27. 3's & 7's - QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
28. 2080 - YEASAYER
29. To the east - ELECTRELANE
30. I’m not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you - BLACK KIDS