Dane D. Lion's Music Den ##############

Dane D. Lion’s 2011&1/2 Faves:::Companion

(Click here to download the compilation.  Cover art is “Love Bush” by Richard Mayhew, 2000.)  

Here are some of my favorite songs of the year, so far - the ones that would fit in an 80-minute, CD-able playlist, that is.  There are notable exclusions (Panda Bear, Salvo, SBTRKT, Zomby, etc.), yes; a few of these have been placed on a short electronic mix, which will be posted soon.  

1. “Get Away” - Yuck: Dinosaur, Jr. and Superchunk had a baby in the U.K. sometime in the early nineties.  It was raised by American Gen. X-pats in Glasgow, and was only allowed to watch taped episodes of Austin Stories, The Real World: San Francisco, My So-Called Life, and Clarissa Explains It All.
2. “Weekends” - Smith Westerns: Blur and Suede had a baby in the U.S. sometime in the early nineties.  It was raised by Urge Overkill in Chicago and was only allowed to watch the Home Alone series and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Maybe Uncle Buck too.
3. “Always Make Your Bed” - NODZZZ: Not much to say, here, other than that I often find myself whistling the guitar line from the intro in public.  I can only imagine how annoying this is for the people behind me in the grocery checkout line.
4. “Regent’s Court” - The Get Up Kids: It’s an indulgence to think so, but I can’t help wondering where the Strokes were when this song was recorded.  Air-guitar champ of 2011, so far.
5. “Marathon” - Tennis: This album is getting major play now that the weather matches their sound.  I just have to hide my itunes window, though, due to the horrendous cover art.  Alaina Moore is my new favorite female vocalist – her reedy coos hit just right.
6. “Calgary” - Bon Iver: This album is so great, but most of its tracks don’t lend themselves to this sort of list.  This one does, though.  The moment when Vernon sings, “So it’s storming on the lake,” is magic – it’s when his voice goes to that place that only his voice can go. 
7. “Messes” – David Bazan: Bazan’s second solo full-length was released this year to little fanfare, especially in comparison to the acclaim heaped on his previous album, 2009’s Curse Your Branches.  I never miss a song of his because his melodic sense appeals to my Sunday School hymnal ears, and because his morality tales appeal to my Flannery O’Connor-ed lapsed baptism.  
8. “I Grow Too” – Little Wings: Hazy, hypnotic, and mysterious.  Embarrassingly so, it makes me wonder… If I started a non-profit whose mission statement was to record drunken, train-hopping ne’er-do-wells playing musical instruments at dusk, would it not sound like this? 
9. “Nothing But Our Love” – Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.: Were you let down by the new Death Cab?  This is what I hoped Gibbard and Co. would do when I heard that they were going a more “electronic” route this time out. 
10. “Oh My God” – Cults: Why do I like a song sung in the voice of a bratty little girl?
11. “The World (is Going Up in Flames)” – Charles Bradley: Dap-tone’s newest, backed by the Menehan Street Band (Jay-Z fans know what I’m talking about, here…).  His album’s a little weak in comparison to this, but do check out his recent cover of Nirvana’s “Stay Away”.
12. “songs for women” – frank ocean: This guy’s music was a revelation for me this spring.  Something about his lyrics and phrasing hits me deep; I can’t explain or describe it adequately.  I would have thrown the MGMT-upstaging “nature feels” on this mix, but I wanted to keep it PG-13.  His official release drops on Tuesday. 
13. “Untitled #1 (Hold On)” – Has-Lo: I can’t vouch for the rest of this guy’s music, but I’m a sucker for this brand of hip-hop – a summertime soul sample and a biographical confessional/testimonial. 
14. “I Never Learnt to Share” – James Blake: I’ve already written so much about this guy in the past 8 months.  I can’t say much more than that he consistently blows my mind.  Never more so than with this track, though.  The last 1:30!
15. “Swerve…” – Shabazz Palaces: I love his beat aesthetic – plenty of empty space left for his flow to play around in.  For some reason, this song is even better in my car.
16. “Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)” – Ford & Lopatin: Parody?  Paean?  I don’t plan to debate it beyond this sentence because I’m too busy listening and re-listening to the drop at 1:46.  
17.  “Sadness is a Blessing” – Lykke Li: So much of me wants to dislike her music – mostly because it sounds so easy.  However, this earworm found its way in and stuck, and with it came the haunting entourage of her weighty mascara doe eyes and haughty lips.  Also ingratiating is the fact that she fully commits to the music when she performs. 
18. “Just Don’t” – Raphael Saadiq: Already this summer, I have enjoyed the deep pleasure of driving with the windows open, leaking the Smokey beauty of this one.  Some might call this (and Charles Bradley, for that matter) revivalism, and maybe this is true, but not in the sense that this is simple imitation of classic soul.  It’s more like a riverbank tent camp meeting, bringing the Word to the heathen frontier masses.  Also: it’s high time I dug out the Tony! Toni! Toné! Sons of Soul album.
19. “The Birds (Part 1)” - The Weeknd: Surpassing the dub-steeped, artfully auto-tuned odes to narcotic dalliance and machismo on their House of Balloons EP, The Weeknd’s most recent release features actual gravitas and ambiguity (other than that regarding sex and substances, that is…).  Maybe even some earnest emotion?  The track itself also represents some risk-taking and growth, letting martial snares snap the beat along toward its naked finger-picked acoustic guitar and voice outro.  It’s the first time that “stripped” is more applicable to the artists than their subjects (objects?). 
20. “Bullfight” - Women: This, unfortunately, has yet to make it to a reputable digital music retailer, so the version here has been ripped from the 7” single.  It’s perhaps the final output from this Canadian band of brothers, who seemed to be on the precipice of something special, which this song corroborates.
21. “County Line” – Cass McCombs: Speaking of brothers doing awesome things, Cy introduced me to this sunset elegy a week before I returned home to The County (a.k.a. Aroostook County, Maine) for Independence Day weekend.  I can’t get over how deeply it speaks to me, how it touches my history with such a beautiful old home.  Thanks, Cy.