A Struggle For A Year End’s List: My 2011′s Most Played (Lazy Man’s Method) (Part 8)
The last stretch of this year-end’s listing of the most played songs in my books for the year of 2011, and what a whirlwind year it had been. The previous segments should be linked here, but they are accumulating in the comments section with each hyperlink tag, and it is fucking annoying (WordPress users may know). In the meantime, to wrap things up:
.44 |
“Painted Eyes”
Hercules & Love Affair
Hercules And Love Affair is very para-para indeed; they make such great in-sync dance steps and moves music, I am simply astonished that most of the clubs in Singapore don’t even play their fucking songs. It’s the type of music that can be popular both in a straight and gay club, perhaps more of the latter, and everyone will be making out and shagging on the dancefloor or in the restrooms, as though we all don’t know what shady business is going on in these nightspots. Singapore, don’t act decent no more!
The inclusion of what I presumed to be violin symphonies in the bridge of the song makes this a classy classic number. The rich vocals expressed a lush style of sophistication. No wonder Hercules & Love Affair remains one of my most exciting and anticipated dance acts to surface in the music scene in recent times. Are people ready to move those hand gestures, those hips and tap on those lazy-ass feet?
.45 |
“Still In Love With You”
Sade
Sade has been making music since 1983, and with that amount of longevity and heavyweight amount of musical output work involved, one has to bow their respect for the band’s contribution all this while. Especially with a strong and unique female front like Sade Adu, whom has a voice standing on its own against the rest of the music industry – that of sincerity, maturity, honesty and heartfelt emotions and heartbreak. One can literally break one’s own heart just by listening to her pouring vocals over soothing melodies.
Just a pondering question on whether it is good to have a unique voice in the industry or not; whether it may be taken for granted by the public’s interest – case in point: Macy Gray, Amy Winehouse etc. Food for thought indeed.
.46 |
“Linne”
Shugo Tokumaru
The second number from this Japanese artiste on this year’s list, and on a contrary note, a reverse of all things poppy and positive in “Lahaha”. I have absolutely no idea what exactly he is singing about in this song, but what it feels like to me I can discuss, and it feels like he is dispatching some life lessons about life and living. Let’s face it – everything is not all smooth and sugar-coated as what everyone once thought it was or made out to be when we were younger; for Christ’s sake, some even can’t take sugary items and they may lead to diabetes on lousy days! Life is tough, let’s embrace it in the best way we can.
.47 |
“Vomit”
Girls
This song kills me. The desperation of needing someone, of finding love, companionship, about town, in a place where possibly thousands of faces surface and yet everyone is stranger, foreign to one, and despite the flood of human beings, one still feels alone – I don’t know about people out there, maybe being pretentiously strong and all or whatever fuck’s sake, but I definitely feel it too, to the extent that yes, I had done some personal damage to myself that is maybe irrecoverable.
Nonetheless, the band that has a video with a penis microphone manages to capture that killer loneliness feeling in this song perfectly, and it may a little too perfectly that it creeps people out how they manage to do it, except maybe feeling the same way themselves too, some point in time in the past during the songwriting process. Even the video, with the pretty red car spells the heartbreak too:
.48 |
“Tomorrow Night We’ll Go Anywhere”
Evan Voytas
Loves his voice, loves how smooth it is that I presume that his body moves, seduction techniques on women who visit nightclubs and bars must be ace and ladykiller, ending up in hotel beds and passionate one night affairs. Oh, how sedap. I am also secretly trying to stalk him on Instagram, so that we can be virtual friends-fan relationship. I hope we hit it off big time, cause I will run with you, Evan, you spirit animal.
.49 |
“Mornin’”
Star Slinger
If my facts are correct in my head, and in my knowledge – and they sometimes, could be most of the times, they are not (for instance, I did not know Laura Marling and Marcus Mumford had split up, and he is engaged with another woman. The horrors!), Star Slinger is made famous by Stereogum, a popular indie/rave music site that features the coolest and hippest artistes and music in the independent music scene, that should be the talk of the town but the damned mainstream radio stations did not catch on and are still playing their safe, radio-friendly, chart-topping hits.
This song is trippy, this video is trippy and if mornings do begin like this, we will not be dreading and dragging our feet to wherever we are not wanting to go. Students and working class adults, know where it is at.
.50 |
“Enjoy The Silence”
Jazzhole
This is in fact from 2006, but I just discovered it. I heard Tori Amos’s version while in the shower last night at slightly past midnight, but this version is nicer, more lounge and contemporary, chilled and relaxing, and definitely my kinda music. And it also confirms the fact – besides reading “One Day” by David Nicholls, the book I am currently still reading, and the feature movie starring Anne Hathaway (which I haven’t watched), and tearing last night a little bit (a whole lot – shhh, wimp) at close to the ending few chapters – that comfortable silence is something to sustain and fight for in a long term relationship. God knows everyone will get sick of everyone else, so it is this balance that people should be searching for, for inner peace within both souls.
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Nonetheless, this is the end for 2011. Some albums I am lusting to get/receive are next to feature, so watch this space.
