Record companies and strangers that stumble their way onto this blog, if feeling charitable, please feel free to donate cash or these records to me. I will be more than willing and happy to receive them – as Creed once sang – “with arms wide open”. I have got a fatherly touch!

This post will be staying afloat. For the next most recent post, refer subsequently.

“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?

“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.

“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.

“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:

“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.

“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.

“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.

*

Nonetheless, this is the end for 2011. Some albums I am lusting to get/receive are next to feature, so watch this space.

“Big Wave”
Jenny & Johnny

Very summer-y, the typical sounds of endless sunshine, freedom and fun. Not forgetting, the American manner of thinking and spending the cash that they haven’t made. No stranger to music, Jenny is the lead singer of Rilo Kiley, and Johnny is Johnathan Rice, her boyfriend in crime and a musician in his own credit as well. With both accomplished careers in music, this sidekick duo hits off in the right path, heading to an indie/alternative sound that they know to suit themselves well in and within.

The lyrics, however, seem to have a darker twist to it (the more the reason to like it further):

I can’t sleep these days
And my blues, they won’t go away
So there are these little pills I been takin’
And my doctor, she says that they’re safe
But I been sleepwalking down to the lake
And wakin’ up in the water

“Need You Now”
Cut Copy

One can’t go wrong with Australia electronic act, Cut Copy. Though I didn’t instantly like this first single from their third studio release (non-EPs), “Zonoscope”, it is definitely a grower, and it is party time once again (in my head, and in my bedroom)! And I can literally hear the desperation in frontman Dan Whitford’s voice as he pleads:

I know we’re goin’ crazy
But I need you now
I know we’re goin’ crazy
But I need you now

Come to me, baby.

“It’s Not My Party”
Diamond Rings

The gay boys are quite semi-dominating this year’s list, with Patrick Wolf owning 2 spots and now another vulnerable sounding being taking up another. Though young looking, Diamond Rings (real name John O’Regan) sings with a depth of maturity and experience as though, cliche sounding, he had been there, done that, and am through with it. His voice reminds me of someone – a male singer of the 1980s times, something that of George Michael and Elton John combined, or the likes of.

See him get faggotly punched and bullied in the official video:

“Quiet Times”
Dido

Love-life-sick me woke up, but still melting of a heartache:

Now I miss you
Now I want you
But I can’t have you
Even when you’re here

Still one of the best contemporary singers around that we (yes, everyone is as guilty as charged here) may have forgotten in our day-to-day music. “White Flag”, anyone; and there’s a reason why Eminem featured her in one of his megahit, “Stan”, back in 2000.

“The Pact (I’ll Be Your Fever)”
Villagers

Questions:
a) why are you so romantically sounding, Conor O’Brien?
b) why did I miss the band when they were in town for a one-night only concert?
c) can I smooth dance and groove with you to this song, Conor? Please? While you try to perform on your acoustic guitar? Even though it may be a little out of the way?

“Light Of Love”
Music Go Music

There’s a very theatrical, artsy feel to the music video of this song, which fits perfectly and compliments the song in every of its way. And my exact sentiments to the lyrics in exact, of being in a difficult and possibly dark stage in one’s life that everyone should witness there and then (only motherfucking liars will lie about this part and parcel of life), and having someone nice and decent enough to pull oneself out of it.

There was a time, my love
my heart had grown cold
My arms were reaching out for someone to hold

I was all mired in gloom and I was alone
you took a hold of me
and made me your own

You pulled me up where I belong
though first it seemed so wrong
To be scaling love’s great heights
Basking freely in its light

I’d forgotten the things I knew, inside to be true,
Trials were everywhere and pleasures were few
I drifted alone, in the ocean of life,
but then you pulled me, dear, from the waters of strife

… and the bridge:

There was dearth in me, there was a lack,
I could not see my heart
and feared it was black

… and the video:

“Moth’s Wings”
Passion Pit

If it has not been known, I’m quite a lyrical person – music, melody and lyrics move me. Even though most of the times I usually get the lyrics jumbled up and wrong, it is still quite there, and I usually think that I get the lyrics and thus the meaning of the song, until proven mistakenly wrong. The entire song’s is quoteworthy, but here’s the opener:

Dear friend, as you know
Your flowers are withering
Your mother’s gone insane
Your leaves have drifted away
But the clouds are clearing up
And I’ve come reveling
Burning incandescently
Like a bastard on the burning sea

“If I Had A Boat”
James Vincent McMorrow

Another hopeless romantic, like #40′s Villagers, and I should be out mingling with the family and gambling and eating my late brunch as it is Chinese New Year day #2, and music as lovely as it is, sometimes doesn’t equate to humanly interactions and family times, so fuck you, readers and this blog!

(Sorry for the above language and usage of vulgarities, but this is still a romantic number.)

*

(to be continued… with the last stretch)

So now I will just do as I do, if I stumble upon any of interest, I will just share and mention about them, about here.

Two dark theme ones begin, with the winner going to JMSN (definitely not the best name to come up with for a band, imagine/visualize the amount of Google search finds that this will be linked to MSN). * Austra, coming to Singapore in February for the 2011 Laneway Festival, plays about with witchcraft, while “Something” plays along with something similar with the video for the following band named Caged Animals… (the screenshot is a dead giveaway) (NSFW x 2)

Free boobies!

The ladies, with a couple particular Asian ones, all seem so happy and merry and bouncy (pun totally intended) to be swimming and running in the wild with not any piece of clothing on. One of them seems to have quite a big pair of titties. Men, please zip up the pants. I am not a pornographic writer, this is not a jizz site.

Geez.

Earlier bits (in no particular order of placement):
Part 1: here
Part 2: there
Part 3: where
Part 4: ooh
Part 5: what

“Lust For Life”
Girls

I pity the girl in the EP cover. I mean, unless she’s a loose woman or a nutcase (we all are sometimes, I’m stereotyping here), I don’t really want to be on a cover with a song title like this. I still believe women to be of the traditional kind, like in those 1930s-era Hong Kong dramas, and not the one with the tremendous amount of backstabbing between queens and concubines. I do know some people in my life that fit the categories of “sluts” and “next in line please”, but I’m only saying. That said, she does looked drugged in the cover.

I am also impressed that in the video, there are quite a lot of adolescence love, free boobs and Hunx’s penis used as a microphone. The video definitely fits the bill of no one I know in life, but that of the song – of craziness, freedom and young times, capturing the essences of them all. It’s a short song of 2:25″, and I am gonna post almost the whole lyrics here, cause it’s insanely beautiful:

Oh, I wish I had a boyfriend
I wish I had a loving man in my life
I wish I had a father
Maybe then I would’ve turned out right
But now I’m just crazy, I’m totally mad
Yeah I’m just crazy, I’m fucked in the head
And maybe if I really tried with all of my heart
Then I could make a brand new start in love with you

Oh, I wish I had a suntan
Oh, I wish I had a pizza and a bottle of wine
Oh, I wish I had a beach house
Then we could make a big fire every night
Instead I’m just crazy, I’m totally mad
Yeah I’m just crazy, I’m fucked in the head
And maybe if I really tried with all of my heart
Then I could make a brand new start in love with you

By the way, to clarify, Girls are a males only band, so the starting of the lyrics – totally gay! Fags!

See Hunx’s cock here, another time (cause maybe it is really microphone-material):

“I’ll Take Care Of U”
(Bobby Bland cover)
Gil Scott Heron & Jamie xx

I feel ashamed – I kept saying that I love this original, but it is indeed a cover of a 1959 song. Still, I think it has its standout point from the current Drake/Rihanna collaboration. Gil Scott Heron, who passed away just this year (2011, since that is the year in review), may he rest in peace. His vocals are deep, of depth, maturity, seniority, experience and sophistication all wrapped up in one package, even though one didn’t ask for it, and it suits the theme of the song perfectly – of love, responsibility, the promise and agreement of taking care of another’s life into one’s own hands. How sweet and romantic! Melt motherfuckers, melt!

Jamie xx can’t do no wrong either. Part of the trio that makes a beautiful splash of debut in 2009, his injection here feels like a match made in heaven, an ecstasy pill at the tip of the tongue. It is like the ears know when it hears good music and a good pairing of different genres made into one, in the wondrous jungle of music.

“Video Games”
Lana Del Rey

Yes, yes, yes, a little too hyped up now, a little too overplayed and overkilled now, all indie hippy and all now, but it manages to creep into mainstream, and her voice and emo-ness is so sorrowful that it makes one wanna go and die. Maybe a little too much, though.

“Lahaha”
Shugo Tokumaru

Anyway, on a positive note now (after Lana Del Rey’s depressive ways), this song is all bright and sunshine, of endless boundaries, clear blue skies and nice green grass patches in the jungle/forest to lie on (still wanna do it like a fetish of my own). Whatever the dreams, accomplish them anyway! And what can be more addictive than laughter itself in music, and delivered in a language I don’t know of? Just make me wanna laugh along silly to it, excellent job done there, Shugo; even though it makes me look like a psycho, especially when I hear this track on-the-go.

And OMFG, the happiest song of 2011 has an official music video to it!

“Lighthouse”
NewVillager

On the topic of dreams, this is kinda like another song about accomplishing them, if not now, then when? Not the first song I have heard of this tentatively newcomer group, which was “Rich Doors”. And definitely not to be confused with the soloist Villagers. Take a look at their video below for this song, using textiles and materials to create costumes uniquely and creatively of their own, and who needs the attention seeking ways of Lady Gaga anymore, anyway?

“Never Wanna Let You Go”
Darren Garvey

So lush, so lounge, so male-female vocalist collabo. Can easily fit into the Lush 99.5FM playlist anytime. Don’t copy me, jackass.

“All Eyes On You”
St Lucia

St Lucia can be considered a new act of 2011, with roots all the way from South Africa. Yet, he has a familiar sound to him, as though one has heard of him before, or an act or a band that relates well, but just quite can’t visualize at this particular moment, and it frustrates the fatherfucking mind off one’s head trying to figure this out. I definitely have moments like these, a lot.

Or maybe it is like a 1980s feel track, and just make me feel nostalgic, as though I can remember anything of that era when the most I was is at 4-y.o. The creeps that music can do to a poor soul like me.

And oh-my-fucking-God (a second time in a row in this post, just for the visual and special effects), his songs are now still fucking downloadable, so grab a copy of the mp3 below (don’t say I say):

(to be continued)