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Musical Consumption, 2010: 50 Incomplete Thoughts

01. If anything, writing about Korean pop for 10Magazine has expanded both my interest and knowledge in the genre, where before I was content to dabble in a few of the bigger names. In terms of tapping into the popculturenow via singles, South Korea did it better than any other country this year. Still finding major problems with albums as a whole, though.

02. My second largest genre of musical consumption this year was Indian film music, beginning with Hindi and ending in Tamil and Telugu, which took up the bulk of my research from July to November. Unbelievable how some of the worst films had some of the best music (see: anything Pritam composed this year).

03. Girls’ Generation (SNSD) came out with three phenomenal singles this year in “Oh!,” “Run Devil Run,” and “Hoot.” My vote, musically, goes to “Hoot” and lyrically for “Run Devil Run.” I don’t really remember much about “Oh!” except how ridiculously cuuuu~te its portrayal of the female gender was.

04. In January, I always read year-end lists and listen to things I either didn’t have the chance to or hadn’t come across. My favorite missed-in-2009 albums were Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and Bat for Lashes’s Two Suns.

05. A friend bought me a copy of Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now, telling me that I absolutely had to hear the title track. My reaction was kind of like…uh. This song would be a lot better if the male vocals were not happening. Also, whoever got paid to play the piano hook got away with the smartest paycheck.

06. I went back and listened to some of MEG’s earlier albums; wow, what a difference Yasutaka Nakata made. Where “Need You Now“‘s simplicity annoyed me, I really dig ROOM GIRL for the same reason. Is there ever anything more going on than some guitars and ambiance? It makes me wonder where MEG would have gone if she had continued to make these kinds of records. That being said, Yasutaka Nakata is the best thing that ever happened to her career.

07. As for Yasutaka Nakata, his best career moves happened behind the scenes in producing/remixing, e.g. the awful capsule album versus his remix of mini’s “Are U Ready?” The upcoming capsule album has me excited, though. I can’t give up on a man whose musical output for three straight years was like Pet Sounds after Pet Sounds.

08. In the winter I re-watched Go Go 70s and then went through a soul phase. Also, rockabilly. I don’t know.

09. Classical music was my life for five weeks in the Spring. My mother overheard some Mendelssohn and calls this my funeral period. Hey mom, you don’t know me!!

10. The w-inds. album Another World was horrendously disappointing, right?

11. Alizee’s Une Enfant du Siecle contains the song “Eden, Eden” which sounds like John Lennon’s “Mind Games.” I love John Lennon. I love Alizee. However, I find this one of the most disappointing albums of the year, with too many effects and creepy distortions. If Psychedelices was about playing with pop stereotypes, Une Enfant du Siecle is all mood music for the hip and contemplative in a way I only liked the first time. French pop for people who use the word “musings”?

12. The Black Skirts’ “Tangled”: Best indie Korean rock song of the year. Picked up where Nell’s Separation Anxiety left off. Actually reminds me a lot of very unrelated Polish rock band Myslovitz, specifically “Deszcz.” Mash-up in near future? Etc.

13. If you like your pop international, Darren Hayes needs no introduction. And while we wait for the official follow up to 07’s This Delicate Thing We’ve Made, Simon Curtis’s 8bit Heart does the job. In fact, I believe we can take this album as a prediction.

14. The Bird and the Bee’s Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates is an awesome covers record. Oh you didn’t think it was ironic enough? Fuck you.

15. Goldfrapp’s Head First made my top ten albums list for the year, based 30% off the inclusion of a song titled “Rocket.”

16. My consumption of trance music fell drastically this year, making 2011 the first year I’ll probably begin abandoning interest outside of a few select artists. Henry Rollins once asked what came first, the drugs or the music? The drugs Henry.

17. Even though MiCHi’s “All about the Girls ~Iijyanka Party People~” grew on me, I’m still holding out that the 90s do not make a comeback. The release of Electric Lady Lab’s Flash! insists otherwise.

18. Brian Mcfadden’s Wall of Soundz did not make my list anywhere in any form which is weird considering how competent I found the entire record. Classic Euro-pop.

19. My year in one song: Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own.” Apparently, this was everyone else’s song, too, and that’s cool, Imma let you finish, but my heartbreak was the worst heartbreak of all time.

20. Is it weird that I WANT to like disco, but aside from a handful of songs, just can’t? Every year I go through this. Every year it doesn’t work out. It’s a very unhealthy relationship that begins with “Hot Stuff” and ends with “Right Back Where We Started From.”

21. One reason, I think, is that disco has influenced so much other music that I do like! Like Kaskade’s “Fire in Your New Shoes” featuring Dragonette, which is my favorite dance track of the year. This is the dirtiest song Kaskade has ever produced. Something very gritty about it, thanks in large part to Dragonette, who makes everything seem just a little illegal.

22. Despite 2NE1 having had a fabulous year of singles, my favorite K-pop album was f(x)’s NU ABO. The unlikely structure and the different vocal textures of the individuals are just two shallow reasons to love this pop spectacular.

23. Someone please tell MAX no one listens to super eurobeat anymore and it’s too early for a revival. Like at least twenty years.

24. Big Bang teased us all year long with singles, while members T.O.P. and G-Dragon saved their energy for solo projects. And while I loved “Turn It Up” a lot, I’m so tired of the egregious sexism in K-pop promotional videos it’s starting to make me ill. Sometimes I just want to give up the critical pursuit. The lack of effort in even concealing it at least makes it very easy to simply create screen captures with arrows. Hello, I am T.O.P. and I’m too good looking for your objectification rhetoric.

25. At some point I “discovered” Supertramp and Sweet. Like under an old pile of books or something. I often rocked out to “Ballroom Blitz” in my car so hard that I was embarrassed for myself.

26. Geetha Madhuri and Shweta Pandit, two lovely, polar opposite Indian playback singers I fell in love with that made me wish their material was as strong as their vocal ability.

27. This was the year of Yuvan Shankar Raja, acclaimed music director of Tamil films. Even when I don’t like his songs, I like them. Electro, hip-hop, rap, filmi? My most played soundtrack was for Paiyaa, which was released late 2009 for a movie that came out this summer. I’m starting to think the quality of our lives would enhance significantly if we all danced and sang in a waterfall with someone who is secretly in love with us.

28. Oh are we supposed to like the Drake album?

29. Do you watch So You Think You Can Dance? OK, whatever, but the musical influence of this show is ridiculous, enough to propel unknown artists onto the top of the charts after a featured performance. Now let’s all weep and listen to Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts” and think about how sad we are while I go listen to…

30. …Reckless Love, Finland’s cheesy/campy? 80’s metal band from the 10’s!

31. At some point Frank Kogan “discovered” K-pop. Quick, before they start claiming they’re the first to examine it critically!

32. Nice to see my prediction of Korean crossovers in Japan coming to fruition.

33. Far East Movement’s “Like a G6.” No. Far East Movement’s Free Wired. OK.

34. Ayumi Hamasaki released two awful albums and only a minor fuck was given.

35. I was worried that people wouldn’t get the point of Katy Perry’s ULTRA DEPRESSING single “Teenage Dream,” but the critical world did not disappoint me in understanding the underlying desperate, hopeless, sadness of this song. Perfect pop in 3:47.

36. Hey guys, if you don’t want to play Bruno Mars ever again or whatever, I’m totally cool with that. I understand.

37. What a wonderful year it’s been for Usher. I mean, this guy has been around for almost two decades and he still understands what makes people keep coming back to a pop record. How many people can say that and if you nominate Enrique Iglesias Imma eyeball ya’ll for real.

38. OK it’s Kanye West time. I can’t escape writing this without mentioning him because that would make me seem neglectful. I agree that “Power” is an amazing song but MBDTF is an album I didn’t understand, didn’t like, and didn’t listen to more than twice. I mean, that’s about it. This record bored me, it did, and I wish I could point out all the lyrics that made me cringe and my inability to mesh with the arrogance and the total KANYENESS of this record that made its adoration across year-end lists hard to swallow. Did I think it was better than 808s? Sure. But I didn’t think much of 808s either. Now let’s move on with the rest of our lives and if you want to chalk this up to my total uncoolness, that’s fine, cause yeah, I am the most uncool person on the planet. I get excited about shopping for rice cookers. So.

39. B.Dolls: please release another single.

40. Brandon Flowers: please do not release another album.

41. 2NE1 had the best overall year in Korean pop and if I was going to predict an American crossover for any K-pop outfit, it would be them. They’re so unbelievably competent at everything they do, it actually makes me nostalgic for the days of Engrish.

42. The best promotional video of the year was probably a SM Town or YG Entertainment creation, but my favorite was Ayumi Hamasaki’s “Virgin Road.” You guys, THIS SONG. Maybe the best Ayumi song in five years or something? An epic, cinematic video in black and white featuring a pointless Bonnie and Clyde something or other because it’s all about the visuals, man! but Ayumi wields a fucking huge gun in a wedding dress and this video, while clearly about the relationship between two criminals who get off on heists and police evasion, is all about the fearless, unrestrained dominance of the female character. This video is about Ayumi wearing ammo and carrying a bigger weapon than her partner, shooting for the sheer sake and pleasure of blowing shit up in a wedding dress that eventually unravels into maybe one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen without just being obvious. There is, of course, her husband (who is now her REAL LIFE husband as of, what, two weeks ago?), her partner who is taking an equal role, but this is not his story. This is Ayumi’s story. The execution of this video is done brilliantly, with just enough irony to keep it from being overbearing. It is perhaps her most sincere and believable “insert -ist” statement because it doesn’t try to be, it just IS. It is totally believable to me that Ayumi fell passionately and insanely in love with her now-husband during the making of this video. I buy it. If you don’t love this video and this song or at least understand the enormity of what is happening here, then you either don’t give a shit about Ayumi or you are a robot.

43. I’ve read a lot of critical pieces about Ke$ha this year and the discourse is always really smart, but I still can’t get into this underdeveloped white trash aesthetic.

44. If KOKIA’s Musique a la Carte wasn’t a cover album, it would have made my top ten list. Amazing choices, amazing vocals, amazing arrangements. Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” is on this album, people! This is the classiest cover album since Cat Power’s Jukebox.

45. Sanjay Leela Bhansali: please stick to directing films and not music.

46. We know 80kidz can make competent nuevo-electro, but can they make exceptional nuevo-electro?

47. I like Susan Boyle’s rendition of “Perfect Day.” Yes I do.

48. My friend (the Lady Antebellum friend — clearly a country fan) bought me the Taylor Swift album. I’m always so underwhelmed by her records that I have nothing to say. So I won’t.

49. The Blue Hearts remastered/re-released (again?) their early albums second week of January, which meant I got nostalgic and started listening to the albums at the end of December. Musically, it’s always a good place to end the year.

50. Reasons not to kill yourself in 2011, or, releases I’m looking forward to:

Lights: Whatever this album sounds like, I need it in my life right now.
Nicole Scherzinger: I’m curious.
Tommy february6: It’s only been seven years.
Cut Copy: Best electronic dance group…ever?
capsule: Please redeem yourself.
LUNKHEAD: I am impressed with your new single.
Lady Gaga: Haha, just kidding guys.