#obsessed with the one (1) instance of pitbull

[grimelords]

I finally finished writing up my February playlist for your enjoyment but mostly mine. It’s 48 songs ranging from italian screamo to Celine Dion and you have my personal guarantee you will enjoy at least one of them.

Halftime - Young Thug: There's two parts in this song that are maybe my top two Young Thug moments ever. 1) when he says "I got water I look like I'm fresh from Hawaii" and then makes a noise like a dog shaking himself off 2) the world's longest tyres screeching sound, at about :47, it goes for fully 12 seconds and is absolutely perfect.

Hydrogen - M|O|O|N: Hotline Miami is a good ass game and this song is great but I've got to admit that I only really know it because someone edited a video to make a dog bark the melody line and I think that's very good. 

Vale - Bicep: The way the fuzzed out bass rhythm contrasts against how crystal clear and plastic futuristic everything else in this song is is just great. This song reminds me that I should probably listen to Kelala because I've only heard her in features so far and they've all been great.

Sittin' On The Edge Of The Bed Cryin' - The Drones: This is a sort of atypical Drones song because it's not about about a particular thing, it's just about a bad feeling and not being able to see your future because of everything lurking ahead of you. I think that's why I like it so much, because it's just sort of a song about saying 'I feel bad!!' and not having to give a reason.

Golden Dawn - Gospel: I really do think that The Moon Is A Dead world is an all time great album and that it rarely gets talked about anywhere is one of the greatest crimes of underappreciation in music. It's understandable, because it takes a lot for an uncool genre like screamo to get mainstream critical attention the way something like As The Roots Undo did, and mixing that kind of aggression with extremely uncool lengthy 70s prog keyboard solos... look, I get it. But somehow there's nothing uncool about any of this music; it's just deeply felt, radically composed and authentically performed. It's absolutely one of my favourite albums of all time and this is the centrepiece. I was taken with a fantasy this month of doing something very cool and transcribing the drum part of this song just to see it laid out in front of me because it is really a masterpiece. Also there is something very special about imbuing a lyric like 'hey you, you got a cigarette man? you know I know you got one on ya.' with so much gravity that you can't help but yell along.

I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times) (feat. Popcaan & Young Thug) - Jamie xx: Young Thug says he's gonna ride in that pussy like a stroller in this song and that’s when I knew I was in love.

Crow Jane - Skip James: Yet another good song in the pantheon of songs about shooting your wife for being too proud and then immediately regretting it because now you have no wife.

Le Merle Noir - Olivier Messiaen: I think it's really funny that in the classical music canon there is about one hundred freaks who got singularly obsessed with putting their best approximation of bird song in their music. Birds don't even sound that good but in the old days its the closest you had to a markov chain I suppose. Anyway this is a really nice piece that my girlfriend did as one of her flute performances in her music degree and I like it a lot.

Obsession - Animotion: I started watching Comrade Detective this month and the soundtrack is all sorts of very good 80s synthpop. This song especially stood out because in the show it was being performed with accordions in an illegal Romanian casino, but this version is good too.

Back To The Trees - Adele H: Nothing worse than being a musician named Adele and having to go by Adele H because Adele is well and truly taken. I found this album on a random blogspot and it truly felt like 2011 again. This song is like a primitivist hymn sung with a loop pedal, and if you're in the right state of mind it's very moving.

Aries - Lynx: I was doing some googling and ended up finding the band that Dave Konopka from Battles used to be in. This band is good because they're called Lynx and they have a song called Mrs Lynx, and I think it's both prudent and wise to write a wife for your band. This song however, is called Aries. I was hooked from the start-stop drums right at the start, but this is some of my favourite type of math rock. Clean, clear, concise and purposeful and never losing sight of the structure of the song as a whole.

Westham United (live) - Tera Melos: This is the best version of Westham United I've ever heard, and you can hear the lyrics a lot better here than the album version. Tera Melos live are so unbelievably tight it's insane, This is ferocious, god bless Audiotree.

You Let My Tyres Down - Tropical Fuck Storm: Tropical Fuck Storm is Gareth and Fiona from The Drones' new side-project and it sort of just sounds like the Drones with more female harmonies in the background which is good as hell. I love the weird little guitar frills in this where it's mostly pretty chordy and then he does these little hammery runs now and then that really liven the place up.

Fool - Mia Dyson: I have a big thing about Mia Dyson because she made three incredibly good albums and then left Australia to try to make it in America and unfortunately failed, and ever since then all her music has felt like she's aiming toward some kind of crossover appeal instead of just doing what she really wants. But luckily it's finally paying off because this new song sounds like Haim's first album and it's really good so everyone wins.

Are You Ready For The Country? - Neil Young: This is the song I envision playing over the air raid speakers through the city when it all goes down.

Living Through Another Cuba - XTC: Continuing that theme, Stereogum had a very good playlist of the other day called 80s Nuclear Anxiety and I discovered this incredible song in it. This song is good in headphones because someone's doing some very restrained zither playing every 4 bars and once you notice it it's impossible to stop hearing it. 

Release - Christoph De Babalon: I found out about this extremely bleak album from the really good reissue review pitchfork had the other day, and this is probably my favourite song on it because I'm basic and it's the most straightforward dnb on here. This album reminds me of Zomby a lot, not only in the music but in the approach where the structures seem to simultaneous reflect someone putting a lot of care into their music and not giving a fuck about it. The individual sounds are so meticulous but the structures of all the songs here are very meandering and feel like they could end at any time or go another ten minutes and you wouldn't notice.

Preachin' Blues - Son House: The idea of joining the preisthood as a way to get out of having to get a real job is a timeless idea that appeals to the teens of today more than ever.

1 di 6 - Raein: What I love about the internet is the way you can just type words in and it will manifest whatever you wish, like a sort of cursed wishing well. In this instance the words I typed were 'italian screamo' and the gift it bestowed was this incredible one-long-song album from Italian screamo band Raein that completely kicked my ass.

A Little Change Could Go A Long Ways - City Of Caterpillar: I've been investigating early 2000s screamo, and in particular Circle Takes The Square's contemporaries and it seems crazy that I've never heard this City Of Caterpillar album until now because at long last it's something that sounds comperable to As The Roots Undo. The extremely brooding, crescendocore post-rock intro that dominates more than half of this 10 minute song gives way to a complete storm. I am absolutely desperate for a screamo revival but it seems like nobody else is.

Jupiter - Cave In: This song is good but it also sounds like it's from a musical, I think it has to do with the clarity of his lyric delivery. It sounds like the difference between American Idiot and American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording, but it's also a very good song.

I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) - Pitbull: I woke up with this song in my head one day which is always a very good song. Also this song has a good sample chain: the beat's sampled from 75 Brasil Street by Nicola Fasano, which samples the horns from The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind) by The Bucketheads which in turn sampled the horns from Street Player by Chicago. How good is music!

Introduce Me To Your Family - Otoboke Beaver: My friend sent me this song because it came up mysteriously in his Discover Weekly and I'm so glad he did. It's good to know that japanese punk has been continuing on and getting more and more insane without me noticing.

Part 5/ The Sun's Gone Dim And The Sky's Gone Grey - Johann Johannsson: RIP to a good man. I was so sad and shocked to hear that Johann Johannsson had died last month. This album is a favourite of mine, and while this song doesn't have the weight it should outside of the context of the rest of the album it is still an incredibly heavy mood and a beautiful piece of music.

Heart - Bertie Blackman: This song feels like the alternate, evil version of Single Ladies by Beyonce to me and I get it stuck in my head all the time.

Acetate - Metz: I'm obsessed with the rhythm of this song, how it just tumbles over itself over and over in this lopsided way and the way that plays against the big straight forward power line of this song: I. WANT. YOU. TO. TAKE. IT. AWAY.

Bodysnatchers - Radiohead: It's funny to think of Johnny Greenwood as a film composer, and especially as the composer of the Phantom Thread when he does songs like this. This song is just straight up Riffs. The most air-guitarable Radiohead song outside of Creep.

Nameless, Faceless - Courtney Barnett: I'm so glad Courtney Barnett is back and her new song is an absolute killer! I can't get enough of it and I cannot wait for the album.

Can't Fight The Moonlight - LeAnn Rimes: This is a song written from the perspective of a vampire, and a banger. The instumentation in this is a perfect distillation of everything good about 90s pop. Especially the bizzare chunky guitar and orchestra stab that starts it off. The big bass sound and orchestra stabs in the chorus? I'm kissing my fingers like a chef right now.

Lava Lamp (Chopnotslop Remix) - Thundercat: It sounds strange but the chopped and screwed version of Drunk is fast becoming my favourite version. Firstly because it's very appropriately named Drank and secondly because the biggest obstacle to me getting heavily into this album was that it was just way too busy sometimes, a flaw that has been perfectly surmounted by chopping but NOT slopping the entire thing.

Someplace - Yamantake // Sonic Titan: I am desperate for more from this band. I absolutely love this mix of airy guitar and vocals suddenly moving into very classic metal. It's very theatrical and I absolutely love it.

Jejune Stars - Bright Eyes: Remember how Bright Eyes last album had extremely heavy Rastafarian But Not Reggae influences for some reason? I loved that. The guy talking about Pomegranates at the end of this song, and especially the way he pronounces pomegranate has become a staple of my inner monologue.

New Coke - Health: God Health are just so powerful. I want them to score a film some day soon, because they did a great job with Max Payne 3 and their sort of singular aesthetic is just so intoxicating. I go through stages of not listening to Health for months and then it's all I want to listen to for hours and hours very loudly.

3AM - Matchbox Twenty: Check this out: Rob Thomas has the exact same voice as Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance

Is That All There Is? - Peggy Lee: I was thinking about Trump's weird brain, which I believe to be a sort of smooth pebble covered in mashed banana, and so I googled his favourite song, and it is this. He says "It’s a great song because I’ve had these tremendous successes and then I’m off to the next one. Because, it’s like, “Oh, is that all there is?” That’s a great song actually, that’s a very interesting song, especially sung by her, because she had such a troubled life.". Listen to this extremely nihilistic song and imagine him swanning around with his weird body and singing along to it please.

New Town - Life Without Buildings: Life Without Buildings reinvented songwriting and nobody even cared. It's unbelievable. This song is an incredible end to their incredible album that feels like it was written just for me. I love Life Without Buildings!

Music For The Long Emergency - Policia & s t a r g a z e: Polica's new album with the stargaze orchestra is unfortunately kind of mixed but luckily the title track is very, very good. It feels like a real textural expansion of everything Polica's been doing before, to have so many more layers to play with really benefits them but the songs are thankfully still rooted in the drums, bass and vocals combo like usual and haven't gotten lost in the possibilities of playing with an orchestra. The synth sound that begins about halfway through this is so thick and so nice and really takes the whole thing in a different direction for the second half.

Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars) - R.E.M.: I'm really loving R U Talkin R.E.M. Re: Me? and so far and the main difference I've found between it and UTU2TM is that every single R.E.M. song sounds exactly the same. They're very good, but it's one song. So when they go through the album track by track and talk about what the love about each one it almost sounds farcical. They could be playing the same song 12 times in a row and I wouldn't notice. That said, this one differentiates itself by starting with a weird circus organ before beginning The R.E.M. Song so I appreciate it for that.

Give Me A Smile - Sibylle Baier: As I understand it, Sibylle Baier was warned about the existence of music blogspots some time in the early 70s and started living her whole life from then on in the hopes of being the source of a good post. This album was released in 2006 and is made up mostly of reel-to-reel recordings she made at her home in Germany in 1970-73, except for this track which was included on a 1970 compilation called Folk Is A Four Letter Word 2 which I think was the only commercial recording she ever made before quitting music and acting entirely, moving to America and starting a family. 30 years later her son made a cd of the songs to give to family and friends and somehow one made its way to J Mascis of all people and he had it released on his label Orange Twin.

III. Toccare - John Adams: This piece came up in my Release Radar playlist because of the day a couple of years ago when I listened to Nixon In China twice in a row. I don't know anything about it but I love it a lot and am particularly in love with the bass guitar that comes in about a third of the way through and then disappears entirely. What a choice.

Saturdays (feat. Haim) - Twin Shadow: On Twin Shadow's last album he made a swing at Big Chorus all-out commercial pop and it didn't go perfectly so I'm very glad he's back to his old ways because this song is just amazing. Every part of this song is catchy. The chorus is so satisfying because it has about it has about three different sections and it builds beautifully. Haim are here doing great. It's just perfect and I can't wait for the album.

Because I'm Me - The Avalanches: Wildflower didn't get the respect it deserved in my opinion. It quite literally sounds like it could have come out the year after Since I Left You, which is a very good thing! I'm also a huge fan of fading a whole song down right in the middle just to play a sample of someone quietly saying 'hello?' like they're answering a phone.

Bats In The Attic - King Creosote & Jon Hopkins: I've never heard another album that sounds like this one. Every part of the recording just sounds so beautiful it's like it was handmade from silk or something. Listening to this after literally anything else feels like a chilled glass of water on a hot day. King Creosote's voice also has the very beautiful paradoxical qualities of a scottish accent mixed with incredibly clear enunciation and I really love it. I'd love them to do another album together.

Another Man - Barbara Mason: Check out this song. First of all it sounds extremely good. Secondly it's about when your man turns out to be gay. It starts out good but by the last verse it is straight up hateful, calling him defective, not entirely a man and a 'facsimile of a man' which is unbelievably cruel. The way she says it is very good though because she says "Because in my case what I thought I had was not a entire whole man, but a facsimile thereof. Wasn't a clone or nothin', you know, I'm not.." and then she trails off. Glad she clarified this wasn’t a clone situation. Weird, mean, good song.

Monument (T.I.E. Version) - Robyn & Royksopp: The original version of this song is long as hell and a lot more on the ominous side of the ominous/menacing scale, whereas this version pushes the slider all the way up on 'menacing' with the huge distorted bassline leading the whole thing. A perfect song for obelisk worship in the grim electronic future, or even for carving your own obelisk in preparation.

Everybody Knows - Leonard Cohen: Hey remember when Leonard Cohen died and bleedingcool.com had the best headline of all time "Genius Songwriter Of Music From “Watchmen” Sex Scene Dead At 82". I think about that all the time. Anyway this song is great but that's obvious.

E-Mail My Heart - Britney Spears: Britney Spears first album is good cause Hit Me Baby One More Time is about pagers and this song is about emails. Teens love to communicate, and they've only grown to love it more since this song came out. In Britney's own words in 1999: "E-mail My Heart is a song that everyone can relate to, everyone’s been doing e-mails and it’s “e-mail my heart” so everyone can relate to that song.“ True.

It's All Coming Back To Me Now - Celine Dion: This song is deluxe. This song sounds like it was recorded in an expansive marble bathroom and I feel like I should have to be wearing a suit just to listen to it. This song has 15 cup holders and comes with power windows as standard. This song sounds like someone paid November Rain $100 to attend a fancy party with them and pretend to be their boyfriend but then they accidentally fell in love for real. 

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