folk – David James Young

The Top 100 Songs of 2022, Part Two: 80 – 61

Posted on 03/01/202303/01/2023 by davidjamesyoung in Lists

A pleasure to have you back. Before venturing forth, make sure you’re all caught up with Part One by taking a click over here. Don’t worry, this will still be here when you get back. Promise!

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80. 1300 – WOAH DAMN

In 2021, 1300 felt like a breath of fresh air. In 2022, they felt like Mia Wallace getting stabbed in the heart with an adrenaline shot after OD’ing on cocaine. If you want that rush exemplified, wrap your bleeding ears around the non-stop massive jungle that is ‘WOAH DAMN’. The troupe’s gnashing, non-stop flows bounce effortlessly between the verse’s half-time trap beat and the chorus’ drum-and-bass break, meaning you’re constantly on your toes throughout. If you’re looking for a cut that could work both on the Tokyo Drift soundtrack and an EB Games playlist, you’d be best to hook in.

79. Wet Leg – Angelica

When you look at the songs that made up Wet Leg’s self-titled debut, you could argue that its best moments were spoiled by being released as singles in 2021: ‘Chaise Longue’, ‘Too Late Now’ and ‘Wet Dream’ chief among them. Allow this notion to be refuted by our mutual friend ‘Angelica’, who skolled all the free beer at the party and sassed every bro-dude in the room while doing so in 2022. With an irresistible three-note guitar lick, this jangly rocker was testament to Wet Leg’s newfound staying power. This isn’t a flash in the pan, it’s a skillet fire.

78. Grace Cummings – Freak

It’s the voice that pulls you in first. At once a distinctive beast and a Mosaic of iconic female rock vocalists, Grace Cummings lays every lyric bare on the floor with busted, raw-nerve singing. Perhaps nothing on her exceptional debut Storm Queen drove this home quite like ‘Freak’, which stayed true to its title and reveled in reclusion amidst reverberating piano and a piercing fiddle solo. In the final line, she calls for every freak to sing in a manner that will make you fucking scream. In an era of singer-songwriters on every corner, Cummings dares with a distinctive difference.

77. EGOISM – For Ages

Let’s talk about equal and opposite reactions. It’s a law EGOISM have developed a comprehensive understanding of in their near-decade of playing together, going to-and-fro between elaborate layering and subtle refinery on each single. Thus, from the emphatic ‘Lonely But Not Alone’ comes the effectively understated ‘For Ages’. From the depths of shimmering ambience comes a steel-cut bassline, puncturing through floating guitars and gentle, clattering drum machines. The duo, subsequently, opine the passage of time when all you want is to waste it – both with and on somebody else. Even on the comedown, EGOISM find themselves on the up.

76. Pedro the Lion – First Drum Set

As he edges toward 50, David Bazan has effectively dedicated over half his life to slow slowcore/indie-emo vets Pedro The Lion. Yet, it feels like we’re still getting to know him. This, the centrepiece of Pedro’s second post-reunion effort, takes us back to a young cub obsessing over music in a way only children can. A transition in the school band plays a pivotal role in Bazan’s evolution – and, against warm inverted chords and a tasteful flourish of text painting, he guides us through it beat by beat (no pun intended). All hail the once and future Lion king.

75. The Chats – 6L GTR

The Chats might have Dave Grohl, Axl Rose, Alex Turner and Julian Casablancas on speed-dial, but don’t let the viral hits and sell-out tours fool you: they’re not rockstars. On the opener of their perfectly-titled Get Fucked, the Sunny Coast trio turn up the Queensland heat by taking garage rock to its logical conclusion. ‘6L GTR’ is an ode to the shitboxes of our lives, and all the skidmarks they leave in their wake. You know how they say to reject modernity and embrace tradition? The Chats get it, man. If you haven’t already: Hop in. A wild ride awaits.

74. King Stingray – Camp Dog

There’s a lot more of Australia out the back. Many remote Indigenous communities observe customs entirely foreign to those who dwell in cities that never close down. For East Arnhem, it’s the camp dog – canines that not only live on the streets, but run them. Here, King Stingray cheekily dedicate this sunburnt rocker to this unique cultural touchstone. It’s a testament to the band’s muscly sharpness and their intangible sense of place, not to mention Indigenous peoples’ sense of humour – which is often overlooked in favour of their capital-S Serious art. This right here is a pure breed.

73. Softcult – Gaslight

It’s a concept that’s been within the greater lexicon for years, but how exactly does one articulate the harrowing experience of gaslighting? Literally starting your song with the lyric “it’s all my fault” is certainly one approach – and that’s just the tip of Sofcult’s proverbial iceberg that crashes into you over the next three minutes. ‘Gaslight’ is a formidable entry point for the Canadian twosome, exemplifying their precarious but crafty balancing act: emotive lyrical heft in one scale, cloudy musical wisp in the other. Where dream-pop detours onto Elm Street, you’ll find Softcult – resilient, defiant and emphatically unique.

72. Noah Dillon – I C.A.N.T

Taylor Swift isn’t always right, but the anti-hero nailed it when she told everyone “spelling is fun”. For Perth indie kid Noah Dillon (or Dillan if he’s at the airport desk), it effectively unlocks one of the liveliest, most rambunctious tracks of his still-blossoming career. Amid sprechgesang rants about orgasmic sneezing, nightly moisturizing and Number 45, Dillon lets his curly mane thrash against skiddish guitars and howled refrains that offer irrefutable proof that west is best. A rallying cry of individualism, soundtracked by the kinetic energy of one man and his band against the world. Don’t like it? F U.

71. Press Club – I Can Change

Because of reasons that should seem obvious, there’s been significant delays in getting albums out recently. Melbourne rock mainstays Press Club were chief amongst them, but if it wasn’t already apparent this isn’t a band that gives up easily. Even on what’s ostensibly Endless Motion‘s love song, the quartet are spoiling for a fight – it just so happens to be for something rather than against it this time. This level of determination has kept the band’s all-heart reputation aflame, and ‘I Can Change’ will again have you pounding your chest with a fist, Future Islands-style. The beat goes on.

70. Stella Donnelly – Lungs

Remember in School of Rock when Ms. Mullins finally lets loose to ‘Edge of Seventeen’? In its own way, that’s the sensation ‘Lungs’ gives. Donnelly – best known for a devastating ballad about sexual assault – opens her second album with stomping disco drums, glassy keyboard chiming and a certifiably groovy bass-line. Previously only playful to a degree, Flood‘s technicolour lead single painted the Perth artist in new light. Her creative horizons, thus, expand without ever losing sight of idiosyncrasies like her wispy vocal and textured guitar work. This is an iron will at work, which truly cannot be punctured.

69. Harry Styles – Music for a Sushi Restaurant

Fucking hell. Imagine the pitch meeting for this entirely deranged affair: The biggest male popstar in the world, at the helm of a food/sex funk/pop song with a MIDI horn section bleating over a wordless chorus, where he – among other things – scats. Twice. If this was any other artist, you’d have better luck green-lighting Don’t Worry Darling 2. Somehow, though, this literal Styles clash is one of 2022’s most beguiling and subversive works of art. Styles is still moving in one direction – it just happens to be a steam-train off its tracks. This is the new stuff.

68. Katie Gregson-MacLeod – complex

When an artist breaks out via The Clock App, you cynically have to ask: What’s the big deal here? Do you buy it? Enter Katie Gregson-MacLeod, a twentysomething Scottish singer-songwriter who found her humble piano demo taking the internet by storm. In its final studio form, ‘complex’ is fully realised in every sense. Its gutpunch chorus lands blow after blow lyrically and vocally, dissecting the inner turmoil of relationship imbalance that can only come from the fresh wounds of youth. Upon completion, picture Frank Reynolds after watching Mac’s interpretive dance: Tears in your eyes, whispering gently… “I get it now.”

67. Gang of Youths – in the wake of your leave

Gang of Youths love two things: Football (not soccer) and songs about death. How exactly do you MacGuyver a bridge between them? Easy: Get an “oh-oh-oh” sing-song chant in the mix of a song confronting the immediate, convoluted presence of grief. Just another day in the life of the band that brought the unbearable, terrible triteness of being to the mainstream? Not exactly. There’s a racing, frenetic energy pulsing throughout ‘wake’ – fitting, given there’s a cameo from Formula One legend Daniel Ricciardo – as well as a daring, unflinching emotional throughline. With Gang of Youths, you’ll never walk alone.

66. SPEED – NOT THAT NICE

Racism in all forms is an ugly beast, but the rise in hate-crime targeting Asian people in the wake of the pandemic has felt particularly frightening for that community on a global scale. Here, SPEED take on #stopasianhate with some Asian hate of their own – a hammer-smash of stereotypes and a slice of beatdown hardcore that’s not afraid to 86 your local 88. 2022 was the year SPEED took Australian hardcore to a global, viral scale – a rise that they did not take lightly. Tracks like ‘NOT THAT NICE’ proved why they deserved that premier spot. Hate this.

65. chloe moriondo – nice pup

Want to experience proper whiplash? Listen to the blushing bedroom-indie of the puppy luv EP and the sticky-sweet hyperpop of SUCKERPUNCH – then take into consideration that they were written and performed by the same person, six months apart. The restless 20-year-old made a lot of noise throughout 2022, and rightly so. In a more understated moment from the former EP, however, moriondo found artistic breakthrough. While Iggy Pop wanted canine transformation to get kinky, ‘nice pup’ opts for softness and vulnerability. They just want to be liked and loved, after all. Both feel easy when you’re listening to this.

64. Suzi – Everyone I’ve Met Hates Me

Out of Melbourne suburbia comes a universal feeling: Never truly knowing how people feel about you, and innermost anxieties making you assume the worst. It’s well-worn territory, of course, but what Suzi offers is newfound framework – working-class folk-rock with interwoven pop perfection. The urgent acoustic strums pair well with a knack for melodicism that belies early-20s youth, and the anthemic payoff offered within the chorus doesn’t just invite index-pointing sing-alongs – it practically demands it of you. Ironically enough, when putting such uniform excellence out into the world, you can’t imagine a single scenario where anyone would hate Suzi.

63. Gorillaz feat. Tame Impala and Bootie Brown – New Gold

For four fictional characters, Gorillaz sure have an impressive Rolodex of mega-stars to call up. Amazingly, over 20 years since their debut, they’re still finding fresh combinations – in this case, first-time voyager Tame Impala and returning ‘Dirty Harry’ star Bootie Brown. Mixing the former’s kaleidoscopic psychedelia with the latter’s old-school flow, ‘New Gold’ lights up them thar hills with mirrorball lights. A dark undercurrent swells beneath, making for pitch-perfect contrast once a blurry 2D spins into the picture. 2023 will see the animated anarchists reveal album eight, Cracker Island. Heed this warning: It could be their best in years.

62. Joyce Manor – Souvenir

The album cover of 40oz. To Fresno depicts Joyce Manor sitting on a rooftop looking out at the world. Tellingly, you can’t tell if it’s sunrise or sunset. That ambiguity plays into the album’s opening number, which musically brims with the sunshine of a new day but lyrically turns inward to reflect on days gone. When you stop to think about it, that’s always been Joyce Manor’s modus operandi – rising and falling, coming down and getting back up again. It’s something to remember them by – now, if only there was a more succinct term for such a thing…

61. Spacey Jane – Hardlight

Spacey Jane emerged from lockdown as Australia’s must-see band, matching resplendent indie-pop with torn heartstrings to undeniable effect. If their obscure Wilco nod in Here Comes Everybody‘s title wasn’t clearly hinting, this band is invested in songwriting over soundbites. ‘Hardlight’ is one of the best indicators thus far that the Western Australians are building something that’ll last. It’s a guitar line to be swept up with, harmonies to melt into and a hook to howl until you’re hoarse. It never loses flavour, or its brightness. From those that need booster seats to those that need rocking chairs, everybody’s coming around.

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Listen to the DJY100 thus far in the Spotify playlist below:

Still to come in the DJY100:

January 10 (Part Three)
January 17 (Part Four)
Janaury 24 (Part Five)

And stay tuned for the following 2022 lists:

Top 50 Albums of 2022 (January 6)
Top 50 Gigs of 2022 (January 13)
Top 50 Live Acts of 2022 (January 20)

The Top 100 Songs of 2015, Part Two: 80 — 61

Posted on 14/12/201516/12/2015 by davidjamesyoung in Lists

Here we are for part two. Response was unreal last week, thanks for checking it out and sharing it around. Here we go again! Part one here.

80. The Sidekicks – Everything in Twos

“Everything in Twos” turned up less than a month into 2015; dropped its bags and set up shop. It wasn’t going anywhere – nor should it have. Ducking and weaving through shimmering guitars and bouncing drums, it’s the type of power-pop that packs lyrical density to complement the bright, bursting tone; straight from the John K. Samson and John Roderick school of songwriting. Once you’ve surrendered to its wide-eyed charm and heartfelt, harmony-laden chorus, there’s no going back. It clocks in at 2:47, but you’ll be under its spell within the first 30 seconds – or your money back, guarantee.

79. FIDLAR – 40oz. On Repeat

The cheap beer has run dry, there’s no cocaine left and FIDLAR are not as stoked on the whole ‘stoked and broke’ thing that they were a couple of summers back. They’re still making belligerent, snotty garage pop-punk at its core, but the opening number on August’s Too saw them get a little more up-close and personal with their feelings – anger, depression, confusion et al. A dash of wurtilizer and toy piano is just enough to note growth and maturation on their part. Not a complete reinvention – because, duh, FIDLAR – but it keeps you guessing. Listening, too.

78. Bad//Dreems – Bogan Pride

Sure, these Adelaide natives enjoy a torn flanny and a smashed tinnie as much as the next bloke. Even with this in mind, Bad//Dreems are acutely aware of their native land’s major issue with hyper-masculinity. As the guitar scratches urgently against a pounding punk beat, “Bogan Pride” tears down beer-swilling muscle junkies with bitter, unrepentant fury. The irony of more of these types attending Bad//Dreems shows as their profile continues to (deservedly) rise probably won’t be lost on the band. At least they’ll always have this. Bonus points: The only song in the list to feature an exasperated “FUCK’S SAKE!”

77. Brendan Maclean – Tectonic

With synth arpeggios that orbit the planet and gated snare that could knock out Phil Collins in a single hit, “Tectonic” is the furthest that Mr. Maclean has ever ventured from the piano. Much like when Tim Freedman whipped out a keytar in the second verse of “Thank You,” the crowd was confused. But then, they cheered! And oh, how they danced! “Tectonic” is a pulsing, twirling piece of interplanetary pop – a shot in the dark that resonates in high definition. You could say the song was how Brendan got his groove back if only he’d never lost it.

76. Philadelphia Grand Jury – Crashing and Burning, Pt. II

Five years ago, the Philly Jays premiered a new song on tour entitled “A New Package for You,” another archetypal rush of knockabout indie-pop with a wild side and a spring in its step. For the band’s comeback album, the song was resurrected – a new hook, a slightly-slower tempo, a new hair-metal guitar break into the bridge and a bit of sprucing up here and there; hence the “Pt. II” suffix. Its origin story alone is indicative of how the track encapsulates their past, present and the future – it’s “A New Package” in a new package. Get excited.

75. EL VY – Return to the Moon (Political Song for Didi Bloome to Sing, with Crescendo)

The National’s Matt Berninger hasn’t always written zingers (lest we forget “Sometimes, you get up/And bake a cake or something” or “Standing at the punch table/Swallowing punch”), but initial listens to his side project’s first single will have you scratching your noggin over whatever mumbo-jumbo he’s spouting off. ‘Triple Jesus’? ‘A saltwater fish from a colourblind witch’? Who knows? Moreover, who cares? The thing about “Return to the Moon” is that it makes perfect sense in clear spite of itself. It’s a pop oddity; a guitar swagger, an off-beat handclap.If Berninger’s enigmatic charisma can’t win you over, perhaps nothing can.

74. Best Coast – Feeing OK

Five years ago was the summer that Best Coast’s debut, Crazy for You, was the ultimate girl guide – an album full of lyrics to quote endlessly on Tumblr while others would reblog and add the phrase “figuratively me!” Not to discredit that album whatsoever, but the best parts of the band’s third, California Nights, are when they’re tackling some of the bigger issues than boy problems and weed. On the album’s opener, Bethany Cosentino laments being there for everyone except herself; learning slowly but surely how to start putting her well-being first once again. It’s figuratively a great start.

73. Sweater Season – Charley

For a band quite figuratively less than a year old to be delivering a song as confident in nature as “Charley” is the equivalent of your infant child skipping the ‘goo-goo’s and ‘ga-ga’s entirely and skipping ahead to reciting a Shakespearian sonnet. In one swiftly-paced and smartly-written piece of proto-grunge indie, the band establishes a dual guitar tone to kill for – all sunshine and radiation – while simultaneously tossing killer one-liners like “I forget what I regret” – later transmogrifying into “what I have left,” for full effect – on top, almost as an afterthought. Damn baby geniuses.

72. The Sidekicks – The Kid Who Broke His Wrist

Steve Ciolak has never shied away from deeply-personal writing – it’s where he embraces it the most that his songs shine. That being said, there’s something about the way he reminisces on childhood spent and a youth now lost to a man on the verge of his thirties that, for whatever reason, feels somehow – importantly – different. It resonates in a way one might not initially expect – perhaps to do with how he still sees so much of himself in the boy that he once was; still finding himself unable to make a proverbial fist. Heartbreaking – and bone-breaking.

71. Citizen – Heaviside

For a band that used to recall acts like Sunny Day Real Estate and Jimmy Eat World, it’s strange that Mogwai and post-Deja Brand New are immediate comparison points when discussing the quietest moment from Citizen’s fascinating second LP. Yes, it’s a departure – and a major one at that – but the faded, distant shimmer of the guitar and the immediate, raw-nerve vocals that feel as though we have cut to the core of what this band is – and, more importantly, what it can be. For a song about purgatory, Citizen sure know where they’re headed on “Heaviside.”

70. Rihanna feat. Kanye West and Paul McCartney – FourFiveSeconds

A Barbadian, a black skinhead and a Beatle walk into a bar… yes, the year’s most unlikely combo were also behind the year’s most unlikely pop smash. Not that these three haven’t seen a hit or two in their lifetime – least of all Macca – but it was the manner in which “FourFiveSeconds” presented itself that made for such an intriguing prospect: Quiet. Unassuming. Raw. Soulful. No braggadocios raps, no “na-na-na”s, no nostalgia. Just an unplugged, intimate moment with true music royalty. A true career highlight for each – and given their combined history, that says a remarkable deal.

69. The Smith Street Band – Wipe That Shit-Eating Grin Off Your Punchable Face

The night Tony Abbott was elected, The Smith Street Band played a sold-out Corner Hotel, telling their captive audience that this was not a man to be trusted or one that spoke for them. In the year of Abbott’s demise in the public eye, it began with this furious, damning five-minute suite detailing his evil, hateful ways in explicit detail. It’s the angriest song the band has ever recorded – and, as it stands now, their most important. “A change is gonna come,” Wil Wagner warned, echoing sentiments of the late Sam Cooke. Less than a year later, it did.

68. Seth Sentry – Violin

No-one likes to see the clown crying. When Seth Marton isn’t goofing off, flirting with waitresses or talking about hoverboards, he’s capable of eloquent and passionate introspect. An open letter to an absent, arrogant father, “Violin” is Seth’s most private and painfully-personal song. As Marton’s cathartic furor rains down, so too does his discontent and malaise over how things have panned out. The song’s lynchpin comes in the form of its first and last line – which are one and the same. It brings the song full circle, leading one to hope against hope the bastard hears every last word.

67. White Dog – No Good

From the warehouses, garages and four-track recorders of Sydney, White Dog emerge with fists swinging and teeth sharpened. “No Good” seethes. It radiates from the back of cracked, split-open radio speakers. It prowls the streets of the inner-west wielding a switchblade. It’s the loudest, rawest and most primal sound to erupt from the DIY punk scene this year – and most other years, too, if complete honesty is allowed. If you’re not getting the message already – or maybe you just weren’t paying attention – remember this: “No Good” is the antithesis of its own name. That’s punk as fuck.

66. Major Lazer feat. DJ Snake and MØ – Lean On

Diplo is King Midas – everything he touches becomes gold. DJ Snake is King Henry VIII – he’s a wild motherfucker that’ll chop people’s heads off for the thrill of it. MØ is the lady of the lake – she holds the sword with all the power. By some bizarre head-on collision, the three have been pitted against one another in a three-way dance – and everybody wins. “Lean On” was, for many, the highly sought-after ‘song of the summer.’ More importantly, it was an assertion of pure dominance for both the charts and the dancefloor. Just go with it.

65. The Story So Far – Nerve

The best pop-punk right now is made by kids raised on Through Being Cool that are through being cool. Beyond empty slogans and Tumblr drama lies music that can be artistic, cathartic and genuinely engaging. The Story So Far have evolved into such an act, having grown up before their audience’s eyes and winding up on the wrong side of their 20s with a bad attitude and some killer riffs. Subsequently, “Nerve” stands as one of the most righteously-angry songs of both TSSF’s canon and the calendar year. Any self-respecting rock fan needs to hear them out on this one.

64. Endless Heights – Haunt Me

When Joel Martorana gave up screaming and turned his attention to singing two years ago, it was a confusing and suspicious move to some genre stiffs. As his voice rings out on “Haunt Me,” however, one struggles to recall Endless Heights without it being there. It suits the hypnotic drone of the guitars and the brisk drumming to absolute perfection, and presents itself as further evidence that the change in direction for the band was undoubtedly the right decision to make. Succinctly, “Haunt Me” gets a lot of work done in a considerably-short time. The power of Heights compels you.

63. Justin Bieber – Sorry

It takes a lot for a man to own up to his mistakes – especially if that man was, up until quite recently, a boy despised on a global scale. With an A-team of producers spreading the good word on his behalf – in this particular instance, Sonny “Skrillex” Moore – Bieber’s path to redemption is a gruelling, arduous one for us to undertake. As long as songs like “Sorry” keep turning up, however, the path shall be paved with gold. Anyone not left dancing in the spirit of the song’s phenomenal video just isn’t Beliebing hard enough in themselves.

62. Josh Pyke – Be Your Boy

Sure, he’s a bit more Smooth FM than Triple J these days, but there’s a lot to be said for the fact Josh Pyke has never changed his stripes for anyone. He’s always been a hopeless romantic, a dreamer and an old soul – and all of this entwines beautifully on what is unquestionably his best song in years. Layered percussion and cooed backing vocals prove to be a warm bed for Pyke’s rekindled-youth flame to rest upon; and its sweetly-sincere chorus will do the rest of the job in worming its way into your heart. Ahh, Pykey. You’re alright.

61. Silversun Pickups – Circadian Rhythm (Last Dance)

When photos of Silversun Pickups first surfaced, many thought that the voice they were hearing belonged to bassist Nikki Moninger. Naturally, they were in for a world of shock when they inevitably saw Brian Aubert step up to the mic, but “Circadian Rhythm” is a Sliding Doors moment of sorts that shows what life would be like if it was actually Moninger that took the lead. As luck would have it, it’s a total delight – a more subdued and intimate moment from a band that normally go to 11. This, indeed, is a dance well worth immersing yourself in.

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Part three up next Monday!

Don’t forget you can download the podcast version of Part Two here.

The Top 100 Songs of 2015, Part One: 100 – 81

Posted on 07/12/201507/12/2015 by davidjamesyoung in Lists

It’s about that time, folks. You know how this one goes. Good, clean fight to the finish. All genres, countries and ages accepted. Only one rule: No touching of the hair or face. Alright, let’s get it on!

To pre-game, why not take a listen to this supplementary list of 50 great songs that just missed out on the top 100?

As always, DISCLAIMER: This is not a list of the most popular songs, nor is it a list curated by anyone except myself. These are, in my view, the best songs of the year. Disagreement and discussion is welcomed, but ultimately if you have any real issues with any songs that are ranked too low, too high or not at all… make your own list!

– DJY, December 2015

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100. Cosmic Psychos – Fuckwit City

The greatest moments in the 30-plus year canon of Cosmic Psychos have been helmed by the infamous snarl of Ross Knight, so it’s a rare treat to hear a lead vocal from the band’s pot-bellied riff-bearer, John “Mad Macca” McKeering. Macca’s no crooner – but, then again, neither’s Knighty. It’s not exactly a top priority when there’s a big, stomping riff and a middle-finger-waving chorus to smash through. The accompanying video, which sees the band smashing tinnies and chowing down on snags, gets the point across better than words ever could: them’s the Psychos. They’re not to be fucked with.

99. Kissing Booth – Battlefield

“Battlefield” has been a staple of Kissing Booth’s live shows more or less since their formation, and it’s easy to see why – if it’s not Tom Jenkins’ thunderous tom rolls that lead it in, it’s the earnest, raised-fist chorus and undying mantra of “you’ve got the strength in you to succeed” that will firmly seal the deal. Recorded at long last for their debut, Never Settle, “Battlefield” became a highlight once again – it’s a slow-waltz through love-and-war metaphors and swinging twin-guitar warmth, reeling in listeners before bowling them over. If love is a battlefield, consider Kissing Booth victorious.

98. You Beauty – Illywhacka

They’re not pioneers of writing about love from a hardened, cynical perspective – and Lord knows they won’t be the last. What spices up the title track to You Beauty’s second album is knowing it’s from the perspective of a scam artist – someone who makes a living saying things but never meaning them. “If I misuse the words/I’m not the first,” he justifies at one point; “I do believe it’s unconscious like the rest,” he affirms at another. Throw in some thwacking snare rolls and a Johnny Marr-worthy guitar tone and you’re ready to fall for anything he says.

97. Frank Turner – The Next Storm

Positive Songs for Negative People, Turner’s comeback LP from the middle of 2015, was thematically centred on Turner refusing to let pessimism and a slew of personal ordeals serve as the obstacles they once were. As bar-room piano leads him into a fist-wielding rock shuffle, Turner takes a matter as pedestrian as the weather and lets it blossom into the perfect metaphor for his sunnier outlook. It might seem naff – especially if Turner has ever felt too endearing – but it’s hard to deny a shout-along to a refrain as wonderfully succinct as “Rejoice! Rebuild! The storm has passed!”

96. Young Fathers – Rain or Shine

Young Fathers are in it to win it, because having the Mercury just wasn’t enough. The trio – alongside Sleaford Mods – were two major acts to properly turn British music on its head and expose a darker, more unpleasant side of their respective homelands last year. It’s telling that both immediately followed up their world-class 2014 breakthroughs in 2015; equaling – and occasionally bettering – their predecessors. This slab of sweet-and-sour alt-hop stays true to its name; throwing a Motown worthy ‘hey-hey-hey’ into the blender with some deadpan abstract poetry. Theirs is a revolution that is still… well, revolving.

95. Alabama Shakes – Don’t Wanna Fight

Perhaps the most piercing, indescribable squeal this side of Kings of Leon’s “Charmer” is what lead us into the first single from Alabama Shakes’ long-awaited second album. The groove was very much still in the heart for Brittany Howard and co., shuffling through a head-nodding lick and a driving four-on-the-floor beat before letting loose a truly righteous falsetto-disco chorus that takes on double duty as a harken-back to vintage soul. Much like their finest moments from Boys & Girls, “Don’t Wanna Fight” is some kind of genre Voltron. In the right context, it’s a fully-formed and unstoppable machine. Right on.

94. Horrorshow feat. Thelma Plum, Jimblah and Urthboy – Any Other Name

This protest song, dropped in the wake of horrendous abuse toward now-retired AFL player Adam Goodes, is an endlessly-quotable all-star tirade against the systemic, institutionalised racism that has become more and more prevalent in modern Australian society. Each artist brings their A-game across the track’s runtime, laying their heart out on their sleeves and making it exceptionally clear who is in the wrong. The track’s mic-drop moment comes with Solo’s damning, defiant final point: “Racist is as racist does/So if you’re doing something racist/Hate to break it, you’re a racist, cuz.” This is our wake-up call. Australia, this is you.

93. Hockey Dad – Can’t Have Them

2014 was the year of Zach Stephenson and Billy Fleming, the Windang wunderkinds that wrote the best Australian song of the year and sent audiences young and old into a hair-flipping frenzy. It would have been entirely understandable if they wanted to go for their afternoon nap this year, but it appears the red cordial is still running through their veins. This stand-alone single is a bright, bouncy hip-shaker that strengthens Stephenson’s knack for cooed, wordless refrains and Fleming’s primitive boom-thwack Ringo fills. It bodes considerably well for the band’s imminent debut LP next year. Game on, you little scamps.

92. Drake – Know Yourself

The mixtape lifestyle suited Drake this year. Dropping new material when he felt like it with no label pressure and no pushing for a greater ambition meant that the man born Aubrey Graham was allowed to have a lot more fun. Amid the dozen-plus new songs that arrived on the If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late mixtape, it was this centrepiece that sent fans into a tailspin. Its clanking trap beat, its obnoxious sub-bass and that hook – Drizzy can make this shit happen without even trying these days. You know how that shit go. Airhorns at the ready.

91. Beach Slang – Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas

In the same year that Weston, the pop-punk band James Alex was a part of in the 90s, reunited for a handful of shows; Alex also got a second wind with the momentum of his new band, Beach Slang, who became one of 2015’s most hyped rock bands. It’s easy to both see and hear why this was the case: the paint-splatter ride cymbal, its two-chord fury; not to mention the wordless refrains one has to unlock their jaw in order to properly sing out. We are all in the garage, but some of us are looking at the stars.

90. Endless Heights – Teach You How to Leave

Every year, Endless Heights inch further and further away from the forthright melodic hardcore with which they made their name. Every year, Endless Heights write sharper, smarter songs with a greater level of introspect, heart and poignancy. Simply put: Every year, Endless Heights get flat-out better. This, the title-track to their third EP, feels like an endgame of sorts – the kind of low-key, artfully-quiet song that they have worked towards on previous efforts. It’s able to do more in less than three minutes than what may of the band’s contemporaries can achieve with five-plus. A bright, beautiful slow-burn.

89. The Bennies – Party Machine

From one end to the other, The Bennies can become a million different things – post-punk hip-shakers, knees-up ska bouncers, heavy disco (pardon the pun) ravers. When it all rolls together, it becomes something full of wild-eyed energy; a measured defiance of restrictive guidelines and genre semantics. With a third album looming, “Party Machine” feels like the Bennies single that has the most to prove – that they are ready to take this shit higher than ever before. It passes accordingly with all the flying colours of a hallucinogenic rainbow. The machine rages on. The party is just getting started.

88. Pity Sex – What Might Soothe You?

There are those that haven’t quite known what to make of Pity Sex in the past – too much of an indie band for shoegaze nerds, too much of a shoegaze band for indie kids. On their first new material in two years, the band play up their limbo with a song accentuating both sides of the coin. Twee, unisex vocals are placed under the same spotlight as hazed-out, Daydream Nation-worthy guitar fuzz – at once joyously bright and uniformly morose. Putting genre semantics aside and appreciating a great song for what it is – it, indeed, might soothe you.

87. Miguel – leaves

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan was given a songwriting credit to this end-of-summer lament after Miguel claimed he was accidentally inspired by the Pumpkins’ hit “1979.” The similarities certainly present themselves – particularly in the off-kilter guitar patterns – but “leaves” substitutes the mid-west teenage dreaming for west-coast heartbreak and Corgan’s adenoidal nostalgia for a smooth, love-lorn crooning. Along with being a standout moment of Miguel’s excellent Wildheart LP, it certainly stands as the best thing Corgan has been attached to in well over a decade – and it says a lot that he wasn’t directly involved at all.

86. Darren Hanlon – The Chattanooga Shoot-Shoot

He’s spent over a decade as one of the country’s smartest, most celebrated songwriters – even his peers can’t help but be amazed by the way he wondrously weaves his wayward words. The standout track from his fifth album takes the Gympie couchsurfer about as far from home as he’s ever been – travelling to Tennessee on a budget bus. To borrow a phrase from Upworthy, you won’t believe what happens next. The “Folsom Prison Blues” chord progression and timely snare hits are a nice touch, too. Of all of Hanlon’s tales, this one hits number one with a bullet.

85. Micachu and the Shapes – Oh Baby

“It’s not us to give up in a rush,” crows Mica Levi over a hypnotic boom-bap rhythm and underwater synths blubbering from afar. She’s got a point, y’know – it might have been three years since we heard from Levi, Raisa Khan and Marc Pell; but they re-enter the fray as if they were never really gone. Reverb-laden crooning and an experimental hip-hop flavour to the song’s lo-fi production add spice and texture, but theirs is a dynamic so constantly-shifting and fascinating that these two aspects could just as well be just scratching the surface. Just like that, it vanishes.

84. Best Coast – Heaven Sent

Not to get all Rick Astley on the situation, but Best Coast are no strangers to love. Their knack lies in their ability to make it sound as fresh and dewy-eyed as that of young romance. No-one else in the current indie-rock climate could drop something as sappy as “You are the one that I adore” atop a major chord and not only get away with it, but be commended for it. There’s a method and an art-form to all of this – and the only ones that know the secret recipe are Bethany and Bobb. Love rules, yeah yeah.

83. Bad//Dreems – Cuffed and Collared

What other band in Australia right now could simultaneously recall God’s “My Pal” and The Remembrandt’s sole hit “I’ll Be There for You” in a single bound? It could well have something to do with how “Cuffed and Collared” vividly mashes together the fury and bounding energy of the former with the unmistakable pop ear-worms of the latter. It might be a song that details a violent altercation, sure; but you’ll be damned if you aren’t grinning every time that the hook in question rolls around – and it’s on a near-frequent loop. With Dreems like these, who needs Friends?

82. Foals – What Went Down

What the ever-loving fuck is going on here? From its seasick organ drone to its detour into a thick three-note riff – not to mention its subsequent tear-down and empirical rebuild – “What Went Down” is one of the most head-spinning, ferocious compositions that Foals have ever committed to wax. What else does it have in store? Abstract imagery! A piercing, screamed refrain! Constant, unpredictable swerves that threaten to throw the entire goddamn thing off a cliff! To paraphrase a quote from Blades of Glory‘s Chazz Michael-Michaels: No-one knows what went down, but it’s provocative. It gets the people going.

81. The Hard Aches – Knots

One of the true signs of great, honest songwriting is when the writer in question turns the knife – or, in this case, the much-mightier pen – on themselves. The Hard Aches’ Ben David exposes his flaws on this key track from the band’s debut, Pheromones; bitterly portraying himself as a pathological, unrepentant liar in a constant state of exhaustion. Towards the song’s thrilling conclusion, however, he indicates that he’s on the road to bettering himself – and his is such a blunt, forthright delivery that you just know that he’ll get there. The untying process slowly but surely begins.

***

Part Two will be posted next Monday!

To download the podcast version of Part One, click here.

Our Next Guests Are A Wonderful Rock & Roll Band: 20 Performances on Latter-Day Letterman Picked By a Later-Day Letterman Fan

Posted on 22/05/201522/05/2015 by davidjamesyoung in Features

So, it’s come to this. Pop culture as a collective is saying goodbye to a legendary talk-show host in the form of David Letterman. I’ve seen countless tributes pouring in on my timeline – celebrities and regular folk alike all have a Letterman story. I suppose I should share mine, although it doesn’t have the same weight to it as ones from my friends in their thirties and forties that quite literally grew up with the show.

I come into the picture in the 2000s. By this point, Letterman is an establishment. Appearing on that show means that you’re someone – if only for that moment. This much is especially true of the show’s musical guests, which were often the only reason I would tune in. One YouTube came into the picture, I’d often spend hours at a time down a rabbit hole with only the search term “live on letterman” to guide me. There was always such an interesting mix of artists – some well-established, some just coming through the ranks. To me, if you’d been on Letterman, you’d made it. That was your stage, your chance, your moment.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to share some of my personal favourite Letterman musical-guest moments. Please note that this is by no means a definitive best-of – I’ve picked exclusively from the last 15 years; and there is no Future Islands on account of there having been everything that one could possibly say about that performance already out there in the ether. These are just some performances that I’ve been enthralled with over the years for very different reasons. So, let’s take it away.

TV on the Radio – Wolf Like Me (2006)

I still get the exact same electricity running through me nearly ten years after this performance first happened. I shared this with EVERYONE – even people I knew that didn’t like music. There was something monumental about this rendition – it took what was already bound to be one of the greatest songs of the decade and somehow made it even greater. Can’t you just hear how David Andrew Sitek makes his guitar squeal. How Jaleel Bunton punches through those drum parts. Kyp Malone practically jumps out of his suit at one point. This made me want to be in a rock band – my rock band at the time made this cover a staple of our set. It all started – my Letterman obsession, my TVotR obsession, the whole shebang – here.

An Horse – Camp Out (2009)

We cut to the end of the decade, and it’s one of the more obscure Australian acts to have appeared on the show – a Brisbane indie band who were championed by acts like Death Cab and Tegan & Sara. It didn’t turn them into arena filling sensations, but performances like this proved that achieving something on that side of the world was still a possibility. The vibe that you got from watching Courtney Barnett on Fallon or Ellen? That’s what we were feeling when An Horse pressed the flesh with Dave.

Beastie Boys – Ch-Check It Out (2004)

I’ve tried to shy away from the obvious performances in this list, but you just can’t go past the creativity and the energy of this one. It felt like a music video brought to life, and the mile-wide grin on Dave’s face at its conclusion makes it all worth it. This dropped right in a revival of Beastie obsession for me, so it was perfect timing. Fuck, I miss MCA.

Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies) (2005)

There’s such an urgency to this era of Arcade Fire that Dave almost doesn’t get their name out before the begin an all-instrument avalanche. This is a kitchen-sink type of Arcade Fire – one of them is even running around the place whacking a floor tom for the fuck of it. Centred in its universe is Win, who is far from the unleashed rockstar he would become in the Reflektor era. Here, he barely moves. He’s the last to arrive at this party and the first to leave – which somehow makes him more of an intriguing prospect.

Grinderman – Honey Bee (Let’s Fly to Mars) (2007)

After years of concert halls and opera houses, Nick Cave wanted to fuck some shit up again like in the old days. Grinderman let him reclaim the mania of The Birthday Party yet keep the suit. It worked – and it resulted in one of the wildest performances on the show. Warren Ellis is playing some kind of electric mandolin while randomly smashing a hi-hat with a hammer. Cave is on the prowl, laying down organ parts and quite literally buzzing away. It’s impossible to look away.

Sparta – Breaking the Broken (2004)

At a time where fear-mongering was at a high and the American political climate was one of uncertainty for any that considered themselves creative, Sparta appeared on Letterman. Sprayed onto their shirts was the word VOTE – and, after putting everything into a performance of what I consider to be their best-ever song, it was quite clear which way they wanted you to do as such. Spoiler alert: They were not successful. At that point in time, though, it didn’t matter. It felt like anything was possible.

Beck – Nausesa (2006)

Nevermind that this is a thoroughly jamming version of one of Beck’s most underrated singles – Borat turns up! MY WIFE! Also worth pointing out that, by a complete luck of the draw, this performance shares a drummer with the very next one in the form of one Matt Sherrod.

R.E.M. – Imitation of Life (2001)

R.E.M. were legacy guests on Letterman. In 1983, they appeared for the first time and performed two songs; both of which have become seminal singles of the era. They went on to appear four more times on the show, with this being their last before they split up a decade later. The contrasts between 1983 R.E.M. and 2001 R.E.M. are centred around Michael Stipe – once an enigmatic, mumbling long-haired twenty-something; now an extrovert and a true frontman in every sense. It was the band coming full circle.

Tom Waits – Make it Rain (2004)

You must understand that I hated Tom Waits when I first discovered him. Hated him. Thought his voice was fucked and that he looked like he’d been run over. Of course, that’s exactly the same reason that I love him now. I look back on this performance that once made me squirm and see one that is all class. The addition of two-thirds of the Blues Explosion laying it down certainly helps matters.

Feist – 1234 (2007)

She may hate this song now, and may well never play it again. There was a time, though, where we all fell in love with it. For many, that came with this performance, which enlisted an all-star choir of people from The National, Grizzly Bear, The New Pornographers, Mates of State and Broken Social Scene. It’s all horns, ba-da-bas and pure unadulterated joy. You can’t help but smile when you see this one. Plus, how on-point are those handclaps?

Liam Finn – Second Chance (2007)

Two offspring of Australasian rock legends combine forces here, Liam being the stock of Neil Finn and his counterpart being one of Jimmy Barnes’ daughters. The similarities, of course, stop there – this is a psychedelically-tinged slice of indie-rock that goes into overdrive once Finn sets up his loop station and goes fucking WILD on the drums. Even a slight fuck-up makes this imperfectly perfect.

Red Fang – Blood Like Cream (2014)

I don’t know – are Red Fang considered a “metal” band? Like, are they metally enough for the Metal Club? Whatever the case, it’s always a surprise and a joy when stuff like this makes it onto network television. They hit this one out of the park, and even Paul Shaffer himself gets in on the fun by adding in some spooky organ drones. Bonus points for Dave’s sick burn at the end: “I’ll talk to your drummer about growing a beard.”

Neko Case – This Tornado Loves You (2009)

There’s this idea that if a song can still sound good through AM speakers, it’s bound to be a good song. This performance of the opening track from Case’s Middle Cyclone sounds like a masterpiece in 480p, so make of that what you will. The triple-guitar layering works beautifully alongside the four backing vocalists, which include Kelly Hogan and Lucy Wainwright Roche. Stunning, understated and a true credit to Case as a performer and bandleader.

Mastodon – Curl of the Burl (2011)

When Mastodon first came on Letterman in 2009, Dave introduced them by saying “I’m not gonna lie to you… I’m frightened” before cutting to a close-up of Brent Hinds’ face tattoo. It was a funny bit, but it was also reflective of a wider preconception about metal and the people involved in it. Seemingly, Dave got over his initial fright once he saw how awesome they were – the band were invited back two more times. This is my favourite of the three, if only for Bill having the words “HI MOM” taped onto his guitar.

LE1F – Wut (2014)

Potentially the first gay rapper to ever perform live on network television? Potentially the only? This fantastic performance from the bold and brassy LE1F was a huge moment for both LGBT and POC visibility, not to mention a massive step up in a live setting. While the MC and DJ set-up certainly works for LE1F, a full band (featuring Dev Hynes on bass) and two back-up dancers works even better.

Morningwood – Jetsetter (2006)

In 2006, I was obsessed with a band called Morningwood. I believe I was one of two whole people in all of Australia that even knew who they were. They may have been a blip on the radar to many, or simply cool by association (lead singer Chantal Claret is married to Little Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence). On this night, though, they were the talk of the town – particularly after Claret did her now-famous Matrix dance during the guitar break. Power-pop for life.

The Orwells – Who Needs You (2014)

The performance that divided the internet right down the middle. Was it a mess? Was it staged? Were they high? Was it rock & roll? Was it all premeditated? The answer, naturally, is that it’s exactly what you see. It’s what you make of it. It’s like the Vines’ infamous performance in 2002. Whatever the case, Paul Shaffer lost his fucking mind over it. You can see why.

Tokyo Police Club – Nature of the Experiment (2007)

22 didn’t seem all that far away at 17. When I realised how old Tokyo Police Club were, and I saw them on Letterman, I felt that maybe I’d know where I was going at that age. Naturally, I didn’t; and neither did they – they’ve scarcely been heard from since this peak point of exposure. It’s worth revisiting, though, both for the drummer going hard on just a bass/snare/hi-hat set-up and the entire CBS Orchestra joining in on a tambourine flash-mob. The kids were alright, weren’t they?

The National – Afraid of Everyone (2010)

The National make everything special in their own understated way, including their TV appearances. Here, they played a non-single (not to mention one of my favourite National songs) and brought out a horns section, a pump organ and a casual cameo from Sufjan Stevens. It builds up into something unbelievable – this, to me, is the definitive version of this song.

U2 – Beautiful Day (2009)

Here’s something you should know: From the ages of 8 to 24 (the age I currently) am, I was a huge U2 fan. I still am. Yep, even through some average albums and the whole debacle last year. There’s something about this band that always puts me in the exact right mood. I can’t imagine my life without a song like “Beautiful Day,” as pathetic as that seems. It’s a light in the dark for me; a crack of sunshine let into the shadows. It’s impossible for me to be unhappy when it’s on. So when U2 performed it as a part of U2 Week on the show, in which they did a song every night, I fell in love with it all over again.

On this night, Bono is determined to get the crowd up on their feet. You think it’ll happen in the first chorus. They’re still down. Second chorus. The clapping along is louder, but they’re still down. It takes until the second bridge for them to finally lift – but it’s worth the pay off. I smile like an idiot everytime I see that bit. It’s so daggy, but it reminds me exactly of what “Beautiful Day” does for me.

Thanks, Dave.

Goodnight, everybody.

The Top 50 Gigs of 2014, Part Two: 25 – 1

Posted on 02/02/2015 by davidjamesyoung in Lists

Part one if you need to catch up. This officially marks the end of list season. See you this time next year!

25. The Blurst of Times @ Factory Theatre, 25/10

Vibes aplenty, not a dud set among the batch and a true celebration of mostly-Australian awesomeness. What more can you say? This one we’ll hand to the legendary Dion Ford of Palms: “It was such a great day, not even Shania ‘I’m not easily impressed’ Twain could deny its excellence.”

24. The Bronx @ Metro Theatre, 20/6

If it’s a calendar year in Australia and The Bronx haven’t visited, did it actually happen? One of their final shows in support of 2013’s fourth album arrived with little more than their greatest hits and a spurt of energy that can only come with racing toward the finish line.

23. Ms. Lauryn Hill @ Sydney Opera House, 27/5

It’s turned into both a scarce rarity and a monumental risk – what to make of the illusive Fugee fifteen years and change removed from her seminal sole LP? As luck would have it, she remains a joyous, invigorated performer; backed by a sensational band and a rekindled spirit. To Zion!

22. Pixies @ Sydney Opera House, 23 and 26/5

Seeing The Breeders and a Deal-less Pixies within months of one another felt more or less like visiting your mum’s and then your dad’s after a divorce. They’re happier without one another and doing really well on their own. Life’s good. All we are saying is give Pixies a chance.

21. Cloud Nothings @ Oxford Art Factory, 10/12

Nearly two years on from their breathtaking Sydney debut, Dylan Baldi and co. proved that a three-legged dog is just as menacing. Cuts from Here and Nowhere Else thrived, but a propulsive “Wasted Days” finale – clocking in at just over sixteen minutes – sealed the deal. Rock & roll is fun.

20. The Dillinger Escape Plan @ Metro Theatre, 24/2

With a rare appearance from Glassjaw and Japanese sensations Dir En Grey, the Escape Plan tore Sydney a new one at their first headlining show in four years. Shit got as wild as you would hope, including a grand finale involving Greg Puciato figuratively hanging upside down from the rafters.

19. You Am I and Heavy Friends @ Vic on The Park, 1/1

That’s how you kick off a year, boys and girls. There’s Courtney Barnett jamming on Divinyls. There’s Phil Jamieson, climbing a speaker stack like it was 1998 and busting out “Cathy’s Clown.” There’s the Red fucking Wiggle, Murray Cook, playing Iggy Pop and Bruce Springsteen songs. So fucking rock.

18. The Bennies @ Beatdisc Records, 16/3

It was the Brady Bunch of tour weekenders – Luca Brasi and Postblue met The Bennies and Apart From This in a fatal-four-way overseen by local legends Oslow. Improv dub jams, pies to the face and enough juicy tunes to turn Parramatta’s little shop of rock into the ultimate hot-box.

17. Manchester Orchestra @ Metro Theatre, 15/11

There was a mixed reaction to Cope, Manchester Orchestra’s fourth studio album. When it comes to their live shows, however, it’s unanimous – they are unmissable. Especially if Kevin Devine is along for the ride. A borderline-religious “Where Have You Been” capped off a stellar performance. Forever and ever.

16. Kishi Bashi @ Newtown Social Club, 1/7

One man, one violin, a couple hundred admirers watching on from the front and figuratively surrounding him for over half the set. Warm, joyous intimacy. Tender, beautiful songs – some old favourites among the devotees, some fresh from Ishibashi’s excellent Lighght LP. This entire show felt like falling in love.

15. Kanye West @ Qantas Credit Union Arena, 12/9

The storm-in-a-teacup wheelchair debacle aside, this show was proof that Kanye stands as one of the single most charismatic performers in the world right now. He can command an entire audience for two hours entirely on his own, with little more than a backdrop and a catwalk. Make a circle.

14. Ben Folds and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra @ Sydney Opera House, 14/11

It’s about the closest thing that pensioners get to a rock concert, but Folds is still managing to keep his orchestral collaborations enticing for all ages and all levels of BF fandom. A stunning “Rock This Bitch” was the centrepiece, improvising an entire arrangement with jaw-dropping and hilarious results.

13. DZ Deathrays @ Rad, 30/5

If this completely sold-out Wollongong show showed us anything, it was that the risk of coming down to the leisure coast had paid off tenfold. Bodies flew, riffs fired up and the Brisbane boys effortlessly showcased why they’re such a dominant force in Australian music right now. Carn the Gong.

12. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu @ UNSW Roundhouse, 23/3

In a venue best known for hosting angsty, black-clad bro-bands, the amazing technicolour world of J-pop came to life with the debut visit of one if its most unique characters. From its bizarre interludes to KPP’s adorable attempts at speaking English, this was an entryway into a whole new universe.

11. Reggie Watts @ Sydney Opera House, 19/10

No two Reggie Watts shows are ever the same. You never know what will happen next. One minute, it’s an a-cappella croon about fish; the next it’s a 10-minute LCD Soundsystem homage. Wherever you end up, both the journey and the destination are unforgettable. Beyond comedy, beyond music, beyond improv.

10. Bruce Springsteen @ Allphones Arena, 19/2

Every last excess and indulgence was allowed at the arena rock show of both this year and the year before it. How does the Boss do it? Five guitarists – that’s how. Playing Darkness on the Edge of Town in full – that is fucking how. A three-hour show book-ended by show-stopping covers – The Easybeats’ “Friday on My Mind” at the top, Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” at the end – and filled to the brim with just about every E Street classic you could hope for. Y’all come back now, y’hear?

9. Deafheaven @ Oxford Art Factory, 9/1

After dropping the most intense, mystical metal album of 2013, it was only fitting that Deafheaven’s maiden voyage to Australia delivered the most intense, mystical metal show of 2014. Every movement was striking, every sound piercing, every song all-encompassing and breathtaking in their spectrum. Certainly not something that anyone present would be forgetting anytime soon.

8. Lemuria @ Hermann’s Bar, 1/2

Some nights, the stars align. This was one such night – the perfect line-up, the perfect group of friends, the perfect venue. Bringing Lemuria to Australia for the first time was such an exciting prospect for many people who had been charmed by their sweetly-harmonic yet hard-hitting mix of pop-punk and indie-rock over the years. Having the delightful Erica Freas, Pinch Hitter and Kissing Booth all on board made matters even greater, to the point where there was not a face to be seen within a 100-metre radius that wasn’t plastered with a smile. Let’s hope that those stars align again some day soon.

7. Dolly Parton @ Qantas Credit Union Arena, 18/2

There is one guarantee from a Dolly Parton show, and that’s fun. Few entertainers in the world today put on a show as fun as the immortal country star. It’s all glitter and rhinestones and gloriously camp sing-alongs, from “Jolene” to “Islands in the Stream” and a couple of bat-shit covers (“Yakety Sax,” “Shine” by Collective Soul) for good measure. It’s as ridiculous – and as fabulous – as you’d expect. This is Dolly’s world, you’re just living in it.

6. Future Islands @ Oxford Art Factory, 27/7

Ever since that Letterman performance, the weight of expectation has been heavy on the back of Future Islands. It’s not as if it’s anything they couldn’t handle, of course. By the time they arrived in Australia as a part of Splendour in the Grass, they were headed to completely sold-out headlining shows that cemented their reputation as the hottest band in the indie realm. The entire show was a dazzling showcase of what it means to truly believe in your music – it’s hard to find anyone who’ll deliver a performance the way that Samuel T. Herring does. Once that song from that Letterman performance came to life once again, all bets were off.

5. Violent Soho @ Manning Bar, 8, 10 and 11/7

What kind of year was it for Violent Soho? For starters, it was their tenth year together as a band; and also a year following the release of their exceptional Hungry Ghost LP. It was a year they went from hopeful underdogs to the most unstoppable force in the Australian rock climate. It was a year that saw them complete a national tour that completely sold out, even after adding multiple dates. A shift was signalled; and their ascension to the next level was justified. What more can you say about these wild, brawny shows than the band’s own joyful double-expletive – hell fuck yeah.

4. Billy Bragg @ Manning Bar, 18/3

It might have been a classier affair a few days before at the Opera House, but the Bard of Barking was back to basics with his airtight new backing band in tow at this rare club show. The two-hour-plus show found the time to be both tender (“Tank Park Salute,” “California Stars”) and triumphant (“Sexuality,” “To Have and Have Not”); as well as politically charged in the wake of the March in March (“All You Fascists Bound to Lose,” the glorious finale of “Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards”). No matter where Bragg and co. took the mood of the evening, the adoring crowd was there every step of the way. Viva la revolution.

3. Arcade Fire @ Qantas Credit Union Arena, 28/1

Six years separated visits from Arcade Fire, both tied in with appearances atop the bill of the Big Day Out. While last time around had the band in the relatively-intimate surrounds of the Enmore, the years between proverbial drinks were substantially kind to the Canadian collective – to the point where they were comfortably filling out an arena. With support from Diplo, of all fucking people. Yes, Arcade Fire have graduated to being one of the biggest bands in the world – both from a profile-based and numerical perspective. With this grandiose performance came a justification for their elevation – a career-spanning, glittery journey through chamber pop, indie rock, roller disco and INXS (because why not?). One hopes against hope that it’s not another six years before they return, but even if it is they’ll make it worth the wait. They always do.

2. St. Vincent @ Sydney Opera House, 25/5

2014’s Vivid Live line-up brought us a myriad of joyful performances from veterans, newcomers and locals alike. It really was the most magical time of year – each trek from the wharf at Circular Quay guaranteed a wonderful night was in store. The most stunning of them all came in the form of Annie Clark, pop music’s reigning, defending champion of the weird and the wonderful. Last in town for a similarly-unforgettable performance alongside David Byrne, Clark returned focus solely to her name on the back of an exceptional eponymous LP. The set, which saw Clark team with a sharply-choreographed backing band, spiralled and twirled around jagged indie-rock, lush balladry and slow-motion heartbreak. A truly beautiful cacophony that ran the emotional gauntlet and left all in attendance completely gobsmacked. Long live the queen.

1. The National @ Opera House Forecourt, 7/1

You could have taken any single moment of this show and held it up to justify why it was the greatest live experience of the year. Matt Berninger toppling over the crowd, crowdsurfing to “Mr. November.” The band churning out an intense, soul-swallowing “Afraid of Everyone.” A completely-unplugged, all-in “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks.” The list could go on and on. It was a matter of taking in the surrounds – the Opera House behind us, the Harbour Bridge to the east, the sun setting and night-time seeping in – and allowing it to blend into the truly beautiful music on offer from a band truly at their peak from both an artistic and a cultural standpoint. Nothing else could have come close to this show, purely on the basis that there was nothing else like it for the rest of the year.

PHOTO CREDITS:
25. Rachel Tinny, FasterLouder
24. Maria de Vera, Life Music Media
23. Wolter Peeters, Sydney Morning Herald
22. Daniel Boud, Boudist
21. Nick Lalak, Nick Lalak Photography
20. Christian Ross, The 59th Sound
19. Shanti Roy, Lost Through the Lens
18. Nick Lalak, Nick Lalak Photography
17. Nick Lalak, Nick Lalak Photography
16. Clare Hawley, theMusic
15. Mark Metcalfe, Billboard/Getty Images
14. Ashley Mar, The Brag
13. Provided by the venue
12. Aki Ishii, Tokyo Girls Update
11. Noah Kalina, Art Forum (photo not from show)
10. Bradley Hunter, The Daily Telegraph
9. Adam Davis-Powell, Demon Race Productions
8. Andrew Dominguez, Carless Distribution (photo not from show)
7. Richard Dobson, The Daily Telegraph
6. Katrina Clarke, The Brag
5. Toby Taylor, Toby Taylor Photography
4. Courtney Dabb, Push to Fire
3. David Youdell, Reverb Street Press
2. Mark Metcalfe, Zimbio/Getty Images
1. Yaya Stempler, FBi Radio

Top 50 Albums of 2014, Part Five: 10 – 1

Posted on 19/01/2015 by davidjamesyoung in Lists

Hey y’all! Well, how about this, huh? Here be the ten best rekkids of the year done gone past. Huge thanks for seeing through list season with me. Catch y’all next time around!

50 – 41
40 – 31
30 – 21
20 – 11

10. The Gaslight Anthem – Get Hurt
Spotify || Rdio

Life isn’t all blue jeans and white t-shirts. The Gaslight Anthem have finally escaped the small town that almost killed them and have wound up strangers in a strange land on their fifth album. Get Hurt is an exploration through unchartered waters and foreign territory, a much-needed break from the comfort zone that, regardless of the quality of outcome, could well have killed this band had they remained within its confines.

Certainly, it wasn’t as if there was some drastic detour into acid jazz or anything of the sort – after all, as Brian Fallon himself sings at one juncture, “I still love rock & roll/I still call somebody ‘baby.’” There is a stretching of boundaries here, however, that is indicative of a prosperous future beyond nights with the radio and Maryanne. Get Hurt is the sound of Gaslight beginning again.

THREE TOP TRACKS: Stay Vicious, Get Hurt, Break Your Heart.

WATCH:

9. Sia – 1000 Forms of Fear
Spotify || Rdio

Sia Furler, for a time, was the ghost of pop charts past. Her writing credits and, if listening closely, her unmistakable voice, infiltrated dozen of singles from some of the biggest names in the industry. It’s a life that could well have made a sustainable living for the rest of her days. The call of work under her own name, however – on hold for several years at this point – eventually grew too strong.

There were stipulations: No touring, no media campaign, no public appearances. It was a fair compromise, however, when in return we received her greatest LP since 2004’s spotless Colour the Small One. Marrying her intrinsic, introspective songwriting with the sensibilities gained from her double-life in mainstream pop, Fear allowed us to see behind the blonde bob wig. We may not have seen her face all year, but this allowed for something greater – we saw her heart.

THREE TOP TRACKS: Elastic Heart, Big Girls Cry, Chandelier.

WATCH:

8. Die! Die! Die! – S W I M
Spotify || Rdio || Bandcamp

An exercise in irony: The definitive album from a veteran band has its title based on an online acronym for “someone who isn’t me.” Truth be told, this is an album could not have come from any other band – after over a decade sharpening and refining their throttled, scorched-earth take on noise-heavy post-punk, all roads that Die! Die! Die! have travelled have ultimately lead to S W I M’s creation.

It snarls, scratches and seethes through envy, paranoia and disconnect – in other words, it’s a decidedly ugly, ruthlessly aggressive listen. It’s not user-friendly or accessible, of course. Die! Die! Die! have never been as such before. The difference is that they have never sounded so vital and purposeful in the execution of their ideas as they do here and now.

THREE TOP TRACKS: Angel, Get Hit, Out of Mind.

LISTEN:

7. La Dispute – Rooms of the House
Spotify || Rdio || Bandcamp

A house is not a home. That doesn’t mean that it never has been, of course. Finding the house that was once a home – your home – can trigger so many memories, stories, truths and once-faded thoughts. This is conceptually explored – with considerable depth, it must be added – on La Dispute’s third studio album.

The hyper-literacy and Jordan Dreyer’s foreboding poetry that weaved its way through previous releases not only recurs on the album, but arguably latches onto its strongest subject matter to date. Each room sparks something different, allowing the protagonist to reflect on how much has changed since the transition from home to house. It’s often not for the better, but it’s perhaps this that keeps one hanging on every single word. Rooms of the House is a creative work in every sense.

THREE TOP TRACKS: Woman (In Mirror), For Mayor in Splitsville, Stay Happy There.

LISTEN:

6. Pinch Hitter – When Friends Die in Accidents
Spotify || Rdio || Bandcamp

A chance encounter. A dead-end job. A fear of flying. An untimely demise. A sudden realisation. A friend in need. These things, while separate entities from a contextual standpoint, are tangled together in the half-hour-and-change that comprises the debut album from this unexpected team-up.

While many came to know the project from Nick van Breda and Dave Drayton from their live shows – simply two men, two voices and, yes, two banjos – Accidents allows the two to flourish in a wider spectrum. Their musings and noodlings are guided by xylophone (“Nine-to-Fine”), flutes (“All of a Sudden”) and even typewriters (“They Said This Would Stop” – no shit). It’s all tied up with the four-part title track that weaves in and out of the tracklisting – and its final blow is still as devastating long after the first time you hear it.

A folk album without guitar? It’s possible. Anything’s possible. Everything’s matter. Everything matters.

THREE TOP TRACKS: All of a Sudden, Part IV, Nine-to-Fine.

LISTEN:

5. Death From Above 1979 – The Physical World
Spotify || Rdio

Back in a time when the American president was public enemy number one, Kanye West was a debut-album rookie and dance-punk was as legitimate as any rock subgenre, one guitar-less duo ruled over their six-stringed contemporaries with a half-hour of power known as You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine. It was cemented by ear-splitting live shows, instant cult status and an unforgettable performance on Conan with none other than Max Weinberg sitting in.

It would take two short years for everything to fall apart for Death From Above 1979, and that – so we thought – was that. Several contributing factors lead to the band’s eventual reunion, but the most prevalent ended up being unfinished business. Despite becoming quote-unquote “adults” in the time they were apart, there was still an agenda to make loud, visceral and ripsnorting rock & roll.

That’s where The Physcial World comes in – a rarity insofar as being a sequel that not only matches up to its predecessor, but threatens to rival it so often it may well swallow the thing whole. Long live Death.

THREE TOP TRACKS: Right On, Frankenstein!, White is Red, Cheap Talk.

WATCH:

4. Sun Kil Moon – Benji
Spotify || Rdio

Were you told about Benji on paper, one would rightly distance themselves from it as soon as humanly possible. Just think – a late-forties dude mumbling about his parents, his dead uncle, various sexual encounters, James Gandolfini and his home state of Ohio. What could possibly be appealing about that?

It could well be argued that Benji, as an album, succeeds on account of these traits and not in spite of them. Mark Kozelek has been known in the past to allow his simple, sombre style of songwriting and storytelling to uplift ordinary things, places and people into the extraordinary. Jim Wise sounds like an odd, weird dude. On “Jim Wise,” however, he somehow turns into an endlessly-fascinating character. The same can be said of Kozelek’s second cousin, his drummer and even his dear mother (“My mother is 75/She’s the closest friend I have ever had.”) They are – or were, in some cases – just regular people until Sun Kil Moon reels them into his world.

Whether you find him driving to a Postal Service show or tripping out on Led Zeppelin in his younger days, Mark Kozelek somehow makes the cold all the more inviting. Benji is a journey – a long, exhausting and depressing one; but one any self-respecting music fan should take at some point in their lives.

THREE TOP TRACKS: Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes, I Love My Dad, Carissa.

LISTEN:

3. Ben Howard – I Forget Where We Were
Spotify || Rdio

“Has the world gone mad?” opines Ben Howard mere minutes into the first track on his second album, before adding a further line of questioning: “Or is it me?” By the end of I Forget Where We Were, you won’t have an answer. Hell, you won’t even have one after a dozen spins. As it progresses, the album poses far more questions than it provides answers or traces of resolve.

Perhaps it’s this that makes it such an intriguing prospect – from a songwriting perspective, it allows Howard to less scratch below the surface and more dig down as far as humanly possible. Besides bearing his name, precious little else lies on the common ground between Forget and its predecessor – here, we work through varying degrees of light and shade; love and loss; truth and lies. It takes you to points where you fear you may never return – points you feel, as a listener, you may well not be entirely prepared to go.

Herein lies the rich reward of I Forget where We Were. Ben Howard has evolved from being a mere singer-songwriter – here, he has become a journeyman.

THREE TOP TRACKS: End of the Affair, I Forget Where We Were, Conrad.

WATCH:

2. Pianos Become the Teeth – Keep You
Spotify || Rdio || Bandcamp

Ray Charles, an r&b star, once made a country album. Kanye West, a rap phenomenon, once made an album where he sang for its entirety. Radiohead, at one point the most promising prospect in guitar music, once made an album where they barely touched the things. More than once, now you mention it. What is this all leading to? It’s simple, really: The notion that risks should not only be taken, but actively encouraged. Who knows what awaits on the other side? Perhaps true greatness.That’s what happened on Keep You.

Pianos Become the Teeth – an emo band in the true sense, bypassing the mall to arrive at Orchid’s discography – made an album where their harsh screams and dissonant guitars were traded in for what are known in hardcore circles as “clean” vocals and a collective dip into the waters of the indie and post-rock spectrums. It was an all-or-nothing movie – make or break, sink or swim. The Baltimore natives risked everything and won it back tenfold.

Not only is it the finest of their three long-players, it also serves as a shining beacon from their immediate scene – a message to the outer reaches detailing the adventurous versatility at work within it. For an album whose final line is a cry of “Let’s say nothing some more,” Keep You says more in its actions than words ever could.

THREE TOP TRACKS: Repine, April, Old Jaw.

LISTEN:

1. Sleaford Mods – Divide and Exit
Spotify || Rdio || Bandcamp

Around ten years ago, in an interview with NME, Carl Barât was asked his favourite album of the year as part of a generic series of questions asked of several musicians. Barât chose A Grand Don’t Come for Free by The Streets, reasoning that the album was a reflection of England that many may not necessarily want to see or hear about.

This is being brought up a decade on for two core reasons. The first of which is to sound the trumpets to signal the arrival of a new outfit less holding up a mirror to contemporary British society and more smashing said mirror and holding up a jagged shard, just to feel the pain that the pricks of blood bring. The second is admittedly a little more petulant – it’s because the reference and the people and publication which it contains would be immediately be despised by James Williamson, the spoken-word half of Sleaford Mods who barks, grunts, prophesises and spits through every last thing that displeases him.

It’s a cruel, frustrating world in which he lives; one that constantly brands him a fool and a ne’er-do-well when it should be acknowledging him as the smartest guy in the room. “I can’t believe the rich still exist,” he laments within the album’s opening minutes. “Let alone run the fucking country.” It’s said through fuzz and distortion, and yet it lands with all the clarity of being yelled directly into your ear. He may soapbox his way through several tracks (“Liveable Shit,” “Tweet Tweet Tweet”), but certain things slash through a raw nerve. He may seethe at an upper-class acquaintance he’s attempting to manipulate (“I’m a connoisseur!/I’ve conned you, sir!/I just wanked in your toilet!”) but his envy is quick to undo him entirely (“I want a house like this, how do I get it?/It’s beautiful! It’s fucking ridiculous!”).

There are layers of complications, deep-running waters of disarray and the throbbing pain of a hangover following another bottomless night in the sewerage of another disgusting city. Divide and Exit was the sound of the everyman’s demise, the death of the common people and the experiment starting over. Sleaford Mods might not want to change the world, nor is it looking specifically for a new England – and, yet, both are achieved and found, respectively, on Divide and Exit. A voice raised to its heights for years on end has finally shifted to the forefront and being paid the attention it deserves.

THREE TOP TRACKS: You’re Brave, Tied Up in Nottz, Liveable Shit.

LISTEN:

The Top 50 Gigs of 2014, Part One: 50 – 26

Posted on 14/01/201501/02/2015 by davidjamesyoung in Lists

And so this is list season – and what have you done? At the start of 2014, I vowed to see more shows than I did in 2013. How’d I go? Well, 2013’s final count was 193. This year? 206! Suck shit, 2013!

A huge thanks to everyone who I rocked a show with, everyone who provided a couch or a floor when needed, all the great bands and artists, all the awesome venues, staff, crew… everyone that makes my escapades possible. I really fucking appreciate it. Let’s see how we go in 2015! Here are the best things I saw in 2014. Were you there?

– DJY, January 2015

HONOURABLE MENTIONS: The Living End, Anberlin, Fat Guy Wears Mystic Wolf Shirt, Jimmy Eat World, High Tension, Full of Hell, Cakes Da Killa, Bob Log III, Inner Fest, John Mayer, The Julie Ruin, Frightened Rabbit, Basement, Soundwave, Ty Segall, Savages, Fishing.

50. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard @ Oxford Art Factory, 11/12

Two albums, endless touring, more jams kicked out than an army of MC5s… 2014 was yet another wonderful time in the wild, weird world of Australia’s most psyched-out septet. It ended not with a whimper, but with a bong – sorry, bang – and we were better people for it.

49. Miley Cyrus @ Allphones Arena, 17/10

You know that scene in Shrek where they’re at the information booth and they see the weird puppet show and Donkey says, after a confused beat, “Wow… let’s do that again!”? That was this show. The year’s most bizarre pop gig, as well as its guiltiest pleasure.

48. Donny Benet @ Brighton Up Bar, 10/10

Suits, synthesizers and the sharpest pop this side of Sydney – that’s Donny Benet. He and his all-star band lead a packed, sweaty room through a guided tour of his latest, Weekend at Donny’s. Besides all that, it was worth the ticket price just to watch Jack Ladder play cowbell.

47. Hard-Ons @ Manning Bar, 7/6

30 years ago, some brats from Western Sydney made their punk-rock dreams come true. 30 years later, they’re keeping the dream alive – and we, the crusty, screaming masses, are still along for the ride. Bonus points for a scorching set from Cosmic Psychos as a Sydney treat. Fuck yeah.

46. Wil Wagner @ Newtown Social Club, 29/8

Months before Throw Me in the River was out in the world, the Smithies’ fearless leader lead a sold-out room through some of its highlights; as well as enough old favourites to sing the night away to. A relatively-quiet moment from an artist who made lots of noise in 2014.

45. Violent Femmes @ Sydney Opera House, 29/12

Do you like American music? We like American music – especially when it’s from a legendary cult folk-rock band making their debut at one of the most iconic venues in the world. A self-titled LP run-through, a two-hour setlist, a bitchin’ drum solo… we like American music best, baby.

44. Bruno Mars @ Qantas Credit Union Arena, 8/3

Make what you will of his various recorded endeavours. Live, this motherfucker is untouchable. A spotless live band and blistering choreography guaranteed a venue full of arses out of their seats; wiggling until they could wiggle no more. Remember: This is Bruno’s world – y’all are just living in it.

43. Neko Case @ Sydney Opera House, 3/3

Before she returned to the world of The New Pornographers, Case wrapped touring on the back of her excellent The Worse Things Get LP with a run of dates down under. We laughed (Case and Kelly Hogan’s banter), we cried (a pin-drop “Nearly Midnight”) and we sang (“Man”). Joyous.

42. La Dispute @ Metro Theatre, 18/6

As long as La Dispute keep coming back to Australia, they’ll continue to serve as a highlight of the year in touring. Not only do they continue to bring exceptional supports – in this instance, Balance and Composure – but they’ve completely justified their progression from basement shows to theatres.

41. James Vincent McMorrow @ Sydney Opera House, 29/5

He began the year with the release of an out-of-nowhere LP and sold-out Australian shows to back it. His return some months later felt like a victory lap; and despite some clear nerves, the charming Irishman was quick to make the lush surrounds of the concert hall his very own.

40. Future of the Left @ Factory Theatre, 3/1

The demise of the Annandale could have ruined their return plans, but Falco and his Futuristic friends pressed on in new surrounds and carried on business as usual. For those that don’t know, hilarious banter and wild breakneck post-punk is business – and business is good. Fuck the Annandale, man.

39. Laneway Festival @ RNA Showgrounds, 31/1

Turns out Brisbane does more than just bitch about the tours they don’t get – they do a pretty decent festival when they put their mind to it. Highlights included the intense Savages and a hip-hop triple-threat to see the night out: Danny Brown, Run the Jewels and Earl Sweatshirt.

38. Courtney Barnett @ Goodgod Small Club, 18/1

Before Fallon, Glastonbury and whatever other fortunes came her way in 2014, everyone’s mate Courtney Barnett turned the club surrounds of Goodgod into a boot-scooting indie-kid haven. Expect her to play rooms ten times the size in the year to come. Don’t say you weren’t warned, now. She’s earned it.

37. The Smith Street Band @ Factory Theatre, 24/11

As great, extremely loud and incredibly close those early Smith Street shows were, we’re on a bigger – and, arguably, better – scale. As they edge ever closer to being our best live act, the voices singing back are getting louder. Shows like this prove why that’s a good thing.

36. Kimbra @ Metro Theatre, 20/11

The Golden Echo wasn’t for everyone, and that’s totally fine. It was never going to be. Her live show, however, remains as flashy and exciting as it did when you first saw it. Not all that glitters is gold – but some of it is. That’s why Kimbra still rules.

35. Yes I’m Leaving @ Beatdisc Records, 8/11

Broken strings, dodgy amps, awkward pauses – potentially a recipe for disaster. Instead, we got the little rock show that could – shit got loud and shit got wild. It ended with the band piling both their instruments and themselves on top of the drum-kit. Because of course it did.

34. Outright @ Jura Books, 11/10

The most important band in Australian hardcore right now assembled an A-team of supports – Palmar Grasp, Canine, Family Values – and raised nearly $1500 for victims of rape and domestic violence. To every other band on the scene: THAT’S how you make a difference. Outright, again, lead by example.

33. Kevin Devine @ Newtown Social Club, 16/11

In the haze of the early Sunday evening, a waif-thin and unassuming figure was singing and playing guitar in Sydney’s inner-west. The only difference was the figure in question was a folk hero of sorts, surrounded by adoring admirers that knew every word to every song. Please be back soon.

32. Bluejuice @ Metro Theatre, 26/10

It’s so hard to say goodbye sometimes – especially when you’re dancing, screaming, shouting and getting a cheeky crowdsurf in edgeways. Less a funeral and more a celebratory memorial service, Bluejuice ended in style. Special mention to Jake Stone for the ballsiest dive the Metro may have ever seen. God-damn.

31. Bob Dylan @ State Theatre, 4/9

It ain’t the 60s anymore, kids. As soon as you comprehend that, then and only then will you be able to properly enjoy a modern-day Dylan show. It’s still grand in scale and as entertaining as before, just in a different context. So, how does it feel? Pretty good, actually.

30. tUnE-yArDs @ Oxford Art Factory, 28/7

The dust had barely settled from Splendour in the Grass when Merrill Garbus and her amazing technicolour band rolled into town for some sideshow action. Nikki Nack was pristinely brought to life, while old favourites still had all the stomp from their original runs. You are doing God’s work, Merrill.

29. RVIVR @ Monster Mouse Studios, 7/4

There used to be graffiti in the toilets at Black Wire that read “Queer punx rule this town.” Shows like this prove why – in an awesome space, Erica Freas and co. had fists and voices raised as high as the collective spirit in the room. DIY or GTFO.

28. QOTSA/NIN @ Qantas Credit Union Arena, 6/3

A tour that was quite literally the envy of the rest of the world – two of the biggest names in the last twenty years of rock head-to-head in a co-headlining battle for arena-rock glory. There was blood, sweat, tears and hits for days. Who won? We all fucking did.

27. The Weekender @ Various Venues, 21-24/8

It’s never not going to be a highlight of the calendar. You come for impeccable company, you stay for the dozens of exceptional bands and then life goes on as normal; while everyone not-so-secretly counts down until we get to do it all over again. Poison City for life, baby!

26. Something for Kate @ Enmore Theatre, 12/7

Whether you were down from day one or day one thousand, Something for Kate have made an impact on countless music fans in 20 years. This blockbuster set – the biggest show the band have ever headlined in Sydney – was presented as a thank-you. The pleasure was all ours.

***

Check back soon for part two!

PHOTO CREDITS:
50. Provided by the band via Facebook.
49. Mark Metcalfe, Getty Images AsiaPac.
48. Munya Chaora, TheMusic
47. Kristy Wandle, TheMusic
46. Angela Padovan, TheMusic
45. Diabolique Photography, TheMusic
44. Glenn Pokorny, PK Productions/the AU review
43. Wayne Massingham via Flickr
42. Fletcher Crebert, All Ages Concerts
41. Megan Carew, FBi Radio
40. Dan Turner, the AU review
39. Rickford, FasterLouder
38. Sabina Rysnik, the AU review
37. Hayden Nixon, wickeddchildd
36. Ashley Mar, The BRAG
35. ZK Photo
34. Provided by the band via Facebook.
33. Annette Geneva via Flickr
32. Maria de Vera, Life Music Media
31. Erin Rooney, Vinyl Garden
30. Angela Padovan, TheMusic
29. “le maroufle” via YouTube (photo not from show)
28. Jakob de Zwart, Take 40
27. Ian Laidlaw, Beat Magazine
26. Clare Hawley, TheMusic

The Top 100 Songs of 2014, Part Five: 20 – 1

Posted on 05/01/201505/01/2015 by davidjamesyoung in Lists

201420

This, friends, is my first post for 2015 and it’s also where I leave you with yet another list – the ninth overall that I’ve made documenting my top 100 songs of the year. Before I send you off, make sure you’ve caught up on parts one through four:

100 – 81
80 – 61
60 – 41
40 – 21

You all sorted there? Awesome. Hey, thank you so much for reading through and checking this all out. Thanks to my friends, fellow writers and all the bands and artists that feature here. Quite figuratively couldn’t have done it without you all. Same time next year, yeah?

***

20. Bleachers – I Wanna Get Better

Jack Antonoff is the kind of guy that could easily be seen as cool by association – he’s one-third of indie darlings cum chart-crushers fun., as well as longtime partner of Gen Y superstar Lena Dunham. Don’t let this context misconstrue him at all, however: He has absolutely no issue with holding his own. Look at this breakout smash, which sees Antonoff take the reins of a stuttered piano sample, arena-rock guitar and a chock-a-block chorus that almost threatens to cave in on itself before reinforcing its foundations. An anthem for overcoming odds and being the damn best you can be.

19. Ted Danson with Wolves – Bohemian (I Don’t) Like You

Maybe vocalist/saxophonist Nick Levy paid way too much attention in his high-school science classes. Maybe it was the result of a parental sex talk gone wrong. Hell, the guy could just well have a remarkable imagination matched with a witty sense of humour. It really is anyone’s guess when it comes to uncovering exactly how “Bohemian” came to be created. Whatever the case, the world is certainly a better place for its existence; as is a particular season that also serves as the song’s triumphantly-screamed opening word. Sex, nature and The Dandy Warhols. What more could you ask for, really?

18. The Smith Street Band – Surrender

For someone like Wil Wagner, singing a line like “I’m not from around here” is a shockingly confessional change from a guy who has centred entire songs – nay, entire releases – around singular and familiar surroundings. “Surrender” comes somewhere between Show A and Show B, off the proverbial beaten track and directly into the fire. It brims with the brightness of the band’s sun-kissed guitars and the energy of Chris Cowburn’s impeccably-syncopated drum fills; and feels like home even though it’s approximately 1062 kilometres away. That’s the magic of The Smith Street Band for you, of course. Long may they run.

17. Slipknot – The Devil in I

“Where is your will, my friend?” As the words escape Corey Taylor’s mouth, atop shimmering guitar noise and gentle cymbal rushes, the line has conviction in its execution that very explicitly points toward its questioning being directed inward more than anything else. Indeed, introspect and open-wound pain are what guide “Devil,” which sports all the definitive traits of a classic within the band’s extensive repertoire. It marches along dutifully, playing to both the band’s knack for creating space and their knack for tearing it apart. Much like those bogan car stickers, “The Devil in I” justifies Slipknot’s existence. Step inside.

16. Pianos Become the Teeth – Repine

There is a true weariness in “Repine,” which ostensibly serves as the centrepiece of the script-flipping Keep You record. It’s the clearest in the pained, aching vocals, but it weaves its way through the bristling guitar patterns and the emphatic thud of the verses’ half-speed drum flams. A beacon of light peers through in the song’s refrain, in a manner befitting a crack in the roofing allowing for a ray of sunlight to emerge from the darkness. “Your wick won’t burn away,” it chants. It’s a hope against hope, and one prays that it resonates with the truth. Somehow. Someway.

15. Ben Howard – I Forget Where We Were

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is confusing, distracting, disorienting. Love is winter, spring, summer and fall. Love is an artist’s entire body of work; and it’s a single word from a single line in a single song, poem or story. Love is everywhere and nowhere. Love is in every tear shed – out of happiness, out of sadness, out of anger. Love never runs on time. Love leads through the quietest places on earth through to the most crowded streets. Love is what you make it. With this in mind, “I Forget Where We Were” is a love song.

14. Babaganouj – Bluff

For a song with roughly a dozen lines of lyrics in it, as well as falling just shy of the three-minute mark, “Bluff” manages to achieve a remarkable amount. It’s practically equivalent to that biblical miracle of feeding five thousand people with merely a loaf of bread and some fish. So what gets it over the line? It appears to stem from bassist Hariette Pilbeam, venting over a once-hopeful relationship transmogrified into cyclical torture. The ultimate release that comes with her final vocal delivery indicates the song is just as much for her as it is the rest of us.

13. Georgia Maq – Footscray Station

There’s no filter to Georgia Macdonald. You simply cannot take what she does and switch it on and off. It’s a major discredit to one of this country’s most promising songwriters to suggest otherwise. This song is what one should point towards to validate the aforementioned claim of excellence: A ragged, honest waltz through lower-middle class life that also detours through mental health woes and fearless political shaming. Just know that some people will spend their entire lives waiting to write a song that amounts to even half the quality of “Footscray Station.” They will try and they will fail.

12. Young Fathers – Get Up

A lot has gone into the genetic makeup of this song. Its titular phrase has been reconceptualised by everyone from Bob Marley to R.E.M., while it also incorporates a very specific handclap pattern best known for its use in The Routers’ single “Let’s Go.” Lyrically, it drops into heaven and earth, Orwellian dystopia, revolution and debaucherous lifestyles. When it collectively shifts into its final form, however, “Get Up” belongs to Young Fathers and Young Fathers only. When the line of “You lose/I win” drops from out of nowhere, it may as well be a message – a warning – to their peers.

11. The Kite String Tangle – Arcadia

Björk once famously sang that “If you complain once more, you’ll meet an army of me.” On “Arcadia,” Danny Harley actualises it, although his admittedly feels somewhat less threatening than that of the Icelandic nymph’s. The song comes at a breaking point, where both parties have found no way out and past the point of return. It is guided by Harley’s private strikeforce of close harmony, wordless refrain and warm, lushly-painted arrangements. Rarely has the light at the end of the tunnel shone so brightly than within the confines of “Arcadia.” Here begins the true ascension to complete pop magnificence.

10. Ben Howard – End of the Affair

Perhaps subtle is an odd term to transfix upon a song that quite figuratively lays out its explicit subject matter within its title. Yet, the grace of Ben Howard as both an understated vocalist and a truly prodigious guitar player allows for a quiet, focused stare into the demise. At least, it remains so for the song’s first half. When jazz brushes slip their way into the arrangement, the hunt is on.

Howard himself goes from keeping his cool to throwing it out the window with sharp, pained howls that emerge from the darkest corners of his being. “Affair” is an exhausting, treacherous journey. One must come prepared, certainly, but one must come along for it. There’s not an option otherwise.

9. Yoke – Burden

My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

– Matthew 11:28

Opening an uplifting, higher-plane post-pop number with the line “I’m miserable” is a beguiling paradox to begin with. Let’s push that out further from a contextual standpoint by pointing out that some of the smartest, most textured and accomplished pop music to emerge from Australia within the calendar year came from a former marketed teen star in Kyle Linahan; some ten years and change removed from his only charting single.

If that wasn’t enough, perhaps the most hated band of the year in U2 serves as a template-setter for the steely guitar work, reappropriating their influential stature. “Burden” may feel baffling in a way, but it’s an indelibly-marked foray into bright contrasts and big-city dreaming. Against all odds, it works. Take a look at it now.

8. The New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers

There was no gentle breaking of the news that The New Pornographers were to return after a four-year absence, nor was there any mistaking exactly who it was busting down 2014’s doors with its major-chord slams, sprightly drums and wholly-triumphant “baa-baa-baa”s. They may be fifteen years into the game and trudging through their collective mid-forties, but there is no rust in the wheels for the Pornos.

It’s worth noting that “Brill Bruisers” served as their sixth album’s lead single, opening number and title track. It’s a pretty big deal to throw a triple-threat like that out into the world, something that needs to have a steady amount of confidence in its DNA in order to survive. Not only did “Bruisers” do just that, it flourished. Life’s only certainties are death, taxes and The New Pornographers making everything okay again.

7. Oslow – Blue on Blue

Oslow are the sound of Sydney. Not the Sydney that you may be accustomed to, of course, but theirs is the in sound from way out. Theirs are the friendly faces that both sift through the racks and plug in their amps at Black Wire and Beatdisc Records. They soundtrack carelessly-wasted days and long nights in both the inner and outer western suburbia.

They reflect a dissonance and greater dissatisfaction, but approach it with honesty and resolve rather than melodrama or superfluous subversion. “Blue on Blue,” much like “Desert Dog Rd.” before it, is a proud product of its environment. Oslow are the sound. Raise up your hands and sing along.

6. Cloud Nothings – I’m Not Part of Me

It’s easy to forget how young Dylan Baldi is. In spite of the very markedly clear leaps and bounds his project has taken in the last few years, the project’s origins stem from when he was barely out of high school. In turn, lyrics such as “I’m learning how to be here and nowhere else/How to focus on what I can do myself” begin to paint a clearer picture when one is reminded of the immediate fact. We’re still witnessing a work in progress when it comes to the young man behind the music.

It’s also easy to forget that Cloud Nothings officially became a trio in 2014, losing their lead guitarist and not seeking a replacement. There is enough activity within “I’m Not Part of Me”’s musical structure that there is easily enough work cut out for two guitars. The fact it’s all achieved by Baldi in the one go simply adds to the seemingly-endless fascination that he inspires as a creative force in the indie rock realm. The enigma develops and work continues.

5. TV on the Radio – Happy Idiot

As lyricists, TV on the Radio have been known to draw from the abstract to convey their point. Perhaps their best-known song contains a metaphor for sex using the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Earlier in their career, they spoke a loving relationship using the shocking imagery that came with the unforgettable line “I will be your ambulance/If you will be my accident.” Fast forward to present day, however, and they’re done beating around the bush.

“Since you left me, babe/It’s been a long way down” is a line seemingly straight out of the earliest development of blues; “I’m gonna bang my head through the wall/’Til I feel like nothing at all” is about as bluntly forthright as a lyric can possibly be. These, as well as a wall’s worth of quotable phrases and lyrics, are painted over churning bass, warped vocal samples and an incessant hi-hat and snare pattern. It’s more or less a new perspective to take the band’s ideas and symbolism from. It’s a different kind of different. It’s waving at cars. It’s numbed pain and new beginnings.

4. tUnE-yArDs – Water Fountain

You can argue all you wish, but as far as 2011 was concerned, its defining musical moment came from a wide-eyed, floor-tom-wielding woman covered in bizarre make-up and neon flare, screaming the big rhetorical question of “WHAT’S THE BIZNESS, YEAHHHHHHHH?” It was here that the project of Merrill Garbus properly shed its lo-fi, relatively-quiet skin and rebirthed into a widescreen procession of avant-garde indie-pop.

We pick up more or less where that single left off with “Water Fountain,” where we’ve been lead through a pathway of school-girl handclapping games, tinkling percussion and the wandering basslines of Nate Brenner, the project’s secret weapon.

Garbus finds the most obtuse angles in her surroundings and seeks them out for both her melodic and lyrical approach, exploring to depths that a lesser performer would outright fear. Every song feels like an adventure when you’re with tUnE-yArDs, and it’s always worth your while to let it get you off the damn couch and dancing with reckless abandon. “Water Fountain” has got you all in check. Woo-hah!

3. Hockey Dad – I Need a Woman

Make all the jokes you please about the collective ages of Hockey Dad contrasted with singing about women instead of girls. Let us not forget the teachings of our saviour Prince: “Women, not girls, they rule my world.”

Besides, who has time to deal with semantics when we’re dealing with the single most delectable slice of indie rock to emerge from Australia in the entire year? Guided by the production finesse of Big Scary’s Tom Iansek, “Woman” was the first time most were properly acquainted with the Windang natives (make your own Computer Town Australia references in your own time, locals).

It left a thoroughly lasting impression, spreading far beyond the initial reaches of the so-called leisure coast – and why not? You’ve seen, you’ve heard and you know by now, surely. It’s all bright blues and hazy greens, with an Instagram filter for a millennial twist and that extra tang. It’s a joy to listen to, every single time.

2. Sleaford Mods – Tied Up in Nottz

It’s more than that.

It’s more than the single best opening line on any song to be released at all in 2014 – and perhaps this entire decade. It’s more than the z (“zed, you cunt”) in the song title.

It’s more than the vitriolic poetry tagged all over its pulsing post-punk rhythm section, equal parts “Chickentown” and Original Pirate Material. It’s more than underclass war, seedy city underbellies and breakfast-cereal analogies for the collective unconscious (“Fucking shredded-wheat Kellogg’s cunts!”).

It’s more than a repulsive, kneejerk response to a tepid, predictable popscene. It’s not even the debate over whether miscrediting “The Final Countdown” to fucking Journey instead of fucking Europe was an intentional move or not.

This? This is what you need to hear.

It’s not what you want to hear, oh no.

If Sleaford Mods have anything in greater doubt about you, it’s your truth-handling abilities. They’ll make Jack Nicholson look like Mother fucking Teresa once they’re done with you. This is simply the home truths that have to be hit.

There could be endless fuck-about picking out more of the laureate lyricism of “Nottz,” but the only one that has to stick is this: “We are REAL.”

1. Future Islands – Seasons (Waiting on You)

By now, you have arrived to this part of the list, seen the above song title and video and immediately had this reaction.

It’s understandable and forgivable. But a copout? Absolutely no way.

There was never any question as to where this song would end up – not just here, but on countless similar lists looking back at both individual and collective preferences. “Seasons” transcended that. Our lists may as well have been referred to as “The Best 99 Songs of The Year That Weren’t Seasons.”

Those that heard it knew immediately. Those that saw it on that performance during what was to be David Letterman’s last full year on air knew immediately. Christ, Letterman himself knew immediately. It was more than just a shaken hand and a throw to Craig Ferguson when it ended – he grabbed Samuel T. Herring, still an unruly mess of sweat and passion, and offered up one of the year’s best quotes: “I’ll take all of that you got!”

He wasn’t just speaking on behalf of himself that night. He saw something greater in what was offered up that night. A band four albums into their career became the best newcomers of the year. A star was born. A song already full of life was somehow reaffirmed.Perhaps most importantly however, the broken heart that dangles on the song’s lyrical precipice was sewn back together.

The love grew bigger and bigger until it encapsulated radio, the blogosphere, endless parties and every last essential playlist. This was a song to centre one’s entire universe around.

This song wasn’t just the finest to be released in this year – this song was this year.

This was dancing in the face of fear.

Dancing to the end.

Dancing like no-one was watching.

Except everybody was – for they were doing just the same.

***

Tracks by female artists (artist/featured artist/vocalist is female): 26.

Tracks by Australian artists: 38.

Oldest person on the list: “Weird Al” Yankovic, 54 at the time of recording.

Youngest person on the list: Hockey Dad’s Billy Fleming, 17 at the time of recording.

Multiple entries:

Angus & Julia Stone (94, 90), Hockey Dad (87, 56, 3), The New Pornographers (77, 8), Death From Above 1979 (71, 60, 30), Future Islands (70, 1), Slipknot (68, 18), Oslow (63, 7), TV on the Radio (62, 5), Coldplay (59, 27), Georgia Maq (57, 13), DZ Deathrays (50, 24), The Kite String Tangle (38, 11), Babaganouj (35, 14), Ben Howard (33, 15, 10), Yoke (25, 9).

And, once again, feel free to download the podcast version of this final part. You can do that by clicking here. It’s free, y’know!

Thanks so much.

The Top 100 Songs of 2014, Part Four: 40 – 21

Posted on 31/12/201428/09/2015 by davidjamesyoung in Uncategorized

We’re so close! Parts one, two and three… missed ’em? Not to worry? You can revisit them here, here and here. Let’s get down to some top 40 pop hits. Starting now.

***

40. Fucked Up feat. J Mascis – Led By Hand

Here’s a strange proposition: The best Dinosaur Jr. song of the year did have J Mascis in it, but it wasn’t by Dinosaur Jr. In a standout moment from their exceptional Glass Boys LP, Pink Eyes and co. paid homage to proto-grunge wigouts while still maintaining their hardcore punk roots. There was perhaps no greater yin-and-yang in the year than when Mascis mumbled the song’s chorus as Pink Eyes let out a Roger Daltrey-worthy “YEAH!” atop of it. An unlikely pairing on paper, “Led by Hand” had everything making a whole lotta sense quite quickly. Follow it around.

39. St. Vincent – Digital Witness

What did Annie Clark learn from her time making music with David Byrne? Two major things. The first: Horns. They’re a weapon. Use them wisely. The second: Is something categorically weird in your song? Make it weirder. Taking this on board, “Digital Witness” is one of her finest tracks to date. Whether it was the spiralling pre-chorus melody, the stinging guitar wail or that all-encompassing hook, it was nigh-on impossible to deny the resonance of this rebirth. During one of the song’s many earworms, Clark boldly states “I want all of your mind.” You got it. Anything else?

38. The Kite String Tangle – Words

We’re still learning a lot about Danny Harley, the prodigious figurehead behind Brisbane bedroom phenomena The Kite String Tangle. Tracks like “Words” allowed us as listeners to edge slightly closer in this regard, and it was something to be extremely thankful for. A restrained exploration of post-dubstep balladry, Harley shrouds himself in light-and-shade contrasts, gently coaxing out confessional lyrics as distant lights flicker and glow on the outskirts. It shouldn’t add up that such depth and maturity has been achieved at such an early stage, but one would suppose The Kite String Tangle has always been against the odds.

37. Jane Tyrrell – The Rush

Lovers can fall hard and fast for one another, but where does one find oneself when fire turns to ice? It’s a complicated subject, and one that Tyrrell details with an outsider’s eye and an insider’s mind. She may have set up two characters in the song, but it’s safe to say that she sees more than just herself within them. Driven masterfully by the unmistakable drumming of PVT’s Laurence Pike, there are soaring highs and crushing lows that weave through the song’s relatively-short runtime. Tyrrell sees us through to the bitter end. It’s not like it’s her first time.

36. Ken Stringfellow – Kids Don’t Follow

If any song is stretching the friendship for its inclusion in a 2014 list, it’s surely this: A cover of a Replacements song from the 80s that was recorded in 2004 for a tribute album to the aforementioned college-rock legends that ultimately never came to be. This hazy barroom take on the anti-authoritative punk number came from acclaimed Posies and R.E.M. alum Ken Stringfellow; and collected dust until the release of a rarities compilation at the beginning of 2014. So, here we are. You best believe this sucker was worth uncovering. A smart, somewhat-sombre reworking from a truly underrated craftsman.

35. Babaganouj – Too Late for Love

Go Violets didn’t fade away, they burnt out. Their embers remain flickering within Brisbane’s still-thriving indie-pop village, as two of its members have resumed full-time positions in this little jangly garage outfit that could. “Too Late for Love” may have been born in the sunshine state, but it’s more European in flavour – there’s a strong dose of Camera Obscura, a hint of The Wannadies and sprinklings of Belle and Sebastian’s early work. None of this is said to deride the song, of course. It’s a reflection on how it immediately feels like home. May this band burn longer and brighter.

34. Kelis – Breakfast

Her milkshake brought all the boys to the yard, but what happens when one of those boys sticks around? Now in her thirties, Kelis is exploring the concept of finding love in wake of divorce. It’s quite an adult prospect, recurring on perhaps her most mature LP to date, Food. Many went with a helping of “Jerk Ribs” when asked to name the album’s standout, but it would be foolhardy to dismiss this triumphantly horn-laden take on neo-soul, complete with stunning chorus and adorable children’s backing vocals. Much like in life, “Breakfast” is the most important meal of the day.

33. Ben Howard – Conrad

A lot of pitch-black darkness took up Ben Howard’s second album – hell, it even took up most of the cover art. Positioned towards its latter half, “Conrad” allowed the LP to let a glimmer of light into the spectrum. It continues to look at where a past love went awry; and yet the song plays to the pop sensibilities that rewarded Howard such attention to begin with. Its shipmates are his exceptional guitar work, layered to the point of being a battalion front; as well as a hummed refrain that would even garner due respect from the Crash Test Dummies.

32. Luca Brasi – Borders and Statelines

Luca Brasi’s dues have been paid in full and with interest; and many within Australia’s punk community have spent the last few years in particular wondering as to when it would be their time. It was answered not with words, but an extremely loud action. The forceful, crashing drums, the stellar twin-guitar attack and the rousing, spirited chorus they always had in them… “Borders and Statelines,” contrary to its lyrics, will come to define this band in the very best way imaginable. There is a wolf in the throne room, and its name is Luca Brasi. There will be blood.

31. Swans – Oxygen

2014 saw Michael Gira turn 60 years old. He continues to haunt the realm of alternative/avant-garde music after thirty-plus years in the game with unfinished business. Amid an exhausting two-hour-plus release – the double-LP To Be Kind – came this truly terrifying beast. “Oxygen,” already a live favourite, can now officially stand as one of the biggest, boldest compositions to ever come out under the Swans moniker upon its long-awaited recording. Its opening moments are spent picking out one of the year’s most distinctive basslines; its dying moments forcefully hurls everything it has built up into the inferno. The in-between is unforgettable.

30. Death From Above 1979 – Right On, Frankenstein!

Yes, the most hyped new rock band of the year may well have been a bass-and-drums duo; but a vengeful return from the very band that made it cool in the first place made sure we all knew whose yard we were stepping into. “Frankenstein” fires off on all cylinders from its opening seconds, pounding through a barnstorming, breakneck dose of rock & roll that exists purely on Keeler and Grainger’s terms. Plus, it’s gotta be the best false ending to a song from this year: The dust settles, the bass rings out… then, POW! Right in the kisser!

29. Bertie Blackman – Run for Your Life

Another new Bertie Blackman album means another new Bertie Blackman. From the days of her favourite jeans to her flirtations with electronica on later releases, the chameleonic Blackman has rarely allowed herself to get too comfortable within a particular style in her decade-and-change of songwriting. “Run for Your Life” is no exception to this, although it would be wise to suggest she spend a little more time in this specific corner. She sounds right at home with the gated snare, thickly-layered synthesizers and the whoah-oh’d call and response. She may well have just stumbled across her own pop paradise.

28. Kiesza – Hideaway

Fred Armisen may have sung that the dream of the 90s was alive in Portland, but his radar was a little off. The dream of the 90s, friends, is alive in Kiesza, a twenty-something Canadian up-and-comer who dominated dancefloors throughout the entire year with this certified banger in her arsenal. From a crafting perspective, “Hideaway” is retro in the sense that it can appreciate that there was a “What is Love” and a “Rhythm of the Night” for every “Teen Spirit” and “Black Hole Sun.” Its spirit is alive and shuffling once again. Mash it.

27. Coldplay – Magic

In the year that the phrase “consciously uncoupling” entered the cultural lexicon, you could well have been forgiven for forgetting that Chris Martin actually made music this year. Sure, some people would like to forget it altogether, but that’s another story for another time. We’re here to talk about “Magic,” a single that allowed Martin and co. to recall the pop simplicity of their early days while connecting it to the fresh pain of a then-recent separation. If “Magic” proves anything, it’s that we can begin again. That, and Chris Martin can still write a bloody tune.

26. Tkay Maidza – U-Huh

Don’t let Tkay Maidza’s age fool you, nor the simplicity of her big-business single. MCs twice her age would kill for a flow so tightly syncopated, hooks this high in both quality and quantity and a beat as bright and boisterous as the one that fills the spaces of “U-Huh.” There are constant surprises around every corner in the current Australian musical climate; and Maidza is the latest to make a substantial impact. One hopes the fire spat here leads to a phenomenal debut LP next year. After all, as she puts it, “We don’t tolerate broke behaviour.”

25. Yoke – Jabiluka

A phrase as simple as “I never told her” is what centres itself thematically at the core of “Jabiluka,” so named after a mine in the Northern Territory of Australia. Each time it is uttered, there are further layers peeled back to reveal the pain, the regret and the loss that comes with delivering such a line. It’s conveyed emphatically, almost taking on new meaning with every repetition. Similarly, the song itself may externally feel like a Dev Hynes-flavoured slice of downtempo indie-pop, but further listening will see those very same layers revealing. A smart yet complicated song.

24. DZ Deathrays – Reflective Skull

Who gives a fuck about how many notes you can play? If you can play the right ones, in the right succession, you needn’t worry about a single thing more. The riff that “Reflective Skull” lives and dies by was not designed for any greater intellectual pursuit. It’s a primitive headbanger, locked into an undeniable stomping groove and launched forth with reckless abandon. Ironically enough, with its less-than-more approach, this could be one of the biggest sounding tracks that the Deathrays duo have ever put their collective name to. Altogether, now: DUN, DUN-DUN, DUN DUN DUN-DUN, DEWWWW DEWWWW DEWWWW.

23. Sia – Chandelier

Ten years removed from her previous signature song, the inimitable “Breath Me,” Sia Furler has penned herself a new standard; an anthem which will forever define her as one of not only Australia’s greatest singer-songwriter exports, but as a true mastermind behind pop music in the 21^st century. Hyperbole? For Christ’s sake, go listen to that chorus again. Seriously. It feels like that Maxell ad campaign where the guy is being blown away by the sound in his chair. Maddie Ziegler may have given the song a second life, but it was all a part of Sia’s grander plan.

22. The Gaslight Anthem – Get Hurt

Don’t call it a comeback. Don’t even call it a reinvention. What we are seeing here is Brian Fallon and co. going out on a proverbial limb, gazing forlornly at what lies beyond. In leaving their comfort zone and exploring the possibilities of slower, more refined songwriting, Gaslight have undertaken a greater journey all with a single step. The title track from their latest record also served as one of their most striking, honest songs ever put to wax. It’s murmurs and whispers from a band defined by their shouts and screams, and it makes for a remarkable listening experience.

21. Tiny Ruins – Me at the Museum, You in the Wintergardens

The single greatest ode to love in 2014 came from the humble, warm abode of Auckland; where you’ll find the quaint, gorgeously understated sounds of one Hollie Fullbrook on the wind. The story is simply told, beautifully painted and pristinely arranged, as we follow the scent of young love through two uniquely different workplaces that somehow not only complement on another, but serve as a reflection on the resolute power that can come through finding love. Its greatest achievement, however, is its ability to accomplish all of this majesty in a decidedly slim 155 seconds. It just comes and goes.

***

20 – 1

The Top 100 Songs of 2014, Part Three: 60 – 41

Posted on 23/12/201428/09/2015 by davidjamesyoung in Lists

Crossing over to the halfway point. Let’s press on: Heartbreakers, headbangers and happy happy happy awaits you, dear reader! If you missed out, parts one and two are available to catch up on here and here. On with the show…

***

60. Death From Above 1979 – Cheap Talk

So, you haven’t been around for ten years. There’s a whole bunch of kids who weren’t paying attention or were simply too young the first time around. You got a lot of people waiting for you to kick down that door. What’s your game plan for returning to the party? Does it involve pummelling drums, enough bass to satisfy Meghan Trainor’s entire family and just enough cowbell to keep Bruce “Cock of the Walk” Dickinson away from a fever? If so, congratulations: You’re Death From Above 1979! Furthermore: Congratulations! You’re responsible for one of the flat-out best opening tracks of 2014.

59. Coldplay – Midnight

For a band so oft-derided for being complacent and predictable, perhaps not even the band’s fiercest detractors could have seen a track like this coming. Chris Martin is barely recognisable as he shrouds his voice in both rarely-touched-upon falsetto and layers of deep-set vocoder. The rest of the band delve into perhaps their most electronic foray to date, keeping the song moving along like clockwork – or, given the circumstances, like Kraftwerk. Although it didn’t blow up radio like “Stars” or “Magic” did, the fact it was never intended to proves that these giants can still see a bigger picture.

58. Sam Smith – Stay with Me

You know how we all wondered how Adele’s ex-boyfriend felt after hearing 21? We pretty much just did the exact same thing for this fellow twenty-something Brit with a broken heart and a chart-smashing album. This served as his “Someone Like You,” a torch ballad with enough fire within it to burn down a nearby village. His desperate pleas that filled out the song provoked some to smear him as a warbling miserablist, but the second Smith takes it to church with that chorus, there’s clearly something greater going on here. A broken heart mends, and a star is born.

57. Georgia Maq – What Do You Mean (The Bank’s Out of Money)

What do Tony Abbott, Heisenberg, Evan Dando and Bart Simpson have in common? Absolutely nothing – and it’s precisely this that makes their collective inclusion in this sensationally-scatterbrained number so entertaining. Maq is, to put it lightly, not a fan of a singular idea guiding one song – she bounds through enough ideas to last most singer-songwriters a double album in the course of just under four minutes, from comedic misunderstandings to deeply-personal family matters. It’s executed with aplomb, of course, and it’s refreshing to come across anyone bandying about an acoustic to have an askew take on songwriting structure.

56. Hockey Dad – Seaweed

Most of Hockey Dad’s songs sound as though they’re intended for a picturesque light blue sky, green grass and the suburban pavement. By means of contrast, the sun has seemingly set on “Seaweed,” which is the band’s most restrained and, for lack of a better term, tender moment. It’s the soundtrack to an endless summer coming to an end, the waves dropping back and the night taking its place. Rather than lower the collective morale, the song is a success on the terms that it showcases the band’s unexpected versatility. Besides, the sun’ll come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar.

55. “Weird Al” Yankovic – Lame Claim to Fame

Were you to name all of Weird Al’s biggest hits, you’d simply have to change the titles of other massive pop songs and go from there. How peculiar, then, that the best moment on his chart-topping comeback LP was an original. Taking cues from Southern Culture on the Skids, this cowbell-laden rocker lets Yankovic loose on the A-listers that he’s kinda-sorta interacted with over the years. Rather than get relegated to the deep-cuts, “Lame Claim” is what one should lead with in order to prove the perennial parodist can still get a laugh out of you some thirty-odd years in.

54. Sun Kil Moon – Carissa

Spoiler alert: A lot of people die on Benji, the latest album from Sun Kil Moon. Like, a lot. Carissa is the first of them, a ne’er-do-well teen rebel turned suburban mother who loses her life in a shocking, unexpected way. It’s all detailed by the low drawl of Mark Kozalek, whose uncle was her grandfather. With little more than a classical acoustic guitar, he takes us through his own grieving process; mostly involving the circumstances surrounding her death. It may not have been a pretty sight nor sound, but it made for some of the year’s most compelling listening.

53. Brendan Maclean – Holy Shit

Population, Maclean’s third EP, was essentially a whole lotta Jekyll-and-Hyde action. One minute, he’s the parading electro-pop superstar of “Winner,” the next he’s the uncertain and visibly-struggling end of a frayed relationship on “Holy Shit.” Maclean’s return to the piano allowed him to take off the cape to reveal the mild-mannered reporter beneath, adding in warm harmonies and a tightly-percussive backbone to his rock-and-hard-place confusion. It’s smart, honest and ranks among the finest songs he’s ever written. Yes, he’s the life of the party – but sometimes he’s the girl crying in the “Stupid” video, and that’s okay too.

52. Megan Washington – Limitless

Was there a more right-in-the-feels opening line this year than “There’s a certain kind of lonely where you sleep in your jeans”? In a year full of revealing moments for the Brisbane-born singer-songwriter – a touching Australian Story, reverting to her real name to release music – “Limitless” proved to be one of the most resonant. Perhaps it was the icy synths or the tightly-wound drums guiding its pained lyrics, or perhaps the the echoing detour into the bridge. Whatever the case, Washington managed to find a method within her madness. Us jeans-sleepers are all the more grateful for it.

51. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu – Kira Kira Killer

It’s growing increasingly difficult for us Westerners to get an idea as to what the hell is going on in the realm of Asian pop music. The only thing that we know is that we want more of it and we want more of it now. At once sounding like the final level of an adventure game and the theme song to the cutest show in the known universe, it’s a task unto itself to properly describe what Kyary Pamyu Pamyu has got going for her. Her amazing technicolour dream-pop needs to be experienced first hand. Happy! Happy! Happy!

50. DZ Deathrays – Gina Works at Hearts

Sometimes, you’ll hear a riff that’s indicative of a band ready to take it to the next level, from “Buy Me a Pony” to “Covered in Chrome.” The opening seconds of “Gina Works at Hearts” locked it in instantly – hell, even if the rest of the song was said riff, they’d have made it. Of course, there’s a lot going on here – as much a sugar-rush of power-pop as it is a rip-snorting rock-radio champion, DZ get the best out of both worlds and stake out their territory intently and defiantly. Shit’s very much about to get real.

49. Conor Oberst – Hundreds of Ways

A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, as well as prick you just as sharply with its thorns. Whether he’s a Monster of Folk, a Desaparecido or wandering through the Mystic Valley, Conor Oberst is still finding avenues in which to deliver his acutely-detailed world-watching. He’s evolved substantially from LiveJournal-worthy angst into the man that stands before you, leading a parade of ironically-triumphant horns, cooing backing vocals and chirpy lead guitar through such damning lyrics as “I hope I am forgotten when I die.” He may ramble on and on, but we’re still in the procession.

48. Interpol – All the Rage Back Home

Perhaps we’ve been looking at Interpol wrong this entire time. While their albums have often been met with indecision, indifference and derision – particularly within the past ten years – there’s something about the band’s singles that have remained entirely agreeable as a sole constant. El Pintor was bound to set people up for disappointment, given the high expectations with which it was anticipated; but its lead off proved to be one of the finest moments the NYC natives have ever put to their names. At once a slow-motion swell and an urgent rush, “Rage” is a straightforward, singular beast.

47. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Hot Wax

It’s pretty safe to say that King Gizzard are the kind of band that are working on no-one’s terms but theirs. Dropping two albums a year on average, the wonderfully-weird septet have kept audiences both simultaneously guessing their next move and standing back in awe of the miniature empire they have created. Then, of course, they’d drop “Hot Wax” and you’d be too busy shaking your hips to care about anything else. That beat! That harmonica howl! That bass! As you read this in the future, where they’ve presumably just released their twelfth album, remember this as a turning point.

46. Ariana Grande feat. Iggy Azalea – Problem

There’s a new diva in town, and the mainstream press has not let anyone go without hearing the news – Grande was the centre of several “investigative” pieces surrounding her behaviour at photo-shoots. Still, the pint-sized popster had bigger fish to fry, and that came in the form of a dynamic kiss-off taking place in a cold war between sax hooks and sub-bass booms. “Problem” was all business from its opening moments and refused to let up. You may well have tried to deny its place at the table, but this was never about you-ou-ouuuuu. Not good. Not great. Grande.

45. Ty Segall – The Singer

For a guy who’s known for his bounding-off-the-walls energy (see his performances on Conan and that Chicago morning talk show), it’s been strange to watch Ty Segall mellow out a little more as he edges closer to 30. Following on from an entirely-acoustic affair in 2013, Segall kept people guessing on his Manipulator LP, where a song presumably included as a breather between rockier numbers ended up being one a true career highlight. “The Singer” tripped the light fantastic and put particular emphasis on the latter. Rarely has “Sing/Sing louder” sounded less like a refrain and more like a mantra.

44. Ryan Adams – Gimme Something Good

Sometimes, you gotta go back. Back when the uniform of the nation was blue jeans and a white t-shirt, your hometown was either your best friend or your worst enemy and the perfect Saturday night was out with your best girl. It’s a time that Ryan Adams has ostensibly wound up in, and on paper it may well not make sense for a noted balladeer to draw such substantial influence from this style. Once the organ calls out beneath Adams’ reverb-heavy guitar swagger, however, it’s the equivalent of the puzzle pieces setting themselves into place. Consider that something good given.

43. Jon LaJoie – Please Use This Song

Taco may have wound up with the Sacko (last place) in this year’s season of The League, but in most other respects, his portrayer took out the Shiva. Not only did he have a memorable casting in the guilty-pleasure hit Let’s Be Cops, Sir LaJoie also took his brand of provocative parody work into the realm of what’s commonly being referred to as “corporate indie” (Hi, Sheppard!). Even when taking the complete mickey out of the genre, he’s done such a dead-on impression that he’s inadvertently wound up as the king of it all. This is the right song, indeed.

42. Brody Dalle – Don’t Mess with Me

We may be ten years removed from the demise of The Distillers, but their ghost is rattling around somewhere here. Of course, it helps that their fearless frontwoman is the mastermind behind it, but there’s more to it: The first lady of rock hasn’t sounded this menacing, guttural and flat-out tough since the days of Coral Fang all that time ago. Put it this way: Most bands would get laughed out of the room if they were to try out a refrain like this song’s title. In Dalle’s hands, you’ll need a quick exit and a clean pair of pants.

41. Pinch Hitter – All of a Sudden

There aren’t many worse places to start having a panic-induced existential crisis than on the strict confines of a plane. Still, Pinch Hitter managed to take the lemons given to them and make some of the sweetest lemonade possible. Part math-rock shuffle, part fluttering baroque pop explosion, “All of a Sudden” explored the greater possibilities of this unique double-banjo project and took its listeners along for the ride. A cameo from Jen Buxton and Jai “the new Terminator” Courtney reciting the brilliant refrain of “Everything’s matter/Everything matters” take this song to a higher (pardon the pun) plane of existence. Incredible.

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