Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Give the gift of despondency

Here are some holiday music giving recommendations in no particular order and suitable commentary:
  • Art Brut (listen to it before you buy, but once you get past the lead's singing, you'll dig it)
  • Arcade Fire Neon Bible (or Funeral if you don't have it we insist that you must have it and they are Canadian!)
  • M.I.A.
  • OK Go! (You will like these guys)
  • Ghostland Observatory (see Art Brut above)
  • Holy Fuck (only if you want to pay tribute to the now defunct Karlheinz Stockhausen)
  • Hot Chip (if you don't have their work you better!)
  • Iron & Wine (for a bit of laid-back American rockiness)
  • Matt & Kim (there is no way around their infectious personalities)
  • Living Things (if you don't have it)
  • Black Keys (if you don't have it and crave some fried chicken)
  • Broken Social Scene (more Canadians!)
  • Feist (even more Canadian music with a loungey kind of feel)
  • LCD Soundsystem (you must have this if you don't already)
  • The Streets (see Art Brut and Ghostland Observatory)
  • Berlin Final Countdown (for Gob's theme music)
  • Built Like Alaska (if you like hippies)
  • Battles
  • EL-P (hiphop yo yo yo yo you extraordinaire)
  • Peter, Bjorn & John (Scandinavian extravaganza!)
  • Sufjan Stevens Welcome to the Illinois (You will like this.)
  • TV on the Radio (you must get this particularly Return to Cooke Mountain)
  • New Pornographers (more Canadians, we know, but you will, you will like this.)
  • Queens of the Stone Age Hero of Vulgaris (or anything else!)
  • Scissors Sisters (for the hell of it)
  • Kinky Reina (Mexican Rockers, who'd uh thunk it!)
Discover the linked up think over at my lastfm site.

3 comments:

  1. I am giving jazz (Dewey Redman, an old Thelonious Mond reissu) and a great Willie Nelson reissue, and downloading the Cake b-sides and rarities. Also: I heard about this disk on npr tonight

    Basement Bhangra, by DJ Rekha
    http://desim4u.net/2/?p=69

    It sounded awesome. I am giving it to myself, and secondarily to anyone who would like to load it on their iTunes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also, I forgot to say that I appreciate your list, because at the ends of years I collect music lists, and I will keep this one to construct my master 2008 listening list. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good list! Come on Feel the Illinoise has amazed and amused me all year long. You have to like a guy who can craft blithe pop poetry out of observations on nineteenth century politics. And even though it says more about my slow response time than about Sufjan Steven's songwriting wit, I was delighted when I realized that even though I had listened to and pondered The Seers Tower for over a month, it was not until I spoke the title out loud that I got the joke. And then that line "they were boys with their cars, summer jobs..." makes my heart ache like nothing else I've ever heard.

    ReplyDelete