Way up at #4 on Village Voice’s year-end poll is a song I’ve never heard by a band I’ve never heard of. In fact, I had to double-check to see whether Midnight City was the song and M83 the band or vice versa.
This is a pretty cool song. It reminds me a lot of the 80s-influenced album that Phoenix put out a couple of years ago (and in fact, M83 front man Anthony Gonzalez turns out to be French just like the Phoenix boys).
Clocking in at #5 on the Pazz & Jop poll is ‘Niggas in Paris’ from Watch the Throne, the much-anticipated collaboration between Jay-Z and Kanye West.
Everything I’ve read about this album suggests that these two are more out of touch than Mitt Romney with America in 2012. They rap about their wealth, their fame, their bling, their women — dick-grabbing egotism at its finest.
Perhaps it’s ironic? Does it even matter if it is?
It’s unfortunate that today’s song, #6 in the Village Voice poll, falls on my sweet little 6-year-old daughter’s birthday. Azealia Banks was six once, too, and now listen to her. I don’t want my Fiona within 20 yards of this song.
Banks is a Harlem rapper who quietly self-released a few singles before this song hit it big toward the end of 2011. She then teamed up with the producer of Adele’s 21 on an album due out early this year.
I’m picking up where I left off last week, with a look at the top singles on Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll, and sitting rather unexpectedly at #7 is Britney Spears’ ‘Till the World Ends.’
Or maybe it’s not so unexpected. For some strange reason, Britney Spears has a rather strong track record with music critics, even more so since she crashed and burned several years ago. Maybe music writers just like a comeback story? Can it possibly be that they like her music?
I was all set to write that another previous weekend artist was showing up on Random Weekends, but then I realized Ben Folds hasn’t gotten the weekend treatment (yet).
I guess I just assumed he had because I’ve featured so many of his songs on the blog, including the entirety of his first album with Ben Folds Five.
