1. British Sea Power – Who’s In Control
2. Yuck – The Wall
3. Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness
4. Stricken City – Losing Colour
5. The Chemical Brothers – Hanna’s Theme
6. Little Dragon – Ritual Union
7. Ringo DeathStarr – Kaleidoscope
8. Anna Calvi – Blackout
9. Those Dancing Days – I’ll Be Yours
10. jj – The End
11. Childish Gambino – Freaks and Geeks
12. Lana Del Rey – Video Games
13. Smith Westerns – Weekend
14. St. Vincent – Cruel
15. College – A Real Hero (feat. Electric Youth)
16. Summer Camp – Losing My Mind
17. Big Deal – Talk
18. Radiohead – The Daily Mail
19. The Joy Formidable – I Don’t Want To See You Like This
20. Ghostpoet – Survive It
21. Basement Jaxx – The Ends

Some fun facts:

Returning bands from last year: jj, Stricken City, and Summer Camp

Tracks from Movie Soundtracks, 3: Chemical Brothers (Hanna), College (Drive), Basement Jaxx (Attack the Block)

Tracks from Bands I’ve seen live, 7: British Sea Power (Best Concert of my life?), Yuck (SXSW 2011), Stricken City (SXSW 2010), Childish Gambino (FFF 2011), Summer Camp (SXSW 2011), Radiohead (Starplex 2008), The Joy Formidable (SXSW 2011, FFF 2011)

Tracks from Bands that I was supposed to see live at SXSW 2011, but did not because of some reason, 2: Anna Calvi (broken arm), Those Dancing Days (visa issues)

Nationality breakdown: 12 – UK, 5 – US, 3 – Sweden, 1 – France

Track Notes:

British Sea Power’s Who’s In Control was chosen because it’s the perfect anthem for the year that is 2011.

I think about Stricken City breaking up and still feel a bit sad. I was lucky to see them at SXSW 2010. I have to thank Long for suggesting that we go to SXSW for the day, and me for tricking him to go see Stricken City because they played right before Soko (French singer that he loves ever so much). Stricken City should’ve taken over the world.

jj didn’t release an album this year, but this track did appear on their blog this year. That’s how much I like jj.

I think Childish Gambino might have peaked with his EP. I’ve listened to Camp, and nothing really grabbed me.

A lot has been said about the authenticity of Lana Del Rey, but you can ignore that because Video Games remains an epic track. Everything else she’s released so far has been kinda mediocre.

Fun Fact, St. Vincent is my age and grew up in Dallas, graduating from Lake Highlands in 2001. Kinda neat.

Radiohead’s track is not from their disappointing King of Limbs, but rather their From the Basement live cd. If you were disappointed by King of Limbs like I was, give the From the Basement version a try. It’s not a bad album.

I saw The Joy Formidable the most out of any band this year, 3 times. Twice at SXSW and then at Fun Fun Fun Fest. I’ll never get tired of their live antics.

I saw Ghostpoet while I was in Melbourne for business. I’m really glad I went. It was really fun to go to a show in another country. The venue was a small room behind the bar, Northcote Social Club. I really liked the venue. It was on the main street of this suburb of Melbourne. It felt real. Traveling to the venue was a great experience too. I had not taken the Melbourne tram out of the city proper before. And then I had to leave the bar at 11:30 so I could catch the last tram back to the city. It gave me a taste of what living in a cool city could be like. After the show, I ended up telling Ghostpoet that I had flew all the way from Dallas to see him. He was surprised. Then I waited a beat before saying really I was there for business. He still thanked me for coming out.

And what a single “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” is

I know “Tainted Love”. Everyone knows “Tainted Love”. But I’m not really familiar with Soft Cell’s catalog. I can’t say if “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” is a good representation of their work – sort of how like “Song 2″ sounds nothing like the rest of Blur. But this song is so killer, does it matter? I would be happy just listening to an album with just this song on it repeated 12 times. In fact, I’ve made that album, Soft Cell’s Greatest Hit. I’ve been listening to it on repeat since yesterday.

2 weekends ago I was in Las Vegas. That Saturday, August 20th, I was checking out Pollstar to see if any bands I knew were playing. I was surprised to see Frightened Rabbit on the list. I could finally see them live! They were opening for Death Cab for Cutie (alright), so technically it wouldn’t be a full set. But, I would still count it – Frightened Rabbit Live! The show was at 8pm. Kinda early. That means they would be getting on stage at 9pm and probably play for an hour. The trouble was, I had reservations at Cut for 8pm. You can’t rush Cut. It just doesn’t work that way. So yet again, I missed Frightened Rabbit. I think we were finished at Cut around 10pm. If the show had started at 9pm, I could’ve theoretically made it and finally seen Frightened Rabbit. But as it turns out Las Vegas is a baby and they start shows early so the headliners can get on stage by 10pm. I thought you were cool, Vegas.

Here is my Top 12 of 2010. Notice that it’s not 12 tracks. I’ve decided to get rid of that requirement and just go with the the limit of 80 minutes, 1 CD-R, but I’m still keeping the name. It’s got history.

1. Superchunk – Learned To Surf
2. Jónsi – Animal Arithmetic
3. jj – You Know
4. The Divine Comedy – At The Indie Disco
5. Big Troubles – Freudian Slips
6. Summer Camp – Veronica Sawyer
7. Foals – Spanish Sahara
8. Broken Social Scene – All To All
9. Ash – Joy Kicks Darkness (extended mix)
10. Jason Collett – Love Is A Chain
11. Das Racist – Commercial (Produced By Teengirl Fantasy)
12. Spoon – Who Makes Your Money
13. Curren$y – The Hangover (Feat. Mikey Rocks)
14. The Fall – Y.F.O.C. – Slippy Floor
15. Nigel Godrich – Love Me Some Walking
16. Pull In Emergency – 15 Years
17. Stricken City – Animal Festival
18. Mystery Jets – Show Me the Light
19. Gorillaz – White Flag (feat. Bashy, Kano & the National Orchestra for Arabic Music)

Opening for British Sea Power were the Colourmusic. They were okay.

After the Colourmusic, were A Classic Education. I saw them at SXSW. I enjoyed them a lot at SXSW and at The Loft

And then British Sea Power took the stage

It was a killer set

If you’re down with the BSP, you know the track “All In It”/”We Close Our Eyes” from Do You Like Rock Music? It’s a building chant

We’re all in it
and We’re all in it
and We’re all in it
and we close our eyes

It works excellent as both an opener or closer. That night, they decided to use it as a closer. It was great. A Classic Education joined in. And I also decided to join them on stage. Along with a few members of the audience, including the couple who had their first date at a British Sea Power show and were now engaged (Awwwwww).

I was in the front, and Noble, the guitarist, was gesturing like he wanted me to get on stage. I assumed he wanted the girl to the left of me. So she went up first. But he was still making motions, so I went up too. And then most of the front row. Here’s proof

Exhibit A

Last night, I was searching YouTube for videos and decided to see if Summer Camp had a twitter account. As a band, they don’t. But individually, they do. On Jeremy Warmsley’s account, he posted a sketch from the very same Music for Listeners gig done by Austin Kleon.

Pretty good. And captured the moment just as well or better than the video I took.

Earlier in the day, a friend had sent me this link, HOW TO STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST (AND 9 OTHER THINGS NOBODY TOLD ME). It’s a fun read.

But here’s the thing. It was posted by Austin Kleon. The very same Austin Kleon who did the sketch.

AMAZING SXSW COINCIDENCE!

I’m linking to it because

1. I like Summer Camp
2. I was working on my 2010 playlist today, and they are on it
3. They are playing at SXSW, and hopefully I’ll be able to catch them
4. They usually feature a lot of samples and synths, so it was interesting to hear them do a song stripped down
5. The girl is pretty

British Sea Power – “Who’s In Control” from British Sea Power on Vimeo.

British Sea Power will be starting their North American tour next month and playing the greatest live venue in Dallas, The Loft, on April 14th. I’ll be there.

I’ve missed a Frightened Rabbit performance.

Sorta.

But it still counts.

Tonight, Josh Ritter is playing The Loft. Josh Ritter’s opening act for most of this tour has been Scott Hutchison, singer of Frightened Rabbit. But he’s not opening tonight, because he’s not an American.

So for those keeping score, this is the 1st time of 2011, and 5th time overall.

The album came out in 1994. And it has a terrible cover.

(Come On, Join) The High Society

But it’s still kinda appealing. Like, it’s a memorable terrible. Terrible with style. Maybe sexy?

These Animal Men also managed to release a 2nd album, Accident and Emergency, in 1997. It also has a terrible cover.

Accident and Emergency

A terribly generic cover. Their second album cover is instantly forgettable. And the actual album isn’t too great either.

Big thanks to Jason Heller from the AV Club for writing about these guys and bringing them to my attention.