Begin to put a 'Fork in 08

In what, by all accounts, is a slightly down year for the single, Pitchfork still found 100 of 'em to give praise to (compiled in playlist below). What's amazing to me is just how many from the list are already in my son Eli's top 10. If you eliminated his current TMBG's Here Come the 123's fixation (God bless him,) his 2008 list wouldn't be that far off Pitchfork's 'refined' tastes.

Hercules And Love Affair garnered the top spot ("Blind") and also snuck another ("Hercules' Theme" at #21) in the top 25. Santogold also managed that feat ("L.E.S. Artistes" at #4, "Lights Out" at #22).

Others artists with two in the top 50 include Hot Chip, M83, Kanye West and No Age.

Playlist: Pitchfork Top 100 Singles 2008
Tracklisting of the 78 currently Rhapvailable

Playlist: Eli's Top 10 of 2008 (near as I can tell)
1. "Shut Up and Let Me Go" - The Ting Tings
2. "A-Punk" - Vampire Weekend
3. "L.E.S. Artists" - Santogold
4. "One Everything" - They Might Be Giants
5. "Time to Pretend" - MGMT
6. "High Five!" - They Might Be Giants
7. "Zeroes" - They Might Be Giants
8. "Blind" - Hercules and Love Affair
9. "Triops Has Three Eyes" - They Might Be Giants
10. "Ready For the Floor" - Hot Chip

Stick a 'fork in 2006

Pitchfork revealed their Top 50 albums yesterday, but I was too busy finishing my own list to take note.

Playlist: Pitchfork Top 50 Albums 2006

The surprise comes that it's not TVOTR or The Hold Steady or Joanna Newsom on top, all favorites of other lists. Sweden's The Knife tops the list with the twisted electro-pop album Silent Shout. For the record I loved it, but think that it will turn out much like P'Fork's pick from 2003, The Rapture's Echoes, which in retrospect was just a fine album, not a 'list topper.' To quote a shirt I once read: "Seemed like a good idea at the time"

Full listing here.

My top albums of 2006
A lot more year-end lists

tags: playlist, music, best of 2006, year end list, indie rock, tv on the radio, tvotr, the knife, hold steady, pitchfork, rhapsody

70% of a good thing

You're favorite pretentious music force Pitchfork just released their annual singles year-end list, this year expanding the usual top 50 all the way to 100. #1 on the list is the particularly un-pretentious single "My Love" from Justin Timberlake, which for some reason has some blogga's panties in a bunch. Not sure why... Timbaland's synths n' beats combined with JT's killer falsetto is a homerun, and JT's SNL appearance this weekend further cemented him as the new "King of Pop."

Playlist: Pitchfork Top 100 Singles of 2006

Whenever I see that a list is increased like that, my eyes go directly to the first pick in the list that benefits from the expansion, and in this case it's Scott Walker's "A Lover Loves." That song's reason enough for me to double a list.

This means of course Pitchfork's Top albums list will be coming out tomorrow... I usually try and make sure my list comes out before PFork's does, if for no other reason then to ensure that it didn't influence my choices. (Damn!)

tags: playlist, music, best of 2006, year end list, indie rock, justin timberlake, scott walker, pitchfork, rhapsody

Jet stream waters

Probably the funniest (and wickedly cruelest) album reviews I've ever seen is from Pitchfork today for Jet's latest Shine On.

No rating at all... just a monkey peeing into his own mouth.

Album: Jet - Shine On
Free AOL Album Stream
Free Monkey Stream