SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: RCRD LBL Rock Guide To Coachella 2012
.jpg)
(Photo: Oberhofer)
Coachella, everyone's favorite three-day festival, is back for another round over the second and third weekends of April in Indio, CA. Yet again, promoters have stacked the lineup with talent both new and classic (hello, Dr. Dre and Snoop!), but there are so many choices that it might be hard to know where to go and what to watch. For our rock fans, we've prepared a special playlist that highlights our favorite guitar-heavy acts slotted to play the festival. Featuring the neo-indie of Yuck, Real Estate and Oberhofer, as well as legacy acts such as Pulp, Refused and Neutral Milk Hotel, this is definitely a something for everyone situation.
SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia/Sleater-Kinney)
(Photo: Wild Flag by John Clark)
Carrie Brownstein, she of Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag and the hilarious sketch-based cultural send-up Portlandia (which returns for its second season January 6 on IFC), is the rare artist that can sincerely rock with the best of them while tenderly mocking many of the things that sometimes make contemporary culture so eye-rollingly ridiculous.
Maybe you just saw the show and want to delve into her musical catalog or maybe you just know she rules already and want something of a "greatest hits" (as if that's even possible in this case). Well, here you go – a primer to Carrie Brownstein's rich musical history featuring both Sleater-Kinney and Wild Flag.
PLAYLISTS: New Year's Eve
(Photo: Royal Baths)
New Year's Eve is one of the biggest party nights of the year, but it's also a battle. Can you manage all the expectations? Can you get that kiss you really want? If you don't, will the combination of substances turn your stomach into a fiery cauldron and send you home early? Maybe it's that "anything could happen" attitude that makes the night so exciting, and that's what we've attempted to capture in our New Year's Eve playlists.
Including everything from pointed favorites like Wild Light and FM Belfast to overboard bad decisions from The Internet and Doldrums and morning after painkillers from Charles Bradley and Atlas Sound, there are sounds for all emotions in our RCRD LBL playlist. And for a little bonus, head to our Spotify for a more free-ranging mix that hits everything from Tom Waits' new year-turning theme from Bad As Me and old favorites from 2Pac and Fleetwood Mac to newer bangers from Meek Mill and Big Sean featuring Nicki Minaj. Load 'em up and go party!
BEST OF 2011: Carter Maness' Picks
(Photo: The War On Drugs)
Perhaps we'll remember 2011 as the year we returned to "the song." Yes, I know, music is almost always based around songs, but those elusive mysteries with actual choruses, verses, bridges (remember those?) and emotions seemed kind of rare for awhile. Whether in the loose slacker forms of Kurt Vile, the Petty-meets-experimental vibe of The War On Drugs, Drake making the club sound like some hellish, inescapable monster, Cass McCombs turning even further into stark emotional honesty or PJ Harvey reminding us that she is incredible and singular, it seems like songcraft has finally beat back the slew of by-the-numbers bedroom recordings.
While this happened, cheap yet easy-to-use software also made it easy for the masses to make maximalist songs with a million tracks that sounded more like sonic sludge than anything resembling music. Maybe that's why I'm drawn to atmospheric efforts like Burial's "Street Halo" or the fine instrumental clouds of Clams Casino that put a premium on space and texture rather than blowing up my speakers with the deepest bass possible.
BEST OF 2011: Nadeska Alexis' Picks
.jpg)
(Photo: A$AP Rocky)
Sorting my favorite tracks into one condensed pile at the end of each year is always a struggle, but the 2011 wrap-up was a bit easier than usual. The beautiful thing about hip-hop music over the past 12 months was the wealth of options available for fans looking for some variety. There was The Throne hype and the Odd Future craze, but in between there was also Danny Brown’s deranged bars, G-Side’s chilled-out tracks and my runaway favorite: A$AP Rocky’s east coast trill rap.
It’d be impossible for any two people to agree on the top ten songs of any particular year, but at the very least we can agree on some of the best artists of the year. My picks are ranked in no particular order. They simply represent the tracks I could actually vibe out to at any given point in the day.
BEST OF 2011: Dance
(Photo: Katy B)
Dance this year was all about getting low, getting high, freaking out, hooking up and sweating into delirium. Oh, wait. That's what every year in dance is. Oh well. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. House, club, R&B-laden vibrations, garage, drum'n'bass, bangers, dubstep and a smattering of cruelly-labeled microgenres that we can't even wrap our feeble minds around (dubstream, ravetune, etc.) dominate this list, as do floor-slayers CREEP, L-Vis 1990, Girl Unit, Dillon Francis, Kingdom, Bibio, Katy B, Gigamesh, Benga, Moby and The Rapture. No room for middling – these are our picks for the best of 2011's dance: dark, light and nothing in between.
BEST OF 2011: Kev Kharas' Picks
(Photo: Expensive Looks)
My year, much like last year, was dominated by songs made by lonely guys on computers that made me want to go out, and songs played by a gang of people on guitars that made me want to stay in. You could say I'm contrarian, but I'd just say you can't. Here are the ten things I dug most about RCRD LBL in 2011. Don't enjoy Christmas and New Year's so much you start hating real life, it's all about keeping a balance.
BEST OF 2011: Rock
(Photo: Sleeper Agent)
Noting the “best” tracks of a given year can be tricky, so consider this list a collection that represents some of rock’s finest efforts in 2011 (in no specific order). Whether it was the genre-bending Mexican flair of Mariachi El Bronx’s second album or the pop-laced fervor of Sleeper Agent’s debut, this year embraced rock as anything with a beat and some guitar. On the heavier end, Junius and Black Tusk are particularly successful examples how rock can be aggressive and guttural without alienating listeners. And as The Joy Formidable and Ume remind us, girls rock just as hard as dudes. Maybe more.
