The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Even in Dreams
I’ve been listening to this album (Belong) quite a lot recently. I do like this band, they don’t really sound like any other band I know. At first I thought it was maybe a bit twee, but it has definitely grown on me. I also like their earlier eponymous album too.
Los Campesinos! - Hello Sadness
I’ve had this album on near-constant repeat since I got it a few months ago. Los Campesinos! are one of my favourite bands anyway, and this newest album of theirs is fantastic.
The Blues Brothers - Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
OK Go made a video about primary colours for Sesame Street. This is pretty cool. Certainly Sesame Street was never like this when I was a kid!
Compared with previous years, I haven’t actually listened to much new music in 2011. Of the relatively small number of albums I did buy this year, only a few were newly released in 2011, the rest were older releases but new to me. Instead I spent a lot of time listening to old favourites, things I’ve been listening to for awhile now: Wolf Parade, Placebo,the Smiths, Queen, Bloc Party, Stars, the XX and so on.
As for new music from 2011: Los Campesinos! are a long-time favourite band of mine, and they released a new album this year, Hello Sadness. White Lies are a band that dominated my playlists last year, and released another album this year, Ritual. The Joy Formidable are a new discovery for me, and they released their album Big Roar earlier in the year. Those three are my favourite new albums from 2011.
In addition, Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks are two great Scottish bands that I discovered for the first time this year, although their albums are not new releases. Those are my favourite not-new-but-new-to-me albums of the year.
While I do listen to and enjoy music, it’s not one of my major obsessions, so I’m not too bothered by the fact that this year I haven’t really explored much new music. The above bands and albums, to my tastes at least, have provided some great music for listening to this past year.
Alphabeat - Fascination
Holy Shatner! William Shatner’s cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s both as awesome and as terrifying as you can imagine.
Traveling Wilburys - End of the Line
My Dad apparently used to play the Traveling Wilburys when my parents were trying to get me to sleep when I was baby. I later remember hearing them on long journeys throughout my childhood, when my parents kept a cassette tape of their music in the car. But I haven’t heard their music or thought about them for ages, until I recently heard this track and was instantly reminded of all those early memories. And you know what, it’s actually a pretty great song too.
We Were Promised Jetpacks - Quiet Little Voices
It’s OK Go and the Muppets. Yeah, that is pretty cool.
Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper
And dissolve in Scottish rain…
The Smiths - Panic
This is the new video from OK Go, a band that I am only familiar with through their generally brilliant and innovative videos. You really need to have Google Chrome as your browser to fully appreciate it; they describe it as a ‘Chrome Experiment’. If you don’t have Chrome there is a less-impressive, but still quite good, traditional video version here. (As an aside, I use Firefox as my main browser, but I have Chrome installed as a good second browser which I make use of occasionally).
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Perpetuum Mobile
(I have heard this song a few times, it seems to get used a lot in adverts and televisions shows. But don’t let that familiarity put you off, ignore those negative connotations, it is really quite lovely.)
