Tops of My Pops for 10/22/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 22, 2006
1. Four Tet
2. Squarepusher
3. Eagles Of Death Metal
4. Junior Boys
5. Pop Will Eat Itself
6. Kanye West
7. David Bowie
8. Public Enemy
8. The Infesticons
8. Underworld

On the new music front, Squarepusher's excellent new album Hello Everything is, well...excellent. Lots of tasters from all his many different styles and moods, but almost all of it injected with a little sunshine. Much has been made of the "lightness" of this release, but with an artist like Tom Jenkins it's never dumbed down for mass consumption. All in all amazing to see that he's nowhere near running out of ideas here at album number ten!

Got ahold of a copy of Four Tet's DJ-Kicks finally, and I have to say I find it to be a more satisfying mix than his Late Night Tales contribution. Received Death By Sexy by Eagles Of Death Metal a week or so ago, and I have to say I'm enjoying it at least as much as Peace Love Death Metal, which is to say a hell of a lot more than I expected in either case.

I also broke down and tried out the online store at la la, by buying a copy of the "Hero Theme" single by The Infesticons (aka Mike Ladd). A favorite track of mine already, this disc came with with some nice remixes as well, and proof that the la la retail option is pretty darned painless.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Grant Morrison in rare form!

Here's a great Grant Morrison piece I found on Google Video (unfortunately I can't recall who tipped me to it). Witness the quaint description accompanying the upload:

A scottish man talks about magic, aliens and individualism. This is the shit. Everyone must watch.

This appears to be sometime circa the Invisibles era, as he doesn't much talk about this stuff lately – although he's still happily slipping it into his subversive mainstream superhero work. Enjoy!

Tops of My Pops for 10/15/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 15, 2006
1. Radiohead
1. Meat Beat Manifesto
1. Gorillaz
1. Eagles Of Death Metal
1. Matthew Dear
1. The Meters
7. Beck
7. Amon Tobin
7. Primal Scream
7. The The

This week's listening pretty well looks like a week of greatest hits listening due to the fact that I finally broke down and bought a new 80GB video iPod (black of course). And as the world knows by now, everything sounds better on a new iPod.

I did break away from my personal favorites long enough to spend a little time checking out Matthew Dear's Backstroke at the behest of my pal mrkvm. As he cautioned me, the vocals take a little getting used to. Can't give him an endorsement yet, but I'm willing to check out some of his other albums before I pass judgment.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Get hip to the funk robot!

From our friends over at cliptip:

You may not love the song, but you absolutely must love the robot – Plastilina Mosh's "Millionaire" video features no less than a Godzilla-sized funky robot getting down on some unsuspecting city.

Better moves than Mecha Godzilla!

Blogger Beta Betta

Someday my Google masters will invite me to convert this blog over to the Blogger beta.

In the meantime I'll just be envious of my pals like phe that get to frolic in the new improved playground featuring things like vastly easier template management, tagging, and an oh-so subtle sense of...cool.

Tops of My Pops for 10/8/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 8, 2006
1. Beck
2. Vikter Duplaix
3. John Mayer
4. Andrew Weatherall
5. DJ Shadow
6. Section 25
7. David Bowie
8. Brian Eno
9. Wagon Christ
9. Harold Budd/Brian Eno

Still digesting the new releases from Beck, John Mayer and DJ Shadow, and I will not apologise for listening to any of them!

I'm enjoying all three (obviously for different reasons) but in particular spent the week playing The Information over and over again. This is the first time I've really felt like I was hearing producer Nigel Godrich's fingerprints on a Beck release – not that that's a bad thing. This one's a really hybrid of the silly quirky Beck with the introspective melodic Beck, all pretty perfectly balanced.

I'm enjoying The Outsider for what it is (Shadow's fuck-the-critics-I'm-gonna-have-fun album) and getting used to Mayer's new, more Clapton-esque stylings...not sure if it's made him better or worse in my book.

Also notably wedged in some time for listening to mixes by Duplaix (DJ-Kicks) and Weatherall (Fabric 19), and both ended up surprising me: Duplaix's was waaay better than I expected and Weatherall's was waaay worse.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 10/1/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 1, 2006
1. TV On The Radio
2. Fila Brazillia
3. Junior Boys
4. Ze Frank
5. Justin Timberlake
6. Scissorkick
7. Meat Beat Manifesto
8. Massive Attack
8. Primal Scream
8. The Meters

Last week's stats were lost to the iTunes 7/iScrobbler incompatibility, but Damaged did come through with a fix as predicted, so TOMP is back now!
,
Got a chance to give a first listen to TV On The Radio's latest, Return To Cookie Mountain. "Wolf Like Me" is the immediate grabber, which underscores its choice as the lead single. Fun video for that one too. (You can catch it right here – thanks cliptip!)

Also got to dig into the Junior Boys latest full-length, So This Is Goodbye, which is simply fantastic at bringing the sexy back to electronica. Not a misstep to be heard here, with a smooth as glass sound on every track that's retro and future all at once. I'm certain I'll be listening to this over and over again.

Speaking of "SexyBack".... Yes, that really is Justin Timberlake in my top ten. The Timbaland production is the star of the show though IMHO. There are about four tracks on FutureSex/LoveSounds that are so musically tight they can't be denied. As far as I know this is the first time Tim's done a full-fledged mainstream pop record; either way he definitely brought so much game I find myself having to defend listening to JT.

Last but not least, I finally nabbed both discs (from la la of course) of The Meters' fine, fine Funkify Your Life anthology. Timeless music for good times – I don't know why I waited so many years to pick this up.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives