BAP's 25 Favourite Songs and Albums of 2011

This year, I've decided to take a leaf out of Allison's list-making book, and compile a collection of not only my favourite albums, but also the songs I love best from those records, and why they are special to me. It's been an odd year for albums, personally ; I found myself gravitating and growing more attached to individual tracks, as opposed to full records. All the same, the songs listed below pretty much correspond to the albums I enjoyed the most over the year (and perhaps all too predictably, Bon Iver is somewhere in there). You can check out my mid-year best albums list over here.


BAP's 25 Favourite Songs and Albums [And Some EPs] of 2011, In No Particular Order, But At Least All of These Were Actually Released in 2011, And There Are Pretty Pictures, So That Totally Merits Some Plus Points For Effort.

* all song titles link to a Youtube video. I trust you guys to be a bunch of Internet-savvy mofos, but if you run into any trouble tracking down a song or a band, let me know and I'll do what I can to help.


1. James Blake [James Blake] // The Wilhelm Scream



James Blake and his ridiculously sexy voice are responsible for making some seriously sexy music. This song in particular is a perfect example of that ; odd, repetitive blocks of sonic loops, plenty of bleeps and bloops that sound like they're coming from under the ocean or something, and with the same three or four lines of lyrics being repeated over and over and over again ( I don't know about my dreams/I don't know about my dreaming anymore/All that I know is that I'm falling, falling, falling, falling/Might as well fall) until they start to feel like a mantra you've always known but only remember when Mr. Blake sings them to you. It's stunningly hypnotic, surprisingly comforting, and I for one would be happy if this song just never ended. Ever.


2. Kurt Vile [Smoke Ring For My Halo] // Runner Ups



Every review I've read of Kurt Vile's 2011 release makes some mention of his music being the epitome of slacker folk , almost as if "Bob Dylan had gone shoegaze". Vile himself makes a self-deprecating reference to with this line from Runner Ups: "When I walk in, my head is practically dragging". Don't be fooled though ; music this intricate and meditative takes a great deal of love and care and attention to detail, and it shows through in songs like this one. Every pick of the guitar sounds achingly, clearly gorgeous, and there are some terrific lyrics in there, masked by a voice that sounds, on occasion, like a zoned-out drone. This album takes some work to really get into, but is ultimately one of my most rewarding listens of the year.


3. Of Monsters And Men [My Head Is An Animal] // Six Weeks



Credit goes to Allison of Flying Buttresses for alerting me to the existence of this delightful folk-rock act from Iceland. My familiarity with Icelandic music starts with Sigur ros and ends with Bjork, so it was a nice surprise to discover that these guys sound more like the joyfully feral godchildren of Arcade Fire. The guitars in Six Weeks are exuberant, the communal refrains and choruses are emphatic and ferociously life-affirming. The 2:23 mark in particular makes me feel like I should be running barefoot across a glacial Icelandic landscape with Icelandic wind in my hair and this song playing on full-ass volume in the background and shit. It's impossible to be unhappy when you're listening to this. Impossible, I say.


4. The Rural Alberta Advantage [Departing] // Barnes' Yard


I knew from the first time I gave this album a digital spin that Barnes' Yard would end up being my favourite track at the end of the year. Clocking in at barely two and a half minutes, it deals with all the band's usual themes of hometowns and parents and lovers and highways and escaping. Add that to the jangly, up-tempo beat and this knockout of a couplet (We're broken down lovers at the side of the road/We're broken down lovers in the city of oil) and I am a complete and total goner for this song, this album, and this whole entire band. If you can hear me all the way in Rural Alberta, I LOVE YOU GUISE.


5. Typhoon [A New Kind Of House EP] // Summer Home



First of all, Kyle Morton's voice is so clear and so lush that makes me want to cry just thinking about it. If I could, I would totally hire him as my personal lullaby singer. When he sings, it hurts. I don't know where that ache comes from, but this guy brings it. Typhoon's songs deal largely with death, sin, mortality and humanity, and they still manage to work as many handclaps, trumpets and sing-along choruses into the mix as they possibly can. And for a band with 12 musicians in it (there are only 10 in the picture above - it's really hard to keep track) they do a hell of a job at sounding larger than life, using mainly acoustic instruments. Summer Home takes its time getting started, but by the time Kyle's voice kicks in, you know you're in for a treat. And when he quiveringly inquires "Can we hold out for summer again?" it's pretty much all I can do not to want to fall at his feet and be all, "Dude, Kyle, I would wait a THOUSAND summers if that's what you really want". These guys are something special, and I can't wait to hear what comes next.


6. David Wax Museum [Everything Is Saved] // Yes, Maria, Yes



These guys were in my mid-year best of list, and here's what I said about them back then : "Irresistibly infectious countrified folk rock with large doses of Mexican influences and enough handclaps to make anyone giddy. Also they use a donkey's jawbone as part of their percussion because that's not creepy at all."

I am glad to say I don't love them any less than I did in June. As for what makes Yes Maria Yes my favourite of the bunch, let's just put it this way : handclaps + accordion. Also it's hard not to love a band that throws some delicious phonetic wordplay at you now and then (I talktalktalk you don't listen/ I talktalktalk you don't listen).


7. M83 [Hurry Up, We're Dreaming] // Steve McQueen



The major flaw first : as Beckeye has pointed out in her own list, Hurry Up We're Dreaming really does not need to be a double album. There is only so much swirling synth and ethereal vocal harmony that one mortal listener can stomach. Taken in small doses though, there are some seriously standout tracks on this record. My initial favourite was the saxophone-filled goodness of Midnight City, but Steve McQueen started growing on me more with every listen. I would have never imagined describing a song built almost entirely on synths and keyboards and an 80s sound template to be EPIC, but that is exactly what this song is. It's HUGE ; the drums are thunderous, the keyboards and synths swirl and explode like they are their own cosmic event, the lyrics are grandiose as all hell. I am not much of a fan of electronica, but when I meet an album and a song as transcendent as this, I really just have to swallow my prejudices, sit back, and enjoy the experience.


8. The Lonely Wild [Dead End EP] // Dead End



This song in particular is a boy/girl harmony combo, which doesn't have much room on my musical taste template. But these two sound like they were pretty much born to sing together, and with no one else, and it's hard not to melt just a little. The melody is gorgeous, the guitar riff is stunning, the harmonies are of course perfect beyond all fault, and there is just the right amount of aching steel guitar working away in the background. Understated, classy, and just plain beautiful. Also, yes, lead singer dude is fairly easy on the eye. Not that physical appearance matters when it comes down to good music, but a pretty guy with a pretty voice singing pretty songs never hurt anybody, I say. Pretty on, Lonely Wild dude.


9. Fleet Foxes [Helplessness Blues] // Helplessness Blues



I'm probably in the minority when I say I enjoyed the Fleet Foxes' debut more than this release, but Helplessness Blues (the track) is right up there on my list of favourite songs...of forever, maybe. Again, the harmonies are killer. The acoustic guitar is positively jubilant and almost on the verge of snapping under the weight and intensity of Robin Pecknold's existential crisis. If you were to ask me to pick a snippet of my favourite lyrics from this one, I would not be able to do it ; every word and every turn of phrase is perfection.


10. James Vincent McMorrow [Early In The Morning] // We Don't Eat



Bon Iver comparisons have been inevitable and relentless for Irishman Mr. McMorrow, who also shut himself away in a woodland cabin to compose songs of heartbreak, in isolation. But where Bon Iver's debut initially did nothing but put me to sleep, James' lush, soulful voice and gorgeous instrumentation caught my attention immediately. This is just pretty, you guys. Woodland cabin aside, the only thing this man has in common with Justin Vernon is that falsetto, and a healthy amount of folk-beard. We Don't Eat is a slow-burner of gently growing gorgeousness and building strings and subtle harmonies, topped with one of my favourite choruses of the year : "We don't eat until your father's at the table/We don't drink until the devil's turned to dust". This man needs more love, and you can start right here, right now.


11. Arctic Monkeys [Suck It And See]// Suck It And See



It was a joy and a pleasure to see 2011 provide a return to my favourite flavour of Monkeys. These guys can rock out just as hard as the hipsterest of them, but to me they are at the top of their game when they're sweet, melodious, funny, tender, when they bring in the irresistible hooks, and when Alex Turner's remarkably witty, pithy and downright adorable lyrical prowess is given the chance to shine ( You're rarer than a can of dandelion and burdock/And those other girls are just post-mix lemonade). I've said before that the title track is probably the most gorgeous thing Turner and co. have ever recorded to date, and this sentiment still holds true now, at the end of the year.
This is an album I have been steadily falling (and remaining) in love with throughout 2011, and there is absolutely no sign that my affection for this set of 12 songs is going to fade any time soon. If I had arranged this list by rank, Suck It And See would be number one, without a shadow of a doubt. It was too much trouble sorting out numbers 2 to 25 though, so you'll have to settle for this.
O Arctic Monkeys, we've come such a long way since those dark days when I shunned you because of your accents, and then again because of the widely-maligned Humbug. Forgive me my youthful follies, and let us promise to never ever ever break up ever again.


12. Zola Jesus [Conatus] // Vessel



Zola Jesus is the 22-year old (there we go again with the talented young people making me feel inadequate) Russian-American songwriter Nika Roza Danilova. Mixing large amounts of electronica with some sort of goth-opera to taste, Vessel is a wide, sparse and very dark sonic landscape of synths, ghostly electronic bloops and creaks, and chillingly chopped up vocals. Other songs on the album provide dashes of piano and even strings, but the end product is always minimalistic, almost but-not-quite to the point of being skeletal. Conatus is not an easy listen, but it's always hauntingly beautiful in its own creepy way, and more importantly, never boring.


13. Patrick Wolf [Brumalia EP] // Pelicans



Here's the thing ; I did not enjoy Patrick's 2011 full-length release, Lupercalia. I did like some parts of it, and as an indie pop product it wasn't horrible. But Patrick Wolf was happy, content and perfectly joyous when he wrote the songs on that album, and while I am happy that Patrick is happy, Lupercalia ended up being far, far, far less interesting, mysterious and enthralling than his usual work, and it was chock-full of the most sugary-sweet romantic sentiments, and lyrics so generic I had to stop myself physically cringing at times. The Magic Position was also an extremely pop-based album, but at least that contained more than enough sinister tones and subject matter to make sure the songs never came close to becoming trite. Lupercalia was a crushing disappointment.
I still worship the man, but fortunately Brumalia came along to appease me. The handful of songs it carries contains enough darkness, strings, multiple-Patrick harmonies and distorted, chopped-up electronica to make them sound like they could have very easily fit into Patrick's two earliest (and my personal favourite) albums, Lycanthropy and Wind in the Wires. The guy is allowed to make happy music if he wants to, but this EP pretty much solidified the fact that I like my Patrick Wolf darker, angstier, bloodier and way more melodramatic.


14. WU LYF [Go Tell Fire To The Mountain] // Heavy Pop



It was quite a task picking one standout track from an album full of cathartic, euphoric anthems, but Heavy Pop wins out in the end. WU LYF (or World Unite! Lucifer Youth Foundation - yeah I have no idea why either. Pretentious assholes). WU LYF are a bit of an acquired taste in the sense that lead singer Ellery Roberts' voice never evolves beyond a full-throated, animalistic roar most of the time. Depending on where you're coming from, that either means he can't be arsed to enunciate properly, or that the songs are meant to communicate such a primal level of emotion and pure, hands-in-the-air euphoria that it will never matter what the lyrics are, anyway. I particularly like Consequence of Sound's description of his vocal stylings : "Ellery James Roberts, lead singer of WU LYF, talks in the same voice he sings in, which is a cross between Tibetan monk throat singers and a 20-something Tom Waits". If this seems appealing to you, dig right in!

Like M83, these guys have more than earned the label EPIC - the album was even recorded in a church. Heavy Pop is probably the epitome of what these guys do best ; every song has that soaring guitar, those EARTH-SHATTERING drums, Ellery Roberts' frantic yowling (the only thing you'll be able to make out is "I wanna feel at home" ), and the organ music, which gives a lovely cathedral-esque, larger than life atmosphere. The track takes it time getting warmed up, and by the time that distant harmonica introduces itself at around the 2-minute mark, and the EARTH-SHATTERING drums kick in, you're probably starry-eyed and completely, shamelessly sold (if you're anything like me, that is). Check out a terrific Blogotheque version of the track over here.



15. The Cave Singers [No Witch] // No Prosecution If We Bail



Folk-rock has never sounded so badass. Like our friend the divisive Ellery Roberts, The Cave Singers are also fronted by a singer with a feral, yowly voice, but to this guy's credit, he actually enunciates more. He can also sound, by turns, tender, nostalgic, and like on this track I've chosen, pretty much ready to kick your teeth in, effortlessly transitioning between yelping, growling, and his normal register. I am still not sure what exactly he's singing about, but this song is rowdy, dirty fun, and hell, even a little sexy.


16. Foster The People [Torches] // Helena Beat



Like most people, my first introduction to Foster The People was the chilled-out, bass-alicious sounds of Pumped Up Kicks. After listening to the full album a few times, however, I realized that judging Foster and co. by that one breakout track was not only unfair to the dudes, but also not an accurate representation of what these guys actually sound like. Tracks like Helena Beat, Houdini and Call It What You Want totally (and unexpectedly, for me) blow Kicks right out of the proverbial water. They're not mindblowingly original and are unlikely to be hailed as groundbreaking pioneers of electronica or indie pop (they totally win my award for CUTEST BAND EVER though, giggle giggle), but they're fun, they're catchy, and they're refreshing. Call them MGMT-lite if you will, but sometimes all you need is something to dance to. I'm super excited to be seeing them live in about a couple weeks' time. If you're reading this and you're going to be in the KL area in the second week of January, what are you waiting for? GO GET TICKETS before that shit's sold out!


17. Frightened Rabbit [A Frightened Rabbit EP] // Scottish Winds



It may seem a bit like cheating to have a tiny little 3-song EP on a best albums list, but everything Frightened Rabbit does is flawless. FLAWLESS. If they had released nothing this year save for a sample of a three-chord progression, it would have probably made this list, and perhaps even topped it. What I have for these guys is mad mad love, kay? The three songs on this release are typical mist-and-rain drenched Scottish misery, with the usual lush instrumentation, and Scott Hutchison's melancholy brogue seemingly wrenching every word from the depths of his talented, long-suffering guts. Scottish Winds in particular wins for having some of the most gorgeous lyrics I have had the pleasure of hearing in 2011, and for making me feel more patriotic than any national anthem I have ever come across, including Italy's. And the Italian anthem is pretty damned stirring and all, so you know I mean business.

"Come burl around my body Scottish blood
I'll try not to spill a drop, I'm sure you've spilled enough
And the English fucking rule will mean nothing to these towns
Run forever in my veins bold Scottish blood"


18. Beirut [The Rip Tide] // Goshen



If I could, I would also totally hire Zach Condon to be my personal lullaby singer. It's like every sound that comes out of this guy's mouth is designed to make me melt. I love the stripped-down, minimal approach he has taken with The Rip Tide, which showcases the gorgeous gorgeous melodies, and Zach's even more gorgeous voice. Like East Harlem, Goshen centres around the same verses and chorus being repeated over slowly-building harmonies and drums and (for once, understated) trumpets. By the time this song has hit the 2-minute mark, I am already a puddle of gooey happy on the floor.


19. Florence + The Machine [Ceremonials] // What The Water Gave Me



Florence's second album is even more bombastic, grandiose and massive than her first, which is a feat I did not think she was capable of accomplishing. Her songs rarely go into subject matter more profound than boys and falling in love and breaking up, but all these are akin to cosmic events in Miss Welch's emotional spectrum, and the songs reveal this. The hooks are massive, the string section is filled to overflowing, the drums are thunderous and tribal, and her voice still soars over it all like some fiery-haired avenging angel.

Despite this, my favourite track off the album is the one with the most restraint, the most control, and as a result the most sophistication in songwriting and production. This is dark, sexy, compelling stuff. And unlike her usual dynamics of LOUD-soft-LOUDER-soft-LOUDEST, this track actually builds upon itself with a purpose and a tension, before finally breaking out into that crazy final section of crashing drums and harp and electric guitar. As much as I love Florence when she is loud and unabashed and excessive, What The Water Gave Me is a testament to how good she can be when she holds back. Time to take some pointers from yourself, girlfriend.


20. Frank Turner [England Keep My Bones] // Glory Hallelujah



Ever since I first met Frank Turner in a mixed CD sent to me by the always awesome Badtempered Zombie, I was unreasonably convinced that the guy was Canadian. Imagine my surprise when I finally found out that he is very English, and that his most recent album is a glorious meditation on Shakespeare,mortality and the very essence of Englishness. Glory Hallelujah, although probably not the best track on this album, is my favourite nonetheless ; it reminds me of everything I have learned to love about Mr. Turner. In four and a half minutes, and with the simplest of lyrics, he manages to defy God, divine intervention and organized religion, which may sound like atheist propaganda. But this track does more; it celebrates everything large and small about the beauty and freedom and joy of simple human existence, and on top of that he's got us clapping our hands and tapping our feet. Regardless of your opinions on God, this is just a great jam, you guys. And for a guy who spends so much time singing about death, Frank Turner makes some of the most life-affirming music I have ever heard in my still-young life.


21. Lykke Li [Wounded Rhymes] // Love Out Of Lust



Lykke Li's debut album was far too cutesy and precious for me to get into, so I truly welcomed the change in her sound this year. The new Lykke is edgy, angry, intense. Her voice is used to its full depth and volume, and what a voice it is. The tracks blend everything from synths to booming tribal drums to 60s girl group vocal stylings, and Lykke herself is by turns aggressively sexual and tenderly vulnerable. She is sassy and sensual on Get Some, where even her seduction sounds more like a death threat. But is when she gets melancholy and soft that she appeals to me the most ; Love Out Of Lust is gorgeous - the pounding drums are still there, but there is a longing, haunted quality to every instrument, down to that high-pitched, soaring whistle-thing that comes in during the chorus. "We will live longer than I will/We will be better than I was/We can cross rivers with our will/We can do better than I can". Badass Lykke Li is amazing, but this song is the most vulnerable and open she allows herself to become, and I can't help but love her all the more for it.


22. Ezra Furman & The Harpoons [Mysterious Power] // Teenage Wasteland



It's probably a bit much for a bunch of guys well out of college to keep singing about rebellious teenage apathy, but Ezra and his Harpoons do such a damn fine job of it, it's really hard to fault them. They are able to perfectly and hilariously articulate every angst-filled concern anyone has ever felt about their identity and place in the world (and failed relationships, for good measure) during the years of teenage-hood and the early twenties, and then couple that with noisy, raucous, harmonica-driven punkish rock that sonically encapsulates all the frustration and restlessness of that period of life. These guys make existential dilemmas FUN, and frankly I never want them to stop, because who knows what they've got in store for the mid-life crisis albums.


23. Bon Iver [Bon Iver, Bon Iver] // Holocene


Bon Iver and a kitty!

This album is still taking its time to grow on me, but I much prefer the more electric-based Bon Iver to the acoustic leanings of his debut which - and I have said this many times over many posts - initially succeeded only in putting me to sleep every time I tried to give it a shot. I've learned to appreciate the Justin Vernon vibe since then, but having said that, it's the single, almost 100% acoustic track Holocene that won me over. It's just a flat-out beautiful song in every way, and even the music video was filmed in Iceland. You don't get much prettier than Iceland, I tell you.


24. Lia Ices [Grown Unknown] // Daphne (featuring Justin Vernon)



Lia Ices' (which is evidently not her real name ; I should Google this shit) album is full of floaty, dreamy, string-drenched and handclap-adorned forest-esque folk. Tracks like the Bon Iver-supported and approved Daphne, and Ice Wine make me feel like I am being serenaded by a wood nymph or something. Every instrument has this air of ethereal sorrow about it, and it says a great deal that I find her voice the most beautiful and moving when she isn't singing words at all ; check out the 2:00 minute mark on Daphne and justify my feelings, dammit. Also this Justin Vernon douche is like, all over the place, isn't he? But the track really picks up and ascends into a higher level of gorgeousness once his unmistakable falsetto joins in, with drums and piano and electric guitar thrown in for good measure. Brings a tear to my eye, this does.


25. Austra [Feel It Break] // Lose It



Less creepy than the aforementioned Zola Jesus, Austra still comes armed with massive synth hooks and enough dark lyrical imagery to remind me of a less ethereal Bat For Lashes. While Beat and the Pulse would probably win the award for the most badass intro to any song I've heard this year, the wordless chorus in Lose It is simply the epitome of an earworm. It's fun and catchy, and for a track on an album with so much synth and electronica and cold robot sounds, it manages to be warm and wonderfully enchanting despite itself. Well played, Canadians.

Everybody's A Critic.

BAP's Favourite Albums Of 2009 So Far
Note that I said favourite albums, and not the best albums. I am hardly qualified to pass judgement on the year's best. Also because most of the albums on the following list weren't even released in 2009. Keeping up with new music is an extremely high-pressure activity, and I prefer doing it when all the hype has died down, the Best-Of-The-Year lists have been wrapped up, and the hip kids on the music blog circuits have stopped making you feel lame for lagging behind and for thinking thoughts like "Hey, Animal Collective is pretty cool!" about 342 years after the rest of the world already ascertained it as Universal Musical Truth.

1. The Bachelor - Patrick Wolf


Epic shit of epic proportions, with more string sections than you can chuck glitter at. And yes, I know it's bad to end a sentence with a preposition. Or begin one with a conjunction. Like that. Anyway, The Bachelor is utterly massive in its size and scope and ambition and melodramacity that it can truly be nothing less than jaw-droppingly awesome, and what I humbly believe to be the man's best creation to date. And when my mother stopped to tell me how much she loved his voice, I almost exploded in pride, as if it were my own son she were complimenting or something. Yes, it teeters dangerously on the edge of being overblown, with all those strings and synths and guitars and church organs and vocal choruses and Tilda Swintons and its utter refusal to stick with a single genre for more than a song at a time. Some may find it to be more than a tad over the top, but it is Patrick Wolf we're discussing here, and he's certainly fond of giving the impression that The Concept Of Subtlety is not recognized in his perpetually marvellous glittery shiny technicoloured universe.



What did I tell you?

2. Reservoir - Fanfarlo

Having been massively in love with them for over a year on the strength of merely three demo tracks, I knew I was going to droolishly adore their full-length album regardless of whether or not it sucked. And it doesn't suck one bit. How it could it possibly suck when the album cover features Jonssi Birgisson's own little sister? That's practically a stamp of approval of awesomeness on its own. The album itself is lush and warm and homely and comfy and quite simply gorgeous, and Simon's voice can only be described as being ostensibly Scandinavian, because that's the only adjective for it.
Here they are on Bandstand Busking, performing my favourite track off Reservoir. Watch. Listen. Adore. Droolishly, where possible.



3. Dust Jacket - Joel P. West


I owe my music guru, Grace, for the heads-up about this one. The music itself isn't particularly groundbreaking or anything really; jangly guitars and mournful harmonica make up a lovely collection of melodious melancholy folk. What makes it that much more truly special is the price you pay for it. Because Mr. West wants any uploadable creative or artistic creation of your own ( a poem, a painting, a piece of prose, a photograph, a word) in exchange for a free digital copy of the album, with cover art and a booklet you print out yourself (take that, Radiohead). The only conditions are that whatever you upload for submission must be original and candid. It's all explained here, and you can even sample the first track before you decide whether or not you want to bother participating. It's not exactly an economically sustainable sales method, bearing in mind the current world climate and all, but it's such a wonderfully awesome idea that it's hard to not want to be part of something that's guaranteed to provide you with warm fuzzies every time you give Dust Jacket a (metaphorical) spin.

4. Dan In Real Life Soundtrack - Sondre Lerche


It is perhaps not that often that the soundtrack of a film has played such a huge part in my enjoyment of said film, because honestly -and with much love to Steve Carrell- Dan In Real Life would have been a very meh movie if not for the musical accompaniment of Sondre and his guitar. He manages to be quirky and yet not annoying, melancholy without ever delving into Grey's Anatomy territory, and the instrumental pieces are the kind that get pleasantly stuck in your head for weeks afterward. There is even a lovely duet with Regina Spektor (another seal of Awesomeness) and a couple of covers thrown in (including an Elvis Costello one) with a smattering of Mr. Lerche's back catalogue slipped in here and there. And the weirdness of having Sondre's rather youthful voice juxtaposed against Dan's, well, oldness, actually works sublimely well.
Here is Sondre Lerche performing my personal favourite track off the album. In black and white. Because he kicks ass like that.



5. Shallow Graves -The Tallest Man On Earth


Kristian Mattson, who goes by the moniker The Tallest Man On Earth, is what I suppose is meant by an acquired taste. His warbly, extremely UnScandinavian voice did not appeal to me at all initially, and the comparisons to Bob Dylan did not exactly help, because I really don't get Dylan (travesty, I know, but it wasn't for lack of trying). But the weird warbly voice and the lone fingerpicked guitar and the utterly illogical lyrics ("I know the runner's gonna tell you/ There ain't no cowboy in my hair/ So now he's buried by the daisies/ So I can stay the tallest man in your eyes, babe") all began to grow on me. And despite the fact that Kristian is pretty much a Swedish dude singing as though he were from the American South, there's a sense of honesty and genuineness that surrounds him, as if he were always meant to make music like this and was simply born in the wrong country through a sudden burst of Universal Divine Comedy.



6. Only By The Night - Kings Of Leon


KoL have always been one of those bands that constantly flew under my radar (quite surprising, considering how very loud they were) but Only By The Night sort of forced me to sit up and pay undivided attention. Their sound on this one just appealed to me a great deal more (regardless of what the hipsters say about the band having "sold out" and how I'm not exactly a Real Fan because I didn't listen to Aha Shake Heartbreak first, dammit) , and their haircuts now ensured that I could see their faces and thus forge some level of human connection beyond the music (read: to discover that a couple of them are really Pretty). Kings Of Leon are another bunch who aren't full advocates of The Concept Of Subtlety; as Grace so elequently put it, Caleb Followill's voice is very much of the I-Am-Smexy-Hear-Me-Rawr! variety, but it's actually nice to get that down and dirty with a band, something I've been lacking recently. Although for such a very sexed-up band, their knowledge of human anatomy is just bordering on this side of pathetic.




What forms of auditory awesomeness have been invading your earwaves over the last 5 months or so?

I'm Losing My Liver To London

Apologies for the lengthy disappearance. Real life took over the BAP's other shallow, fluffy and less important pursuits for a few weeks there. But the crucial thing now is that I am back, and blogging about strictly unserious unreal-life matters, until the next time I go AWOL. I shall now shamelessly rip off one of Beckeye's recent posts where she listed down a bunch of things she is currently digging.

Stuff The BAP Is Currently Digging-eth

(which will include a great deal of pimping, which is my third greatest talent right after procrastinating and fangirling)

1. Vernon God Little
You should all read this, not simply because it says "MAN BOOKER PRIZE winner" in big fat pretentious letters on the cover, but because it is a deeply profound, extremely funny, harrowing, depressing and even at times uplifting read. Also it has about 4567 different variations on your average F-word. Always a plus, that.

2. Speakers.
They're inbuilt speakers, though, so stereo sound is still a distant memory. But I no longer have to subject myself to the indignity of lip-reading videos people send me.

3. i-Tunes
I haven't exactly bought anything off it yet, but I am in love with the revolving album covers feature. I could watch the revolving album covers all day. They so pretty.

4. Patrick Wolf
His new album hasn't even dropped yet (although I've heard rumours of an advanced copy having made its way onto the Internet, which I suppose is a nice way of saying that it uh, leaked) but I have never been so determined to pimp an album that doesn't have any Sigur ros in it . At all. So here I am, pimping, because Patrick and his wonderful glittery multi-coloured fabulous back catalogue have been taking over my earwaves over the last week or so.

Why Patrick Wolf Is Made Of Awesome
a. He plays the bleeding clavichord. I love the bleeding clavichord.
b. He's always covered in glitter. Like all the time. And I bet he's considerate enough to use the kind that doesn't rub off him and stick to other people. Because then glitter just becomes annoying.
c. You never know what colour his hair is going to be tomorrow.
d.He is going to kick the collective musical ass of the rest of the world in 2009. Unless Sigur ros take it into their heads to release something else, in which case they shall take over the position of 2009's Collective-Musical-Ass Kicker by default.
e. I'm sure I'll think of something else eventually. For now you peasants can go check out his various sparkly glitterish pursuits of past and present over here.

I'm A Part-Time Meme Hijacker. Watch Me Grab It And Run.

Nobody tagged me for this, which is fine, because memes are always more fascinating when you're not under obligation to take part.

"Think of 25 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of, they musically shaped your world. They stood up, they lasted, they mattered. They still matter, in some way (even if only in memory). "

Right. Before I start, I'll have you all know that
a. I'm barely two decades old, so there probably hasn't been much room for musical profundity, really.
b. You probably won't find anything on my list that was released before 1996.
c. I make no apologies for any album on said list which may contain unforgivable levels of suckage.
d. I will not be tagging anyone, as usual.
e. This will probably be really long, considering that it combines two of my fave things ever ; music and talking about myself.

Here Be The Life-Affirming Musical Profundity (in no particular order):

1. A Rush Of Blood To The Head - Coldplay


Yeah. Coldplay. Apparently well on the way to becoming the next perennially bloated U2, so I've heard. But A Rush Of Blood To The Head will forever stand as a testament to Coldplay at their best ; halfway between the acoustic sentimentality of Parachutes and the anthemic, ambitious, pretentious shit of X&Y. And it would be impossible to forget the year in which Amsterdam became my Emo Anthem of Emo-ness (because I was a pathetic emo mess at age 14 ). And it remains my strongest piece of evidence that these guys are at the peak of perfection when singing about primary colours and shady Dutch capital cities.

2. Takk - Sigur ros

This one is pretty darn nostalgic in a lot of ways. It constituted a large portion of the first mixed CD I ever received, it was the first album I ever got as a gift, a review of it was in the first copy of Galaxie I ever purchased, it contains the one song that made me tear up the first time I heard it, and most importantly, it was the reason for my discovering that my Life's Ultimate Purpose is to stuff music down people's proverbial throats whether they liked it or not.

3. Debt & Departure - Those Bastard Souls

Debt & Departure remains special in the sense that I discovered it pretty much on my own ;no assistance from radio, TV, the Internet, music mags or even word of mouth. It was just there, lying at the bottom of a stack of old CDs in a dusty, mouldy, cockroach-infested cupboard. I decided to give it a spin, just for fun, and fell in love practically on the spot. It wouldn't be years later until I discovered the album's very impressive credentials, namely the fact that most of the band members were stray wanderers from Jeff Buckley's original posse, and that it was considered one of the best albums of the 90s. Not that any of it matters,really.

4. Hopes And Fears - Keane


Hopes and Fears intruded upon my life when I was fourteenish, and proceeded to enable a lot of my early adolescent emo phasing. Somewhere Only We Know played on pretty much a constant loop on my head, especially when I was at school, where I would gaze wistfully out the window at the trees outside and imagine Tim's (or is it Tom's?) voice soaring through the leaves. Keane will never be as good as this, which is probably a mean thing to say. Oh well.

5. Begin To Hope - Regina Spektor



It was late 2006, and we were doing this super huge makeover on the house, and this was the only thing we listened to during our back-breaking 12 hour painting sessions, until even my mom was singing along to the "ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-heart" chorus in Fidelity.
In fact, the smell of paint still makes me think of that song. Aww.

6. Paint The Sky With Stars - Enya

Shut up.
Enya rocks.

7. Life For Rent - Dido


You know those albums you've listened to so many times that every note of every instrument has practically seared itself into your brain? This would be one of them.
And shut up. Dido's awesome.

8. Hearing Voices - Will Ackerman

When I asked my dad to get me a copy of Takk from Tower Records, he went over there, completely mispronounced the band's name, and came home with this instead. Out of pure pissed-offness I decided to ignore the existence of Hearing Voices until my dad played it one day and I fell sickeningly in love with all the gorgeous guitars and vocals in languages I couldn't understand (Hebrew, Sanskrit and Italian to name a few). And I am a sucker for languages I cannot understand. Never have I been more grateful for my father's inability to say the word "Sigur ros".

9. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys


I listened to Fake Tales of San Francisco on Grace's mp3 player on the bus while we were on a librarian field trip thing (remember them good old librarian days, dude? When we made Nerd-dom proud by laughing at obscure limericks in the Dictionary of Quotations, amongst other intellectual pursuits?). Prior to that field trip, I was of the opinion that the Arctic Monkeys were just some loud, pimply, brash English youngsters badly in need of elocution lessons. That bus ride changed my whole outlook on the band. They're still loud, brash, pimply, virtually unintelligible and English. But now I can love them for it.

10. The Collection/ Let It Rain - Tracy Chapman


How much I frakking adore this woman, I cannot even begin to describe. Also it's kind of cool to think that my mom used to listen to these songs on cassette tapes on the bus, on her way to work back when she was my age.

11. Logic Will Break Your Heart - The Stills


I went barking mad over these guys during what is referred to as "the beginnings of my indie phase". It's not exactly musically-groundbreaking stuff, but I can forgive its relative simplicity for the number of times it has kept me company during long, boring car journeys, mainly trying to figure what exactly the chorus to Gender Bombs says. Exceedingly cerebrally-stimulating activity, that.

12. In Rainbows - Radiohead

Yeah. I could have said something awesomer, like Kid A or OK Computer. But the reality is that the bulk of my Radioheaducation came in one massive dose, with no real distinction between time frames or albums. I could probably inform you rather well as to what song comes from which album, but it makes no actual difference to me (travesty, I know). In Rainbows marked the first time I could savour a Radiohead album on its own terms, at a time when I was both old and Radioheaducated enough to be aware of their awesomeness, and that's a pretty big deal to the BAP.

13. O - Damien Rice


This took over my life roughly around the time when I started rebelling against Catholicismess, the religion I was brought up with (with? in?) and asked too many questions nobody could answer and took the plunge into my own special brand of a weird sort of agnosticism and wrote a letter to my mother explaining all my issues because I could hardly have a face to face conversation with my folks about religion by that point without somebody being reduced to tears, and yeah. The last time in living memory that I made my mom cry. And O, despite really having nothing much to do with the Catholic faith really (except for Why'd you say hallelujah/ If it means nothing to ya) was sort of the only thing I listened to during those months. Nothing else was miserable enough, really.

14. He Poos Clouds - Final Fantasy


Seriously. Best album title ever. Final Fantasy was one of the first things I ever experimented with when it came to acquiring music on the Internet via blogs, and I remember being as amazed as heck that anybody could make songs like these off nothing more than ye olde violin. I'll profess love for almost anything under the sun if you toss some violin music in there, and He Poos Clouds was sort of like having a prayer answered at the time. For about 3 months I honestly was not the least bit concerned about the existence of any other musician on earth.
And imagine my delight when I found out how Pretty the guy is!

15. Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man OST - Various

I never really got into Leonard Cohen's original stuff much before, but the cover versions on this soundtrack album were like a drug. One listen and I was hooked. Everything from Nick Cave to the Wainwrights to Teddy Thompson to Beth Orton to Jarvis Cocker, it was all I played for maybe a month (until the new Sigur ros rolled along;because I am fickle like that) and my whole family have even picked out their funeral songs off this collection. Go buy this and guess which mine is.

16. Try!The John Mayer Trio Live In Concert - The John Mayer Trio


See, when John Mayer isn't being a massive jerk, he actually makes some pretty kickass music. These three kept me company on all those long, lonely nights I had to spend staying up with my History textbooks and all that manner of crap, cramming names and dates and facts into my head. And it was always History, for some reason. Mayer, Jordan and Palladino never seemed to get along with any other subject. Gentlemen, I thank thee all for the big fat A on my exam slip right next to "History".

17. Gold - ABBA

Shut up.
If you must know, my parents used to play this album every Sunday morning right after church when my mom would be making the only homecooked breakfast of the week. And I was like, 8 years old maybe. You could probably say I didn't know any better. But I told you I wasn't going to make any apologies.


18. Singles - Travis


It seems odd to place such a tragic event in association with the jangly happiness of Travis, but I bought and listened to Singles at a time when an acquaintance of mine from school died a particularly terrible death. I didn't know the person well at all, but everyone was so badly shaken up and in tatters over it that it was hard not to be affected by it, at least to some small degree. It got all of us pondering on mortality and how ridiculously, disgustingly young we truly were at the time, and to some of us it was even a rude shock, pertaining how very little time we actually had left and how unfair the universe could be when it felt like it. And also how some people live and love and accomplish more in 17 years than others ever will in 70.

19. Narrow Stairs - Death Cab For Cutie

Y'know back in the day, maybe a few months ago, when I hated school's guts and felt like throwing up even when thinking about it, blah blah blah? This album kept me sane. In all seriousness. Thanks, Grace.

20. Donnie Darko OST - Various


I mean like, duh. Greatest film soundtrack of all time. Of course it had a profound musical impact on my life or whatever it is that meme said it was! It was the first time I ever felt like the songs were an utterly indipensable part of the movie, that there was no way you could get the same viewing experience even if you changed the order of songs within the 120-odd minutes, let alone replace any of the tracks. Frakking work of geniusical art. I worship it. I do. Also the best concluding montage EVER, set to Gary Jules' cover of Mad World.

21. Grace's Valentine's Day Mixed CD (2007) - Grace. And some other musical people.

I listened to this so much I had to rip all the tracks into my computer because I was afraid I'd end up breaking the CD, or wearing it down to dust or something. It was my first official introduction to the world of music beyond what I was accustomed to, and I was pretty much hooked from the very first notes of Albert Hammond Jr's In Transit right up to the final guitary- pluckings of Skinny Fists by Christians and Lions. And yes, I can recite the entire tracklist from memory. If that's not musical profundity, I don't know what is.

22. The Magic Position - Patrick Wolf


I don't really know why. Or what. It just makes me happy. Maybe it's all the tinkles and the bouncy violins, or Patrick's lovely happy hair. Maybe it was all those years I spent wallowing in self-indulgent adolescent Emo (I still Emo fairly often, but it is a more sophisticated brand of Emo, really). This album just puts me in the bloody magic position, that's what. Wherever the magic position is.

23. Sway EP - The Perishers

I had the world's massivest crush on the lead's voice (not quite THE massivest; Jake still holds the record on that one) and the fact that they were all Scandinavian just made me more excited, and I played this every night before I went to bed for some months when I was 16. A lullaby of sorts.

24. These Streets - Paolo Nutini


Stupid gorgeous boy and his stupid gorgeous voice and his stupid gorgeous Scottish accent had me in drugged-up romantic daze for centuries. I almost seriously started to consider eating fish again, for his sake. That's how hardcore my affair with this one was. But gosh. Is he pretty or WHAT?

25. Black Holes & Revelations - Muse

Pretty much the reason for my attending my first ever real gig. Which was so awesome it defies words, including made-up ones.

There. Consider yourselves tagged. And I really mean it, because I'm honestly super pumped about seeing what your choices are going to be. Also feel free to mess around with the 25 Albums concept. I mean, 10, 5, 13.5 albums...it's all good. It's not like the meme police are watching or anything.