2011 in Music - Part One

Intro

2011 was a very important year in music. The Strokes released their first studio album since 2006's 'First Impressions of Earth'. The Arctic Monkeys also released a new album in March titled 'Suck It and See'. Alex Turner has been rather busy this year, as well as his work with the band, he also wrote songs for the soundtrack of the excellent film 'Submarine' (directed by Richard Ayoade, based on a novel by Joe Dunthorne). Elsewhere, Florence & The Machine sunk to a new low by performing on the X Factor. Noah & The Whale went from strength to strength with their new material, including the hit single 'L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N'. Reforming to do one last tour/album seems to be quite popular, but the new Blink 182 single was met with a varied response. The Red Hot Chili Peppers also returned this year with 'I'm With You', it sounds a lot more funky when compared to 'Stadium Arcadium' - but then double albums never work, whilst they might feature one or two fantastic songs, the rest of the material tends to be easily forgotten ('Use Your Illusion' & 'In Your Honor' are two textbook examples of this). We also saw the welcome return of Incubus, with their 7th album 'If Not Now, When?', the first single 'Adolescents' showed consistency in quality material from the band. Meanwhile, Justice released 'Audio, Video, Disco', a slightly disappointing follow up to their 'Cross' album, but still sublime in a handful of the tracks, including 'Horsepower'.

In July this year, singer Amy Winehouse passed away. Whilst there were biographies in major retailers even before the cause of death was confirmed, which is just distasteful, it is important to remember how influential her music is. Another major event in 2011 in the world of music happened in September when R.E.M. published a statement on their website announcing their split. Frontman Michael Stipe said "the skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave. We built something extraordinary together. We did this thing. And now we're going to walk away from it". It was sad to see them go. They released a greatest hits collection called 'Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage', which includes older material such as 'The One I Love' as well as material specifically recorded for this collection, like 'We All Go Back To Where We Belong'. Also, cashing in with promoting a greatest hits collection this year were the Manic Street Preachers, which meant that James Dean Bradfield appeared on several evening television and radio shows where the presenters hadn't a clue who he was, but when he performs Manics material acoustically it is almost guaranteed to be a great experience. Check out this version of the 1992 hit 'Motorcycle Emptiness'. Quite a few bands decided to part ways this year, Dananananaykroyd completed a farewell tour recently, and dance heavyweights Faithless performed for the last time at Brixton Academy back in April. I feel that I have started this blog post by looking at the obvious rather than the specifics of the past 12 months of music, I hope to cover a bit of both in the following sections.

Best Lyric

When considering albums and live performances (I'll get to those later) it is very difficult to pick the best out of a mind field of success in both the eyes of the media and the public. However, for this section it was easy, there was one lyric that stuck out as immediately unique. In the first single from his new album, Scroobius Pip comes out with some very clever lines, one of which is "you see a mouse trap, I see free cheese and f***in' challenge". Here, Pip uses subjects that are talked about hip hop, and discusses them in a conscious way, but also brings in issues that are usually taboo. This parallels his way of doing things; the video for 'Introdiction' was shot for just £100, and his new album, 'Distraction Pieces' is on his own record label. The 'DIY' approach is echoed in his spoken word. You may already be familiar with his albums released with Dan Le Sac. If you get a spare few minutes, be sure to look up his own material from this album as well as older spoken word pieces such as 'Rat Race' on youtube, it's well worth it. He also sold his beard on Ebay, and got more than £200 for it!

Epic Fails

There wouldn't be winners without some losers, and it's safe to say that this year delivered some. The music festival circuit saw some hundreds of thousands of people brave the British weather in the name of having a good time, but they weren't prepared for the first of these fails. Plan B felt it necessary to reaffirm his hard man image by starting mosh pits on stage during his last song, 'Stay Too Long'. This did nothing but damage equipment and lower everyone's expectations of the 28 year old hip hop star. Speaking of festivals, over at Glastonbury, headliners Coldplay took to the stage on the second day of the festival. They are always said to be the Marmite of the music world. Despite their huge status and headline spot at the festival, they still managed to mess up a song half the way through, before restarting it. In other festival news, The Offspring have completely lost it - footage of this years Reading Festival shows that Dexter's voice isn't great, they struggle to build an atmosphere and for what is supposed to be a punk rock show - they are just too old. It really isn't the same as what it was. Elsewhere, in perhaps the weirdest collaboration ever, Metallica recorded an album with Lou Reed - a man that performed a concert specifically for dogs. In a predictable series of events, X Factor winners Little Mix (a name that sounds like a variety of Haribo) covered a Damien Rice song, once again a song that i'll never be able to listen to now i've heard the X Factor cover. Worse still Leona Lewis covered 'Hurt' by Nine Inch Nails. I won't bother posting links to these songs, i'll save your ears. Another flop this came from Limp Bizkit. The heavily misogynistic video for 'Golden Cobra' features Fred Durst strut around next to expensive cars and naked women. Musically, it is over-produced and far too predictable. But then what did you expect from a band like Limp Bizkit?

Part Two

Words: Zach Roddis - @zach2504