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058 Fuck Buttons "Olympians" (2010) [1,071]

 

31-19-14-11-05-01-02-02-02-03-05-07-14-21-28-38-48 (17 weeks)

 

The amazing Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power are better known as Bristol's Fuck Buttons (their named chosen to be 'playful and abrasive') - a band-name that understandably means they'll never quite become household names but they did get this, their towering 10 minute epic "Olympians" broadcast to 1 billion people in mid-2012 thanks to Danny Boyle. The track along with "Surf Solar", taken from their excellent 2nd LP Tarot Sport was used in the opening montage for the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, and although the track was not named for this occasion, it feels very much like it matches the Olympic spirit. The video is also a triumph and well worth a watch.

Edited September 5, 201311 yr by Doctor Blind

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057 Florence + The Machine "Cosmic Love" (2010) [1,083]

UK chart peak: #51

 

38-23-13-05-01-01-01-03-06-06-11-15-20-26-33-42-49-49 (18 weeks)

 

An album campaign that seemed to go on forever ("Kiss With A Fist" was released in mid-2008), she finally released "Cosmic Love" (an early album favourite) in mid-2010 but it sadly flopped on the singles chart due to the delayed nature of its release/promotion. The track was written by Florence and Isabella Summers, "in about half an hour with the worst hangover ever" and is her own personal favourite from her debut LP Lungs - produced along with Paul Epworth. Paul described his first meeting with Florence Welsh: "To be honest, I thought, 'Won't someone just nail her down?' She was going at two million mph, saying she wanted to make a tribal pagan pop record the whole time. But she's got a flair for invention that's rare. When she recorded Cosmic Love the words came when she was lying on the floor. Then she sang it and everyone in the studio was just crying. She's a great British eccentric, no doubt about it."

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056 Santigold "Disparate Youth" (2012) [1,086]

UK chart peak: #96

 

36-20-13-08-05-02-01-03-05-05-06-09-13-18-24-30-42-47 (18 weeks)

 

Santi White was forced to change her stage name, but finally 4 years after Santogold she was back to release her second LP Master of My Make-Believe, and from this the first single was the excellent "Disparate Youth". Santigold took three months to write the lyrics. "Lyrically, I was trying to talk about what I want for the world and what I want people to be," she explained to MTV News. "The youth are the hope of the future, and I want people to have the courage to trust their own vision and instincts and make up the truth for themselves and question what's told to them." The song made #1 with ease, giving her a second number 1 after the massive "L.E.S. Artistes" spent 5 weeks at #1 in 2008.

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055 Kele "Tenderoni" (2010) [1,087]

UK chart peak: #31

 

40-28-18-11-06-04-02-01-01-02-03-07-13-18-24-27-43 (17 weeks)

 

Here with have the only single to make the list from the Bloc Party lead singer's solo LP The Boxer, "Tendroni" went on to spent 2 weeks at No.1 during the summer, it remains his high point of the decade to date with only "Everything You Wanted" also making the Top 10 (#9 in September 2010). The dance beats in this remind me of Dutch music producer, Mason's excellent 2006 single "Exceeder". Whilst Bloc Party were on indefinite hiatus (something they are back on now) in 2010 he decided to embrace his dance roots and love of the dance/club culture. A "Tendroni" is a slang terminology for having crush on someone who is a lot younger than you and indeed Kele revealed that the song was indeed about "having the hots for someone a bit too young to you."

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054 Public Service Broadcasting "Everest" (2012) [1,093]

 

48-28-15-08-04-02-02-01-03-05-05-08-11-16-25-34-41-49 (18 weeks)

 

The absolutely stunning "Everest" was the first single that I properly loved from Public Service Broadcasting - and it epitomises the bands style of capturing old public information films and historical memorabilia and channelling it through modern sound production, in their own words 'attempting to teach the lessons of the past through the music of the future'. The London duo consists of J. Willgoose, Esq and Wrigglesworth. The song "Everest" took them 3 months to write, which sounds a long time but is actually quite short by their standards, J. Willgoose, Esq explains "It was written about the film, The Conquest of Everest. The film’s 80 minutes long but I gave it a quick scan through and knew straight away that it’d be perfect to write a song around, so I got cracking. The moment I thought it could be something good was when I heard the line “two very small men, cutting steps in the roof of the world”. There was a poetry in that line that really appealed to me"

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053 Of Monsters and Men "Little Talks" (2012) [1,093]

UK chart peak: #12

 

40-29-17-11-10-09-07-05-03-05-08-10-11-15-19-25-30-36-45-48 (20 weeks)

 

The biggest Icelandic hit on this countdown comes from this unassuming six piece indie folk/pop band from Reykjavík. Originally released in 2011 and going straight to #1 in Iceland, it took a re-release for the rest of the world to finally catch on to this joyful hit single about coping with loss. It took a mammoth 9 weeks to peak and thanks to some impressive longevity manages to out-peak a lot of long running #1s in the process. Hilmarsdóttir explained the song's meaning: "It's about a couple and the husband passed away and it's from the conversation between the two of them. We don't know if she's going crazy or if someone's actually there."

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052 Vampire Weekend "Diane Young" (2013) [1,098]

UK chart peak: #50

 

47-30-18-06-03-01-01-02-03-04-07-11-16-22-28-35-39-46 (18 weeks)

 

The first of two entries for Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Tomson, Chris Baio, otherwise known as Vampire Weekend. 2013 saw the release of their 3rd LP Modern Vampires of the City and the first single from it "Diane Young" - a play on 'dying young' was a double A-side with "Step" and helped the band chalk up their 3rd #1 single on my chart. The disorienting track is an ode to and out-of-control girl, though as Ezra explains "The narrator's voice is critical: 'You're f**king around doing all this sh*t.' But then they have their own doubts: 'I live my life in self-defence. I love the past because I hate suspense.' And that felt very true of a certain type of person - which, sometimes, I think is me – who is ultimately a coward and maybe secretly envious of people who really don't give a f**k."

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051 London Grammar "Wasting My Young Years" (2013) [1,098*]

UK chart peak: #31

 

40-22-13-10-08-06-04-01-01-03-05-10-15-20-23-27-35-39* (18 weeks... so far)

 

The wonderful London Grammar have yet to release their debut album ( If You Wait is out on Monday in the UK), but have already been one of the most talked about bands of the past 12 months with their debut single "Hey Now" released in late 2012 and garnering extensive praise. "Wasting My Young Years" is their biggest pop moment so far and features the stunning vocals of Hannah Reid. When I counted up the chart points this was still on the chart, and could easily move up quite a bit higher with a few more weeks on. The video is worth a view - Directing duo Bison built a rig housing featured 625 pinhole cameras in a 360 degree loop for the video. By exposing an entire roll of 35mm film in a single instant they were able to capture the panoramic images. "So the idea becomes looking at one moment from many perspectives, as opposed to looking at many moments from one perspective, like most music videos," said the band. "We really wanted to capture that essence of someone falling or being trapped."

Edited September 7, 201311 yr by Doctor Blind

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050 Apparat "Song Of Los" (2011) [1,100]

 

37-22-16-09-04-01-01-03-05-07-07-09-12-16-22-28-37-47 (18 weeks)

 

The German electronic musician Sascha Ring has come a long way over the past decade, culminating in his debut Mute release The Devil's Walk ( named after a political poem by romantic English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley) in 2011, and "Song Of Los" which was my instant favourite from the album. Sascha recorded his first live session as one of the final ever Peel Sessions in 2004, but primarily started out as a music producer - he now also collaborates in the German electronic group Moderat. Though it doesn't quite achieve the lofty-heights of earlier single "Arcadia" it still manages to draw me in every-time I heard it, especially the emotive, melancholic vocals accompanied by the wonderful video of a female robot who develops human emotions.

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049 Röyksopp ft. Susanne Sundfør "Running To The Sea" (2013) [1,101]

 

49-22-14-07-07-05-03-01-01-03-05-08-14-18-25-30-38-46 (18 weeks)

 

The Norwegian duo from Tromsø have been making music together for almost 15 years since Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland met each other in 1998. I loved Junior, the groups 3rd studio album and first for over 4 years, but this was promptly followed by the ever-so slightly underwhelming Senior in 2010. After hearing nothing from the band for almost 3 years, the silence was broken by the wonderful "Running to the Sea", a collaboration with Norwegian artist Susanne Sundfør - which describes the rush and the sadness of someone escaping their chaotic reality. The track is a triumph and shows the band at their very best - although it is sadly unlikely that this will be a precursor to a forthcoming album release - the track was apparently written in just 2 days specifically for the final ever edition of Norway's NKR Lydverket (think Jools Holland)

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048 Grimes "Oblivion" (2012) [1,108]

 

36-16-11-08-05-03-02-04-03-03-05-10-15-21-28-33-39-44-50 (19 weeks)

 

Canadian born Claire Boucher, aka Grimes - released the outstanding debut Visions in 2012, the result of two years of messing around with drum machines, keyboards and making countless demos. Claire began making music in 2010, with two albums on local label Arbutus, but it was only when "Oblivion" began circulating around the blogs in October 2011 that critics started getting interested and her popularity grew worldwide. "Oblivion" hints at unprovoked night-time violence, and Claire explains "I was assaulted and I had a really hard time engaging in any types of relationship with men, because I was just so terrified of men for a while." In the video she is seen dancing in typically male-dominated arenas, in which she wanted to get across asserting abstract female power and explained that "Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be".

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047 Villagers "The Waves" (2012) [1,109]

 

38-21-14-09-04-01-02-02-04-05-08-11-16-24-32-34-39-44-50 (19 weeks)

 

Villagers are a 5-piece band from Ireland, fronted by Conor O'Brien - who formed the band after his previous band The Immediate, split. Previous album Becoming a Jackal was Mercury nominated and in early 2013 they followed it up with the wonderful {Awayland} - of which "The Waves" was the single that led it, and an album that explores reflection, especially in the form of storytelling. "The Waves" builds and builds to an eventual crescendo with distorted guitars and drums and which sees Conor almost shouting "approaching the shore" as if a building threat, but works to amazing effect - especially live. Conor explains: "'The Waves' was written on an acoustic guitar and then arranged into a synth heavy beat-driven dream-trip which made my brain explode when I demoed it. It was written after I saw some particularly distressing footage of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake in Japan. The song is simply an expression of how absolutely tiny we are in relation the world and the universe around us."

Edited September 10, 201311 yr by Doctor Blind

LOVE 'The Waves'. I should've placed it higher on my EOY chart <3

 

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046 Crystal Castles "Baptism" (2010) [1,110]

UK chart peak: #103

 

34-19-10-04-01-02-04-06-08-11-17-18-20-25-28-35-40-42-44-48 (20 weeks)

 

At the risk of repeating myself, I was introduced to Alice Glass and Ethan Kath, aka Toronto's Crystal Castles back in 2008 thanks to British drama Skins, though it wasn't until the release of II that I really started getting into them. There's a lot of raw anger in "Baptism", to the point where Alice screams out the chorus to make it almost unintelligible - a point I only really noticed when Radio 1 (yes 1FM) playlisted it in the summer of 2010 - I wonder what the 40-something mums made to that whilst they tuned in to Scott Mills in the afternoon? The single itself has a catchy synth-line with plenty of electronic blips, and is I believe a somewhat barbed attack on religious oppression; Alice in her own words: "was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school until junior high. I don't believe in transmigration or anything like that. I have resentment for being forced to believe in something. I will always think of the church as an institution and not a comfort."

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045 Bat For Lashes "All Your Gold" (2012) [1,114]

 

39-22-12-04-01-01-01-02-03-05-07-10-13-19-22-31-44 (17 weeks)

 

Natasha Khan decided to rediscover her past with 2012's The Haunted Man and its an interesting past that includes that of her father, the coach of the Pakistani national squash team, who left suddenly when she was 11 - focussed his time training her cousin Jahangir Khan, who went on to become a six-time world champion. With artwork for the single and album that spoke of an 'intimate and stripped down' sound - it was her 2nd single "All Your Gold" that I immediately was drawn to. It is a track which explores relationship patterns, and is an honest account of a relationship breakdown. Inspired by Gotye's world beating "Somebody That I Used To Know" - the addictive hook and melody made this a firm favourite and it equalled the 3 weeks spent at No.1 by 2007 single "Prescilla".

Edited September 10, 201311 yr by Doctor Blind

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044 Florence + The Machine "No Light, No Light" (2011) [1,123]

UK chart peak: #50

 

30-15-07-04-02-01-01-02-02-03-05-10-16-23-29-36-42 (17 weeks)

 

The second of three Florence songs in the Top 100 is this, the first track that Florence Welsh wrote after the exceptional Lungs campaign that went on for almost 2 years. The dramatic "No Light, No Light" was apparently written on the tour bus in Amsterdam, uses plenty of harps and a thudding tribal drum onslaught to great effect. If we forget for a minute that video above (which is pretty pretentious and awful IMO) this is superb track, with percussion reminding me of the tense and wonderful atmosphere of The Dreaming by Kate Bush and the vocals are incredible, just out of this world. Florence explains: "Most of my influences have been male singers and the people I grew up watching perform were all these garage punk bands who went to Camberwell Art College with male singers who were almost trying to exorcise the audience. So when I write songs like 'No Light, No Light', I'm thinking about the rhythm and the chant and the aggression rather than the melodic mellifluousness of it."

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043 Patrick Wolf "Time Of My Life" (2010) [1,124]

 

36-24-10-05-03-03-02-02-03-03-07-10-15-20-27-34-39-44-50 (19 weeks)

 

Patrick Wolf has been on the edge of a commercial breakthrough for the best part of a decade now, and I thought in 2007 with the magical The Magic Position - a true expression of new love - was the moment it would finally happen. Unfortunately the magical and upbeat title track flopped in at (amusingly) #69 ( hehe). But anyway, that duly passed and then I thought as Christmas approached in 2010 that the utterly joyful "Time Of My Life" really would be that song... it wasn't to be. The song itself is a highly charged and strings drenched song that explores themes of love and optimism and Wolf explained: "'Time Of My Life' is a song that I began writing at the end of a relationship in 2006 and then finished three years later during a temporary break-up in my current relationship."

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042 James Blake "Retrograde" (2013) [1,126]

 

34-10-03-01-01-01-02-04-06-09-13-16-19-24-29-39-47-50 (18 weeks)

 

It was a little bit of an odd coincidence that this video preceded by a matter of days, the Chelyabinsk meteor - that was the biggest meteor to hit the Earth since 1908 and provided dramatic images of as it lit up the southern Ural skyline in February. The song itself is the most R&B track Blake has written so far, and was inspired by Blake's relationship with Warpaint guitarist Theresa Wayman and is a beautiful, etheral and emotive track that uses again some heavy synths and bass competing against his powerful vocals. Blake explained: "When I write, 'We are alone now,' it's about exactly that, so for that reason people are relating to it. Maybe they have somebody or they want to be talked to like that. It's funny when you write a love song; you suddenly realize why 99% of songs are love songs, because the reaction is so uniquely forceful."

Edited September 10, 201311 yr by Doctor Blind

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041 Vampire Weekend "Giving Up The Gun" (2010) [1,127]

UK chart peak: #172 :(

 

33-18-04-02-02-01-02-04-07-09-12-15-21-27-32-35-37-40-47 (19 weeks)

 

This songs origins are actually as far back as 2005 when Ezra Koenig was part of a comedy rap duo in a band called L'Homme Run. "Giving Up The Gun" was an immediate favourite from their 2010 LP Contra and duly rocketed to #1 in March 2010. The track was inspired by Noel Perrin's 1979 book titled Giving Up the Gun which was given to Ezra by his father. Koenig explains: "I got the idea for the song from a book my dad gave me called Giving Up The Gun. It's a history book about the time when Japan expelled all the foreigners from the country, closed off all trade and stopped using guns and reverted back to the sword. It seems unimaginable now that humanity could willingly go back to an older technology. It got me thinking about whether you could give up all the things that you have and go back to a simpler way of life." Also the 'go on, go on, go on' bit always reminds me of Mrs Doyle. :D

Edited September 10, 201311 yr by Doctor Blind

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040 Gang Gang Dance "MindKilla" (2011) [1,135]

 

38-21-09-03-02-01-01-02-03-04-06-09-15-22-27-36-45-50 (18 weeks)

 

Brooklyn's Gang Gang Dance have been recording and releasing music together for over 10 years now, though it was not until 2008's "House Jam" that I finally became aware of them. The melody and opening lyrics of "House Jam" incidentally were used as the inspirational starting point for Florence + The Machine's brilliant 2009 single "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)", where it shares the lyrics "How quickly the glamour fades". Ahead of their 2011 album Eye Contact the band released "MindKilla" - which has elements of house music, but is also quite difficult to define with part-dance/part-ambient style full of towering synths clashing with Lizzi Bougatsos' vocals. The end result is mad but captivating!