2009/2010 folk/pop/rock favourites

[vaneramos]

Here is a list of my favourite new non-Classical songs. I haven't done anything like this in a while, so it also covers two years. Links lead to YouTube, mostly official videos.

1. Charlie Winston: In Your Hands. The frantic rhythm, driving instrumentation, compelling story and Winston's vocal intensity grip me every time. The video is excellent, too.
2. Basia Bulat: Run. The link shows a live studio performance with piano, backup vocal, viola and percussion. It is close to the version that caught my breath first time I heard it on the radio. Bulat's yearning lyrics, swift-flowing tempos and lush folk instrumentation are captivating. The album, Heart Of My Own, which was long-listed for the 2010 Polaris Music Prize, is consistently memorable.
3. K'naan: Fatima. This radiant, devastating song tells a true story from the rapper's childhood in Mogadishu.
4. U2: Moment Of Surrender. This will be old news to most by now, but I can't talk about 2009 without mentioning the inestimable album, No Line On the Horizon. This song left the most powerful impression on me.
5. Hawksley Workman: Warhol's Portrait of Gretsky. Now for some comic relief. There really is such a painting. Google it and gaze into Gretsky's eyes as you listen to the brilliant lyrics (the Youtube link is just an audio track). It will make your day.
6. A Fine Frenzy: What I Wouldn't Do (lyrics video). This is a sentimental, upbeat song to play when you need cheering up, but there is a sting in the final verse.
7. Coco Love Alcorn: Revolution (live performance). This takes the prize for an intelligent revolutionary message: "Black is the colour of the good rich soil we sow with greed/Red is the colour of the ink we use to buy for free/Grey is the colour of the manifest destiny/Green is the colour of the old growth shade I long to see."
8. A Fine Frenzy: Blow Away (official video, cute but cheesy). Another selection from the same album, Bomb in a Birdcage, and another feel-good indulgence.
9. Charlotte Gainsbourg: Heaven Can Wait. This falls on the darker side, with a disturbingly funny video.

Comments

[waitsfortherain.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this list, most of which I didn't know. I'm going to listen to everything very carefully.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Let me know what you think!

[smileyfish.livejournal.com]

1. nice song, though it was the video that got to me. Centrelink offices... *shudder* Now there's a period in my life I never want to go back to!

3. Oh that is beautiful. Thank you.

5. WTF? Weird, yet amusing. And you have increased my Warhol knowledge.

6. Nice! I think I need to introduce you to The Waifs and Lisa Mitchell

7. Nice chilled grooves, and agree re: lyrics

8. Very cute. Yes, definately need to introduce you to Lisa Mitchell. (also, hooray for cute red-heads)

I think I may have to do one of these posts. I didn't listened to much new music in 2010, but a few songs did make a big impression.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I looked up a couple Lisa Mitchell songs on YouTube. I liked "I'll see you when you get here" and "Far, far away". Do you recommend either of her albums?

I played "Lighthouse" by The Waifs and liked it a lot.

It reminded me right away of Sarah Harmer, a local folk singer, songwriter and activist. One of her songs I like is I am aglow. I liked watching the video because it was shot in familiar woodland landscape where I often hike near the Niagara Escarpment. I believe the scenes with the band were made at the ruined mill in Rockwood, about 20 minutes from here. This is the land I love. I recommend the album this song is taken from, I Am a Mountain. I haven't quite warmed to her most recent album, yet.

I had a neat close encounter with Sarah Harmer. She had recorded a song, Escarpment Blues, toured and created a music video to protest the creation of new gravel pits along the escarpment, which is a World Biosphere Reserve. One of my favourite local artists, Lorraine Roy, has also used her work to promote environmental issues, in fact some of her quilts portray the escarpment landscape. A few days before Mom died in 2008 she gave me some money, and I decided to use it to purchase two work by local artists I like, which I could not normally afford. I went to a show where Lorraine had a booth and picked out Burning Bush 8. Lorraine was "all aglow" that day because Sarah Harmer had appeared not long before me to buy one of her escarpment quilts!