Pioneers of digital music, Last.fm, today reveal the biggest trends from the past 10 years of music. To coincide with Last.fm celebrating a decade of scrobbling*, the music discovery service has revealed the globe’s listening habits over the last ten years and has launched the Last.fm Scrobbler – a new iOS app that will allow music fans to rediscover and explore their music library.

The Winners

Nirvana and Coldplay have been crowned the winners of the last decade, with Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” ranking as the most popular track of the decade and Coldplay taking the top spot as the most popular artist.

Rule Britannia

British music has dominated both artists and tracks of the last decade, with half of the ‘Top 10 Best Artists of the Decade’ hailing from the UK. Along with Coldplay, there are three other British acts – The Beatles, Radiohead and Muse dominating the top spots on the list and seven of the top 10 tracks are performed by British artists including Oasis, Kings of Leon and Muse.

Radio Gaga

Despite the strong British presence on the list, flying the flag for the USA is the First Lady of Pop – Lady Gaga, the only solo artist to appear in the Top 10 Artists and Top 10 Songs list from the past decade.

The Loss of Music Icons

The last decade has seen some sad losses for the music industry, most notably Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse. After the death of the King of Pop, the legend received the most listens, with over one million scrobbles in the space of 24 hours, as the music world mourned his departure.

Making up or breaking up

The decade has also seen some iconic splits and reunions. Band mates parting ways have hit the headlines a number of times in the last ten years, including the likes of Blink 182, Blur and R.E.M. The split that caused the biggest stir among fans goes to The White Stripes. The announcement of their split in February 2011 generated in excess of 60,000 scrobbles of their tracks. Generally, in the last decade, splits have sent music fans rushing to hear their favourite tunes, more so than band reunions.

Pulp’s reunion in 2010 caused the biggest spike in scrobbles beating the likes of the Spice Girls, Led Zeppelin and The Police. Music fans went wild with excitement at the band’s reunion after 15 years apart.

Steve Whilton, Director of Product at Last.fm commented:

“We are really excited to be releasing such rich data about the last 10 years of music. We have been able to provide a unique and vivid insight into 10 years of music listening, with our listening history captured from over 600 music platforms and hardware devices across the world. Some of the highlights include the most listened to artists, the top loved tracks and the most deleted ‘guilty pleasures’ of the last decade.”

Facts on the Last 10 Years of Music Data

Most Loved Track

• Lil’ Wayne—Lollipop

Most Skipped Track

• The Postal Service—Such Great Heights

Most Banned Track

• Lil’ Wayne—Lollipop

Top Guilty Pleasure

• Lady Gaga—Poker Face

For the full interactive 10 Years of Scrobbling timeline, please visit: www.last.fm/10years

The Last.fm Scrobbler app

To celebrate 10 years of scrobbling, Last.fm has created a unique app that allows users to reacquaint themselves with all the music stored on their phone and tablet.

The app connects the music stored on a user’s iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to Last.fm’s unique music data technology, called scrobbling*, helping users rediscover and explore the music they own. Each time a user listens to a song through the app it ‘scrobbles’ the track in order to share a number of services back to the user, helping them get the most out of their music.

“Users have spent years curating their digital libraries, but rarely have the time nor energy to listen to even a fraction of those songs. We wanted to offer a way for our users to reconnect with the music they already own,” said Michael Horan, Director of Product, Mobile and Platforms at Last.fm. “This application takes the frustration out of exploring personal libraries by applying the simplicity and serendipity of cloud-based streaming services to a users own music catalogue. The Last.fm Scrobbler then takes the experience further by surfacing songs around themes relevant to the user and giving them the opportunity to explore playlists around a song, mood, or genre.”

Features of the Last.fm Scrobbler include:

• Smart Playlists: The app offers ‘smart’ playlists to meet a user’s musical mood. The app matches songs against different musical characteristics, such as happy, sad, lively or calm; the app then serves a playlist of the songs in the user’s collection that match this theme. Users can also launch a similar music playlist based on any song in their library.
• Artist information: The app includes images, biographical and tour information about artists and bands for the user to browse while listening to their music.
• Personalised recommendations: Users will receive suggestions for artists and bands based on their musical tastes – helping them to discover new music and rediscover gems in their library. The app also suggests albums by artists already in their library, so they can complete their collection.
• Listening History: Users can see data stats on how many times they’ve listened to an artist or track and how their habits compare to global listening habits.
• Social Integration: Users can share what they’re listening to with their online community via Facebook or Twitter.

More information about the Last.fm Scrobbler for iOS can be found at Hardware. The app is now available for download in the Apple App Store:

• https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scrobbler-for-ios/id585235199

* Scrobbling a song means that when you listen to it, the data about the song is sent to Last.fm and added to your music profile. Millions of songs are scrobbled every day. This data helps Last.fm to organise and recommend music to people; we use it to create personalised radio stations, and a lot more besides.

As 2012 draws to a close, Spotify today reveals the biggest songs and artists listened to this year by the 15 million global users on the music streaming service.

Spotify can reveal that 2012’s biggest track of the year was Gotye’s breakthrough hit ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’, which was streamed more than any other track in the UK and worldwide, beating Carly Rae Jepsen’s viral hit ‘Call Me Maybe’ into second place. ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ was also the most-shared song by Spotify users globally, being shared across social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as well as to user’s Spotify Inboxes.

The biggest album of 2012 on Spotify was from dance music legend David Guetta whose ‘Nothing But the Beat’ was the most-streamed album of 2012. This was followed by Gotye’s ‘Making Mirrors’ and Drake’s ‘Take Care’, which take the second and third slots respectively.

Guetta was Spotify’s overall man of the year, beating Flo Rida and Eminem as the most-streamed male artist of 2012, while Rihanna saw off close rivals Nicki Minaj and Adele to be named the most-streamed woman of the year. Coldplay won the accolade of being the most-streamed band, following their huge world tour this year.

Spotify’s most-used app of 2012 goes to ‘Tunewiki’, the popular lyrics app, which displays a song’s lyrics while it’s playing to create the perfect sing-along experience. Spotify users spent more time using the Tunewiki app than any other of the free apps available in Spotify’s app finder this year. The music chatroom app ‘Soundrop’ was in second place, and in third place was ‘We Are Hunted’, which surfaces the tracks causing the most buzz across the internet.

Away from the top artist and track rankings, 2012 also saw some huge milestones for artists on Spotify; in October folk-rockers Mumford and Sons captured the Spotify record for the most streams of a newly-released album in 2012, seeing ‘Babel’ being streamed over 8 million times in just one week in the US. In addition, global boy band of the moment One Direction smashed the 100m streams milestone this year, shortly before launching their hugely popular 1D Music app on Spotify.

To find out more about Spotify’s top streamed acts, tracks and apps of 2012 visit the following website which goes live later today: http://www.spotify.com/about-us/2012/

Most-streamed tracks of 2012 (global)

1. Gotye featuring Kimbra – ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’

2. Carly Rae Jepsen – ‘Call Me Maybe’

3. Fun. featuring Janelle Monáe – ‘We Are Young’

4. Flo Rida – ‘Whistle’

5. Flo Rida featuring Sia – ‘Wild Ones’

6. Train – ‘Drive By’

7. Nicki Minaj – ‘Starships’

8. Maroon 5 featuring Wiz Khalifa – ‘Payphone’

9. David Guetta featuring Sia – ‘Titanium’

10. Loreen – ‘Euphoria’

Most-streamed tracks of 2012 in the UK

1. Gotye featuring Kimbra – ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’

2. Carly Rae Jepsen – ‘Call Me Maybe’

3. David Guetta featuring Sia – ‘Titanium’

4. Fun featuring Janelle Monae – We Are Young

5. Nicki Minaj – ‘Starships’

6. Flo Rida featuring Sia – ‘Wild Ones’

7. Rihanna – ‘We Found Love’

8. Alex Clare – ‘Too Close’

9. Train – ‘Drive By’

10. Jessie J – ‘Domino’

Most-streamed albums of 2012

1. David Guetta – ‘Nothing But The Beat’

2. Gotye – ‘Making Mirrors’

3. Drake – ‘Take Care’

4. Lana Del Ray – ‘Born To Die’

5. One Direction – ‘Up All Night’

6. Fun. – ‘Some Nights’

7. Rihanna – ‘Talk That Talk’

8. Coldplay – ‘Mylo Xyloto’

9. Carly Rae Jepsen – ‘Call Me Maybe’

10. Flo Rida – ‘Wild Ones’

Most-shared tracks by Spotify users (the most-shared tracks to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Spotify user’s Inboxes)

1. Gotye ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’

2. Carly Rae Jepsen ‘Call Me Maybe’

3. Fun. ‘We Are Young – feat. Janelle Monáe’

4. Flo Rida featuring Sia ‘Wild Ones’

5. David Guetta ‘Titanium – feat. Sia’

6. Flo Rida featuring Sia – ‘Whistle’

7. Train – ‘Drive By’

8. Maroon 5 – ‘Payphone’

9. Rihanna – ‘We Found Love’

10. Michel Teló – ‘Ai Se Eu Te Pego – Live’

Most-streamed female artists

1. Rihanna

2. Nicki Minaj

3. Adele

4. Lana Del Ray

5. Katy Perry

6. Carly Rae Jepsen

7. Beyonce

8. Taylor Swift

9. Loreen

10. Kelly Clarkson

Most-streamed male artists

1. David Guetta

2. Flo Rida

3. Eminem

4. Skrillex

5. Gotye

6. Drake

7. Pitbull

8. Jay-Z and Kanye West

9. Chris Brown

10. Avicii

Most-streamed bands

1. Coldplay

2. Maroon 5

3. Fun.

4. Mumford and Sons

5. Florence and the Machine

6. Linkin Park

7. LMFAO

8. One Direction

9. Train

10. Glee Cast

Most popular apps by usage

1. TuneWiki

2. Soundrop

3. We Are Hunted

4. Last.fm

5. Pitchfork

6. Digstr

7. musiXmatch

8. Billboard

9. Filtr

10. Moodagent

Stop the presses – Rock and Roll is not dead. Right out of leftfield comes Gary Clark Jr., an artist who takes the best of one of the only other true Rock and Roll artists of the modern times, The Black Keys and mixes it up in a bowl with a pint of swagger and guitar playing skills that, you would swear came directly from Jimi Hendrix‘s own hands. So much so that you convince yourself that Gary Clark Jr. might in fact be the re-incarnation of Jimi Hendrix, that is if you believe in all of that shit.

I stumbled on Gary Clark Jr. whilst editing the review of his upcoming album Blak & Blu that we just pushed live and, after hearing “Bright Lights” as an embedded video as part of the review, I was instantaneously not only hooked on Gary Clark Jr. and his sound, but also with the possibilities that, even with all this internet fueled, anyone with a computer can release an album generation there are still REAL artists out there that are, well, really fucking awesome. The ones that aren’t surfing new styles and genres, that aren’t trying to sound just like the latest trend band on the block, but that are just doing what comes completely naturally to them – biding their time, not rushing anything, releasing what is inside their soul musically and taking it all at their own pace. Trust me, for me Gary Clark Jr. is a HUGE breath of fresh air and “Bright Lights” has single handedly just restored my faith in music today.

I could digress further but it’s taking away from both a song and an artist that you must listen to and get familiar with RIGHT NOW. It’s official…Rock and Roll is not dead people.

The Parallax II: Future Sequence is one of my most anticipated albums in quite a while. Since the release of Colors in 2007, Between The Buried and Me have been struggling to not only top Colors, but to even come close. 2009′s The Great Misdirect was bit of a let down; now while I say that, it was still a great album and many bands never release an album as good as The Great Misdirect but, sadly for Between The Buried and Me it was no Colors, far from it in fact. Then in 2011 I was excited again as Between The Buried and Me were readying a new release, The Parallax I: Hypersleep Dialogues, but this again felt flat because for whatever reason offering an introduction to some characters of a story and not much else. The Parallax I: Hypersleep Dialogues was an EP and whilst it offered an appetizer of what was likely to come with The Parallax II: Future Sequence, it left me with hunger pangs for what was inevitably brewing behind closed doors. Today, October 9th 2012 sees the release of Between The Buried and Me‘s new album The Parallax II: Future Sequence and I have been giving this the love and attention it deserves, listening to it for over four week and in total, cranking the album in completeness at least 50 times before putting pen to ink to offer my opinions on it.

So is it good? Fuck yes it is, in short The Parallax II: Future Sequence is the album that Between The Buried and Me should have release directly after Colors. In future I would suggest that Between The Buried and Me take a leaf out of Tool‘s book and not rush their next release. It took Tool 5 years to release 10,000 Days and, if Between The Buried and Me had followed suit this would be the fifth year for them and The Parallax II: Future Sequence would have been the VERY successful follow up to Colors.

“Goodbye To Everything” begins and ends the album. Confused? You should be! Much like many movies start by showing the end and then filling in the story, The Parallax II: Future Sequence does exactly the same. As Thomas Giles sings “Let’s switch off together, Let’s float to no more, Goodbye….Goodbye To Everything” The Parallax II: Future Sequence technically ends. “Astral Body” then swings in to force and whips the listener back in time to hear what exactly brought everything to the very final climax of “Goodbye To Everything“. “Astral Body” is technically the first single released off The Parallax II: Future Sequence and boy it’s a corker. I also think it was chosen as a single as it is one of the only “normal” length songs on The Parallax II: Future Sequence with many hitting the 10 minute + mark and others hitting the sub 2 minute mark.

As Paul Waggoner, guitarist in Between The Buried and Me explains:

“The two main characters of the story take on a journey through space and time with the unenviable task of having to cure the flaws of humanity by any means necessary. While the EP served mostly as an introduction to the characters, The Parallax II: Future Sequence contains the action of the story. The lyrics are written in the stream of consciousness style, which really helps to capture the perspective and emotion of the characters.”

The story continues with “Lay Your Ghosts To Rest” which offers up the first guitar solo of the record and brings you into very familiar Between The Buried and Me territory. “Lay Your Ghosts To Rest” has all the heavy you want and couples that with all the weird you also want from a Between The Buried and Me record that, in reality, only they could ever really pull off. Thomas Giles screams are so on point in “Lay Your Ghosts To Rest” it is unreal. Fast, heavy and very clear, it is nice to see Thomas caring as much about screaming as singing again. “Lay Your Ghosts To Rest” even offers up some amazing blast beats, weird circus organs and music, cop show riffage and so much more in it’s 10 minute length, and it is on “Lay Your Ghosts To Rest” where you really start to get excited for the remainder of this journey.

“Autumn” follows and is pretty much just alien sounding blips and blips that set the scene for the following track “Extremophile Elite” which is, yet again another 10 minute plus epic song that opens strong, feeling more electronic, like something that could have been on Alaska, Between The Buried and Me‘s 2005 album. “Extremophile Elite” hits hard with screams from the vocal starting line which explain the current point of the story which, in a nutshell involves the main character seeing his Astral Body for the first time – an out of body experience if you will. The chorus, whilst being sung in a beautiful melody is actually very dark and the pinnacle to the lyrical content of this song:

“Carves one’s skin out of their own soil // Sends chills throughout my body”

Complete with cartoon xylophone, string and flute breakdown like only Between The Buried and Me can do, blast beats and even a middle eastern sounding breakdown, “Extremophile Elite” is a pinnacle song on The Parallax II: Future Sequence. The amazing guitar solo at the last quarter also holds some key lyrics that are pushed out like a radio broadcast of sorts. “Parallax” is another bridging song, with ethereal soundscapes and guitars. I love Between The Buried and Me‘s nod to film again in this song by utilizing a voice over narrative to explain the story further, with the character himself speaking for first time, declaring:

“Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my astral body headspace;
For nights on end I watched myself // I knew our pain was the same;
Loss, Self doubt, Isolation // Neither constructed or taken away;
We have always known out options // It was the relativity of time and space in our shared conscious which brought us together;
Now we are one // Two forces entwined to make a decision”

Strong shit for a song only lasting 1:17! “The Black Box” is another short song. With a pretty piano, harmonica and Thomas Giles singing dreamily. Depicting a dream of flying, Thomas asks the listener to “…come soar with me”. “The Black Box” builds and builds to lead into “Telos” which, is, without doubt the best track on the entire album. Anyone looking for a song that could equal the quality of the amazing “White Walls” from 2007′s Colors will be pleasantly surprised because “Telos” is that track. Featuring the most brutal heavy parts on the album. If music listeners didn’t have short attention spans and care about the length of singles, “Telos” would have undoubtedly been the first single taken from The Parallax II: Future Sequence “Telos” builds to a gigantic drop at the 3:20 mark which has a nice repetitive Meletron and a clean guitar solo with swirling effects, whooshes and spacey feeling vibes, all of which climaxes to what is undoubtedly the best riff on the entire album, probably because there is also a horn section accompanying it! Simple and catchy as a mother fucker.

“Telos” continues on and builds right up to the drop that is the beginning of “Bloom” which, is a very close second to song of the album for me. Whereas “Telos” showed Between The Buried and Me at their very best as a heavy band, “Bloom” showcases Between The Buried and Me‘s complete quirkiness and weirdness that no-one else can even compete with. “Bloom” has all sort’s of weird things going on, my favorite of which is the 50′s Rock and Roll / Blues riff that breaks up two brutally heavy screaming sections. Too freaky for a single, with it’s cartoon sounds, “Bloom” is the most normal lengthed song on The Parallax II: Future Sequence.

The remainder of the story is spread over two behemoth tracks; the 10 minute “Melting City” and the 15 minute beast that is “Silent Flight Parliament” before the “Goodbye to Everything Reprise” closes out The Parallax II: Future Sequence for good. “Melting City” has a guitar and flute solo at 3:20 that is out of this world. The singing parts again, on the surface and due to the pretty melody sound nice but are lyrically pretty dark:

“The valley of smiling and despair // Self doubt would be my first guess; Confusion, sadness the other half // But lost through selfish measures; Selfish measures // Can’t live with this // Must let her know”

There is a beautiful interlude at the 7:20 mark which has some astonishing drum work along with very fast walking bass and simple guitar that all grow and grow. The cymbal work on display here is the highlight of the amazing drumming showcase throughout The Parallax II: Future Sequence. It all ends with more weird alien sound effects that crescendo to a reverse cymbal that signals the beginning of “Silent Flight Parliament” which is the slowest song on display on The Parallax II: Future Sequence. It is also worth noting that “Silent Flight Parliament” is also the longest song on the album, weighing in at a beastly 15:32. Now to me, “Silent Flight Parliament” is the slow motion action sequence at the end of the movie. “Silent Flight Parliament” is the realization of what is about to occur and what needs to be done, depicting all the actions that are taken to move that all from thought to action. “Silent Flight Parliament” is the most musically diverse track of the whole album and it also goes through the largest range of feelings and emotion. “Silent Flight Parliament” also has some of the weirder of the quirky Between The Buried and Me parts with washboards and all sorts of awesomeness popping up throughout “Silent Flight Parliament”. An acoustic breakdown leads into the finale of the entire album… everything that The Parallax II: Future Sequence has been building too….and, well, it’s epic. The best guitar solo of the album happens next, due in part to brilliance of musicianship and also due to the excellent use of a Wah pedal. After a sequence of what feels like never ending drum rolls, “Silent Flight Parliament” all drops to reflect again momentarily before the crucial screams of Thomas Giles return. Also returning are the attacking, never ending rolling drums, all of which bring everything to a complete stop that ends in another movie esque sounding string section that states:

“Jet Propulsion disengage, dancing towards our future, a future worth nothing, a future towards nothing”

This line is repeated over and over as the music builds and builds in the background before Tommy screams his final screams of “Goodbye to everything” in the same repetitious manner. “Silent Flight Parliament” leaves you with goose bumps when it ends, as you feel sad that not only has the song ended but so has the world, planets colliding into one another with humanity gone forever. This sadness is brought back to a smile with “Goodbye to Everything Resprise” which showcases a clean guitar solo that bridges you back to where you started, which, as I explained earlier is the actual ending (confused?) with Thomas Giles yet again (but this time politely) singing “Goodbye to Everything”. The Parallax II: Future Sequence then fades out slowly with acoustic guitars, tremolos and a distant guitar that reflects on everything that has just happened, not just musically but the story as a whole.

After listening to The Parallax II: Future Sequence about 50 times I am still only semi clear of the full story, but I do know it ends in death, destruction, sadness and armageddon. What remains to be seen though is whether this is Between The Buried and Me‘s farewell album all wrapped up in a concept story? Maybe I am reading to much into it or maybe the sadness and loss I am feeling at the end of the album is so strong it is leading me to make up my own incorrect conclusions. Either way, The Parallax II: Future Sequence is a career defining album by Between The Buried and Me that has finally equalled, and potentially topped their 2007 epic album Colors. Whether it is actually better doesn’t really matter, what matters most is that Between The Buried and Me are back on form again…finally! The Parallax II: Future Sequence moved me so much that I put together my own artwork entitled “My Astral Body Headspace” (below) that was inspired by The Parallax II: Future Sequence. It is worth noting I did this artwork BEFORE Between The Buried and Me released their video for “Astral Body” and, whilst they are still different, it is eerie to see how my interpretation of The Parallax II: Future Sequence and what I thought was going on in this album was pretty much spot on.

When Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer first dropped and with it being so weirdly labeled (Various Artists) and titled, I had assumed that it was merely a compilation album. I thought Kanye West had put together a selection of his favorite summer jams and released it. Well he has, kind of, BUT Kanye West has also recorded, produced and been involved with most of the tracks in some way or other. It’s kind of like saying “hey, here is a compilation of stuff I have been involved with” instead of piecing one together from stuff that already exists and that Kanye West digs on, as usually happens. As such, I kind of missed this release when it first dropped, with me deciding to listen to it a few weeks later anyways. My thought process was, “I love Kanye West’s work so in theory if his name is in the title it would be worth it right?” And yes it most definitely was worth listening to it.

Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer is in reality a new Kanye West album that he has worked on with a whole posse of people instead of just doing it himself or best buddy Jay-Z only. I’m not sure, but I would imagine half of the people involved also wrote and co-wrote a bunch of these tracks with some of them being originally by themselves, making it a truly original hip-hop collective.

It all begins with “To The World” which kind of weirdly sounds like it would have worked at the end of the album equally aswell too. R.Kelly actually sounds good in “To The World” singing the hook “..to the world” over and over, instructing us to “put your middle fingers up” to which I obviously complied! Teyana Taylor‘s voice is a nice contrast whilst Kanye‘s rap is pure classic, “don’t give a fuck” style, declaring that “R.Kelly and the god of rap, shitting on you…Holy Crap!” in a clever double entendre way, clearly relating to R.Kelly‘s rather littered sexual background.

“Clique” follows with James Fauntleroy singing:

What of the dollar you murdered for? // Is that the one fighting for your soul? // Or your brother’s the one that you’re running from? // But if you got money, fuck it, cause I want some

“Clique” then proceeds into what is potentially the best song on Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer and one of the most swagged out beats I have heard in quite a while. Big Sean, Kanye West and Jay-Z each take full advantage of the aforementioned beat swagger forced upon them. “Clique” is so good that I featured it as an AltSounds Tune of the Day last week. The more you listen to “Clique“, the more you will love it. “Mercy.1” is possibly the second best track on Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer, starting with a slowed down vocal and leading into a more “dirty south” vibed track. It is during “Mercy.1” that I realize that Kanye West is going to be showcasing a wider array of Hip-Hop than he normally would on Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer. “Mercy.1” has some really cool singing / sample parts and rap wise, the highlight of “Mercy.1” for me is when 2 Chainz slams his verse in, stating:

“I’m drunk and high at the same time, drinking champagne on the airplane”

The rest of 2 Chainz‘s verse continues much the same. Poetry it is not, but the way 2 Chainz spits it with his attack and accent just does something for me. “Mercy.1” also highlights one of the many recurrent themes throughout Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer, the track being about nothing other than being rich as fuck and referencing their favorite ride of choice, the Lamborghini Murciélago.

“New God Flow.1” is a great track if you don’t listen to the lyrics. For whatever reason, hearing all of these guys (Kanye West, Pusha T and Ghostface Killah) declaring that they have the “new god flow” and hinting that they all feel they are Gods on earth really grates at me; Pusha T declaring:

“I believe there’s a god above me, I’m just the god of everything else”

Every time “New God Flow.1” plays I hate it when it starts and love it by the end. “New God Flow.1” introduces the second recurring theme throughout and that is how these guys feel like gods. Confident much?! Ghostface Killah’s approach is probably the best on “New God Flow.1” where he cockily states that he has “soccer moms paying for cock, Asian’s get it from behind while their cleaning their woks!”

“The Morning” starts with some awesome Ragga singing courtesy of D’Banj that reminds me a little of Rusko‘s use of Ragga in his dubstep productions. “The Morning” is again another brilliant start to a song that gets topped this time when the actual beat drops. On listening to “The Morning” about 50-100 times I would probably say that “The Morning” is a better beat than “Clique” in a non commercial sense. Common‘s verse is by far my favorite on “The Morning” and he is a welcome addition to the song. It’s rare for Common to spit on a record these days with his successful acting career hitting off strong. I love the “dirty south” vibe of the beat on “The Morning,” I also love how many people feature on it, with D’Banj, Raekwon, Common, Pusha T, 2 Chainz, CyHi da Prynce, Kanye West and Kid Cudi all offering themselves for pieces on the track. Kanye West‘s outro rap blends seamlessly into “Cold.1,” whose beat is the most unique on Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer. This is probably due to DJ Khaled‘s input. I also like that “Cold.1″ is the one song on the album that is mainly only Kanye West from a rap perspective with him cockily asking:

“Can a young nigga get money any more // Tell PETA my mink is hanging on the floor”

Harsh but said with enough swagger to back it up somehow (and that is coming from a Vegan). Probably doesn’t help the cause with the people that already think Kanye West is cocky, but definitely adds more fuel to the fire! I love all the callouts at the end of “Cold.1″ to Chicago neighborhoods, gives a nice little hometown vibe.

“Higher” showcases the first use of autotune so far on Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer and for me it is about time. Particularly with The Dream‘s usage. It really adds to “Higher” and goes hand in hand with the vibe and beat. “Higher” is their homage to weed, with the chorus declaring “we buzzing yeah… higher than a motherfucker”. It’s a sick tune that is made all the better when MaSe‘s voice drops on the track and pays homage back to the P.Diddy track “Mo Money Mo Problems“. For those that didn’t know MaSe had given up rap to become a preacher so, much like the presence of Common on Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer and, whilst equally as short in their presence, it is still much welcomed.

“Sin City” has Travis Scott providing an awesome vibed verse and, “Sin City” is one of the first tracks on Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer that feels more about real life that people can relate to… more so than “god flow”, lambo’s” and “money” anyways! Teyana Taylor and John Legend offer singing parts that are both really great and also help give the track an uplifting gospel vibe. CyHi da Prynce also does a cracking verse with Malik Yusef‘s slowed down vocals adding a more scary feel to proceedings. “The One” is one of the most R&B track on Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer. Slower than most of the tracks that preceded it “The One” gives a nice respite from what has so far been a very hard hitting and aggressive album.

“Creepers” is the clanger and changer of the album. The chorus of “Creepers” is sung so horrifically, it is made abundantly clear why rappers took so much to auto tune in the first place! “Creepers” is also the track that ruins the entire flow of Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer for me. Every single time I listen to Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer, I skip “Creepers” and it stops it from being a really great album for me. “Bliss” thankfully recovers a bit for this with the most awesome, sweeney synth line of the album (ever?!) and some ace double kick drum patterns. “Bliss” is another R&B tinged track and is the most singing oriented on Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer. As much as I am enjoying the album, I can’t help wishing Kanye West had the foresight to drop “Creepers” from the album because, it literally just messed everything up for me.

After an album full of sentiments about all of the things that these guys like, final track “Don’t Like.1” does the exact opposite and declares all the things that they hate instead. It’s a nice change and is the hardest beat on the album, with clickety clacking hi-hats that Lil Wayne might have wished he had in one of his tracks. As the chorus repeats “that’s that shit I don’t like,” Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer ends rather too abruptly for me… quite literally with the album dropping out.

In conclusion Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer is a great album, but it is most definitely just a collection of songs and not so much a cohesive album. Some of the song choices depict that feeling I get, as does the out of place ending track. Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer is good and has introduced me to some people I didn’t already know, but Kanye West presents Good Music Cruel Summer s definitely no Watch the Throne and is far off My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Now I am a big fan of Kanye West‘s work. Most people hate him, but that makes me like him more. There is usually a reason why someone is hated that much, sometimes it’s because they deserve to be and other times it’s because that person surpasses confidence and comes over as cocky – and people don’t like cocky. Problem is, not all of those cocky people have the skills to backup their cockiness. Kanye West does. He writes and creates some of the freshest beats that exist in the current music industry and, in fairness is a decent rapper in his own right.

For some reason I missed his new release. Well I kind of missed it. I saw it but iI though it was a compilation album as it is listed as being by Various Artists. My interpretation was that it was a Kanye West playlist of songs we should all be listening to, that he was going to make bank off of. What I didn’t realize was this was in fact a Kanye West album but with a whole collective of people involved.

Imagine my happiness then when, as I listened to the album, Clique, the second track dropped. It has such a fresh sound it’s unreal, with its heavy beat, repetition, its choral “oohs” and “aahs” and level of swagger that I haven’t heard anyone else pull off so well to date. You can’t help but not strut to this beat and each of the guys that do a verse feels that swagger, each of them (Kanye West, Jay-Z & Big Sean) attacking it with their own unique style whilst each verse contains the same overall “swagged out” vibe.

I’ll probably write a review of this release once I have heard it enough times to digest it. Until then, get familiar because “ain’t nobody fucking with my” Clique. Clique. Clique. Clique. Clique.

NOTE: This video looks shit but it’s the only one I could find online that the song wasn’t slowed down on.

Believe it or not it has been 3 weeks since my last Spotifried installment, Spotifried #20 – Under the Influence #2. In that time it took me a while to even shake off that playlist from making it’s way back into my daily listening habits but, all the while I was also crafting this newest Under The Influence Playlist Spotifried #21 – Under the Influence #3.

I curated this for quite a few weeks and then I actually worked very closely on the tracklist and flow of it, so that it always runs from one song into another that is equally enjoyable, managing to move Spotifried #20 – Under the Influence #2 from it’s chilled out electro start, through some fairly aggressive Hip-Hop and back out to chilled out tunes of the non electro style.

It is probably worth noting again that all of the songs here were exclusively picked from watching my friends listening habits and listening to music after them, putting the ones I really loved into a pool that helped make this final playlist. Since doing these Spotifried playlists, doing an Under The Influence one is my favorite way of curating them and personally I feel it yields the best results for sure! Why? Because my friends are as eclectic as my musical taste so, put that in a bowl and you have the sickest tasting musical guacamole known to man!!

Keep checking back for more Spotifried playlists and if you like them please subscribe to the playlist(s) via Spotify. Also enjoy the mad artwork above I took on my phone which, on looking back in hindsight I realize is some messed up “where does reality begin and end” type deal.

Until next time…

I found TNGHT (Hudson Mohawke x Lunice) – Goooo while I was working on my third installment of the Under The Influence Spotifried playlist and let’s just say that ‘Goooo‘ is the most “swagged-out” and “dope” beat that I have heard in a very long time. Literally the only thing that could make this any better might have been some super sick rapping on top of it. That said though that might have also ruined it!

LISTEN // TNGHT – Goooo

TNGHT is a pairing of rockstar proportions too with the sublime Scottish DJ and Producer Hudson Mohawke teaming up with the equally awesome Canadian producer Lunice. With this knowledge in your memory banks it becomes very clear as to why ‘Goooo‘ is as good as it is. Lunice said in a recent interview with the Independent:

“I’m the type of person that doesn’t like to be one thing, I like to appreciate certain elements and then put it in my production and mix stuff.”

‘Goooo‘ is the perfect song to bring in the long Labor Day weekend, with it’s quirked out synth sounds, apocalyptically heavy beats, and low low bass, ‘Goooo‘ will have you neck snapping for quite a while to come!

The Tune of the Day feature’s intention is to spread the word about awesome new tunes and I love the fact that today’s installment was found through the influence of my friends on Spotify. Show’s that really great music is out there but you can’t be lazy about it, you’ve got to filter through the shit to find the gold. Or…. you could just keep watching this space and let us do it for you!

As the world gets more and more messed up with wars and even shootings right on my doorstep, I find myself looking to older and older music to get an old school, good time vibe from the tunes of the past. Where better than to showcase that than here huh? EXACTLY!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve always musically gone backwards in the past but, lately I’ve been going further and further back than I had before. Previously I had “kind of” stopped at the early 60′s. Now I am experimenting with music from the 50′s and way below… all the way back to composers and classical music.

None of our Tunes of The (yester)Day‘s have gone this far back yet so I figured I would be the guy to do it. Today’s choice is Billie Holiday‘s song “I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues” and, from the second this song comes on, you can’t help but think, and dream of times past. I live in New York and the sound of “I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues” is what I wish New York was still like today. Now granted, Billie Holiday is from Philadelphia, but, “I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues” just oozes New York Jazz from times past. Smoky clubs, late at night with a beautiful woman being schmoozed by a handsome, suited and perfectly groomed guy smoking a cigarette…my imagination wanders.

“I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues” makes me want to “fuck off” work and go buy myself some ingredients and instead just do something mindless and fun, like bake some cakes maybe? Billie Holiday does have the right to sing the blues and I am more than happy to listen to her and her band do just that. Inoffensive and beautiful, you can’t not like and listen to “I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues” and imagine times past. That’s its beauty!

Unfortunately for you guys, you can’t now hear what I’m listening to: “A Foggy Day” with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong BUT if, you’re smart… not only will you know how to but you to will be spinning it next!

So Jack, Ffion and I decided on some new AltSounds tactics today and, after a solid day’s worth of annihilating all of the news we had and Jack and I sending back and forth some music as we did so, there was one tune out of all of them that stood out amongst the rest (with Violent Soho coming a close second – in reality it was probably first BUT… “something, something Pantalon”). Salsa Caliente (Versión Aunmentada) by Meridian Brothers stood out because of weirdness, originality and well… weirdness.

That being said, Salsa Caliente (Versión Aunmentada) by Meridian Brothers is actually pretty awesome. Likely to be overlooked by many, the more I heard it the more I liked it for its originality of sound. I also kind of like the fact I have absolutely no idea what they are saying, with their weird synthed out Salsa beat making me inadvertently move my ass in my seat. Just can’t help but dance with my imaginary Spanish Señorita to this beat.

It’s like some messed up scene from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest or Fear and Loathing Las Vegas, the latter because the whole thing sounds like some fucked up, North of the Border soundtrack. All the while it is bloody brilliant. Meridian Brothers for the win today with Salsa Caliente (Versión Aunmentada).

Let’s hope the rest of their album is as fuckin’ wacky and brilliant as this.