Favourite 50 tracks of 2014

Don't worry, I'm still alive! What a year for blogging it's been on The Electric Goose. In May, we posted a picture of a street sign; in June, a box of chocolates. It really was a year to remember.

Anyway, here are the 50 songs released in 2014 which I liked. Hope you do too.


Four non-Spotify tracks that probably aren't appearing above and making you think This Guy Can't Do Maths:

The Way We Do It - Jurassic 5
aghast, anew, anon - christian fitness
i am scared of everthing that isn't me - christian fitness
Shake It Off - Taylor Swift

Oh, and this certainly deserves a hat-tip too...

My favourite 50 tracks of 2013

Just in time! Happy New Year from all of the hard-working staff here at The Electric Goose, including the lazy intern who didn't submit his top 10 until 11pm on 30 December and the guy who's actually still listening to The Electric Soft Parade in 2013.

My top 50 tracks of 2012

Warning: it gets quite schmindie in places. Also, I hope you like Regina Spektor...

My top 75 tracks of 2011

Despite the fact that I completed LA Noire on the PS3 this year, I don't really get that Lana Del Rey song. Although I have been a passenger in a car on numerous motorways, I don't really get M83. And even though I thnk vwls r 4 dckhds, I don't really get Sbtrkt. I'M SORRY. And with that very negative introduction out of the way, we at The Electric Goose are delighted to present our top 75 tracks of 2011, as always, in no particular order. Enjoy!

 Click here for the Spotify goodness 

Joan As Police Woman – The Magic
Killer Mike – God In The Building II
Tune-Yards – Powa
Ben Folds Five – Stumblin' Home Winter Blue
Battles – Ice Cream (Featuring Matias Aguayo)
Wild Flag – Romance
Cocknbullkid – Hold On To Your Misery
Cornershop – Topknot
The Decemberists – Calamity Song
Half Man Half Biscuit – Fix It So She Dreams Of Me
TV On The Radio – Will Do
The Vaccines – Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)
Camille – My Man Is Married But Not To Me
Dark Dark Dark – In Your Dreams
Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Teenage Wasteland
The Feelies – When You Know
Elbow – lippy kids
Lady Gaga – Born This Way
Jay Z – Otis
Dirty Projectors + Björk – On and Ever Onward
Guided By Voices – One, Two, Three, Four
Ghostpoet – Survive It
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Belong
Anna Calvi – Desire
Sons And Daughters – Rose Red
Glee Cast – I Love New York / New York, New York
Tune-Yards – Gangsta
Dutch Uncles – The Ink
The Vaccines – Norgaard
Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Hard Time in a Terrible Land
The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow
The Drums – Days
Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo – Pause
Akira The Don – Video Highway
Nicki Minaj – Roman's Revenge
Wild Flag – Endless Talk
The Strokes – Taken For A Fool
The Horrors – Still Life
Camille – Ilo Veyou
PJ Harvey – The Glorious Land
Half Man Half Biscuit – RSVP
Killer Mike – Burn
Lady Gaga – You And I
The Electric Soft Parade – If I Can Dream
Hannah Peel – Don't Kiss The Broken One
Generationals – Ten-Twenty-Ten
Foo Fighters – White Limo
Friends – I'm His Girl
Azealia Banks – 212
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Ketamine And Ecstasy
Arctic Monkeys – Black Treacle
Metronomy – Everything Goes My Way
Feist – How Come You Never Go There
Nicola Roberts – Beat Of My Drum
Florence + The Machine – Lover To Lover
The Streets – Going Through Hell
Brett Anderson – Brittle Heart
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Fall Away
Sweet Baboo – Bounce
Hugh Laurie – Let Them Talk
Timber Timbre – Black Water
Laura Marling – Sophia
Wilco – Born Alone
Martin Solveig ft Dragonette – Hello
Wiley – Wise Man and his Words
Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou – A Hill Far, Far Away
The Indelicates – The Road From Houston To Waco
Tyler, The Creator – Yonkers
My Morning Jacket – Outta My System
EMA – California
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – All Over Gently
Aloe Blacc – I Need A Dollar
Stooshe – Betty Woz Gone - Original
Camille – La France
Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler – Marshmallow World

See also...
Last year's top 50
Top 20 tracks of 2009
Top 25 tracks of 2007 (didn't do one in 2008, for some reason)
Top 25 tracks of 2006
Top 25 tracks of 2005

My most-listened song of 2011 so far...

...is 'Powa' by tUnE-yArDs. I can remember the first time this came on my iPod: I was walking through the small Cheshire village I seem to have temporarily found myself living in, just coming up to the canal which for some reason is suspended overhead like a watery monorail track - and it made me grin like a local cat. (A similar thing happened when I heard Gablé, incidentally, but that's a different post.) From the pictures I've briefly seen of Merrill Garbus - for it is she, and that name really is hers - I imagine she wakes up with astonishing splashes of colourful paint daubed on her face, with white feathers slowly falling to the floor around her bed, which is quite possibly held off the ground thanks to a delicate framework of twigs and pipecleaners. Here's 'Powa' live: amazing in every way.*



* unless you think her voice sounds a bit silly.

What's a riff between friends?

My top 50 tracks of 2010

Late as usual, but it's occasionally hard finding a computer with a USB port over in India from which to run certain software not available in India, and in the brave new technological world of 2010, a list of songs not accompanied by a Spotify playlist basically amounted to a big slap in God's face. Click here to see and hopefully listen to my festive 50, plus check out three slabs of marvellousness below that had the audacity to not appear on Spotify.







Wait, so 46 songs on the Spotify playlist, three YouTubed above... That leaves one, right? Yup - it's Prince's 'Untitled', the only great track from his album 20Ten, given away with the Daily Mirror, and totally unavailable anywhere.

So instead, here's a brief message from the self-proclaimed Purple Yoda ("straight outta Minnesota!"): "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it... Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." Um, if numbers are so bad, why call your LP 20Ten? Huh? ANSWER ME, PRINCE.

If you hate Glasvegas this quote will probably not help matters

"Somebody was saying, 'What's your problem with the album?' I said the problem is that it sounds like a band. They said, 'What's your problem with that? What do you want it to sound like?' I said, 'A dream.'"

Glasvegas singer James Allan in NME's Christmas edition

Collins, Gonzales, Newsom

Thought you might like to read some album reviews I've written recently. We have Losing Sleep by Edwyn Collins here, and Ivory Tower by Chilly Gonzales here. If not, here's a two-year-old doing a convincing impression of Joanna Newsom.

Indie lolz

HA HA HA.

Latitude Festival 2010: revolution in the air

Teh Nu Pr0nographers

I wonder - do folks who work in the pornography industry have special spam filters for their office emails to ensure that messages with dirty subject matter go directly into their inboxes? And how do these filters separate work-related filth from junk filth? Are there ever any situations in which colleagues are forced to flag up a link with the "NSFW!" warning?

The truth may never be known to me, but that isn't so worrying. Anyway, I interviewed AC Newman, chief of indie-pop alternative rockers The New Pornographers, a few weeks back. Click here to read the piece, published a week later than planned. Why? You guessed it: overzealous spam filters. Safe for work, though, I promise.

Top 20 tracks of 2009

I really wanted to be part of the tornado of top 10 lists that nearly took down the internet in December, but it was a busy month. I did this and this, which kind of counts, I guess.

Never mind! About a week too late, here are my top 20 tracks of 2009, with a Spotify link at the bottom so you can listen and, if you like, post a comment about how wrong I am, particularly if your name's Charlie No.4, who will probably pour boiling Lemsip on my trousers for putting Kasabian in there, or if your 'job' title's "Gigwise journalist", who thought Dan Black had one of the worst albums of all 2009 - the worst of all 2009! I'mma have to go into hiding now, like Rushdie. Dunno why I started talking like Kanye, there, he's not in the list.

On a side note, why did everyone ignore the Doves album in the end of year polls? I know they're fucking boring and that, but wasn't it all right? I've stopped giving albums more than one spin, so don't ask me. Nah, s'just I have a special place in my heart for those boys after Jimi Goodwin snapped at me for suggesting Lost Souls sounded a tiny bit different to Sub Sub's 'Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)' in an interview ("If you'd listened to the rest of the album..." snarked he. "Well if you'd sold a few more copies, it'd be up on Spotify..." I should have said, although he probably would have responded by asking what Spotify was and then pointing out that this was the year 2000 and that I didn't even have an email account, and wouldn't have a fucking MySpace login for at least four years).

Anyway here's the list which is, in the words of Dermot O'Leary, in NO PARTICULAR ORDER. Talking to you, Olly Murs.

Zero - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Angela - Jarvis Cocker
The Fear - Lily Allen
Symphonies - Dan Black
Auditorium - Mos Def ft Slick Rick
In for the Kill - La Roux
Magpie to the Morning - Neko Case
Sticks 'n' Stones - Jamie T
Metropes - Orphans and Vandals
Wheatfields - Brett Anderson
The Pharoahs - Neko Case
Fire - Kasabian
Ludlow St. - Julian Casablancas
Sea Within A Sea - The Horrors
Cigarette Pack - Dan Black
This Love is Fucking Right! - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Zorbing - Stornoway
Lifelines - Doves
A Whole Lot Better - Brendan Benson
Remorse Code - Richard Hawley

Click to listen in Spotify


Twenty-five tracks of 2007 (didn't do one last year, for some reason)
Twenty-five tracks of 2006
Twenty-five tracks of 2005

Rage Against the Typography

Those who didn't die Those who didn't die Those who didn't
die Those who didn't die Those who didn't die Those who
didn't die Those who didn't die Those who didn't die Those
who didn't die Those who didn't die Those who didn't die
Those who didn't die Those who didn't die Those who didn't
die Those who didn't die Those who didn't die Those who didn't

Those who died Those who died Those who died Those who died
Those who died Those who died Those who died Those who died
Those who died Those who died Those who died Those who died
Those who died Those who died Those who died Those who died
Those who died Those who died Those who died Those who died
Those who died Those who died Those who died Those who died

Rage Against the Venn Diagram

An Electric Goose oldie
And these are, of course, very good...

And finally... Minehead

(For MBV's ATP, though, so I still win.)

I Told You I Was Freaky - Flight of the Conchords

"Some people say that rappers don't have feelings. We have feelings," raps Brett McKenzie on the opening track of Flight of the Conchords' second album. Sounding vulnerable and miffed, he continues, "Some people say that we are not rappers," with colleague Jemaine Clement adding defiantly: "We're rappers. It hurts our feelings when you say we're not rappers." Read more...

Slits and pieces

The Slits: a scary interview prospect indeed, what with them being 1) the original all-grrrl '76 punk band an' all that 2) responsible for one of the best cover versions ever 3) fronted by a singer whose stepdad is none other than Johnny Rotten and 4) one of only three artists to make the Goose funeral songs playlist.

But, of course, they turned out to be completely charming. The finished interview is over on The Quietus - and here are the pics I took after Ari and Tessa got all excited about a graffitied wall we happened to wander past.

Zorbingo

Oops, first post this month. It's important, that's why: I've come out of retirement for YOU, Stornoway, even though you are the most nervous and awkward band ever to have a microphone thrust face-wards, because 'Zorbing' is one of the songs of the year and YESYESYES now we have Britain's answer to The Hidden Cameras. IN YOUR FACE, JOEL GIBB.

Return to the End of the Road

Oh, it really is the best festival there is, and I've been to them all (NB: I haven't). Yes, End of the Road rolled around again and the weather was peachy, the cider appley and the company bananas.

Who did I see? These ones: David Thomas Broughton, Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo, Dirty Projectors, Herman Dune, Sarah Benetto, James Dowdeswell, Robin Ince, Josie Long, Darren Hayman, This Frontier Needs Heroes, The Boy Least Likely To, The Acorn, The Broken Family Band, Okkeril River, Fleet Foxes, the Richard Hawley-Jarvis Cocker DJ set, Whispertown 2000, the Where Is My Mind? pub quiz, Dan Sartain, Neko Case and The Hold Steady. I saw a lot, missed a lot, danced a lot, drank a lot, forgot a lot, whamalot bamalot.

Here are the snapshots.

What happened last year?