The Knife - Tomorrow, In a Year

The Knife are scoring an opera about Charles Darwin. Colouring of Pigeons is the first released bit of music from this opera. Hear it now in it's full 11 minute glory.
The Knife w/ Mt Sims & Planningtorock - Colouring of Pigeons

Recently a short clip from the opera leaked. Watch that as well.

The xx - Crystalised (Acoustic)

Welcome to 2010.

This video proves that you don't have to be a great player to be a great musician. It's more about writing than it is playing. It's almost funny.

LivingEars 2009: 51 Songs

Tradition makes life routine but this is LivingEars' 2nd year end and it looks as though 51 songs is here to stay. These are the 51 songs that got the most plays and left the deepest impressions sonically & emotionally.

There is also an albums list.

51 . Phoenix - Love Like a Sunset
50 . The Horrors - Sea Within A Sea

49 . Toro Y Moi - Blessa
48 . Passion Pit - The Reeling
47 . Real Estate - Beach Comber
46 . Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band - Roosevelt Room
45 . Washed Out - Feel It All Around
44 . Harlem Shakes - Strictly Game

43 . Tiny Vipers - Dreamer
42 . Röyksopp - This Must Be It
41 . Spoon - Got Nuffin
40 . Andrew Cedermark - Will Not Compete (3a)
39 . The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Stay Alive
38 . Papercuts - Future Primitive
37 . Noah and the Whale - Blue Skies (The Twelves Remix)
36 . White Denim - Say What You Want
35 . KiD CuDi - Pursuit of Happiness (Feat. MGMT And Ratatat)
34 . Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone (Deadmau5 Remix)
33 . Memory Tapes - Stop Talking
32 . YACHT - I'm In Love With A Ripper
31 . Becoming Real - Let The Right One In
30 . Guido - Way You Make Me Feel
29 . Junior Boys - Parallel Lines
28 . jj - ecstasy
27 . Delorean - Seasun
26 . Sleigh Bells - Crown On The Ground
25 . Major Lazer - Keep it goin' louder feat. Nina Sky & Ricky Blaze

24 . Family Portrait - Mega Secrets
23 . Carl Sagan & Stephen Hawking - Glorious Dawn (Cosmos Remixed)
22 . Ellie Goulding - Under The Sheets (Pariah Remix)
21 . Fever Ray - I'm Not Done
20 . Basement Jaxx - My Turn (feat. Lightspeed Champion)

19 . WAVVES - cool jumper
18 . Small Black - Despicable Dogs (Washed Out Remix)
17 . King Khan & BBQ Show - I'll Be Loving You
16 . Dan Deacon - Of the Mountains
15 . Times New Viking - Move To California
14 . Miami Horror - Make You Mine (Fred Falke Remix)
13 . Neon Indian - 6669 (I don't know if you know)
12 . No Age - You’re a Target
11 . VEGA - No Reasons
10 . Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo (Original Mix)
9 . Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move
8 . The xx - Infinity
7 . Japandroids - Young Hearts Spark Fire
6 . Grizzly Bear - Fine For Now
5 . Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling

4 . The Big Pink - Velvet

3 . Atlas Sound - Quick Canal (w/ Laetitia Sadier)

2 . Animal Collective - Brothersport

1 . Girls - Lust For Life

LivingEars 2009: 10 Albums

The blog age lends itself to listening to singles and tracks and leaks and demos over albums. These are my 10 favorite albums of the year. Of everything I heard this year these are the albums that I came back to over and over and actually sound better as a whole than in parts.


10. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms

Psychic Chasms - Neon Indian

9. Passion Pit - Manners

Manners - Passion Pit

8. Memory Tapes - Seek Magic

Seek Magic - Memory Tapes

7. Fever Ray - Fever Ray

Fever Ray - Fever Ray

6. Japandroids - Post-Nothing

Post-Nothing - Japandroids

5. Dan Deacon - Bromst

Bromst - Dan Deacon

4. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

(Album not available)

3. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective

2. The xx - The xx

xx - The xx

1. Girls - Album

Album - Girls

SoundScan's Best Selling Albums and Songs of the Decade

Continuing with decade sales figures we now have the Nielsen figures... [via Idolator]

If there’s one thing to assess from looking over the list of Neilsen SoundScan’s best-selling albums and singles of the ’00s [via About.com], perhaps it’s what a drastic shift from an albums market to a singles market the music biz became in the latter half of the decade—thanks in no small part to the advent of illegal downloading.

The tally of the Top 10 albums of the decade, sales-wise, doesn’t contain a single LP released after 2004. And if we’re to underscore the point even further, the Beatles compilation 1 was the best-seller of 2000, with over 11 million copies sold, while Taylor Swift currently stands at the top in 2009 with Fearless, which moved 2.53 million units this year.


TOP SELLING ALBUMS OF THE DECADE IN THE U.S.:
1. The Beatles, 1 (11,499,000 copies sold)
2. *NSYNC, No Strings Attached (11,112,000)
3. Norah Jones, Come Away With Me (10,546,000)
4. Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP (10,204,000)
5. Eminem, The Eminem Show (9,799,000)
6. Usher, Confessions (9,712,000)
7. Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory (9,663,000)
8. Creed, Human Clay (9,491,000)
9. Britney Spears, Oops! … I Did It Again (9,185,000)
10. Nelly, Country Grammar (8,461,000)

TOP SELLING SINGLES OF THE DECADE IN THE U.S.:
1. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain - “Low” (5,214,000)
2. Lady Gaga feat. Colby O’Donis - “Just Dance” (4,690,000)
3. Jason Mraz - “I’m Yours” (4,619,000)
4. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic - “Apologize” (4,439,000)
5. The Black Eyed Peas - “Boom Boom Pow” (4,349,000)
6. Soulja Boy Tell’em - “Crank That” (4,315,000)
7. Lady Gaga - “Poker Face” (4,200,000)
8. Coldplay - “Viva la Vida” (4,140,000)
9. Taylor Swift - “Love Story” (4,005,000)
10. Katy Perry - “Hot N Cold” (3,945,000)

iTunes Top Selling Songs/Albums of 2009

It seems important somehow to kep abreast of certain sales figures.

Back in July I suggested implementing The Mainstream Percentage. It seems the right thing to do would be to have this percentage updated each year in order to give everyone a chance to earn some Credibility Points by lowering their MP (there is a direct inverse relationship).

TOP-SELLING SONGS
1. “Boom Boom Pow,” Black Eyed Peas
2. “Right Round,” Flo Rida
3. “Poker Face,” Lady Gaga
4. “I Gotta Feeling,” Black Eyed Peas
5. “Gives You Hell,” The All-American Rejects
6. “Just Dance,” Lady Gaga & Colby O’Donis
7. “Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus
8. “The Climb,” Miley Cyrus
9. “Dead and Gone (feat. Justin Timberlake),” T.I.
10. “Use Somebody,” Kings of Leon

TOP-SELLING ALBUMS
1. Kings of Leon, Only By the Night
2. Various Artists, Twilight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
3. Lady Gaga, The Fame
4. Taylor Swift, Fearless
5. Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King
6. Michael Jackson, The Essential Michael Jackson
7. The Fray, The Fray
8. Jay-Z, The Blueprint 3
9. Eminem, Relapse
10. Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies)

LivingEars 2009: 3 Mixes

These are my 3 three favorite mixes of the year.


3. The xx - FACT Mix 70

The xx put together 30 minutes of mostly dark and moody sounds for the UK's FACT Magazine back in July. The mix peaks with John Forde's "Star Dance" which comes in at the 19:00 mark.



2. The Twelves - The Twelfth Hour

The Twelves are a duo who dropped a couple of my favorite remixes of the year with their take on Fever Ray's "Seven" and especially with Noah & The Whale's "Blue Skies." From the moment this mix starts it truly never lets up. There aren't many tempo changes in here but if you want something that will keep you moving for a solid 60 minutes it doesn't get better than this. My favorite part of the mix comes early... at 3:20 Daft Punk's "Da Funk" is put into the back of the mix then at 4:23 the bass line drops on top of DJ Agent 86's "Wavestate" to earth shaking results.



1. Phaseone - White Collar Crime (zip)

Phaseone dropped a handful of individual remixes throughout the year gaining attention mostly for his rework of Animal Collective's "Daily Routine." Eventually he wrapped them into a single remix album of sorts. While I am a sucker for the echo'y hand claps in "Daily Routine" this mix really hits its stride with tracks 12 & 13, "Panda Jawn" and "Villain Jawn." I haven't heard a mix all year with as much variety and excellence in execution. I'm looking forward to an album of originals via Lefse records in 2010.

LivingEars 2009: 20 Remixes

These are my 20 favorite remixes from 2009. What are yours?

20. Das Racist & Wallpaper. - Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell (Wallpaper. RMX)
19. The Hood Internet - Two Weeks Of Hip Hop (Dead Prez vs Grizzly Bear)
18. Memory Cassette - Surfin (Sail A Whale Version)
17. Lemonade - Delorean - Big Weekend
16. Fever Ray - Seven (The Twelves Remix)

15. Annie - Anthonio (Fred Falke Remix)
14. Gotye - Learnalilgivinanlovin' (Passion Pit Remix)
13. The xx - Shelter (Death To The Throne Remix)
12. Friendly Fires - Jump In The Pool (Thin White Duke Remix)
11. Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed (Jakwob Remix)

10. The Gossip - Heavy Cross (Fred Falke Remix)
9. The Big Pink - Velvet (Gang Gang Dance Mix)
8. Major Lazer - Cash Flow (Classixx Glass Bottom Dub Mix)
7. Animal Collective - I'm Waiting for my Banshee (Animal Collective v. The Beach Boys)
6. Noah and the Whale - Blue Skies (The Twelves Remix)

5. Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone (Deadmau5 Remix)
4. Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking - Glorious Dawn (Cosmos Remixed)
3. Ellie Goulding - Under The Sheets (Pariah Remix)
2. Small Black - Despicable Dogs (Washed Out Remix)
1. Miami Horror - Make You Mine (Fred Falke remix)

Weekend

I played Weekend on Scene Not Heard a few weeks ago because I was playing a bunch of bands that create a lot of noise and feedback with nice melodies underneath. Weekend is one such band.

Hailing from San Fran the band considers their sound similar to My Bloody Valentine, J&MC, Refused and A Place to Bury Strangers. The amount of high-pitched ear splitting noise at some points also reminds me of Times New Viking. It all comes together in a really wonderful way --just don't expect to make out the lyrics.

Bio according to Mexican Summer:
Ear-splitting fuzz and honey-sweet melodies are the trademark of Weekend’s durable, energetic sound. Shoegazer acolytes filtered through a transistor radio, they are not to be confused with the Young Marble Giants spinoff of the same name. This is the new Weekend and they are their own thing, ready to flatten you deaf, grinning ear to ear.

Weekend - Tiara
Weekend - Youth Haunts.

Memoryhouse

Imagine for a second that Dayve from Memory Tapes and Victoria from Beach House get together and whip up a cover of Grizzly Bear's "Foreground." That sounds incredible, right? Well wipe that away because I'm just making it up. And, Victoria already guests on the original "Foreground" so that wouldn't be that outrageous.

Listening to this cover from Canada's Memoryhouse you get the feeling however that you are listening to one of the next up and coming bands in 2009's greatest movement: Chillwave. For further proof check out the duo's excellent original, "To the Lighthouse."

I also quite like the song "Lately" which can be found on the groups MySpace. I asked for a copy but was told the track is going to be a b-side to a digital single in January. Looking forward to it...

Memoryhouse - Foreground (Grizzly Bear Cover)
Memory House - To the Lighthouse