Thing a Day.

In it's stated goal, Thing a Day was a huge success, I think. It got me writing regularly, which of course improves ability to write in general, and on demand, to a deadline that I (almost) always met. I don't know if it made me less insufferable in real life by providing an outlet for gushing about music--in fact, it might have done the opposite. In any case, a good project all around.

But it's limiting. The topic is restrictive, and Tumblr, being Tumblr, does not lend itself particularly well to more substantive work. It's also very time-consuming--I always end up spending a lot longer on a given post than I anticipate, particularly in sourcing good quality streaming media and doing research. So after a year, Thing a Day is coming to an end.

But fear not. I've started a long-form blog on a real blogging platform, although I should warn you that I have no idea what I'm doing. And in the music vein, look out for a new radio show on Art Hole Radio, Power Trio, where I will do a similar thing in radio (read: podcast) format.

As a parting gift, however, I have some leftovers--some b-sides, if you will--from the last year of Thing a Day. One of my rules was to never post the same artist twice (allowing, of course, for remixes, collaborations and alter egos), and a bunch of cool new stuff came out after I'd already posted that artist. There are also a few that I didn't get to post for whatever other reason. So here we go with another 2011 top-ten list: in no particular order, the Top Ten Thing a Day Posts That Never Happened.

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The Chemical Brothers: Hanna's Theme (vocal version)

'To feel, finally for real...'

The Brothers' 'Escape Velocity' was the inaugural Thing a Day post, and I don't regret in the slightest. All factors considered, it literally could not have been any other track. But then Hanna came out in the spring, and turned out not only to be an excellent movie, but also to have a gorgeous soundtrack from none other than the Chemical Brothers. First Further, then Hanna, and Don't Think on the immediate horizon... these guys are showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. I love it.

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Major Lazer: Original Don (feat. the Party Squad)

'Run the track...'

Bits of 'Original Don' have been floating around the internet since late summer, long after my initial Major Lazer post, but the video dropped a few weeks ago and cemented the track's place on my list of 2011's rad jams. In typical Major Lazer fashion, it's weird and kind of chunky, and you're not quite sure if you like it. But the more you listen to it, the more you love it. And the video is outstanding.

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Mr. Oizo: Douche Beat

DOUCHE BEAT by oizo mr 3000

'A beat for the douches.'

Mr. Oizo, the greatest musical troll alive, put a surprise LP out this November. Had I seen it coming, I would gladly have held out for this particular masterpiece. Truly, Oizo is the dada master of modern dance music. (Runner-up: 'Two Takes It (feat. Carmen Castro)', on account of being fucking awesome.)

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Duck Sauce: Big Bad Wolf

'The big bad wolf.'

'Barbra Streisand' is a great track, and undoubtedly the club anthem of 2010. But the 'Big Bad Wolf' video, from earlier this fall, is just so good. This is up there with 'Original Don' for video of 2011. Apparently Van Helden is actually getting good in his old age...?

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Chromeo: Hot Mess (feat. Elly Jackson)

'If I'd only known the attention you crave...'

Chromeo and La Roux were some of my first posts, loving them as much as I do. But wouldn't you know it, the totally foxy Elly Jackson went and teamed up with the only successful Jew/Arab collaboration since the beginning of human history for a slightly different take on Business Casual's lead single 'Hot Mess', and the results were predictably excellent. Moar 80s synthpop revialist team-ups plz.

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Noisia: Tommy's Theme

'*wubwubwub*'

Noisia dropped this dubsteppy little number earlier in the year, and I actually quite like it. It's a little uptempo to really call dubstep, but way too wobbly to lump in with their more hip hop sounding stuff, I think. Either way, good track. The chumminess with Deadmau5 worries me a bit, but I'll be alright as long as the tunes keep flowing.

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Modeselektor: Art & Cash

Art by Modeselektor on Grooveshark Cash by Modeselektor on Grooveshark

'[art]'

An aptly-named one-two double single from German techno wizards Modeselektor. The more I hang out with artists, the more accurately I realize this video embodies its namesake.

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Jonathan Coulton: Still Alive (feat. Sara Quin)

'There's a hole in the sky, through which things can fly...'

[SPOILER ALERT: Don't listen to this if you haven't played Portal already. Also, play Portal already.]

Jonathan Coulton put out a new album this year too, another development I hadn't counted on. I don't know most of it can hold a candle to Coulton classics like 'Shop Vac', 'First of May', or 'Baby Got Back', but this gem, featuring Sara Quin of Tegan and Sara on lead vocals, makes the whole thing worthwhile. Beautiful. I should play Portal again. (And Portal 2 was no slouch either.)

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Cobra Skulls: Solastalgia

Solastalgia by Cobra Skulls on Grooveshark

'I'm coming down with eco-paralysis, I got a case of global dread...'

I blew my Cobra Skulls post on some angsty (if poignant) esoteric bullshit, and they went and released an EP and an LP that are both really good. Devin Peralta has a notably more intense vocal approach--he yells a lot more. Agitations is a really good punk rock record and you should check it out.

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audio/rocketry: "Hey Dynasty, Don't Forget.."

<a href="http://audiorocketry.bandcamp.com/track/hey-dynasty-dont-forget" _mce_href="http://audiorocketry.bandcamp.com/track/hey-dynasty-dont-forget">"Hey Dynasty, Don't Forget.." by Audio/Rocketry</a>

'Don't forget the words you've sung, don't forget what makes you strong...'

Now that audio/rocketry's discography is available for free is lossless on Bandcamp, I can post this track. If 'Escape Velocity' was the song of my 2010, then this track is probably the song of my 2011 in many ways, in spirit if not in playcount. This audio is silent without my friends.

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BONUS ROUND: Hellpit Faeries: It's the Most Fucking Wonderful Time

'Jesus, bitch!'

A fresh Christmas surprise from Jean Grae and MeLa Machinko, the Jingle Fucking Bells EP was released for free on Christmas day, but I had already queued up 'Oi to the World'. A week late, but this EP is definitely worth your time. Did I mention it's free?

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Have It Like That (feat. Durrty Goodz) by Two Fingers on Grooveshark

'Because I got it like that.'

Well, I held out as long as I could, but it's becoming rapidly apparent that, despite initial promises to the contrary, there will not in fact be a new Two Fingers album in 2011. And fair enough--the mighty Amon Tobin has had a prolific year as it is. In terms of releases, there's been a Chaos Theory remix album, ISAM and the Surge single (not to mention the jaw-dropping live show), and recently an official standalone release of the elusive 'Fools Rhythm' by Two Fingers (though it was on Ninja Tune XX as well). And Doubleclick assures me that a new Two Fingers LP will be out 'when it's ready', and that some heretofore unreleased instrumentals might at the very least see blog release. So I guess I can wait a bit longer.

Instead, here's the first Two Fingers track to see official release, back on 2008's You Don't Know: Ninja Cuts, an excellent label mixer that I've gushed about a few times before (although some Two Fingers instrumentals existed as early as 2007). It's a fairly hardcore grime track bordering on dubstep territory, featuring MC Durrty Goodz. If there's one thing I'd like to see on the next Two Fingers LP, it's a greater variety of MCs. I mean, Sway's alright and everything, but the Ms. Jade and Ce'cile tracks--and indeed this track itself--become the highlights for sheer difference if nothing else (although fortunately it's not nothing else--the 'Better Get That' rhythm is easily one of the best beats of the 2000s). And Sway tends to start yammering about relationships for some reason, which I don't think such devastating beats lend themselves to particularly well. There are a series of bootlegs that remedy this problem, but it would be nice to see some original tracks with some different MCs.

Kingdom by Spor on Grooveshark Mordez Moi by Feed Me on Grooveshark

'*wubwubwub*'

Poor drum and bass. As far as the more 'extreme' electronic styles go, it's always remained a pretty niche taste, especially in North America. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the recent explosion of dubstep over the last few years, a genre that draws so much from drum and bass in terms of production and sound. Even the newest Lights album has dubstep interludes, but that sacred 172-174 BPM range is still completely off the radar.

And so the drum and bass bigshots have just started going along with it.

Spor is a UK d&b producer who's been on the radar for a number of years now. Any 'edgy' sort of electronic single put out since 2008 is guaranteed to have a drum and bass remix, a dubstep remix, or both, and chances were overwhelmingly good that the d&b remix was done by Spor. But white European kids are the only people that like d&b, and so Spor has branched out into more housey and dubsteppy productions, under the moniker Feed Me, and the results aren't always completely forgettable.

If that sounds like faintly damning praise, that's because it is. Feed Me's Big Adventure wasn't a bad album, but it didn't really blow me away, either. There's not really very much going on here, just a bunch of bouncing around between the 128 BPM range and the 70 BPM range and a whole lotta wobbles. DJs and dancefloors will eat this up, but I don't find myself compelled to listen to it again with any real urgency. The only real reason 'Mordez Moi' gets a pass its excellent name and the fact that it's a split single (b/w Noisia's 'B.R.U.L.').

'Every time he thinks, his third eye blinks...'

When it comes to the prolifically pseudonymous Daniel Dumile, I think my favourite alter ego is probably Viktor Vaughn. Or maybe it's just that I really, really like Venomous Villain.

Either way, Viktor Vaughn is an interesting flip of MF DOOM, because he teams up with a label production posse for the beats instead of producing it himself (DOOM, King Geedorah, Metal Fingers) or teaming up with a more auteur-type producer (Madvillain, DANGERDOOM). There's also a clear distinction between V and the Supervillain--as with Geedorah's Take Me to Your Leader, there are Vaughn tracks specifically denoted as 'featuring' MF DOOM, and you may remember a Madvillainy track that 'features' Vaughn. A somewhat vague distinction is actually explicitly pointed out halfway through VV2. (Comic book nerds will of course know that Victor von Doom was the former name of Dr. Doom.)

Dumile seems to work in bursts. There were the days of Zev Luv X and KMD back in the early 90s and the first DOOM record in 1999, but the biggest burst was about halfway through the 2000s. Between 2003 and 2005, Dumile dropped Take Me to Your Leader, Vaudeville Villain, Madvillainy, Venomous Villain, MM..FOOD and The Mouse and the Mask--that's a whopping six full-length albums from five distinct projects and three different rap personas. Goddamn. But then, not a peep until 2009's Born Like This.. It's got to be time for something soon here. New DOOM for 2012? Well, a correctly-tagged, unexpurgated Metal Fingers Special Herbs boxset just popped up, and a few Madvillain tracks have been cropping up here and there, but in terms of something full-length, I'll believe it when I see it.

It doesn't really matter, though. There's enough depth and breadth to Dumile's back catalogue to keep any rap fan busy digesting for a while--one of my favourite things about him is how different every album manages to be from the last. He's also got a pretty healthy number of guest appearances to his name. So keep digging--you're sure to find some tidbits to keep you tied over for a while yet. Like this tasty jam with the Herbaliser. Yummy.

You Turn Me Cold by The Slew on Grooveshark

'You'd better listen very, very hard...'

Sorry, all out of Flag bands.

What do you get when you take turntable wizards Kid Koala and Dynomite D and cross them with the rhythm section from Wolfmother? None other than the mighty Slew. Apparently the project started as the soundtrack to a rock documentary--a rockumentary, if you will--and a few early versions of some Slew tracks show up on Koala's 2006 album Your Mom's Favorite DJ as 'Slew Test's (including this track as 'Slew Test 3'), but the film never materialized, and so they just released the album anyway. And it's a doozy. Not since Rage Against the Machine have hip hop, funk and metal blended so deliciously.

'We've got an eye, an eye for what's romance--we've got our eyes, our eyes straight on you...'

Wild Flag are a newish indie rock supergroup consisting of members of Helium, the Minders, and the legendary Sleater-Kinney. They got a fair bit of hype at Sled Island 2011--before they even had a record out--mostly due to this, but their set wasn't until very late and I haven't really listened to any of those other bands and so I went home.

TV Party by Black Flag on Grooveshark

'We're gonna have a TV party tonight...'

Alright! It's the mid-season holiday lull, so let's talk about what happened in 2011 in that most mindless of all entertainment media: television.

Dexter's sixth season wrapped up last weekend. The season started out on a strong note, I thought, reminiscent of the truly fantastic first season with a crazy methodical serial killer to track down, and with a religious undercurrent that had actually started going somewhere interesting. Then Mos died (spoiler alert), and the writing went to hell. Things got silly, the season's 'big twist' was ham-handed, and Deb continues to get entirely too much screen time and narrative focus. The grand finale starts down the path of confronting one of the looming inevitablities of the show, which could be interesting, but with an obnoxious cliffhanger, culminating in a pun that took an entire season to set up. And this show has been renewed for two more seasons. Oh God indeed.

Community continued to be awesome, but has been put on indefinite hiatus for the new year to pimp 30 Rock and some other show that sucks. Fan outcry has been pretty tremendous, though (six seasons and a movie!), so frankly, NBC would have to be pretty thick not to keep this one around. God, it's so good. Meta-tastic.

South Park is a brilliant show with which my generation shares a particular affinity, I think. Being a cartoon about kids that was very not for kids, it was revolutionary when it aired, which happened to be right in the middle of elementary school for me. The earlier seasons are little more than profanity-laden twenty-minute stretchs of toilet humour and shock value--which my third grade self ate right up. I remember my friend and I covertly staying up late (it didn't air until midnight!) to watch it, having to surpress our hysterics so as not to wake the parents of whoever's house we were at. But then, as we grew up and moved on to better things, so to did South Park. In many ways, the show grew and matured with my generation, becoming funnier, more refined, and developing a political conscience. Nowadays it can be a bit hit-or-miss, I think (especially when that political conscience gets involved), but like a childhood friend, it will always have a place in my heart, no matter where it ends up. Which was why the mid-season finale was a very bittersweet moment--the show didn't end, as it could well have done, but frankly, I couldn't have hoped for a more beautiful ending than that.

Archer continued to skyrocket to new heights of hilarity and success, a trend that should hopefully continue when it starts up again in January. Billed as James Bond meets Arrested Development (a show that actually saw announcement of a renewal earlier this year), there really isn't a better way of describing it. If you like laughing and you aren't watching it, you really should be.

Louie's second season was outstanding. Louis CK released a stand-up special online for $5. No bullshit, online distribution done absolutely 100% right. And he made a million bucks. Seriously. This is a game-changer. Amazing. Funny dude, funny show. Cop this shit.

And finally, Dollhouse remains cancelled. This is an entertainment crime of the highest order. Dollhouse was probably my favourite non-comedy series of the last decade, possibly ever. It was cut down in its prime, though, and while not entirely unexpected for something so bleeding-edge (and so created by Joss Whedon and on FOX), it was still heartbreaking to watch the writers cram four seasons worth of material into three episodes, knowing they were getting the axe. Still, the result was two seasons of more or less consistently outstanding TV--a world that builds its tech and its world up for you from scratch, gets you used to the (almost literal) mindfuck scenario, then tearing the roof off the sucker and catapulting things to the absolute logical extreme of just how far things in this universe could (and indeed would) be taken. Excellent TV show. Obama bring back Dollhouse ):

'If God came down on Christmas Day, I know exactly what he'd say...'

These Peoples Try to Fade Me by Coach Z on Grooveshark

'Coach Z's got money... but not much.'

I unironically love Homestar Runner. I love that it manages to stay entirely PG-13 and still be one of the funniest Goddamn things on the internet. I love their willingness to take an idea and run with it (Homsar, fhqwhgads, etc.). I love their nostalgia for all things 80s. I love their video games and their music. And I also love that I can do most of voices.

'Crawling by the sea of black tears, give your soul to me...'

I finished Brütal Legend today, and it was outstanding. Despite being from 2009, it was probably one of the best games I played this year (although there was definitely some competition). I talked about my first impressions earlier, and my initial enthusiasm didn't flag for a moment as the game progressed. Sure, the gameplay is weird (beat 'em up meets RTS without a decent RTS UI), the campaign is short (you could probably do it in an evening or two if you ignored side missions) and the side missions are repetitive (especially when the game decides to just stop spawning things on the overworld), but it's all pulled off with such charm, aplomb and genuine love and enthusiasm for all things metal that you can't not like it.

And the soundtrack is outstanding. All told, there are 107 tracks of pure rock fury from just about every metal genre under the sun. Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Slayer, Anvil, Mötley Crüe, Ministry, Marilyn Manson, DragonForce, 3 Inches of Blood, Dethklok, Tenacious D (natch), even second-wave-of-American-tween-melodic-rap-metalcore legends Kabbage Boy--the soundtrack is basically a required listening list of heavy metal appreciation both new and old, with representatives from just about any genre where you put a word in front of the word 'metal'. There's also this very track from Runaways alum Lita Ford, from which the game actually draws a few key terms (the Sea of Black Tears and the name 'Brütal Legend' itself). There are a few notable omissions due almost undoubtedly to people wanting too much money (Metallica, Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Limozeen spring to mind), but the game gives them all pretty clear shout-outs regardless. How can you not love this game?

Cheap Thrills by Hervé on Grooveshark

Cheap Thrills (feat. Plastic Little) by Hervé on Grooveshark

'Baby, give me what I need...'

If a girl tells you she likes 'dirty' beats, don't get too excited. She doesn't actually like dirty beats. I mean, she probably likes dubstep night at the local hipster club, but she's not into drum and bass and she's almost certainly not into breakcore and she definitely doesn't want any of your shitty IDM. No, when a girl tells you she likes 'dirty' beats, she means fidget house, because the Black-Eyed Peas and LMFAO have made it cool.

Fortunately, there's some fidget house out there that's actually really good.

Joshua Harvey is a man of many names--you may know him as the Count of Monte Cristal, specifically his work with Sinden--but my favourite stuff of his tends to be released under the Hervé banner. 'Cheap Thrills' is a banger, alright--no wonder he named his label after it. It's based on a sample of 'Thriller', as you'll probably immediately detect, but that must have got pretty expensive pretty quick (or at least potentially expensive), because the vocal version with Plastic Little raps replaces the actual sample with an impressively--though not quite imperceptibly--imitated synth bit. For that reason I tend to prefer the original.

Keep Fishin' by Weezer on Grooveshark

'It's just the thought of you in love with someone else...'

I saw the new Muppets movie yesterday. It was really good--very old-school Muppets. Cameos and musical numbers and bad puns all around. While all of the old standbys made appearances, I could have done with a bit more Swedish Chef and Gonzo. That said, the less central characters were downplayed in a manner largely consistent with the original Muppet Show's level of emphasis on them, which is in keeping with the revivalist style of the film, so at least things were consistent. All in all, a worth entry into Muppet canon. I would not have called Jason Segel for such a purist Muppet fanatic. And even better, people will finally start getting my 'wakka wakka' references.

Weezer's 'Keep Fishin'' video predates that particular Muppet throwback by almost a decade, however, and it's pretty damn good itself. It's also got my third favourite Muppets gag (after 'wakka wakka' and Waldorf and Statler, of course)--Kermit's flailing 'yayyyyy!'

'I can't stop catchin' 'em all.'

Seriously, I can't. It's a real problem.

'Hey hey, son son, chew it like a gun gum...'

[NOTE: Very definitely don't watch this with your mom.]

Wait, never mind. I found a video with even more gratuitious tits for no real reason.

The Death Set are an Australian band who make noisy indie dancey punky sort of stuff. They're not my usual bag most of the time, but they're on Counter, so they have to at least be sort of cool, and they've got a track on You Don't Know: Ninja Cuts that's pretty good. Incidentally, they're also buds with Spank Rock, one of the main subjects of yesterday's post on gratuitous tits for no real reason--he's on their latest album. They also toured together recently, a tour that I could have caught in Brooklyn (and probably would have if it wasn't two in the morning and a blizzard). So I guess they're not all bad.

The naked female body presents an interesting double standard in art and media, or at least contemporary art and media. Consider this very video--would the effect be the same if the band were female, with a crew of backup naked male dancers? No, of course not. It just wouldn't happen, or at least not seriously. I suppose I could see an 'ironic' version where the gentlemen get all showy and camp with it, but then it's a parody--it would only work because of our expectation of the 'norm'. Men as agents, women as objects, business as usual.

There is something of a reclamation going on in the art world, of course. If the art I've seen lately is any indication, it is now very bleeding-edge for female artists to cast their vaginas and present other such liberating bodily imagery. Female full frontal nudity has very 'arty' connotations in the current cultural moment (have you been on Tumblr lately?). But there's no male equivalent. The phallus is just as important as ever, of course--Freud was right--but it's always metaphorical and abstract, almost never a literal penis. Naked dudes just aren't art anymore. Women may be gaining agency, but they're remaning objects.

The double standard shows up a bit more obviously and relatably in a pop cultural context: specifically, naked girls are sexy, and naked dudes are funny. If you see a naked girl in a movie or a TV show, it's almost always with sexual (or 'arty') connotations. In contrast, naked dudes are almost always played for laughs. Think again about the proposed gender-flipped Death Set video--which version is 'serious', and which version is funny? We've got cases where both men and women are objects, but our semiotic framework ascribes entirely different meanings to either.

Loose by Spank Rock on Grooveshark

'Hold up, I got some shit to say...'

[NOTE: Probably don't watch this video with, like, your mom or anything.]

I think I've done it. I think I've finally found something that so thoroughly blurs the line between music video and pornography as to be indistinguishable.

In 2007, Spank Rock and Benny Blanco teamed up for a 2 Live Crew-themed EP. If you're at all familiar with the 2 Live Crew--remember, their album As Nasty as They Wanna Be caused so much of a stir that some retailers were actually arrested on felony charges for selling it--you can imagine the direction an EP like this is going to take, especially if you know Spank Rock. It's an album that runs on equal parts sex and nostalgia, with a heavy dollop of both coming from 2 Live Crew samples. And like the 2 Live Crew, it's so over the top, it stops being offensive and just becomes ridiculous. It crosses the line twice. (Double embed above because the non-video version includes the best five seconds of the entire EP at the start.)

The culmination of all of this, I think, is the video for 'Loose', which also happens to feature a verse from the super badass Amanda Blank. The video for 'B-O-O-T-A-Y' (itself a great track, due in no small part to Santigold) is a bit more conventional, but this video takes the T&A approach to hip hop music videos and turns that shit up to 11. There are peep shows less explicit than this. And then a few of Ms. Blank's lines start on about female sexual liberation, and I don't know what to think any more. The girls are all clearly sex objects here, but then Blank shows up--and they're still objects. Spank Rock remains unfazed, continuing the bitches-and-hoes tract as before. Is this being played straight? Is this ironic? Is it meta-ironic? Why am I reading so much into a song/video/EP whose stated goal is to be as hypersexual as possible? And if YouTube won't even let you watch that Cee-Lo song without flagging it, how the hell does this get a pass?

Disseminated by Soul Coughing on Grooveshark

'...well it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.'

'...yeah!'

A nifty little jam from Sheffield electronic dudes I Monster, based on a mellotron soundbank loop. You might recognize it as the song that plays over the opening titles of Shaun of the Dead (albeit pitched up slightly). The album it comes from is called NeveroddoreveN, which is one of the cooler palindromes I've seen in a while. And I had no idea until just now, but Dean Honer, one half of I Monster, is also one third of The All Seeing I. So that's pretty cool.