It’s list season! Lists everywhere about everything that you care/don’t-give-a-shit about! Honestly, I’ve had a lot of experience making lists. It does not shame me to admit that I used to make binders full of music countdowns as a child. Simple top-songs-of-the-moment lists, complete with fast-rising debuts and a weeks-on-chart column. That was before this decade. This decade, I decided to just listen and write about it at the end of 2009. So here we are. Surprisingly, Californication was actually released in 1999. I really had that pretty high on my list of the decade but I guess my memory isn’t as good as I thought it was. Hey, I was 13 at the time.

Katuwapitiya.com’s
Top 25 Albums of the Decade

25. Vampire Weekend- Vampire Weekend This album was like a breath of fresh air to the whole indie scene. A sound so fresh that it came to define an entire summer for me. Favourites: “M79” and “Oxford Comma“.
24. Death From Above 1979- You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine This album grabs you and kicks you in the face multiple times and I love that. Favourites: “Black History Month” and “Little Girl“
23. The Go! Team- Thunder, Lightning, Strike How can I describe Thunder, Lightning, Strike? If life were a video game, all music would sound like this. Cheerleader hip-hop mixed with indie rock? Awesome. Favourites: “Huddle Formation” and “The Power Is On“
22. Franz Ferdinand- Franz Ferdinand Classic british indie rock. Favourites: “Take Me Out” (of course) and “Jacqueline“
21. Sage Francis- Personal Journals What I wish hip-hop would strive to be. Dark, poetic, beautiful, tragic. Favourites: “Crack Pipes” and “Broken Wings“
20. Arctic Monkeys- Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not The original MySpace Cinderella story. Went from nothing to everything in a few months. A hell of an album. Favourites: “A Certain Romance” and “Perhaps Vampires Is a Bit Strong But…“
19. Sufjan Stevens- Illinois Sufjan’s masterpiece. With old folk tales and stories of horrifying criminals, Sufjan took us on a memorable journey. Favourites: “Chicago” and “Casimir Pulaski Day“
18. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Fever To Tell Like DFA1979’s album, Fever To Tell kicks you in the face. However, this album had depth. One word: Maps. Favourites: read previous sentence.
17. Metric- Old World Underground, Where Are You Now Take the depth of Fever To Tell and multiply it by a factor of 1.5. That is this album. Emily Haines shines. Favourites: “Combat Baby” and “Hustle Rose”
16. The New Pornographers- Twin Cinema To me, this is one of the defining albums of Canadian indie rock. Favourites: “The Bleeding Heart Show” and “Stacked Crooked”
15. The Postal Service- Give Up Give Up takes me back to my first year of university. We would share burned copies and would marvel at how cool it all sounded. Paired with the bips and bleeps were some great lyrics from Ben Gibbard. Favourites: “Such Great Heights” and “Brand New Colony”
14. The National- Alligator This album grows on you like a fine wine. Not everyone’s favourite but for me, the last third of Alligator cannot be beat. Favourites: “City Middle” and “The Geese of Beverly Road”
13. OutKast- Speakerboxxx/The Love Below Does this need an explanation? Favourites: “Hey Ya” and “Prototype”
12. Madvillain- Madvillainy MF Doom and Madlib took hip hop and turned that shit upside-down and inside-out. So fresh, like nothing I had ever heard before. Favourites: “ALL CAPS” and “Accordion”
11. Kanye West- The College Dropout Not only did this put Kanye on the map, but it also did so much for artists like Mos Def and Common. Now I understand if you don’t like him and Imma let you finish but Kanye West had one of the best albums of this decade. Favourites: “Two Words” and “Through The Wire”
10. The Killers- Hot Fuss Nothing, and I mean nothing, gives me more nostalgia than blasting “Believe Me Natalie” and “Smile Like You Mean It” on my car stereo. Hot Fuss was that summer before university, hell, it was the summer after first year too. Favourites: see above
9. The White Stripes- Elephant This album blew me away. It was like Rock in its prime. Rock as it should be. Favourites: “Ball and Biscuit” and “Little Acorns”
8. Bloc Party- Silent Alarm I have never listened to an album as many times consecutively as I have Silent Alarm. Period. Favourites: “This Modern Love” and “Positive Tension”
7. Radiohead- Kid A How does a band follow an album that is widely-regarded to be one of the best albums of all time (OK Computer)? Change your style completely and knock it out of the park! Favourites: “The National Anthem” and “Motion Picture Soundtrack”
6. Arcade Fire- Funeral A step above Twin Cinema, this took Canadian music as a whole to an entirely new level. Awe-inspiring. Favourites: “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)”, “Neighborhood #2 (Laïka)”, “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)”, “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)”, “Wake Up”, “Rebellion (Lies)”
5. Kings of Leon- Aha Shake Heartbreak Before they were all polished and pretty, Kings of Leon was a bunch of southern rockers with a weird-sounding lead-vocalist, nonsensical lyrics and awesome riffs. I miss that. Favourites: “Taper Jean Girl” and “The Bucket”
4. Broken Social Scene- You Forgot It In People I’ve talked a lot about defining Canadian albums. This BSS album took some of the most talented Canadian musicians out there and put them all together to make a masterpiece. Favourites: “Almost Crimes” and “Cause = Time”
3. Iron & Wine- Our Endless Numbered Days Some folksy dude singing a bunch of songs that all sound the same. And it’s fucking incredible. Favourites: “Naked As We Came” and “Sunset Soon Forgotten”
2. The Strokes- Is This It The album that introduced me to indie rock. Favourites: “Is This It”, “Barely Legal”, “Someday”, “Last Nite”, “Hard To Explain”
1. Coldplay- Parachutes Hard to believe that Coldplay didn’t exist before this decade. The biggest band in the world had its humble beginnings in Parachutes, released in 2000. Simple songs about love and the world. No Gwyneths, no weird baby names, no multi-million dollar tours, no sexiest vegetarian awards, no making trade fair, no apple commercials, no frills. Just an awkward-looking dude singing about a colour, walking on a beach as the sun rose. Wonder who’ll start from such beginnings next year?

Honorable Mentions (a.k.a the reasons this list took so long):

Death Cab For Cutie- Transatlanticism, John Mayer- Continuum, The Shins- Chutes Too Narrow, D’angelo- Voodoo, OutKast- Stankonia, We Are Scientsts- With Love and Squalor, Coldplay- A Rush Of Blood To The Head, Amy Winehouse- Back To Black, Damien Rice- O, K-Os- Exit, The Strokes- Room on Fire, Feist- Let it Die, Stars- Set Yourself On Fire, All other Radiohead albums.

let 'em try to find the beauty in your face

There are times when I get jaded with a genre. Sometimes it happens to indie rock but more often it happens with hip hop. Hey, I can’t help it when all the artists that I love simultaneously decide to start releasing sub-par material (Re: the latest releases by Kanye West, Common, Little Brother, Talib Kweli, and sigh, even Mos Def). And yeah, the new Q-tip album is nice, but I keep waiting for Phife Dawg to pop up on the next verse and end up disappointed.

Once in a while, however, a song can remind you why you love a genre. And it doesn’t have to be a prototypical genre song either. Sometimes, it can be something so fresh and new that it redefines potential and shows you levels that can be reached.

I’ve largely ignored releases by P.O.S. for superficial reasons. His moniker is just too dangerously close to the name of P.O.D. and just like I’d avoid a band named Bevanescence, I’ve avoided checking out this Rhymesayers artist. However, I took a leap of faith based on a lot of recommendations, and stumbled upon the track “Purexed” off his new album Never Better.

Needless to say, this is one of those songs that can remind you of why you love hip hop. And it does it in a way that my indie rock readers might like too. Just incredible. His flow has the urgency of Sage Francis and the way it builds, especially in the chorus, it’s just surreal. Check it out below:

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Download

Why Stevie Wonder? Why? Jonas Brothers?!

And Kanye… was that a black mullett?

Congrats to Adele!

And Radiohead, thanks for being Radiohead:

I’m done defending Kanye West.

I used to love K.O.W.

All my life, I’ve been quick to defend the ‘black man in the spotlight who is heavily criticized’.

The root of this tendency probably stems from my love for Michael Jackson. He was the first artist that I can remember calling myself a fan of and for that reason, I’ve defended him my entire life. Hell, I even bought “Blood on the Dance Floor”. That’s dedication.

Often, I find that the mainstream media is quick to judge prominent black celebrities when there is a combination of a poor choice of words and a cocky attitude (justified or not). Some good examples of this theory are Terrell Owens, Isaiah Washington, and Kanye West.

Terrell Owens was the reason I started watching football. Isaiah Washington was the best part of Grey’s Anatomy. And Kanye West? I’ve been a fan of his from day one.

When I was in a car accident, recovering in a hospital, I flipped out when “Through the Wire” started playing on MuchMusic. I agreed with his George Bush sentiments and even agreed with the way he went about it. I didn’t mind that he was so honest about deserving an MTV award because I thought he deserved one too. And I was brought to tears when he performed “Hey Mama” after the death of his mother.

But goddamn it Kanye. I’m done.

Yes. You’re a good producer. Probably one of the best in the business. And I was well aware of your lack of writing ability. Over the years, I’ve shrugged off lines like:

“Saying “we eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast”
Huh? Yall eat pieces of shit? What’s the basis?”

“And I know the government administered AIDS,
So I guess we just pray like the minister say”

“I thought my Jesus Piece was so harmless
’til I seen a picture of a shorty armless”

“Till I got flashed by the Papparazzi
Damn, these niggaz got me
I hate these niggaz more than a Nazi”

“Old folks talking bout back in my day
But homey this is my day.
Class started 2 hours ago, oh am I late?
You know I already graduated
And you can live through anything if Magic made it.
They say I talk with so much emphasis,
OOOO they’re so sensitive.”

I could put up with all this and I could defend you through it all. But now someone gave you the notion that you can sing?! Come on.

If you’re bad at rapping, you don’t start singing with a vocoder and call that an evolution. The production quality on your highly-digitized voice is great, as usual, but the world does not need another T-Pain.

When you’re “singing” bad lyrics instead of “rapping” them, it gives us time to really focus on what you’re saying. And when you’re saying nothing (“System overload/Screamin no no no no no”), and you’re singing it poorly, it does not work.

I’ll always respect you for what you’ve done for artists like Common, Mos Def and Talib Kweli. But I can’t help but focus on how ridiculous you’ve become. Even before the singing, I started having my doubts. It’s one thing to tour with Rihanna. It’s another thing to make your set revolve around ludicrous interactions with a spaceship named “Jane”. Then there are the very questionable guest spots on tracks by artists like T-Pain and Kid Sister. Add the singing and I’ve had enough.

For more on Kanye’s unfortunate decision to suck at singing, download the mp3 of his new single “Love Lockdown”, or check out “It’s Over” from John Legend’s new album (another good example of why I’ve had enough).

I hope you prove me wrong Kanye. I really do.