Part 1 of Contrast Podcast‘s 2012 Festive 50 has finally been posted. It features Muruch‘s Vic introducing the title track from Anaïs Mitchell’s Young Man in America and Brendan intros “Better Now” from The Vesper’s The Fourth Wall. The two albums were #1 and #2 on Muruch’s Top Albums of 2012 list.
In case you’re interested, following are the songs I submitted to Contrast Podcast’s Festive 50 (click link to vote for your Top 10!)…
1 Anaïs Mitchell: Young Man in America
2 The Vespers: Better Now
3 Kate Miller-Heidke: Sarah
4 Amanda Palmer: The Killing Type
5 The Mynabirds: Generals
6 J.D. McPherson: Scratching Circles
7 Goodnight Texas: Jesse Got Trapped in a Coal Mine
8 Fiona Apple: Every Single Night
9 Norah Jones: Say Goodbye
10 Cat Power: 3,6,9
11 Sam Palladio & Clare Bowen: If I Didn’t Know Better
12 Birdy: Skinny Love
13 St. Vincent & David Byrne: Who
14 Muse: Survival
15 Sylvie Lewis: The Fish & The Bird
16 Khatia Buniatishvili: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35
17 Queen Esther: I Feel Like Going Home
18 The Mynabirds: Wolf Mother
19 J.D. McPherson: Firebug
20 Fiona Apple: Daredevil
21 Anaïs Mitchell: Dying Day
22 Julie Lee & The Baby-Daddies: How He Lied
23 Muse: The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
24 Escort: Caméleon Chameleon
25 Amanda Palmer: Do It With a Rockstar
26 Cat Power: Cherokee
27 Anaïs Mitchell: Shephard
28 The Vespers: Got No Friends
29 Julie Lee & The Baby-Daddies: Uphill
30 Shawn Colvin: We All Fall Down
31 Goodnight Texas: I’m Going to Work on Maggie’s Farm Forever
32 Dala: Lennon & McCartney
33 Garbage: Not Your Kind of People
34 Xavier Rudd: Bow Down
35 The Trishas: Little Sweet Cigars
35 Joan Osborne: Shake Your Hips
36 Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band: Devils Look Like Angels
37 Sixty Seconds
38 Cara Mitchell: Throughout This Night
39 Bat For Lashes: Laura
40 The Killers: Runaways
41 Heart: Mashallah!
42 Wilson Phillips: Dedicated to the One I Love
43 Diego’s Umbrella: Thrash Mexican Budapest
44 Sonya Cotton: Our Love Is Here To Stay
45 The Crystal Method feat. Martha Reeves: I’m Not Leaving
46 Shawn Colvin: American Jerusalem
47 Jezzy & The Belles: Confess Child
48 Amanda Mair: House
49 Plumes: Hero and Leander
50 Tatiana Kochkareva: Winter
It’s that time of year again! Contrast Podcast asked several of us bloggers to submit our favorite songs of the year for their annual Festive 50 podcast. They’ve compiled the results and narrowed it down, now it’s time for you to vote for your 10 favorites.
I’ve bolded my top 10 choices. I especially hope to see Anais Mitchell’s “Young Man in America” and Vespers’ “Better Now” make it to the final 50. Not only are they the best songs of the year, in my humble opinion, but chances are yours truly may be asked to introduce them on the podcast. Oh and my negative vote went to Lana Del Ray. Ugh, is there a new dying animal genre or something? :p
The Rules:
1. From the list below, pick your 10 favorite songs
2. Arrange them in order from 1-10 with 1 being your most favorite.
3. If you choose to, you can give a negative vote to any one song.
4. Email your 10 favorites to janderson716@gmail.com with the subject “Festive Fifty Shortlist Vote!!!”
5. Share the list! Get more people to vote! Facebook! Blog! Twitter! Tumblr!
Please do all of the above by Sunday, November 25th.
A.C. Newman – I’m Not Talking
Adele – Skyfall
Alabama Shakes – Be Mine
Alabama Shakes – Hold On
Amy Cook – Getting to You
Anais Mitchell – Young Man in America
Antlers – Drift Dive
Bat For Lashes – Laura
Beach House – Myth
Beach House – Other People
Ben Folds Five – Do It Anyway
Bill Fay – Cosmic Concerto
Bright Light Bright Light – Cry at Films
Brother Ali – Mourning in America
Bruce Springsteen – Land of Hope & Dreams
Bruce Springsteen – Wrecking Ball
Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe
Cat Power – Ruin
Chromatics – Kill For Love
Chuck Prophet – Play That Song Again
Crocodiles – Endless Flowers
Curtis Stigers – Things Have Changed
Daughter – Candles
David Byrne & St. Vincent – Who
Dexy’s – Free
Dexy’s – Nowhere is Home
Divine Fits – Would That Not Be Nice
Django Django – Default
Father John Misty – Hollywood Forever Cemetary Sings
Field Music – A New Town
Fiona Apple – Every Single Night
First Aid Kit – Emmylou
First Aid Kit – The Lion’s Roar
Frank Ocean – Thinkin Bout You
fun. – Some Nights
fun. – We Are Young
Giant Giant Sand – Forever and a Day
Gotye – Somebody That I Used to Know
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals – Never Go Back
Grimes – Genesis
Grimes – Oblivion
Grizzly Bear – Sleeping Ute
Grizzly Bear – Yet Again
Harmed Brothers – A Letter to Lisa
Isaiah Toothtaker – LA Nights
Jack White – I’m Shakin
Japandroids – Continuous Thunder
Japandroids – The House That Heaven Built
Jason Lytle – Department of Disappearance
Kanye West et al – Clique
Kendrick Lamar – Backseat Freestyle
Killers – Runaways
Lana Del Rey – Video Games
Linden – If I Had Wings
Lumineers – Ho Hey
Magnetic Fields – Andrew in Drag
Metric – Breathing Underwater
METZ – Wet Blanket
Meursault – Flittin’
Meursault – Settling
Muse – Madness
Muse – Survival
Mynabirds – Generals
North Sea Scrolls – Witches in the Water
Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks
Offspring – Secrets From the Underground
Offspring – The Future is Now
P.O.S – Fuck Your Stuff
P.O.S – Get Down
Passion Pit – Constant Conversations
Perfume Genius – Hood
Phantom Limb – The Pines
Ponderosa – For Here I Am Born
Psyched – Cut the Chord
Purity Ring – Fineshrine
Purity Ring – Obedear
Raul Midon – Sunshine “I can fly” (Live)
Richard Hawley – Leave Your Body Behind You
Santigold – Disparate Youth
School of Seven Bells – The Night
Sharon Van Etten – Serpents
Shearwater – Dread Sovereign
Shins – Simple Song
Sigur Ros – Ekki Mukk
Sigur Ros – Varud
Tallest Man on Earth – 1904
Tame Impala – Elephant
Tender Trap – Love is Hard Enough
Ting Tings – Hit Me Down Sonny
TNGHT – Higher Ground
Trampled By Turtles – Alone
Triggerfinger – I Will Follow (live)
Twilight Sad – Another Bed
Underworld – And I Will Kiss
Very Best – We Ok
Vespers – Better Now
Walkmen – Heaven
Wedding Present – Deer Caught in the Headlights
White Rabbits – Heavy Metal
xx – Angels
Contrast Podcast‘s 2011 Festive 50 has been posted. Part 1 features Muruch‘s Vic introducing “Booty City” from Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybear’s Scandalous and Part 2 has Brendan‘s poetic intro to “What The Water Gave Me” from Florence + The Machine’s Ceremonials. Both albums were on Muruch’s Top Albums of 2011 list.
Contrast Podcast Festive 50: Part 1
Contrast Podcast Festive 50: Part 2
You can hear the voices of both Muruch writers Brendan and Vic in the first installment of Contrast Podcast’s Festive Fifty.
Brendan introduces “King of the Dogs” from Iggy Pop’s Préliminaires and Vic intros “Nice Very Nice” by Kurt Vonnegut & Dave Soldier from Ice-9 Ballads, which is on both her 2009 Top Albums and Best Albums of the Decade lists. Click the link below to download the podcast…
Contrast Podcast – Festive Fifty (mp3) *
*mp3 hosted by & link provided by Contrast Podcast
Contrast Podcast recently asked music bloggers like myself to submit our favorite 50 songs of the year for their annual “Festive 50″ podcast. Our selections were then compiled into a shortlist and now we’ve been asked to recruit votes to narrow it down.
For the curious, I’ve bolded the 10 songs I personally voted for. I really, really want “Nice Very Nice” by Kurt Vonnegut & Dave Soldier (from their album Ice-9 Ballads) to make the final list. Not only because it’s my favorite song of the year, from my favorite album of the year, inspired by my favorite book of all time, featuring my favorite author of all time, but also because if it makes the list, there’s a good chance yours truly will introduce it. 
So please follow the instructions below to submit your top 10 from the list, and feel free to vote for the Vonnegut song if you agree with me!
Select your favourite 10 songs from the shortlist of 155 below and rank them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 and send the list to contrast.podcast@gmail.com. You may also (if you are feeling evil) give a negative vote to any single song of your choice! The deadline is Monday, November 23rd. Please ask your friends, family, blog readers, and anyone else you know to send in their votes, too!
Last year quite a few people said that they hadn’t heard many of the songs, so this year Tim setup a handy player with (almost) all of the tracks on it:
Here’s the list …
A.A. Bondy – When The Devil’s Loose
Aidan Moffat & the Best Ofs – Big Blonde
Alexi Murdoch – Towards The Sun
Alice In Chains – Check My Brain
Andrew Bird – Fitz & dizzyspells
Andrew Bird – Nomenclature
Andrew Bird – Not a Robot, but a Ghost
Animal Collective – My Girls
Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes
Antlers (The) – Two
Art Brut – DC Comics And Chocolate Milkshake
Asobi Seksu – Transparence
At The Stars – Oxygen & Rust
Atlas Sound – Walkabout
Auld Lang Syne – Where My Fortune Lies
Avett Brothers (The) – I And Love And You
Bat for Lashes – Daniel
Beirut – The Akara
Bell X1 – The Great Defector
Big Pink (The) – Dominos
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears – Get Yo’ Shit
Bob Dylan – Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
Bombadil – Sad Birthday
Bon Iver – Blood Bank
Builders and The Butchers (The) – Barcelona
Butcher Boy – Carve A Pattern
Buzz Aldrin – You and I
Camera Obscura – French Navy
Camera Obscura – Honey In The Sun
Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – White Corolla
Cats On Fire – Horoscope
Cats On Fire – Letters From A Voyage To Sweden
Cats On Fire – Tears In Your Cup
Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse with Wayne Coyne – Revenge
Das Racist & Wallpaper – Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell (Wallpaper. RMX)
Dave Matthews Band – Why I Am
David Bazan – Bless This Mess
David Gedge And The BBC Big Band – My Favourite Dress (live at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, 29 April 2009)
Death Cab for Cutie – Little Bribes
Decemberists (The) – Annan Water
Decemberists (The) – The Hazards of Love Part 4 (The Drowned)
Decemberists (The) – The Rake’s Song
Decemberists (The) – The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid
Decemberists (The) – Won’t Want for Love
Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden – Bonkers
Doves – Jetstream
Doves – Kingdom Of Rust
Drums (The) – I Felt Stupid
Editors – Papillon
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes – 40 Day Dream
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Home
Eels – Fresh Blood
Elvis Perkins In Dearland – Shampoo
Fanfarlo – I’m A Pilot
Faunts (The) – It Hurts Me All The Time
Flight of the Conchords – Carol Brown
Flight Of the Conchords – Sugarlumps
Florence & The Machine – Cosmic Love
Florence & The Machine – Dog Days Are Over
Florence & The Machine – Kiss With a Fist
Franz Ferdinand – No You Girls
Franz Ferdinand – Twilight Omens
Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses
Future Of The Left – Arming Eritrea
Girls – Hellhole Ratrace
Gong – Dance with the Pixies
Grand Archives – Oslo Novelist
Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks
Guggenheim Grotto (The) – Fee Da Da Dee
HEALTH – Die Slow
Heartless Bastards – The Mountain
Here We Go Magic – Fangela
Horrors (The) – Sea Within A Sea
I Like Trains – Sea Of Regrets
Iggy Pop – King Of The Dogs
Jarvis Cocker – Angela
Jarvis Cocker – I Never Said I Was Deep
Jarvis Cocker – Leftovers
Jason Lytle – Yours Truly, The Commuter
Jason Mraz – Traveler/Make it Mine (live)
Kasabian – Fire
Kurt Vonnegut & Dave Soldier – Nice Very Nice
Langhorne Slim – I Love You, But Goodbye
Leisure Society (The) – A Matter Of Time
Leisure Society (The) – The Darkest Place I Know
Leisure Society (The) – The Last Of The Melting Snow
Lily Allen – The Fear
Low Anthem (The) – Champion Angel
Madness – We are London
Memory Tapes – Bicycle
Metric – Gimme sympathy
Metric – Sick Muse
Meursault – Love Or Limb
Meursault – Nothing broke
Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt. 2
Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt. 1
Mew – New Terrain
Middle East (The) – Blood
Morrissey – I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
Morrissey – Something Is Squeezing My Skull
Mountain Goats (The) – 1 John 4:16
Mumford & Sons – Roll Away Your Stone
Mumford & Sons – The Cave
Mumford & Sons – White Blank Page
Muse – Uprising
National (The) – So Far Around The Bend
Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
Neko Case – People Got A Lotta Nerve
NOFX – My Orphan Year
Owl City – Fireflies
Pains of Being Pure At Heart (The) – Come Saturday
Pains of Being Pure At Heart (The) – Higher than the stars
Pains of Being Pure At Heart (The) – This Love Is Fucking Right
Pains of Being Pure At Heart (The) – Young Adult Friction
Passion Pit – Moth’s Wings
Passion Pit – The Reeling
Paul Haig – Relive
Pet Shop Boys – Love etc.
Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson – Relator
Phoenix – 1901
Phoenix – Lisztomania
PJ Harvey & John Parish – Black Hearted Love
Prefab Sprout – Earth, The Story So Far
Prefab Sprout – Let There Be Music
Prefab Sprout – Music Is A Princess
Raveonettes (The) – Suicide
Regina Spektor – Folding Chair
Regina Spektor – One More Time With Feeling
Richard Hawley – As The Dawn Breaks
Saint Etienne – Method of modern love
Sam Bisbee – Never Fall In Love
Spoon – Got nuffin’
Temper Trap (The) – Sweet Disposition
Thom Yorke – Hearing damage
Throw Me The Statue – Hi-Fi Goon
Twilight Sad (The) – I became a Prostitute
U2 – No Line on the Horizon
Very Best (The) – Warm Heart Of Africa
Wave Machines – The Greatest Escape We Ever Made
We Were Promised Jetpacks – Quiet Little Voices
We Were Promised Jetpacks – Roll Up Your Sleeves
White Lies – To Lose My Life
Wilco – Wilco (The Song)
Wilco – You And I
Wilco – You Never Know
Wild Beasts – All the Kings Men
Withered Hand – Love in the Time of Ecstasy
Withered Hand – Religious Song
Wye Oak – That I Do
XX (The) – Crystallized
XX (The) – Intro
XX (The) – VCR
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero