So you get the whole idea of a Top Ten of the year right? You don't need me to explain it to you do I? Click on the read more and see how my list differs from Ste and Robs
10. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Mercury Music prize winning and all that malarkey this was the year that Elbow finally took over and while doing so brought out one of the best rock songs of the last year, the last 5 years and perhaps ever, in "Grounds for Divorce". Check it out below if you don't believe me.
Elbow - Grounds for Divorce
9. Crayonsmith - White Wonder
Proof that listening to Ste can pay off and while it took me a little time to actually bother checking out the first (but not the last) Irish act on this list it was good that I finally did. Lovers of electro type stuff in general will find a lot to dig in this little piece.
Crayonsmith - All the Elders
8. Get Well Soon - Rest Now, Weary Head! You Will Get Well Soon
German one man virtuoso Konstantin Groppe brings his own brand of Nick Cave flavoured miserablism to the world and in the process makes one of the most unsettlingly creepy albums of quite a while. For evidence of this check out the track below "If This Hat Is Missing I Have Gone Hunting" with the creepiest female voices used in a rock song since The Ohio Players "Love Rollercoaster" (go here for more on that)
Get Well Soon - If This Hat Is Missing I Have Gone Hunting
7. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
So finally despite about ten years and numerous albums Death Cab for Cutie finally make something that inspires me to sit up and take notice. There's a good chance that this is largely down to the amazing video for opening single "I Will Possess Your Heart" which also happens to be a great song but whatever, Number 7 with a bullet. Although why it needs a bullet I don't know.
Death Cab for Cutie - No Sunlight
6. Ham Sandwich - Carry the Meek
Second Irish act on the list but (spoiler alert) not the last. Ham Sandwich's first album mixes perfectly the female vocals of surprise preggers Niamh Farrell and fucking mentaller Podge McNamee to make some great pop-rock tunes. Great stuff all round
Ham Sandwich - Click...Click...Boom!!!
5. Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
Trent Reznor takes another step towards proving that he's the greatest musical innovator that ever existed by literally GIVING us The Slip (still not sure if that pun was intentional or not). For his SECOND release THIS YEAR and his FOURTH release in EIGHTEEN MONTHS Trent literally gave away for free the entire album. What was even more surprising is that it retained the same quality that all previous releases had delivered. Plus did I mention it was free??? When it came out for a physical release 4 months later it still sold by the bucket-load. Top man.
Nine Inch Nails - Echoplex
4. The Dandy Warhols - Earth to the Dandy Warhols
A band that will unfortunately always remain as a novelty band in peoples minds thanks to that fucking Vodafone ad of 2001 and a damn shame it is too as the Dandy Warhols prove once again that they write some seriously catchy pop/rock/psychedlic ditties.
The Dandy Warhols - MisAmigos
3. Fight Like Apes - Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion
Love em or hate em they write a fucking catchy song and they're damn good live despite being hairy bastards the lot of them. Irelands bright new shining hopes finally deliver their long awaited debut album and with a running time of roughly 30-35 minutes it does what its meant to. Comes in. Beats the shit out of you and leaves you wanting more.
Fight Like Apes - Digifucker
2. Does it offend you yeah? - You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into
Having a silly name (a David Brent quote from the Office) didn't help endear these guys to a lot of people (Rob) and some wouldn't listen to them as a result (Rob). Foolishly seeing as they proved with this album that they're this years Daft Punk/Justice Electo-Funk types and still have a savage cool live show which anybody who saw their mid-afternoon set at Oxegen can attest to.
Does it Offend you yeah? - We are Rockstars
1. Jape - Ritual
I hate having to put the same number 1 down as Rob but he's right. This album is fucking brilliant. Go and get it now.
Jape - I Was a man
Almost made it:
Breaks my heart to not include these albums as they are savage but Pivot - O Soundtrack my Heart; Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaus; Why? - Alopecia; MGMT - Oracular Spectacular.
Better luck next time chaps
Albums of the Year 2008 (Evil Bob)
Nine Inch Nails/Queens of the Stone Age NOT playing Whelans
Contrary to what our Rob heard on Newstalk last night, the undisputed dream gig of the year is not taking place on the 1st October in Dublin's premiere Indie music venue.
Now no official denial from either NIN or QOTSA is present nor is it likely to be as it seems what Newstalk heard was the less exciting (although still intriguing) announcement that Jubilee will be playing in said venue at said date. The reason for the confusion is that Jubilee is made up of the session players (the ones who aren't Trent Reznor and Josh Hommes) from NIN, QOTSA and The Icarus Line.
The press release describes their sounds as sounding like "The Replacements, The Stone Roses, Neil Young, Blur, Jane's Addiction, Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and The Verve" which seems like a very interesting proposition although not quite the Industrial stoner rock combo you might expect from a Nine Inch Nails/Queens of the Stone Age collision but doubtless they'll be interesting to check out.
Then again it could also be a mighty ruse and Trent and Josh will show however they'll both have to rush pretty hard afterwards as NIN play in Buenos Aires the next day and QOTSA play in California two days later. Cheers Newstalk for having me woken in the middle of the night with frantic phone calls from fellow bloggers. Lucky I heard about Jubilee playing or I would have been up half the night trying to find out the story.
Jubilee at myspace
Jubilee "Rebel Hiss"
Another free NIN Album
Trent Reznor is at it again , another new album NIN Album is available for free download and all that needs to be done is give your email address and a link to download the album will be sent to you email address. the album is called "the slip" the track listing for the album and more info in the read more
1. 999,999
2. 1,000,000
3. letting you
4. discipline
5. echoplex
6. head down
7. lights in the sky
8. corona radiata
9. the four of us are dying
10. demon seed
heres what Trent had to say for himself
as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.
the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.
for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in July. details coming soon.
click here to visit the albums webpage
or to HERE to download the album directly from us.
Trent says to post it on blogs so who are we to disagree
Nine Inch Nails: "Discipline"
you can download the song from the official NIN official NIN site
Budding filmmakers? Trent has a challenge for you
Got this in my email from the NIN mailing list which linked me to the vid below. Sounds like a pretty interesting idea. Check out the text after the jump.
Nine Inch Nails is pleased to announce the expansion of the Ghosts project into the visual world. The band has teamed up with YouTube to host a "film festival" around Ghosts. The concept is for you to take whatever tracks you feel inspired by and create what you feel should accompany them visually. You will be able to see all of the submissions, and a team (including Trent) will be sorting through them and setting aside ones they feel are exceptional. Eventually (within a couple of months?) we hope to present a virtual "film festival" with Trent and some special guests presenting selections of your work.
"This isn't a contest and you don't win elaborate prizes - it's meant to be an experiment in collaboration and a chance for us to interact beyond the typical one-way artist-to-fan relationship. We've discussed some interesting ways this could go, including multiple installments of the online "film festivals," to broadcast TV specials, to a one-time live performance of the entire Ghosts record with your visuals involved. It really depends on how this progresses and develops.
We are all very much looking forward to what you come up with, and hope you enjoy the experience. Visit http://www.youtube.com/ninofficial for information on how to participate".
TR
Download new Nine Inch Nails album right here
As Rob mentioned yesterday Trent Reznor has put the first part of his new "Ghosts" instrumental album up on all the Torrent sites where normally you download stuff illegally. He had previously done this with "Year Zero" last year and with the DVD releases of "Closure" and "Broken" which remain unreleased.
He also urged others to upload it on their own sites and what have you and so that is exactly what I am doing right now.
Click HERE to download "Ghosts Part I"
The great thing about this release is that you can decide to pay for the full download if you want for $5 or you can order the double CD for $10.
I have chosen to do the latter because, even though the CD itself won't ship for another month, they give you immediate access to download the album at a very high quality.
You could also splash out $75 or $300 for two big bonus packages but thats just a bit too heavy on my wallet.
NIN For Free, Again
Trent Reznor is continuing his love affair with digital releases by posting part of the new NIN album, Ghosts, for free online.
Reznor has previously dabbled in free online releases through Saul Williams' Niggy Tardust album, the creation of which Reznor was heavily involved in.
Ghosts is a apparently a 36 track instrumental album, created by enlisting the help of numerous producers including Alan Moulder of Downward Spiral fame.
Unfortunately, the NIN site has crashed due to high traffic, but visitors are assured that it will be back online in a matter of hours. In the meantime, the full album is available for a mere 5 dollars from amazon. How nice.
Click here to try the download site.
Click here for NIN.
Saul Williams For Button Factory
Poet, performer & occasional Trent Reznor collaborator Saul Williams is to play the Button Factory (Temple Bar Music Center) on May 12th. Tickets are available at 17 euro each.
Here's Williams being backed by NIN at the Voodoo festival in 2005 performing the excellent 'List of Demands':
Type rest of the post here
Song Of The Day
Finally got hold of the Faint's remix of 'Meet Your Master' from Nine Inch Nails' 'Year Zero Remixed', and, as expected, it's pretty damn good. Don't even pretend to be surprised, we all knew this was going to rock, what with The Faint being 'probably the best band on the planet' and all...
Enjoy:
Click me for mp3
NIN Remix Album Details Revealed
I'm looking forward to this- Nine Inch Nails' latest album 'Year Zero' is being released in a completely remixed version on November 21st. Artists who have remixed tracks for the album entitled 'Y34RZ3ROR3M1X3D' include Saul Williams, who has just released a collaboration with Reznor for free online (click me), and possibly the coolest band in the world: 'The Faint'. This could be uber-fun.
Here's the full tracklisting:
'Gunshots By Computer' - Saul Williams
'The Great Destroyer' - Modwheelmood
'My Violent Heart' - Pirate Robot Midget
'The Beginning Of The End' - Ladytron
'Survivalism' - Saul Williams
'Capital G' - Epworth Phones
'Vessel' - Bill Laswell
'The Warning' - Stefan Goodchild featuring Doudou n'Diaye Rose
'Meet Your Master' - The Faint
'God Given' - Stephen Morris & Gillian Gilbert
'Me, I'm Not' - Olof Dreijer
'Another Version Of The Truth' - Kronos Quartet & Enrique Gonzalez Müller
'In This Twilight' - Fennesz
'Zero Sum' - Stephen Morris & Gillian Gilbert
New Nine Inch Nails Album- Free!
NIN are following in Radiohead's footsteps and releasing their (his?) latest album for free online. It's not the much anticipated 'Year Zero' remix album (which will feature a remix by the faint), but a collaboration with hip-hop poet Saul Williams. Hmmm...interesting.
The album is called 'The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust', and will be available for download here from November 1st.
In the meantime, here's the video for Saul Williams' 'List Of Demands', which is pretty bad-ass:
Full story here.
