The Muso’s Guide Awards!
Sam Sparro - a winner!
In an evermore uncontained whimsy, it’s time for the first ever Muso’s Guide Awards! Forget your sexiest males, your heroes, zeroes, blah-blahs, et ceteras… these categories are far more exciting. Back in January you were thinking to yourself, “who the heck is going to be the Most Fantabulous One-Hit Wonder In A Haystack… Of The Year?” – and now you know. And it feels great. Very productive year, I feel.
They go a little like this:-
Most Tiz-Inducing, Life-Reaffirming/Hallucination-Stimulating Graphics At A Gig (Of The Year): Yeasayer at ULU. A little bit of sick in the mouth, I think.
Most Shimmy-Inducing Track Of The Year: The Whitest Boy Alive – ‘Golden Cage’. The Fred Falke remix is even better, garish synth and ricocheting vocals whipping it up into a disco frenzy.
Best Use Of The Kitchen Sink Of The Year: Those Dancing Days – ‘Those Dancing Days’. Just listen to those drums. And now listen to those keys. And then watch them dance. Yeah? Yeah.
Biggest Waste Of Space Of The Year: Prinzhorn Dance School. I mean, why? They’re the personification of what is wrong with civilisation.
Most Strangely Stage School Performance Of The Year: Lykke Li playing The Black Cap at the Camden Crawl was simply baffling. Like an audition or something. Alas, her album is GREAT.
Most Dramatical Gig Of The Year: Kelley Polar at Indigo2, supporting Metronomy. Knocked Star Trek out of the water, I’ll tell you.
Song Most Played To Death Of The Year: The Kills’ ‘Black Balloon’. Damn me for killing that one prematurely.
Song Which Should Most Totally Definitely Have Made It Onto A 2008 Long-Player: Laura Marling – ‘It’s Only My Opinion’. Sometimes you see things you wish you could control. Alas.
Most Surprisingly Brilliant Live Act Of The Year: Joana and The Wolf at the Camden Crawl, playing at the little studio bit at the Roundhouse accompanying short films. Pretentious, sure, but mindblowingly dramatic.
Blandest Live Act Of The Year: Ipso Facto at the Camden Crawl. Simply mindnumbing, but not even in a nonchalant/vaguely interesting way.
Best Festival Act Of The Year: Vampire Weekend at Glastonbury. Atmosphere like I’ve never seen before.
Wettest Day Of The Year: Field Day. Shame about the sound too.
Musical Journey Of The Year: Hercules and Love Affair – ‘Blind’. Over six-minutes of Antony sans Johnsons warbling over some lush arrangements and taking you all the way in.
Most Exquisite Live Performance Of The Year: Sunset Rubdown at Kilburn Luminaire. Tight and focused and joyous and manic and draining and frenetic and nervous and perfect.
Genius Of The Year: Spencer Krug of Sunset Rubdown, Wolf Parade, Swan Lake and Frog Eyes – say no more.
Most Memorable New Band Of The Year: Official Secrets Act. Surely I can’t continue on this any more…
Best B-side Of The Year: Future Of The Left – ‘Suddenly It’s A Folk Song’. Coming over all tender and bipolar, this is a showstopper.
Most Fantabulous One-Hit Wonder In A Haystack… Of The Year: Sam Sparro – ‘Black and Gold’. The rest of his stuff is atrocious, not that you’d have even had the chance to hear it. But my oh my, that one song just doesn’t tire… the soundclash between the ever-building layers is sublime, the production crystalline, the syncopation sublime. It’s pretty timeless stuff too, we’ll predict.
Best EP Of The Year: Fleet Foxes’ ‘Sun Giant’. Fantastic introduction to one of the year’s most superb and entirely unavoidable new acts. The world of music’s a far more fortunate place with this lot in it.
Most Surprising Rediscovery Of The Year: Club 8. Who remembered the glory of ‘Spring Came, Rain Fell’ until a certain moment in mid-April or so in 2008? Me, that’s who.
Most Productively Nostalgic Moment Of The Year: Remembering that I’d seen Eastern Lane years ago after hearing them name-dropped, and consequently picking up their two magnificent albums on eBay for something like 96p each.
Most Foppish Moment Of The Year: Seeing Camera Obscura at King’s College Union, London. Touching hands and quietly drooling in the corners of their minds, the front few rows were reduced to a quivering mess. ‘Razzle Dazzle Rose’ this very night was Best Gig Closer Of The Year.
Saddest Moment(s) Of The Year: The sad farewell we bid to The Long Blondes. And the belated goodbye I offered to The Be See See – that one’s a real travesty.
Worst Live Act Of The Year: Black Kids are a shambles. First at Wireless, and then again at Glastonbury. In a nails on blackboard sort of way, seriously. Poor little lambs got max hype and it turns out they were ceremoniously chewed up, spat out and kicked to the curb.
Most Difficult Song To Not Dance/Bop/Shuffle To On The Bus At 8am Whilst Alone: Mystery Jets – ‘Hideaway’. Go on, try it some time… Also winner of Best Album Opener Of The Year.
Weirdest Live Music Experience Of The Year: The shambles that was MGMT at the Astoria back in May. The album is great, no denying, but that was a freakin’ freak-out. A mix of mime (well, miming, rather – mime would’ve fared better I’m sure) and coked-up rehearsal-room jamming, it felt more like being strung up and falsely imprisoned. Avoid them live, unless they were replaced by their demons that night – though it did happen at Glastonbury again…
Track You’re Most Sure Has Always Been There: MGMT – ‘Kids’. In juxtaposition with their live reputation, this one’s a keeper.
Producer Of The Year: Erol Alkan. Doing what Paul Epworth did a few years ago, everything he touched turned to gold. Taking in sophomores by Mystery Jets and The Long Blondes, Late Of The Pier’s debut, and of course his 2CD collection for Bugged Out, he’s transformed the sound of 2008 and brought disco right back to the fore.
Most Astonishing Transformation Of The Year: That could only go to Mystery Jets. Seamlessly transforming themselves from a family-inclusive Eel Pie Island quintet to four disco heroes, of course with the help of Alkan above, it’s great that they’ve made such an impact on 2008. Though perhaps soon, the masses’ll realise that Making Dens is as great as Twenty One, if not better. Remind yourself now with this video for ‘Alas Agnes’.
I always have fun at Black Kids shows, though I haven’t been to those two venues you mention.
Twenty One is better than Making Dens, I will not budge. Spot on elsewhere.
Erol Alkan, producer of the year? Fuck that? Made 3 average records that got massive coverage and airplay, yet sold nothing, ran the jets into the ground while losing what was so special about them, turned the long blondes into an even more pretensious band than they were already and happily took more press than Ronson in every review of late of the pier, even though their demos sounded exactly the same? Sounds like he did well for all those bands!
quite how erol was successful i’m not sure, the lotp album didn’t scrape the top 20 and the mystery jets and long blondes have been dropped after not even denting the top 40, amazing dj? check, amazing producer? jury is out but no one was talking about this albums a la bloc party.
paul epworth had MUCH bigger hits this year.