Batman

not sure if this is deserving of it's own thread, but I love this website, and it definitely helped clear up a few genre distinctions in electronic music, and made a bunch of them waaaaaay more confusing. Still very interestin though. http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/

Boy Scouts is way fun, but I only ever got like 10 merit badges.

well the year is over, what was your favorite movie of 2008? My favorite was probably Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Yeah I'm definitely buying it when it comes out. I don't think I'll listen to it again until the CD comes out, because all the reviews of it say that it has really deep bass and drums, and with the leak it was hard to fully appreciate that.

half the album sounds like it was written by Mufasa and Rafiki on an LSD trip

You know what was a really awesome song this year? "Single Ladies" by Beyonce. I like it because it has the same feel to it as a classic motown/soul song because of the way Beyonce sings and the fun feeling of the verses, but it doesn't sound at all retro. The song takes a lot of the elements of classic soul but uses it in a modern context, with the futuristic beat and synth heavy chorus. I also really like "Love In This Club" by Usher but I have no idea why. It probably has a lot to do with that synth hook.

I like the few singles I've heard from the Knux. Cappucino is a really fun song. They kind of remind me of the Cool Kids, being another group of, you know, hipster rappers. And people almost always use the term "hipster" in a derogatory way, but in this context, it is a very good thing. Plus, they said in Rolling Stone that A Milli was their favorite song of the year

It just seems like a lot of the big alt. bands of the 80's had a girl bassist. The Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, The Pixies, and now that the 80's are old enough to be retro the trend seems to be coming back a little bit.

By now I'm probably just being annoying, but I'm not trying to get down on you or anything, I'm just curious as to why you don't think he's a good rapper. I could accept you not liking his rapping, but from a less subjective and more critical standpoint, I can only come up with evidence as to why he's a great rapper. Or another question to ask would be what makes the four rappers you mentioned so great that someone like Weezy would "pale in comparison?"

I think by now, it's probably best for the music industry to realize that people are going to be listening to whatever they want for free from now on, and should figure out a different way to make money off it.

I've always wondered why for alternative rock, the stereotypical go-to instrument for a girl is usually the bass. It makes no sense to me!

and for what it's worth, I'm almost positive I'm going to hate his next album, which I think is going to be called "T-Wayne," and it's an entire album of him and T-Pain singing through an auto-tune. Ugh. The auto-tune has got to be my least favorite fad of the past few years. Leave robot voices to robot music (Daft Punk use vocoders well), and leave singing to singers. ("Good Life" by Kanye West is exempt from this rant because it's too good.)

I don't mean to be rude, but I wasn't really asking for names, I was asking for explanation. I wouldn't say he's better than Chuck D or Q Tip or Del (well, he actually might be a better rapper than Q Tip, even though I prefer Tribe's music to his), but I would say he's in the same league (as a rapper). See, when talking about his skills as a rapper, you've got to make sure you make the distinction between rapping and the music as a whole. I mean, maybe A Milli has a boring beat or whatever, but if you just are judging the rapping, he has great flow, a lot of charisma, good rhymes, entertaining lyrics, and you can tell he's so into it and really feeling it, you know? Even though the lyrical content is pretty much just him babbling about random free-associative stuff in A Milli, he's rapping about it really passionately. At least, he's more passionate than I ever hear Q Tip get (and again, I love A Tribe Called Quest and I like Q Tip's rapping a lot for how well it fits their laid back beats, I'm just pointing out one advantage Lil Wayne has over him that would put him in at least the same league as him). And it's totally possible to think highly of his rapping but not his music. Kind of like how I would call Steve Perry a good singer even though I don't really like Journey.

plus on dr. carter he rhymes "yeast infection" with "geese erection" you can't deny that!

Why don't you think he's a talented rapper? His rhymes are clever, he has good flow, and he puts so much effort and emotion into his voice. It seems like most mainstream rappers have a really lazy drawl or a really over the top yell that ends up sounding monotone because they never change their voice, but Lil Wayne really puts a lot of emotion into his voice and it isn't stagnant and stale like a lot of rappers. And of course he's got some bad songs but he releases like over 100 songs every year, he's bound to have some clunkers.

just saw Milk, I give it an A

Any specific songs you would reccomend? I can see how A Milli would annoy some, it does have a very repetetive beat (although I think it's a really catchy beat). I mostly like the song for the rap. Not enough mainstream rappers do really clever free associative raps like that. Lil Wayne has a pretty obnoxious personality, but it's hard to deny that he's a really talented rapper.

Animal Collective leaked...it's marvelous!

Here are my top 10 favorite songs from this year: 1 Lil Wayne - A Milli 2 MGMT - Time to Pretend 3 Passion Pit - Sleepyhead 4 Cool Kids - What Up Man 5 No Age - Eraser 6 Dodos - Fools 7 Usher - Love in this Club 8 Fleet Foxes - Sun It Rises 9 T.I. feat Rihanna - Live Your Life 10 Estelle feat Kanye West - American Boy I didn't include anything from Feed the Animals or Los Angeles (my 2 favorites of the year) because both albums, especially Feed The Animals, are really meant to be listened to as a whole, and can't easily be separated into songs. They could I suppose, but it would be way too difficult to just choose one from each album. The same applies (to a lesser extent) to F**cked Up Friends and Dr. No's Oxperiment. And I'm starting to think Microcastle might not actually be in my top 10. It might be replaced by Cut Copy's In Ghost Colours or MGMT's Oracular Spectacular or F*ck Buttons' Street Horrrsing...all three would be prime contenders.

ha ha yeah out of your's I've only actually listened to 3 of them. Besides Margot and the Nuclear So Sos I've heard of the rest but haven't had a strong enough desire to check out. Well, I actually might still get around to listening to the new Flogging Molly and Hold Steady. What is Margot and the Nuclear So So's like? Which five of my faves aren't you familiar with? I of course would reccomend all of them, seeing as they're my 10 favorites, but for you I'd especially reccomend the Dodos if you haven't listened to them. this one especially, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhLRxui7vXU it's one of my favorite songs of the year. If you are curious about any of the other ones I could give a short description and a song reccomendation!

Yeah I just noticed that as well, literally no shared albums in our top 10.

I think a stoner movie should be a movie that you like more when you're stoned. Like Half Baked, before I ever tried weed, I didn't like it at all, but sometime last year I saw it high and thought it was hilarious. Like the whole scene where Dave Chappelle is describing all the various types of weed smokers just isn't very funny if you haven't encountered them in smoke seshes yourself. And so much of the jokes in Pineapple Express are centered around awkward experiences when high, and people who have never smoked probably don't realize that half of being high is just having awkward experiences. The Big Lebowski I wouldn't classify as a stoner movie, it's more just a drama, and the fact that he smokes weed all the time is just part of his aging hippie character.

Hey nice list. Just curious, did you check out the Fleet Foxes? As a former Seattlite I think you'd really dig their sound.

and I am replacing Dr. No's Oxperiment with Max Richter's "24 Postcards in Full Colour"