Detanfy’s Best of Music #10 -6

well here it is folks, number 10 – 6 of my best songs of 2010. Its  been a fun ride so far

make sure you check out my previous lists:

Monday #25 – 21 HERE

Tuesday #20 – 16 HERE

Wednesday #15 – 11 HERE

and now lets get on with it, coming in at  #10….

At this point I don’t even know how Kanye West does it. The man is truly gifted. His production is always on point, his lyrics are out of this world amazing!

I honestly wasnt really excited for his album until I heard “Monster”. The song blew me outta the water, the beat is just funky. You just wanna bump your head to it. Kanye does a great job of working the electronic bumps with the tune and it sets the stage for all the MC’s to tackle the song.

The song starts out with Justin Vernon and then quickly switches to Rick Ross, who drops a few lines and hands the torch over to Kanye. Kanye’s verse is just phenomenal. Kanye West is the only person I know that can make putting a vagina inside a sarcophagus sound cool. Kanye’s verse is just something else. I love the references to his career, for example “Fucking up my money, so yeah I had to act sane”.

Jay-Z takes it away from kanye and delivers his verse. Some say his verse is the weakest, I’m somewhat inclined to agree but that doesn’t mean the man didn’t deliver though.

Now let’s get to the breakout star of this song….NIcki Minaj’s Ass! kay,now that I got that outta my system, I have to admit, Nicki stole the show with this song, she probably knew who she was going up against and just had to deliver otherwise she woulda been swept up under the rug. I never really liked Nicki Minaj, I wasn’t a fan, but I didn’t hate her either. I could just never get behind Nicki Minaj (hahaha), But this verse changed everything. I’m now a proud “casual fan” of Nicki Minaj. BULLSHIT

All that aside, Monster is a great song and a decent look into the mind of Kanye West. I haven’t heard his album yet, but  if this song and the exceptionally glowing reviews the album receives might are any indication, its gonna be a great listen.

Listen to Monster HERE

Asian Kung fu Generation, my favorite band of all time.

I love and adore these guys and their music. It just clicks with me. I’ll admit I have almost no idea what their lyrics mean since it’s in Japanese and all, but their sound just resonates with me. I love almost every single one of their songs. I love these guys. My ultimate goal (music wise) is to one day fly to Japan and go to their concert, that’s if they don’t come to America in the next 5 to 10 years.

They even released a new album this year called “Magic Disk”. I love that album, I’ll be the first to admit, it’s not my favorite album by them, that honor belongs to the “Sol-fa”, but Magic Disk is a beautiful album. It’s Asian Kung fu generation grown up and matured. Their music was punkish yet soulful, they sang anthem-ic indie melodies with a youthful edge to it, but now the band members have grown up, they are all in their 30’s and married, their music as mellowed out, its softened but it hasn’t lost its punk edge.

So Shichirigahama skywalk, lets just call it Skywalk from now on.

Skywalk is from Asian Kung fu generations 2008 experimental album “Surf Bungaku Kamakura”. Each song on the album is named after a Train stop on the famous Enoshima electric railway route in Japan. You are probably thinking, why am I talking about a 2-year-old song instead of a song from the recently released Magic Disk, well it’s because I believe Skywalk a precursor to Magic Disk.

Many fans thought AKFG suddenly changed their style with Magic Disk, they thought the band became to soft. They didn’t realize that this was a long time coming. Asian Kung fu Generation has matured. I’m proud of these guys every time I listen to any of their songs whether its form their old style or new style. people have to realize that a band doesn’t change, they grow, they work with their experiences and it shapes who they are and what their music will sound like.

Skywalk is almost a template for Magic disk, the song has this beautiful melody and evokes such sweet emotions. You feel free, you feel happy, you feel like you just want to relax and let your guard down in front of the world and just be yourself. It’s emotionally reflective of the some of the sweetest and most relaxing moments in your life. It’s just a beautiful song

You can listen to Skywalk HERE

And you can listen to Imaginary Creatures Blue from Magic Disk HERE (only video I could find)

Arcade Fire is another band that released an album this year and my chosen song for #8  isnt from that album.

During the middle fo the summer Arcade Fire released their 3rd study album “The Suburbs”. I love the album its a great album, with about 15 or so tracks. The song that really stood out for me is called “Rococo”. That song would have probably been in this spot it didn’t become a victim of its own success. You see Arcade Fire’s debut album “Funeral” is considered the greatest Indie Rock album of the decade. I had Funeral but I never really listened to it, but after plying The suburbs I wanted to hear more, and its a general consensus that The suburbs and their 2nd album Neon Bible isn’t as perfect like Funeral was. I listened to Funeral from beginning to end, uninterrupted and enjoyed it.  One song stuck with me though, I just couldn’t get it out of my head, that song, is my #8, “Neighborhood #3 (Power out)”.

This song is so fucking awesome, it’s nearly unbelievable. Its sounds so whimsical yet its lyrics are dark and hopeless. Its brash yet joyful. You just feel like a bad ass listening to this song while walking down the streets. The song explores themes of hopelessness but turns it into something uplifting. As lead singer Win Butler says ”  If there’s something fucked up in your heart, you’re going to put it in your hand as a sword”.

Listen to the Neighborhood #3 HERE

Bonus: Rococo HERE

Sad to say I’m not as current with Naija Music as everyone else is.

I listen to a few songs here and there and it takes a lot to grab my attention. It took about 2 days of my cousin playing this song for it to really get me. I resisted liking this song but after a while I just couldn’t anymore. This is probably the best naija collaboration of the year. The song features Omo Akin, Jesse jagz, Ice Prince, Shadow d don and dot star. When you hear this song you just can not help but want to dance.

Like the opening verse says “it took too long to make this song, so this right here can not go wrong”.

this is definitely the naija club banger of the year, and if it isn’t well that’s just a shame.

Shout out to the folks over at Notjustokay.com comments (tough crowd)

I can’t particularly say more about this song, there is no epic story behind it, I don’t know much about the artists and I believe this is one of those songs you just have to hear to fall in love with

Listen/dance to the song HERE

Back on my feet by Boom Boom Satellites, the song that started my love affair with this group.

Boom Boom Satellites has been described as a combination of The chemical Brothers and The Prodigy.Their music is mainly classified as Big beat but with some jazz and rock elements mixed in for good measure.

The song Back on my Feet is from their 2010 album “To The Loveless”. The band members described this album as being cinematic and grandeur in scope. I couldn’t agree more. The entire album is a sprawling epic,but I’m here to talk about Back on my feet, this song is a sprawling epic in its own right.

Back on my feet is the very first track of the album and its explosive and massive in scale. The song is filled with this high energy, its exhilarating to listen to. It starts off a bit slow, taking the first 15 seconds to find its footing and then BAM! the drums and electronic beat kick in, followed quickly by vocalist Michiyuki Kawashimi, who sings in English, shouting “Blow me away cuz I can’t seem to hear myself, I’m back, I’m going on my feet again!”.

This song is just bad ass! This is the song that’s bumping in the background when you are driving a race car or speed boat, it gives you that rush of adrenaline and that feeling of power, like you are invincible. This is an amazing song. This song would have been #1 on the list, but lets just say it became a victim of its own success….

If you have not listened to any song on my list, this is the one song you must listen to. I basically  pity you if you don’t. ‘Nuff said

Listen to Back on my feet HERE

Note: you can’t appreciate this song with crappy laptop or desktop speakers. I suggest you put on headphones or find a quality speaker system and turn the volume up. I have listened to this song with Bose Surround sound speakers, believe me, there is nothing quite like it.

Friday is coming and with that my top 5 songs of 2010

I hope you are enjoying the list so far

Thanks for sticking around

see you guys tomorrow for the home stretch.

Detanfy’s Best of Music #15 – 11

First things first!

If you missed my list from the previous days, shame on you, but dont worry I wont judge, you can check my list from Monday HERE or My Tuesday list HERE.

Now that we are all caught up, lets get this underway, My #15 – 11 favorite songs of 2010 are….

Beautiful Feeling by Paul Kelly. You can not begin to understand how much I love this song and how important to me it is. This song and I have a long history. I am Captain Ahab and this song is my White Whale/Moby-Dick or at least it was until recently.

I can dictate the story of how I discovered this song to you, I remember everything in excruciating detail but I’ll just give you guys a quick summary.

It was in Nigeria, about 5 years ago, on a Saturday night, I had just finished watching my favorite show at the time “Stargate Sg-1” and I was waiting to watch the next show called “The L word” . If you know what that show is, do I really need to tell you why I wanted to watch it? I liked the ummn..acting.

Instead of my weekly dose of lesbian erotica/masturbatory aid, what came next was this show called Fireflies. Fireflies is an Australian tv drama about a bunch of firemen and their personal lives and the trouble they are going through during a very hot and fire prune Australian summer. Being a sucker for a good drama, I decided to watch the show and then the theme song came on and I heard the words “…such a beautiful feeling…”, at that moment I jizzed in my pants (so much for The L word uh?).

I had never heard such a sweet sounding song in m life. Even though it only lasted about 1 minute, I loved it! I cherished that 1 minute I would hear that song every subsequent Saturday night.

Once I became internet savvy/moved to yankee, I started searching for that song, I looked for it at least once every 2 months or any other time I remembered but I couldn’t find it, until earlier this year, when I discovered the name of the artist…Paul Kelly.

The man is one of Australia’s foremost singer/song writers, he has been making music since the 70’s and is still going strong. This man is truly a legend. I was eventually able to learn the name of the album the song comes from and I was eventually able to obtain the song, just that one song, it took me about 5 good years just to find this song. When I played the full 5 minute version of the song, for lack of a better term, it was a beautiful feeling.

The song itself is magnificent. Its not a love song, its THE love song. When I find my Wifey, this will be “our” song. This song just makes me happy, not just because of the effort I went through to find it, but also because of the song itself. This is a lovers song. If you are in a relationship and it is PERFECT, this is a song for you.

I love this song.

A big thank you to Paul Kelly for crafting this master piece of a song and giving me such a beautiful feeling. I doubt he will ever know how much this song means to me.

The song is extremely rare, so all I have for you to listen to is the original 1 minute version, hope you dont mind…Listen HERE

what the hell, I’m in a giving mood

You can download the full song HERE

Who Dat? its Jermaine Lamarr Cole more commonly known as J. Cole

Probably the best new MC in the game right now.

My relationship with J. Cole and his music dates back a while. One of my friends is J. Cole’s biggest fan. He tweets about Cole constantly. I was curious, I had heard about this J.Cole fellow before, and I wanted to know what he was all about. My friend recommended  that I listen to Cole’s “The Warm up”, but even though I downloaded the mixtape, I never listened to it.

Fast forward to summer 2010, there was a house party, I was slightly inebriated and talking to this one girl, she told me she wanted to start rapping and she wanted to be like Nikci Minaj, and she started playing this beat by that waka flocka dude and rapping to it, I asked the girl why she was listening to such a wack rapper and I shared my thoughts on how rap now a days is crappy and has no substance. She said “it aint dat bad,  least we still got J. Cole” and she proceeded to play Cole’s single “Who Dat” and well, what can I say, I was blown away in seconds….

“Now a nigga hot enough to fuck with one of Satan hoes”

Since then I became a fan of J. Cole. I listened to The Warm up and I listened to his recently released Friday Night lights. I honestly don’t know if this post is about “Who Dat” specifically or J. Cole’s entire discography. The man is a beast, he is smart, not just street smart, but book smart too, this guy got himself a quality education and he had to pay for most of it by himself. He has been through so much shit from day 1 and he never let it get him down. The man’s songs are filled with so many nuggets of wisdom, I don’t even know where to start.

J. Cole is a shining star. His music tells stories.

Is he “The one”? The only rapper that can save hip hop? to be honest, I couldn’t care less, I’m just happy listening to his music and I hope he continues on this path.

Listen to Who Dat HERE

I strongly suggest you go download The Warm Up and Friday Night Lights (they are free)

I adore Japanese rock Band, SuperCar. I discovered them from one of my favorite anime series Eureka Seven. I randomly decided to watch Eureka 7 and I fell in love with that show, it took about 5 episodes but I fell in love with Eureka 7. Its a beautiful show, both animation and story-wise. The only reason I wanted to watch it at first was because it had giant robots and what not, but something surprising happened. I became invested in the characters, Eureka 7 wasn’t a random action anime, it was a drama/romance with lots of action thrown in of course. I began to genuinely care for the characters I was so impressed with the quality of the story telling in this show. Most people think anime is some nothing but panty up skirts for perverted basement dwelling neck beards, but Eureka 7 proves is proof that anime is more than that.

I could go on about Eureka 7 but I wont. I’ll save that for my “best of Anime 2010” post coming in a few weeks. I’m here to talk about the song Story Writer. The song was frequently played in Eureka 7 during scenes where something bad-ass or awesome happened. This song is energetic and powerful. Supercar brings together influences from Electronic and Rock music and melds it so well, its astounding. The song slowly builds up, you are listening an anticipating the awesomeness that is coming.

This song just makes me happy, it gives me hope, its so inspirational. Its a magnificent song. There was one particular scene the song was used in Eureka 7, it just took my breath away and I’ll admit, I shed a tear. It wasnt so much the song that made me shed a manly tear, it was that scene and the song just helped it along. I’ll get more into that when I spill my love juices all over Eureka 7 in my Best of Anime list.

I cant really talk about it with out getting to into Eureka 7, so I’ll end it here for now.

you might not appreciate it as much as I do, but you can listen to Story Writer HERE

Also, might be worth mentioning that Super Car sadly broke up a while ago, but they left us with 7 or so albums. All of which I have acquired and listened to.

Top notch stuff

Next on the list……

I SAID TELL ME WHATS REALLY GOING ON!

Miss Me by Drizzy Drake featuring Lil Wayne is another summer song highlight of mine. To be honest with you I never really liked this song at first. The only song I loved in Drake’s album was “fancy”. In fact I gave the album a mediocre review at first, but then my cousin convinced me to listen to the entire album again, it was his first time listening to it and he immediately got a huge boner for this song. He loved Miss me, I loved Fancy. He played Miss Me, I played Fancy. Until the very last day of summer I still didn’t like this song, but then I randomly listened to it a couple days after vacation was over and i was just WOW. The amount of memories this song brought back, the nostalgia, not even form years ago, from weeks ago. I was over whelmed. Driving to Six flags with my cousin and his friends, about six or so of us packed into the car among other things I cant remember right now.

The memories this song brought back. All I can do is smile ans shake my head like that one crazy guy on the subway who talks to himself.

The song itself is pretty awesome. The beat is just straight fire. I love both Drake and Wayne’s verses.

Funny/cute story time: you see there is this girl I like and I didn’t know how to break the ice, and she told me she liked Nicki Minaj so I said “I love Nicki Minaj, I hope one day we get married just to say we did it!” and I made the girl laugh (YAY!). Its a good thing I didn’t tell the girl to masturbate to me and learn every song

Miss me is a great song! Fancy is a great song

I love them both, but as it stands Miss Me has more sentimental value to me

you can listen to Fancy HERE and Miss Me HERE

Sleepy head by Passion pit comes in just one spot shy of #10.

I randomly discovered Passion Pit when one of their songs “The Reeling” was being played on MTV one night (Yes I watch MTV from time to time, I”m so ashamed).

I liked The Reeling so I decided to look up Passion Pits other songs. They are a relatively new group, so they only have one album called “Manners” and the four track Extended play released prior to the main album, called “Chunk of change”.

I did a little more digging on the group and discovered their origins, basically lead singer Michael Angelakos wrote and performed the songs on Chunk of Change using his laptop and gave it to his girlfriend as a valentines day present. The relationship eventually came to an end, Chunk of change had gained popularity at his university, eventually members joined him and Passion Pit took off.

Sleepyhead is a beautiful song. I love the passion behind Michaels voice. His voice is so sweet and innocent. Sleepyhead is pure bliss from start to finish. I feel so free when I listen to this song. I always sing it out loud (when not in public of course).

I just cant get past it. Passion Pit is audio euphoria

Do yourself a favor and listen to Sleepyhead HERE, The Reeling HERE, Cuddle Fuddle HERE, I’ve got your Number HERE, Moth’s wings HERE and Eyes as Candles HERE

NOTE: Upon hearing the song you might think he e uses Auto-tune, he doesnt! He overdubs his voice multiple times in the recording to give it that prepubescent schoolboy sound. ( I mean the prepubescent part in a good way)

Thanks for sticking around this long folks. I appreciate you guys taking the time to read my list, seeing as its laden with all forms of conceivable grammatical errors.

I”m writing from the heart!

I hope you are listening to and enjoying these songs

Now the real fun begins. My top 10 songs, #10 -6 tomorrow and the final 5 on Friday.

see you tomorrow!

Plans…..

hello folks

I want to share a little story with you guys

I had a hell of a week. It was unusual, interesting, sad, funny, tiring, energetic, you name it. Most of all though, this week for me was thought-provoking. I learned an important lesson this week and I want to share it with you guys.

First of all let me set up some back story so you can all understand. I met a girl I liked last week Friday. She is beautiful, stunning even! I was instantly smitten by her. I struck up a conversation and I was able to get some basic facts and stuff about her.

You see, I’m the type of person that when I see a fine lady or “omoge” as I prefer to call them, that I like, as in REALLY like, I don’t waste time. I get my flirt on and lay down my paroles sharply, but this girl? She is special, she requires more work. Doing runz with her would require me to come up with a plan.

The idea of plans is very intriguing. One of my favorite bands Death Cab For Cutie named their 5th studio album “Plans”. When asked why they named the album plans, Death Cab lead singer Ben Gibbard said “One of my favorite kind of dark jokes is, ‘How do you make God laugh? You make a plan.’ Nobody ever makes a plan that they’re gonna go out and get hit by a car. A plan almost always has a happy ending. Essentially, every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time. I really like the idea of a plan not being seen as having definite outcomes, but more like little wishes.”

When you make a plan, its like you are making a deal with God. You are telling God what to do but what you don’t realise is that you can’t tell God what to do. You can make plans and they fuck up and end in shambles.

Now back to the point, I met a girl I liked on last week Friday, I had Planned ask her out on Monday. My plans fell into shambles.

I had a great plan. I got home on Friday, consulted with a close friend and a cousin, asking them whether it was worth pursuing a relationship with this girl because she is straight up wifey material. I formulated a plan… Fast forward to Sunday evening. I prepared everything so I could look “fresh to death” for the lady on Monday. I ironed my clothes, cleaned my sneakers, got everything in order. I went to bed early, woke up early. Shampooed my hair, used expensive cologne. I was looking 100% sorted. They say if you look good, you feel good and if you feel good you are invincible. I was sure as hell feeling invincible. All I had to do no was get on the train and take it to the train station where I saw her on friday (its conveniently on my way to school). sadly I wasnt in control that day, God was.

I was on the train as usual, my stomach wasnt in a knot, my hands weren’t shaking, I was focused. Then something I didn’t plan happened. There was apparently a “small fire” in the subway and the train was delayed. We waited for a while, but I didn’t want to be late so I ran out of the train and ran up to the streets and started hopping from one bt to the next, just so I could get to the train station where she was on time. After my little detour adventure down town, I was able to make it to the train station. But I was too late….

I got there just in time to see another guy(who had also been targeting her) flirting her up. He got her number and a warm hug. It was a chilly day. I bet he enjoyed that hug, I would have liked a hug……

All I could do on my last train to school was sit down and look out side the window, saddened and defeated. The other train never fucked up before, why did it have to be that day a fire decided to break out in the subway. I was sad and angry that I missed a chance with a girl I had already started to invest my feeling into but through it all I was humbled. I was reminded that a human being has limits. I made a wish to God, a bet if you will, I tried to change my fate but I was met with adversity. I didn’t let that stop me though, I Tried to combat the hand grenade that blew up in my face, but try as I might, I ultimately failed. I made a plan, a wish to God, asking him to let me runz this one babe, but God didn’t want me to.

At least I’m comforted by the fact that I put up a kick ass yet extremely futile fight. You should have seen me hopping from bus to bus, transferring trains etc just to take an alternate route so I can get to one girl.

Plans or failed plans rather, was really the theme for this past week. My partner Phylix and I made plans concerning this blog, this week was going to be fucking excellent, we were going to about 10 posts a day, but our plans fell into shambles, we both had one thing or another holding us up. We made a bet with God and we lost

It’s all good though, I learned a lesson.

As to what that lesson is? well that’s food for thought for another day.

to those of you that have plans for the weekend? this (below) goes out to you

Death Cab for Cutie – Soul meets body

have a great weekend folks

Unrequited Lover

Unrequited Love:  love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such, even though reciprocation is usually deeply desired. The beloved may or may not be aware of the admirer’s deep affections.

Love is a beautiful thing, it brings joy, happiness and warmth like you have never felt before, but as rewarding as it may be love is also pain.

I believe love is the only way a human being can truly  let their guard down, sadly you become vulnerable once your is guard down. You are most vulnerable when you are in love, you are open for attack from every angle.

It’s quite fascinating actually, to witness the emotional degradation of another human being, to see first hand how two otherwise protected and highly guarded human beings let down their walls and build a connection towards another person, they stop relying on themselves and instead begin to rely on the one they have fallen in love with. So it makes me wonder, what happens when you love someone but that person doesn’t love you back? it’s a classic case of unrequited love, you love her, she doesn’t love you, you love him, he doesn’t see you as anything more than a close friend. we’ve all experienced it before, whether it’s a crush, an emotionally neglectful significant other or in a worse case scenario a parent who is incapable of loving a child. There is a difference between unrequited love and naivety, if anything when I let my guard down for a potential lady friend I usually suffer from naivety, is it because I’m inexperienced in the ways of the world? or am I just scared?

unrequited love on the other hand is another deal, its love to the point of obsession and unquestionable loyalty even though the one you threw your metaphorical ball of feelings at did not throw his or her’s back.  Right now I know what it feels like, not to experience unrequited love min you, but to be on the receiving end of it, she likes me, she loves me, she adores me with every fiber of her being, and I know this, but I just can’t give myself to her the way she has given herself to me, I love her but not the way she wants me to. I try my best to keep in the “grey zone” an objective zone between black and white where I never have to be her lover or the one that broke her heart. I have effectively friend zoned her, I feel black and empty inside every time I talk to her knowing full well she would do anything for me. Why haven’t I made my feeling on the matter clear?  its because I’m comfortable, I’m safe , I’m guarded, I have my walls up and I can go on about my daily life, living one hedonistic adventure to another and I know if I am ever in trouble, if I ever fall down or if I am ever persecute she will be there for me unconditionally. the woman who loves me that I don’t love, the one that will always be on my side, the one that will always see the good in me. my unrequited love. This goes out to you

Abandoned Pools – Goodbye Song

For those of you who still don’t know what I’m talking about, a great example of unrequited love would be the skunk from the Looney tunes cartoon, except that situation is played up for comedic value.

please leave any comments if you too have someone you love but doesn’t love you back, or you are the one that doesn’t love them back or you just have any thoughts and opinions on.

to be continued……