Beneath Your Beautiful is great not a big fan of Emili's solo material, but I always love her collaborations (that one with Pro Green is so amazing!).
Labrinth so deserved #1, like it
I've been an Odd Future fan since "Yonkers", so I'm not an old fan of theirs, but I still enjoy their music highly. Standouts, in my opinion, are the three artists who get the most hype - Frank Ocean, Tyler the Creator, and Earl Sweatshirt. 2012 saw the return of Earl, which was great and all, but the real highlight of the year for them was Frank Ocean - the new king of R&B. The guy has an amazing voice that is completely unrivaled by any other artist I've heard, and he has a drive to innovate the music scene greater than any other artist or producer. "Pyramids" is the result of his amazing musical talent and his desire to innovate music. A ten minute long track filled with instrumental saw breaks, lyrics that describe a woman working at the Pyramid hotel and parts of her story, and Frank's absolutely terrific vocals. He spent months working on the "oh"s alone. The track is the epitome of Frank's talent so far - and leaves us all craving more from this R&B god.
Sorry y'all, was in Hawaii so didn't post at all while in the ghetto part (no internet + my Asus Transformer died and I didn't have a charger)
The number one hip-hop song of basically the entire decade so far is by far the golden gem "Sign Language" by Kinetics & One Love. Imagine their previous hit "Airplanes" with B.o.B, Alex Da Kid, and Hayley Williams on steroids and with a tragic love story attached. Thats how you get "Sign Language". I'm not going to say much about the lyricism because it's really a song/story you have to hear to experience in full, and I don't want to spoil anything. The song is a three-verse long rap ballad complete with incredible production from One Love, beautiful vocals from Wynter Gordon, and heartfelt rhymes and serious vocals from Kinetics. The studio version of the song cuts down the second verse and removes the love poem from Billy to Amy (the song's two protagonists), but it's fine because you still get the full effect without the verses dragging on. Instrumentally, One Love goes crazy with one of the best four-bar piano riffs of all time, great use of strings, and basically everything else you'd expect from a Cornell-trained musician. Wynter's vocals, written and demoed by Kinetics originally, are absolutely beautiful and contain an amazing message that can only be recognized after listening to the whole song and analyzing the lyrics afterward. The song also has incredible crossover potential, possibly enough to even become the greatest rap song critically AND commercially of all time. If this takes off in 2013, there will be NO stopping it.
This is also my "song of the year", should I have made a single list merging all of the categories. It didn't rank at #1 in pop songs because it wasn't as pop-friendly as it is hip-hop friendly.
Here's an incredible orchestral version they did a while ago:
Drumroll please... the third-to-last award goes to...
Kinetics & One Love for their album "You Are Not Alone". Due to this being a pop forum, and based on the posts in this thread nobody knew about these people until I posted about them, quite a disappointing #1. I know, I know, so anticlimactic eh? But I have great faith in my #1 album - even though I got my last.fm in August last year, the week that this album was released it surpassed every other album I had listened to, I had become the #2 listener of the band on last.fm, and I had earned great appreciation for every single song. "You Could Save Us All" and "Sign Language" being the highlights, and such highlights that they placed at #1 and #2 on the hip-hop chart of mine, and me saying that "Sign Language" could even be THE hit of 2013 if it takes off somehow. The rhymes in every song are stellar, and you never feel like the features take away from the two artists. (Except for maybe in "Still Dreaming, where Terminology lays one of the best verses I've heard from him.) When One Love is given his time to shine in the instrumental parts of the album, and on the piano-led track "Sign Language" or the guitar-led track "Will You Be Remembered (Remix) he outshines almost every pop and hip-hop producer to have ever lived, and proves that one day he can be on the level of those such as Kanye West, will.i.am, and Timbaland. "Vecino Del Mar" being the standout track for One Love, though, due to its great production that makes for one of the best electronic/pop/hip-hop genre mashups of all time. All of the songs, however, have incredible melodies that can allow any one of the songs to be caught in your head for days, and they all have great messages or stories to tell in each and every line. As Kinetics says, "You should be happy that You Are Not Alone", because this album is, in my opinion, the best album to be released this year.
ANY PREDICTIONS FOR ARTIST AND/OR DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR?
BLAH wow I was inactive all the way unti the final day! lolz
Anyways,
The biggest dissapointment of the year goes to:
What was Calvin thinking this year? Late last year he released an amazing song with Rihanna - We Found Love - but also stated that he would stop singing in concert and even on most of his own tracks! What does that mean for his album? Well, minus two tracks, (Feel So Close and Iron) his album is Nothing But The Beat 2.0. Feel So Close, however, was a highly repetitive track with a very simple drop. Sure it got Calvin tons of fame in the U.S., but the track was extremely forgettable and grinds your ears after a while. His single choices, too, weren't all that stellar from this album. Matter of fact, only "We'll Be Coming Back" and "Sweet Nothing" are even worth a listen from the singles released. "Drinking From The Bottle", "Let's Go", "Bounce", and "Awooga" are extremely sub-par and sound like David Guetta productions. Only thing setting "We'll Be Coming Back" away from the Guetta sound is that it uses a guitar, and "Sweet Nothing" only sounds good due to Florence's amazing voice. As a standalone instrumental, you would think it was made by Nicky Romero or Guetta. Basically this year has seen Calvin Harris go on a massive decline as he no longer sings very much on his own tracks, he no longer sings in concert at all, and he released an album that sounds like David Guetta's albums.
And the artist of the year is:
It's been two years since Kinetics & One Love broke out with the #2-peaking megahit Airplanes with B.o.B, Haley Williams, and Alex Da Kid. In the meantime they've been signed to a songwriting deal with Warner and have created multiple mixtapes. When this album was finally released, it peaked at #8 on the iTunes hip-hop charts and #56 on the actual iTunes albums charts. This may not seem impressive considering the high peaks of many other artists, but keep in mind that these two are still an underground hip-hop duo consisting of rapper Kinetics and producer One Love. They haven't toured much, and I have yet to see them live, but the reason why they rank #1 is due to the absolutely incredible album that is You Are Not Alone. The album is a socially-conscious hip-hop album that will remind you of Lupe Fiasco, Common, or Terminology. The instrumentals are all amazing, with such diversity between the electronic beats and hook in opening track "I Am A Computer", the piano & strings led single "Sign Language", and acoustic guitar closer "Will You Be Remembered? (Remix)". The lyricism covers topics such as teen suicide ("Sign Language"), native Americans and our education system ("You Could Save Us All"), one-night stands ("Vecino Del Mar"), domestic abuse ("Hideous") and legacy ("Will You Be Remembered? (Remix)". There are complex metaphors in some songs, while others are very straightforward in the lyricism. The album is a perfect 10/10 and leaves you wanting more and more from these two.
What was Calvin thinking this year? Late last year he released an amazing song with Rihanna - We Found Love - but also stated that he would stop singing in concert and even on most of his own tracks! What does that mean for his album? Well, minus two tracks, (Feel So Close and Iron) his album is Nothing But The Beat 2.0. Feel So Close, however, was a highly repetitive track with a very simple drop. Sure it got Calvin tons of fame in the U.S., but the track was extremely forgettable and grinds your ears after a while. His single choices, too, weren't all that stellar from this album. Matter of fact, only "We'll Be Coming Back" and "Sweet Nothing" are even worth a listen from the singles released. "Drinking From The Bottle", "Let's Go", "Bounce", and "Awooga" are extremely sub-par and sound like David Guetta productions. Only thing setting "We'll Be Coming Back" away from the Guetta sound is that it uses a guitar, and "Sweet Nothing" only sounds good due to Florence's amazing voice. As a standalone instrumental, you would think it was made by Nicky Romero or Guetta. Basically this year has seen Calvin Harris go on a massive decline as he no longer sings very much on his own tracks, he no longer sings in concert at all, and he released an album that sounds like David Guetta's albums.
This. is. the. best. post. ever
Every word is so true, well, I'm not a big fan of "Sweet Nothing" right now but I really agree with the rest, Calvin is just a David-Guetta-Rip-Off now.
What happened with the old Calvin?
I really hope that he flops with the next singles so he can go back to his old sound
Amazing best of, although I'm not a big fan of Ed Sheeran as you know but really enjoyed it
Can't wait for your best of 2013