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Top 40 of 2011

My general approach with (music) best-of lists is to compile a large playlist in iTunes of my favorite stuff, adding to it throughout the year. That usually works out to 40-50 tracks, in total. In past years (2010, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003), I've edited that list down to my top 10-15 tracks.

But this year, I said fuck it, and decided to just throw the whole list up here. I think it's actually a better representation of what I listened to than a top 10 would be, anyway, and I really did love all of these songs.

I put together a Spotify playlist with all of these tracks (modulo the ones that aren't on Spotify), for anyone interested in playing them all together in one place.

Here we go, in alphabetical order. Links link to video/audio clips, and some video clips are embedded. For variety and visual fun.

A$AP Rocky, "Peso"
Adele, "Rolling in the Deep"
Amy Winehouse, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?"
Atlas Sound, "Te Amo"
Azealia Banks, "212"

Beyoncé, "Countdown"
Charli XCX, "Stay Away"
Danny Brown, "Monopoly"
Destroyer, "Kaputt"

DJ Shadow, "Scale it Back"
Drake, "Marvins Room"
Dum Dum Girls, "Coming Down"
Eleanor Friedberger, "My Mistakes"
Florence + The Machine, "Shake it Out"

Frank Ocean, "Thinking About You"
Goapele, "Play"
Gotye feat. Kimbra, "Somebody That I Used to Know"
James Blake, "Measurements"
Katy B, "Broken Record"

Lady Gaga, "Yoü and I"
Lana del Rey, "Video Games"
Lloyd feat. Titi Boi & Salo, "Bang!!!!"
Lykke Li, "Made You Move"
M83, "Midnight City"
Mr. Dream, "Croquet"
Ms. Dynamite, "Neva Soft"

Nicola Roberts, "Beat of My Drum"
Patrick Wolf, "Together"
PJ Harvey, "The Last Living Rose"
The Rapture, "How Deep Is Your Love?"
Robin Thicke, "Love After War"
Rye Rye feat. Robyn, "Never Will Be Mine"

Shabazz Palaces, "A Treatease Dedicated To The Avian Airess From North East Nubis (1000 Questions, 1 Answer)"
Slow Club, "Two Cousins"
St. Vincent, "Surgeon"

The-Dream, "Nothing But Love"
tUnE-yArDs, "Powa"
Tyler, The Creator, "Yonkers"
The Weeknd, "The Morning"
Wild Beasts, "Loop the Loop"

And finally, the song that I've played more than any other song in the last month, Justin Bieber's "Mistletoe":

My favorite movie of 2010.

I ALMOST FORGOT. My favorite movie of 2010! It was Easy A!

Here's the Tiny Mix Tapes review:

While it's annoying that audiences have to wait about a half-decade for every great female-centric teen comedy, this year's Easy A easily joins 1995's Clueless, 2000's Bring It On, and 2004's Mean Girls on the Mount Rushmore of this underfed genre, with Emma Stone's Olive arguably the funniest, most intelligent lead to appear in one of these things yet. The droll, wise-beyond-her-years "best friend" not only takes center stage in Easy A, but receives an air-tight vehicle worthy of her wit.

Movie of the year.

My favorite search query of 2010.

In past years (2008, 2005), I've listed my favorite search queries of the year that've led visitors to this blog of mine. In 2010, I have only one, but I need only one, because I'm that proud of it.

And here it is: now tayne I can get into!

#1. Thank you, world.

Favorites of 2010.

I didn't do this last year, and I kind of regret it; it's funny how easy it is to forget what was on your mind in a given year, if you don't write it down (2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003).

Music

For the first time that I can remember, I relaxed my arbitrary rule of one song per artist. Because it's my list, and that rule was stupid! Another stupid rule? Not bothering to order the songs. That rule? Abolished!

Here's a pretty picture:

And here's an eleven-song-strong list, where songs link to something appropriate, if possible:

1. Robyn, "Dancing On My Own"
2. The-Dream, "Yamaha"
3. Kanye West, "Runaway feat. Pusha-T"
4. Sleigh Bells, "Infinity Guitars"
5. Fat Joe, "(Ha Ha) Slow Down feat. Young Jeezy"
6. Big Boi, "Shutterbugg"
7. Robyn, "Call Your Girlfriend"
8. Mark Ronson & the Business Intl., "Somebody to Love Me"
9. Kanye West, "Power feat. Dwele"
10. Marnie Stern, "For Ash"
11. My Chemical Romance, "Na Na Na (Na Na Na...)"

Incidentally, Penelope's favorite song of 2010 (well, at least from the above list) is "Call Your Girlfriend", which she calls "I'm your girlfriend", and which we play, often.

And, a favorite album, despite the fact that none of the songs appear in the list above? The Roots, How I Got Over.

Reading

Last year, I started using goodreads to track all of the books I've read (I even imported the books I'd listed on Vox). And according to goodreads, I finished 25 books in 2010; I'll count that as 26, since I finished another on January 3, 2011.

My favorite of the year is easy: David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. A gorgeous book; I want to read it again and again.

Food & Drink

And finally, cooking and, well, drinking. And that's easy: 2010 was the year of pizza! I made so many pizzas, all with the goal of getting better at making dough.

Everything I've ever read about kneading dough implies--or even explicitly states--that making dough is really easy. And it is! The problem is, the first time you make it, and maybe the second and third times, you've no idea what the dough should feel like, and so it's tough to know when it's ready. But once you've done it a couple of times, and have made a pizza (or bread) each time from that dough to see how it tastes--then, yes, it's easy.

I don't wanna rock, DJ

I love how baseball players get a song played when they come up to bat.

That's enough to make me want to be a baseball player. If I played, I'd want the Pixies' "Cecilia Ann" to play when I stepped in to the plate. Or perhaps "Rock Music" if I were a pitcher coming in from the bullpen.

But why should only baseball players get a song? I want the KLF's "Last Train to Trancentral" when I arrive at work; Sparks' "Falling in Love with Myself Again" when I write a clever program; Robbie Williams' "Rock DJ" when I walk into any room.

And I think I'd like Thieves' "Unworthy" to play when I'm feeling particularly melodramatic.