15. Frankmusik - Done Done






14. Little Boots - Stuck On Repeat






13. Dan Black - HYPNTZ



(video)


12. Passion Pit - Sleepyhead






11. Pacific! - Sunset Blvd



(audio)


10. The Honeydrips - Trying Something New






9. MGMT - Kids






8. Matt & Kim - Daylight






7. Britney Spears - Amnesia






6. frYars - Benedict Arnold



(audio)


5. Usher feat. Young Jeezy - Love In This Club






4. Friendly Fires - Paris (Aeroplane Remix)






3. MGMT - Time To Pretend



Generational anthems don't come that often, but "Time To Pretend" had it all and even made it look like doing one was the simplest thing in the world, from the most amazing synth line ever to the inspirational lyrics so easy to relate to. Celebratory? Yes, but with two sides of the same coin: "I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life"..."I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone."




2. Air France - Collapsing At Your Doorstep



We all know by now that the Swedes are the best in making luminous pop music. But this? This piece of aural fantasy not only beat real sunshine at its game but it was even able to transport us to the most amazing places. The best to do was just to let ourselves go while the song's lyrics translated our thoughts: "This place is amazing"..."Sort of like a dream? No. Better."




1. Bag Raiders - Shooting Stars



What can I say? I'm a sucker for songs based upon involving keyboards and delayed gratification, something this one does so perfectly that it really seems like, hum, riding a shooting star. And nothing beats the feeling of euphoria induced when the best chorus of the year finally kicks in at more than two thirds into the song. "I'm in love with a shooting star, but she moves so fast, when she falls here, I'll be waiting."

Best Of 2008: Top 5 Concerts

So it's here. During the next few days, I'll be putting online my top favourite lists for 2008. Enjoy!
It's obvious that a concert list has to be very subjective and personal, among other reasons because it depends on which concerts we have actually been to. I did go to a few this year and these 5 were the ones where I had the best time...

5. Goldfrapp @ SW08 in Zambujeira do Mar (8th of August)

Where candid pristine white met sexy electro glam.


4. Vampire Weekend @ Alive!08 in Lisbon (10th of July)

Catchy summer pop in a sunny summer afternoon... couldn't get any more fun.


3. Lykke Li @ Teatro Variedades in Lisbon (4th of December)

Innocent on record, pure fire on stage. Really, this girl has so much class!


2. Björk @ SW08 in Zambujeira do Mar (7th of August)

Few people make such a perfect fusion between the avant-garde, extreme forms of art and pop to the masses. With the Volta tour, Björk managed to take this concept into new dimensions and still put thousands of people jumping ecstatically with her.


1. Madonna @ Parque da Belavista in Lisbon (14th of September)

Musically, 2008 was the year when Madonna prefered to play it safe with "Hard Candy", but when considering her Sticky & Sweet tour, things did change a bit. It may have not been such a complete and artsy show as 2006's Confessions tour, but this time there was a big advantage: even with so much happening everywhere (dancers, lights, videowalls, lasers, etc.), it was all about herself and her presence live, in a non-stop celebration of her iconic status. And we're talking about Madonna on stage...

Best Of 2008: Top 5 Movies

So it's here. During the next few days, I'll be putting online my top favourite lists for 2008. Enjoy!
Starting with movies, I'm sure there's a lot of good ones that were left out, simpy because I didn't get the chance to see them. But anyway, these five totally rocked my world...

5. Cloverfield (dir. Matt Reeves)

It really made you feel like you were there, didn't it?


4. Twilight (dir. Catherine Hardwicke)

A touching love story, with the extra bonus that it had vampires in it.


3. Otto; Or, Up With Dead People (dir. Bruce LaBruce)

The outside movie of the year, and one that made you feel weirdly connected to a zombie.


2. The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan)

"Why so serious?"... and enough said.


1. WALL-E (dir. Andrew Stanton)

I have a thing for robots and this one should win an oscar for having the cutest eyes ever. And by the way, it's good to know that it's possible to make a big-bidget movie where the first half has no dialogues, only digital noises, and still get away with it.

Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna

The fourth album from this experimental New York project takes them into some new and surprising directions that have been summed up in a sentence: Gang Gang Dance have gone pop. Although not entirely wrong, this perspective only tells half of the story. For me, the best description would actually be that they have opened up their unique approach in writing songs and incorporated as many external elements as never before, some of which, yes, taken from more mainstream styles. But what's so invigorating in here is the way everything is fused together to create alienating digressions that still sound very unique, no matter if we're listenning to industrial loops, new-wave guitars, hip-hop beats, abstract electronica, african tribal drums, post-punk experimentalism or even disco pop. I don't know if this is the sound of the future as some have mentioned, for me it seems more like a soundtrack to a parallel universe. But either way, with so much happening in each song, this is always a challenge that strongly pays off. (7,5/10)

Official site
MySpace page

Dan Black - Yours (video)

"I don't wanna be yours no more"

No list of "projects that will be big in 2009" is complete without mentioning Mr. Dan Black and his fresh take into the pleasures of writing amazing pop tunes. In 2008 he has already become a huge MySpace sensation with some songs built around well-known hits, like "HYPNTZ" (a cover of "Hypnotize" by Notorious BIG, with beats borrowed from "Umbrella" by Rihanna and strings taken from John Carpenter's film Starman) or "These Things Take Time" (a new song that samples "Maneater" by Nelly Furtado). Now signed to a major label, his first album is set to be released sometime during early 2009, with first proper single being this hyper-coloured electro bomb "Yours". And speaking of colourful, the video for this track is also no less than a little piece of creative massive entertainment.

MySpace page

Polaroids # 27

The Dodos at Music Box




(Pictures taken on the 6th of December 2008 at Music Box in Lisbon, Portugal)

The Very Best - Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit are The Very Best (mixtape)

Just in case you haven't noticed: hey everyone, it's Christmas time! So what better way to celebrate the spirit of the occasion than with a mixtape that absorbs a multitude of regional cultures and creates a kaleidoscopic new global order, free of hierarchies, where one can actually believe in the utopy that we are all the same? Check it out: a collaboration between European production team Radioclit and Malawian-born, London-based singer Esau Mwamwaya, that includes inter-continental sounds from Africa, France, England, the United States, Australia or Sweden, and takes pieces of music from the likes of Vampire Weekend, M.I.A., The Ruby Suns, Santogold, Architecture in Helsinki, the Beatles, Hans Zimmer, or even a nineties ballad from Michael Jackson, amongst many others, all put together with african voices, choirs, melodies and hallucinating rhythms. And to top it all: you can legally download it for free at this project's MySpace page. Great Christmas present! (8/10)

Ricardo Villalobos - Vasco EP

Ricardo Villalobos, once minimal techno's beloved guru, has long transcended the frontiers of this genre, building a space of his own where he's been happily making small revolutions in electronic music. Following the hallucinating aural poem that was last year's Fabric 36, 2008 sees him release an EP that actually has the length of a proper album, with 70 minutes divided by just 4 tracks. Once again a mechanical and repetitive beat is just the beginning, the end being the subliminal layers of innumerous sounds and samples that he creates around and even inside those same beats, always with a broad sense of inspiration that abolishes any musical classifications. In the end, here's a lesson on how to play with the notion of space and time at your own terms and where the definition of "transparent sounds" suddenly starts making sense, in one of the most fluid and hypnotical records of the year. (8/10)

MySpace page

Home Videos # 14

Frankmusik - 3 Little Words (live)



This is probably as close as I'll ever get to the feeling of having a future pop star playing for me and about a dozen more people in what could be my living room...

(filmed on the 04-12-2008 at Cabaret Maxime in Lisbon, Portugal)

Polaroids # 26 ("Super Bock Em Stock" Festival)

Santogold at Teatro Tivoli





Lykke Li at Teatro Variedades





Frankmusik at Cabaret Maxime




(Pictures taken on the 3rd and 4th of December 2008 in Lisbon, Portugal)

Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak

Whatever way you'd look at 808s & Heartbreak, this was an album that was destined to divide opinions and create as much backlash as enthusiastic reactions. Until now, Yeezy was everyone's favourite hip-hop artist, with his uplift songs and an amazing ear to find the most surprising samples that would turn almost every single one of his musical creations into larger than life anthems. But then, in the past few months, a lot has happened. The sudden death of his mother and the break-up with his long-term fiancée had an effect in Yeezy that is felt everywhere in his new album and mostly goes like this: he stopped caring about what you, me or anyone else thinks. Add to this his late obsession with the Auto-Tune technology and there you have it, the ingredients for one of the most talked-about and controversial records of recent times. And if that wasn't enough, this is not even hip-hop anymore, but just pop music in all its glory, causing immediate shouts of "sell out" towards him. Sell-out? I don't think so. In fact, I hardly believe he could go into a more difficult way than this. Using Auto-Tune in a disarming way to sing touching melodies and creating the most amazing sounds with not much more than a TR-808 drum machine, it's almost umbelievable the amount of diverse sensations suggested by this music, what with such a stripped-down approach. Almost vanished are the celebratory moods of his old time songs, now say hello to melancholic and intelligent digital pop songs about the pain, anger and loneliness that can come at the top. Recorded in just 3 weeks and with a sense of urgency that seems almost therapeutic, 808s & Heartbreak is no less than a groundbreaking pop album as rarely heard, pushing so many boundaries alone. The fact that it does this while, at the same time, being extremely compelling in the way it exposes the very inner side of one of the most creative artists around, is just beyond any reasonable explanation. (9,5/10)

Kanye West - Love Lockdown (video)



Official site
Blog
MySpace page

Frankmusik - 3 Little Words (video)

"All I want from you, is a kiss or two"

Keeping on with some more acts to watch out for in 2009, Frankmusik is 22-year-old Londoner Vincent Frank, who has been causing some waves for a few months now with his impredictable mixture of power-pop, eighties music, electro and a few more sounds that seem to come directly from a ZX Spectrum computer, as seen in his debut EP "Frankisum", with refreshing results. So much so that super-producer Stuart Price has recently manifested his interest to collaborate with him, updating one of his anthems "3 Little Words" into a brand-new ridiculously catchy affair set to win the hearts of more than a few people. All this could not be complete without a video full of eighties pure-fun innocence (a.k.a. Tom Hanks in "Big"), so there you go. Expect this guy to change the face of electro-pop in 2009 with his first full-length album.

As a bonus, here's another song with Vicent showing his more sensitive side...



...Those. Keyboards. Are. Insane.

Official site
MySpace page

Britney Spears - Circus

The last year and a half have seen a lot happening around Britney Spears and not all related to her work. With an emotional breakdown taking place in front of the paparazzi lenses, somewhat an excellent album got a bit ignored on the way, in the middle of all the chaos that her life was supposed to be during that period. Quite unfairly, I may add, as Blackout was a postmodernist wet-dream, or the sound of someone falling apart, gloriously captured by a bunch of the best producers in town, to make a true 21st century dirty digital fest with some awesome results. One year later and her life is supposed to be back on track and apparently the world is also ready for her "real" comeback, forgiving the supposed behavior mistakes of the past. But what's actually interesting in all this is that the object of that same comeback, Circus, is another triumphant pop moment, even if not so radical as Blackout was. A very cohesive album, this time the aim is to make a complete work with a more pop-oriented approach, but still with those groundbreaking beats and digital sounds created by an amazing team of producers. Touching a lot of different things in the same package, we have synthesised Britney, actual Britney vocals, Britney's trademark giggles, power-ballad Britney ("Out From Under", surprisingly good) or hilarious Britney ("If U Seek Amy", and try saying this fast), all complete with some great punchlines that draw close parallels to her own life ("all eyes on me, I’m in the center of the ring, just like a circus", "Mr. Photographer, I think I’m ready for my close-up...Is that money in your pocket or you happy to see me?"). In the end, with so many great songs that are amongst the best in her career, like "Circus", "Kill The Lights", "Unusual You", "Mannequim" or the aforementioned "If U Seek Amy", the best to do is to finally let go all pre-conceived ideas you still might have and just enjoy this amazing attack on all senses. (8/10)

Britney Spears - Womanizer (video)



Official site 1
Official site 2