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MY
FAVORITE SONG
BY CHRIS
MARTIN
of
Coldplay
| "Human" by the Killers |
 |
I'm just a sucker for a big melody — I like anthems. And songs like this put the Killers in the same fighting weight as Coldplay, which is good for all concerned.
Photo: Hogan/Getty
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY JIM
JAMES
of My
Morning Jacket
| New Amerykah: Part 1 (4th World War) by Erykah Badu |
|
The sound quality is similar to some of my favorite records, like Guided by Voices' Bee Thousand, where it sounds really low-fi and hi-fi all at once. But it also sounds futuristic, as if it were recorded on some army surveillance mike in the back of a tank on some battlefield in the year 3013. And the bass is huge — it warms my butt. I feel beautiful when I hear this record. It makes me feel like a praying mantis: I want to mate, but I also want to kill my mate when it's over.
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MY
FAVORITE SONGS
BY THE JONAS
BROTHERS
KEVIN
JONAS
| "Waitin' on a Woman" by Brad Paisley |
|
I'm a huge country fan, and this was a big country song this year for me. Brad tells such a great story: It's about growing up and being able to wait on a woman. It's all right if you have to change, but you can still have a woman be there for you. And he's such a great guitar player. He's twangy and just picking it up. He rocks that thing.
NICK
JONAS
| "We All Need Saving" by Jon McLaughlin |
|
Many people in our camp work with Jon, a young singer from Indiana, and our friend turned us on to him. Jon manages to cross R&B and rock and pop music, much like Stevie Wonder did on "Living for the City." I'm a huge Stevie Wonder fan, and I think Jon is doing a great job of blending styles in the same way today.
JOE
JONAS
| "Heartless," by Kanye West |
|
I was amazed when I heard Kanye singing. At first, I thought he couldn't pull it off, but the Auto-Tune effect is really cool.
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY LARS
ULRICH
of
Metallica
| Gods of the Earth by the Sword |
|
We're fortunate to have this heavy-metal band from Austin out playing with us, and we've got them playing shows on our days off so that we can go see them. I'm a product of British metal — Iron Maiden, Saxon, Angel Witch — and the Sword sound like the definitive new wave of British heavy metal, which is interesting coming from four guys from Texas. The arrangements, the intros and outros, the middle eights and that type of stuff, it reminds me of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath or Judas Priest. They're not really a young Metallica, but that's because they're cooler than we were.
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY EZRA
KOENIG
of Vampire
Weekend
| Tha Carter III by Lil Wayne |
|
I've listened to rap since I was a little kid, and my favorite era was the early Nineties, because that was the most lyrically creative. Lil Wayne's album hearkens back to that super-creative, Native Tongues feel. He splits the difference between stories of violence and drugs but also weird, crazy, word-obsessed stuff. For the first time since high school, I copied all the lyrics on the album from this Website, the Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive. I've spent a lot of time on the bus this year just listening to the album and reading the lyrics, making corrections when they're wrong.
MY FAVORITE SONG
| "Tengazako," by Esau Mwamwaya |
He's this guy from Malawi who lives in London, and this is his version of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes." There's a glut of rap versions of popular songs, but Esau's is really inspiring: He makes "Paper Planes" sound like his own song, with all this African influence. He shows the boundaries people set up in music are a little silly.
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY TAYLOR
SWIFT
| One of the Boys by Katy Perry |
|
Sometimes an album doesn't need some weird thing to make you love it — sometimes it's just a big hit. And if you fall in love with it before it becomes a hit, you take ownership of it. That's what happened to me with One of the Boys. Katy Perry has so much charisma, as soon as I heard "Hot N Cold," I fell in love. I said, "This is gonna be big." And it was.
MY FAVORITE SONG
| "If I Were a Boy" by Beyoncé |
|
It makes you think. It's not a song you fully understand the first time you listen, and it makes you want to listen again. The video blew my mind. It starts out showing this girl who's career-oriented and living with this guy who caters to her every need, and she's going out and flirting with all these other guys. You feel so bad for that guy. Then it switches halfway through the song — you realize she's the one who's committed to him, and he's out there playing the field. And it makes you mad! I really identify with [the song]. It says how I feel better than I ever could.
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY NOEL
GALLAGHER
of
Oasis
| A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Floating In Your Mind |
It's a compilation mixed by a guy called Amorphous Androgynous [this is a pseudonym for veteran trance duo Future Sound of London] and it's on Platypus Records and it's fucking mind-blowing. That would be my album of the year or any other year. It's a double CD of the most obscure psychedelic tracks I've ever heard in my entire life and I've got a lot of psychedelic music.
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MY
FAVORITE SONGS
BY GREGG
GILLIS
of Girl
Talk
| "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" by Beyoncé |
|
I'm a big fan of this high-energy beat. Beyoncé sounds great over a minimal melody, and the nonstop clapping keeps this track driving. When the synth creeps up during the chorus, it gets unexpectedly dark in a great way.
| "Let the Beat Build," by Lil Wayne |
|
Lil Wayne's album Tha Carter III was packed with content, but this track stood out for me because it gave you room to breathe. The soul sample loop keeps sounding better as the song progresses. When the kick drum finally hits, it's a simple but effective payoff.
| "See You Again," by Miley Cyrus |
|
You can't ask for more out of bubblegum pop punk than this. The synth bass adds subtle excellence.
| "Love in This Club," by Usher |
|
One of the catchiest hooks all year. I heard it was made using GarageBand stock loops, which is awesome.
| "Delta-V," by Squarepusher |
Total prog live-band freak-out style. Real heavy.
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY JARED
FOLLOWILL
of Kings of
Leon
| Saturdays = Youth by M83 |
|
Every night of our Australian tour, we'd play music from this French electronic act before we walked out onstage. I'm a sucker for really beautiful melodies, and M83 have tons of them. The vocals switch between a male and female singer, and they just feed off each other. And the drumming sounds like the soundtrack to a great Eighties movie.
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY CRAIG
FINN
of the Hold
Steady
| Evil Urges by My Morning Jacket |
|
They're becoming the American Radiohead — this record is that big in scope. There's all this R&B and falsetto on songs like "Highly Suspicious," which sounds like Sign 'o' the Times-era Prince. But they're still courting a jam-band audience. There are those big, Neil Young and Crazy Horse-style guitars, so this is still a rock & roll record at its heart.
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY
SANTOGOLD
| Vampire Weekend by Vampire Weekend |
|
This has been a really hectic year and I've enjoyed music that takes me out of whatever zone I'm in when I'm working. I really related to the record — it was nostalgic for me. It reminds me of New England, when I was in college [Wesleyan] in Connecticut, driving in the fall with the leaves turning colors. And the melodies and string arrangements sounds like the music in the Wes Anderson movies, like Rushmore. My favorite song is "M79," about a bus they take. The first time I heard it, I was like, "Wow, this is good!" which is always a surprise when you listen to the big, hyped-up music of the year. Because, really, I'm a hater — I don't like a lot of music that's new.
MY FAVORITE SONG
| "Electric Feel," by MGMT |
|
That's one of the best songs I've heard in ages. It's the happiest-feeling song. The melodies are so beautiful. Whenever I felt like being happy and it was sunny, I'd put that on.
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY MILO
BONACCI
of Ra Ra
Riot
| Vampire Weekend by Vampire Weekend |
|
Vampire Weekend's album is really strong all around, songwriting-wise. "Campus" is bouncy and fun and it's got one of the best bass lines. I think the record definitely has the potential to hold up 10 years from now. It'll be one of those period-defining albums in some circles. When I think of the mid-Nineties I think of Weezer's Blue Album, and I think when people think of music 10 years from now, they'll think of Vampire Weekend."
MY FAVORITE SONG
| "Fools" by the Dodos |
|
That was the song that we put on every single mix CD that we made all spring. It's generally on the playlist when we have our own shows and play music between sets. Dodos are just doing something a little bit different, and there's a lot of energy to it. It's just two guys, buty they don't just stick to the golden rule of drum-and-guitar.
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY KRISPY
KREAM
of the
Knux
| Tha Carter III by Lil Wayne |
|
Lil Wayne just punched everybody in the face with Tha Carter III. He was like, "I don't just spit gibberish and drool all over the mike and get ridiculously wasted — I can write songs, too." To go from the album's biggest pop single, "Lollipop," which was a Number One hit, and then jump all the way into hip-hop with "A Milli" as the next single — that was a risk. With "A Milli," there was no chorus, Lil Wayne was just straight-up old-school: "I'm just gonna go hard on this flow and be all over the beat." That shit blew my mind.
Photo: Getty
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MY
FAVORITE ALBUM
BY DAN
AUERBACH
of the Black
Keys
| Norman Petty, Get Ready to Fly and Now Hear This! Garage and Beat From the Norman Petty Fault |
Get Ready to Fly is Sixties psych pop, Now Hear This! is garage rock, and they both blow my mind. Norman Petty was a producer-engineer with a studio in Clovis, New Mexico — he recorded artists like Buddya Holly on homemade consoles. He hasn't gotten much respect because he was out in the middle of nowhere, but his records sound better than Abbey Road.
Photo: Getty