White people playing club music. You may know a few of them. In fact, you may be one of them. It becomes distressing when, in a year that saw the movements of a black president - not to mention the movements against said black president - the two best club-thumping tracks came from two pigment-challenged artists ... one of them even proclaiming to be the most pigment-challenged in the current time-frame.
The Whitest Boy Alive - "Courage" from Rules
Well, it looks like the smooth, almost-yacht-rock pop wonders of The Kings of Convenience couldn't hold Erlend Øye's need to get his disco dance on. And what a great record to do it on. Rules has enough bass-and-synth beats to put Om Records to shame, but its songs all come with a flair that is distinctly Øye.
"Courage" opens with a simple guitar riff that leads to a simple synth repetition but is propelled to the shimmering shoals of club heaven by Marcin Öz's skanky, slutty, fuck-on-the-floor bass and Oye's tender emoting. The whole thing finds itself nicely wedged somewhere in your favorite coffee spot, your mom's car and your sweatiest nightclub, arousing genitalia in all.
Animal Collective - "My Girls" from Merriweather Post Pavilion
Well, isn't this just the most obvious choice? Liberal, indie-boy, college-grad douche-bag picks a track by Animal Collective to be on his top-of-the-year list? Also, dog bites man.
But, strip away the post-psych contrivances, the nu-rave glistening of the synths, the bump of the canned-drums and that fucking retarded bike-horn noise that pops up here and there. Take into account the actual lyrical content, something that figures in more and more in this age of fuck-it-all instrumentation and lavish production:
"There isn't much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
But with a little girl, and by my spouse,
I only want a proper house"
The simplicity of "My Girls" turns out to be its strength. Animal Collective found the right note to hit in the year of recession, in which wanting something simple can be as hard as reaching for the stars, and getting something simple can seem like the world. Now, add on all of those instrumental facets that would usually roll the eyes of a pop music naysayer and let the song soar, stupid fucking bike-horn and all.
One of the fewer critically touted songs worth its new-found prestige.
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