I haven’t been silent obviously; anyone that’s a follower of the Facebook page (and why the hell wouldn’t you be after all) will know that I’ve been active with sharing updates and the big Advent Calendar project that went on this month. Also something that’s pretty big and awesome news-wise is that it seems I’ve been lucky enough to secure some time to do a proper face-to-face interview with one of our favourite bands on the blog Every Time I Die (hopefully a video interview too!!).
But enough with the catch-up, lets ride the rocket and live in the now, the year’s ending and so that kinda calls for an end of the year, best record/song/whatever list right. Well frankly for me atleast current music from this year has sucked, apart from a few albums (and I mean a few) the year has sucked. So instead of restricting tracks from THIS year, I’m gonna list tracks that I’ve enjoyed this year from any year, just an overall sort of thing – this’ll be tracks that I’ve rediscovered, new tracks I’ve discovered and pretty much be dominated by Dillinger Escape Plan…
1. Dillinger Escape Plan – “Prancer”
OK, was there any question what number one would be, I mean seriously this track has been my entire year – its ferocious and ear-achingly heavy. The screams of Puciato pierce the ears, the lyrics will scald your soul and the passion shown will bring tears to yours eyes. It’s the track that opened up the door for me to Dillinger, and from here, from the second I saw the video of their performance at the Golden Gods Awards show, I was so intrigued and interested that I had to get into them. I did and I’m super happy that I did, it ended up in me having two amazing nights seeing them back-to-back and them destroying it both shows.
2. Savage Garden – “To The Moon And Back”
Sure sure this is an old track, ancient even in some people’s mind, but honestly it was this year that it kinda started making sense to me. I don’t know, but I just sort of gave in and accepted more music this year – and this track was one of the first one’s that I really got into once that barrier of machismo was knocked down.
It’s just a beautiful track, the lyrics are so poignant and hard-hitting, and you know what’s being sung about every step of the way through the 5 minute classic. Not to mention just how damn catchy it is; there’s a reason why it killed in 1995, and then again in 1997, and why it still continues to kill to this day.
3. Eighteen Visions – “She’s A Movie Produced Masterpiece”
It just wouldn’t be a Ghostchant blog post without some 18V shoe-horned in now would it haha. But seriously, this is a song that I never really cared about before this year, heck I didn’t even really care about the entire ‘Until The Ink Runs Out’ album before this year – it all just seemed one-note and very much filler full. But for some reason, at some point this year this song just clicked; it all made sense, the entire concept of the song became clear. It’s a celebration of women, most importantly that one woman that just drives each guy crazy, that girl that a guy will dream about and will lust over. The lyrics are super awesome and standard Eighteen from the fashioncore era – talking about sex and girls and the perceived “cool” things in general. It’s another catchy tune that totally grabs the listener and keeps a hold of them till the track finishes: it could even also be attributed to starting the handlebar dance that James Hart (lead singer) would continue to use till the very last 18V show.
4. College – “A Real Hero”
This song totally crept up on me, from my flatmate randomly putting it on it easily and quickly became one of my favourite tracks ever. I don’t know why - the catchiness of it all? The meaningful lyrics? The fast tempo and overall tunefulness? Its use in Drive? Frankly its all of those reasons, its just a tremendous track that pretty much helped me appreciate this sort of music so much more, which in turn led to my growing liking for New Wave music, which nicely ties into…
5. Depeche Mode – “Stjärna”/”Behind The Wheel”/”Home”/” I Want You Now”/”Little 15”
…Depeche Mode, probably like my #2 favourite band I’ve discovered this year behind Dillinger. Seriously, I don’t know, I’ve always heard of them and have heard some of their stuff (my father’s real big into 80s music and Depeche in general), not to mention it’s the New Wave genre that inspired so many of my favourite bands from today. Specifically it’s the ‘Music For The Masses’ era of the band that really captures me, their darkest album both lyrically and in sound. Hell the music videos they had done were these ominous black and white stories that could destroy a sane persons mind.
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So yeah, there’s a short Top 5 of my favourite tracks that I’ve been digging this year, like I said this year music-wise for me has really been monopolised by discovering Dillinger Escape Plan, getting heavy into Depeche Mode and becoming more emotionally attached to Eighteen Visions’ music. So the question to you people, what the hell have you guys been listening to? Did the Advent Calendar project inject any new favourites to you? Are you guys sick of hearing me going on about Eighteen Visions?
