LxListening: I Don’t Like It Unless It’s Brand New

The irony in the title of course is that the song “Brand New” by Rhymefest ft. Kanye West is now almost five years old. Nonetheless, here are some of my favorite actual new tracks for your weekend that have all been getting some heavy play time in my headphones lately:

Sleigh Bells – “You Don’t Get Me Twice”

LxListening: As Lo As Fi Can Go

If you haven’t deduced by the title, I have been listening to a lot of shi**y sounding garage rock lately. Which incidentally, sounds far from shi**y, but rather incredibly pleasant to my ears. It began when the Screaming Females performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series. I keep going back to them, and it spun me right back into my frequent obsession with dirty, overly distorted, garage-rock-grunge-punk. The 5 songs I am going to list are actually fairly fun, poppy, upbeat songs for each artist. So let loose and enjoy …

Top 20 Thursday: 2011 Albums That Will Live In Infamy

Because we at Little by Listen enjoy letting you know what the best of the best is, we have opted to force upon you our Top 20 albums of 2011.  Constructing this list was much simpler than the top 20 songs, and thankfully didn’t end with me burning down Wes’ house or digging up Todd’s childhood pet and leaving it for him to find in his bed.  In fact making this list was a little too easy, possibly because Todd had a cold nose while we were making it, and probably just wanted to get the process over with.  Or maybe because Wes needed to tend to his beehives to collect some holiday honey (honey is coincidentally the name of Todd’s childhood pet btw).  Please enjoy the list we have so meticulously crafted, and feel free to throw your entries in the comments so we can immediately dismiss you as philistines with no taste.

Top Ten Thursday: Brand New Artists of 2011

For our next chapter in our end of the year lists, we thought we would list some of the new artists that have surfaced over the past year and caught our eyes, ears, and our hearts in the process. In order to qualify for this list, each artist has had to have released their debut LP within the 2011 year. Artists that released EP in previous years were still considered in the list, as long as the first LP came out this year. Unfortunately, artists like tUnE-yArDs do not qualify, because although she wasn’t actually discovered/or hit the music scene really until this year, she has had a full length album floating around since 2009. Nor did we included groups that contained former artists, or supergroups (ie Rome, Shabazz Palaces). Anyways, you get the picture.

On with the list:

1. EMA
Past Life Martyred Saints

The North Dakota noise rocker came into 2011 with a BANG!. She has been dropping tracks since she hit the scene and her album was phenomenal. It was dark, edgy, and honest. The lyrics are among the best I’ve heard in quite some time.