The Domestic Life

2007, My Year In Photos

I am the winner of being the latest! I bet I can post my best of lists in August next year!!

My 2007 Photo Gallery

What I was calling “hipster dance music” last year continued to gain momentum and monopolize my time – on the stereo, on the internet, and on the dance floors of sparkling LA clubs packed with stylishly-clad photo op seekers. I think there’s a decent chance that this genre, and the LA and NYC scenes in particular, will be regarded historically as exciting and influential little nuggets of musical culture, and for me it’s particularly great that the tense and high energy combination of pop, rock, and electronics I’ve always liked best has more presence than it’s had since 80’s New Wave, when I was, like, 7 years old.

Here’s a few of my favorite sample tracks from 2007:
Cribs - Men's Needs (CSS remix)
The Black Ghosts - Anyway You Choose To Give It (Boy 8 Bit remix)
Metronomy - Radio Ladio
Jape - Floating (Tronik Youth remix)
Bark Bark Bark - One Thing Stands
MIA - Boys (The Twelves remix)

If you want to hear more check out my DJ mixes, or these blogs…

Non stop dance tracks, mixes, and remixes :
http://this.bigstereo.net/
http://www.iheartcomix.com/
Dance but also rock and hip-hop, to ease you into it:
http://www.goodweatherforairstrikes.com/
http://www.pinglewood.com/
Less rock, more French house :
http://fluokids.blogspot.com/

Randy’s Favorite Albums of 2007
Living alone as a hyperactive bachelor in a vast, soulless, car-oriented city makes aggressive dance music resonate the most, but I had surplus time and energy for genres with a richer emotional palette.

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Ghostland Observatory – Paparazzi Lightning
Perfectly crafted synth and guitar, as intense as angry sex, rife with rock swagger and the subtle, haunted loneliness of the 80’s Miami Vice soundtrack.

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Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
A theatric electro, rock, and 60’s pop journal of surviving a nervous breakdown and a near-divorce during a winter in Norway, Of Montreal’s best work yet.

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Snowden – Fuel of the Celebration
Demonstrates how remixing rock can sometimes make it more glossy and danceable while also enhancing its humanity.

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Julie Sokolow – Something About Violins
Dry acoustic guitar and sad indie girl vocals that made me feel like I’d just heard What Would The Community Think for the first time again, only a bit more spare.

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Santogold – I Believe In Santogold
Lean dancehall glowing with punk rock, like liquid blue lightning, alternately evokes No Doubt and M.I.A.. Full length this year.

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Shout Out Louds – Our Ill Wills
The Cure taking some antidepressants that almost work (review courtesy Anna).

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Justice – Cross
The infectious, 70’s sepia, distorted bastard sibling to Daft Punk’s glossy 80’s shimmer.

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Chromeo – Fancy Footwork
Delivers the electro groove and funk that makes it mandatory material on every LA dancefloor.

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Scissors For Lefty – Underhanded Romance
Hopefully after making my best albums list for 2 years in a row, you’re listening to this flirty, bright rock band.

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Taken By Trees – Open Field
Playful vocal and piano driven indie lullabies by the chick who guest vocaled PB&J’s Young Folks.

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Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals
Hippie groove with enough angst, edge, structure, and clarity to redeem it completely.

Miakala
M.I.A. – Kala
She managed not to have a sophomore slump! Just as infectious and dangerous as the first album.

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!!! – Myth Takes
Dissonant and glimmering indie dance rock attack.

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Panda Bear – Person Pitch
Spacey, smart, and dreamy ambient experimental 60’s pop side project of Animal Collective.

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Black Kids – Wizard of Ahhhs
Some kids from Florida who won over the internet by freely giving away 4 reverb drenched, tortured, poppy, super fresh indie rock songs.

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Joan As Police Woman – Real Life
Brilliant Feist-esque, satiny, indie lounge with beautiful female vocals.

Weenlacucaracha
Ween – La Cucaracha
The first Ween album of the past several that is as light and energetic in its sound as its lyrics are shrewdly degenerate.

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LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
A dance rock band of some renown with a rather good second album.

Feist_thereminder
Feist – The Reminder
Perhaps you saw her on billboards or ipod commercials in airports.

Boniver_foremma
Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
Whoops, my heart just broke listening to this lonely, cold, distant, rhythmic indie folk.

Some Honorable Mentions:
We Are Wolves – Total Magique
Band of Horses – Cease to Begin
Pinback – Autumn of the Seraphs
Calvin Harris – I Created Disco
Picastro – Whore Luck

Favorite Trashy Pop Songs of 2007

And, lastly, the radio is fun.

Lloyd – Get It Shawty
Timbaland – Way I Are
Gwen Stefani – The Sweet Escape
Will.I.Am – I Got It From My Mama
Justin Timberlake – LoveStoned/I Think She Knows
Cassie – Is It You
Keyshia Cole – Let It Go
Fergie - Clumsy
Sean Kingston – Beautiful Girls
50 Cent – Ayo Technology
Akon – Sorry Blame It On Me
Pittsburgh Slim – Girls Kiss Girls

Peace out til SXSW!

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Union Station

Nestled beneath the antique skyline of downtown, cradled by twisting pedestrian streets, Union Station is an archeological testament to the Los Angeles that could have been. Its opulent architecture seems an optimistic, manifest destiny echo of Grand Central; its throne-like, art deco waiting chairs represent the ideal of community emerging from public service. The spacious courtyards are mostly empty, though, and since Amtrak is the new Greyhound, Union Station’s present fate is to be home to the shadow population of Los Angeles, those who have inherited downtown after the close of business. Stranded 15 miles from the Pacific, downtown Los Angeles was doomed from groundbreaking to fail at being the center of anything, but today it lives on as a museum of an alternate history, and a really fun place to kick it after hours.