Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

"Life Coach" is a hypnotizing waltz of a track with a great lurching beat. You get the sense that the band are only just in control of the behemoth that they have created as the track flows unweildly from one place to the next. Their is a genuine bursting quality to the record, as if every last second of the track refuses to be contained, it's shudders and crunches with a kind of joyous energy perfectly summarized by the kinetic quasi-nursery rhyme lyrics. Full of life, energy and expression; "Life Coach" gives the illusion of chaos while Fang Island carefully maintain control of one of the year's daffiest tracks.

George Lewis Jnr. sure knows how to make a first impression. "Tyrant Destroyed" the lead single and album opener from his captivating debut Forget possesses a wonderful sleepy charm. It caresses its way into your mind before embedding itself in your cranium. The track is a charm ditty about the deep regrets of a lover spurned and a love lost; Lewis tells his tale in such soft tones you can never quite tell if he's overcome by resignation or depression, either way the track works to perfection. Intelligent reflection delivered with the pop prowess of Vampire Weekend and the soulful gloss of Grizzly Bear.

Plastic Beach was an incredibly diverse record tied together by a greatly detailed and continuous concept of a bizarre and deeply unsettling artificial world of recycled plastic electro garbage. As a result the singles always felt unnatural and odd when displaced from the main work, there were, however, some notably exceptions including the gorgeous "Rhinestone Eyes". Glorious glitzy dancefloor synth lines seem to shower down from above while Damon mournfully trudges through his downbeat verse. The end result is a quirky (naturally), slice of depressive but never downbeat death disco.

In the surf rock revival of 2010 there have been a plethora of highs and lows; moments of brilliant experimentation and awkward embarrassment, but of all the bands who have staked their claim to the surf rock crown it was the band who played it straight who proved the most endearing. Beth Cosentino wrote short sharp effecting pop songs, and at it's best, even on the divinely melancholic Surfs Up, that is what Surf music has always been about. "Goodbye" is a shady ironic pop song, you can imagine Beth awkwardly scratching the back of her head as she sings the line "Every time You Leave This House, My Life Falls Apart". The track goes straight to the heart of emotional frustration; Beth isn't clear or focused but that's her charm, she doesn't know what what will make her happy, but she knows that she isn't, and sometimes the expression of confusion and of those emotions that you can't quite put into words, end up making the most powerful sentiments and the most affecting pop songs.

You have no idea how much it pains me to put the name 3Oh!3 in any article that includes the word "best" but alas thanks to their association with Ke$ha they are due some hand me down praise. Anyway, in one simple statement Ke$ha summed a decade of binge drinking, sexualization and idiocy: "Don't Be A Little Bitch With Your Chit Chat, Just Show Me Where Your Dick's At." "Blah Blah Blah" is a social document of our times, an unintended commentary on 24 hour drinking culture, of blaring synths, inane lyricism, and moral apathy. Good times first, consequences second, hooks over meaning, body before brains; auto-tuned art where even the rappers are phoniesthis was music of the moment that defined the moment.

From an artist and a track devoid of emotional sensitivity to a group who choose to dance with tears in their eyes. "One Life Stand" is classic Hot Chip in many ways, sensitive, mysterious, oddly sexy, outwardly nerdy, intricately layered, completely unavoidable and possessing a dark and a times unsettling edge. "One Night Stand" shifts effortlessly from charming calypso groove to sharp stainless electronica before bursting into jagged indie balladry. The track revolves around Alexis' sublime central hook "I Only Want To Be Your One Life Stand, Tell Me Do You Stand By Your Old Man?" He has such a tender delivery you can almost picture him staring at his shoes and awkwardly hoping his love will stay with him to the end of time. Few other acts could, or would even dare, to inject this much emotion into what is essential fun time electro-pop.

Why does nobody else seem to listen to Elvis Costello these days? Well whatever the reason, Girls are certainly handed a huge advantage by so readily taking up his mantle of pent up emotional out pourings delivered with a barbed tongue. "Oh So Protective One" is Girls at the top of their game retro-inspired pop music dripping with emotion and loaded with instantly quoteable lines. Girls end up sound-tracking a mournful sixties prom night, complete with romantic failure, repressed emotion and lonesome reflection. The tragic is finale is punctuated by a rich horn solo that transforms stoned regrets into a state of wonderfully miserable ecstasy.

James Blake is so talented it's positively unseemly. The haunting and distant "I Only Know (What I Know)" was pieced together from old snippets of Blake playing bursts of piano recorded on a PC microphone. As a result you get this wonderful static sound that James plays around with, letting it fizz and thrust forward as little glimmers of harmonies rise suddenly only to be ushered away quickly. Jabs of unfinished piano lines flitter into view softly before receding as if they are just on the edge of the sonic horizon. The use of silence in itself is incredibly bold, the way he let's phrases just drop abruptly and shimmer out of focus hazily, only to be replaced by nothingness. Strings are mutated and stretched to create something that's equal parts bleak, beautiful and imposing. Incredible artistry that dares to defy definition.

You have to wonder if Win Butler woke up one morning and said: "Arcade Fire need a set opener that will win over 40,000 strong crowds instantly." I mean that has to have happened right? "Ready To Start" is just too energetic and too focus to be anything but the product of meticulous design and predetermined focus. Aside from its devastating immediacy "Ready To Start" is full of sharp pithy lyricism, typical overwrought emotion and a string of remarkably hummable punchy pop one liners. "The Business Men Are Drinking My Blood, Like The Kids At Art School Said They Would" yeah tell me about it Win.

Alicia Keys is fast becoming the most frustrating artist walking the face of planet earth. How can she write ballads as powerful and as perfectly pitched as "Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)" and yet never settle down and focus on one coherent 40 minute record? It's a real annoyance, if this Alicia Keys turned up over 12 tracks she very well could very well be the best artist in the world right now. Perhaps it's her choice of writing partner, perhaps more praise is due to Drake for his co-writing credits on this track than he's previously received. Well whatever the case, "Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)" is stirring majestic pop of the highest order.