That's Entertainment - The Best of 2009 so far, Part 2: Singles

Regarding the concerts of the year, it should be said that our overall  opinion is positive despite the cancellations, postponements, expensive tickets and  the rather poor organizational level seen mainly in the larger events. In previous articles of Mix Grill we have pointed out the negative aspects and we hope that concert promoters will take them into consideration for future events. But despite the various organizational problems, we are very pleased that we were able to see live several exceptional new bands like The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The Horrors and Silversun Pickups in the past couple of months.

We also had the sixth Synch Festival, that despite lacking the big names it had last year (Stereolab, Yo La Tengo), it was once again the summer event with the most impressive musical variety which  also offered several pleasant surprises, inviting over exciting fresh names to play for the first in Greece (Fujiya & Miyagi, Florence And The Machine, Friendly Fires, Junior Boys, Ebony Bones, A Mountain Of One, The Teenagers).

Other great concerts included Bloc Party and Primal Scream playing in Coca Cola Soundwave (the final stage of a battle of the bands  competition won by the very promising Flakes), Jarvis Cocker in  Ejekt Festival, Firewater and Ladytron (despite the sound problems) in May and the evening with Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan in February, the only really good winter concert. We also enjoyed the recent gig by the godfather of this column, Paul Weller. It is another story that I personally enjoy much more his past with the awesome Jam and Style Council (up until the excellent "Our Favourite Shop" from 1985) than the more recent material of his solo career. Despite playing only 4 songs from his glorious past with his previous bands, his performance showed us why he is considered one of the legends of modern British rock.

We close our review of the first half of 2009 with the Top 40 songs of this column. This list is based on singles released in the last six months, but we have also included a few stand out tracks from some of the albums of the year that should not go unnoticed. Also, in order to have a greater variety in our list, we have included only one song per band or artist. So, without further ado, here's That's Entertainment's playlist for the summer holidays:

Top 40 Tracks

So fine - TELEPATHE
Help I'm alive - METRIC
Zero - YEAH YEAH YEAHS
Sacred trickster - SONIC YOUTH
Young adult friction - THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART
Daniel - BAT FOR LASHES
Triangle walks - FEVER RAY
My girls - ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Black hearted love - PJ HARVEY & JOHN PARISH
Ulysses - FRANZ FERDINAND
Stillness is the move - DIRTY PROJECTORS
I'm confused - HANDSOME FURS
Troubles like mine - GUN OUTFIT
Texas fox - THE LOW FREQUENCY IN STEREO
People got a lotta nerve - NEKO CASE
The rake's song - THE DECEMBERISTS
Something is squeezing my skull - MORRISSEY
French navy - CAMERA OBSCURA
Digital hearts - HOWLING BELLS
Got nuffin - SPOON
Departure - CRYSTAL STILTS
Sea with a sea - THE HORRORS
First communion - GANG GANG DANCE
Dancing choose - TV ON THE RADIO
Panic switch - SILVERSUN PICKUPS
Lovesick - GRAND DUCHY
Over it - DINOSAUR JR.
When I died - THE THERMALS
Pale bride - THE VON BONDIES
Short fuse - BLACK LIPS
Misfits & mistakes - SUPERCHUNK
Devotion - VIVA VOCE
Don't talk in your sleep - MAGIK MARKERS
Me & Mary - ASOBI SEKSU
Mykonos - FLEET FOXES
Roosevelt room - CONOR OBERST AND THE MYSTIC VALLEY BAND
Angela - JARVIS COCKER
Kingdom of rust - DOVES
Alcoholics unanimous - ART BRUT
One month off - BLOC PARTY

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