Second part of our review of the first half of the year and after the 40 albums that we suggested last week, today we present the list of our 40 favorite songs of 2009 as well as a brief account of the concerts we've seen so far in Athens.
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 inCoca Cola Soundwave (the final stage of a battle of the bands competition won by the very promisingFlakes), 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
Song of the week: "Triangle Walks", the latest single from the excellent debut of Fever Ray:
