Features
29.12.2011, Words by Ruth Saxelby
The best of 2011, according to you
We’ve had our say on the best of 2011 so now it’s over to you to sum up a year in clicks. Here are your top stories from across the site over the last 12 months, listed by popularity per section. In summary, you like hip hop, weirdo electronic music and coffee as much as we do. Now here’s to 2012. Cheers!
THE HEADLINES
- Drinking coffee makes music weirder, say experts
- Nicolas Jaar album is being pulled from shops
- Brian Eno is helping develop a clock that will tick for 10,000 years inside a mountain
- Only the police can sell records now
- Vybz Kartel escapes from jail, is now Jamaica’s most wanted man (but it turned out he hadn’t)
- The record industry makes mistakes
- Major indie music stock centre burns in London riots
- Dance labels leave Spotify
- New York Times even snootier than us about American rave explosion
- The music world respond to London riots on Twitter
- Being hip doesn’t pay the bills
- Fearless, now famous, Hackney woman who told off the rioters is local jazz singer
- Jovan Coleman, drummer with Dam-Funk’s Master Blazter, dies
- The music industry is officially saved as digital market set to top $20 billion and vinyl sales boom
- Jamie xx remixes BBC Newsnight theme tune
THE INTERVIEWS
- Nicolas Jaar interview: “Ghosts that appear inside the silence.”
- James Ferraro interview: “The city of dream.”
- Rustie interview: “My way.”
- Grimes & d’Eon interview: “Everything is gained.”
- Blawan interview: “I always start with the drums.”
- Jam City interview: “You can do anything you like.”
- Clams Casino interview: “Sony acid.”
- Holy Other interview: “Moving around.”
- Hudson Mohawke interview: “The sound of a door opening.”
- XXXY interview: “Snowball effect.”
THE MIXES
- Dummy Mix 84: Brenmar
- Dummy Mix 80: Andrew Weatherall
- Dummy Mix 94: King Midas Sound
- Dummy Mix 100: JD Twitch (Optimo)
- Dummy Mix 59: Steffi
- Dummy Mix 69: Babe Rainbow
- Dummy Mix 64: FaltyDL
- Dummy Mix 76: Horse Meat Disco
- Dummy Mix 67: 2562
- Dummy Mix 82: Yuck
THE FEATURES
Photo: Chris Leung
- 12 albums for 2011 – Clams Casino’s ‘Instrumentals Mixtape’
- Ellen Allien’s Guide To Berlin
- Borne into the 90s
- How to dance to Chicago footwork
- 12 albums for 2011 – Hype Williams’ ‘One Nation’
- Technique: Oneohtrix Point Never ‘Replica’
- 12 albums for 2011 – James Blake’s ‘James Blake’
- Track-by-track: ’116 & Rising’
- Bjork’s Biophilia is outstanding
- Cover Up: Kode9 & the Spaceape
THE NEW MUSIC
- Gonzales Knight Moves (Lone remix)
- Drake Trust Issues
- Friendly Fires Live These Days Tonight (Lone remix)
- Azealia Banks & Machinedrum P-U-S-S-Y & Barbie Shit
- Kelly Rowland feat Lil’ Wayne Motivation (The-Dream remix)
- Gwilym Gold Flesh Freeze
- Lil Wayne & Drake She Will (Rick Ross remix)
- Clams Casino ‘Instrumentals Mixtape’
- Frank Ocean Thinking About You
- Hype Williams Healing Touch Of A Sista
THE REVIEWS
Photo: Lucy Ferguson
- Odd Future [The Village Underground, London]
- The Weeknd ‘Thursday’
- Hype Williams ‘One Nation’
- Tyler The Creator ‘Goblin’
- Pearson Sound/Ramadanman ‘FabricLive 56’
- Balam Acab Wander/Wonder
- Planningtorock ‘W’
- Clams Casino ‘Instrumentals’
- Grimes ‘Halfaxa’
- Radiohead ‘The King Of Limbs’
THE VIDEOS
- Azealia Banks 212
- A 70-minute documentary about Richie Hawtin
- The world’s most important drum sample
- The xx’s debut album advert is the best music advert ever
- The entire Plastikman live show crammed into 60 seconds
- Andrew Weatherall: ‘Just fucking destroy it!’
- Joe Muggs has lots of interesting things to say about the internet
- The Fall – an unreleased documentary from 1994
- Lana Del Ray Video Games
- Hudson Mohawke & Chris Brown Your Body
THE PHOTOS
- Stunning pictures of where grime came from
- Koreless on the streets of Glasgow
- Leif Podhajsky’s psychedelic world
- Flickr photographer of the month: Jonathon Hyde
- In the studio with Sinead Evans
- Independent Label Market photos
- Valeria Cherchi’s shots of Field Day
- Bombay Bicycle Club’s cover artist Katie Scott
- Lost photos of Elvis, Chuck Berry, Doris Day and Roy Orbison
- Stunning photos of Nosaj Thing’s live London show
THE LISTS
- Best albums of 2011 so far
- 5 songs to make you dance and cry by Depeche Mode founders
- 12 best EPs of 2011
- Music businesses of the year
- 52 best songs of 2011
- 10 interesting facts about James Franco
- 6 superb uses of music in Adam Curtis’s most recent documentary
- Dogs doing lists #1: Beatlemania
- 8 weird ways of cutting vinyl
- 7 things the new James Blake song sounds like
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