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12 TRACKS OF AUTUMN 2016

SHE BETTER WIN. HER TASTE IN MUSIC IS BETTER. AND SHE IS NOT A MADMAN.
Despite its awfulness in many ways, 2016 has yielded an extraordinary release of popular musical talent, in terms of new tracks; add to this the deaths of Bowie, Prince, and the win of the Nobel by Dylan, and it is a year the music was shaken. Eyewear wishes to advance the claim that, in fact, 2016 is the greatest musical year since 1996, if not 86.

Consider the list below, and disagree with the statement IN THIS LIST YOU CAN SELECT 10 OF THE GREATEST MUSICAL ACTS SINCE 1966 FROM POP TO INDIE TO NEW WAVE TO ROCK TO R N B TO DANCE TO TOP 40. Ridiculously, each of these artists has made a fine work this year - either a song, or a collaboration or an album, or in the case of Beyoncé, a masterpiece of film and music, Lemonade.


ABC

ALICIA KEYS

BARY GIBB

BECK

BEYONCE

BOB DYLAN

BON IVER

BRITNEY SPEARS

CHEAP TRICK

DAVID BOWIE

DRAKE

FOY VANCE

FRANZ FERDINAND

GARBAGE

GWEN STEFANI

HUGH CORNWELL

IGGY POP

JEAN-MICHEL JARRE FEAT. GARY NUMAN

KINGS OF LEON

LADY GAGA

LEONARD COHEN

MADNESS

MASSIVE ATTACK FEAT. HOPE SANDOVAL

METALLICA

NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS

PAUL SIMON

PET SHOP BOYS

PIXIES

PJ HARVEY

PRIMAL SCREAM

RADIOHEAD

RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS

RICHARD ASHCROFT

RICK ASTLEY

RIHANNA

ROLLING STONES

STING

SUEDE

TEGAN AND SARA

THE BEAT

THE CULT

THE MONKEES

THE STONE ROSES

TINDERSTICKS

TRICKY

VIOLENT FEMMES

WEEZER

WIRE

YEASAYER

YOKO ONO




 
SO, what are Eyewear's 12 newer songs post-summer that will make it onto our END OF THE YEAR top list?
1. 'Female Vampire' - Jenny Hval
A disturbing dream pop tune that is compellingly gothic and contemporary, and somehow troublingly beautiful.

2, 'Avoid The Obvious' - The Beat feat. Ranking Roger
Ska is the universal music of simple joys, complex implications, and this new track is as welcome as sun in Notting Hill on a Saturday morning. Delightful.

3. 'Do You Want To Come Over?' - Britney Spears
Sometimes mocked, she CAN BE better than Gaga, and when she does silly-sexy as in this witty, raunchy song, she knocks the ball out of the, uhm, bedroom.

4. 'I Can't Help Thinking About You' - Sting
Sounding like it was 1986, and the Police were still intact, this is a great return to form.

5. 'Oona' - Pixies
The Pixies new album, if by anyone else, would be considered great - but they labour under the same curse as Orson Welles - their first work was of genius, so the new dims unfavourably in comparison; in time this will rank as one of their best, with all the creepy rock and end of times stuff that entails.

6. 'The Spoils' - Massive Attack, Hope Sandoval
The most atmospheric, most haunting, most achingly beautiful dream pop/ chill out track of the year. Major.

7. 'You Want It Darker' - Leonard Cohen
At 82, the Master Voice has penned perhaps his wryest, Donne-darkest lyric. A great song with rich symbolic meaning.

8. 'This Pleasure Needs Pain (Unsympathy)' - Ada
No idea who these people are, but this is a hugely thrilling dance track with ominous BDSM tropes torn from the Depeche Mode playbook - fun and a bit tempting.

9. 'Be Like You Belong' - Foy Vance
A monumentally noble singer-songwriter moment, that sounds like a credo, like an ars poetica, a confession.

10. 'End Of An Era' - Public Access TV
A great garage song, sad in its way, with the line of the year - "they say the kids don't like rock and roll anymore" - get ready to hear about these kids as the "new Strokes".

11. 'Rings of Saturn' - Nick Drake & The Bad Seeds
As black, fine, and brutal as a garrotte made of a funnel web's worst wire, this is one of the best love-death songs ever written, by one of indie rock's broken kings.

12. 'Diamond Heart' - Lady Gaga
I may not be flawless but you know I got a diamond heart... pure Americana pop. Wonderful tough sexy proud stuff.



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