The best of 2011

With my co-writer, Peter, who has joined the 365 lately, I have been thinking about and working on a yearlist of 31 songs. These 31 songs represent our personal preferences of the best music that came out in 2011. Most of these songs have been mentioned on this blog before, some however have not. The list is in random order, but If I had to make a top 5 for 2011 it would be the following list:

1. M83 - Midnight City -Great representative of the French electronic sound. Perfect kick, perfect hit.. Good song to energize and dream off with.

2. Studio Killers - Ode to the bouncer
Love it. Posted it 1.5 month ago and gets better every time I hear it.

3. Elbow - Lippy KidsAfter their brilliant performance at Lowlands this one had to be in (for 1,5 hour I just kept looking at the stage at which were playing) Great band that finally gets what they deserve

4. Jon Allen - Think of You
My personal favorite singer-songwriter. Great guy from the UK. Seen him for the third time this year in Amsterdam and again amazing. Guy that really knows how to touch me..

5. Jamie Woon - ShouldaSimple, but wonderfull and touching...

Have a great one tomorrow evening and we hope you're ready for some nice, fresh and energetic music in 2012 with 365singles. We will have a lot of nice surprises for you the coming year so stay tuned..

http://open.spotify.com/user/just_loon/playlist/2kAeaEyAyyzgaBJZ62M0Fe

Day 61: Mayer Hawthorne - The Walk

While I was in high school, and the first years after that, I was a huge fan of soul & jazz. I still played the saxophone and just loved improvising on stage.

This slightly went away while the years in University passed by. I became more interested in house, techno and other electronic music. The last few years however my interest and love for soul and jazz returned. I started listening to artist like Otis Reading, Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield

And now, in the 21st century, there is a new soul hero. A young guy from LA, California. Andrew "Mayer" Cohen who grew up in the "Hawthorn" street in Michigan and now is a singer, songwriter, producer, audio engineer, DJ, rapper and multi-instrumentalist. That's what I like... "Just go for it and learn all the skills you want to learn". I saw him on Lowlands this year and his performance was one of the best of that weekend. With his soul he knew how to make the people dance. And that's what me and my friends did.

This single "The Walk" has just been released (August 2011) and appears on his album "How Do You Do" that has just been released. It is a classic already, great voice, nice horn section, nice backing singers. It perfectly fits in my "classic soul" list that I created in spotify. Damn. I Like. Enjoy your saturday.

Day 51: Hard Fi - Give It Up

Hard-Fi, an Indie Rock Band from the UK, formed in 2003, released their 3rd album on August 7 after being away for a couple of years. From this album you may have heard the single Good for Nothing, which is a cool song I think.

But from the album I picked something else. The song Give It Up. I just can't stop listening to this. It's special because of the whistle, it rocks (walking beat), the singer has a good voice and when you think that's everything there's bridge, and after that even a acoustic bridge. Wow !!

It just stays in your head. And although this is not the single, I think it is the best song of the album.. A perfect prospect when you know that you'll defintely spend some hours in your car the coming week and that you can listen to this one many times..