Festive Fifty 2013 Top Ten

And this catches us up to last year! You can look at similar posts from the previous Festive Fifties, or listen to the new episodes for this year as they come out by clicking the Festive Fifty tag at the bottom of the page!

10. Josh Ritter - Joy to You Baby
9. The National - I Should Live in Salt
8. MS MR - Hurricane
7. Arcade Fire - Reflektor
6. Bastille - Pompeii
5. James Blake - Retrograde

4. Dessa - Skeleton Key

3. Dessa - Fighting Fish

2. Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams - Get Lucky

 
1. Lorde - Royals

2015 Best Alternative Music Album Nominees Announced

So the Grammy announcements are going on today and they just announced the 5 nominees for Best Alternative Music Album (the award that we just spent a couple years going through every winner on the podcast). The nominees are:

• This Is All Yours – alt-J
• Reflektor – Arcade Fire
• Melophobia – Cage the Elephant
• St. Vincent – St. Vincent
• Lazaretto – Jack White

I'm pulling for St. Vincent to win this one, but really, I'd be ok with Jack White or Cage the Elephant to win, as well. The other two are contenders, but I can't say I'm really pulling for them.

In any case, we'll see what album we're looking at for the month when the Grammy Awards happen on February 8th on CBS

New Countdown: 50% MORE CONTENT!

It's the longest episode in 3 months. It has 5 bonus songs. And I loved every minute of it. I feel like we're in the midst of hearing "the sound of 2013 in alternative music," but it won't become evident what exactly that sound consists of for a while yet. I'm happy to just sit back and enjoy the tunes.

I hope you'll join me.

On a related note, 1/5 of the podcast is dedicated to Father's Day, so I just wanted to wish all the Dads out there a happy one and I hope you celebrate it in a way that makes you happy and that you know how valuable a good Dad is in a kid's life.

Countdown #155

***Featuring***
alt-J
Arcade Fire
Beastie Boys
Capital Cities
Fall Out Boy
Imagine Dragons
The Lumineers
Muse
The Neighbourhood
New Politics
Of Monsters and Men
Paul Simon
The Soggy Bottom Boys
Thirty Seconds to Mars
Yellowcard

New Countdown from Home!

Thirty Seconds to Mars

Back home from Ohio. I started to record this one so early and I'm a little confused about how it's already 2 am on Sunday morning and I'm still just getting this done.

We ran through the countdown very quickly this week, so there's a little bit of a bonus song at the end. :) And by "a little bit of a bonus song", I mean, "a bonus song".

Countdown #154

***Featuring***
alt-J
Arcade Fire
Beastie Boys
Capital Cities
Fall Out Boy
Imagine Dragons
The Lumineers
Muse
The Neighbourhood
New Politics
Of Monsters and Men
Thirty Seconds to Mars

Festive Fifty 2010 Top Ten

Each day this week, in anticipation of the deadline for voting on the Festive Fifty 2012 Shortlist, I'll be listening to the Contrast Podcast Festive Fifties of yore (2012's will be the 6th!) and trying to track down the videos of the Top 5!

This was a big year for me. It was the first year that I assumed my role as "Statman". I was so stoked to do this one and it came out pretty well. It's absolutely a coincidence that both of the years that I've done the stats, the winner has been a mainstream pop hit... :-D Seriously, though. It's a coincidence.

Oh! Also, definitely listen to the intro for #1. It's, in my mind, a CP classic.

You can listen to the 2010 Festive Fifty here: (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

10. Caribou - Odessa
9. Broken Bells - The High Road
8. LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean
7. Kings of Leon - Radioactive
6. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Home

5. Mumford & Sons - Little Lion Man

4. Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land

3. Arcade Fire - Ready to Start

2. The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio

1. Cee-Lo Green - Fuck You

Festive Fifty 2007 Top Ten

Each day this week, in anticipation of the deadline for voting on the Festive Fifty 2012 Shortlist, I'll be listening to the Contrast Podcast Festive Fifties of yore (2012's will be the 6th!) and trying to track down the videos of the Top 5!

My snapshot impression of this inaugural edition of the Festive Fifty was that I hadn't paid ANY attention to what had come out in 2007 and I was also very unfamiliar with a lot of the nominees on the shortlist, so I just voted for names I knew! Oh, how times have changed....sort of. ;-)

You can listen to the 2007 Festive Fifty Here: (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

10. Bjork - Earth Intruders
9. Wilco - Impossible Germany
8. Okkervil River - Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe
7. Arcade Fire - Intervention
6. Iron & Wine - Boy With a Coin

5. PJ Harvey - When Under Ether

4. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends

3. The National - Fake Empire

2. Spoon - The Underdog

1. Los Campesinos! - You, Me, Dancing!