Dear CD Recipients,

Welcome to this catastrophe that I like to call the New Year’s Eve CD! For all the newbies (there are several), the New Year’s Eve CD is my flagship production, and perhaps the only holiday tradition that I actually have. I normally insert a spiel about why I love New Year’s Eve here, but for the sake of the veterans, who hear it year after year, I will spare you all.

Essentially, this whole shindig comes in four parts that are as follows:

1. THE ACTUAL MIX TAPE

2. THIS LETTER

3. LINER NOTES

4. MY TOP SONGS/ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

Normally, I include a song for the incoming year, but I am discontinuing that practice, primarily because I agonize over it for hours and it amounts to absolutely nothing. I actually had to look up what the “song of 2010” was.

Now, this CD is rather different from ones in the past. In fact, I’m a tad nervous that no one will like it. The overarching theme is that of popular music. Recently, as most of you are aware, I have been debating what is technically “pop” and what is “indie,” and if they are in fact merely based on popular labels and independent labels, or if they have developed distinct sounds. I believe that “indie” truly can have a “pop” sound, and that “pop” sound is by no means the devil unless it comes in a Ke$ha suit.

Thus, I have assembled a collection of tracks that I believe could and should be mainstream. For the most part, I’m realistic. There is nothing particularly avant garde, and I at the very least attempt to follow the new pop trends. Some songs were popular in the past, others are popular now, and some I think should be popular now, but probably will never make it. Some are hip hop, some are cute, most are dance. I have a soft spot for dance music.

This has been a fairly interesting year. Brad Pitt ceased to be my number one. I had my articles read by roughly 900 people. I touched Win Butler’s guitar. I got a Facebook. I developed an addiction to the Huffington Post. I met my future husband. I lost a best friend. I gained several new best friends. I got a 5 on an AP Test --->HELL YEAH JUAN DE PAREJA! I thought about reading War and Peace- I didn't, but even thinking it is impressive. I stalked a certain someone with my girlies in the beamer. I yelled at shirtless men out of the beamer in the Downs. I saw Jake Gyllenhaal’s butt. I saw ASkars’s butt. I lived in New York. I got an enormous sunburn that random people on the subway felt the need to poke and comment on. I killed a cockroach. You know, the usual.

But, sadly, I didn’t grow. Not even a little.

Happy New Years!

Tamar

Top 10 Albums of 2010

1. The ArchAndroid- Janelle Monae

2. This Is Happening- LCD Soundsystem
3. Have One on Me- Joanna Newsom
4. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy- Kanye West
5. Teen Dream- Beach House
6. Dark Night of the Soul- Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse
7. The Suburbs- Arcade Fire
8. Halcyon Digest- Deerhunter
9. How I Got Over- The Roots
10. IRM- Charlotte Gainsbourg

Top 10 Songs of 2010

1. Good Intentions Paving Company- Joanna Newsom

2. I Can Change- LCD Soundsystem
3. Tightrope- Janelle Monae feat. Big Boi
4. Excuses- The Morning Benders
5. Power- Kanye West
6. Sprawl II- Arcade Fire
7. Spanish Sahara- Foals
8. Odessa- Caribou
9. Dancing on My Own- Robyn
10. Silver Soul- Beach House

New Year's Eve 2010 Liner Notes

1. Power: Go look up the lyrics, and try to tell me that this isn’t a brilliant single. Kanye has truly outdone himself. The song actually sounds powerful. You can literally hear him digging himself out of the hole he dug. But he doesn’t apologize for who he is and what he’s done, which only makes it even sweeter. He might be a rapper, but in this song he’s a rock star.

2. I Can Change: It’s no secret that I think James Murphy is a genius. Behold his brilliance: “Love is a curse, shoved in a hearse. Love is an open book to a verse of your bad poetry.” But I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is his best yet. Yes, better than All My Friends or Someone Great. Inspired by his divorce, he starts out pledging to never change, but quickly promises to change if “it helps [her] fall in love.” So real. So well done. So so so well done.

3. Dancing On My Own: I love everything about this song. Literally everything. The crazy amazing dirty synth beat. Her adorable Euro pop pixie voice. The lyrics. The feeling I get when I sing: “But I’m not the girrrrrrl you’re taking home. oooooh. I KEEP DANCING ON MY OWN!” into my hairbrush. Such a perfect pop song.

4. Zero: This might be old, but that Karen O is a superstar.

5. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains): When people say that this sounds like Blondie, I say FUCK YEAH, IT SOUNDS LIKE BLONDIE BECAUSE BLONDIE IS FUCKING AWESOME.

6. Into the Groove: Classic. Beyond classic. Legendary, in fact.

7. Locked Inside: Oh sweet Jesus, it sounds like Motown. And I do love Motown. And not just because I love Detroit. You can just see the women in matching outfits and gloves waving their synchronized fingers in the air.

8. Bills, Bills, Bills: Don’t get me wrong. Say My Name was gold, but I always loved this one. It’s just so sassy. “Your triflin’ with another kind of brother.” Dayum.

9. Right On: The best use of sampling since, like, ever. My lord, The Roots are just too talented for their own good. This is what rap really is. This is what it should be. Not all the Lil’ Blanks and Young Blanks and all that crap. This is talent.

10. Back to Black: Oh Amy, this is such an amazing track. Please come back. Pop music needs you.

11. Go Outside: Okay, Hillary can testify on my behalf for this one. Cults sucked live. Like seriously sucked. But they are excellent recorded. This is really freaking catchy, and now that they are signed to a major label, I wouldn’t be surprised if this became a minor hit.

12. Dancing Queen: My favorite. The best pop song of all time. No contest.

2.

Dear CD Recipients,

Frankly, I’m exhausted. This CD has completely drained every ounce of energy that I had. Some CD’s come together no problem. Others are hell. For the longest time, nothing seemed to fit right, and I ended up agonizing over the placement of two songs that try as they might stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. Finally, I got this sucker together, and surprisingly I think it’s rather fabulous.

However, it is noticeably different than my previous mix tapes. It’s not nearly as peppy, but I’m done with that. I know that Summer and Spring Break seem to need upbeat, happy songs because they are upbeat, happy times, but that logic is killing me. Two out of the three CDs I make in a year cannot be geared towards the super happy stuff. It’s just not an accurate representation of my taste.

Secondarily, this CD is not as up to date with current indie music, and for that I apologize. Blame McKay and fucking chemistry. A lot of these tracks were songs that had been cut off of other CD’s that I pieced into one hell of an eclectic hodgepodge. Only about half of this is really NEW material.

This school year has probably been my favorite to date. I know: shock, awe. The girl who once dubbed 2007, the shittiest year known to man, has said something positive. Reasons why:

1. Juan de Pareja (Euro kids FTW.)

2. All of the late night awesome weirdness that occurs when everyone has procrastinated on Euro hw. (ex. the infamous Russia timeline and those unit questions that Nick and I did together at 2 in the morning.)

3. Mrs. Manning and her voice (ex. Pasta Noooooodle, etc.)

4. New friends (ex. Meghan, Hillary, Nick, Jared, etc.)

5. Old friends (ex. Sam, Kelly, Anya, etc.)

6. Bowling

7. Crappy teen television (ex. One Tree Hill, The Vampire Diaries, Secret Life of the American Teenager, Make it or Break It, etc.)

8. Seeing Broken Social Scene live has been checked off of my nonexistent Bucket List.

9. Greatest 16th Birthday Party ever.

10. ReyHerme Book Club (Don’t fuck with us.)

All in all, not too bad. Onto Columbia this Summer for hopefully a matching best Summer ever. I’ll try to keep you all posted on that front.

Tamar

Comments on the Summer 2010 Playlist

1. Spanish Sahara: Oh, how it builds. I’m rarely as passionately in love with a song as I am with this track. In fact, track seems like a ridiculously inadequate way to describe this masterpiece. Foals weaves together so many different moving parts into this beautiful, captivating opus of sorts. Take note of the wave sample towards the end. A strong contender for best song of 2010.

2. Home: Initially, I was furious when Big Love changed its opening theme from God Only Knows to this, but I got over it quickly. Few songs can pull off this amount of repetition. Shoegaze.

3. Feel It All Around: This song gained popularity in late 2009. One of those songs that you can just see playing in the background during a montage of beautiful people at the beach. Also, I have an inkling that the water polo boys would dub this song “chill.”

4. I’ll Try Anything Once: For The Strokes, less is more, and this early demo for You Only Live Once, a beyond generic track off of their dreadfully overworked third album, reminds me of why The Strokes deserve every ounce of hype they received for their brilliant debut, Is This It. Thanks to Sofia Coppola for putting this in the trailer for her new movie Somewhere, which looks fabulous.

5. Dance Yrself Clean: There are no words to describe my love for LCD Soundsystem. I mean seriously: “Talking like a jerk except you are an actual jerk and living proof that sometimes friends are mean.”Pure brilliance. Then, comes 3:06, a moment so glorious that I’m unable to write about it because every time I reach it I begin to dance wildly.

6. Meet Me In The Basement: First off, Broken Social Scene is amazing live. Conga lined to the front of The Fillmore with potheads leading the way amazing. Greatest night of my life. The new album Forgiveness Rock Record is far more refined than their early work, but it is nevertheless utterly fabulous. However, this instrumental track is the most reminiscent of the old school BSS, which I loved so dearly for its sheer energy and fire power.

7. Odessa: My pick for the Summer Song of 2010. Definitely Caribou’s most accessible effort. Love.

8. A Peculiar Noise Called ‘Train Director’: Love, love, love. Such a great song to get down and boogie to while screaming the lyrics at the top of your lungs. WHERE WE ARE! The Olivia Tremor Control is one of my favorite bands, and I’ve tried to put this song on nearly every mix tape I’ve ever made. Today is the day, bitches.

9. Knotty Pine: Okay, first of all, David Byrne+ DP= HOLY FUCK, TAMAR JUST DIED OF HAPPINESS. Lives up to every expectation I had for this funky little number.

10. Go Wild In The Country: Annabella Lwin was thirteen when she became lead singer of Bow Wow Wow. Can you say bad ass? My favorite of their songs. Vampire Weekend doesn’t know shit about Afro beats. Learn from the master, little grasshopper.

11. Tightrope (feat. Big Boi): Behold, a female version of Outkast. Janelle Monae will be huge. HUGE, I swear. This girl has style and a voice to boot. Love her new album. Pitchfork once said that if you looked at the sheet music for Beyonce’s Crazy in Love all you would see was a bunch of exclamation points on a staff. That line suits this song so well.

Dear CD Recipients,

Welcome to the Spring Break 2010 CD. I’m most definitely sticking with putting all of this mumbo-jumbo on the internet. My fingers do not miss being covered in paper cuts, and my printer enjoys having a plentiful supply of cyan ink, which you don’t really think you need until all of your pictures come out orange-ish.

New Stuff in My Life:

1. Had a surprise birthday party at a bowling alley with a pie that read: What’sa happenin hot stuff?. Take that, John Hughes. Thank you, Sam.

2. One Tree Hill is on hiatus until April 19. Thank God for The Vampire Diaries. Dear lord, are they hot.

3. Have yet to grow.

4. Fell in love with Carey Mulligan.

5. Saw the fabulous Atlas Sound live at Noise Pop with Sam and Kelly and mommy dearest. Here’s to the very worst opening act in the history of opening acts, Nice Nice. Well (or should I say poorly?) done!

I always try to keep the Spring Break CD’s peppy, poppy, and upbeat. Strayed a little with the Liars song, but other than that, mission accomplished. I’m quite fond of this cd and the fact that I successfully put it together in a little over an hour. And, it is 100% composed of new material. I didn’t even include Lou Reed, who doesn’t really count. Now, no one can give me shit for the Lady Gaga addition.

Happy Spring Break everyone, and if you bump into Joe Francis run for your life.

Tamar

Comments on the Spring Break 2010 Playlist

1. When They Fight, They Fight: Oh, how I love the Motown-esque riff/bass line. This song is quite literally the Oxford dictionary definition of the word catchy. There are some woos, a tambourine, a trumpet, group singing, etc. I could write a college thesis on how perfect this song is.

2. Psychic City (Voodoo City): Ay ya ya yah! Very Talking Heads-esque when it’s just Claire singing with the bass. Excellent song. In fact, it’s so excellent that I’m only a tad bitter about Jona leaving The Blow for this band.

3. Beautiful, Dirty, Rich: You can all give me as much shit as you want, but I love this song. I even love her when she isn't doing that atrocious Telephone video. Everyone thinks she’s the next Madonna, and I see that, but this song is so clearly Prince with the piano, drum beat, and synth.

4. Ambling Amp: This song could make a 90 year old woman with severe osteoporosis before the invention of Cortisone dance like crazy. And for the record, the lyrics are: Stick up for yourself, son.

5. Yalira: I have absolutely no idea what they are saying, but I like it. The beginning sound so triumphant. Like if I win the Super Bowl, I so want my life to go into slow motion while this song plays in the stadium.

6. World Sick: Proving once again that no one can touch them. Not even you, Animal Collective. I nearly died of happiness when they released this song. The song is a little less jumbled and chaotic, but it has the same spirit and enthusiasm that BSS is known for. Seeing them live on May 1st at The Fillmore will be the teenager equivalent of this amazing video.

7. Excuses: Berkeley band!!! Phil Spector would love love love this song. And it all starts with a needle drop. So vintage.

8. Used to Be: I could be mistaken, but Teen Dream is the Merriweather Post Pavilion of 2010. I’ve loved Beach House since the moment I heard Victoria sing, but this album took it to another level. I cannot put into words how perfect his song is. Kelly, my love, this is our new song in case you forgot all of our karaoke-ing second period.

9. IRM: Before you ask. Yes, Charlotte is the daughter of the infamous Serge Gainsbourg, and yes she is unfairly gorgeous. To make you feel even more inferior, she has teamed up with indie legend Beck, who wrote and produced the entire album. Even worse, she’s actually talented, and will be huge when she finally grows some balls and releases an album in French.

10. Scissor: I definitely hear the TV on the Radio influence everyone is preoccupied with, but this is so clearly the work of Liars frontman Angus Andrew. He is one big bundle of brilliance and craziness. Almost died of shock when I first heard this song.

11. It Ain’t Gonna Save Me: RIP, Jay Reatard. The indie world will miss you dearly. Seriously, he was banned in many European countries because his live shows were so legendarily crazy. This is the last single he released before he died.

12. Pop Chart: Okay, so this is essentially Kidz Bop Does Punk, but I’m a sucker for a good gimmick. The music might be obscenely simple and the lyrics might be pretty much terrible. But, the song is catchy. The kids are cute. Come on. they are a brother/sister duo and the girl was only 11 when they started the band. Brooklyn wins again.

13. Shelia: Epic memories of dancing awkwardly while squished in between a guy who appeared to be sleeping while standing up, a group of potheads who were in fact smoking up next to us, and a giant of a man in front of me. Good concert.

14. Let’s Go Surfing: I love The Drums. I love that they are from Palm Beach, Florida. I love that they are so obviously gay. I love their whistling and clapping. I love that they convinced the indie world that the lyrics to this song were: Obama, I want to go surfing. Obama, I don’t care about nothing. They aren’t, but it was cool anyway.