The 11 Best Songs By Skrillex

People say a lot crap about Skrillex.  He's small and scrawny.  He's a geek, a loser, and a poser.  His music sucks; it's uncreative, derivative or just plain lame.  He's been blasted for not being a "real" dubstep artist (a label given to him by the media - not self-inflicted). He's been teased for originally being in a screamo band and now merely jumping on the EDM bandwagon to stay relevant.  Even with the deck stacked against him, Skrillex found a way to make some of the most captivating, compelling, and addictive music out there.  Like the Dayton Flyers or the Mercer Bears, who knocked aside Syracuse and Duke respectively, Skrillex doesn't listen to those who say he "can't" instead, he listens to nobody except himself, making the music he knows how to make, irregardless if it's dubstep, brostep, EDM, pop, schlock, or Beethoven's 5th. Here are the 11 Best Songs By Skrillex:

1. Bangarang (Bangarang EP)
2. Rock N Roll Will Take You To The Mountain (Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites)
3. Right In (Bangarang EP)
4. All I Ask Of You (Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites)
5. Weekends!!! (My Name Is Skrillex)
6. First of the Year - Equinox (More Monsters and Sprites)
7. Summit (Bangarang EP)
8. Kill EVERYBODY (Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites)
9. Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites (Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites)
10. With You, Friends Long Drive (Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites)
11. My Name Is Skrillex (My Name Is Skrillex)

Buy Skrillex's first full length album, Recess...now!
 

Don't forget to check out our blog's awesome new book The 111 Best Lists of the 2000s.  Available now!

The 11 Best Bands at Coachella by day...

Incredible line-up this year.  Impossible to do one list for the whole festival...so here's three lists! One for each day.  These are by no means the only good bands playing, just the ones that I'm most excited about.  And Saturday is easily the most packed day.

The 11 Best Bands at Coachella on Friday:

1. Outkast
2. Girl Talk
3. Broken Bells
4. The Replacements
5. HAIM
6. A$AP Ferg
7. Ellie Goulding
8. Waxahatchee
9. Bryan Ferry
10. Grouplove
11. Zedd

The 11 Best Bands at Coachella on Saturday:

1. Foster The People
2. Empire Of The Sun
3. Cage The Elephant
4. Nas
5. Muse
6. Pet Shop Boys
7. Skrillex
8. MGMT
9. CHVRCHES
10. Blood Orange
11. The Head and The Heart

The 11 Best Bands at Coachella on Sunday:

1. Arcade Fire
2. Neutral Milk Hotel
3. Beck
4. Superchunk
5. Lana Del Rey
6. STRFKR
7. Calvin Harris 
8. Disclosure
9. Preservation Hall Jazz Band
10. Chance The Rapper
11. Bad Manners

The 11 Most Anticipated Summer Albums of 2012

As we move into a new year, one of the strangest pieces of news has been revealed.  Album sales in 2011 actually went up for the first time in almost a decade.  Granted it was mostly due to Adele's incredibly popular album...that still proves that the album as a musical format is still very viable.  And while all the news articles still like to pronounce the death of rock and how pop has taken over...there were still more rock albums in the Billboard 200 than any other genre.  This year, there were 47 rock albums on the list.  Second place went to country with 39 albums.  Pop comes up third with 35 albums.  (I still think Bruno Mars is really rock...but I put him in pop).  Hip-hop/rap is fourth with 26.  What's also interesting to note...rock music is comprised of a lot of different bands while the pop albums were all made by the same handful of artists (Bieber, Swift, Adele, Gaga, Kesha, Selena Gomez).  Good for those artists but you take them out of the equation...and pop doesn't have much going on.

Let's see what 2012 brings....

Here are the 11 most anticipate albums of summer 2012:

1.  Soundgarden - TBA (Sept)
2.  MGMT - MGMT (Sept.)
3.  Animal Collective - TBA (Sept)
4.  Grizzly Bear - TBA (August)
5.  Mumford and Sons - TBA (August)
6.  How To Destroy Angels - TBA (July)
7.  Sigur Ros - TBA (July)
8.  The Offspring - Apocalyptic Guides and Inferno Themes about Nothing (July)
9.  Public Enemy - Most of My Heros Don't Appear on Stamps/Evil Empire of Everything (August)
10.  Regina Spektor - What We Saw From the Cheap Seats (July)
11.  Skrillex - Voltage (July)

The 11 Best Songs of 2011

I usually don't like doing Top song lists of the year (ironic...huh?) but I wanted to give everyone a last chance to get your votes in for the top album of the year.

Just list your favorite albums of 2011 in the comment section below.  Monday is the final day to vote.

Here are the 11 Best Songs of 2011:

1.  Midnight City - M83 (Hurry Up We're Dreaming)
2.  Holocene - Bon Iver (Bon Iver)
3.  The Birds Part 1 - The Weeknd (Thursday)
4.  Shell Games - Bright Eyes (People's Key)
5.  Pumped Up Kicks - Foster The People (Torches)
6.  Under Cover of Darkness - The Strokes (Angles)
7.  First of the Year Equinox - Skrillex (also the best video)
8.  Get Away - Yuck (Yuck)
9.  Gold on the Ceiling - Black Keys (El Camino)
10.  No Church - Jay-Z & Kanye West (Watch the Throne)
11.  Hasa Diga Eebowaii  (The Book of Mormon)

Buy these songs and their albums now!

The 11 Best Songs By Skrillex

Back in the 90s...the last couple weeks before Christmas were always a mad dash to the CD shelves.  Bands would throw out "best of" collections...holiday collections...etc.  Now all that stuff comes out in November...sometimes you see Christmas stuff way back in October...right Zooey?  After Christmas, we'd be hit with a dry spell for a few weeks...but things have changed in the digital era.  An album being released is no longer an event unto itself...now the date of the release can sometimes be bigger news than the release.  Last year, multiple bands put out album on New Year's Eve (MIA, Klaxons, JJ, Gorillaz) because it made the release more interesting.  This year, the rumors of more midnight New Year's Eve releases are already buzzing. A couple of artists have jumped the gun.  Last week, The Weeknd dropped his 3rd free album of the year. (how can you not like a guy who gives away three albums a year?)  Also, out this week is dubstep's hottest commodity, Skrillex.  Is he getting too big too fast?  Probably.  Not sure I've ever seen this much hype over an artist who still has yet to release a full length album.

Here are the 11 Best Songs By Skrillex:

1. Kill Everybody  (Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites)
2. Weekends!!! (My Name Is Skrillex)
3. First of the Year Equinox (More Monsters and Sprites)
4. Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites (Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites)
5. Rock N Roll Will Take You To The Mountain (Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites)
6. With You, Friends (My Name Is Skrillex)  
7. My Name Is Skrillex (My Name Is Skrillex)
8. Scatta (Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites)
9. The Disco Rangers Bus (YouTube Exclusive)
10. Ruffneck Full Flex (More Monsters and Sprites)
11. DnB Ting (Single)

Buy Skrillex's new EP, Bangarang now!!

The 55 Best Albums of 2011 (45-55)

For the week I will count down my favorite albums of 2011.  Like a holiday advent calendar I will only give you a little taste of the good stuff one day at a time.  There's no denying that this year dubstep broke through to the mainstream like a ADD little boy hopped up on food coloring.  For those of us listening to Burial years ago, this was an overwhelming "duh" moment.  But for the rest of the world, it was like a 100-yard dash to the marketing finish line.  Within a matter of weeks of Skrillex's creative video (and it was a great video) every marketing campaign chucked their pop songs hoping they could be the first to latch onto this hip young trend.  There was a dubstep version of the White Stripes in the new Battleship trailer.  Verzion has a little kid tweaking out to dubstep on his cellphone with his grandma.  What's next?...will Tim Tebow pray to a dubstep beat?  I wouldn't doubt it.

Now...I WANT YOUR HELP.  Send me your lists of your favorite albums of 2011.  Top twenty.  I will compile all your votes into one master list.  So send it via email...or just post it in the comment box.  Will post on Dec. 31st the final result.

Here are the 44-55 Best Albums of 2011:

45.       Cage The Elephant - Thank You Happy Birthday

46.       R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now

47.       Shabazz Palaces - Black Up

48.       Skrillex - More Monsters and Sprites EP

49.       Stevie Nicks - In Your Dreams

50.       Drake - Take Care

51.       Duran Duran - All You Need Is Now

52.       David Lowery - The Palace Guards

53.       Rival Sons - Pressure & Time 

54.     Jane's Addiction - The Great Escape Artist (End To the Lies)

55.     Red Hot Chili Peppers - I'm With You

Buy these albums and more...now!!!  (all albums under $5 for a limited time)