The One Song, 2011: The Industry

Dom Alessio (Host, triple j’s ‘Home And Hosed‘)
M83 – Midnight City

Well it has to be ‘Midnight City’. It’s such a superbly layered song, like an aural rainbow bursting out of the speakers.

Bridie Connellan (Creative Director, Fuse & Editor, Strangelove Magazine)
M83 – ‘Reunion’

While most cats will have ‘Midnight City’ from the same artist spinning atop their lists of 2011, ‘Reunion’ is a darling fluff of an underdog track; sprightly, yappy, uplifting but quite happy to nestle snuggly in its kennel by the morning. For this Kenny G hater, m83 has single-handedly reintroduced the concept of actually enjoying saxophone this year, and has also proved once again that the French know what’s boss before boss know’s what’s boss. M83, you came out of nowhere, stealing my heart and brain, flaming my every cell. Blast it while you’re running drunkenly towards 2012, and hurry up! We’re dreaming.

Bianca O’Neill (Digital Promotions & Publicity Manager, EMI)
Beyoncé – ‘Love On Top’

Too hard! But let’s just say ‘Love On Top’ because it takes really some balls to release an ’80s pop song with 4 key changes in 2011.

Adrian Gidaro (Accounts at The Harbour Agency, One A Day Party DJ-In-Residence)
Papa Vs Pretty – ‘Bitter Pill’

This is one of the harder musical decisions I’ve had to make. 2011 was a great year for music. Rebecca Black released “Friday”. That was a game changer. But Papa Vs Pretty speaks to me on a different level, and not because of the voices inside my head. I’m a big fan of the work of the album’s producer, Paul McKercher (Josh Pyke, Bertie Blackman, Sarah Blasko, You Am I, Eskimo Joe…) and mix engineer Scott Horscroft (Birds Of Tokyo, Little Red, The Presets, Silverchair…). I’ve loved past albums they’ve worked on individually, but bringing them together on one project results in a epic music nerd orgasm explosion. On a side note, the album is amazing, too.

Billy Russell (Host, Channel [V])
Royal Headache – ‘Down The Lane’

I had a pretty shitty July. I got evicted, all my best mates moved overseas, and in my own personal Britney moment, I went a bit cuckoo and shaved myself bald with a beard trimmer. But ‘Down the Lane’ – on repeat and volume at dangerous levels – kept me smiling. Is “I would take you home but my bedroom smells like cum?” the best lyric of the year? Probably not, but it was still fun to sing.

Mark Di Stefano (Newsreader, triple j)
Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris – ‘We Found Love‘

If there was any doubt before 2011 that Rihanna is the most consistent hit maker of the last 10 years, then it’s put to rest. She’s can’t dance like Beyonce, or write songs like Gaga or have beautiful tits like Katy Perry, but with her producers at Jay Z’s Def Jam, Rihanna has defined a moment in music.

On this song she takes the best of Calvin Harris (clever build-ups, breakdowns and scream-out-loud lyrics) and adds all her sex intangibles. It’s better than Kelis’ ‘Bounce’ [by the same producer] because of her presence.

And that video clip. If there was ever an advertisement to find a girlfriend, get fucked up and descend into some Ledger/Candy fantasy, then this is it. The video decided what 2011 looks like and makes us all dream of destructive relationships, dancing in mud and getting butt tattoos.

Yeah this is my favourite song of 2011! Did I break up with my destructive girlfriend this year in a messy way? Sure. But it’s a fucking tune.

Kirsty Brown (Executive Officer, MusicNSW)
Total Control – ‘Carpet Rash’

A 7 minute jam about cold, tedious sex that caught my attention for it’s unsettling groove and aloof, disconnected lyrics, delivered with just the right amount of feeling/longing to prevent it from straying into Dear Diary territory. Lead singer Daniel Stewart is from the excellent UV Race and his monotone vocals are suprisingly full of pathos, making lyrics like “it all smells and tastes just like it should” kind of heartbreaking.

It is also the companion to my other fav song of the year by SBTRKT, ‘Trials of the Past’ which explores similar lyrical territory through different technique – shiny and full of effects and tricks, as opposed to Total Control’s new wave dirge. But both tracks manage to be earworms that never leave you fully sated, reinforcing that there is no better music than pop with a bit of soul.

Lucy Carter (Director, triple j News)
M83 – Midnight City

Picking my song of the year is never easy. It’s like picking a favourite child, pet or jelly bean flavour. For quite a while there I was leaning towards ‘Shake It Out’ by Florence and the Machine. In a year so dominated by the ladies it was the track that had me screaming the chorus like a banshee whenever it played..

But Midnight City? It’s pretty much close to perfection. The first time I heard it, it was late at night and I was on the L-Train heading from Manhattan to Brooklyn (I know right?) There was a dude at the other end of the otherwise empty carriage giving me the serious creeps, so I did what most Gen-Y’s do to prevent attack: put my earphones in, lowered my eyes and fiddled with my iPhone. As it happened the ‘fiddling’ resulted in me hitting shuffle and popping on ‘Midnight City’ from the (fucking amazing) double album I’d downloaded that morning.

That sound. Those samples. As much as anything I immediately FELT bad-ass…I stopped caring about creepo at the other end of the train carriage and just let myself get lost in the wall of music. I may have air-drummed at one point and creeped HIM out. The thing about that album, and that track is that every piece of it feels instantly familiar. It’s half John-Hughes movie soundtrack, half memory you can’t quite place. ‘Midnight City’ builds to a point where you feel like it’s going to explode, but instead it melts into a saxophone solo that even Kenny G would consider too cheesy. And yet… it just works.

So come Laneway festival 2012 I will be up the front at M83, losing my mind to this track and quite probably creeping a good few of you out. Happy New Year all.

Andrew Boon (Digital & Touring Manager, Central Station Records, FBi Sunsets Presenter, Producer & DJ)
SBTRKT – Never Never

Future facing R&B that oozes both soul and class.

Holly Friedlander Liddicoat (Editor, East To West)
The Field – ‘Then, It’s White’

Delicately interwoven, a subtlety in depth, and soft, almost helpless gasps, which delve right down into your inner core and pull at your many internal stomach bits. Swedish minimal tech god, The Field, brings to light the true meaning of organic sounds in inorganic sounds in Then It’s White. A gem from this year’s Looping State of Mind LP, let this track haunt you with all it’s heavenly ways.

Tim Byron (Founder Of ‘Number Ones’, The Vine, One A Day Senior Contributor)
Mike Viola – Soundtrack To My Summer

I can’t pick a song of the year. But I can pick a song that’s seemed like the soundtrack of my summer so far. Which, quite conveniently, is called ‘Soundtrack Of My Summer’. As you probably guessed from the title, it’s a summery kind of pop song, the kind of thing that wouldn’t sound amiss in the background of a good natured comedy movie. But it’s not about having a glorious summer, exactly; it’s more about hoping for one – the song is about how listening to music can get you through tough times. And listening to this song has kept my girlfriend going through some tough times; the reason ‘Soundtrack Of My Summer’ has been the soundtrack of my summer because I’ve heard this song *a lot* in the last month, not always voluntarily. And yet I haven’t got tired of it.