Best Of 2010 32-31

32) Kanye West (feat Bon Iver & Gil Scot-Heron) - Lost In The World

Anyone who has spent any time with me in the past few months will have known that it was only a matter of time before Kanye West made an appearance in this list.  Since Kanye started releasing music via GOOD Fridays earlier in the year I have been utterly hooked by virtually everything he has released and have bored anyone who’ll listen with my opinions of just how absolutely magnificent some of these songs are.  I openly admit I was skeptical to say the least, when I heard that Kanye would be recruiting Justin Vernon of Bon Iver fame for a collaboration.  I was at a loss to comprehend how such a collaboration would even begin to sound.  However about a minute into my first spin of the track I knew that any fears I had were misplaced.  It was simply stunning. The track is built around a slightly eerie and heavily auto-tuned version of Bon Iver’s Woods.  However this is a far-cry from Bon Iver’s original.  Kanye has turned the track on it’s head, forging an absolute monster of a track from two styles of music that are about as different from each other as humanly possible.

I usually passionately hate the use of auto-tune, however on this occasion it really is a work of genius, helping transform Bon Iver’s haunting and fragile original vocal into something that you easily imagine slaying a dance floor.  This fusing of two very different musical styles is testament to just how talented Kanye West actually is.  The concept still sounds absurd but to have the open mindedness to even attempt this, never mind make it work so damn well, is just pretty incredible.  I could genuinely go on about this track for paragraphs and paragraphs but I will control myself, there is after all more Kanye to come.  Just a couple more things to comment on, the beat itself is very bassy and just a bit brilliant, Kanye’s verses are great, the chanting choir as bizarre as that sounds works incredibly well and the Gil Scot-Heron sample, well just like every other aspect of the tracks, is magnificent.

On the album version Gil Scot-Heron’s spoken word section is separated into another song, aptly titled Who Will Survive In America I however preferred the GOOD Friday version in which his monologue is integrated into the track.

31) Local Natives - Airplanes

While the pedantic among you may argue that this, strictly speaking was released last year, (Gorilla Manor, the album containing Airplanes was released in the UK last November) it was released in the US in February so technically speaking it was released in 2010.  Regardless of release date Airplanes itself is a beautiful little track, a tribute to  singer/keyboardist Kelcey Ayer’s grandfather.  He explains it’s about “longing to have met my grandfather, a great man and pilot, who died before I was born.” (AltSounds).  It is a genuinely moving and tender piece of work.  The vocal harmonies are absolutely gorgeous augmenting the sentimental lyrical theme of the track perfectly, the catchy guitar hooks and piano keys combined with layered percussion complete a fitting tribute.