Eurotrashtacular 2011

2011 wasn't the year that I learned how to ride BMX or do magic tricks so that I could become a millionaire by performing them at a boardwalk somewhere. It's not the year that I learned how to make souffles the way that Top Chefs do or the year that I became a Real Housewife. I didn't learn how to do a backflip off of a pier or buy a pet donkey. I didn't rename every color in a box of Crayolas or find a way to charm snakes (so that they'd trust me so that I could train them to bite my enemies).

In the scheme of things, 2011 wasn't a gamechanger for me. It just simply...was.

But 2011 was different in one way...

2011 was the year that I totally, completely 120 thousand percent fully discovered and fell in love with...

Eurotrash.

Excuse me, European pop music.

I know what you're thinking. But Julie, we know you love British music. You're still listening to All Saints ten years after they've stopped being relevant.

But it's gotten so much worse.

So without much more blathering on my end, I present to you, the most defining part of my 2011: Eurotrash. European pop music is so innovative and fresh that it's finally spreading across the pond and giving American pop music the kick in the ass it needed (Hallelujah! It put Britney's Femme Fatale album on a completely different level than Circus). PLUS...this was yet again the year that Adele kicked ass on the charts for one of the most amazing albums ever.

So...

This is my long awaited blog to you.

You're welcome.

Eurotrashtacular 2011

This compilation (click the title above -- it's a link to download the wholeeeee playlist) features just a few of the songs that I've had on constant rotation this past year. But get it now, because once the default number of days pass on MediaFire, it's gone. I'm too poor to pay for that stuff.

Start fine print:

Oh...and always, this is just a sampling. If you fall in love with it, you really should support the artist and buy their music.

End fine print.

Tracklist:

1. "Promise This" - Cheryl Cole

2. "All About Tonight" - Pixie Lott

3. "Yeah Yeah Yeah" - The Sounds

4. "Guns and Horses" - Ellie Goulding

5. "Set Fire to the Rain" (Skrillex Remix) - Adele

6. "Beat of My Drum" - Nicola Roberts

7. "3 Words" - Cheryl Cole feat. Will.i.am

8. "Shake It Out" - Florence and The Machine

9. "What Do You Take Me For?" - Pixie Lott feat. Pusha T

10. "This Love (Will Be Your Downfall)" - Ellie Goulding

11. "Hello" - Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette

12. "Come Get It Now" - Pixie Lott

13. "Like Smoke" - Amy Winehouse feat. Nas

14. "Radioactive" - Marina & The Diamonds

15. "Fight For This Love" - Cheryl Cole

16. "Promise This" (Cheryl Cole Cover performed on Live Lounge) - Adele

BONUS TRACKS:

(Meaning that they're not by European artists, but they feel so Eurotrashy they deserve a place on this playlist)

1. "In The Dark" - Dev

2. "Faster Kill Pussycat" - Paul Oakenfold feat. Brittany Murphy

3. "I Get Around" - Dragonette

4. "Love You Like a Love Song" - Selena Gomez & The Scene

Track Breakdown (By Artist):

The Artist: Adele

The Tracks: "Set Fire to the Rain (Skrillex Remix)" & "Promise This" (Cheryl Cole Cover)

The music charts this year BELONGED to Adele. The tracks that I've chosen here are kind of unconventional...but Mari got me hooked on the Skrillex remix...and Cheryl Cole is practically the British version of Britney Spears for me. So Adele covering her music is pure gold.

The Artist: Amy Winehouse

The Tracks: "Like Smoke"

2011 saw a lot of my favorite people dying...Ryan Dunn. Amy Winehouse. I know that people aren't immortal (especially if their past behavior or risky events leading up to their deaths puts their life as well as other in danger), but it still really surprised me. I mean...Amy Winehouse did horse tranquilizers. HORSE TRANQUILIZERS. And they didn't kill her then. I mean, how many people have two syringes of adrenaline shot into their heart and still manage to survive? Anyway...say what you will about her, but I still say her voice is unlike anyone else's in the best possible sense. "Like Smoke" is on her forthcoming album and all it manages to make me do is get really depressed over the fact that she's not around to create anymore incredible music.

The Artist: Cheryl Cole

The Tracks: "Promise This" & "3 Words" & "Fight For This Love"

Cheryl Cole became one of my absolute favorite people this year. I discovered Girls Aloud a few years back, but just stumbled across Cole's solo work this year...and couldn't stop listening. In the spring, it was announced that she'd cross the pond and become a judge on the US version of the X-Factor and I was so ecstatic...then just as quickly, Simon canned her...which is why I boycotted all things X-Factor this year (minus the awesome commercial Pepsi did for them where they revived Britney's Pepsi commercials...). Love her music, love her. The end.

Oh...one more thing: Cheryl Cole is the covergirl for this mix. In case any (none) of you were wondering...

The Artist: Dev

The Tracks: "In the Dark"

Honkus has been a fan of Dev for awhile...but it took me awhile to warm up following her contribution to Far East Movement's "Like a G6." Terrible songggggggg...and it's not even because of her. But...nonetheless, this song all but poked at me to download it...and it sooooo hasn't disappointed. Here's to hoping her latest album is just as awesome as this one song is.

The Artist: Dragonette

The Tracks: "I Get Around"

Yeah you do...

Um. Anyway. Infectious song, infectious chorus. Another great Dragonette song that feels less Eurotrashy but is still awesome: "Jesus Doesn't Love Me Anymore."

The Artist: Ellie Goulding

The Tracks: "Guns and Horses" & "This Love (Will Be Your Downfall)"

Her voice is just so...haunting. And I don't mean haunting as in American Horror story Rubberman/Walking Dead Zombie Biting Your Face Off. But it's not far off. I love it.

The Artist: Florence and The Machine

The Tracks: "Shake It Out"

Love love love this song.

The Artist: Marina & The Diamonds

The Tracks: "Radioactive"

As some of you know (Mari), I was obsessed not long ago with Marina's "Oh No!" This track is almost completely different, but still way Marina & The Diamonds worthy. It's a bit more mellow, but it's got one hell of a beat.

The Artist: Martin Solveig

The Tracks: "Hello"

This song has had radio play in the U.S. but I still love it anyway. Solveig also stole Dragonette away for another song called "Boys and Girls" which is worthy of looking up on YouTube. The video for it is fan-freaking-tastic.

The Artist: Nicola Roberts

The Tracks: "Beat Of My Drum"

Nicola, like Cheryl, is also a member of Girls Aloud. I read online before getting this album that it is "the best album of the year." I don't agree...but I do agree that this song is superrrrr infectious.

The Artist: Paul Oakenfold

The Tracks: "Faster Kill Pussycat" (featuring Brittany Murphy)

This song is a few years old, but it's still just as good as it ever was.

The Artist: Pixie Lott

The Tracks: "All About Tonight" & "Come Get It Now" & "What Do You Take Me For?"

Lott's "All About Tonight" is one of my favorite songs of the moment. Plus it helps that Selena Gomez is also a Eurotrash fiend and has Lott on her latest album.

The Artist: Selena Gomez & The Scene

The Tracks: "Love You Like a Love Song"

As stated above, Gomez seems to be in on the Eurotrash trend...which is why I think this song is pretty close to perfection.

The Artist: The Sounds

The Tracks: "Yeah Yeah Yeah"

Need you even ask why??

Love eCards

Wow...

I've really sucked at this blog thing lately...slowly starting to piece together the top 5's of 2011...let's hope I can at least do THAT this year.

Rest in Peace Ryan Dunn

I cannot even begin to tell you how shocked I am at Ryan Dunn's passing. It's weird that these guys from "Jackass" can do all kinds of haggard shit to themselves and in the end, it's something that you don't see coming that kills you.

Granted, no one knows for sure yet exactly what happened. If he was driving drunk, I can't condone that, but I can offer my support and sympathy to his loved ones.

Ryan, you were a one of a kind asshole...and you will be missed.

Electric Heartbeats

2011's music is already kicking 2010's ass hardcore badly. This March alone there are two new releases from my two main music loves: Britney Spears and The Sounds. Both are electro-trashy goodness and both keep me dancing no matter where I am.

Britney Spears

Femme Fatale

Britney said in a recent interview that "the bitch is back and better than ever." Truer words have never been spoken. Say what you will about how guarded she is, but all I see is a mom who wants to have a career and her kids...leave thegirl alone.

Especially when she's making music this fierce.

All I'm going to say is that I can't wait to see how she outdoes herself yet again live.

Love, love, love this album.

Best Tracks: For real...there's only one track on here that I skip...but if you're looking for the ones that get that five minute drive to and from work replay, look no further than "How I Roll" which is so un-Britney and is so why I love it so much, "Criminal" which with my true crime spree as of late is no surprise, "Gasoline" which is really very punny in the best possible way, "Trouble for Me" which is just too damn catchy and "Inside Out."

The Sounds

Better Off Dead

While I totally respect The Sounds for the direction that their last album took, it's not one that I put on and just want to dance, except, of course, for "Beat Box" and "Four Songs and a Fight."

But they, too, are back and better than ever.

With an edgier, darker sound, The Sounds are doing what they do best: Making you try to sit still in your seat. Because you can't. Really. It's quite impossible.

And really, Maja Ivarrson really can't do any wrong. Plus the keyboards on this album? Siiiccccckkkkkk.

Best Tracks: "It's So Easy" which is really just an extended intro to the disc but is catchy as all shit, "Dance with the Devil" because who wouldn't want to..."Better Off Dead" for it's epic build up, "Something to Die For" for it's awesome chorus, "Yeah Yeah Yeah" for nothing other than the line "You don't float like a butterfly or fight like Ali...Dress like Prince but to the lowest degree." "Wish You Were Here" deserves huge props because it's so subtle, but entirely perfect.

"The bitch is back...and better than ever."

Britney's been choosing her magazine interviews lately, to me, very smartly. Between "Out" and "V" she's gotten the chance to be more aware and more her. It's the most genuine she's felt in years...

Not to mention that the following paragraph from "Out" is so fabulous, that I had to post it here:

There are few things our culture has come to relish more than fattening up a pop star on a greasy diet of hype and frenzied devotion, only to then turn around and eat her alive an album or two later. It’s become a national pastime we practice in the less savory corners of the Internet or while unloading our Aquafresh and baked Cheetos onto the check-out line conveyor belt. Nobody knows this better than Britney Spears.

Ever since she snarled onto the scene in her Catholic school girl uniform in 1999, Spears has been the go-to girl whenever the world is looking for a punch line or a punching bag. At first it was "her music has no substance" or "she’s lip synching" and then there were the darker, more troubling episodes in her life to mine for material. But we have a confession to make: We love Britney.

We love her because she gives us the kind of pop music we demand for our workouts and woozy weekend nights, and because she has never tried to play the guitar or wandered off to make a country album. We love her because she’s a survivor, and for all of the shit that’s said about her, she still glides to the top of the charts whenever she releases an album. We love her because she has a "BS Alert" on her website to squash the almost daily rumors of new pregnancies, marriages, or demands to someday be cryogenically frozen. We love her because even the Super Bowl’s rabid, testosterone-drunk fans couldn’t keep her from being the top trending item on Twitter on the biggest sports Sunday of the year. We love her because she loves strawberry Frappuccinos and grits blanketed in Velveeta cheese. We love her because in 2010 she raked in more money than Lady Gaga even though her latest album, Circus, was already well over a year old. We love her because for all the pythons and pyrotechnics and red vinyl cat suits, she still feels like someone we could dish with about boys over a basket of bread sticks at the Olive Garden. We love her because she keeps us dancing, she keeps us guessing, and while the other famous former Mouseketeers have dried up, bombed out, or otherwise failed to keep our interest, Britney still has us coming back for more.

To quote the Queen herself,

"Pure. Satis. Faction."

The Bird. With Teeth.