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Our final Sampled & AMPED funk punk soul rock rundown for the 2021 calendar year goes through part 2 of our favorite funk & soul singles of the year in hour 1, then we have our AMPED annual rundown part 3 with critical darlings of note.
"The Drop with Danno" on GFN 광주영어방송 98.7FM in Gwangju & 93.7FM in Yeosu, Korea. An eclectic radio curation of all things musical spanning the spectrum every week. Broadcasting 8-10pm KST nightly.
Dec 23, 2021
The Drop with Danno
Shaka Loves You – Get Down
Curtis Harding – Can’t Hide It
Neal Francis – BNYLV
Holy Hive – Story of My Life
Laura Rain & The Caesars – Rise Again
The Rugged Nuggets – The Wait Is Over
Arjuna Oakes & Serebii – First Nights
Hojean – Over 85 (Live Version)
VC Pines – Be Honest
Alanna Royale – Fall In Love Again
Michael Kiwanuka – Beautiful Life (edit)
Kendra Morris – Catch The Sun
I.
It is 20 hours past midnight on a downright dour cold one here in Gwangju, and we are getting down to it as the year closes, with this evening starting the countdown as December 23, 2021. This is Danno as always as ever from studio 2 GFN HQ located in downtown Gwangju, how do you do? Since it’s Thursday, that means that our Sampled funk & soul soiree is all lined up & ready to go, and tonight brings part 2 of our favorite funk & soul singles of the year, with great tunes lined up from Curtis Harding, Michael Kiwanuka, Neal Francis, and a variety of other heroes. And it must be noted once again that none of these tunes appear on our favorite albums of the year, which we’ll go over next Monday & Tuesday after Christmas, and this is by no means comprehensive as far as the soul stuff we loved goes for 2021. Dan Lloyd is back for the final time this calendar year, and our AMPED rock feature goes into part 3 of our rock guru’s year-ending series, with tonight being a bit of an analysis of the critical favorites and surprises that are on a lot of lists here as 2021 closes. So, lots of exciting things to cover tonight, and we’ll start with a pair of funky favorites tonight from Shaka Loves You, then go into a little something from Curtis Harding’s latest LP to shake it up. THIS is The Drop.
Shaka Loves You – Get Down
Curtis Harding – Can’t Hide It
III & IV AMPED
Wolf Alice – Smile
Every Time I Die – AWOL
Dry Cleaning – Unsmart Lady
Halsey – You Asked For This
Willow – Gaslight
Squid – G.S.K
Iron Maiden – Days of Future Past
Foo Fighters – Holding Poison
Lucy Dacus – VBS
Spiritbox – Secret Garden
Low – Days Like These
Wolf Alice – Smile
Blue Weekend was #3 on the NME list (Sam Fender a deserved #1).
“‘Blue Weekend’, the long-awaited follow-up to Wolf Alice’s 2017 album ‘Visions Of A Life’, was something of a roller coaster. Across 40 minutes, it encapsulated all the drama you could fit into two days, from fallouts with friends (‘The Beach’) and flirtations with strangers (‘Delicious Things’), to getting messy in the kitchen at a house party (‘Play The Greatest Hits’) and crying over your ex in the bathtub (‘No Hard Feelings’). Through it all, the band sounded bolder than ever, taking their widescreen sound to dizzying new heights and raising the bar for their peers yet again.”
Every Time I Die – AWOL
Radical was Kerrang magazine’s number one album of 2021.
“: in a year of music as thrilling, creative, broad and articulate as this, how have a band two decades and nine albums in topped things, with a record that still finds them cutting a little deeper and pushing a little harder than previously? We don't know. It's a riddle without an answer. But they have. And they're still doing the best version of themselves. “
Dry Cleaning – Unsmart Lady
Debut album New Long Leg made a huge number of top 10 lists, including Pitchforks (#10)
“This album is not the type to be nominated for a Grammy, but it really ought to get Emmys for writing and acting. The lyrics infest your brain with quotables that reverberate for days, but more than the words it’s Florence Shaw’s intonation that’s so funny and so heartbreaking: the grudging cadences, the way she can inject an unreadable alloy of earnestness and irony into an inanity like “I can rebuild.” The self-portrait painted here is of a burned-out shell drifting numbly through a life that senselessly accumulates irritations, humiliations, discomforts, chores, and interpersonal skirmishes, offset by the tiny comforts of Twix bars and artisanal treats. There’s a personal dimension to the inner emptiness (a sapping break-up), but because New Long Leg’s release coincided with the depressive pall that swept over the world thanks to lockdown, Shaw’s interiority synced up perfectly with exterior conditions. It’s no coincidence that the most exciting rock record in years is about the inability to feel excitement. Within Shaw is a voice of a generation distilling how it feels to be alive right now: “Do everything and feel nothing.” “
Halsey – You Asked For This
Likewise, the Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross-produced If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power made a number of critics lists. From Billboard (#7)
“If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, Halsey’s masterful pivot to a darker alt-rock focus, can partially be credited to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the Nine Inch Nails veterans who produced the project and helped locate its industrial center. Yet few pop artists in recent memory have been able to shapeshift with Halsey’s dexterity, and they spend the album hopscotching across jittery electronica (“Girl is a Gun”), brash pop-punk (“Honey”), grooving R&B (“Lilith”) and lullaby balladry (“Darling”), all while reflecting on the challenges and revelations of her recent journey as a new mother. While Halsey found the perfect support system to bring If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power to life, the songs shine because of the complex, daring — and, yes, powerful — artist at their center.”
Willow – Gaslight
Although not in any top 10’s, I saw Willow Smith’s album Lately I Feel Everything on a number of year-end lists. It’s not my cup of tea, and I don’t think Willow’s voice is quite suited to this style of rock music, but it was a bold record and certainly the best thing Travis Barker has been involved with in years.
“Drawing from WILLOW’s adoration for icons of the early 00s including Paramore, My Chemical Romance, and Avril Lavigne, the latter of whom features on the album, the touchpoints are incredibly familiar. Additional collaborations come from of the moment stars Travis Barker and Tierra Whack, while singer-songwriter Ayla Tesler-Made breaks up the hard-hitting mashups on “Come Home”. Yes, lately i feel EVERYTHING is a departure, but in hindsight, it’s not a surprising one.” – the line of best fit
Squid – G.S.K
Debut album Bright Green Field came close to making my personal list, but I’m happy to include it on this week’s show.
“Recordings of ringing church bells, tooting bees, microphones swinging from the ceiling orbiting a room of guitar amps, a distorted choir of 30 voices as well as a horn and string ensemble featuring the likes of, Emma-Jean Thackray and Lewis Evans from Black Country, New Road. Squid’s music, agitated and discordant or groove-locked and flowing is a reflection of the tumultuous world we live in today.” Rough Trade (#6 on their list)
Iron Maiden – Days of Future Past
Senjutsu is definitely the best Maiden record in years, but for me it still pales in comparison to the band’s 1980s heyday. Nevertheless, it impressed a number of (mostly rock-only) critics enough to include it in their lists, including Classic Rock, who put it top of their list.
“Iron Maiden kept Senjutsu under wraps for two years, luring fans in with a cryptic teaser campaign that set the internet ablaze. Three months later, the successor to The Book of Souls and first new Maiden record in seven years had arrived. It’s immediately more challenging than some of their more “recent” albums as Steve Harris, who shouldered the bulk of the songwriting (over half the 82 minute runtime was authored by him and him alone) sticks to his sincerely unique, epic writing style where each track plays out like a short film of sorts. There’s still a wealth of change of pace material on Senjutsu and Maiden’s adventurous spirit remains overwhelmingly palpable as listeners are whisked away and placed in the center of epic scenes, both fictitious and historic. And Bruce Dickinson sounds like he has another 40 years left in those lungs.” – Loudwire (#5 on best rock and metal albums list)
Foo Fighters – Holding Poison
I don’t think Medicine at Midnight warrants a place on any best of list, except maybe scraping in the back end of a top 10 Foo Fighters albums list. Only because there are only 10 Foo Fighters albums. That’s the joke. Saying that, some people disagree, including Kerrang, Rolling Stone and Vulture, who managed to find a place for this monument to mediocrity (better album title right there).
Lucy Dacus – VBS
The excellent Home Video made a number of top 10 lists, including consequence (#6)
“Some say God is in the details, others the Devil, but the correct answer is clearly Lucy Dacus. Time and again on Home Video, she chooses small gestures that manage to convey some of the biggest emotions known to humankind.
Entire John Hughes movies have been devoted to the rawness and humor of teen rebellion, but what’s the point when Dacus can casually toss out an anecdote about “snorting nutmeg in your bunk bed” at vacation Bible school (“VBS”)? Nobody’s better at sketching a whole relationship in a line, whether it’s a distant father saying, “‘Honey, you sure look great/ Do you get the checks I send on your birthday?'” on “Thumbs,” or a woman committed to a loser on “Christine,” as Dacus observes, “I see you look at him and wonder if he’ll make you a mother.”
The album is called Home Video, the better to direct our attention to the gauzy nostalgia of the early 2000s milieu. But while the collection is pleasant, it is hardly gentle; Dacus is hiding razorblades in the space between the words. “
Spiritbox – Secret Garden
#1 on the Loudwire list and #2 on the Kerrang list is the impressive debut from Canadian metallers Spiritbox, Eternal Blue. Again, not my cup of tea, but the technicality of the performances and the fantastic production really make this record stand out among its peers. I can definitely appreciate why it’s been so highly revered by metal critics.
“The amount of hype behind Spiritbox leading up to their debut album made it feel like there was no possible way they could live up to it. And yet, here we are celebrating a Herculean effort from a new band in a year where it’s impossible to even say what “normal” is anymore.
Both vocals and instrumentals shapeshift from ethereally beautiful to brutally heavy in a way that can be appreciated by both seasoned metalheads and those new to heavy music. The amount of growth and range Spiritbox have shown since their breakthrough with the heavy “Holy Roller '' is not to be underestimated. From making metalheads blubber with the emotional “Constance” to the commercial potential of infectiously catchy album deepcut “Yellowjacket (feat. Sam Carter),” this band has a lot to offer. A rock band’s debut album debuting in the Top 15 of the Billboard 200 is pretty much unheard of in modern times. On top of that, Eternal Blue received plenty of acclaim from critics worldwide.
The reality, though, is that none of that would matter if fans didn’t connect with the music. And because of that connection, Spiritbox have the potential to bring metal to spaces it hasn’t been for quite awhile. That’s something we should all be excited about, and that’s why Eternal Blue is our album of the year.” – Loudwire (who, incidentally, also have Limp Bizkit in their top 5 albums, so…. yeah)
Low – Days Like These
13th album Hey What is one of the most celebrated records of 2021, and one that you’ll see time and again when browsing best of lists.
“Low is a grand experiment in minimalism, in letting go of everything that is inessential in life. Their early works reduced indie rock to its requisite elements, slowing the sound to a crawl and eschewing showy production flourishes. More recently, Low’s core — singer-¬guitarist Alan Sparhawk and singer-drummer Mimi Parker, one of indie’s finest husband-and-wife duos — has taken a hatchet to its own methodology. Beginning with 2018’s Double Negative and continuing with this year’s exquisite HEY WHAT, the band broke ties with the more practical guitar-bass-drums construction of past works, leaning instead on the sound of Sparhawk and Parker singing together, beset by a veritable toy chest of jarring guitar effects. On the unbeatable opener, “White Horses,” the couple sing together as a swell of noise washes over them. “Hey” is a dirge made of shimmering waves of sound. “Days Like These” piles distortion onto the voices until you can no longer make out words. The sound is stark. The subject matter is dire. But on HEY WHAT, it sounds like this band has never had more fun in its nearly 30-year run.” – Vulture (#2)