MARCUS DOWLING’S YEAR END AWARDS – ARTIST OF THE YEAR

2009 ARTIST OF THE YEAR: MICHAEL JACKSON

Other Nominees: Lady Gaga, Drake, David Guetta

When you really sit down and think about it, anyone who records music after Michael Jackson died is going to encounter having to be a cheap facsimile of the King of Pop. In dying, Michael Jackson gave music so much life. By opening eyes again to the wonder of his creative and performing genius, I tend to believe the whole world improved. The sad fact of 2009 is that it was the saddest year in the history of music. It wasn’t all about the day the music died, it was about the days that music KEPT dying. Whether it be DJ AM, Mr. Magic, the Death Set’s Beau Velasco, Les Paul, DJ Roc Raida, and so, so, so, so, so many more, these have been trying times. However, when Michael Jackson passed on June 25th, it was easily one of the darkest moments in the history of the universe.

It was a big year for a lot of people. Lady Gaga has captured the universe’s imagination in a manner not seen since Madonna, as her obtuse fashion sense, lurid public displays and home run hitter of a debut album have turned the world on its ear. Canadian Drake went from being a popular supporting actor on “Degrassi High,” to being the lead act as a lovestruck, passionate rhyming lothario whose “Best I Ever Had” may have been the best we heard all year. David Guetta? Well, he provided a great synthesis of popular dance music as the soundtrack of 2009, be it the Black Eyed Peas coronation as middle America’s favorite faux hipsters “I Gotta Feeling,” or pretty much anything from his One Love mainstream electro masterpiece.

But let’s be honest. In the week after Michael Jackson died, his entire musical catalog occupied the top list of iTunes top downloads. His albums sales spiked in a generation where people are more concerned with buying produce than recorded productions on CD. His music videos played on MTV for an entire week, in a time where MTV eschews any knowledge of the “music television” moniker, and instead is a slickly produced lifestyle brand. Most recently, his “This is It” concert biopic has become easily what will be the top grossing film of the decade, even in an economic recession.

Michael Jackson was the soundtrack of a universe for literally seven days. And nobody bitched, moaned, whined or caterwauled. We stopped, dutifully noted the genius of a man, and genuflected. In a time where the universe happens in nanoseconds, everyone slowed down and paid respect or hours and days, feeling no issue with remaining unmoved. Michael Jackson literally stopped the world. When BILLIONS of people all attest to not just being your fan, but regarding what you did through your artistry making you a familiar and beloved voice, a friend, even, you’re the best to ever do it.

“They Don’t Really Care About Us” has the hottest drums I’ve heard anywhere all year. “Butterflies” is the best ballad I heard in this calendar year. “Beat It” is the best rock song. “Dancing Machine” is still one of the hottest breaks ever, and I want to meet someone that can doubt the hip hop authenticity of MJ doing the robot. Michael Jackson singing “Ben,” “Got to Be There,” “Rockin’ Robin,” or any Jackson 5 number makes him the most irrepressible teen pop icon of all time, as I don’t care how hard Miley Cyrus “Parties in the USA,” she’s still a pubescent hot mess when compared to the king.

Michael Jackson is 2009’s Artist of the Year. In all reality, that’s a slap in the face to the man, and he’s the greatest to ever record music. In final, something to ponder. Kanye West, in the face of mounting public questioning and angst over his behavior, has completely imploded. At every turn, Michael Jackson, when faced with increased public scrutiny and ire, succeeded, and succeeded mightily. It’s a nod to the talent, strength, dignity and unerring vision of a better universe through music that Michael Jackson adhered, that makes him truly THE. BEST. EVER.

We will always miss you.

http://www.youtube.com/v/lD2OsUcgb00&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

MARCUS DOWLING’S YEAR END AWARDS – DMV SONG OF THE YEAR

DMV Song of the Year: La Roux – Bulletproof (Nacey Remix) f/ Matt Hemerlein

Nominees: Wale “Chillin;” Don Juan “Lookie Looky;” DJ Class “I’m the Shit;” Mullyman “Bmore Go Harder;” Tabi Bonney “Jet Setter;” Diamond District “Streets Won’t Let Me Chill;” Party Bros “Ooh Bay Bay”

It was a superlative year for the Capital City and it’s northern and southern neighbors. Between Wale opening up doors to exposure for DC not seen since the days of Chuck Brown’s “Bustin Loose” or the Blackbyrds’ “Rock Creek Park,” or the Diamond District album opening the eyes of the underground, or even Don Juan getting signed to Jive on the strength of his single “Lookie Looky,” it was a banner year for DC. Look north, and in Baltimore, DJ Class’ “I’m the Shit” was the nation’s party anthem for the first half of the year, and Mullyman went “harder than Baltimore” thanks to a Jay-Z sample in “Bmore Go Harder” to a modicum of mainstream success.

But to find the real gem of creativity from the DMV this year, you have to look out of the realm of hip hop, and into the club, and maybe even overseas to England, and the voice of British electro pop band La Roux’s Eleanor Jackson. La Roux’s eponymous debut album is the odd musical case of 2009. Number one across the board overseas, but addled with substandard production that really doesn’t play to Jackson’s plaintive, wondrous wail, the true strength of the group. English dubstep maestros Skream and Foamo created remixes for La Roux tracks that actually heightened their race to the top of the international charts, but, the standalone remix of any La Roux track that is best, and ultimately one of the best remixes of anything heard anywhere all year, goes to the Nouveau Riche crew’s rising production mind Nacey, and his turn of “Bulletproof” from a midtempo dance pop ode to strength in the face of being unlucky in love to a trance like string ballad that evokes only the most powerful of emotions from the listener.

Nacey’s “Bulletproof” remix should be on re-releases of the La Roux album. It’s that strong. It’s a production that if you hear it at the right time at the right place, evokes strong recollections for any man or woman of being in that exact moment, that exact place, that exact frame of mind. Matt Hemerlein’s violin and Nacey’s own piano playing takes “Bulletproof” from just being an exemplary piece of songwriting to being the precise capture of an essence, mood and moment on a track. Lyrics like “I won’t let you turn around/and tell me now I’m much too proud/to walk away from something when it’s dead,” when accompanied by Nacey’s production work emanate from the speaker to reside in your heart, and immediately set forth to loosening heart strings.

In 2009, the DMV was all about producing work to meet expected norms of the industry. We’re attempting as an area to de-localize ourselves and aim toward something easily understood and appreciated by national and international ears. Wale’s “Chillin'” turns down the go go and features Lady Gaga on the hook. Don Juan’s “Lookie Looky” is a typical Southern banger with an intensely catchy chorus. DJ Class made Baltimore club pop accessible. But Nacey’s “Bulletproof?” Completely unexpected. Warm, frightening, heartwrenching and tear-jerking in the same track. Eleanor Jackson has never been presented better on a record. Her tears over lost love do not go to waste here. Sometimes, in a bed of roses, you have to reward the lone four leaf clover for being unique, beautiful and ultimately worthwhile.

http://www.youtube.com/v/ZmcS7FO0Guw&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01

MARCUS DOWLING’S YEAR END AWARDS – 2009 RAPPER OF THE YEAR

RAPPER OF THE YEAR: Gucci Mane

Other Nominees: Drake, Raekwon, Slaughterhouse, Jay-Z

For those of us in an around the music industry that believe that the fix is in for Drake to be the next giant crossover superstar, you really aren’t paying much attention. By the end of 2009, Radric “Gucci Mane” Davis is going to be destroying the industry and selling records in such a way that “real hip hop” heads need to run and duck for cover. Thus and so are the genesis of his case for being 2009’s Rapper of the Year.

Gucci may be the first man in history to go to prison with mainstream radio’s hottest song at that moment (his collaboration w/ OJ da Juiceman on “Make the Trap Say Aye”) and emerge from an amended prison sentence for parole violation on a weapons possession charge six months later with a deal with Warner Bros. Records. Crazy, but if you’re a record executive, numbers and buzz (both positive and negative) don’t lie. As well, Gucci Mane may be the most prolific mixtape artist in the game since Lil Wayne, as Gucci’s laconic flow was the mixtape winner of the year on a national level, with the anticipated October 17th “Cold War” triple mixtape drop “Brrrussia,” “Great Brrritain” and “Guccimerica,” a highlight as the man seemingly has no lyrical end in sight. As well, his Murder Was the Case album, his final release on Big Cat Records, with little to no advertisement of release, with a top 25 Billboard Top 200 Album within the first week of sales.

Gucci Mane may be the best party emcee we’ve had in ages. One can release so many mixtapes and have such a deep discography when the lyrical content isn’t, well, discussing health care, economic stimulus packages, or gas prices being out of control. He raps about sex. He raps about partying. He raps about wearing iced out chains. He raps about smoking marijuana. And sometimes, when you’re lucky, he creates his best work to date, “Wasted,” a mixtape instant classic now the lead single from December’s The State v. Radric Davis when he raps about having sex while at a party while wearing an iced out chain and smoking marijuana.

The ultimate key to Gucci’s mainstream success lies somewhere between undeniably great production and a roster of cameo guests that is a Murderer’s Row of the history of hip hop and R & B. From Outkast’s Big Boi on Big Boi’s “Shine Blockas,” to work with Drake, Mariah Carey, Usher, Snoop Dogg, Plies, Trey Songz Lil Wayne and a plethora of others, Gucci’s party time take on hip hop seems to have him at the front of the national Rolodex. Furthermore, every Gucci track seems to be a winning production. From ATL new jacks like Fatboi (“Wasted’s” producer) and Zaytoven, to pretty much any top producer in the game on duets with other artists, Gucci Mane is never presented in a light wherein his less than stellar lyrical acumen is fully displayed. When a Gucci track is playing, you’re bobbing, you’re bouncing, you’re partying, let’s face it, he was having the best time of your life this year, pretty much anywhere you were, or wanted to be.

Gucci Mane is MTV’s #6 hottest MC in the game for 2009 not because he works harder at his craft than everyone. Neither is he #6 because his adlibs and hooks are hotter than everyone else’s. He’s also not #6 because of his ability to drop 64 bars over DJ Drama’s “CANNON” in a freestyle battle. He’s the one man balance for the game. Not everything has to be topical, neither does everything needs to be so serious. In Gucci’s infinite “ignorance,” he, like Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em absolutely puts the smiling happy face on a game, and sadly, a life and universe that needs one. No, Gucci’s #6, and now #1 for me, because, well, in 2009, he was the Mastercard of rap music. Everywhere you wanted to be. If the man gets arrested again tomorrow like Lil Wayne and faces an eight month bid, or is exposed in some Internet expose for owning counterfeit or leased iced out chains, well, we at least had 2009 where he was consistently, good, bad or indifferent, hip hop’s most consistently noteworthyand buzzed about artist.

If you wanted to look at this from a standpoint of legends doing exactly what they should be doing, Raekwon is the winner. If you want to look at this as being coronated as the first hall of famer of the era of hip hop’s extreme monetization, Jay-Z’s your guy. If you wanted to look at someone who is well on their way to being a bankable hip hop name, there’s Drake. But those are more plaudits of a career than remembrances of 2009. And 2009? Well that was the year that Gucci Mane, by being the most prolific and entertaining of them all, became a superstar. 2009 was his year.

MARCUS DOWLING’S YEAR END AWARDS – 2009 SONG OF THE YEAR

SONG OF THE YEAR: Drake f/Trey Songz “Successful”

http://www.youtube.com/v/j5DySYu5Bfw&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Other Nominees: Duck Sauce, “aNYway,” Major Lazer “Pon de Floor,” David Guetta f/Kelly Rowland “When Love Takes Over,” Nadastrom “Pussy,” Matt and Kim “Daylight,” Beyonce “Single Ladies,” Lady Gaga “Pokerface,”

“I want the money/money and the cars/cars and the clothes/the hoes/I suppose/I just wanna be/I just wanna be successful.” And in one refrain, Trey Songz summed up an entire generation. It’s a fair assumption to make that the “me” generation is back in full force. However, as with most things in our day and age, the assumption of a perfect synthesis of this is faulty at best. Yes, we’re back to a “me” generation, but unlike the 80’s wherein we were hoodwinked as an entire nation into believing that the goals of money, cars, clothes and hoes were all well within reason, we’re something entirely different. We’re a culture of the dual forces of cynicism and irony, one that makes us all believe we deserve material gain, but definitely unsure if the path to acquisition will be swift, difficult, or for many, even possible at all. Somewhere in Songz’s elegant yearning and Drake’s insistent pleading, you hope beyond hope, as you hope for yourself, that they’ll be “Successful,” and the universe will ultimately be okay.

The exact moment where this song became “Song of the Year” was a most curious one indeed. DC DJ Will Eastman’s Blisspop Summer Extravaganza at the 9:30 Club was well beyond anyone’s definition of an epic event. Dave Nada’s birthday? Let’s hang a pinata in a corner and have Dave, during his Nadastrom set with Matt Nordstrom stalk and mangle it. But headliner Tittsworth? After a face melting 45 minutes of the hardest club and dubstep anyone had heard anywhere in the city all year, before it was released as a single, that familiar angelic chorus rained upon the revelers in a moment that was true dance religion, as the entire room swayed to the track like a body starved posse of Night of the Living Dead zombies. I mean, nary a soul in that room knew that song as a hit, and Tittsworth dropped it, and everyone immediately fell in its trance.

Whereas Drake’s “Best I Ever Had” is a chorus and track driven winner whose lightweight, female panty centric goodness was lost on every hardcore hip hop fan in the nation, “Wheelchair Jimmy” brings the goods here. On a lyrical and storytelling standpoint, whether talking about the neverending push for glory and fame, or even the story of his mother attempting to run in the face of the heartbreak of not being successful, he steps up to the plate and delivers a winner on the level of Raekwon, Jay Z, any of the members of the Slaughterhouse, or anyone who delivered an expected lyrical assassination in 2009.

Trey Songz on the chorus is magnificent, as R. Kelly’s heir apparent creates something so beautiful in this song that takes it from the level of the accessible to the ethereal, from just another song to song of the year. There’s something in the weariness of this man and his ascension to superstardom that’s right there in the lines he’s singing with his frank and honest delivery making it great.

In a year of a number of noteworthy and anthemic productions, it’s in the honesty and reality of the human condition, and the unabashed desire to confront it head on that makes this a champion.

MARCUS DOWLING’S YEAR END AWARDS – 2009 ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Without warning, it’s nearly November, and thus and so, it’s time for everyone’s “Best Of” lists. I normally eschew such things, but, I’ve been getting a lot of questions, so, in the weeks preceding November 1st, I plan to generally beat everyone to the punch, and start thought and discussion as to what has been the best of easily one of the most creatively provocative years in music in quite some time, 2009.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR: MAJOR LAZER – Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do

Other Nominees: Trey Songz, Ready; Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz; Pitbull, Rebelution; Raekwon, Only Built For Cuban Linx 2; Amanda Blank, I Love You; David Guetta, One Love; Calvin Harris, Ready for the Weekend;
Matt and Kim, Grand

There’s nothing incredible about what the Mad Decent label does. What is incredible is the response people have to how Diplo, Switch, Sega, Blaqstarr, or anyone presently or formerly down with the label synthesize a sound and make it palatable for the mainstream underground. Most anyone that heard M.I.A.’s Kala would be hard pressed to think of putting those sounds together in that manner to create that record. It’s a multicultural mismatch that makes sense because of the creative vision of the producer and the talent of the artist. Where Kala succeeds is where Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do blows it off the map.

The militaristic dancehall concept album succeeds because in many ways, it’s perfect. It breaks rules, it sets standards, it opens ears. It has the boundless imagination to think of a world wherein humans and zombies coexist in a warrior state governed by the laws of the dance. In successfully doing this, it encapsulates the genesis of a new direction in thought, a stylistic resurrection that further cross pollinates musical diasporas.

In back to back singles, the album left the dance music community running for cover. “Hold the Line’s” opening surf guitars serve to put the listener on notice, as the have in spaghetti westerns or any other multimedia, that something epic is forthcoming. And it did. Santigold’s verses. Amazing, and expected to be so. Diplo’s production, on point, creating a sound so threateningly unusual that it caused listeners worldwide to break out in spastic rhythms. The followup “Pon De Floor?” Massive. A dancehall sonic acid test, with marching band drums, it takes popular underground dancehall rhythms and spaced out noise, and somewhere between the two with the help of veteran Vybz Kartel, Diplo and Switch create a track so delirious that it inspired wild dancing not just in the controversial video clip, but in literally every dance club, large to small, worldwide. Just in two tracks alone, the gauntlet had been thrown down, and the die cast for the rest of the underground musical year.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5942589&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

Pon De Floor featuring Afro Jack & VYBZ Cartel from Mad Decent on Vimeo.

And the album’s plaudits continue as it’s literally a one stop shop for anyone looking to become acquainted with the most talented or entertaining artists in all of reggae or dancehall music. From legends to rookies, between Mr. Lexx, Ricky Blaze, Jahdan Blakkamoore, Mr. Vegas, Prince Zimboo, and Skerritt Bwoy’s ribald and absurdly sexual daggering gyrations in the “Pon de Floor” video clip, an entire scene is represented and exposed in their most beneficial light on record. From Ricky Blaze singing with Nina Sky on the mainstream electro banger “Keep It Going Louder,” to Prince Zimboo in a hilarious verbal altercation with a sample of an autotuned baby cry on “Baby,” there is an exquisite attention to authenticity paid on the record that is to be commended. This could’ve been a Jamaican minstrel show on record. Instead, to the credit of Diplo and Switch, it’s so much more.

There’s a school of thought that I adhere to fervently that states that in music, someone kicks open a door. As with any door, it eventually will close, but, depending on how hard you kick it open, it stays open for awhile, and allows everyone to walk through. Diplo and Mad Decent pushed on a door for M.I.A.’s Kala, and yes, it allowed Baltimore club music as a genre to walk through in full, and opened eyes to Bollywood production styles. And if “Paper Planes” isn’t the best gift that the concept of the legendary “Hollertronix” dance parties and its denizens ever gave the musical public, I can’t possibly imagine what else would be. Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do, in being the most out of left field dance album in quite some time, maybe smashed a door off the hinges. In a world already looking for dancehall sounds, Diplo and Switch have opened so many different eyes to so many different ways of making it work. The album has opened doors for experimentation that, in a most experiment friendly musical environment, will have effects that will permeate into, and be felt throughout music for quite some time. For many younger DJs, their first good remix may have come from the remix contest for “Pon De Floor” held by the label. As well, the upswing on reggae and dub and dancehall in the “hipster” community which champions Diplo and Switch? A direct correlation to the soundtrack of the muscular, lazer armed Jamaican hero.

Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do is a clear and obvious choice for album of the year because, well, it’s forward thinking and terrific amounts of fun. While the other nominees either put out great records (Matt and Kim, Amanda Blank, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) or restored hop in musical styles long thought irrelevant by the current musical vanguard (Raekwon, Trey Songz), the Major Lazer album is pure, unadulterated enjoyment from start to finish. That made this choice rather easy. This album delivers in spades, and is thereby the best.