2011 in Singularity – Best Singles of the Year

By Alif Omar Mahfix  •  16 Dec 2011 in Music

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BEST SINGLE BY A FEMALE ARTIST
‘I FOLLOW RIVERS’
LYKKE LI

While the rest of Lykke Li’s sophomore album isn’t as impressive as its dark lead single ‘I Follow Rivers’ would suggest, that speaks more of the strength of the track than the album’s shortcomings. Here the Swedish ingénue sounds more experienced than her debut-self, almost like the sung admonition of a femme fatale.

 

BEST SINGLE NO ONE HAS HEARD OF
‘GOD SAID’
ANTHONY DAVID

Anthony David is old sounding nu soul, indubitably vanilla when put on the same list as Frank Ocean. Here’s the catch though, his latest release As Above So Below is possibly the only r’n’b album to contain a caustic atheist-friendly song. On the record in the form of the provocative single ‘God Said’. It’s a writer’s bias, but any artist who can use a progressively boring genre to disseminate subversive content is an instant favourite of ours.

 

MOST OVERPLAYED SINGLE
‘PUMPED UP KICKS’
FOSTER THE PEOPLE

Quickly becoming in danger of falling into the same trap as MGMT, ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ has reached ‘Kids’ status and then some. The song, as cheery as it sounds, is really describing a sociopathic kid’s life. Appropriately enough, the song could now induce homicidal thoughts into us merely from someone whistling the melody.

 

MOST UNFORTUNATE SINGLE
‘MALAYSIAN BOY’
VARIOUS ARTISTS

‘Malaysian Boy’ is a series of unfortunate choices and events. One, adapting the chorus of a song called ‘American Boy’ for your own nationalistic anthem is a conscious choice at setting up yourself for ridicule, no matter how you look at it. Two, the whole accusation of theft that was absurdly directed towards Altimet. Third, it’s really just yet another corny 1Malaysia song, thus making it an unfortunate single with or without the controversies.