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So at 8:30pm in freezing cold Liverpool at the Echo Arena, my favourite band and not forgetting my inspiration for just about everything I do and for every decision I make, Muse took to the stage looking as amazing as ever and sounding legendary. With a terrifying opening which made the crowds believe that they were the last living souls on earth, and the droning synth from 'Uprising', Muse well and truly began to own the night. The Big Pink, eat your heart out!
I was broken after 'Uprising' had finished, but it didn't stop me singing along to 'Resistance' and jumping around once more when the chorus kicked in. I have around a thousand bruises for each song that was played, but I'm not complaining! I want to be back there again!
Matt, Dom and Chris were all on top form, both appearance wise and musical wise!
THEY PLAYED NICHE! Hardly anyone noticed, but I certainly did and felt all warm and happy inside that I could actually hum along to it. :3
So many Twilight fangirls.. I could have died, but obviously didn't. :P
CAVE! Cave, Cave, Cave.. The piano version.. So incredible. So inspiring.. just loved it.
I don't think the word 'mistake' exists in either of Matthew Bellamy's, Dominic Howard's or Chris Wolstenholme's lives.. They're too perfect!
I cannot wait for their stadium tours next summer. Roll on summer 2010!
<3

Hey everyone,

I just saw this post on Pitchfork and couldn't resist passing it along. Our fellow Boston rockers, Pixies, know how to put on an incredible live show. Don't believe me? Ryan Dombal has the scoop on how to download four live recordings for free so you can hear for yourself :)


Pixies are really doing everything they can to remind people (and satiate long time fans) of their 1989 album Doolittle. Along with their ongoing Doolittle tour, there are instantaneous live CDs and USB drives being made. They'll play "Here Comes Your Man" on "The Tonight Show", um, tonight, and "I Bleed" with "Weird Al" at a benefit in December.

Now the band is giving away four songs recorded at their recent gig in Paris on October 16. (Via TwentyFourBit via Slicing Up Eyeballs.)

All you have to do is click the widget after the jump and you're on your way:

Doolittle 20th Anniversary Live Sampler:

01 Dancing the Manta Ray
02 Monkey Gone to Heaven
03 Crackity Jones
04 Gouge Away
via Pitchfork: Latest News

If you'd like to download the above songs, just click here to find the widget Ryan mentioned. I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did. "Monkey Gone to Heaven" is ridiculously awesome.

-Mason
a'tris

Coldplay, Radiohead, U2, Muse, R.E.M, Elbow, Doves, Grandaddy, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, The Tragically Hip, Pinback, Rogue Wave, Bloc Party

Houston, we have another problem!
The tracklist of Muse's new album on Wikipedia says:

For the songs United States Of Eurasia, I Belong To You and Exogenesis, Last.fm's users say:

United States of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage)
United States Of Eurasia (+ Collateral Damage)
United States of Eurasia
United States Of Eurasia [+Collateral Damage]
United States of Eurasia / Collateral Damage
United States Of Eurasia [Collateral Damage]
United States of Eurasa (+Coll
And so on...

I Belong To You (+Mon Coeur S'ouvre A Toi)
I Belong to You/Mon Cœur S'ouvre à ta Voix
I Belong To You/Mon Coeur S'ouvre A Toi
I Belong To You [+Mon Coeur S'Ouvre A Ta Voix]
I Belong to You (+Mon Coeur S'Ouvre a Ta Voix)
I Belong To You [Mon Coeur S'Ouvre A Ta Voix]
I Belong To You / Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix
And so on...

Exogenesis: Symphony, Pt. 1: Overture
Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)
Exogenesis: Symphony Pt 1: Overture
Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 [Overture]
Exogenesis: Symphony Part I (Overture)
Exogenesis: Symphony, Pt. 2: Cross-pollination
Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 (Cross-Pollination)
Exogenesis: Symphony Pt 2: Cross-Pollination
Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 [Cross-pollination]
Exogenesis: Symphony Part II (Cross Pollination)
Exogenesis: Symphony, Pt. 3: Redemption
Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)
Exogenesis: Symphony Pt 3: Redemption
Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 [Redemption]
Exogenesis: Symphony Part III (Redemption)
And so on... [!!!]

O____________________________________________________________O

And each song has very much scrobblings!!
So guys, what we have to do? This album is awesome, it deserves too much scrobblings but with a correct tracklist...

10. The Cure
Confused and slightly disturbing, this honest rip-off of The Cure's Lovesong is irresistible to me. 'All I said to you, all I did for you, seems so silly to me now'. This speaks directly to my soul!

9. Songs Remind Me of You
And here am I, talking about this singer again. Seriously, she might be the best pop singer around these days, and this is the best track of her new album.

8. Dominos
A big song with a catchy chorus about guys who cheat and write great songs about it. 'These girls fall like dominos, dominos...'

7. Resistance
Matt Bellamy might be a little crazy (ok, not just a little...) and an extraordinary songwriter, but he's also a normal human being who is in love, and who fights for his love besides all the problems and shortcomings of a relationship...wow, am I really talking about the Muse leadsinger here?

6. Bulletproof
Possibly the only true catchy chorus in La Roux's album, here we get a break from her weird vocals. Which is not necessarily a good thing, but works great in this track.

5. 1901
I saw Phoenix live this year (and I'm going to see them again in December...) and they closed with this, their biggest hit. The place almost felt apart, with everybody singing the words and jumping a lot. Nice moment.

4. Zero
This starts slow, and builds up and up until it explodes. Then the last 2 minutes are pure nirvana. 'You're a zeroooo...' Epic!

3. Stillness Is the Move
Dirty Projectors are truly blog darlings and their exceptional album is going to be in 9 of 10 'best of' lists this year. I certainly believe that they deserve the hype, but overall their album is just too hard for me, with too many experimentations. Once you start to like a song, something too weird shows up and you're turned off. Thank god this doesn't happen with the entire record. When the Dirty Projectors's weird pop works, it works extremely well...

2. Sleepyhead
Since the beginning of their hype last year, Passion Pit released many memorable songs and that consistency is ultimately what makes them one of the best acts of 2009, but they never improved over their first (and best) hit.

1. Heads Will Roll
'Of with their heads, dance till you're dead. Heads will roll, heads will roll, heads will roll...on the floor'. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs aimed very high with It's Blitz!. They really wanted people to dance. Sure it was a risky bet. But they totally won. I never really believed that they could go beyond the glory of 'Cheated Hearts' and 'Maps'. But they did it. The best song of their career and one of the greatest moments of this decade.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs Passion PitAnnieDirty ProjectorsMusePhoenixLa RouxThe Big PinkTegan and Sara

Usually I wait until the year is over but since I don't expect much action in the next two months, and I really need to remember why life is worth living for, I decided to do my 'best of' lists tonight. In some sense, this is good because this way I do my list before magazines like NME and so I am a little bit less biased.
I'm more of a song's person than an album's person. That said, even thought 2009 was musically amazing, it was hard to make this list. Big hits like 'Poker Face' and 'Stillness is the move' were very important to me, but there was no way I could include them here, simply because the respective albums are not as good as a whole.
Anyway, below is my list. Hopefully it tells you something about my personality and, more importantly, it gives you a new act to listen to.

10. Hot Mess
THe kind of plastic record that doesn't say anything and stills says it all. I used to hate these emo bastards but this time, by leaving the complaints and embracing the dancefloor, they really did it! This is probably the album that rivers Cuomo had in mind (but never accomplished) for Weezer's Raditude: just plain fun, without taking itself too seriously.

Highlights: Nice Guys Finish Last, Hot Mess, Good Girls Go Bad

9. It's Not Me, It's You
Oh god, I love british accent. I once went out with a british girl just because of her accent. Oh yeah, and the songs are amazing too...

Highlights: The Fear, Back To The Start

8. A Brief History of Love
This feels like a long, dense and complicated trip, occasionally made more pleasant by things like the stellar 'Dominos', but still... I was not going to put this album here, but I was in love for the entire year, and I don't know. I just connect with this album, even thought it's far from perfect.

Highlights: Dominos, Velvet, Love In Vain

7. The Resistance
My once favorite band came back in 2009, 3 years after the memorable Black Holes And Revelations. The Resistance may not match BH&R's glory, but still it's hard to not be touched by lyrics that speak so closely to my heart such as in 'Undisclosed Desires', or to the brilliant chorus of 'Resistance'.

Highlights: Resistance, Undisclosed Desires

6. Don't Stop
Annie's music is exactly the kind of pop that I love the most. Plastic, with no big message, but still with weird touches. In "I don't like your band', when she sings (sarcastically) about feeling bad for not liking the guy's music, it reminds me of the best moments that Lily Allen might never had. 'Songs Remind Me of you' uses a simple (and ordinary) feeling and transforms it in one of the best chorus of the year. I could go all day... In terms of singles, this is possibly the album of the year!

Highlights: Don't Stop, Songs Remind Me Of You, Bad Times

5. Tonight
Cold and calculated, yes, but Franz Ferdinand was always like that. You wouldn't necessarily want to be their close friend but still cannot resist the big party anthems. People talked a lot about the role of synthesizers in this record but at least in one of the tracks it yields a very interesting result: 'Lucid Dreams', an 8-minutes club epic, is beyond fascinating.

Highlights: Lucid Dreams, Turn It On, What She Came for

4. Manners
Seriously, can someone resist the the super catchy melodrama of songs like Sleepyhead and Little Secrets? Passion Pit is this year's MGMT and more than deserves all the love it got in 2009.

Highlights: Sleepyhead, The Reeling

3. ]Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix[
While the Strokes are too busy delivering average solo projects that they can't be a band again, these french guys gave the world a reason not to miss them. With pop gems like '1901', who needs The Strokes anyway?

Highlights: 1901, Lasso, Liztomania

2. La Roux
At first, I dismissed this as just an overhyped effort of an ugly girl with an annoying voice. But with time the annoying voice became less annoying and more powerful, and her beauty...well, she's still the same but who cares? Like Annie's album, this is electropop at its best. Party tunes directed to the dancefloor, the kind of Britney spears that it's cool to like. But, unlike Annie's Don't Stop, the message here is dark and angry. Eleanor Jackson is not happy but she knows that the fun can never stop...

Highlights: Colourless Colour, Bulletproof, In for The kill

1. It's Blitz!
'Shake it like a ladder to the sun', the first words of the YYYs third album, could be considered an understatement of what this album does. It has the big party energy of FF's Tonight but without losing the emotional stuff that made this band epic in the past. Don't get me wrong, I love all the albums in this list, but It's Blitz! is 2009's best by a mile. Reviewing this record, Spin Magazine wrote: "The result is the alternative pop album of the decade-one that imbues The Killers's Hot Fuss and MGMT's Oracular Spectacular with a remarkable depth and finesse". I couldn't agree more.

Highlights: Heads Will Roll, Hysteric, Zero

Yeah Yeah YeahsPhoenixLa RouxFranz FerdinandAnnieCobra StarshipThe Big PinkPassion PitLily AllenMuse

3 1 Lady GaGa "Paparazzi"
1 2 Miley Cyrus "Party In The U.S.A."
2 3 Jay Sean "Down (Feat. Lil Wayne)"
4 4 Jason Derülo "Whatcha Say"
5 5 Beyoncé "Sweet Dreams"
6 6 Kings of Leon "Use Somebody"
7 7 Taylor Swift "You Belong With Me"
10 8 Kelly Clarkson "Already Gone"
12 9 Britney Spears "3"
9 10 Jay-Z "Run This Town (Feat. Rihanna and Kanye West)"

14 11 Owl City "Fireflies"
13 12 The Black Eyed Peas "meet me halfway"
8 13 Boys Like Girls "Love Drunk"
17 14 Iyaz "Replay"
11 15 The Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling"
16 16 Justin Bieber "One Time"
19 17 Colbie Caillat "Fallin' For You"
15 18 Mariah Carey "Obsessed"
22 19 David Guetta "Sexy Chick (feat. Akon)"
18 20 Cobra Starship "Good Girls Go Bad (feat. Leighton Meester)"

21 21 Cascada "Evacuate The Dancefloor"
23 22 P!nk "Funhouse"
41 23 Rihanna "Russian Roulette"
28 24 Jesse McCartney "Body Language (Remix) (feat. T-Pain)"
44 25 Lady GaGa "Bad Romance"
34 26 Ke$ha "TiK ToK"
27 27 Pitbull "Hotel Room Service"
32 28 Shinedown "If You Only Knew"
38 29 Jay-Z "Empire State of Mind (feat. Alicia Keys)"
24 30 Michael Franti & Spearhead "Say Hey (I Love You) (feat. Cherine Anderson)"

25 31 3OH!3 "Starstrukk (Remix) (feat. Katy Perry)"
33 32 Leona Lewis "Happy"
30 33 Drake "Best I Ever Had"
43 34 Boys Like Girls "Two Is Better Than One (feat. Taylor Swift)"
40 35 Jordin Sparks "S.O.S. (Let The Music Play)"
35 36 Priscilla Renea "Dollhouse"
26 37 Flo Rida "Be on You (feat. Ne-Yo)"
NEW 38 Shakira "Give It Up To Me (Feat. Lil Wayne)"
47 39 Nickelback "Never Gonna Be Alone"
37 40 LMFAO "La La La (On Top of the World)"

42 41 Hey Monday "How You Love Me Now"
49 42 Kris Allen "Live Like We're Dying"
46 43 We The Kings "Heaven Can Wait"
50 44 Jessie James "I Look So Good (Without You)"
NEW 45 Drake "Forever (feat. Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Eminem)"
45 46 Three 6 Mafia "Shake My (Feat. Kalenna)"
NEW 47 OneRepublic "All The Right Moves"
NEW 48 The Script "Breakeven"
NEW 49 Creed "Rain"
NEW 50 Timbaland "Morning After Dark (feat. SoShy and Nelly Furtado)"

Bubbling Under
1 1 Mario "Break Up (Feat. Sean Garrett and Gucci Mane)"
9 2 Down With Webster "Rich Girl$"
OC 3 Mariah Carey "I Want To Know What Love Is"
13 4 Cobra Starship "Hot Mess"
20 5 Jay Sean "Do You Remember (feat. Sean Paul and Lil Jon)"
12 6 Chris Brown "I Can Transform Ya (feat. Lil Wayne and Swizz Beatz)"
10 7 Alicia Keys "Doesn't Mean Anything"
17 8 Chamillionaire "Good Morning"
11 9 Uncle Kracker "Smile"
15 10 Muse "Uprising"
6 11 Birdman "Written On Her (Feat. Jay Sean)"
8 12 Kaci Battaglia "Crazy Possessive"
NEW 13 Leighton Meester "Somebody to Love (feat. Robin Thicke)"
NEW 14 Justin Bieber "One Less Lonely Girl"
19 15 Jason Castro "Let's Just Fall In Love Again"
16 16 Cage the Elephant "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked"
NEW 17 Taylor Swift "Fifteen"
NEW 18 John Mayer "Who Says'
NEW 19 Honor Society "Over You"
NEW 20 Kings of Leon "Sex On Fire"

Going Recurrent This Week
Keri Hilson "Knock You Down (feat. Kanye West and Ne-Yo)"

Getting Purged This Week
Ester Dean "Drop It Low (Feat. Chris Brown)"
Fabolous "Throw It In The Bag (Feat. The-Dream)"
Push Play "Midnight Romeo"
Sean Kingston "Face Drop"


Key:
NEW - The song is a debut on that particular chart.
OC - The song was on the official top 50 last week, but fell into the bubbling under and has never been inside the top 40.
Recurrent - The song was taken off the chart after spending 20 weeks inside the top 40.
Purge - A song that has reached the top 40, but fell too far to get back into the top 40 and was taken off the chart with the recurrents.

echelons's top albums (overall)
1. 30 Seconds to Mars - A Beautiful Lie (1943) 2. 30 Seconds to Mars - 30 Seconds to Mars (1909) 3. Taking Back Sunday - Louder Now (1284) 4. Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends (1208) 5. Taking Back Sunday - New Again (905) 6. Taking Back Sunday - Where You Want to Be (870) 7. Brand New - Deja Entendu (837) 8. Muse - Absolution (822) 9. Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me (764) 10. Brand New - Your Favorite Weapon (688) 11. Envy on the Coast - Lucy Gray (671) 12. Brand New - Daisy (618) 13. Madina Lake - Attics To Eden (531) 14. Muse - Black Holes and Revelations (513) 15. My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade (442) 16. Lostprophets - Liberation Transmission (434) 17. The Audition - Controversy Loves Company (429) 18. Madina Lake - From Them Through Us To You (412) 19. The Audition - The Audition (342) 20. Kill Hannah - Until There's Nothiing Left Of Us (340) 21. Lostprophets - Start Something (336) 22. Cobra Starship - Viva La Cobra! (319) 23. Billy Talent - Billy Talent II (307) 24. The Academy Is... - Almost Here (305) 25. Cobra Starship - While The City Sleeps, We Rule The Streets (297) 26. 30 Seconds to Mars - B-sides & Rarities (291) 27. 30 Seconds to Mars - Project 9-6-1 Acoustic (268) 28. Muse - Origin Of Symmetry (268) 29. The Audition - Champion (264) 30. Muse - Showbiz (255) 31. Taking Back Sunday - Louder Now: PartTwo (251) 32. All Time Low - So Wrong, It's Right (243) 33. 30 Seconds to Mars - Acoustic (238) 34. 30 Seconds to Mars - Unreleased (228) 35. All Time Low - Nothing Personal (227) 36. The All-American Rejects - The All-American Rejects (224) 37. My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (224) 38. Boys Like Girls - Boys Like Girls (215) 39. Escape the Fate - This War Is Ours (202) 40. The All-American Rejects - Move Along (197) 41. Kings of Leon - Because of the Times (186) 42. Various Artists - Punk Goes Acoustic (177) 43. Finch - What It Is to Burn (172) 44. Taking Back Sunday - Where You Want To Be (Advance) (168) 45. Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil (167) 46. Billy Talent - Billy Talent (165) 47. Set Your Goals - This Will Be The Death of Us (165) 48. Cobra Starship - Hot Mess Deluxe (Bonus Tracks,Edited) (163) 49. Billy Talent - Billy Talent III (159) 50. The Used - In Love and Death (159)