Mupps

Back in the day I used to be a bit of chart obsessed pop geek. It seemed to still matter then. Anyway, one of the music charts on the radio was this thing called the Moordlijst ("Hit List", in the literal sense), a weekly countdown of the best albums as voted for by around fifty music journalists and DJs. It started in the late '80s. When I was at university in the early '90s, I wrote an article about its tastemaking powers for the faculty magazine. I was somehow too embarrassed to tell my collegues this when I ended up working for VPRO, who broadcasted the Moordlijst. Let alone when I was asked to host the show in 1997.

Too make a long story short, I did that for about a year but kept voting for the chart until recently, long after it had stopped airing anywhere (it was still getting published on the website of the magazine OOR). It was nice be in the clear about what my five favourite albums were at any given time. It also comes in handy when people ask me "what's good right now", which they sometimes do. But no more. OOR announced this week that it has terminated the chart, with apparently no more than five critics regularly contributing. An overdue sign of the times, probably, but allow me a moment of nostalgia.

My last vote, from just a few weeks ago:

1. 2562 - Unbalance
2. various artists - 5 Years of Hyperdub
3. Julian Casablancas - Phrazes for the Young
4. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
5. Broadcast & The Focus Group - Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age

There's still about five weeks to go but I'm already done with 2009, to be honest. All of the '00s, actually. Most of the listmaking has been done (yes, by me as well) so what else is there? Bring on the new decade! So we can start compiling those Best '10s Albums lists. I was about to do just that, I thought, when I pressed play on the new Lindstrøm & Christabelle album today (release date: 17 January). "Baby Can't Stop", the single that's out now, is about the best thing around these dark days.

But no, almost two months before you're supposed to care, I've already made up my mind that this one's a bit of a letdown. Maybe I'm jumping ahead of myself. I may be done with the best-of-the-decade lists, but there's still year-end lists to be made. Let's give that single another spin, and forget about the album for now.

Until yesterday, I'd never really wondered what sounds would link, say, Organized Noize's hip-hop swing, King Tubby's dub technique and Daft Punk's filtered dancefloor propulsion. Maybe Jason Chung had. At any rate, the L.A. performer, known as Nosaj Thing, produced just such sounds during an impressive show upstairs at Amsterdam's Paradiso. Using a Macbook and an Akai MPD32 controller, Chung was constantly dropping beats and mixing samples, filtering FX and generally laying out some dope music.

Unlike experimental beat scientists of the recent past, like Funkstörung and Prefuse 73, Nosaj Thing is ready for the dancefloor. At least when performing live. He is a product of the fertile beat scene centered in L.A.'s weekly Low End Theory club. His excellent debut album, Drift, came out this Summer. A new US tour starts this week.

Night two of the Amsterdam Dance Event brought a very pleasant surprise in one-man electrofunk performer Damon Riddick AKA Dàm-Funk (or whichever way he spells his name this week). Whether deejaying (not his greatest skill, it must be said) or busting out on the keytar frontstage, Dàm-Funk seductively sang his way through some laidback-yet-propulsive '80s boogie in the 'Dam's tiny Bitterzoet venue last night.

I don't think Riddick played played "I Wanna Know", my favorite song on his new album. Toeachizown ("to each his own") was released on the mighty Stones Throw label, which, like Riddick, is based in Los Angeles. The Dàm-Funk sound is very L.A., too. He's bringing back the original G-Funk era, single-handedly.

I had been hearing about Knalpot for months before I finally got to hear them last night, when they played the Trouw club during the Amsterdam Dance Event festival. All hype turned out to be true, and then some. Where do I begin? Drummer Gerri Jäger plays hard, dry, funk rhythms, leaving all the texture to his partner Raphael Vanoli who plays a bass guitar through an FX machine, and keyboards with his other hand. There is no singing, but the tough sounds, expert musicianship and unexpected turns had me enthralled from start to finish.

I think I heard some Radiohead, jazz, dubstep and proper dub-reggae influences in Knalpot (a funny Dutch word that anyone can pronounce, well done), who must surely be heading towards international acclaim. Best new band in Holland! They're actually French and Austrian expats, but don't tell anyone. Their EP is out now.

For some music fans, including me, Annie was the pop sensation of 2004. Blonde, Scandinavian, and more importantly, singing stellar tunes that had every right to occupy the Top Ten. Alas, that just didn't happen. Save the occasional Girls Aloud single, expertly engineered über dance-pop apparently isn't, erm, allowed into the charts anymore. With dreams of mainstream acceptance out of the window, this week finally sees the release of Annie's second album, Don't Stop.

Without scaling the heights of Anniemal, her debut album, Don't Stop still packs a good punch. Put me in charge of a pop radio station and any of these songs would go into high rotation. With five tracks produced by Girls Aloud masterminds Xenomania, who knows, it might still happen.

One thing Kanye West is not, is predictable. He may be a jackass (thanks, Barack), but he knows it, and he makes his less-than-stellar reputation work for him in a new short film. We Were Once a Fairytale was directed by music video legend Spike Jonze, and is apparently spin-off of an as-yet-to-be-released video for West's "See You in My Nightmares". The song can be heard playing in the background. "I made all the notes!"

Jonze has a new movie coming out (finally), too. Where the Wild Thing Are opens this week in North-America and Taiwan; here in Holland we have to wait untill mid-January. I won't give away the ending to his Kanye short (I wouldn't know what to say, really!) but it looks like the director had some fabric left over.

Turning the spotlights on the golden age of synthpop, this weekend's BBC documentary Synth Britannia was the best thing on television in ages. Director Ben Whalley locates the birth of the synthetic aesthetic in the disaffected Seventies, with a scattered group of British youth simultaneously being inspired by German underground bands and glampop. One of the highlights in the 90-minute programme was OMD's Andy McCluskey recalling the shock of "johnny come lately" Gary Numan scoring the first synthpop Number One.

Synth Britannia gets two more screenings tonight (Sunday) on BBC Four, at 0.40 and 3.10 CET so make sure you set your DVR. I'm going to record it again because I missed the first ten minutes on Friday and I want to burn a DVD and show it to my friends. All the music, from The Human League on to the Pet Shop Boys is just fantastic and groundbreaking at the same time. As much as I love La Roux, it's hardly the wave of the future now, is it?

My favourite band of the decade is probably LCD Soundsystem: a slew of impeccable singles, two great albums, terrific live shows and an all-round super cool frontman/songwriter/producer guy. Next month sees the release of a new LCD single, a one-off release that won't be on the next album. It's a cover version of Alan Vega's "Bye Bye Bayou". The original is from the Suicide singer's 1980 untitled solo album, which also has the great "Jukebox Babe" on it.

 <span>LCD Soundsystem 'Bye Bye Bayou' (DFA Records)  by  cmjct</span>

LCD Soundsystem have done covers before. Carl Craig (I mentioned him yesterday too!) AKA Paperclip People's techno jam "Throw" was featured in early live shows to great effect. Another excellent choice was Harry Nilsson's "Jump Into the Fire", which you can find on the B-side of the "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" 7-inch (I told you I was a fan!). That one didn't need much reworking to turn it into an LCD song. "Bye Bye Bayou", on the other hand, has been unrecognisably discofied.