Music

AUX's top 13 features from 2011

by Sam Sutherland

Next week we begin our roll out of all our real-ass year-end coverage, including genre best-ofs, lists from artists like Bon Iver, M83, and Fucked Up, and a few meaty features to round out the year. But in the mean time, while you’re looking for a way to kill time between huge meals or opening presents or hoping between movies at the multiplex on this holiest of holy days, we’ve compiled our own best of the year — our favourite features from twelve months of desperately trying to get you to pay attention to us. Clearly, we had a pretty good time. Hope you did, too.

Nickelblock — We made a plugin that blocks every mention of Nickelback from your web browsing experience and released it for Firefox and Chrome. After being shared over 11 000 times, we knew we had made it when we appeared on Irish radio to talk about it.

Q & A with Jeff Tweedy — On the day of A Whole Love‘s release, Nicole Villeneuve (@nicooooole) spoke to sad-guy icon Jeff Tweedy about nice stuff like playing music with his sons.

Wakka Flocka Flame name-drop mix — Mix scientist (and more-often metal scribe) Tyler Munro (@tylrmunro) broke down Flocka’s Flockaveli to two minutes of a man shouting “Waka! Flocka! Flame!”

Hey Rosetta! offer a picture-in-picture video commentary for “Bandages” — We launched a new feature called Band in a Box with this video commentary from Hey Rosetta! Adorable anecdotes about shooting a music video in St. John’s ensued.

The 11 Best Records From 1991 That Aren’t Called Nevermind — On the anniversary of the release of that album, we enlisted contributions from Canuck journos and musicians — including Propagandhi, Shad, and Alexisonfire — to cobble together a list of eleven other great records from twenty years ago.

Jay-Z vs. Kanye West: A Visual Companion — From religion to sneakers, Chayne Japal (@cijapal) and Daniel Halyburton (@hlybrtn) examined the relationship between 2011’s most prominent throne-occupiers.

Top 10 Toronto Contributors to Drake’s Take Care — Aaron Zorgel (@aaronzorgel) dug deep into Wheelchair Jimmy’s Hogtown connections, sparking a Twitter friendship with Chantal Kreviazuk in the process.

AUX goes culture touring with the Juggalos — When the Psychopathic Records crew rolled into Canada for the first time in years, Sam Sutherland (@samsthrlnd) got the members of So Sick Social Club to give him a new name and look for his weird, scary interview with two guys who own lots of guns.

Recording shopping with Patrick Stump — Nicole Villeneuve took the former Fall Out Boy frontman to Soundscapes in Toronto to talk about greasy funk and Herbie Hancock.

AUX Presents SXSW: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 — Featuring Odd Future, Andrew WK, Moby, and a million more, this hour-long SXSW special captured our weird adventure in Austin. Worth watching, seriously. It’s good.

Let us teach you about stoner metal — Tyler Munro explores the finer points of bong hits and monster riffs in a thorough guide to one of the metal’s best, goofiest subgenres.

A handy illustrated guide to the 2011 Polaris Music Prize — The week of The Big Gala, Nicole Villeneuve and Daniel Halyburton took on the numbers side of Canada’s biggest music prize.

10 Photos of Windblown Debbie Harry, A Career Retrospective in Wind Machines — Like an online photographic Encyclopedia Brown, Anne T. Donahue (@annetdonahue) compiled lists like this, musicians practicing earthquake safety, creepy fan art, weird merch items, musicians eating, and Justin Bieber with babies. Still have no clue how she does it.