WPTS’ DiDonna reflects on music trends from 2011

This year, two giants collide in something that will rock the Pitt community.

Or at least give it a taste of something different in its regular media intake. Welcome to the new WPTS column, brought to you by a rotating cast of the staff of Pittsburgh’s Progressive FM radio station.

Each week, WPTS will take a look at musical trends, upcoming releases or the Pittsburgh music scene. On the flip side, you can tune in to the Pitt News on WPTS every Thursday at 4:30 p.m. to hear your favorite Pitt News writers and columnists take a broadcast look at the week’s events.

As the new semester begins, I wanted to reflect back on the musical trends of 2011: the good, the bad and the un-listenable.

Dubstep: Frankly put, it’s everywhere. Characterized by a wobbly bass noise — affectionately referred to as “womp” in the WPTS offices — the genre gained popularity in Britain in 2005 before making the leap across the Atlantic three years ago. In the United States, dubstep morphed into an electro-house hybrid, led primarily by the now-Grammy-nominated Skrillex. Has the Dayglow tour actually infiltrated the mainstream to this extent?

Evidently so. In the more electro vein, Steve Aoki and Pretty Lights recently played to huge crowds in Pittsburgh, and newcomer Avicii has a sold-out gig at Stage AE on Jan. 8.

Saxwave: Deerhunter brought back the saxophone on their memorable 2010 album Halcyon Digest, leading frontman Bradford Cox to remark, “Next year everyone’s gonna have a saxophone on their record because saxophones are just cool.”

Apparently, he was right. M83’s monstrous single “Midnight City,” from the album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, with its electronic riff, hushed vocals and wailing saxophone hook undeniably became the favorite song of many WPTS staffers. It’s now even playing in a Victoria’s Secret commercial.

Other indie groups worked in the sax: Destroyer’s “Kaputt” used it for a pleasant, yacht-rock vibe, while dance-punk’s The Rapture added a sax solo to the breakdown of the blistering “How Deep Is Your Love.” On the other end of the spectrum, Katy Perry fell prey to the power-sax solo on “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).” And one can’t forget Lady Gaga’s ubiquitous “The Edge of Glory” that featured legendary sax player Clarence Clemons on the last recording of his long career.

The changing face of independent hip-hop: In 2011, we saw the rise and fall of L.A. rap crew Odd Future. It started with their zany TV debut on Jimmy Fallon in February, continued through their subsequent popularity in the springtime and ended with their acceptance by mainstream media outlets like MTV and Spin magazine. In short, the self-purported iconoclasts became everything they railed against.

At a certain point during the summer, we all kind of stopped caring about Odd Future. Maybe it was because Tyler’s album Goblin, the first major-label release of any of the OFWGKTA members, turned out to be disappointing in light of the hype. Or maybe it was because we all got sick of his rape jokes. Either way, OF’s been on a slow decline since the summer.

And while Tyler, Earl Sweatshirt, Hodgy Beats and crew dominated the rap scene for the first half of the year, a plethora of rappers and producers have come out of the woodwork to achieve new fame: AraabMuzik, Shabazz Palaces, A$AP Rocky, Danny Brown, the Weeknd, Mr. Muthaf**kin’ eXquire and — my personal favorite — Azealia Banks.

On her single “212 (feat. Lazy Jay),” the unsigned 20-year-old New York rapper works through a variety of rap personas over an infectious Diplo-esque beat, bringing to mind shades of Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliott with her vocals.

While her verses are certainly dirty — the parting punchline is in no way printable here — Banks wields her sexuality as a political and social tool in a way that packs more punch than Nicki Minaj’s recent tunes. Her lyrical prowess stands in direct contrast to the explicitness utilized by rappers such as the members of Odd Future, who seem more bent on shocking than expressing any real meaning behind their lyrics.

Canadian R&B singer Abel Tesfaye — better known as The Weeknd — released three free, solid albums in 2011, beginning with the universally acclaimed House of Balloons. Dealing with themes of drugs and lust, The Weeknd stands apart from other R&B projects through its embrace of lush, atmospheric production.

And if you haven’t yet heard Shabazz Palaces’ excellent Black Up LP or the single “Peso” by newcomer A$AP Rocky, hand-picked by Drake to open his 2012 tour, load up your iPod and start listening.

What will be hot in 2012? Only time will tell. I personally look forward to the return of guitars — after a certain point, I can only listen to so much mellowed-out electronic music, known as chillwave. In particular, the new Sleigh Bells album, due out on Feb. 14, will be make-or-break for the band. I think the dubstep trend will eventually fizzle.

So as the trends ebb and flow, look for WPTS’s comments in this column.

Gabriela DiDonna is the promotions director for 92.1 WPTS FM, the University of Pittsburgh’s student-run radio station. More information can be found at wptsradio.org.