Who’s hot? Why?! Back in the day, EAR FARM used to check in with the Elbo.ws top 10 ‘hot’ artists on a weekly basis. Then we realized these charts didn’t fluctuate enough to warrant doing so every week and then we got lazy and stopped checking in over at Elbo.ws at all. Well, we’re back baby! Back to get a better idea of what the rest of the music blog world is talking about, which should give EAR FARM a chance to feature artists that everyone else is listening to who might not exactly be our “thing”. But maybe some of these bands/musicians are your thing right?

Either way: fire up those colortinis; this joint ’bout to blow up.

• Kanye West - “I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice,” says Sir Kanye. I guess this generation loves flatly sung melodies and vocoders à la Cher 1998…

  Listen: “Bad News” (Radio Rip) (originally from HERE)

• Fleet Foxes - what do you want me to say? Sure they’re overly-popular in this insular world we’re all a part of - this year’s Tapes ‘n Tapes - but rightfully so. There’s too much knee jerk hatred out there for Fleet Foxes, but why? Punish them because they’ve found a sound that combines bits of Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, and CSNY? Nah, not me. They’re actually pretty good.

  Listen: “White Winter Hymnal” (originally from HERE)

• Chromeo - between Fancy Footwork and She’s In Control, Chromeo have made some of the most danceable records of the past five years. You wouldn’t necessarily know that by reading EAR FARM, however, as they’ve received very little attention here. Doesn’t mean we don’t love them though! Freals. In fact, here’s what I’m going to do today: jam out to the remix of “100%” that’s posted below on repeat while singing along into a baguette as if it were a microphone, all the while eating escargot like they’re popcorn as Breathless plays in the background on mute. You too?! Nice. Hey, did you know that David Macklovitch from Chromeo teaches French at Columbia? Me either, until now. I think I’ll swing by there a bit later and see if maybe he wants to go grab some steak frites or something. Ah oui, comme ça… ah oui, comme ça.

  Listen: “100%” [Treasure Fingers Remix] (originally from HERE)

• Justice - Une autre bande Française! These guys are good and all, especially live, which is well exhibited in the tracks from their most recent tour they’ve just released (listen below); however, I maintain that their greatest gift to the world will forever be teaching us all how to do this † with any standard keyboard. On a Mac: hold down option, click the “t”, get †. †††††††††††††††!

  Listen: “Phantom Pt. 1.5″ (Live) (originally from HERE)

• Cut Copy - never has there been a more appropriate name. Highlight that which you’d like to imitate, click cut/copy, paste, and repeat. Cut Copy did just that to the entirety of ’80s new wave - it’s as if they listened to Fred for a year straight and ripped off every third song they heard. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The remix that’s posted below takes away a bit of the bite of the original, smoothing out those edged corners ever so slightly at each turn. I think it’s actually better off for it.

  Listen: “Far Away” (Hercules and Love Affair remix) (originally from HERE)

• Little Joy - this is Fabrizio Moretti’s new band, named after a bar. Coincidentally, the music they make is about as sleepy and bland as the inspiration behind the name. Q: what do you get when you dilute the tiresome music of The Strokes even further? A: shit like this.

  Listen: “Keep Me In Mind” (originally from HERE)

• Lil Wayne - what is it with rappers trying to sing, but insisting on doing so with a vocoder? It’s neither cool, nor able to make your singing voice sound good. Come on Wayne, you got some turbo lyrics, stop trying to sound like Jeff Lynne from ELO. I mean The Alan Parsons Project. Er, Styx… no, late period Madonna/Cher. Wait, you’re right, singing into a vocoder is the coolest. My bad.

  Listen: “Get Silly” (ft. Gudda Gudda) (originally from HERE)

• Jay-Z - yes! Jay-Z! No wait, what’s this? An uninspired song either about having sex with Beyoncé or the recent Presidential election. I’m guessing it’s actually the latter, and in that context it’s not a “terrible” song. But let’s hope that the rest of Blueprint 3 delivers a bit more than this musical Lunesta does or it’s going to take Jay-Z like twenty minutes to sell out The Garden next time. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing…

  Listen: “History” (originally from HERE)

• The Killers - thanks. Thanks a LOT Rock Band for making me like The Killers. I did my best to avoid it for so long and now I’m here waiting on some beautiful boy to save me, just like everyone else. Nothing has changed with their sound - they’re still a ‘white bread with the crusts cut off’ kind of band - the difference is within me. Where I was laughing and making fun before, I’m singing along now. Can’t help it. Here it comes again… “The song maker says, ‘It ain’t so bad,’ the dream maker’s going make you mad. The spaceman says, ‘Everybody look down, it’s all in your mind.’”

  Listen: “Spaceman” (originally from HERE)

• Vampire Weekend - what a couple of years these guys have had since Stereogum “broke” them back in January of ‘07… really though, how awesome is it when a band makes a debut album actually worthy of all of the hype that’s been built up around them? Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Vampire Weekend has been the real deal: great debut, excellent live show. But where do they go from here? My advice: wait three years, have one of your members become an alcoholic that goes out a lot and makes a fool out of himself - perhaps he dates Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson in the process? - only to eventually hit up rehab, and then get the band back together, head into the studio with Brian Eno and lots of mushrooms, and create an entirely revised version of your sound. Do it. Masterpiece. Totally.

  Listen: “The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance” (Chromeo Remix) (originally from HERE)