It's that time again... Each year, many of us indulge our inner critic-wannabe and recap lists of our favorite songs, books, movies, albums or whatever from the past year. This year, I decided to do separate track and album lists, since there were many instances of songs I loved from albums I didn't (Grizzly Bear, Heartless Bastards), and a few albums that were great as a whole, but lacked a definitive standout track (The Antlers). I'm including a link to a zip file with all the mentioned tracks, so you can enjoy the songs themselves alongside my hopelessly overwrought commentary.
Link to Songs: http://www.sendspace.com/file/p1ifmw
Favorite Songs of 2009, Ranked Unscientifically Based on Approximate Number of Plays during the Year
1. “Two Weeks” - Grizzly Bear
After being bored (beautifully) by 2006’s Yellow House, I wrote these guys off as yet-another-over-hyped-Brooklyn-group and closed the book. But the first time I heard “Two Weeks,” I wanted to run and hug a hipster and apologize for my swift, misanthropic assessment. I can’t think of another song this year that moved me as much as “Two Weeks”, not for its lyric or melody, but for the fact that it’s a beautiful, complete-thought of a piece of music that borders on perfect when enjoyed in the right setting. There’s hardly a wasted note, tossed-off vocal or half-assed guitar line, and that drumming…oh, those gorgeous rolls! A+ tune, hands down. (Note: the album that gave us the song didn’t make my top 10, because of the beautiful-but-boring tendency it has to slip into the background. Time will likely prove this assessment wrong, as well.)
2. “Lizstomania” –
Nothing much to say here that hasn’t been said. When I talk about Phoenix (who’ve been softly rocking my world since 2004’s “Alphabetical”), words like “economy” and “crisp” tend to be outnumbered only by “French” and “very French.” These guys know exactly what needs to be played to get the song across, and they never play a lick more. “Lizstomania” continues their welcome transformation from purveyors of AM-Gold-for-the-00’s into a credible rock outfit, complete with the obligatory SNL performance and ever-more-popular ad placement. The only bad thing about this song (and its companion on the list) is that it pretty much guarantees I’ll never again get to introduce this band to virgin ears.
3. “The Mountain” – Heartless Bastards
Interrupting your girlfriend’s story to turn up the radio is never a good move. But sometimes a song playing at background-music level will snake its way around your brainstem until you can’t pay attention to anything else, and the only way to exorcise its demonic grip around your ears is to let it play as loud as it wants to and apologize to her afterward. Because I live in the airspace of Philly’s excellent WXPN, this happens to me more than I care to admit. From the outset, “The Mountain” is a fairly straightforward blues -rock song, with a static 3-chord progression and some tasteful slide guitar (thumbs-up to the production on this track, btw). But when lead singer Erika Wennerstrom starts to sing in that androgynous mush-mouthed warble, you can’t help but pick a side. This is one of those love-it-or-hate-it tunes that doesn’t fare well in mixed company (“Is that a guy or a girl?”, “What the hell is she saying there?”). I still don’t know what she’s saying, and I don’t know that I want to. There’s something about the melody and the way she breaks up the words “know” and “down” on the chorus that keeps me coming back for more. Mo-ore. (Side note: the rest of the album isn’t nearly as good as this song, but here’s hoping they get a chance to grow into their sound over future releases.)
4. “People Got a Lotta Nerve” – Neko Case
You know that awesome song about animal rights? No? I didn’t think so. That’s because most people who fancy themselves songwriters aren’t great at proselytizing without coming off as divisive, condescending or, worse, a cartoon of the artist-as-activist that does more to serve the detractors than the faithful-to-the-cause (exception: Mr. Ted Leo). Neko Case loves animals. She wants you to love them, too, but she wants you to remember that they’re animals, and if given ample opportunity, many would rip you to shreds and devour your remains for the sport of it. This song gets that simple point across while still managing to jangle and shuffle its way into, say, a year-end top 15 list. With a fine 12-string guitar line dancing around Ms. Case’s idiosyncratic delivery and unmistakable yowl, this song manages to be funny, upbeat, mysterious, sexy, and deadly serious all at the same time, just like its creator. Rawr.
5. “Just War” - Sparklehorse & Danger Mouse feat. Gruff Rhys
I am an old-school Sparklehorse fanboy. No question about it. The full output of the artist also known as Mark Linkous has been in the do-not-remove section of my CD or mp3 player since 1995's Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, so when it was announced in 2008 that he and Danger Mouse (he of “The Grey Album” and Gnarls Barkley fame) were collaborating on a project, you can imagine my excitement. Sadly, legal issues prevented that album from ever seeing a proper release, but I was quick to record the high-quality stream that the duo leaked to NPR earlier this year so I could give it my full attention. On the whole: not so much. Stuffed with ill-advised cameos, a pervasive, too-dark-even-for-this-guy mood and the singing debut of film director David Lynch (who sounds exactly like you’d imagine if you’ve ever seen him talk), the album wasn’t the start-to-finish triumph I’d been hoping for. “Just War” (featuring Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys), however, is a great example of the muddy, crackling, Beatles-informed pop with which I’d hoped the album would be packed. With an obvious but clever double entendre at its lyrical core, the song is sung from the perspective of a weary soldier doubting the auspices under which he’s been deployed, namely, a “just war” that the deployers said “wouldn’t hurt.” Or maybe it’s not about that at all. Who knows? Either way, when the chorus rides in on that great music-hall rhythm, the song takes off on a psychedelic flight that’s everything I hoped that these two (three) musical minds would create. (Honorable mentions from this disc: “Revenge” with the Flaming Lips, “The Man Who Played God” with Suzanne Vega, and Linkous & the Cardigans’ Nina Persson on “Daddy’s Gone”)
6. “1901” –
FALLIN! FALLIN! FALLIN!
7. “There are Maybe Ten or Twelve” – AC Newman
AC Newman has superpowers beyond those of mere mortal songwriters. Like Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch, Newman effortlessly builds his off-kilter epics around the sort of melody lines that most of us would give our Moleskines for. “There are Maybe Ten or Twelve,” which opens his second solo album, Get Guilty, welcomes the listener in with dramatic cymbal crashes and a simple descending guitar line that reminds me more than a little of Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1 (the “graduation” song) before presenting the verses over (mellotron?) flutes and tasteful pizzicato for what may be one of the year’s prettiest arrangements. For two minutes and 41 seconds, Newman tells us about his songwriting process (“That wasn’t the opening line, it was the tenth or twelfth one”), paints twee character portraits (“Once there was a haunted loop of your deep falling tears / a forehead resting on a record shelf / beneath the moving boxes”) and even coins a useful aphorism (“It is the devil you know that will slam the door harder”) before sending us off to enjoy the rest of his fine album.
8. “So Far Around the
If we had a conversation about music in 2006 or 2007, you were doubtless subjected to my enthusiastic endorsement of The National, My New Favorite Band, and everything I would have said then is on full display in this single: Matt Beringer’s dour baritone chronicling the comings and goings of reluctant professional twentysomethings over some very tasteful playing by one of the tightest bands playing in New York right now. There’s little not to like about this song, with its evocative verses stuffed with detail ("eating off a teacup full of cherries"), tasteful string and flute arrangements (courtesy of modern-classical wunderkind Nico Muhly), and a matter-of-fact chorus (“You’re so far around the bend”) and coda (“Now there’s no leaving New York”) that are likely to spend the better part of a day comfortably spinning around your head.
9. “Hobo Chili” –
10. “My Girls” - Animal Collective
What to say about this song, 2009’s jam-to-beat-all-jams? Animal Collective’s most obvious talent, Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) sings of his heart’s purest desire—to provide a home for his family—while around him, mid-90’s synth samples shimmer their way toward the single best beat-drop in the past twelve months. I’ll admit I’m not really a fan of most of their work before this year’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, but this song and
11. “Never Had Nobody Like You” – M Ward
I’ve never heard an M. Ward song I really liked without feeling a tinge of jealousy. His best songs feel lived-in, classic and familiar, (thanks as much to his Tacoma-style fingerpicking technique as his insistence on tape-saturated mixes), but also very, very simple—the sort of song you might come up with on the drive home from work one day and forget by the time you’re hanging up your coat. While 2009’s Hold Time didn’t hit the high watermark set by 2006’s Post-War, this nice little song (featuring backing vocals by actress/singer Zooey Deschanel) is easily one of the most listenable tracks I heard this year, and I’ll probably still be saying that twenty years from now. (Geek note: the opening line, “Since time out of mind I’ve been lazy / and times before that I was cruel” seems to reference both Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello, which is a quick way to earn big points over here)
12. “Young Adult Friction” – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
When record stores and their resident geeks were young would-be hipsters' only path to new music, there was a certain thrill to stumbling across the perfect song, album or artist for the time and place. When the guy behind the counter would pop in a disc with that great High Fidelity-style “you’re going to love this one” introduction, the whole store would be filled with a new sound that couldn’t wait to be captured and kept handy for teenage joyrides through the suburban summer, the perfect soundtrack to the almost-freedom of adolescence. Though the stores are long since gone, this song and its unapologetic sugar coating, wide-eyed, boy-girl vocals and fantasies-for-geeks subject matter makes me feel like opening a record store.
13. “Oh No” – Andrew Bird
Andrew Bird would like you to marvel at his cleverness. So take a moment and remember that you’re whistling along with a song that seriously contains the lyric “All the calcified arithmetists are doing the maths,” and after you’re done lamenting what a sucker you are for buying into his precious, oh-look-at-what-I-just-did-there style, just enjoy the song and be glad that you live in a world where this guy can headline the Electric Factory.
14. “You and I” – Wilco (feat. Feist)
Aww, shucks. Nice song. Well done, you two.
15. “The Palace at
Everything I said about his other entry in this list applies to this song as well. Mr. Newman, you write some damn catchy tunes.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
"Temazcal" - Monsters of Folk (haunting, lovely)
“Summertime Clothes” – Animal Collective (highly danceable)
“Fake ID’s” – Deleted Scenes (esp. the breakdown)
“
“Daylight” – Matt & Kim (the clicking beat almost makes up for the whininess)
“You Never Know” - Wilco (classic tune)
PS - I'm still getting around to some of the late-2009 releases (e.g., The xx) that I'd missed, and some of the tracks are promising ("Crystallize," natch) and might have made this list if I were writing it next week. I also have been unsuccessful in locating Destroyer's Bay of Pigs EP in a store or one of those internet web sites with enough time to decide whether or not I like it (with Destroyer, it takes time, but it's always yes). These things happen.
Happy almost-2010,
jp
