top twenty-one oh nine songs

11-21.
bronze - sunny day
it doesn't really get much simpler than this but somehow it works. 2010 will be the year of bronze, a band risen from the ashes of the detachment kit?
the raveonettes - bang!
now, i'll admit that my love for this song has a lot to do with getting the lyrics of the chorus wrong. but i also suspect that the band was not unaware of the possibility. sneaky danes.
gui boratto - no turning back
gui returned with an album that was a little bit user friendly than his previous and excellent chromophobia but takes perhaps a greater inspiration from post-punk. no turning back is probably the most irresistibly poppy track from the album. almost too much so but... oh, well.
health - die slow
strange one this one. draws inspiration from the wimpier (and far more horrible) side of shoegazing and mixes it with something horribly linkin park-ish. and somehow it works out alright. but we'll hate it in a couple of years time.
clark -absence
gorgeous and atypical track from the brilliant totems flare.
oh no ono - swim
more danes!? i don't really know what to say about this song. it's just pretty good.
white rabbits - percussion gun
a great song from a rather disappointing album. a great substitute forthe walkmen after they went all bob dylanesque and shitty on us.
nadja - needle in the hay
i don't really think covers should be allowed on lists like these but this is just too brilliant to ignore. elliott smith's Needle in the Hay is possibly the most beautiful song ever written. nadja turn the volume to 11 but yet manage to retain the spirit of the song. the idea sounds like a bad joke but it works because it isn't a joke.
wavves - so bored
thank god for bands like the wavves. it's sloppy, it's loud, and it's damn fun. sometimes you don't need anything other than a catchy melody.
royksopp - happy up here
pretty damn shamed of liking this so much. pure pop. forgive me.
bear in heaven - lovesick teenagers
probably the song on the list that will age the worst. but for now i like it.
10. polvo - beggar's bowl
the most anticipated and feared release of the year. beggar's bowl was a huge relief when it came out ahead of the album. sure, it didn't break any new ground like polvo's previous albums but this was pretty solid polvo only cleaned up a little bit, which wasn't a bad thing really. beggar's bowl is still in many ways a signature polvo tune and, frankly, these middle aged guys sound way cooler than their younger competitors.
9. clues - haarp
largely overlooked, clues, consisting of one half of the legendary unicorns, released an excellent album this year. haarp starts of slowly but picks up the pace and ends up sounding like a more serious version of, well, the unicorns. sort of the unicorns mixed with codeine. can't be that bad!
8. black moth super rainbow - don't you want to be in a cult?
the song where bmsr just get everything right. the essential 70s psychedelic horror movie soundtrack. and, no, i wouldn't want to watch the movie.
7. patrick watson - fireweed
know the romantic comedy where the girl keeps chasing guys until in the end that her best friend is the guy she was looking for all along? that guy is patrick watson. you don't really notice him until one day you just think 'hey, this guy is smoking hot!'
6. animal collective - my girls
oh, how i hate to admit this. animal collective is just the band i would love to hate but they make it very very hard for me. too damn catchy.
5. japandroids - heart sweats
yeah, far less inventive than no. 6 but, hey, they've got guitars that they are not afraid of.
4. tim exile - family galaxy
this left me gaping the first time i've heard it. starts out like a nice little boards of canada number but then changes shapes about sixty-seven times. while the surprise factor is pretty big, the song actually holds up to repeated listening. and there isn't really anything like it out there.
3. tom brosseau - you don't know my friends
a nice altcountry tune burried in heaps of fuzz, which makes sense for a song about alienation... or that is what i prefer to think. but it doesn't matter, this song would sound great even if it was played backwards
2. yo la tengo - here to fall
to be honest, i'm not that crazy about yo la tengo. or rather, once in a while they write some really fantastic songs but most of the time they are just sort of ok. but the goods songs make it worthwhile keeping track of them and this is one of their fantastic ones.
1. girls - lust for life
the most depressing happy song. or the most happy depressing song. either way, it's all about chasing dreams.

top 2009 songs

Hot Chip - One Life Stand (HD)

The Rural Alberta Advantage - Drain The Blood

Röyksopp - Happy Up Here

Herr Barr - Chris Clark

The xx - Crystalised

Washed Out - New Theory

Lightspeed Champion - Marlene

Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life

I was listening to Blonde Redhead's The Dress and it struck me that the video for the song was pretty similar St. Vincent's video for Actor out of work. And also that Cursive' Big Bang and Bright Eyes' First day of my life also employ a similar 'stick a camera in their face' gimmick. I guess the latter two actually share more with Blonde Redhead's video and demonstrate that simple videos can be highly effective - although I think the Bright Eyes' one has a few too many cringe-worthy moments. The other videos are below.

Cursive - Big Bang

St Vincent - Actor Out of Work

Blonde Redhead - The Dress - Mike Mills

boards of canada - dayvan cowboy

Grizzly Bear - Ready, Able

fever ray - keep the streets empty for me

why? - these hands/january twentysomething

polvo - right the relation

yeasayer - ambling alp

Lighting Dust - Never Seen

Headlights - Love Song For Buddy.

Les Savy Fav - from Inches

Les Savy Fav - from inches

Califone - Funeral Singers

Rain Machine - Give Blood

Bear in Heaven - Shining and Free

Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications

the knife

Future of the Left - Arming Eritrea

Ramona Falls - I Say Fever

No Age - Losing Feeling

Hello Seahorse! - Bestia

Land Of Talk - Troubled

Thao with The Get Down Stay Down - Cool Yourself

Cold Cave - Love Comes Close

Fever Ray - Stranger Than Kindness

Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone

The Dead Weather - I Cut Like A Buffalo

Camera Obscura - The Sweetest Thing

The Decemberists - The Rake's Song

mission of burma - "1, 2, 3, partyy

joan of arc - flowers

the black heart procession - drugs

dead man's bones - dead hearts

The Mountain Goats - Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace

The Needle by To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie

Metronomy - You Could Easily Have Me

Jon Hopkins - Insides (Live at The ICA, London)

the shaky hands - already gone

taken by trees - my boys

janelle monae - many moons

cursive - let me up

the dodos - fables

Beep Beep - Secrets For The Well

sonic youth - mote

girls - morning light

reminds me of....

First Aid Kit - Hard Believer

Throw Me the Statue - Hi-Fi Goon

A Place to Bury Strangers - In Your Heart

Fever Ray - Seven

mt. st. helens vietnam band - albatross, albatross, albatross

pink mountaintops - execution

sunset rubdown - black swan

health - dieslow

The Octopus Project - Wet Gold

Richard Hawley - For your lover give some time

Wild Beasts - All The King's Men

[OLD] Cadence Weapon - Black Hand

Tom Brosseau - You Don't Know My Friends

works like a rolls royce

[OLD] Madlib - Take It Back

Bombay Bicycle Club - Magnet

The Fiery Furnaces - Charmaine Champagne

The Walkmen - On The Water

Antony and The Johnsons - Crazy In Love

Land Of Talk - The Man Who Breaks Things (Dark Shuffle)

Bombay Bicycle Club - Always Like This

hmmm

N.A.S.A - A Volta

[OLD] The Russian Futurists - Let's Get Ready To Crumble

The Wave Pictures - Just Like A Drummer

almost works

Slow Club - Come On Youth

The Wave Pictures - If You Leave It Alone

Pastels/ Tenniscoats - Vivid Youth

mew - introducing palace players

girls - lust for life

The Rogers Sisters - Never Learn To Cry

Shooting At Unarmed Men - Girls Music

Monade - Regarde

Future Of The Left - Manchasm

Future of the Left - The Hope That House Built

[OLD] Broadcast - Come On Let's Go

Late Of The Pier - Bathroom Gurgle

Peter Doherty - Broken Love Song

Shocking Pinks - Emily

oh no ono - swim

pink mountaintops - execution

Jay Reatard - It Ain't Gonna Save Me

Julian Plenti - Games For Days

Deerhoof - Jagged Fruit

Cannibal Ox - Pain Killers

The Shaky Hands - We Are Young

Shy Child - Astronaut

Lovvers - OCD GO GO GO Girls

Arctic Monkeys - Crying Lightning

The Black Heart Procession "Witching Stone"

Yo La Tengo - "Here To Fall"

pretty yummy

Fever Ray - Triangle Walks

yo la tengo - periodically double or triple

new yo la tengo on its way...

Joker's Daughter - Lucid

Danger Mouse goes folk...

The Twilight Sad - I Became A Prostitute

Cass McCombs - You Saved My Life

gentleman reg

benoit pioulard

polvo - beggar's bowl

i don't know how i missed this but one of the best bands of all time is apparently back in action and has a new album coming out in september. frankly this is more exciting than chrome OS. the link to the song is hijacked from stereogum.com - i just couldn't resist. it is probably another sign that i'm out of touch but stereogum.com has a couple of interesting track-by-track cover albums available free on their website.

Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move

holiday shores

wavves

pajo

dinosaur jr

this couldn't but put a smile on my face.

Those Dancing Days - Run Run

First Aid Kit - Our Own Pretty Ways

Tortoise - Prepare Your Coffin

clues:haarp

Patrick Watson - Fireweed

Nadja - Only Shallow

i didn't quite see this one coming - a covers album by the fuzzed-out Nadja! it kicks off, or rather meanders off, with perhaps a little too faithful rendition of only shallow (which of course means that it is still pretty damn good). it is not a stretch to see how Nadja's drone get's applied to gem's like Codeine's 'pea' but the real treats here are the covers of a-ha's 'the sun always shines on tv' (the album title cleverly combines the opening lines of 'pea' and the title and a-ha's 'classic') and elliott smith's 'needle in the hay'. and it goes far beyond being simply the 'oh look what they have done' sort of thrill. nadja actually adds something to a-ha's original and manages to preserve the spirit of elliott smith's song although it sounds vastly different. overall an unlikely success.

Papercuts - Future Primitive

white rabbits - percussion gun

Patrick Wolf - Vulture

Hmmm, interesting. After toying with orchestral pop on his last album, the Magic Position (see below), Patrick Wolf has now transformed into some combination of Marc Almond, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails.

Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position

St Vincent - Actor Out Of Work

The Horrors - Sea Within A Sea

Unkle - Heaven

Ungdomskulen - idunno

i had for some reason written ungdomskulen off for some reason but this calls for serious historical revisionism. this is as close to brilliant as anything i have heard this year - and i hate to admit it that the animal collective is in the running. but ultimately these guys win because they sound more like polvo. i gather this is from the newly released bisexual album.

Ungdomskulen - Modern Drummer

blonde redhead/devastations & sufjan stevens

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero

Handsome Furs - I'm Confused

deerhoof

Architecture In Helsinki - That Beep

what the hell happened to architecture in helsinki?! this just might be the worst song i've heard all year. i guess it came out last year and i can't say i'm surprised that i didn't hear it until now. and don't get me started on the video. watch and suffer...

The Rifle - Alela Diane

Tim Exile - Family Galaxy

starts of like a nice boards of canada, then for a bit it sounds like a bad postal service, then why?, then something else. brilliant and/or mad?

Future of the Left 'The Hope That House Built'

Prefuse 73 : The End of Biters - International (2004)

Cornelius - Sensuous

2008

i would like to say that my best of the year 2008 is only seeing the light of day in February because i take the job of compiling the list very very seriously and that i needed some additional time to work my way through of the stacks of albums released. or that i wanted some more time to see if first impressions really last. but in reality i've just busy with other things. like watching tv. although i do get bothered by end of the year lists appearing early december with 1/10th of the year left. perhaps another reason i didn't get my shit together earlier was because 2008 was a pretty lame year and there were very few albums that i got excited about. indeed, it was hard to find albums deserving a place on the list.

the top three:
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles although i got excited by hearing crystal castles first singles and remixes i couldn't help feel it was just a little bit of 8-bit gimmickry. so it was surprising to see the one trick pony run the length of a full album and come out ahead of much of the rest. turns out there is more to their songs than 8 bits.





These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid admittedly the name of the band almost kept me away but thankfully bandwidth is cheap. TNP is postpunk in the way that battles are postpunk only that they look to joy division for inspiration (or at least sound like they do) rather than whoever battles took after. so perhaps a dadaist version of joy division updated with sharper sounds. maybe not. but definitely worth the listen.





Cadence Weapon - Afterparty Babies i admit that i was a bit disappointed when i first heard afterparty babies as it struck me sounding too simply. repeated listen, however, changed all that and in the end this is a killer and clever hip hop album that received far too little attention.






The other good ones:

Dungen - 4 well, nothing really new here and probably not Dungen's best but i still find it very enjoyable







The Kills - Midnight Boom the kills go from being grimy, bluesy to being sexy. it suits them better.







Wolf Parade - Mount Zoomer by no means as good as their debut but still a pretty solid. that's all i ask for this year






Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel sort of this years Klaxons. it is loud, obnoxious, and all over the place but most of all it is just a fun ride







Spiritualized - Songs in A&E i really didn't think i would be listening to the spiritualized ever again. at least not any new stuff. i was wrong. this is probably better than anything they have every done before.






Ten Kens - st kinda old school indie rock, kinda lo-fi, kinda loud (not that loud really). the cute generation could learn a thing or two here.






No Age - Nouns i would probably say the same thing about this album.







Parenthetical Girls - Entanglements parenthetical girls go chamber pop, which, of course, will not sound anything like it.






Let's Wrestle - Let's Wrestle fantastically catchy and superbly lo-fi. kinda like pre-slanted and enchanted pavement but probably a good deal sillier. i hope these guys never stumble upon a 'good' producer.






fuck buttons - street horrrsing strangely pretty







honorable mentions:
deerhunter - microcastles
the gutter twins - saturnalia
fucked up - the chemistry of common life
vast aire - dueces wild
duke spirit - neptune
the big sleep - sleep forever
gang gang dance - saint dymphna


the disappointment:
TV on the Radio - Dear Science ok, not a bad album by any means but expectations where pretty high after cookie mountain. first, where are the effen guitars? second, what is with the canned beats? i hate to say this but with the middle aged production i can't help but think terrence trent d'arby and seal. i know that is mean but that's just how disappointed i am with this album.

the disgust:
Vampire Weekend - st wtf! if i caught my girlfriend listening to this that would be the end of the relationship.

let's wrestle - song for man with pica syndrome

apparently 'the most miserable and hateful band in London'. i say we need more hate and misery.

mono - ashes in the snow

From mono's forthcoming album Hymn to the Immortal Wind. As with other mono stuff you should turn the volume way up and close your eyes. or go see them live.

Metronomy - A Thing For Me

makes me smile