THE LISTS, part 1 – Top Songs of 2008

December 2, 2008 at 4:15 am · Filed under Lists, Music Reviews ·Tagged Animal Collective, Beach House, Beck, Bon Iver, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Born Ruffians, Conor Oberst, Cut Copy, Eagles of Death Metal, Fleet Foxes, Flying Lotus, Foals, Girl Talk, Hercules & Love Affair, Hot Chip, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, No Age, Portishead, The Bug, The Dodo's, The Walkmen, TV On The Radio, Vampire Weekend

I was thinking that I should stop at 25 as far as top songs go, otherwise I would have three or four songs from each of my favorite albums of the year, and that would kind of get pointless.  But then I realized when compiling the list that all of that happened within the top 25 anyway, so I expanded to 40, and here we go.  Unlike last year, for those who remember, I will give a short explanation for each track.  I won’t compare, because that would be ridiculous, but I hope that my synopses are appropriately glowing for each place in the list.  In it are The Walkmen, Born Ruffians, TV On The Radio, Beach House, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, the Dodos and much more, but this post is huge – you’ll have to hit the jump for it all.  Plus, you wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise immediately, would you?

1. “Barnacle Goose” – Born Ruffians, Red, Yellow & Blue
2. “Skinny Love” – Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
3. “Lover’s Day” – TV On The Radio, Dear Science
4. “Four Provinces” – The Walkmen, You & Me
5. “Fools” – The Dodos, Visiter
6. “Red Moon” – The Walkmen, You & Me
7. “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” – Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
8. “Play Your Part (Pt. 1)” – Girl Talk, Feed The Animals
9. “Out There On The Ice” – Cut Copy, Lights & Music
10. “The Blue Route” – The Walkmen, You & Me
11. “Golden Age” – TV On The Radio, Dear Science
12. “Hedonistic Me” – Born Ruffians, Red, Yellow & Blue
13. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” – Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
14. “Canadian Girl” – The Walkmen, You & Me
15. “Creature Fear” – Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
16. “Crying” – TV On The Radio, Dear Science
17. “Heart Of Chambers” – Beach House, Devotion
18. “Kissing The Beehive” – Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer
19. “Water Curses” – Animal Collective, Water Curses EP
20. “The Rip” – Portishead, Third
21. “Things I Did When I Was Dead” – No Age, Nouns
22. “Buriedfed” – Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
23. “GNG BNG” – Flying Lotus, Los Angeles
24. “Ready For The Floor” – Hot Chip, Made In The Dark
25. “Let Me See You” – Girl Talk, Feed the Animals
26. “Modern Guilt” – Beck, Modern Guilt
27. “The French Open” – Foals, Antidotes
28. “Mykonos” – Fleet Foxes, Sun Giant EP
29. “Sun It Rises” – Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
30. “Blind” – Hercules & Love Affair, Hercules & Love Affair
31. “Gila” – Beach House, Devotion
32. “Now I’m A Fool” – Eagles Of Death Metal, Heart On
33. “Red And Purple” – The Dodos, Visiter
34. “Lights And Music” – Cut Copy, Lights & Music
35. “Angry (ft. Tippa Irie)” – The Bug, London Zoo
36. “I Need A Life” – Born Ruffians, Red, Yellow & Blue
37. “Flume” – Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago
38. “Wedding Bell” – Beach House, Devotion
39. “Get-Well-Cards” – Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst
40. “You Remind Me of Something (The Glory Goes)” – Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Lie Down In The Light

1. Barnacle Goose – This was an easy choice that got harder as the year went on.  But the sheer brilliance of the lyrics combined with unbelievable catchiness makes this song number one.  I’ve listened to this song a good 100 times this year, and I still love it to death and sing along (correctly) every time.
2. Skinny Love – I really should have reviewed Bon Iver, but by the time I was able to form words that matched the pure, visceral response I had to this music, I had listened to it too much and would have broken my own rules about the blog being about giving first impressions.  There is so much raw emotion here, I can’t take it.  Richie, Helena and I listened to this over and over in the space of two long car rides and had memorized it completely.  All we wanted to do was watch the moon and listen to this song.  That’s still how I feel.
3. Lover’s Day – Even though the two songs above this are love songs, this is the best love song of the year.  It’s so uplifting and joyous, it actually does a great job of conveying the pure emotional power of physical intimacy – better than any song I’ve ever heard.  Emotional and physical love are normally so far apart in music, that to have them completely inseparable makes even the “c” word have real emotional weight.
4. Four Provinces – There’s a complete easy grace to this song that grabbed me immediately.  Hamilton Leithauser’s voice, the rim-shot drum beat, the lyrics, all of it – just easy, relaxed, and incredible.
5. Fools – This song doesn’t necessarily make me want to dance, but it sure as hell makes me want to bounce.  It is murderously catchy.  This melody won’t leave you for months.  Also, drummer Logan Kroeber is a total badass.
6. Red Moon – A great waltz, and a real showcase for Leithauser’s voice.  Most singers would wilt under such naked exposure on those high notes, but he doesn’t just keep his confidence, he fucking owns those solos.  Great lyric: “I see you now, you shine/like the steel on my knife.”
7. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song – Speaking of voices, I think everyone who’s heard him agrees Robin Pecknold has the best voice of anyone in any new band.  Unadulterated beauty, and it’s on full display here.  His words don’t even matter; the small catharsis of when his voice comes in on that high note is enough to put this song in the top 10.
8. Play Your Part (Pt. 1) – What an introduction.  If someone has never heard Girl Talk before and they hear this song, you can bet they’re thinking, “Oh shit, this is going to be awesome” as soon as the first mash-up kicks into gear.  Girl Talk wants to blow you away as soon as you hear him on his albums so you remember who you’re dealing with, and that’s why when you’re picking your favorite track of his, it’s probably going to be the first.
9. Out There On The Ice – By all accounts, this should be just another Top-40 electropop song.  The lyrics aren’t particularly brilliant.  But the music behind it is so well put together; I cannot overstate how much I love this production.  The production sells the lyrics so hard and so well that a lyric like “If that’s what it takes, don’t let it tear us apart/Even if it breaks your heart” sound earnest and cathartic (countdown on how many more times I’ll use that word: 3 more times, at most).
10. The Blue Route – For all the words I’ve written about this band and this album, I still feel like there’s something I’m missing, something beyond words that I still can’t capture that I feel would make everyone agree with me about this album if I could enunciate.  But I guess it’s just that lack of words to describe songs like this that gives it its power.  “What happened to you?”
11. Golden Age – Goes from sexy funk to uplifting, brass-section touting, um, funk.  So it’s a funk song.  I double-dare you to listen the chorus with the volume turned up and not smile.  I triple-dare you to not at least tap your foot to this song.  It’s even my ring tone, goddamit.
12. Hedonistic Me – Sweet, innocent love song.  Again, great, great lyrics.  I love how they’re not impatient to say what they want to say.  They know this song would do best at a slow, playful pace, and that’s the way they play it.  I also love singing along, “There’ll be Ma and Pa and Grandmama/And all the children I have fathered ahhhh….”
13. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa – V-dub in the hizzie.  You can find reasons why this song is great all over the interwebs, but I’ll just say that the guitar figure is genius.  How it hasn’t gotten old to me by this point is inexplicable.
14. Canadian Girl – You didn’t think I could stop at just three Walkmen songs, did you? The guitar is featured more in this song, but not in a solo/rock band kind of way.  It’s just a different instrument that guides the song.  The little woodblock figure is ultra-charming as well.
15. Creature Fear – This song starts out as a beautiful hymnal piece, with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) multitracking his own harmonies.  Then it just explodes (if that’s possible with just adding more vocal tracks, a bass, louder guitar, and a beat) and my eyes just got wide as saucers.  The juxtaposition between the delicate verses and the lofty choruses makes this song.
16. Crying – It’s so obvious to hear what I like about this song just when you listen to it.  Just listen to it.  But the lyrics like “And Mary and David smoke down in the trenches/While Zion’s behavior never gets mentioned/The writing’s on your wall” help a whole lot.  And the brass figure at the end.  And the way Kyp Malone’s voice sounds when it gets loud and confident.  Fuck, does this mean you won’t listen to it now?
17. Heart of Chambers – Victoria Legrand’s voice is so ethereal and lovely (I like it better than Feist, and, well, I can tell the difference easily), but that’s not what makes this track great – that’s what makes Beach House great in general.  What makes this track great is the guitar.  Oh, that guitar.  When the song opens, that guitar just knocks me back and puts a bit of a tear in my eye.  It’s so emotive – I can tell it’s a love song before the lyrics even start.
18. Kissing the Beehive – Huge, epic, sprawling, multi-chaptered á la “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” but stops short of masturbatory.  Actually, it doesn’t stop short of shit.  It just isn’t masturbatory because it’s too good to be.  I think my view of this is better than most, because I’ve seen them do it live.  They did this fucking 11-minutes-long song fucking LIVE.  And it was otherworldly.  But it’s still damn good, DAMN good in studio.  And the false ending doesn’t feel overdone to me – it just feels like they’re in too much of a groove to end the record (this was the last track).
19. Water Curses – From super-heavy, super-huge rock epics to light pop pieces draped in water effects and noises (not noise, noises – big difference).  The light catchiness of this song is almost obscured by the hyper-intelligent production, and that toeing of the line is why the song isn’t higher on the list.  But I love the key changes that just make the song happier and more upbeat, impossibly.  And if you can make out the lyrics (tough, I know, but worth it), they say things like: “I want to be like water and slip into your throat/and make you feel alive and good/I want to be like water and never have a doubt and/reflect what is around my pool.”
20. The Rip – I kind of feel like I’m betraying the rest of a great record by choosing a song that’s radically different from all of its neighbors as my favorite – but hey, it’s not my fault that they do such a departure so well.  Portishead is all about darkness, of feeling and tone and all that, but the way they approach it – by juxtaposing the sad female vocals and lyrics with a light guitar figure – makes it even more crushing than the dark electronic pieces that Portishead is known for.  And the electronic breakdown halfway through just hammers the point home, albeit as a danceable point.
21. Things I Did When I Was Dead – Circular, introspective, atmospheric –  not things that No Age is generally known for, if it’s known at all.  But No Age is surprisingly versatile, as Nouns proved.  A tight, head-bobbing piece that’s a great break from earsplitting tracks on that album.
22. Buriedfed – “This is my last song about myself, about my friends/Found something else to sing.” Liar.  This is actually MBAR’s first song about himself that we all hear, and damned if it’s not heartbreaking and rousing at the same time.  He does a great job of crashing the meaning of lyrics up against the tone of the music, so that a normally joyous piece sounds just uproariously angry.
23. GNG BNG – I don’t know if this song title really means “Gang Bang,” but I like to think that it does.  It’s a song in two halves: 1) A great bass line, a great middle-eastern melody line.  2) A badass bass line that is the melody, and an awesome, DJ Shadow-like drum sample, which wrestles for control with the aforementioned bass-melody line awesomely, before the first bass line comes back and closes out the song in really spaced manner.  Fucking great.
24. Ready For The Floor – Juxtapose this with “Out There On The Ice” and you get two totally different ways to get a great dance track, though they’re related.  Both have shiny synths and not-too-deep bass, and about the same beats-per-minute (BPM).  But this one’s production is very straightforward, and the voice part is higher, so this tips the scale from electropop to straight electro and disco, in a great, great way.  Please don’t tell anyone I sing along to the line “You’re my number one guy!”
25. Let Me See You – Girl Talk will make you dance, whether you like Gwen Stefani (canned) or R. Kelly, or booty rap (tuned down), or 80’s-movie soundtrack style guitar, or M.I.A.  What’s that? You don’t really like any of that? Well, you do now, because it’s all shoved together, and the old theory about greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts is in full effect here.  When you hear “Every day I’m hustlin” rapped over “Rebel Rebel”, you know you better get on that dance floor.
26. Modern Guilt – DJ Danger Mouse in full effect, bringing that Beck flair back.  I love that drum beat, and this song is so simple (drum beat + guitar line + Beck singing + occasional extra guitar and piano = “Modern Guilt”) that the song really doesn’t have any room to not be great.
27. The French Open – The opening track for Antidotes, shown to me by Jesse Goldstein and a sneaky good album, has a lot going on.  It starts out as a simple guitar shuffle with syncopated drums, and gets faster and propulsive with the stiff guitar picking getting more intense, and then we get these kind of chants (in French, maybe?) and staccato brass.  Before you know it, your head is bobbing and the song is big and fully realized.
28. Mykonos – Let’s play spot-the-influence: Led Zeppelin with the drum climaxes in the second half, CSN(and sometimes Y) in the a cappella harmonies, Led Zeppelin again with the mythology references, The Who with the use of acoustic guitar mixed up with a full rock song, and why not Kansas, with the power harmonies way up high.  I listen to this song alone in the car all the time, but rarely with others anymore.  When I sing along to this, I turn it way the fuck up and basically shout along so I can get that high.  It’s super fun, you should try it.
29. Sun It Rises – It’s interesting to see the stark differences between Fleet Foxes on their EP and on their eponymous LP.  The former is rooted in classic rock of many different types, but the LP seems so firmly entrenched in backwoods folk, that I have to believe that they have many more songs all ready to go, just waiting for the correctly themed record.  The climax here is the definition of musical catharsis.  And then we get a great, simple, moving guitar figure – throw in a little banjo harmony with it, and cap it off with more a cappella harmonies.  You got yourself a fucking great song.
30. Blind – Speaking of disco, this is the closest you’ll get to the 70’s outside of Barry Gibb’s closet these days.  And man, what a voice Antony, the singer here, has.  So unique, so perfectly suited for this song (and in my opinion, almost nothing else), and really affecting, especially in harmony.  The little trumpet figure is a nice touch.
31. Gila – Let this be the end of the “Geela/Heela” debate.  If Victoria Legrand says the former, then by God, let it be true.  Again, the entrance of the guitar is too good.  But this song is nothing without the shimmering organ behind it all and the woozy drum machine, and these are my favorite Beach House lyrics: “Give a little more than your life/Pick apart the past, you’re not going back/Don’t you waste your time.”  I might trade awaybeing a man for having a singing voice like this (if draft picks were included).  Did you know she sang LED ZEPPELIN in high school?! That’s sexy.
32. Now I’m A Fool – Although this may be the least-hardest-rocking song (I can’t say softest-rocking, that doesn’t sound right) yet to come out of the Eagles of Death Metal, it’s their most well-developed.  Actually smart lyrics, great bass line, subtle little ooh’s, and a guitar that for once, sits back and is a member of the supporting cast.  Of course, if this wasn’t part of a totally badass record, I probably wouldn’t appreciate it as much, but hey, what are you gonna do.
33. Red And Purple – The Dodos seem a little immature, a little underdeveloped – you get the feeling that maybe two records from now, they will be fucking amazing, but they’re still really great here.  They’ve just got an x-factor working for them that makes me want to sing along to everything, and air-drum everything as well.  Great drum line again here, but the chorus is what makes this song.  It’s simple, doesn’t have a lot of deep meaning, but it’s earnest, and it’s melodic.  I love it dearly.
34. Lights and Music – There’s really not much more to say about this track than there was on the previous Cut Copy song – they still use the same alchemy to create beautiful electronic pop songs, a little more guitar-heavy this time, and not as completely sublime.  Still awesome though.
35. Angry (ft. Tippa Irie) – Black British people rapping about being angry over a completely awesome beat by The Bug? Sign me up.  A closer look shows that Tippa Irie is really rapping about getting pissed at society for being so fucked up, like poverty in Africa and suicide bombers, but that’s not really what makes me like this song.  It’s the pure, gritty, hip hop dance beat.  Plus, it gets me really pumped for playing frisbee. “So many tings dey get me angry,/So many tings dey get me mad!”
36. I Need A Life – “I’m lookin’ down/Come help me up/From stumblin’ round tryin’ to fill my cup/It’s half empty/So come pour some in and/Take me out tonight.” “I need meaning/I need a mission/I need a path/I need conviction/I need a life I’ve never had/I need much more good/and much less bad.”
37. Flume – Less intense than “Skinny Love,” this is just a low-key dirge where the music of Justin Vernon’s voice is far more important than the words he sings as far as the emotion he conveys.  He’s mournful, he’s tender, but there’s some hope there.  And the combination of those three has brought me back to this song time and time again.  That and the fact that “Skinny Love” is only about three minutes away once the song ends.
38. Wedding Bell – Less immediately emotional than the previous two Beach House songs on this list, but it’s a little more uptempo, and it’s the most catchy.  There aren’t any dominant elements here either, it’s a very balanced, complete work – that is, until the great, multi-tracked guitar solo.
39. Get-Well-Cards – Well, hello there, Bob – I mean, Jeff – dammit, I mean Conor! I think we’re safely beyond emo at this point, which is why Conor Oberst seemed to see fit to drop the Bright Eyes moniker.  With dumber lyrics and a pronounced keyboard, this could be a John Mellencamp song.  Thank god it doesn’t have those things.  It’s its own great song.  “Right there, that’s the postman sleeping in the sand./He’s got a get-well-card to deliver, he’s gonna do it by hand.”  Mr. Zimmerman, your rebuttal please.
40. You Remind Me of Something (The Glory Goes) – If this was Pinetop Seven, the start of the song would turn into an uptempo ballad about prairie murder.  But this is a happy Will Oldham, and as a result, it turns into a tight, humble folk song about insecure companionship. The fiddle is the perfect supplement to such a song; it’s like it’s telling you, “it’s okay, it’s a real folk song, you can like it wholeheartedly.” And I do.

Well, that was a workout; about 3400 words.  Maybe someone will read about 1000 of them.  Oh, well, at least I don’t have to think about it any more.  Now I’m going to go pass out.  You guys will probably have to wait a while for the albums list, but I bet you’ll get a couple of movie reviews from me in between.  The movies list will come in January.

UPDATE: I would just like to point out that Pitchfork’s shiny new Top Songs list is a fucking joke.  The simple fact that they have Hot Chip as number 3 when they spent January being disappointed in them merely goes to show that the main function of their year-end list is to say that the best music of the year will always be something that you didn’t pay enough attention to (according to them).  Last year, they did an okay job with both the albums and songs lists, but this is beginning to smack of 2006’s injustice.  If Hercules and fucking Love Affair wins best album of the year, I will stop reading Pitchfork.  Maybe.  But I’ll definitely be supremely pissed off.

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