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Our Favorite Songs of 2009
Filed Under Updates
Without any to-do, here’s the top tracks of 2009 according to our regular stable of writers. The Lala link should look better than it does, but it doesn’t. So just click the thing and have a listen once you’re done reading about it here.
Larson
1. “Two Weeks”- Grizzly Bear. (though I really want to choose Southern Point, I’ll say Two Weeks because it’s such a catchy song)
2. “My Girls”- Animal Collective.
3. “Knotty Pine”- Dirty Projectors and David Byrne. Dark Was the Night was an amazing album.
4. “Heard Your Voice in Dresden”- Elvis Perkins in Dearland.
5. “Marrow”- St. Vincent. I commend this live performance to you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zVlr-ynnAI
Honorable mentions:
“Cannibal Resource” - Dirty Projectors.
“Psalms 40:2″ - The Mountain Goats
“Ambivalence Avenue” - Bibio
“All The Money I Had is Gone” - Deep Dark Woods
Robert
1. “I’m Glad” - Al B. Sure!. Likely Mr. Sure! has been written off as an arcane R&B crooner whose heyday has long since passed, but this track from his most recent album (the underrated Honey I’m Home) shows that he can still bring some sensual grace and sultry grooves to the table.
2. “More Than A Dream” - Pet Shop Boys. As with most of the tracks on this long-running duo’s latest album, it’s clunky opening would be easy to dismiss on a cursory scan. But let this ode to hope and positivity (supposedly aimed at President Obama) play on and you’ll fall deep into the song’s pulsing trance beat and lush vocal melody.
3. “Young Adult Friction” - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. This blast of hormonal heat and energy comes from the best debut of 2009. This song stands out for tapping into its titular furtiveness and smooth-skinned sweetness.
4. “Gigantes” - Tortoise. Latin grooves rendered robotic by this ever-inventive Chicago outfit.
5. “Ride” - Prefab Sprout. An overtly Christian sentiment expressed through the lens of slick, AOR Britpop. Surprisingly affecting.
Brendan
1. “Quick Canal” (feat. Laetitia Sadier)- Atlas Sound from Logos
Eight and a half minutes of Laetitia Sadier singing her lyrics over one of Bradford Cox’s steadiest beats (and his background vocals). The second half of the song becomes sound for the sake of sound, Sadier’s voice reaching higher and outward while the guitars gaze at their shoes. But that beat—it propels and anchors the song, one of Cox’s most brilliant compositions.
2. “All the Money I had is Gone”- Deep Dark Woods from Winter Hours
The prodigal son, perhaps just before he sees the pigs eating their pods and his envy drives him to repentance. That pedal steel is the sound of every open highway, that finger-picked guitar gives voice to every heavy, regretful heart out on the road. Ryan Boldt’s voice, dusty and weary, doesn’t try to interpret his plainspoken lyrics—the words just come out, as if they’re the only words he has left to say but doesn’t have anyone to say them to. One of the finest country or folk songs of this or any year.
3. “Cedars of Lebanon”- U2 from No Line on the Horizon
Perhaps NLotH’s least worked-over (and therefore, strongest) song, Cedars of Lebanon is the darkest album-closer U2 have released in the 2000’s. It’s a strange and challenging move given the relative glibness of the rest of the record (and songs like “Grace” and “Yahweh”). It’s also a pretty compelling song in its own right. Bono plays a foreign reporter in Lebanon. His home life is shattered. So, too, are the “complicated lives” he has to squeeze “into a simple headline”; the imagery is restrained, commentary-free, speaking for itself: “unholy clouds reflecting in minarets,” “soldier brings oranges he got out from a tank”… and Bono, thankfully, doesn’t try any histrionics to drive them in. Brian Eno’s production atmospherics detail out a perfectly sturdy guitar-bass-drums track, which builds in urgency and starkness to the point that when Bono stops singing, the song ends… and for all of the record’s flaws, it leaves you unsettled, waiting for an answer.
4. “My Girls”- Animal Collective from Merriweather Post Pavilion
Psychedelic electronics, and the simplest, most domestic lyrics conceivable from an indie band. Since this song is on absolutely every other top ten list in the universe, my chief reason for loving it is that my three-year-old daughter requests it every night when I come home from work. She refers to it as “Wooh! moooscick”, which, you all will agree, is really cute.
5, “Midnight at the Movies”- Justin Townes Earle from Midnight at the Movies
Simple, straightforward, country lyrics about being alone in a sleazy movie theater, waiting for a girl who is probably a figment of his imagination. Beautiful, melancholic, impeccably arranged backing from the band, a loping beat as evocative and essential to the song as the words. The less said, the better.
Molly
1. “Gimme Sympathy”- Metric. What would you rather play, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones… Right now, gimme a hand for Metric.
2. “Undisclosed Desires”- MUSE. Unveiled genius, and hotness, and a masterful hand for a European sense of drama. Allow me to rave.
3. “Trepanation Party”- Voxtrot. Maybe it’s the drums, maybe it’s the voice, blame it on the lyrics, this belongs on the soundtrack of 09. This is what it feels like to be one of the beautiful people.
4. “Sweet Disposition”- Temper Trap. A moment, a love, a laugh, a kiss… a year, a band, a reason to love this song more and more every time you hit repeat. It happens like that.
5. “Green Eyed Love Classixx Remix”- Mayer Hawthorne. Hey Handsome, how ‘bout a shot of retro for a remixxx on the roxxx? Come on baby, straight from Detroit.
Will
1. “My Girls”- Animal Collective.- iTunes stopped keeping track of how many times this song was played. This song adds, takes away, and shows us its sum at all the right moments, much like Daft Punk. And, like Daft Punk, I play it over and over again, for that killer hook hit, waiting for final chorus and beat to drop.
2. “Two Weeks”, Grizzly Bear. Like walking on a giant, multi-colored pane of glass, suspended 1,000 feet in the air. That’s as ethereal as I can get, and this song made me float far more than I can tell. Perhaps I’m being hyperbolic, but this song’s too overpowering for me to care.
3. “Party in the USA”- Miley Cyrus. There are few feelings better than nodding your head like “yeah”.
4. “Home”- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. While music is often intensely intimate and personal, “Home” made me feel downright domestic. Simplistic, but in the best of ways, this song captures something communal and warm..
5.”Hindsight”- Built to Spill. BtS can prog it up and jam out out with the best of them, or they can package a tight chorus hook and neat-but-expansive guitar solo into a three-minute package. This song finds them doing the latter with an Americana twang. When most artists run out of things to say, Doug Martsch proves he’s still worth listening to.
Comments
9 Responses to “Our Favorite Songs of 2009”
Leave a Reply
You guys are crazy. Why don’t you and Grizzly Bear go get a room?
Word, Deacon, word.
Rad. But I’m pretty sure The Roadside Graves needed to make it in there somewhere with at least one track… although there are so many songs who even cares.
How did “I got a feelin’” by Black Eyed Peas not make this list….this is bulls*&t!
Larson,
You’re beautiful. But my favorites are more favorite-y than yours.
I would be glad if you and Grizzly Bear getting a room too, provided that it was a concert room/hall, and they were performing music, and I was invited.
Why was M. Ward excluded from all these lists, but Miley Cyrus wasn’t? Oversight? This hurts like a million knives.
Agreed on: My Girls, Knotty Pine, and All the Money.
I’m getting into Metric and Ed Sharpe, so I feel good about those selections.
But why listen to the Mountain Goats, when you can listen to Pink Mountaintops? “While We Were Dreaming” deserves a rec. Maybe the Big Pink’s “Dominoes”.
I’ve gotten into Deer Tick, perhaps an entirely average band skillwise, but one that transcends their limits. Sample: “Easy” and “Smith Hill”.
I’m shocked, no Avett Brothers.
The greatest oversight is The Veils album Sun Gangs. Having granted Radiohead emeritus status, The Veils are my favorite band. If you ever get tired of the twinkie tunes of Grizzly Bear and want to reinstate your rock cred break out “Three Sisters” and “Sit Down By the Fire”.
Ok, I’ll bite:
DM Stith - “Pity Dance” The best song from the most unsettling and eventually the most rewarding album I’ve heard all year. I listened to this album 5 times or more a day for about two weeks.
Passion Pit - “Sleepyhead” An extremely overrated band, but one who gave me the finest 3 minutes of the year when I first heard this song. A rarity amongst radio hits in that it resists the temptation to beat you over the head with its hook until you’re totally sick of it.
Phoenix - “1901″ The best song from the best pure pop album of the year.
The Thermals - “Now We Can See” These guys finally stopped wanting to be Green Day and it paid off big time.
The Nerves - “Hangin’ on the Telephone” Okay, so it was only reissued this year, but this original version of the song later covered by Blondie is so good I just can’t help it.
Lots of dissapointing records this year: Air, M. Ward, Dutchess and the Duke, Superdrag.
Abby - if your Josh’s Abby, you can’t complain because Josh wouldn’t contribute to the list. Otherwise - sorry about M. Ward not making the list. We were only allowed 5 songs each.
Rem-town - I’m glad we’re mostly on the same page here. Honestly don’t know that I’ve heard Pink Mountaintops, but I’ll scope them out for sure now. Deer Tick is rad - almost got them to Moscow this Fall…Also - sorry about The Veils - I must listen to them now (I don’t claim to be an exhaustive expert by any means - just call ‘em like I see ‘em - but I’ve gotta see em..)
Dauzaster - I’m w/you on Passion Pit and Phoenix - both rad records. DM Stith, Thermals, and Nerves didn’t get play time from me this year.
As you can see - we need more contributors here at Stereopathic! Thanks for tuning in folks!