Our 2009 coverage concludes this week with the best tracks and albums of the year. Here's what we have coming up:
Wednesday: Albums, Honorable Mention - 25 excellent records that didn't make our Top 50
Thursday: Top 50 Albums of 2009, #50-#26
Friday: Top 50 Albums of 2009, #25-#1
Today, we're counting down our favorite tracks of the year. As we've been doing for a while now, the pool of eligible tracks goes beyond singles. Basically any song released or covered in 2009 was fair game for this list; in one case, a song that squeaked onto the lower end of the list last year when it circulated as a single made an even bigger impact this year as part of an album, so that track was again open for consideration.
To hear the tracks, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist.
As ever, thanks for reading Pitchfork this year. OK, here we go...
100. Darkstar
"Aidy's Girl's a Computer"
[Hyperdub]
Only a label that has released records by Kode9 and Zomby under the banner of "dance" could consider "Aidy's Girl Is a Computer"'s bob-and-weave a fitting tempo for movement. Its title wants to take literally the shrinking gap between human and computer interaction, and the track's winning, fractal vocal samples do their best to make some sense of the concept. But this is also one of the most tonally interesting electronic tracks of the year. The pitter-patter melody-- a marimba, a wooden xylophone, or just exquisitely manipulated digital tones-- carries the song as a stream of distorted keys run underneath. It sounds like a jocular, urbane cousin to one of Boards of Canada's fireside jams. Would that all significant others prove so rewarding. --Andrew Gaerig
99. Julianna Barwick
"Bode"
[eMusic Selects]
Call it the Sufjan Stevens factor but independent music consumers softened their stance on faith this decade, so long as it was packaged pretty and subtle. In "Bode", Julianna Barwick offers that package without pandering or compromising. A Louisiana transplant to New York, she paints spiritual yearning with such loose brushstrokes-- her own vocals looped and layered to lyrical inscrutability, soaring yet ecumenical electronic tones-- the most devout unbeliever risks no crisis of conscience wallowing in its loveliness. Make no mistake, "Bode" has the modal chant of medieval monks and ecstatic rhythms of Sacred Harp in its soul, and as its name implies, the song's an omen. Instead of announcing imminent end-of-days, however, "Bode" declares the good news. --Amy Granzin
98. Future of the Left
"Arming Eritrea"
[4AD]
Pity poor Rick, the subject of Andrew Falkous' mysterious rage in "Arming Eritrea". Did anyone suffer a more brutal browbeating in all of pop music in 2009? Each line of the verses begins with Falkous screaming "C'mon RICK!" with an intensity that is at once maniacal and hilarious. Who is Rick? Why does he deserve severe contempt? Though Rick's literal or metaphorical connection to Eritrea is unclear, the root of Falkous' fury is obvious and universal: He cannot stand this man's condescension, and must insist that he is an adult. Though berating one's enemies is not typically a hallmark of maturity, the song expresses an exasperated disgust that is bitterly familiar to anyone who has ever felt a bit too old to be treated like an idiot kid. The details don't really matter here, because we've all had to deal with a Rick at some point or another, if not every day of our lives. So, actually, you know what? Fuck Rick. He totally had this coming. --Matthew Perpetua
97. The Smith Westerns
"Be My Girl"
[Hozac]
The Smith Westerns aren't shy about borrowing from their heroes, and with "Be My Girl" they aren't afraid to compete with them. Whether it's the lurching half-drunk rhythm of the verses, the strings and echoing drum hits of the chorus, or the fuzz nicked from contemporary lo-fi acts, they seem hellbent on squeezing onto record shelves somewhere between "Seeds" and "T. Rex". The band sighs amiably at first, seemingly content to float by on languid jangle and good vibes. But the way the whole track swells on the chorus, it's as if they think they can overwhelm their forebears through sheer volume. And while the melody is hard to resist, the band's earnest exuberance is the glue that holds it all together. --Jason Crock
96. Gucci Mane [ft. Plies]
"Wasted"
[Asylum]
Gucci's music is divisive, like gangster rap should be. He is a hedonist, often emotionally detached and frequently ironic. "Wasted", though, was not an act, and, given his recent legal troubles, has a brutally sad subtext-- you know you have a substance abuse problem when you're failing piss-tests under threat of jail time. It was the party-rap hit of 2009, a track for rap fans tired of the encroaching gloss of Flo Rida's 1980s corpse-fucking formula. Fatboi's gradually layered chainsaw beat was the perfect groggy intoxicant for Gucci and Plies' slurred pitch-imperfect raps. Combined with Gucci's 50 Cent-like ability to ingrain a hook into his listeners' subconscious, and a scene-stealing quote from Plies ("I don't wear tight jeans like the white boys...") made this one of 2009's most memorable singles. It's nice to have an anti-hero again. --David Drake
95. The Thermals
"Now We Can See"
[Kill Rock Stars]
A recording studio? A band? Who needs those artifacts and ankle weights these days. During the last half of this decade, lots of young artists-- Washed Out, Toro Y Moi, Bon Iver-- retreated from full-band settings to the isolation of their consoles, computers, and bedrooms. Maybe that makes the Thermals, who recorded Now We Can See with indie production star John Congleton, Luddites, but that archaic methodology also makes the title track such a successful anthem. Up front, we get a sing-along of four repeated syllables in a hook so simple you'll know it by the time the drums-- loud and live like, you know, real drums-- enter. Then we get our backstories-- damaged kids of disparate origins. And then we hear what we hope can be our future-- a confluence of independence and solidarity. "Now we can see/ What should we need," sings Hutch Harris. "We should need nothing at all." We thank you, rock band. --Grayson Currin
94. Best Coast
"Sun Was High (So Was I)"
[Art Fag Recordings]
In all the hubbub over the 1960s suntime funtime revival this year, it was surprising to see how few female singers got involved-- that beach party was a total sausage fest, brah. Thank goodness then for Bethany Cosentino, who broke off from Pocahaunted to contribute her own project to 2009's (ugh) wave of oceanic lo-fi. "Sun Was High (So Was I)" has all the signposts of its scene: murky percussion, barbed-wire-stringed guitars, oodles of reverb. But it stands out from the pack due to Cosentino's reach-back-and-belt-it vocals, a lighthouse through the four-track fog. That passion creates girl-group echoes, although the fact that Cosentino sings alone rather than in a shimmying trio lends the song a kind of isolated sadness. Yet even a fuzzy kiss leads to another, and "Sun Was High" was a much-needed feminine breeze for the year. --Rob Mitchum
93. Morrissey
"Something is Squeezing My Skull"
[Polydor]
After Morrissey's onstage collapse and subsequent pegging by a drink-hurling fan, Years of Refusal's muscular, defiant opener, with its worries about the star's health, feels like its most striking accomplishment. For such an aggressively upbeat glam-rock tune, the theme is melodramatically bleak-- and, to British pop fans, probably doubly familiar: Modern life is loveless. Worth it just to hear Moz list meds and then breathlessly repeat, "Don't give me anymore," at the song's conclusion. Oh, Mother, he can feel the soil falling over his head. --Marc Hogan
92. Cam'ron
"I Hate My Job"
[Asylum]
Killa Cam's career-peak infamy hung on elaborate death threats, audacious wardrobe inventories, and lyrics that used the slipperiest words possible to get his point across. "I Hate My Job" has none of those traits, and that's what makes it one of his weirdest tracks. Cam's casually audacious flow lets up on the swagger and rolls out a couple hard-luck stories dealing with 9-to-5 frustration and the even harsher realities of unemployment, and damned if it doesn't work perfectly. Not only does he capture the perspective of a stressed-out underpaid woman ("Ain't no money for new shoes or purses here/ Should've done my first career, nursing, yeah") and an ex-felon trying to join a diminished workforce, his delivery absolutely nails their emotional stress. Skitzo's piano-driven beat is deceptively uplifting, with a choral "yeah yeah yeah" refrain providing a bit of classic-soul sympathy, but it doesn't obscure the bitter realities at the core. --Nate Patrin
91. HEALTH
"Die Slow"
[Lovepump United]
It's fitting that HEALTH's most melodic song to date manages to rip and rend something sweet from a grind. It's a hook that could have been fashioned from sheet metal, but adorned with wiry guitar and Jacob Duzsik's airy vocals, the cycling, jagged loop gains velocity and feels visceral yet restrained. These Smell alums obviously know how to move a sweaty, packed room; listen for the double bass-hit and the chugging, heavy riffs that make a brief appearance 10 seconds in, a paean to house parties past. What makes "Die Slow" stand out is that it's some of the best evidence yet that, after a dance remix record and road trip with Trent Reznor, these guys know how to play to a much larger room. --Patrick Sisson
90. The-Dream
"Rockin' That Shit"
[Def Jam]
At the end of each one of The-Dream's drowsy, come-on laden verses, a simple submission: "There's nothing I can say..." Like pretty much everything else he's produced since, "Rockin' That Shit" doesn't really need to say much. In a year filled with bottle-service bangers that failed to generate any sort of authentically carnal club-knock appeal, there was something so deliciously simple about a suave-ass grinder that was free of any worn-out sexting tropes. The bombastic tidiness of the chorus-- and the awesome punctuation of that titular line-- played so perfectly up against the sexy shyness of the whole endeavor. Happy to accommodate any sort of cosmic VIP fantasy you're harboring, it shouldn't take much effort to fill in those blanks while surrounded by that celestial synth hook and those impossibly deep drums. --Zach Kelly
89. No Age
"You're a Target"
[Sub Pop]
No Age might be a duo, but they've rarely sounded slight. Guitarist Randy Randall favors heaps of distortion and delay, and drummer Dean Spunt doesn't seem to sit still very often. But with pronounced harmonies and a prominent bridge, they've never sounded bigger than on "You're a Target", the final cut from a four-song EP that finds the pair pushing themselves sonically and structurally. The guitar glows and refracts, different tones slipping through one another as if this were a Growing co-write. When Spunt pounds his way in, it's off to the races. "I get laughed at/ I wanna be like you, dude/ If you're a target/ Then I guess I'm one, too," he sings, offering the sort of anti-angst mantra that should be scribbled in lockers or across the front of spiral-ring notebooks. After all, you wouldn't want the high school bully saying your new heroes sounded thin and under-produced, would you? --Grayson Currin
88. Passion Pit
"Moth's Wings"
[Frenchkiss]
Michael Angelakos' falsetto has been a divider since Passion Pit started knocking out bloggers last fall with the arrival of the Chunk of Change EP. It made many gooey and drove others crazy. A year later, much has changed: Passion Pit got a major label deal and became a full-blown band, and Manners, their first full-length, burrowed its way into the fringes of the mainstream. And while "Moth's Wings" probably wasn't the jam to do the trick, it captured Angelakos at his most restrained and lordly. Opening on a staircase hook forged purely of dulcimer, the song quickly takes flight and plays to the band's strengths. Angelakos never screams out of range nor does he give his vocals the Chipmunk treatment. He simply sings, and it works out beautifully. --David Bevan
87. Here We Go Magic
"Fangela"
[Western Vinyl]
"Fangela" sounds too sophisticated to be the four-track project it is. Though it hardly carries the gloss of a big-budget studio job, the production is immaculate without ever feeling clinical, over-arranged, or prim-- just natural. It feels otherworldly, thanks to many layers of Moog, muffled doorknocker beats, and the timbre of Luke Temple's voice. His yelping plea, "you gotta move," may be the most striking part of the track (which is saying something), like he's yelling against the tide of the orderly, inevitable momentum of the rest of the song. Temple's range may be narrow, but makes the most out of his limitations. --Jason Crock
86. Drake
"Best I Ever Had"
[Cash Money]
There's that sexless, pretty-boy, falsetto hook, which floats up into the air-conditioned synths and nearly gets lost; that beat, which sounds like someone sent a 2003-era Roc-A-Fella production through seven different house filters; those sensitive-guy panderings, which are just expertly smarmy-- "Sweatpants, hair tied, chillin with no makeup on/ That's when you the prettiest/ I hope that you don't take it wrong." There is absolutely nothing about Drake that is not cocky, slippery, insincere, and canny-- the dude recites his freestyles from a fucking Blackberry, for Christ's sake-- and "Best I Ever Had" synthesizes all of those oily, Clintonian charms into one perfect Summer Jam. If he never releases another decent song in his life, this will be enough. --Jayson Greene
85. Wavves
"No Hope Kids"
[Fat Possum]
Think your 2009 sucked? Here's how Nate Williams' kicked his off: no car, no money, no god, no girlfriend, not a whole lot but some weed and GarageBand and an afternoon or two to kill. Then, on the back of a drifty, droney, sun-spotty one-two LP punch, he suddenly found himself a little bit of an indie star; and, well, you've probably heard the rest. Whatever your thoughts on Wavves (or Wavvves), indie rock entitlement, or whether or not Jared Swilley could or should take him outside, "No Hope Kids" is tough to front on. It's a bummed-out blast of surf scum that's preternaturally tuneful and instantly relatable to anybody too faded to care about life's little foibles. It's also, in its way, weirdly prophetic: "just a bunch of people... put around [him]" would take on new meaning a few months later. Turns out non-inspiration can, at times, be inspiring. --Paul Thompson
84. Junior Boys
"Parallel Lines"
[Domino]
"Parallel Lines" is lily-white, almost unnaturally perky, and club-savvy, with chatty vocals neatly razored over mirrored synths. Startlingly, it isn't about cocaine. In fact, it isn't about much of anything. It shifts pacifically from moment to moment, unperturbed by continuity, with abrupt toasts and loaded inquiries popping off like champagne corks. "Remembering the line, an empty metaphor" sums up the sort of sublime vapidity that's handled so handsomely here. It's like the words are just inconsequential whiffs of perfume that come off the feelings. It takes a sort of grown-ass-man vibe to pull off something so languorous, and the spring-wound track delivers. Impeccably balanced between a Fred Astaire flutter and a limp, it makes the all falsetto purring feel rich with meaning, not to mention icy sex appeal. "If I forgot the lines, is it easy enough to fake it?" It is, when you've got those peaking-at-daybreak keyboards for stimulation. --Brian Howe
83. Lady Gaga
"Paparazzi"
[Interscope]
Though "Poker Face" was an irresistible earworm and global chart grand slam, there were still moments (chiefly the line "I'm bluffing with my muffin") when Lady Gaga seemed like a desperate Jenna Maroney take on electroclash. But in its flawless tabloid-baiting fusion of immaculate hooks, dominatrix beats, and Matthew-Barney-goes-Hitchcock spectacle, "Paparazzi" rendered resistance futile. Building on a fame-stalking statement of intent ("I'll follow you until you love me") "Paparazzi" was strong enough to raise her above the legion of Madonnabes-- indeed it's turned out to be the best Madonna song of the 21st century-- and delivered the first real hint of the imperious, imperial artiste to come: "There's no other superstar you know that I'll be." --Stephen Troussé
82. DJ Kaos
"Love the Nite Away (Tiedye remix)"
[Rong/DFA]
Even in a slow year DFA managed to surprise us with a platter of exultant soft funk. DJ Kaos' original was an Italo-influenced jam whose sonics were just slightly too weighty for Kaos' love utopia. Italians Do It Better tricksters Tiedye buoy the mix with warm, open disco riffs, a perfect foil for Kaos' slightly flat mouthfuls. He sounds like late-period Iggy Pop: gruff and assured and game for just about anything. --Andrew Gaerig
81. Bowerbirds
"Northern Lights"
[Dead Oceans]
"All I want is your eyes," Phill Moore and friends sing, "in the morning as we wake for a short while." And the music for "Northern Lights" gracefully acquiesces to this request. It canters and sways in a comfortably sleepy manner, with each strum of the guitar and each splash of piano dappling the song's evocative lyric in streams of sunlight. And each time the song's lyric details what it does or doesn't need, it always comes back to the one thing that's truly wanted-- a moment of intimacy with a lover, waking and staring into each other's eyes as a new day begins. In praising the group's first album, Amanda Petrusich credited Bowerbirds for their ability to "[translate] place into sound." With "Northern Lights", the group outdoes themselves, translating something private and personal into a song whose resonance and sentiment can be universally understood. --David Raposa
80. YACHT
"Psychic City (Voodoo City)"
[DFA]
It takes a particular kind of sensibility to hear a chanted poem on a two-decade-old K Records cassette by Rich Jensen, think, "That's cool and all but it'd be even better if someone re-recorded it as a boppy alt-rock party jam," and then make that happen. Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans of YACHT, fortunately, have that sensibility. They're the proselytizing kind of archivists-- the kind who helpfully sell posters and mix CDs detailing their influences-- and they appear to believe that dancing confers currency and maybe even immortality on anything. So their "Psychic City" is a song whose online annotations are part of its fun, a big ol' chunk of ideology set to a big ol' dance beat. --Douglas Wolk
79. Pictureplane
"Goth Star"
[Lovepump United]
Because of his gritty bedroom production and affinity for quirky electronic music strains (trashy house and early-1990s dance-pop in particular), Pictureplane's Travis Edegy could be lumped in with the recent crop of chillwavers if his style weren't quite so sinister-sounding. Actually, with regard to "Goth Star", one of a few stellar cuts from his Dark Rift LP, the producer he reminds me most of is Gregg Gillis. But instead of splicing together multiple tracks, Edegy is able to achieve a Girl Talk-like recontextualization by chopping up just one-- Fleetwood Mac's "Seven Wonders". Isolating small snippets of the song-- the chiming keyboard bridge and snatches of Stevie Nicks' vocal-- he builds a mutilated, bass-heavy version darker and arguably more evocative than the original. Not unlike Gold Panda's also-fragmented "Quitter's Raga", the song is at times battered beyond recognition, but somehow that enhances the overall effect. --Joe Colly
78. Charlotte Gainsbourg
"IRM"
[Because/Elektra]
The sensation of entering a magnetic resonance imaging scanner has been documented on film many times over. These round, ominous chambers track and scan magnetized hydrogen atoms in the human body to unlock the secrets of pain and internal health. Charlotte Gainsbourg makes those films look bad. This, her first collaboration with Beck, is both a giddy and terrifying journey through the MRI process (that's IRM in French). A harmonium signals entry, feedback stands in for the oscillating interior gadgets, and galloping snares beat along with your heart, Gainsbourg elucidating the process throughout. "Leave my head demagnetized/ Tell me where the trouble lies," she half-sings, her voice disappearing into the hole. This is medical horror in literal translation, a trip through a frenzied and X-rayed mind. It's short, but powerful, and paralyzing. All part of the plan. --Sean Fennessey
77. Frida Hyvönen
"Jesus Was a Cross Maker"
[American Dust]
Judee Sill is the kind of tragic pop figure-- a troubled singer and songwriter who released two tough, mesmerizing folk records, fell into obscurity, and eventually died of a drug overdose in North Hollywood in 1979-- that attracts intense, cultish adulation. Her 1971 single, the Graham Nash-produced "Jesus Was a Crossmaker", is a classic piece of lush, Laurel Canyon songwriting, and Frida Hyvönen's stunning rendition-- recorded for Crayon Angel: A Tribute to the Music of Judee Sill-- comes awfully close to topping the original. Hyvönen's voice, augmented with a tiny bit of reverb, feels fragile and near-unhinged compared to Sill's quicker, more controlled performance, and her arrangement is sparser and gentler, almost celestial. When Hyvönen sings of betrayal a final time-- "And when I turned, he was gone/ Blinding me, his song remains reminding me/ He's a bandit and a heartbreaker"-- she sounds raw and slighted, angry on behalf of Sill, angry on behalf of all of us. --Amanda Petrusich
76. The Rural Alberta Advantage
"Don't Haunt This Place"
[Saddle Creek]
Though it depicts the end of a relationship, a few things elevate "Don't Haunt This Place" out of any break-up song torpor. The first and most obvious of these is the phenomenal work by drummer Paul Banwatt, whose taut and frenetic playing provides the action with the heightened suspense of a jewel heist. But what truly changes the narrative's trajectory is the bracing vocal harmonies of Nils Edenhoff and Amy Cole on the song's choruses. When they sing, "We tremble in the night/ For the things we're wishing were right/ Because we need this oh so bad" the key words are the pronouns. This is not the sound of one person moping alone in a suddenly empty apartment, this is the sound of two people making the simultaneous realization that a real-world relationship means accepting some imperfections, a glimpse of maturity that signals that there might just be a future to this story yet. --Matthew Murphy
75. Gold Panda
"Quitter's Raga"
[Make Mine]
A mid-tempo instrumental about two minutes long, anchored by a vocal chant so shredded that even people who speak the sample's language probably couldn't sing along comfortably. (The source: "Can't say 'cause I'll get sued," Gold Panda told us in September. You kids!) But there's something novel in the way the track is structured: It doesn't have enough time to build itself up, so it just breaks down. And maybe that's why it invites repeat plays-- it's a palate cleanser. It's easy to wonder about the future of this style, especially since J. Dilla's death, but while I'm actually listening to it, I bliss out and forget-- and then I remember the song's title. --Mike Powell
74. Neon Indian
"Should Have Taken Acid With You"
[Lefse]
By comparison, "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" sounds resolutely proactive, but if there's any lesson to be learned from the "that was so 09" node of hazy, homemade pop, it's that maybe all the kids don't want something to do. But amongst some stiff competition, "Should've Taken Acid With You" stands out as the ultimate statement on beanbag chair-bound detachment. According to Neon Indian singer/synth alchemist Alan Palomo, the song is based on a true story, but the side effects of tuning in and dropping out are so literal and innocent-- going swimming, ditching your parents, watching the cosmos, making out-- that it could just as easily have been called "Should've Tried to Hold Your Hand". Insouciant laziness as pop intoxicant-- fucking groovy, man. --Ian Cohen
73. Woods
"Rain On"
[Woodsist]
"Rain On" is a sad song that turns on one major point: It hardly feels like a sad song at all. There's just something in the way that its obliging verses sit with its downtrodden refrain over smeary, spindly guitars that makes it such a harrowing tune, but like the emotion the song conveys, the reason for its success is complicated. There's vocalist Jeremy Earl's gaunt falsetto, the band's sneaky little smears of rusty, Crazy Horse-tranquilizer feedback, and the wistful verse lyrics. But the chorus, "Oh, how the days will rain on you," is sung with a sort of optimism, and you kinda feel like he shouldn't sound so OK with the sentiment. It's a creaky triumph of stoney resolve and compositional reserve. --Paul Thompson
72. Matt & Kim
"Daylight"
[FADER]
You've seen the commercials and sitcoms that took advantage of this track's plucky drive to set a mood, but even without the extra exposure, "Daylight" was destined to resonate. From its opening punchy saloon-piano riff to the metallic rush of Kim's marching-band percussion and Matt's least whiny (and most overdubbed) vocal performance, it is a giddy expression of the most carefree moments of youth that is easily relatable to anyone who has ever taken a spur-of-the-moment road trip or stayed out all night. With lyrics about wanting to hitchhike to Maine, ignoring clocks of the workaday world, and taking trips down Williamsburg's Grand Street at dawn, it's an ode to freedom and free time-- two things that never go out of style. --Rebecca Raber
71. A Sunny Day in Glasgow
"Close Chorus"
[Mis Ojos Discos]
The highlight of Ashes Grammar, one of 2009's most immersive, headphone-friendly albums, "Close Chorus" sees A Sunny Day in Glasgow combining the polyphonic voices of a church choir with a shuffle-step drum loop lifted from an illicit late-night party amongst the pews. Leader Ben Daniels has honed his craft over two LPs now, but "Chorus" is the first time he's mixed Georgian folk music and Gregorian monastic chanting with the requisite Cocteau Twins or "Blown a Wish". Even so, the band seems to be operating here based on hazy memories of past sensations more than any direct channeling of influences. Appropriately then, when those angelic voices split like light through a prism and braid together into an impressionistic tapestry, the effect is positively haunting. --Eric Harvey
70. Discovery
"Orange Shirt"
[XL]
I was a bigger fan than most of the Vampire Weekend/Ra Ra Riot offshoot Discovery, but if "Orange Shirt" is the one song that endures from their debut album LP, I'll live. It pretty much sums up all the best parts of the project anyway: the sparkling keyboard tones, the celebratory nods to the production and song structure of contemporary R&B, the sense of wide-eyed yearning in the vocals. And it even manages to hit on something that bugs people about multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij's main group: the ease in discussing details that betray a sense of privilege. "Sleep on the train to Tokyo/ Google yourself when you get home," goes the line that the whole song builds to, and it's a lyric that has fascinated me all year. A few people I've spoken to found the sentiment obnoxious, but to me the second half of this couplet captured perfectly the low-level digitally assisted narcissism of the current age. The Beach Boys wrote about the specs on that Little Honda, Q-Tip explained all about that Skypager; for a few seconds here during the climax of "Orange Shirt", this is our life, lovingly rendered in a punchy indie pop song. --Mark Richardson
69. Taylor Swift
"You Belong With Me"
[Big Machine]
Nobody much cared when Kanye West interrupted Justice and Simian at that awards show a few years back, but when he talked his shit to Taylor Swift at this year's VMAs, the PR apocalypse sent him crying to Jay Leno. There's a reason for that; Swift may be the most flat-out likable pop star to emerge in recent memory. Case in point: "You Belong With Me". Musically, the track finds some expert gazillion-dollar middle ground between simple, expressive assembly-line Nashville country and exploding-chorus Kelly Clarkson radio-pop. But Taylor's is-he-really-going-out-with-her narrative links the track to the most fragile, heartbroken strains of twee indie pop. --Tom Breihan
68. Röyksopp [ft. Robyn]
"The Girl and the Robot"
[Astralwerks]
To paraphrase Rob Sheffield's line about a Replacements song, "The Girl and the Robot" finds Robyn pouring her heart out over Röyksopp's synthesizers after a long night of MTV. Against a disconcerted, increasingly frenetic electro-pop beat, a lonely Robyn cries out to an emotionally unresponsive workaholic lover, claiming, "you never seem to know when to stop" (hmm, is she dating Dr. Manhattan?). Eventually, she confesses that she "fell asleep again in front of MTV," which causes her to muse, "no one's singing songs for me." Like so many of Robyn's other great singles of recent vintage, "The Girl and the Robot" gives a post-modern sheen to old-school heartache. --Joshua Love
67. Arctic Monkeys
"Cornerstone"
[Domino]
Some love doesn't know when it's lost. To Alex Turner, every woman he makes a moves on in every bar he visits is a placeholder for his ex, and every liaison comes to a crashing halt when he asks if he can call her by his former lover's name. Well, except for the one where Turner hooks up with his ex's sister, but that's the way love goes in Arctic Monkeyland. The central gimmick aside, the real pleasure is in the telling. The names of the pubs (the Rusty Hook, the Parrot's Beak), the broken arm on the girl fixing the smoke alarm, his love's scent on the seatbelt in the cab-- Turner doesn't spare a horny, heartbroken detail. And the band suggests that ballads may have been their hidden strength all along. Turner is lost in love, and you don't have much choice but to swoon along with him. --Joe Tangari
66. Julian Casablancas
"11th Dimension"
[RCA]
It's been nearly five years since the Strokes fumbled First Impressions of Earth, and while Julian Casablancas' solo debut couldn't quite conjure the glories of his band's heyday, "11th Dimension" shows he's still capable of writing a big hook and compellingly unintelligible lyrics. The song may or may not be about forgiving the haters and staying true to your artistic vision, but the words matter only insofar as they give one of the best rock vocalists of the decade something to sing. Musically, "11th Dimension" is the strongest he's sounded since Room on Fire. It's a blast of retro-futuristic synths, steam-rolling guitar licks, and slicing, dicing hi-hat, and the busy pulse of the production cuts through the detachment and manages to convey a sense of fun, as if he's finally enjoying the creative experience. --Stephen M. Deusner
65. The Tough Alliance
"A New Chance (The Juan MacLean Remix)"
[Sincerely Yours]
"I know a place where diamonds never fade away," sang Sweden's the Tough Alliance on the title track from their 2007 album A New Chance. Chances are, they weren't singing about the Internet, but the song turns out to be a nice example of the way that there's more to the culture of rip-burn-and-remix than accelerated buzz. Digitally released in 2008 and made more widely available a year later, the Juan MacLean's remix digs in for the long haul with eight minutes of New Order arpeggios, acid squelch, and rubber-knuckled piano-house chords, plus a lovely loop of Cocteau Twins-styled swooning. The vocals may scream 00s indie, but in every other aspect, MacLean's epic rework is a testament to the way pop music colors giddily outside the timelines. --Philip Sherburne
64. Annie
"Songs Remind Me of You"
[Smalltown Supersound]
Despite the awkward syntax of the title, "Songs Remind Me of You" finds Annie in tight control, sharpening her incalculable charm into the massive 1980s jam she had somehow never managed to tack onto her résumé. The cut reunites the canny Norwegian with British producer Richard X, architect of a boatload of UK dance pop hits in the last decade. While Annie may lack the go-getter appeal of some of the producer's collaborators like Gwen Stefani or Sophie Ellis-Bextor (on the contrary, Annie prefers to bask in timeless melodies and classic turns of phrase), the bitter lament of "Songs" reminds us that when she bares her soul, it's got fangs. --Mike Orme
63. Real Estate
"Fake Blues"
[Woodsist]
Though Real Estate have made it known that they're from New Jersey and they like a bit of geographic specificity, their music has a universality that's easy to rally around. These dudes have probably spent a summer or two pounding Busch Lights in the vicinity of a boardwalk, but with "Fake Blues", the boardwalk is the least important part of the equation. Like a shaggy house-party highlight, "Blues"'s simple, bright guitars and loping drums evoke something both giddy and contemplative. "Your worries ain't so different than my own," effuses guitarist Martin Courtney blearily. A little sad, but brimming with grand, adolescent possibility, "Fake Blues" travels light and far, fueled by its simple charm. --Zach Kelly
62. Volcano Choir
"Island, IS"
[Jagjaguwar]
When word broke that Justin Vernon of Bon Iver had been working on an album alongside Wisconsin instrumental post-rock outfit Collection of Colonies of Bees, a few devotees probably wrinkled their noses a bit-- he was, after all, closely identified with solitary, emotional bloodlettings. But the results were moving anyway. Amid the spongy, repeating layers of Unmap entry point "Island, IS", Vernon's falsetto is painted with colors and textures and rhythms only hinted at in his solo work. Grooves open wide and close tight. Chords blink and twirl. No longer alone and somewhere deep inside the Bees' hivemind, Vernon's voice found another kind of home, and perhaps gave a glimpse of what's to come. --David Bevan
61. Atlas Sound [ft. Lætitia Sadier]
"Quick Canal"
[Kranky]
It's easy to marvel at "Quick Canal", to get swept up in its dense whirlpools of sound, to admire Bradford Cox for achieving a successful sonic communion with idol Laetitia Sadier rather than succumbing to the various perils of hero worship, and to fall completely under the spell of the Stereolab singer's angelic invocations and impossible high notes. It's easy to want to tune in again and again-- even at nine minutes it's never quite long enough. And while you're doing all that, it's easy to forget how awesomely noisy this thing gets, and how, after listening to it over and over at the high volumes it somehow demands, you're probably going to suffer some kind of permanent hearing damage. "Quick Canal": Even when it's loud, it still sneaks up on you. --Matthew Solarski
60. Kurt Vile
"Freeway"
[Woodsist]
The first few seconds of "Freeway", with its sputtering drum machine and gauzy keyboard tones, sound like incidental four-track diddling. When the track erupts into a hazy watercolor version of FM rock, all those details snap into place, as essential as the glassy guitar strum throughout or the brief, melodic guitar lead. That one opening moment sounds like a dam of writer's block breaking open for a wave of inspiration, and Vile, who usually sings in a more vulnerable and defensive tone, sounds positively swept up in it. An then abrupt ending makes the grin vanish like a puddle in the summer sun. Bedroom pop rarely sounds so assured. --Jason Crock
59. tUnE-yArDs
"Sunlight"
[Marriage]
Merrill Garbus isn't the first performer to experiment with loop pedals and lo-fi aesthetics. Nor is she alone in embracing, with her ridiculously flexible voice, the melismatic virtuosity most commonly known to modern R&B-- if not opera, or yodeling. All of these in one package, though? Yeah, pretty much just her. "Sunlight" is the early highlight of one of 2009's most promising debuts, distilling her sui generis performance persona into less than four minutes of the most intense and intimate music you'll hear this year. Over not much more than a mangled, erratically strummed ukulele and stocky drum loop, Garbus spits and howls while never losing the beat, remaining focused and completely intense. She may have slipped unnoticed through the first half of the year, but especially after a killer recent run opening for Dirty Projectors, she won't be forgotten soon. --Eric Harvey
58. Fever Ray
"If I Had a Heart"
[Mute/Rabid]
In the Knife and as a solo artist, Fever Ray's Karin Dreijer Andersson has proven to be a magician of sonic perspective: M.C. Escher with Ableton Live. Everything in "If I Had a Heart" feels weirdly scaled, impossibly angled, or just off, somehow. The churning chords that drive it like a powerful engine are almost drowned out by the machine noise they emit, as if the song had been turned inside-out. The pitch-dropped vocals are frighteningly alien, yet the clicks preserved in the recording link them, distantly, to a mouth that wants more, more, more-- which is to say, a regular human one. It sounds subdued and disturbed, until Andersson's untreated voice-- a brassy caterwaul-- swings the song in the other direction, now direly triumphant. "If I had a voice, I would sing," she sings. Once you get that everything obvious here conceals its opposite, you realize that wanting more is about needing less. "If I Had a Heart" is the heart Andersson doesn't have, large and strange, pumping unfathomable blood to who knows where. --Brian Howe
57. Sleigh Bells
"Crown on the Ground"
[self-released]
For those who always wished that extreme noize terror had more teen-pop in it and that bubblegum fluff blew out more speakers, Sleigh Bells are a beautiful nightmare come true. A former hardcore guitarist and a former singer for a manufactured girl group got together to bang out crunchy, supremely satisfying blasts like "Crown on the Ground", which sounds like the most delicious razor blade inside a candy apple ever. It's a chart-topping club-pop hit with a singsong chorus trapped in an epic battle to the death with an eardrum-gobbling feedback monster, and nobody wants either side to win. Sleigh Bells have promised to re-record their primitively captured songs in higher fidelity in the coming year. That better not mean a sacrifice of even a drop of intensity. --Amy Phillips
56. John Talabot
"Sunshine"
[Hivern]
Perhaps due to its Midwestern origins, deep house does tend to revolve around the indoors: the dusty soul and spiritual gospel-disco of sweaty loft dances, dank subterranean clubs and nocturnal parties. John Talabot's "Sunshine" emerges gradually from the genre's earthy origins, tendrils of soft-focus texture sliding upward, each additional layer emerging like budding irises, until the vocals break through and the song's flowers bloom. But what makes "Sunshine"'s radiant perfection so evocative is how easily it replicates a state of unmoored relaxation. How often, sitting in front of your computer and checking the running Twitter feed, do you feel truly released from the onward march of time? To give in to "Sunshine"'s charms is to free yourself from the shackles of your cell phone's vibrations, like a cat spending the afternoon on a windowsill. As the track's interlocking melodies blur in and out, its gradual heat calms nerves and the soothing titular mantra evokes a sort of Zen dancefloor warmth and liberation. --David Drake
55. Bat For Lashes
"Glass"
[Astralwerks/Parlophone]
Quick Bible lesson: In the Old Testament, the Song of Solomon tells of a man and woman who form an eternal bond through love, sex, and marriage. "Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves," says the bride. While such ancient innuendo might not register in the Age of R. Kelly, it was pretty provocative for the time. Kate Bush knew as much; "Don't want your bullshit, just want your sexuality," she sang on 1993's "Song of Solomon". And Bush disciple Natasha Khan, aka Bat for Lashes, is aware, too-- the first song on her breakout 2009 LP starts with a bunch of lines lifted directly from Solomon's Song.
But Khan's Biblical flip doesn't vie for pure sex or eternal love. Her take is more mystical and spectral-- like the Old Testament via King Arthur via The Dark Crystal. Tribal drums boom around her as she searches through a strange land for her "knight in crystal armor." Instead of portraying monogamy as an undying, fruitful brightness, Khan sings cloaked underneath the gothic shade surrounding her. Love evolves; glass breaks. --Ryan Dombal
54. Joker & Ginz
"Purple City"
[Kapsize]
Bristol's Joker was revelation enough in 2007-08, starting with his Kapsize EP and following it up with a string of completely bonkers dubstep singles (including the frenetic nunchaku-vs-laser battle "Holly Brook Park" and the spy-brass Metal Gear Solid 3- homage "Snake Eater"). But when Ginz jumped in to team up with Joker, the result was absolutely preposterous: Here was a drunken-boxer-style swoon of a track, pots-and-pans percussion clanking slinkily under a phalanx of synthesizers that did absolutely filthy things with g-funk melodies. It comes across as a weirdly affable kind of deep-bass aggression, and it's a sound so potent that within a couple of months of its release they'd find themselves listed in the remix Rolodexes of Basement Jaxx and Zero 7. Yeah, their mixes of "Raindrops" and "Everything Up (Zizou)" are just about as berserk, but "Purple City" still stands as what should be the first of this duo's many great moments, the match that lit the dynamite fuse. --Nate Patrin
53. The xx
"Islands"
[Young Turks]
As our Andrew Gaerig said: "[I]t's nearly incomprehensible to think that a group so fresh-faced produced xx." Like almost every song on their debut, "Islands" is impressive for what it doesn't do as much as for what it does. They employ negative space as if it's a sound generated by a musical instrument, while employing their actual instruments in an economic fashion, playing just enough notes and beats to construct an irresistible backbeat that manages to both bump and swoon. And the co-lead vocals are so breathy and smooth that it's almost too easy to misinterpret the fire/ desire talk as something besides what it actually is, a pledge of unyielding fidelity-- "I am yours now/ So now I don't ever have to leave." That such a promise is offered in a off-hand manner that belies the commitment behind those words is just what the xx do-- they exude a confidence, both in their music and what their music says, that's beyond their years. --David Raposa
52. St. Vincent
"Actor Out of Work"
[4AD]
Annie Clark gave herself exactly 135 seconds for this audition, and makes the most of them. The lyric is a slinky come-on that doubles as a seething bug-off and takes a few iterations to settle into an off-balance three-line stanza; the distorted Gary Numanoid synthesizer that responds to Clark is so nasty and pinched that it makes her frostily composed voice ("ooh," she sings, as if she couldn't mean it less) sound like the good cop by comparison. The recording is full of unnerving little details, from its first sound (Clark's multitracked inhalation) onward-- the more closely you listen to the guitar chug that underscores the entire song, the more wobbly and disconcerting it sounds, and the choral aaaaaaah behind the last few verses cranks up their sarcasm to scalding levels. Extra points to Clark for naming the song's host album after it: who, exactly, is the actor that's getting it from both barrels here? --Douglas Wolk
51. Antony and the Johnsons
"Aeon"
[Secretly Canadian]
"We don't know nothing/ Nothing better but this world," sings Antony Hegarty near the end of "Aeon," his voice strained as though it's fighting through tears of epiphany. And maybe it is: "Aeon" reconciles Hegarty with his father, a subject that's been difficult for him in interviews and verboten in his earlier work. Here, though, he seems to realize he has one chance to live in this world, to be his father's child. "Hold that man in your tender clutch/ Hold that man I love so much," he says, shouting those last two words like an evangelist. For music that's often labeled precious, it's a jolting, intensely personal moment, spotlighting the power of redemption and empathy-- or at least the power of giving them a chance. --Grayson Currin
50. Matias Aguayo
"Rollerskate"
[Kompakt]
Matias Aguayo is arguably stacking the deck here-- writing a circular techno song and then setting it to lyrics about rollerskating. But the Chilean producer makes good on the premise in "Rollerskate", a track that attaches a Kompaktian sense of space to cool vocal coos and hums. Aguayo does a lot with his mouth on his restless scat-dance album Ay Ay Ay, but "Rollerskate" gets the most out of his singular feel for sensuous, suggestive atmosphere. The rink he circles is full of skaters slow to find their balance and leering off sideways with shared thousand-yard stares. Aguayo himself is right there in the center, all but taunting the communal flock with his queasy, whirlwind house music. -- Andy Battaglia
49. Yo La Tengo
"Here to Fall"
[Matador]
Popular Songsopener "Here to Fall" was an early indication that Yo La Tengo's new albumwas going to contain a few surprises. Its soulful string sounds underscore the resigned confidence of Ira Kaplan's warts-and-all love song, but even those were upstaged by another instrumental novelty: This may be the first Yo La Tengo single where Ira Kaplan's keyboard playing matches what he can do with a guitar. (Granted, "Autumn Sweater" came awfully close.) When his warping organ goes solo near the end, it makes lines that could otherwise sound fatalistic-- "I'm here to fall with you/ What else is there for us to do?"-- seem optimistic. Those wistful, reassuring chords make even the bleakest future worth sticking around for. --Marc Masters
48. Destroyer
"Bay of Pigs"
[Merge]
So begins Destroyer's unforgettable ambient-disco-meets-acid-folk epic "Bay of Pigs": "Listen... I've been drinking/ As our house lies in ruin/ I don't know what I'm doin'/ Alone in the dark/ In the park or at the pier/ Watching ships disappear/ In the rain." Geez, man: It's not enough you're sitting at the pier watching ships vanish over the horizon? It's gotta be raining, too? But Dan Bejar is far too good of a drinking companion to wallow in this place for long. Instead, he cracks jokes, tells shaggy dog stories, asks eternal questions, moves the soundscape from droney synth washes to a steady 4/4 pulse, and parades in strange women, talking about them as if we've been hanging out with these people all of our lives. Sounds like the makings of a fiasco, but "Bay of Pigs" is nowhere close. It's actually a triumph-- delicate and moving but also righteously funny, a welcome and surprising gift from a true eccentric. --Mark Richardson
47. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Heads Will Roll"
[Interscope]
We should've known that synth-pop would've fit the YYYs like a sequined fingerless glove. After all, the trio came into the game making dizzily direct bangers like "Bang", and they always had rhythmic push to spare. So as a dance move, It's Blitz! worked out beautifully, especially when they were going for it full-bore. On "Heads Will Roll", Karen O alternates her usual brassy yawp with ethereal Blondie coos, while stomp-it-out guitars intermingle with glassy keyboard trills, everything working together like a machine. "Off with your head! Dance till you're dead!" commands Karen-- exactly the sort of delirious imperative non sequitur that's animated floor-fillers for decades. A whole lot of people remixed "Heads Will Roll", but nobody managed to improve on it. --Tom Breihan
46. Memory Tapes
"Bicycle"
[Sincerely Yours/Acéphale/Something in Construction/Loog]
Animal Collective may have the 2009 lock on negotiating the pull between adult responsibilities and desire for escape, but the insanely prolific New Jerseyan stay-at-home dad Dayve Hawk (also of Memory Cassette and Weird Tapes) managed to create his own simple, beautiful, danceable ditty about riding bikes out of town in the middle of the night. Pulling a page from Yeasayer's guide to nü-primitive psychedelia for the first verse, Hawk then doubles down, dropping some straight-up disco with chopped-up vocal samples, as if the nocturnal bike trip somehow stumbled upon an open-air dance party. It all feels appropriately both urbane and primordial, a vibe driven home by an extended coda that pairs far-off chanting with a surprising and faithful cop of Bernard Sumner's shimmering guitar. --Eric Harvey
45. The Flaming Lips [ft. Karen O]
"Watching the Planets"
[Warner Bros.]
It's telling that the Flaming Lips made you wait until the end of side four to hear Embyronic's most accessible track-- at no point prior did they sound concerned with pleasing anyone besides themselves. And it's not like "Watching the Planets" is that much more commercial than this double LP's other noisy mantras-- it's just one repetitive hook and a crunchy bass-drum loop that gives Wayne Coyne time to bark "oh"'s and "aye"'s while Karen O squeaks supporting yelps. The lyrics are just as simple-- mind-emptying chants about staring at stars, killing the ego, and "finding that there ain't no answer to find." In that way, "Watching the Planets" catches the stunned thrill of the Lips' back-to-basics left-turn. They sound hypnotized by their own rediscovered sounds, gazing at the music like a baby fixated on its own moving fingers. --Marc Masters
44. Jay-Z [ft. Alicia Keys]
"Empire State of Mind"
[Roc Nation/Atlantic]
Jay isn't at his best here. His vocal tone and delivery are a little ragged, and on paper "Empire" reads like the literal endpoint to Jay's "black Sinatra" fascination: a late-period piece that somehow becomes his biggest-charting hit. But then Alicia Keys' elemental voice blows in on the chorus, and suddenly, we are all holding hands together and singing along on top of the Empire State Building. That giddy, heart-swelling whoop is what transforms "Empire State of Mind" from über-schmaltz to, well, transcendent über-schmaltz, the sort of song that bids your singing voice up out of you before your conscious mind can even check it. Take a bow, Hov-- you can loosen the bow tie now. Go backstage and see what Gwyneth and Chris are up to. --Jayson Greene
43. Camera Obscura
"French Navy"
[4AD]
The story of Camera Obscura to date is really the story of singer Tracyanne Campbell's transformation from wallflower to showstopper. "French Navy"-- the glorious opening track from the Scottish group's fourth album, My Maudlin Career-- may begin in a "dusty library," but it's miles away from the bookish, bespectacled indie pop that defined the band's early output, and even several bold steps beyond the buoyant Motown swing that defined 2006's Let's Get Out of This Country. Instead, Camera Obscura subject the song's fantasy daydream scenario-- a chance romance with a member of the titular military body-- to the big-screen bluster it deserves, with a series of urgent, Spectorized stomps that suggest the affair is doomed from the start, and a spotlight-seizing performance from Campbell as the sensible student who lets fleeting desire get the better of her. "I wanted to control it/ But love, I couldn't hold it," she admits-- but at least she has that irresistible, post-chorus orchestral sweep to mop up the tears. --Stuart Berman
42. The Big Pink
"Velvet"
[4AD]
What's more cocksure than naming your band after the house where the Band wrote Music From Big Pink and recorded The Basement Tapes with Dylan? Calling bullshit on Otis Redding. "These arms of mine/ Don't mind who they hold," Robbie Furze announces on "Velvet", the second single by London duo the Big Pink. Men are scum-- check the headlines. So an album called A Brief History of Love would be pointlessly abridged without a song exploring the conflicting, self-destructive emotions of the (post?) adolescent male: heartbroken and heartless, loving and horny, quixotic and cold. If you don't hear any of that, Furze and bandmate Milo Cordell-- plus vocalist Lauren Jones and drummer Akiko Matsuura, with mixing by Alan Moulder-- conjure a feedback-roiled electro-shoegaze maelstrom that sounds as huge as first love feels. Does it make sense, or are we all eventually doomed to end up with facial lacerations and a five-iron through our Escalades? --Marc Hogan
41. Major Lazer [ft. Nina Sky and Ricky Blaze]
"Keep It Goin' Louder"
[Downtown]
"Keep It Goin' Louder", one of 2009's unofficial summer jams, succeeds by emphasizing what steers every bro's night out from Jamaica to Portland: go where the girls are. So after one verse of rote braggadocio from Ricky Blaze, the sisters from Nina Sky, mostly ignoring Blaze, promise to pile on the ladies. Gender politics aide though: "Keep It Goin' Louder" is a pump-up song, a car song, and a club song wrapped into a sweetly repetitive ode to a game of cat and mouse in which both parties think they're the cat. Oh, and the cats are into exquisitely tight dancehall-pop. --Andrew Gaerig
40. Bear in Heaven
"Lovesick Teenagers"
[Hometapes]
As we get older and wiser, most of us learn how to control our emotions. But as much as we manage our expectations and tell ourselves that we are mature adults, those raw adolescent feelings never really go away. This is more or less the point of Bear in Heaven's "Lovesick Teenagers", a song that appeals to our rational minds on a lyrical level while its music aims straight for our hearts by simulating the rush of angst-ridden romance. The verses plumb the depths of despair, but the choruses swoop upwards, ascending to a point so high up that you lose perspective on everything. Inevitably, you come crashing down again, and the song ends with an anti-climactic thud. "Lovesick Teenagers" doesn't attempt to shake you out of your composure or demand that you regress, but the sound of it is intoxicating, and it makes a great case for allowing oneself to embrace dumb passion-- even in some muted, self-conscious way. --Matthew Perpetua
39. Lady Gaga
"Bad Romance"
[Interscope]
In theory, she was an artist you want to root for-- all these ideas about art and celebrity and a flair for the dramatic. But the first few singles made the Lady Gaga project feel so presumptuous, her artsy entitlement overwhelming her songs' occasional strengths. "Bad Romance" was the moment where the music didn't just live up to the (self-inflated) hype, but surpassed it. The track is epic in construction-- by the time she gets to the bridge, more than three minutes in, the realization that there are hooks yet to come is thrilling. It helps that RedOne's production matches the songwriting's torrential drama; the churning, earth-shifting low-frequency synths are a programmatic reflection of the singer's unsteady, perhaps unwise, infatuation. But it's Gaga's performance, the wholly unapologetic fools-rush-in carnal energy, that commitment to emotional bravery in a context of increasingly twee chart pop, that makes "Bad Romance" feel so necessary. --David Drake
38. Dirty Projectors and David Byrne
"Knotty Pine"
[4AD]
It's a dangerous thing when a musical legend lends his or her endorsement to a new band-- the potential new fans can sometimes be lost in the long shadow of the endorser. So it's remarkable how seamlessly David Byrne, whose stamp of approval carries serious weight, integrates into "Knotty Pine". Dirty Projectors don't sound much like Talking Heads, except for the fact that both bands don't sound like anyone else. Yet on the verse that Byrne and Dave Longstreth take together, it's hard to spot who is who-- quite an achievement, given how hard it must be to trace over Byrne's sinuous delivery. Most remarkable of all: Despite Dirty Projectors' trademark unpredictable rhythms and harmonies based on some kind of Martian scale, "Knotty Pine" is still a loveable, friendly song-- one that even those who can't warm to the Projectors could take to heart. --Rob Mitchum
37. Surfer Blood
"Swim"
[Kanine]
Fuck Tim Tebow-- in the past few years, the greatest act of public service from University of Florida students was committed when Surfer Blood changed their name and spared us the indignity of having to say 2009's best piece of Weezer-esque power-pop came from a band called Jabroni Sandwich. But while that might've constituted a grown-up move, "Swim" alternately strikes me as disarmingly naïve and startlingly confident, bundling what could be at least four standalone hooks into less than three minutes. Any self-respecting "pop craftsman" would've whittled away at that "Needles in the Camel's Eye"-quoting intro, the Scandal-ous chorus, or the slip-n-slide Built to Spill riffs, but Surfer Blood just throw it all on the table like a whopping 50% tip. Lesser bands might call that melodic conspicuous consumption wasteful, but it ain't trickin' if you got it. --Ian Cohen
36. Fever Ray
"When I Grow Up"
[Mute/Rabid]
Karin Dreijer-Andersson's Fever Ray turned out to be no sunnier than the Knife's dank, forbidding Silent Shout. If anything, having slowed tempos and excised the Knife's spry arpeggios, it was an even more claustrophobic affair, with all potential escape routes blocked off and shrouded in fog. Even so, the singer's voice pierces "When I Grow Up" like a flashlight cutting through the moors, her semi-steam-of-consciousness narrative rendering romance in almost animistic terms. Running "through the moss in high heels," she crystallizes the album's mood in a single image: It's as though, in a dark corner of a subterranean techno club, she'd discovered a hidden passageway straight to the heart of Jan Švankmajer's Alice. --Philip Sherburne
35. Micachu and the Shapes
"Golden Phone"
[Rough Trade]
Twenty-two-year-old Mica Levi will admit that her aesthetic fondness for musical hybrids and gibberish grew out of her short attention span. Take those impulses, add musical ability and a knack for sussing out perfect collaborators (fellow sonic miscreant Matthew Herbert), and you get "Golden Phone", a mutant playground chant that ranks as one of the year's most intriguing left-field pleasures. Herbert and Levi mash together bratty punk, thrumming bass, cooing girl-group harmonies, mini noise-bursts, and 8-bit bleeps into a multifarious pop sculpture held together by the same sort of London art-world cool that wound through Kala. Few songs sounded as 2009, or even as 2019, as "Phone", but the song's promise might even outweigh its simple gifts. Levi herself suggests as much, in her own way: "give me that nonsense sound and I'll be back." --Eric Harvey
34. Atlas Sound [ft. Noah Lennox]
"Walkabout"
[Kranky]
"If you were 17 I'd feel the same way," sang Tim Granada in 1965 on "What Am I Gonna Do?", B-side to the Dovers' doomed debut single. Was he daft about some hot older chick? Was he cruising jailbait? The confusion only adds to the image of the Dovers as the ultimate Nuggets group, forever stranded in Santa Barbara garageland adolescence. For "Walkabout", 2009's sweetest moment of musical bromance, Bradford Cox and Noah Lennox snatched and looped a moment of this teen turmoil, but rendered it chastely existential-- the memory of youthful ideals countered by that timeless rock'n'roll imperative: don't look back. If Cox's 2008 full-length debut as Atlas Sound was the sound of a young shut-in tinkering with tape players, "Walkabout" was the coming-out party: ambling and sunkissed but feeling the first breeze of autumn. --Stephen Troussé
33. DJ Quik and Kurupt
"9x's Outta 10"
[Mad Science]
DJ Quik on the beat? Kurupt/Young Gotti on the mic? I mean, how could you go wrong? (Other than commercially that is...) Even compared to the rest of the floaty finesse of BlaQKout, there's nary a wasted second on "9x's Outta 10"-- Left Coast legend Kurupt's stark solo spotlight on the otherwise Quik-dominated LP. Kurupt, in a dazzlingly technical turn, finds himself in rare motion as he twists his tongue around Quik's skeletal skull-smashing beat, sliding into the nooks and crannies of the producer's metamorphic "Grindin'"-like bleacher-basher with this brittle, been-there done-that braggadocio and a showcase of pure MCing skills. "Difficult as calculus" is right; Kurupt circles around, switches out words like he's playing Jenga with the verse, and speeds up without spinning out around Quik's spiraling sampledelic ending. And when it stops, two and a half impossibly short minutes later? It's the kind of thing you want to start again. --Paul Thompson
32. The Very Best [ft. Ezra Koenig]
"Warm Heart of Africa"
[Green Owl]
Like most great popmakers, the Very Best understand that if you've stumbled upon something indelible and irresistible, it's not a bad idea to repeatedly cram it down listeners' earholes to the point where it couldn't possibly be dislodged from their heads. "Warm Heart of Africa" has two such elements, the first in the form of a guitar line taken from Nigerian legend Sir Victor Uwaifo's signature hit, "Guitar Boy", a playfully springy thing that propels the song forward in its ebullient bliss. The second earworm, of course, is the hook sung by Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig, which is both maddeningly infectious and charmingly inscrutable. It's Koenig and V-Dubs' appeal boiled down to its essence-- a boyish voice breaking into falsetto, the lyrics dense with cultural allusion. --Joshua Love
31. Lily Allen
"The Fear"
[Capitol]
Lily Allen has at the very least a visitor's pass to the gauzy, half-real celebrity world she's singing about. That doesn't help "The Fear" work as satire, but it still cuts a good deal deeper than you'd expect. That's partly due to the irresistible chorus and to Lily's blissfully callous performance-- the way her sweetness makes "I heard people die while they're tryin' to find them" chilling where it could be excruciating. But it's partly down to these crazy times, the consumer economy running off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote and the boom it magicked up melting into air. Lily's character in "The Fear" senses dimly that something's not real and that it might be her, and what makes her dread and confusion convincing is the fact that a lot of people know how she feels. This song, as delicate and pretty as a bubble, is about 2009 in ways its obvious zings can only hint at. --Tom Ewing
30. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
"Young Adult Friction"
[Slumberland]
I haven't heard a lot of them, but I'm still confident that "Young Adult Friction" is one of the best love songs set in a library. It's at least the only one to rhyme the words "see" and "microfiche" so smoothly. Perhaps it's no shock that a band whose sound owes so much to bright, brainy college rock of yore would be this comfortable singing about dusty stacks and moldy pages and nerdy puns on the word "spine." But what's so surprisingly smart about "Young Adult Friction" is that after a rush of clever verbiage, TPOBPAH shut up for the climax, launching into 30 seconds of jangling guitar bliss. And they don't ruin the afterplay with chatter, instead simply chanting another love/library pun-- "Don't check me out!"-- as they graduate to another peak. --Marc Masters
29. jj
"Ecstasy"
[Sincerely Yours]
Using one of last year's most ubiquitous club hits-- Lil Wayne's "Lollipop"-- as blotter paper, Sweden's jj dip the familiar pulse into a disorienting, lush mix of ethereal synths and skittering drums. Surprisingly for something so dreamy and atmospheric, "Ecstasy" is also funny, with quips that sound stranger or more deliberately profound with each repetition, depending on what state of mind you might be in at the time. It might feel reductive to label "Ecstasy" as a drug record, but hey, sometimes it really is that hard to just say no. "When I'm in the club, I'm always on this drug/ If you get a hug, guess what drug I'm on?" We'll venture a guess. --Zach Kelly
28. Neko Case
"This Tornado Loves You"
[Anti-]
A light poetic touch goes a long way when set to the right music. Neko Case blurs the line between the literal and metaphorical as she carves a path across three counties in search of her wayward lover, smashing transformers with trailers lifted in rage. It works so well in part because she has the voice to inhabit a force of nature-- her power is such that she hardly seems to expend any effort as she ramps up from a near-whisper to a full-throated call. The band swirls around her like fence posts ripped from the ground-- flecks of banjo, guitar, shaker, and snare drum flying in all directions. Here, Case has found a way to convey vulnerability, menace, sadness, ecstasy, panic, and calm simultaneously without any logical dissonance, much in the way the emotions of love can conflict while coexisting. The message is clear: Don't stand in the way of her heartache. --Joe Tangari
27. Four Tet
"Love Cry"
[Domino]
Kieran Hebden's music-- folk, hip-hop, and free jazz cut up with a laptop and left in the sun (for that faded look)-- has always represented a kind of sonic pacifism to me, so I was surprised by how confrontational "Love Cry" is. His pulse quickened on last year's Ringer EP, but this is the first time he's made dance music so pure and unhyphenated. He maintains his stamp-- a grainy atmosphere of samples that sound ripped from dusty vinyl. But the build-and-release is techno's and so is the tempo. It's not surprising that he changed his style per se; it's surprising that he did it gracefully and without capitulating to any particular trend. It's like he stepped sideways just to prove how agile he is. Oh, and the female vocalist chanting love cry and love me over and over-- for a musician whose fans are quick to point out how well he humanizes electronics, it's haunting how alien he makes a human sound. --Mike Powell
26. Bon Iver
"Blood Bank"
[Jagjaguwar]
What is it with Justin Vernon and winter? Even disregarding the backstory behind Bon Iver's debut, there's snow all over the cover to the Blood Bank EP as well as side project Volcano Choir. Vernon uses that winter setting on "Blood Bank" to turn in evocative fragments of images that carry tremendous emotional weight, such as a couple rubbing their hands together in a car-- to keep them warm, of course. Many of Bon Iver's songs creak with a certain kind of hope, but the simple chords of the chorus keep descending here. Especially after paring down to a heartbeat rhythm before its clamorous outro, "Blood Bank" becomes one of Bon Iver's most somber tracks, seeming like the thaw might be a long way away. --Jason Crock
25. Cass McCombs
"You Saved My Life"
[Domino]
Though Catacombs album opener "Dream Comes True Girl" was lovable straight out of the speakers, "You Saved My Life" is the song that still keeps me up some nights. As uncluttered as the spare room he invokes in its very first line, it showcases a velvety union between pedal steel and synth-- understated instrumentation for a waltz-time ode whose premise, title, and chorus are, for McCombs, unusually direct. Here, he saves his elliptical tendencies for the tune's structure, steering clear of an obvious hook and allowing the song to seep in as if by osmosis. The quietly devastating "You Saved My Life" still retains some of McCombs' sense of mystery, but its simple beauty exudes undeniable warmth. --David Bevan
24. Basement Jaxx
"Raindrops"
[XL/Ultra]
Like most great Basement Jaxx tracks, "Raindrops" hits with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. There's little room for thinking, or even breathing, inside this psychedelic disco fantasia; pause for even an instant, and you might get hit by a falling sitar, or an airplane flying overhead, or some "Fifth of Beethoven" synthetic strings hurtling past. Or you might just get steamrolled by that thudding, insistent martial beat as it bubbles in and out of focus, spiking thirst for its return every time it goes away. (Just like raindrops in a desert, you see.) Jay-Z and other Auto-Tune haters: This is the only track on the latest Basement Jaxx album, Scars, that doesn't feature a guest singer. Its vocals are handled by the Jaxx's own Felix Buxton, with some generous help from your least favorite studio effect. D.O.A.? No fucking way. --Amy Phillips
23. Animal Collective
"Brother Sport"
[Domino]
Going back to at least Sung Tongs, the dominant themes in Avey Tare and Panda Bear's lyrics have been responsibility, familial love, and a desire to work toward self-improvement. These aren't new ideas for pop music, but they are difficult things to express in song without coming across as unbearably hokey. Animal Collective circumvent this tackiness in part by investing every sound with an intense generosity rather than just leaving the sentiment to the words being sung. "Brother Sport" in particular is a big warm hug of a song, and would feel loving and supportive even if Panda Bear were not singing lyrics encouraging his brother not to descend to depression following the death of their father. Cynics may grumble, but anyone in need of this sort of earnest, full-hearted empathy will find it here as the music gradually shifts from a gentle exhortation to move on from a state of mourning to a celebratory climax merging elements of rave, psychedelia, and folk jamborees. On a good day, "Brother Sport" is a joyous romp, but in times of trouble, it's profound and life-affirming song, rejecting self-defeating despondency while showing a deep respect for the agony of loss. --Matthew Perpetua
22. Delorean
"Seasun"
[Fool House]
Barcelona four-piece Delorean could hardly have given the standout from their Ayrton Senna EP a more zeitgeisty title. But what "Seasun" represents would be just as relevant in 2002, 1982, or-- warning: weak Marty McFly joke to come-- 2022. It's the sound of a rock group who learned songwriting by making killer remixes of other people's songs. Forget verse-chorus-verse: Singer/bassist/scholar Ekhi Lopetegi doesn't sing anything you could properly call "words" until almost the three-minute mark, but that doesn't make "Seasun" any less catchy. Instead, we get a shimmering, arena- or disco-ready object lesson on letting the beat build. Whirring synths-- and, on John Talabot's excellent "Seasun" remix, electronic thuds that could fill the Camp Nou-- here give way to dramatic piano, high-pitched coos and hearty cheers, handclaps that sneak up on you, rock-style drums that gain momentum, maracas, and gorgeously Balearic guitars. Something something, "never be the same again." --Marc Hogan
21. Raekwon [ft. Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, and Method Man]
"House of Flying Daggers"
[Wu Music Group]
Sorting through the surface clutter in the extended Wu-Tang discography can be a maddening process, and in part this frustration has its roots in tracks like "House of Flying Daggers", where Raekwon and crew reanimate their classic Wu form. It'd be inaccurate to say they make it sound effortless, however, since effort seems to be the crucial ingredient. Every verse here rings with conviction, as Rae, Inspectah Deck, Ghostface, and Method Man are each fully locked-in and engaged, issuing their joint battle cry with an impressively balanced ferocity. With a chorus cribbed from 36 Chambers and top-shelf production straight from Dilla's vault, "House of Flying Daggers" works as both a deliberate throwback and as a welcome, long overdue piece of reclamation. --Matthew Murphy
20. Japandroids
"Young Hearts Spark Fire"
[Unfamiliar]
Even in a year when indie bands sang about the simplest of pleasures-- adobe slabs, pizzas, and bottles of wine-- Vancouver's Japandroids made ogling girls sound subversive, like a call to arms for all young hearts. "We used to dream! Now we worry about dying," Brian King and David Prowse shout, lamenting either their own age or the crumbling economy but sounding like men who've been robbed of something crucial. So when they finally get around to singing, "I don't want to worry about dying," in that rushed cadence, it's a relief: After all, at its heart, this is a soundtrack for doing stupid shit on a Friday night. --Stephen M. Deusner
19. Joker
"Digidesign"
[Hyperdub]
You're probably bracing yourself for the big state-of-dubstep hard-sell right now. We could go there, with "Digidesign" as the new Bristol beat: nostalgic, swashbuckling, madcap, almost anti-somber, but still reliant on the brunt of trembling bass and synths. Or we could talk about Hyperdub's knack for keying in on zeitgeist-tilting obscurities, with Joker as a photonegative of the preoccupied, vulnerable Burial. But we'd be obsolete in about five minutes-- this music is exciting because of its rapid mutation. Besides, wondering what "Digidesign" means for dubstep is like wondering what a nuclear bomb means for physics: It seems rather beside the point while it's going off. --Brian Howe
18. The Big Pink
"Dominos"
[4AD]
Big Pink's "Dominos" rolls big and boisterous, as carefree and brash as the commitment-averse dude at the song's center. And when we're talking about a blur of sexual conquests and quick flings (as the LP's title says: a brief history of love, indeed), what's to learn, or more accurately, what do you want to learn? Though some of the lyrics belie grief and bitterness, the massive hooks, slabs of crunchy synths, waves of big beat build-up, and blind optimism of the music encapsulate the rush of a long chain of encounters, one bumping into the next. That you don't see the end of the line quickly rushing toward you doesn't matter. Connecting the duo's influences-- noise, shoegaze, and booming pop-- can be instructive. But when obsession over a song can be boiled down to big, dumb, and fun, why bother? --Patrick Sisson
17. Fuck Buttons
"Surf Solar"
[ATP]
"Surf Solar" might crest and fall like a dance tune, but the squeals, squiggles, and shocks that it rides on aren't exactly the stuff of dance. They aren't exactly noise anymore either though: To Fuck Buttons and producer Andrew Weatherall's credit, all 10 minutes and 35 seconds of this thing manages to be approachable yet uncompromising. It's great as a single edit too, but with more room to roam, "Surf Solar"'s peaks and troughs come off as more natural, the build towards its irresistible "pop" center more gradual and rewarding. And, most importantly, there's more of it. Here's hoping there's even more where this came from. --David Raposa
16. The xx
"Crystalised"
[Young Turks]
"Crystalised" is a night of strip poker, dare after dare to risk more with less. The xx don't waste a stray beat or single downstroke, and the track's most "superfluous" component, a vaporous high-pitched moan, only throws its bones into bas-relief. Emotionally, however, "Crystalised" is a mess of mindgames, of breathy flirtation, verbal caresses, and the long shadow of sexual rejection. Dueting London art students Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim shape a space of such airless intimacy that we can only feel like voyeurs catching fleeting glimpses of flesh through peepholes. --Amy Granzin
15. Girls
"Hellhole Ratrace"
[True Panther]
The lyrical sentiments on "Hellhole Ratrace" are full of dimestore aphorisms, stuff like "Sometimes you just gotta make it for yourself/ Sometimes, sugar, you just need someone else." Honestly-- he says sugar. And he sells it. Because "Hellhole Ratrace" is big and reverberant enough to fit whatever brightly colored pop clichés inside you could ever want; girls named Bobbie Jean, white Cadillacs with tail fins, lonesome highways, you name it. It's just four chords, but played slowly and magisterially, with a tightly modulated build that crests each time that chorus kicks back around. By the seventh minute, all of the song's graceful details-- the tinkling sleigh bells, the soft-focus, swirling guitars, the background choirs-- have coalesced into a massive wave, which spills over and sends the whole thing skyward. --Jayson Greene
14. Joy Orbison
"Hyph Mngo"
[Hotflush]
One way to look at "Hyph Mngo" is to think about the song's progressive nature, to consider that Joy Orbison, this previously unknown kid from South London, turned dubstep inside out to make the kind of dance track that we just hadn't heard before. Which is true: Though he infused the track with elements of house and UK funky, Orbison's assured debut introduced something uniquely forward-thinking. And, yes, it's also remarkably well-crafted-- almost minimal, there isn't a single bass knock or synth line that goes to waste. But that's only part of "Hyph Mngo"'s appeal. What sets the track apart, particularly from its brooding dubstep contemporaries, is how bright and visceral it is, how its unrelenting vocal clips are sampled at their most exuberant moment, and how those pounding bass hits-- physical enough to be felt in one's chest-- make avoiding a dancefloor just... unthinkable. --Joe Colly
13. Neon Indian
"Deadbeat Summer"
[Lefse]
There's nothing wrong with nostalgia. Alan Palomo knows this. And though he reaped the benefits of a swirling interest in the transient subgenre dubbed glo-fi and chillwave and other made-up words, what's made his work as Neon Indian so satisfying is its surprisingly rock-solid construction. Everything sonic is loose and fraying, from the rumbling guitar to the wah-wah-wah-ing vocals to the plinking KORG. The sound effects are straight Michael Winslow. But the songwriting is so ruthless and rigid. Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-coda. This is not rocket science, but it isn't pharmacology either. If "Deadbeat Summer" happens to make you think of faded VCR tapes and Saturday morning cartoons and Marble Madness for NES that's cool, too. But Palomo is more than a sentimental collagist; he's a pop formalist. Long live the languor. --Sean Fennessey
12. Grizzly Bear
"While You Wait for the Others"
[Warp]
The baroque qualities of Veckatimest occasionally threaten to overwhelm Grizzly Bear's songwriting, with melodic lines spinning off into a tumble of harpsichords and multi-part harmonies. But on "While You Wait for the Others" all that billowing excess is funneled and concentrated-- both within the song and the album, as the song's late-run sequencing pulls taut the airy slack around it. Clean, terse guitar chords muscle through a murky field of reverb, plowing the way for an unusually direct vocal performance from Daniel Rossen. A seesawing chorus lends an unmistakable sense of resolution to a song about kissing off, cutting off, and letting go. --Philip Sherburne
11. Animal Collective
"What Would I Want? Sky"
[Domino]
Between the distorted drum rolls and distant, arpeggiated chants of this song's first half and the luminous harmonizing and pop smarts of its second, anyone who has ever liked Animal Collective at any point will find something to cherish about "What Would I Want? Sky". In the end though, it sounds less like the band's past and more like an explosion of future possibilities. Sequencers, 7/8 time signatures, suite-like structure, totally fucking obscure Grateful Dead samples-- these are the sorts of things that could once be considered hopelessly obtuse, and yet here it comprises instantly likeable, of-the-moment music. While Merriweather Post Pavilion served as a culmination of an improbable career arc over the span of the 00s, "What Would I Want? Sky" gives us plenty of hope that the next decade will be every bit as thrilling and unpredictable for Animal Collective. --Ian Cohen
10. Washed Out
"Feel It All Around"
[Mexican Summer]
A year ago, Ernest Greene wasn't singing, really. Nine months ago, he wasn't making glimmering lo-fi electronic pop as Washed Out. Until October, you couldn't buy any of his stuff in physical form. Not long before you finally could, he would've had no reason to ask upstart labels Mexican Summer or Mirror Universe to press more than tiny numbers of his Life of Leisure 12" EP or High Times cassette. Who would be interested in them? A lot of people, it turns out, and "Feel It All Around" is the biggest reason why.
Washed Out's first single doesn't tell you what, exactly, you're supposed to be "feel"ing, but that's the idea. Twinkling synths, amniotic vocal drone, undulating bass, and chockablock percussion all imagine a hazy innocence that's just out of reach. Greene's wispily multi-tracked ache is no more clearly articulated. Anybody truly scandalized about this track's sampling of Gary Low's Italo-disco jam "I Want You" would've been just as pissed at the 1983 original for having synths. The past isn't as sublime as you remember it. The present always ends too soon. --Marc Hogan
9. Girls
"Lust for Life"
[True Panther]
For a band that's inspired so much record-collector-rock referencing, it's no shock that Girls would brazenly swipe a well-worn Iggy Pop title for the first song on their first album. But if Iggy's anthem was about getting fucked up, Girls' version is about being a fuck-up-- less a celebration of excess than an appeal for basic human needs. It's tempting to filter frontman Christopher Owens' lyrical pleas through the lens of his religious-cult background, transforming the seemingly throwaway requests for "a pizza and a bottle of wine" into the song's most resonant moments and shedding light on an upbringing devoid of the most simple pleasures. But from that bracing first line-- "I wish I had a boyfriend," delivered by an ostensibly heterosexual singer-- it's clear that Owens is really singing for any outcast who's sick of feeling sorry for themselves and ready for "a brand new start." That eagerness is manifested in the song's blurry-handed jangle riff, which makes Owens sound like he's in such a hurry to turn a new leaf that he doesn't even take the time to fashion a proper chorus. But just when you expect the band to kick into a second-verse rock-out, Girls respond with more playful gestures: cheeky doo-wop harmonies, tambourine shakes and handclaps-- inclusive, participatory devices that underscore the fact that "Lust for Life" is less about Owens' life than your own. --Stuart Berman
8. Phoenix
"Lisztomania"
[Glassnote/Loyauté]
Phoenix make it look easy. Their jeans, tones, scarves, hooks, arrangements; it all comes together on stage and on record with minimal fuss. But writing succinct and powerful pop that has the ability to serve grad students and Nano'd teens is, in fact, quite difficult. Don't take my word for it. Just ask singer Thomas Mars, who airs out his music-making frustrations all over "Lisztomania".
"So sentimental/ Not sentimental, no/ Romantic, not disgusting yet," he starts (and stops), dragging his side-margin notes to the fore. This is a behind-the-scenes, neurotic, Woody Allen-meets*-8 1/2* meta anthem that tries to get to the root of universal appeal without pandering to it. Sure, the song's surface sheen is meticulously catchy, but there's a lot more here than that. Along the way, Mars is disgusted, discouraged, misguided, distant, lonely. "From a mess to the masses," he wails, throwing his hands up at the prospect of converting a bunch of riffs, beats, and brainwaves into something worthy of a sold-out crowd. And then he leads his band through something worthy of several sold-out crowds. No sweat. --Ryan Dombal
7. Big Boi [ft. Gucci Mane]
"Shine Blockas"
[LaFace]
That Big Boi's solo album still hasn't seen the light of day is further proof that the record industry is irreparably broken. "Shine Blockas" should be more than a rap blog curio. It's the sort of track that we should hear blaring out of every passing Civic. The track works as a study in contrasts. Even more than usual, OutKast's still-rapping half raps in darting, stuttery little bursts, his flow fighting its way upstream on the beat, dropping syllables in places nobody would expect. Gucci's guest spot does just the opposite. It's a fully intuitive vocal, his hoarse, marbled monotone drifting lazily over the cascading beat like he was born rapping on it. Cutmaster Swiff's lush, strobing Harold Melvin sample might be fundamentally opposed to the dinky synth symphonies that Gucci generally favors, but he makes rapping over it sound like the easiest thing in the world. Big Boi makes it sound like the most difficult, but he still sticks it. None of these ingredients seem like they should work together, but everything piles on top of everything else, and against odds, the song turns itself into a towering anthem of self-assurance. --Tom Breihan
6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Zero"
[Interscope]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs' take on electro-pop is all harsh lighting and exposed wires, their machines powering up in fits and starts while Karen O tells you the cold truth: "You're a zero. What's your name? No one's gonna ask you." It could be a corporation or a subculture, but the rules are the same: you start as nothing and you crawl and claw your way up doing exactly what you're told. But when you do fight to the top your reward is the most glorious release: the crunched-up cyber-glam riffing that's "Zero"'s own ladder to the sun. It lets Karen O cut loose, too, the restrained creaks and tremors in her voice becoming cries and gasps as the song fills splendidly out. In another world and a less bombed-out market it could have been their "Heart of Glass", crossing over to an audience of people who never cared about their punky pedigree. A shame it didn't find that public, but this is pop steely enough to need no wider validation. --Tom Ewing
5. Grizzly Bear
"Two Weeks"
[Warp]
A better name would be Teddy Bear, such is the unlikely appeal of this unassuming Brooklyn foursome. But just how did they manage to charm the indie elite and Jay-Z and Solange and Beyoncé and your mom and scores of Twilight-addled tweens? It wasn't by pandering-- the carefully honed Grizzly sound has progressed naturally, organically, from Ed Droste's bedroom recording days, creeping through the quiet spaces of Yellow House and finally blossoming fully on this year's Veckatimest. No track better typifies the fully-formed Grizzly Bear than "Two Weeks", but it's not the craftsmanship that's winning people over and making them want to spin this one again and again. It's the intangible, of course, the sound of a band that has struck upon something timeless, inspired, holistic, and-- it bears (ahem) mentioning-- utterly wholesome. Some people will hear "Two Weeks" and instantly feel better about their day, some will want to join a boys' choir, and most will feel the urge to share this exceptional thing with those close to them. --Matthew Solarski
4. Bat For Lashes
"Daniel"
[Parlophone/Astralwerks]
With a knack for high-concept storytelling and a distinct visual aesthetic to accompany her rich, moody pop, Bat for Lashes' Natasha Khan may be the closest thing to a video star in today's indie realm. Though perhaps not as iconic as her Donnie Darko-inspired clip for 2007's "What's a Girl to Do?", the video for "Daniel", the standout from her Two Suns LP, matches the song's hope and longing. In it, Khan wrestles with sorrow (in the form of faceless, black-clad dancers) as she races toward the titular character and the track's skyward chorus. This struggle for salvation is central to "Daniel"'s appeal, and Bat for Lashes play masterfully with shades of light and dark to achieve the effect. With its dark romance, soaring vocal hook, and skillful songcraft, "Daniel" does feel like a direct descendant to similar work by Kate Bush and Sinead O'Connor, though I'm also reminded of songs like Concrete Blonde's "Caroline"-- the kind of goth-tinged gem that, sadly, seems to have disappeared from the airwaves. --Joe Colly
__3. Phoenix
"1901"
__[Glassnote/Loyauté]
In Amadeus, Antonio Salieri wonders how such beautiful music can come from a buffoon like Tom Hulce's Mozart. There might also be some American indie rock Salieris stewing over these French invaders Phoenix waltzing over here and perfecting their genre. Even more than 2006's exquisite It's Never Been Like That, the singles on Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix demonstrate with arrogant ease how disheveled indie rock tropes can be reshuffled into straight-laced pop gold.
When "1901" debuted on the Phoenix website with animated pink shards slashing across a black backing, it looked like the track's error-message synthesizers were clawing a neon marquee out from underneath the sooty abyss. And the song itself is similar restoration, layering sloppy guitar jangle into a propulsive motor and goosing the synthesizers into an air-raid crescendo until the whole mess is a glass-smooth shiny bauble. People in indie rock circles often talk about hit singles in alternate dimensions, but Phoenix prove you don't need quantum theory to make pop out of indie rock ingredients... you just need to be from Versailles. --Rob Mitchum
2. Dirty Projectors
"Stillness Is the Move"
[Domino]
When avant-garde musicians try to engage with pop, they reveal a lot about themselves. People who make difficult music sometimes act as if the kind of music that catches on broadly is a dumbed-down version of the "real thing," or a collection of catchphrases and synth presets. The sharpest avant-gardists, of course, realize that the real musical vanguard very often enters the culture via Hot 97: If a song is designed to give pleasure, a dose of shocking newness can be the element that helps demand it be played over and over. The high point of Bitte Orca lovingly appropriates the great innovations that have descended from the top of the charts over this past decade--the sharply defined negative space, holographic hooks, chiseled phrasing, and Olympically luxurious vocal arrangements of Amerie, Aaliyah, and Destiny's Child. Its lyric is partly pop readymades ("From now until forever baby/ I can't imagine anything better"), partly lines from Peter Handke's "Song of Childhood" in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire ("Like a child it had no habits/ No opinion about anything"), and in the context of its spiraling melody and arrangement, they seem like they've always belonged together. And Amber Coffman's lead vocal is a phenomenon: acrobatic, locked into the rhythmic demands of the song, and delivered in a way that makes her voice's thin, conversational tone radiant. --Douglas Wolk
1. Animal Collective
"My Girls"
[Domino]
"My Girls", the catchy, gloriously harmonized highlight of Merriweather Post Pavilion, is all heart-- arguably the most earnest expression of basic human want recorded in 2009. Panda Bear's promise to provide a proper house for his wife and young daughter, in the wake of his father's death-- "But to provide for mine who ask, I will, with heart, on my father's grave," he pledges-- yielded a blissful, near-ecstatic song that practically requires participation, be it hollering along (try to keep yourself from yelling a synchronized "ooooh!" after the chorus) or shimmying in your subway seat. Panda Bear and Avey Tare's harmonies here are warmer (and groovier) than most anywhere else in the band's catalogue, and the electronics are gentle and buoyant; in some ways, "My Girls" feels like a life preserver for people tottering on the precipice of adulthood. Panda Bear might be apologetic about his craving ("I don't mean to seem like I care about material things," he hedges), but "My Girls" is ultimately a celebration of the simplification-- of desire, of priorities-- that comes with growing up. --Amanda Petrusich
