My Favorite 20 Songs of the Year

20. Phoenix-Countdown (Sick for the Big Sun): I don’t think the drummer ever stops with the cymbal splashes here, and it works. Huge, Enormous, Bombastic track.

19. Bill Callahan-Jim Cain: On an album full of Callahan’s sad poetry, this is the best stuff. A few excerpts: “I started out in search of / ordinary things / like how much of a tree/ bends in the wind / I started telling the story / without knowing the end.” “I used to be darker / then I got lighter / then I got dark again.” “But the darkest of nights / in truth still dazzled.” “I ended up in search of / ordinary things / like how can a wave / possibly be.”

18. Andrew Bird-Oh No!: I have no idea what the lyrics mean (“ oh arm in arm we are the harmless sociopaths”), but goddam this tune gets stuck in your head. The whistling is hypnotic and the single fuzz guitar note during the chorus is the best note I heard in all of 2009. Simple in its beauty.

17. Karen O and the Kids-Hideaway: The best thing to come out of Where the Wild Things Are. My favorite Karen O song since Maps. Probably the slowest Karen O song ever. Tragic and delicately beautiful, reminds me of Fall starting to break in D.C. “By the way / you know you’ve always been the one / you’ll ask your reasons why / what once was yours is mine / my baby’s gone.” There’s nothing but her voice and a guitar for like 2 minutes, and even then the song never really breaks, which is perfect.

16. Deer Tick-Easy: Be patient here—you have to get through the meandering intro to get into one of, if not the best chorus of the year. As the lead track on Born on Flag Day, it’s a huge departure from their last effort War Elephant. Three chords never sounded so sweet.

15. Micachu-Sweetheart: 53 seconds of pure genius. Must be heard to be believed. “I love the sound of bass and fear!” What does that mean!!

14. Animal Collective-My Girls: Hard to quibble with the sentiment here—“I don’t mean / to seem like I / care about material things / like a social status / I just want / four walls and adobe slats / for my girls.”

13. Neko Case-Vengeance is Sleeping: Saddest song of the year, only the fact that it makes me so fucking emotional keeps it out of my top 10. http://www.nekocase.com/lyrics/mc06.htm.

12. Bon Iver-Blood Bank: Not satisfied with dominating music in 2009, Justin Vernon released his Blood Bank EP this year, giving us a hint of where he may go when he follows up his brilliant debut album. While the tone is a little less melancholy than previous efforts, Vernon sticks to his strengths, which are, um, everything? It’s a nice step forward, a little different than For Emma, Forever Ago, but not a wholesale diversion from it.

11. Dirty Projectors-Temecula Sunrise: Dave Longstreth really lets his falsetto go here, and it sounds really fucking good. The lyrics are strange (“definitely you can come and stay with us / I know there’s a space for you in the basement yeah / all you gotta do is help out with the chores and dishes / and I know you will”). Great guitarwork as well, which is everpresent on the album anyway. This one and Cannibal Resource have clipped back and forth as my favorite song a number of times.

10. Dirty Projectors-Cannibal Resource: The shaky yet distinct opening chords provide the perfect introduction to Bitte Orca, hinting at what is to come. Despite the variety of sounds here, each one is distinct, holding itself clear as opposed to blending in like the Animal Collective record seems to do.

9. David Byrne & The Dirty Projectors-Knotty Pine: David Byrne brings a quicker beat and chorus to the Dirty Projectors than is present on Bitte Orca. Great leadoff track to a must-own compilation in Dark Was the Night.

8. The Avett Brothers-Laundry Room: Really, really good Avetts song. Maybe my favorite of all time. Vivid description literally and metaphorically of life as a teenager in love: “Close the laundry door / tiptoe across the floor / keep you clothes on / I’ve got all that I can take / teach me how to use / the love that people say you make.” Not content to dwell on teenage years, the Avetts then delve into more present heartache: “last night I dreamt the whole night long / I woke with a head full of songs / I spent the whole day / I wrote em down but it’s a shame / tonight I burn the lyrics / cause’ every chorus was your name.” On top of that, we get their only real old-fashioned instrumental freakout at the end of the song. A fucking triumph, I think especially for those around my age who have experienced both the teenage version and semi-adult version of that heartache. Hard to believe I think there are seven songs better than this.

7. Wilco-Wilco (The Song): The only saving grace on Wilco (The Album). Comforting in a weird way, with Tweedy telling us no matter what else is going on, “Wilco will love you baby.” And despite the possible cheesiness involved with using your own band as a comfort, it works here. Best guitar work on the album as well.

6. Megafun-The Fade: This is close to a perfect alt-country song, and Megafun did it on their fucking debut album. Good lord. The perfect amount of slide guitar, sentimentality, and understated vocals. Some bands go their whole existence trying to record something this beautiful, sad, and brilliant, but Megafun does it on their first try. The rest of their album has them trying a bunch of different sounds, but this is the one that worked best.

5. The National-So Far Around the Bend: Getting me through a year without a new album, thank you. And somehow, they had this gem lying around after Boxer? Wow. Everyone knows a girl like the one they describe: “take a bath and get high through an apple / wanted to cry but you can’t when you’re laughing/ nobody knows where you are living/ nobody knows where you are / you’re so far around the bend.”

4. Phoenix-1901: Really great feedback-laden guitar line, maybe the second best line of the year behind the piano on my number 1 pick. Second best song on a great summer album, good lyrics for it as well—“20 seconds till the last call / going hey hey hey hey! / lie now you know it’s easy / like we didn’t all summer long / and I’ll be anything you ask and more.”

3. Phoenix-Lisztomania: Giving it the edge over 1901 because of the Franz Liszt reference and because I fell in love with it first. Doesn’t have that same guitar hook, but great description of trying to write a love song—“so sentimental / not sentimental no / romantic not disgusting / yet darling I’m down and lonely,” and then the pains of trying to write pop music in general—“these days it comes and goes / lisztomania / think less but see it grow / from a mess to the masses.”

2. Neko Case-This Tornado Loves You: Best Neko Case song of all time. She tears through it over a surprisingly full arrangement, screaming “this tornado loves you / this tornado loves you / what will make you believe me?” Awesome acknowledgement of her own status that she laments all through the album, and a tempting plea at the end. Of course none of it would work if it didn’t all sound so great.

1. Grizzly Bear-Two Weeks: I heard this on All Songs Considered, immediately got it and put it on a CD, took it to work, and told everyone at work that it was going to be the best song of the year. And it’s not just for posterity’s sake that it ends up here. Takes no time to fall in love with, as soon as you hear the first piano chords you are hooked. It’s so fucking good that it makes the rest of the album seem slow and awful by comparison (which it certainly is not). My only problem with it is that if Grizzly Bear can make this sound so effortlessly, why don’t they write a whole album’s worth of material like this? Unreal.