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My Taste in Music is Way Better Than Your Taste in Music ________ [Main] [Reviews] [Features] [Albums] [Wanted] [Top 50] [Guestbook] tommoatuccdotasndotau________ |
I'm quite happy with the results, mostly for two reasons. Firstly, there are a nice range of genres represented here, including pop, rock, country, folk, hip-hop and electronica. Secondly, there's plenty of tracks here taken from albums that aren't in my Top 20 Albums of the Year (coming very soon!), so there's set to be a fair bit of variation between the artists represented in either list. I think that's much better than having a Top 20 Songs which is just the best song from each of the Top 20 Albums - it makes things a bit more interesting. As always, there were a bunch of great songs that missed out on being in the top twenty. Honorable mentions go to "Fire Snakes" by Laura Veirs, "Hope There's Someone" by Antony and the Johnsons, "Jezebel" by Iron and Wine, "Smile Around the Face" by Four Tet, "The Purple Bottle" by Animal Collective, "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?" by The Mountain Goats and my personal guilty pleasure for the year, Kayne West's "Gold Digger." Anyway, that's enough directionless rambling disguised as an "intro." I present to you the My Taste in Music is Way Better Than Your Taste in Music Top 20 Songs of 2005. Here we go... #20 Eels - "Trouble With Dreams" (Pop) Lying one third of the way into the first disc of Eels' epic disappointment Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, is the album's singular really great song. "Trouble With Dreams" is an absolutely gorgeous track, driven along by one of the most beautiful synth melodies the band has ever come up with. Everett's songwriting is a little light, as usual, but the lyrics possess that down-to-Earth charm which made the earlier Eels albums work so well. They mesh sublimely with that wonderful instrumentation to deliver the best thing they've created in years. Taken from:  Blinking Lights and Other Revelations #19 The Books - "Be Good to Them Always" (Cut & Paste Electronica) If Lost and Safe had a single, this would probably be it. "Be Good to Them Always" is the album's most immediately accessible track, but this is The Books we're talking about, so there's still a jarring synth melody, repeating bouncing-ball percussion and a whole lot of incredibly non-sensical, spliced together quotations to deal with. Those quotations are probably the song's biggest joy, with offbeat gems like "I've lost my house / You've lost your house" and "Look at it this way / You may fall and break your leg" making it a marvelously surreal experience. Taken from:  Lost and Safe #18 Spoon - "The Beast and Dragon, Adored" (Indie Rock) Spoon couldn't have chosen a better opening track for this year's Gimme Fiction. With its resonant bass lead-in and sinisterly jaunty piano melody, "The Beast and Dragon, Adored" is a great attention-grabber. With some excellent vocal work and a joyously fuzzy guitar-solo freakout, the track is four and a half minutes of indie-rock perfection. Taken from:  Gimme Fiction #17 Bright Eyes - "Train Underwater" (Country) I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning marked a change of direction for Conor Oberst, most notably a departure from the angst and adolescent intensity of his previous works. "Train Underwater" is probably the album's best showcase of the new, more relaxed Bright Eyes, with its mellow country backing and gentle vocals leading nicely into the song's multi-part chorus, which includes a gorgeous, recurring instrumental break. Taken from:  I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning #16 Andrew Bird - "Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left" (Orchestral Indie Pop) Andrew Bird's fascinating mixture of orchestral instrumentation with pop music song structures is most pleasing on "Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left." Some of the album's most cleverly off-kilter lyrics can be found here, including gems like "Exorcise your cells 'till you're bereft" (rhyming with the title lyric) and "What happens when two substances collide / and by all accounts you really should've died?" This lyrical playfulness is complemented by bouncing strings and some great accompanying whistling, to create something very special and highly enjoyable. Taken from:  Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs #15 Serena Maneesh - "Candlelighted" (Noise-Rock) Opening with an awesome mix of pulsating drums and ethereal, immersive guitar noodling, "Candlelighted" is at once Serena Maneesh's most cerebral piece, but it's also its most catchy. Around two minutes into the song, the guitars drift into the foreground, gradually becoming more crisp, and the distant, dreamy vocals finally drift over the mix. The percussion continues to hold it all together, while bursts of joyous pop guitar leap forth as it winds to a close. Taken from:  Serena Maneesh #14 Quasimoto - "Players of the Game" (Hip-Hop) This is quite possibly the oddest piece of hip-hop brilliance I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. From the irresistible "wind-up" bass, to the multitude of different vocalists, to the utterly disjoint, falling-asleep-at-the-turntables production, "Players of the Game" is a genuine avant-garde masterpiece. Check it out, even if you don't like the genre. Taken from:  The Further Adventures of Lord Quas #13 Sufjan Stevens - "Jacksonville" (Folk & Singer/Songwriter) Picking a highlight track off an epic like Illinois is a difficult task, but "Jacksonville" has always been my favourite because it offers a little of everything that makes the album great - the Neil Young-esque folk, the uplifting chorus (complete with horns), some introspective singer/songwriter moments, plenty of beautiful strings and some delicate touches of memorable piano. Best of all, these elements combine perfectly, resulting in the album's best showcase of Stevens' versatility. Taken from:  Illinois #12 The New Pornographers - "The Bleeding Heart Show" (Power Pop) The phrase "I'm not really big on power pop, but I like The New Pornographers" is a strangely common one. Have a listen to the group's third album, and the song "The Bleeding Heart Show" in particular, and you'll understand why people are always making this exception. Featuring a great lyrical progression, from "Watch them run / Although it's / The minimum / Heroic" to the stirring finale of "We have arrived too late to play the Bleeding Heart Show," the song strikes just the right balance between the "power" and the "pop," resulting in a catchy yet deeply affecting piece. Taken from:  Twin Cinema #11 Wolf Parade - "I'll Believe In Anything" (Indie Rock) "I'll Believe in Anything" is the most emotionally intense track from a standout album packed with stirring songs. Positioned towards the end of Apologies to the Queen Mary, the song starts out with a curious synth opening, which quickly leads into some of the year's most powerful drumming and vivid guitar-work. The vocals are the big highlight though, as the singing reaches some truly feverish, impassioned heights, particularly during the song's rousing finale. Taken from:  Apologies to the Queen Mary #10 Boards of Canada - "Dayvan Cowboy" (Ambient Electronica) "Dayvan Cowboy" is divided into two sections. The first half consists of a slowly developing, static-drowned soundscape, which is vintage Boards of Canada all the way. However, as the soundscape fades to a close, and the second half commences, the song takes an amazing turn. Resonant strums of shimmering acoustic guitar glide across the track, gradually giving way to more beautiful drifting synth and a barrage of exhilarating cymbal crashes. It marks the Scottish duo's change of direction perfectly, starting out with something highly reminiscent of their earlier work, before shifting into their new and exciting, guitar-centric aesthetic. Taken from:  The Campfire Headphase #9 Smog - "Let Me See the Colts" (Folk/Country) Smog's shift into the country genre is at its most effortless on "Let Me See the Colts," the closing track on A River Ain't Too Much to Love. The song's beautiful combination of gentle acoustic strums, playful drum rolls and faint harmonica touches sounds perfect, and Bill Callahan's wonderful, gravelly vocals are at their most charismatic. As the song reaches its gorgeous middle part, Callahan sings "Is there anything as still as sleeping horses?," before the listener is finally treated to a serene, spine-tingling closing. Taken from:  A River Ain't Too Much To Love #8 Missy Elliott - "Lose Control" (Hip-Hop) It seems to me that Missy Elliott was popular music's singular saving grace in 2005, and "Lose Control" is one of her best works yet. Her highly creative take on hip-hop is still a breath of fresh air, with the song's multiple vocalists, genre-hopping, B-grade sci-fi sampling and incredibly catchy beat making it the genre's clear standout this year. The single version (the one on TV) is even better than the original, as it style-shifts into a fantastic alternate ending. Taken from:  The Cookbook #7 CocoRosie - "Tenko Love Song" (Lo-Fi Singer/Songwriter) As the song's sugary-sweet melody echoes from hollowly plucked strings at the opening of "Tenko Love Song," things sound immediately very sentimental. At first listen, the opening lyrics of "I fell in love with a bad bad man / And ever since I met him I've been sad sad sad" seem like a misstep, but with every subsequent listen their simple honesty seems increasingly appropriate. CocoRosie's otherworldly lo-fi backing is highly affecting, and as the love-gone-wrong tearjerker progresses, it's very easy to find yourself taken by the song's flawed beauty. Taken from:  Noah's Ark #6 The Fiery Furnaces - "Guns Under the Counter" (Indie Rock with lots of other stuff) As "Guns Under the Counter" opens with an incredibly odd time-signature, Eleanor speak-sings of an experience involving a gun fight at local store, in which a young man is injured. That's only the beginning, and soon after we learn of the notorious Dr Peter Pane, a questionable man who uses the same products in his remedies as in the production of his donuts. Yes, donuts. We then proceed into a perfectly realised audio-tour of his donut factory, complemented by ridiculous flourishes of ragtime piano. It's arguably the most convoluted, brilliantly strange piece of music the Furnaces have come up with, and it's pure genius from start to finish. Taken from:  Rehearsing My Choir #5 Beck - "E-Pro" (Hip-Hop/Rock) That guitar. That thunderous, incredibly catchy loop of electric guitar, which runs through "E-Pro" like a freight train, is in my opinion the most memorable and addictive piece of backing instrumentation that Beck has created since the unmistakable slide-guitar riff which opened "Loser" all those years ago. Topped off with a singalong chorus which doesn't actually contain a single real word and an amazing guitar break closing, "E-Pro" is a flat-out dancefloor masterpiece. Taken from:  Guero #4 The White Stripes - "My Doorbell" (Soul Pop) With a back catalogue of singles including "Hotel Yorba," "Fell in Love With a Girl" and "Seven Nation Army," claiming anything as The White Stripes' best single is a big call, but "My Doorbell" is just that good. The track marks the Stripes' first foray into genuine, Jackson 5 styled pop music, and the results are tremendously entertaining. The jaunty piano melody is delightful and Jack White's yelps of "I've been thinking 'bout my doorbell / When you gonna ring it?" are irresistibly charming to boot. It's definitely one of the year's best, and hopefully marks only the beginning of an exciting new direction for the duo. Taken from:  Get Behind Me Satan #3 Minotaur Shock - "Muesli" (Minimalist Instrumental) Opening with a sprightly melody of sparse yet mischievous woodwind, "Muesli" sounds cheerful and kind of goofy right from the start. However, as the song progresses, more elements are added to the mixture. First additional layers of woodwind, then light keys, then yet more woodwind, then shakers, xylophone and bass, some gentle chimes and then finally the song's glorious payoff - a sunny piano accordion finale. There are brief silences separating the addition of each new instrument, which has a great effect, and at just over three minutes length, the song's replayability is virtually endless. Taken from:  Maritime #2 Sleater-Kinney - "Let's Call it Love" (Psychedelic Hard Rock) "Let's Call it Love" is the most furiously immense track on Sleater-Kinney's colossal album The Woods. Clocking in at eleven minutes, the song is an absolute monster, featuring the album's most impressive showcase of massive, psych-tinged guitar and powerful drumming, with Corin Tucker's unbelievable banshee holler roaring over the top of the mix. Around 4 minutes into the song, a boxing bell is heard to ring, indicating the first section of what can only be described as some sort of maniacal three-part coda. You'll be hoping the song will never end, which is useful, because for a while it seems like it never will. Taken from:  The Woods #1 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "Heavy Metal" (Indie Pop) "Heavy Metal" is quite simply the most incredibly catchy piece of pop music I've heard all year. Placed midway through Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's impressive, self-titled debut, the track is extremely cleverly constructed but deceptively simplistic to the ear. Alec Ounsworth's drunken, wavering slur is at its most loveable, the music has a continuously joyous, racey feel to it which makes the song particularly addictive, upbeat fun, and it features possibly the best use of harmonica in a non-folk/country song I've ever heard. I've listened to it literally hundreds of times this year, and it's still as exciting and repeatable as the first day I played it. My favourite song of the year? Unquestionably. Taken from:  Clap Your Hands Say Yeah |