| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |
We took a quick look through Pitchfork's top 100 "tracks" of the year. Yeah... "tracks." Real cool, guys. So it turns out that our "greatest hits" share a few songs with theirs.. which is not incredibly typical, and makes us seem all the more boring. In truth, the only boring songs are the 80 or so from the P4k's "tracks" that we don't share. So in case anyone was wondering, the P4k list is shit. And ours is THE shit. Truth.
20 No Age “Common Heat”
Lots of awesome bands do this thing where, somewhere in the first half of their third album, there's one song that somewhat stands out, representing some unexpected atypical formula deviation. In this respect, "Common Heat" shares sonic parallels with The Strokes' "Ask Me Anything" from 2006's First Impressions Of Earth, sharing a musically subdued nature to present the theme of late-20’s distress. The Strokes’ only lyric of its first chorus, “I’ve got nothing to say” is only interrupted towards the end with “I’m in utter dismay.” No Age agrees, repeating “I’m in trouble.” "Nouns Part 2" would have been welcomed by fans with open arms, but instead, Everything In Between receives its own separate weight, due in no small part to the shadow cast specifically by this song, acting quite possibly as the key (or glue... or gel...) to the entire record. Also, "There's no way I can get out of debt now.." A lyric like this could easily have been thrown in as some type of economic commentary, but it cuts deeper.. There's pain involved with money issues, contributing to the moments when you actually feel your soul begin to crush itself... "Everyone around me knows..." Yes, because we're all in this together. 19 Justin Bieber feat. Raekwon & Kanye West “Runaway Love (Remix)”
A brief Twitter thread sparked the creation of Kanye’s most unheralded triumph of 2010, combining elements of mash-ups and remixes in one huge summery badass package of fun. Somewhere between RZA’s drum sampling and Kanye’s new piano section (a somewhat ingenious improvement from the original “Runaway Love”) surfaces a return to the same sunshine heard in early 90’s pop hits like Tevin Campbell’s “Round And Round” or Shanice’s “I Love Your Smile.” The results are brilliant enough to wonder if there's any shot of Top 40 production returning to this anytime soon. Also narrowly missing out on the top 100 was Bieber’s 2nd best song of 2010:
18 Lady Gaga “Alejandro”
The common critique regarding "Alejandro" confuses plagiarism with inspiration. Granted, it really does sound like the three big singles from Ace Of Base's The Sign combined with Madonna's (somewhat annoying) "La Isla Bonita." The big difference lies in "Ale-Alejandro's" intricately complex song structure, which is probably LGG's most underrated talent. After hitting such an enormous artistic and commercial homerun with last year's "Bad Romance," her momentum has only increased. Now waiting for the leak of Born This Way with eager anticipation...17 BEAK> “Wulfstan”
This band was co-formed last year by one of the members of Portishead, and they're now prolly the best Krautrock band of the past 2 decades, if not longer. Their record came out last November, and while it still kicked ass throughout 2010, mindfuck moments such as the apocalyptic brick-wall-explosion bass-guitar attack on "Ham Green" unfortunately missed out due to being released in late-'09. A similar but more groove-oriented bass attack appears in their only new song of 2010, the A-side “Wulfstan,” along with generous amounts of balls-tripping chants. Here’s hoping BEAK> sticks around long enough to release more original stuff at some point soon. P.S. This is def not a popular opinion, but we’re kinda loving this way more than the last Portishead record.16 Robyn “Hang With Me”
If "Be Mine" and "Dancing On My Own" were both about watching a love interest from afar, "Hang With Me" might be considered the prequel to these, in which she gets some action from her desired love interest (double score!), although it sounds like she has to lie in order to make it happen, telling him it's ok for them to be just friends, and "don't fall recklessly headlessly in love with me" even though that's exactly what she wants to happen. Also, the "single" version of "Hang With Me" is the one referred to here.. The one from Body Talk Part 2 with the lovely synths (as opposed to the sorta-ok "acoustic" version on Part 1). The newer version is somehow reminiscent of "I'll Fly With You" which is only really noteworthy since no one has heard or thought about that song in probably ten years.15 El Guincho “Bombay”
Disassociating this song from its retardedly brilliantly outstandingly NSFW-defining promo video has become somewhat of a challenge. But here goes nothing: El Guincho figured out how to beat Panda Bear at his own game. The beachy-fun summer-pop vibe is there, and the "weed" aspects are there, but the reverb is turned down (as opposed to Panda Bear who is drenched in reverb) so it sounds initially less "weed" and more "beach," which is way cool. Also since many Americans are lazy and stupid and have little-to-no time or desire to learn whatever language he's speaking, it becomes enjoyable to imagine he's singing about the same amount of lovely summeriness that the music conveys. Or maybe he's singing about titties and guns, like in the video.. Yeah, see right there.. it's a challenge. Fuck it. I just spent 10 minutes Google-image searching for a picture of the girl from the video who holds the sparklers. I'm thinking about asking her to bear my children. If anyone can help out with this, please leave a comment with the info.14 The-Dream “Yamaha”
Fun facts regarding The-Dream: He writes songs for Bieber. He hails from the Hotlanta. He worships Prince, to the extent that most of his best songs are Prince homages, such as “Yamaha,” yet another one of these epic future-classics with multiple choruses and refrains, as opposed to a strict verse/chorus structure, with each new section better than the one before it. Also, more sick drums... The-Dream's interests veer towards the artistic and monetary aspects of the music biz, and not so much superstardom (or else there would probably be a video for "Yamaha"), which is good for those of us who enjoy our R&B talent shining brilliantly under the radar. Oh, and also he stole my wife away from me. He's a right bastard, that Dream...13 Crystal Castles feat. Robert Smith “Not In Love”
“Not In Love” will probably not be signaling a new direction for The Cure in the same way that “Wrong Number” incorrectly suggested in the late 90’s, although it’s probably the best song Robert Smith has sung since then, if not earlier. As for Crystal Castles, congratulations on justifying your career past hipster cred. Also, what's up with all the outstanding covers in 2010? It was that kind of year... (as opposed to a shitstorm of godawful covers, which usually happens every year...)12 Japandroids “Heavenward Grand Prix”
Once upon a time, The Pixies also started a song with "HEY!" The Pixies years were a very strong period for music, when it wasn't uncommon for outstanding rock bands to follow a near-perfect album with even more brilliant non-album tracks. Remember those crazy pre-internet days (lmao) when quality control meant something? Obviously, the ways music gets released has changed, and by today's standards, Japandroids aren't (yet) quite huge enough for their B-sides to be heard. So in the interest of maximum exposure, three apparent throwaways from the Post-Nothing sessions emerged as A-Sides in 2010, with "Heavenward" displaying their most breathtaking dynamic changes, and an intro build-up that almost forces the listeners to close their eyes. Perhaps "thrill of living" music is finally back, nicely demonstrated by this song along with "Crazy/Forever" and "Sovereignty." With due respect to The Cure and Smashing Pumpkins, these are the new makeout jams.11 Caribou “Sun”
Most of our feelings for "Sun" echo our assessment of its video. It's good to know people still listen to stuff like this, or that musicians still actually make this kind of music. Although this song's most intriguing aspect has to be its lyrics, the word "sun" repeated at least 170 times. So profound. So much meaning. The music conveys nighttime far more than daytime or sunlight.. However, it def also sounds like "warp-speed through outer space" so the "sun" referred to in this song might not necessarily be our own. Although far less superficially complex, this is 2010’s "Windowlicker." The outros are similar too.|Continue to Page 10|
| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |
No comments:
Post a Comment