A song that sounds timeless. James Murphy's soft, drowned out croon is the icing, not the cake.
29. The Walkmen - "Stranded"
The Walkmen have made getting old sound pretty shitty. In 2000, a much younger band sang "Sometimes I'm just happy I'm older... Somehow it got easy to laugh out loud." On 2004's "The Rat" it was "When I used to go out I would know everyone that I saw, now I go out alone if I go out at all." Now frontman Hamilton Leithauser laments alone, backed by a staggering, slurring Spanish horn section he sings "What's the story, with my old friends? Drunk and lonely, to the man."
28. Sun Airway - "Put The Days Away"
This song begins with what sounds like a warped railroad crossing bell. A passing train, the somewhat cliched metaphor for life passing us by, is the driving force behind this song. In the song's poignant chorus, John Barthmus sings "We can bury our heads, in our rooms and our beds until we see those days again"
27. Cee-Lo - "Fuck You"
It's not often a song makes me laugh out loud, and it's even rarer for a song that still does that after fifteen listens. One of the most hilarious break up songs of all time, and it sounds equally as good.
26. Phantogram - "Mouthful of Diamonds"
Phantogram blends elements of hip hop with more straight-forward indie rock, in a package that's darker and more serious than the sum of its parts. Their debut album Eyelid Moves was pretty solid throughout, but this track was its highlight, a somber track highlighted by the second half of its chorus "...the patterns they control your mind; those patterns take away my time; hello, goodbye"
25. French Films - "Golden Sea"
A driving and instantly addictive Brit-rock track from a band that hasn't even released an album yet.
24. Crystal Castles - "Baptism"
Alice Glass' vocals are usually pretty hard to stomach for anybody who doesn't really like CC, but the screeching works amongst the wall of synths once the throbbing 8-bit drops out. My favorite CC track to date.
23. Dunes - "Handle"
Another obscure Forkast gem. Dunes are a California band with only a scarcely available EP to their credit. This track sounds like nothing else that came out this year, driven by a dark Joy Division sounding guitar tab that erupts on the song's chorus, but the ominous vocals are the track's highlight.
22. HEALTH - "USA Boys"
Frantic, swelling synths, intermittently broken by an electric cathedral pipe organ, and faded vocals make up one of this year's best electro tracks.
21. Sun Airway - "Five Years"
Sun Airway's impressive compositional skills are on full display on "Five Years". A blustery track that slowly builds over 6 minutes. By the time the track has fully built, a reprisal of the album's snowy first track can be heard beneath all the synths and electric percussion.
20. Kanye West featuring Rick Ross, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver - "Monster"
One part A-list hip hop posse cut and one part horror movie. The beat is ridiculous, Kanye's hook is awesome, and I still don't know what happened on that Nicki Minaj verse.
19. Dum Dum Girls - Jail La La
Not since Elvis has somebody made such a great song about being in jail.
18. Beach House - Lover of Mine
See Track #1.
17. Kanye West - "Power"
The definitive track from the definitive pop music figure of 2010.
16. Summer Camp - "Ghost Train"
A band that captures the nostalgia-pop sound as well as anybody. "Ghost Train" is basically about a short-lived relationship, but as Summer Camp is so skilled at doing, the track drips with a certain sweetness and innocence without sounding bubble gummy.
15. Arcade Fire - "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)"
A song that captures the sense of escape in Arcade Fire's album The Suburbs better than any other. One of the most sweet and crisp female vocalists in indie rock, Régine Chassagne sings "Sometimes I wonder if the world's too small, that we can never get away from the sprawl" While Arcade Fire's omnipresent strings can be heard intermittently during the track, a marching synth/keyboard backing drives the track.
14. Lil' Wayne featuring Cory Gunz - "6'7"
Post-prison, Wayne absolutely annihilates "A Milli"producer Bangladesh's beat. With classic lines delivered rapid fire like "Life is a bitch and death is her sister, Sleep is the cousin, what a fuckin
13. Titus Andronicus - "A More Perfect Union"
A driving seven minute epic of a song, The song moves from driving anthemic guitar, lyrically channeling Bruce Springsteen ("Tramps like us, Baby we were born to die") to an almost drunken call to "Rally around the flag" in the song's final minute and a half. I can't think of another song that weds American history with throttling rock.
12. Best Coast - "When I'm With You"
Recorded in late 2009, the song marks the step between the sunny Best Coast on album Crazy For You, and the fuzzed out glo-fi of 2009's "Sun Was High (So was I)" [listed in my top 40 of last year]. The first 30 seconds are Courney Love drunken fuzz as the track builds to its anaphoric chorus about a minute in and by the second verse Bethany Cosentino is delivering the sugary line "Ever since I was a little girl, My mama told me there be boys like you" as it ends up being a sweet stoner chick love song... and Ronald McDonald is in the music video.
11. Das Racist - "hahahaha, jk?"
DR's most instantly likable song off their Sit Down, Man mix tape. The startlingly aware, pop culture-lambasting weed heads quip "These little brown weirdos is wilin' but they can really rap" Yup.
