Top 40 Songs of 2009: 20-11

20. Dirty Projectors - Stillness is the Move
An intricately crafted song that is basically just a really good r&b track from a group that has been known for producing some of indie's most unlistenable art rock. Their album Bitte Orca ditches that hard-to-listen-to sound from records past in favor of a more listener-friendly pop sound, and this track demonstrates how that well sound works.

19. Joker & Ginz - Purple City
I have yet to get heavy into Dub Step, but I came across this on Pitchfork's Best Tracks list, and loved it. Just an absolute banger of track.

18. Franz Ferdinand - Katherine Kiss Me
This song is Franz Ferdinand minus everything that is Franz Ferdinand except Alex Kapranos' lusty come-on croon. With just a guitar and piano, this song puts Kapranos even more in the spotlight than he normally is (and this guy isn't shy on any of their other stuff). This song highlights his charm in a way few other songs have (excepting "Jacqueline"), where he plays the helpless admirer instead of the swaggering sex machine.

17. Jay Z featuring Alicia Keys - New York State of Mind (New York)
While Jay Z is probably in the twilight of his career as a lyricist, he is probably at the pinnacle of his career and this is his song from the top of the Empire State Building of hip hop. While other rappers may have had more top 40 songs this year or more video play, he has become what every rapper dreams of becoming, a transcendent success who has equal parts music credibility and business success. On this track he pays homage to his ascent and isn't shy about putting out his cigar long enough to tell everybody how impressive it is that he made it (he calls himself "the new Sinatra" for god's sake). Alicia Keys' chorus/piano take this song from good to great, and pulls off the difficult task of making a song about New York feel grand.

16. Smith Westerns - Dreams
Basically the story goes like this... a group of 17 and 18 year old kids in Chicago get together and find a bunch of dusty 60s albums in an attic and decide they want to make music that sounds like that, but the sound structure and guitar riffs aren't enough, so they go out and get a vocal distorter and set it to "poor sound quality 1960s live record"... The rest is fall of 2009 midwest indie/garage rock blogsophere history... or something kind of like that. Semi-accurate back stories aside, Smith Westerns seem to have carved out a nice little niche for themselves. When they're not getting kicked out of concert venues for "not peeing in garbage cans," they put on great live shows, and it's going to be interesting to see where they go on from here. As for this track, it's similar to most of their album, but I like the chorus more than any other on the album for it's inclusion of a more diverse percussion set (they use a xylophone), but you really can't go wrong with anything from their album.

15. Real Estate - Basement
As of this post, this song still can't be found on itunes, amazon, or youtube, but I came across it on their Myspace page after hearing their terrific self-titled debut album and liked it more than any track on their album... which is one of my favorite of 2009. It has more of a folk feel than the eerie sounding take on 60's beach rock heard on their album, and the vocals are more prevalent on this track. Lyrically this song takes that same nostalgic tone that is predominant on their album. Based on the line "The past is filled with episodes no one would televise" the lyrics are a series of snapshots of seemingly meaningless moments that develop this idea that the most basic and unimpressive moments are the moments that truly make up our past.

14. Best Coast - Sun Was High (So Was I)
This isn't the best song of the year, but It's about as perfect as a glo-fi song about thinking about somebody in the sun while high can be. Musically and lyrically, it perfectly captures a blurry, chemical-filled day in the sun with little else to think about.

13. Phoenix - 1901
If you have a television or a radio you have heard at least some of this song at some point this year. It's a slight point of pride that I can say I really liked Phoenix before their album Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart brought them mainstream success this year. It's also fun to see how the band has matured from the two-track wonder that was 2000's United to Wolfgang, which spawned a couple songs that got radio play, but none that were as heavily played -- or as good -- as this one.

12. Matt & Kim - Daylight
This song is almost too sugary to be good, but they pull it off. Kim Schifino's ticking clock drums and the soaring synths play well with Matt Johnson's vocals to produce a song that sounds bright and happy on the surface while dropping the hint that daylight isn't permanent ("Step back and here comes the nighttime").

11. Bat for Lashes - Daniel
Almost everything I've read about this song likens it to a Fleetwood Mac song, and as much as I'd like to be a contrarian, I can't... although I'd add that it sounds like a really good Fleetwood track. I heard this song and saw the video together at first, so the images of the video are indelibly linked to the song for me, but I think the ghoulishness of the video captures the sound quite well. The distant whir of the instrumentals and the drum machine set a soundscape that brings to mind the ruins of a battlefield or something equally dark and tragic, so video or not, the song effectively conjures up this kind of dark imagery without visual aids ("when the fires came / the smell of cinders and rain / perfumed almost everything"). At the same time, it's a catchy song that demands repetitive listens, which is the mark of a great song. The fact that I've read that this song is loosely based on her crush for the dude in The Karate Kid is a little disheartening, but sometimes the interweb lies, so I did not factor that into this ranking.

the songs that defined my year, tomorrow...