Hey Gang,
I'm currently in the lab putting together a top 50 tracks of the year list. I'll post my top albums of the year at some point this weekend, and the top 50 will steadily trickle out after that.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Poking at the corpse that is this blog...
Hey watch this...
Also, have you ever seen a baby pigeon?
Twin Shadow 'Slow' (NSFW) from Twin Shadow on Vimeo.
Also, have you ever seen a baby pigeon?
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Twitter Widget, Bitches!
Hey blog readers,
I just thought I'd throw up a quick post to celebrate me figuring out how to add the twitter widget to my blog. Now you can come to my blog and read my twitter updates if you're into that kind of thing.
For the small subsection of my audience who relies solely on this blog for updates about my life... I got a job 2 months ago and moved out of my mom's house. Those are both good things. I'm now able to live the depraved life I longed to live, which may be a contributing factor to my lack of posts lately. Anyway, tell your friends about how my blog now has a twitter widget, and wait patiently for my next post.
Here's a song/music video I like...
I just thought I'd throw up a quick post to celebrate me figuring out how to add the twitter widget to my blog. Now you can come to my blog and read my twitter updates if you're into that kind of thing.
For the small subsection of my audience who relies solely on this blog for updates about my life... I got a job 2 months ago and moved out of my mom's house. Those are both good things. I'm now able to live the depraved life I longed to live, which may be a contributing factor to my lack of posts lately. Anyway, tell your friends about how my blog now has a twitter widget, and wait patiently for my next post.
Here's a song/music video I like...
Dunes - Handle from Christopher Ando on Vimeo.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
February 2010... What a time to be young
I kind of feel like I've abandoned my baby here, but I've been busy doing nothing with my life the past few months. A few random tidbits for you guys today...
In more personal news, I'm mired in a soul crushing job search. I'm pretty sure about 1 in 4 people in the Greater Chicagoland area are in possession of my resume, but I have yet to even get an interview... but at least I still have hundreds of dollars in student loan bills each month to remind me that I actually went to college. On the bright side, I have come across some exciting openings lately (like Manager 1 - Custodial Operations), so all hope isn't lost.
Speaking of all hope not being lost... all hope actually is lost. Last night I came across an encouraging article from business magazine Kiplinger about the top 6 companies hiring college grads. If you don't feel like following the link, here are those companies:
1. Starbucks
2. The Container Store
3. Target
4. UPS
5. Wegmans Food Market
6. Whole Foods
To summarize...
"You know that college degree you just paid tens of thousands of dollars for and took four years out of your life to earn? ...Well, you're qualified to be bagging groceries at something called Wegmans Food Market. And hey, if you work 1000 hours at Target you can get benefits! So what if you had a better job halfway through your freshman year in high school? ...Times are tough, asshole. You can't afford a subscription to this magazine anyway, you think you're going to get helpful advice for free? And if I ever see you, make sure you double bag that"
There's a ton of music stuff I want to write about in the near future as well. The speculation for Lollapalooza headliners is pretty titillating, so I will delve into that in the near future. 2010 has started off really well from a new music standpoint (there are aleady 2 or 3 albums I would have put in my 2009 top 10 had they come out last year), so for all 0 of you who read this blog for my music insights, you should be happy in the very near future.
- This blog is officially a year old. The past 40 or so posts have been a wild wild ride. Thanks for the memories blog readers.
- I've discovered tweeting is way easier than actually writing up entire blog posts, so if this whole once-a-month thing isn't enough for you, be sure to hop on over to Twitter for a little mykegtweets action.
In more personal news, I'm mired in a soul crushing job search. I'm pretty sure about 1 in 4 people in the Greater Chicagoland area are in possession of my resume, but I have yet to even get an interview... but at least I still have hundreds of dollars in student loan bills each month to remind me that I actually went to college. On the bright side, I have come across some exciting openings lately (like Manager 1 - Custodial Operations), so all hope isn't lost.
Speaking of all hope not being lost... all hope actually is lost. Last night I came across an encouraging article from business magazine Kiplinger about the top 6 companies hiring college grads. If you don't feel like following the link, here are those companies:
1. Starbucks
2. The Container Store
3. Target
4. UPS
5. Wegmans Food Market
6. Whole Foods
To summarize...
"You know that college degree you just paid tens of thousands of dollars for and took four years out of your life to earn? ...Well, you're qualified to be bagging groceries at something called Wegmans Food Market. And hey, if you work 1000 hours at Target you can get benefits! So what if you had a better job halfway through your freshman year in high school? ...Times are tough, asshole. You can't afford a subscription to this magazine anyway, you think you're going to get helpful advice for free? And if I ever see you, make sure you double bag that"
There's a ton of music stuff I want to write about in the near future as well. The speculation for Lollapalooza headliners is pretty titillating, so I will delve into that in the near future. 2010 has started off really well from a new music standpoint (there are aleady 2 or 3 albums I would have put in my 2009 top 10 had they come out last year), so for all 0 of you who read this blog for my music insights, you should be happy in the very near future.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Chipotle
First off, Happy New Year blog readers... hopefully you had a more responsible evening than I. I don't have much today, but during my post-drunken stomach queasiness, I decided the best medicine would be 4 pounds of food crammed into a massive tortilla, but unfortunately the masterminds behind Chipotle's hours of operation figured it best to remain closed on a day when people have nothing better to do than sit around and eat high volumes of food. Anyway, I googled Chipotle for some reason and found an awesome site called chipotlefan.com. Handily featured on the site is a nutrition calculator with a "share on your blog" button, and I decided what better way to ring in 2010 on Myke Writes than posting the nutrition information of a burrito.
Nutrition Facts
Amount Per Serving
Calories 1090 Cal from Fat 375
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 40g 62%
Saturated Fat 18g 88%
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 185mg 62%
Sodium 2930mg 122%
Total Carbs 119g 40%
Dietary Fiber 18g 72%
Sugars 16g
Protein 64g
Vitamin A 0% • Vitamin C 0%
Calcium 0% • Iron 0%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
INGREDIENTS: Tomato Salsa,Corn Salsa,Green Tomatillo Salsa,Black Beans,Fajita Veggies,Lettuce,Cheese,Sour Cream,Rice,Chicken (4oz),13" Tortilla
My Chipotle Burrito:
Chipotle Fan.com
Nutrition Facts
Amount Per Serving
Calories 1090 Cal from Fat 375
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 40g 62%
Saturated Fat 18g 88%
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 185mg 62%
Sodium 2930mg 122%
Total Carbs 119g 40%
Dietary Fiber 18g 72%
Sugars 16g
Protein 64g
Vitamin A 0% • Vitamin C 0%
Calcium 0% • Iron 0%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
INGREDIENTS: Tomato Salsa,Corn Salsa,Green Tomatillo Salsa,Black Beans,Fajita Veggies,Lettuce,Cheese,Sour Cream,Rice,Chicken (4oz),13" Tortilla
Chipotle Fan.com
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Top 40 Songs of 2009: 10-1
The songs I'll still be listening to 30 years from now...
10. Junior Boys - Parallel Lines
A song that just sounds sleek and polished. Despite the keyboards, synths, drum machines, and vocals, this songs sounds open and clean for the better part of six minutes. The vocals and keyboards sound like a simplified version of NIN's "Closer."
9. Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone
This is Alex Turner's best writing to date, a guy who seems to have mastered the art of weaving stories of down-on-their-luck pub wanderers. "Cornerstone" is the story like this, but with the brilliant imagery of things like "I smelled her scent on the seat belt and kept my shortcuts to myself." The first two and half minutes are great, but the knockout punch is the song's last verse, a twist in the narrative that is as good of a punchline as any Arctic Monkeys song. Turner's wry wit makes the song more like a three minute joke than a heart sick saga, and he is the one left with the last laugh.
8. Neon Indian - Mind, Drips
If you were to view the medium of pop song (3-4 minute time limit using any instrumentation that sounds good), most bands could be described as painters, using different styles and techniques to produce their painting...or the pop song. Neon Indian's songs are more like a blank canvas that's been filled with bizarre cutouts from different magazines all pasted together... but the end result is usually something very appealing and instantly likable. The magazine cutouts in this song range from unintelligible samples that echo intermittently over the course of the song, keyboard hooks that invoke the soundtrack to Escape from New York, and faded and distorted vocals that function more as an instrument than a device to say anything. The end result is something that sounds totally different than most music I have ever heard, but also sounds better in a really strange way.
7. Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension
It's always good to hear good new music from one of your favorite musicians, even if that new music effectively signals the end of your favorite band. The writing seemed to be on the wall, even on 2006's First Impression of Earth, that he was itching to branch out from the post punk sound the Strokes perfected, but became pigeonholed into making. Free of the constraints and expectations that come with making a Strokes record, Casablancas went with the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to his album, which failed for the most part, but came together incredibly well on this song.
6. White Rabbits - The Company I Keep
In a year that effectively saw the final nail in the coffin of my favorite band... leather jacket five-piece rock seemed to be a dying art, but White Rabbits remain, and they are pretty damn good at what they do. "The Company I Keep" is just a cool sounding, slow paced rock song about the type of things that cool rockers make songs about... how they're cool but unhappy and women Why reinvent the wheel, right?
5. Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
If you drew up a vendiagram with one circle labeled indie pop , and one circle labeled men's choir, Grizzly Bear would be the shaded area in the middle. "Two Weeks" features four minutes of arching vocal harmonies that sounds way catchier than one would expect from a song with the elements of "Two Weeks", so much so that Grizzly Bear had a great deal of cross over success behind this song.
4. Discovery - Orange Shirt
A buzzing and whirring hip hop/indie rock/electro pop/dance song, the combines the various stylistic elements of all these genres into the anthem of the summer. As you probably would expect, the music comes first here, but Ra Ra Riot lead singer Les Roskam's vocals fit perfectly well among the skipping drum machines and keyboard effects. Unfortunately for Discovery, the rest of their album could not build off the momentum of this, the first track on their LP (creatively titled LP), but this track stands alone as the catchiest track of the year.
3. Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer
The more I read Pitchfork this year, the more I got sucked into the whole Chillwave/Glo-fi movement that the site covered extensively. Neon Indian was my favorite of these bands for a few reasons, the most obvious being that their songs just sound the best. "Deadbeat Summer" is basically just a top 40 pop song at it's core, but it's distorted and chopped up to make it become a song called Deadbeat Summer" instead of "[insert peppier word than deadbeat] summer". This song sounds like its title, but not in a depressing, closed-off-from-the-world view of summer through the shades, it's a song that sounds like having fun in the summer, just not doing anything productive or important (and probably under the influence of some psychodelic drugs).
2. Los Campersinos! - The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future
In August I saw this band dancing around a stage at lollapalloza like a group of hyperactive school kids at recess, led by a dude wearing jorts and an Abe Vigoda tshirt, spewing short, catchy, fast-paced indie pop songs. A month and half later, the first song from their next album (due in early 2010) was released, and it was something so radically different from their previous stuff, it required a sort of musical double take. In a stark contrast to their earlier work, this song is dark, string-drenched, epic infused with grown man retrospection. An absolute emotional gut punch of a song. Gareth Campesinos' vocals flow between urgency and defeat as he tells the story of a girl he knew along with some macro philosophizing on life and death, the past and the future.
1. Camera Obscura - French Navy
This was a once in a year song: catchy, replayable, and beautiful. I played it all the time, and it became somewhat of a soundtrack for the early part of this year. Lyrically, the story is simple enough -- a romance abroad doomed to fail -- but it's extraordinarily well written both lyrically and musically, while maintaining the simplicity of a standard pop song. Moreover, it is rare song that could have come out at any point in the past 35 years and still been well-received.
10. Junior Boys - Parallel Lines
A song that just sounds sleek and polished. Despite the keyboards, synths, drum machines, and vocals, this songs sounds open and clean for the better part of six minutes. The vocals and keyboards sound like a simplified version of NIN's "Closer."
9. Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone
This is Alex Turner's best writing to date, a guy who seems to have mastered the art of weaving stories of down-on-their-luck pub wanderers. "Cornerstone" is the story like this, but with the brilliant imagery of things like "I smelled her scent on the seat belt and kept my shortcuts to myself." The first two and half minutes are great, but the knockout punch is the song's last verse, a twist in the narrative that is as good of a punchline as any Arctic Monkeys song. Turner's wry wit makes the song more like a three minute joke than a heart sick saga, and he is the one left with the last laugh.
8. Neon Indian - Mind, Drips
If you were to view the medium of pop song (3-4 minute time limit using any instrumentation that sounds good), most bands could be described as painters, using different styles and techniques to produce their painting...or the pop song. Neon Indian's songs are more like a blank canvas that's been filled with bizarre cutouts from different magazines all pasted together... but the end result is usually something very appealing and instantly likable. The magazine cutouts in this song range from unintelligible samples that echo intermittently over the course of the song, keyboard hooks that invoke the soundtrack to Escape from New York, and faded and distorted vocals that function more as an instrument than a device to say anything. The end result is something that sounds totally different than most music I have ever heard, but also sounds better in a really strange way.
7. Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension
It's always good to hear good new music from one of your favorite musicians, even if that new music effectively signals the end of your favorite band. The writing seemed to be on the wall, even on 2006's First Impression of Earth, that he was itching to branch out from the post punk sound the Strokes perfected, but became pigeonholed into making. Free of the constraints and expectations that come with making a Strokes record, Casablancas went with the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to his album, which failed for the most part, but came together incredibly well on this song.
6. White Rabbits - The Company I Keep
In a year that effectively saw the final nail in the coffin of my favorite band... leather jacket five-piece rock seemed to be a dying art, but White Rabbits remain, and they are pretty damn good at what they do. "The Company I Keep" is just a cool sounding, slow paced rock song about the type of things that cool rockers make songs about... how they're cool but unhappy and women Why reinvent the wheel, right?
5. Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
If you drew up a vendiagram with one circle labeled indie pop , and one circle labeled men's choir, Grizzly Bear would be the shaded area in the middle. "Two Weeks" features four minutes of arching vocal harmonies that sounds way catchier than one would expect from a song with the elements of "Two Weeks", so much so that Grizzly Bear had a great deal of cross over success behind this song.
4. Discovery - Orange Shirt
A buzzing and whirring hip hop/indie rock/electro pop/dance song, the combines the various stylistic elements of all these genres into the anthem of the summer. As you probably would expect, the music comes first here, but Ra Ra Riot lead singer Les Roskam's vocals fit perfectly well among the skipping drum machines and keyboard effects. Unfortunately for Discovery, the rest of their album could not build off the momentum of this, the first track on their LP (creatively titled LP), but this track stands alone as the catchiest track of the year.
3. Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer
The more I read Pitchfork this year, the more I got sucked into the whole Chillwave/Glo-fi movement that the site covered extensively. Neon Indian was my favorite of these bands for a few reasons, the most obvious being that their songs just sound the best. "Deadbeat Summer" is basically just a top 40 pop song at it's core, but it's distorted and chopped up to make it become a song called Deadbeat Summer" instead of "[insert peppier word than deadbeat] summer". This song sounds like its title, but not in a depressing, closed-off-from-the-world view of summer through the shades, it's a song that sounds like having fun in the summer, just not doing anything productive or important (and probably under the influence of some psychodelic drugs).
2. Los Campersinos! - The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future
In August I saw this band dancing around a stage at lollapalloza like a group of hyperactive school kids at recess, led by a dude wearing jorts and an Abe Vigoda tshirt, spewing short, catchy, fast-paced indie pop songs. A month and half later, the first song from their next album (due in early 2010) was released, and it was something so radically different from their previous stuff, it required a sort of musical double take. In a stark contrast to their earlier work, this song is dark, string-drenched, epic infused with grown man retrospection. An absolute emotional gut punch of a song. Gareth Campesinos' vocals flow between urgency and defeat as he tells the story of a girl he knew along with some macro philosophizing on life and death, the past and the future.
1. Camera Obscura - French Navy
This was a once in a year song: catchy, replayable, and beautiful. I played it all the time, and it became somewhat of a soundtrack for the early part of this year. Lyrically, the story is simple enough -- a romance abroad doomed to fail -- but it's extraordinarily well written both lyrically and musically, while maintaining the simplicity of a standard pop song. Moreover, it is rare song that could have come out at any point in the past 35 years and still been well-received.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
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...
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...
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