« Video: Lykke Li & Bon Iver - "Dance Dance Dance" | Main | Tonight »

December 31, 2008

Our Favorite Songs of 2008: #20-11

Fleet Foxes - "White Winter Hymnal"

Lovers of multilayered, assembled harmonies received a healthy dose of the good stuff with the meteoric rise of Fleet Foxes and their massive signature single. As the chattering classes kept busy with the continued hullaballoo over what ‘folksy’ means in the contemporary sense, we were reminded why the sweated small stuff is and always will be bullshit. Fleet Foxes arrived seemingly just in time to wreck the logic that says one has to be weird as shit to be effectively interesting. There’s still room for natural talent, melody, and precious harmony apparently. M. Swankster

Cut Copy - "So Haunted"

The songs on Cut Copy's In Ghost Colours are a bit like a shouted conversation deep into a night club visit: enthusiastic, giddy, and not actually conveying information as such. But "So Haunted" finds us at a weird moment in the night's revelry. Grabbing a smoke outside, rainy, slightly wet, with inebriation beginning to outpace exhilaration. There will be fewer and fewer moments with potential for a connection, and a lonely cab ride looms large as they dwindle. If you could only get your head to move quicker than your heart is pounding, faster than your blood is tainting. J. Klingman

Crystal Castles - "Courtship Dating"

Their three-dimensional desperation wrung from 2-D tech, Crystal Castles 8-bit palette provided the easiest to regurgitate talking point of the year. But melodies get lodged in our heads early, no matter their source. Its probably long past time that a generation incubated on repeating blips, meant to signify moments of danger, drama, and triumph, should finally get around to ripping their childhood processor's guts open to see what else they can do. Simmer, sleaze, bang--check, check, check. JK

Spiritualized - "Soul on Fire"

In "On Fire", the lead track from 2001's phenomenal Let It Come Down, Jason Pierce, (who, for all intents and purposes, is Spiritualized), uses the titular metaphor as a means of braggadocio, and the song's narrator likens his blind ambition to that of Icarus. "On Fire" is nothing more than the latest incarnation of a rock and roll archetype; a James Dean song about carpe-ing the diem, gusto fueled predominantly by drugs. "Soul on Fire", from this year's experiment-cum-concept album Songs in A&E, takes the opposite approach but seeks the same result. Instead of confidence, we get a plea for assistance, a change in perspective likely owed to Pierce's prolonged battle with advanced periorbital cellulitis and bilateral pneumonia that landed him in ICU with type-1 respiratory failure. But what makes "Soul on Fire" so pleasing is what hasn't changed: the strings still overpower like sunlight bursting through church doors, the guitar riffs blaze through like hellfire and brimstone, and the backing gospel singers continue to lift up Pierce's fragile voice in a way that would inspire even the most adamant atheists to sing along. R. Monty

My Morning Jacket - "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream"

The efforts of My Morning Jacket's experimentation have thus far been mostly welcome. Rough steps here and there are to be expected and a few borderline novelty recordings can be forgiven. Not because the band is entitled to a pass, but because the nature of open-minded absorption of new sounds might very well lead to more beauties like this one. Though the title alludes to a Princeified ode of carnal wants, all perceived ickiness stays cocooned within Jim James’ softly enunciated singing. A bottom of spacey synths and bubbly drums sound like repurposed artifacts stolen from Yoshimi-era Flaming Lips. Their dynamic contrast serving as nonverbal nudges for James’ motivation and his otherwise pleasant projections. MS

Love Is All - "Sea Sick"

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Little did Coleridge know when he penned the line above in 1797 that his epic maritime tale of isolation and restlessness at sea could be summed up in less than four minutes under a chorus of claps by overly enthused Swedes. Even though those aboard Coleridge's vessel faced certain death by dehydration, Josephine Olausson makes her hyper expressions concerning the plague of cruise ship teriyaki overload seem one in the same. "Sea Sick" is a contagious anthem of self-loneliness and agitation that make me think twice about drinking water let alone going out to sea. Nevertheless the song is so much fun that I wouldn't be surprised if one day it replaced Iggy Pop's lust for drugs to sell cruise packages. Y. Korngold

Cool Kids - "What Up Man"

Hooks akin to "Warm it up" are usually employed in reference to getting a party started or getting your girl in the mood quicker, but Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish are rhyming about that last TV dinner when you're broke and starved. Finding a comfortable niche in hip-hop as the Clipse you can listen to with your mom in the car, the Cool Kids favor real-life descriptions of the real life most of us actually know: playing video games, getting the munchies, half-assing a few chores, wanting a new bike, etc. In fact, the songs plot is so common folk/oddball engaging that it's not until roughly two minutes in that you realize even the minimalist beats are all lyrics, too. Clap? Click? Bass? That's your words of wisdom, right there. RM

Portishead - "We Carry On"

Under the groan of what could be described as a vengeful fax machine and the drone of two chords going back and forth on the assembly line, Beth Gibbons dips deep into a two syllable cadence that can be visualized as it leaves the constraints of song and into the world of sound poetry.

the taste

of life

I can't

describe

It's chock-

         ing on

my mind

If Portishead only released snippets of this track after ten years of album limbo it would have been enough to be classified as a significant breakthrough. In "We Carry On" the band finds a way to explore the deepest haunts of the soul while keeping the tempo up and feet in motion. YK

the Kills - "Last Day of Magic"

"My little tornado, my little hurricano..." coo the Kills on the smudged jewel of this year's most unfairly shrugged off record. They've always hinted at a fetish for destruction (self-, mutual-, final, etc.), and by now they're comfortable enough with their fatal attraction to hand out some pet names. Jamie Hince grinds his riff down to a metallic nub, shedding weight in a shower of sparks. Is that lipstick Allison, or a bit of blood? Probably the sexiest track of the year, though not all of its bruises were placed there on purpose. JK

Titus Andronicus - "Titus Andronicus"

The popular rock adage argues that, "it's better to burn out than to fade away," but what about fading out? And what's so bad about burning away? In this self-titled song (a welcome trend to indie rock, if you ask me), TA predict their impending failed rock 'n roll careers, and subsequent loss of sex and drugs, to death – even though the more likely result is a resignation to a life of cubicles and family vacations. The taught three minutes, thirteen seconds is wrapped up by the most optimistic non-harmonizing shout-along of "Your life is over!" that I've ever heard. Is it bad that I find all of this hilarious? More bands should write their own theme songs, even if they are eulogies. RM

#52 - 41
#40 - 31
#30 - 21

Posted by Jeff Klingman at December 31, 2008 02:11 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1928

Comments

Posted by: Merry Swankster at December 31, 2008 01:56 PM

Posted by: Randall Monty at December 31, 2008 03:04 PM

Post a comment