Welcome to Pitchfork's best of 2008, which kicks off with our favorite 100 tracks of the year. As we did in years past, we've extended the candidate pool beyond the confines of singledom-- basically any song released or covered in 2008, whether a single or not, was fair game for this list. Some songs that made a huge impact this year-- M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" being most notable-- were released in 2007 and weren't eligible (we had a "Paper Planes" remix at #4 last year); MGMT's "Time to Pretend", which scraped into our list last year thanks to a few early adopters, was re-ran in this year's poll. For individual lists from our staff, click here. And to hear the tracks, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist. Ready? Here we go...
100: Girls
"Hellhole Ratrace"
[True Panther Sounds]
I wanted to pull rank and sneak that Chunklet David Lee Roth vocal track or the Andrew W.K. "McLaughlin Group" song in here, but fair is fair. Plus, hell, it already feels like I pulled rank with this low-key release from San Francisco's Girls: almost nobody outside of our office voted for it, i.e. nobody other than the people forced to listen to me talk about and play this bit of casual bedsit glam-pop. Ideally that will change in the new year: With luck, Girls will get big enough for people to complain that female-centric band names (see also: Women, the Girls, Vivian Girls) are the new "crystal" or the new superfluous consonant (see: Wavves, Nodzzz, Lovvers). So long as people are listening. --Scott Plagenhoef
99: Final Fantasy
"The Butcher"
[Blocks Recording Club]
Recorded with the members of Beirut during a series of faux field recordings in Quebec, "The Butcher" ripples with samples of bird calls and crickets. Lyrically, it's one of Owen Pallet's strongest songs, conveying a sense of urgency and doom that is pushed along by the gorgeous melodic layers that ride restlessly beneath. But Pallet's startling knack for string arrangements really gives "The Butcher" movement, the way the piercing violin line soars over the even disposition of the muscular brass. --Mia Clarke
98: The Magnetic Fields
"The Nun's Litany"
[Nonesuch]
A great song about longing to be perceived as a sexual being, and an even better joke, because Stephin Merritt knows how ludicrous that longing can be. The title is the omitted detail that makes the lyric's meaning fall into place; the melody is as severe and formal as a nun's cloth, but the arrangement is interested in an entirely different Jesus and Mary. The escalating fantasies of each verse have little circumstantial barbs built into them ("I want to be a brothel worker/ I've always been treated like one"), and the last one ends by abruptly stripping singer Shirley Simms' voice naked in front of her audience. Also worth finding: the solo ukulele-accompanied version Merritt sings himself, on which he hilariously phrases "learn S and M and all those gay tricks" as if M and S were unrelated concepts. --Douglas Wolk
97: Buraka Som Sistema [ft. M.I.A. and DJ Znobia]
"Sound of Kuduro"
[Enchufada/Sony BMG]
Portuguese collective Buraka Som Sistema play kuduro, an Angolan dance music creole built out of baile funk beats and abandoned rave motifs: a junkyard sound that builds up such steam you fear it might shake itself to bits. On this calling-card track M.I.A. acts the carny, yelling "All aboard!" and setting the ride spinning as MCs Saborosa and Puto Prata spit boneshaking consonants over a spring-loaded beat. Around them hoots, horns, keyboards, and bird calls conjure a spirit of joyful mayhem. M.I.A.'s endorsement gives you a reference point for Buraka's guerrilla techno, but the track's breakneck appeal would easily survive her absence. --Tom Ewing
__96: Empire of the Sun
"Walking on a Dream"
[EMI]
__
In what your high school chemistry teacher calls a catalyzing reaction, Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore joined forces to create a disco-country rock sensation. "Walking on a Dream" marshals Steele's indulgent and ridiculously intertwining melodies from the Sleepy Jackson with the four-on-the-floor drive of Littlemore's Pnau, sounding like a thesis statement for the two projects. Steele's screeching falsetto often seemed a bit put-on in the past, like he was trying to match his ridiculously overwrought orchestration in a game of one-upsmanship. The catcall serves him better on "Walking", which draws from the same kaleidoscopic nostalgia that guides the likes of Scissor Sisters and the DFA but comes out tight and unfettered. --Mike Orme
95: Friendly Fires [ft. Au Revoir Simone]
"Paris (Aeroplane Remix)"
[XL]
Pop songs are full of promises, most propped up by little more than a few chords and a nice melody. UK phenoms Friendly Fires go one step further with "Paris": Their "I promise" gets a boost from the very contemporary go-getter mantra that immediately follows, "I'm on it." And this remix does them one better by involving an actual Aeroplane-- certainly one way to get to Paris-- and, well, pretty much eliminating the Friendly Fires guys from the equation all together by relinquishing their verse parts to the original track's chorus girls Au Revoir Simone (hey that's French!). Even if all this fails to convince you that Friendly Fires will one day live with you in Paris and command the stars to shine on your behalf, at least you got a sweet, beat-accented eight-minute ride out of the deal. --Matthew Solarski
94: WHY?
"Fatalist Palmistry"
[Anticon]
At first blush, "Fatalist Palmistry" feels like the perfect early spring jam. Its confident jangle and generous bounce guide it through warm harmonies and reassuring piano, the sound of a wide grin in a new car, the top down and the sun shining. As blissful as these four minutes feel, though, they're the torturous culmination of Yoni Wolf's cyclical neuroses. He sweats death even as he bemoans life even as he celebrates not being dead yet. He confesses maudlin feelings for a married woman even as he admits his devotion is a limited-time offer even as he proclaims admiration in the eternal: "I'm lucky to be under/ The same sky that held/ The exhale from your first breath." It's difficult hearing any writer toil through this sort of detailed torture on tape. Thanks to the song's survivalist glow, though, listening in is a joy. --Grayson Currin
93: Atlas Sound
"River Card"
[Kranky]
Inspired by a Puerto Rican fable about a boy who falls in love with his own reflection after gazing into a river and ends up drowning as a result, "River Card" was the hidden gem on Atlas Sound's debut album, Let the Blind Lead Those That See But Cannot Feel. Shimmering with longing and carried by a percussive pulse that feels like a heartbeat, it took a couple of listens before revealing itself as a high point in Bradford Cox's songwriting. The track gently swells with a rising tension that never dissipates, but expands with an ambient airiness that feels as deep and clear as the river Cox describes. --Mia Clarke
92: Born Ruffians
"I Need a Life (Four Tet Remix)"
[Warp]
Though Kieran Hebdan's reimagining of "I Need a Life" by Toronto's Born Ruffians abandoned that song's indie rock pedigree for vistas much more expansive, it still bottled the Red, Yellow & Blue single's grown-up-but-still-wild-haired vitality. Hebdan conjures serious vocal abracadabra from Born Ruffians' multi-tracked vocals, the shouting and jounce of the original all but lost in a featherbed of synths, keys, and kick drum. --David Bevan
91: Jamie Lidell
"All I Wanna Do"
[Warp]
When Jamie Lidell rolled his Soul Man dice this time, out came "Sam Cooke Ballad." Like an idyllic 1950s prom date, the Warp throwback is "swallowing the sky so there'd be nothing to fall on you" as plucked bass gently bounces off swirling keyboards. But while the song may seem like an impressive "Mad Men" jingle at first, its sentiment is skewed a little to fit our modern world. Cooke's best slow jams-- "You Send Me", "Cupid", "Nothing Can Change This Love"-- proposed a romantic love that's eternal, unwavering, and sublime; Lidell isn't as starry-eyed. "There's really no such thing as an endless night," he admits. "So let's make a little magic just to put things right." All he wants is something more than a one-night stand, but less than a retirement home in Boca-- a cupid with his feet on the ground. --Ryan Dombal
90: Sic Alps
"Message From the Law"
[Animal Disguise]
San Francisco duo Sic Alps made the leap from primitive noisemakers to semi-pro songwriters in the blink of an eye. Their 2006 debut album was a stumbling wreck of overmodulated, blues-damaged debris, but by last year they had become equally capable of Nuggets-style gems. "Message From the Law", a 12" B-side compiled on A Long Way to a Shortcut, is their shiniest stone yet, a fuzzy garage ditty built around bouncy chords, a finger-snapping beat belted out on trashcan drums, and the faded croon of Mike Donovan. It also has a skewed, loose edge that only an ex-noise band could muster, and while Sic Alps are still given to moments of dodgy confusion, their newfound clarity could be their cleverest trick yet. --Marc Masters
89: Ponytail
"Celebrate the Body Electric (It Came From an Angel)"
[WeAreFree]
At first glance, the smiley, casualwear-clad Ponytail seem mild-mannered, but when it comes time for their ever-more-impressive feats of derring-do, their transformation time's little more than a count-off. And "Celebrate the Body Electric" is bona fide geek-to-superhero music, the surefooted sound of bottled-up rage exploding into banshee squeals and echoing guitars. It's easy to picture it underpinning some Peter Parker type's refusal to hand over the milk-money; or, for more practical application, the blast-off point of their revelatory live shows. "Away we go now," Molly Siegel seems to be chanting as the tune catapults itself into the stratosphere, and with that, they're fucking off. --Paul Thompson
88: Low Motion Disco
"Things Are Gonna Get Easier"
[Eskimo]
The Five Stairsteps' "O-o-h Child" is an old song about future days. Low Motion Disco's red-cheeked edit, "Things Are Gonna Get Easier", is instead a perfect soundtrack for our idealized present, at a time when hope actually seems totally natural. Revisit your pre-election, bailout-weighted October headspace, however, and remind yourself how absolutely necessary this song was in 2008. It's such an easy high that you wonder if the sort of margarine-spread treatment that LMD employ couldn't be used on every classic soul song. Go ahead: spend winter 2009 dreaming on a 17-minute ambient version of "I Call It Pretty Music But the Old People Call It the Blues". --Andrew Gaerig
87: The Veronicas
"Untouched"
[Sire]
From its opening, pathos-laden synthetic strings, "Untouched" wears its artificial heart on its sleeve. Teen-pop duo the Veronicas verge on replicant-status here, chanting at lightning speed through a tongue-twisting account of joylessly insatiable desire. Musically, too, there is no satisfaction: With its brisk, stiff beats, moody guitar, and pseudo-gothic seriousness, "Untouched" is pop at its most totalitarian, demanding submission but indifferent to your enjoyment. Best of all is the high-pitched, melodramatic chorus-- ABBA-like in its touching simplicity and grimly formal perfection. "Untouched" literalizes the put-down "manufactured pop": this is strictly party music by and for flawless, heartless robots. --Tim Finney
86: Los Campesinos!
"Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks"
[Wichita/Arts & Crafts]
"Any idea..." e-mailed an editor in the summer of 2007 after seeing Los Campesinos!, "...what that 'one vote for yes, two votes for no' LC! song is?" It's "one blink for yes, two blinks for no," and the song was "Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks", from a 2006 demo available on the Welsh septet's MySpace. Like last year's #41 track, "You! Me! Dancing!", "Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks" was an unmistakable indie hit from first listen-- LC! closed shows with it long before all but the most LC!-like (read: obsessive) audience members would've recognized it. On 2008's Hold on Now, Youngster..., producer Dave Newfeld (Broken Social Scene) has its youthful desperation spilling over all the more, a superabundance of shouts and scraggly guitar. The lyrics are gloriously elliptical-- Malkmus-gone-emo. As online music gets increasingly corporatized, indie rock appears to be reassuming the marginal place it held in the old brick-and-mortar economy; if so, a subculture crashes and burns magnificently here. --Marc Hogan
85: Osborne
"16th Stage"
[Spectral Sound]
In his review of Todd Osborn's almost self-titled romp down electronic music's memory lane, Andy Battaglia correctly observes that the synth riff that drives opener "16th Stage" sounds a whole lot like the "Doogie Howser" theme. This is the kind of celebration Osborn likely envisioned when he came up with the idea of a record that meditates on the history of house music. The keyboard first comes off as cold and distant, but the song's weary hook persists over a beat and murmured vocals, warming into a fondly remembered moment of nostalgia. --Mike Orme
84: Beach House
"Gila"
[Carpark]
If you've never experienced a narco-haze, here's your chance to do it by proxy. In Victoria Legrand's sleepy world, the word "Gila" has about 17 syllables, and she spends the almost whole second half of the song finding different ways to draw it out into melodic ribbons. Alex Scally's guitar, meanwhile, winds like a sepia-toned serpent through the dry lakebed of organ and muffled drums that provides the song's foundation. This is Beach House during the off-season, boarded up and empty, but ringing with memories of warmth and activity. --Joe Tangari
83: Titus Andronicus
"Upon Viewing Brueghel's 'Landscape With the Fall of Icarus'"
[Troubleman Unlimited]
Patrick Stickles is proving himself one of rock's great unreliable narrators, steering his alternately confident and weary Titus Andronicus through all of the existential dread at the heart of the sprawling The Airing of Grievances. "Brueghel's" is the record's literal centerpiece and arguably the tune from which all the others' lyrical threads unfurl. More than that, though, it's the one track on the album that sounds like it could break loose and go on forever, careening off the back of the spiny guitar line that runs through its second half and Stickles' tale of life unrequited. "I was born into self-actualization," he imparts at the song's beginning with what sounds like a smirk, and when the tune's beery ballast crashes into his words about god and death and a Saturday night, you realize he almost means it. These young punks seem to be steering through the days with just as much of a clue as the rest of us, but on "Brueghel's", they've set quite a backdrop for getting derailed. --Paul Thompson
82: Solange
"Sandcastle Disco"
[Music World/Geffen]
Solange wants badly to convince us of her disco hipness, but "Sandcastle Disco"'s video looks like a cross between Michel Gondry and those Hewlett Packard "hands" commercials, both of which seem like more fitting cultural touchstones for Solange than late-period Diana Ross anyway. For an artist (still) looking for a big-moment star turn, Solange works within herself on "Sandcastle Disco", and her honey-lipped restraint is the strongest evidence yet that Solange is more permanent than her titular featherweight palaces. There's nothing wrong with big sis' rapturous declaration, "If you like it you should've put a ring on it," but Solange seems to understand that our relationship with her is still in the "if you like it" phase. So she sings soft and avoids uncouth innuendo, you know, keeps things ladylike. It's all very sweet. --Andrew Gaerig
81: Love Is All
"Wishing Well"
[What's Your Rupture?]
Witchcraft, tarot cards, wishing wells-- what will it take to help Josephine Olausson find that one thing that's in her band's name?? "Wishing Well" doesn't provide any explicit answers, but it does turn the search into an exhilaratingly fizzy lo-fi pop shout-along that ranks as A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night's high point. That most Love Is All songs sound like they were recorded in a tin can is part of the act's charm; this one, however, could have been laid to tape inside a confetti-loaded firecracker about to go BOOM. And if the lyrics are all desperation, the music is all hope and excitement; we straight up dare you to get that main melody out of your head. --Matthew Solarksi
80: The Bug [ft. Warrior Queen]
"Poison Dart"
[Ninja Tune]
Like all of the best productions by the Bug, aka Kevin Martin, "Poison Dart" seems broadcast from some post-apocalyptic future where little of the urban landscape remains intact but somehow dancehall culture has managed to survive and flourish. Admittedly, this impression is fuelled in part by the "Poison Dart" video, which envisions a Mad Max-style nomadic soundsystem unit, with Warrior Queen's ferocious vocals delivered via the mouthpiece of a strange hovering droid. Even without these visuals, however, Martin summons a dystopian shitstorm with his blown-out beats, shuddering bass, and distorted electronic squeals. Over the commotion Warrior Queen takes aim at those woebegotten fools who have been inexplicably deluded into believing her to be soft, sounding for all the world like a woman ready to withstand anything that Armageddon might throw at her.. --Matthew Murphy
____ 79: Ida Maria
"Oh My God"
[Waterfall/RCA]
In demo form, "Oh My God" has been kicking around Norwegian radio and Ida Maria's MySpace page since 2007, but that doesn't mean the song can't kick ass in '08. Rolling through the year collecting new converts, the retooled album version-- from her debut Fortress Round My Heart -- loses the rawness of the original as well as the boy-girl vocals with guitarist Stefan Törnby, but it gains a new and almost impossible sense of urgency from the shakier guitars, taunting bass, bashing drums, and Ida Maria Sivertsen's world-swallowing vocals and self-destructive lyrics. "You think I'm in control," she sneers, hardly asking a question but assuming your doubt. "You think it's all for fun." She convinces us otherwise. Good god. --Stephen M. Deusner
78: Frightened Rabbit
"The Modern Leper"
[Fat Cat]
Driving chords propelling ever forward towards cathartic crescendo. A sprightly, fiddle-like counter-melody. Yearning vocals that aim heavenward: Most of the time, these are the ingredients for an uplifting anthem, the kind of thing fans pack stadiums to sing along to with their arms around each other. With different lyrics, "The Modern Leper" could have the potential to turn the Scots in Frightened Rabbit into Coldplay, or at least Snow Patrol. But this is not a happy tune. Oh no. It's wretched. Lead Rabbit Scott Hutchison compares emotional debilitation (possibly alcohol-induced) with physical handicap, wondering how the hell anyone could ever love him: "Is that you in front of me/ Coming back for even more of exactly the same/ You must be a masochist/ To love a modern leper on his last leg." No, Scott, we aren't masochists. We're just seduced by the song. --Amy Phillips
____ 77: Telepathe
"I Can't Stand It"
[Rare Book Room]
Telepathe's contribution to Living Bridge, the inaugural release from the in-house label of Brooklyn's Rare Book Room studios, is typical of that stellar 2xCD compilation-- subtle, restrained, and sneakily hypnotic. Marching to a slow, rolling beat, "I Can't Stand It" builds momentum through quiet persistence, floating and humming until it gathers into a dense cloud of shimmering guitar and purring vocals. It's tempting to call the song ethereal-- it wouldn't sound out of place on an old 4AD collection-- but Telepathe inject it with too much blood and guts. "I Can't Stand It" may drift, but it's not made of air-- inside its entrancing haze lies thick, thoughtful sound. --Marc Masters
____ 76: Justice
"DVNO (Radio Edit)"
[Ed Banger/Because]
This song started as a fairly inert cut on last year's † : its foot-dragging half-strut came close to fulfilling some kind of funk-pop promise, but it lacked one important thing-- energy. A solution came in the radio edit of "DVNO", which tweaked the song's tempo and pitch, restructured the backing track to heighten the arrogant thrill of Mehdi Pinson's preening vocals, and turned a lurching also-ran into manic, twitchy disco that sounded like the ideal haughty counterpoint to the adolescent glee of "D.A.N.C.E.". The lyrics needle the exclusivity of certain dance clubs-- Xavier de Rosnay derived the title from El Divino-- so it's fitting the chorus plays out against a muffled bassline that sounds like the top-notch soundsystem of a "enforced and fashionable" dress-code club you're standing outside because you weren't invited. How else to react but to protest your exclusion from the list: "Don't need to ask my name to figure out how cool I am." --Nate Patrin
____ 75: Little Boots
"Stuck on Repeat"
[IAMSOUND]
Following in the tradition of the finest meta-pop, "Stuck on Repeat" is an addictive groove about being addicted to the groove...and addicted to love. Romantic obsession is a broken record in the sleek disco world populated by Victoria Hesketh (aka Little Boots) and producer Joe Goddard of Hot Chip-- a sentiment that can surely be understood by anybody who ever spent way too much time refreshing a crush's Facebook page over and over again. But real-life codependence isn't anywhere near as sexy as the blood-pumping throb (with sleighbell accents!) that anchors this immaculately constructed song, or the way that Hesketh's light-headed vocals swim around in the heavenly, beat-free middle section before being sucked back into the vortex. If it was, we'd all be doomed. --Amy Phillips
74: Wale
"The Kramer"
[self-released]
If the real problem in America is class rather than race, why I am I wondering if my editor will censor the word "nigger"? If it's class, why did people laugh when Michael Richards shouted, "Fifty years ago they'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass" at a black audience member during a stand-up routine, but whisper "oh my god" when, seconds later, he shouted, "He's a nigger. A nigger. Look at the nigger "?
"I'm not tryna be conscious," Wale raps, after Richards's rant fades. No, he's too self-aware and market-savvy to abort his career by being conscious. "Conscious" is code for "uppity." Tone it down or leave it to Bono. "Nigger" used to mean one thing. Now it means too much. "P say that I should stop saying nigga, but if I did, what would be the difference?/ I'd still be a nigga." This is the trap. "The Kramer" doesn't attempt healing; documenting the damage is hard enough. --Mike Powell
____ 73: Goldfrapp
"A&E"
[Mute]
Having recently conquered the world, Alison Goldfrapp decided to grow a heart. While I'm sure hawking soda and cellphones must have had its fleeting appeal, Goldfrapp and her partner Will Gregory changed gears after the overcharged, Grammy-nominated million-seller Supernature by releasing this year's introspective Seventh Tree. On "A&E", the album's best ballad, electronic treatments only threaten the dark edges of the song, building an increasing pulse to the crescendo of the bridge. Unlike previous Goldfrapp hits, which gussy up the vampy singer in an aggressive sexuality, "A&E" focuses on vulnerability: longing for someone gone, wondering whether they're thinking of her, taking pills, feeling surrounded by her own oppressive presence, lamenting the duality of an artist/entertainer. When Goldfrapp sings "It's a blue, bright blue Saturday," she's not just chatting about the weather, she's sharing feelings once kept hidden behind her hypersexuality. --Mike Orme
72: Fleet Foxes
"Blue Ridge Mountains"
[Sub Pop]
Maybe more than any other band in operation, Seattle's Fleet Foxes are uncannily predisposed to singing about mountains: With its ghostly opening and perfect little Fender Rhodes riff, "Blue Ridge Mountains" feels ancient and huge, like it tumbled down from the top of the range and rolled straight into Sub Pop's front office. The atmospherics are so convincing-- and frontman Robin Pecknold's high, wearied vocals so effortless-- that when Pecknold mews the phrase "I heard that you missed your connecting flight" it feels genuinely anomalous: It's hard to imagine that Fleet Foxes and commercial airlines even exist in the same dimension. --Amanda Petrusich
____ 71: Sigur Rós
"Gobbledigook"
[XL]
Since the late 1990s, Sigur Rós have dutifully fielded inquiries about Hopelandic, the googly, wheezing non-language favored by frontman Jonsi Por Birgisson; "Gobbledigook" feels like a tongue-in-cheek refutation-- in both spirit and name-- of the band's longstanding reputation for obtuseness. Built around an acoustic guitar riff (which, incidentally, could have been snatched from the Dave Matthews Band's "Grey Street") and nervous, foot-stomping percussion, "Gobbledigook" is the band's most blithe, frolicsome cut to date, an invitation to bounce around the room instead of huddling in front of the stereo. Sigur Rós haven't sacrificed any of their trademark grandeur-- even "Gobbledigook" feels epic in its own way-- but they have become a little more playful. --Amanda Petrusich
____ 70: Rihanna
"Don't Stop the Music"
[Def Jam]
Thanks to its relentless build (this would be a bear to sing without overdubs-- there's barely space to take a breath) and expertly filtered scrapheap psy-trance amazingness, "Don't Stop the Music" probably would have been a hit in its own right, but its real masterstroke is its sneaky slipstreaming of the "mammasaymammasaw" bit from Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Starting Something". Was there a more inspired and inexplicably happy-making sample in any other mainstream pop song this year? All in all, it helped make this one of Rihanna's finest singles-- high praise, even in her young career. --Mark Pytlik
____ 69: Portishead
"The Rip"
[Island]
"The Rip" seems to represent anything seductive and annihilating-- an ocean's undertow, psychological breakdown, destructive relationship, drugs, death (R.I.P. is, after all, the final rip). Recognizing a kinship in sound and sentiment, Radiohead covered the ominous dirge in concert this year. But ultimately, this is pure Portishead: Who better suited than the simultaneously cool and quavering Beth Gibbons to deliver these portentous opening lines "She walks in the room/ Centered and tall/ Hesitates once more" and still manage to avoid melodrama? Or carry on so elegantly after synthetic arpeggios, in a gutting seismic shift midway through the track, devour their guitar counterparts? In a(nother) year when many young bands thrifted decades-old material with déjà-vu results, the Bristol trip-hop vets were among the very few making music that sounded both right-now and 10-years-hence. --Amy Granzin
____ 68: Four Tet
"Ribbons"
[Domino]
Four Tet has always skirted the periphery of techno, but he finally jumped into the ring in 2008-- sort of. "Ribbons" feels more inspired by minimal techno than of a piece with it, and while I tend to remember good minimal techno tracks as evolving wholes, I think of exactly one thing when I think of "Ribbons". It's not the abbreviated loop slithering in the background. It's not the metastasizing percussion. It's not even the splashy theme that dominates the back half. It's that one perfect sound, a pearly trill that gives the song its mojo. Aware that he's locked onto a sublime moment, Kieran Hebdan rides it hard through enthusiastic variations-- loud and soft, fast and slow, blossoming fully and pulling up short-- and it's goosebumpy every time. --Brian Howe
____ 67: Young Jeezy [ft. Kanye West]
"Put On"
[Def Jam]
If "Put On" was just a Young Jeezy track, it'd already be the best Jeezy track since at least "Hypnotize". Jeezy snarls hard but brings a newfound sense of style and wit to a monolithic synthetic boom from producer Drumma Boy: "Inside fishsticks, outside tartar sauce/ Pocketful of celery, imagine what she telling me." But then, at the 2:52 mark, Kanye shows up in full AutoTune robo-mode, moaning damaged, paranoid self-pity out of nowhere: "You can ask Big Homey, man the top so lonely/ I'm so lonely." It's a neck-snapping about-face, Jeezy's chest-thumping self-aggrandizement into Kanye's seething depression. But when "Put On" sinks in, they sound like opposite sides of the same coin: The conjoined feelings of exhilaration and doubt that come when you finally, against odds, make something of yourself. And in a car with decent speakers, this little meditation on duality sounds like the fucking apocalypse. --Tom Breihan
____ 66: Lykke Li
"Dance, Dance, Dance"
[LL/Atlantic]
Suggesting something can be so much more effective than coming right out and saying it. On this Youth Novels single Lykke Li uses movement to overcome her shyness and compensate for inability to explain herself. "Having trouble telling how I feel," she sings, "But I can dance, dance, dance." The song's music is equally understated and demure: a sliding bassline on an acoustic guitar, some mumbling sax, eventually a few backing voices to fill in the spaces. It builds, but only a little, and even at its peak it's a long way from abandon. For a while this year I kept hoping that "Dance, Dance, Dance" would get a massive remix, something that gave the hypnotic repetition and Li's purring coo the surging beat they deserved. But eventually I realized that the low-key production is a virtue. Your mind fills in everything that's not there, which further reinforces the song's focus on subtle communication: "When I'm shaking my hips, look for the swing/ The words are written in the air." --Mark Richardson
____ 65: Max Tundra
"Which Song"
[Domino]
Normally I wouldn't gravitate towards a song that features a line like "hopefully she'll be there when my U.S. tour is through," because usually it's a red flag that you're dealing with a narcissistic artist douche who can't understand why all women can't be at his beck and call. However, Max Tundra mastermind Ben Jacobs is far too neurotic and self-critical to be painted with that brush, and "Which Song" ends up being an affecting portrait of romantic malady. Jacobs' always-jittery music serves as an especially perfect complement to his lyrical ball of confusion, reflecting not only indecision but also his general charm in its brightly kinetic synth melodies. Max Tundra's sonics are sometimes unabashed in their cheesy cheerfulness, giving you the sense that a date with Jacobs would involve watching a lot of Saturday-morning cartoons. In which case, she ought to be waiting when he comes home from the road. --Joshua Love
____ 64: The Whitest Boy Alive
"Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix)"
[Modular]
The original 2006 version of "Golden Cage" was a nice, low-key piece of bummer disco, with Erlend Øye providing the wistful, murmuring vocals that dance-music enthusiasts have appreciated since his appearance on Röyksopp's "Remind Me". But just like that track's remix by Someone Else, where a sharp jolt of electro-house put that lonely voice into even sharper relief, Fred Falke's transformation of "Golden Cage" into gleaming, pristine synth-pop finds a way to make Øye's warmth even deeper. When he sings "so of course I miss you and I miss you bad" over Falke's production-- replete with a glowing Fender Rhodes, dubbed-out shards of Øye's minimalist-Nile Rodgers guitar line, and a melodic synth hook that circa-83 Jellybean Benitez would envy-- a lyric that originated as a resigned, moping sigh becomes one of the most affecting pleas of the year. --Nate Patrin
____ 63: The Very Best
"Kamphopo"
[Ghettopop/Green Owl]
Architecture in Helsinki's "Heart It Races" was a song many of us enjoyed a good deal upon its release in 2007, but it's remarkable how much Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit's "Kamphopo"-- constructed atop that track's instrumental-- utterly shatters the original, rendering it almost child-like in comparison. But "Heart" provides the ideal canvas for this team to work with, and in between its clattering percussion, and buzzing, rapid-fire bass, it leaves plenty of blank space, so Radioclit's Johan Karlberg and Etienne Tron don't need to alter it much-- wisely they mostly step aside to allow Mwamwaya room to paint his stirring vocals. The singer rides the beat with ease, shifting tempo on a dime and arcing his cadence to match the timbre of the prevalent steel drum. --Joe Colly
____ __62: The Tough Alliance
"Lucky"
[Sincerely Yours]
MP3:__ The Tough Alliance: "Lucky"
A B-Side on their "Neo Violence" single that began percolating back in April, "Lucky" saw Sweden's Tough Alliance finding traces of their own pop DNA in the deliciously obvious. Originally a European hit in 2006 by another-- though perhaps less provocative-- Swedish pop duo, Lucky Twice, the song in its first form is a carnival of synths and teen-pop. But Henning Fürst and Eric Berglund's take is surprisingly shattering, the two troublemakers slowing things down with matchlit finger-picking and love tunnel echo. Thanks to their love of bubblegum, however, all the longing and hormonal charges remain exactly where they should. Because even if the gum's a different flavor, they found a way to make its bubbles pop. --David Bevan __
__
____ 61: Q-Tip
"Gettin' Up"
[Universal Motown]
2008 saw little abatement of the tributes to (and resurrections of) the late James Yancey that started shortly after his 2006 passing, but this one was special: Nine years after he co-produced the last Q-Tip record, it only made sense for a Dilla beat to anchor the first single from Tip's long-awaited comeback. Q-Tip's clear-eyed enthusiasm and the pristine, pulsing soul of the beat make "Gettin' Up" bright and full of life, which would be encouraging enough even if it wasn't a welcome reintroduction of one of rap's most recognizable voices. And even if the romantic sentiments aren't the kinds of lyrics battle-rap aficionados might be looking for ("Move", the other Dilla-produced track on The Renaissance, should fill that need plenty), the way Tip's flow bobs and weaves alongside those snap-tight drums and that liquid yet seismic bassline show that even in his lover-man moments the dude can still kill a beat. --Nate Patrin
____ 60: Crystal Castles
"Courtship Dating"
[PIAS/Different]
Any line about "Courtship Dating"'s beat sounding like Timbaland on steroids seems less clever in light of…Timbaland looking like he actually is on steroids, but it still seems a more appropriate barometer for this song than another tired Atari reference. "Courtship Dating" swells and throbs like your thumb, post-hammer. Alice Glass's normally chirping, flighty voice roils and thwacks, wringing all of the decadence it can out of goth-y eyeliner and thrift-store leather. It'd make a better dance song if it wasn't nominally about self-mutilation in the name of l-u-v, but lusty, angry bedroom floors need rhythm too. Dance, mosh, screw, repeat. --Andrew Gaerig
____ 59: The Dodos
"Fools"
[Wichita]
Sounding like they're auditioning for a spot in the Animal Collective, Dodos here build a swaying psychedelic house on a foundation of polyrhythmic West African ewe drumming. The arrangement swings back and forth between acoustic strumming and electric guitar outbursts, creating a constantly shifted backdrop for the even, melodious vocals. If all that wasn't plenty to keep you off balance, you also get sudden, rhythmic shouts to spike the rhythm in later verses, ghostly backing vocals, and an out-of-nowhere harmony vocal on the song's last note. It's enough to leave you as breathless as the drummer, and one of the most subtle and accomplished integrations of a global folk style in a year seemingly more indie bands than ever looked abroad for inspiration. --Joe Tangari
____ 58: Annie
"I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me"
[Island]
Yet another excellent single from the Scandinavian pop starlet with a difference (that difference being that she's never charted in America; no, whoops, it's that she's got dance and indie cred). It's an immaculately constructed bonbon of a song: Note the way the first line of the verse seems to complete the 10-bar chorus's progression, the "ringy dingy ding" nonsense syllables at the beginning returning for a bridge about a ringing phone (in a song with a txty "ur" in its title, no less), the cliché-inversion of "life's too long for you to get it wrong", the ingenious way every section of the song secretly harmonizes with every other section. The whole thing, in fact, is a lemon-peel twist on the I'm-hotter-than-your-girlfriend trope: What makes the girlfriend deserved to be dumped for Annie is that she's unreasonably jealous. --Douglas Wolk
____ 57: High Places
"From Stardust to Sentience"
[Thrill Jockey]
Mary Pearson's vocals seem to emerge out of the ether of Rob Barber's clattering, clanking percussion. Their debut album's closing track, "From Stardust to Sentience", begins with some heavily phased bell tones and the distorted ticking of a cosmic clock-- yet the most striking thing about the High Places' heavily clipped and processed beats is how organic they manage to feel. "Millions of forces of physics and providence teamed up and brought us all here," Pearson lilts, imbuing a spiritual sweetness to the Carl Sagan-esque thematic expansiveness of the song's title. High places indeed. --Tyler Grisham
____ 56: Vampire Weekend
"Oxford Comma"
[XL]
"Oxford Comma" is the pinnacle of Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig's casual vulgarities. For all of the song's idiosyncrasies-- Lil' Jon in the chorus, that line about the United Nations (building?), an implied debate about the merits of commas-in-a-series-- the song's real appeal lies in Koenig's conversational sing-song. Less about slang or pop culture references and more about meter and tone, "Why would you lie about something dumb like that?" is the year's best approximation of the chip that sits on every young, educated, sweatered shoulder. Kanye West may have declared himself the voice of this generation of this decade-- hell, maybe he is-- but few artists sound more like their Whole-Foods-shoppin', Red Bull-drinkin' peers than Koenig. --Andrew Gaerig
____ 55: Usher [ft. Young Jeezy]
"Love in This Club"
[LaFace]
As far as pick-up lines go, "I want to make love in this club" is about two drinks away from, "Let's fuck in the bathroom." But it's not about the line, it's about the delivery, and "Love in This Club"'s delivery is impeccable. Just he like did on Ciara's "Promise", producer Polow da Don creates a musical backdrop that sounds like it's in slow motion, this time thanks to a stuttering synth figure that hangs behind the beat. Like the musical equivalent of a disco ball, the song is shimmering and seemingly suspended in mid-air. For four and a half minutes, Usher almost makes it seem not ridiculous to "get undressed right here," and what higher goal is there for R&B than to make the ridiculous sublime? --Dave Maher
____ 54: Lykke Li
"Little Bit"
[LL/Atlantic]
A shy-voiced Scandinavian pop songstress? Our hearts have been stolen before. With debut album Youth Novels and seamless live shows, Lykke Li showed she was for real, but it was "Little Bit" (originally from last year's Little Bit EP) that suggested she could be more than another stranger in the night. If you haven't had your "I Think I Love You" moment with this song yet-- if maybe Li's vulnerable/eccentric persona reads too much like shtick for stoking feverish blogger-boy fantasies-- listen again. Producer Björn Yttling, of Peter Bjorn and John, does a lot with a little (bit): steel pan-like percussion, mandolin, a gently distorted beat. Li's voice, like a meaningful whisper in a mostly vacant room, completes the seduction; she barely needs words to get from "too proud for love" to jumping off cliffs for it. Ooh, ooh, la-la-la-la: Let's forget about our tainted hearts. --Marc Hogan
____ 53: Be Your Own Pet
"Becky"
[XL]
"Becky" is a fun and infectious grrl-powered story of teenage jealousy and revenge that ends in ass-kicking and murder. As the boys in the band rev up the engine and run a comb through their pomade, Jemina Pearl belts out the sordid details of this best-friend breakup as only she can. However, when she hollers about her former friend making a friendship bracelet for Becky Facelift, or demands that borrowed clothes be returned ("no bullshit"), there's actually a hint of sadness behind her angry glee that humanizes her song-long fit. Unfortunately, this song's probably best-known for getting booted (along with two other tracks) from the U.S. version of Get Awkward because of "violent" content concerns. That the offending tracks were repackaged as a stand-alone EP not three months later isn't the worst part. The real tragedy is that the EP featuring "Becky" was the final Be Your Own Pet release. --David Raposa
____ 52: Ricardo Villalobos
"Enfants (Chants)"
[Sei Es Drum]
Having inaugurated his first label, the vinyl-only Sei Es Drum, with selections from his Fabric mix, Ricardo Villalobos chose one hell of a follow-up. "Enfants" was essentially an extended edit of the introduction to "Baba Yaga La Sorciere", Chrisitan Vander's 1995 recreation of his group Magma's Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh, from 1973. But Villalobos' mildly accelerated loop-- a chugging piano line recalling Nina Simone's "Sinnerman" and a children's choir that sounds like the Langley Schools Project speaking in tongues-- somehow captured the Zeitgeist. Whether heard amidst the throng at DC-10 or accessed via YouTube while reading interminable blog posts about the future of dance music, the song's combination of innocence and melancholy was just the reality check needed. --Philip Sherburne
____ 51: TV on the Radio
"Golden Age"
[4AD/Interscope]
No American band has captured the tension, fear, and defeatism of the Dubya era as vividly as TV on the Radio, so when "Golden Age" was first unveiled on the band's website this past summer, it provided an exhilarating reintroduction to a group for whom Election Day couldn't come fast enough. Never mind "Yes We Can"; "Golden Age" was the true theme song for the season of Obama, the taut robo-funk groove and increasingly anxious vocal from Kyp Malone mirroring our collective pre-election jitters and anticipation, before the song's victorious, cloud-parting chorus-- complete with heaven-bound harmonies and brass fanfares-- gets the party started in earnest. And of course it helped that, for all of the band's previous experiments with texture and rhythm, this was the first TV on the Radio song you could actually dance to. --Stuart Berman
____ 50: Invisible Conga People
"Cable Dazed"
[Italians Do It Better]
The music on Mike Simonetti's Italians Do It Better label has always had a spectral quality, but on their debut single Invisible Conga People may as well be conducting a séance. Their expansive kraut-disco grooves act as a medium for a host of eerie stylistic visitations: We hear bleached Chic guitar scratch and gently disintegrating synths weaving in and out of hushed, reverent close harmony vocals, like Low offering a tribute to Visage's "Fade to Grey". Halfway through, everything drops away other than a lugubrious keyboard loop and a distant train rattle, and for a moment you feel an icy hand on your shoulder. Then the ghosts move on, the fade-in of a sullen one-note bass pulse and hissing techno hi-hats signaling the arrival of yet more uninvited guests. It's dance music, but you don't dare move a muscle. --Tim Finney
____ 49: Jay Reatard
"Always Wanting More"
[Matador]
MP3:Jay Reatard: "Always Wanting More"
Having released and compiled two-dozen singles this year, much of the trouble wasn't in finding Reatard's jams, but picking a favorite. Motored by a typically Reatard-ian (read: zippy) running time of just two minutes and change, "Always Wanting More" felt more brawny and colossal than the rest of his pop-punk progeny. It arrives on the back of another mighty riff, but the monster chorus seems to explain the Memphis singer's recent sonic shift-- it sounds like he's gnashing his teeth at the punk scene he's left behind. --David Bevan
____ 48: Spiritualized
"Soul on Fire"
[Fontana International/Spaceman/Universal]
Whether coaxing drone rock from Spacemen 3 or combining all manner of strings, electronics, horns, and choirs in Spiritualized, Jason Pierce has long aimed for grandiosity. But, both to his bands' payoff and detriment, the restless experimenter's intentions often distract from the song itself, either by layering too many sounds in too small a space or distending the action into tedium. But "Soul on Fire"-- the pop gem Pierce nearly cut from Spiritualized's sixth album, Songs in A&E, because it seemed too catchy-- makes good on magnitude with newfound concision. In four minutes, we get it all: strings that sweep, guitars that snarl, drums that swing, and a choir that drives yet another resplendent Pierce chorus straight into memory. And that the hook's plea for immortality ("I've got a hurricane inside my veins/ And I want to stay forever") comes from the man who almost died while writing this album only reinforces its majesty. --Grayson Currin
____ 47: Alphabeat
"Fascination"
[Charisma]
You'll hate this song: "Fascination" comes straight from Patrick Bateman's guidebook to great pop, its manicured and springloaded mid-1980s pop-rock groove falling somewhere between "Footloose" and Huey Lewis & the News, shot through with euphoric perkiness. "Passion is our passion," the punchably sincere boy/girl vocals squeal, before launching into skyscraping woah-ohs that light up like a garish shop display at Christmas.
You'll love this song: no tune this year parades its pop craft so openly and gleefully, or puts so much on the line in the name of pure giddiness. Danish group Alphabeat know you want to hit them, but they don't flinch: They're confident that by the time they reach the end of their interminable but brilliant "The word is on your lips/ Say the word!" call and response, the hand that was raised to smack will have turned itself into an enthusiastic fist-pump. --Tim Finney
____ 46: M83
"Graveyard Girl"
[Mute]
Being a teenager sucks. You hate everybody. Nobody gets you. You want to die. Yet through the magic of florid melodies and sweet, rushing guitars, M83's Anthony Gonzalez makes the teen years seem idyllic, a time in life when all emotion is pure and beautiful. "Graveyard Girl" is a tale of a young goth who "collects crowns made of black roses, but her heart is made of bubble gum." When the stadium-rock drums and widescreen synths stop to make way for Morgan Kibby's mid-song monologue, and she whispers, "I'm 15 years old and I feel it's already too late to live. Don't you?", what former misfit couldn't relate? It's melodramatic, overblown, and even a little bit silly. But then again, so is high school. --Amy Phillips
____ 45: Antony and the Johnsons
"Shake That Devil"
[Rough Trade/Secretly Canadian
On "Shake That Devil", Antony Hegarty's piano falls silent to make way for a cavernous drones-and-drums arrangement; it's leaner and tauter than anything he's done before. Gone, too, are his jazzy cabaret inclinations; this free-form jag of energy has more in common with Xiu Xiu than Nina Simone. But in other ways, it's textbook Antony. It's an especially intimate song by a musician known for them, so intense and quiet during its simmering build-up that you can hear salivary noises as he sings. And as always, he's hell-bent on self-actualization. He calls upon his malevolent spirits-- a dog, a bird, a pig-- isolating each in its own tense verse. Then he gathers them all up and flings them out in raucous gospel climax. The verses are identical, yet the tone of the music and Antony's singing changes them immensely-- a fearful prayer suddenly becomes a fearless exorcism. --Brian Howe
____ 44: Hot Chip
"One Pure Thought"
[EMI]
The problem with clever is that it can be cold. And the risk of pastiche, particularly on Hot Chip's ambitious scale, is joyless, overintellectualized calculation. But "One Pure Thought" blithely breezes by both roadblocks, cycling through rawk riffs, glassy analog synth, smooth beats, and a flipbook of neon new wave poses to arrive at its joyful destination. Leaning on the groan-inducing conceit of "it was only a dream," the band nonsenses its way through forests and rail stations, namechecking both the cool (Chic guitarist/disco hero Nile Rogers) and the un- (the much-maligned Macarena) in pursuit of that elusive state of being. Eliminate thought from this equation: It's all about that catchy killer chorus and the way it makes you feel. --Amy Granzin
____ 43: Kelley Polar
"Entropy Reigns (In the Celestial City)"
[Environ]
Kelley Polar's new-agey second record, I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling, left a lot of people cold, other than the zippy "Entropy Reigns (In the Celestial City)"-- its most accessible and translatable moment. Earlier this year, I exuberantly compared this boy/girl duet to Human League's "Don't You Want Me" and it still feels cut from the same cloth. Between the syrupy strings, winding vocal melodies, frosty drum claps, and that big, straining chorus, "Entropy Reigns" hangs together perfectly. It's probably a stretch to hope that someone as academic and as art-minded as Polar would ever care to make overtures to the mainstream, but this is proof that if he ever decided to, he wouldn't be lacking for tunes. --Mark Pytlik
____ 42: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
"Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!"
[Mute UK/Anti-]
In the gospel according to John, Lazarus is raised from the dead after four days spent moldering in the grave. And in Nick Cave's wry and wicked update "Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!" it is all downhill from there. Returned to life and transported to America, Lazarus careens through a world of sex, fame, and weapons as Cave bears bemused witness, chronicling a journey that leads inevitably to "prison, then the madhouse, then the grave." Clearly reinvigorated by his raucous Grinderman side project, Cave is here joined by the Bad Seeds in a stripped-down garage rock mode, with multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis punctuating Lazarus' tale with all manner of noises and back-alley sound effects. And lest it might appear that Cave is enjoying Lazarus' downfall a bit too much, he does offer up one final head-shaking "Oh, poor Larry!" as the Bad Seeds escort him from the scene, another valuable lesson apparently learned. --Matthew Murphy
____ 41: No Age
"Sleeper Hold"
[Sub Pop]
Like Dinosaur Jr.'s "Freak Scene" with the slacker mope washed away, "Sleeper Hold" is an intoxicating mix of hurry up and wait, showcasing No Age's ability to make a song ebb and flow while never actually taking their feet off the gas. Many of Dean Spunt's lines here start with the phrase "with passion," and that's key-- he and Randy Randall's belief in the urgency of what they're playing transforms the song from floating rave-up into chaotic bliss. It helps that No Age sound larger than life, like two guys in a tiny garage doing the work of five on a huge stage. But the magic of "Sleeper Hold" lies in the way the duo's frantic rushes and pregnant pauses sound like identical sides of the same coin. --Marc Masters
40: T.I. [ft. Rihanna]
"Live Your Life"
[Grand Hustle/Atlantic]
People usually save their moralizing for after they leave jail, or at least for during their stay. That T.I. uses the second verse of "Live Your Life" to dispense with life advice registers as just a little more ridiculous than its "Dragostea din Tei" (Numa Numa) sample, courtesy of Just Blaze. It's not the words though, it's the mood created by "Live Your Life"-- all minor chords and choppy strings-- that makes T.I. sound wistful. And it's the music that, in Blaze's hands, morphs from novelty into melancholy, more so than T.I.'s words or Rihanna, who here is little more than Auto-Tune and a haircut. There's something so incredibly sad about the foaming keyboards, the organ line that appears halfway through the verses, but there's something about the chorus that inspires arms-around-shoulders swaying-- or at least some solo webcam lip-synching. --Jessica Suarez
____ 39: Kanye West
"Love Lockdown"
[Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam]
We know Kanye had a hard year because he publicized it well. He got arrested. He blamed himself for his mother's death in interviews. Wounded and lost, he set out to follow his heart, and it led him back to the free market: On September 8, his blog read, "LOVE LOCKDOWN.... wrote a week and a half ago, it's my favorite song 2 date!!." He streamed two studio versions over the following week. Days later, iTunes released it.
As pop psychology, "Love Lockdown" is rich. He's healing deep wounds under bright lights. As a lyric about relationships, it's awful-- it's robotic, immature, and one-dimensional. But as a piece of music, it's his most deceptively ambitious: android vocals over expressive, soul-style piano; 20th-century drum machines underpinning 5th-century Japanese percussion; a pulse borrowed from Marvin Gaye and sense of space reminiscent of Spoon-- in short, strikingly contemporary. --Mike Powell
38: TV on the Radio
"DLZ"
[4AD/Interscope]
This song is an enigma: nonchalantly badass, effortlessly purposeful. That simple, lock-step beat, no-nonsense bass line, spare synths nipping at the edges-- it's unstoppable, and Tunde Adebimpe just rides it with his highly rhythmic vocal. For a band that uses so many synthetic sounds, TV on the Radio sound amazingly gritty here. And there's plenty of ear candy beneath the song's skeletal strut, from the distant thunder of the deep percussion to the spooky whistling that sneaks around in the background at the end. The chorus of "la la las" might sound incongruous in other hands. On "DLZ" it just drives home how casually cool these guys are, like they could do anything without their pulses rising above 80. --Joe Tangari
____ 37: Big Boi [ft. Raekwon and André 3000]
"Royal Flush"
[LaFace]
When Raekwon and Outkast last collaborated in 1998's "Skew It on the Bar-B", it was an audacious challenge to rappers stuck in their ways both artistically and geographically-- "you gotta come provocative…with crazy, bust your shit open beats." A decade later, its follow-up initially sounds mixtape-like: There's almost nothing to "Royal Flush"-- no hook, a wallpapery sort of beat, and no groundbreaking album to attach itself. Which just shows how much of a premium there still is on superior rapping. In fact, it's actually more of a reprise of "Git Up, Git Out"-- Big Boi and Chef alternating political disgust with burly flash talk, while Andre 3000 beautifully goes from playful to thoughtful to enraged to bemused. "Royal Flush" came out of nowhere and it's still difficult to say where it's going-- we've been promised three Outkast albums in 2009, the actual release of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II...yeah, tell me more about that lakefront property in Idaho. But with "Royal Flush" as a teaser, we have all the more reason to hope against hope and wait. --Ian Cohen
36: Arthur Russell
"I Couldn't Say It to Your Face"
[Audika]
We already know of Arthur Russell's astounding range, but it's still hard to believe he's responsible for "I Couldn't Say It to Your Face". Here's a guy who made his name on elaborate left-field disco and ethereal cello-and-voice experiments, chucking it all in favor of earthy vocals and an arrangement that wouldn't sound misplaced on an AM Gold compilation. This is his polite take on the mean break-up (getting dumped via song probably stings, but it beats a text message). "It's my song/ Didn't ask you to sing along" is as harsh as he gets, and his triumphant refrains feel more like relieved catharsis than genuine spite. --Brian Howe
____ 35: Shearwater
"The Snow Leopard"
[Matador]
Zoological fact: The snow leopard cannot actually roar, thanks to the formation of its feline larynx. Fortunately, Jonathan Meiburg, an ornithologist and frontman for Shearwater, ignores this genetic trait, making a lot of noise on "The Snow Leopard", the climax of Shearwater's fifth album. Rook marks the point when Meiburg finally climbed out of Okkervil River to create an album that could stand alongside that band's best work. He's been honing his otherworldly singing and pagan songwriting over several albums, and "The Snow Leopard" stands among his best compositions, full of glowering majesty and anthropomorphic lyrics. The band prowl at a death-march pace, growing more ominous and menacing with every beat, while Meiburg holds his notes inhumanly long and Scott Brackett's trumpet tops the mountain. --Stephen M. Deusner
____ 34: Fuck Buttons
"Sweet Love for Planet Earth"
[ATP]
When pop music listeners try to explain their love for the cacophony of Street Horrrsing, the debut from Bristol noise duo Fuck Buttons, they might mention melody and major chords. And while those non-noise notions contribute to its distorted bliss, the album's 10-minute launch pad, "Sweet Love for Planet Earth", establishes its magnetism with transition and tempo: Deliberate, patient sonic choices lift the listener to heights and sights unimagined just seconds before. The track's vocals-- almost black metal, almost cheerleader chants-- recharge the beat when needed, while the song's persistent forward throb recalls the Field working in an oil refinery rather than a laboratory. That is, fists pump just as often as heads nod. --Grayson Currin
33: Animal Collective
"Street Flash"
[Domino]
Animal Collective ascended as a metropolitan band exploring imaginary worlds, and finished 2008 touring the globe with songs about moldy takeout and getting stoned after chores. I used to think they made everyday life look wild and tedium seem cataclysmic, but I was wrong-- they're just about appreciating your surroundings, which is neither weird nor disagreeable.
Like "Street Flash"-- a ballad about wandering the city at night. No orgiastic drums, no fluorescence, no hysteria; just inertia and echoes. Avey Tare sees loving couples behind windowpanes, fruit shimmering at the corner market, gummy bears, and the friend rotting on his couch because the city's too expensive-- and it is, if you need money to be entertained. --Mike Powell
____ __32: Crystal Castles
"Untrust Us"
[Last Gang]
MP3: Crystal Castles: "Untrust Us" __
Wisely siphoning off the ear-grabbing opening bits from Death From Above 1979's "Dead Womb", Crystal Castles disposes of the unremarkable remainder of the song and manages to turn a garbled little vocal loop into something ridiculously catchy and fascinating. Like many of their Nintendo-jocking fellow travelers, the group's glitchy product can grate over the course of a full-length, but for a few minutes these jokesters can dazzle. Almost every sound, instrument, and effect on "Untrust Us" seems like it's speaking, and-- irrepressible as it is-- there's something haunting about a symphony of lonely, computerized syllables we can't decipher or hope to understand. --Joshua Love
31: Aeroplane [ft. Kathy Diamond]
"Whispers"
[Eskimo]
Hercules and Love Affair were this year's champs of new disco, but Belgium-based production pair Aeroplane ran a close second. Without even a proper full-length to their name, Stephen Fasano and Vito Deluca were name-checked by heavyweights Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas and tapped to add their Balearic spin to songs by Cut Copy, MGMT, and Grace Jones. Even in their rich catalog, "Whispers", though, is in a class all its own. Built on a foundation of forceful synths, deep bass, and Olympic-timed handclaps, the instrumental alone is a runway freight train; it's kept from careening off the rails by UK crooner Kathy Diamond's tender coos. Diamond sings of a fractured relationship, but in this song there's no room for turning back, no time for repair. "Whispers" just keeps chugging along, full-steam ahead. --Joe Colly
____ 30: MGMT
"Time to Pretend"
[Columbia]
MGMT's Alex VanWyngarden says "Time to Pretend" was originally about his pet praying mantis (original title: "The Mantis Sailing Home"). He and partner Ben Goldwasser transformed it from a fantasy about an insect sailing on a pirate ship into a fantasy about becoming a rock star, all the better use for that warbly seven-note hook. Brash and dumb, sure, but its second verse, where VanWyngarden sings about leaving playgrounds and pets and his family behind, sounds like a kid boarding a spaceship, a "Major Tom" for coked-out child stars. That sense of loss colors the first verse's cartoonish fantasies; fame and excess become nighmarish film montages whose soundtracks are too fun to be tragic. --Jessica Suarez
____ 29: Vampire Weekend
"M79"
[XL]
In the fuss made over the traces of Afropop in Vampire Weekend's sound, it's easy to miss that they're just as sly and nimble when swiping from Western traditions: the charming chamber music flurry that opens "M79", for instance. It's an amused nod to their presumed gentility whose brisk rhythm jumps from harpsichord, to strings, then to guitar and drums as the song opens out. Ezra Koenig has mastered the key indie pop skill of stringing phrases together that hint at deeper significance but are really just there to color the mood: Bus route 79, Jackson Crowder, French kids and the Khyber Pass-- these riddling specifics do wonders for the song's texture, but the emotional kick of "M79" is in the way the string refrain whirlpools down and then rushes delightedly back in the final minute. --Tom Ewing
____ 28: No Age
"Eraser"
[Sub Pop]
Before Nouns, many wondered if No Age could make more of the instrumental noise passages and more immediate hooks that they split the difference between on the singles compiled on Weirdo Rippers. After "Eraser", it was pretty clear they'd figured it out. Everything this duo conjured on its earlier singles-- placid instrumentals, surging waves of noise, quick-fix melodies, and sweaty exuberance-- is here in less than three minutes. Even as the band's sound has expanded, No Age have retained a sort of innocence; the shrugging voice of drummer Dean Spunt is almost stunned by the sound summoned here and elsewhere on Nouns. --Jason Crock
____ 27: T.I.
"No Matter What"
[Grand Hustle/Atlantic]
Memorizing raps instead of writing them down is now a de rigueur studio practice for hip-hop's elite. Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West do it. And so did T.I., for a while. But, awaiting a year in jail on weapons charges and smarting from the deaths of a good friend and a child due to miscarriage, the Atlanta MC started jotting things down again. It seems safe to say "No Matter What"-- with its moral depth, fluid continuity, and clear-eyed clarity-- is a product of some meticulous pad-and-paper work. "Even when winning's illogical, losing's far from optional," reasons T.I., but it's not mere braggadocio -- it's self-help minus the flotsam, a stark-yet-triumphant look in the mirror. So when he concludes with, "Wonder how I face years and I'm still chillin? Easy: Let go and let god deal with it," it doesn't sound like a cop-out as much as a confession. --Ryan Dombal
____ 26: The Walkmen
"In the New Year"
[Gigantic]
The title relates to time, but "In the New Year" is just as much about place. "Oh, I'm still living/ At the old address," the Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser rasps. When bass, drums, and a festive organ fill arrive to join the brittle central guitar figure and distant orchestration, the vexed space they share becomes somehow vivid. If You & Me's detractors wonder where the songs are, one of the New York band's best since Bows and Arrows is right here. How it starts: strings whimpering. How it ends: cymbals crashing. Where it lives: at the old address behind your sternum, like a memory of a lost love. "I'm almost home," Leithauser concludes. "I'll see you in the New Year." Auld acquaintance isn't easily forgot. --Marc Hogan
____ 25: The Hold Steady
"Constructive Summer"
[Vagrant]
There's a lot in this song that sticks with what worked on the first couple of Hold Steady albums: classic rock tropes, stories of escapism through drinking, in-joke references to the Dillinger Four, invocations of religious upbringings. But the drinking on top of the water tower is a counter to the unhappy fate of working at the mill until you die, the D4 reference ("Me and my friends are like/ Doublewhiskeycokenoice") namedrops one of their most broken-up lonely-drunk anthems, and icons-- secular or otherwise-- only prove to disappoint: "I met your Savior, I knelt at his feet/ And he took my 10 bucks, and he went down the street." Despite all that, the fact that Craig Finn is less concerned with the travails of a few specific characters than a generally inclusive "us" makes it one of the Hold Steady's clearest moments of epic, aspirational populism. As those familiar rock maneuvers are blown up into wall-of-sound monoliths, Finn declares: "Let this be my annual reminder that we can all be something bigger." --Nate Patrin
____ 24: Gang Gang Dance
"House Jam"
[Social Registry]
"House Jam" is the kind of title you'd normally find scrawled on a band's practice-space CD-R demo, denoting some incomplete experiment or a one-off joke. But the one that appears in the middle of Gang Gang Dance's fourth and most accomplished album, Saint Dymphna, sounds like the moment these Brooklyn mystics have been working toward their entire career. With their hyperactive tribal rhythms harnessed into a steady 4/4, the psychedelic synth textures yielding a brain-massaging bliss, and Lizzi Bougatsos cooing ecstatically like the Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser if she were zoning out at Danceteria in 1982, "House Jam" marks the point where Gang Gang Dance turn into the Dance Dance Gang. --Stuart Berman
____ 23: Beyoncé
"Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)"
[Sony BMG/Columbia]
The best song from Beyoncé's misguided I Am…Sasha Fierce album is half "Get Me Bodied", half "Irreplaceable": a break-up song in going-out shoes. Maybe it wouldn't be as good without the video choreography-- and maybe Beyoncé's superstardom is able to will anything into a hit-- but credit goes to the song's agitated claps and ticks, to its purring keyboard hums and squiggles. Credit also goes to Beyonce's realization of a nearly universal desire-- to project ourselves onto a screen, even if that screen is a person (or persona). Her screen is called Sasha Fierce. Ours is called Beyoncé. Don't believe me? Just ask the hundreds of YouTube stars in heels and cut-up leotards. --Jessica Suarez
____ 22: Santogold
"Lights Out"
[Downtown]
Santogold tries on as many genres on her album as she does outfits in the video for "Lights Out", so there's perhaps a little irony to be had in this particular year-end list featuring her most indie-rockin' track. It's a strum-and-drum affair that works the loud-soft angle, and adds a generous helping of harmonized ah-ahs to the mix. You've probably heard those harmonies trying to sell you some low-calorie beer, if you haven't already heard the song by choice, and it's hard to un-hear it once you've been exposed. Tom Ewing wrote in his LP review that the track "finds a fascinating middle ground between the Pixies and the Go-Go's," but though "Lights Out" sounds maddeningly familiar, and the checklist of obvious reference points might be on the tip of your tongue, it doesn't really sound like anything else other than a wizened, longtime industry vet finally writing songs for herself. --David Raposa
____ 21: Hercules and Love Affair
"Hercules' Theme"
[DFA/Mute]
Antony Hegarty and Kim Ann Foxman received loads of shine on the Hercules and Love Affair debut, and rightfully so, but "Hercules' Theme" shed light on the ensemble's linchpin, Andy Butler. Despite ratcheting the vocals down, Butler manages to weave primal dancefloor coolness with the insecure, almost melancholy Hercules persona more heavily featured on other tracks. The theme starts as an anthem, cocksure and tightly wound around a four-on-the-floor beat, though the facade unravels quicker than the character's lives in Boogie Nights. There's something vaguely unnerving about the pestering horns, and the breakdown towards the end smacks of drug trips and hook-ups gone awry. The best part? The frenzy sounds so fresh and new, not like some threadbare revival. --Adam Moerder
____ 20: The Juan MacLean
"Happy House"
[DFA]
"I think aggression in music is the domain of really young people," Juan Maclean said in an interview earlier this year. He demonstrated an alternate way for older, more centered artists to display their power with this 12 and a half minute bliss-bomb. It's everything good about the DFA collective in one place, a track that sinks its roots deep into the history of dance music (the relentless piano riff that serves as its spine is jacked from Dubtribe Sound System's "Do It Now" by way of every Chicago house record of the 1980s, not to mention "Din Daa Daa") and extends in numerous directions at once. "Thank you for just being so damn excellent," Nancy Whang declares, and she sings it like that's precisely what she means. "Happy House" is an in-your-face song, but it melts into your face. --Douglas Wolk
____ 19: Vivian Girls
"Where Do You Run To"
[Mauled by Tigers/In the Red]
Vivian Girls appropriated an oft-referenced outsider-art touchstone for their band name, and nicked numerous well-worn tricks from your favorite lo-fi Phil Spector acolytes-- the cavernous reverb, the extra percussion, the rough-and-tumble harmonies-- for their first full-length. But possession is nine-tenths of the law, and when "Where Do You Run To" reaches the chorus, and the song's rumbling thunder starts sucking face with the girls' intermingled voices, it becomes pretty clear that these ladies are taking what's not necessarily theirs, and making it their own. --David Raposa
____ 18: Women
"Black Rice"
[Jagjaguwar]
Once you fight off the initial knee-jerk urge to toss this psych ditty onto the blog-rock scrap heap, you'll find "Black Rice" rewards more with each listen. That's because these roughshod Albertans are actually closet post-punk deconstructionists who happen to have a killer knack for citric hooks. A minimalist Wire-esque riff and fussy stop-start sections temper the saccharine vibes, though it doesn't hurt when drowsy singer Patrick Fiegel rolls off the couch to deliver a stunningly euphoric chorus. The result is a lo-fi pop gem that's (fortunately) too lethargic and stand-offish to exploit the many indie trends it alludes to. --Adam Moerder
____ 17: Wiley
"Wearing My Rolex"
[Asylum]
"Here's my number-- she already knows it": Wiley's MC persona is often an icy, defensive control freak, so no surprise that his pop breakthrough is about the horror of losing that control. He's in a club, drunk, short-term memory starting to go: What's he been doing? Why is everything repeating itself? Who has he just given his tremendously expensive watch to? The music, built on a sample of DSK's house classic "What Would We Do?", is a tight electro loop, keyboards arcing woozily upward, perfectly capturing a night out on the brink of disintegration. "Rolex" birthed a dance craze, an answer record (Mz Bratt's "Wearing His Rolex"), and gave Wiley a top 3 UK hit, but beyond the novelty it's his befuddled paranoia that makes it so memorable. --Tom Ewing
____ 16: The Mae Shi
"Run to Your Grave"
[Moshi Moshi/Team Shi]
The Mae Shi lost their singer and their label in 2006, but instead of being defeated, these apostles of good vibes and distorted electronics attacked 2008 with a rapturous self-released collection that celebrates life, god, and the joy of buzzing synthesizers. And with "Run to Your Grave", HLLLYH's blissful climax, they manage to alchemize all of their arty experimentalism into a blatantly ecstatic anthem, complete with an addictively chanted chorus, bright, videogame-worthy keyboard bleeps, and revival-tent handclaps. Despite ingredients that in lesser hands could be grating-- spazzy nasal shout-singing, preachy lyrics about abandoning worldly possessions to give into spirituality, and a repetitive melody-- the Mae Shi crafted a winning pop gem of exultant abandon. --Rebecca Raber
____ 15: Amadou and Mariam
"Sabali"
[Because]
At once futuristic and crushingly nostalgic, this blind couple from Mali's first collaboration with Blur's Damon Albarn is a haunting electro-pop experiment that drips with soul. It begins with Mariam Doumbia in a conversation with gentle violins that sound beamed down from the International Space Station, then gives itself over to a synthetic rhythm and an arpeggiating keyboard. It has a lonely tinge that equally evokes Alan Shepard all alone on a suborbital flight and a lone traveler crossing the desert on a cold, starry night. It's honestly hard to pin down a song that has as many emotional currents running through it as this one, but it's truly a song for any state of mind, no matter where you are. --Joe Tangari
____ 14: Lil Wayne
"A Milli"
[Cash Money/Universal]
Somewhere, Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn is ruing a missed marketing opportunity. Somewhere else, Dennis Rodman has mixed feelings about his only 2008 cultural reference. Goblins are up; goons are down. Erykah Badu is excited to be repped by an MC not named Common. Big, Jay, and 2Pac are looking on, humbly satisfied. Andre 3000 wants his plaid pants back. Mike Lowry is watching Bad Boys 2 climb up Netflix queues. Gwen Stefani is remembering she's also in a band called No Doubt. People in charge of venereal disease awareness are reluctantly pleased. The almighty dollar is pining for its pre-meltdown glory days. The Bible is happy to have been mentioned in the most booming hip-hop song of the year. And Wayne? He's still rapping. Or maybe singing. --Ryan Dombal
____ 13: Kanye West
"Flashing Lights"
[Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam]
On Grand Theft Auto IV's Hot 97 clone, DJ Green Lantern introduces "Flashing Lights" as the song they won't stop playing even though you're sick of it. But "Flashing Lights" never really reached that level of ubiquity, possibly because of the way it nods toward Euro-club whoosh without ever quite committing to it. The strobing synths and the house-thump drums are just slightly off, and the abiding mood is one of paranoid detachment, not ecstatic release. The lyrics follow: When Kanye shows up to the club, he doesn't see pretty girls and free drinks; he sees the paparazzi (who, naturally, he hates "more than a Nazi.") He's kicking game to some girl, but he's never quite reaching her. "Flashing Lights" is a tweak on pop conventions evocative enough that its sticky bad feelings will linger on until we've all blessedly forgotten about, like, "Low". --Tom Breihan
____ 12: Cut Copy
"Out There on the Ice"
[Modular/Interscope]
It had been four years since Cut Copy released their debut LP, Bright Like Neon Love, but their next record almost immediately made festival crowds lose their shit. Getting from points A to B seems awfully Faustian here, but paying close attention to "Out There on the Ice" unlocks the secrets of In Ghost Colours. After so many DJ gigs, Dan Whitford figured out how to foolproof dance music for rock kids who still want to get down but have no idea about the process. When Whitford sings "you don't know what to do" during the chorus of "Out There on the Ice", it's unintentionally empathetic in this context. Besides being a gloriously glowing pop song, it's the record's most instructive one as well, coasting on a splotchy warm-up, and just to make things even more clear, the DFA's Tim Goldsworthy pipes in crowd noise once the "Blue Monday" drum hit kicks after the breakdown. And right when it seems like "Out There on the Ice" could spiral upward into infinity, it gives you a literal breather at the end as a respite…right before "Lights and Music" makes you flip out all over again. --Ian Cohen
____ 11: David Byrne and Brian Eno
"Strange Overtones"
[self-released]
Arriving more than 20 years after the pair's last collaboration, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today bears little of the sampler magic that haunted the bare corners of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts; instead, the pair relies on its own songcraft to fill the sonic space. And the sweetly sung "Strange Overtones" stands up with the most heartfelt composition in either's oeuvre. Advanced age makes itself apparent in the vocals, but Byrne and Eno go at "Strange Overtones" like a hymn, measured and deliberate while the luminous guitar riff chugs along underneath, powering their voices like a motor. The cutest thing about "Strange Overtones" might be the fact that Byrne and Eno sing about becoming lost in the relentless digitization of the world, as if either of them could actually go out of style. --Mike Orme
____ __10: Estelle [ft. Kanye West]
"American Boy"
[__Homeschool/Atlantic]
Young British singer Estelle struck gold with her first international single, which proved to be the perfect pre-summer hit. The velveteen quality of her personable, laid-back vocals synched brilliantly with Kanye West's on-top-form cameo appearance, and the deceptive simplicity of the music with its clubby electro vibe offered an open platform for Estelle's distinctive voice to take center stage. Refreshingly playful and uplifting, "American Boy" is an unpretentious and breezy party track that hit the right notes on both sides of the pond. --Mia Clarke
09: Portishead
"Machine Gun"
[Island]
Listening to "Machine Gun" was one of the most purely satisfying physical experiences of 2008. I can't even count the number of times I let it batter me in the car at a volume that will undoubtedly prevent me from being able to hear my grandkids in 50 years. The music (if you can call it that) lives up to its title for sheer mechanistic repetitive punishment, while holed inside the barrage a wounded, despairing Beth Gibbons confesses her spiritual abandonment, the soulless determinism of the beats matching her own feelings of existential futility. --Joshua Love
08: Air France
"Collapsing at Your Doorstep"
[Sincerely Yours]
"If you have anything in you, anything unique, what others might term as originality, it will come through whatever the component parts used in your future Number One are made up from," the KLF write in The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way. Air France threw a "Beach Party" on last year's #89 track, quoting Lisa Stansfield's "All Around the World". On "Collapsing at Your Doorstep", from this year's No Way Down EP, the Swedish duo create a fantasy island out of bird chirps, tropical percussion, strings, a little kid's voice (also sampled this year by should-be-beloved dubstep producer Zomby), and two other little kids' voices (from the 1980s TV show "Beauty and the Beast"). The results are as warm and transportive as the new West Coast sound of Gothenburg neighbors Studio, but also as catchy and wistfully innocent as the punk-minded pop of Sincerely Yours chiefs the Tough Alliance. Sort of like a dream? No. Better. --Marc Hogan
07: Cut Copy
"Hearts on Fire"
[Modular/Interscope]
"There's something in the air tonight, a feeling that you have that could change your life," Dan Whitford sighs, just as a glimmering cloud of synth-beeps coalesces into a twerked-up house beat. Whitford never really specifies what that feeling that you've got that could change your life might be, and he doesn't have to; the track's starry-eyed pound does all the talking for him. "Hearts on Fire" is a love song, or maybe a crush song, or maybe a song about your hand brushing some girl's hand in a crowded club. This is a classic synth-pop jam, almost exactly the sort of classic synth-pop jam New Order used to churn out on the regular. And we've heard all this stuff before: those droll detuned guitars, those giddy club-diva whoops, those faraway sax-tootles. But we've rarely heard all this stuff click together into such a perfect machine of instant sugar-rush giddiness-- even from New Order. --Tom Breihan
____ 06: Deerhunter
"Nothing Ever Happened"
[Kranky/4AD]
Delayed gratification, meet instant pleasure. After Cryptograms' exquisite perversity, first Microcastle single "Nothing Ever Happened" was like the moment in the film A Hard Day's Night where the Beatles finally escape into the sun. All the usual Deerhunter signatures are there: Neu!-like propulsion, Sonic Youth-style iridescence, airy vocals, lyrics about dreaming. But the delay pedals and gloomy noise-murk are gone, replaced with festival-ready crowd-pleasers. Big dumb hooks! Guitar solos! Finger-tapping! It's the Deerhunter song you play for people who don't think they like Deerhunter. After the huge chorus hits twice in the first two minutes, the next three-plus promise a third chorus so convincingly you probably won't mind when it never, um, happens-- "Waiting for something, for nothing," Bradford Cox observes pointedly. Gangly guy gets most of the attention, but bassist Josh Fauver, guitarist Lockett Pundt, and co-founder/drummer Moses Archuleta (now joined live by guitarist Whitney Petty) are all co-equals on this one; hell, Fauver wrote most of it. --Marc Hogan
____ 05: M83
"Kim & Jessie"
[Mute]
Even though M83's Anthony Gonzalez had already downshifted from making muscular, wall-of-synth workout records to barely there, ambient piano doodles, few people anticipated his next direction. Steeped in equal parts old school 4AD and vintage Thompson Twins, 2008's Saturdays = Youth was one of those rare albums branded with the 80s tag that, crazily, actually sounded like the 80s. With its apocalyptic electric drum hits, keening synths, icily detached vocals, and volcanic chorus, "Kim & Jessie" not only ranked as the album's best song, but also combined with the similarly convincing "Graveyard Girl" to make one of the year's most potent 1-2 punches. If you heard this in a John Hughes film, you wouldn't even flinch. --Mark Pytlik
04: Santogold
"L.E.S. Artistes"
[Downtown]
With a synth-freaked production from Switch and echo-drenched patois, Santi White had to know her debut single, "Creator", would unleash a deluge of M.I.A. comparisons that could potentially dominate all discussion of her work from here on out. However, the upside to being saddled with that recurring reference point is that it freed her up to mine other sources with less critical scrutiny. In the case of her fantastic follow-up single "L.E.S. Artistes", she imagines what Tegan and Sara's "Walking With a Ghost" would've sounded like had it been covered by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs instead of the White Stripes-- and, in the process, she fashions her self-titled album with an opening mission statement that effectively establishes her genre-hopping, poptimist approach by attacking narrow-minded indie insularity from within.
White's singular résumé-- former punk-rock singer, one-time major-label A&R rep, and current song-doctor to the stars-- lends her a unique perspective to analyze Lower East Side scensterism, and her lyrics ("I'm trying to build a wall," "I don't need no one else") could be read as both a declaration of independence or a critique on the exclusionary politics that come with it. But that ambiguity is crucial to the song's success: In giving the middle-finger to the too-cool-for-school set, White ended up giving them a new favorite song to belt out in hipster hangouts around the world. --Stuart Berman __
__
____ 03: Hot Chip
"Ready for the Floor"
[EMI]
When you first found out that a song called "Ready for the Floor" would be on the new Hot Chip album, it was already playing in your head, even before you actually heard the thing. But for me at least, it didn't turn out to be quite what I expected. Instead of a commanding call to shake it, "Ready for the Floor", while still a brilliant dance tune, turned out to be reserved and kind of sweet. But it's also hugely confident and quite possibly the best pure pop tune in the band's catalog. Consisting of several distinct hooks daisy-chained together, any one of which could conceivably be built out into a genius song of its own, "Ready for the Floor" has the strange effect of blurring lines between verse, bridge, and chorus. It moves from "Oh yeah, here's this great section" to "Ah, right, now it's that great section" to "You're my number one guy!" Even after a kajillion plays, it never got old. Songwriters of the future, take note. --Mark Richardson
____ 02: Fleet Foxes
"White Winter Hymnal"
[Sub Pop]
Back in January, "White Winter Hymnal" was an intriguing and inviting introduction to the Seattle quintet, when they had just ridden a wave of MySpace success and signed with local label Sub Pop. Nearly a year later, it remains their perfect, triumphant moment, even after they've opened for Blitzen Trapper and Wilco, headlined their own tours to ever-larger audiences, and invaded the lower rungs of the Billboard album charts. Just over two minutes long, the song contains every element that would make their Sun Giant EP and self-titled full-length debut so entrancing: the intricate vocal arrangements highlighting their evocative harmonies, the way Sklyer Skjelset's clean guitar lines shadow Robin Pecknold's wordless vocals, the Edward Gorey imagery of the lyrics, the heartbeat tattoo of the floor tom. Its meaning may remain unclear even after so many listens-- something about the passage of seasons, which seems apt-- but its spell remains as strong as ever. --Stephen M. Deusner
____ 01: Hercules and Love Affair
"Blind"
[DFA/Mute]
2008 was a weird year for dance singles. With a few notable exceptions, techno basically spent it on snooze, electro sounded limp and uninspired, and house failed to build on French touch with much of anything fresh. Indie rock did a pretty decent job of integrating dance music into the full-band aesthetic, while a few mainstream cheesemongers helped make up some of those losses (the otherwise awful Sam Sparro scored with "Black & Gold", and it says a lot that one of the year's best dance tracks -- "Pjanoo" -- came from Eric fucking Prydz), but it was hardly robust. Disco, however, avoided that malaise. While tracks from Aeroplane, Chaz Jankel, and Sally Shapiro (with Lindstrøm) helped maintain its profile, this cut from New York's Andy Butler was its undoubted high point. And thanks to its sturdy rhythm, infectious horn section, rumbling bassline, and an appropriately vampy vocal turn from Antony Hegarty (whose full-bodied belt, as it turns out, is perfectly suited for disco divadom), "Blind" cut across all sections and tastes. Between this, Cut Copy, and last year's singles winner, LCD Soundsystem, producer Tim Goldsworthy might want to think about having his mixing desk bronzed. --Mark Pytlik
Each of our staff writers was invited to participate in a two-part process to determine our staff's favorite songs of the year, first helping to craft a shortlist and from there determining the final order of the final top 100. What follows is each writer's original, individual selections of the 25 best tracks of 2008:
