Top 100 Songs of 2008: #s 5-1

After almost five months, we've finally hit the end of the line. This is the longest it's ever taken me to dole out my top songs of the previous year (I think I say that every year), but 2008 was particularly notable for two reasons - both of which will be explained without self-editing (so the usual madman pontificating) below.

5 "Gardenia"

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Real Emotional Trash
[Matador]

"It's like we're at a Ponzi scaminar / there's no escaping without a door prize."

What's scary is that these five songs were pretty solidified well before my grandmother was diagnosed with terminal pneumonia. That they all relate back to her somehow in my head is probably some combination of serendipitous fate and subconscious free will. What's especially strange to me is that Stephen Malkmus, a man whose songs meant most to me when I lived with my grandmother during high school (when he was in Pavement), and then whose solo career mostly disinterested me until this song eight years later, is on this list. Not only for the chronological coincidences, but also because the man is known for writing in astounding non sequiturs. So how does this all relate back to her passing? Well, when it happened, I knew I had to do something. I couldn't just hop on the next plane to NC all willy-nilly. I knew a time for that would come when a ceremony was planned. Flowers were suggested and I agreed it was the best offering I could give for the time being. For a couple days, I struggled with what flowers to purchase and have sent to my family. I knew nothing about them other than that my grandmother loved all kinds. Listening to a mix CD with this song on it helped make up my mind. And there's a lot of ways that Malmus's nonsense could be translated, but ultimately it was the simplicity and happiness alive in this song (something the man's been missing for a while) that made me want to pick this gorgeous flower. My love of language and very uncomplicatedly, how fun it can be, is what made me fall for Pavement in the first place, and I can only contribute this love to my grandmother - the one who taught me to read, play Scrabble, and help with crossword puzzles.

4 "These Few Presidents"
Why?
Alopecia
[anticon.]

"Yours is a funeral I'd fly to from anywhere."

It took me forever to fully appreciate this album. If you remember, Elephant Eyelash was The Blogulator's (and my) favorite album of its year, but when I heard Alopecia for the first couple times, I couldn't get over how depressed Yoni Wolf and his respective instrumentation sounded. Even with flourishes of xylophone and harpsichord, it still sounded like a man romanticizing death for an entire album. This song put on repeat outside of listening to the album as a whole, along with my grandmother's death, helped me understand. Death may be morbid, and it may be ugly, but that last thing it should be is taboo. It shouldn't remain as subtext, because when that happens, it only gulps up from the inevitable course of action that any beloved elderly person (or anyone you love, really, for that matter) may endure, and suddenly you're left a wreck. And while this may seem like another "I should have done X when you were alive" songs, it's really not. Wolf has enough subdued optimism to make it obvious that dead or alive, the person doesn't go away. The bump-boo! ghosts of instruments that accompany his warble back this notion up too: there's nothing to make the loved one talk, but there's also nothing to make that person go away. And that's not a curse, it's a blessing. It gives us time to keep death in mind, remember, and love.

3 "Kim & Jessie"
M83
Saturdays = Youth
[Mute]

"Somebody lurks in the shadows / somebody whispers."

Oh, M83. You're quite possibly the most consistently brilliant band of the 2000s and yet you're seemingly cursed with always being #3 on my countdown. See previous years with "Teen Angst" and "Run Into Flowers". Somebody it will happen. I can feel it. This one probably has the loosest connection back to the theme at hand of the top five, but possibly the most affective melody. I totally buy into Anthony Gonzalez's whole "this is what childhood sounds like" stance regarding his record, and this song in particular, but there's a specific kind of being a kid at play here that I think I disagree with him on. I don't feel the teenage longing and puppy love (probably because I never experienced the latter, but also maybe because I'm not quite as far removed from it as he is) when I listen to this song's washed-out sky-piercing bliss, but rather I feel like how I felt when I was 6 or 7, so when it was actually the 80s. I'm sitting in the grass, swinging on the playground, making real friends for the first time - I was experiencing life for the first time and nothing felt safe, but everything felt adventurous. The one constant I always had, whether it was when I lived in Connecticut and waited for her to visit, or when we moved back to Wisconsin and she was nearby again, was my grandmother. Everything's hazy, my powers are limitless but totally incomprehensible, and death was nowhere in my mind. It's so creepy how beautiful Gonzalez and co. make the ominous onslaught of loneliness sound, but it's only when we're alone do we realize the importance of being together, of having not just somewhere to call home, but someone.

2 "Young Marks"
The Mae Shi
Hlllyh
[Team Shi]

"My heart's not built to hold his love."

Auto-tune, you sly dog you. You practically ruin hip hop and yet you're also partly responsible for the second best song of the year. Speaking of being a kid again, this is the musical equivalent of a 6-7 year old with the hormones of a teenager. It's brash, adorably rambunctious, and completely melodramatic all at the same time. Basically, The Mae Shi single-handedly revitalized me this year. And while almost every other song on this countdown slowly became a favorite throughout the course of the year (or even a few months), the first time I heard the above lyric blast through my headphones, I felt a mini-seizure of sorts jolt through my bones and flesh and suddenly I was convulsing to the beat and felt this intensely strange and strangely intense surge of happiness and anger. It was an addictive feeling. I couldn't get enough. I was pissed at everything - the world, God, reality, etc. - and was immensely proud to be living at the same time. There was this sense of celebration and dissonance that erupted in me every time I listened to the song. Then I saw them perform it (along with many other sweet jams) live and the dichotomy dissolved. There was no binary battle going on in my soul - part of being alive, of loving, losing, dying (which is the only common attribute we all have in living) all stems from anger. Life begets the unfair and the unfair begets life. Without that which causes us pain we are left only shells. Hearing the unamplified "oohs" at the end on stage were what caused the epiphany I think - it was pure, it was natural, and it's only thing we have left to say after we vent. So yes, five wise-ass Californian hipsters helped me get over my Grandmother's death.

1 "Rain and Revolution"
City Breathing
Look How It's Snowing Upwards, Look How They Move Towards Heaven
[Roses & Hello]

"Remember I remember you."

You might argue this was a given from the get go. You might say that just because The Arun is one of my best friends of all time, I had to pick one of his band's songs as my favorite of the year. Can I unequivocally say you're incorrect? If it were another band, another song, another year, I would let you have that opinion. But I can without reserve, especially now as the majestic guitars and ebullient synths cascade through my headphones after everything I've gone through, every other 2008 song has been listened to in advance of this, that this is the best song that was released last year. And Mr. A being in the band has A LOT to do with it. "Hypocrisy!" you cry in disgust. Ah, but be certain - music is intensely, almost tragically personal. There is no way I can listen to this song without hearing the memories of afternoons spent in his basement perfecting melodies the best we knew how as high schoolers, of pondering the very nature of remembering, of having something so certain in your mind with no way to prove its existence other than unadulterated feelings of simultaneous joy and sadness. This is EXACTLY what music is. It's what it's all about. You can touch the fretboard, but you cannot bring it to life the way you hear it magically traverse through wires and plugs until it hits your brain, and triggers those feelings from when you were young. Because of music, you dream of loved ones lost, inside jokes whose meanings will be forgotten but whose execution will always be laughed at, moments from years ago you remember so vividly that it feels like it's happening right now. Because of the notes played, in such and such order, with such and such velocity or volume, the pictures in your head are translated into, yes, something else wholly intangible, but at least the song can stay with you on CDs, on hard drives, in invisible sound waves that migrate through you ears and into your hearts. Did I choose this song because Arun is my best friend? No; Arun (and Marwan and Ron, who I am forever blessed to meet and know are as truly amazing as the friend in question) wrote this song so it could choose me. And I hope, even if you don't know him, it can choose you and give you even the slightest sense of not what it is to enjoy, to love, or even to feel - but to remember.

Top 100 Songs of 2008: #s 10-6

10 "Nowheres Nigh"

Parts & Labor
Receivers
[Jagjaguwar]

"We won't rely on what's conveniently supplied."

I didn't hear this song until December of 2008 and yet after just a couple listens, I knew it was going to be high on my list. I've wanted to love this band for so long and they finally gave me reason to. They had all the elements: striving vocals, buoyant yet messy instrumentation, and and an overall sense of "I've effed up so many times and yet here I am, back on my feet again." I don't really know how that was communicated to me only through sounds without even reading their lyrics, but it was, and so it forever shall be. And this feeling is conveyed with all dials turned to 11 on this track, which glides along with a simple four-note hook until the chorus unpeels a vivid world of oily gears and lost dreams and doesn't let you escape it until the anticlimactic minor chord is awkwardly strummed (but completely understandly so) in its final ten seconds. The keyboards sound like a cyborg going haywire from falling in love, the reverb on the baritone yelping reveals a strength behind introspective fragility, and the lyrics, while I can only discern some of them, sound both cryptically apocalyptic an undeniably determined. And sometimes, that's as close as we can get to hope.

09 "Hearts On Fire"
Cut Copy
In Ghost Colours
[Modular]

"A moment that is frozen as we hang in time."

It wasn't the only top-notch album of the year, but it was the only one where I had an immensely difficult time choosing which song I wanted to pick to put in the countdown. "So Haunted", "Lights And Music", or "Far Away" could have easily found their way here if I didn't go by the one-track-per-artist rule, but ultimately, I'm glad I chose this one. I already associate the entire album with my trip to Chicago this August (hey I'm in Chicago right now! what a city!) to play and record some songs with two my best buds, Wipert and P. Arty, in which we drove aimlessly between trips to the deathly hot practice space and blasted this album (along with another we shall not mention here) with nary a care in the world. As I enter this world of adulthood more and more with each passing year, these moments of complete and utter disregard for responsibility and maturity become fewer and fewer. These two gents are so brilliant at making these moments come back in full force when I see them, and to have something so blissfully pure and candy-riffic pulsing as the soundtrack to my trip was just serendipity at its finest. So why this track and not another? A moment of the same importance and magnitude was experienced with this song in particular at a friend's wedding, in which P. Arty led a heart-rescuscitation dance that just completely blew my mind (and everyone else's, f'sha). And that's exactly what this song and these guys do for me: bring me back to life.

08 "Fordlandia"
Johann Johannsson
Fordlandia
[4AD]

Moment @ 8:05

Longest song on the countdown in the Top 10? Yup. And it's instrumental? Yessir. And wayyyy emotional? You betcha. I'm predictable, I know. Well that's what happens when no film soundtrack/score jumps out and grabs me during the year. This is the closest I got, and truthfully, I'm fine with that. One of the Oscar-eligible (not nominated, though it should have been) animated shorts used his music beautifully, but that's as close as anyone's gotten to being smart and hiring this guy to score their movie. If any American filmmaker wises up anytime soon, I guarantee he'll be nominated. While playing it on nowlikephotographs when it came out, an intern asked, "is this the Jurassic Park theme?" I'm also fine with this joke, because that's how powerful this song is. Do you remember when they saw the dinosaurs for the first time? Didn't your 10-year-old heart fly through your veins into your skul and combust with visual, aural, and transcendent pleasure? The grown-up subtle orchestral swell, the electronics that wriggle with caution instead of abandon, the somberly drooping piano - these are just the reflective versions of the combustive emotions felt and dispelled in the two aforementioned tracks. There's an innocence, a remembrance of youth here too. It's just expanded and left unedited to fill the void and leave room for thought too. And it might make us weep, but at least it shows that memory keeps us from ever truly being robbed of our past.

07 "See/Saw"
Jay Reatard
Matador Singles '08
[Matador]

"She creeps me out / she crept me in again."

Straightforward, unadulterated anger is never best. It also doesn't encompass our generation. Reatard may want to totally disassociate himself from the trendy "Itness" of today's hipster culture, but he also completely embodies it with a reckless fortitude that's both admirable and convoluted, just like the epoch itself. The chugging acoustic guitar both battles and cooperates with the scuzzy electric murk that marches beside it, which is the perfect instrumental counterpart to the tone at hand that mixes a fierce upset with a playful and self-aware hypocrisy. And just like we today often can't tell the difference between our sarcasm and our sincerity, our dreams and our realities, our abilities and our weaknesses, Reatard never knows what he wants and all he can do is flail around with a voice full of both paranoia and spitfire eff-all. This is a dilemma that defines us. The postmodern existential confusers would react (and I sometimes place myself in this category, which only further exemplifies and complicates our collecive identity) by saying our only common trait is that we refuse to have any common traits. Well, even if that's true, buddy, we can agree our nihilism has caught up with our ambition, causing us all to flair about in mediocrity and join together in a similar spirit, whether we like it or not. This song evokes a pleasure in the unattainable happiness we all reach for and simultaneously think we can achieve and realize we never can. At least we can flail while we're failing.

06 "Hip-Hop Saved My Life"
Lupe Fiasco feat. Nikki Jean
The Cool
[Atlantic]

"Write to make it right."

The highest a hip hop song has ever landed on the countdown. I've said it previous years, but it bears repeating: every year, I fall for the genre just a little bit more. I love how it feels so natural, digging deeper and deeper bit by bit with just a little less skepticism with each and every song I listen to. It's happened in a way that has helped me find the kind of hip hop I like, songs that still makes sense in the context of the other songs I love - it's not like I'm just forcing myself to become a more eclectic music lover. It really feels like these tracks belong in my collection and when I listen to them on repeat, I'm not forcing myself. Sorry for breaking this down so much, but this kind of epiphany is exciting, especially when a song like this represents the pinnacle of it all. Yes, it's mainstream (I didn't expect it either, what with my snobbishness and all, or rather as of late, inability to love pop radio music with a deep and embedded ferocity like I do more often with indie music), but every aspect of this masterful example of the genre is what I selfishly wish I could find more often as I take in more and more rhymes and beats in 2009. The story told by our narrator is dramatic, comedic, and layered, which is the ultimate selling point. There's not a lot of strong story songs out there, mostly because musicians are musicians first and not storytellers for a reason, which makes this incredibly satisfying. But add a delicious piano lick, understated click loop, and a chorus that proves everything's okay as long as music is around, and I no longer have to ever explain why I love music. All I'll ever have to do is press play on this song.

Top 100 Songs of 2008: #s 15-11

15 "I Told Her On Alderaan"

Neon Neon
Stainless Style
[Lex]

"She had a face from an animation / before a cinema screen projection."

Gruff Rhys first grabbed my ears my freshman year of college, when his other band Super Furry Animals made their one and only masterpiece, Rings Around The World. I swear everything else that band has created since then has been heartbreakingly mediocre. Not dissimilarly, Boom Bip is an electronic artist who I’ve always been fond of, but could never truly embrace due to his extreme chilliness, and have been waiting for him to make a change for me to fall for. So of course now that the two have gotten together, it’s gangbusters as eff. Back is the joyous geek pop that SFA used to do and the coldness is traded in for a sleek steely aesthetic thanks to their mutual love of the 80s. There’s absolutely nothing substantive going on here, but the pop perfection more than makes up for it, with careening swirly synths and bit-lip muted guitars. What seals the deal though is the overlapping final chorus, which is so explosive that it feels like it could indeed lift off a spaceship to a distant Jedi planet that only exists as a fantasy on the silver screen.

14 "Homecoming"
The Teenagers
Reality Check
[XL]

"It was perfect, a dream come true / just like a song by Blink 182."

Probably the song I’ve been listening to longest on the countdown, it first surfaced on an MP3 blog I randomly came across in the middle of 2007. So naturally, when I came to the end of that year and started compiling my list, I placed this ridiculous song near the top (the “why” is coming soon, I promise). But then it turned out it had absolutely no release in 2007 and was teasing around the interweb until this Parisian outfit finally put out their full-length debut in 2008, almost a full twelve months later. Hopefully it’s telling that I’ve sat on this one for so long and it’s still so high in the Top 100. What’s probably confusing, though, is its complete lack of intelligence and how it remains so respected in my eyes. Yes, it’s just some goofs using a completely mind-melting backwards guitar effect and making fun of two vacuous teenagers who have a transatlantic fling and sing offensively about it to get across the misogyny and naivety in underage romances (arguably to the point of becoming misogynist and naïve itself). But honestly, the delivery makes it all work. It’s hilarious, tells a great story about dual perspectives, and has an amazing start-stop moment before the second verse that makes my heart skip a beat.

13 "Untrust Us"
Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles
[Last Gang]

"La cocaina no es buena para su salud."

No, I didn’t know Alice Glass was saying anything in this song either until I looked it up. One of the greatest jokes my good friend Pat has played on me recently was when he told me this track was available to download for Rock Band 2. I took the bait, exclaiming, “really?!” He replied completely taken aback, “are you kidding?! How the hell would that work?!” It wouldn’t. That’s how. All hype debate aside, Crystal Castles (if only this song) completely revolutionized the playing field for artists looking to combine the friendly aspects of modern electronic pop music with the completely messed up avant-garde motifs and flourishes that influenced weirdos to start sequencing blips and bleeps in the first place. And talk about perfect and unconventional use of the vocoder/Autotune! It puts Lil Wayne to shame. Alice crunches it, sings in Spanish, buries it, loops it, and brings it one octave down for the second half of the verse, amongst other things. It’s beautiful, strange, and completely addictive. And while the duo have been smacked with the revolution of the 8-bit sound, it really is only one aspect of their oeuvre, and they are one of the few to use it in a way that really transcends that which influences it, creating a sound that is undeniably Crystal Castles and no one else.

12 "What Up Man"
The Cool Kids
The Bake Sale
[Chocolate Industries]

"The chicken I was eatin' with the mashed potatoes need a little bit of gold / Oops wrong song lyric, meant a little bit of pepper."

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve listened to a hip hop album this much since Totally Krossed Out, which is appropriate since this Chicago duo pay lyrical homage to the backwards-dressers on this track. And boy do they warm it up. Not only are they able to make a head-grooving beat with, as self-confessed in the song itself, just his mouth and a bell (admittedly this gimmick is what reeled in my interest in the first place), but they warm it up in a way that has been largely dismissed by hip hoppers in recent years – comedy. And it makes sense – laughs don’t usually hold water in a musical genre that sprung out of social injustice. And especially for someone such as myself, who thrives on emotional catharsis in music, I wonder how this song became so near and dear to me. When it comes down to it, these guys are masters of language. Something I learned with movies this year is that comedies can be just as important as the most heart-wringing drama, and the same goes for music. The tropes these guys break down, the self-aware swoops through linguistic hoops about eating, sleeping, fishing, and temperature are so astounding that I can’t help but listen over and over again and just smirk every time. And really, this is all I want from music – something that intrigues me over and over again; whether it’s deep or surface level totally doesn’t matter.

11 "Soul On Fire"
Spiritualized
Songs In A & E
[Fontana Int'l]

"Freedom is just another word / when you've no one left to hurt."

And now I welcome us back to the world of the serious. It’s almost cartoonish how much of a 180 I’m making here, I realize, but I find it almost refreshing how different ends of the spectrum can both affect me enough to become my favorite songs of the year (and when we’re getting this high on the countdown, we’re talking all-time status here too, mind you). J. Spaceman (NOT pronounced “Spuh-chem-in”) may have a silly name, but during the production of this album (and I assume this song in particular), he spent much of his time recovering from a serious case of pneumonia in the emergency room in the UK (which is why the pun of the album’s title translates better there, where it’s called “the A&E”). He claims he caught glimpses of death several times during his multiple visits and I don’t think it’s coincidental that his music has become vastly more raw and poignant because of it. There’s also the overly obvious drug metaphor at work here, but o he’s making a connection between the two, which is both frightening (for obvious reasons) and uplifting, because in both instances he’s ultimately choosing life over death (or near-death). It’s melodramatic in execution, too, to be sure, but I also can’t help but see it sung with a smile on the face, which makes me just that much more closer to crying every time I listen and belt along with it.

Top 100 Songs of 2008: #s 20-16

20 "Walking On A Dream"

Empire Of The Sun
Walking On A Dream
[EMI]

"Never looking down / I'm just in awe of what's in front of me."

Here's where it starts getting really hard to figure out what to say about these songs. These turning points seem to be abundant on the countdown, but for the first time I am sitting here and completely incapable of knowing what to say about these songs because they have meant so much to me throughout the past year. There's no one specific moment - there's innumerable specific moments and general auras of splendor that surround each one. I remember downloading this buzzed-about song and being completely taken in from the very first spaced-out swoosh of sugar and smoothness. I remember realizing what the lyrics were about and immediately thinking of those I loved dearly and those I may (probably definitely) never see again. Love, death, and memory all swirled about in my noggin until I explode with confusion and derision against the concrete, only able to embrace the abstract feelings of everythingness as I pump my fist with the snare. And when that snare does a little quick double-hit in the final chorus, it's as if everything is in its right place, falling swiftly down a vortex of absence and unreachable currencies. But as long as I keep listening, I'm eternally stretching for it.

19 "The Year This Club Broke (My Heart)"
ABX
thehoodinternet.com
[Self-Released]

"I'll be like your medicine / you'll take every dose of me."

Okay so this one's not as difficult or heady. Actually the last one wasn't either, I just decided to make it so because my mind can't think in linear terms right now. Luckily a mash-up between Los Campesinos! and Usher brings me back down to Earth. And yet, it's not just a mash-up. Obviously it can't be what with such a high placement on the list. Well I already felt an extreme amount of sweat and tears being put into the original "Love In This Club" and found it incredibly fascinating, what with its proclamation to make whoopee in public and all, but then it all clicked when it was backed with Canadian kids making a racket with emotional synths/bells/strings and ramshackle percussion. This actually is very similar to the cacophony of otherworldly intangible found in the best songs of all time; while some people feel and thusly exude such ethereal beauty through dense production and impressionist lyrics, Usher could only think of the most outrageous suggestion of specific action to express his unwielding humanity. He wants to make love in a club. Everyone watches, witnesses the majesty of his incredible act, and is blown away by his lack of inhibitions. Now add the dense production and his lyrics become ingenious and impressionistic instead of obnoxiously self-righteous and straightforward.

18 "Body"
Mother Mother
O My Heart
[Last Gang]

"I've grown tired of this body / cumbersome and heavy body."

Things can start making sense here; I promise. There's one particular feeling at play in this song, and maybe that's why it's such a breath of relief from these overanalyzed meanderings into the language-free and complex inner workings of the soul, and its relation to music. The premise is simple: don't you ever wish you could throw away your body? Trade it in for something new, more revitalized, less trodden on, and completely new and free of the pain of life? All right, I'm getting ahead of myself, inching toward the absurd and away from the very real and universal theme that this song so brilliantly communicates. To begin, when I hear the rumbling force that is the chorus of voices backed by a prodigious mini-orchestra listing the parts of the physical human self that we could all do without on days where we wish we could leave behind that which restricts our true selves, I imagine a kindergarten class from hell learning about anatomy from a devilish Slim Goodbody. That image alone made this song dig deep inside my skull, but when the eerie falsettos, rampaging tempo, and bottomed-out chorus also double up on each other, I almost feel like it is possible to leave this skin behind and spit on it as I enter a fresh one.

17 "MVP"
Beans
Thorns
[Adored And Exploited]

"Whether we f*ck or fuss / it's just us."

Hip-hop love songs are few and far between nowadays period, but when they do bubble up to the surface, they're almost invariably sung in a life-or-death manner. It's sweet and heart-wrenching how epic R&B purists can make the love between two people sound, and often I can appreciate this perspective, but sometimes love songs should just sound like how love actually is: fun. Falling over his own words and admitting that this song was the hardest one on the album to write, the former Anti-Pop Consortium MC obviously reveres his babydoll to the utmost degree, but he also references watching Lost and Heroes together and places it all on top of a quirky AM radio synth loop so you can't help but grin from ear to ear while you take in all the happiness that exudes from the man's mouth. Listen on headphones and you'll hear that he just may have performed the song for his girl for the first time when he recorded, as at the end you hear a woman in the background say, "this is out of character, a mushy love song, taking it back to the LL days." At first it sounds like a producer or friend, but then Beans responds, "just trying to do something that would reflect where I am right now." Awkward pause, then she says, "right now?" and they laugh together and she says, "you know I love you." Totes adorable.

16 "So Messed Up"
Tall Firs
Too Old To Die Young
[Ecstatic Peace]

"We're not too old to get drunk / but we're too old now to die young."

I hate to go from something so positive to sometimes so downbeat and dispiriting, but that's just how the countdown shakes out I suppose. Ever since Thurston Moore himself called me while I was Music Director at Radio K to check in on what records from his label Ecstatic Peace we were spinning, I have wanted to fall in love with a record that he put out, so I may be a little biased, but I really could not get too into an Ecstatic Peace release until this one. And this, its opening track, totally grabbed my attention, with its lackadaisical pace and slacker-on-the-outside emo-on-the-inside delivery. But classic Sonic Youth-ripoff this is not. The tones are more natural and calming and the lyrics are more unlabored, and the figurative hand that I felt was reaching out from the song inspired me to write one of my favorite short pieces of fiction from back when I was invested in the Avant-Blog. I like that I'll always be able to remember images of bygone days of youth, lost dreams and what have you, and while that might not be the freshest or most unique thing to think about, it's almost always on everybody's mind. It's just how much any one person's willing to accept it. And while there might not be much to do about it, admitting that it's so messed up is one step that helps me more than you might think.

Top 100 Songs of 2008: #s 25-21

25 "The Sun Smells Too Loud"*

Mogwai
The Hawk Is Howling
[Matador]

Moment @ 3:12

Probably the most frustrating of the "Big Four" of the epic instrumental genre (the others being Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Tortoise) in that while I've always liked Mogwai, the only song of theirs that's made a solid impact on me was their performance of a Clint Mansell song for The Fountain soundtrack a couple years back. Their stoic matching-track-suit show at First Avenue around the same time didn't help matters much. So while I have in my memory blissed-out recollections of digging through the Glasgow outfit's entire catalog and even listening to their most recent records close to their release dates, it is here, with a song whose jokey title and playful synth crackles suggest a lighter and less dooming effect on the psyche (in comparison with past fare like Come On Die Young) that I finally feel like Mogwai is giving back to all the effort I've put into falling in love with them. A single bending riff repeats without attaining monotony, guitar and bass strings wriggle about underneath an aura of major key delight, proving that maybe cinematic sadness is not their forte after all. It remains simultaneously timid and turgid throughout, but always friendly and gorgeous, even when it's lilting undertones pull at the heartstrings if played at a high volume (something Mogwai's always been good about making sure its listeners do, and rightly so).

24 "Unlikely Rock Shock"
Subtle
Exiting Arm
[Lex]

"What's working man's hope? / They call it cope."

I'll admit that before the #25 spot, only a few songs (those with lyrics anyway) have had lyrics that have particularly hit me deep down as much as this one has. Expect more powerhouse witticisms to populate the upcoming songs as well (those with lyrics anways, once again), because when a song not only sets up camp in a tiny corner of my heart due to its musicality and literary prowess, that is certainly quite the feat. There's so much abstractness to unpack here, especially for a song that if it had to be classified it would I suppose be hip hop (which is traditionally very straightforward in its delivery, even in the indie world), that it's not really worth trying to sum up in a paragraph. But what I will point out that the sheer intensity of this song coupled with its tangled web of vocal doubling and tripling throughout its brisk three minutes and change gives the lyrics a backseat upon the first dozen listens or so. But then the emanations from the mouth become so twisted in one's own mouth, wanting to pulse through the vocal chords as well as the pelvis while blasting the jam home alone on a stressed-out afternoon. Guesses can be made, but only the line above is semi-decipherable. And when it's absorbed, the song cuts off before we're even given a chance to cope. And we do it the best way humans do: pressing repeat.

23 "The Snow Leopard"
Shearwater
Rook
[Matador]

"The way is to lie still and let the moon do its work on your body."

Jimminy Cricket, I still remember witnessing this song live as if it were yesterday, when it was over a year ago. I both hate and love going to concerts by myself. It was a Wednesday night around 9.30pm and I had to make the decision to either go home after recording a podcast at Joe's place in downtown or to walk ten-ish blocks in the February air to check out a band that had recently caught my ear called Shearwater. The previous weekend I didn't care about them at all, but that Saturday night I had stayed up until about 3am listening to this album (which ended up placing in my personal Top 10 Albums of the Year list) at least four times in a row. It was haunting, dramatic, breathtaking, and had one piano-driven song in particular that was so harrowing and steady that it made my spine tingle. Then I saw it live, that cold Minnesota weeknight, all by lonesome, at about 12.30am, and when the band's drummer came in with that hard and simple beat and the singer cackled into the mic with his fearsome vibrato, I was glad I was alone. If anyone had been there with me, I might have subconsciously felt not vulnerable enough to let those notes and that solitude intertwine and take me so violently into a coma of awesome. I can't ever let myself forget that night - if I do, I will forget what it's like to feel cold, alone, and yet unquestionably alive. (I apologize for the pretension, but it's true.)

22 "Gobbledigook"
Sigur Ros
Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
[XL]

"You turn umbrellas inside out too often." [English translation]

Yes it feels weird putting a translated lyric as the highlighted line/moment from a song above because it's not like I ever actually knew that's what he was saying then until I looked it up on LyricWiki. However, there's also no discernible moment in this song to me that resonates with passion or exuberance or whatever. This is because this song is a freight train of excess and syncopated brilliance. There's no down moment in the entire three minutes and eight seconds. It's all equally important, incendiary, and warm like a center-cut piece of funfetti cake. Which reminds me, if Shearwater amazed me with their simplistic ecstasy in a live setting, then Sigur Ros harpooned me in the face (literally) with overindulgent fantasy. As they and their merry band of hand-drummers thunked and thumped their way through their brightest and sunshiniest song ever written as they ended their already over-the-top theater performance on their last U.S. tour, confetti busted through the sky from the gods that live with the stars, somehow transgressed through the ceiling of said theater, and floated hyperbolically and multi-coloredly into everyone's hair. The trick though was that you could only receive the paper goodies gently in your palms, eyes, and moptops if you were smiling. Luckily, everyone was so confetti was experienced by all. This is Sigur Ros saying, "yes, we were sad, but now we are not." And so we shall be.

21 "Copper Islands"
Unwed Sailor
Little Wars
[Burnt Toast Vinyl]

Moment @ 0:48

Last year a dear friend asked me to make her a "walking to work" mix. I have never had the pleasure to walk to work, like a full-time job work. The closest I came were my strolls from the dorms/friends' on-campus houses/apartments to the radio station during college, but that I think is definitely not comparable, what with classes and friends and fun all interrupting and de-routinizing the daily grind. I began to (and still do) envy that time when this friend got to walk to work. How grand that sounds. I often fantasize about teaching at the middle or high school just four blocks away from my place, wondering how awesome that fresh air must be and the jaunts to and fro that make life feel both real and formidable. It forces you to wake up, it forces your lungs to work, and it brings light and weather into the soul. Okay, enough of that silliness. Ultimately, this mix (I'll make one for you by the way, just ask) was one of my more challenging endeavors, especially to find the perfect opening track for (always the hardest part). Luckily, while unsuccessfully putzing through my grab bag of goodies, I came across this gem. I'd loved Unwed Sailor for a while at that point, and hearing a new track for the first time in ages definitely helped fuel the fire. It reinforces all those aforementioned "pushing your way through the street" feelings that I'm sure make walking to work so joyous and rewarding and just plain rocks. At the same time, it's distinguished as it is forceful, setting up the exact kind of demeanor one wants to get through another day of proving yourself to the man, the world, whatever.

*If you got my original list from the beginning of the year, this song was mislabeled as "Thank You Space Expert". Yes, for three months I have been mistaken about the name of this track thanks to the inept minds at CDDB that read the disc when I first ripped it to my computer.

Top Songs of 2008: #s 30-26

30 "Cassius"

Foals
Antidotes
[Sub Pop]

"What you've got has always gone away."

Finally a band that can satisfy both guitar geeks and dance-punk enthusiasts. Playing as if chords and notes below the twelfth fret don't exist and the lowest BPM in existence is 148, Foals are probably the most intricate guitar band out there that also cares about getting people to pump their fists in the air. The horn section doesn't hurt in appealing to the ska and afrobeat kids out there either. It's one giant whirlwind of maniacal energy and electrical shocks to the pelvic region, all with a fire-spitting intensity unfound in today's landscape of rock songs with a dance beat. It's not friendly, but it certainly could congregate a group of thrashing bodies before the first chorus is over to writhe and spring through the air in unity and anger. All over some guy named Cassius that no one knows but wish they could so they could give them the verbal beatdown that the singer's so vehemently espousing.

29 "Something Special"
The Tough Alliance
A New Chance
[Modular]

"You're worth something real."

I remember reading about this band before downloading this track very early in 2008, hearing they were like a dancehall Belle & Sebastian. Then I pressed play and slowly the ominous foreign language decree pulsed into a chugging 80s sequencer and Billy Joel-esque piano progression. I was frightened at what I had gotten myself into. Then the voice squeaked in and it all came together into a congealed mess of adorable and anthemic. While it had the cuteness of B&S, there was nothing sleepy about this song, and still isn't. Yes, it was one of the first of 2008 to make it on this list, but it's one of my most listened to songs of the year that made it on this list - showing the staying power that this very strange but very amiable tune has had over the course of the past 365+ days. Maybe it's the simplicity of its message or the downright bizarreness of its beat or the strained softness of TTA's voice; whatever it is, it's something that has stuck with me and sounds like something that one would get sick of real quick, but my enamorment has only strengthened with every play. It is definitely something special.

28 "Travel Kid"
Adventure
Adventure
[Carpark]

Moment @ 0:34

Here's a different brand of should-be-obnoxiousness. One man. An arsenal of 8-bit synthesizers. Nothing else. It's just asking for a redundancy label. And even though I can inexplicably listen to this whole album on repeat at least three times before it starts grating on me, I am here for this song in particular. And sometimes (okay, always) when an album is all one instrument in different octaves and waveforms, it's difficult to hone in one track in particular. But for whatever reason, this song and its sweeping melodies leapt out into my earholes during my first listen and haven't swimmed back out into the ether yet. Maybe it's the title, that suggests a constant movement for someone looking for destination to not be a kid anymore, or maybe it's the run I went on in the bright sunlight along the train tracks when this song kept me moving. There's no knowing, there's only instinct. And for an instrumental song that sounds both cheesy and vastly epic, maybe it's better that mysteries like these stay mysteries, so as to never decide on being serious or letting things ride.

27 "Uss Wuss"
The Chap
Mega Breakfast
[Ghostly International]

"Nineteen years / dog without a bone."

Give me two overlapping choral melodies with a heavy dollop of sadness and I'm set. I don't know if I've talked about this yet this countdown (I definitely have at some point in the past), but it always fascinates me when a song is able to tell a complete story, or at least able to cultivate a complete yarn in the listener's mind with only a few lyrics. There is a total of four lines in this song, and each pair shares the same beginning, and yet I get this clear picture of an aging band on the road, lost on the highway, never knowing when they'll get what they've been looking for. And while The Chap has only been around for seven years, they haven't broken out at all, despite consistent critical acclaim from the few press outlets that take the time to write about them. And in this day and age of the quick rush of indie fame and then fizzling out, seven years surely must feel like nineteen. Usually I hear bands talking about the perils of fame and it annoys the hell out of me, but there's something to be said for the artists with dayjobs that have kept at it simply because they love it, and wishing they just got something -- anything -- in return. That I can sympathize with. The overlapping vocals just make it all that more resonant.

26 "U.R.A. Fever"
The Kills
Midnight Boom
[Domino]

"We ain't born typical."

Before this song, there were two sound effects I unequivocally banned from my stereo: alarm clocks and telephones. Why would you want to hear the sound that steals your slumber from you? And while I can't get behind a lot of things about cell phones, the "vibrate" function is probably in my top five inventions of the past 25 years. But producer Danger Mouse managed to not only make the telephone sound not annoying in song form, but turn it into a melody that's snarly, seductive, and just plain badass. The vocal trade-off of the duo Jamie and Alison deserves all the same adjectives, and when the buzzsaw guitar tears into the chorus and the handclaps are off just a fraction of a beat when the axe falls out, it creates this transcendent dichotomy of carefree and intimidating that sinks in deep and stays there like a virus. It's a wake-up call that's neither grating nor gimmicky because of the power of the songwriting and acuteness of the delivery. Alarm clocks, though, still terrible.

Top 100 Songs of 2008: #s 35-31

Trying something new - these little widgets above each song title should let you play them right here on The Blogulator while you read! Let me know if they're bogus...

35 "Own Anything"
Wilderness
(k)no(w)here
[Jagjaguwar]

"If you get there before I do / hold my hand and pull me through."

If any band can make a three-note riff sound like an orchestra of hurt, it's Wilderness. Armed with an e-bow and enough reverb to make your chest cavity implode, the so-called "post-punk Explosions in the Sky" is certainly one that will remain a modern day favorite. While a track from their previous record Vessel States didn't break into my Top 100 two years ago, "End of Freedom" from their self-titled debut was in my personal top ten and I'm sure if this record came out earlier in the year, this track would be even higher on this list. I just heard it on December 31st for the first time, have listened to it approximately 30 times since and still am not sick of it being in my regular rotation. The amount of time spent with the opening progression is almost blood-boiling it's so suspenseful, because if you know this band, you know it's going to splash into something grandiose at any moment. You just wait for it, wait for it, and then CRASH it comes tearing down like a band of submarines surfacing at top speed. The vocals are even more abrasive and intense than usual, and aside the majestic guitars, it just makes it that much more of a beautiful chaos in musical form. Hitting rock bottom never felt so good.

34 "Boneless"
The Notwist
The Devil, You + Me
[Domino]

"This town is all in hell."

Speaking of all time modern favorites, here's another. The long-awaited follow-up to Neon Golden was an extraordinarily rewarding first few listens, and while only about half the album lives up to expectations (and with the first record's "Consequence" being the first love song Jess and I bonded over, those are some big shoes to fill), this track in particular is also unbelievably infectious. And usually three-minute pop ditties with no grand ambitions are throwaways or those pushed toward the bottom of the list if they do attain transcendence, but The Notwist's meek and humble leanings combined with an effortless ability to pile on layer after layer of friendly weirdness make them a pop band for the ages. The piano twinkle is odd enough, but adding falsetto back-up vox, a maraca, a lilting toy keyboard, and what sounds like a broken harpsichord, all while never sounding quirky (seriously, I don't know how they do that), is remarkable. It's breath-taking, it's sweet and underneath incredibly macabre, but ultimately it's just plain catchy. But without any of the downfalls of the pop songs that you hear once and are okay with never hearing again, I kinda always wanna listen to this song.

33 "The Day (We Fell In Love)"
Appaloosa
Easter Demos
[Self-Released]

"Two hearts / unchained / flying."

Speaking of pop songs that are greater than they sound in theory (I guess this set of five is all about the unintended segues), this is the only song from a straight-up demo that made the list. And at such a high number! But I just could not help myself from the first time I listened to this song at night time. Seriously, I think it's required to understand its magnificence. The lead singer's detached and ghostly croon is enough to make you fall in love with her and her understated back up band, but when that repetitive chorus loops around and back on itself, it's almost too much to contain in two ears. The beat is steadier than you'd think necessary for a song about hearts flying around unchained, but it, along with the muted guitar chug and slacker bass riff, bring the song a levity that's left to anchor while the keyboards and vocals slink off into the night sky, never to return to Earth. Having listened to this track at least five or six times thinking "wow this is good for a demo," I never thought of it achieving "greatness." Then I saw the hearts spin out from my car stereo into the blackness of the twilight in the air. I cranked up the volume, waved goodbye, and chilled out, waiting for mine to go and meet them in universe land. Soon after, it did.

32 "Campaign"
Russian Circles
Station
[Suicide Squeeze]

Moment @ 4:55

Now that last one was a quick grower. It just took the right atmosphere and setting to get under my skin. This one was a slow-burner. In fact, like Russian Circles' first album, the whole record takes its time to really lay its smackdown on you. But like when I saw the band live for the first time after their debut Enter came out a few years ago and felt the destructive force reverberate throughout the Triple Rock Social Club, when I let this track in particular play in the background multiple times as a mood setter then finally listened to it LOUD one day, it pulled me back and threw me against the ropes, sucking the life out of my being. It's quite possibly the best opening track to an instrumental album I've ever heard, which is particularly tough because almost every track on every great instrumental album sounds like it would be the perfect opening track to a vocal-centric record. So to rightly introduce the listener to an album where the voice never kicks in is a generally tough task, and many bands are left with too much floating ambience or too much get-your-attention thrashing. The beauty of the snake-like guitars hovering and piercing their way into the brain in this track makes the perfect mood-setting piece, whether you're ready to rock or ready to think. Or both.

31 "Modern Mystery"
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
Pershing
[Polyvinyl]

"We're making up our history."

During a trip to see the fam for my mom's official wedding reception this past June, I had a brief fling with whatever that "indie" channel on XM radio is. We rented a car and the 45-minute drive from the airport or back into town when we wanted to get away was the prime time to crank up the tunes and pretend we weren't in the middle of freaking nowhere. I love my family, but North Carolina, while beautiful and refreshing in its weather, is totally boring. Hearing everything from The Killers to The Ruby Suns on the very-MOR Left of Center (is that what it's called?) station was incredibly comparable to the state: pleasant, relaxing, but never enough edge. This track here, which I first heard and basically flipped out about upon my discovery, basically fits that criteria to the tee. But its straight-line enthusiasm and quiet ruckus made it stick out from the crowd of good-enough tunes on the radio. It has that certain je-ne-sais-quoi (I do sais quoi though - check the "whoa-ah-oh"s and the prescious guitar noodling) that makes a smile come to the face when your feet are on the dash of a spotless car you do not own. It's carefree, it's not trying to be much, and it just wants to sit in the sand and be left alone. There's nothing mysterious to freak out about or try to solve - only moments to do stuff. And do stuff I did, and do stuff I shall continue to do. For those times when we don't want to hurt or yelp, we just want to be.

Top 100 Songs of 2008: #s 40-36

40 "We All Create Meaning In Our Encounter, As To Not Expect A Meaningful Encounter."

Te'
Beyond That, If Your Soul Agrees With Your Five Senses, Everything Turns Into The Greatest Music
[Zankyo]

Moment @ 3:39

New Year's Eve. Alone in a radio station studio. Feeling the end coming. Pressing play on a random track from a new album from a longtime reliable Japanese band. Turning the volume up. Way up. Dimming the lights. Sitting. Closing my eyes. Dispelling that nebulous concept 'the end' from my body through the music that flooded my ears. Letting myself breathe. Opening my eyes. Queuing up the next track. Fast-forward one hour. Playing the entire album in my car on the way to a New Year's Eve Party. Alone in a stick-shift pickup truck. Getting lost. This song comes on. Turning the volume up. Way up. Clenching the steering wheel. Stopping at the side of the road somewhere in godforsaken St. Paul. Closing my eyes. Dispelling that nebulous concept 'lost' from my body through the music that flooded my ears. Letting myself breath. Slowly. Opening my eyes. Slowly. Driving until I see a familiar landmark. Arriving at the party, turning off the stereo, and letting myself be found at a new beginning: 2009.

39 "Another Runaway"
Ladyhawke
Ladyhawke
[Modular]

"It's too late to call back yesterday."

We are children of the 80s, but I often don't feel enough like it. I hear this song and I wish I was a teenager going to see The Breakfast Club opening weekend or catching a live Tears For Fears back in their heyday. But alas, they're still working on time travel, so I'll have to settle for imagining myself in my own version of Donnie Darko while listening to Ladyhawke. This track in particular has a plastic majesty to it unlike any other retro-pop outfits, but without the grandeur that catapults acts like (spoiler alert!) Cut Copy and M83 way to the top of my list. But that just gives this tune more unique credibility unto itself. It feels less personal and less weighty than those other two, which gives it its own charm - like a ditty was made solely for getting under the skin in a completely superficial kind of way. It's more like a historical artifact rather than an attempt at recontextualizing the past into a modern landscape. It's brisk, swift, and when that "uh uh oh (handclap)" zips through the air and into your heart, it's clear that living in the past won't recreate anything, but it will certainly create a special kind of inward escape from the dreadfulness that is today.

38 "It's Okay"
Land Of Talk
Some Are Lakes
[Saddle Creek]

"I'll never tell you, but you're my little scar."

Two things make this song: the tempo and the car metaphor. Okay, everything about this song makes it, from Elizabeth Powell's slight but monumental voice to the slinking guitar riff somberly battling with the hide-and-seek keyboard, but really when I felt the pace of this song and heard the refrain about what it would like to die and become a car (what kind of lyricist comes up with that? the best kind, that's who), I almost felt like I could die at that moment and be totally okay with it. Because, you know, it's okay. Also, the fade-in. I mentioned the importance of this kind of intro when talking about these guys' friends and tourmates Broken Social Scene for that Brendan Canning song earlier on the countdown, and LOT also nail it with equal amounts of precision and messiness at this song's kick start. Okay, so back to the auto analogy. Imagine it: your soul gently lifts from your aching torso (hypothetically of course) and creeps through a wall where machines are buzzing and saws are whirring, and suddenly you're trapped inside these walls of metal. At first it's frightening and painful, but soon someone warms you up with their body (remember having one of those?) and you're on your way, drifting through the night stealthily, lighting up the roads. Having somewhere to go. Always. WHAT A METAPHOR.

37 "Gentleman Farmer"
Winterpills
Central Chambers
[Signature Sounds]

"I don't have to show you anything."

If any song is the musical equivalent of snow on a dead tree branch, it's this one. And that's not a bad thing. It feels frozen, but is remarkably beautiful in its stillness. It's a relatively simple image to conjure up, but layered with the complexity that nature always assuredly brings. At its core is a splintered tan color, which manifests itself in the song as the constant guitar chug, at times obvious but mostly wriggling in the background trying to stay held together by the other layers. On top is a skin of bark and dirt, which are represented by the chirping piano and erratic drumming, falling in and out of the main melody whenever they please. Sometimes making the gorgeous snow (or in this case, the depth of vocals) a little dirty, but always a necessary middle between that which will bloom again and that which will melt. The pure and raw vocals swoop and meld into each other with such forlorn misery that they all feel alone, together, on that tree branch. Like layers of ice, snow, and watery droplets on a bending bough, how these harmonies stay afloat and mashed together while still uniquely separate is mind-expanding. It's also a great way to get sad to a song while driving on the back roads looking at all the snow-covered trees.

36 "What Would Hope Be Without Disappointment"
Bitcrush
Epilogue In Waves
[N5MD]

Moment @ 2:28

We begin with an instrumental that had a story and we end with one here, the last post for the second part of the Top 100 Songs of 2008. It was a Saturday afternoon. I found myself alone with nothing to do somehow. I had a Rolling Stone I hadn't read yet and some new instrumental music to wade through for the radio show. I opened up to an interview with David Letterman (a man who has, to my surprise and delight, become a nightly staple in my household). He talked of his recent surgeries and of his son. He had no interest in having children until he started having health problems. When he had his huge quadruple-or-whatever-bypass surgery, his son was three. He spoke of how scared he was he'd never see his son again. I thought of my father, who failed to make it out of treatments for pancreatic-liver cancer when I was three. I put the magazine down, heard a gorgeously hopeful but dour melody emanating from my laptop, and took a deep breath. A tear fell. I looked at the screen, read the title of the wordless song and started bawling like a rain factory. To this day, I can't think of that afternoon without my hands shaking, as they are as I type this. Sorry for bumming y'allz out, but if you haven't already realized from reading this countdown, I can't write without the heart on ye olde sleeve.

Top 100 Songs of 2008: #s 45-41

45 "Just Green Enough"

Make Believe
Going To The Bone Church
[Flameshovel]

"Conduct electricity and behavior."

I told you Tim Kinsella was returning to the list. His non-Joan of Arc band has come close to making the countdown twice in the past, but just never cut it enough until this song. They're probably one of my favorite bands in the world to see live, because Kinsella gets all theatrical and confrontational to random people in the crowd and his cousin Nate gets all crazy playing drums and keyboard at the same time, but on record, they've only been fun to listen to, not really groundbreaking or intimate to me like JOA. But this song changed all that. From what I believe is Tim's first vinyl-only release (which is saying something for a guy who puts out at least two records every year), this track communicates everything that's unique and wonderful about the band: it's stilted yet catchy, minimalist yet driving, and just generally a total wallop of awkward rock, harking back to his days in the brilliant Cap'n Jazz. The way the guitar sounds like it's dying and struggling to stay alive, the haunting vox that peek in the back, and the keyboard twinkles that brighten up the darkness all transform the fun into something viably memorable, even if it is all nonsense. Sometimes that's just what I need: goofy, unyielding nonsense rawk.

44 "Earls Court"
Moonlit Sailor
A Footprint Of Feelings
[Self-Released]

Moment @ 2:13

Dudes are only like 20-years-old. Probably the youngest cats on the countdown. And yes, their sentimental album title proves their youth, but the amount of restrained and immaculate emotion they are able to pack into their on-the-surface by-the-numbers post-rock (holy hyphens!) is enviable and possibly heaven-sent. It seems like it shouldn't work because it's just sparkling guitars and mid-tempo percussion, but the placement and notes of each riff just wreak unspeakable damage on the heart when listened to at an appropriately loud volume. Especially when there's stars up in the sky to look at. Also a bonus for this song: always associating it with a man named Josef, whose orgasmic reaction to the "moment of healing" as defined above when playing it on our instrumental radio show, will never be forgotten. The moment really is as skull-crushing as his face indicated, but what's amazing is that it's a song that evokes hope, love, and sadness all at once, and with Joe now across the country in San Fran, all those feelings are definitely felt. Can't wait to visit that bastard and listen to this song with him.

43 "Transformer"
Marnie Stern
This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That
[Kill Rock Stars]

"The future is yours, so fill this part in."

Out of all the songs I could have been listening to when I got the phone call, this was it. I was kicking back for a moment, having just gotten home from a rather stressful day of teaching, listening to Stern's new album. I had appreciated her guitar chops on her first record, but that was about it. It didn't really stick with me, other than in the mash-up of her fretwork with "Lip Gloss". But there was something delightfully rage-filled combined with an innocent optimism in her frenetic upbeat sound that was hypnotizing me from doing much of anything except sitting on the couch and listening. Probably because I got a worrisome phone call from my mom earlier in the day about my grandmother and was kind of just waiting for Part II to happen at some point in the next couple days. But before I could even wrap my head around the fact that it was going to happen any minute now, I got that phone call right after Stern's first chorus singing the refrain quoted above. I pressed pause, got the news, tried to stay on the phone as long as I could with my mom, but eventually there was no words of love and encouragement that could be said any longer, and so we hung up and we were both left to fill that part in. I silently gave as much respect to my grandmother for as long as I could, then I blasted the song, put it on repeat, and screamed into a pillow. "I cannot be all these things to you. It's true."

42 "This Feels Perfect"
Team Robespierre
Kayrock 7"
[Impose]

"You can't solve anything with flowers."

Sometimes a simple riff can do the trick. Sure, sad songs can be cathartic. Sure, angry songs can be a good source for venting. But when you take both those emotions and transform them so they just complement a catchy-as-eff keyboard melody, it becomes not so much about negativity, but wanting. And wanting can feel good just as much as it can feel bad. And that's exactly what this band of tiny nerdcore dweebs do so amazingly with little more than a couple grungy synth effects and a crapload of energy. What's most revelatory about this track, whose DIY and eff-all aesthetic certainly doesn't scream "THIS MATTERS", is that its lyrics, delivery, and title actually do matter. A lot. Taking less than two minutes to spout out everything that he wants, the lead singer of TR sounds less like a whiner (though you might think so initially due to his nasally yelp), and more like a man who can only go so long without breaking apart. What's the kicker, though, is that while the song is about everything that he wants to do to make things perfect (again), the name of the song is "This Feels Perfect", proving that the very act of espousing desire is enough to make that urge feel quenched, satisfied temporarily, before you want to belt out those wants again. In the moment, that which we desire cannot be ours, but communicating that desire is enough to sate it, if only for 1 minute and 49 seconds.

41 "In Red"
Azeda Booth
In Flesh Tones
[Absolutely Kosher]

"There is relief beneath these covers."

Definition of a creeper: a song that at first sounds interesting enough to put in one's semi-regular rotation, but never really anything special, only to find months later ultimate joy in its profound amazingness. That's what happened here, specifically with this song's final two minutes. The first three minutes are definitely necessary to get to that culminating bliss too, setting the mood with an aching falsetto and skitter-scatter minimalism. The sparse guitars and hovering synth feel like a slow motion rain down on an electric plateau - an atmosphere so infectively gorgeous that I couldn't help but want to hear it over and over again, especially that buzzing melodica floating underneath it all. But when I finally really listened, I mean REALLY listened, and heard that momentous cymbal-ridden breakdown after an incredibly subtle build-up, upon my twentieth or so listen, I remember feeling my knees shake. I was so pummeled with sadness and brokenness by the whispered indecipherable vocals, but the kind that keeps you strong, not the kind that dissipates your being, that I could help but listening just to those final two minutes on repeat at least three times more every time I listened to the track as a whole.