It’s a special week for the Friday playlist. 

As some of you know, I used to do a semi-private podcast on which I played music for friends. At the end of each year, I would share my favorite songs of the previous 12 months. As the years piled up, I thought a cool way to introduce those year-end lists would be to review what my favorite songs of the previous years were. Thus was born a playlist made of of the #1 song from each of my Best Of lists.

Although I didn’t begin podcasting until 2005, this list begins in 2004. I’ve not edited it: for several of the years the song that I picked as #1 at the time would not still rank as #1 if I were to re-pick today. I’m sticking with the original list, though.

So there’s your set up. Here are the songs.

2004: “Float On” – Modest Mouse

2005: “Going Missing” – Maximo Park

2006: “Star Witness” – Neko Case

2007: “Intervention” – Arcade Fire

2008: “The Modern Leper” – Frightened Rabbit

2009: “Whirring” – The Joy Formidable

2010: “FootShooter” – Frightened Rabbit

2011: “He Gets Me High” – Dum Dum Girls

2012: “The House That Heaven Built” – Japandroids

2013: “Holy” – Frightened Rabbit

2014: “Red Eyes” – The War On Drugs

2015: “California Nights” – Best Coast

2016: “An Otherwise Disappointing Life” / “Break” – Frightened Rabbit

A couple notes: “Whirring” was rereleased two years later and actually was a bigger hit in the US then. I knew about it when it first came out, though, which makes me super cool. And last year I could not decide between two FR songs and thus had a tie for first. Something to keep in mind for next week…