Favorite Songs Of 2013, #8
8 – “Diane Young” – Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City is getting a lot of Album Of The Year run. While I liked it a lot, too, I may be one of the few who liked their last album, Contra, more. It was tough to pick a favorite track from this fine collection. But this song’s frenetic tempo…
Favorite Songs Of 2013, #9
9 – “I Don’t Know How” – Best Coast As I wrote when I first shared the video for this song last month, singer Bethany Cosentino drives some critics nuts with her repetitive lyrics. But I love her. And I love how this song begins as a droning, (indie rock) torch song and then gains (false?) confidence through the middle…
Favorite Songs Of 2013, #10
Here we go. The top 10, one per day for the next two weeks. Enjoy. 10 – “Amsterdam” – Gregory Alan Isakov. Most gorgeous song of the year. That final verse, “Oh churches and trains…” Mercy! You can have your Mumford and Sons. I’ll take Isakov for beautiful, warm, country-tinged neo-folk.
Favorite Songs of 2013, 20-11
My Favorite Songs Lists are always works in progess. Each January I start a new list in iTunes called XX Favs, where XX = that year. As I listen to music over the next 11 months or so, I toss my favorites into it. A few times during the year I’ll scan the list, delete songs that no longer delight…
25 Favorite Songs Of All Time, 2013 Edition
As I mentioned a couple weeks back, it’s been five years since I first posted my 20 Favorite Songs of All-Time list. Which means it’s time to review and tweak the list. There wasn’t any great, complex methodology to this. I simply took the original list and evaluated those 20 songs against each other. There was some movement, and one…
Favorite Songs Of 2012: #1
“The House That Heaven Built” – Japandroids Here it is, the big one! This, my friends, is a great fucking song. It is a song that, the first time I heard it, I knew would be in the running for song of the year. I’ve listened to it countless times since that first play in April, and it has never…
Favorite Songs Of 2012: #2
“Season In Hell” – Dum Dum Girls The Dum Dum Girls topped my favorites list last year with “He Gets Me High.” They nearly repeat with this, perhaps their finest song yet. Over the past two years lead singer Dee Dee Penny’s life has been a whirlwind. Her mother got sick and then died. Her band immediately blew up, becoming…
Favorite Songs Of 2012: #3
“Myth” – Beach House Because there is always a difference between reality and our deepest desires, even the best relationships are based, in part, upon a myth. When that gap is exposed, heartbreak is inevitable. Here Beach House explore the moment that gap becomes evident, and the overwhelming desire to bridge it. Your heart can’t help but break a little…
Favorite Songs Of 2012: #4
“Serpents” – Sharon Van Etten Ms. Van Etten has a wonderful ability to create dramatic tension in her music. Her best songs, like this, build to an emotional peak early, then sustain it for the remainder of the song without either letting up or resolving it. It’s a tough trick to pull off, but time-and-again she does it.This song is…
Favorite Songs Of 2012: #5
“Sinful Nature” – Bear In Heaven Chillwave takes a lot of heat, much of it with good reason. The sub-genre, which is heavily reliant on computers for its sound, often produces sound-alike music that just isn’t that good. But when the artist does it right, it can produces amazing songs. Example: last year Washed Out’s “Eyes Be Closed” was my…