playlist 2010

In honor of the coming new year, I've decided to do one of those lame ass high fidelity top 10 type lists! here's 10 songs from 2010, the ones that mattered, in no particular order.

1) A More Perfect Union - Titus Andronicus
"oh woe, woe is me"
And thus, my year had a theme song. 8 minutes of loud, fuzzy, angry and confused noise that damns hometowns and spits on the future.

2) Memory Boy - Deerhunter
"did you stick with me? let me jog my memory"
Hazed out, hooky dissonance. For me, this song felt like letting go of old bullshit and embracing something else. Which was sorta my mantra thoughout this year.

3) The Suburbs (continued) - Arcade Fire
"if I could have it back, all the time that we wasted, I'd only waste it again"
All the brilliant, marching structure of the opening song... reduced to minor notes on violins and an echoed lyric reprise. Of all the songs on this brilliant record, this one hit me most despite being so short. It felt like walking away.

4) Radical Artiface - In Vacuo
"love me famous person vacating the airwaves for another of equal value"
So much crap music this year, so much dishonest arrogant self important overly arty bullshit. Fucking Kanye. So it was nice to hear a 2 minute long schizophrenic attack on all of this from one of Calgary's best and weirdest hardcore bands, especially after a painfully long hiatus.

5) White Crosses - Against Me
"white crosses on the church lawn, I want to smash them all"
Don't buy into high minded "punk politics," because this band still walks honest. Protest of anti abortionists may be the spark of this song, but its for anyone who felt pissed off at something they couldn't change beyond small and visceral actions.

6) Summertime - Sex Bob-Omb (Beck)
"drinking shampoo and I'm tasting my grave"
Ghost written by Beck for Scott Pilgrim's awesomely bad garage punk band. Lyrics way to weird to be drug induced, a throwaway hip shaking riff and plenty of "woo-oo-oo's" along with a vague theme of strutting your stuff. Who cares? Sloppy lo fi fun, thats how I describe both this song and my own summer.

7)Airplanes - B.o.B
"can we pretend the airplanes are shooting stars..."
ahahahahahah JUST KIDDING

7) Fever Dreaming - No Age
"fever dreaming, fever dreaming"
Something about these two grindy, fuzzed out chords just kept me dreaming. Its really loud and really fast but somehow, it just calms you with how natural it sounds. I love No Age, and the places they take you with there simplicity.

8) A Slow Drag With Josephine - Elvis Costello
"gavotte, garrotes, cotillions and slow arabesques"
I'm such a sucker for this guy. I honestly think he's the most brilliant musician and artist and lyricist and composer and etc etc alive. This song is super low key but it tells a really cool story and its what stuck with me the most off his new album. I hummed it on the way to work every day. So there you go.

9) Giving Birth To Imagined Saviours - Red Sparrowes
(no lyrics)
Red Sparrowes, a new discovery for me this year, hit me straight in the heart with this emotional, sweeping song. I can't describe it. I wanted to stare at nothing else but the backs of my eyelids when I first heard this.

10) If I Knew - Paul Baribeau
"if I knew what was wrong honest I would tell you"
It all comes back to this, 4 chords strummed on an acoustic guitar by a guy who doesn't how to say whats on his mind in any other format then music. Sitting in my kitchen at 4 in the morning trying to figure myself out, I suddenly really understood this song.

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so there it is. 2010, you've been cool sometimes, a total dick others. alot of the music I seemed to graviate towards was fuzzed out, hazy, indirect in one way or another. maybe I was trying not to think to hard, after spending to much of previous years thinking. anyways, 2011, I'm stoked for you! please be good!