Filed under: lists, music | Tags: 2k8, alizee, beach house, beyonce, dizzee rascal, ladytron, lil mama, lykke li, sloange, the long blondes, the raveonettes
Okay, first off I’m going to say I was wrong about getting through this list today. I won’t go into too many details about why, except to say that overindulging on Christmas dinner and then going out last night left me rather indisposed for most of today. (It probably didn’t help that Christmas dinner was mainly gnocchi alfredo with a mashed potato side.)
I hope all of your Christmases were swellegant and that Santa was kind to you. The presents I got were sort of all over the place: one aunt, oddly, bought me The 300 DVD and making-of book. I’m not sure why, since I’m sort of known in my family for being the one that only watches, I don’t know, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and movies like that. Unless my aunt’s finally accepted the gay thing and thought I’d like to watch Gerard Butler running around in his underpants for extended periods of time. (She’s… not wrong, if that’s the case.)
Anyway, here’s my favorite songs of the year, part nine:
20. Alizee, Fifty-Sixty (David Rubato Version)
The original version of French singer Alizee’s Fifty-Sixty was extremely poppy and retro, sounding like the theme song for an animated series made in 1986 or so. It’s no Moi…Lolita but it’s catchy. The David Rubato remix, on the other hand, is awesome, slowing everything down to a honeyed pace so Alizee’s vocals sound as oddly articulated as Jane Birkin’s used to. Bonus points for using the excellent Bat For Lashes video concept without totally ripping it off.
19. The Long Blondes, Guilt
Speaking of excellent video concepts, the clip for this song made it into the first film festival I ever curated. Of course, it’s a video all about stylish people in stylish outfits walking stylish dogs, and I was co-organizing the festival as part of a dog fashion event, so it was something of a no-brainer to include it, but still.
Guilt is also a very good song. Obviously I was quite taken with the Long Blondes early singles, but their glitzier second (and, sadly, final) album had a number of really excellent tracks on it too, this being chief among them.
18. Beyonce, SIngle Ladies (Put A Ring On It)
Or, the twink anthem of 2008. While I thought both of Beyonce’s first two albums were majorly flawed, nothing prepared me for how amazingly crappy I Am…Sasha Fierce is. That said, Beyonce’s always been a singles artist, appearing on this year-end chart nine times since 2000, including the songs with Destiny’s Child. And Single Ladies is a hot single, right up there with Ring The Alarm and Naughty Girl, though sadly it’s the only really great song on her otherwise dreary, dreary third album.
17. Lil Mama, Shawty Get Loose
It was hard for me to pick a favorite track off Lil Mama’s debut album, which finally appeared in stores ten frigging months after Lipgloss hit radio. Eventually I decided on Shawty Get Loose because a) it features dreamy Chris Brown; b) T-Pain is on it and he’s not autotuned!, and c) it’s fun. Really, really fun. And the world is a much worse place for the fact that this wasn’t a hit.
16. Beach House, Gila
Like Lil Mama, Beach House put out a record this year that was so full of excellent songs that I just sort of randomly picked one for this list. With a title stretched to about ten syllables, Gila’s one of the Baltimore duo’s catchier songs, though it still sounds like it was recorded at some kind of weird hippie funeral rite.
15. Lykke Li, Breaking It Up
Lykke Li’s popularity mystified me for a long time, mainly because unimaginative reviewers kept comparing her to the alarmingly overrated Robyn. Any similarities they have–like gender or country of origin or popularity with blog-reading types–doesn’t come across in the music; I know not everyone agrees with me on this one, but Robyn beats you over the head with her hairdo and talk-rapping, Lykke Li is all muted trumpets and spoken interludes. It’s like comparing Fergie to Kate Bush. Breaking It Up is Lykke’s liveliest song, featuring vocal distortion and a bunch of kids singing backup. It holds up well in a rockier live version, but I prefer the quiet stylings of the original. Although the video was totally ridiculous, and more suited for, I don’t know, a Paris Hilton song.
14. Solange, T.O.N.Y.
On a recent Circuit City run I picked up Sol-Angel and the Hadley Street Dreams, which is a totally freaking awesome album. Of course it’s being sabotaged by the label because, you know, God forbid any attention be taken away from Sashyonce. But it’s wonderful soul music, with three fantastic singles (I chose this one ultimately because of the wonderfully Nouvelle Vague-ish video, which takes a turn for the unexpected in the third quarter.) On top of that, there’s not a bad album track, and the whole thing is very cohesive considering everybody and their brother was involved in making it. (Mark Ronson AND Boards of Canada were involved, people.)
13. Dizzee Rascal featuring Calvin Harris and Chrome, Dance Wiv Me
I always thought Calvin Harris was kind of a twat. I still do, really, but this is the second time he’s shown up on the countdown if you count Dragonette covering him back at #91. Dance Wiv Me is wonderful in a lot of ways, not the least of which is that it’s a stand-alone single, which never happens ever these days. Also, there’s the excellent chorus and the re-emergence of Dizzee Rascal, who sort of fell off my radar after Fix Up, Look Sharp.
12. The Raveonettes, Blush
Though I’ve been a fan of the Raveonettes from the get-go, I really don’t think they’ve reached their full potential until this year. Lust Lust Lust is so many leaps and bounds better than their first two full-lengths. And one of the best songs is Blush, the most recent single, which combines longing guitars and borderline wimpy vocals with a really pretty melody and a lot of fuzz. Sure, that could describe almost everything they’ve ever done, but this song is pure heaven (as evidenced by the Atonement fanvid I’ve linked to above.)
11. Ladytron, Ghosts
For some reason I never bought Ladytron’s Velocifero album, even though I totally loved all the singles on it. Ghosts, yet another song from the Mixtapes For Summer that I posted back in June, is still my favorite. The album version is typically great Ladytron, with Helen Marnie singing all detached-like over the Liverpool quarter’s idea of spaghetti Western music; but I’m equally fond of the Modwheelmod remix which, like the Alizee remix back at #20, slows the song down in order to pretty it up.
