My Favorite Songs of 2010
Here's my personal list of favorite songs for this year in order by artist or group.
I restricted the list to 25 songs and to only one per recording - which was especially hard when considering the overall excellent music from Arcade Fire, Deerhunter, Josh Ritter, Laura Veirs, LCD Soundsystem and Spoon. It was also painful to not include a song from The New Pornographers, but I thought they put out their weakest effort to date (though I did like Crash Years and a few other tracks).
The List:
* Arcade Fire - We Used to Wait [Great HTML5 video collaboration with Google on this song too]
* Ben Folds & Nick Hornby - From Above [Love the out chorus at the end as well as the collaboration of a musician and a novelist]
* Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside
* Citizen Cope - Keep Askin'
* Corinne Bailey Rae - The Blackest Lily
* Deerhunter - Desire Lines [Final instrumental break sold me on this one over Helicopter]
* Gil Scott-Heron - Me and the Devil [I didn't think he was still recording until I heard this great funky song]
* Janelle Monáe - Tightrope [impossibly catchy]
* John Legend & The Roots - Humanity (Love the Way It Should Be) [Their updated cover of Wake Up Everybody was outstanding too]
* Josh Ritter - Rattling Locks [This guy is really good; I don't listen to him enough]
* Junip - Always
* KT Tunstall - Fade Like a Shadow
* Laura Veirs - Make Something Good [The most lovely song you will ever hear with 'steer manure' in the lyrics; Wide-Eyed, Legless is also amazing]
* LCD Soundsystem - You Wanted a Hit [My particular favorite though Pow Pow is quite clever and humorous as the next track]
* Old 97's - Every Night is Friday Night (Without You)
* Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Better Things [I Learned the Hard Way is also a great song]
* Spoon - Nobody Gets Me But You [A tough choice with so many fine songs but the beat and instrumental flourishes just rock]
* Stars - Fixed [I became a big fan of this Canadian band this year, including some older songs]
* Sufjan Stevens - Vesuvius [As always, he's musically dense and lyrically strange]
* The Black Keys - Howlin' for You
* The Concretes - Good Evening
* The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio [How can you not like a song with 'I was carried to Ohio with a swarm of bees' in its lyrics?]
* Tracey Thorn - Why Does the Wind? [Very happy to hear her singing again after EBTG]
* Trombone Shorty - Hurricane Season
* Yukon Blonde - Wind Blows
So, lots of outstanding new music in the first year of this decade from a diverse group of artists in both style and experience. Despite all the whining from the traditional music industry about their economic state, it's very gratifying to listen to all this good work.
January 2011 Postscript
I would have seriously considered Money Grabber by Fitz and the Tantrums, Kontrol Phreak by Lyrics Born and O.N.E. by Yeasayer for the above list if I had listened to them as carefully as I've done recently - though I don't know what I would remove. Also, Lost by KT Tunstall really is a beautiful song as well to complement the choice I made.
