10- Beach House- “Real Love”
This is a song that, due to its deceptive simplicity, defies standard descriptors. It has nothing to do with the Victoria Legrand's voice, haunting as it may be. The lyrics are so deeply imbedded with meaning and intent, but shrouded by her own history making it somewhat impenetrable. To say that you could fall in love with minimalist piano beat is so highly normative, that it does you no good. It's entirely plausible you could hate how it sounds- albeit unlikely. At times like this you could throw out the “more than the sum of its parts” line; with “Real Love” that seems like a cop out. Attributing its content to some sort of sentimentality or factor of nostalgia again seems to be skirting along the periphery of the issue. Perhaps its just vague and benin enough in terms of content and aesthetics that whatever it is she is trying to convey seems cathartically applicable to whatever horrible or wonderful event of your own life you find yourself dwelling on. Is it something of pure adulation or an agonizing reminder? It's tricky this one- but its damn good.
9- Caribou- “Odessa”
So much of this song seems compellingly alien. The feral yet distanced screeches of mysterious animals. The disjointed and spastic piano notes that ricochet across the melody. Dan Snaith's almost heavenly yet burdened voice. The bouncing bass line that seems almost muddled. Actually much of the instrumental processing carries this quality as if the sounds are popping in and out of water. It seems fitting for a song named after city known for its beautiful oceanic geography and its bizarre, mysterious nightlife; not to mention the album the song was birthed from is called Swim. It seems slightly dangerous, but only because we don't quite understand the origins or intent behind what we are hearing. Further insight or in our case, repeated exposure to “Odessa” makes it more and more inviting. Yet it darkens drastically as we reach the end of the song and the melody is usurped partly by this downward spiralling, inversely cascading synth beat. Snaith does nothing to alter his voice or tone in response, as if this invasive new factor is not even there, a mere echo. That's what makes it all the more disturbing, that he is not bothered. Throughout “Odessa” you never feel wholly comfortable, as if something lurching from the many shadows and winding allies of the song is targeting you; but you still want to stay.
8- Gorillaz- “Empire Ants” (feat Little Dragon)
Anything Little Dragon touches turns to gold, on this I hope there is consensus. But before the kernel of the song we have Damon Albarn's demure prelude. It's simple and reflective, carrying a sort of quite dignity. It's peppered with diminutive little audio cues that slide in and out of transparency. As if it's something you listen to when you're just waking up, lazily gathering your murky thoughts and reconstructing your coherence for the day. Damon fades away however, then the truly incredible stuff comes. The song explodes into some kind of future perfect symphony of synthetic and orchestral wonders. It has a sort of 8 bit up and down beat, only more rounded and rendered more organically. A rippling blaxplotation bass line carries it all. Celestial violin strings and other effects create an aural mirage of perfection. Yukami Yagano of Little Dragon begins to sing like her voice is the monolithic center of the whole affair. She sings with a soft hush but her words are seemingly magnetic in the weight they carry, as if they were forged deep in her stomach but carefully refined and glorified. Her voice is sensational, as is the rest of the song. I love it.
7- Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti- “Round and Round”
Allegedly being Wayne Coyen's (Flaming Lips) favourite song of the year, “Round and Round” had to be a serious contender. Its over indulgent and salacious key board at the intro, the swaggering strut of the bass line- this is not a song of its time. As if Ariel has taken the liberating chaos of 60s spiritualism and decadence, and deconstructed it. Scrubbing and sanitizing it of much of its obscuring haze brought about a drug induced psychedelia. At times he shows himself not entirely successful, or perhaps committed to such an endeavour, as the song appears to partly devolve into a deficit of coherence. He meanders around searching aimlessly for his train of thought. It seems more to me to be misdirection however; just as ones attention starts to wane, Ariel rediscovers his voice, setting it loose with a simple but bombastic barrage. He may have discarded some of the adolescent excessiveness of the 60s and 70s, but the euphoria remains. Hs lyrics are cleverly intertextual, “and we'll dazzle them all, hold on”. If you hold on and stick with the song, it does just that in no uncertain terms. Even as the beat exhausts itself and recedes into nothingness, Ariel seems emboldened to continue his experiment, singing for as long as he can justify, endlessly encouraged over the simple pleasures of music he seems to have discovered here.
6- Robyn- “The Girl and the Robot”
This one of the more memorable “holy shit” moments of 2010. It's one of those songs where, after listening to all of Robyn's Body Talk Part 1, I just didn't expect such a feverishly energetic and bold track. The melody is instantly propulsive, forcing you to adjust your own inner metronome just to keep up. Its disco heavy bass line constructed through obvious artifice is reminiscent of the more dance hall oriented tracks from Daft Punk, or maybe the evil twin of Hercules and Love Affair. It has an industrialized oscillating bass beat that is harsh as it is clinical as it is fantastic. Just as you seem comfortably accustomed to the earth rumbling beat, You begin to appreciate Robyn's voice. Its so feminine and weak yet aggressively sexualized. Then she lays down her central thesis- “Im in love with a robot”- and the entire song seems to orient around this. She desperately needs this machine, device, construct, you don't what it is at first. As the beat swells and thrusts ever forward, you realize its the highly mechanical music in her own song she is love with; that is the robot. It's synthetic and digitized, yet it springs forth with such an emboldened zeal. As if the robot has discovered its own sentience and mortality, and is experimenting not only with the boundaries but the wonders of such a realization. Robyn says she waits up for him even though she shouldn't. She spends much of the song talking to the music, and through its own syncopation and melodic translation, it responds to her. It almost seems like “The Girl and the Robot” is a duet.
5- Crystal Castles- “Celestia”
Between tracks like “Alice Practice”, “Air War”, and just about any other Crystal Castles song, one may be understandably convinced that Alice Glass is some sort of horrific mechanized abomination with a voice that modulates only through the the most bizarre and unsettling of settings. In reality, she's just a person that sings- beautifully, even. This is one of the few offerings by Crystal Castles that shows just how ephemeral and euphoric Glass sounds. It's also easily one of their best songs- not quite as good as “Air War” but what the fuck is? Everything she says slides from her lips and seems to organically meld into a melody constituted from spectres of sounds; everything you hear, aside from the soft percussion, seems like hyper focused echoes lovingly forged together like some kind of seductive witchcraft. Structurally the song proves thoughtfully realized. Instead of trudging along through a typical path it goes from verse to chorus to chorus and back to verse, ending on a more morose and sedate note as opposed to a mangled climax. Glass sings of norms- falling into sequence, praying with your eyes closed, “remain silent and still for modesty”. She invites you to deviate from them, to go with her, “Follow me into nowhere/ woven with the utmost care” She strings you along into the great dark unknown even as a foreboding omnipotent voice from above seems to warn you away. She offers nothing tangible other than the slight hint that she might take care of you. But that's part of Glass's charm here, she transcends anything tangible; existing in only the faintest haunting manners. In the end she is even less than that as her soothing presences disembarks leaving you alone with a fading beat and only that grotesque voice from above who you thought Glass would save you from. In “Celestia” Glass shows her true colours, a beautiful siren; never really there in terms you can understand, leading you to the tenches of uncertainty, and making you love every second of it.
4- LCD Soundsystem- “Dance Yrself Clean”
Fucking epic. The only song on the list that is purposefully spelled wrong and seems trendy because of it. This is an absolute behemoth of a song, bristling with electric hooks, sonic fangs, and a heart of gold. What makes it all the more amazing is just how frail and faint it starts off as. James Murphy never doesn't know exactly what he's talking about. So when all he can muster is a rickety framework of percussion courtesy of Pat Mahoney and a timid voice, it seems strange. But his unparallelled talent for writing is instantly engaging. He himself is aware of the implications and caveats of such a medium- “walking up to me expecting, walking up to me expecting words/ happens all the time”. He has something important to say, you see; and for the first time he's not quite sure if he'll get it right. That's why there is all the hesitation. He's moved outside of his comfort zone. For the first time since “All My Friends” he's lurching into the lame unknown... of a normal life. With “Dance Yrself Clean” Murphy realizes he needs to to find something more in life; substance, meaning, anything beyond grimy clubs and drunk girls. He needs more than “just” an encyclopedic knowledge of all things cool, more than jut being synonymous with it. But for all the vulgar vanity that permeates through the peripheries of the life he choose, he desperately wants to find substance in it, not elsewhere as most others would advocate. There must be something in the dance floor that he can carry on into the lurching spectre of retirement. For all the hedonistic desires and gratification of pop music, he believes he can find something wholesome and comforting. So begins his experiment, and the song proper begins. Mahoney crashes into the drums like a meteor and the song explodes into a overwhelming spectrum of synth and beats and bass, and pop. It's pretty stunning the first time you hear it. From there on he goes on to try and conflate what really is one of the coolest dance rhythms you'll ever hear, with what he is told are traditions. With in this vortex of analogue sounds, he hopes to mend broken relationships (“arguments are made for make ups/ so give it just a little more time”) be comforted by companionship (“I miss the way the night goes with friends who always make it feel good”) and so forth. And then there's that 28 second single note yell- probably the most impressive single thing I've heard this year. After sheer exhaustion takes over, Murphy and the melody recede soothingly back into its genesis. He's not sure if he's succeeded and managed to find an escape from the normal life. To him, every night's a different warning; but there's a part of him hoping its true.
3- Arcade Fire- “Sprawl II”
For a group who's history is so steeped in the hyperbolic reverence afforded to the awkward underdog indie clique dynamic, Arcade Fire prove consistently able to churn out absolute monster blockbusters. There is perhaps no better example of this than The Suburbs penultimate offering “Sprawl II”. The pulsating, neon-like stimulus of its melody is inescapably catchy. Its hook is actually very close to a modernized, exaggerated version of “Heart of Glass” by Blondie, of all things. Even then it can barely contain the sheer force and vitality of Regine Chassange. Her voice blossoms and envelopes every element of the song yet seems so specifically focused- almost to the point of being piercing. That perhaps can be attributed to the fact that she sings really fucking loud. Where as Win Butler's sentiments are often meant to convey the dread of inevitable defeat at certain parts of the album, Chassange is vibrant, defiant of her circumstance. For her ferocious verbosity, she often concludes a phrase or sentence with a diminutive whisper; it's a meager detail, as brilliant ones often are. She immediately articulates the suffocation of her surroundings “They heard me singing but they told me to stop/ quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock.” But she sees no sanctuary beyond the suburbs or even perceives one. Rather her conceptualization is one of endlessness, “mountains beyond mountains/ and there's no end in sight.” As the beat begins to replicate and modify, layering carefully on top of itself, She seems to have no intention of leaving, remaining instead as ghost in the machine, singing as loud as she can despite, rather in spite of any objections. As if her influence, not that of the stifling nuisance that is normalcy, will be the determining factor in the bizarre landscape she finds herself occupying. One wonders how anyone could object to such a thing, but its her song- and one of the more grand accomplishments from a group with a staggering list of them.
2- Deerhunter- “He Would Have Laughed”
In the year 2010, perhaps no other song has told such a compelling, and complete story as “He Would Have Laughed”. But Deerhunter does not make it easy, not in any stretch of the word. It takes repeated listening and more than just extra curricular analysis of it. But if you are willing to commit the time you will be amazed. The way in which their careful choices of instruments, arrangement and tempo convey such vastly different circumstances is amazing. The majority of the song is dominated by electric mandolin (I think), and sporadicly punctuated by what I'm fairly convinced is a glockenspiel (look it up). It seems otherworldly, mystic, and beating with energy- it's a dream. This is no normative statement, it really represents a dream. Full of effervescent sounds and a voice wading through endlessness; Bradford Cox reveals himself to be slightly delusional, but without realizing anything was ever peculiar, just as a dream would play out. Hints of the psychological artifice reveal themselves as the tightly coiled beat begins to just slightly falter. Only towards the end does the sound completely disintegrate and change. Weightless euphony is replaced by blunt thuds of acoustic strings. But they bleed together in the most soothing of manners. Cox suddenly seems more alert, more adept. His slumber is over and he is thrust back into reality. But something seems different about him, he is changed. He sings slowly and surely, driven by an uncompromising sense of newfound determination. Elements of the previous part of the song- the dream- slightly permeate and sprinkle throughout the remainder. It's not as if he is uncontrollably slipping in and out of consciousness. Rather he has retained something from his remarkable experience; it stays with him and helps him evolve into something more. Amazed by his own journey, Cox asks “where do you go when you sleep at night?” What happens to you when you dream? Its one of the most densely engaging songs I've heard in years.
1- LCD Soundsystem- “Home”
For me, it's a complete blowout, “Home” is by far the best thing I've heard in 2010. What makes it so special is it's the culmination of the band's thoughts and writings and as close as James Murphy has ever gotten to a conclusion regarding the central issue of his career, and the entire theme of This is Happening- how to grow up the right way. Is there anything from the drug and alcohol fuelled nights in the club, sketchy binges in bars, and salacious values of a touring musician that you can take with you into a normal life? Would you want to leave that behind? Is there any of that you would even want to take with you? Maybe you'd want to take all of it? This is what “Home” is about, sung by a man that is exhausted from his life of constant touring and in dire need for just a single unique place to feel at peace in. He first really dived into this question with “All My Fiends” propelled by a sense of urgency and time running out. Throughout songs like “Someone Great”, “New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down”, “Dance Yourslf Clean”, and “All I Want”, Murphy has approached this theme in multiple ways. He always seems anxious, confused, or regretful; as if this issue was beyond his capacity and intellect. In “Home” he has finally figured it out. He begins by saying “Just do it right/ make it perfect and real”, because for the first time to him, it seems like just that. He's managed to merge the best parts of himself and his sordid past with the things he needs and wants from life. What's great about it is he doesn't really dive into how he achieved this, rather focusing on how he is now able to move forward, and he does it in a jubilant and obvious way; he he seems so jovially unrestrained that it's almost comical he didn't figure it all out before. He can stumble into the night, and someone will help him get home, and get better. He understands that love and rock are bigger things, but they don't need be mutually exclusive, there is room for both. He may loose his grasp on relationships from his past we would rather not, but he won't forget the shit they laughed about. The whole experience is incredibly cathartic for him, and the listener. “No one ever knows what your talking about so I guess you're already there”, he screams, acknowledging that this doesn't necessarily make sense, at least until you go through a similar process of discovery. Oh it sounds pretty good too. Really damn good actually. The beat perfectly reflects Murphy's cathartic attitude. It starts off stuttering just a little, but finds more of a linear trajectory once Mahony kicks in with the drums. Even after it finds it's pace the beat still moves along somewhat leisurely, seemingly moving faster that it really does as it's comprised of so many miniscule sounds. Odd little notes snap and pop in and out of existence and flutter around. The bass seems weightless floating above the euphonic melody. He concludes with what may as well be the final thesis to LCD Soundsystem's entire body of work “Look around you, you're surrounded/ It won't get any better (until the night)”- Its reassuring and comforting to know Murphy has found what he's looking for and part of that still includes the stage- and maybe just a little booze and drugs. It's the best seven minutes and fifty three seconds of music this year.
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