The Top Fifty Favorite Songs Of 2005 - Pt.1

Yes, this is a difficult task. Yes, I loaded about 200 songs into a playlist on my iPod. Yes, I listened and ranked, re-listened and re-ranked, re-re-re-listended and re-re-re-ranked, etc. etc. Yip. And yes! These are my favorite songs of 2005. So if your favorite tracks don’t appear, don’t feel badly – either you have better taste than I, or, naturally, I’ve probably made plenty of mistakes – overlooking some, overrating others – but I can’t allow myself to feel guilty. Seriously, this year was *tough*, mainly because I feel it was a “singles year”, that is, not many records were solid top-to-bottom, but many records (even terrible ones) had a hot single (or two or three). Maybe it’s because of the MP3 – online music stores and file-sharing services are really about listeners (discerning or otherwise – snark, snark) finding the songs they love to hear, loading them into the iPod and hitting “Shuffle Songs”. I think that’s it.

Here are the facts that you the discerning music listener expect: these 50 songs are ranked with number 50 being the least favorite of my 50 favorite songs, and number 1 being my most favorite of my 50 favorite songs. As in previous years, I will be posting ten songs per day for the next five days. Read on!

50. “Good Sons” by Starflyer 59
Starflyer59 has become comfort food for me. This is not a bad thing (though, I understand the connotation!). I can always count on J.Martin to write a song that will impress me, move me, and get my foot tappin’ and head noddin’. The off-kilter opening riff, the 80s synth-claps, spacey-theremin-keys, electro drum rolls, and power chords drench an extremely solid melody in rock-pop domination. This is also one of the few SF59 tracks where Martin’s vocals absolutely perfectly fit.

49. “Pure Vernumgt Darf Niemals Siegen (Superpitcher/Wasserman Single Mix)” by Tocotronic
Someone told me that vocals in electronic music are out. One thing that makes this track by Tocotronic so great is the vocals (which are in German and alternate between talking to talk-sing to attempts at outright singing). The track has a wonderful ability to move back-and-forth like a mini-symphony – it starts off with a standard dance beat and synth-claps, but by the end it is layered in guitar, multiple beats, atmospheric keyboards, and those wonderful vocals.

48. “Blindness” by The Fall (Narnack Records sampler version)
This raunchy and haunting track opens with a sample of a man saying, “I’ve done it again.” This is something more than appropriate – it’s a declaration and a confession. “Blindness” is propelled by a gloriously filthy bass line, MES’ vocals are top-shelf, and the whole train hurls down the tracks with the tension created by the threat of eminent derailment. By the way, I chose this over the version on the full-length Fall Heads Roll, because of its sheer aural audacity – the Narnack sampler version rips and roars, while the album version seems too bored, too spacious, too emaciated. It lacks snarl.

47. “Cruel Sound” by Marbles
Robert Schneider is an indie pop Hall-of-Famer who has been crafting some of the all-time-heavenly-indie-pop hits for years with his Apples In Stereo. In lieu of that band’s hiatus/demise, Schneider returns to the Marbles moniker. The song absolute moves; not a second is wasted – I especially enjoy the noisy guitar breakdown. Lyrically, this is jagged, bitter, and paranoid; I don’t know how much this has to do with his semi-public divorce to Apples drummer Hilary Sidney or towards his control-freak-front-man tendencies, but put these words in either context and it’s quite interesting. “Cruel Sound” is 88 seconds of pop economy that is just so great and another triumph from an indie pop genius.

46. “Tell Me About It” by Superpitcher
A simple piano riff, looped female vocals (just the word “oh”, progressing up and down the scale), understated beats, and a variety of farty, glitchy, squelchy sounds all combine to create one of the grooviest minimal techno Kompakt-konkoktions. Great electronic music works both on headphones and in the club, and this happens here in spades. Superpitcher puts sounds, melodies, and countermelodies upfront (to be easily digested), as well as, deep in the mix (the reward for attentive listening) which is utterly primal and sublime.

45. “Hung Up” by Madonna
There is absolute no reason to listen to this song … really – I’m not just talking about the lyrics (we all know that Madonna is enthralled with religion, and it isn’t helping her lyrics) – didn’t Ladytron write this song three or four years ago? If originality and purity is your thing, go listen to the third album by that duo who records in the walk-in closet of their turn-of-the-century house in the cool part of town … But if you are searching for addictive pop confections, Madonna totally delivers. The melody ebbs and flows, the hook is undeniable, and all those electro moments are applied to near perfection inducing spontaneous dancing and singing.

44. “Best Thing” by Bob Mould
Mould rocks it circa-Sugar 1995. This song has everything that one would expect from him: driving reverb-laden guitars, steady rhythm, a solo that flirts with the melody complete with high-on-the-neck-up-an-octave noodling, and passionate vocals (Foo Fighters, this is how it’s done). I suppose most would consider this by-the-numbers, and they’d probably be right. Nevertheless, it’s refreshing to hear Mould still be able to pull it off this well.

43. “Since K Got Over Me” by The Clientele
There is something entirely beautiful about the way The Clientele plays their guitars. There is an absence of rhythm, but unlike the post-post-punk milieu, the notes are jangly, trebly, and precariously hang in the air and quickly tumble over one another. One could call this precious, but it’s more than that. While the melody of this terrific tune is precious, there is a slight edge too. Alasdair MacLean sings, “I don’t think I’ll be happy anyway” and “Everything’s so lucid and so creepy, since K got over me,” and anyone who has experienced the confusion, the tension, and the mixed emotions of heartbreak can relate to these truths.

42. “Tess Don’t Tell” by Ivy
As with Robert Schneider, Ivy comes back with their strongest record (since 1997’s Apartment Life). Any number of songs could have cracked my Top 50, but there is something about “Tess Don’t Tell” that kept me spinning it again and again. Actually, I know what that something is – a totally awesome hook and tremendously infectious melody. Additionally, this reverts back to that classic smooth as silk slink pop of Apartment Life and that is good. If there is one knock against the song (and this is probably what dropped it out of my top 20), it’s the repetition that goes on too long.

41. “Miracle” by Supersystem
Yes, “Defcon” has appeared on many 2005 lists, and even though that is a solid tune, “Miracle” kept me coming back – the juxtaposition of quirky lead guitar riffs, (fake?) strings, herky jerky rhythms, and a middle eastern guitar riff (that sounds eerily like something on The Cult’s Love album) are spine tingling. Group vocals chant about beats: estatic beats, beating hearts, mind-blowing beats – definitely, this warrants praises of the disco-hipster crowd, but it’s really more. Indeed, the infectiousness and dance-friendly vibes mean, Supersystem, you are right, it is unbelievable, undeniable, and unassailable.