As I said earlier, choosing my top songs of the year was tough. There was literally a list of hundreds of songs that I compiled at the top of the process. I had to leave off a number of popular singles that I enjoyed for songs that were buried on great albums, just as I was forced to leave off some great artists in order to make room for lesser known acts.
If whittling down that list to pick the bottom thirty was tough, then carving out a top twenty was next to impossible. That’s because over the course of 2009, when I heard each of these tracks for the first time, I’m pretty sure that at some point I thought to myself; that’s my favorite song of the year! Unfortunately, a list that lists a twenty-way tie for first place would be pretty boring to read, so instead I forced myself to draw some distinctions. I hope that you can take some pleasure from my mental anguish as I present Hollering Into the Void’s top twenty tracks of 2009!
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20. The Avett Brothers – “I and Love and You”
The title track off of the Avett Brother’s latest album has Rick Rubin’s fingerprints all over it. It is literally the most poppy track that the band has ever written and is not just soaked in the band’s customary strings, but a soulful piano as well. The with lines like “my hands they shake, my head it spins” in the chorus, the song is almost teetering on a perilous indie cliff of ridiculousness. But every time it threatens to fall on the wrong side of the line, the track is pulled back by warm sentiment or painfully accurate observations like “dumbed down and numbed by time and age, your dreams the catch this world the cage.” The raw emotion, both up and down, present in the song is enough to “excuse” the incredibly smooth presentation on an album that is already taking a few baby step’s away from the band’s patented rootsy folk. Ultimately, it’s one of the most emotionally effective tracks of the year.
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19. The Dead Weather – “60 Feet Tall”
Meg who? This dark and swampy jam captures you in its moody grasp from the very opening plucks of the guitar strings and rattles of the drumsticks. Jack White may have been the marquee name in the Dead Weather, but it’s Alison Mosshart’s powerful yelps on this song that give it most of its impact. The whole thing plays like a trip through the bayou at sunset, and it’s all pitch-perfect, from the crash of the cymbals at the songs outset to the blasting electric solos at the crescendo. I enjoyed the Raconteurs as much as the next guy, but nothing that Jack and the boys did there captivated my attention in anyway that can come close to competing with this. The pure bluesy enjoyment that I got out of this song has only been matched by bands like the Black Keys and the White Stripes themselves.
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18. Florence & the Machine – “Dog Days Are Over”
What a voice. To employ an overused phrase, Florence Welch’s rise to fame has been nothing short of meteoric, and listening to “Dog Days Are Over,” it’s not hard to see why. She proves that she is equally adept at singing softly and sweetly as she is powerfully booming over the airwaves. The track has a playful backing of tambourines and hand-claps in the background that keeps everything light, but it’s really Florence’s voice and lyrics that define the song. She drops gems like “I never wanted anything from you except everything you had, and what was left after that too” and “happiness hit her like a bullet to the head.” The track, like much of Welch’s wonderful music, is about seventy percent talent and thirty percent attitude. The talent is nice, but it’s really the attitude that separates her from the rest of the pack. Oh yeah, and what a voice.
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17. Kurt Vile – “Freak Train”
Kurt Vile’s Childish Prodigy was bizarrely overlooked this year, and “Freak Train” was the most criminally passed over song on that underexposed LP. The is such a rambunctious electronic energy to this song that’s mashed into Vile’s many grins and sneers that the track is practically some kind of perpetual motion machine. The track may feature some fighting words at its open (listen as he asks “Are you trying to break my nose?” and “Where the hell do you get off anyway?”), but at it’s core, the song is really about being yourself no matter the cost, just getting on the freak train and riding the rails wherever they may take you, because “there’s a whole new story there.” A fitting message from a misfit who endured his years of obscurity and finally find his way to a big stage, only to discover that he largely would go unnoticed. The joy, after all, is in the journey.
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16. Miike Snow – “Burial”
The content of “Burial” might not be any cheerier than that of “Animal,” Miike Snow’s other big single of the year, but at least it sounds like a spoonful of sugar. That sweet taste was probably necessary if the band was going to get you to swallow bitter pills like “now it’s the funeral, I become the serial killer of us all” as they remind us “don’t forget to cry at your own burial.” Heck, even the video featured a smiling man carrying a pulsating stereo in the form of the band’s logo as a crowd of kids gleefully followed in tow. But maybe that’s what’s so exciting about this trio of Swedish musicians, that they can manipulate the listener so effectively, simultaenously making you feel one way, but think in another. Lyrical content aside, this really was one of the most plainly fun songs that I have heard in quite some time.
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15. Japandroids – “Young Hearts Spark Fire”
With all of the distorted guitars and unbridled shrieking vocals, “Young Hearts Spark Fire” isn’t your typical coming of age track. With all of the passion and energy of youth, the young band bangs out a jam about living in the moment. The song pleasantly captures the feelings of realizing that innocence is lost, as well as the struggle to enjoy life and just live in the moment. One moment they lament that “we used to dream, now we worry about dying,” but at the same time realizing the counter-productiveness of it all; “I don’t want to worry about dying, I just want to worry about sunshine girls.” It’s not your typical track about youth, but Brian King and David Prowse are definitely not your everyday twenty-somethings.
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14. Vampire Weekend – “Cousins”
I realize that this might be cheating, as Contra doesn’t get released for another month or so, but I so unabashedly love this song that I just had to include it. Hell, you might even be seeing it again next year. There’s a frenetic feel to this song that’s different from anything else that the band had done before. There’s a real feeling that Vampire Weekend just decided that they want to plain cut-loose on this song, and that’s exactly what they did. I must admit that after hearing “Horchata,” the first track off of the upcoming Contra, I had some concern about the band’s second album. It wasn’t bad in any way, it was more just “safe,” maybe even a little bland. I didn’t feel like there was any real change, any real risk. ”Cousins” takes some risks, but each and every one of them pays off in full. Consider my faith restored.
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13. Raekwon (feat. Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah, and Method Man) – “House of Flying Daggers”
There may have been fourteen years between Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and its sequel, but time has done nothing to soften Raekwon’s music. He’s still brutal (in the metal sense of the word). His flow is still razor-sharp and the beat still drops like a sledgehammer. Raekwon combines old school gangster swagger with present-day social witticisms that are enough to leave the listener dizzy. The track features verses like; “Bolt his gun off, from know your horse, she lied / Fly criteria, bury me in Africa, with whips and spears and rough diamonds out of Syria.” As if weren’t enough, the track also features Wu alums Inspectah Deck, Ghostface, and Method Man, who all keep pace with Raekwon while he absolutely slays the track. It’s the most vital and spirited Wu-Tang track since anything you heard off Forever.
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12. The Very Best (feat. Ezra Koenig) – “Warm Heart of Africa”
Two Ezra Koenig appearances in the top twenty? In a year when Vampire Weekend didn’t even release an album? What’s going on here? All kidding aside, this track is just a cheery and wonderful little ditty that, for me, was the singular song of the summer. Afropop has become almost a parody of itself as more and more bands have found it the popular sound to appropriate for their own use, but Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit are so good at it that you can’t help but get swept along. Koenig, meanwhile, is a natural choice of dance partner for this outing, and he acquits himself more than nicely. Mwamwaya has created the perfect ode to home as he uses his native country’s endearing nickname as a hook. It’s all almost too catchy and charming to love. Almost.
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11. Bon Iver – “Woods”
No matter how many times I write about it or talk about it, I just can’t get over the novelty of it. Justin Vernon using the vocoder. And not only does he use it, but it sounds awesome! Vernon may have knocked the dust off “Woods” and made it more robust for his side project (Volcano Choir), but it’s really this first version of the song that I first became smitten with. The entire track only contains the repetition of the following lyric “I’m up in the woods, I’m down on my mind, I’m building a still, to slow down the time.” Yet in those few words that Vernon utters (and filters through an autotune), he’s able to cram more emotion and more unspoken meaning than most band’s can put together on an entire album. The simplicity of Vernon’s music is nothing less than beautiful, it’s why thousands of fans fell in love with his music, and it’s what makes “Woods” one of the very best songs of the year.
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