#80 Happy Birthday - Clem Snide
Album: Soft Spot
Year: 2003
A brass-laden, twangy, alt-country jewel. Eef Barzelay, the awesomely-named frontman of New York's Clem Snide, belts out a birthday toast that's sweeter and more genuine for it's rough-hewn sentiment. "I hope that your friends are true and funny and your girlfriends are sweet, and wear tight pants," he pronounces over a fanfare of trumpets and driving beat. What more can you ask for, really?
#79
Album: Panic Prevention
Year: 2007
I first heard "So Lonely Was the Ballad," a few months after I returned from a post-college stint working in London. I ached to be back with every fiber of my being. And here was this snot-nosed, South London kid fusing punky, white guy bravado and Britain's unique hip hop stylings into impossibly catchy summer jams. It sounded like the London I'd come to know and I was enchanted. Stiff upper lip be damned, this guy is the new England Billy Bragg wasn't looking for.
#78
Album: Mr. Brightside Single
Year: 2005
One of my eternal frustrations is the existence of The Killers not as a dance band. I dislike their tacky, Vegas-gothic aesthetic and the fact that they are always (seriously, every two minutes) cranking out singles I cannot tell apart. Every one of these crappy singles, however, is a perfect canvas upon which remixers can make magic. I feel like Brandon Flowers needs to put his guitar away, fire his band mates, hire a couple of Australian DJs and become the frontman of the world's catchiest dance band. I don't need to elaborate much on the music, we all know the song. This is just a long, better version of it: more compelling synth sounds, more swelling strings, more echoing vocals, a more danceable beat. And so was born my love of the remix.
#77
Album: Album
Year: 2009
I expect great things from Girls, who released my second favorite album of 2009. Frontman Christopher Owens is a refreshing break from the last gasps of hipsterism, which is rather spectacularly eating itself these days. Owens' sad story informs his music with an angsty honesty that is rarely done so well. When it explodes at the halfway mark, I dare anyone with a soul not to explode, too. Crusty, lo-fi guitars wail and Owens' sincere, heartbreaking vocals - pirouetting on the edge of maudlin - soar over a treacherous featherbed of fuzz.
#76
Album: Talkie Walkie
Year: 2004
A creepily sexy bit of computer love from French electronica wizards Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel. Equal parts androgynous attraction and nature film swelling sighs, this one shivers its way into your consciousness and sticks.
#75
Album: Curse Your Little Heart EP
Year: 2006
I acquired this album based on its Pitchfork review which was, simply put, the most delicious blurb I have ever seen dished out by the site. The EP contains mostly covers, of which this is one, the original version by relative unknown Ted Thacker. Devotchka's signature gypsy strum gives the song a perfect, tensely romantic motion. The aforementioned Pitchfork reviewer, one William Bowers refers to the track as "a swooner" and he could not be more spot on. There's something just out of reach about its beauty and even clocking in at 3:27, it's over far too soon.
#74
Album: The Repulsion Box
Year: 2005
I've always been a sucker for the eerie, sickening creep of a song you slowly realize is about somebody being dead. This one has the benefit of also being by a Scottish band, another thing I'm a sucker for. Scott Paterson's thickly accented vocals make for a visceral thrill over the steady beat, twangy guitars and Morricone-esque whistle.
#73
Album: Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
Year: 2002
By turns confessional, resigned, rollicking and angry, this ten minute festival of angst is Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst at his best. Surprisingly not overindulgent for such a long song, here his political, social and emotional disillusion intertwine and hammer away at the listener in a strangely triumphant iteration. Somebody get this guy a god damned timpani roll, already.
#72
Album: The Lemon of Pink
Year: 2003
The Books of New York City specialize in what I've always referred to as "electro-folk" although almost any other moniker would do just as well. The term "aleatoric" is often bandied about in association with their sound, although this is largely erroneous - their sound incorporates chance elements only in the sense that many of their samples are thrifted rather than created. But according to frontman Nick Zammuto the rest of their creative process is highly controlled. There's nothing catchy about this song and it goes against almost everything I look for in music but it's mesmerizing, and the album it comes from is an unlikely grower - seamless in its assemblage. Though the concept is labored, the result is as difficult as sitting a front porch on a summer evening.
#71
Album: Through the Windowpane
Year: 2006
Pure cinematic glory from the UK's small-time pop visionaries Guillemots. Lead singer and creative director Fyfe Dangerfield's knack for crafting the sensation of world-obliterating romance is well showcased here from the first warbling notes and quick dash of violins to its final, brilliant crescendo. I occasionally take issue with Dangerfield's taste level but he's right at home here where a sappy fondness for narrative meets clever instrumentation and untethered, imagination-capturing joy.
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