For as many great albums as we had the pleasure of hearing this year here at MXDWN, there were at least twice as many great songs. Whether included within our albums of the year or not, these songs represented the best of what the year had to offer musically for us, and offered great promise for the years to come. Here they are: MXDWN’s 40 Favorite Songs of 2010…
40. Laura Marling – Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)
From I Speak Because I Can
This enveloping, elegiac ballad is one of many highlights from Ms. Marling’s understated, underrated album I Speak Because I Can. One of the few rays of sunshine to sparkle through the majority of the record’s somber tone, it proves once and for all that it matters not who speaks the loudest, but who has the most to say.
By Robert Huff
39. Whitechapel – The Darkest Day of Man
From A New Era of Corruption
Deathcore is a dying genre, mainly because it’s so hit-or-miss. Whitechapel’s “The Darkest Day Of Man” hits hard, thanks to the inhuman roar and apocalyptic musings of vocalist Phil Bozeman. This is coupled with the unusual triple guitar assault of Ben Savage, Alex Wade, and Zach Householder, and spread over drummer Kevin Lane’s mechanical precision for a fatal metal assault. Whitechapel grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until it’s all over.
By Josh Neale
38. Kanye West – Lost in the World/Who Will Survive in America?
From My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kayne West has noticeably pushed the boundaries of hip-hop with his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. On “Lost in the World/Who Will Survive in America?,” he uses a wild autotuned tone. The multi-tone harmonies sound like Imogen Heap with heavy, pounding drums driving the song. The lyrical style lists a series of opposites: “You’re my war, you’re my truth, you’re my questions, you’re my proof.” The end of the song is a spoken word section with critical statements on America and the spread of “free doom.” It’s intense to say the least.
By Ryan Hill
37. Robyn – Dancing On My Own
From Body Talk
Robyn’s three-part Body Talk album features the stand out track “Dancing On My Own.” This sorrowful pop song features blissful vocal harmonies, electronic arpeggios, and a driving synthesizer that will give you chills and make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Lyrically, it projects a feeling of longing for someone that is dancing with someone else. Robyn is overcome with loneliness and losing her mind, but thankfully not her skill.
By Ryan Hill
36. Class Actress – Journal of Ardency
From Journal of Ardency
Twin Shadow garnered most of the buzz and acclaim for the Terrible Records label for his masterful debut album Forget (and perhaps rightfully so), but that party was actually started by Elizabeth Harper’s slick, slinky debut EP as electropopper Class Actress, Journal of Ardency. The title track and standout merges the best elements of The Knife, Madonna, and Italians Do it Better in a way that is at once instantly familiar and wholly unique. Who’s living it up in the spotlight now?
By Robert Huff
35. Intronaut – Elegy
From Valley of Smoke
Enveloping you in layers of oceanic guitar and carefully structured odd-time grooves, “Elegy” is easily the standout on Intronaut’s newest record Valley of Smoke. The metronomic rhythm section of fretless bassist Joe Lester and drummer Danny Walker, blanketed by Sacha Dunable’s newfound raspy shout, is certain to have you out in the pit. This is some wonderfully executed post-metal.
By Josh Neale
34. Hammock – You Lost the Stardust in Your Eyes
From Chasing After Shadows… Living With the Ghosts
The duo of Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson chase after shadows and live with ghosts over angelic ambience that rivals the best work of Fennesz and recent buzz artist Oneohtrix Point Never, with an added guitar twang that recalls peak Mazzy Star.
By Robert Huff
33. Best Coast – Boyfriend
From Crazy for You
Best Coast’s debut album pretty much had to open with the lines “I wish he was my boyfriend.” Bethany Cosentino takes 50’s girl rock, funnels it through a haze of weed smoke and cat hair, and poof! Out comes girl-longs-for-boy pop perfection. But no song hit harder than “Boyfriend,” with its sing-song-y verses, soaring backing harmonies, charmingly mediocre guitar solo and, most importantly, fuck-all frankness: “One day I’ll make him mine / and we’ll be together all the time.” In an indie rock/pop world full of literate snobs, it’s refreshing to hear someone succeed at keeping it simple.
By Dan Wisniewski
32. The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio
From High Violet
You may think being an eternal sad sack is a prerequisite for handling frontman duties in an indie rock band, but The National’s Matt Berninger does it better than anyone. The Ohio-by-way-of-Brooklyn group hit a home run with High Violet, and “Bloodbuzz Ohio” sits as the album’s centerpiece. Ostensibly about the uneasy feeling of returning home, it doesn’t take a Grade A sleuth to get to the bottom of lines like “I still owe money / to the money / to the money I owe.” Bonus: Check out the song’s black-and-white music video – Berninger putzes around New York in a trench coat, drinking, singing and generally acting awesome.
By Dan Wisniewski
31. The Gaslight Anthem – American Slang
From American Slang
Is The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon the new Springsteen? Maybe not yet, but it’s easy to see he worships at the same alter as the New Jersey legend. Look no further than “American Slang” – the ceaseless driving rhythm, the guitar chug, the fist-pumping, sing-along chorus. And like The Boss’s best, Fallon and co. leave the subject of “American Slang” up for interpretation. Is it a commentary on living in the US or just some weird dream Fallon had? No matter – turn it up, “hoo hoo” along with the backing vox and whistle that disturbingly catchy guitar riff.
By Dan Wisniewski
30. Deadmau5 – Some Chords
From 4 x 4 = 12
Joel “Deadmau5” Zimmerman does the D.A.N.C.E. on on this boisterously banging opus, and fitting dramatic opening to his latest, arguably greatest album 4 x 4 = 12. The instrumental’s relentless, disco-very pulse conveys more euphoria over its seven and a half stretch than many vocal electro artist can across albums.
By Robert Huff
29. Gorillaz – Glitter Freeze
From Plastic Beach
“Where’s North from here?” Guest vocalist Mark E. Smith presents this query at the dead center of Plastic Beach, the third album from the animated Gorillaz. It’s a good question on an album full of shifting styles, sounds, and anthems. “Glitter Freeze” is the spacey dance track; a thumping beat offset by one continuous squealing, soaring intergalactic synth solo, occasionally interrupted by a few more words from Mr. Smith before the beat drops out.
By Alyssa Fried
28. Four Tet – She Just Likes to Fight
From There is Love in You
Deep into There is Love in You, we find knob-twiddler Kieran Hebden embracing post-rock. His signature clipped beats are kept to a relative minimum, sounding like an actual if particularly arty drum kit underneath a calmly winding guitar figure, one that wouldn’t feel out of place in the Mogwai or Iron & Wine catalogs. It’s a surprising yet fitting denouement to a sublimely crystalline techno album.
27. Sleepy Sun – Marina
From Fever
Sleepy Sun’s “Marina” is the best kind of desert rock. A stumbling riff, slithers forth with careful nuance. Singers Bret Constantino and Rachel Fannan slowly chime in, harmonizing as if from within a dream. Fannan sweetly, delicately sings a few lines before an explosive guitar solo takes center stage. The cycle repeats and everything shifts into a tribal series of percussion. A few simple lines are shouted in three-part harmony and the song ends in a thrilling crescendo, bringing back the opening trembling notes and mutating them into a commanding solo. It’s psychedelic, rocking and soulful all at the same time.
By Raymond Flotat
26. Vampire Weekend – Cousins
From Contra
The first official single off the hotly anticipated sophomore album, Contra, “Cousins” suitably picks up where Vampire Weekend left off with their self-titled debut. Propelled by a rapid-fire drum roll, the song seems in perpetual fall, stumbling forward too fast, all hands desperately trying to keep it together. The verses pass by in a blur – something about the over-privileged? – until everything comes into sharp focus for Ezra Koenig to deliver the irrepressibly catchy chorus.
By Alyssa Fried
25. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Round and Round
From Before Today
Ariel Pink’s brilliant Before Today remains one of 2010’s most rewarding musical statements. Though it’s hardly lacking for highlights, it all builds up to (and comes back down from) this stellar single. Both breezy and self-conscious, classic and of the moment, it takes all of the lo-fi underpinnings that trademarked Ariel Pink’s previous work and makes them sparkle anew with real full-blown studio production. That it still sounds as intimate as anything he did in his garage is a testament to both his songcraft and his sincerity.
By Robert Huff
24. Joanna Newsom – Good Intentions Pavement Company
From Have One on Me
In a move that’s either oddly ironic or utterly unsurprising depending on who you ask, Joanna Newsom’s most accessible song to date is also one of her most uncharacteristic. Instead of her trademark harp, she opts to tickle piano ivories. Instead of a whimsical fairy tale narrative, we get a rollicking and heartfelt road jam that compares a heart to a honey jar (they can be so damn hard to open, you know). Though on the surface, “Good Intentions” may seem out of character, at it’s heart it embodies all that makes her great, and hints at a new greatness that many of us, fan or not, may not have been aware she had in her. Shame on us, then. Consider this honey jar sold.
By Robert Huff
23. Flying Lotus – Do the Astral Plane
From Cosmogramma
“Do the Astral Plane” is the type of song major American corporations wish they were cool enough to license. A perfect limbo of hipper-than-though jazz and hipster electro, “Do the Astral Plane” is a mood-setter for any occasion. Its downtown-lobby vibe is simple, yet enticing and well worth the hundreds (maybe thousands?) of repeats it’ll garner.
By Ann Coates
22. Tweak Bird – Tunneling Through
From Tweak Bird
A masterwork of focused stoner-pop, “Tunneling Through” is a happy little jig about how the Bird brothers are blasting their way through your mind. Traveling fast and furious on a wave of crunchy baritone guitars and unrelenting cymbal wash, Tweak Bird gets in, rocks your world, brightens your day a little, and gets back out. One can’t ask for anything more.
By Josh Neale
21. The Roots – Dear God 2.0
From How I Got Over
“Dear God 2.0” is a simple call for help in turbulent times. Here, The Roots literally upgrade Monsters of Folks recent track “Dear God” (and bring the actual band themselves along for the redux) into a hip-hop saga. Black Thought rhymes on the trials and tribulations of our post-war, knee-deep-in-recession times and lets Jim James sing, “Well I’ve been thinking about / and I’ve been breaking it down / without an answer / I know I’m thinking aloud / but if you’re loves still around / why do we suffer? / Why do we suffer?” It’s a valid question, and “Dear God 2.0” evokes all the longing, despair and desperation appropriate for such dark times.
By Raymond Flotat
20. Evelyn Evelyn – Elephant Elephant
From Evelyn Evelyn
This accordion-driven tune is one of the few moments of unabashed childlike innocence from the fictional musical duo of conjoined twin sisters. It describes and celebrates the girls’ best friend during an otherwise hellish stint with a traveling circus—a similarly deformed pachyderm.
By Adam Blyweiss
19. Crystal Castles – Celestica
From Crystal Castles II
Crystal Castles still thrash and rage as much on this year’s self-titled album as they did on yesteryear’s self-titled album. This time, however, they squeaked in this fragile yet formidable club comedown single that out-Blitzes anything on the last Yeah Yeah Yeahs record. Alice Glass does her best (and by that I mean superior) Karen O impression over Ethan Kaths plaintive pulses, and has never sounded more human in the process. Of course, that only helps her scare me more…
By Robert Huff
18. Caribou – Odessa
From Swim
That sound you heard in April was a legion of Caribou fans donning headphones to take in the indie/electronica band’s new album Swim. Caribou – a.k.a. Daniel Snaith of Canada – puts his all into the stereo effort, and “Odessa” is Exhibit A. Over five minutes, Snaith trots out flute samples, bells, a phalanx of synths, a snaking bass line and one awesome screeching noise and then makes them bounce artistically from earphone to earphone. It’s yet another dual-speaker masterpiece. Oh yeah – could this be the most danceable song about a battered spouse ever?
By Dan Wisniewski
17. Kanye West – POWER
From My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
West’s “POWER” really amounts to a wonderfully shameless, take-no-prisoners rebuttal to the criticism that came in the wake of the his erratic behavior throughout 2008-9. There is no remorse in the confident delivery of ‘Ye’s contemptuous attacks on his haters in this darkly surrealist snapshot of one man’s ever-deepening megalomania. With rhymes covering everything from drunk driving to his preference for light-skinned girls, West makes it clear that he is going to do and say whatever he wants, and that includes deliberately making some of his listeners—and most of his critics—uncomfortable.
By Nick Vadala
16. The Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
From The Suburbs
No one could ever accuse The Arcade Fire of lacking for ambition, but that didn’t make this Suburban sucker punch any less of a revelation. Both born of and rebelling against the titular sprawl of community and commerce that too often accelerates our transition into adulthood, Regine Chassagne takes an all too rare turn on lead vocals for a song that takes the perky Eurodisco of Blondie’s Heart of Glass and sobers it up with the synthesized melancholy of The Knife’s “Heartbeats.” We may never be able to get away from the sprawl, but songs like this go a long way to making it bearable.
By Robert Huff
15. Janelle Monae – Faster
From The ArchAndroid
“Faster” is a track off of Janelle Monáe’s stellar album The ArchAndroid. It is a jazzy tune with a ‘fast’ tempo and catchy hook. A quick kick drum and funky guitar riffs on the offbeat drive the song. It features a cool chromatic descending piano cascade. The interlude has ‘call and response’ vocals and hand claps with a gospel influence. Lyrically, Janelle describes a binding love affair that she knows she should run away from but can’t. Nor can we from this song.
By Ryan Hill
14. Gorillaz – Rhinestone Eyes
From Plastic Beach
One of the few tracks on Plastic Beach unburdened by guest performers, Damon Albarn gets his virtual band through a landscape mixing emotional imagery and chemical detritus. It’s Gorillaz at their eerie best, its instrumental break—with cracked samples of chanting young ladies—going down alongside the piano-pushed beat of “Clint Eastwood” as one of their signature musical statements.
By Adam Blyweiss
13. Deerhunter – Helicopter
From Halcyon Digest
Leave it to Bradford Cox to turn a disquieting tale of an underaged Russian prostitute into one of the most affecting singles of 2010. Over a frail water drop beat and whispering guitar lick worthy of Sonic Youth, he laments “No one cares for me.” I can’t speak for the prostitute he’s embodying in this song, but that sentiment couldn’t be farther from the truth when it comes to him and Deerhunter.
By Robert Huff
12. LCD Soundsystem – I Can Change
From This is Happening
Wobbly synths, tinny percussion loops, lyrics about relationships evolving and devolving to the point of corruption—and little else? It’s something of a welcome departure for LCD Soundsystem, turning in an epic homage to bands like Devo, Depeche Mode, and other keyboard-driven New Wave neurotics.
By Adam Blyweiss
11. Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here
From I’m New Here
Part spoken-word poem, part soulful folk introspection, the title track of Gil Scott-Heron’s new album I’m New Here is a wondrous piece of music. Scott-Heron grizzled baritone murmurs “I did not become someone different / I did not want to be / but I’m new here / Will you show me around?” before delicately cooing, “No matter how far wrong you’ve gone / you can always turn around.” The song doesn’t speak much in the way of specifics, but its main character implies a great deal in the way of long-regretted mistakes and hard-headed stubbornness. The real beauty here is that you can color in your own connection to the theme. Ultimately, it’s never to late to do the right thing. “Turn around / turn around / turn around / And you may come full circle / and be new here again.”
By Raymond Flotat
10. Deerhunter – Desire Lines
From Halcyon Digest
Bradford Cox gets a lot of credit for a lot of Deerhunter’s best songs, as well he should. It’s been easy in the past to forget that his bandmate Lockett Pundt has been just as integral a part to the group’s success (“Agoraphobia,” anyone?). That won’t be an issue anymore for anyone who listens to this swirling, surging epic from the excellently expansive Halcyon Digest. His gentle, casual invitation to walk free and “come with me” in the first third of the song gives way to a spacey, sparkling guitar crescendo that takes off into the stratosphere without ever coming down. Who would want to. Go ahead and go with them.
By Robert Huff
9. The Glitch Mob – Fortune Days
From Drink the Sea
Breakout stars The Glitch Mob took sequenced electronics to another level on their debut album Drink the Sea‘s penultimate track, “Fortune Days.” The trio (edIT, Ooah and Boreta) nimbly craft a head-bobbing and toe-tapping series of thumping percussion and hip-hop-inspired synth stabs. The mix has the precision of a meticulous studio production, but the variations and dynamic range of a live band. Just like on the rest of their album, The Glitch Mob demonstrate here the value of sonic excitement, melodically building motifs and expanding on the phrasings until you’re thoroughly hooked. Additionally, it’s a cinematic experience. Even though there are no sung words, the group evokes feelings of courage, confidence and triumph in just a handful of minutes.
By Raymond Flotat
8. LCD Soundsystem – Dance Yrself Clean
From This is Happening
While everyone was busy chasing drunk girls and promising that they could change, the real party was happening in “Dance Yrself Clean.” Its genius lies in its slow build: A naked drum, synth and handclap combo intro accompanied by James Murphy and Co.’s plain vocal melodies is all it takes to produce the best opening song of 2010. As soon as the snare drops unexpectedly, the whole playing field switches into an synth-pop melody that’s neither hummable nor catchy, but so damn good. And that cowbell is oh so necessary.
By Ann Coates
7. Beach House – 10 Mile Stereo
From Teen Dream
Any single song on Beach House’s terrific Teen Dream could perfectly sum up the album as a whole to anyone, depending on who’s listening. For a lot of people (this author included), don’t be surprised if it’s this one. A propulsive peak on an album that finds the duo of Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand reveling in newfound forward momentum, the layers of drum and guitar build and bubble over each other as Legrand skips the heart she’s been wearing on her sleeve for the entire album across a silky surface of synths before they all come together to blossom into the most moving, mesmerizing crescendo on any album this year. By the end, Legrand is wailing “It can’t be gone. We’re still right here.” Sure hope she means it.
By Robert Huff
6. The Arcade Fire – Ready to Start
From The Suburbs
This isn’t just a well-titled show opener. The Arcade Fire has been a critical success since their first album hit in 2004, earning numerous awards, the endorsement of respected artists like the Davids Bowie and Byrne, and consistently landing on anyone and everyone’s “Best of” lists. But it was the single “Ready to Start” from their third album, The Suburbs, that broke the band to the bourgeoisie. From the opening line “Businessmen drink my blood / Like the kids in art school said they would,” frontman Win Butler appeals to the underdog suburbanite in all of us, and we follow him through to the crescendo as he rejects falsity and proclaims, “My mind is open wide / Now I’m ready to start.”
By Alyssa Fried
5. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Farewell Mona Lisa
From Option Paralysis
The Dillinger Escape Plan’s “Farewell, Mona Lisa” is perhaps one of the poignant musical moments of 2010. The song rolls out in two parts. The first, a math metal freak-out with singer Greg Puciato screaming in rapid-fire succession, “What am I supposed to think? / What am I supposed to feel?” The second, a change into a subdued clean section with Puciato singing without rasp, “Don’t you ever try to be / more than you were destined for / or anything worth fighting for / There’s no feeling in this place / The echoes of the past speak louder than / any voice I hear right now.” The song then explodes into a crumbling breakdown (“What did you expect? / That we would never leave home? / That we would never leave? / That we would never leave? / We’re murderers / Murderers and rapists and liars and thieves / You should never put your trust in any of us.” Here’s looking at you music industry! The Dillinger Escape Plan has your number, and they just put it out in plain sight with incendiary fury.
By Raymond Flotat
4. Kanye West – Runaway
From My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
We all know the story that led to “Runaway.” Kanye, drunk off his own ego, his anger toward mainstream America’s corporate favoritism—and to an extent racial tensions—and not to mention several sips of Hennessy, storms the stage and creates one the greatest Internet memes in pop culture. Shock and awe follows, yadda, yadda, yadda, poor Taylor Swift. Fast-forward one tumultuous year later and we see ‘Ye going face-to-face with his inner demons to drop one of the most introspective songs to date. The bare clangs on Kanye’s piano create a cold atmosphere that serves as the ideal canvas for Yeezy to come clean and spill his guts. This is a Kanye we’re not used to, a fragile, vulnerable, broken soul. Where’s the big head? Where’s the confidence? Where’s the hubris? It’s gone, and we’re left with a new Kanye, a Kanye we may not like, but a Kanye at his best. This is the portrait of an artist in his prime. “Runaway” simultaneously serves as his send off apology to Taylor and a never-before-heard admittance of his personal flaws. But more importantly it’s a big “fuck you” to America, and that’s the real message here.
By Ann Coates
3. The Dead Weather – Blue Blood Blues
From Sea of Cowards
Whatever adrenaline-laced drug Jack White lives off of to be in so many projects at once, let’s hope he never stops taking it. White, of The White Stripes and Raconteurs, handles drums in his new project The Dead Weather, but many of the hallmarks from his elder bands are present here on “Blue Blood Blues”: Fuzzed out guitar, riffage out the ears, head-cockingly awesome lyrics like “shake your hips like a battleship.” Toss in a funk-esque keyboard line and gospel backing vox to shake things up, and never has “singing at Sunday service” sounded so hot-shit cool.
By Dan Wisniewski
2. Gorillaz – Stylo
From Plastic Beach
Kudos to whoever had the idea to bring back soul legend Bobby Womack to lend a hand on Damon Albarn’s latest, most expansive Gorillaz album. Amongst a sea of guest turns from musical veterans and newcomer’s alike, it’s Womack’s commanding presence on “Stylo” that resonates the most. Over a kinetic, Kraftwerkian post (with more than a few shades of Saint Etienne classic “Like a Motorway”) and played in by alluringly aloof appearances from Mos Deaf and Albarn himself, Womack sets this Plastic Beach ablaze in soaring, sensational fashion.
By Robert Huff
1. Cee-Lo Green – Fuck You
From The Lady Killer
Cee Lo Green’s latest release, The Lady Killer, contained a song so addictive that it should have two warning labels, one for explicit lyrics and one for dangerously addictive content. That song is “Fuck You!” which became a viral sensation as soon as it was released via YouTube in August. “Fuck You!” is an extremely catchy song with a very cheerful, upbeat rhythm about a tearful subject. Sounding like modern day Motown, it has elements of classical soul and Cee Lo’s vocals put it over the top. Soulful backing vocals provide plenty of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ that make this song great to sing along with. The lyrical theme tells the resentment of a man that lost his girlfriend to another man because he has more green in his pocket. The lyrics go “I guess the change in my pocket wasn’t enough, fuck you.” Cee Lo then accuses her of being a gold-digger with the clever and catchy line “Oh shit she’s a gold digger, just thought you should know nigga.” The song climaxes as Cee Lo pleads with a stellar vocal performance in the bridge “Why? Why lady? I love you. I still love you. Oooh!” Cee Lo Green’s liberal use of profanity adds emotional emphasis to the song and makes it much more entertaining. There are actually three versions, the unedited online version “Fuck You!,” the radio edit version “Forget You,” and the “FU” version. All this and the fact that you’ll want to scream out the lyrics after a few drinks makes this mxdwn.com’s 2010 Song of the Year. Whether or not you believe in love over money, “Fuck You!” will be in your head for days, even weeks to come.
By Ryan Hill
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