It’s not about being the best played, most accurately sung, or having the tightest production. Truly great songs do two very important things: They create an emotional reaction in a broad range of listeners and they have a tendency to change the landscape of the music industry. That’s a tall order and not easy to pull off.

Picking a song of the year is very tricky business. Some songs like the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (1963) and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991) are the kind of rarities that had an immediate and sustained impact. But those are the exception rather than the rule. Other songs like Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” (1983) and the Romones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” (1975) were essentially cult hits in their time, but have come to be regarded as truly great and industry-changing songs. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess (for example, none of these songs won a Grammy, but then again, when have the Grammys ever been an accurate reflection of great music? I digress…), so picking a “song of the year” in the same year the songs are released is a little silly. Can we really predict the impact a song will have before that song has a chance to make an impact? I wonder.

This year we’re lucky (or unlucky depending on your taste and temperament). You may not realize it, but we were all party to one of those rare few that actually changed everything. It hit like train, spread like wildfire, and will have a permanent effect on the music industry. The trouble this year is organizing #2 through #10.

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Cobblestoned Waltz
From Lillian

Quick history of Alias:

Alias (which is his alias, obviously) is white and grew up in a small town in Maine. After catching the hip hop bug, he started creating his own beats and perfecting his signature, double-time rapping style. He and a friend decided to start an artist collective called Anticon and moved out to the Bay Area. Much to everyone’s surprise (his parents most of all, I’m sure) he was very very very good…

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Sheep In Your Head
From Miss Your Face

My first thought when I heard this: Woah. Where did that come from?

This album is shockingly good for a band that doesn’t get national attention. These cats just know how to make solid rock and roll. It’s just a bit harder than your run-of-the-mill indie rock and less pretentious than modern emo. It’s not ground-breaking, but it isn’t trying to be. It’s just good, new-fashioned rock. When we’re old, grey, and thinking about retirement, the “classic” radio stations will play music that sounds just like this.

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Our Endless Numbered Days
Realeased 23 March 2004

Must Own

I’m not even sure where to start.

This album is nothing less than essential. Our Endless Numbered Days is not only one of the best albums to be released this decade, it contains the best love songs recorded in a generation. Put simply, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this album. It’s more than good. It’s perfect.

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Calm
From We, The Vehicles

Emo music has had two distinct phases. Originally, emo was basically country music for hardcore kids: clean-cut mid-west kids singing about how sad and angry they are that a girl broke their heart. Whiney and predictable, yes, but it was also a new and oddly exciting branch of the ever-changing genra the rest of the world refers to as “punk rock.”

Then something happened. Some time in the late 90’s, emo got happy and poppy. The whiney, depressed, geeky, no-life, loser singer/songwriter was replaced with the pretty, tattooed, occasioanally sad, constantly complaining, but very well produced artiste.

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Like A Star
From Corinne Bailey Rae

This music is so easy to fall in love with.

When Corinne Bailey Rae released her first album in the U.K. earlier this year, it was met with stunning success. It debuted at #1 on the Brit charts and she became an instant star. Her popularity starting rising like a river in a downpour and her music started popping up all over the world. By October, she was the guest on Saturday Night Live and in December, she received three Grammy Nominations: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. Now, I hate the Grammys like everyone else, but this is still a pretty phenomenal accomplishment for a freshman effort.

What’s more, she deserves every bit of press she gets.

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A New Language
From Functioning on Impatience

In 1998, Coalesce released this, their second full length album. The music was typical of the band: loud, fast, hard, angry, and intentionally confusing. Its seven songs (spanning a mere, though blistering 20 minutes) were recorded in a whirlwind 3 days and released by the relatively new record label Second Nature Recordings. They turned to a “Matt Jones” (who, as far as I can tell, has disappeared into obscurity) for the album design. This was the greatest decision Coalesce ever made as a band.

The cover of Functioning on Impatience is nothing short of graphic design perfection.

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No Money
From Get Evens

I’m on a permanent Fugazi kick. Every once in a while, I’ll put on In on the Kill Taker or 13 Songs because I just can’t find anything else to listen to and I’ll end up listening to only Fugazi for three days. I don’t follow the band like I used to, so when I found out the Fugazi kids are on indefinite hiatus, I was torn between a basic feeling of loss and the thought, “Hey, they deserve it after 15 years of touring.”

I heard that they were on hiatus when I learned that Ian MacKaye got together with Amy Farina of The Warmers to create the Evens. More than being a departure from the Minor Threat/Pailhead/Fugazi sound for which MacKay is famous, the Evens bears almost no resemblance whatsoever to his former outfits (other than his signature voice). Maybe I’m getting old, but I found it totally refreshing.

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Emp. Man’s Blues
From The For Carnation

You are getting very, very sleepy. You’re in a comfortable place. You can see fluffy white clouds floating through a sea of azure blue. You’re laying on your back in a field of soft grass. There’s a storm on the horizon. It looks dangerous, but it’s far away. How does the storm make you feel?

…

Good. Good. Now, take a deep breath. As you exhale, I want you to imagine you are breathing away your worries. You won’t be able to breathe them all away, only a portion.

…

Good. Good. Now, tell me about one of the worries that was left behind.

…

Interesting…

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So This is Goodbye
Realeased 22 August 2006

Must Own

It’s hard to dislike this album. Nie unto impossible, I’d say. Everyone at work refers to this album as the “bleepity blopity music” and that’s actually a pretty accurate description. The music consists almost exclusively of engineered beats and vocals. Normally a recipe for disaster, Junior Boys have managed somehow to create a near perfect album. More than being expertly produced, they have created an album that is easy to listen to. There is no need to skip a single track.

So This is Goodbye is also something of an enigma. All at once the album sounds retro, modern, and way ahead of its time. There is nothig inherently new offered by this album, the genius is in the presentation. If I were feeling more adventurous, I would use words like “sensual,” “organic,” and “tranquil.”

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