the songs of 2010 {better late than never}

It's been over two months since I had the time to properly turn my attention to writing about music, or felt the need to. I've been busy, to put it bluntly. I have a job I like, at a great company, and one that allows for certain amazing things to happen from time to time, as I will describe here, soon enough. But anyway, enough of that, and less of that other stuff, and more talk of music.

There are less songs here than in previous years, which I think means I wasn't all that impressed with 2010. Some beautiful music was created, and that's what's here, but maybe less of it resonated with me. Irish music shone more brightly than ever, and that's where my focus was, living in Dublin for the first time. Still, despite my pickiness, there was some spectacular work done, and more so than previous years, I found it tricky to put these songs in order. The top ten is amazing, and I'd bet that each of them is someone's favourite. If you haven't heard them before, I hope one of them is yours.

30. Tomboyfriend - Almost Always


I think this song might be what happens when you sit down to write a love letter about a girl, and accidentally end up writing a dissertation on class and socio-economic factors in your little suburban neighbourhood, before realising that the only thing you can do to make it work is write some superb pop hooks to accompany it, and huff into the microphone.

29. Samamidon - Relief



I saw Samamidon sing this to a packed crowd in Whelan's, and when it came to the chorus, everyone joined for the refrain, like a big drunk choir, and there was a fine general sense of relief, that we could say these things and have others say them with us.

28. Sufjan Stevens - I Walked



HERE was a man who once knew many stories, but they had slipped away from him—so he said. The Story that used to visit him of its own accord no longer came and knocked at his door. And why did it come no longer? It is true enough that for days and years the man had not thought of it, had not expected it to come and knock; and if he had expected it, it would certainly not have come; for without there was war, and within was the care and sorrow that war brings with it. “I suppose it must be dead, or gone away with many other things,” said the man.

27. Halves - I Raise Bears


Like much of Halves' stunning debut album, this feels like being a warm person in a place of sharp cold. It's a little like living in a hotel when you have no where else to call home. The twin vocals sing together, huddled and intertwined like scarves gathering snowflakes and frost, the wind rolling about them wildly. It's a gorgeous song, and it only gets better with each listen.

25. Joseph Baron Grass - Ring The Bell


This song has a distinct sepia feeling to it, like it was recorded over days in some lonely front room, as the dust settled, as the light faded beyond the window blinds. I swear by the end, you can almost hear how silent the rest of the house is, beyond the noise of one man, trying his best to quietly prove he is there.

24. Deerhunter - Helicopter



Here again Deerhunter manage one of their great tricks, making the chorus sound like some lovely undeserved luxury. This whole song is seemingly built around the sound of sedation, and it's all the better for it.

23. The Danger Is - All For Gold



This band sound a bit like the entire city knocking on your door at the same time, clamoring around at nine in the morning, wondering why you're not up, today of all days, when you're finally putting the finishing touches to whatever it is you've been at all these years. They have that kind of excitement to them, a pushing urgency, something to say that doesn't come out in words. Going by this song, they are very good.

22. Land of Talk - Swift Coin



The concise version: this girl loves you! And she has a buzz-saw for anyone who stands between you and her.

21. Beat Radio - Everything Follows

They say your best years are behind you, but there are times when if you sing loud enough, you'd never think it.

20. The Holy Roman Army - Here


This is a song to listen to on the way home from work. It's one for the flow of tired faces, reeds swaying in the wind, examining each one for the feelings that have been held in check the whole day long. It's a song for hard times, and for getting a little more honest with yourself about your life, and what it is and might be. For all this, and for the way her voice wavers, down and down, it's something beautiful.

19. Mixylodian - Make Me


I've been listening to Mixylodian for a while now, but this is the first time I've heard sex in one of their songs. It seems like something I don't hear too often from the kind of musicians I favour, sex free of any catches, no doubts or reservations, just a kind of impulse that needs to be followed, the question on your lips that you want to put on someone else's. I think they get it right here, too, the weird mix urgency and love, gentleness and passion. There's the ticking beat, the softly insistent vocals, the frantic guitar at the close, everything in the right place.

18. Solar Bears - Primary Colours at the Back of my Mind

Solar Bears are an Irish band, from Dublin and Wicklow. This is one of their songs, and it's stunningly fine. The harsh guitars, jarring at first, melt sweetly into the flow of strings and rhythm, and nothing seems out of place. The overall effect is akin to something completely natural, a chaotic small-scale mix of flooding colour, the palette you hold in your hand suddenly and unexpectedly chiming with your exact mood, your blue evening, your dim mind.

17. Jose Delhart - Accountability

This song is for sleepy people. There's a very quiet, albeit very steady level of energy here. The song never gets too excited, never moves too fast, never speaks above a murmur, but it brings you along with it anyway, tempting you with its narcoleptic charm rather than overwhelming your inhibitions through agitation. The guitars doze along underneath murmured words, and in the background a saw hums, hoping not to be noticed. It's all quite lovely, really.

16. Peter Broderick - Pulling The Rain

If I could go back through my life and assign different songs to different scenes, rescoring them maybe, then this song would be for the times I sat as a child, still and invisible, in darkened cars, hearing the steady patter of rain on the roof, waiting for someone to come back, and take me home, or maybe, like one night, called to the house of a relative, in the silent moonless countryside, waiting to be told it's okay to come in, waiting to know how bad the news is.
This is not a cheery song. But it sounds like it's exactly the kind of song it means to be. It's from Peter Broderick's most recent album, and the rest of the album is as lovely as this.

15. A Classic Education - What My Life Could Have Been


This band is going to make a great debut album, if they keep coming up with songs like this, something so good and forcefully upbeat that I plan on waking up to it tomorrow, and seeing what wonderful things happen during the rest of the day.

14. ARMS - Heat & Hot Water


Sometimes, the experience of ending your working week feels a little weirder than normal. Fridays are like every other day, coffee breaks, emails and routine - but afternoon arrives, and all of a sudden you kind of fall out of it. Everyone else is laughing more than usual, and you're not sure what will happen - the night is beckoning you to come out and celebrate this temporary respite, a lull in the fighting, a ceasefire between you and work.
This song is a little like that. It starts out regular and conventional, and it's not that there's a key change, or some weird time signature surprise, but it's more like the chorus gets there, and you realise you've been waiting for it for the whole song. It's finely made, like all ARMS songs, and it's part of a free EP which is very worthy of your attention, a little step on from 2008's excellent debut album. It's worth celebrating.

13. Twin Sister - All Around And Away We Go


The demo for this has been floating around for a while, but it's astonishing how much of a progression the band has made with this song. It still sounds a little like wandering around a city while looking at the sky, but now that sky is full if images, of flickers of paper falling from above, not manna from heaven, but the revolution taking hold over skyscrapers. That kind of simple dream, the kind you trip into when you're tired, and then jerk awake from. That's the kind of dreamy that Twin Sister have put into this song.

12. The Gorgeous Colours - The Creatures Down Below


The Gorgeous Colours specialise in doing old things so well that they sound new. They sing harmonies good enough and warm enough to put the sun in the winter sky, and their songs are full of the kind of happiness and sincerity that most bands don't dare attempt.
The above song is their new single, the title track from their new EP, and while it perfectly exemplifies the cheeriness at which the band excel, it shows the darker side of their new material, the sadness that you can occasionally hear in a lingering word, or tense guitar arpeggio. It's beautiful, but slightly heartbreaking at the same time. You'll see.

11. Efterklang - The Soft Beating

Just when I thought I could never have and could never need a better reason to love Efterklang, they make this song.

10. Joanna Newsom - Good Intentions Paving Company



I sometimes think that this is the kind of song you could only write if you went out some evening meeting people, talking to gentle men, and delicate women, talking to the angry and the sad, the sweet and the bitter, the flirty and the desperate. You could do this until the sun came up, bright and strained, distant and cold, and write something friendly and wise to keep yourself warm.

9. James Vincent McMorrow - Red Dust


'Red Dust', seems to mark a break from the wilderness-bound landscapes of Early In The Morning, with a dim backing thump-thump that sounds like the moon's heartbeat. All the notes seem to hang in the air like ash, drifting to the ground in slow motion, until, two minutes to the end, the sun seems to come up and show this half-lit world anew. It's the best thing he's done yet.

8. The National - Lemonworld



This might be the finest example of the National's persuasive genius. We can all agree that that heavily shrouded guitar sounds beautiful, that the pacing rhythm is steady and reassuring, but it's the idiosyncratic touches: the sparseness, the du-du-du-du and the mumbling fade that will initially prove a little much for us, before we admit that we've been singing and mumbling along ourselves.

7. The Luyas - I Need Mirrors


"That might be true, but I don't want to end up sitting alone outside at night, mumbling to keep warm while I wait for help."

6. CocoRosie - Lemonade


There are two different kinds of beauty here, bound together like cords into a braid, the soft beauty of gentle sun and cool breeze, and a more riotous beauty, the car crash survivor, the freed slave. Together, they show us what they have in common, the strands they share, the fantastic in the everyday, the mundane in the spectacular. It's a song that doesn't blame you for choosing the simple things.

5. Ava Luna - Past the Barbary


There's nothing I don't love about this song. It manages to be sad and soulful without trying too hard, it manages to be funky without being contrived, and it uses so many old tricks in a way that makes them seem new and fresh. If you're not playing air violin when those strings break their way in at the end, you're not listening. And if you can't hear the embraces, the feet-stamping, the hearts flying from rooftop to rooftop singing aloud, then there's something wrong.

4. Owen Pallett - The Great Elsewhere


I used to listen to a live version of this, assembled over several minutes with a loop pedal, and think it was the best set of sounds this song could be made into. But this album version changes it in heartstopping ways. It's like whatever world we were hearing about before, we are experiencing on a new level, as if it's been electrified, or laden with Technicolor.

3. Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)



I grew up on a farm, with empty expanse and a sky dominated by overbearing clouds. That's what the days were like too, away from the hum of a city, blank and slow-moving as a drawl. Hours dragged, minutes hovered. But I remember the wonderful hours when the sky teetered towards sunset, when the night loomed, and the gloaming gloomed, and not one of us felt the presence of time, even as the treelines disappeared and the horizon faded, and the time to come indoors arrived.

2. Cathy Davey - Bad Weather


The Nameless was one of my most-loved records last year, and this is its troubled heart. 'Bad Weather' is a song about a couple watching love disappear down a crackling phone line, separated by seas and borders. It's heartbreaking to hear it, two people who can barely hear one another, one of them not yet aware how distant things are.

1. Villagers - The Meaning of the Ritual


My love is selfish, and I guess I didn't really know this until a few years ago. I thought different things, and wanted different things, but that was then, and they went away. It was summer, now it's autumn, and all the white light comes down staining through wizened tree leaves like church glass. I talk differently, I drink differently. I wandered through parks like a child, now I walk through them hurriedly.
My love is selfish, and I guess that yours is too. I didn't know that until a few tears ago. I still dream endlessly of summer days, you standing beneath the great oak, your face lighting up, your eyes smiling brightly. There are so many things I try and decide at night, sitting in my bedroom, but the dawn always lights up the same thing. I want to tell you not to worry. I want to get on the train to work, and for once have figured out everything by the time I get off, instead of stumbling over the same crooked thoughts like someone else's character.

My love is selfish, but I trust it, and it trusts you, and when I see you smile the way you do sometimes, softly, almost imperceptably, the smile that is meant for me, that's when I remember everything again, and it no longer seems childish to run, and sing, and stay up late doing nothing.