My Personal Favourite 20 Songs of 2010 1

Honourable Mentions
'All of the Lights' by Kanye West
'Hollywood' by Marina & The Diamonds
'Heartbreaker' by Girls
'Romance is Boring' by Los Campesinos!
'Sea Talk' by Zola Jesus
'Giving Up The Gun' by Vampire Weekend
'A More Perfect Union' by Titus Andronicus
'If You Wanna' by The Vaccines
‘Walk in the Park’ by Beach House
‘O.N.E.’ by Yeasayer
'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains' by Arcade Fire
'Hologram' by These New Puritans
'Butterfly House' by The Coral
'Blackberry Stone' by Laura Marling
'Goodbye England, Covered In Snow' by Laura Marling
'The Calm Before the Sword' by Captain Ahab
'Summerblow' by Chief Black Cloud
'Have a Heart' by Lonely Galaxy
'The Withering Giant' by Ghosthorse

20. 'Veronica Sawyer' by Summer Camp
Summer Camp are a band to watch in 2011, and their Young EP from this year shows why. This standout track is a melancholy, slightly twee indie pop number that has one of the most addictive choruses I’ve heard all year. It’s a detailed, engrossing account of teen loneliness, bittersweet in lyric and melody. There’s a very individual sound to this song and the band as a whole, and a convenient opening in the indie pop market.



19. 'This Orient' by Foals
For me this was immediately the standout track of Foals brilliant album, and still is. I love “Spanish Sahara”, but this blows it out of the water as far as I’m concerned. A spliced, breathless info gives way to an inspired mix of guitar, bass, drums and vocals that sweeps you away into a cinematic journey of a song, with a massive chorus, boasting one of the most romantically grandiose lyrics I’ve heard “It’s your heart that gives me this Western feeling”.



18. 'Undertow' by Warpaint
When this one his the internet blogs, there was a little bit of an online orgasm. And rightly so. This song from my favourite new band of the year is captivating and alluring on absurd levels. It boasts a chorus that worms its way into your head, ingeniously hijacking a Nirvana melody, laced with sultry, slinking bass and echoing guitar lines. The gorgeous female vocals croon about ensnaring a lover, and ensnaring is certainly what this song does.



17. ‘We Want War’ by These New Puritans
Often toted as the prime example of the brilliance of my album of the year, We Want War is a sublime piece of music. It bursts open with a massive drum beat, freaky synths and terrifying bass drone. It splices epic percussion with dark, entrancing vocals. It sounds like its tital- looming, violent, aggressive, huge and brilliant.



16. 'The Wild Hunt' by The Tallest Man on Earth
The opener of my #3 album of the year, this is just a fantastically written folk song. It whisks you away in a world of evocative images, earnest vocals and warm, embracing acoustic guitar. Kristian Matsson’s voice leaps and strains upwards then drops down in pitch and delivery for brief moments to beautiful, emotional effect. It's a lyric about wonderfully carefree resignation to the inevitabilities of life, surrendering the pointless things and seizing life by it's gorgeous throat. Oh this song just overflows with life in every possible way!



15. 'Not In Love' by Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith
This song had “BRILLIANT” written all over it from the moment the very idea was conceived. This icy synth pop song was so good that it made us all forget that a) it was a cover and b) there was a Smith-less version on Crystal Castles album. This song is massive, uplifting, emotional. It feels like your heart beating inside your chest at a moment of emotional fear and anticipation, perched delicately between euphoria and despair. Masterful.



14. 'The Oh So Protective One' by Girls
Girls made the song “Heartbreaker” available for free from their “Broken Dreams Club” EP and, again, the blogs went crazy (as did I!) But for me, this is the strongest song on the EP. Lead singer Christopher Owens somehow manages to sing and write from the point of view of a loverlorn teenage girl and make it sound tear jerkingly genuine and emotional. Musically its pure 50s guitar band, like The Shadows or something. But its superb indie guitar music, and lyrically brilliant. It makes me feel warm inside.



13. ‘I Want the World to Stop’ by Belle & Sebastian
I wrote a post on why I love Belle & Sebastian and their new album a while ago, and so it only makes sense for a track from it to make this list- but fairly so. This song is absurdly addictive, the melody genuinely intoxicating. The chord progression is just sensational, a genius piece of songwriting, and the contrast between chorus and verse inspired. Lyrically, it’s a fantastically human account of modern alienation and loneliness, yet still manages to be captivating indie pop. It’s just lovely everyone.



12. 'Alley Cats' by Hot Chip
Hot Chip’s album One Life Stand hasn’t quite made the cut across lots of end of year lists, and I can see why in part, but its full of some brilliant songs, a lot of them tender and emotional and- for me- none more so than this. Simple keyboard and drum open up the track, and Alexis Taylor’s distinctively light voice is so soft and tender that I can’t help but give myself over to it. The whole thing is comfy, warm and affectionate and just makes me think of home.



11. 'Power' by Kanye West
The first big indication that Kanye was soon going to the rule the whole damn world. This distils a lot of what his new album is about. It’s Kanye rapping about being Kanye. Its huge, ostentatious, cinematic. It’s boastful and grandiose. But lyrically it’s a masterpiece. A full West dissection. It’s a confession of his failures, his idiocy, but a slap in the face of haters and sceptics. This is the sound of triumph.



10. 'Girls' by Marina & The Diamonds
I adore Marina Diamandis. I confess, I love everything about her. Including this song. The vocal delivery is so absurdly individual and distinct, I can’t help but adore it. She just fires on all cylinders on a superbly vicious and sarcastic attack on superficial, vacuous modern girls. The lyrics are detailed and specific, yet never come across as cluttered or dated. Maybe I’m just so absurdly attracted to Marina that my judgement has been clouded. If so, I don’t care. Not when pop music this good is involved.



9. 'Tell 'Em by Sleigh Bells
One of the best riffs ever. Fact. Too soon? Maybe. Wrong? No. There is no denying the riff on this song is INSANELY awesome. And that’s just the start. MASSIVE drum beats. HUGE whirring sounds. GORGEOUS and sweet vocals that shouldn’t work against the intense heavy metal guitars and mammoth drums, but they do. And the melody is as insanely addictive as the riff. This song is twisted pop brilliance that just whacks everything up to 11 and is about nothing other than making as much brilliant noise as possible.



8. 'Rambling Man' by Laura Marling
Laura Marling cemented herself fully as one of the best (if not THE best) songwriter in the UK with her second album, and my favourite track from that album has got to this one. The melody is just so superb and the song builds and grows so much that, with its sentiments of identity and independence, it’s something ‘epic’ (though using that word doesn’t seem quite right). Brilliantly arranged, lyrically masterful and beautifully delivered. This is just a brilliant song.



7. 'The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future' by Los Campesinos!
Los Campesinos! are one of those bands who are able to tell entire stories and build entire, believable characters in the space of one song, and the most effecting example of that is here. An engrossing guitar line and tragic, brooding cellos draw you into a tragic tale of anorexia , bereavement and reflection. Probably my favourite song as a lyrical whole from the whole year, which is only helped by the chillingly detached vocal delivery. And it all crescendos into a sublimely noisy chorus. This song hits an emotional chord and draws me in in a way that I don’t experience very often.



6. 'I Can Change' by LCD Soundsystem
Despite the fact that it’s now used in adverts on Dave, this song has been one of the best pop songs of the year since it first appeared. It’s probably one of the best James Murphy has ever written. It uses his classic trick of repetition with subtle variation to create an addictive and engrossing piece of pop music. The melody is quite beautiful and I really can’t say enough about the chorus. That itself is an example of the repetition with a little bit of variation, and its AWESOME to belt out. Lyrically, it is spectacularly vulnerable and human, qualities people very often don’t seem to associate with James Murphy, and it contains some of my favourite lyrics of the year.



5. 'The Suburbs' by Arcade Fire
I find it difficult to believe that anyone who truly likes rock music could not love this song. The inspired mix of honky tonk piano, guitar, plodding bass and steady drums creates a disarmingly simple underpinning for a truly brilliant track. This song was a statement of intent as the opener of Arcade Fire’s sublime album. The lyrics veer from cinematic and grand in feel to beautifully specific details about learning to drive and your mother’s keys. Beautiful.



4. 'Runaway' by Kanye West
This song was how Kanye decided to announce his public return, at the MTV Awards. This song is similar in a lot of ways to “Power”, but in my opinion is the greater of the two. It sounds MASSIVE and pompous, like some imperial vessel moving onwards… imperiously. But its coupled with a melancholy chorus that is probably my favourite individual lyric of the year. Kanye wraps up his own self loathing and the loathing he feels for his critics and exorcises the two with a stupendous and actually quite amusing chorus. The whole of the new album is about what it’s like to be Kanye, and I think that this track nails that on the head as well as everything else you could possibly want in a pop song.



3. 'I Don't Have a Dick' by Captain Ahab
This track is so high on my list purely because it is genuinely unlike anything I have ever heard. Lyrically, it is hilariously, unbelievable absurd. It is the arrogant, ostentatious first person account of the mythologised Captain Ahab who spends most of the track rapping over a constantly shifting background about how he doesn’t have a dick, and what that means for him exactly. This song is overflowing with grandiosity, absurdity, EVERYTHING, in a way that Kanye or even GaGa can’t possibly hope to rival.



2. 'Trainwrecks' by Weezer
Unless you’ve bought Weezer’s most recent album, you probably won’t have heard this track. It’s not a single, at least as of yet. Lots of people have said that Weezer returned to form this year and for me the best example of that is Trainwrecks. Guys this song is just amazing. It’s a massive rock ballad. Heartwarmingly unpretentious, euphoric and rebellious, I have lost count of how many times I have belted this out in my car. It has “Season Finale” written all over it in a way DOESN’T seem crap. Lyrically its disarmingly simple, it’s honest, self aware. Rivers Cuomo’s vocal delivery is emotional, raw, varied and just bloody awesome. If you fob this off as uninspired, uninventive rock then you’ve missed the point you pretentious twat.



1. 'Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk' by The New Pornographers
I raved on Twitter a while ago about how much I love this song. Unless you read that then you probably have no sodding clue about it. This song isn’t a huge statement. It’s not a game changing pop revolution. It’s not a social diatribe. This is just a genuinely PHENOMENAL indie rock song. It has one of the best riffs I have ever heard. It’s vaguely off key, an inspired use of semitones, and thus has something I find so attractive – the twisting and warping of pop music. The melody is mind blowingly catchy. Genuinely. From the moment I heard it I haven’t been able to shake it. The chorus still just blows me away every time. It’s just amazing! I can’t tell you why, it just is. The way this song chops and changes into different repeated sections, the beautiful interplay of lead male and female vocals, the vulnerable lyrics. Good grief, this is just such a perfect song. I love it. I really love it. It has decimated every other song in my iTunes play count. It got me into this band. In years to come few will probably rave over the album, let alone this one track. Well screw them. This is my favourite song of the year, because it is just hits the mark in untold ways on every level that a song should.





So there you have it! My top songs of the year. Whaddya think folks? Hope to hear from you soon :) have a merry Christmas!

Born Free

This may shock you but I, Rhys Laverty, am about to write a blog praising a rap video for being violent.

MIA is best known for her alternative hip-hop hit "Paper Planes" in 2008, and the Diplo Street Remix featuring Bun B and Rich Boy. I thought it was a fantastic piece of hip-hop. However, I kept my distance from MIA. I was never quite sure of her, never quite willing to really fall in love with her, or understand why she was always rated as one of the most influential and innovative artists around.

Then, last week, "Born Free" was released.

Her latest single is a 9 minute piece of abrasive alternative rap which samples the song "Ghost Rider" by cult post-punk favourites Suicide. Eclectic and alternatively cultured as that may sound, the fuss about it comes from the video:

http://vimeo.com/11219730

It's a 9 minute short film. And it is incredibly graphic. It was dropped on us without warning and we realised suddenly that it was NSFW (Not Safe For Work). It shows a group of US soldiers violently rounding up a load of gingers, driving them out to the desert, shooting a child in the head, making the gingers run across a mine field, beating an escapee to death and ends with one of the gingers being incredibly and graphically blown to bloody smithereens.

It was removed from YouTube. It sent shockwaves and ripples throughout the indie music world. Why?

It's because it is genuinely shocking. It is genuinely unexpected. Genuinely unpredictable. And that is why I think it's brilliant. I don't think it's violence for violence's sake. It's not like Saw: The Musical. It's so hard in the indie music world to be to be shocking nowadays. All forms of media are utilised to supplement an artists music, every conceivable issue is being covered and the lines between genres are crumbling constantly.Innovation is everywhere, and that is awesome, but it's hard to be shocking and to make your innovation stand out against everyone else's. Also, I think its explicit and "excessive" (is it really?) content are a mockery and subversion of most rap videos nowadays- overtly sexual and gun toting but meaning absolutely nothing.

MIA has managed to do something totally attention grabbing. She's made a bold a clear statement about discrimination, oppression, US supremacy, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and countless other racial conflicts. Those issues are talked about so much nowadays, in the media and in music, that we grow numb to them. And yet, paradoxically, we really have no clue of the atrocities Western Nations, the ones presented as "the good guys" and guilty of. MIA has thrown those ideas back into the frame, through her art. Sonically, the song reflects the graphic nature of the issues presented, and I genuinely enjoy listening to it. The lyrics are simple yet brilliant too, a defiant protest about every person's inherent right to be free.

I've seen today that an anti-bullying charity has slammed MIA for promoting discrimination against gingers:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/MIA-Ginger-Genocide-Music-Video-Born-Free-Slammed-By-Bullying-Charity-Defended-By-Actor/Article/201005115623553?f=rss

But they are totally wrong. This video is showing us in a raw and graphic way that discrimination, violence and torture still exist in our world. On a grand scale- like the US invasion of Iraq- and on smallar scales- like bullying. Born Free, both video and song, is a brilliant piece of 21st century political protest art.

But perhaps you disagree. Watch the video and feed back to me.

Is it just violence for violence's sake? Is showing a twelve year old being shot in the head really an honest form of political protest?