My Year In Lists: The Top 50 Songs of 2010

2010 was an interesting year on a song level. While most popular singles followed the same heavily produced, glossy, and manufactured formula, there was a groundswell of great songs being made by bands on the mid to low level spectrum. 2010 had albums from indie stalwarts such as Arcade Fire, The National, and to some extent, Kanye West. While these great albums spawned great songs, there were also bands that I did not expect to have such a profound effect with simply amazing songs. Bands that I had not even heard of, such as Titus Andronicus. Bands that I had forgotten about, such as Caribou, The Tallest Man on Earth, and Damien Jurado. It was a year of comebacks in a way for me, and this list reflects that.

50. Apparat - Sayulita




49. ceo - Illuminata
48. The Soft Pack - Answer To Yourself
47. The Morning Benders - Excuses
46. Avi Buffalo - What's It In For?
45. Les Savy Fav - Sleepless in Silverlake




44. Vampire Weekend - Holiday
43. The Apples In Stereo - Dream About The Future
42. Damien Jurado - Arkansas
41. Los Campesinos! - This is a Flag, There is No Wind



40. Gil Scott-Heron - New York is Killing Me





39. Drake - Miss Me
38. Free Energy - All I Know
37. Andrew Cedermark - Moon Deluxe
36. Lil' Wayne - 6 Foot 7 Foot
35. Abe Vigoda - Dream of My Love





34. Jonsi - Go Do
33. Wolf Parade - What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had to Go This Way)
32. Beach House - 10 Mile Stereo
31. The Tallest Man on Earth - Kids On The Run


30. Lil' Wayne - Right Above It




29. El Guincho - Bombay
28. Phantogram - As Far as I Can See
27. Surfer Blood - Swim
26. Gorillaz - Empire Ants
25. Strand of Oaks - Sterling





24. Yeasayer - Madder Red
23. The National - Bloodbuzz, Ohio
22. Menomena - Taos
21. Metric - Black Sheep


20. Beach Fossils - Daydream




Although I've never been a big fan of surf rock, Surfer Blood's Astrocoast and Beach Fossil's self titled album were two records that I really liked. Beach Fossils managed to do surf rock better than anyone else this year, and Daydream was the best example of how good the genre can actually be.

19. Local Natives - Who Knows Who Cares

Local Natives have a varied sound that is hard to define. They can be upbeat and fast paced at times, and also slow and introspective. Who Knows Who Cares is at the intersection of those two points.


18. Damien Jurado - Rachel and Cali

Maybe not the best song musically, but such a vulnerably powerful song lyrically. Saint Bartlett was really an amazing album that came out of nowhere.


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

Although The Suburbs was kind of a bloated mess, it had enough strong songs to remain a strikingly good album. Sprawl II was the best of those songs.

16. Broken Social Scene - World Sick

While Forgiveness Rock Record suffered because of its schizophrenic sound, it managed to produce this one epic track. "World Sick" is one of the most subtly ambitious songs in Broken Social Scenes catalog.

15. LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrslelf Clean

While it takes a while to build up, when this song finally erupts it is one of the best dance tracks of 2010.

14. Male Bonding - Year's Not Long

It was a pretty good year for punk music. Male Bonding was a big reason for the that. Nothing Hurt's first track burst out of the gates, letting you know exactly what's in store.

13. Caribou - Odessa

Like "Year's Not Long", "Odessa", the first track on Caribou's Swim, let's you know what's up. It is the first salvo on one of the best albums of the year.

12. Japandroid - Art Czars

Instead of releasing an album this year, Japandroids released a couple of singles. While all three songs are great, "Art Czars" stands above the rest as a visceral masterpiece.

11. Kanye West - Runaway

You can pretty much take any song from Kanye's new album and it could find a place on here. "Runaway" seemed like Kanye's admission of his own faults. It was a song where he stopped blaming other people, and took responsibility for his problems.

10. Deerhunter - Memory Boy


So short, but still amazing. "Desire Lines" also vied for this spot, but in the end I chose "Memoy Boy" because of its stronger lyrical content and liberal use of harmonica.

9. Frightened Rabbit - Nothing Like You


No one does melancholy quite like Frightened Rabbit. "Nothing Like You" is the strongest song on The Winter of Mixed Drinks. It takes both the wonder of a new relationship and the pain of lingering feelings, and mixes them together in a sad little package. Frightened Rabbit are becoming very good at making songs of this nature.

8. Los Campesinos! - The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future


"The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future" is Los Campesinos! most complete song. It is surprisingly mature for them (which means it's still pretty juvenile). It also has a greatly arranged use of violin. For a band that is known for its quick hitting twee punk, it is amazingly deep.

7. Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union


Titus Andronicus's The Monitor was a sprawling, epic, punk masterpiece. It's first song "A More Perfect Union" is also one of its strongest tracks. It serves as a introduction to both the Civil War theme of the album and the general theme of emotional ennui, anger, and despair that are present throughout. It is the first shot being fired at Fort Sumter.
The song should be commended enough for twisting the main line in Springsteen's "Born To Run" into "Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to die"

6. The National - England


The most beautiful song on High Violet. The subtle keys, horns, and strings in this song give it a feeling of unrequited despair. The narrator laments a lost relationship, using England as a metaphor for both physical and emotional distance. It uses there post-Alligator ability to create slow burning rock, and also includes at the end a breakdown which allows Matt Berninger to freak out a little. It is the gestalt of their last three records, pulling in influences from each to create an amazing song.

5. Big Boi - Shine Blockas


"Shine Blockas" was the the best song on the best hip-hop album this year. Then Kanye West happened. Still, it is one of the best songs of the year. Big Boi brings his A game, and we even get a semi-coherent feature from Gucci Mane. Probably one of the only times he has added to a song instead of taking away from it. The beat is also a classic. Big Boi has come a long way in the last year, stepping out of the shadows of his Outkast counterpart.

4. The Tallest Man On Earth - The Dreamer


Just a simple, emotionally powerful song. The Tallest Man On Earth is one of the best lyricist going right now. This song stands out because it may very well be the only song he has ever done with an electric guitar. While the change isn't necessarily groundbreaking, it gives a long time listener of his work a feeling that the song has an added verbosity.

3. Kanye West - Power


Kanye kicked back in a hard way on "Power", the first song he officially released since his meltdown. In a year where Kanye made some of his best work, it is very hard to find a song more needed for his psyche than "Power". He attempted to settle all of his debts in this song, showing people that, while he made mistakes, he was still the best producer on the planet, and one of the consistently best hip-hop artists in the last decade.

2. Caribou - Jamelia


Caribou's emphasis on vocalism on Swim is what made it a more fully fleshed album, and maybe his best under the Caribou moniker. "Jamelia" starts slowly, but builds into a frenzy. The random effects throughout the song give it a foreboding tone. When it finally breaks, it becomes unstable in the best of ways. Just a perfect example of what Daniel Snaith is capable of.

1. Titus Andronicus - The Battle of Hampton Roads



If "A More Perfect Union" was a fitting start to The Monitor, than "The Battle of Hampton Roads" is a more than fitting end. Coming in at a sprawling 14 minutes, it is by far the longest song on The Monitor, which is an album of lengthy songs. Throughout The Monitor, Patrick Stickles has been admitting his faults. His anger, despair, uncertainty, anxiety, etc. have been on full show. On top of that he has been tracking a faceless enemy throughout the album. On "The Battle of Hampton Roads" He finally seems to give up on it all. In two parts specifically. Firstly, he admits that he is pretty much a useless person in an existential crisis at 5:38 into the song:
"And I’m as much of an asshole as I’ve ever been.
And there is still nothing about myself I respect
Still haven’t done anything I did not later regret.
I’ve a hand and a napkin when looking for sex,
And that’s no one to talk to when feeling depressed.
And so now when I drink, I’m going to drink to excess,
And when I smoke, I will smoke gaping holes in my chest,
And when I scream, I will scream until I’m gasping for breath,
And when I get sick, I will stay sick for the rest"

Secondly, we have the case of the unnamed enemy. Throughout the album, there is a lingering entity who, while possibly a different person/group in each song, is present throughout the album. Stickles finally gives in during "Hampton Roads", realizing that without an enemy, he has no reason to exist. He pleads for his enemy to never leave, as funeral horns play in the background. The song is a fitting end to an album that has no happy moments, that wallows in its own self pity, and never allows you to feel anything but contempt for the world.