This Winki's Top 10 Best Songs of 2009

Well, December it is once again and due to our end-decade lists we had to reschedule our 2009 favorites list. It’s been a precious year for music I’d say, I had my own pop favs as well as some female artists that blew my mind. And I don’t have to re-state that these are only the top 10 and I swear there were more. You’re going to hear more on our 2009 playlist, but for now here are the tunes that charmed us the most in 2009, followed by our good ol’ 96kbps streams:

10. “French Navy” by Camera Obscura

The highly anticipated follow up to Camera Obscura’s vintage Let’s Get Out of This Country, was just as loving and Hollywood memory making. And among all the teen-crush infused tracks, “French Navy” and its sturdy-boned orchestration makes you feel each Camera album is nothing but a classic re-issue but then you might wonder why Tracyanne Campbell is still young.

09. “Shampoo” by Elvis Perkins in Dearland

Thanks to Amie St. I found Elvis Perkins more than just Anthony Perkin’s son. His dad played the innocent-looking man of prey in Hitchcock’s Psycho, never realizing his son would sing a precious folk ballad with indiscriminate lyrics some four decades later. “Shampoo” is so surprisingly comfy! Elvis Perkins does not emphasize on the content, but uses a lush castaway singing style to vitalize the song, though I admit I still haven’t heard Robinson Crusoe playing live yet. Its 70s acoustic lines at the beginning makes you feel the song is a cover of an epic rock opus with likes of “Stairway To Heaven” and that buoyant Neil Young-ish harmonica must pretty much remind us all of “Heart of Gold”. So it’s safe to say “Shampoo” is reminiscent of too many good things. It’s safe to say “Shampoo” was all worthwhile.

08. “Marrow” by St. Vincent

What you might not expect is a pop tune sung by a drained helpless woman suddenly go industrial, changing tempos fast and compelling its nauseating electric guitars on you. If Patti Smith could steal your nerve away and inject her restlessness patiently, Annie Clark is in such a hurry. You really don’t like messing with this housewife feeling desensitized and day-dreaming about neighbors all day long. "Marrow" is the most ruthless song found on St. Vincent’s enchanting anger-feeding avant-garde pop album Actor.

07. “People Got A Lotta Nerve” by Neko Case

From Canadian country-folk to a power-pop megaphone to singing Ukrainian tales (2006’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood) and now Neko Case shows us her semi-pop tendencies and therefore she turns into a man-eater, with the exception of not losing a single aspect of her beauty in both folk songwriting and vocal performances. The drum lines on this bizarrely named song flashbacks to Fox Confessor's “Hold On, Hold On”, but the aura is proportionally livelier and more jubilant.

06. “ABCs” by K’naan

Keinan Abdi Warsame from Mogadishu Somalia, has lived through civil wars and he likes to share his surviving-the-ordeals stories with us, but can he escape that filthy Outlandish nest of blathering your state of being a refugee and this and that? Well, for the record K’naan’s “ABCs” is the hip-hop party shaker of the year. He still brings us down to his roots with lines like “They don’t teach us the ABCs, we play on the hard concrete…” on the chorus. But boy can we just stop listening and dancing to this? Thanks to a delicious rap verse by Chubb Rock and plethora of outstanding hip-hop puns by K’naan compounded by that addicting sax sample, “ABCs” is bound to have a place here.

05. “Heads Will Roll” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The fearless freaks is a tag for The Flaming Lips! Though they never shifted from art-rock to electronic and dance! Karen O and Yeah Yeah Yeahs did! Forget about all those Show Your Bones and Fever To Tell days. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the moment are your discoballs and “Heads Will Roll” is the finest dance tune found on the band’s 3rd full-length It’s Blitz! So give it up for this NY trio before they make up their minds for something mainstream.

04. “Walkabout” by Atlas Sound ft. Noah Lennox

Bradford Cox is a musician of chemistry and he professionally knows how to make instruments and computers sound like leaking purified water. Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) is not a stranger to tribal theme-park loops. He once aced it on his solo masterpiece Person Pitch and has proven his flair in tickling your subliminal on various Animal Collective albums. This auspicious indie collaboration, no matter how experimental it could get, will eventually find itself in a win-win situation.

03. "Too Many Birds" by Bill Callahan

Our lo-fi Mr. (Smog) is also our raconteur of the year as he unveils a precious tale about an outcast misguided bird losing traces of its flock and having no place to land. It’s electrifying how deliberately this alt-country song builds itself up on a slow pace. Callahan is more than at-ease behind the mic and it takes him 70 seconds to complete the key-line “If you could only stop your heartbeat for one heart beat”, but this is the cage in which you love to be caught up.

02. “Kiss My Name” by Antony & the Johnsons

Antony Hegarty is merciless when it comes to posing his inner woman and making it the signature to his tender sinus-wave voice. Surprisingly, on his band’s 3rd studio work The Crying Light, he no longer addresses his off-the-wall sexuality or shows sister-love sympathy to Boy George. He doesn’t wish he wakes up as a woman one day. Instead he addresses natural elements. His lyrics become cryptic and deeply tranquil. In an exotic fashion of poetry, he personifies subjects as eccentric as epilepsy and immortality playing their roles respectively as dancers and a boy named Aeon. And among all those soulful heartfelt lullabies, “Kiss My Name” musically hits the right spot. To me, the “mama” in the song is a symbol to mother earth slowly interring her beloved children (living beings) underground. “Kiss My Name” is blessed with Antony’s delicacy.

01. “While You Wait For the Others” by Grizzly Bear

Can’t be too shocking if both our 2008 and 2009 no.1 songs are sung by the same man. Can’t be too shocking if that man fronts a band as stalwart and haunting as Grizzly Bear. Last year Daniel Rossen shared his gloomy childhood diaries remembering his dad on his alter-ego Department of Eagles. This year, Rossen alongside Ed Droste and other Bears topped the headlines with another eerie psych-infused disk called Veckatimest. Although the album was quintessentially Grizzly Bear and who can get away with it once their ghostly vibrations settle in your head, I’d still sooner pine for their 2006’s Yellow House. But “While You Wait For the Others” is frankly exceptional: the interminable rhythm shifts of the guitar together with the claustrophobic verses that conjunct magnificently with enticing vocal harmonies (at which GB is unanimously best at) makes the song an unforgettable sonic adventure without using any additional effects. And do I really have to bring you reasons for loving a song? Since when musical taste has anything to do with logic? It’s all state of mind and it’s eventually what makes sense. We can elaborately discuss it, but in the end, it’s just a matter of liking the song or not; No extra math involved. The single disk of the song also includes an alluring re-do of “While You Wait…” performed by Michael McDonald (formerly of The Doobie Brothers), so just make sure you add it up to your library as well.

Also Read:
TW's Top 10 Best Songs of 2008