My 50 Favorite Tracks of 2009

In no particular order, here are my 50 favorite tracks of the last calendar year. They're all songs that were released this year. Sorry, there's no Lady Gaga (whom I admire more than enjoy) or Taylor Swift (whom I've learned to tolerate), but I think you'll find some fun tracks in here, ranging from the wildly popular to the pretentiously obscure. Enjoy.

"Enemy of the State" - Lupe Fiasco
*Radiohead sample flowing below razor-sharp university-themed boasts, spit faster than most rappers dare? This is the highlight on a mixtape that's full of wit and electricity from beginning to end.

"Walking on a Dream (Kids at the Bar Remix)" - Empire of the Sun
*Kids at the Bar was able to bring out the weirdness that Empire of the Sun seem to embrace fully in fashion, but hesitantly in their music. "Walking on a Dream" is a polished pop gem, but this remix shows off all the hooks and makes them reverberate.

"Always More" - autoKratz
*Although it vaguely sounds like a song for a montage during an 80s cop movie where a newly-jaded rookie goes from bad neighborhood to bad neighborhood shaking down thugs and learning a lot about himself along the way... oh wait, why did I use the word "although"?

"Me and Your Cigarettes" - Miranda Lambert
*Her title as the Queen of Modern Country shouldn't even be arguable after one listen to this song built around simple addiction metaphors. It's powerful in its confident simplicity.

"Orange Shirt" - Discovery
*If I can only pick one track from the debut LP of Discovery aka Big Hipster Side Project, it's the wistful lead single about shy young love. It relies on its synthetic elements in all the right ways.

"Raindrops" - Basement Jaxx
*Far more melancholy than your usual Jaxx floor-burner, but I like that they can still surprise us after all these years with a landscape of sound and a theme of longing. Forgive them if the lyrics seem oddly similar to this late-90s hit.

"Stillness is the Move" - Dirty Projectors
*Weirdness is the Cool.



"Zero" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
*I'm still not sure entirely what this song's about (self-identity?) but Karen O. keeps making me try to figure it out. At full volume. With the windows down.

"Heavy Cross" - The Gossip
*Speaking of windows down and full volume, The Gossip seemed to borrow a guitar riff from Franz Ferdinand (who wasn't using it), added two cups of Beth Ditto's tortured soul, and came up with a chunk of white funk that lit up the summer.

"Wavin' Flag" - K'Naan
*You can try to be cynical about K'Naan's rap, which deconstructs his native continent and his desire to be a positive symbol for it, but you'll give up when the chorus kicks in.

"You Were Young" - Yes Giantess
*This is the song that's playing at the prom when you went back in time.

"Animal" - Miike Snow
*The guys behiind Britney's "Toxic" team up for thiis liightweight melody wiith welterweight themes (iinstiinctual urges liimiited by sociietal rules).

"Beggin'" - Madcon
*Without the piano part, I would find this song annoying. With the piano though, it has a spin-on-Motown edge to it that makes me add it to every playlist.

"Something Good Can Work" - Two Door Cinema Club
*One of the few surefire ways to get me to smile this last year was to play this song.

"Little Secrets" - Passion Pit
*This was one of the other surefire ways.

"Carol Brown" - Flight of the Conchords
*Sure, it's hilarious. That's a given. But this is also a beautiful folky pop song; I'm a sucker for those tinny harmonies on the chorus. Who did get all his ex-girlfriends together in a choir and get them to sing? Plus: GREAT VIDEO.

"Black Water" - Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros
*That's it. I'm signing up for harmonica lessons. IN THE BAYOU!

"Love Sex Magic" - Ciara & Justin Timberlake
*Sometimes a "collabo" works out exactly like it's supposed to.


"Hold The Line" - Major Lazer
*First there's a cowboy riding into town. Then there's that crime wave bassline. Then there's a rastaman. And a telephone operator. And I'm pretty sure an Amazonian tribesperson jumps in there at some point. The aural equivalent of your favorite "Looney Tunes" short.

"Marrow" - St. Vincent
*"H. E. L. P. Help me! Help me!" St. Vincent sings throughout the ethereal distortion and stream of consciousness. No, that's ok, you don't need our help.

"Lisztomania" - Phoenix
*This is the incredible single from 2009 by Phoenix that's not in a Cadillac ad.

"Boom" - Anjulie
*Every year has its sexytime song (because you can't use Marvin Gaye, Sade, and Chris Isaak forever, folks).

"Battlefield" - Jordin Sparks
*Don't give me that look. The end of the bridge when she shifts back into the chorus? She knows what she's doing.

"This Must Be The Place" - Miles Fisher
*Sampling your own vocal from the beginning of the song? Awesomeness. Letting this cover play out as something drastically new and exciting? Also awesomeness. Making me forget that I kinda hate "American Psycho" with a cheeky spoof of a video? Impressive.

"Givin' Up (Don Diablo Remix)" - One eskimO
*It's a little reminiscent of (similarly monikered) OneRepublic's "Apologize," except that, filtered through Don Diablo, the emotions get ratcheted up and the song is better for it.

"I Wish I Knew Natalie Potman" - K-OS
*My feelings toward the actress herself are indifferent at best. But I love that Phantom Planet sample, the stolen Bonnie Raitt lyric, and everything else that throws into question whether or not this song is actually hip-hop. (It is.)

"Whatcha Say" - Jason DeRulo
*OK, I know the message of this song is (literally) "I'm sorry I cheated on you but you should come back to me because I'm gonna be famous soon." And yet, it just keeps crawling up my Most Played list with its total onslaught of infectious hooks.

"Green-Eyed Love" - Mayer Hawthorne
*Exactly like heartsick should sound.

"Heartbreaker" - MSTRKRFT featuring John Legend
*Exactly like heartsick should sound... if you're in the club.

"Tik Tok" - Ke$ha
*We've all quoted a lyric from this monster hit at some point in the last two months, whether you claimed to be "brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack" or "waking up in the morning feeling like P Diddy."

"When They Fight, They Fight" - The Generationals
*Everytime this song starts, I think it's going to be a hidden track from a British '60s girl group. I'm not disappointed when I realize I'm wrong.

"Pink Limousine" - Rootbeer
*Sometimes hip-hop can just be silly fun and with its bongo-style beat, total irreverence, and boasts to be as crazy as Gary Busey, this is some massively silly fun.

"D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)" - Jay-Z
*"I know we facing a recession/But the music that you makin' gonna make it a Great Depression." Will.I.Am, you've been called. OUT.


"Saide & Andy" - Princeton
*A sweet back-and-forth tale of modern love that's guaranteed to be used in a Wes Anderson movie someday.

"Kids" - Chiddy Bang feat. MGMT
*Even without the MGMT sample backing it up, this cleverly-rhymed ode to the joy and sorrow of becoming an adult is brilliant and affecting.

"I'm in Love With a Ripper" - YACHT
*The percussive beat makes me want to learn to breakdance. And maybe see STOMP.

"Who Will (Buffetlibre Mix)" - Patrick Wolf
*I'm trying to see if my church choir will perform this rhetorical hymn, but I don't know if they have the right kind of turntables.

"Pistols of Fire (Mark Ronson Remix)" - Kings of Leon
*Old song, new remix. I like KoL, but it turns out that when you take Caleb Followhill's desperate/angry vocals and ripping guitar and mix them with Sly-style horn sections, you get magic.

"Awesome" - The Bloody Beetroots feat. The Cool Kids
*If I was in a street gang that ruled a post-apocalyptic landscape, I would play this song on the boombox I carried around. (All the nuclear mole people would crawl back into their caves...in a good way.)

"I And Love And You" - The Avett Brothers
*Even if Josh Ritter had put an album out this year, this cuttingly honest song about regret and vulnerability would be the best coffeehouse song of the year. Or just simply the best song of the year.

"Machine" - Regina Spektor
*Spektor's typically curious songwriting takes on the creepy omniscience of modern technology with satirical, industrial instrumentation. You probably won't find it on the "Eagle Eye" soundtrack.

"Give It Up" - Datarock
*Just... just watch the video.

Ha ha, made you watch the video.

"Around the Bend" - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
*I actually bought this song before knowing it was used in an iPod ad, which raises a lot of questions about Apple's subliminal powers.

"Dog Days Are Over" - Florence + The Machine
*"Kiss With a Fist" has been used in every TV show and movie this year, but I've got a soft spot for this energetic cry to move on that builds and builds then pulls back then wildly builds up again. Florence's vocals are incredible for their skill and emotion, too; I could listen to her sing "Leave all your loving behind/You can't carry it with you if you want to survive" for ten straight minutes.

"Enemy" - Chris Cornell
*A pulsating, frenetic song about self-hate, sung with such unstable anguish you worry Cornell's about to do something drastic around the next stanza. The best song Timbaland produced this year.

"Shades" - Wale feat. Chrisette Michele
*Picking my favorite Wale song is like picking my favorite Yogurtland flavor. There's no wrong answer. But, gun to my head (or, I guess, blog list to write), I'll choose "Shades," a predictably thoughtful and personal track about the rapper's own struggles with color-based prejudice within his own community and family.

"Him" - Lily Allen
*She personifies God through a series of rhetorical questions. Remind you of anything? Still, Allen softens her usual barbed delivery (but not too much) to wonder aloud how a loving being relates to His followers. It's nothing groundbreaking, except that it reveals as much about Allen's own psychology as it does those she holds under the magnifying glass.

"The Reeling (Calvin Harris Remix)" - Passion Pit
*Mr. Harris made me like a Katy Perry song, so clearly he's a miracle worker. His high-spirited take on this Passion Pit single--driven by a goofy, twangy bassline--is another little miracle.

"Make It Take It" - Amanda Blank
*Did someone say "post-modern feminism"?

"My Girls" - Animal Collective
*Pitchfork comes to your house and murders you in your sleep if you don't put this in your year-end list. They have a point though. Perfect (but unexpected) instrumentation with a poetry so uncomplicated it's almost spiritual.


Did I forget something especially juicy? (If you say "Boom Boom Pow" so help me God...) Also, follow me on Twitter; doing so validates my life choices.