NUMBER TEN
Hit the break for the top nine songs of 2010.
NUMBER NINE
Titus Andronicus are not the Last Remaining Rock Band. They're not the Last Remaining Punk Band or even the Last Remaining New Jersey Rock Band. We've still got the Gaslight Anthem. We've still got Ted Leo. Hell, the original New Jersey working man, the Boss himself, is still kicking around. But it's easy to get confused, if only because of how raw, how vibrant, how explosive, and how singular Titus Andronicus' latest album, The Monitor sounded. "A More Perfect Union" kicked the album off and immediately positioned itself as Rock-Out Song of 2010. Part of the reason for that is sheer length. At seven minutes plus, "Union" had the benefit of being able to cram enough guitar heroics to rival an average-length Marnie Stern song. More indicative, though, are Patrick Stickles' throat-tearing yalps and the brutal guitars with melodies plucked straight from 19th century American classics-- appropriate for an album loosely influenced by the Civil War. It's strong enough that when Stickles references Springsteen by shouting "Tramps like us, baby we were born to die!" not only do you not blink, but you actually shout along. Titus Andronicus are not the Last Remaining Rock Band. It's important to remember that, so as not to disqualify a whole bunch of great rock music. But the Glen Rock band does its best to make you think they are.
NUMBER EIGHT
Every so often, usually about once a year, there is one pop song that hits the charts and stands so far, head and shoulders above the rest, that to ignore its ubiquity becomes a public disservice. Last year, it was Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", and I'm still kicking myself for its disclusion. That won't be happening this year, as Rihanna's "Rude Boy" was just too powerful to ignore. Rihanna has endured a lot of personal hardships over the past few years, particularly with the Chris Brown situation, and she's endured scrutiny for her brief return to that relationship, and her spots in Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie" and Kanye West's "All of the Lights", both of which feature lyrics about abusive relationships. But taken on its own merits, "Rude Boy" is the natural progression Ri's string of hits like "SOS" and "Umbrella," moving from the former's 80s-influenced dance and the latter's slick R&B pop to modern club music. It's almost hard to believe that sensual sweat of the original could be topped, but British producer TC managed it, leaving the opening of the track much the same, and then blowing the whole thing to hell, bashing just about every dance trend of the past year into the song's three and a half minutes. When ambitious production is paired with an insta-classic pop track in such an effective way, it's impossible to ignore.
NUMBER SEVEN
It's fucking hard to defend a band like Salem at times. From being associated with a witch house genre often decried as gimmicky, to the legendary atrocity that was their 2010 SXSW performance, to the occasional, horrendous rapping that appeared on their songs that justified every white rapper stereotype, to the barely decipherable lyrics that seemed to speak favorably about-- gulp-- rape, saying anything good about the band is just hard to do. But it's important to keep these things in the context of the music. An analogy I like to make is that of the 1915 film Birth of a Nation. Yes, that film was completely racist, portraying African-Americans as savages and heroizing the Klu Klux Klan. In that way, it's indefensible. But it also was the first film to employ a variety of storytelling techniques that still are fresh today. Salem isn't quite that bad, but then, they also aren't quite as important to the medium. But a song like "King Night" is important to the medium. It doesn't do any of the things that have invited bad press upon the band. Instead, it throws down the kind of ominously destructive synthesizer jam that transcends all the talk, taking overblown Bristol dubstep, straightening the rhythms, and pushing the volume into the red. Oh, and sampling "O Holy Night," then subverting it into what could be the soundtrack to some demonic summoning, or at least Voldemort's return.
NUMBER SIX
It's hard to qualify any Broken Social Scene record as a disappointment, because that implies some sort of normalized expectation of what the band is going to do next. If the 375,981 members of the Toronto band can be expected to do anything, it's to fold so many new influences and different styles into their yearning epics that any preconceptions of what any given new album is going to sound like from song to song become straight irrelevant. So this year, BSS came out with Forgiveness Rock Record and decided to make the most focused songs of their careers, attacking each idea with the type of precision normally reserved for the Interpols of the world. And "World Sick" was the shining example, fading in and out of the ether, serving both as the album's opener and its centerpiece. The rising guitar hook that serves as the track's chorus, the thunderous Carribean drums, and the yearning vocals are the type of things that make you want to lift up a fist (or both fists) in defiance. And defiance is "World Sick"'s calling card, with Kevin Drew crying "I get world sick every time I take a stand," punctuating the hopelessness of good intentions.
NUMBER FIVE
I'm ready for Clifford Harris to get out of jail. Again. Because as engaging and honest as Paper Trail was, I really didn't need him to get tossed in jail again, just to record Paper Trail: The Leftovers and call it No Mercy. What I wanted from Atlanta's T.I. was the angry, incredulous growl of "I'm Back." What Tip does best is rap. That sounds obvious for a rapper, but it's not always the case. Lil Wayne's biggest strength is his audacity; Jay-Z's his relentlessness; Nas' his experimentalism with content; Kanye West's the acceptance of his own strengths and flaws. But Cliff Harris is a rapper in the traditional sense, spitting almost without breath, spinning through dizzying internal rhymes, assaulting foes both real and perceived with boasts and threats audacious, but made believable through Tip's gritty realism. "I'm Back" is a ground floor view of Harris' return to rap life from prison, with enough detail and casual familiarity with both worlds that whoever T.I. is accusing of not being themselves most assuredly ran back to ATL's local scene with their tail tucked between their legs. "I'll never let you down/ I'ma shine on sight," Tip told me on "I'm Back". And I believed him. Unfortunately, it seems a jail sentence belays even an A-list rapper's best intentions. Thankfully, we have the early 2010 leak of "I'm Back" to fondly remember just how astounding T.I.'s verbal skills can be.
NUMBER FOUR
I have never spent an entire day just having sex. Robert Kelly-- if we are to believe "Echo," the best song on his 2010 Untitled album-- has. Thinking about the thing practically, it seems impossible. Surely by the time you get "to round ten," as Kelly sings, both parties would be just straight worn out. Frankly, the whole endeavor sounds ridiculous. But, as is often the point with Kelly, it kind of is. Earnest ridiculousness is practically his wheelhouse. For fuck's sake Kelly yodels to represent orgasms on this track. But he does this all completely straight-faced, not even hesitating to try to make the line "Wash your face/ Get something to eat/ Then come back to the bedroom" a genuinely sensual sentiment. It's the fact that Kelly is completely unabashed that makes "Echo" rise above its own audacity and actually become genuinely sensual. So, yes, yodels and yes, insanely earnest, and yes, completely lacking in self-awareness. It doesn't matter. Because when Kelly sings about wanting to hear your orgasmic cries echo "like you're singing from a mountain peak," you want to have this sex. Preferably immediately, probably with the first attractive person you see, and definitely for the entire day.
NUMBER THREE
"Fuck You" plays on a couple different levels, which is probably the best thing about it. There's that initial surface level, with Cee-Lo spitting the titular curse at the song's antagonist. Then there's the communal level, where the listener commiserates with Cee-Lo's story, empathizing with the main character, and allowing the song to speak for similar situations in their own life. And then there's that commercial level, where Cee-Lo has crafted one of the funkiest, most soulful, and goddamn catchiest pieces of music of the past few years, and has made the mother of all curse words its title. Not only is Green saying "Fuck You" to the lady who has wronged him, he's saying "Fuck you" to all the FCC officials who think that swearing is destroying America's youth. Is it really possible for a track this universally appealing to be destructive? Take another listen to the pure, classic 70s soul, the way Cee-Lo's voice roars through those high notes with equal amounts of passion and pain, that bridge that both throws an engagingly weird monkey wrench into things and makes the song undeniably Green's. This song wouldn't destroy the fragile minds of the youth, instead it would inspire them to stand up on their own, throw a middle finger at the non-believers, and then keep working to make them regret it. Fuck you, haters.
NUMBER TWO
(Note: There is no YouTube stream available of James Blake's "Measurements." You can hear the song at this link.)
I wrote about the James Blake song "CYMK" earlier this year. If you go back and check that out, you'll hear a song that spliced and modulated vocal samples, broke down beats into their composite parts, and then rearranged the whole mess into soulful bursts of shattered electronic music. That piece came from the CYMK EP, which was flanked in 2010 by The Bell's Sketch EP earlier in the year and the Klavierwerke EP later. And each showcased a different facet of the producer's massive talents. "Measurements", strangely enough, came from none of the above. But, like all of Blake's works before it, it fractures the James Blake persona further, adding another reflection of the man and his music. "Measurements" is almost completely a cappella, only a plaintive organ drone ever giving any sort of accompaniment. Instead, Blake forms the rich chordal harmonies by layering himself, vocal on top of vocal. From the first moment of "Measurements", it's clear that Blake isn't going to win any Pop Idol contests. But what he lacks in traditional vocal strength, he makes up for with morose passion. With each passing note, with each subsequent chord change, Blake's vocal performance turns even more sorrowful and heartbreaking. By the time the song's final note hits, its hard to imagine ever recovering.
NUMBER ONE
(Note: You can find a stream of the album version of "Runaway" at the bottom of this post.)
Here's the simple fact: if you're not sold on "Runaway" as the song of the year from that video, then nothing I can say in this space is going to convince you otherwise. Everything that makes "Runaway" transcendent is on display in that clip. Like, the way that it represents, defines, and dispels the myth of who Kanye West is, on the stage where that myth was created. The way it attempts to buy into, justify, deny, and accept the asshole attitude of its central character and its creator. The way Pusha T comes in to throw down G.O.A.T. bravado, and Kanye lets him only because every voice on "Runaway" (even the blasted samples) are really West's. The samples, for that matter, that both humanize and distance the song from its emotional core. The intro, those lonely piano notes that burn holes through floor until the that deceptively laid back beat kicks in. And that coda, which spans almost three minutes exactly on record, and how not a word of it is decipherable, but yet every emotion that makes "Runaway" is on display with the fragile peaks and broken lows of West's Auto-Tuned and distorted voice. If you don't see that in West's VMA performance of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy's brilliant centerpiece, you never will.
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