Top 50 Songs of 2010, Part Five: The Top Ten

NUMBER TEN

The National are a band that exist within a single idiom: sad man's mid-tempo indie rock. While their talents are enormous, their arrangements immaculate, their lyrics suggesting a upper-middle class profundity, and just generally a band of pretty great musicians, their albums from Alligator to 2010's High Violet have been crafted in that singular vein. That sounds like a bad thing; it's not. The reason why they've been able to get away with traversing that singular path throughout their entire career is because of just how fucking good they are working in it. It's been almost 12 years since the band formed, and High Violet's opening track "Terrible Love" might just be the finest example of their illustrious career. It starts out National-y enough, with a workman's guitar riff and metronomic bass drum thwomp. But it doesn't take long for its depths to reveal itself, as delicate acoustic guitar notes, splashes of aching piano, and just the faintest notes of contrapuntal violin. And then, by the time we find out that it takes a fucking ocean not to break, the song has exploded with the type of energy only held by the perpetually downtrodden, with the drums completely unable to hold together, the guitars ripe with dissonance, and Matt Berninger's passionate tenor acting as the song's lone anchor. The loneliness of the Monday morning commute has never sounded quite so epic.

Hit the break for the top nine songs of 2010.

Midweek Music Review - Mid-Year Notables

Note: So, I'm not going to pretend like I haven't disappeared for a couple months. Suffice it to say that my life was kind of nuts and that things have settled down now. Racecar Brown is officially back up and running.

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So, it's officially halfway through the year for music. In that spirit, I'm putting up half of a year-end list. These five songs and five albums are simply some that have captured my attention this year. The emphasis this time around isn't to objectively list my five favorite songs or albums of the year, but just to throw up ten total pieces of music that are deserving of attention.