The 50 Best Songs of 2009

All right, you know the drill - 50 best songs of 2009, with one song per album (or else there'd be a hell of a lot less diversity here). Open the links in a new tab to find what I think are the best versions of each track on the net. Now let the listage commence:


50.stellastarr* - "Prom Zombie" from Civilized

A good hook is a good hook.

49.Small Black - "Despicable Dogs" from the Small Black EP

Don't care for the "chillwave" label, but whatever you call it, the genre itself is starting to produce some great stuff.

48. The Temper Trap - "Love Lost" from Conditions

They teased us in '08 with "Sweet Disposition", and followed up with equally layered pop like this in '09.

47. Fuck Buttons - "Flight of the Feathered Serpent" from Taro Sport


Braaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm freakin' ouuuuuuuuttttt!!!

46. Wale feat Gucci Mane - "Pretty Girls" from Attention Deficit

I'm not saying it's great to have brag anthems about fucking models, poppin' Cris & lighting money on fire back, but it's kind of nice to have a good one every now and then.

45. Franz Ferdinand - "Ulysses" from Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

While the new album wasn't up to par, at least the first single remains one of the band's catchiest tracks.

44. Neon Indian - "Deadbeat Summer" from Psychic Chasms

Braaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh it's happenin' againnnnnnn!!!

43. k-os - "I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman" from Yes!

Canadian cult rapper k-os won a place on this list as soon as I heard his sample.

42. Wave Machines - "Keep the Lights On" from Wave If You're Really There

Wave Machines craft a new kind of disco - a mellow, sweaty, 4 AM as the club closes kind. It's muted, but still melodic.

41. Chiddy Bang - "Kids"

19 year old prodigies from Phillie re-work the year's most overplayed indie anthem- and make it sound brand spankin' new. Can't wait for an official EP.

40. Harlem Shakes - "Sunlight" from Technicolor Health


The NY boys' take on the biblical story of Jacob lacks much of a moral, but is a hell of a lot of fun to dance to. Which is kind of the important thing, I suppose.

39. Metric - "Help I'm Alive" from Fantasies

For whatever reason, Metric didn't break out like similar "veteran indie" act, Phoenix did this year. But if everything they do from here on is as on-point as this, it's easy to imagine that their big moment is right around the corner.

38. Gary Go - "Brooklyn" from Gary Go

Sad, British ex-pat bums around New York, looking into crystal balls & awaiting the apocalypse. Not the sort of thing I generally like, but for some reason this guy pulls it all off.

37. Bat For Lashes - "Daniel" from Two Suns

Whoever Daniel is, I'll bet this song freaks him the fuck out.

36. Royksopp - "Happy Up Here" from Junior

Airy, goofy dance music, which is what these guys have always specialized in.

35. Kid Cudi feat Ratatat & MGMT - "Pursuit of Happiness" from Man on the Moon

Yes, I know there's a music video for it, but considering it butchers the gorgeous, Ratatat-produced intro (and inexplicably features Drake instead of anyone else involved in the song), I'd just assume not link to it.

34. Miike Snow - "Animal" from Miike Snow

Three Nordic dudes who used to write for Britney Spears strike out on their own, to similar toe-tapping effect.

33. Beirut - "My Night With the Prostitute from Marseilles" from March of the Zapotech

I was at Coachella for this, and as much as I enjoy the original, seeing it with live instrumentation added a lot more. Would love to hear a studio edition of the full-band version soon.

32. Mr. Hudson feat Kanye West - "Supernova" from Straight No Chaser

It's been a rough year for Yeezy. But it's nice to be reminded that, when he's not being a media whore, the guy still helps craft some awesome music.

31. Wild Beasts - "All The King's Men" from Two Dancers

A bizarrely unhinged falsetto leads the way through this rollicking slice of primal, yet subdued rock from the British weirdos. And I mean "weirdos" as a compliment.

30. Matt & Kim - "Good Ol' Fashioned Nightmare" from Grand

This track features the couple doing what they do best: booming drums & seriously addictive piano melodies.

29. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Young Adult Friction" from The Pains of Being Pure At Heart

Delightful enough to make you enjoy bathing in a big pool of twee.

28. Girls - "Hellhole Ratrace" from Album

Not nearly as depressing as you might think.....especially the video, which feels like the best night out you & your friends have never had


27. Nico Vega - "Beast" from Nico Vega

This is the first & most likely the last time you'll see a link to Last Call With Carson Daley posted here. But it's worth it.

26. White Lies - "Farewell to the Fairground" from To Lose My Life


I didn't love this song til I heard it live; now it's my favorite on the album. Any band worth its salt should be able to perform that trick onstage.

25. The Big Pink - "Dominos" from A Brief History of Love


Their album's most obnoxious track is also, by far, its best. Just listen, and you'll hear what I mean.

24. Discovery - "Orange Shirt" from LP


LP's opening track is also one of the very best. There's no cool time-shifting like on "So Insane", but it kicks some of the richest base ever heard.

23. Here We Go Magic - "Fangela" from Here We Go Magic

It was an unexplected pleasure to hear these guys open for Grizzly Bear this year. They drew in the crowd at a slow, steady pace before whipping them into a froth with this number.

22. Phoenix - "Lasso" from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Not the album's most iconic track, but by far the catchiest.

21. White Rabbits - "Percussion Gun" from It's Frightening

It might be redundant to say this, but these are the coolest drums you'll hear all year.


20. Fever Ray - "If I Had A Heart" from Fever Ray

Do NOT click this link if you're about to go to bed. It's the stuff of nightmares. Literally.

19. Passion Pit - "Little Secrets" from Manners

Is it creepy that the chorus is just a bunch of little kids singing about keeping a grown man's secret? I'll choose to say no.


18. Awesome New Republic - "Dances When" from Hearts

Lots of folks complain that no one does good hooks anymore, so ANR wrote a song that's pretty much ALL hook. Good thing it's a damn good one.

17. Florence & The Machine - "Kiss With a Fist" from Lungs

Unquestionably the least PC song on this list, especially considering a little incident that went down between two pop stars in February. That said, it's also pretty sexy, in all the wrong ways.


16. Surfer Blood - "Swim (To Reach The End)" from the upcoming Astro Coast

These guys are one of the biggest bands to watch out for in 2010, and are leading a pack of Florida-bred rockers who are thankfully shaking up the Brooklyn scene. They've got a serious Blue Album-era Weezer vibe, with a heavy dose of surf rock (duh) to complete the package. Their debut LP comes out early next year.

15. Yeasayer - "Ambling Alp" from the upcoming Odd Blood (video NSFW)

Another highly anticipated album is Yeasayer's sophomore disk, which is already drawing buzz thanks to this little tease. Warning: quick, yet totally full-frontal nudity is in the video, but less the xxx kind, and more the "let's smear mud and be intergalactic hippies" kind.



14. Sleigh Bells - "Crown on the Ground" from the 2HELLWU EP

If there's one band out there who matches Surfer Blood's deafening buzz right now, it's definitely this duo, who somehow, some way, have figured out how to make low-fi fun again. You don't believe me? Watch the clip. And ignore that "Tom" dude. Sadly, I've never ridden a jackhammer before, but I imagine it feels a lot like this song. And that's a compliment.

13. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - "Home" from Up From Below

Everyone who sees this band for the first time falls in love with them by the time they play this song. Everyone without a heart of ice, that is.

12. Lady Gaga - "Dance in the Dark" from The Fame Monster

Like "Paparazzi", this is a track that silences a lot of critics complaining about a lack of substance beneath the new queen of pop's music. Mourning the shattered psyche of tragic public icons (Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, and Jonbennett Ramsey, to name a few), yet singing to the same masses that turned some of these people into bipolar recluses in the first place, the song reeks of the dark irony this woman's starting to excel at.

11. Jay-Z feat Alicia Keyes - Empire State of Mind" from The Blueprint III

Ah, memories......that is all.


10. Animal Collective - "Lion in a Coma" from Merriweather Post Pavilion

What a great phrase to describe that unnamed urge people get - only relieved through not just the obvious way, but also by creating, acting, singing, or writing your opinion for people on the internet to see. They were probably high when they though it up.


9. HEALTH - "Die Slow" from Get Color

The NEW best band to emerge from downtown LA's noise rock scene (now that they've starting using melodies) crafts one of the hardest rocking songs heard anywhere in music this year. It's the kind of stuff that would turn Slayer and Metallica fans into full-blown indie nerds within one track. Special Note: if the Fever Ray video gave you nightmares, this one might scar you for life, genius as it is, so I attached an alternate link to a live performance of the song right HERE. Luckily for the squemish, the live clip's pretty nifty in its own right.


8. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Skeletons" from It's Blitz!

This one was a showstopper at Coachella, and an album-stopper anytime I play it. It doesn't skip or anything; I just mean that it's really good.


7. The xx - "Islands" from xx

The heart of the album is this ditty, which sounds like almost a reverse drum machine, until the beautiful duet takes over, and takes you somewhere dark and sad, but undeniably romantic. Kind of like the alley behind Mr. Chow's.


6. Grizzly Bear - "While You Wait for the Others" from Veckatimest

If it's not the most epic kiss-off song ever written, it's at least the most dramatic. But I think, by the time the final chorus kicks in, it qualifies for both. That said.....


5. Sunset Rubdown - "Dragon's Lair" from Dragonslayer

.....nobody does EPICCCCNESS!! quite like Spencer Krug. Dragonslayer's full of a lot of vibrant tracks, most notably the haunting "You Go On Ahead", but it's the album closer that once again shows off what this guy (and at this point, the rest of the band) is truly capable of. What's it about? I could answer it for you, but I have a feeling whoever you ask is going to come up with a different response. And that's what makes a near-ten minute opus like this awesome. The fact that the whole thing flies by is no surprise: despite the length, there's nary a wasted minute. The same could be said of Krug himself: watch the clip for a glimpse at why this guy is my favorite person to watch live on the planet. Even if he weren't singing, you feel like the whole song could be conveyed through his face & body language. Then the song ends, and like that, he disappears again.


4. Animal Collective - "What Would I Want? Sky" from the Fall Be KindEP

I was lucky enough to be at the Troubadour the night this performance was shot, and yes, it was pretty much as glorious as it looks. Surprisingly, now that it's finally been put down in the studio, it retains its ridiculously long intro (damn near four minutes!), but ups the pay-off once the verse finally kicks in. The lyrics that follow are probably the most beautiful and uplifting the band has produced yet. PS: leave it to Animal Collective to choose the most random Grateful Dead sample ever. Yes, I know it's actually the first ever, but you gotta admit, it's also pretty random. Not that I'm complaining.


3. Dirty Projectors - "Stillness is the Move" from Bitte Orca

I had no clue what to make of this track when I first heard it, completely out of context from Bitte Orce, and in many ways, I still don't. It just has one of those sounds one finds it hard to believe someone pulled from thin air to create. Dave Longstreth is probably one of the few who actually could, and yet he hands the song over to Amber Coffman, whose delicate voice could have wilted under the demands of the song (and for whatever reason, often appears to in youtube clips of their live act; thus the link to the weirdo music video instead), but instead, on the record, rises to the occasion in genuinely surprising ways. "Useful Chamber" might well be the album's climax, and the place where all of Longstreth's ideas best convene, but with "Stillness is the Move", he exercises restraint, which in this case, goes a long way. By the end of the song, you feel as though you haven't just heard great pop music, but something that might just change pop music entirely.


2. The Dead Weather - "Treat Me Like Your Mother" from Horehound

Horehound might be an album that peaks way too early, but thankfully, that peak is the size of Mt. Everest. No one rocked harder this year than the Dead Weather does on this track. Aside from HEALTH, no one even came close. In addition to being a genuine thrasher, however, there's subversive gender bending at work too, not just in the lyrics, but also in the vocal mixing. At many points in the song, you have no idea if it's Jack White, Allison Mosshart, or some melted combo of both screeching to the high heavens. As if these two needed any more badass points, the accompanying video (at the link) is also the coolest one released in 2009. By the time it finally becomes an R-rated Road Runner cartoon (not to give anything away), you're too giddy to do anything but go along for the ride. Maybe what's most thrilling about the track is the evidence that, after a decade of establishing himself, Jack White is still capable of surprising us- and apparently, himself as well.


1. The Horrors - "Sea Within A Sea" from Primary Colours

At the heart of their new album, The Horrors craft an eight minute masterpiece that starts with steady percussion and simple guitar strumming, ripped straight from the beat era, before both are drowned out by a growing fog of distortion. Without the intro, Faris Badwan's opening lyrics about walking alone "on wicked stone" might carry all the impact of a 15 year old goth girl scribbling into a journal. But with the sinister haze of the full band enveloping him, it's all mighty convincing. If the song stayed there for another seven minutes, it would remain an incredibly fun, bass-driven garage oddity. But jagged guitar spasms eventually overtake the bass and vocals until the song explodes at the midway point, sounding like a mini-apocalypse. And once the dust settles, the synthesizer finally kicks in. That might not sound like a glorious finale on paper, but the way Tomethy Furse plays it, especially in context, you'd think you were hearing the instrument for the first time. Once the rest of the band follows Furse's lead, they create a sound so pure, the first time I heard the song, I wanted it to last an hour. In truth, it only lasts another two minutes, so all I could do was hit repeat, and start the whole thing over again. At that moment, I was fairly certain I'd just heard the best song of 2009. Eight months and countless plays later, I know it is. For all their newfound maturity, The Horrors are still a band that revels in parlor tricks, many of which can be found in spades on "Sea Within A Sea". But when tricks are this damn effective, they cease to be tricks, and instead feel like pure magic. By the way, if turn off the lights, click the link, fullscreen the video, and prepare accordingly, you'll feel like you're riding Space Mountain. Just a friendly FYI.