Best Of 2009: Top 50 Songs (#1-10)

Here we go, people of the world.  This week reveals my Top 50 songs of the year (singles or otherwise, probably mostly otherwise).  I decided to take a similar approach to last year’s Mario Lemieux or Satan inspired 6 Words For 66 Songs, but I changed up the format slightly.  Obviously, instead of 66 songs I’ve totalled the number at 50, and instead of 6 words, each song’s description will be constructed from 50 characters or less (feel the influence of Twitter here).  I’ll do 10 songs a day for the week, until all 50 are taken care of.  Some other self-prescribed rules for this list:  all songs come from 2009 or late 2008 (as far as I know); no two songs by the same artist; no songs from last year’s list (if those songs were re-released this year on other albums or whatever).  That’s it.

I don’t have my server up.  I’ve uploaded these 10 songs as a .zip file here.  You can probably find 95-100% of these songs on the internet at places like The Hype Machine or on Blip.  Or you can ask me for them.

Songs appear in no particular order.

1.
“Road Regrets”
by Dan Mangan

Holy shit, best roadtrip starter of all time.

2.
“Sovereignty”
by Japandroids

Official song: Living in Victoria this past year.

3.
“Too Many Birds”
by Bill Callahan

New meaning made by adding one. Word. At. A. Time.

4.
“MIA”
by Emmy The Great

Hook is too great to leave out. 1st one I heard.

5.
“Ambitions”
by Donkeyboy

“I might go…  …Donkeyboy is gonna play.”

6.
“All We Want, Baby, Is Everything”
by Handsome Furs

Brilliant, clever reinvention of one of the best.

7.
“Hyph Mngo (Original Mix)”
by Joy Orbison

Moves through your body like hot blood.

8.
“The Bachelor”
by Patrick Wolf

Like watching a film, what with the BG sounds.

9.
“Gimme Sympathy”
by Metric

Despite some LP aversions, everything here rules.

10.
“Postcards From Italy (Cover)”
by Florence + The Machine

A crushing take.  Watch leaves fall.

[Image comes from Black & WTF]