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Menomena - "Queen Black Acid"
On "Queen Black Acid," Justin Harris sings easily the best line of the year: "You're five-foot-five not a hundred pounds / I'm scared to death of every single ounce." It's a simple lyric, but in this narrative it proves to be devastating, carrying with it a weight of emotion and regret further emphasized by the sparse soundscape of the song: a lone strummed guitar and the wandering inconsistent snap of the drums.
Joanna Newsom - "Baby Birch"
"Baby Birch" is another heartbreaker—a nine-and-a-half-minute epic ballad that closes out the first of
Have One On Me's three records. The song—about a path not taken and the consequences and regret that ensue—burns sparsely and slowly before kicking in the door around the six-minute mark with a drum, hand-clap and electric guitar climax dressed in the violent imagery of a butcher and barber “cutting away at my only joy.”
Cults - "Go Outside"
If you read music blogs, you've most likely heard this song in excess this year. But it's for good reason. The hooks are sharp, the lyrics are easy to remember, and the beat always swings and propels forward as if en route to a better place and time. Led by a simple xylophone riff, these young musicians have crafted one of the more memorable pop tunes of recent memory. And the message couldn't be more perfect, contrasting the opening "it's living that's treacherous" quote from cult figurehead Jim Jones with the bright sun-filled possibilities of going outside—in other words, living and enjoying life to its fullest.
Kisses - "Bermuda"
LA duo Kisses—comprised of Princeton's Jesse Kivel and girlfriend Zinzi Edmundson—have crafted and refined disco music for the new century. While remaining highly danceable and blissfully enjoyable, there's no sense of the Studio 54 excess or glitter falling from the ceiling that plagued the late 1970s genre. Rather, the band succeeds, especially with the lush "Bermuda," because of its dual nature—part intimate bedroom pop, part expansive synthesizer-fueled cinematic beauty. Kivel's casual and deep resonance finds the perfect home with "Bermuda," gliding effortlessly above the bright flashing tones and tap of the drum-machine.
LCD Soundsystem - "Dance Yrself Clean"
"Dance Yrself Clean" is James Murphy's magnum opus. Dirty and visceral dance music produced and infused with all of the craftsman's smarts and best tricks. Perhaps no maneuver is more important than the volume control: Murphey's bongo, clack and cow bell intro is purposely set to an extremely low level, which on first listen might lead the listener to pump the volume back up—and that's exactly what he wants. Because when those elephant-sized synths finally arrive at the three-minute mark, its speaker breaking time. Hello tinnitus.
