2011's Best Songs (10-1)

The list continues from yesterday. That's right, winter break means hours and hours of needless writing for this overworked student. Listen, fam, I know it seems like I spend too much time putting together these lists, but this is what me doing me looks like. So, let's dive right into the best of the best.

Bonus Awards

Best Radio Song I Forgot To Include On This List

> "Look At Me Now" - Chris Brown (feat. Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne)

Best Music Blog Competitor

> Jacob

Best High-Profile Indie Singer-Songwriter Collaboration

> "Fall Creek Boys Choir" - James Blake & Bon Iver

Best Sing-Along Song

> "Guillotine" - Death Grips

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for:

the Top 10 Songs of 2011

10 | "Bizness" - tUnE-yArDs

On one especially harrowing night Spring semester, I spent three hours preparing a presentation on feminist identity politics and strategic essentialism, six hours writing a paper about the politics of experience and the poetry of June Jordan, and only two hours sleeping. You could say I was drained. Luckily, when I woke up, I checked my favorite music blog before checking my email, only to discover this song. Needless to say, I had the lyrics to "Bizness" memorized by the time I was pacing around in the hallway before my big presentation. This song's lingering energy kept me awake during my largely improvised lecture. By the time the presentation was over, I had already decided this was my new anthem. I mean, talk about confronting contemporary feminist politics of experience and making it sound as important as it is. This is confrontational, frenetic, and totally empowering music. The rallying cry for our generation.

09 | "Pictures" - G-Side (feat. G-Mane)

Now for something completely different. This marks the second time the ghost of Clams Casino haunts our Scrooge Listmas. And how! What might be G-Side's worst lyrical performance, an idiotic ode to sexting (yeah, that kind of "Pictures"), has been elevated to the grandest romantic celebration of all-time. Or not, because a song that contains the line "Wash my dick in the sink" isn't the grandest anything ever, but it sounds infinitely better than it should. Luscious synths and monstrous shouts ripple beneath the Alabama duo's ridiculous declarations ("Just send me a picture/Message received"). The success of this song isn't due to Clams' production alone, because A$AP Rocky takes this same beat and makes it sound dull. G-Side inject a special charm into this effervescent beat and make a simple sex song sound like a triumph.

08 | "Grease" - Future Islands

On their third release, On The Water, Future Islands' Sam Herring once again wears his bleeding heart on his sleeve. Once again, it sounds as gorgeous as it sounds broken. With a few grueling tours under his belt, he focuses his poetry on the perils of the road. Maybe it's my predilection for puns, but "The highways take a toll" sounds like the best line of the year to me. A sample of other lyrics reveals, "And I am growing old/I was a boy not long ago." If you can't handle that sort of straightforward sentimentality, I don't blame you. I would, however, lament your loss. This song carries itself assuredly toward its world-weary finale, sounding heroic the whole time. "Grease" closes with saccharine strings and sad-sack "whoas," a fitting end for a record that never once conflates melancholy with irony.

07 | "Palace" - A$AP Rocky

The bass drops before the hook does. It's a fittingly bombastic arrival for a rapper that promises to rejuvenate East Coast rap, most of whose stars probably have their 401(k)s sorted out by now. When the hook does drop, it's with messianic authority. This is undoubtedly my favorite instrumental of the year, courtesy of (you guessed it) Clams Casino. It sounds like nothing less than a choral announcement of the end-times, and A$AP absolutely devours it. He knows who he is, proclaiming his East Coast birthright and acknowledging the influence of Southern rap. By the end of the song he's grown confident that "the whole world gon be feelin' this." How could it not?

06 | "Shake It Out" - Florence + The Machine

We can talk about mass culture or Theodore Adorno or whatever you want. I'd rather talk about what is probably the best voice in pop music right now. Or how these lyrics contain more evocative imagery than the rest of the Top 40 combined. Or how no other hit singles can really compare to this song's paroxysmal chorus. If "Bizness" was my inspirational jam of the Spring, "Shake It Out" was my go-to motivational song for the Fall.  Sure, "it's always darkest before the dawn" would've been cliche even before The Dark Knight reclaimed the line in 2000-late. Sure, restraint might not exist in this dojo. Sure, the structure of this monster is totally predictable. None of this matters, because when her voice hits its peak at the song's climax, it feels like this is the first real pop anthem ever recorded.

05 | "Krawl" - Salem

Haters gon hate. "Krawl" is the rightful heir to the "Trapdoor" throne. I think most of the internet has agreed by now that Salem were a flavor-of-the-week buzz band, unable to transcend the parameters of witch-house, a genre that has already gone from hype to obscurity. Maybe they're right. Salem are obviously never going to be tasteful. They're never going to do anything but loud and noisy. Even so, "Krawl" is on some seriously fun steez. Like, I play it on repeat after IU victories. Like, I can't help but bounce between class when I listen to it. The lyrics are pretty much indiscernible, or gross nonsense when they are intelligible. There's no way I can make this sound appealing. Just play it loud.

04 | "Kaputt" - Destroyer

Weather Channel muzak, 80s softcore porn soundtracks, adult contemporary soft rock, lounge music, the jazz club scene from Anchorman... It all sounds like a dream to me. I've been listening to Dan Bejar since I was a freshman in high school, and he's always struck me as some sort of genius. His lyrics are much-praised because they're flashy, and often delivered with unabashed theatricality. On "Kaputt" he finally demonstrates the vocal restraint necessary to let the words sink in without sounding forced. The poetry is as good as ever, but now the music sounds as smooth as his wordplay. This song is just golden.

03 | "Countdown" - Beyoncé

Listen, B, if you weren't so darned talented as a singer and dancer, I'd have to spend this blurb talking about how your idea of female empowerment is what many feminists would call false consciousness. However, because being "all up in the kitchen in [your] heels" seems to me as obviously problematic as this song seems obviously perfect, I'll let it slide. And "Countdown" is perfect. It has more hooks than I know what to do with and moves faster than light. I'd write more about it, but there's only one real way to communicate how undeniable this song is: dancing.

02 | "Moving Machines" - Grouper

I always have a hard time explaining to people why Grouper is the artist nearest and dearest to my heart. "It's pretty" doesn't do justice to the subtlety of her songwriting or describe the sheer terror she inflicts with her noisier material. More than any other artist, Liz Harris makes the music I want to hear. While her double-album from earlier this year has a slew of standout tracks, her best yet was released later as a B-side to the Water People 7". Maybe it doesn't make sense how such a quiet song has captivated me. It probably sounds a lot like every other Grouper song you've heard.

I'll try to explain. The song reminds me of camping out on lazy summer nights, when we'd go to the water's edge or walk around beneath huge oaks decorated with fireflies. It reminds me of the gentle pings of the music box at my grandparents' old house. It reminds me of sleeping easy next to someone important. Not every Grouper song sounds this warm, but only a Grouper song could sound this warm.

This is a song about companionship. About sharing time and space. It also contains a couplet that could rip my heart out: "Sing about watching the moon grow full/And making patterns in the water." Maybe I still haven't explained Grouper's appeal to you, but I hope you can at least appreciate how "Moving Machines" might transport you to a sacred place.

01 | "Marvins Room" - Drake

If this was my Summer Jam, what does that say about my summer? If I felt like Drake understood what I was going through better than almost anyone else, what does that say about my mentality? If I still think this is the best song of the year, what does that say about my tastes? Probably nothing good. The comparison doesn't really need be made, but this is 2011's "Runaway." This is Drake's thesis statement. I was a little dumbstruck when "Marvins Room" was released as the first taste of Take Care. I was expecting something, well, a little more like "Headlines" (which should be on this list). Instead, we were handed a dark piece of Drizzy's headspace, an honest lamentation about blackout regrets and lost love.

I should talk a little bit about the luxuriously womb-like production, which Drake somehow transforms into a cold shower. On Weezy's remix, he reveals the song's potentially comforting synths for what they are: loving. On Take Care, the instrumental sounds like the icy rejection of countless ex-lovers. "Are you drunk right now?" becomes a mixture of empathy, loathing, and worry all at once.

Even though it cuts off the fittingly cheesy piano coda, I prefer the song's music video. The video's slow-motion climax captures both the faded sensation of crawling through a bar and the sluggish emotionality of heartbreak. While the song seems like a bummer now, I needed its comfort over the summer when I was making my first drunken mistakes and wondering what exactly I stood to gain from bad decisions. Only a few months later I feel plenty wiser, but thing song remains my jam.

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12 Days Of Listmas 2011 continues:

Best Concerts

Best Music Videos

Best Songs (25-11)

Best Albums [coming soon]