We're in post-Local Natives, post-Lord Huron territory almost immediately on Gold Spectacles debut single, "Steal You Away". Of course, this means we're post-post-Vampire Weekend (first album, mind you) and post-post-post-Graceland once the suggestive bass pickups launch "Steal You Away" down its relentlessly sunny path. The lyrical image is heavy-handed: dusting off suitcases, tying up boot laces, shitty Sunday mornings, the necessity of getting with and away. It's kidnapping, the title, plain and simple. But somehow this darkness never captures the dark. Even a final, grittier guitar adds only a bit of sand to the gloss, a shimmering and catchy bit of global pop.
A looping and brilliantly exotic slice of pop, Slow Machete's "Grey Eyed Bird" emerges from a cacophony of samples to coalesce into a brilliant, organized architecture. The project is a mixture of six Haitian vocalists and DC-based producer, Joseph Shaffer. The outcome is something that is equal parts Lord Huron, Pela (the vocals especially recall the "The Trouble With River Cities") and Tune-Yards. The difference here is the moral authority, not exclusively Western, Developed-World artists doing Developing World pop. The globe trotting proves decent and equitable, not the unintentionally exploitative pseudo-imperialism of a band like Vampire Weekend. Given that Arcade Fire's coming record is said to be inspired by Haitian rhythms, it makes sense to get closer to the essence, a project in which Slow Machete appears to be actively engaged.
Welcome to our annual countdown of the 50 best songs of the calendar year. Songs must be from an EP, LP or demo released during 2012 and no band may appear twice. Today, we count down 40 to 31.
Howth, all rich with horns and moral victories offered the outlines of a clandestine financial reserve on glittering single, "Secret Goldmine". A down-stroke guitar and drums cribbed from the National's catalog, "Secret Goldmine" was an unrequited love song, pitched at the last minute in hopes that the feeling would be mutual. "I'm thrilled to be your secret goldmine," was code for something else: unconditional and long form duets.
39. Maps and Atlases - "Fever"
In a year lacking big, bold rock songs, "Fever" did its best to roll the collective windows down and jam the collective accelerator pedal to the collective floor. It was supposed to be a transfiguration, a dreamed moment when the "Fever" passed and we were a more reasonable, less knee-jerk, rational species. Of course, the wailing guitars and slamming drums did little in this stead. "Fever" passed, tipping five minutes, but not without the break that comes in the middle of the night and at high temperature.
Donora, a Pittsburgh band with brash enough chops to make a name for themselves on the national scene, broke through in 2012 with a rigorous touring schedule and a singular moment on, "And Then The Girls". There was an argument that it was the year's best chorus, a refrain that drove over and over and over at the same idea: the title lyric in falsetto, four notes in play and all of them pleasing to the ear. It was maybe vapid, but so was Le Tigre, and "And Then The Girls" recalled a glossy riot grrl chic, girls in revolt but tastefully done.
For anyone waiting on the Future Islands record that never came in 2012, Mirror Talk was the baritone synth pop of which your dreams were made. Rooted in an oblique question - "Is it true love?" (and the comma placement or lack there of made all the difference) - "Choose Life" was the grinding, industrial jam to architect the last stages of a disaster. It was New Order for kids that knew New Order; it was Future Islands for people that already loved Future Islands.
36. Eliza and the Bear - "Brother's Boat"
The insistent opening guitar chords of "Brother's Boat" announced the arrival of Eliza and the Bear. It was post-Mumford pop, folk music with a touch of bombast, Edward Sharpe without all the commercial overtones. The final explosion, "Just let it go," was built for Beasts of the Southern Wild, an anthem for where the wild things actually were.
35. Princeton - "Remembrance Of Things To Come"
Princeton does baroque pop better than anyone in indie rock and "Remembrance Of Things To Come" was no exception. It was all build and no payoff, strings frantically chasing a syncopated piano progression around a falsetto vocal. It was indie rock for a string quartet, things lost and forgotten or, as the band suggested, those memories yet to be made.
34. Oberhofer - "HEART"
No one went more for broke in indie rock this year than Oberhofer on "HEART". The all caps title was an overture, an introduction, to what was a twitchy and bombastic arrangement. The final movement, one of the best 90-seconds of music this year, was a crashing, tumbling conclusion to an already bold arrangement. It was about losing love, a shuddering coda to a brilliant bit of somber pop, Bradley Oberhofer cooing down the back of the disaster.
33. Chairlift - "I Belong In Your Arms"
There is a world where Chairlift's "I Belong In Your Arms" was the single best song of 2012, a glittering bit of synth pop built for an 80s movie that was never made. Like The Chocolate War, the gags are slapstick and the allegories are hard to miss, Polachek and her crew making a crystalline arrangement that drives restlessly forward like a lost and improved Kate Bush single.
32. Lord Huron - "Time To Run"
Things fell apart internally in 2012, or at the very least, continued their pattern of utter instability. So pardon Lord Huron for looking outward on lead single, "Time To Run," a banging and clattering slice of world pop that served a bit of footnoted notice to bands like Local Natives and Vampire Weekend. The truth was out there, to be sure, a mixture of love and loss in the service of foreign interests and neocolonial ideas.
In the era of the overly certain opinion, "How Do I Know" presented a pleasant countretemps. All about not knowing if she or he was the one, Here We Go Magic offered a bit of indecision - and this is completely absurd because "How Do I Know" is also so clearly a love song - in a time and place where everyone, everywhere, all the time, has a take.
Jonquil came late to the world music meets indie rock party. Arriving after Vampire Weekend, after Local Natives, even after Lord Huron and so many others, the band's tropical pop could quite reasonably have been lost in the collective shuffle of post-Graceland bands. Unless, of course, the band wrote songs with barbed hooks and choruses that skittered around like a runaway piece of ice on your kitchen floor. "Mexico," a song described by at least one close friend of mine as, "so close to being terrible while still being awesome," has here been reimagined by Fort Romeau with the winking Paul Simon reference, "Graceland edit." The warm horns come on in waves, the original song deconstructed and then built piece by tactile piece: First, thumping kick drum and a flirty high hat, then bongos, and, finally, horn punches cribbed right out of "Boy In The Bubble" notebook. Then the deconstruction begins anew, Fort Romeau stripping the arrangement down to its studs and building it again, the sort of creative destruction that make people imagine lasers in the jungle or distant constellations dying the corner of the sky.
Afro-pop turns beautifully glossy in the hands of Sydney, Australia band Jinja Safari. A blend of Mumford and Sons harmonies, Jonquil'sGraceland affectations and the holier-than-thou elevation of bands like Lord Huron and Local Natives, Jinja and "Head In A Blender" aren't only the latest to do this type of miasmatic world music, but they might be one of the best. With a string of one-off singles on their Soundcloud page that are as unexpectedly charming as any band since Fanfarlo's debut demos, the band channels a pleasant tribalism as unoriginal as it is entirely satisfying, the kind of thing that reminds A&Rs why they have a rolling office chair to push back from their desks. "Head In A Blender" features an austere little guitar line behind layers and layers of vocals, a marching beat setting the stakes for a sort of journey where there are stories in the soil and where the lyrics "got caught up in the bloody pursuit of truth" mean absolutely everything. The final movement swings and sways before hurling itself out into the ether, chimes and echos left to sort out the details.
Taking a page out of the Free Energy playbook in the eponymous naming of their debut single, Norwegian outfit Young Dreamslift their sonic influences from Vampire Weekend's glittering world pop and tribalism that makes the second half of Lord Huron's songs so satisfying. A recent signee to Modular People, the band just Friday released their first free promotional single. This goes a long way to say something simple: "Young Dreams", initially built on a lonely guitar line, eventually opens wide like an updated Rhythm of the Saints, centering on the lyric, "We'll live forever". The architecture is warm and dusty, synth loops pulse and drums pound and the guitar ascension rings joyful. The final act coheres all these influences, revealing a panting and brilliant conclusion which - and these are their ideas - we'll assume is immortal.
It was after 11 p.m. at a rapidly filling Mercury Lounge and we were at least three layers down in the world-music permafrost. The first dulcet tones of Lord Huron’s stunning single “Mighty” played over the PA as the band marshaled itself slowly and even a little deliberately to the stage. The sound was post-colonial, of the same type that Paul Simon used so effortlessly on Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints—the same beautiful simulacra of Eastern and Southern Hemispheres that Vampire Weekend used later, although with an admittedly updated set of influences.
Lord Huron, an L.A. band I’m certain a hack music publicist would describe as Silverlake Soweto, proved to be both of and above this venerable cannon of White Guys Playing World Pop. “Mighty” swelled big enough, like many of the band’s compositions, to melt any frosty comparisons to old bands, even if the derivation was obvious and unhidden. The crowd rollicked to the band’s first two songs, the aforementioned “Mighty” and the upstroke “Into the Sun.”
LA's Lord Huron released two of the finest EPs of 2010, one even called Mighty, the perfect name for such a strong grouping of songs. We shot some emails back and forth with singer and writer Ben Schneider, who reflects on taking his music to the stage and why engaged people don't deserve to drown. His words and some of his songs after the jump.
Wolf Parade released perhaps their last and perhaps their best record, 2010's Expo 86. Lovers of the Apologies-era Wolf Parade found something in this smoother, darker version of the band. On "Ghost Pressure," haunting, frozen synths dance around the ceiling like spectres before a playful, upstroke chorus implies that this paranormal activity might not be all bad, "Little vision come shake me up, shake me up." Dan Boeckner spends the song's final two minutes in a direct conversation with these chilly keyboards, barking about swarms of bees and this imminently altering vision.
Uber-pretentious Brooklyn duo, Tanlines forecast a world in which we are perpetually promising to begin anew. It seemed that this urban-tribal pop was all the rage in 2010 and no one did it better than the two-some with the bad habit of saying about New York, "Um, yeah, we're from here." Despite their weak stage banter, the band proved a winner with "Real Life," and its concurrent assurance, "It was a passed life thing, it was a passed life thing." For New York kids with a ton to work on, it wasn't a flawed promise. For a song with nothing but sweetness in its borders, it wasn't anything at all.
28. Various Cruelties - "If It Wasn't For You"
A slice of throwback pop and a conditional message about love, Various Cruelties delivered one of the catchiest singles of the year with "If It Wasn't For You." The backing swells with some well-intentioned keys playing the role of strings. We can't promise this band will explode in 2011, but with a one-off this good, it would be an absolute shame if they didn't.
In the 2008 version of this list, we listed Temper Trap's "Sweet Disposition" in the 20s. There was no clear sense that the song was not only the song of that year, but, in all probability, one of the best rock songs of the last ten years. On Mr. Little Jeans' "Rescue Song," we can't be certain of a similar explosion of this one song, but what is certainly true is that this girl is a comer, destined to invade your 2011 in a bizarre combination of Lykke Li and Feist. Put simply, if you're not ready, be ready.
26. Oberhofer - "I Could Go"
If repetition is the soul of pop music - and those songs we take most seriously to heart, those we hear most serially - then Brad Oberhofer is the dealer of this new brand. On "I Could Go," one of the most unbelievably catchy songs of 2010, Oberhofer utters twinkling keys behind a motivated rock arrangement that finally explodes into a million little pieces. It was the most explosive, true indie rock of the year and for that there are no apologies or explanations.
The mixture of Andy Hull and Kevin Devine didn't result in a fantastic record, but it generated a stunning and erupting single from Bad Books. The initial acoustic underpinnings hide all of the final thrashing aesthetic of the chorus and its singular message about things being either so good or so bad that you, well, shouldn't have to ask. An attention span under two minutes doesn't stop "You Wouldn't Have To Ask" from being one of the best rock songs of 2010.
24. The New Pornographers - "We End Up Together"
In all probability the New Pornographers made 2010's best song to characterize a fracturing and faithful American landscape. We are both certain that we are screwed, and for the damage that will necessarily ensue, and yet we are unavoidably in favor of our own co-dependence. Yes, we are for damage, sweet damage, and yet, in the midst of what might be our favorite but not best song of the year, we will all be in the same boat as we fly over the top of the falls.
It was club music for the kids partying at the bottom of the local swimming pool. Twin Sister was cold medicine techno for kids with down-stroke sensibility and affection for a laissez-faire female vocalist only matched by Victoria Legrand. The bass line was out to lunch and the guitars were only built to shuffle feet. The sea sick vocals and Dramamine synths were what made this unique, one of the few songs to encourage and demand our attention from a New York band with nothing but future in front of them.
Opening with the persistent rain that colors none of the rest of "Mighty," Lord Huron, LA's answer the Vampire Weekend problem so aptly posed by the band of the same name in 2007, offered nothing but sunshine on their most stunning single of 2010. "Mighty" was to indie rock what the Lion King was to the world of animated movies in the mid-1990s. Certainly it was full to brim, and unapologetically so, but it was the pop swell of the chorus that stuck well beyond the pop of the moment.
21. Stornoway - "I Saw You Blink"
Stornoway produced not only one of the great folk records of 2010, but two of the great singles, "Zorbing" and "I Saw You Blink." After weeks of internal debate and much fuss, we decided that "I Saw You Blink" was the superior of the two, leaving "Zorbing" out in the cold with its artistic integrity and pop-hooks as its only sustenance. Well, we have no such grandiose vision. "I Saw You Blink" is one of the best singles of the year. Beyond that - Lucy, whoever you are - we refuse to provide answers to the band's central question. We assume "the one," is in all of us and out there somewhere for everyone.
Remember the fall of 2009, when Vampire Weekend's "Horchata" snuck onto your hard drive and exploded with a burst, like the first warm days of spring? What about October 1990, when Paul Simon'sRhythm of the Saints did the same thing for a generation of music fans still so stunned by Graceland that they claimed the follow up was somewhat underwhelming?
Los Angeles' Lord Huron has broken through the clouds with the a similar impulse, if without the catalogue of Simon or the 2010 commercial success of Vampire Weekend. On "Mighty," he uses the same polyrythmic impulses and tribal flair to create a nearly six-minute meditation on the power of youth. It glitters and soars, sounding like Yeasayer taking on "The Obvious Child," with all the boldness and clarity of an artist certain of his own power. One of the year's best songs, "Mighty" will clear your tangled mind, brighten the darkest corners, stunning to submission the doubters and converting the wicked.
