Rankstravaganza: My 30 Favorite Tracks of 2012

20. “Time to Run,” Lord Huron

Fellow Michigan native Ben Schneider got a lot of love from NPR this year, which caught my attention. (Well, OK, that and the name. Like I’m not going to check out a musical project called Lord Huron.) Luckily, the music lived up to the hype. This song is designed to appeal to fans of lush folk-rock and hopeless romantics. I’m a bit of both, I’m afraid.

[free mp3 via Rocket Dog Blog]

19. “Ye Renew the Plaintiff,” Of Montreal

This maybe isn’t the most obvious choice from Paralytic Stalks, Kevin Barnes’ latest opus of self-loathing and dance beats. This track is nearly nine minutes long and bookended by a bunch of strange, halting, burbling, occasionally dissonant fragments. I kinda like those bookends, but everyone should be able to get behind the middle part, which rocks as hard as anything the Athens, Ga., band has ever put out.

18. “Special Forces,” Matt Jones & The Reconstruction

Funny story: At a recent show in Ypsilanti, Mich., my friend started harassing a tall guy who had stood directly in front of us. (She’s a confrontational sort and was only half serious…I think.) Later, another friend who lives in town mentioned that the tall guy was named Matt Jones. “Matt Jones! Of the Ypsilanti band Matt Jones & The Reconstruction?!” I exclaimed. I started looking around the bar for Jones so I could tell him how much I enjoyed his new album of thoroughly Michigan-esque folk-rock, but, alas, he was nowhere to be seen—no doubt driven away by my friend’s incessant needling. Perhaps he will write a song about the incident.

[mp3 available as a pay-what-you-want download via Bandcamp]

17. “My Murder, My Love,” The Coup

Oakland’s famed hip-hop crew returned after a six-year absence with a new collection of political, live-instrumentation, funky jams. This might be the funkiest (and least political) jam of the bunch. The chorus has a way of burrowing itself into my brain for days at a time. If you see a 6-foot-2 white dude walking down Lakeshore Avenue singing, “My murder, my sweet, what kind of pills did we eat?,” it’s probably me.

Catch The Coup live, opening for Erykah Badu, at 9 p.m. Dec. 31 at the Fox Theater in Oakland. Click for tickets.

16. “Out of the Game,” Rufus Wainwright

Wainwright has called Out of the Game the “most accessible, pop, playable, radio-friendly album I’ve ever made,” and, yup, he’s probably right. Like the other songs on the album, the title track is produced by British pop whiz Mark Ronson, which adds a playful sophistication to Wainwright’s songwriting. Unlike the other songs, I’m pretty sure the lyrics to this one are about checking out prostitutes on a street corner.

15. “Don’t Get Married Without Me,” Punch Brothers

Like so much of the acoustic quintet’s oeuvre, this song skirts the lines between traditional bluegrass, avant-garde composition and pop accessibility. All three pull at each other nearly to the breaking point, until the final product starts to seem like all of them and none of them at once. It’s a nifty trick. So is Chris Thile’s ability to make the lyrics, about a guy who wants all the benefits of a break-up with none of the sacrifices, seem sweet and charming. And, as always, the instrumental chops are impressive, to say the least.

14. “Danse Caribe,” Andrew Bird

Two years ago, I wrote a song that begins, “It’s hard to tell the hills from the clouds today.” One year later, Andrew Bird comes out with a song whose chorus is, “Here we go mistaking clouds for mountains.” The thing is, this Caribbean-inspired jig is so good I don’t even care that Bird stole my lyrical idea. And I’m not even the slightest bit jealous that he’s such a good songwriter/violinist/whistler. Not one iota. Nope.

13. “Blunderbuss,” Jack White

There are songs on Jack White’s first solo album that wouldn’t sound out of place on a White Stripes, Raconteurs or Dead Weather album. The title track isn’t quite one of them, though it is unmistakably White’s work. It’s a laid back, Zeppelin-esque, country-blues ballad, complete with a lovely pedal steel solo and surreal lyrics. It’s also maybe the best example of how the Nashville transplant was able to thrive on an album where he was free to follow his muse wherever it took him.

12. “I’ve Been Accused,” Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons

In the last year, I’ve started to receive a lot of submissions from musicians, even as my blog-posting frequency has plummeted. I still try to make an honest attempt to listen to everyone who takes the time to reach out to me, but this is the only submission I received this year that made it into heavy rotation. The fact that it was produced by Brendan Benson—a fellow Raconteur with Jack White and a fine power-pop songwriter in his own right—got my attention. The imminently singable chorus kept me coming back. The Wisconsin band even got a chance to perform the tune on Late Show with David Letterman, so I’m not the only one who has taken notice of Chisel’s agreeable brand of Americana.

11. “We Take Care of Our Own,” Bruce Springsteen

While not nearly as egregious the Reagan campaign’s appropriation of “Born in the USA,” I shook my head when I heard this song playing in the background of Obama’s re-election victory celebration. Like the Boss’ 1984 megahit, this latest single has a rousing, arena-ready chorus that can overshadow the pointed social criticism at its heart: that the American Dream has fallen out of reach for many people. I suppose that was part of the president’s message, and Bruce was such a strong Obama supporter he probably gave his blessing to use the song, but I think some of its nuances were lost amid the balloons and confetti.