Rankstravaganza 2014: My 30 favorite songs of the year
20. “Let It Out,” Black Prairie
When Colin Meloy is off writing children’s books or appearing in Bob Mould videos or whatever, the other members of The Decemberists stay busy by backing singer/violinist Annalisa Tornfelt. I keep seeing Black Prairie classified as a bluegrass group, but there’s very little that’s high and lonesome about this particular track. I guess the presence of accordion qualifies it as folk rock, but the emphasis in on rock.
19. “Zigzagging Toward the Light,” Conor Oberst
I’m so glad this wasn’t released under the name Bright Eyes. Much less embarrassing.
18. “Fever,” The Black Keys
Another case of Akron’s finest doing what they do, and doing it well. Keep up the good work, fellas.
17. “Time,” Jungle
It’s tempting to say that London-based Jungle only got so huge because the electro-soul collective’s founding duo refused for a long time to leak any personal details about themselves, and the U.K. music press went predictably nuts trying to get to the bottom of the “mystery.” It’s also tempting to say that their whole “Who we are is just a distraction from the artistry, man” posturing was an inspired act of Internet-age marketing. But let’s remember that nobody would give a hoot that two anonymous dudes posted a video to YouTube if the music weren’t supremely catchy and funky.
16. “Back to the Shack,” Weezer
This song is no less pandering than anything else Weezer has done over the last decade. It’s just that, this time, they’re pandering to folks like me who bought the Blue Album as teenagers, blasting it with the windows down as we sat in the line of cars waiting to get out of the high school parking lot. Rivers: You had me at, “Rockin’ out like it’s ’94.”
15. “Tin Foiled,” Andrew Bird
This year, violinist and songwriter Andrew Bird decided to release a cover album. And not just any cover album, but an album of songs by fellow Chicago musicians The Handsome Family. There is surely a rather limited market for such a collection, but count me among the few people at the center of the venn diagram representing the acts’ overlapping fanbases. Bird really does an excellent job of putting his own charming spin on the macabre alt-country duo’s material.
14. “Unconditional Love,” Against Me!
Going well beyond simply acknowledging the genderqueer elephant in the room, the Florida punk band made an entire concept album about the anxiety, angst and abuse that comes with being a woman in a man’s body. Many of the tracks address singer Laura Jane Grace’s coming out as a transgender woman more directly than this song, but the chorus—“Even if your love was unconditional, it still wouldn’t be enough to save me”—captures notions of anger, self-loathing, and parental and/or religious acceptance. It’s all set to the tune of jaunty triplets that gives the song a distinct Celtic rock vibe.
13. “Spinners,” The Hold Steady
Craig Finn sure knows how to write a great song about being young and fucked up in the big city. In this case, the subject is a woman “two years out of some prairie town” who dresses up and hits the clubs almost every night, lets guys buy her drinks, and never lets any relationship get serious. I love the little details Finn throws in, which make the song a whirl of “flat champagne and inbound trains.”
12. “Blue Moon,” Beck
It’s not a cover of the pop standard—although hearing Beck put the bomp in the bomp-ba-bomp would no doubt be entertaining. Rather, it’s exhibit A for why Morning Drift is Sea Change’s sanguine, lush cousin.
11. “Do It Again,” Röyksopp & Robyn
How I’d like to imagine it went down:
Big-Shot Exec from Dog Triumph Records: “Take this down: The ultimate dance EP. I want it poppy, I want it dark, I want it sexy, and I want it Scandinavian. Get me whatsherface from Sweden and those Norwegian weirdos. This is gonna be huge. Huge I tells ya!”
