{"id":2648,"date":"2018-01-01T13:44:35","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T21:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/?p=2648"},"modified":"2019-07-17T00:20:22","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T07:20:22","slug":"rankstravaganza-2017-my-top-30-songs-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/2018\/01\/rankstravaganza-2017-my-top-30-songs-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Rankstravaganza 2017: My Top 30 Songs of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Here<\/a>
Here she is. The artist who put out my No. 1 song of 2017. Acting all coquettish.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even the shittiest of years can produce moments of musical transcendence. The tumult of 1968 gave us Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison<\/em>, Sweetheart of the Rodeo <\/em>and Bookends<\/em>, for starters. Stephen Foster probably wrote some pretty melody or other in 1861. And in 2017, there were these 30 songs that I fell in love with. Some are firmly rooted in the current alternate-timeline nightmare that, somehow, no time traveler has managed to yet fix. Some just have a good beat and you can dance to it.<\/p>\n

As I always make a habit of pointing out, my rankings are semi-objective, based on the number of times that I actually played a track plus a convoluted handicapping system to give a boost to songs released later in the year. This year, the shameless pop song that caps this list would have been No. 1 with or without the assist. And I have to own that. I mean I do. I am proud to put out this list with that song at the top. Blast it with the car windows down.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

30. “Freeze Me,” Death From Above<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

First off, there\u2019s the story<\/a> of how Death From Above finally dropped the \u201c1979\u201d from its name. It involves \u201cFreeze Me\u201d and an ice cube tray, and it is glorious. It\u2019s everything we\u2019ve come to expect from the snotty Toronto dance-punk duo. So is this song. DFA has always been all about heavy riffs undergirded by vaguely disco-inspired beats, and the band clearly sees no reason to switch up the formula at this point\u2014two albums into a well-received reunion.<\/p>\n