It boils down to little more than sport, these end-of-year lists, but much as the pretzel-twisting of the rules to suit whims is a semi-regular occurrence and often welcome, the trick is not to junk all of it as the rules are what makes it fun.
I picked tracks (not necessarily singles) although most of them probably are. I kept away from subgenres others are bound to tackle (Asian pop, for one, so no Shina Ringo, although Ariamaru Tomi cooks) to avoid overlap. In some places, as the title of the piece suggests, I’ve stretched the definition of what constitutes ‘indie’ out of how nobody can really break that down to a science and put an exact bead on whether ‘indie’ is defined by record label size, aesthetic, philosophy, politics, or even genre, and also out of how rock and roll has always been served well by a little misbehaving and thrashing a hotel room or two. Other than that, the lineup is in ascending order, summing up my year in pop music - which it all boils down to anyway - without getting me all that itchy for disclaimers.
10. Celebration by Madonna (from Celebration)
There’s nothing particularly risky nor glorious about it - place-holding Oakenfold-fed technofluff, nothing more - but on the cusp of severing ties with her label, Madonna rediscovering the hedonistic abandon of getting into the groove bodes well for all tomorrow’s parties.
9. Siamese by Wye Oak (from The Knot)
‘ …‘Cause if you leave or I leave you , I lose my life and lose you too…’ The double exposures and Yo La Tengo parallels come easy after you find out that Wye Oak are a real life couple, too, singing about couples in crisis. But none of the songs on their superlative second album come close to matching this one for the way its prettiness infiltrates your defenses and squeezes your broken heart dry.
8. Headache byGirls (from Album) and You And I by Wilco with Feist(fromWilcoThe Album)
Emotionally and sonically naïve, but also beautiful, Christopher Owens’ (who is essentially all of Girls) Zombie (the band, not the trendy horror cliche) pastry is plucked from a record of tiny gems that would outshine it in every way except maybe in the ache of its utopian yearn – ‘I only want to be with you all of the time.’ This, and Jeff Tweedy’s duet with Feist, bunched together for a reason other than to just sneak one more song in, tingle with both the universal desire to escape into a fantastic planet of love all your own, with its imminent possibility.
7. Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z with Alicia Keys
A valentine to New York that neither devalues nor supersedes Sinatra’s, but does get to roam around more. If it finds Jay-Z at somewhat of a loss for the words we’re used to hearing from him, Alicia’s transcendent chorus makes the whole piece soar to such great heights that none of that really matters.
6. I’m Sorry Baby But You Can’t Stand In My Light Anymore by Bob Mould (from Life and Times)
A kiss-off that somehow manages to both wear its own sense of defeat proudly like a badge, and wield the other party’s sense of loss like a weapon. Bob Mould back in form. Not that he was ever out of it.
