My Top 100 Favorite Songs 2009 to 2018

It is the 10-year anniversary Behind the Scenes of the Sounds and Times, along with the introduction of my all-time Top 500 favorite songs list.  This original list (with two exceptions) covered 1965 to 2009, or 45 years of music; or, on average, about 11 songs per year. 

10 years later, it’s time to add to the Top 500.  Building a newly updated list that stuck to a 500 song limit was an option, but an awful one.  Awful because of the massive amount of work this would entail, but also because I could not stomach jettisoning these precious songs in favor of more recent ones, ostensibly because they are now “more favorite”.  No, the Top 500 is now sacrosanct in my mind, and cannot be meddled and muddled with.

So on to a new list, a complement to the old, with the following criteria:

• 100 songs, a nice round number that approximates an average of 10 songs per year.
• Songs released from 2009 to 2018.  Songs from 2019 are too fresh, with not enough listening time to warrant inclusion.
• Songs must be so loved by me that they would have warranted serious consideration for the original Top 500 had they existed back then.

As per usual practice now, you can find this list on Spotify here.  A couple notes, however, on the inevitable Spotify gaps and inconsistencies:

#2 Hold On – Alabama Shakes.  This crackin’, outrageously soulful rock song is considerably improved upon in the official video version.  This is how I first heard it, and when I picked up the album, the song felt like it lost some power.  The Spotify version is the album version.

#21 Celebration – Un Blonde.  My third favorite album from 2016 was Good Will Come To You, by Un Blonde, the moniker of unsung genius Jean-Sebastian Audet (well, maybe sometime sung in certain corners of the interwebs).  Audet changed his alias, however, to Yves Jarvis recently and Good Will Come is available on Spotify under this new identity, along with a new 2019 LP (The Same But By Different Means).

#33 Where We’re Going - Gashcat.  The horribly named Gashcat was the original outfit of the now solo Kyle Craft.  Craft, after disbanding Gashcat and moving to Portland from Louisiana, put out a couple of good glam-rockish albums on Sub Pop records over the past few years.  But Gashcat sounded to me like the second-coming of Neutral Milk Hotel (singing saw included) and I mourn the loss of an amazing band that never took hold.  Craft, in the process of reinvention, removed any and all official links to Gashcat’s debut Reunion! and follow up EP Devil Kid Demos (but did re-record “Lady of the Ark”).   The songs, thankfully, still persist on YouTube.  Listen to “Where We’re Going” here.

#54 We Have Failed – Elika.  I discovered this song on When the Sun Hits: 200,000 Gazes, a digital compilation of lesser known and/or unsigned shoegaze and dream pop artists (yours truly included, with my Green Palm Radiation track “Rachel Brook” appearing on the third issue, 300,000 Gazes, Vol. 2).  Elika has a lot of releases widely available in the digital world but this darkwave gem was always my favorite, and appears to be exclusive to the compilation.  Listen here.

And now, my Top 100 favorite songs, 2009 to 2018:

 

1 Swim Until You Can't See Land Frightened Rabbit The Winter Of Mixed Drinks

2 Hold On Alabama Shakes Hold On

3 Call It Dreaming Iron & Wine Beast Epic

4 Let's Play / Statue of a Man Mutual Benefit Love's Crushing Diamond

5 Written on the Forehead PJ Harvey Let England Shake

6 Yesterday's Fire Moonface Heartbreaking Bravery (with SIINAI)

7 Rill Rill Sleigh Bells Treats

8 Sprawl II  (Mountains Beyond Mountains) Arcade Fire The Suburbs

9 English Subtitles Swervedriver I Wasn't Born To Lose You

10 Avant Gardener Courtney Barnett How To Carve A Carrot Into A Rose EP

11 The Hair Song Black Mountain Wilderness Heart

12 Lorelai Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues

13 Surrounded By Your Friends Hooray For Earth Momo

14 I'm Not Talking A.C. Newman Shut Down The Streets

15 High School Lover Cayucas Bigfoot

16 So High Ringo Deathstarr Colour Trip

17 What Would I Want? Sky Animal Collective Fall Be Kind

18 Poor Old Lance Frank Fairfield Out On the Open West

19 Man On Fire Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros Here

20 Necronomicon Besnard Lakes A Coliseum Complex Museum

21 Celebration Un Blonde Good will come to you

22 I Don’t Know Sheepdogs Learn and Burn

23 Their Pie (Hawthorne Version) Mark Orton Nebraska

24 Clawing Out at the Walls Dominant Legs Young at Love and Life

25 Haze Angelo De Augustine Swim Inside the Moon

26 Invisible Republic Young Galaxy Invisible Republic

27 Cease To Know Eluvium Similes

28 45'S and 33'S Drew McIvor 45'S and 33'S - Porchlight

29 Disco-Slave Songs Two Koreas Science Island

30 The Ballad Of The Space Babies Jim Guthrie Sword & Sworcery LP - The Ballad of the Space Babies

31 Middle Sea Yuck Glow & Behold

32 Baby Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Mature Themes

33 Where We're Going Gashcat REUNION!

34 Albatross Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night

35 Getting Gone Mutual Benefit Skip A Sinking Stone

36 Waiting For Something To Happen Veronica Falls Waiting For Something To Happen

37 California EMA Past Life Martyred Saints

38 Back To You Twerps Range Anxiety

39 The Scene Between Go! Team The Scene Between

40 Blue Skies Kathryn Calder Kathryn Calder

41 Bad Texan Lucid Dream Compulsion Songs

42 Sun's Coming Down Ought Sun Coming Down

43 Lady of the Ark Kyle Craft Dolls of Highland

44 I Wonder? Swervedriver I Wasn't Born To Lose You

45 Line Them All Up Black Mountain IV

46 Zombie Langhorne Slim Lost at Last  Vol. 1

47 You Day Wave Headcase / Hard to Read

48 Voidfish (Plural) Rachel Rose Mitchell Voidfish (Plural) - Single

49 Carcassonne Angelo De Augustine Carcassonne

50 Lost Dreamers Mutual Benefit Skip A Sinking Stone

51 Freebird II Parquet Courts Wide Awake

52 Womb Adrianne Lenker abysskiss

53 Ascension I Break Horses Chiaroscuro

54 We Have Failed Elika 200,000 Gazes: Volume One

55 Oh, Naoko Sun Airway Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier

56 My Only Pains of Being Pure at Heart The Echo of Pleasure

57 Latin America Holy Fuck Latin

58 Bluebird of Happiness Ulrich Schnauss Missing Deadlines - Selected Remixes

59 Fool's Gold S. Carey Hundred Acres

60 Killer Crane TV On The Radio Nine Types of Light

61 The End of That Plants and Animals The End of That

62 Capacity Big Thief Capacity

63 Leonard Sharon Van Etten Tramp

64 The Park Secret Cities Strange Hearts

65 Feel Ty Segall Manipulator

66 Jigsaw Heart Elliott Brood Work and Love

67 Pedestrian At Best Courtney Barnett Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

68 You See Everything Low C'mon

69 Take It Slow Rogue Wave Delusions of Grand Fur

70 Ablaze School Of Seven Bells SVIIB

71 Feel You Julia Holter Have You in My Wilderness

72 The Mermaid Parade Phosphorescent Here's To Taking It Easy

73 Star Roving Slowdive Slowdive

74 An Impression No Age An Object

75 Halfway Home Broken Social Scene Hug Of Thunder

76 Don't Delete The Kisses Wolf Alice Visions Of A Life

77 Feel It All Around Washed Out Life of Leisure

78 Catamaran Candy Claws In The Dream Of The Sea Life

79 Blue Rose Amen Dunes Freedom

80 Cali in a Cup Woods Bend Beyond

81 Chinese Letter Ulrich Schnauss Missing Deadlines - Selected Remixes

82 Olympians Fuck Buttons Olympians 12"

83 Cover The Walls Internet Forever Internet Forever

84 Stay Close Delorean Subiza

85 Lovin' on an Older Gal Sonny & The Sunsets Tomorrow Is Alright

86 The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack Liars Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack

87 When We Were Alive Thermals Now We Can See

88 C'est La Vie No.2 Phosphorescent C'est La Vie

89 Valley Hump Crash No Age Everything In Between

90 She's Closer Than I've Ever Been Adam Franklin I Could Sleep For A Thousand Years

91 All Be Gone Buffalo Tom Quiet and Peace

92 Nothing Brings Me To My Feet Favourite Sons The Great Deal Of Love

93 Glass Jar Tristen Sneaker Waves

94 My Old Man Mac DeMarco This Old Dog

95 Ends of the Earth Lord Huron Lonesome Dreams

96 James Ex Cops True Hallucinations

97 Continental Breakfast Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile Lotta Sea Lice

98 Talking Backwards Real Estate Atlas

99 Your Type Alvvays Antisocialites

100 Young Blood Naked and Famous Passive Me - Aggressive You