A song I'd heard a hundred times before

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that I agonize over these year-end mixes. It takes enough time and consideration to make a mix that, at least in theory, someone would like even if they've never heard any of these songs before, and it takes even more time to get the running order exactly right and the cover made. What puts the most pressure on this is that the most important part of these mixes are that they're a time capsule of my year. I often go back to the ones I'd made in the past and relive my year, so I want to make sure that it's a perfect musical document of my year. And so I agonize about getting it right.

This year's mix was especially stressful. Yeah, that's right: stressful. I was feeling stressed over the decision of whether to put on one of my favorite songs of the year, a song that's over nine minutes long, and have to leave off others. I broke a sweat over whether to include my latest favorite from an album, or an initial favorite. Ultimately, I trusted the instinct that told me which song said "2005" to me, and I'm comfortable that, years from now, when my life is being dissected by historians, they'll find that this mix is a perfect musical representative of my year.

As always, any thoughts or comments would be great. See the first comment for notes.

Enjoy...

2005: Listening Too Long To One Song
“Extraordinary Machine” by Fiona Apple
“Hey Now Now” by the Cloud Room
“Sing Me Spanish Techno” by the New Pornographers
“Chicken Payback” by the Bees
“Huddle Formation” by the Go! Team
“Apply Some Pressure” by Maximo Park
“Fake Palindromes” by Andrew Bird
“Do the Whirlwind” by Architecture in Helsinki
“Black Tambourine” by Beck
“The Sporting Life” by the Decemberists
“The Music Next Door” by the Lucksmiths
“Since K Got Over Me” by the Clientele
“Mushaboom” by Feist
“Sing for Me” by the Fiery Furnaces
“In a Manner of Speaking” by Nouvelle Vague
“The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out To Get Us!” by Sufjan Stevens
“I Summon You” by Spoon
“Yeah (Crass Version)” by LCD Soundsystem
“Galang” by M.I.A.

download the whole mix and cover (113 mb zip file, download time: ~6 minutes)
download the individual songs
download the cover (708 kb PDF)

“Extraordinary Machine (Jon Brion Version)” by Fiona Apple
This song is the sound of two sporadic geniuses coming together in one moment. Fiona Apple, while she's had plenty of brilliant moments in her career, often overreaches and lacks a certain feel for what she's aiming for. Jon Brion has been more consistent, but most of the rest of the production he did for his swipe at Fiona's third record is pretty dull. But the two of them hit the bullseye so hard on this one: the tempo changes and subtle key changes, staggeringly brilliant wordplay, and impossibly complex arrangements underneath what is, at the very surface, a simple pop arrangement. This song never failed to amaze me. (The officially released version substitutes an alternate vocal take, and while it's still great, it feels more forced than this one.)
Best part: At 1:35, when the entire vocal rhythm has to adjust to the line, "And say I've been gettin' along for long before you came into the play", creating the slinkiest tension buildup to yet another melody twist at "I am the baby of the family, it happens, so?" Genius, genius, GENIUS.

“Hey Now Now” by the Cloud Room
This past fall, I heard a story of a conversation where someone was confused by the term "indiepop", and she wondered, "How can it be both independent and popular?" It's a fair question, and the person being asked the question (the person telling the story) had absolutely no idea how to answer. Which is a shame, because it's easy: pop doesn't just mean "popular". It's an approach to music, one that values being immediately catchy over everything else. If you can do that and be deep and complex at the same time, then great, but that's just gravy. But is it catchy, with a great chorus? That's the question, and whether the album sales are five or five million, the answer is what defines it as pop.
Best part: the great, catchy chorus.

“Sing Me Spanish Techno” by the New Pornographers
Every time I write something about the New Pornographers, I always say the same thing: that I read an article when their second album came out, in which a couple of the band members gave the reason that they were taking time away from their other bands for the New Pornos because, "Carl (A.C. Newman) just does not write a bad song." That perfectly sums it up for me. None of their songs have ever made me breathless at their brilliance, and none of them made me wonder if I'd ever heard anything like this before. But song after song, A.C. Newman turns out one great tune after another, the kind of music that, from the opening, makes me think, "What a GREAT song!"
Best part: At 2:05, just after the title line, when the drums kick back in, and you get the beautiful, nothing's-wrong-in-the-world main riff.

“Chicken Payback” by the Bees
It's easy to pick on those songs that ape another style of music, from the lyrics down to the production, but the ones that do it well remind you that there's nothing in the world that a good song can't overcome. The fact that this song is aping '60's soul, one of the greatest styles ever to grace the musical world, doesn't hurt. This song is such a blast.
Best part: the line that starts at 1:57, as the vocal takes the overdriven, about-to-explode melodic soul climax.

“Huddle Formation” by the Go! Team
Sayings become chiches because they're so right on that they get repeated ad nauseum until they lose any power. But there are still those times when the cliches say what you mean so perfectly that you can't help but use them. So it's tired and cliched to say that the sound of the Go! Team is one of sugary cereal and Saturday morning cartoons, but that's only because it describes their sound so perfectly. The only apt alternate I can think of: an instant good mood.
Best part: everyone's a cheerleader when the song hits 2:00 and you're clapping and yelling "O!K!" Well, I am.

“Apply Some Pressure” by Maximo Park
This is a good song whose moment is not just the best music geek moment of the song, it's the best of the year, a vocal arrangement whose sheer genius I can't think of an equal to. Geek out with me: at the end part, the lead vocals are singing the "What happens when you lose everything". The backing vocals start with, "Apply some pressure, you lose some pressure", and the first time, both lead and backing vocals touch at "lose" and then go back into their separate parts, but the next time, they hit at "lose" and then continue on with the part the backing vocals were singing, giving it an incredible force. I hope that when Maximo Park wrote this song in their practice space, they were congratulating themselves on their genius.
Best part: refer to above.

“Fake Palindromes” by Andrew Bird
Though I wouldn't call Andrew Bird "pop", some of the same rules apply. Even though it seems like maybe he's a little too hard to be odd and cryptic, and puts on a Deep Southern persona, his music just has a weird way of being really great, like that person that maybe tries a little too hard to be the funny guy, but in spite of it, succeeds wildly.
Best part: I suppose it's not really a good thing to say that the best part of the song is the opening that's over 30 seconds into it, but there you have it.

“Do the Whirlwind” by Architecture in Helsinki
If it's not clear yet, I like pop music. I love the craft that goes into making an immediately appealing song, into making a chorus you can't get enough of, and having to do it all in three minutes. But there's plenty of songs that aren't pop songs in the structural sense that are just as appealing on the surface: I don't really know why I want to listen to "Do The Whirlwind" over and over...I just do. It's got a fun groove, it's meandering but not unnecessarily, and it's just fun. So I really have nothing to say on the subject.
Best part: It's almost an incidental part of the song, but I love the horny ending. You heard me.

“Black Tambourine” by Beck
In the song off of Guero that almost made this mix instead of this one, Beck, "Must be something missing." It kind of sums up how I mostly feel about this Beck album. There's some really good songs on there, but something's missing. It's not that he's treading too-familiar ground (as a lot of other reviews have said), but it just seems as though the approach on so many songs just ended up being the wrong one. The songs mostly shine through, but it doesn't have the same excitement that most of Beck's other albums do.

So maybe it's the simplicity of "Black Tambourine" that grabbed me the first time and keeps a hold on me. There's no conscious effort to do anything innovative. It's just a slamming beat, a few typically brilliant Beck rhymes, and a nice simple, everybody-now "woah-oh-oh-oh + song title" for the chorus. It may not be fancy eating, but it hits the spot like a good burger. *burp*
Best part: "my tambourine is still shaking."

“The Sporting Life” by the Decemberists
Before Picaresque came out early in 2005, I never thought much of the Decemberists. But, as is so often the case, Christian talked me into getting it, and as is so often the case, I thought it was okay. But then one beautifully sunny day, I took my headphones for a little walk, and when this song came on, it sounded so perfect that it brought tears to my eyes. Yes, it was obvious to get into a sunny song on a sunny day, but it was that one moment that I needed to clear out all my grumpy prejudices and nitpicking about the Decemberists and accept the whole album for what it is: amazing.
Best part: I'm sure it's the bias I have from my own band, but where the horns come in is pure...<wait for it>...bliss.

“The Music Next Door” by the Lucksmiths
No one in the world makes better indiepop than the Lucksmiths, so much so that when a new Lucksmiths album comes out, it's almost a little boring to know that it's going to be great. But when Warmer Corners came out, I was blown away by three songs: "Fiction", which sounded a lot like another one of my favorite Lucksmiths songs, but that's okay, "Fog of Trujillo" which is another perfect song, and this one, which perfectly combines the catchy and the sentimental like all of the best Marty Donald song. God, do I ever love the Lucksmiths.
Best part: At 3:37, when the trumpet comes in to double the vocal part. Glorious.

“Since K Got Over Me” by the Clientele
The Clientele is destined to always just be The Clientele. Their songs are fine, and mostly sound the same, but they have a unique enough sound that they'll always be great for a rainy day. Or rather, that's what I thought before Strange Geometry came out. The weird thing is that this new album is almost no departure from the sound of their first two albums. But there's just enough small bits of instrumental decoration, just enough tweaking with the arrangements, just enough extra body to the production and vocals, that it sounds like a whole new band.
Best part: The great fadeout vamp at the end, recalling those old 60's soul songs where just when they kick it into gear, the song fades out. It's infuriatingly great.

“Mushaboom” by Feist
There's a common fear among music geeks that growing older and giving up loud, *difficult* music means we'll have to give up our search for exciting new music, and either have nothing but old bluegrass and blues or to listen to deluded, aging rockers still desperately hanging on to "rock and ROLL!" So it's comforting that there'll be music like "Mushaboom" for us in our slowed-down musical golden years: sweet music that's pleasant to listen to, but still is clever, intelligent, soulful, and still has just the slightest amount of grit.
Best part: instead of the best *moment*, the best part of this song is an instrument part: the handclaps

“Sing for Me” by the Fiery Furnaces
This song is home to both one of the best melodies of the year as well as one of the most inappropriate production jobs. I'd love to hear this song done with a softer touch instead of hammering drums, but it's a massive credit to the melody that it still shines through as brilliantly as it does.
Best part: the slight turn of the melody at "...away..." in the chorus.

“In a Manner of Speaking” by Nouvelle Vague
The Nouvelle Vague album should be terrible. Taking early '80's new wave songs and turning them into breathy bossa nova sounds like a recipe for disaster. And some of the songs are maybe not great. But the true path to a great cover version is to find one thread of a song, find an implied feel, and turn the song into more than it was originally. That's exactly what this song does, taking an overdramatic an annoyingly angular song, smoothing out the edges, and turning it into a slow burn heartbreaker.
Best part: there's plenty of times when a song raises the intensity to get chills, but I love when a song can drop the intensity and get twice the reaction, like this one does at, "semantics won't do".

“The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out To Get Us!” by Sufjan Stevens
At the end of 2005, as Illinois ended up at the top of most "Best of 2005" lists, there were a lot of comments of people saying that they'd converted plenty of their friends into the cult of Sufjan. These people are better cultists than me, because I had little-to-no luck. People that I loaned Illinois to, people I made a best-of-Sufjan mix for, people whose iPods I dropped a few mp3s on...all of these people I kept waiting for "wow!"s and only got "meh"s.

I can see it. Not only are they going it with the shadow of hyperventilating hype, but Sufjan's music is loaded with the kinds of stuff that turn off the initial listener. Lots of lyrics about beauty and crying, musical moments seemingly lifted from cheap stage musicals and/or fourth-grade music pageants, and overt religious and patriotic themes.

It certainly helps me that I'm into that sort of crap, but I just found that the music of Sufjan Stevens takes the same sort of patience that it took for me to understand Nick Drake or Pet Sounds. It may sound a little cheesy at first, but once you can get past some of jaded music generalizations you've had for years, what exists is a gorgeous music that's meticulously and complexly arranged, full of faith of all kinds, and sung with the quiet soul that can shatter hearts. Well, my heart, anyway.

Illinois is an album is full of songs that, at various points in my year, were The Greatest Song Ever Written. I could have just as easily put "Chicago" or "Come On Feel the Illinoise" on this mix, but "The Predatory Wasp..." is not only the last song that got that distinction, but it's the song out of all in Sufjan's catalog that perfectly sums him up. Quiet guitar leads to musical interlude leads back to quieter guitar-and-vocals leads to orchestrally-arranged loud heights, ending with a pained and impossibly powerful ending. I overuse this next word, but it's the best word for the job: gorgeous.
Best part: to call the best part of this song the "best part" seems almost insulting. It's one of the most tremendously powerful moments that I've ever known. At 4:08, after already estabishing one beautiful closing melody, he tweaks it at "I can tell you" and it's absolutely shattering.

“I Summon You” by Spoon
This song is the opposite of pop. The catch doesn't exist in one moment, in a chorus or a repeated phrase. This song is about the feel. It's a liquid song, flowing from line to line with few markers besides dropping the drums out every now and then.
Best part: When I was working in the record store in Greensboro, I once had a guy talk about a small guitar outro, saying that the songwriter had "wasted" a perfectly good riff on such a small part of the song. Without saying so, I disagreed. I love it when there's a great chord progression or riff that's just used for an intro or outro. Short story long, I love the intro to this song.

“Yeah (Crass Version)” by LCD Soundsystem
The LCD Soundsystem album was my favorite of the year, but it was really the show of theirs at the 9:30 club last summer that blew me away. They played music that had the force of the hardest dance music, with all the energy of a punk band, but the most important part of the band, the part I had missed until that show, was that the songs are arranged not with the ear of a trained musician, but with the ear of an obsessive music geek. Just before a song threatened to lapse into dance beat monotony, something changed: the vocals picked up intensity, the bass went from dance to funk, the hi-hat opened just a little bit, and even the simplest change would completely refresh the song. It's one of the most exciting things I've ever heard in my life.

When I went back to the album after that show, I heard the whole album anew. But it was this song that eventually stood out above all the others as the best example of what makes LCD Soundsystem so great. It's over nine minutes long, yet never feels stale. It's a music geek's dream: at every moment, something is changing. The bass line changes from an angular disco beat to a deep two-note big beat line. The hi-hat changes from an open disco style to hard-hitting open eighth notes. The synth line changes tone again and again, just when you need it to.

But the beauty of it is that, while every moment of the song is ripe for geeky analysis, it's still a hard-hitting dance-punk song with a simple hook and a hard beat. It's a perfect sound for those who love to think about music and those who love to dance to it. It's just perfect.

And for those of you who find yourselves inclined to neither nights in with your headphones or nights out on the dance floor, just put it on your gym/running mix. By about the sixth or seventh minute, you'll be sprinting.
Best part: it's hard to pick just one, but at 7:31, when the distorted synth part kicks up an octave and sounds as though it's about to explode. Maybe he ripped it off of Daft Punk, but they never did it near this well.

“Galang” by M.I.A.
In the last few hours of 2004, at the New Year's Eve party at Ivan's house, Christian's DJ stint included a surprise for me. He had "Galang", a song that he and the music bloggers had been going crazy over for months but still hadn't officially made it to the US, and his plan was that I would hear it and explode into a shower of "incredible" and "holy shit". And I probably would have, but being that this was a New Year's party, and there was a good deal of alcohol involved, I wasn't really paying attention.

It took me until the spring and M.I.A.'s official US release before I found this song (side note: funny that I felt like I had to take a late pass on an album that I bought on its release date), and proceeded to spend months destroying my hearing listening to this song over and over and over, newly amazed each time at the power of the bass, the rhythm of the vocals, and that perfect beat. It's a moment, and still stands as the #1 most played song in my music library. By far.
Best part: It's the ending chant that turns a uncommonly-great song, into a jaw-droppingly amazing song, but the power exists right as the drums come back in at 2:36.

...and with that, I start my musical new year.