Best Singles of 2008

Rating: Not reviewed


1. "Paper Planes" – M.I.A.
Mathangi "M.I.A." Arulpragasm's "Paper Planes" took the long road toward becoming the music phenomenon of the year: the song first earned critical acclaim when it appeared on M.I.A.'s album "Kala," which was released August 2007; it then gained underground traction with remixes and covers by Bun B, Rich Boy, Blaqstarr, DFA, Scottie B, Adrock of the Beastie Boys, Holy Fuck and Esau Mwamwaya (as "Tengazako"); it reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with its use in the "Pineapple Express" trailer (though it wasn't used in the film); was cemented as a classic by being sampled by Kanye West for the ultimate posse track "Swagger Like Us"; and then had hidden depths revealed when the line "Sometimes I think sitting on trains" was synced to the image of two young Indian boys attempting to escape their tragic lives when the song was used in "Slumdog Millionaire." The song's praise and amazing mainstream success is well-earned. M.I.A. (with the help of producers Switch and Diplo) rather miraculously takes a guitar riff from The Clash's "Straight to Hell" and a line from Wreckx-N-Effect's "Rumpshaker" and makes them her own with lyrics that are either a parody of minority stereotypes (according to M.I.A.) or a bittersweet description of the highs and lows of drug-dealing worthy of "The Wire."

2. "Lovers in Japan" – Coldplay
"Viva la Vida" has the orchestral swell, "Violet Hill" has the (relative) edginess and "Lost+" has Jay-Z, but "Lovers in Japan" is Coldplay's true pop gem of the year. Like The National before it, Coldplay equates the difficulties of relationships ("Lovers keep on the road you're on") with the difficulties of war ("Soldiers, you've got to soldier on / Sometimes even the right is wrong") and adds in the anywhere-but-here mentality of the Arcade Fire ("Tonight maybe we're going to run / Dreaming of the Osaka sun"). In the end, Chris Martin hopefully, perhaps naοvely, promises, "I have no doubt / One day the sun will come out." The song rides along on Martin's Western saloon piano and Guy Berryman's Adam Clayton-esque bass until it finally blossoms into something magisterial.

3. "Love Lockdown" – Kanye West
"Love Lockdown's" driving rhythm is that of an arrhythmic heart, a heart that has been damaged. Kanye West, penning the song in a year of heartbreak, declared on his blog it was his "favorite song 2 date!!" Where it ranks in West's pantheon is for future music critics and historians to discuss, but it is his most experimental track, even more so than the Daft Punk-sampling "Stronger." Through robotic Auto-Tune vocal distortion, West details his romantic faults until deciding, as taiko drums pound, to keep his passions confined. "You lose," West sings, and Alexis Phifer's loss becomes music's gain.

4. "L.E.S. Artistes" – Santogold
Santi "Santogold" White's Teagan and Sara-indebted "L.E.S. Artistes" is supposedly a screed against the hipster pretensions of New York City's Lower East Side, but if that's all it were, its appeal wouldn't be so broad and the emotions it conjures wouldn't be so acute. Santogold's declaration "I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up / If I could stand up mean for all the things that I believe" is a universal cri de couer for personal integrity.

5. "White Winter Hymnal" – Fleet Foxes
"White Winter Hymnal" opens as a round that repeats the line, "I was following the...." The song is slowly layered, first with harmonies and a tambourine and then with an acoustic guitar strumming before exploding with a full Wall of Sound that includes the timpani beat from "Be My Baby." The lyrics seem to be about a teacher following a class of children until one of the students falls and gets a bloody nose in the snow, but that hardly matters when Robin Pecknold's vocals and Skyler Skjelset's guitar make the Fleet Foxes' song the aural equivalent of a sleigh ride.

6. "Blind" – Hercules & Love Affair
"Blind" is a delirious disco concoction. The production values by Hercules and Love Affair mastermind Andrew Butler and his co-producer, the DFA's Tim Goldsworthy, are surprisingly intricate, involving infectious muted trumpets, conga drums, a chewy bassline, an eddy of synthesizers and Antony Hegarty's impassioned, yearning falsetto. A song that could've fit in at Studio 54 during the New York club's 1970s heyday, it's now forcing many a typically stoic hipster to fall under its massive spell.

7. "Skinny Love" – Bon Iver
If "Love Lockdown" is for the bitter, then "Skinny Love" is for the truly broken hearted. Even with the kick-drum stomp and rim taps proving there's someone else in the room, Justin Vernson's song is the sound of romantic desolation and the loneliness that results. There is some anger here – "And I told you to be patient / And I told you to be fine / And I told you to be best / And I told you to be kind / And now all your love is wasted / And then who the hell was I?" – but one is left, not with animosity, but with Vernon's devastating, lovelorn question, asked as much to himself as to a former lover, "Who will love you?"

8. "Time to Pretend" – MGMT
MGMT's "Time to Pretend" is half about "Behind the Music"-inspired dreams of rock superstardom and half about the real heartache that can come with such a career path, yet it's also strangely accessible as a song that's just as much about indulging in a few nights or years of revelry before old age sets in ("Yeah it's overwhelming, but what else can we do? / Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning news?") Alex VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser ride a space melody and a killer, seven-note synth hook into a strangely sad place with the realization they, like most of us, are "fated to pretend" once those days of being wild are over.

9. "Hearts on Fire" – Cut Copy
Cut Copy's "Hearts on Fire" is a song for anyone who has ever fallen in love at first sight, but more specifically for anyone who has ever fallen in love at a dance club during a brief, glorious moment when music and passions serendipitously coalesce, hands brush and time seems to freeze. "Hearts on Fire" is the perfect song to have that experience to, not only because it provides excellent narration – "I reach out to you and our hearts collide," Dan Whitford keenly sings – but with its double-time tick-tocking, synthesizer-derived rhythm, C+C Music Factory "oh-ohhs" and New Wave guitar, it's also a great first dance.

10. "Going On" – Gnarls Barkley
DJ Danger Mouse's eclectic production and Cee-Lo Green's soulful vocals have rarely coalesced in an organic enough way to make their ambitious Gnarls Barkley project as successful as their supporters claim it to be. That's not the case with the curiously undervalued "Going On," which didn't receive the acclaim of "Crazy" even though it deserved it. Danger Mouse's rhythms and samples – this time a sped-up version of a Motown backbeat, church organ and a spacey guitar – are thrillingly fused with Cee-Lo's impassioned voice. The song is a (mostly) kind fare-thee-well to a former lover as Cee-Lo tries to move on: "May my love lift you up to the place you belong / But I'm going on / And I promise I'll be waiting for you." Danger Mouse breaks the song down at the climax with soaring strings, pan flute and tribal grunts as Cee-Lo seems to ascend to a better place. The song overwhelms in its final seconds when Cee-Lo suddenly changes his mind and says, "Don't follow me."

11. "Gobbledigook" – Sigur Rσs
12. "Heart of Chambers" – Beach House
13. "Eraser" – No Age
14. "I'm Good, I'm Gone" – Lykke Li
15. "Kids" – MGMT
16. "Collapsing at Your Doorstep" – Air France
17. "Nothing Ever Happened" – Deerhunter
18. "I Feel It All" – Feist
19. "Kim & Jessie" – M83
20. "Ready for the Floor" – Hot Chip
21. "Little Bit" – Lykke Li
22. "A Milli" – Lil Wayne
23. "Innν mιr syngur vitleysingur" – Sigur Rσs
24. "Machine Gun" – Portishead
25. "You Belong" – Hercules and Love Affair
26. "Out There on the Ice" – Cut Copy
27. "Water Curses" – Animal Collective
28. "Golden Age" – TV on the Radio
29. "Oh My God" – Ida Maria
30. "He Doesn't Know Why" – Fleet Foxes
31. "Couleurs" – M83
32. "House Jam" – Gang Gang Dance
33. "Stay Positive" – The Hold Steady
34. "Swing That Tambourine" – Kristoffer Ragnstam
35. "Swagger Like Us" (feat. Kanye West, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne) – T.I.
36. "Strange Overtones" – David Byrne and Brian Eno
37. "My Year in Lists" – Los Campesinos!
38. "Disturbia" – Rihanna
39. "Lights and Music" – Cut Copy
40. "One Pure Thought" – Hot Chip
41. "Electric Feel" – MGMT
42. "Violet Hill" – Coldplay
43. "Lights Out" – Santogold
44. "Live Your Life" (feat. Rihanna) – T.I.
45. "I Feel Better" – Frightened Rabbit
46. "Viva la Vida" – Coldplay
47. "Universal Mind Control" (feat. Pharrell) – Common
48. "Fast Blood" – Frightened Rabbit
49. "Black Rice" – Women
50. "Wearing My Rolex" – Wiley
51. "Tell the World" – Vivian Girls
52. "Fools" – The Dodos
53. "Midnight Man" – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
54. "American Boy" (feat. Kanye West) – Estelle
55. "In the New Year" – The Walkmen
56. "Don't You Evah" – Spoon
57. "Furr" – Blitzen Trapper
58. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" – Beyoncι
59. "Heartless" – Kanye West
60. "Teen Creeps" – No Age
61. "Sea Lion Woman" – Feist
62. "Nowheres Nigh" – Parts & Labor
63. "Call It a Ritual" – Wolf Parade
64. "Death to Los Campesinos!" – Los Campesinos!
65. "Happy House" – The Juan Maclean
66. "Dance, Dance, Dance" – Lykke Li
67. "Run to Your Grave" – The Mae Shi
68. "Put On" (feat. Kanye West) – Young Jeezy
69. "No Matter What" – T.I.
70. "Language City" – Wolf Parade
71. "Use Somebody" – Kings of Leon
72. "Sabali" (feat. Les Souers Sidibe) – Amadou & Mariam
73. "Constructive Summer" – The Hold Steady
74. "Whispers" (feat. Kathy Diamond) – Aeroplane
75. "The Rip" – Portishead
76. "Untrust Us" – Crystal Castles
77. "Crimewave" (Crystal Castles vs. Health) – Health
78. "Grounds for Divorce" – Elbow
79. "For Emma" – Bon Iver
80. "Sweet Love for Planet Earth" – Fuck Buttons
81. "Royal Flush" (feat. Andre 3000 and Raekwon) – Big Boi
82. "Many Moons" – Janelle Monae
83. "I Like It I Love It" – Lyrics Born
84. "Everyone Nose" – N.E.R.D.
85. "Shut Up and Let Me Go" – The Tings Tings
86. "Entropy Reigns (In the Celestial City)" – Kelley Polar
87. "Lost!"/"Lost+" (feat. Jay-Z) – Coldplay
88. "No Sunlight" – Death Cab for Cutie
89. "Look at Me (When I Dance Witchoo" – Black Kids
90. "No Sex for Ben" – The Rapture
91. "Graveyard Girl" – M83
92. "Sex on Fire" – Kings of Leon
93. "Five Years Time" – Noah & the Whale
94. "Spiraling" – Keane
95. "Mercury" – Bloc Party
96. "Charlotte" – Booka Shade
97. "Drivin' Down the Block" (Remix) (feat. Pusha T, Bun B and The Cool Kids) – Kidz in the Hall
98. "Black President" – Nas
99. "Frankie's Gun" – The Felice Brothers
100. "Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!" – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Posted Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music//best.singles.2008