Best Songs of 2007

14. Said The Whale, "Live Off Lamb"

There's a reason Wincing The Night Away has been neglected by most year-end lists, and it's not because it was released way back at the beginning of the year. It's because the best Shins song to come out this year was written by this relatively unknown Vancouver duo. It was by far the best thing on the band's Taking Abalonia EP, but it was also miles ahead of anything on Wincing...


13. Feist, "1-2-3-4"

Great songs from overrated albums, Part I: It shouldn't have surprised anyone when Apple highlighted "1-2-3-4" in that ubiquitous iPod commercial. After all, The Reminder sounds like it was written specifically with commercials and coffee houses in mind. What makes this song stand out, however, is that where all the other tracks on the album fit snugly into the Adult Contemporary category, "1-2-3-4" has one of the catchiest hooks of the year. As anyone who can still recite counting rhymes from their childhood could attest, keeping it simple works, and that was the case here.


12. Arcade Fire, "Intervention"

As I've hinted all year, I hated Neon Bible. I recognize that I'm in the minority, but I felt it was a severe case of overreaching. Part of what made Funeral so magical was that it was the work of a band converting feelings of sadness and grief into something epic and majestic. On Neon Bible, Arcade Fire kept the sound but ditched the emotion, and ended up making big "statements" that just sounded meaningless and empty.

The one exception, however, was "Intervention", which started out with that enormous organ blast, and kept it up for the rest of the song. The imagery (of a woman devoting her life to the church and ignoring her family) may have been a little heavy-handed, but for me it was the one moment on Neon Bible where the band's transition into a Statement Band actually made sense.


11. Natasha Bedingfield, "Babies"

I know I shouldn't feel guilty for liking a perfectly good pop song, but there are all kinds of reasons to hate myself for listening to "Babies" on repeat for a good chunk of the spring, beginning with the fact it's a creepy literalization of "I want to have XXX's babies", particularly when you consider Bedingfield's past life as a Christian pop star. Then I hear that chorus, and it gets stuck in my head for the next few days, and I have to admit that message and cred be damned, it's still a good song.


10. Great Bloomers, "Catching Up"

A band that's been around for a year shouldn't be this good and this tight so soon, but "Catching Up" shows that Great Bloomers are exceptions to this rule.


9. Young Galaxy, "Come And See"

Far too many people wrote Young Galaxy off as just another Arts & Crafts band. Anyone who actually took the time to listen to the band's self-titled debut, however, would know that this isn't the case. The band is much more assertive-sounding than the rest of the A&C roster (minus The Constantines now, I suppose), and "Come And See" captures the difference better than any other song on the album. Stephen Ramsay may have slightly spaced-out vocals, but the thundering drums and wailing guitars that kick in halfway through the song elevate it to a whole new level.


8. Two Hours Traffic, "Stuck For The Summer"

If you could somehow distill summer into a three-minute pop song, it'd sound a lot like this. In fact, it'd probably sound like several of the songs on Little Jabs, but "Stuck for the Summer" is probably the moment where they best capture the season's essence.


7. LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends"

I can't say much about "All My Friends" that hasn't been said a lot better by other writers and critics with far more talent than I have. All I'll say, then, is that rarely has getting older and being lonely sounded better, and the fact that it's done in a genre that's not known for being introspective speaks volumes about James Murphy's talent.


6. Maybe Smith, "Open War"

It's a pretty simple song (even with the guitar freakout near the end) but, as I said with "1-2-3-4", simplicity isn't a bad thing when it comes to pop music. And on top of that, Maybe Smith sneaks in the unforgettable couplet "You gave head to your priest / Even though you don't eat meat".


5. Amos The Transparent, "Everything I've Forgotten To Forget"

Really, this slot could've been occupied by nearly any track off of Everything I've Forgotten To Forget, since over the last seven or eight months I've had at least half a dozen songs from that album stuck in my head. This one, though, seems to have been in there the most, to the point I even literally woke up one morning humming it. From the handclaps and foot stomps at the beginning to the epic guitar at the end (and the beautiful vocal harmonies somewhere in between), this song ensured that one of the year's best albums got off to exactly the right start.


4. Beth In Battle Mode, "No Feeling"

"No Feeling" is a basically a rip-off of any garage rock song from the '60s that featured organ and "Woah-woah"s, but Beth In Battle Mode do it so well that doesn't really matter. You'd have to be dead or disabled to not want to dance to this song, and even then it's catchy enough it might just be able to raise people from their graves and/or wheelchairs.


3. , "Dancing With My Brother"

There's something incredibly endearing about a song that wouldn't be out of place at a hoedown -- possibly the fact the chorus is "I'm my brother's snakeskin motherfucker!" It doesn't make much sense, true, but it's still absurdly fun.


2. Patrick Wolf, "The Magic Position"

Again, simplicity in pop music can be a very good thing, and "The Magic Position" is probably the best proof of that you could ever ask for. It's basically scales for four minutes, but it's so over-the-top and fun that it drills its way into your head on first listen and refuses to go away. I'd write more, but my feelings about the song basically mirror the way everyone acts in the video.


1. These Electric Lives, "We Should Be Believing"

I'm sure I'll regret this when (not if) These Electric Lives are being hailed as the latest second coming of U2 and this song is blasting out of every stereo in the world, but at the moment I can't think of any song released in 2007 that I liked more. Everything about it was so grandiose that I couldn't help but being swept away by it, right down to the little drum fills in between the riffs at the start of the song. When TEL conquer the world, this will be the song that leads them in doing it.