This could have been any of about 10 songs off of Phoenix’s album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Phoenix just basically craft these intricate pop/rock songs, where not a note is out of place. Sure, the lyrics make only very abstract sense, but partially that’s a French band writing American pop music.

I had only vaguely listened to Phoenix (their last album) before I saw on them on SNL. Watching them perform and hearing this layered pop song come together — the first repeated note, the drums, the melody, then the lyrics. If it never built from there, it’d still probably have made my top ten (as I’m a sucker for power pop).

But nope, then it hits the bridge, gets very quiet with the piano, and it’s just like a time bomb … there’s the bass and boom, everyone hits at once, all on beat, and we’re off.

Like a riot, like a riot, oh, indeed.

(It’s not “like a rhino”, as I’d initially thought.)

(Also, if you don’t like this song, you have no soul.)

The second of the Scottish-related bands that made the extended list (We Were Promised Jetpacks being the other), Camera Obscura always seemed to me like they were a female-fronted Belle and Sebastian-lite. The same sorts of meandering chamber pop, but just not quite as good.

I’ve liked them, but there just wasn’t anything about them that made them stick out.

Then I heard “French Navy”.

With it’s 60s Girl band sound, and production that wouldn’t have been out of place in Motown, Camera Obscura may have eclipsed single song their forefathers of Belle and Sebastian created (well, maybe not “Boy With The Arab Strap”). It’s also my second favorite song of the year, and likely could have been number one if you I wrote this a week ago or a week from now.

Top to bottom, Metric’s Fantasies might be my favorite album of the year. Or at least it might have the most songs that stick out. “Sick Muse”, “Help, I’m Alive”, and this one “Gold Guns Girls”. Emily Haines’ voice carries the album, with Metric bringing what they do, which is a pretty straight forward rock sound that gets reinforced by some synthesizers and looped beats. What results are these great songs with a cacophony of sound surrounding Haines’ voice which runs the spectrum from whisper to scream.

Put all together, it can be amazing or …. less than amazing (see some tracks off of the re-released debut album).

This is amazing.

The latest arrival to the list, I first heard Fanfarlo a couple of week’s back on NPR’s All Songs Considered Year-end Review. I was hooked. After listening to it a few more times, I was more hooked.

Sounding very much like The Arcade Fire (with the multiple instrumentation), it also reminds me a ton of The Delta Spirit (who made last year’s list). Just a lot of energy, driven by the foot-stomping, hand-clapping percussion. Probably my favorite find of 2009, and it happened in late December. If I make this list 3 weeks ago, you may have never heard of Fanfarlo either.

Passion Pit blew up this year. Huge. Commercials. Shows on The CW. FNX’s Christmas on Tremont St. concert, arguably upstaging Phoenix and Spoon.

I don’t generally like music that runs this electronic. But this is so damn poppy, and so damn good, and they can play all of this music live … it’s not just someone in a studio. It’s a bunch of synths and instruments. They’re a real band playing real music, that just sounds like it was a dude in a studio with a bunch of computers.

So, that’s how I end up with Passion Pit in my top 10. And “Moth’s Wings”, in particular, as it’s the deepest song, sonically, I think, from the whole album.