I really do just love this song. The Oregon-based band sounds a bit like debut album-Fanfarlo or Arcade Fire if you saw them in a tiny venue. One voice, a bunch of instruments, some plaintive lyrics.

If that’s all this song was, it’d probably still make my top 10.

But that’s not all there is. It’s the little touches.

The quiet voices that start the song before the guitar kicks in.
The horns coming in and making the whole thing seem bigger.
How simple the song seems with the guitar and drum beat and horns all echoing the simple, repetitive lyrics.
How wrong you are to think the song is simple, as it opens up both vocally and sonically.
How the entire song is preamble to the last 90 seconds.
The first female backing vocal just tipping the bands hand.
The chorus.

The final minute of this song is one of the most wondrous minutes of music in the past few years. There’s no way you don’t hear this song and smile. And what more can you ask for from a little bit of music?

Amazon’s little 30 second preview doesn’t do this song justice, so here’s a live version from Letterman. You’ll get goosebumps.

Chances are, if you turned on the radio or TV this year, you heard or saw Bon Iver. The band (well, Justin Vernon) popped up performing on pretty much every late night show, The Colbert Report, etc. His songs made it from alternative radio to pop radio to everything in between. He hung with Kanye.

And it wasn’t just for show. Bon Iver (the album is self-titled) was a phenomenal album. Different from the quiet folky songs of the previous releases, but no so different that it wasn’t Bon Iver. The sound has evolved. It’s got a few more instruments, maybe it’s a little brighter; but it’s still the same falsetto, it feels just as sparse at times.

“Calgary”, for my money, is the track off the album, though honestly, you could have picked almost any song (it’s really is a remarkable album). Here, you have the falsetto, leading into an almost 80s drum beat, on top of some synths. It feels small, even though you know it’s not. But as you pass the halfway point, you get the slightly offkey guitars, and the song changes a bit. Just a bit. The 80s sound drops out and it feels like an acoustic song that isn’t acoustic.

I don’t know how to describe it. I think that’s how I can describe a lot of the tracks off of Bon Iver. I can’t tell you why they’re different. I can just tell you they are.

The last of our female fronted bands, this is the biggest rock song on the list. It’s a big and brash song that sort of starts out like a loud pop song that could have been made for Katy Perry. Then it just blows up into this insane mess of guitars, drums, bass, and everything else good that should be in a rock song. It’s so driving that you can’t help but play the bass drum with your foot. You will, I guarantee it. There’s a 2 minute coda to the song that is needlessly excessive, but by the time you get there, the band has earned it.

This is a song that wouldn’t sound nearly as good with a male vocal. It’s a song built on the dichotomy of this big male guitar and drum sounds next to a female voice. And it works incredibly well on the entirety of The Big Roar, which is The Joy Formidable’s debut album.

Maybe seeing is believing …

Hey, another female fronted band (this isn’t the last on the list)! Cults were sort of the music blog darlings of 2010-11, with their ridiculous good songs “Go Outside” and “Abducted”. Another duo, this is 60s and 70s pop music drenched in today’s production to come out with a sound that you’d be hard pressed to pinpoint in era.

It’s also really good. This track stands out, in my mind, because of how blatantly it rips off “Where Did Our Love Go?” Normally, that’d be a bad thing, but it is so overtly borrowed, yet so incredibly different, that you can’t help but feel like this is the modern successor to that song.

At 2 and a half minutes, it’s this perfect, fuzzy, slow, sort of haunting song that has these little moments of power that pop up every 30 seconds or so. It’s short enough (like most Cults songs) that it doesn’t overstay its welcome.

At this point, a pattern has emerged. With St. Vincent and Florence + the Machines as predecessors (and Mates of State, if you want to pull in the Honorable Mentions), we’re on our 3rd female fronted rock bands. This is also another song that fills that previously mentioned niche of starting out slow and quiet and slowly building until it breaks out.

The insane part of it, when you hear it break out, you have no idea that Wye Oak is a duo. The sound is so much bigger and fuller. The mix of this album is truly great, putting sounds and instruments in places that fill your ears and make them seem so sprawling.

The Onion A.V. Club named this album the best of the year, and I don’t think that’s a stretch. It’s a really good record (there are a few more stellar tracks) and one that will probably get a lot more notoriety in 2012 when Wye Oak blow up.

This song could have easily come out on Fountains of Wayne’s self-titled debut album, on its follow up Utopia Parkway, or (with a bit more sheen) on Welcome, Interstate Managers. Which is to say, it would have fit in perfectly on three of the shiniest, most perfect pop albums of the last 15 years.

There are a few keys to a great Fountains of Wayne song:

• Some pretty specific details (think “Radiation Vibe”, “Stacy’s Mom”, “Red Dragon Tattoo”)
• A super hummable hook (everybody can still sing “Stacy’s Mom”, and I bet if you heard “Denise” once you’d know it for life)
• Shiny guitars

“The Summer Place” has all three elements in spades.

Details

She’s been afraid of the Cuisinart since 1977
Now when she opens up the house
Well, she won’t set foot in the kitchen

Hummable Hook

M-i-i-ind

Shiny Guitars
The song starts out with about 20 seconds of danceable guitar riffs. What more do you want?

Sky Full of Holes was a really great return to form by Fountains of Wayne. There are probably 3 or 4 more songs I could have chosen off the album. It’s worth the listen.

It’s taken me a while to get on the bandwagon. I had sort of lumped St. Vincent (Annie Clark) in the Joanna Newsom category, the “I sing pretty and play unique orchestral music.” Which is good, but tends not to be something that I really dig.

But, I was wrong. St. Vincent is a rock star. It wasn’t until I listened to all of Strange Mercy that it clicked for me. If you strip away the music, it’s a really pretty song. It could completely get by purely a cappella. Then you listen closer and realize that, while she’s singing the chorus, it’s not just a synth she’s singing over, but also her guitar. The song is a rock song, and the first time it breaks into a reasonably unexpected guitar solo, your brain switches from “this song is pretty” to “Oh, I get it now!”

It’s a 3 and a half minute rock song, with strings, pretty vocals, and some really good guitar. What’s not to like?

Donald Glover. It’s really unfair.

Helped to write and starred in the hilarious Mystery Team.
Won an Emmy for writing on 30 Rock, including writing “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah“.
Stars as Troy on Community, which may go down as one of the top 5 sitcoms of all time.

And he put out a surprisingly good hip hop album in 2011. What’s unique and surprising about it (though, if you think about it, it shouldn’t be surprising) is the witty wordplay and the flow. It’s just different than most stuff you hear. It harkens back a bit to Jurassic 5′s clever lyrics and overlapping flow, or maybe MF Doom’s references.

I’m sure someone will say that it’s perfect music for white people (which is probably true, though language-wise this is certainly not an album that everyone is going to feel comfortable with …). For me, I think there are two stretches of this track that showcase why I dig this one. They standout lyrically and for their message.

Dude you’re not not racist cause The Wire’s in your Netflix queue

This one is pretty much aimed directly at people like me (though, hopefully, not me). The idea, of course, is that just because you listen to rap or threw The Wire in your Netflix queue doesn’t mean you aren’t subtly racist in other ways.

This one kid said somethin’ that was really bad
He said I wasn’t really black because I had a dad
I think that’s kinda sad
Mostly cause a lot of black kids think they should agree with that

That doesn’t require a lot of explanation. And when that section of the song hits, it actually stings a bit. Which helps explain why this made my list at #8.

I really wanted to not like this song. I avoided it like the plague for weeks. “The Dog Days Are Over” was so catchy and so incredibly overplayed. And whereas the Florence + The Machine maniacs love her often off-pitch singing in her live performances, the live performances on Saturday Night Live made me like her songs less.

So how the hell did this song end up at #9? I don’t know. I wish I did. I heard it on the radio and said “Hmm, that’s not too bad.” Then I’d hear it again and sing along. Then I’d listen to it on Spotify. Then I’d listen to the whole album and find another song or two that aren’t too bad.

I don’t think I’m ever going to be a huge fan of Florence, or her Machines. But, man, I like this song.

(I’m a complete sucker for songs that start quiet, then kick into a faster gear, drive forward for a bit, then break out; this song does that in the first 90 seconds.)

Fleet Foxes – “Montezuma”
This is probably the first album by Fleet Foxes that couldn’t have been made in the 60s. I don’t mean that in any backhanded way, at all. They just make good, timeless music. No crazy instruments or synths. There’s no gimmick here. A bunch of guys with their guitars, singing harmonies, and making good folk music.

There are, for lack of a better term, peppier songs on Helplessness Blues (including the song of the same name). But, I mean, seriously, this is why Fleet Foxes are awesome, right? The song is so simple and beautiful, and as it hits the last minute, it has a little breakdown, and then we basically go a cappella for 30 seconds (not quite, but close), and then we coast out.

It’s just pretty.