Your Savage Detective: December 2008

In no particular order, here are some of what I would consider to be the best tracks of 2008.

M83 - Kim and Jessie

Best lyric:

"And soon they'll be flying

Say 'of course,' say 'you're lovely'"

If John Hughes and Sofia Coppola had a love child, this song would be it. Points for a truly great music video.

Brendan Canning - Hit the Wall

Best lyric:

"We used to have it all, now it's all gone."

Twice this year I was on long outdoor runs and got caught in a storm while listening to this song. Lightening at my heels, wind at my back, hit the wall, hit the wall and what about it. If I make it to eighty and can't walk much less run, I'll remember that this song helped me outrun the rain.

Alphabeat - Fascination

Best lyric:

"The word is on your lips

Say the word."

Danish pop perfection. Sugar sweet, yet refined.

Basia Bulat - Before I Knew

Best lyric:

"It was the first time I sang out loud all through the night."

All it takes is some handclaps, a mandolin, and less than two minutes to describe perfectly, simplistically, the story of love.

Beach House - Used to Be

Best lyric:

"We turn the wheel to which way we feel

Till our thoughts drift, I cannot find you there."

Beach House rocked IU's Culture Shock (and the Coney Island Siren Festival) this year. Of course, when I say rocked, I mean sort of slouched around and moaned (in a good way). "Used to Be" pairs their trademark ambience with one of their best melodies, and the track's middle eight is one of the great music moments of the year.

Janelle Monae - Sincerely Jane

It's not Monae's lyrics that make "Sincerely Jane" compelling. We've heard the "hip-hop video girls are losing their souls to an exploitive and cold capitalist engine" line before. The exciting thing about Monae is that she gives sound to that machine--the rumbling horns, the nervous strings, the shrill backing vocals. Danger, Will Robinson!

Lindstrom - Where You Go I Go Too

No lyrics, but thirty minutes of awesome.

MGMT - Electric Feel

Best lyric:

"Put your circuits in the sea

This is what the world is for

Making electricity"

I'm still convinced the video for this track is an unacknowledged tribute to Fern Gully and Jennifer Lopez.

Nine Inch Nails - Discipline

Best lyric:

"I need my role in this very clearly defined."

Village People, Trent Reznor, Trent Reznor, Village People.

Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes (XXXChange Remix)

Best lyric:

The whole damn thing.

This is my moving-to-the-big-city-get-out-of-my-way-asshole-I've-got-things-to-do jam. The XXXChange remix turns it up a notch.

T.V. On the Radio - Halfway Home

Best lyric:

"The lazy way they turned your head into a rest stop for the dead

And did it all in gold and blue and gray."

TVOTR was the event band of the year, and this first track off Dear Science helps explain why. Propulsive handclaps and urgent "ba-ba-ba's" urge the meandering vocal line forward, but it merely mumbles along spinning lines about the dead and dying. It's about opposing forces, folks.

Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

Best lyric:

"Can you stay up to see the dawn in the colors of Benneton?"

Because it's about time Peter Gabriel got a shout out from a preppy indie band.

Britney Spears - Break the Ice

Best lyric:

"You've got me hypnotized, I've never felt this way

You've got my heart beating like an 808."

Forget the comeback narrative and the boring singles. Spears hit her peak with this third single from Blackout. Seriously, "Break the Ice" is layered and slick; Spears's best single since "Toxic" and one of the best pop songs of 2008.

CSS - Rat is Dead (Rage)

Best lyric:

"On the other side of town a car drives fast

Hard to tell fear from happiness"

The Ting-Tings claimed CSS's iPod-crossover success story throne this year, but CSS's was the better single. Early 90's guitar pop-rock underneath a mysterious tale of domestic abuse. Probably wouldn't work for the new I-phone, but you know, whatever.

Fucked Up - Black Albino Bones

Best lyric:

Uh, it's kind of unintelligible.

Band famous for its music-should-yield-violence philosophy taps Vivian Girls singers and joins melody with mayhem. Hardcore pretty.

La Roux - Quicksand

Best lyric:

"Am I your possession? Am I in demand?"

This was a late entry for me, but it's a jam. La Roux's unpolished almost abrasive soprano fits perfectly with a gritty rip-off of Prince's "When Doves Cry." Maybe I like this because the music video reminds me of my childhood in a David Lynch sort of way.

Frightened Rabbit - Old, Old Fashioned

Best lyric:

"So give me soft, soft static with a human voice underneath."

I wrote up an TMJ entry for "Heads Roll Off" earlier this year and P'fork gave props to "The Modern Leper" on their year-end best-of, but this track is my favorite off of The Midnight Organ Fight. Something about the way he counts off the steps to the fireside waltz.

Good Friend - Plants and Animals

Best lyric:

"It takes a good friend to say you've got you're head up your ass."

Hercules and Love Affair - Blind

Best lyric:

"As a child I knew that the stars would only get brighter"

After 2006's collaboration with My Robot Friend "One More Try," I knew that Antony's androgynous quiver of a voice was perfect for emotive (soulful?) disco. "Blind" is another notch in his belt. I'm not sure what's up with the Dionysian music video.

Frankmusik - 3 Little Words

Best lyric:

"Plead for time and you might understand

Feelings have no thoughts, and they ain't got any plans"

The Black Ghosts remix is head and shoulders about the Stuart Price original. Try listening to this and not dancing. Impossible.

Dodos - Winter

Best lyric:

"Your love was such a heavy, heavy blow."

These cats also rocked Culture Shock, making an impressive amount of sound for a duo (I hear they now perform as a trio). Their debut, Fools, was solid stuff--folky and dense.