Every week our contributors will voice their opinion concerning one song, it’s a simple as that! The more the merrier, so people are always welcome to join in, just leave a note, eh.
This time our Christmas Break special in which we pick our favourite tracks of the year!
Craig: Best' song of '10 - 'Coma Summer' – Weekend
My taste in music is quite simple, really. All I ask of a song is that it shreds my fucking face off. I want it loud--capable of causing ear damage & nose bleeds, and I want it to flirt with chaos. I found these criteria more than satisfied when Weekend's noisy cacophony "Coma Summer" dropped earlier this year.
The buzzing guitars are an open floodgate & the sonorous harmonies give a waterfall quality to the merciless wall of sound Weekend builds. The blurry vocals as background keep this song sounding chaotic without drifting into meaningless noise. All in all, it gave me a great excuse to blow out the speakers in my rental car this weekend.
Linda - Track: Joanna Newsom - Good Intentions Paving Company
I was quite surprised myself that after ploughing some other end of year lists I came up with this track as my best track of the year. Somehow, I'd completely forgotten about Joanna Newsom, even though she managed to release the longest album of the year (I think I managed to listen to it in full only once). Nevertheless, I absolutely love this song, even the bit with the banjo. Even though most people only see a sweet girl playing the harp when they think of Joanna, I love that this song show that she does have an attitude and has a good grip on sarcasm (why else would you name a song about a relationship on the road to hell 'Good Intentions Paving Company'?). And if someone were to start an argument about her voice being unbearable, don't worry, I've made a rather inconclusive list of honourable mentions (sorry, I couldn't help myself): Former Ghosts - Bare Bones; Zola Jesus - Manifest Destiny; Islet - Iris; Baths - Plea; Parenthetical Girls - Young Throats; The National - You Were a Kindness; Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People (I don't care which version); Blue Water White Dead - Song for the Greater Jihad.
Anna: The National - Conversation 16
Picking my favourite song of the year would normally cause my brain cells to implode, but this year the answer comes naturally. Its engaging song structure and overwhelming melody aside, this song managed to not only touch my heartstrings (festive sappiness), but play them till melting point, substitute them with new ones, and repeat the process from scratch. I wouldn't have it any other way. After all, that's what favourite songs are meant to do.
Ilse: Foals - 'Spanish Sahara'
After much contemplation, I decided to go with something that isn’t necessarily the song I loved the most this year in terms of musical content or emotional attachment (in that case I probably would’ve chosen Former Ghosts, The National, or something else). At the end of a year, you feel so spoilt with fresh bands and new albums by old loves, you often unwittingly ‘lose’ certain artists as well. This can happen because you feel ‘too old’ for it and you’ve outgrown the band, forget about them, or simply can’t relate to their music anymore.
One of the bands I’ve outgrown this year (among Mystery Jets and Laura Marling) was Foals. When I heard ‘Spanish Sahara’ for the first time I didn’t fully realise they were going down a different road with their new album, as I was blinded by how good this track was. Musically, it’s very solid, starting off quiet and calm and slowly adding instruments and building up to a climax. Upon seeing them live two to three times after this came the disappointment: they had lost all the energy and vigourity I loved them for, I was annoyed by screaming children around me and the album ‘Total Life Forever’ was dreadful. By the time summer started I had almost forgotten about Foals. Anyway, it were two fun years and I don’t feel sorry for the loss: ‘Spanish Sahara’ is a magnificent farewell.
Stef: Follow the countdown in the “clip van de dag” section to find out! No use in spoiling it, now is there?
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