Feature by InRO Staff: As the music industry continues to emphasize the single, most of us here at In Review Online keep hoping that the album format will be with us a while longer. We, as a site, prefer to focus on the laudable achievement of writing, recording and producing a great album, but even still there, were plenty of instances this year when just one song stood out from the others it was sequenced with, even when those other tracks were themselves of a consistently high caliber. Truly there were too many remarkable songs released in 2009 to list them all here, but we thought it worthwhile to compile a list of some of our favorites, in no specified order. Some are taken from records we hold in high regard; others are a great deal better than the album to which they belong; and many come from records we haven’t covered before, for one reason or another. Certainly, this list is not intended to be a definitive statement on the year’s best songs. However, we as a staff feel strongly that each we’ve selected—spanning a wide variety of genres and styles—should be considered among the best 2009 had to offer us, and should be recognized as genuine accomplishments for the bands and artists that produced them. In this spirit, here are our Top 25 Songs of 2009. Chris Nowling

Setting out to craft an entire album of pristine pop gems is to run the errand of a fool: the results often yield something too schematic to merit consideration as a unified whole. Worse still, if your Phoenix, you might for some reason find it necessary to plop a deadly boring instrumental in the middle of your singles stew, in effect coming damn close to ruining the whole recipe. No matter; what Phoenix fail to achieve on their obscenely overpraised Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix they get so right during the three minutes that comprise “1901.” This devilishly addicting single buzzes and whistles and when it crests, pop stars the world over weep with envy. Sam C. Mac

“Stillness is the Move” was one of the most ubiquitous indie singles of the past year, and for good reason. For their breakout record, Bitte Orca, Dirty Projectors created a song unlike anything they had before and, really, unlike anything we had previously heard—an unusually sexy, soulful tune that still carried the band’s own unique signature, representing an indelible fusion of indie-rock and R&B. The fact that Solange Knowles covered it later in the year would seem to offer the track some legitimacy as a pop tune, but really, no convincing is necessary: “Stillness is the Move” is a defining moment for Dirty Projectors, and for the year 2009. CN

Woods’s Sunlit 7” is a modest follow-up to the band’s rightfully lauded breakout, Songs of Shame, but it contains a B-side as instantly devastating and endlessly catchy as anything else in the band’s catalogue. “The Dark,” a typically brief acoustic track, bristles with the same laid-back charm that's come to define this band; it works with an agile melody as supple and as surprising as anything released all year. Jordan Cronk

There are plenty of standout tracks from Animal Collective's masterpiece, Merriweather Post Pavilion, but “Brother Sport,” stuck at the end of the record, perhaps best encapsulates what makes the group (and the album) so special. Following the spastic folk-rock of Strawberry Jams in 2007, the boys took a turn toward a decidedly more melodic, production-heavy sound. And within the six minutes of the album's first leaked track, one finds the special and unique qualities that led to Merriweather's resounding success: layered, warm harmonies, buoyant choruses, and thumping rhythms make this closing number a truly remarkable piece from a band that continues to impress at every turn. CN

Arguably the most ambitious song of Dan Bejar’s impossibly brilliant career, this 13-minute foray into ambient-disco may, more importantly, signify a new direction for the usually tail-chasing Destroyer project. Both structurally and aesthetically, “Bay of Pigs” is an intimidating proposition, moving as it does through a methodically paced yet richly evolving state of light synth washes and loosely weighted disco beats. And while Bejar continues to tie his speech into vividly twisted knots, working as he is here with this truly unexpected display of genre defiance, “Bay of Pigs” has already gone a long way towards stoking anticipation for just where Bejar may take this malleable new sound. JC

Miranda Lambert’s sprawling, diverse third effort, Revolution, is full of dynamic and expressive songwriting that I'd claim occasionally rivals that of any country artist's output of the last few years, especially those of the usually-stagnant pop-country genre. But on the more reserved and introspective side of record, we find an especially bright moment in “Airstream Song,” which features the perfect balance of storytelling and emotional resonance as Lambert wistfully dreams about the roads not taken. It's modest, but beautifully sung. CN

Riding in on the year’s most wickedly tweaked bass riff, Califone’s All My Friends Are Funeral Singers opener “Giving Away the Bride” found the junk-yard Americana of the band’s more recent output emboldened by a bit of the muscle that's only occasionally peppered their work since the Red Red Meat days. Structurally brave, surprisingly rhythmic, and, my god, almost funky, “Giving Away the Bride” struts with a confidence suggesting it was written by fresh faced newcomers; that it was actually conceived and executed by arguably America’s most reliable veteran indie-rock band only adds to its respectability. JC

It’s weird to think that, in early 2010, James Blackshaw’s most anticipated, most widely available and most diverse recording to date could have already been forgotten less than a year after its release. But it’s true—little on The Glass Bead Game afforded itself much weight in the shadow of such vivid precursors. That is, except for “Cross,” the album’s shimmering opening track and candidate for Blackshaw’s best standalone piece to date. Intricately weaving a one-man symphony of 12-string guitar, harmonium, cello, and viola, “Cross” encompasses just about everything great about Blackshaw’s post-Tacoma acoustic reveries in a single eight-minute sonic tone poem of such startling maturity that it continues to boggle the mind that these sounds are somehow being produced by a visionary under the age of 30. The future indeed looks bright. JC

Working as a kind of chiseled, more compact version of Emerald’s similarly affecting “Living Room,” this title track and emotional highpoint from Chad Vangaalen’s recent electronic endeavor as Black Mold reduced 18 other skittish, homemade IDM experiments into a single, hypnotizing acoustic lament. But sequenced where it is, sixteen tracks into one of 2009's more willfully varied and schizophrenic head-trips, “Snow Blindness is Crystal Antz” plays like an eye-of-the-storm awakening where everything falls perfectly into place, resulting in probably my single favorite recorded moment of the year. JC

Bill Callahan’s latest effort under his own name (rather than under the Smog moniker), Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, has several wonderful moments, but none more sublime than “Jim Cain,” which once again showcases Callahan’s formidable songwriting skill, but in a somehow less dreary, more hopeful manner. Delivered in his half-spoken, half-sung delivery and with a familiarly simple yet effective orchestral backdrop, “Jim Cain” is full of emotion, both deeply personal to its author and easily appreciated by the listener. A gentle yet gripping narrative. CN

Sunset Rubdown’s Dragonslayer aspires to epic, 80s arena-rock, and its best single, “Idiot Heart,” is the most prescient example of the enjoyably strange compromise its author settles on. It’s louder, smoother and more riff-heavy than anything the indie-rock band has previously produced, but it doesn’t really stray too far from familiar territory. “I was never much of a dancer but I know you gotta move your idiot body around,” Spencer Krug suggests, as guitars churn beneath his vox, and for a brief moment, one can just about see him silhouetted in lights and smoke, rocking a stadium full of screaming fans. And that’s just awesome. CN

Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ new, more synthetic approach yielded a divisive record, based on a poll of our staff. But both sides find it difficult to deny the ethereal beauty of It’s Blitz highlight “Skeletons.” Karen O’s lovely voice is cushioned by shimmering guitar and swirling synths as the tune builds toward its grand yet restrained climax over five minutes of blissful balladry. If there are moments on the album where you miss the bombastic garage-rock of times past, this should not be one of them. CN

Harlem Shakes’ debut album highlight, “Strictly Game,” is a prime example of why we should have been paying attention to this group throughout the year. The boys have decided to call it quits now and will surely be relegated to general obscurity soon, an unfortunate fact as they obviously had something worthwhile to offer on Technicolor Health. For the album’s lead single, "Strictly Game," the band produce an enormously lively and funky sound that features their characteristic mixture of synthetic and organic percussion in a genuinely smile-inducing indie-rock tune that stands as a formidable testament to their pop prowess. (One that damn near equals "1901.") CN

Nonchalantly sequenced on an album with no shortage of tantalizingly brief song snippets, Circulatory System’s “News from the Heavenly Loom” bursts free from the radio static and reeling tape edits of the first half of Signal Morning, and in just 23 short seconds endears as arguably the year’s most perfect pop melody. The fact that I’m having difficulty keeping this capsule below the specified word count should speak to Will Cullen Hart’s fundamental mastery of the form, as he continues to weave 40-plus years of pop radio into both elemental and elusive shapes. JC

On their impossibly underrated comeback album, In Prism, North Carolina cult heroes Polvo, a band which has built a career on show-stopping openers, unleashed arguably their most instantly approachable and melodically endearing opening salvo yet. The band’s math-rock oriented tendencies were perhaps more subtly deployed here, but what the track lacks in complexity it more than makes up for in anthemic verve. And on an album with eight other equally impressive tunes, “Right the Relation” should be seen as a restatement of purpose from a band that continues to evolve. JC

Fuck Buttons’s exhausting sophomore effort, Tarot Sport, was met mostly with shrugged shoulders around these parts, but one track that we could all agree on was titanic opener “Surf Solar.” Easily the greatest example of the band’s recent retreat into more refined, elongated synth workouts, “Surf Solar” bounces chopped-up samples through 10 minutes of stuttering, minimalist kick drum and drawn-out underpinnings of electronic drone. More well-considered and consistently enthralling than any of the band’s new work, this track wonderfully compresses the divide between the filthier, more dynamic range of their debut and the tranquil soundscapes found on Tarot Sport. JC

In a year overflowing with exquisite ambient records, it was Cleveland dream-weavers Emeralds who brought a rare and beautiful melodic dimension to their typically cataclysmic drones. Melting from nearly ten minutes of frozen, latent drones into one of 2009's most shiver-inducing acoustic revelations, “Living Room,” epic centerpiece of the band’s first widely available recording, What Happened, radiates pure sensation, carrying with it our hearts as we glimpse the future of the experimental electronic underground. JC

“Seven Forty Seven,” a crucial, previously unreleased tune from downtempo legends Boards of Canada, sparked nostalgia like the best of their tunes, yet this Warp20 highlight threw its considerable weight around with a confidence most of their more recent material has sadly lacked. As imposing as the titular aircraft, it simultaneously lunges and heaves in turbulent yet comforting fashion, transporting the listener from America’s city streets to the rolling Scottish countryside. JC

T.I.'s deceptive boast "No Matter What" is a heartbreaking show of stiff-upper-lip from a man clearly uncertain about what the future (and his then-impending prison sentence) would yield. Cam'ron's own meaningful lament is a little different; the rapper likewise pens the most detailed and deftly felt lyrics of his career, but speaks not only to his own perseverance as a hip-hop veteran desperately grasping for a come-back, but to the doggedness of this country’s newly unemployed. More so than any song on Young Jeezy's also-quite-potent full-length, The Recession, Cam'ron's modest "I Hate My Job" captures the zeitgeist of our present economy. "Looking for a job, ain't nobody hiring," Cam'ron drawls, and his sentiments are as blatantly direct as they are disarmingly piercing. SCM

Blame it on the boogie: the slick sheen of Big Boi's stunner "Shine Blockas" takes the Blue Notes' soul classic, "I Miss You," and adds just the right amount of percussion skitter, chopped editing and trunk-rattling bass pulse to give the track a perfect blend of Southern swagger and triumphant pop effervescence. The lyrics, too, are better than they have any need to be; Big Boi, consistently dwarfed by his better half in Outkast, is given his moment to, well, shine—and boy does he. Big's rhymes are nimble and exude the kind of confidence few rappers in the game have the skills to back up. Then there's Gucci. Arguably the most divisive rapper since early Lil Wayne, the newly incarcerated Gucci Mane, featured here and given his own platform on party-rap classic-in-the-making, "Wasted," proves his flow and presence to be among the most engaging in current rap music. "Shine Blockas" isn't just the best hip-hop song of 2009—it makes the already underperforming year for rap look that much more pathetic by comparison. SCM

Much of our staff rallied behind Wolves in the Throne Room’s epic black-metal full-length, Black Cascade (myself included). But it was the band’s preceding EP, Malevolent Grain, which fulfilled the potential for range that first manifested on 2007's Two Hunters. The 13-minute opener, “A Looming Resonance,” contrasts the slower, more dynamic approach of Cascade with the soulful bellowing of female singer Jamie Myers (of Hammers of Misfortune), resulting in a less claustrophobic but no less harrowing journey through the rain-soaked woods of the Pacific Northwest. A kind of distant cousin to Isis’s similarly startling Oceanic centerpiece, “Weight.” JC

Pissed Jeans spent a good deal of time on their most recent record, King of Jeans, stretching out with Melvins-like improvisatory abandon, really playing up the dynamics of their maturing instrumental interplay. And yeah, that stuff kind of works, but good luck surviving the face-melting opening duo of “False Jesii Part 2” and “Half Idiot.” As I have now somehow lived to tell you, the band’s thunderous post-Jesus Lizard cacophony is here at its most scalp-flaying, ferocious best. Anchored by that incomparable rhythm section, Pennsylvania’s most unholy provocateurs smartly lace a front-loaded record with such galvanizing power that even their more wandering excursions feel like necessary respites from these twin carpet-bombs. JC

If nothing else, Andy Falkous’s two most recent “bands,” Mclusky and its mutant spawn Future of the Left, are always reliable for a lung-collapsing opener. Past triumphs such as “The Lord Hates a Coward,” “Without MSG I Am Nothing” and the galvanizing Do Dallas opener “Lightsaber Cock Sucking Blues” each ripped the doors off their respective album’s hinges. And “Arming Eritrea,” the intensely focused and righteously pissed-off opener of last year’s Travels With Myself and Another, can rest easy knowing it’s easily joined the ranks of such classics. Here, however, instead of conjuring humor through his more typical rants of self-conscious boasting or middle-finger politics, Falkous triggers bouts of nervous laughter as he rallies against a faceless enemy named Rick, who, like the listener, was probably left shitless. Seriously, god bless this man’s disregard for human decency. JC

Recording as Tiny Vipers, singer/songwriter Jesy Fortino’s delicate, finger-picked guitar signatures, earthy warble and melancholy musings make for a beautifully sad aesthetic, from which she formed her noteworthy sophomore effort, Life on Earth. The album’s starkness, considerable length and emotional weight surely intimidated some, but the most stirring tune of the set, “Dreamer,” is as genuinely heartbreaking a song as I can remember: a quiet stunner in a year full of much louder, bolder singles, that builds toward a spine tingling climax. CN

In my original review of As Good as Gone, I invoked the names of both Richard D. James and Seefeel to describe “Aurolac,” the standout track from the band’s most focused and consistent album to date. In a day and age where so many electronically-augmented artists are shooting for overblown and immediate, it was surprising that it would be these two 90s figureheads which Nudge so bravely brought to mind. Building as if by unconscious transmission, “Aurolac” accumulates percussion methodically yet precisely, playing with channel-dividing dynamics and atmospheric drone as if ambient techno was the band’s true calling all along. If for only these six perfect minutes, Nudge have done their forebears proud. JC

Feature By:
InRO Staff