TOP 100 SONGS 0F 2007: 61-70

On we go, heading towards the top 50. Considering slowing this down, as 10 songs a day (or couple of days) really is a lot... Maybe I should've only done 50 after all.

70. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Catch You (Rapidshare link)
Album: Trip the Light Fantastic

An extremely fun song with a great beat, letting Sophie have some fun as she sings a song from the perspective of a stalker who refuses to be shaken off, no matter how their target tries. Her enthusiasm, as ill-placed as it is, is infectious. It's not too complicated, just a fun song to dance to.

69. White Rabbits - Tourist Trap (Rapidshare link)
Album: Fort Nightly

An excellent mix of sounds, something these White Rabbits are great at. I enjoy the 'dreamy' quality of the lyrics about being tourists, about going home and going abroad.

68. Mgmt - Time to Pretend (Rapidshare link)
Album: Oracular Spectacular

An amusing song in the beginning, outlining a perfect life of wealth, drugs, babes and 'living fast and dying young'. It turns out to be, I believe, a sad statement on how our destinies are predestined early on and how we can only imagine the future that we really want, despite how grand our dreams may be. 'We're fated to pretend,' states the protagonist amidst carefully constructed layers of sounds, as it delves into the past where, as children, we would pretend not knowing what comes next. Oddly, one of Pitchfork's top songs of the year as well, on one of our rare agreements.

67. Straylight Run - The Miracle That Never Came (Rapidshare link)
Album: The Needles the Space

This song is relentless, moving forward like a train, with singer Michelle DaRosa singing quickly a story of grief that starts out grinning sideways and slowly becoming a sad song about loss of a child, then pounding back into its quick tone again. "I used to sing you lullabies, I'd hold you when you'd start to cry, I was your mother and your friend, don't you remember me from then?" It reminds me of someone 'keeping busy', running from their grief and yet never escaping.

66. Eisley - Many Funerals (Rapidshare link)
Album: Combinations

A chilling beginning leads into a gorgeous song, one of Eisley's best yet, a macabre song about death. Their voices are like the angels of death here, pretty and creepy at the same time, singing lyrics like, "They fill the empty caskets, and leave you with your tears." It's like a dance in the fog at midnight, with a rocking beat that nonetheless belongs to the dead.

65. Bowerbirds - In Our Talons (Rapidshare link)
Album: Hymns for a Dark Horse

Another song from enviro-friendly band Bowerbirds, offering their unique, almost sullen sound with hopeful vocals. This song is a song to the earth, to the small things that make it beautiful, and mourning their destruction at human hands. With these guys, I always want to look up their lyrics, because they always have some sort of message. It's summed up in a line near the end: " "It takes a lot of nerve to destroy this wondrous earth", bemoaning the fact that this is a lesson we've yet to learn.

64. Natalie Walker - Quicksand (Thievery Corporation Remix) (Rapidshare link)
Album: Unreleased (original on Urban Angel)

Natalie Walker's voice is one of my finds of 2007, a highlight among all the bad music I find and dispose of. This song, about the feeling of being stuck in one place in the aftermath of being left, touches something deep, and it's only enhanced by Thievery Corporation's remixing. The original was a bit too over-beated, and they add a beautiful dreamy haze to it that really works well with Walker's vocals and the general tone of the song.

63. Shannon Wright - They'll Kill The Actor In The End (Rapidshare link)
Album: Let in the Light

Shannon Wright is a singer that, sadly, I feel I've neglected as I've always wanted to listen more to her, but never remember to. What I have heard is great - her cover of The Smith's "Asleep" is a particular favourite - but that isn't as much as it could be. Luckily, I picked up her 2007 album, "Let in the Light" at a small used music store in Toronto, which led me to this piano-led piece. It feels like slipping into a world of dark slow-motion depression, with Wright's scratchy vocals leading us on a field trip into the darkness. However, dark is far from good, and this is a song that sends chills through one's spine.

62. Great Lake Swimmers - Your Rocky Spine (Rapidshare link)
Album: Ongiara

A love song to the mountains that some could interpret as a metaphor for a lover, this is a highlight of the Great Lake Swimmers' style of odd, haunting distant vocals with folk-sounding instruments. This feels like the song the mountain wind makes, with the lake and the trees, a mystical, magical song of ambiguous love. I find that you cannot listen to this music often, but when you do, it's an experience.

61. Róisín Murphy - Let Me Know (Rapidshare link)
Album: Overpowered

A song about sexual disconnection, about emotional borders, about heat where love has no place. It's about alleviating loneliness, and like many songs of this theme is ultimately very danceable. It's about freedom, and with that it makes a song easy to bounce to, well-constructed and layered for maximum effect. Murphy is brilliant here.

So, that's another set down as we approach the larger numbers... Remember, though, all of these songs are damn good. There's plenty of songs that didn't even make it into the top 100! :) And remember, if you enjoy these songs, I urge you to check out their artists!

TOP 100 SONGS 0F 2007: 71-80

We're just starting to gain some momentum. so I'm gonna cut to the chase and keep going...

80. Remi Nicole - Right Side of Me (Rapidshare link)
Album: My Conscience & I

A really sweet love song about feeling accepted and loved, even at her worst. It's so honest, very downbeat and low and showcases Remi's voice and lyrics instead of the music. I enjoy the little dialogues Remi relates, and when she finally says, "I think you're amazing," we believe that she does.

79. Tori Amos - The Beauty of Speed (Rapidshare link)
Album: American Doll Posse

I fell in love with this song through a live version, actually, which moved a little slower and forced Tori to sing normally all through the chorus, something I initially disliked, but have grown to love. The lyrics and her vocals here are spine-tingling, and her piano is, just as always, beautiful. While this album has been slow to grow on me, this song readily demanded to be acknowledged.

78. Klaxons - Golden Skans (Rapidshare link)
Album: Myths of the Near Future

One of the catchiest songs of the year, it spread through the blogs like wildfire. I have no idea what it means, but it doesn't really matter to you when you're listening to it and getting caught up in its craziness. Kicks off like one of the bands titular klaxons, demanding your attention as it pounds forward, then

77. Rilo Kiley - Smoke Detector (Rapidshare link)
Album: Under the Blacklight

I have to admit, as a Rilo Kiley song, this is disappointing; in fact, the entirety of Under the Blacklight was. It should have crammed itself all into my Top 20 instead of straggling down here in the 70's. That said, if I forget what this should be, I enjoy Jenny Lewis' fun vocals and the not-bad lyrics.

76. Bowerbirds – Human Hands (Rapidshare link)
Album: Hymns of a Dark Horse

Another quiet Bowerbirds song, wonderful in its simplicity. They showcase their environmental focus here again, speaking about how despite the danger nature may pose, there is no hate; that is unique to humanity, a fact we should be both ashamed and proud of. We are different, Bowerbirds tell us, and it's up to us to realise how to use it for good and not evil.

75. Spoon - The Ghost of You Lingers (Rapidshare link)
Album: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Unlike Spoon's usual style, this song is genuinely creepy, with vocals quite and sounding distant and far away like a ghost's, while the music itself pounds on relentlessly. Impressive atmosphere used here, to great effect. Few songs do creepy well, and I like how this one does it.

74. Mgmt - The Youth (Rapidshare link)
Album: Oracular Spectacular

From intriguing newbies to my collection, Mgmt (sometimes called 'The Management') bring a song with layers that is quite mysterious as to its meaning. I believe it's about the core value differences between our generation and those before us, though I can feel a note of paranoia here as well. It makes me curious, and either way it's a fun listen.

73. Tegan and Sara - Soil, Soil (Rapidshare link)
Album: The Con

For a long time 'The Con's redeeming note in my eyes, a really sweet song about waiting on a call from someone important. 'Buried in my yard, a letter to send to you. And if I forget, or God forbid die too soon, hope that you'll hear me, know that I wrote to you." Those lines, the desperation and sadness within them, caught my heart in a big way and held there whiule the rest of the album grew on me.

72. Remi Nicole - Go Mr. Sunshine (Rapidshare link)
Album: My Conscience & I

Bookending young Ms. Nicole's oddly similar spots on this section of this list is this wonderful anthem to summer, the song that introduced her to me and got me excited for her debut (which I ended up loving). It's full of just those little details you love about summer. I'm expecting this song will be on every commercial imaginable.c

71. Modest Mouse - Little Motel (Rapidshare link)

An oddly tender, if at first seemingly nonsensical, song from a band I often associate with, well, songs I don't like too much. The self-perspective the protagonist shows here is impressive, and it's a nice song about the regret of the destruction of a relationship. Regret fills every word of this song, pours through it. It seems remarkably mature for a band that too often fills their songs with screaming and/or whining.

Just remember, if you love any of this music, I urge you to check it out elsewhere! A lot of these artists are still growing, especially Dragonette, Bowerbirds, Remi and Mgmt, who all just released their debut albums in 2007. Apologies for posting this section late. I may post the next today to catch up.

TOP 100 SONGS 0F 2007: 81-90

So, last time around, I gave ya some Jon, some Bird, some Bjork, some Sophie and some identical twins. Trust me yet? If not, keep going, as you've only scratched the bottom of the pile. So, here goes...

90. Brandi Carlile - The Story (Rapidshare link)
Album: The story

Used recently to promote Grey's Anatomy, this was one of the songs that convinced me I'd fall in love with Carlile. That never came to pass, but this is still a beautiful song about companionship. She really does have an amazing voice.

89. Sondre Lerche - Say It All (Rapidshare link)
Album: Phantom Punch

It's hard to describe this song. I like the lyrics, of the perils of trying to 'say it all' and just digging yourself a bigger grave, and the music is generally quite good (though sometimes, in the wrong mood it's pretty annoying). The teasing tone Lerche does at points is often quite amusing, though.

88. Of Montreal - A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger (Rapidshare link)
Album: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

A bizarrely bouncy tune set to the story of feeling imprisoned by one's environment, in this case Norway. "I spent the winter with my nose in a book, trying to restructure my character, because it had become vile to its creator." The lyricism here is utterly brilliant, simultaneously detailing a breakdown and making you bounce along with it.

87. The Bird and the Bee - Polite Dance Song (Rapidshare link)
Album: Would You Please Clap Your Hands?

I originally had another Bird and Bee song here, but another of these such lists turned me onto 'Polite Dance Song', which is hilarious fun. Inara George's debut CD irked me in style, but as the Bird in this pairing she's utterly brilliant, and rarely better shown that here. When 'would you please' and 'apologies' mesh together in the background, the two go together very well, giving a really nice sound.

86. Bowerbirds – My Oldest Memory (Rapidshare link)
Album: Hymns of a Dark Horse

Bowerbirds is a rather obscure band at the moment, though I believe the internet is slowly giving them some press. I'm happy to add myself to that group here, as 'My Oldest Memory' is quite a nice song. It's quiet, vocal-based with a quiet strumming behind-the-scenes and a chorus with a choral sound. It's unassumingly good.

85. Rufus Wainwright – Tulsa (Rapidshare link)
Album: Release the Stars

Reportedly written about a sexual encounter between Wainwright and The Killers' lead singer Brandon Flowers, this song is nice reminiscence even without that. This song is all about the little things, the buildup to the morning described in the early lines. It's hinting, almost mocking while at the same time appreciative. And if it is just bragging about landing one of music's well-known 'indie'-singers, well, for some reason that just makes it even funnier.

84. Gwenno - U & I (Rapidshare link)
Album: U & I EP
"You and I have been running around like headless chickens, and I've had just about enough of it." This excellent song from one of the Pipettes, a pretty singer names Gwenno, is the highlight of what I've heard from her, which has been largely quite good. Not following the 'from another era' feel of her bandmates, she's made a sweet, poppy song here with clear vocals that just rolls from beat to beat.

83. A Fine Frenzy - Let It Snow (Rapidshare link)
Album: Myspace released

I'm not a Christmas music person, as noted earlier on in this list, but two songs blew me away this year and will probably be listened to even as the snow melts away and the presents are all forgotten. The second of these is Alison Sudol's beautiful 'Let it Snow', taking a song I've never particularly loved and making it a beautiful experience.

82. Measured in Angles - The Diderot Effect (Rapidshare link)
Album: History of the Engine

Now, this is odd. An instrumental, very mechanical song that comes in at under two minutes isn't exactly a peer among the rest on this list musically, but I have to say I somehow found the style of Measured in Angles, an instrumental band from both sides of the Canada/US border, mysteriously enchanting. This band, apparent;y while using traditional rock instruments, perfectly recreate a mechanical sound. This band is much better than I'd have expected it to be before listening.

81. Scala & Kolacny Brothers - The Blower’s Daughter (Damien Rice cover) (Rapidshare link)
Album: One-Winged Angel

The original is beautiful. How does one enhance such a song, while abandoning Damien Rice's painful vocals? Scala does the job nicely, taking their generally gorgeous choral style and working it particularly well here. Shivers go up and down your spine as they rise to the climax and slowly bring it down for a denouement.

So, there it is, part two of a rather insane undertaking. Once this list is done, you may never need another song again! However, if you do, I urge you to check them out elsewhere!