TOP 100 SONGS OF 2007: 31-40

Getting into some real gems here, with heavy hitters like Andrew Bird, Dragonette and The Pierces starting to surface. The lower ranks were pretty light of them, but that's mostly because they found themselves in a lot of higher spots. I considered limiting things to 1 per album, but then I realised this way was just plain more honest. Also, I've started including music videos where appropriate (athough I'm holding one back as I've already written a Music Video Showcase to post at a later date for it).

Anyhow, onto the list...



40. Andrew Bird - Imitosis (Sendspace link)
Album: Armchair Apocrypha

A song I only really discovered after falling for the remix, this is a wonderful song about the mysteries of science. Andrew Bird shows off his intelligent lyricism here, telling stories of cells, mitosis and bunsen burners, all words one might have found in a science clasroom instead of one's iPod. That said, the music is far from neglected here - in fact, the Marriott Hotel chain used just instrumental pieces from this song (and others from Bird's repertoire) for their commercials. You fall in love with the music, which I have trouble properly describing in words, and begin to pay attention to the lyrics. That's when he gets you.

39. Straylight Run - This is the End (Sendspace link)
Album: The Needles the Space

A quiet, lullaby-like song that opens with glittering sounds and soft vocals from female vocalist Michelle DaRosa, and continues in this quiet, calming tone with other voices joining in occasionally, for the chorus mostly. It's a quite simple song, but also quite beautiful. I've heard that the band only recently started giving DaRosa lead vocal spots, and I'm of the opinion that might be the band's best move. While male vocalist John Nolan isn't bad, DaRosa has a gorgeous voice, and his works best when supporting hers. Tracks like this highlight that fact magnificently.

38. Dragonette - Competition (Sendspace link)
Album: Galore

One of the first Dragonette tracks that caught my attention, this song features lead vocalist Martina Sorbara taking on the guise of a mistress and, of course, loving it. Just like in songs like Take It Like a Man, she's the one with the confidence, playfully telling her beau to 'try not to blush'. She loves, not the man or being with him, but merely the danger and excitement the situation affords her. Sorbara's significant other here barely factors into the equation at all, and that's the way we like it.



37. The Pierces - Boring (Sendspace link)
Album: Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge

Where the previous song was about joy from a taboo, this is all about the ennui that comes from the excess of it. A song that perfectly ties into our age of celebrity and starlet fever, this needles the Paris Hiltons of the world. When you can have everything, there's nothing left to excite you. This really is the ultimate 'be careful what you wish for' song. Not only this, but the way its sung, with the utter apathy extending even to the climax where even their life dreams, once realised, have become 'boring'. And yet, the music and the style of the singing keep it from being boring itself.



36. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Me and My Imagination (Sendspace link)
Album: Trip the Light Fantastic

Sophie Ellis-Bextor knows how to make you dance, whether in a club or in your chair, and this, Trip the Light Fantastic's second single, is no different. A song about leaving an element of mystery in order to keep a relationship fun, it draws on the feeling of the 'thrill of the chase', something well translated in the music. This makes my feet tap like crazy every time I give it a listen.



35. Mika - Grace Kelly (Sendspace link)
Album: Life in Cartoon Motion

This song is apparently born out of Mika's frustrations with labels' attempts to pigeonhole him into this or that sound, ironic considering some of the criticisms levelled against him for being too 'cookie cutter pop'. However, I am not one of those critics, as I thoroughly enjoy a good listen to Mika, and this is the song that pulled me in (while waiting to watch Spiderman 3 in theatres - the power of advertising!). It's delightfully bouncy and loud in all the right places, and easily applied to the common relationship issue of changing one's partner to suit one's own needs as easily as Mika's original meaning. It's a great song for walking, and (if I don't have a headache) can usually make me grin.

34. Die Romantik - Narcissist's Waltz (Sendspace link)
Album: Narcissist's Waltz

One of my biggest 2007 regrets is not buying the total Die Romantik debut album (of which this is the titular song), as every song from it is excellent. This follows the waltz beat, with the usual great vocals and intriguing sound. It makes me think of waltzing in a pitch dark ballroom, every dancer so well practised that they never, ever touch. Chills down my spine every time.

33. The Pierces - Lights On (Sendspace link)
Album: Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge

When I describe The Pierces as 'wicked', this is one of the songs that I'm thinking about. Shameless, the protagonist is seductive and dangerous, capturing the hearts of men with a wink. My cousin Marelly compares their voices here to Gwen Stefani and sometimes it does sound like Gwen at her best. The song is so sexy, and yet oddly hilarious as well. Perfect partner to any Dragonette track.

32. Remi Nicole - Rock'n Roll (Sendspace link)
Album: My Conscience & I

I have a lot of tenderness in my heart for Remi Nicole, a young black singer who fought attempts to 'r'n'b'-ize her or pigeonhole her into hiphop. While many of her lyrics show potential for growth, this song is one of her delightful best, detailing her attempts to just be herself in a music scene that doesn't want her if she doesn't rap. She's just so damn cute, and I'll forgive a lot for the pure enjoyment I get outta this track. Even if, to me, she sounds a little more like pop than rock. Who cares as long as it's good?

31. Cloetta Paris - Broken Heart Tango (Sendspace link)
Album: Myspace release

I found this gem via the gallant Zeon's blog (on the sidebar). At first, I wasn't sure, but then I fell hard for this song. The ethereal 'ah aaaah' in the background early on, the downbeat disco beat, and Paris' beautiful vocals translating her beautiful sadness from word to song. The lyrics are also very nice, with the lead line, "Don't say you love me, for a start, or you will be a boy with a broken heart." Like the above Narcissist's Waltz, I can practically see this song in my head, and it breaks my heart every time.

All of these have been on my 'can't stop playing' list at one point or another, excepting Narcissist's Waltz, which had to wait until I fell in love with two other Die Romantik songs to get noticed. If you enjoy these songs, I urge you to check out their albums!

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!