Song, by Toad

Get it – Festive Fiddy! Oh I do crack myself up sometimes, I really do.

So here endeth the Festive Fifty for this year.  As anyone who has compiled this kind of list will know, the whole process is more than a little arbitrary, and were I to start from scratch tomorrow I would probably end up somewhere notably different.

The interesting thing for me personally is to note how strongly the advantages and disadvantages of nepotism have made themselves known.

The advantages are obvious – would there be so much Withered Hand, Meursault, FOUND and all the rest so high on this list if I didn’t have a much closer personal relationship with their music than most other music?  Well I doubt it.  I am being a hundred percent sincere when I say that these are my favourite songs this year, but I do know that being as close to music as I am does change how you feel about it, so I have to acknowledge that.

On the downside, bands like Broken Records, Sparrow & the Workshop, Withered Hand and even Meursault to a degree have suffered from how early I became familiar with certain songs.  I have a demo version, a Religious Songs EP version and an album version of New Dawn, for example.  So while under normal circumstances songs like that, Devil Song by Sparrow, Eilert Loveborg by Broken Records and even Nothing Broke by Meursault would normally have figured very prominently indeed on this list, I already expressed my enthusiasm for them at least a year ago and consequently they are on other lists and I don’t really feel I can put them on this one.

And before anyone complains about Trips and Falls being another Song, by Toad Records band on this list, remember that, as with Meursault last year, it’s not that they’re on this list because they’re a Song, by Toad Records band, it’s that they’re a Song, by Toad Records band because they’re on this list.

01.Elvis Perkins In Dearland – Shampoo
There just something about the rhythm of this song which I cannot get away from.  When I first played it on my Fresh Air Radio show Dylan commented that it had a sort of cocky swagger to it, and it really, really does.  Then there’s the deep, foreboding harmonies which break in at the end.  There’s strut to the rhythm, a crack to his voice, belligerence and tragedy in the mood of it all – it’s just a fucking special, special song.

02.Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt.2 (Single Version)
When Neil first played us this apparently he though ‘Fuck, I’ve finally written a song they don’t like’.  Mrs. Toad now plays this single at least once a day in our house, and if ever there was a song to break your speakers for it’s this one.  The cello is gut-shaking, the piano is chiming and gorgeous and those vocals are just about the most heart-wrenching I’ve heard anywhere, ever.  So if he wants to write a song we don’t like he may have to try a little harder.

03.Navigator – Work is Done
This sensitive, emotional song interrupts an album which is basically an onslaught of overloaded mics and distortion and when this suddenly appears it hits you right between the eyes, largely because you’re so unprepared.  It doesn’t depend on its surroundings though, because even in isolation this is every bit as heartbreaking a song.

04.Trips and Falls – And In Real Life He Wears Corduroy Pants
This was one of those moments where the very first second you listen to something you know for certain that you are hearing something a bit special.  This is a genius combination of massively infectious pop song and really peculiar atmosphere.  There’s something just plain creepy about this album, even the sugar-sweet Prelude to a Shark Attack, but this song perhaps embodies that better than any.  And it really is one to be played loud as well.

05.FOUND – Mullokian (Toad Session)
I remember sitting there while they were recording this and thinking ‘What the fucking hell is going on here, this is amaaaazing!’  The gently rolling guitar refrain, the simple heartfelt chorus (if you can call it that) and Tommy’s phenomenal backing vocals – there’s just so little actually there, and even that is used with such economy.  Brilliant.

06.Withered Hand – No Cigarettes
The first time I heard this I remember a grin slowly spreading over my face.  Dan’s songs can often be about little in particular other than a weird sense of something really not being right, and this seems to be one of those – describing a general sense of malaise with such simple music and a deft turn of phrase, you can’t help but let this get to you.

07.Auld Lang Syne – Where My Fortune Lies
This is as rousing and uplifting as any church music could ever be, and has even more impact for shrinking back into such quiet in the middle.  Some fucking voice as well.

08.The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You
The album may have disappointed, but this is stunning.  It’s that voice, the slow piano, the… just the sheer sadness of it all.  It sounds like the demoralisation of someone coming out the other end of a midlife crisis and surveying the wreckage of their lives, although it may not be about that exactly, it does feel that way to me I have to confess.

09.Navigator – Blood
This embodies Navigator’s brilliant album Bad Children, for me.  It’s a song which is full of pain, but is angry and belligerent with it.  There’s an underlying aggression to it which really batters out at you from within the noise, and prevents the song, or indeed the album, sounding at all self-pitying or maudlin.  He’s hurting and he’s fucking angry, and the resulting music is absolutely superb.

10.Alela Diane – Age Old Blue
Age Old Blue may be from another album I wasn’t that keen on overall, but this duet with friend Michael Hurley is beautiful.  I remember seeing them perform it for the first time after her performance at the Bongo Club a couple of years ago and having no real expectations when they took the stage, only to have my jaw drop at the combination of his nasal, grizzled accompaniment to her gorgeous voice.

To download all these songs as a single  zip file, click here.

1-10 / 11-20 / 21-35 / 36-50