Song, by Toad Readers’ Top Five Songs of 2010
The results of the only real award that matters this Winter season (apart from the oracular annunciations of my own opinion, of course) can now finally be announced! AWESOME! I hear you cry in unison. Maybe.
Last year we had these votes as well, but I rather neglectfully failed to actually add up the final scores. In all honesty, it’s the making of the lists which is often the best bit, so picking a winner at the very end is probably not entirely necessary for fun to take place, but given you all did me the honour of voting it seems a little rude not to fulfil my side of the bargain.
So yes, my enormous and profoundly complex algorithm (also known as a tally chart) has finally processed all the entries, and we can announce the winner of the Song, by Toad Readers’ Top Five Songs of the Year. On Friday we will vote for our top five albums, so you might want to start thinking about that one in advance.
Anyone who actually followed the votes will know two things about this particular vote: firstly, that the winner was completely obvious from the very start; and secondly, that there are dozens and dozens of songs with no more than a single vote each, which is kind of inevitable in this kind of thing, but at least suggests that for all Song, by Toad probably represents something of a musical monoculture, there is at least a fair bit of diversity within that narrow vista. So congratulations to the likes of CTel for coming on here and posting five entirely different songs from a notably different genre to the norm around these parts, and balls to the indie kids who don’t like it!
So, in reverse order, we had many songs tied for sixth place. They’re not really part of a top five, of course, but I thought you would be interested to see them:
Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
Arcade Fire – We Used to Wait
Meursault – One Day This’ll All Be Fields
Meursault – Weather
The National – England
The Scottish Enlightenment – Little Sleep
The Walkmen – Angela Surf City
Getting into the top five, we ended up with a three-way tie for third place (in alphabetical order):
=3. Broken Records – You Know You’re Not Dead (Buy here)
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=3. Foals – Spanish Sahara (Buy here)
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=3. Meursault – What You Don’t Have (Buy here)
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There was a really close-run race for second throughout the voting, with Meursault, Foals and Broken Records all in there at various times, but in the end a little burst of enthusiasm carried the following tranche of epic gorgeousness over the line ahead of the others:
2. eagleowl – No Conjunction (Buy here)
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Which leaves the winner, obvious from the very start of the voting, and a song which, from the moment it was first released, generated so much excitement for the album from which it comes that High Violet was almost guaranteed to do well weeks before anyone heard more than a single song. Bloodbuzz Ohio may not even be my personal favourite from that record (that would be England) but it does embody the rich, luxuriant sombreness of the album beautifully.
1. The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio (Buy here)
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And so there we go, your favourite five songs from 2010, a year which I thought was brilliant for new albums, far better than the extremely disappointing 2009. A few things stood out to me from the voting, which are sort of worth mentioning, just by way of follow up.
1. No Sparrow & the Workshop? Come on, people. I know the Sparrows have been quiet for a while, working on their new album, but I reckon they deserved a little more love than they ended up getting in this particular vote.
2. Ha ha ha, no Joanna fucking Newsom or Laura Marling. Well done. They’re fucking shit. I am proud of you.
3. Meursault and The National got a lot of votes. The National scored marginally more total votes than Meursault, but they were mostly for Bloodbuzz Ohio. Meursault had about five or six songs, all of which could easily have been nudged into the top five by a couple of stray votes here or there. In the end, I think it’s fair to say (with some pride) that the consistent excellence of their album, and their general schizophrenia as a band, cannibalised their own vote. No matter though, because these two bands both scored almost double as many total votes as anyone else on the whole list, which is accolade enough in itself.
4. How do I know nothing at all about Foals? I assume that you all read this site because you more or less agree with my taste in music. Otherwise, I can’t entirely see the point. So how come, given we all listen to broadly the same kind of music, do you all love Foals so much while I have never once made the time to sit down and listen to their stuff. Shame on me. Homework for Christmas!
5. We got a lot of votes. This fact gives the results a sheen of respectability which I could never hope to generate on my own. Thank you.
never one to let a theme drop, I suspect Foals are just a bit to ‘jaunty’ for you.
Tunes? Dancing? FUN??? Never subject me to such insults again!
so, since i voted for 3 out of the top 5, does that mean i officially have good taste?
How many votes come through!
that Foals song is rather cracking!
the album cover also reminds me of one for The Catherine Wheel – Chrome album (from way back in 1993 kids)
Anthony – around 300, which means (the rather less impressive) 60 or so individual people voting. Not so massive, but 180 comments on any one thread is pretty good for a solo, amateur, non-corporate site.
Chutters – I am going to get hold of the album as soon as possible, just to see what I have been missing out on.
Probably should get the first one Matthew….I found this one a bit patchy. It might work for you though.
Pretty great list overall. Spanish Sahara was definitely one of my top five, yet I’ve never actually sat down and listened to the album properly yet..
re Foals, just bought both of their albums (dirt cheap on Amazon), i’m i thick or something, but like Toad, this guys have utterly passed me buy.
Weird!
i bet they are shite now
BEING LIKE ME DOESN’T MAKE YOU THICK, DAMMIT!
These year-end thingys have, in the last few days, made me listen to The National (verdict: Win-dersticks) and now Foals (verdict: get me some of that, please!)
I have never really taken to Tindersticks, but I do like the National an awful lot.
“Ha ha ha, no Joanna fucking Newsom or Laura Marling. Well done. They’re fucking shit. I am proud of you.”
YES!!! Thank you. I know I’ve said previously here that I REALLY don’t get Laura Marling (total yawwwwwwwwwn fest) but Joanna Newsom?
Cats yowling in the dead of night are more pleasing to the ear.
re Foals: I love that one song to pieces for the slow build tension, not so excited about the rest of their stuff. Saw them live to write them up and was a little disappointed (hyperbole added by the mag I wrote it for as they were their band of the year)
http://www.the-fly.co.uk/words/reviews/live-reviews/8883/live-review:-foals
Matthew, would be interested to know if you like any of it.
Very male-skewed list this year, probably just a product of there not being that many good female-fronted bands knocking about at the moment but still…
And I, like everyone else, need to get round to listening to Foals.
Hadn’t noticed that, but yes, my music taste is rather blokey at the moment. And so, it seems, is everyone else’s this year.
I go through phases, but it’s been a while since I consistently listened to a lot of female-fronted music. Animal Magic Tricks is probably the only woman I have consistently listened to a lot this year. And the McGarrigles, but they’re hardly the cutting edge of new music.
Samantha Crain, Sparrow & the Workshop… I’m struggling to think of any others.
How much of that review was ‘creatively massaged’, Lucy? You don’t sound indifferent at all.
I would like to change my vote to
Funkypigeon.com by Funkypigeon.com
Have to say that Foals are much more of a live band for me (except for the bit where I feel v old due to there fanbase been v young!!). I’ve seen them play lots over the years from halfway down a bill at a small venue to headlining the Cab to playing two excellent gigs this year (barrowlands and picturehouse) and they just seem to get better and better each time. Also think that both albums are good with a distinct progression in style which is always healthy in a band.
Glad to see Eagleowl sneek into 2nd place now when’s the album coming out???
There was a fair amount of creative massage, but I do write in muso code… “hungry for more” means “there was just the one bit that was great” and “precision and momentum” means “the rhythms were similar throughout and the guitars were a bit samey”…It’s a fine art, I’ll have you know!
I never really got Joanna Newsom and then I was listening to Ys wandering around Broughton Tesco in a daze trying to find where they’d moved the tea to and it just clicked. Not sure why, but she seems to suit bewilderment in an overlit supermarket.
I don’t know who Laura Marling is.
There was a fair amount of creative massage, but I do write in muso code… “hungry for more” means “there was just the one bit that was great” and “precision and momentum” means “the rhythms were similar throughout and the guitars were a bit samey”…It’s a fine art, I’ll have you know!
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[...] to get you in the mood for voting for your top five songs, here’s a quick recap of last year’s winners, as well as a link to the thread itself where the voting took [...]