A Little Adventure

I am not really a music critic. In fact, I know very little about music theory and the like. I listen to a few of the NPR critics and don’t always agree or understand. I do find new music mainly through them though as I haven’t seriously listened to the over the air radio in years. Anyway, here are the 10 songs I loved most this year. You may not like them, but they help me make it through the day at work. Enjoy!

1. Lisztomania by Phoenix – I was a bit slow to jump on the bandwagon here. The album was released in May and lots of folks loved it. I never got into it until I heard it again in November. The album is decent, but I totally LOVE this song. Milo walked in while I was doing this and immediately started singing along

2. Party All the Time by Black Eyed Peas – I am not a traditional fan of this type of pop/dance stuff. I have gotten into it a bit more this year. This song is just fun and keeps me awake. I have often used the phrase, “Let’s rock and roll party people” to indicate it is time to get moving. Given this song has a similar idea it has sort of become a family anthem…just try not to listen to many of the other words outside the chorus…and try not to take the chorus to heart…okay, maybe a bad choice for a family anthem…forget I mentioned it.

3. Temazcal by Monsters of Folk – I am generally not a fan of super groups. I wasn’t planning on grabbing this album, but amazon had it on sale for a couple of bucks. It sounded nice at a time when I was looking for something new, so I grabbed it. I like a few songs on the album, but I think this is the best one. It is slower than the previous two, but I like the beat and the words…that may be due to the mention of the Mayans…I think I have become a bit enamored with the idea of seeing the Mayan sites while living close-ish to them.

4. My Girls by Animal Collective – I am generally not a huge Animal Collective fan, but I latched on to this song for some reason. It has maintained a place on my go to playlist for essentially the whole year. Not too bad…

5. Horchata by Vampire Weekend – I enjoyed the first Vampire Weekend album and was looking forward to the second. They released this track early and I just loved the up tempo song. The lyrics are a bit on the too clever side, but I kind of like it. I was hoping to find more of this on the full album, but I was left wanting…maybe I will have to give it another listen later.

6. Charlie Darwin by The Low Anthem – Probably the most mellow of my favorites. It is a simple song with brilliant lyrics…

7. Gimme Sympathy by Metric – This was my first encounter with Metric. They are a nice straight up rock band. I have several songs from their most recent album on my go to playlist. This is probably my favorite.

8. Dimestore Diamond by Gossip Many of the fans of Gossip and the critics hated this song and album. It actually worked for me. I like the grittiness of the song and the tempo of the song. The lyrics sort of fit into that mood. Overall very nice…

9. Bull Black Nova by Wilco – Shockingly this was my first lasting exposure to Wilco. I often like this style of British band, but I hadn’t found anything from Wilco that I really loved. When they released a new album this year I checked it out and stuck with this track.

10. Fitz and Dizzyspells by Andrew Bird – Probably the most hipster-style band on my list. It is a mellow sound that incorporates Andrew’s amazing ability to whistle. It is relaxing enough that Monica will even voluntarily listen to it