#20. French Kicks - "Love in the Ruins"
This is where my rules start to get me - it was nearly impossible to choose one song off of the new French Kicks album, Swimming, to be included in this countdown. But if I had to pick one favorite, I guess it has to be "Love in the Ruins," because I love the bass line and the chorus momentarily hypnotizes me every single time. It also does a fantastic job capturing the whole aquatic, underwater sound that's so prevalent throughout Swimming. I feel like a lot of people overlooked this album this year, but it really is lovely.
#19. The Wombats - "Kill the Director"
I wrote about this song earlier this year, and described it as "bouncy and catchy and vaguely ridiculous - filled with the kind of
punchy chorus and cheerful background "oooh-ooohs" that make you want
to pogo around a crowded dance floor." At the time I was whining a bit because I had just-missed The Wombats at SXSW '07, and would have loved to hear this song live - fortunately I DID hear it live at SXSW '08, and because I attended the party they were playing specifically to see them, I experienced one of my best moments of 2008 as a result. Thanks Wombats, you rock!
#18. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - "Let's Make Out"
Speaking of vaguely ridiculous songs, I feel almost embarassed including "Let's Make Out" in my top 20 this year... but wait - no, I don't feel embarassed at all. Because this song kicks ass, and is so much fun, and has gotten me through many an unmotivated workous, and even though I had a beer poured into my eye at the Does It Offend You Yeah show in Nashville earlier this year (most painful moment of 2008?), I still love the band and this tune. It puts the ridiculous in RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME.
#17. Dr. Dog - "Uncovering the Old"
Here's another song that climbed the ranks unexpectedly. Yes, I love love Dr. Dog's new album, Fate, but this was another case where I thought I loved several of the songs on the album equally, and with the love distributed thusly, I figured nothing would be loved enough to be pushed up to the level of the countdown. Wrong, because "Uncovering the Old" is brilliant on like twelve different levels, and seems to never get old, and it's one of those songs that just makes me smile no matter what, every time I listen to it. I don't know if it's the quick-lyriced group singing, or the shimmery violins, or the way it's like a musical train or what. I just love it from top to bottom.
#16. Hotpipes - "Brain and a Vegetable"
Oh, Hotpipes. It's hard to come up with something new to say when I feel like I've been going on and on and on and on about this band (one of my local favorites, if you've been living under a rock or just started reading this blog) for ages. Each song on Future Bolt took a turn as my favorite, but I think I've finally (probably just temporarily) settled on "Brain and a Vegetable." It seems to capture many of the things that make me love this band so very, very much.
