Songs 80-71 Are Freakin’ As I’m Comin’ Up Fast

Time for part 3 of my favorite songs of the year list. I didn’t think I’d actually manage to do two of these in one day, but what can I say? I’m nothing if not obsessive with lists….

80. Belle and Sebastian, Perfection As A Hipster (o plays?)

Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch’s working on a movie musical, which is pretty exciting news. To generate interest, he launched a website and got people to record their own versions of two of the songs. Perfection As A Hipster was the boys’ choice (the girls got to sing Funny Little Frog) and winners will be announced soon. As a demo, Murdoch got the Ladybug Transistor’s Gary Olsen to sing lead, and the result is actually more enjoyable than anything off the last Ladybug Transistor album. If this is what the movie’s going to sound like, I’m pretty darn excited.

79. The Fratellis, Chelsea Dagger (4961 plays last week)

I feel like Glasgow’s Fratellis make their lovably lunkheaded anthems just for shits and giggles, and maybe to get girls. They’re don’t really have any pretensions, their songs aren’t deep, but put Flathead or Chelsea Dagger on and right away everybody’s happy. Thanks be to them for two of the better things to hit modern rock radio this year.

78. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Satan Said Dance (1390 plays last week)

At the total opposite end of the modern rock spectrum, CYHSY are nothing but arty pretensions, which is sorta surprising considering they’re all from New London, Connecticut–possibly the least arty place in America. Still, Satan Said Dance is catchy enough that you can overlook the singer’s limp-wristed vocal affectations. And really, what is this song about? It’s a charmingly jerky little piece of dance music, and has an appropriately cool Warholian video to match.

77. Shirley Bassey, Get This Party Started (48 plays last week)

Dame Shirley Bassey, the campy Welsh diva who has been making records for fifty-one years now, made a minor but notable comeback this year with her wondrously over-the-top cover of Pink’s Get This Party Started, a song that started out as a creepy TV ad where Twiggy appears to skin her own dog for its fur. Her very silly Wikipedia entry mentions in great detail what Ms Bassey has worn during all her major performances, but also hints that she might duet with Pink in the near future. Now that’s something to get the gays excited.

76. Art Brut, Nag Nag Nag Nag (792 plays last week)

Nerdily goofy London band Art Brut put out their second album this past June. Nag Nag Nag Nag, which has one more Nag in its title than the Cabaret Voltaire classic, is a nifty song about what it’s like when you’re not a teenager anymore.

75. Cajun Dance Party, Amylase (621 plays last week)

I really hate their name, but Cajun Dance Party–yet another in the long line of Young English Bands With Keyboards to make the list this year–make really good songs, despite the fact that they can’t decide whether to write about themselves in the first or third person. Even though they’re still only in high school (or sixth form, or whatever it’s called in England) they got a deal with XL Recordings, the same label that has MIA and the White Stripes, so expect to hear a lot more from them in the near future.

74. Dungen, Gör Det Nu (168 plays last week)

The psych-folk revival continued in full swing in 2007, with albums ranging from the great (Six Organs of Admittance) to the not-so-great (Akron/Family, Lavender Diamond). But nobody else made a dirty hippie song quite as great as Gor Det Nu. It’s accessible enough for your mom to like it but trippy enough to make you want to drop acid and run around naked in the snow.*

(*Or maybe just play a particularly psychedelic round of Who’s Wearing The Hat Now?)

73. Timbaland, The Way I Are (4783 plays last week)

Mr Mosley’s song with Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado was totally stupid, but he made up for it with The Way I Are, his catchy duet with, um, some lady. It’s not his best production (or even his best production on this list), but even his so-so efforts make the radio a happier place.

72. Apples In Stereo, Sunndal Song (531 plays last week)

In February, I was pretty sure that the Stephen Colbert-loving Apples In Stereo’s New Magnetic Wonder, a vocoder-heavy album would be “the one album I won’t stop listening to all year.” And, like many such albums, I haven’t listened to it in about six months. Oh, well. Sunndal Song is probably the album’s best few moments; it’s the kind of chipmunky pop gem that can inspire cheers from an entire legion of dorky-looking boys with cute but nerdy sideburns.

71. Justin Timberlake, LoveStoned/I Think She Knows (2794 plays last week)

Jive, or Zomba, or whoever it is who decides which Justin Timberlake songs get released as singles, weren’t doing such a hot job with FutureSex/LoveSounds, if you ask me. I mean, 11 of the album’s 12 songs are great, but What Goes Around Comes Around and Summer Love just aren’t as good after ten zillion radio plays as, say, the title track would have been. Well, they saved one of the best for sort-of-last. (Do cash-in singles from deluxe edition reissues actually count?) LoveStoned, despite being wicked long, is a really solid single with enough disco strings to make me downright giddy. Plus the boy is fine, he looks good in a suit, the first three-and-a-half minutes of this video are awesome, and despite a couple of terrible guest appearances on Timbaland and Black Eyed Peas songs, he hasn’t had a bad single since God Must’ve Spent A Little More Time On You.