Songs 90-81 Know They Really Are The Bomb, uh oh oh.

Here’s the second installment of my favorite songs of 2007 list.

90. Late Of The Pier, Focker (21 plays last week)
An unassumingly catchy blast of noise-pop from a bunch of English boys with swoopy haircuts and unattractive tracksuits.

89. The Long Blondes, All Bar One Girls

The Long Blondes are nothing if not generous, and even though they release the same singles over and over they at least have new b-sides every ten minutes or so. All Bar One Girls is no Fulwood Babylon (which was my #2 of last year, if you’ll recall), but it’s a delightfully glammy dig at the sorts of women who go out and order the second-cheapest glass of wine on the menu.*

(*Not that I’d know anything about doing that.)

88. You Say Party! We Say Die!, Downtown Mayors Goodnight, Alley Kids Rule! (477 plays last week)

2007 was a big year for the Canadians–hell, even Avril Lavigne had a kind of okay song. Vancouver’s You Say Party! We Say! Die! bopped in with their Lose All Time album, and also joined the legions of bands that can’t get visas to play in the US. Even though they’re CANADIAN, for Christ’s sake. Oh, well. Expect a US tour some time in 2011, according to their website. Also, bonus points being cute and not having lame hipster haircuts.

87. Guillemots, Annie Let’s Not Wait (515 plays last week)

Fyfe Dangerfield and his band Guillemots sound nothing like Korn, but they do sometimes spell their name gUiLLeMoTs, apparently. Oh, and it’s pronounced gillimots, so don’t try to say it like you’re French. It’s a bird, or something. They make winsome pop songs, and very nice ones at that. Annie Let’s Not Wait is the fourth and final UK single from their 2006 Through The Windowpane album, which was never released in the US.

86. Grizzly Bear, He Hit Me (1016 plays last week)

The Crystals’ He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss) isn’t an easy song to cover. The original is downright offensive with its misogyny and, according to her own YouTube comments, nobody hated it more than its singer. The problem, though, is that it’s also REALLY good. The slow build, the careful vocals, the inevitable conclusion:”He hit me…. and I was glad.” It’s a wondrous beast of a song, which is why it keeps coming back (in the 80s with the Motels, and then Hole did it in the 90s.) Grizzly Bear, big indie superstar gaywads that they are, have no problem sounding sincere in their cover of it, which is something that most bands wouldn’t have done (barring maybe Antony & The Johnsons.) In fact, singer Ed Droste put on his most emotional David Byrne voice, adds some eerie lurching guitars, and then moans the second half of the song like the ghost of Jacob Marley.

85. GhostHustler, Busy Busy Busy (97 plays last week)

Contrary to what the rest of the world seems to think, Justice weren’t the only band to make electronic music in the past year. GhostHustler came out of nowhere (by which I mean Denton, Texas) and made a name for themselves the Myspace way. Their synth-punk isn’t going to start a revolution anytime soon, but it is pretty fun to dance to in a too-drunk-to-talk-I’m-just-going-to-hang-out-in-the-bathroom-and-hopefully-not-puke kind of way.

84. The Gossip, Careless Whisper (401 plays last week)

Radio 1’s 40th anniversary CD sounded so promising. Lily Allen doing Don’t Get Me Wrong! Amy Winehouse doing Cupid! Teenage Dirtbag as reinvented by Girls Aloud! Sadly, though, all of those songs were big letdowns. The only thing from that album I liked (that I heard–I didn’t hear the whole album) was The Gossip’s Wham cover. I liked the old Southern stompy punk Gossip than the new hipster topless dancing Gossip (not that I don’t appreciate what Beth Ditto is doing, in a way) but it was pretty clever to turn Careless Whisper into an anthem that your guilty feet couldn’t possibly help dancing to.

83. The Little Flames, Isobella (40 plays last week)

I heard the Little Flames for the first time the same day I heard the Long Blondes for the first time, prompting me to get all excited about an English girl rock-band revival. There would be a new Sleeper and a new Echobelly and a new Catatonia and… well, you get the idea. Since then, the Long Blondes put out an album and a crapload of singles and lots of b-sides that are often better than the singles are. And the Little Flames, well, put out this one other single and then broke up. But it’s a really good single!

82. New Young Pony Club, The Bomb (2057 plays this week)

Pop music doesn’t really get any more vapid than the NYPC, who followed up their TV ad megahit Ice Cream with the equally catchy (and stupid) Get Lucky and Hiding On The Staircase. The Bomb, the group’s fourth single, is kind of my favorite, though, partially because I haven’t played it to death like I have with the others and partially because I like it when people sing in the slang of eight to ten years ago, especially when they sound as bored as NYPC’s Tahina does. Get it now, because their expiration date’s probably any day now.

(Oh, and I’d be totally remiss if I didn’t mention awesome Dutch duo Ravage! Ravage! and their tribute to the group.)

81. Remi Nicole, Rock N Roll (306 plays last week)

Remi Nicole makes absolutely ridiculous songs that sound like they were made for seven-year olds, but I like them anyway. (See also: Bedingfield, Natasha.) The song’s all about how she likes guitars better than R&B, but the production is about as rock as the Captain and Tenille. The British will probably like her (She’s young! She’s black! She’s cute! She can play an instrument!) but she’d never make it in the US (That instrument is a guitar!) It’s too bad, because I’d much rather hear something like this on pop radio than another fucking song with the word shawty in the title.