Best singles of 2005

I gave my best albums list a bit of thought over the Christmas break and realised that there were a lot of songs I loved off albums that didn't make the cut. To remedy this mistake, I've put together a list of songs that were released as singles in 2005 and that I truly adore. Enjoy.

#1 The National - Lit Up

This song sounds like the great rock anthem Tindersticks never got around to writing. Or even what Nick Cave was tending towards on Abattoir Blues but never reached. The chorus, with its Delgados-style shouty-harmonies, lifts my soul upwards and yet I have no idea what he's singing about.

#2 Rogue Wave - 10:1

Seth Cohen, meet your new favourite song. "10:1", meet Seth Cohen. And I mean that as a compliment. This song, with its pounding keyboard intro and aching vocals, has exactly the kind of subtlety and passion that used to make Death Cab For Cutie great. And it's on Sub Pop. I have nothing more to say.

#3 Spoon - I Turn My Camera On

White-boy soul is a difficult trick to pull of successfully (unless you're Jamie Lidell) but Britt Daniel gives it his all. He struts. He prances. He makes photography sound downright dirty. And his band is quickly becoming the tightest combo to ever cut pop music back to its bare essentials.

#4 Feist - Inside And Out

It's a Bee Gees cover, sure, but it shows what Leslie and Gonzalez do best - effortless fusion of genres to point out the commonality of all pop music. This little baby mixes disco, trip-hop scratches and Feist's chanson-influenced voice. And she makes me believe our love really does have the pow-ahh.

#5 Stars - Ageless Beauty

Something about these Canadian women, I tell you. I'm going to have to move there some day. I love the dreaminess of this song - like a classic Slowdive or Cocteau Twins track - and how it's combined with the pounding, anthemic quality that infuses so much of the Toronto scene's music. Ageless. Timeless.

#6 Bloc Party - So Here We Are

This is a grower. It certainly didn't hit me the way "Banquet" or "Positive Tension" did first time around, but it's a swelling crescendo of a song that U2 wouldn't have been ashamed of in their heyday. And for an album packed with potential singles, it's a miracle that there can be a stand-out.

#7 Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc

My brother tells me this song is huge at Toorak Primary School - so maybe there's hope for the future. How the weirdest hip-hop album of the year became a mainstream success (the cool cartoons maybe?) is a mystery. But this song is quite digestable. And it features De La Soul.

#8 The Mountain Goats - This Year

This is a strangely "complete" song on a faily minimal album - in that it sounds much more like a pop song than anything else John Darnielle has put to tape recently (although it's still not exactly Phil Spector). I find this song very inspiring in how it depicts damaged, hurting people persisting and surviving. One to keep, I suspect.

#9 M83 - Don't Save Us From The Flames

This is Vangelis-goes-rock. The sound of a fast-driven car crashing through a wall of keyboards. There are no vocals and not a lot of melodic variations - just a monumental synth-shoegazer riff pushed to its logical extreme.

#10 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Is This Love?

CYHSY may be overrated, but it doesn't matter if they leave the Earth a better place because of songs like this one. Sloppy but tuneful vocals, new-wavey guitars and an internal Socratic dialogue of a chorus. Choice.

Categories: Indie