Pay enough attention and you’ll discover the story of a year when the whiff of failure, the threat of disaster, and the search for joy snuck into our favorite songs. esquire

Belle & Sebastian – I Didn’t See It Coming Fore-fronting the ABBA/PSB disco element often buried beneath B&S’s indie aesthetic, the opener from ‘Write About Love’ was the best Magnetic Fields collaboration with Erasure that never happened nme

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – Say No To Love infectiously tuneful. Lyrically, it plays like a letter to a friend in a bad relationship with tenderness and suggestions of hope. Berman sings, “When everything he does is wrong, and all you want to feel is ‘gone,’ go on.” imposemagazine

Perfume Genius – Mr Peterson Its creaking pedals and thumping keys prime us for the physical intimacies to come. A teenaged narrator gets a romantic note and a Joy Division tape from a teacher, and he smokes weed in his truck. There’s only the implication of sex, though clearly a line of authority has been breached. But it’s to Hadreas’ immense credit that “Mr. Peterson” isn’t a didactic message-song. This happened, he says. Make of it what you will pitchfork

Summer Camp – Ghost Train Mystique is mostly missing from music these days, so the Summer Camp concept was beautifully designed. When this London duo harnessed the internet to broadcast their music but not their identities, the gossip grew as clamorous as the critical acclaim. Such expert buzz generation was the stuff of an NME journalist’s dreams – literally, in this case. Elizabeth Sankey, a contributor, turned out to be Summer Camp’s honey-toned chanteuse, while lo-fi troubadour Jeremy Warmsley – her beau – was the crafter of their woozy electro-pop. nme

Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) Disco and Arcade Fire have a lot in common: both rely on building and releasing communal sentiments for their full effect, and both create that effect through rhythm. Of course, disco’s rhythm is based on an ultra-tight streamlined groove, and Arcade Fire’s is more often a rolling, ragged surge. So on “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”– where the two musics triumphantly fuse– a lot of the appeal comes from the way the band get disco enthusiastically wrong. Take the way the piano comes bouncing and hammering in on the break– a messy, earthy contrast to the twinkling synths we’ve already heard, and a highlight of the song pitchfork

Twin Sister – All Around And Away We Go thick with atmosphere, but everything else about it is airy and light, if not outright weightless pitchfork

Sleigh Bells – Crown on the Ground A word of warning, Treats is LOUD. Not just like The Who were loud, or like Spinal Tap were loud. But properly, punishingly, ear-shatteringly loud. It sounds like music for the devil to dance to, like Destiny’s Child if they’d grown up listening to Slayer and Black Flag rather than Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin… Treats is genuinely refreshing, a real one-off and a delightful stroke of genius, a huge gamble for both band members that has paid off in spades… Listening to ‘Crown on the Ground’ is probably the closest approximation to what it might sound like in Lil Wayne’s head crossed with an other-universe Metallica who were into French house and fronted by a ‘Toxic’ era Britney Spears. That’s to say, it doesn’t sound remotely like anything else out there at the moment. Its mix of My-First Guitar-Riff riff’s, Krauss’ sultry purrs, pounding, chest-vibrating beats and a chorus so catchy it’ll end up in your dreams for weeks come together with such panache and an enviable effortless that it’s a wonder no one thought of it before. It’s a party song to end all party songs, its components so simple, combining to make a whole that’ll have your legs moving and mouth grinning from ear-to-ear no matter how hard you try to stop them.. thequietus

Allo Darlin’ – Dreaming featuring a baritone vocal from Pipettes founder Monster Bobby, plays like an urbane update of Heavenly boy-girl duet “C Is the Heavenly Option”. Which reminds me: In a year when the Hold Steady released a song about a seminal indie pop band, the twee sensibility doesn’t really appear to be on the decline– no matter how many how many jerks have twitchy knees. More likely, it’s just getting started. pitchfork

Standard Fare – Fifteen a song that takes the trope of male musicians desiring young female groupies and turns it on its head, and not just because it’s sung by a woman. The narrator is clearly attracted to the drunk fifteen year old in bed with her, but knows she should not take advantage of a teenager. “This isn’t right / I don’t want to have to spend the night / Six hours of my life / Just wanting you wanting you wanting you wanting you.” In interviews, Kupa has called the song “jokey” because she was only into the person for “five minutes,” but that doesn’t lessen the impact it has as a feminist classic (a classic in my own head, maybe). Fun fact: probably from the inclusion of the line “I apologize for not warning you about those men,” I always thought the object of Kupa’s desire was female. offyourradar

Chris T-T – Nintendo piano-based, but is embellished with glockenspiel and punctuated by snare hits and crashing cymbals which leave it sounding like the soundtrack to the slow-motion moment of glory in a sporting biopic. It’s undeniably rousing in execution and makes for an odd, yet intriguing, vehicle for a defeatist chorus where Thorpe-Tracey implores “Write it down to feel empty.” drownedinsound

This is the Kit – Two Wooden Spoons Some of my favourite of your songs before Bashed Out are about wooden spoons and a turnip. How do you go about choosing these brilliantly bizarre subjects to write on?

Well, it’s the same old chestnut of an answer. They’re not literally about spoons and turnips. Which of course you know. But I suppose I’m prone to seeing situations and people/characters in objects. Objects I like the look of, or whose looks fit the feeling of the song or story, but also objects whose names have a certain ring or sound to them. Be it percussive or tuneful. Words have a kind of music and magic beyond their dictionary definitions I reckon. exepose

Surfer Blood – Floating Vibes Florida guys combine a Beach Boys-style surf tune with Nineties alt-rock riffs. Why didn’t anyone think of this before? rollingstone

Smith Westerns – Weekend a sound indebted to the bright-eyed, buoyant Supergrass model of Britpop. And just as Supergrass were upon arrival, Smith Westerns are young, exuberant, and fueled by optimism and imagination; in love with the possibilities of life rather than navigating its obstacles pitchfork

Gorillaz – On Melancholy Hill wistful and understated enough that he sounds overwhelmed at the center of his own buzzing synthpop symphony. The contrast between his weathered, weary tone and the bright notes that carry the main hook is surprisingly beautiful, like garish commercial lighting that ends up appearing romantic in spite of itself pitchfork

Beach House – Norway buckles any working notion of time, space, continuums, and all that jazz. Like a strange mix of old 60s London psych act White Noise and Fleetwood Mac at their most blessedly and overzealously produced, the song sweeps you off your feet while tripping you up at the same time. pitchfork

Warpaint – Undertow the closest comparison I can think of for their slow-burning and sprawling compositions is their recent tour-mates and another freshman phenom, the xx. The xx are better and cutting to chase, but the sensual longing of youth and emotional pain that comes with it inform every note that these groups have released. Warpaint’s ace in the hole is making the castaway drifts that their songs seem to lean towards actually payoff and reach their destination. stereogum

Titus Andronicus – A More Perfect Union The phrase “a more perfect union” is part of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, right after the “We the People” bit the Tea Partiers love so much. It’s also the title of a speech that then-Sen. Barack Obama gave about race when his primary campaign looked most lost… this is an anthem for people who hate anthems, at once intensely personal and impossibly grandiose. There’s room for the places and experiences of Patrick Stickles’ life, from the Garden State Parkway to Somerville, Mass., by way of the Fung Wah bus. There’s room for Billy Bragg and New Jersey patron saint Bruce Springsteen. And, in keeping with the grandiose Civil War concept of the album this song opens, there’s even room for the Battle Hymn of the Republic. (Stickles’ former high school drama teacher is here, too, meticulously reciting Abraham Lincoln.) Most simply, though, “A More Perfect Union” rocks: a riotous seven minutes of raw-throated passion and ragtag righteousness, fiery guitar interludes and madcap drumming. pitchfork

LCD Soundsystem – I Can Change Few bands are as polarised as LCD, in the sense that the two things they do very best are ridiculous mind-loss bangers, and also on the flip side, the sort of desperately sad, sweet tracks you want to make a little nest in your heart for. As James Murphy crooned in that broken-Kermit voice “Tell me a line, make it easy for me/Open your arms, dance with me until I feel alright”, we were putty. nme

Here We Go Magic – Collector Most guitar-based indie bands don’t have anything new to say these days, just vaguely new ways to say them. Retro is a starting point we take for granted– the challenge is making your rehash sophisticated and seamless. In a way, it’s a moment in culture that makes minor standouts like “Collector”– a song with zero surprises– sound slightly surprising pitchfork

Vampire Weekend – White Sky Koenig’s become a master of the kind of melodies that only reveal their intricacies once you really start paying attention. The verses are so fluidly arranged, supported by the band’s minimalist techno-meets-highlife bounce, that they’re almost a lesson in smoothing out knotty lyrics until they hit with the directness of the best pop songs. And that’s not even counting the simple, ecstatic pleasures of one of the year’s best wordless choruses pitchfork

Jr Jr – Vocal Chords has some Beach Boys harmonies to start, then it turns into a breezy island jam, minimal in the same way Vampire Weekend know how to reduce a song to its most essential, most melodic parts (here that’s the drum machine and lead guitar). stereogum

The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio It’s as perfect a distillation of the National’s essence as you’re going to find, particularly the way the band creates tension between its surface composure and its lyrical anxiety. Like most of the National’s songs, “Bloodbuzz Ohio” is unflappable on its face, as Matt Berninger suavely croons while the rest of the band swells and ebbs with gentlemanly grace. The words, however, paint a picture of regret, dislocation, and even financial hardship. Berninger dresses impeccably as per usual in the song’s video, whilst intoning with pitch-perfect irony, “I still owe money/ To the money/ To the money I owe” pitchfork

Deerhunter – Desire Lines One third nostalgic dream-pop lullaby, two thirds Autobahn-bound motorik guitar odyssey, the near-seven-minute track is a spectacular showcase of Deerhunter’s ability to meld increasingly sophisticated songcraft with their formative textural experimentalism (as manifest in Cox and Pundt’s sterling six-string interplay). pitchfork

Egyptian Hip Hop – Rad Pitt Coming out of the traps sounding fully formed and ready to prove it, Manchester’s new enfants terribles’ finest moment stutters with the same shakes as vintage New Order, while of course also employing one of the finest Cure rip-off riffs ever invented. Not half bad considering how enviably apathetic frontman Alex Hewett manages to sound as he cooly slurs his tale of teenage boredom and lethargic bliss. nme

Sambassadeur – Stranded Suppose that it’s a clear summer day somewhere in Northern Europe. You’re leaning over the deck of a Baltic ferry, enjoying the first T-shirt weather in months and a little time off work. It’s a good day for staring at the sea, maybe sipping a splash or two of booze cruise rose. Did I mention you’ve also just been dumped? But what the hell. It feels good to be alone. You’re not even sure where this boat is going, come to think of it. It doesn’t matter. You start wondering how the ups and downs of life have led to things, just now, being so right.That’s about the best I can do to describe European, the breezy, mature third album by Gothenburg’s civilised indie pop quartet Sambassadeur. With the cool, detached voice of Anna Persson leading the way, the group continue to refine the charmed (and charming) indie pop… European is made with considerably more studio resources than its predecessors, but it’s less a big push forward than a confidently grand distillation of what’s worked so far for this band. The sun-kissed piano and lush strings of album opener “Stranded”, for example, are wisely careful not to stray toward bombast. thelineofbestfit

Yuck – Georgia A lot of times, Yuck reminds me very much of Pavement. Sometimes, they remind me of Butterglory. Sometimes Dinosaur Jr. Sometimes Mercury Rev. And yes, once in a while, I even get that My Bloody Valentine vibe. Today’s song reminds me of something else. Forget about the vocals and focus on the music. The music reminds me of I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One-era Yo La Tengo thisisthatsong

Teenage Fanclub – Baby Lee a jaunty song about being so hopelessly in love with someone, you’re willing to lose everything to be with them. There’s a painful undercurrent here—Blake sings of public suffering and encourages Baby Lee to “wreck all the things that I know”—but the song is so sunny and sprightly, it sounds like it’s powered entirely by pure infatuation. This is peak pop-rock melody from one of pop-rock’s all-time great melodists. pastemagazine

The Tallest Man On Earth – Burden Of Tomorrow If your blood lusts after some kind of classic songwriting, but your Dylan is worn out (physically or mentally) then this should fill that void. It is brilliantly done, and Matsson’s voice strains with authentic emotion. It’s a strange instrument, his vocal chords aping Dylan, but less worn out and slightly higher up the scale. Things feel very convincing. There are times the music soars – when he sings “Once I held a pony by its flowing mane” on ‘Burden Of Tomorrow’, with a simple strummed out chord sequence backing him drownedinsound

The Drums – Forever and Ever Amen On a debut album defined by gawky romance and childlike sweetness, this was the motherlode: a starburst of a song, all about everlasting love and stars and flowers and hearts and bunny wabbits (OK, maybe not the wabbits). Sure, it’s a little sugary, but can you honestly say you’ve never felt like this? nme

Tennis – Marathon It’s not clear whether husband-and-wife duo Tennis had such effortlessly breezy songs in mind before they bought a sailboat and spent eight months on it off of the East Coast, but either way they’ve taken to heart the maxim to “write what you know” on “Marathon”. Word is the band got its name when Alaina Moore was teasing her husband Patrick Riley for partaking in the “elitist rich man’s sport,” so it’s either terrifically ironic or perfectly fitting that they should instead base early songs on the New England aquatic pastime. Fortunately this pop tune is so ingratiating that a debate over its intended irony seems moot. pitchfork

Sharon Van Etten – Love More This was the ellipsis that lead to her story taking off. The song had already been around as a single, which in that sense made it the transition towards the album. But “Love More” has always loomed large over Epic, thanks to what it yielded afterwards. Somewhere along the line, the song found its way to Justin Vernon; he wound up covering it with Aaron and Bryce Dessner. Out of all this, Van Etten made it onto the National’s radar, and she wound up collaborating with Aaron — in what would be one of his earlier forays into production work — on her third album, 2012’s Tramp. She was invited into the core of what was going on in the indie world then, the circle of its most respected and beloved songwriters, and she emerged with an album that served as a wider breakthrough. Tramp‘s success in turn let her work towards 2014’s Are We There, the album that offered the fullest realization of Van Etten’s early work and, just maybe, a final sense of conclusion and rebirth after years of writing through tumultuous times stereogum

Cults – Go Outside has the innocent and balmy feel that brings to mind Swedish indie pop, with a tinkling glockenspiel cutting through humidity, an appealingly lazy bassline, and joyous sing-along vocals. But for all its simplicity, there’s some deep feeling coarsing through “Go Outside”, and Cults transcend the song’s Free-Design-inspired 1960s pop origins. “You really want to hole up/ You really want to stay inside and sleep the light away,” the song chides, surrounding the voices in enveloping reverb, before following with, “I know what’s good/ Exactly ’cause I have been there before.” And then it takes you there. pitchfork

The Vaccines – If You Wanna (Demo) four men in their early 20s fielding the kind of hyperbole that hits British pop once or twice a decade. Clash magazine has declared the band “a game changer, that will launch a hundred wannabees”. Radio 1’s Zane Lowe – admittedly never slow to get carried away – has announced “a band that will kickstart a new era”. The reason for the excitement is that the quartet have emerged at a point when British rock is sorely lacking in genuinely thrilling guitar bands…The Vaccines, who play catchy surf punk gift-wrapped in walls of noise, seem to fill a hole that no one realised was there. A typical gig lasts 23 minutes; their debut single is just 84 seconds long. The Vaccines are indecently exciting. theguardian

Frankie & The Heartstrings – Ungrateful the type of song that in itself justifies forming a band in the first place, the sort of track you can bust out for the benefit of your mistrustful, indifferent-to-music, probably a bit racist, refuses to reinstate you in his will until you get an office job, er, dad, and he’ll sort of get why you’re doing all this drownedinsound

Of Montreal – Enemy Gene (feat. Janelle Monae) The ArchAndroid revealed Monáe as one of the few spirits restless enough to keep pace with Barnes. Turning particle physics and evolutionary biology into pillow talk, the (relatively) subdued track both features and is aptly described by Mellotron. pitchfork

Janelle Monae feat. Big Boi – Tightrope Hello! Best Song Of The Summer 2010! Like OutKast’s Hey Ya!, this is a wonderful throwback to old Stax production and singers such as James Brown proteges Lyn Collins and Vicki Anderson. It’s also infused with those psychedelic, futuristic vibes that Big Boi brings to a production. Inspirational and lovely, Tightrope is about believing in your dreams and telling society to go and fuck itself cos society’s crazier than you’ll ever be; at least that’s what I’m getting out of it. theguardian

Dum Dum Girls – Jail La La Dee Dee wrangles a tale of landing in jail and longing for someone to tell her “baby” that she needs bailing out into a tight, a propulsive jangle plumped by her teen-dream coo. Lo-fi has rarely sounded so full. pitchfork

Best Coast – Boyfriend A heartbreaker about a lonely summer — imagine Brian Wilson as a sensitive stoner girl rollingstone

School of Seven Bells – Windstorm a high-pitched vocal noise creating its own rhythm before the traditional instruments move the song to a more structured form. However, this vocal pattern is the focal point of the whole number, adding itself to the background about halfway through. Even though it’s fairly shrill, it’s still incredibly catchy. Like on nearly every track, the twins’ singing is pushed to the front and center. Swirling whistling noises that sound like they’re being played from the bottom of a canyon complete the process of this weird, yet awesome opener. consequenceofsound

Foals – Spanish Sahara Inspired by a bleak moment gazing out at the Aegean Sea, lyrically it was Yannis’ attempt to capture the intensity of Greek myth. The way the song builds from calm to rancour is supposed to conjure the classical concept of ‘furies multiplying’ – though you don’t need to know that to appreciate the magnificence of the song’s final section nme

SUUNS – Arena  starts with electronic synth-like beats and eventually enters into wispy, dreamy lyrics and enormous guitar noise both alarming and brilliant fensepost

Ariel Pink – Round and Round In 2010, Ariel Pink was the strange kid who fucked around all semester and developed a reputation as a hopeless loser who then proceeded to blow everyone’s minds at the talent show. And in the end, “Round and Round” succeeds brilliantly for the same reason great Burt Bacharach songs work– because every chord change and turnaround and melodic leap is in exactly the right place. pitchfork

Steve Mason – All Come Down Mason’s talent for conjuring up dream-like melodies and hypnotic rhythms is apparent on the tranquillising yet twinkling ‘All Come Down’ drownedinsound

Field Music – The Rest is Noise Sublime moments – the lovely piano riff on The Rest Is Noise, the ­rueful Precious Plans and “oh to be young again” cry of Curves of the Needle – battle to find a way out of prog-rock hell theguardian

MGMT – Brian Eno It’s easy to see why on first listen people were racing to write this off as an unlikable, unapproachable record; it’s less of an album, more a collection of psychedelic highs strung together by very little indeed. It’s like listening to an inspired collection of outtakes by some classic damaged band – a catalogue of half-ideas, which, fully realised, could have been brilliant. nme

Stairs to Korea – Paul, Is This How You Wanted With hook-laden, sunshine-drenched pop music as pure as this, there is a great joy to be taken in its concentrated form, and with such pains taken over the arrangement and composition of each track, the chance to appreciate each track on its own basis, and not as part of a lengthy LP, is one I took with relish thelineofbestfit

Edwyn Collins – Losing Sleep Who will dare give the new Edwyn Collins album a bad review? Kicking someone when they’re down is bad form at the best of times; kicking someone when they’ve been hit by two cerebral haemorrhages is a bit low, even by current industry standards. No fears, though – and we genuinely mean this – because the erstwhile Orange Juice singer has delivered in inspirational style, not by ripping it up and starting again, but with a little help from his friends. thequietus

John Grant – Queen of Denmark Irreverent and more than a little bitter, his honeyed baritone attacking a lover with lines like “Why don’t you bore the sh*t out of somebody else?” and “You’re just a sucker but we’ll see who gets the last laugh“. After moderate success with band The Czars, Grant’s Queen of Denmark album was met with critical acclaim and won the Best Album of 2010 award from music magazine Mojo. buzz.ie

Math and Physics Club – Jimmy Had A Polaroid More delicious guitars, melodies and sweet longing from this band which has cornered the market for shimmery pop music popmatters

Betty & The Werewolves – Purple Eyes Just like the heroes of C-86, they’ve got clattering, super-charged punk tempos, careening guitar riffs, witty, snarky, and heartsick lyrics, sugar-sweet vocals that overlap and tumble into tricky harmonies, and the magical ability to make twee pop sound like the most exciting music on earth for two-and-a-half minutes at a time. They aren’t mere copycats however; they add an extra level of fierceness and fire to the classic twee punk template. And they write songs so good and catchy that it really doesn’t matter if they share some DNA with their inspirations allmusic

Stornoway – Zorbing it seems fairly safe to confer at least one prize on the debut album by Oxford-based quartet Stornoway: that of the least rock’n’roll opening lyric in the history of rock’n’roll. “Conkers shining on the ground,” trills vocalist Brian Briggs, his voice set against the insistent pulse of a single bass note, “the air is cooler/ And I feel like I’ve just started uni“… Zorbing rewards anyone who can get past the opening line by showing off the band’s remarkable melodic facility: it rises and rises to an authentically life-affirming crescendo of brass and massed harmonies. theguardian

Phosphorescent – The Mermaid Parade the protagonist of “The Mermaid Parade” finds himself out by the Atlantic Ocean, as far as he can get from West Coast beloved. He’s not looking for some sort of Virginia Woolf-type demise, though; he just stopped by to watch the “naked women dancing” in the titular parade. There are heavier issues at hand here than a Coney Island tradition, though– specifically, divorce: “I came back to this city/ And you stayed home in L.A./ And our two years of marriage/ In two short weeks/ Somehow just slipped away“. We get details– beachside trysts in Mexico, airport lines, a “pretty and small” new fling matched up against an “older old man“– and all the while the backing band produces the kind of sad-eyed country grandeur that cries so many tears in your beer that you end up drinking salt water. Goddamn it, Amanda– goddamn it all. pitchfork

Woods – Suffering Season Vibe has always come easy to Woods. Since their earliest improv-heavy jams, the Brooklyn-based psych-folk group has demonstrated a gift for eerie psychedelic murk. That they turned out to be awesome songwriters is just an added bonus. “Suffering Season”, from the band’s most recent full-length, At Echo Lake, finds them batting high in both games. Here weirdo chops are perfectly wedded to jangling hooks. “To rise past the suffering season, hold it back up now and let it begin,” sings Jeremy Earl, his wavering voice made liquid with tremolo and delay. “Who knows what tomorrow might bring?” A fuzz-frazzled 12-string lead adorns a chorus of Phil Spector-style “oohs.” It’s a fully sing-along-able tune made all the more expansive through the band’s perfectly pruned taste for noise. pitchfork

The Rural Alberta Advantage – In The Summertime Perhaps the greatest tragedy of modern indie is the disappearance of Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum, last heard of shunning the dim spotlight of underground acclaim somewhere in upstate New York. Lucky, then, that The Rural Alberta Advantage are here to continue his work. Taking Mangum’s recorded-on-cardboard lo-fi folk epics as their ground zero, TRAA turn in the best alt.debut of the year nme

Wild Nothing – Summer Holiday rises above mere pastiche thanks to the song’s hair-raising chorus, which consists solely of Tatum’s wordless, cavernous moan. It’s a left-turn that grabs your attention sneakily and makes you forget any allegations of unoriginality that might be lobbed his way pitchfork.

Eternal Summers – Safe At Home more sympathetic and resonant than anything else on the album , a prime example that it takes one to know one as Yun reaches out to the shy and insecure popmatters

Emeralds – Now You See Me It doesn’t get prettier than this, Mark McGuire’s plangent acoustic guitar cutting through John Elliott and Steve Hauschildt’s churchy, descending synth sequences with the most graceful riff of 2010 factmag

Wu Lyf – Concrete Gold The most secretive new band in the country (and most thrilling) finally step out of the shadows. Wu Lyf – that’s World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation – still won’t say exactly what their intentions are, but these two new recordings back up the incredible hype surrounding the still-unsigned Manchester quartet nme

Los Campesinos! – Straight in at 101 This is a very clever song. Not everyone likes overly clever songs, but I’m a sucker for them. Most of my favorite things about this song are things I feel like I have to explain so you really get them, you know? Like how “she keep on pulling the peace sign (and it seems like a taunt)” is great because in the UK they use a backwards peace sign instead of the middle finger. Or how “I condescend a smile and wink directly at the camera” is a really neat way to indicate someone being so completely consumed by self-consciousness that he imagines an audience watching him as he slinks out of someone’s house in the early morning. Or how the song is called “Straight in at 101” because his heart-wrenching breakup missed being included in the top 100 of all time by just one. But really, it’s all just after-the-fact justification, and I’m 100% on board right from “I think we need more post-coital and less post-rock.

Tender Trap – Do You Want a Boyfriend? Now with two young children of her own, making music is understandably way down the list of Amelia Fletcher’s priorities. However, Dansette Dansette, along with last year’s long awaited and hugely successful return to live performing at the aforementioned Indietracks suggests that even though almost 25 years have passed since her first recordings were committed to vinyl, her relevance in the present day should not be be underestimated. drownedinsound

Veronica Falls – Found Love in a Graveyard aren’t the only band emerging at the moment with the shadow of C86 surrounding them – but if you threw the dozens of revivalists against a wall, no doubt they’d be amongst the few to stick. There’s just something totally vital about them that is hard to place. One foot in the past, and one firmly pointed towards the future, “Found Love In A Graveyard” is a perverse teeny-bopper hit for the masses with a dagger rammed firmly in its sock hop heart. lineofbestfit

The New Pornographers – Silver Jenny Dollar Dan Bejar – always a marmite member, his mealy-mouthed lyrical tangents always seeming a little wilfully obtuse to those who favoured The New Pornos for their sugar-fuelled power-pop – shines on the infernally catchy ‘Silver Jenny Dollar’; his pleasingly simple refrain of ‘She was only ever passing through, she’s only ever passing through’ giving way to the sunshine-laden, Neko-case assisted chorus of ‘Silver Jenny Dollar, la la la la!.’ It’s the most joyful thing you’ll have heard all year, and hints at plenty more singing-into-your-kitchen-utensils moments. diymag

Spoon – The Mystery Zone 2010’s most mesmerizing guitar groove — a dark, dubby burner with lyrics about basement gigs and lost love rollingstone

Teengirl Fantasy – Cheaters  In which two Oberlin grads happen upon an old Philly soul song and craft the year’s most gorgeous house tune pitchfork

James Blake – I Only Know – What I Know Now it sounds as if Blake is recording dreams of his own work. That’s a trick that could slot him in with the half-remembered nostalgia crowd, but he trumps Bandcampers with this song’s elegance, compositional prowess, and above all, his willingness to feel something and spotlight those emotions pitchfork

I Am Kloot – Northern Skies everybody is saying the same thing. Every fan. Every reviewer. Every radio DJ. I Am Kloot’s Sky at Night is, finally, their breakthrough moment… their Seldom Seen Kid… their moment in the light; a middle-aged triumph that might sit evenly with Elbow, Doves, The Hold Steady and Wilco. Is this to be their year? The signs are there and, Sky at Night is a curiously retrospective record that seems to cherry pick moments, and even songs – ‘Northern Sky’ and ‘Proof’ are remade, remodelled – that glimmer from the band’s back catalogue. Not that this isn’t a completely new affair. It is and it has been so lovingly crafted by producers Guy Garvey and Craig Potter that one can only think of 2010… the year of Kloot… The Elbow guys are so unselfish, in fact, that they have delayed their all important follow up to The Seldom Seen Kid to finish production on this. thequietus

Laura Marling – Devil’s Spoke a song that deals with some heavy topics – fate, the hopelessness of an unrewarding love, a sense of unease in oneself – and actually for once sounds pretty heavy while doing it. It broods ominously, a heavy burden placed upon its narrator as she laments her ills poponion

Cold Mailman – Pull Yourself Together And Fall In Love With Me finds the band at their most ‘Swedish’ – and by God, if they don’t out-Swede the Swedes: witty romantic badinage, irresistible boy-girl harmonies, and a kooky but unforgettable chorus make this a single worth savouring popmatters

Zola Jesus – Night “I believe it is at the darkest edges that you find change,” Nika Danilova mulled earlier this year, and ‘Night’ remains her most elegant embodiment of that ideal. The moment at which her goth-pop caterpillar became a full-fledged art-noir butterfly. nme

Gayngs – The Gaudy Side of Town a silky, 10cc-inspired R&B number that seems to hang in the air like a curl of smoke, he enlists the talents of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on backing vocals. Olson holds nothing back in making this one go down as smooth as humanly possible, even incorporating the kind of a shimmying, Kenny G-style sax I never expected to hear on a record bearing the Jagjaguwar imprint. (In other words, he’s never going to dance again, the way he danced with you.) Given the setting and the people involved, it’d be easy to imagine something like this done with a wink, but the track works because it sounds sincere, revealing Olson’s genuine affection for the kind of slow-motion mood piece that’s unafraid to use every tool in its arsenal. pitchfork

Kindness – Bermuda Since Swedes from Jens Lekman to the Tough Alliance have cornered the market on bouncy, wistful, electro-kissed indie pop these last few years, it’s easy to feel like the music was born there, but of course the roots of a track like “Bermuda” go back much further, to the Balearic 80s and the AM gold 70s, for starters. And if the recent wave of similar-sounding bands in this sphere suggests that the overriding aesthetic isn’t that hard to pull off, the fundamentals of songwriting haven’t changed. Any way you slice it, “Bermuda” is put together really nicely, with an arrangement that switches gears to match the song’s moods and a nice push and pull between the verses and chorus. pitchfork

Sufjan Stevens – Futile Devices Sufjan sums up the entire track with arguably one of the most important lines he’s ever written: “And words are futile devices.” When you feel a certain way, sure, it’s good to say it out loud. But when it comes down to it, the feelings are what really matter. pastemagazine

Caitlin Rose – Own Side Indebted to the glorious hymnal quality of Linda Ronstadt and perky heartbreak chroniclers The Shangri-Las, it’s laced with quirky observations rather than smoochy country platitudes. Similarities to She & Him abound, but minus Zooey’s showtune splendour, the vulnerability in Caitlin’s voice chimes as true as the clink of a quarter in an old jukebox. nme

The Lucksmiths – Get-to-Bed Birds They broke up amicably enough that they played a farewell tour and recorded a farewell single that’s close to a career peak (“Get-to-Bed Birds”, the gentlest of valedictions, about staying up too late on New Year’s Eve) pitchfork

La Sera – Never Come Around Vivian Girls’ Katy Goodman, aka Kickball Katy, has a new side project… La Sera, billed as a solo effort, has the same fuzzy Spector feel of her other work, though it’s smearier and cleaner in an early ’90s SpinART/Slumberland way stereogum

Las Robertas – In Between Buses a rock band from San Jose, Costa Rica.  They play hazy lo-fi pop tunes with a blend of wailing guitars, heart pounding drums, and echoing vocals.  This band consists of four ladies… With a style that could easily be mistaken for coming from Southern California or Brooklyn, Las Robertas are proof that music is truly universal and you can never be too sure of what’s blasting from speakers in a tropical city and sparking inspiration inside aspiring young artists.

Girls – Carolina a daunting, nearly eight-minute journey through lilting shoegaze and doo-wop and early-’90s monotone guitar rock. The fact that Owens and co. manage to blend all these elements seamlessly into an appealing whole is one thing, that they do it so beautifully is borderline transcendent. pitchfork

Magic Kids – Superball the Memphis Beach Boys. Their mission is to capture, in total detail, from the instrumentation to the harmonies, California’s finest in their early glory days, before Brian Wilson had his head turned by the madcap adventurism and perplexing wordplay of Van Dyke Parks theguardian

Free Energy – Free Energy The magic of Free Energy is they give you those nostalgic pings without making you feel like something’s being rehashed for the sake of unearthing those beloved musical memories consequenceofsound

Factory Floor – Lying The London trio’s noise may carry a flavour of many genres – drone, industrial, punk, even electro-pop – but, above all, this is music that doesn’t crave approval, and for that reason demands it. In a world full of bands pleading for popularity, Factory Floor strive instead for catharsis – and what works for them works for us. nme

Tame Impala – Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind? the hypnotic centrepiece to ‘Innerspeaker’ – urging for a final decision while forever running around in circles. nme

Delorean – Real Love an excellent entry point to the Barcelona group’s Ibiza-inspired jams. All of Delorean’s signature sonic elements are here: a skittering beat punctuated by wordless, chipmunked vocal clips; stabs of Italian-house piano; and shimmering synth flourishes that explode like fireworks throughout the track’s runtime. pitchfork

The Soft Pack – C’mon less about inciting action (note the lack of exclamation point), than an eye-rolling dismissal of the trendspotting and premature hype that consumes (and kills) so many bands: “Don’t have the look, don’t have the name/ Don’t have the walk, don’t want to talk, don’t act the same/ Now your town could be the next big thing.” pitchfork

Women – Penal Colony one of those old-fashioned records where each track perfectly flows in to the next that it doesn’t seem right to pull it apart. You really need to just sit back and let it wash over you. In fact, it’s hard to think of any album since Kid A that has created such a completely unique sound; where each song seems so perfectly-crafted for its place on the record that it really couldn’t exist anywhere else. goldflakepaint

The Mary Onettes – The Night Before the Funeral Am I aware that I compare far too many bands to The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart? Indeed. Am I still going to compare The Mary Onettes to them? Absolutely. Beyond the lush shimmer that TPOBPAH probably plagiarised straight from them, ‘The Night Before The Funeral’ tugs at the brain in all the right places with an almost indecent amount of hooks that recalls label-mates The Radio Dept. at their head-arresting best. By the time the forlorn cry of ”and it falls apart, it falls apart…” collides with the most tearfully euphoric chorus this side of The National, you’ll be heart-melted-in-a-melancholy-puddle-at-your-feet and completely convinced that the exact opposite is true; this time around, The Mary Onettes seem to have got everything in just the right place. thelineofbestfit

Gold-Bears – Tally On the surface a triumphant guitar anthem, but the joys of such a sparkling dirge crash as vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Underwood’s voice steers the music into a frazzled place creativeloafing

Northern Portrait – Life Returns to Normal popmatters

The Soft Moon – Circles darkwave simplicity itself: a chugging, bass-heavy motorik groove augmented by screeching synths, guitar distortion and high-speed snapclaps… It’s wonderful. It also sounds a bit like an early Kasabian instrumental, but let’s try not to think about that. factmag

Diamond Rings – All Yr Songs as linear and welcoming as homemade tunes get, with its irresistible “oh-oh-uh-oh” ululations dissipating any sense of stick-in-the-mud Britt Daniel coolness (and it’s fun to hear a gulping James Murphy-esque voice doing those Amanda Palmer/Regina Spektor hiccups). pitchfork

Midlake – Fortune an album that backs into a rural idyll. Songs from the shack. It is undeniably beautiful but, within that beauty, curiously uncompromising. One senses a certain stubbornness here which is partly why they attracted so many in the first instance. This is ‘calm down, guys’ set thequietus