Top 20 Singles of 2005: #10 - #1
By: Music Staff |
Friday December 30, 2005 |
| Now we're getting into it! These are the ten songs that most resonated with the music staff here at Static Multimedia. A wide range of styles and cultures converging into ten chestnuts that made 2005 a great year for music. |
| Now we're getting into it! These are the ten songs that most resonated with the
music staff here at Static Multimedia. A wide range of styles and cultures
converging into ten chestnuts that made 2005 a great year for music. Thank you
all for reading and be sure to join us in the New Year for fresh content as well
as some new and exciting things to come.
Brett Hickman Managing Editor Static Multimedia 
10. Sufjan Stevens - Chicago Sufjan Stevens' "Chicago" is the type of song I generally can't stand. I like simple rock, simple punk...well, like most I like lots of stuff, but I'll take a three-chord Petty pretty much any day. In the make-me-vomit vein of Poi Dog Pondering; that big, full, multifaceted arrangement usually seems somehow pretentious to me. Not this. This makes me want to cry. It evokes huge emotion every time I listen to it, an equal-parts recipe of music and lyrics; I just hope I don't end up cringing about it in ten years like I did with Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town". First single and massive hit off Stevens' concept album Illinois, "Chicago" has a LOT going on, with ebbs and flows of volume and multiplicity - a lone, crystal voice, then silvery horns and strings, choral background, with the heartbeat of a keyboard throughout; all pull together in support of particularly affecting and hopeful lyrics. It's moving quality lies somewhere in the juxtaposition of empty and full, soft and loud. It's religious, not sectified, understand what I mean. It is religious, and grateful, and true, and taken as a whole, really quite simple...just how I like it. - Jennifer Wagner 
09. M.I.A. - Galang Originally released in 2004, Galang, and more specifically, the song's vocal coda, was still the most thrilling piece of music I heard this year. The affirmative chant of an all M.I.A. choir over a munching beat and a bounding electro bass line was a new sort of revelation. Along with it's coinciding video, featuring the author's unexpectedly gripping dancing and vibrant screen-prints, the entire song was a blast of personality. On an album stuffed with would-be hits, Galang loses some luster but the singsong melodies and nonsense rhymes generate more meaning than most any other tune you could watch on your computer. - Dan Haar 
08. The White Stripes - My Doorbell Okay, that does it - my long-running disdain for Jack White's blues-purist streak, his Loretta Lynn fixation, his creepy pallor and grooming habits, his 70s C&W hero outfits - has officially eroded. With every new record, White and ex-wife Meg issue an increasing number of singles working on my resistance like Boss Hogg on a picnic table of deep-fried chicken. And here's "My Doorbell," coming on relentlessly suggestive, juke-joint intense, and gnawingly insistent to make be a believer, finally, and not even the ultra-disturbing video with small Little Rascals-coutured children panting at the duo on stage and licking at ice-cream cones is enough to dissuade me. - Raymond Cummings 
07. Beck - Girl Originally "Girl" was one of my least favorite songs on Guero. Beck's 6th major label release was probably his most critically contested, yet "Girl" was one of the tracks most commonly cited as "a good one." Go figure. With more and more spins "Girl" became a great one, a riotously catchy reworking of a 60s beach party movie soundtrack. Regardless of what adjective Beck actually uses to describe his girl in the chorus, it's already too evident that this song was meant to be heard in a red convertible doing 85 down the Pacific coast in the middle of July. - Graham Golbuff 
06. Amerie - 1 Thing Rich Harrison - a.k.a the man behind 'Crazy In Love', announced the return of the feel-good R&B hit, with the insistent guitar stabs and rumbling drums of 'One Thing'. Amerie bursts into the track with a mantra like hook, riding the drum breaks and stop start guitar in one of the most vital vocal performances of the year, until a string section emerges out of the chaos setting up a melancholic finale. By now I think it's plain to see Rich Harrison is something of a one trick pony. But it's one thing - excuse the pun - he does better than anybody else on the planet right now. - Hari Ashurst 
05. Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To Yeah not broke. Not fixing. We were done with the first record, but we sure as hell wanted more. Then just as the boisterous, visceral* *diversion of LCD Soundsystem wore off, along came Franz Ferdinand yet again. Nothing exemplifies the cheeky, lusty, energetic sound we bit on so fiercely over the last year and a half as "Do You Want To" from the latest release You Could Have It So Much Better. The song starts out with a quick bang after absolutely swaggering lyrics - "I'm going to make somebody love me....it's you...you're so lucky" - and there they go making us dance, never forgetting the rock and roll earmark: driving percussion and ballsy, loud, sorta crunchy fuck-you guitar. These elements pull them out of the quagmire of metrosexual mediocrity and remind us of the fact that Franz Ferdinand does indeed rock, and they're gonna give it to you. They've smartly leaned on some of their proven points of appeal; not-so-coy allusions to guy-on-guy action - "Do you want to go where I never let you before...I blew him before you"- very titillating, and those delectably snot-drizzled vocals by Alex that make me want to rub his nuts and hand him a tissue at the same time. - Jennifer Wagner 
04. Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone "Since U Been Gone" was more than just an anthem of redemption from a broken heart, it was the pop anthem of 2005 for just about everyone with even the slightest interest in pop music - and sometimes those without. But, why? What was it about this song that endeared it to everyone from soccer moms to indie rockers? Was it the near perfect blending of catchy pop bounce and old-fashioned rock angst? Was it the way that the "Maps" biting guitar solo gave us a moment to catch our breath before the cathartic release? Or was it just the simple power of a universally adaptable tale of breaking through heartbreak and emerging victorious on the other side? I don't know, and quite frankly I don't ever really want to know. The only thing that matters to me are those little chiming guitar notes that pop in to propel the song along just before it explodes into that killer chorus. It isn't the lyrics or Kelly's voice, but those little notes that cut me right down to the bone each and every time I hear the song. Good pop songs make you want to scream along with the windows down on a sunny day, great pop songs make you want to scream along no matter where you are. "Since U Been Gone" is one of those great pop songs. - Jon Lundeen 
03. Kanye West - Gold Digger Some songs are in dire need of a bit of humor, while some have far too much; "Gold Digger" gets it just right. Kanye West paints a tongue-in-cheek picture of a stereotypical young black woman looking out for the financial interests of number one; in the process he takes an interesting look at race and riches (this in addition to his very public interest in politics!). I was slow coming to this song, or maybe it's just that the song needs a few listens to sink its hooks. But thanks to catchy and timely Ray Charles samples, hook me it did. It features one of the year's catchiest choruses, anchored by a near-perfect, near-irresistable couplet (unless you're hearing it on the radio, where at least the rhythm's interesting), which nicely frames the piquant verses. By the end we're almost feeling sorry for the rich sucker, but then comes just the right amount of twist: "When you get on he leave your ass for a white girl!" - William Bert 
02. Spoon - I Turn My Camera On It wasn't enough for Spoon to follow *Kill the Moonlight* with the unbelievably awesome *Gimme Fiction*. It also transpires that the album's second single was, without a doubt, the year's most unexpected highlight. In a post-*Midnight Vultures* world wherein white indie boys refuse to address the soul idiom without first donning layers of irony, Britt Daniel and crew do the exact opposite. Breaking out his best falsetto like it ain't no thang, Daniel defies convention and strips "I Turn My Camera On" to its bare bones, which just happen to be composed of solid funk. Who would've thunk it? The sparse arrangement complements the song's lyrical theme of emotional detachment brought on by heartbreak. In the way that power-pop love songs are mercilessly overdubbed, "I Turn My Camera On" takes away love's bells and whistles, stealing the sun from its heart, so to speak. The result is a smooth, slinky groove whose only embellishment is Daniel's unbelievable voice. Holding the whole enterprise down is unsung hero Jim Eno's staccato drumbeat. You may have thought it was a drum machine, but seeing Eno pull this off live will disabuse you of that notion stat. It takes real skills and real balls to unleash a monster like this. You're lucky to have this, so shut up and dance already. - Donna Brown 
01. Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc. "Feel Good Inc.", if it hasn't already, is destined to become the most misinterpreted pop song since Green Day's "Good Riddance". Sure, a contagiously upbeat song with a positive title "performed" by a cartoon band is bound to come off to many as a euphoric, happy tune, but like the rest of Gorillaz' brilliant Demon Days, an undercurrent of melancholy and dread lurks beneath the surface. There's a world-weariness to Damon Albarn's vocals, as he sings of, "A melancholy town where we never smile," decaying cities, and windmills, while De La Soul step in, revealing the song's ulterior motive, to laughing gas the fast cats while they "ghost town this Motown." Danger Mouse is all over this track, seamlessly shifting from the oddly funky, spy movie basslines to plaintive, pastoral refrains. His masterstroke is the inclusion of a sample from one of those laughing bag toys; the chuckles that open the song sound whimsical at first, but the longer the song goes, the laughs start to sound more and more maniacal as the gas takes effect. Such a foreboding, apocalyptic song's success as both a chart hit and a well-received iPod jingle, is a testament to the song's subversive genius. - Adrien Begrand And so it ends...with a bang! Be sure to join use in the New Year for a fresh batch of features, album reviews and news. Bookmark us...tell your friends about us...keep visiting...keep clicking and keep listening to great music. All of us at Static Multimedia thank you for your readership and value your feedback. Have a safe Holiday! |
