Here we are almost finished with December and every magazine, blog, and magazine’s supplementary website is cramming their humble opinions down your RSS feeder’s throat, so why should PartyEnds.com be any different!? We strive for self-indulgence here. Using a combination of ancient Illuminati methods, itunes play counts, emotional ties and an overall ‘jamitude’ scale the following list is a document of 2009 for me in songs. I stand by this list as of this very moment. Put your lighters in the air! Here we go….

#20- Empire State of Mind- Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys
Buy  The Blueprint 3 HERE

Jay-Z’s love letter to a city that I’m pretty sure he is a partial owner of, makes you forgot that time he retired from rap.   The song  uses a sweet sample of the Moments’ Love on a Two-Way Street. If he had worked in a Woody Allen reference along with all the other name drops it would have been top 10. Maybe 5….

#19- Runner- The Laughing
Buy Fever HERE

MP3: The Laughing- Runner

Austin’s the Laughing have been thru a ton of line up changes over the years and have put out two flipping amazing EP’s and as of 2009 a full-length called Fever containing their best tribal poly-rhythm breaks and eerie falsetto hooks. This is the Lauhging’s most smutty feat of prowess yet.

#18- What Should We Do With Your Body (the Lightning) – The Paper Chase
Buy Someday This Could All Be Yours Pt. 1 HERE

MP3: The Paper Chase – What Should We Do With Your Body? (The Lightning)

From an album all about natural disasters, this song stays true to the best Paper Chase playbooks by cryptically alluding to horrible domestic things by way of metaphor to butchering, balanced with a dark back and forth angular structure that takes the listener through a journey of a self actualized lightening bolt. It begins with looped piggy noises, moves onto literary usage of suicide bombing, crazy percussion, the repetitious  “god is everywhere” and found police scanner samples. This is what a Paper Chase is all about.

#17- Bye Bye Bayou- LCD Soundsystem

This is a cover and an Alan Vega tune I’ve never heard but see why LCD Soundsystem latched onto it. It has all the New York connotations that LCD is naturally drawn too and Vega’s project Suicide is name dropped in I’m Losing My Edge. Content aside, this is a archetypal James Murphy and has me chomping at the bit for the next full length. Lets have it 2010!

#16 – Psalms 40:2- The Mountain Goats
Buy The Life Of The World To Come HERE

Here is a great example of the strengths of a Best Song list vs. a Best Album list. John Darnielle has earned my forever respect for his track record, but the new album overall doesn’t make me swoon. The live tour behind it however, took my breath away; but as far as singles go: this is the one. Hey, he played it on the Colbert Report and earned the coveted and perceived Colbert Bump. This is the upbeat, pump-up track of the album and features the trademark lyrics beginning softly and ending with a yell. The song is nice and controlled, clocking in at right over 3 minutes.  In that time it manages to do everything a Mountain Goats song should: tells an overly detailed account of a character’s tribulations and above all: makes the acoustic guitar cool.

#15- It Hurt Me All the Time- Faunts
Buy Feel.Love.Thinking.Of. HERE

MP3: Faunts- It Hurts Me All the Time

The Canadian Joy Division obsessives’ crafted homage to their heroes of the 80s without a shred of irony. Faunts created an airy song that is still bouncing around in my head since I first heard it. It Hurts Me All the Time is simple and has some of the sweetest synthesizers of 2009, which is indeed a statement.

#14 Urban Outfitters- Maxx Moon
Download the FREE Kixpro 2009 Mixtape HERE

MP3: Maxx Moon- Urban Outfitters

Maxx Moon is the new collaboration from indie hipsterhoppers Picnic Tyme and Astronautalis and the first track they dropped is basically all about shoes. Nelly did it, the Cool Kids did it, now Maxx Moon went and did it.  This was the summer song of 2009. It oozes fun and hooks. I like the poke at the face of consumer culture, both at stores that sell “cool” and dealers who sell “drugs”.  Check out our first impressions back in August. 

#13 Pregnant- R. Kelly (Feat. Tyrese, Robin Thicke & The-Dream)

R. Kelly has been best lately when he acts like Dave Chappelle impersonating him. This song is a great example. The whole My Demo mixtape had me snickering at his various Patron-packed pick-up lines and bombastic statements and I wasn’t alone- the Onion was able to transcribe lyrics out and have it take up about half a page without even having to add jokes.  Read this.   This single has him seeing a booty that is so nice that he might like to get the owner “pregnant” and see her in a kitchen. R. Kelly’s misogynistic bizarreness is to be rewarded in it’s absurdity and ability to bring a WTF grin to my face. The first line of the song is seriously “Girl, you make me want to get you pregnant.” The second line of the song is “Girl, you make me want to get you pregnant.” Cased closed shawrty.

#12- Lisztomania- Phonenix
Buy Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix HERE

2009 was a huge year for Phoenix who managed to fashion a slew of super catchy songs and jam pop culture with them!  This one, although fun to say, managed to teach the world about a term used to describe the massive public response to Franz Liszt’s virtuosic piano performances. A clever trick to get the hip kids to dance to a song about a composer deserves to be lauded.

#11- Human(e) Meat (The Flensing of Sandor Katz)- Propagandhi
Buy Supporting Caste HERE

MP3: Propagandhi-Human(e) Meat (The Flensing of Sandor Katz)

This is a brilliantly sardonic song about eating the flesh of non-vegans. Boom. No other song has ever had me singing along in the car to lyrics about making a spreadable headcheese out of a human. “Be careful what kind of world you wish for/ Someday it may come knocking on your door” Bravo.

Top 10 come later….