Wednesday, December 30, 2009

The 100 Best Songs of 2009


It is probably not a good sign for the music business that the biggest song of the year was released back in 1969. But for some reason, three artists all used Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye by Steam in their songs. Wale started out ’09 sampling it for Chillin’. Then Kristinia DeBarge used it as the chorus for her debut song, the aptly titled Goodbye. Then Jay-Z tried to kill off Auto-Tune with the help of the famous cadence. Despite the overuse of cheesy sports anthems, 2009 was actually a great year for good music (on the flip side, it wasn’t much of a good year for great music) as this was the largest pool of songs, 250 (shoot me an e-mail if you want the full list, I'll send you my speadsheet), which I had to cut down for my Top 100. And here they are and I hope to see everyone back in 2010 (check the bottom of the post for samples of the songs on the Amazon MP3 widget):

1. Use Somebody - Kings of Leon

2. Make Her Say - Kid Cudi, Kanye West, and Common

3. I and Love and You - The Avett Brothers

4. Run This Town - Jay-Z featuring Rihanna & Kanye West

5. You And Me - Dave Matthews Band

6. Sugarfoot - Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears

7. Grapevine Fires - Death Cab for Cutie

8. Funny The Way It Is - Dave Matthews Band

9. Cowboy Casanova - Carrie Underwood

10. Magick - Ryan Adams & the Cardinals

11. Nothing but a Miracle - Diane Birch

12. Pony (It's OK) - Erin McCarley

13. Too Many Rappers - Beastie Boys featuring Nas

14. Who Says - John Mayer

15. You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift

16. Staying in Love - Raphael Saadiq

17. Geraldine - Glasvegas

18. A Dustland Fairytale - The Killers

19. Mykonos - Fleet Foxes

20. Even If It Breaks Your Heart - Will Hoge

21. People C'mon - Delta Spirit

22. Notion - Kings of Leon

23. Chillin' - Wale featuring Lady Gaga

24. Melody - Kate Earl

25. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight - U2

26. Fugitive - David Gray

27. Percussion Gun - White Rabbits

28. Chasing Pirates - Norah Jones

29. Under My Bed - Meiko

30. Red Light - David Nail

31. (If You're Wondering if I Want You To) I Want You To - Weezer

32. The Fixer - Pearl Jam

33. Fitz and the Dizzyspells - Andrew Bird

34. Wild at Heart - Gloriana

35. 100 Yard Dash - Raphael Saadiq

36. Heartless - The Fray

37. I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week - Mandy Moore

38. Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart - Alicia Keys

39. Just Breathe - Pearl Jam

40. Doesn't Mean Anything - Alicia Keys

41. Gravity - Sara Bareilles

42. Love, Save the Empty - Erin McCarley

43. I Love College - Asher Roth

44. Fire Escape - Diane Birch

45. People Got a Lotta Nerve - Neko Case

46. I Like You so Much Better When You're Naked - Ida Maria

47. Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys

48. The One - Slaughterhouse

49. Furr - Blitzen Trapper

50. The Fear - Lily Allen

51. A Whole Lot Better - Brendan Benson

52. Everybody Knows - John Legend

53. Laughing With - Regina Spektor

54. Beyond Here Lies Nothin' - Bob Dylan

55. Just Ain't Gonna Work Out - Mayer Hawthorne

56. Little Bribes - Death Cab for Cutie

57. Sometime Around Midnight - The Airborne Toxic Event

58. New in Town - Little Boots

59. Goodnight, Travel Well - The Killers

60. Brick by Boring Brick - Paramore

61. Sky - Joshua Radin featuring Meiko

62. I Wanna Rock - Snoop Dogg

63. Hometown Glory - Adele

64. Shining Down - Lupe Fiasco featuring Matthews Santos

65. Bang Bang - K'naan featuring Adam Levine

66. 1901 - Phoenix

67. Chocolate Box - Prince featuring Q-Tip

68. If Rap Gets Jealous - K'naan featuring Kirk Hammett

69. Kinda Like a Big Deal - Clipse featuring Kanye West

70. White Horse - Taylor Swift

71. Radio Radio - Brooke White

72. The Man Who Can't Be Moved - The Script

73. Oscar Wilde - Company of Thieves

74. Swim - Jack's Mannequin

75. Nothing to Worry About - Peter Bjorn and John

76. Show Me What I'm Looking For - Carolina Liar

77. Who'd Have Known - Lily Allen

78. A-Yo - Method Man & Redman featuring Saukrates

79. Wavin' Flag - K'naan

80. Life Is Better - Q-Tip featuring Norah Jones

81. Barely in Love - Q-Tip

82. Fly One Time - Ben Harper and Relentless7

83. Why I Am - Dave Matthews Band

84. Daddy's Gone - Glasvegas

85. Crawl - Kings of Leon

86. Uprising - Muse

87. Don't Forget - Demi Lovato

88. Bulletproof - La Roux

89. On Vacation - Aimee Allen

90. Fireflies - Owl City

91. Just Say Yes - Snow Patrol

92. East Jesus Nowhere - Green Day

93. How I Got Over - The Roots

94. I'm Broke - Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears

95. Wonderful - Gary Go

96. D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune) - Jay-Z

97. That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings

98. Love Letter to Japan - The Bird and the Bee

99. Get On Your Boots - U2

100. Let's Take a Walk - Raphael Saadiq



22 comments:

  1. I can't believe I never even heard about that Beastie Boys song.
    And for some reason, I thought Peter Bjorn & John was from 2008. If I had remembered correctly, I would have put one of their songs on the top 10 I sent you...No big deal.

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  2. I swear I mentioned the Beastie Boys song on Facebook, but MCA announced his cancer a week or two after the song came out putting a hault to any promotion for the album.

    The PB&J (I wonder if they sequenced their names for that specific acronym) album the song came from was released in late March of this year.

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  3. Supernova is realy an amazing song. What do u think about it?

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  4. I am assuming you are refering to the Mr. Hudson song, if so, it is a decent enough song that just missed the top 100 and may have made it if I didn't have to put up with Kanye West singing.

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  5. Kanye may be a ass but he's not a bad artist!

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  6. Hey Scoot what did you think of "knock you down"

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  7. Kanye is a great rapper, horrible singer.

    Knock You Down is a decent enough song and was considered for this list but the syth heavy beat was most likely what kept it just outside the top 100.

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  8. You have a point but most songs on 808's and heartbreaks were actually decent songs ( and he sang most of them )

    But I'm shocked really that a song like Replay (iyaz) fared better than Russian Roulette by Rihanna?! Her album may not be her best work yet, but Russian Roulette was a damn decent song.What's going on over there in America?

    Have you heard any of the songs by a band called the Parlotones? Terence from S.A

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  9. Some of the individual songs on 808 are tolerable, but it is hard to get through the album as a whole. Anyway, Kanye should stick to rapping.

    Replay didn't fare better than Russian Roulette, Replay was on the Worst Songs of the Year list and Rihanna wasn't. And Russian Roulette really didn't make a big enough impression on me to make it on this list. Maybe next year.

    Economic turmoil.

    Never heard of Parlotones. I'll try to hunt them down on YouTube soon.

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  10. I never really got what make her say was about it's goes all over the place...& I even saw him in concert...I mean I get the make her say part but then it skips around to "whatever you like"& it's just using different songs..& I don't get what was special about demi lovato don't forget

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  11. I don't think you really need to understand a song to make it a good song, and raps songs have been using other songs and hooks for decades now. For me it just took a horrible song and flipped it into something listenable with Kanye laying down his best rap since his debute album.

    As for Don't Forget, I can understand why people wouldn't like it or not see what is so special about it, but for me it is just cheesy goodness. And there is just something profoundly brilliant about the line, "Love is like a song; you can't forget it."

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  12. I was actually talking about the billboard charts.(It's Terence)I know that you don't really care about what the billboard charts say.Lets face it, all those charts are based on popularity to be quite honest. Replay is currently sitting at #2 and Russian Roulette after peaking at #9 and spending 1 week in the top 10.How is that possible. That's why I asked what's going on there. Tha's actually injustice. I just hope the grammys don't snub her next year.

    The Parlotones are a South African band (I'm also from South Africa). Probably the best band in the country! Their really good and have international potential. When people hear South Africa poverty, crime capital of the world, people rideing on elephants, a small unknown country where the 2010 FIFA worldcup is going to be and held and where District 9 was shot. I really want people to change their views. Do yourself a favour and go check out "Push me to the floor" by The Parlotones on Youtube. ( Sorry for all my grammer mistakes. English is my 3rd language )

    Terence from S.A

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  13. The Billboard Hot 100 is worthless, it is based too much on radio airplay and there is too much payola going on (where record companies pay radio stations to play song to pad things like the Hot 100) as well as other shady activities as having interns who soley spend their days calling radio stations requesting songs. To truely see what is legitimately popular, charts based on sales (Billboard's album charts, Amazon, iTunes) is what you want to look at. That is how crap like Replay can get high on on the Hot 100 because legitimately good music can get enough promotion by word of mouth.

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  14. So did you check put The Parlotones?

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  15. I meant out

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  16. Yeah, hunted down a few tracks on YouTube, pretty decent and could fit in well in the current indie scene her in the US.

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  17. ... You just let my sister win this round of John Mayer vs. Taylor Swift. By ONE slot. Damn.

    Love the list, though, it's pretty representative of the last year and reflects the variety of music you usually talk about.

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  18. Not only that , but Taylor beat John by two spots last year. Though round one in 2007 Mayer topped Swift by 9 spots. Even though he may have lost the last two rounds, Mayer is easily winning the overall fight so far, although the next round may be a draw with their duet will probably make the Best of 2010 list.

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  19. Glad you liked the Parlotens!!! Their a awesom band. I think their from the UK

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  20. You have horrible taste in music.

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  21. hmmm....no slayer or lamb of god= no taste in rock this year, kings of leon are aweful and completely overrated

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  22. Wow, you suck in 100 levels...

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