Best Tracks 0f 2007

These are the 22 tracks that attacked me the most this year.

22) Yo La Tengo “Fourth Time Around (Dylan Cover)” (mp3)
21) Shocking Pinks “This Aching Deal” (mp3)
20) Animal Collective “Derek” (mp3)
19) Spoon “Finer Feelings” (mp3)
18) Menomena “The Pelican” (mp3)
17) Vampire Weekend “Oxford Comma” (mp3)
16) Marissa Nadler “Diamond Heart” (mp3)
15) Okkervil River “A Girl in Port” (mp3)
14) Band of Horses “The General Specific” (mp3)
13) Shapes and Sizes “Teller/Seller” (on myspace)
12) Miracle Fortress “Maybe Lately” (mp3)
11) St. Vincent “Marry Me” (mp3)
10) Arcade Fire “Keep The Car Running” (mp3)
9) Aesop Rock “None Shall Pass” (mp3)
8) Panda Bear “Comfy In Nautica” (mp3)
7) Battles “Race: In” (mp3)
6) Deerhunter “Hazel St” (mp3)

5) Grinderman “No Pussy Blues” (mp3)

My mother might read this so I really have no idea why I like this song. Note: Freud smoked around 30 cigars a day and never once thought, in self-analysis, that he might be an oral character.

4) U.G.K. “International Playaz Anthem” (mp3)

The transitions that take place when the vocalists switch are genius. It goes from being a mellow track about getting married to a dirty South club-banger about all kinds of groovy gangsta shit.

3) R. Kelly “Freaky in the Club” (mp3)

Double Up, as a whole, is such great dissertation fodder for some pomo in a cultural studies Phd program. For almost the whole year, the ringtone on my phone has been “Freaky in the Club.” It’s confusing. When my phone rings while I’m at work, I start grinding on my co-workers butts as if I was in da club. Then, when I’m in the club and this song comes on, I always pick up my phone and I’m like “Hello? Helloooooo? Is you tweakin’? In da club? What Club? Were there other guys there? What they eat don’t make us shit.” Bonus: REAL TALK

2) LCD Soundsystem “Someone Great” (mp3)

I read a review of this track in which the reviewer claimed it was about a break-up. I think this is way off. The song is obviously about the death of a loved one. Murphy captures it well. It’s a song you car dance to on the way to the cemetery. In the last analysis, this death song is celebratory.

1) M.I.A. “Paper Planes” (mp3)

First, take a part from a song about the crucial, but enlightening, Christmas moment in Ho Chi Minh City had by an Amerasian child who realizes his bloodline ain’t coca-cola but rice. Then, take a misogynistic part from a song about shaking your rump, reappropriate it, and turn it into an empowering gun blast. Then, take a cash register sound from Pink Floyd to represent the historical transformation of a threat of physical violence to one of capital accumulation by the Other. Finally, intentionally mix all this up in the same way global capital only haphazardly mixes up culture, turn it into a total fucking club-banger about illegal work visas, and you have the track of the year. I think the pomos call this deconstruction. But my people, the Young Hegelian critical critics, call it radical reconstruction.

Tomorrow = Best Albums