I’ve wondered how to approach the top songs of the year post. I don’t really do singles, they tend to be the traipsing ground of crap commercial bands without much in the way of back-up.

I thought of the most popular songs across the board for the year, choosing best-selling albums, tracking tags across Last.FM and iLike, charting popularity ratings on social networking sites like MySpace. But to be perfectly honest that’s loads of hard slog and not only am I on my holliers but I have a raging cold and don’t bloody feel like it because I’m supposed to be in Derry *sob*

Instead I’ll write and tell you what I liked most this year and why. They don’t fall into any one genre and are not all new releases…some are simply MySpace demos. I’m not a music critic, I’m biased, know diddly-squat and find it very difficult to describe what I hear so just know this: in MY opinion, these’re all plain deadliness. These are the songs I got no work done to, the songs I worked to, those I danced to and felt my gay little heart burst to….

50. 24 Stella - Moutpiece:
Oh, if MySpace could scrobble…I refuse to give these deadly fuckers another cm of text until they organise a thousand new pressings of their album.

49. Public Lovers - Lambda:
Just heavy-jerky enough to make me want to hear more, more, more songs from this Dublin quartet.

48. Tied Up In Knots - Moth Complex:
Vocal gridwork from Aoife Barry over grinding electrock. Makes me want to flee to Japan and start a new life as a Manga ninja coquette.

47. Steve McQueen - This Is How It Ends:
Compelling slow-build high-dive wanderings. Zone in.

46. You Feel The Fire! - Le Galaxie:
Dimension-skipping discobeats to make discobots of us all.

45. She Burns A Thirst - Cascade Sounds:
Songs to take you far beyond the atmosphere, infused with GIAA-trippiness and retro indie vocals.

44. Genetics - Ladydoll:
Surprising, stomping perks from Cork. Wasn’t impressed earlier in the year but this latest offering completely re-upped my perceptions of the Cork fivesome.

43. Gone To Sea - New Amusement:
Irresistible foot-tap wave-swell spell-stuff.

42. Odd Socks - Grand Pocket Orchestra:
No going mad with the serious for GPO. Thank fuck.

41. The Let’s Get Drunk! Song - Not Squares:
Not the actual song name - both times I’ve heard them play in the last few weeks I’ve been too drunk to do anything but agree with the most rousin’ lyric of the year.

40. Car Park - Butterfly Explosion:
Always steadfast on my playlists, this is my fave BX song. 2009’s debut album is eagerly awaited.

39. Codebreakers - Groom:
Singable like Band of Horses minus the suicidal tendencies. Only recently heard these guys and promptly fell to worship at the Temple of Groom.

38. Under The Mirrorball - Spiders:
I missed out on these guys last year and made up for it…a revving Friday night song if there ever was one.

37. On Platinum Rays - Sunken Foal:
Gorgeous electronica of a highly inventive slant. Just listen to what he’d do to Mary Black…

36. unos desperareceran desde memoria - Cruz:
Instrumental whimsy and slabbed electronic shoegaze mastery.

35. Quicksilver - Drunken Boat:
Ringing guitars cool like ambient mercury. Part of a very lovely mini-album Cut The Engines, Raise The Sails.

34. Orion Feedback - The Control Freak:
Oh yes with the hard-paced electronic socialist polemic.

33. Lightheavyweight - Elk:
New discovery on my part. Come in lads, and bring your album with you.

32. Our Lungs - Abam:
The only “BOGUS!” will be pathetic attempts to impress. An absolute trouncer of a song and not being able to find their EP on sale annoys me no end.

31. Osumi - Sleep Thieves
Stealing minds with trippy electrowires, watch out for Sleep Thieves in your 2009 bedrooms.

30. Drowning In Flame - Rest:
Trademark transcendental post-rock. Not a new release but murderously powerful.

29. The Gondola Song - Yngve:
Ripping my singer-songwriter prejudices to shreds with incendiary live performance.

28. You Don’t Look So Good - The Urges:
Breezy crashing strains of garage rock good enough to make you jack your job in.

27. Mudbath - Noise Control:
“Do ya wanna get dirty?” More stellar instrumental dance-rock set to Kid’s incorrigible lyrical hedonism.

26. We Are Men - Cap Pas Cap:
Fine return from the artrockers with a remix back-up posse beaten only by SEBP’s Appetite For Reconstruction.

25. Running With Scissors - DISCOnnect4:
Get these dancy beauties to every tavern in the land.

24. This Is Goodbye - C O D E S
Soaring tune from the band I never saw enough of in 2008.

23. Stingray - Terrordactyls:
Choppy-ohoh lethal and my favourite walking-out-the-door song of the year.

22. Concrete Coast - Axis of:
Young punks full of Ire and Derry-do, in this case railing against rampant commercial development of Northern Ireland’s coastal communities.

21. Portrush - Team Fresh:
Same subject, different vibe. Gentle snappy beats and rhymes from a scenic skateboarder viewpoint.

20. Kittenfish - Hooray For Humans:
Mad decent dance rock pop? H4H have ‘em down pat.

19. The Lobotomist - The Eclectic:
Tremendously inventive, unpretentious alternative deserving of huge acclaim and accordingly unnoticed.

18. So Brand New - Queen Kong:
Give Amy a crown and a high seat in Tara. Endlessly faithful, simple yet engaging to fit all moods, I returned to this song time and again this year.

17. I Hate All My Friends - Large Mound:
With bands like this, who needs Enemies?

16. Everything Flows - Super Extra Bonus Party:
Beautiful, bright start to the year from the Choice winners.

15. Port Tunnel - Green Lights:
Because I live in East Wall? Because I love dreamy guitars? Because each song is better than the last? Wotevs.

14. Prestidigitation - Dublin Duck Dispensary.
Dublin gets stranger than fiction and about time, too.

13. Stick To Your Line - R.S.A.G.:
Cowbell? “More Calor Gas!”

12. Christchurch, 6 Bells - The Spook of the 13th Lock:
If there’s any justice, Irish diaspora the world over should have swooned in unity to find this in their stockings on Christmas Day.

11. Anxious - Crayonsmith:
Tying into my Why? frenzy of 2008, I felt Anxious‘ darts of trepidation in a big way, oh yes. One of many gems on the White Wonder album.

10. At The Heart Of All This Strangeness - Jape:
Ritual heaved with heavy-hitter dance melodies and proved a shining homage to Bass Hero Phil Lynott, marking Jape a Winner of Best-Of polls across the board. In this case, a shock discovery on my part to fall utterly in love with this segment of acoustic crooning. Acoustic crooning is just so not my thing.
Close contender : Margie - Heathers :
As an anti-acoustic snotty brat, I didn’t think I’d like Heathers. I was very, very wrong. Lovely, just lovely.

9. Medals - Halves:
On finding myself passing certain souvenir merchandise outlets to the bleat of fiddles, I repeatedly thank my lucky stars for Halves’ resuscitation of Irish instrumental music. Yes, they use violins and celloes but to great effect, layered into engaging ambient structures and soaring vocal accompaniment. With no fluent genre to adhere to - not post-rock, not folk, not glitchy electronica - like berthmates Subplots, they’re all the more compelling adrift on a loose sea of sound.
Close contender : Alarms - Subplots :
I lost the new EP in my room within hours of purchase and it rankles in my spirit like a canker on roses. Phil’s voice is so gentle and in perfect harmony with Subplot’s soar’n’swell crescendoes.

8 : Bees of the Future - Hoovers & Sledgehammers
Highly-creative, overexcited, aurally-hyperactive Hoovers & Sledgehammers are shit-hot in these quarters: Visions from Eceloe Mountain was a gleeful find of 2008, snapped up free from their website which I’ve taken to haunting like waif in search of alms-tunes. Boasting the most squeegee use of guitar pedals all year and more bass-love than a turkey baster, they just do not give a fuck for any semblance of Right, Done, Standard or Correct and I fucking love them for it. Bring on the beards, glitter and gyropters.
Close contender : Big Melt - Story Of Hair. Poptasticle perfection which deserves to be the theme tune to a modern-day Pugwall. Except anyone who wants to mess with Pugwall has to get past me first.

7 : Blown A Wish - My Bloody Valentine :
Irish band I wish I’d seen in their heyday but this was the year of their reanimated return. Deserve to be played loud at least three times a day. Though there are several songs I really like, Blown A Wish always pops on at the most opportune moments.
Close contender : Hard Luck (Again) - The Undertones. Sounds dairy-fresh compared to Teenage Kicks and My Perfect Cousin. Buy Hypnotised, it’s worth it.

6. Apophenia - Artificial Flight :
Gentle nursery-tinkles and clean vocals lead this Dundalk outfit from the makings of a ballad into a pop-guitar stormer fit to pry embraced lovers into disco dance-off and back into each other’s arms. If you love simple pop recipes of good lyrics, catchy melody and shout-aloudness, this one’s for you. At just under 5 minutes, Apophenia falls far beyond the radio-friendly zone but has all the makings of a classic. Testament to the beauty of schizoid minds in love, the intriguing title refers to the perception of meanings or patterns where none exist. Considering I slave for number 9 biological conspiracies, that’s me hooked.
Close contender: Screentest - The Funeral Suits :
More irrepressible, likeable indiepop, from the stellar Oh Dear EP.

5. Echoes - God Is An Astronaut :
Moving firmly on from the trancier days of The End Of The Beginning, on to harder ground than the whimsical meanders of A Moment Of Stillness. Creatively matured without sounding grown-up, God Is An Astronaut proved evolution’s a perfectionate process with the release of this year’s self-titled album. Echoes stands out for me with its linear purity ascending into loud, melodic heaven. Prepare for their live return early next year, it’s going to be special.
Close contender : Desire Lines - Halfset :
Spectacular instrumental success story of the year.

4. Shackleton - So Cow :
Up-tempo lines set to leisurely lyrics have seen So Cow enjoy considerable critical acclaim with I’m Siding With My Captors, 2008’s crystalline pop gem record. I’m not educated enough to know what exactly I hear in this record that’s so engrossing: is there something vintage in these melodies? Does he sing with a modern twist? Am I missing a huge, obvious influence? I’ve NFI…I only know, this year I reeeally loved So Cow.
Close contender : You People Are Idiots - Michael Knight :
Yes, do combine strings with chunky dance-guitar, please ‘n’ ta.

3. Colin Skehan - Adebisi Shank :
The only band of the year who made a song sounding so good despite a hangover so bad, the only cure was to turn up the volume and get drunk all over again.
Close contender : All Who Float Have Not Sunk In - Marvin’s Revolt :
Not Irish, not 2008, not that I care. “This faux pas will make us/make more out of less” AMAZING song.

2. Drago’s Revenge - The Vinny Club :
Ultimate delight of the year was discovering Adebisi Shank didn’t end at Adebisi Shank, and what didn’t end at Adebisi Shank wasn’t more Adebisi Shank, it was Vinny. Taken as the lead track of the Stallone-inspired Rocky VI Reckyrd, Drago’s Revenge proved the most-played track of the most-played Irish album in my CD collection of the year, a companion to bleary mornings at my desk, afternoon raves with my kids, getting-tarted-up-for-mad-nights-out and every imaginable instance between. Discovering the transition to live performance was far from lossless -  those lucky enough to be in attendance swore his support stole the Ponytail show and who could forget the havoc wreaked at Hard Working Class Heroes’ wrap party and warming the crowd to a sweaty mob for SEBP’s remix launch? SFX have been re-done before but not like this: in compiling disjointed blippy segments into a speed-racer Irish record, Vinny’s unparalleled high score oughta see a string of sequels.
Close contender : Dark Secret - Land Lovers :
Mirrorballs across the land, prepare to spin out orbit…four minutes of pure disco-bliss.

1. These Ones Lay Eggs - BATS :
Favourites of the year, information-gorging music-masters beat the ASIWYFA machine by the skin of their wings thanks to aural flingskip-chugbawl variety. The frightfully catchy chorus of “Uh oh, the flight, the egg, the shell!” sounds wonderfully menacing recited monotonously by children in the dark. Just ask my Ma.
Not quite my personal favourite - the screaming plunge of Atom and Eve extols five-star breathlessness - but as the most accessible song of the Cruel Sea Scientist EP, TOLE is a quadpod hunter-gatherer bearing traces of frenetic metal, post-punk singability and riffing prog-rock, all that makes Irish music exciting right now encased within a single track. At its worst, audiohorrorbooks, at its best, blam-ray music set to stun.
Close contender : Holylands, 4am - And So I Watch You From Afar:
Dazzling Belfast sonicscapes. Dump me in dark alleys alone with songs like this and I’ll never bother you again.

As the Nayface of an official company who don’t get away with the ruthless piracy of renegade music blogs, my requests to contact bands and compile a download-file sadly weren’t feasible. Instead you’ll have to just take my word for them and spend the rest of your hols trawling MySpace…better things to do? Not likely!

Thanks again to all these awesome bands. Heartlove, headfucks and best of luck for 2009!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 10:56 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.