Look, we love “No Pussy Blues,” “All My Friends” and “Int’l
Players Anthem.” In fact, they might
have been our Top 3 songs of 2007, if we didn’t mind being just like every body else. So we’re not going to rap any more about
songs you already know are awesome. Instead, we’ve put together The Factual Opinion’s Secret
50 - a countdown of songs that didn’t get any, enough, or the right
kind of attention last year. This is
what our Top 50 Songs of 2007 would look like if it were one of the scenes at
the end of Clue that begin, “But what if it happened this
way…”
50. The-Dream – “Shawty is Da Shit”
Case in point: We bet
you didn’t think it was cool to like this song. The insistent one-note piano riff, the call and response between
The-Dream and a chorus of hustlers, and the roll call of girls that grew up to
be 10s all put it over the top, but even if that doesn’t do it for you, the
fact that Jay-Z nicked the “hook” long before the song ever blew up should have
been a strong indicator of its actual worth.
49. The
Aliens – “Setting Sun”
A ballsy recasting of “All Along the Watchtower” as a
boy-loses-girl tirade, The Aliens muss up their garage rock with space-age
brit-pop liftoff, and then spend the final seconds chanting “We are the
Aliens,” in case we mistook them for Dylan.
48. Radiohead – “House of Cards”
Thom Yorke reverts back to the dude who sung “Creep,” only
older and (probably) hairier, and sits on the beach inexplicably pulling chicks
by sounding deliciously skeevy, referencing the “collapsing infrastructure,”
and making no promises.
47. Papercuts – “Dear Employee”
Papercuts’ Jason Robert Quever wants you to treat him like a
dog. But he also wants you to bring him
coffee. He’s a complicated man.
46. Atmosphere – “Sunshine”
Atmosphere’s Slug relates his own version of “It Was A Good
Day,” wherein he wakes up with a killer hangover before he discovers that it’s
beautiful outside and decides to take a lovely bike ride. Needless to say, he doesn’t even have to use
his AK.
45. Róisín
Murphy – “Checkin’ On Me”
You can ask JT how difficult it is to pull of a song that
uses a human voice for the beat. Róisín
Murphy does it easily, creating a playful gateway from her more avant-garde
work with Matthew Herbert to the discoed-up flavor of her second solo album.
44. The
Clientele – “Here Comes The Phantom”
Exactly the sound you would expect from a song that contains
the line, “Lonely cops pick flowers in the streets.” Still great.
43. Menomena
– “Boyscout’n”
Oh, Menomena. You had
us at bari sax. We wish your second album would
have contained a flip book, and would have been named with an anagram. And yet,
we deeply dig the whistling. You make us
feel very funny in the soft spots.
42. Janelle
Monáe – “Sincerely, Jane”
Swanky R&B off a concept EP about time-travel by a chick
who rolls with OutKast. This is what
happens when you stop paying attention for two seconds.
41. Frog
Eyes – “Caravan Breakers, They Prey on the Weak and the Old”
If you only hear one 7 minute plus epic from a Wolf
Parade-related band this year.
40. St.
Vincent – “Paris Is Burning”
Remember how we were all like, “Come back, Björk, all is
forgiven”? Well… never mind. Our heart belongs to someone else now.
39. Big
Quarters – “Everyday”
If Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth had grown up in Minneapolis,
self-released their first album, and rapped about the impending loss of their
eyesight instead of Trouble T-Roy.
38. Carlos
Giffoni – “The Snake Rises”
By “snake,” he means, “industrial-strength abrasive
feedback,” and by “rises,” he means, “relentlessly escalates over the course of
12 minutes.”
37. Mark
Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse – “Valerie”
The Zutons’ original “Valerie” sounds like it really wants
to go to where Mark Ronson took it—to a sixties-era uptempo ballad. Sung by some chick with a beehive, the lyrics
take on new meaning as she looks out across the water, misses Valerie and
yearns for her to come over.
36. Black
Kids – “Hurricane Jane”
Seems like most folks spent more time hyping or hating on
this brand new band then actually listening to the music. Seems like they all missed out on this
ghostly, near-perfect jam from a solid (free!) EP.
35. Muscles
– “Hey Muscles I Love You”
Exactly the sound you would expect from a song with the
chorus, “Hey Muscles, I love you/ I want to have your babies.” Except better.
34. The Fall - "Over! Over!"
Mark E. Smith tells you It’s Over in a typically binoculars
Fall-style rant. But the interplay
between Smith and two other voices—one sounds like the “Why’s everybody always
picking on me” dude from The Coasters crashing his granddaughter’s friend’s
birthday party; the other sounds like Smith imitating the Cookie Monster—pushes
“Over! Over!” into genius territory.
33. The
Schema – “Those Rules You Made”
“Those Rules You Made” is the result of an experiment in
which Rhodri Marsden of Scritti Politti “recorded, distributed and promoted a
single from his bedroom in a 30-day timeframe.” In the first ten days of its release, 250,000 people watched the video
on YouTube. 58 people bought the song.
32. Angels
of Light – “Black River Song”
Quite possibly the Factual Opinion-est song ever: totally
scary, techno-informed noise rock by Michael Gira off an album of mostly
acoustic death-folk ballads.
31. The
Shins – “Australia”
There are days when we love Wincing The Night
Away and days it bores the shit out of us, but “Australia” always makes us
happy. This is vintage 2001-era Shins,
before they traded their love of rhythm for a love of chamber-pop.
-Marty Brown, 2008
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