It’s time - Top 10 songs of the year. Remember the rules:

1) Albums are dead. Tracks are all that matter.
2) It doesn’t have to be a song from this year. I had to discover it this year.

With very rough personal filters/aggregators developed, I discovered a tonne of good music this year. And, with all of my running, I had plenty of time to consume it all.

Here are five tracks that were in the running all year, but in the end couldn’t take a top spot.

Tapes ‘n Tapes- Cowbell. Off of their album, The Loon, a great song that’s connected in my memory to the Queen St. stairs (I ran them one night in the fog at 11 pm, and Cowbell provided the soundtrack)

Arctic Monkeys- A Certain Romance. Their album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not was played constantly at the start of the year and throughout the summer. The album was so good it almost made me break rule # 1 (albums = dead). The band was mentioned on Disruptive Thoughts many times. An incredible debut record (and the two follow on releases this year were equally great) and a song that will forever fill my memory with Saturday mornings spent with Greg just rolling around town.

Clipse- Trill.

“The album’s best trick is combining rough 80’s drums with atmospheric 90’s keys but recorded in a crisp post 2K way.”

Enough said.

Matisyahu- Youth. “A Hasidic Jewish Rapper” sounds like the start of a bad joke. I challenge anyone to listen to this song and not be inspired. Driving up to Sudbury with Al while we solve the problems of the world and flights touching down in busy cities - this song played an important role in my life this year.

Dark Side of the Cop- Shaky Little Rules. After a much needed visit with my dad in San Diego while in LA for three weeks in February, I was driving north on my way back to the hotel when this song came on. Windows down, flying up the coast in a rental car, with the cool pacific air all around me. It’s a catchy song that I still love.

A Kiva gift certificate to anyone who is a loyal enough reader / good enough friend to know my top 3 songs of the year.


COMMENTS / 5 COMMENTS

[…] review that is so true and explains how Random Spirit Lover almost forces me to break one of my rules of new music: Random Spirit Lover’s songs have verses, choruses, and bridges like most other […]

Disruptive Thoughts » Sunset Rubdown added these pithy words on Oct 02 07 at 10:14 am

I’ll give the 3 songs that I love best that I got from you: Phoenix - Long Distance Call: http://www.streampad.com/play/song/w627081 Junior Boys - In The Morning: http://www.streampad.com/play/song/w634620 Lily Allen - Alfie: http://www.streampad.com/play/song/w622765 I like Allen’s Smile better though. I’ll also say that For the Price of a Cup of Tea may be in here, as well as Hot Chip.

Dan added these pithy words on Dec 21 06 at 10:19 pm

I’ll give the 3 songs that I love best that I got from you:

Phoenix - Long Distance Call: http://www.streampad.com/play/song/w627081

Junior Boys - In The Morning: http://www.streampad.com/play/song/w634620

Lily Allen - Alfie: http://www.streampad.com/play/song/w622765

I like Allen’s Smile better though. I’ll also say that For the Price of a Cup of Tea may be in here, as well as Hot Chip.

Dan added these pithy words on Dec 22 06 at 1:19 am

I do agree that Allen’s Smile is better than Alfie but my favourite from her is actually a cover of the Kook’s Naive. Very, very nice. The Hot Chip song was a recent discovery, and while great, I was unsure about adding it to the list on such few listens. Sadly (or, maybe amazingly) neither Junior Boys - In The Morning or the song from Phoenix made the list… they actually may have deserved to be in the list of 5 that didn’t make it.

Fraser added these pithy words on Dec 22 06 at 8:35 am

I do agree that Allen’s Smile is better than Alfie but my favourite from her is actually a cover of the Kook’s Naive. Very, very nice.

The Hot Chip song was a recent discovery, and while great, I was unsure about adding it to the list on such few listens.

Sadly (or, maybe amazingly) neither Junior Boys - In The Morning or the song from Phoenix made the list… they actually may have deserved to be in the list of 5 that didn’t make it.

Fraser added these pithy words on Dec 22 06 at 11:35 am

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Songs of the Year - Best of 06: The Ones That Didn’t Make It

Posted on 12.21.06 to Media. Subscribe to follow comments on this post. 5 comments. Add your thoughts or trackback from your own site.

Welcome to the conversation.

Hi, I'm Fraser and this is my personal site where I write about the things I'm interested in: start-up strategy, the web, music, and life.

My days are spent commercializing emerging technologies. Currently I'm helping to deliver the promise of semantic web to the consumer market at AdaptiveBlue. Previously I was at Trivaris, a Canadian seed stage investment firm.

I am a co-founder of Innovation Night, a community driven event supporting entrepreneurship in Canadian and US cities.

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