Well, our work here is done. We now leave 2005 with our first of two annual holiday features, retracking the best music of the year. Tomorrow, it's our Top 50 Albums of the 2005, but today it's all on the singles. And as with our previous two singles lists, this one runs down a crazy array of indie pop and indie rock, radio hits, B-sides and remixes, compilation and mixtape highlights, white label releases, and mind-blowing multi-part one-man soap operas. Of course, the exclusion of non-single album tracks made staff favorites like Robyn's "Konichiwa Bitches", Beanie Sigel's "Purple Rain", and anything from Sufjan Stevens' Illinois, among many others, ineligible. Fortunately, it all gets its due on the albums list, and everyone ends up happy. Be sure to check out our Spotify playlist to hear most of the songs.
50: The White Stripes
"My Doorbell"
[XL]
Cover your eyes, stop fixating on Jack White's vaudeville villain pencil 'stache, and turn your attention to partner Meg White's quasi-bored pounding: never before has the White Stripes' thumping rhythm section been so oddly mesmerizing, perfectly paired with spare piano diddling and squeaky vocals. A dedicated fan of blues-born, thinly-veiled sex metaphors, Jack hits the keys and whines plaintively, thinking and thinking and thinking about his doorbell, while Meg jingles her tambourines and kicks out the beats, finally (and miraculously) validating Jack's longtime insistence that she stare into space and drum like a toddler. --Amanda Petrusich
49: !!!
"Take Ecstasy With Me" __
[Touch & Go]__
Turns out the world is different when you view it through psychedelic new-wave glasses. Cats grow wings, fire hydrants do backflips, cars stand up on their back wheels and Crip-walk, and dour Magnetic Fields jams become eight-minute celestial starry-eyed workouts without losing any of their swoony melody. Basses pop, string sections swell, drum-circles ripple and bang, shoegazer guitars whirl and swoop, synths melt, and Stephin Merritt becomes some smartass doing a gurgley-voiced Stephin Merritt impression. !!! may have proved last year with Louden Up Now that they have no business writing songs-- at least not conventional ones-- but here they show that an outsourced hook is all they need to churn out a furiously gorgeous monsterpiece. --Tom Breihan
48: Spoon
"I Turn My Camera On"
[Merge]
The album title must be a typo, because "I Turn My Camera On" proves what long-running Austin, Texas heroes Spoon really want is friction. Frontman Britt Daniel struts in the foreground, flaunting his double-tracked Princesetto like handcuffs or a feather boa while shaming Sir Jagger's "Emotional Rescue" register-climb. There's violence in Spoon's sex, though. Guitars jag like irrepressible memories, a throbbing bassline represses its incipient pelvic thrust, end-of-the-world noises swirl from side to side, and eventually Daniel's grim lyrics come into focus: "I turn my feelings off/ Y' made me untouchable for life/ And you wasn't polite." Passions sublimated, desires conflicted, "I Turn My Camera On" savors tension while threatening climax. --Marc Hogan
47: Feist
"Inside and Out"
[Universal International]
Pairing Leslie Feist's strutting Rickie Lee Jones vocal sass with a Bee Gees classic was a sure thing. The production generally defers to relaxed 1970s soul, but a few trip-hop touches-- vinyl crackle and pinched Portishead horn gurgles-- pry the song loose from time. It's impressive how completely Feist inhabits this world, her elastic vocal mannerisms imparting an easy wisdom. This is the kind of single that casually leaks from a radio and makes everything in the room a touch brighter. --Mark Richardson
46: Rex the Dog
"I Look Into Mid-Air"
[Kompakt]
Pissed cos you missed that Castle movie? Check the six-minute condensed version: Less song than magic carpet ride, "I Look Into Mid-Air" riffs wondrous as Miyazaki-- even if the two understand "dub version" a little differently. Here's techno at its most transcendent: No MDMA-drip euphoria, but a jet-stream jaunt through cloudbursts and arpeggios, and we feel only cold, exhilarating air, the world like a curved lens beneath. --Sam Ubl
45: Stars
"Ageless Beauty"
[Arts & Crafts]
I'm sure Stars' male singer Torquil Campbell is sweet and nice to dogs and everything, but one of the main reasons this song sounds so gallant is because he's barely on it. Over mildly shoegazing fuzz chords and a simple drum beat, guitarist/female lead Amy Millan takes full advantage of her console's "angelic" setting, as overlapping coos soothe like a thousand enraptured glories hail-hailing from on high. Immortal love is the purported ideal, and adorned in such a crushing package, "Ageless Beauty" could temporarily wipe slates for the divorced, dumped, and disengaged alike. Indie rock, too often cloaked in a tight web of rarified self-consciousness, rarely allows itself this kind of unabashed optimism. --Ryan Dombal
44: My Morning Jacket
"Off the Record"
[RCA]
My Morning Jacket hitch their classic rock wagon to a reggae beat with stunning results on "Off the Record". The track roars with the band's characteristic fervor, choppy guitars slamming the up-beats as Jim James leaves the reverb in the silo and offers one of his most unaffected vocals. But that's only half the song. The big guitar riff that bookends the vocal section is left to echo off into oblivion, and the other half slides into a spooky dubside soaked in mellotron, Rhodes piano, and echoplex. Voices speaking backward float on a river of bass and hand percussion to the song's haunting final fade. Taken whole, it's a remarkable demonstration of how a band can integrate an influence without sounding remotely imitative. --Joe Tangari
43: The MFA
"The Difference It Makes" / "The Difference It Makes (Superpitcher Remix)"
[Kompakt]
Every tone on this thing is just so impossibly warm, a wool blanket with loose tufts of fuzz making the edges indistinct, blurring the line between sound and silence. The catgut bass grinds forward, a digital reference to the bow dragged across strings, and the rhythm continually falls into the next bar, a perpetually renewed invitation to move. The original is glorious but the Superpitcher remix is perfection-- not a note could be added or subtracted without making it inferior. When the clipped female voice cuts in, inaudible shifted words, a ghost of trance remixes past, it reminds us that sometimes dance music can solve all the world's problems, if only for as long as one rushy build. --Mark Richardson
42: Love Is All
"Felt Tip"
[Smashing Time]
Moving from an icy, preening strut to a rallying clairon call, "Felt Tip" shows off Love Is All's preternatural knack for crafting the bittersweet, combining dejected, melancholy sentiment with an impossibly hopeful delivery. From the slight echo on the bass to the bed of maracas and pick scrapes during the lugubrious verses to the heavily-accented female singer urging hip kids to "step right on the beat" before the tempo shift in the chorus, "Felt Tip" is a near-perfect amalgamation of lo-fi production styles that's an embarrassment of rich detail. --Jason Crock
41: Cam'ron [ft. Juelz Santana]
"It's Nothin'"
[mixtapes]
These verses sounded better over "Dreams" on Rap City, but facts are that some bits here need (ahem) nothin': "But the eight whips I'm about to trade for a spaceship/ Call me NASA, man, inside plasma fam/ You gotta warrant? I'm in orbit/ Come after Cam." Oddly prescient considering the DC bluff-calling, but what can you do. Maybe it'll get the unbelievers off Cam's back finally, or the New York Press at least, who earlier this year awarded him their "Best Sign Hiphop Is Dead" zing for "nonsensical blathering," then said, "Welcome to the apocalypse, bitches." Sounds good to me. --Nick Sylvester
40: White Rose Movement
"Love Is a Number"
[Independiente]
Perhaps the most enticing thing about this track is its anonymity. I'm still convinced it's a Human League song cryogenically frozen until this year, and googling the band inevitably leads to Wikipedia articles on the 1930's German anti-fascist movement they're named for. Really, you only need to know the following-- on "Love Is a Number", these guys channel 80s pop as effectively as anyone else around. Rather than self-conscious croons, frontman Finn Vine sticks with neurotic yelps, and the audiophilic geekiness of the drum machines and synthesizers rings true with new wave's inherent awkwardness. Did I mention the keyboardist looks like Daryl Hannah circa Blade Runner ? --Adam Moerder
39: Röyksopp
"What Else Is There? (Trentemøller Remix)"
[Wall of Sound]
Ah, Europe, where everything is chic and everyone knows an incredible DJ. This is a place where misery gets remixed into high-dollar, baroque hotness, and despair wears blue and silver eye shadow like a 4 a.m. fashonista. Poor Röyksopp didn't know what they had here, handing over the keys of their untested rocket ship to Anders Trentemøller-- he of newfound interests in squelch, acid, and the almighty "K" (don't ask)-- letting him mess with the circuitry until it was positively electric. And those vocals: Whether they turn you off or set you aflame, they're pointed and on point. When they get cut up at the end, I dream about the cold, blonde Old World; about the crowded clubs and taxis, the sting of the wind outside when you're rushing and hearing that beat everywhere you go. It's fucking gorgeous, and very nearly human. --Dominique Leone
38: LCD Soundsystem
"Daft Punk Is Playing at My House"
[DFA]
All cowbell, synth, and thump-thump, "Daft Punk" sounds like the theme song to some unwritten cartoon, detailing the misadventures of house party-hosts nationwide. Goofy and undeniable, the track is at its best when at its most familiar: Sarah's girlfriend is working the door, everyone dragged over their PA, 15 cases wait, and the furniture is stacked neatly in the garage. James Murphy's pedigree may be screaming NYC, but "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" is pure suburban bliss, all cars-on-lawns, neighbors on the phone with cops, puke in the shrubbery, and sweaty, red-cup holding bodies, arms raised, crowding the living room dance floor. --Amanda Petrusich
37: Ciara [ft. Ludacris]
"Oh"
[LaFace]
It's difficult to listen to "Oh" when exhaust-blackened snow crusts up the sidewalk and your glasses fog up as soon as you walk inside. From the earthshaking low end to the whistling G-funk synths to the parking lot-cruising mis-en-scene of the lyrics, the song screams summer jam. After the spooky spaghetti-western candy-crunk of "Goodies" and the icy electro-pop of "1, 2 Step", Ciara is all breezy, sexy confidence, cooing about dubs on the Cadillac and gangstas don't know how to act, letting her voice sink naturally into the fluid hook. Ludacris shows up to effortlessly jump-skip through yet another great guest appearance, playfully stuttering on and off the beat: "Call up Jazze, tell him pop the bottles cuz we got another hit, hit, hit/ Wanna go platinum, Ludacris is who you should get get get get get." --Tom Breihan
36: Gnarls Barkley
"Crazy"
[white label]
Cee-Lo Green is, after all, the soul machine, a claim that's never sounded more legitimate than on the agile, irresistible thump of "Crazy". On this collaboration with producer Danger Mouse, the former Goodie Mob high priest evokes another soulful Green-- the Reverend Al-- as he sings with a casual, offhand mastery. With DM flawlessly supplying the heavy bass bounce and sweetened strings, Cee-Lo sounds as regal and merry as Old King Cole. "Ha ha ha, bless your soul/ You really think you're in control?/ Well, I think you're crazy," he sings to his court before adding, "Just like me." Given the track's radiant, natural symmetry and Cee-Lo's impeccable phrasing, one's tempted to say that this track's sole imperfection is the hilariously nuts group name these two have chosen for their already auspicious collaboration. --Matthew Murphy
35: Gwen Stefani
"Hollaback Girl"
[Interscope]
I could write something about how 2005 saw pop's perhaps fastest co-option of a ground-level trend (the sweaty, hyper style of marching-band drumming that percolated up from Southern high schools), but then I'd just be taking Gwen's dictation. Of course it's a Big Game sop. The marvel of "Hollaback Girl" is how much dirt it kicks up. Has anyone mentioned the massive delight Stefani takes in the word "shit," savored so insistently that, by the time the song comes to a close with a vaudevillian tuba, it's lost all slangy abstraction and reverted to its prime scatological meaning? In the video, the censored Gwen holds her nose instead. Bananas! --Michael Idov
34: Isolée
"Schrapnell"
[Playhouse]
No matter what genre one might try to pack it into, Isolée's "Schrapnell" refuses to behave as anticipated. Inventive though Rajko Möller's rhythms are, his beat here seems almost an afterthought, a narrow-gauge rail line intended to shuttle passengers from one panoramic vista to the next. This track's meticulous construction of surfside guitar chords, Big Sky pedal steel, and fine-toothed synth wash forgoes repetition for pure ever-evolving motion-- and what this approach sacrifices in conventional dancefloor momentum it more than regains in casual headphone grandeur. As with all of Isolée's best work, "Schrapnell" sounds like three or four compositions woven together, his complex, endlessly fascinating patterns defined as much by his artful stitching as by the music's fabric itself. --Matthew Murphy
33: The Clientele
"Since K Got Over Me"
[Pointy]
"Since K Got Over Me" moves the Clientele out of the hazy suburban light and into the Technicolor sunshine, lifting its guitar hook from the Crystals' "Then He Kissed Me" and breaking out the tambourine. It's a deceptive move, though, because the lyrics offer one of the most vivid and accurate pictures of a breakup yet offered in this young century. Alasdair MacLean trudges down some lonely sidewalk in Battersea with his hands shoved in his pockets and the collar of his mac pulled up around his face, talking through it to himself. "I don't think I'll be happy anymore/ I guess I closed that door," he sings on the wonderfully short-sighted refrain as he thumbs through regret, anger, and confusion. It's a pitch-perfect blend of nostalgia and dejection, painting emotions and environmental details in impressionistic strokes. --Joe Tangari
32: Franz Ferdinand
"Do You Want To"
[Domino]
Only #32? Granted, I didn't chart this too high myself, and on the first few repeats the song struck me as merely efficient, glad-it's-not-Creed rock radio fare. But the more I hear this out, and the more fucking e-mails I have to write explaining how the devil had a hand in those DFA79 remixes, I've realized this track might be great-- mostly because it does no wrong. That's not to discredit the song's partysnark/nerd quotient ("I love your friends, they're all so arty") or Franz's impossible dual citizenship here, at once above the scene ("You're so lucky...") and slyly entrenched in it ("Your famous friend, well I blew him before ya"). But like, say, the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" or Bowie's "Rebel Rebel", "Want To" works a gassier floor than all that Bravery/Killers/Brave Killery stuff because Franz aspire to more than moving bodies-- they want, among other things, to make somebody love them. --Nick Sylvester
31: Animal Collective
"Grass"
[Fat Cat]
The choice of source material might change, but nearly everyone who's heard "Grass" agrees that it sounds like something sweet and benign, spliced and scrambled until its prettiness twists into something vaguely grotesque. Punctuated by vocal squawks and thundering rhythms, "Grass" is as infectious as anything on the pop charts this year, and lots more fun to scream along with: Sonically swampy and lyrically indecipherable (verses, when decoded, offer up gems like, "I've been into the plants and simple treasures/ And I sew patches on pants and I get pleasure"), "Grass" somehow manages to provide the perfect holiday soundtrack, a swirling accompaniment for snowdrift diving and Christmas tree climbing. --Amanda Petrusich
30: Black Dice
"Smiling Off (Luomo Remix)"
[DFA]
It could have just been a crossmarketing dry hump (cut to ad executive storyboard with furry blobs done in a distressed faux Fort Thunder lite style shouting "hey you got your chocolatey Euro house in my Brooklyn noise peanut butter!!!!!"), but instead actual sweat trickled and aesthetic friction occurred. Specifically, Black Dice's crust-tastic jalopy gets chopped, dropped, and hot-rodded into a fuel efficient dancefloor burner, and Vlad the Detailer massages the original's "eh uh oh awwwah ah ahawelll a well ooooh waaayyyyyy" zombie moan to a happy finish. Deep house synths swish around in couture blowing hot and cool, tight kicks bump and hi-hats tick on, but it's still wonderfully wrong sounding-- all phased out vibraslaps and dune buggy chuggings. Too many remixes turn out to be surf'n'turf platters carved out of styrofoam: a "best of both worlds" that's less than either. This was a happy exception. --Drew Daniel
29: 50 Cent [ft. Paul Wall]
"Just a Touch (Remix)"
[mixtapes]
Stuck to fall mixtapes for a reason, "Just a Touch" blows 50's big '05 sex raps "Candy Shop" and "Just a Lil Bit" out the tub-- it's the year's bluntest and sharpest ode to the rough (sorry, "Wait" is not sharp). "Gangsta of Love" got it good and problematic putting mellow miller behind the Boys' heart-shaped glocks, and here 50 takes that sort of tension real-time, switching mid-verse from his sing-song to harsh, barely rhythmic pronouncements: "My dick XXL, you can call me The Source." Skill comes damn close to exonerating content here, especially when Paul Wall co-signs with fuck-rap conflations ("I have them sitting sidewayz/ And walking sidewayz") and even a fuck-rap-crack one: "I give these bitches the pipe/ They take a puff and they addicted for life/ Go on, kiss the mic, but baby girl, just don't bite." Menage three ain't new; call it trifecta. --Nick Sylvester
28: Ladytron
"Destroy Everything You Touch"
[Universal Island]
I can't remember the last time one single turned me around on a band so completely. And judging by "Destroy"'s incongruous appearance on an unscientific sampling of friends' CD-R mixes and mp3 playlists, I'm not the only disbeliever to be smitten into submission. To their credit, Ladytron entered into this record a beefier, significantly more bloodthirsty outfit, and the track's intro-- comprised of some lightweight synth noodling quickly stomped out by a canyon-wide squall of guitars and distorted Korgs-- served as a tidy illustrative snapshot of just how quantumly they've leapt. So quantumly, in fact, that next time I see a picture of them, with their karate pantsuit streetwear and Astroboy haircuts, I'll pass over the scorn normally reserved for bands whose records aren't nearly as stylish as their promo shots. --Mark Pytlik
27: R. Kelly
"In the Kitchen (Remix)"
[Jive]
After the afterparty, place "In the Kitchen (Remix)" among the great sequels-- next to Empire Strikes Back, the second Godfather film, and "Trapped in the Closet, Chapter 2". This B-side isn't quite as life-changing as its obvious predecessor, 2003's "Ignition (Remix)", though both transform flaccid slow jams into silky floor-fillers. But like any worthy sequel, "In the Kitchen" makes some clever additions to the familiar formula. This time, Kelly's Bone Thugs speak-sing depicts a little bump'n'grind involving cabinet doors, potatoes, and hot buttered rolls. References to "Ignition" abound, alongside "Let's Get It On" quotes and a pre-chorus buildup evoking "Can't Get Enough of Your Love", but this is definitely modern R. Just listen to the spoken-rant intro-- "go get a goddamn job!"-- as it fades into a gloriously Kellzian "hrrrmmmmm." --Marc Hogan
26: Madonna
"Hung Up"
[Warner Bros.]
Critics are the only music listeners depraved enough to hem and haw over the use of a sample in a hit song, but the appropriated ABBA upon which "Hung Up" is built steals the show. Sure, its use might've been a shortcut for Madonna to realize this year's disco-diva persona, yet producer Stuart Price goes over those cyclic "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)" strings like a chiropractor, phasing it left and right, fading it up and down, lacing it with supplemental bass. While the radio edit cruelly chops out the song's glorious slow-mo breakdown, the video captures the song's appeal perfectly, a time-traveled Madonna in her Karen Lynn Gorney get-up, fitting right in with DDR-heads and crumpers. "Hung Up" might signal Madonna's marathon career finally starting to eat itself, and Ms. Ciccone doesn't do anything (aside from Gwen Stefani reverse-biting) different than she's done for the past two decades, but its borrowed beat goes on after midnight all the same. --Rob Mitchum
25: Kanye West
"Gold Digger"
[Roc-A-Fella]
What are you saying, Kanye? Think about it. You have to take all of her friends and kids out everywhere, hear about all the other guys she's been with, worry about what she's doing with your money when you're not home, wondering if she'll get the better half of your portfolio when she rides off in the new car she wants to buy. Somehow, despite all of this, you still love her. Despite all evidence to the contrary, you're not saying she's a gold digger. Sure, we love to hear about it, and it's not like I have enough money to even worry about this kind of shit. But seriously, you need to think about what's really happening. Look at the signs, they add up. I'm not asking you to stop the girl from getting down. Go ahead, let her get down. Just check your monthly statements, man, and for god's sake, get that pre-nup. --Dominique Leone
24: Arcade Fire
"Rebellion (Lies)"
[Rough Trade]
As much as any song on Funeral this one summarizes what the Arcade Fire are about. It's urgent, obviously, the rhythm section tells you that right away, and Win Butler keeps his voice just on the edge of breaking. The impressionist piano that served as a syrupy intro on "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" is used strictly for percussion, like every other instrument in the vicinity, hands included. And it's a final big sad celebration on an album filled with them, with lyrics that riff on a favorite Poor Richard aphorism: "Up, sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough." --Mark Richardson
23: Missy Elliott
"Lose Control" / "On & On"
[Atlantic]
The swiped hook hits you first, twice, to give you enough time to recognize that it's about to go off, so grab your drink, and carve out a space on the floor. Which is hopeless because everybody else noticed too and now it's packed. Missy plays drop-out freeze tag, slaloming little grunts and groans across the track to flag the spots where this "planet rocker showstopper" turns on point. If Ciara bounces the spotlight back with aplomb, it was brave and possibly kind of mean shoving Fatman Scoop (who?) unceremoniously to the front with just some crunk-lite claps to keep time. Missy's already told you that she's a "beat scholar" and here she proves it, chalking up Egyptian Lover hieroglyphics that spell out a Baltimore Club + Kraftwerk / Crunk + Electro + Freestyle = Shameless Party-Rocking Jam equation on the blackboard. Dunce cap optional. Class dismissed. --Drew Daniel
22: Lindstrøm
"I Feel Space"
[Playhouse]
Who knew they grew mushrooms like this in Norway? "I Feel Space", from a Scandinavian space-disco producer who's been around a lot longer than any of his 2005 insta-hype would suggest, is hypnotic, ever-expanding, and far more minimal than most of the music that goes by that name. With little more than an Italo-inspired bass arpeggio, a few Jean Michel-Jarre synth sweeps, and some very savvy hanclaps, open hi-hats, and congas, Lindstrøm turns seven minutes into an eternity of timbral flux and Close Encounters of the Third Kind astral yearning. Doesn't hurt that he knows his way around a chord change-- and uses that knowledge to lead you through more changes than you'll find in a time-lapse film of the seasons. --Philip Sherburne
21: Robyn
"Be Mine"
[Konichiwa]
Those racing heartstrings that never seem to let up. Those wounded vocals with the grace of Kate Bush and the grit of Pink. That teen-pop beat that's five years too late. The brutal finality of that chorus: "And you never were and you never will be mine." And, good God, that spoken-word bridge-- one of the best musical moments this year-- in all its girl-group glory. The boy kneeling to tie Whatsername's laces. The girl wearing that scarf. And our heartbroken heroine, bravely trying to make the best of this hurt: "It's a good thing tears never show in the pouring rain/ As if a good thing could ever make up for all the pain." With the possible exception of "Since U Been Gone", no pop song this year made heartbreak sound so good. --Stephen M. Deusner
20: Maxïmo Park
"Apply Some Pressure"
[Warp]
Gluttonous Futureheads can't wait for dessert, so they make every line the hook; Maxïmo Park are more patient: "Apply Some Pressure" doesn't gorge until the bridge, when stomach staples pop and singer Paul Smith loses everything. No appetite management can stop metastasis. But besides insidious, the hooks were also among the most understated of the year. Only permitted a two-figure stab, the guitars are resourceful, letting tumbling drums round the sharp edges. Smith wailed bolder than his stage dress, then the histrionic blokes trundled onto some adjacent set. Straight eighths? No matter, by that point we were starving. Frantic bass, shoulder-charging guitar, geysers of harmony, carnival organ whipped cream-- no less would have sufficed. --Sam Ubl
19: Juelz Santana
"Mic Check"
[Def Jam]
The 2005 tally is daunting: Two street-laced solo mixtapes, one surprisingly solid studio album, countless underground cameos, and one nationally broadcast grind session with Lindsay Lohan. Yet, of all the same-word rhymes, obsessive Matrix references, and fat-girl song parodies Juelz popped with over the last 12 months, "Mic Check" is the genuine article, the one that best sums up this MC's emboldened progression. It's not the authenticity of his best-rapper-alive boasts as much as the pure conviction that propels them that infatuates. Between click-clack percussion and horn swells, Santana finds a perfect pocket for every ham-fisted punch. As a professorial Rakim looks on in the song's video, Juelz plays model student, joyously attesting to the wonders of his own limitless arrogance. --Ryan Dombal
18: The Killers
"Mr. Brightside"
[Universal]
In a(nother) year when new wave supposedly made a comeback, few bands successfully hit the mixture of sexual frustration and nervous energy that powered punk's more talented younger brother. And to tell the truth, the Killers were not one of those bands, even given the Sounds of the 1980s hype they carried onto the mainstream. Maybe "Mr. Brightside" would've got them there, with its paranoid anti-fantasy lyrics and synthesizer glory, but something in the production-- my money's on the Alan Moulder mix job-- made it just too huge, too arena-rock to fit into the snide, itchy clothes of new wave. Of course, this enormous arrangement, with its chiming riff, its drumrolls, the way its microchip-strings keyboard setting pushes the post-chorus climax one step farther than you thought it could go, is also the reason why "Mr. Brightside" was one of the biggest and best straight-up rock singles of 2005. Screw revivalism; a smart band will always trade the nostalgia game for timelessness. --Rob Mitchum
17: LCD Soundsystem
"Tribulations"
[DFA]
My favorite accidental DJ-program discovery of the year was that the last minute of "Tribulations" fits perfectly over the intro to "Blue Monday", and knowing James Murphy's music history fetish, it's difficult for me to believe the overlay is coincidence. Built on a similar ominous keyboard pulse and with a comparable amount of lyrical misanthropy and bitterness, "Tribulations" is a worthy leaf on the New Order family tree. Amidst the genre detours of LCD's full-length, it stands out as the only track that really reclaims the manic tone of their already-classic singles, the ones that tricked us into thinking disco-punk had legs the second time around. Along these lines, that emphatic knock-it-down-build-it-back-up climax is like a radio edit of LCD Soundsystem's lengthier peaks, a misanthropic beat connection in miniature. --Rob Mitchum
16: Clipse & Famlay [ft. Clinton Sparks]
"Eghck"
[white label]
Two years old, maybe three, "Eghck" ain't even proper-- looks like Clinton Sparks snatched up Pusha's Rush Hour -repping leftovers from "Hot Damn" and two oldish Malice and Famlay freestyles, then stuck them to unwillin' Neptunes refuse. Regardless, we pay respect to the song-- and the sound (it's the throaty ad-lib Pusha famously yucks on records)-- because a) Dealer rhymes ran 2005, b) The labelless Clipse run dealer rhymes, and spent two mixtapes this year reminding us so, c) "Eghck" resurfaced, we might presume, because the context resurfaced-- and because all of us, Clipse included, needed Malice to ask, "Who said the game ain't fair?" then tell it to us straight: "A goddamn loser." --Nick Sylvester
15: Art Brut
"Good Weekend"
[Fierce Panda]
Where "Emily Kane" yearns for long-lost love, "Good Weekend" celebrates newfound lust. Having banished the performance anxiety of "Rusted Guns of Milan", Art Brut frontman Eddie Argos shouts for joy about his new belle, resulting in the giddiest of the band's "Top of the Pops" bids. Even the song's familiar elements reveal a rock group totally unafraid of pop: expectant snare drum intro, bouncy "Day Tripper" for Dummies riff, huge hand-clapping midsection. But it's Argos' endearingly exuberant declarations that ultimately ensure "Good Weekend" matches its world-unifying ambitions. On first sight, he wants "more than just to hold her." Now he hasn't slept "in about four days." And of course: "I'VE SEEN HER NAKED, TWICE! I'VE SEEN HER NAKED, TWICE!" From there it's another triumphant, text-messaging chorus, a Marty McFly guitar solo, and Argos' goofy encouragements to "rock out." Like the parent-worrying question on another Art Brut single "My Little Brother", the closing line of "Good Weekend" suddenly exposes the song to new depths of feeling and vulnerability. I think that I love it. --Marc Hogan
14: Art Brut
"Emily Kane"
[Fierce Panda]
Actually written for Eddie Argos' real-life first girlfriend, Emily Kane's song is, in typical Art Brut style, hilariously honest-- although unusually for Argos, its details are intentionally vague: The ripple effect of his first love is intricately drawn, the girl herself is not. It's funny 'cause it's true: The first often sets the template by which every subsequent romance is drawn, and time does nothing but make those clumsy, naïve kisses seem more ideal. But it's great because Argos doesn't know how to portray the simplest emotions as anything less than epic, and by the end of the song untamed beasts stomp around souls, torches are aflame, something resembling a theremin starts whistling away, and Ms. Kane's unexceptional moniker has been alchemized into an anthem for lost innocence. --Rob Mitchum
13: M83
"Don't Save Us From the Flames (Superpitcher Remix)"
[Mute]
Where Luciano chose to stretch "Teen Angst", one of M83's poppiest songs, into 12 minutes of static bliss, Superpitcher turns M83's rockingest cut into a pumping station from which flows an endless ooze of pop pleasure, happy-sad ambivalence sparkling in a fine mist above it all. Opening with a minute-and-a-half of hypnagogic blur, and underscored with a kick/snare combo that doesn't do any more or less than it's asked, the track owes its magic to the interplay between pistoning pianos and oblique, whispersigh vocals that break you in two no matter how you (mis-)interpret them. And just when you think that the world would be a better place if those two chords replaced all others, an unexpected bridge shows you the secret passage to paradise. I propose a new award category (which Missy Elliott would have handily won a year or so back): Best Record to Introduce Non-Ravers to the Sonic Benefits of Ecstasy. --Philip Sherburne
12: Young Jeezy [feat. Jay-Z]
"Go Crazy (Remix)"
[Def Jam]
In a year when drug rap reigned, Jeezy was its undisputed Superfly. So it's all too fitting that the original pusherman, Curtis Mayfield, gets a triumphant musical nod on this year's preeminent trap-king extravaganza. As the tumbling introductory blast of the Impressions' "Man Oh Man" gets cut, flipped, and repeated into bonk-bounce oblivion, the Snowman justly embodies his rotund nickname-- a jolly happy soul indeed. Jeezy's hot corner doubles as a most remarkable piff party with dope boys doing the worm while fiends look on and holler with glee. And, man oh man, all those ad-libs. Like an all-in-one, hip-hop "Mystery Science Theater 3000", Jeezy's ebullient insta-commentary "damn!" and "yeah!" outbursts only accentuate the cartoon criminality. The blueprint beat and bag-up bars even lures Mr. Prez out of his conference call, as he gets his Glengarry on while dropping some his best post-retirement blows yet. But even Jay-Z blue can't completely hijack Jeezy's fantastical world of white, where carrot-nosed ne'er-do-wells bask in the chill. --Ryan Dombal
11: Three 6 Mafia [ft. Young Buck, Eightball & MJG]
"Stay Fly"
[Columbia]
What is it, high or fly? The most interchangeably titled track of the year only became that way because its frenzy is so unrelenting, its key so high, that specifics lose import. "Stay Fly " cribs WWF scripture: Tag-team is always more exciting than mano-a-mano. Hyperquick trade-offs mean no single entity shines, but the energy never flags. Even Eightball keeps pace. Thank the beat: eggwhite-light soul swathed with hot-flashes of swooping strings and peppery clav. We hear more bongo than snare but insistent hi-hat tows the whole rig. If every sample were so exhilarating, no one would write an original lick again. --Sam Ubl
10: Kanye West
"Heard 'Em Say" / "Touch The Sky"
[Roc-A-Fella]
Purportedly, making Adam Levine sound like Stevie Wonder is tough work. Couldn't tell from this end because B-Side Wins Again. The one track where Kanye completely released the reins on Late Registration, is, in fact, the most vivacious. Just Blaze, in a quiet year, needed just Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up", already a triumphant horn-fest, and tweaked the levels just a bit. Now that brass is fuming. West, flipping off critics and magazine editors who want to give him money to appear in their magazine, wisely recruits a kid named Lupe to punch up the gags. Now don't ask about that summer night in Brooklyn when that DJ played Curtis' version into Kanye's. We almost died that night. --Sean Fennessey
09: R. Kelly
"Trapped in the Closet"
[Jive]
It's a song cycle! It's a rock opera! It's a radio drama! It's a one-man play! It's a cultural phenomenon! It's also the most adventurous musical recording of the year-- the found-sound and performance art undergrounds be damned.
After "Trapped in the Closet", making fun of R. Kelly just isn't fun anymore. Because no matter what punchlines are zinged at him, Kells has proven that he will always, always hit back with something more hilarious, more insane, and more outrageous than could ever be cooked up in the mind of a mere mortal. We can only bask, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, in the glow of the man's cracked genius, and rejoice in the fact that R. Kelly has nothing but time and money on his hands. --Amy Phillips
08: Lady Sovereign
"Random"
[Casual]
Lady Sov deftly stuck it to U.S. rappers by using their own prejudices against them, calling out Aphasia-smitten lyrics. Lines like "Right hurr, Na' right here/ Now get off your churr, I mean chair" attest to this termagant's cutting wit, but start ruminating and you'll be sucker-punched by the bawdy: "My words hurt you jus' like loosin' ya virginity (owww!)". No matter if her slam fell on deaf ears, "Random" cemented S.O.V.'s status as the brat-princess of Grime while also garnering an Island deal and U.S. tour. Hey, if Americans will pay to be insulted, more power to her. --Adam Moerder
07: Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley
"Welcome to Jamrock"
[Universal]
His pedigree proceeding him, you almost had to snoot at the notion that a Marley was supposedly responsible for the dancehall anthem of the year. Doesn't their post-Bob legacy represent everything wrong with the Grammy-baiting mainstream of modern Jamaican music? But the first time you actually heard "Welcome to Jamrock"-- the hypnotic righteousness of the voice; the oddly slow, apocalyptic digi-skank groove; the accumulated hip-hop feeling-- knowledge was immediate, physical.
"Jamrock" had little to do with 2005's roots reggae revival, with its endless parade of weepy dreads singing sickly love songs. Marley's nagging, head-nod flow rattled off a state of alert for third and first world's alike, as he strode purposefully through grainy Jamaican hood life in the video, a hallucinatory late-night blip on BET amidst all the flossing. In a year where outright political comment was thin on the ground in popular music (for better or worse), "Jamrock" offered some very broad shoulders for armchair enemies of Babylon. --Jess Harvell
06: The Game [ft. 50 Cent]
"Hate It or Love It"
[Interscope]
That buttery soul beat, the way the arrangement perks up on "I wanna live good ", 50's nana telling him she'll buy him a sheepskin coat if he does well in school-- man, how many "Candy Shop"s is this worth? At this advanced stage of the year, I'm thinking three, but that's only cause it's December, and "Hate It Or Love It" is about as useful to me as a ball glove. (Back in June, when this was broadcast-mandated to sizzle aside Ciara's "Oh", I probably would've gone as high as five.)
Pedants reading this are probably wondering why I'm doing 50 contra when it's technically a Game track. Well, bullshit, it's not, and if 50 running rings around rap's MVP isn't enough to compel you to swap custody, at least you've got a solid lead for Game's best ever single ("300 Bars" doesn't count). Funny thing: this was held off the Billboard #1 by a song about lollipops. You shouldn't be able to call yourself an underdog when you can win with that --Mark Pytlik
05: The Futureheads
"Hounds of Love"
[679]
Twenty years ago, the hounds of love were in the trees, and Kate Bush stumbled wide-eyed through a Tim Burton backlot while her Walkman played "In the Air Tonight". Flash forward to recent times, and the Futureheads are in their garage-rage confusing the pursuer with the pursued. These chaps hit the ground running with their steady-cam, stabbing at the titular beasts with their guitar picks and hate-it-or-love-it harmonies. If these boys don't know what's good for them, it's because they're too busy being gloriously obnoxious to bother with being scared. --David Raposa
04: Kelly Clarkson
"Since U Been Gone"
[RCA]
It's undeniable that, for certain people, a lot of the fun in first hearing "Since U Been Gone" was figuring out the formula. It went something like Pink (vocals) + Interpol (verses) + the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps" (right down to that crunching guitar noise on the bridge) + Max Martin (Swede-pop overdrive chorus). I have my doubts that the Bjorns and Bjornettes who fashioned this Urban Outfitters monster were actually sitting around cherry picking tunes from "The O.C.", but clearly something was in the air. Of course what made this song a massive worldwide hit, aside from the space-age sheen of the production, was the fact that while Karen O was sitting around whining about how she couldn't live without her man, Ms. American Idol was shouting that, now that he had walked on out that door, she would survive. Kinda ironic is all I'm saying. --Jess Harvell
03: Clipse [ft. Ab-Liva & Sandman]
"Zen"
[mixtapes]
"Zen" is obviously a ham-fisted wisecrack. There's precious little time for meditation or self-contemplation on this pulsating career rejoinder. Literally out of nowhere-- fucking Virginia Beach-- this gang of dealers raised the stakes in one banger. Ignore consternation over the state of hip-hop lyricism these days; don't mind the road signs pointing South or otherwise. Now get this: Pusha, scion of greats, found this backing track on an unlabeled beat CD. No need for producer paper, Skateboard Gs, or Just $$$$ when you've got the work ethic to skip around anonymous beat CDs. I can't waste time explaining cocaine punchlines either, it'll never read as good as it sounds. OK, maybe just one: "Turn it, turn it, fire burn it/ Gram weight straight like a nigga just permed it." There, see what we mean? --Sean Fennessey
02: Amerie
"1 Thing"
[Columbia]
It's good to know that during the dark reign of Crazy Frog, a human being pretending to be a doorbell still rocks harder. Okay, so some called it "Crazier In Love", whining that producer Rich Harrison only has "1 Thing" going on: but if that thing is building bulletproof r&b out of crazily canted tumbledown breaks and tightly coiled guitar stabs, I don't see the problem.
Caught in a ProTools hall of multitrack mirrors, Amerie lays out her own ambivalence and desire by singing against herself, but churchy nice girl oohs and ahhs can't fight the sweat and need of that lead vocal. She's more than halfway across the room, high heels clicking across the floor in anticipation of...something. The remixes were sweet and Mara Carlyle's fluttery cover was sweeter, but it was Amerie's original song that ruled the parties of 2005: You heard it at your snobby Sónar Festival aftershow soirees, your beer run to 7-11, at your local gay sauna, your sorority's spring formal, whatever, and everywhere the topic got kicked around: What is the 1 thing? In projecting a hallucinatory, unspeakable core to sexual desire this tune is very Bush era (adios, abstinence education) and you could call its tightlipped stance a cop out, but it's also a pretty fucking smart move to wrap perfect pop around a question that stays open all night. Still, with anything less than a full on vocal performance, this track would have boiled down to a hot beat spiked on a men's magazine sex tip ("The 1 Thing That'll Drive Her Wild"). Instead, Amerie burns this song to the ground. --Drew Daniel
01: Antony & the Johnsons
"Hope There's Someone"
[Secretly Canadian]
Antony & the Johnsons' funeral torch song signals a hopeful resurgence of a New York bohemian scene for the first time since... Paris Is Burning? Or, better yet, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe? "Hope There's Someone", then, sounds like both a revival and a quiet, unself-conscious elegy for that long-lost bohemia, which was eventually decimated by AIDS, drugs, gentrification, and, perhaps, its own success. All that time between then and now hasn't dated the sentiment, though: even 20 years late, it carries the same impact as Susan Sontag's abstracted short story "The Way We Live Today" and Tony Kushner's play Angels in America.
That's a weighty burden for one song, but "Hope There's Someone" shoulders it gracefully. The words and hymnlike melodies are simple and straightforward, as is Antony's soft piano. The only sign of other musicians comes on that ghostly final section, which at first sounds like uninvited psychedelia but actually evokes a soul let loose from a body. Whether it's ascending to the heavens or simply dissipating into the ether is the song's woeful mystery, and it hangs with the unhappy heaviness of a question mark that even that short, hopeful closing coda can't alleviate. More than anything else, the song is a memento mori, a reminder to all of us, regardless of sexuality or geography, to fear the end but embrace the mystery, to hold our loved ones a little longer. --Stephen M. Deusner