Hot off the heels of my fire-breathing Top Releases of 2010 list comes my equally incinerating Top Songs of 2010 list, along with some random musings about artists who didn’t live up to the hype this year. 

Oh, and here’s a .zip of all 20 songs featured below if you are a combo reader and nibbler like me. 

TOP SONGS

1. Dom – “Living in America”
A massive pop anthem with a sense of humor. Says Dom: “A ‘YMCA’-type track that I would be best known for but forever hate myself for writing.” Dom may hate himself, but I’m pretty grateful. (Even if he did hit on my girlfriend!). Your 2010 Jam of The Year by Your 2010 (Pick-Up) Artist of The Year.

2. Games – “Planet Party”
The Altered Zones track that launched a thousand ships. It took nearly 13 years, but I finally found a soundtrack for that one Sunday afternoon when I knocked out a three-page biography assignment on Michael Jordan using our families’ new PC.

3. Selebrities – “Move This”
A cover deserving of its own party.

4. Sleigh Bells – “Rill Rill”
Zooey Deschanel would kill Ben Gibbard to write a song this good. Instead, a band that attempted to make the noisiest album of the year solely for the distinction of being the noisiest also happened to make the sweetest pop jam of the year. Fit for a pool party and your boom box, or whatever other summer fantasy you can cook up in that head of yours.

5. Ariel Pink – “Round and Round”
It takes a bit to get there, but when the chorus drops in like 2:15 all I want to do is climb a mountain and scream: “EAT YOUR HEART OUT EVER CHURCH PRAISE-AND-WORSHIP SONG EVER!”

6. Joanna Newsom – “Good Intentions Paving Company”
Have One On Me, while many things (most of which are good!), is most of all, impenetrable. Luckily, Joanna peppered one radio-ready hit in there for those of us who can’t maintain the attention span needed to give the album the proper respect it probably deserves.

7. Power Animal – “Better Water”
Incredibly glad this track was brought to my attention. A reversed Willie Nelson sample and icy vocals account for the year’s most haunting song.

8. Cults – “Go Outside”
Hmmmm. Apparently I really like summery indie pop. Like everything else on this list, Cults take cues from a bygone era and make it sound so fresh.

9. Kurt Vile – “I Know I Got Religion”
Kurt must have been feeling real blue when he wrote this track, because, wow, did he ever write a knock-out strummer for us.

10. of Montreal – “I Feel Ya Strutter”
I absolutely love how Kevin Barnes sings “wich youuuu”

11. Wavves – “King of the Beach”
12. Warpaint – “Undertow”
13. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – “Vocal Chords
14. Kisses – “Bermuda”
15. Oberhofer – “I Could Go”
16. Class Actress – “Careful What You Say”
17. The Drums – “Forever & Ever Amen”
18. The Radio Dept. – “Heaven’s On Fire”
19. Reading Rainbow – “Wasting Time”
20. Wise Blood – “B.I.G. E.G.O.”

LET’S MAKE A TOAST TO ALL OF THE DOUCHEBAGS!

Since when did the blogosphere hand out life time achievement awards? Or more importantly, when did Kanye pull the wool over everyone’s eyes? “His public outbursts are by-products of his creativity!” “He tweets about buying afghan rugs with cherubic imagery!” “He’s so lyrically self-aware!” Are you kidding me with this stuff? What smart or actually challenging topics has Kanye ever tackled other than his own self-indulgence? Kanye’s only subject matter is Kanye. Being an asshole just so you can tear yourself down shouldn’t be celebrated as “humanizing” or “self-aware”, it’s just an even bigger asshole move and Kanye’s the master of it. Behind some slick production and deep pockets, Kanye’s created another hip-hop album worthy of a few radio singles. How he ever turned into the music world’s savior and visionary is beyond me.

I’m cutting ties with James Murphy. We had a nice run (I put that one song of yours atop my Top Songs of the Decade list!), but I’m just not willing to take the good with the bad anymore. Or the mixed messages. As long as Murphy continues to litter his albums with crappy songs like “Drunk Girls” (that show a complete disregard for the tone and pace established by the other songs), I’m not going to make allowances for a few decent cuts. So Murph dog: either cop that you are no different than any other attention-craving dance rock outfit or cut the whole “coolly-detached-and-condescendingly- reflective-dad-of-indie-rock” shtick.

Wish Band of Horses would have stayed dead after The Funeral.

At some point Stuart Murdoch is going to have to admit to creating musical projects solely for his own desire to collaborate with cute girls. We don’t need anyone else accessorizing Belle & Sebastian records, Stu. You do you!

I liked How To Dress Well better when Bon Iver did it.

The National and Arcade Fire both made the exact album we thought they would make and that’s disappointing.

Remember when M.I.A. was sort of relevant?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr, Mark McGuire, and Mickey Mickey Rourke were all very unfortunate new band names.

Oh, and this happened, too: Girls-Top Girls-Dum Dum Girls- Religious Girls-Teengirl Fantasy-Teenage Fanclub-Teen Dream-The-Dream-Hard Dream-Dream Boat-Sunndreamm-Broken Dreams Club…That mean’s this year’s “Capture The Zeitgeist In The Most Annoying Way Possible” is a tie between Girls (Broken Dreams Club) and Religious Girls (Open Your Heart To Fantasy)! Congratulations! You can collect your trophy in the back by the .mp3’s and Polaroid’s.

With Avey Tare releasing a solid effort, Deakin joining back up with Animal Collective, and Geologist designing a shoe for children, Panda Bear has dropped to dead last in my Animal Collective Power Rankings after refusing to properly release Tomboy in a civilized manner that we all have time for.

Ah, and last but not least: Sufjan Stevens. The 5 minute swath toward the end of “Impossible Soul” was notable, everything else, not so much.