Eleanor Friedberger

Best Songs of the ’10s: #30-21

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30. Ezra Furman, “I Lost My Innocence”
Gender-bending glam punk rhymes “Box of Girl Scout Thin Mints” with “Pack of Winstons” within a jaunty ode to deflowering that Dr. Frank-n-Furter could sing in his/her cabaret act.

29. The Ting Tings, “Guggenheim”
I’ve played this curious, bratty ditty to the point of exhaustion and it hasn’t worn me down yet. Debbie Harry wannabe Katie White sings, “I’ll paint my face like the Guggenheim”; it still sounds like “play my bass” and both are magnificent nonsense.

28. The Rapture, “How Deep Is Your Love?”
Not a Bee Gees cover, but much better than that could possibly ever be. That breakdown in the middle just slays.

27. Eleanor Friedberger, “When I Knew”
This ex-Fiery Furnaces vocalist going trad-pop has given me more pleasure than I ever imagined it could. “She was wearing a pair of overalls, so I played ‘Come On, Eileen’” is just one of several terrific lyrics in this disarming declaration of lust.

26. Jenny Lewis, “Late Bloomer”
A throwback to classic-rock story-songs like “Maggie May” but filtered through Lewis’ puckish demeanor, “Late Bloomer” sports a melody and an arrangement both so inviting and generous I remain flummoxed as to why this isn’t more of a standard.

25. John Grant, “GMF”
The title’s a NSFW acronym that’s also too brilliant to reveal; with backing vocals from an interpreter of his work (see #39), this dyspeptic declaration of self is as bold and necessary now as Walt Whitman’s own was in his day (he might’ve liked the lyric, “So go ahead and love me while it’s still a crime.”)

24. Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Deadly Valentine”
Gainsbourg returned from a recording hiatus with this sinister orchestral disco banger that would’ve surely made her father proud. Even though it’s entirely in English, the words barely register or matter—that insistent, loping groove and descending melody (and countermelodies!) steady the song with an aura of an opulent dream.

23. The War On Drugs, “Pain”
I adore the intro here: drumless, airy, all those reverb-heavy guitars just gradually falling into place. As the beat kicks in and the melody, enhanced by Adam Granduciel’s croon keeps circling back to that opening, “Pain” grows richer and deeper, its layers crystallizing into a glistening whole.

22. Orville Peck, “Dead of Night”
A one-of-a-kind voice that nearly stopped me dead in my tracks when I first heard it: sonorous, robust and a bit camp, you could compare Peck to many other baritones (from Chris Isaak to Stephen Morrissey), but this song’s minimalist arrangement and vast sense of space further set him apart.

21. Sufjan Stevens, “Mystery Of Love”
Call Me By Your Name would’ve been great without musical contributions from Stevens, but their presence arguably makes it even better for how well they complement and contextualize the visuals. Still, I could sense how special the film might be when I first heard this weeks before actually seeing it.

2018: Vibrate, Resonate

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And so we’re up-to-date: the most recent completed year 100 Albums covers, not to mention my first full year of streaming (as opposed to digital downloads.) I wrote about a dozen of these songs last December and referenced a few more via the year’s top ten albums.

That leaves a number of leftovers (Neneh Cherry, Brian Fallon, Inara George, Paul Frickin’ McCartney—at least he’s still good for one great track per LP) and late discoveries, like Tracyanne & Danny (first overheard in a Pier One Imports!), an isolated track from former Vampire Weekend member Rostam, a lovely, lucid new song from the former singer of Concrete Blonde (which I can’t believe currently only has 3,149 streams on Spotify) and sharp ’90s-revival alt-rock from the awesomely-named The Beths.

I’ve chosen to highlight another leftover from Eleanor Friedberger. Over the past decade, she’s quietly established a pretty neat solo career that sounds very little like the ambitious (and in my mind, often irritating) stuff she used to do with her brother as The Fiery Furnaces. It took awhile for “Make Me A Song” to register as strongly as past singles like “When I Knew” and “He Didn’t Mention His Mother”, but it eventually did with its simple, indelible hook of “I could love you more” (among an excess of other hooks.)

Go here to listen to my favorite tracks of 2018 on Spotify:

  1. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, “Talking Sense”
  2. Kacey Musgraves, “High Horse”
  3. Sam Phillips, “American Landfill Kings”
  4. Neneh Cherry, “Kong”
  5. Lake Street Dive, “Shame, Shame, Shame”
  6. Chaka Khan, “Like Sugar”
  7. Brian Fallon, “If Your Prayers Don’t Get To Heaven”
  8. Inara George, “Slow Dance”
  9. Christine and The Queens, “The Walker”
  10. Paul McCartney, “Dominoes”
  11. Troye Sivan, “Bloom”
  12. Metric, “Now and Never Now”
  13. LUMP, “Curse of the Contemporary”
  14. Roisin Murphy feat. Ali Love, “Jacuzzi Rollercoaster”
  15. Janelle Monae feat. Zoe Kravitz, “Screwed”
  16. Sunflower Bean, “I Was a Fool”
  17. Jessie Ware, “Overtime”
  18. First Aid Kit, “It’s A Shame”
  19. Gruff Rhys, “Frontier Man”
  20. Twin Shadow, “Too Many Colors”
  21. St. Vincent, “Fast Slow Disco”
  22. Florence + The Machine, “Patricia”
  23. Lana Del Rey, “Mariners Apartment Complex”
  24. Calexico, “Music Box”
  25. Rostam, “In A River”
  26. Natalie Prass, “The Fire”
  27. Ray LaMontagne, “Such A Simple Thing”
  28. Johnette Napolitano, “Riding The Moon”
  29. Eleanor Friedberger, “Make Me A Song”
  30. Years & Years, “All For You”
  31. The Beths, “Not Running”
  32. Lord Huron, “The Balancer’s Eye”
  33. Ezra Furman, “I Lost My Innocence”
  34. Amen Dunes, “Believe”
  35. Field Music, “Daylight Savings”
  36. Robyn, “Ever Again”
  37. Neko Case, “Bad Luck”
  38. The Decemberists, “Once In My Life”
  39. Tracyanne & Danny, “Cellophane Girl”
  40. Tracey Thorn, “Dancefloor”