The Top 50 Songs of 2010

20. Kanye West – “Runaway” [feat. Pusha T] (Def Jam-Roc-a-fella)
(Single; from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy)
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In the stark white space of MTV’s VMA stage, Kanye West strode onstage and began a plaintive piano riff that unfolded into a song that could maybe have been read as a stunt (especially since an hour earlier, Taylor Swift unveiled the tamest diss ever in “Innocent”), a calculated reaction to his divisive and uproarious persona. Yet “Runaway” seemed bigger than the so-called Swiftgate and presented a stunning self-awareness that the seemingly id-driven West isn’t really known for. Coming off the heels of the rage filled 808s and Heartbreak and some well-deserved time off, “Runaway” shows West embarrassingly repenting his brashness and childlike ways: “And I just blame everything on you/ At least you know that’s what I’m good at.” “Runaway” is the sound of someone looking back and cringing yet recognizes that the childishness is him; it’s part of his personhood. In that way, West displays good humor and humility, toasting douchebags, assholes, scumbags and jerkoffs “that’ll never take work off,” but still imploring those to “runaway fast as you can.” In the midst of these painfully self-aware lyrics, is amazing production and warmth that we haven’t heard in a West song since Graduation. While the single edit ends with bravado, the album cut dissolves into West’s distorted vocals, resigned and heartbroken as cellos and upright basses swell, “Runaway” ends not with a triumph but a brutal realization of self. – Jackie Im

19. Janelle Monáe – “Cold War” (BadBoy)
(Single; from The ArchAndroid)
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All thick, eerie organ and hi-speed “Bombs Over Baghdad” beats, Janelle Monáe’s “Cold War” isn’t so much what its title suggests, but an all-out assault on the listener with everything in the diva’s limitless arsenal. But the curious trick about the song is that its most explosive power lies in its deeply affecting, albeit ambiguous lyrics, exposing more touching and universal insight beneath the narrative of fictional android Cindy Mayweather. It bangs, and it bumps, but the sheer directness of Monáe’s emotionally charged verses are enough to stop the listener cold. “If you wanna be free/ below the ground’s the only place to be,” sounds either fatalistic or strategic. And when she sings, “I was made to believe that something’s wrong with me,” it’s hard not to be caught off guard by such vulnerability. Yet there’s no self-pity here, just honesty, resolve and triumph. Remember, fembots have feelings too. – Jeff Terich

18. The Radio Dept. – “Heaven’s On Fire” (Labrador)
(Single; from Clinging to a Scheme)
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Sweden has an impeccable track record with pop music. From ABBA to Ace of Base, The Cardigans, Robyn, The Hives, The Concretes, The Knife, José González, The Tough Alliance, Peter Bjorn & John, and countless others, Swedish mainstream and indie pop is populated by an increasingly diverse blend of artists that have enjoyed their own degrees of international success. The Radio Dept. fit comfortably in the fuzzier side of Swedish pop, but have had a fairly reserved 15 year career, putting out just their third full-length in 2010. However, with songs as catchy as “Heaven’s on Fire,” the time between their releases seems irrelevant. Opening with a sampled call-for-rebellion from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore (“…I think we should destroy the bogus capitalist process that is destroying youth culture”), this second single from Clinging to a Scheme is all melancholy sweetness from there on out. Not forgetting the most important pop mantra — hooks, hooks and more hooks — The Radio Dept. provide accordingly with catchy lo-fi synth, bubbly guitars, prominent bass riffs, somber piano, sax solos, and breezy Balearic drum loops. Endlessly listenable and downright addictive, this song is one of the strongest in the whole of the current, saturated Swedish pop scene. And that’s saying something. – Derek Emery

17. Joanna Newsom – “Good Intentions Paving Company” (Drag City)
(from Have One On Me)
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Wait a minute, where’s the harp? Where’s the shrill, child-like vocal? The 2,000-word poem about bears spelunking? Joanna Newsom certainly tipped us off that changes were afoot on the first song released from her triple album Have One On Me. With rustic touches in the form of banjo, piano, and organ at the forefront of an honest-to-God love song, “Good Intentions” almost feels like a slice of good old-fashioned Americana. A far cry from any of the extended passages on Ys, Newsom pulls off this amazing transformation with both grace and wit. And those harmonies are downright gorgeous! Up until this year, it’s fair to say Newsom was one of the least accessible artists regularly making critics swoon. Who knew sanding down some of her divisive traits would result in work that’s just as rewarding? – Chris Karman

16. Beach House – “Norway” (Sub Pop)
(Single; from Teen Dream)
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I’ve always found myself in the camp that kind of thinks all of Beach House’s songs sound more or less the same, but enjoy a number of them nonetheless. On paper, “Norway” doesn’t stray too far from the formula — droning organs, subtle percussion, reverb-laden guitar work and resonant vocals — yet simultaneously strikes with a refreshing unfamiliarity and staggering depth. Every element feels perfectly suited for the composition. Following the brief initial hum of organ, a burst of shimmering guitars and Victoria Legrand’s breathy wordless hooks serve as counterpoint to the relative gloom of the verse, Alex Scally’s guitar work morphing into a suffocating bend and sway while Legrand’s mournful croon pulls the listener down… down… down. Something as simple as the transition between verse and chorus becomes remarkably moving, ultimately building to the final, soaring refrain of “Norwaaay-ay-ay-ay-ay, ay-ay-ay-aaayyyy”. Right when you think a band had exhausted their sound, they go ahead and make their best work to date without any drastic changes. Touché, Beach House. – Derek Emery

15. Teengirl Fantasy – “Cheaters” (True Panther Sounds)
(Single; from 7AM)
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People making Chicago house tracks again made it great to be alive in 2010. “Cheaters,” the best of the lot, beamed back the ghosts of Marshall Jefferson and Ron Hardy while echoing some of the biggest indie songs of the last few years, from “Someone Great” to “My Girls.” (It’s also traceable to the greatest hit n’ run in pop history, “Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand,” but that’s a different conversation.) You can break “Cheaters” down every which way but loose — the perfection of the Love Committee sample, the dosage of the overlapping moods, all the approximate heartbreak of those spectacular kicks — and never settle on why it’s so transcendent. But no recent dancefloor item is more thrillingly discrete, with such a strong unified theory of dance and soundsystem culture. Cheaters never win, but there are exceptions. – Anthony Strain

14. LCD Soundsystem – “I Can Change” (DFA-Virgin)
(Single; from This Is Happening)
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“I Can Change” is wallpapered with lines that make love sound like calamity: “Dashing the hopes,” “here comes another fight,” “What an awful sight.” And at its most contradictory beautiful and gutting, “love is a murderer.” Indeed, love has claimed its share of casualties, and examples in pop music alone are enough to keep anyone from ever wanting to get wrapped up in the whole crazy mess. But James Murphy, over a buoyant electro backing vaguely reminiscent of Eurythmics’ “Love Is a Stranger,” makes that endless struggle palatable, tolerable, hell, even fun! He sounds sweet when he sings “Never change, never change, never change/ that’s just who I fell in love with.” And he sounds desperate when he changes (hey!) the lyrics to “I can change… if it helps you fall in love.” But we’ve all been there, for better or worse. Love makes you do stupid things, but LCD Soundsystem has the good graces to laugh (and dance) with us. James Murphy, never change. – Jeff Terich

13. Yeasayer – “O.N.E.” (Secretly Canadian)
(Single; from Odd Blood)
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It’s something like miraculous when a band’s pagan eclecticism informs their most identifiable and inclusive song. Odd Blood is a spooky circus of circumspect insanity, but “O.N.E.” is avant-garde in comfortable civilian drag. It’s like a game of Chutes & Ladders, or a Three’s Company episode — water running, doors banging, people eavesdropping and getting the wrong idea, people changing clothes, people shouting. The bassline sounds like the product of knuckles. What’s going on with those whistles and whirligigs? What kind of drums are those? Oh, and you can play it on the radio or in a store, and it’s all the passive-aggressive hallucination of a vacillating lover, did you get that? Pack more craven joy into five and a half minutes–go ahead and try. – Anthony Strain

12. Caribou – “Odessa” (Merge)
(Single; from Swim)
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Nothing Dan Snaith does is ever straightforward, but “Odessa” is easily Caribou’s most bizarre single to date. Paradoxically, it’s also one of his most accessible, and what makes it so compelling is how Snaith bridges these two thematically divergent endpoints. That wobbly sample, those off-kilter flutes, and a bassline that sounds ready to burst at any moment – somehow these elements, when layered with disco rhythms, scratchy post-punk guitar and Snaith’s detached, angelic voice, interlock into some kind of Number 1 dance anthem from an alternate universe, where nobody knows what the meaning of “micro” or “minimal” is. Caribou may never produce a pure disco single, but what we get instead is much more interesting. – Jeff Terich

11. Oneohtrix Point Never – “Returnal” [featuring Antony] (Editions Mego)
(Single; original version from Returnal)
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Obviously, Daniel Lopatin is a man who has a way with machines, a man able to again and again coax jagged futuristic spaces out of his vintage synthesizers. Adding vocals to that equation and ending up with an enthralling dystopian ballad, and then changing the stakes again by stripping away the machines and replacing them with Antony’s voice and a single piano-well, not such obvious happenings. On the original version of “Returnal,” Lopatin’s vocals are processed in a way that suggests Karin Dreijer embedded in a paranoid world that runs parallel to her own, a world of information that doubles our own. The spare rendition with Antony transforms paranoia into mourning; whatever was coming has came and now we are somewhere else, somewhere strange where Antony can sing, “The Internet as a self-atomizing machine/ I designed it…” and it comes off as perfectly natural. – Tyler Parks