Listmania

OK, so Pitchfork issued their list of this year's 50 best singles today, so I guess I should take that as my cue to list my own personal favorite songs from the year. I know that not all of them are from 2004, but will you forgive me if I list them in a sequence and running order that would fit on an industry-standard 80 minute blank CD? I thought so.

1. They Put Her in the Movies--Jason Falkner (Bliss Descending EP)
2. 40'--Franz Ferdinand (Franz Ferdinand)
3. Come As You Are--Caetano Veloso (A Foreign Sound)
4. Stupid Memory--Sondre Lerche (Two Way Monologue)
5. Get Your Hands Off My Woman--Ben Folds (Super D EP)
6. Length of Love--Interpol (Antics)
7. Serenade for the Renegade--E.S.T. (Strange Place for Snow)
8. Where Is the Line--Björk (Medulla)
9. Wicked Little Town (Tommy Gnosis version)--The Bens
(Wig in a Box: Songs from and Inspired by Hedwig and the Angry Inch)
10. Our Mutual Friend--The Divine Comedy (Absent Friends)
11. Bathtime in Clerkenwell--The Real Tuesday Weld (I, Lucifer)
12. The Rat--The Walkmen (Bows + Arrows)
13. Red Right Ankle--The Decemberists (Her Majesty the Decemberists)
14. We Looked Like Giants--Death Cab for Cutie (Transatlanticism)
15. Stupid--The Long Winters (When I Pretend to Fall)
16. I Was Made to Love You--Polly Paulusma (Scissors in My Pocket)
17. The Art Teacher--Rufus Wainwright (Want Two)
18. Memory Lane--Elliott Smith (From a Basement on a Hill)
19. Walking to Do--Ted Leo/Pharmacists (Shake the Sheets)

Honorable mention: the Stills’ “Lola Stars and Stripes,” Maroon 5’s “This Love,” the Flaming Lips’ live, acoustic version of “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” the Hives’ “Walk, Idiot, Walk,” N.E.R.D.’s “The Way She Dances,” Travis Morrison’s “Born in ’72,” Wilco’s “Muzzle of Bees,” Loretta Lynn’s “Portland, Oregon,” the Lashes’ “Death by Mixtape,” Britney Spears’s “Toxic,” and Courtney Love’s “But Julian, I’m a Little Older Than You.”

Also, tonight is the longest night of the year. Let's take that time to mourn whatever was darkest in our lives this year, and then try our damnedest to move the fuck beyond it as the days begin to get progressively lighter again. Can I get an amen?