10. Mindkilla - Gang Gang Dance
Gang Gang Dance is one of the weirdest bands I have ever heard, but since when is being weird a bad thing? Mindkilla concentrates that weirdness in its synthesizer and electronic background music. I love how GGD brings back a children's ryme by singing "mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring" in that synthesized voice. The weirdest song I've heard so far, but also one of the best.
9. Holocene - Bon Iver
Wisconsin's Finest isn't interested in the listener understanding his words as much as feelings his voice and accompanying instruments evoke and does he do that well. Holocene has beneath the surface beauty of the chiming guitars and close harmonies. Anyone who has to drive unknowingly somewhere can appreciate this song.
8. California - EMA
When this song came out, I had just gotten into CMC. Artists like Best Coast and Wavves gave me a feel of California fun in the sun, but EMA showed California in a different light. Erika A. Anderson says, "FUCK CALIFORNIA" as she looks behind the superficiality of California and tells us really how it is. It's a struggle to get by and it changes people but we can all get through it.
7. Need You Now - Cut Copy
Not to ever be mixed up with Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now", this song is the highlight of Cut Copy's new album Zonoscope. All I can say is that the build up for this song is wonderful and then when it finally falls every time I hear this I want to stand up and start dancing.
6. Montezuma - Fleet Foxes
Montezuma begins Helplessness Blues with a bang. Remembering the old days fondly, Fleet Foxes, prepares the listener to go on an blissfully happy journey throughout the album. Robin Pecknold spent two years perfecting the album and he did it beautifully.
5. Marvin's Room - Drake
Marvin's Room has a woman in the back repeat "Are you drunk right now?" Drake desperately wants to have her and the question itself shows her distance. The song is a ballad of how he feels without her. Drake perfectly expresses desperation and loss of a loved one.
4. Lindisfarne - James Blake
James Blake's best combined songs on his album, Lindisfarne resembles Bon Iver's Woods. Lindisfarne always calms my nerves and grounds me. It's such a peaceful song sung beautifully and brings out such emotion without giving the listener much to hear.
3. Midnight City - M83
I still don't think I completely understand this song, but it is still amazing. On the surface it has beautiful syths. But deeper, the song is about the vibrancy of city life, but at the same time it has a futuristic aspect to it. M83 is more interested in understanding how the future in the city will look that the past.
2. Video Games - Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey is my favorite new artist of the year. Her combination of the chords and her voice is beautiful. She sings of her sadness when she dated a man who neglected her by playing video games. Del Rey's wallowing about her condition sounds like she is accepting of the terrible situation she is in and never does she let go of that feeling.
1. Seventeen - Youth Lagoon
This is a song about growing up. I put this at number one because this year more than ever I have grown up. Trever Power talks about imagination and how no matter what it should never be lost. This song reminds us that no matter how old we get, we will always have a kid inside of us and he should never be neglected. The song starts with a soft piano and builds up with drums and synthesizers until the end when it makes me want to shout "When I was seventeen,my mother said to me 'Don't stop imagining. The day that you do is the day that you die.'Now I pull a wanton carriage, instead of the horses, grazing along. I was having fun. We were all having fun."
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