A mate of mine — half of Redpoint, my ex-labelmates on Hidden — runs a tribute to John Peel, and his Festive Fifty, every year. He runs a straw poll of his music-geek friends (rules: ten songs, in order, must have been released in the calendar year), compiles the results, and puts it out there ten tracks at a time between Christmas and New Year. You should check it out.
But seeing as it’s list season at the moment, even where you mightn’t otherwise expect it, I thought I’d join in and post my ballot up here. Starting at the top, 2009:
1. Future of the Left, “Arming Eritrea”
2. Telefon Tel Aviv, “You Are The Worst Thing In The World”
3. The Mountain Goats “Ezekiel 7 And The Permanent Efficacy Of Grace”
4. The Horrors, “Primary Colours”
5. The Thermals, “Now We Can See”
6. F—- Buttons, “Olympians”
7. Gui Boratto, “Take My Breath Away”
8. Do Make Say Think, “Make”
9. The Broken Family Band, “Don’t Bury Us”
Couldn’t find these on YouTube or Spotify. (Post-rock from Toronto and Cambridge’s finest, even though they just split up — and yes, I am aware of Pink Floyd — respectively.)
10. The Hold Steady, “Atlantic City”
(A Springsteen cover for a charity record. Trust me, though.)
If this year had a soundtrack, though, it was literate north-American indie rock: The Hold Steady, the Mountain Goats, the Weakerthans, the National, Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver. I’m kicking myself I hadn’t got round to them before. And as a (former) curling skip, here’s one song which’d have made my ballot if it hadn’t come out in, um, 2007…
