The Sauced Bulletin

Here they are, folks.  The best of the best.  The creme de la creme.  The 10 songs from this past year that were better than all the other ones!  At least in our opinion!  I mean sure, there were HUNDREDS of songs released this year (some would even say thousands).  I think Rihanna had like 70 or 80 top ten singles alone, and you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing some rehashed Katy Perry song about teenage romance or some shit.  But none of those songs matter because THEY SUCKED!  They’re not on this list!  These are the 10 songs that mattered, the ones that shaped the year in music that was 2011, and the ones that we’re gonna keep listening to into 2012 and beyond.

So check out The Sauced Bulletin’s Top 10 Songs of 2011 after the jump.  YA HEARD!?

10.  “Future Starts Slow” by The Kills

Of all the songs released in 2011, this one might be the badassest.  Sure, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince have been turning out dark, noisy rock for a few records now, but the opening track of the underrated Blood Pressures is somehow different.  It’s got a killer groove (get it) for starters, unlike most of the lurching minimalist blues of their earlier work, and perhaps the years dirtiest guitar riff powering the whole mechanism.  I mean hey, somebody’s gotta do it now that The White Stripes are gone.  Just picture Alison and Jamie staring each other down as they deliver the dual lead vocal and you might feel like you need a shower afterward.  Listen here.

9.  “Bizness” by tUnE-yArDs

A cacophony of vocal loops, drum loops, ukulele loops, and probably some loops I haven’t noticed yet, the best song off Merrill Garbus’ second record as tUnE-yArDs is a joyously bonkers affair.  Merrill uses her powerful voice to the fullest, pleading with the listener as the music rises higher and higher behind her, culminating in a near-religious experience when those fucking horns kick in.  Watching clips of her constructing the song live (literally, she makes the beat and all the loops herself, then plays the damn ukulele to boot) was one of the most impressive things I saw all year.  And she does it all while having kind of a mustache!  Listen here.

8.  “Surgeon” by St. Vincent

Picking a favorite song off of St. Vincent’s brilliant third album, Strange Mercy, was fucking tough.  But when I was honest with myself, nothing could really touch the blissed-out, loafing elegance of this track.  With each inhalation it sounds like Annie Clark is singing right next to your ear, her nimble guitar work bubbling along just beneath the surface.  She maintains her penchant for conflating the off-putting and the beautiful, asking someone in the prettiest way possible to “come cut me open.”  It all comes to a satisfying climax as the nastiest female guitarist around rocks the hell out in a laser-tinged solo.  Also, there’s just something inherently sexy about hearing Annie Clark say the words “I spent the summer on my back.”  Damn girl.  Listen here.  (Also here’s the live version from her 4AD sessions which you should watch because DAMN).

7.  “Need You Now” by Cut Copy

Like many artists this year, Cut Copy chose to make the best song on their record the first one.  “Need You Now” gets Zonoscope rolling with, what else, a beat you can dance too.  From then on this is a track that moves in only two directions: forward and UP.  The Australian electro-rockers are experts at this point at creating anthemic club bangers, and this one is easily on par with their best work (see “Hearts on Fire” and “Lights and Music”).  Dan Whitford shows some emotional range, his vocals following the same impassioned crescendo as the music.  By songs end, whoever he needs, you need them too.  Listen here.

6.  “Kaputt” by Destroyer

Destroyer’s Dan Bejar has never really been what most would consider “cool.”  He’s a Canadian guy who sings in a nasally, fake British accent about some inscrutable topics.  But he’s also a fucking genius, and the title track from Destroyer’s latest opus is Bejar at the height of his powers.  You might feel a little like you’re underwater as you listen to this six-minute mediation on drugged out rock excess, as jangly guitars, omnipresent synth bleeps, and whale song-esque horn parts seem to drift by.  Kaputt, as an album, saw Destroyer taking everything about cheesy 80s soft rock and bending it into something new and, well, cool.  Nowhere did he do it better than right here.  Oh, and it also has one of the most charmingly bizarre music videos I’ve ever seen.  Listen here.

5.  “Calgary” by Bon Iver

“Calgary” stands out, for me, from the rest of Bon Iver’s self-titled sophomore effort because it’s the one song that sounds hopeful.  While the rest of the album is stunningly beautiful, and as technically impressive as anything released this year, it could be a bit of a downer.  And while “Calgary” sure as shit isn’t a happy sing-a-long number, we at least get to hear the band stretch out and rock a bit.  Vernon’s gorgeous voice holds all of the disparate elements together (crashing drums, warbling synths, fuzzed-out guitars), keeping things from spinning out of control.  Like most Bon Iver songs, you can’t really tell what the guy is singing about, but it doesn’t matter.  He makes you feel like the snow might just recede one of these days.  Listen here.

4.  “Recharge & Revolt” by The Raveonettes

Sadly, The Raveonettes’ latest album was all downhill from here, but honestly, where the fuck else could it go after a song like this?  Trust me, they knew that they were doing when they decided to open their record with an epic, six-minute ode to shoe-gaze rocking.  Once this one gets going, it never really changes, but Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo picked such a perfect groove to settle on, that it never feels long or grating.  Its wall of guitar fuzz and synth haze could stretch on indefinitely, and it would only add to the epic grandeur of it all.  Like a New Order song if New Order had been a garage rock band, “Recharge & Revolt” was this year’s call to arms.  Listen here.

3.  “Shake It Out” by Florence + the Machine

There was a period this year where I could not get enough of this song.  I listened to it incessantly, I watched every live performance I could find, and somehow it never got old.  For Florence, it was this year’s “Dog Days Are Over,” a triumphant rallying cry designed to lift festival crowds to their feet and onto each other’s shoulders in an arm-waving frenzy.  If anything, Florence Welch is a girl who knows her strengths, as she allows ample room for her well-known pipes to take center stage.  It’s impossible not to get caught up in the gaudy excess of it all once that marshal drum beat stomps into earshot and that huge chorus hits the first time.  Listen here.

2.  “Polish Girl” by Neon Indian/”Midnight City” by M83

Now, this is something that we here at The Sauced Bulletin have never seen before.  It might seem like an indecisive cop out, awarding the same spot on our list to two different songs, but it isn’t.  Let me explain.  You see, I struggled with this decision for weeks.  Months even!  I played these songs over and over again, enjoying them each as much as I had the first time I heard them.  The ridiculously catchy synth hooks, the hit-you-in-the-gut choruses, just the sheer sugar-rush, powerhouse likeability of both of them.  “Polish Girl” sounds like it was recorded on arcade machines from the 1980s, “Midnight City” has a saxophone solo ripped straight from the same time period.  Both are prime examples of two amazingly talented songwriters going for broke, creating maximalist space anthems with enough energy to power several parties simultaneously.  They both even have crazy awesome videos!  They are conjoined twins, destined to do battle on playlists until the end of time.  They were meant to be together, and therefor we have our one and only tie.  Listen to one here, and the other here.

1.  “Queen of Hearts” by Fucked Up

Well, here we are.  The top of the heap.  The big enchilada.  The number one spot, and believe me this choice surprised all of us.  But in the end “Queen of Hearts” was a clear winner.  No song this year was more exciting, more exhilarating, more balls to the wall, in your face rocking the FUCK OUT crazy sauce than this one.  The first proper track from Fucked Up’s magnum opus, David Comes to Life, “Queen” sees the band introducing the record’s major characters and setting up the doomed love story at its center. 

Damian Abraham comes roaring out of the gate, his grizzled caveman howl riding the year’s most propulsive guitar line.  And just when you think that’s all there is to it, and it might have been enough, the clouds part and a female voice breaks through, so sweet I could just kiss her.  It’s Madeline Follin from Cults!  She provides the perfect calm, eye-of-the-storm counterpoint to Abraham’s caterwauling maelstrom, and I wish they had used her more on the whole album.  But really what it all comes down to is the feeling of the whole thing.  This song, at least for us, sort of captured the desperate, confusing nature of 2011.  Something great could happen at any moment, but it might prove impossible to sustain, and that might make it all the more worthwhile.  Or, shit could go terribly wrong in the blink of an eye, leaving you with nothing to do but scream and bash your head against the wall.  But the main thing here is hope, because, at its core, “Queen of Hearts” is just one epic love song….and it fucking rocks.  It’s the song of 2011.  Listen to it here.

So there you have it, ladies and gents.  The individual tracks that shaped the year before the year the world ends.  But our list season is far from over!  Check back soon for the Top Albums of 2011 (maybe 20 of them, maybe 10 WHO KNOWS!?) and hopefully some guest lists from our esteemed colleagues Matt and Will.  GET PUMPED!