#1
2009 - Morrissey - I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris
Album: Years of Refusal
Knowing the gravity of the top 5 songs in 2009, it's almost difficult to believe that Morrissey found his way at the top of the mountain that year. I probably listening to August Burns Red, Alice in Chains and Owl City much more than I did this song. But every time I thought about it, I said to myself "this is my favorite song of 2009". Before the Countdown was officially official, there was "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris".
These days, my love affair with Morrissey and The Smiths is well documented. Although they were only a band for half of a decade, they recorded dozens and dozens of songs that I love. But at the time I was more interested in songs like "Suedehead" and "The Last Of The Famous International Playboys" - Morrissey's solo work. Somewhere along the line of listening to "Paris" over and over again, I decided to delve deeper into the work of The Smiths, and in the past 10 years that appreciation has grown one hundred times. Morrissey still comes around my way every couple of years, but he's always with a 3 figure price. I keep telling myself I should just do it, but I simply cannot justify spending that much for a single concert, even if it is with one of my all-time favorite artists.
But, to borrow the phrase, we'll always have "Paris", and it's a great place to start any list of songs for me.
2010 - Hockey - Song Away
Album: Mind Chaos
Hockey is almost certainly the most curious band to ascend this chart. They formed and released an EP with little-to-no support, got signed and released a record with a hit single ("Too Fake"), and then fell right off of the map. In a world where social media was becoming a huge thing and you could basically find out what your favorite artists were eating for breakfast or which shoe they put on first, the guys were ghosts. They finally popped back up late in 2012, released a meh record, and once again disappeared. How does that work out? They've released exactly 1 song since 2013 and recently posted on their FB that they were, indeed, dead. And while Mind Chaos wasn't the greatest record in the world, it did spawn two singles that got a lot of airplay on alternative stations in 2010.
As for me, I was quoting lyrics to this song so much that I was humming it at a family dinner and my mom asked me what I was singing. My sister chirped "It's Jesse's new favorite song, everyone knows that". My love for music has always been rather transparent, and in a year where melancholy songs like "Bloodbuzz Ohio", "Final Exit", and "Little Lion Man" dominated my life, I needed a bubbly fun song-and-dance number like "Song Away". "Tomorrow's just a song away, a song away..." it was my new personal mantra, and it's something that has stuck with me since then. Sometimes, that's all you need.
2011 - Young the Giant - My Body
Album: Young the Giant
Over the years, Young the Giant has become synonymous with alternative rock hits, charting basically anything they release while keeping a relatively positive profile in the music world. They just recently released 2 new singles and I am once again excited to see what the guys are up to, but in 2010 they were a (pardon the pun) young group just trying to make it big, and they landed in a big way with their self-titled album which spawned two huge songs - "Cough Syrup" and "My Body". For the second year in a row, it was the massively positive, exciting, dance-y song that waded through all the misery and madness to come out on top. Lead singer Sameer Gadhia has such a unique voice that it simply needs to be featured in a musical showcase.
Of course, it was December 18th and I was sitting at my parents computer trying to figure out whether I was going to give the crown to "Galaxies" or "My Body". To this day, there is still no wrong choice between those two, it just goes to show how two songs that are incredibly different can meet at the same impasse and still be beautiful.
2012 - fun. - Some Nights
Album: Some Nights
Come on. If you were alive in 2012 and within earshot of any sort of music device, you probably were either listening to or overhearing fun. "We Are Young" dropped at the end of 2011 and was everywhere. Multi-platinum in multiple countries and #1 on a zillion charts, the song produced more hype around a rock band (other than Coldplay) that I had seen in a long time. Also, I had to find that record. As luck would have it, a digital rip became available online a few weeks before the physical disc dropped, and I listened to the entire album on repeat for weeks. For my money, it's on a short list of the best albums released in the 2010s - top to bottom just phenomenal songs 1 to 10. I can still listen to it and not skip any songs. It is just phenomenal and it really is the only possible choice for #1 from 2012.
The question then became, which song off of the record was going to take the top spot? "We Are Young" was great, "One Foot" was my favorite song that they played when I saw them live, "All Alone" got so much play that I started seeing porcelain dolls everywhere in my life. But it was "Some Nights" that rose to the top, and by the end of the year the distance between fun. and Meshuggah was quite deep. It's not to say that "Do Not Look Down" wasn't a tremendous track. I remember remarking that if it had been any other year, Meshuggah might have been #1. "Some Nights" was just that big of a hit for me, and six years later it's a bizarre reminder that a band can be on top of the world and just decide to do other things. Jack Antonoff has been selling records with Bleachers and Nate Ruess can probably do whatever he wants for the rest of his life and still be resting comfortably on his laurels. But man, 2012 was a great year for those guys.
2013 - Surfer Blood - Demon Dance
Album: Pythons
By year 5, the precedent had been set for J1. Upbeat, lyrically clever alternative rock songs were the standard for #1, with metal reaching and just falling short seemingly every year. Where 2011 had been a close battle leading into the final days, 2013 had a #1 song and a handful of other songs battling for the next five spots. Nobody was beating Surfer Blood, and it really wasn't close. The difference from the year previous is that it wasn't just a runaway song, there just wasn't anything else that came close. Tegan and Sara came early, The Airborne Toxic Event made themselves heard, and Aeon Zen closed strong, but it was "Demon Dance" and it's video of the year that easily took the top spot.
Surfer Blood's first record was big on distortion, where Pythons focused more on tight grooves and great lyrics. They've released two records since then which haven't charted, and they've essentially re-organized their sound to be more ambient with a much more dialed back feel than their earlier efforts. They aren't badly written, they're just dull. However, the opening riff on "Demon Dance" is forever good, and once again I found myself transfixed on a fantastic lyric. "You and me are apples and trees, don't fall far from me". Hard to beat that one. I remember listening to "Gravity" a lot from Pythons as well, but my interest in the band waned after their release of 1000 Palms.
2014 - Cadets - A Drop In The Ocean
Album: A Drop In The Ocean
Back at the end of 2013, Cadets had this crazy idea. For 2014, they were going to release a new song on every full moon, culminating with an album putting it all together at the end of the year. It was equal parts ambitious and bizarre; the band built their ideology and sound around space travel and put the musical world on notice with the first single, "A Drop In The Ocean". And with each passing month, the band would build hype, drop a single, and disappear. They were artistic, ethereal, and enigmatic. By August they had stopped updating their collective social media profiles except to release songs, and at the end of the year they just.... disappeared. 12 songs were released, and before it became a craze they also released a chilling cover of The Cranberries "Zombie". It seems as though their passion for the project fell out somewhere in between and both members went back to their songwriting and such.
It's a damned shame, because some of the songs were gold. "A Drop In The Ocean" obviously got the most press and polish, but "Future Love Child", "Weightless", and "Island" are gems. I'd love to pick Josh Williams' brain to see what became of all this ambition, because I adore this song. "It's a Friday funeral; it's a Sunday all alone" pulsated through my brain throughout that year and for the next few years I could not go a week without hearing the song at least once or twice. Once again we had a chasm between 1 and 2; "Alienation" started strong but "A Drop In The Ocean" had to have twice as many plays as the next most popular song for me that year.
2015 - Purity Ring - Heartsigh
Album: Another Eternity
One of the enthralling things for the J1 Countdown is how many of the bands at the top are bands that I simply hadn't listened to before that year. Obviously, Young the Giant and Hockey came around at that time, and Morrissey was Morrissey, but none of the other top songs came from releases that I was previously psyched for. Enter Purity Ring, a band who I had absolutely fallen hard for in 2013 after Pete got me hooked on their debut record. The first singles off of the record began to drop near the end of 2014, and it honestly felt like an agonizing two and a half months waiting for the record to drop, only having teases of a few songs to tide me over. When the album dropped, I immediately picked it up and listened to the first 3 songs while driving to work. It was too good to just listen to on a quick drive, so I told myself I needed to wait until my next day off to truly delve into its excellence. I was totally off guard when Cd102.5 played 2 of their new songs the next evening while I was out driving again, as The Alternative Station hadn't even blinked at "Shrines".
Their time on the radio was short-lived but when I finally got to delve into the record I found I was unable to get past the first track. Over and over again, it was "Heartsigh". Even today when I listen to it, I compulsively want to listen to it 3 or 4 more times to truly experience its mystifying sound. For all the great metal that hovered in the top 5 throughout the year, none of them stood a chance against the Purity Ring machine. The band dropped a single titled "Asido" late last year and I've been waiting oh so patiently for more from them, with frustrating results. Where are you, Purity Ring!?
My favorite Purity Ring story is one about how I fell in love with the band. I was playing a lot of Warhammer 40k Space Marine at the time, and I would listen to the disc while I played through the multiplayer events, leading me to give "Shrines" the title of my favorite orc-slaying music. Here's to more of than coming soon!
2016 - DMA's - Lay Down
Album: Hills End
I remember the day that DMA's passed Broods as the top dog on the Countdown in 2016. POP ETC had started its decline, blink-182 wasn't really making new waves, and there was a whole lot of "other" going on. There were a lot of songs that could've populated between the 10s and 20s of the countdown, and that ended up being the bigger point of contention later in the year. But once Broods made their way up, it seemed as though they were going to make it two consecutive years for female-fronted synth pop. I was sitting at work feeling like absolute garbage when "Lay Down" a song I had enjoyed so far during the year came on. Something in the way that the singer yelled "Laayyy Dowwwn" on the chorus caught my ear, and I remember I played the song back-to-back-to-back for the entirety of my 30 minute lunch break. It became a rallying cry for happiness in delusional and difficult year.
Both Broods and DMA's had their heels dug in. The soaring guitars of "Lay Down" vs the brilliant chorus of "Free". It was close; almost as close as 2011 but eventually DMA's secured their foothold and brought home the #1 spot. They have a new record out this year that I still need to check out. I'm hoping that the 2018 Countdown will be as close as this one, as there are 3 or 4 spots that still could take it!
2017 - Morning Theft - Skeleton Twins
Album: ...these terraformed ends
Of course, in 2017 it was a four-way at the top, with The Naked and Famous and The Birthday Massacre throwing haymakers and Future Islands dancing in between them. Assemblage 23 and Cold War Kids did their thing while Chris Cornell ran like a freight train towards the finish. But from the moment I heard "Skeleton Twins" and saw Morning Theft life, I knew there was something special there. It wasn't just my constant battle with depression and suicidal thoughts, and it wasn't just that I spent a ton of time hanging out with the members of the band. The song connected with me in a way that I never imagined possible for any song, and as 2017 waned down I found myself wanting to hear it more and more. It was no longer a matter of where the song was going to end up on the Countdown, but whether I really had any justifiable reason not to have the song at #1.
I didn't, I don't, and I cannot imagine a scenario where another song would've hit me quite like this. It was a perfect collision that I was ready to kill myself the night that I first heard this song, and everything else just fell into line from there. I haven't really had a ton of time to reflect on it other than that it's been a constant force in my life for the past 16 months, and I wonder how I'll be feeling about it in a year or two.
Thanks for sticking around with me. I used to be so much better about meeting the deadlines I set for myself on the music blog, but I just have had too much life in the month of August. I think I'll dig into the separate artists of the countdown going forward.
