I get to choose my top 10% of the tope 10% of songs on my weekly mixes of 2007, so that means I am counting down from #11 to my favorite song of the year. Here goes.
11. "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" by Crosby, Stills & Nash
I loved this song as a teenager in the 8os, when old hippie music was more appealing than so much of what I was exposed to in terms of contemporary music. I kind of forgot it until 2007, when I sat in a restaurant with a new girlfriend's parents. This came on just after they left us alone at the table, and we shared the giddy feeling that I'd passed the test. The fact that this song was equally beloved by someone so much younger than me, when I was already way too young to have grown up with this song, reminded me of just how timeless this song is.
10. "Ooh La La" by The Faces
I had loved this song for a long time before its use in a movie made its ubiquity so obnoxious that a terrible car commercial featured a soccer mom lip-syncing to a really lame cover jingle version. Nothing could kill this one for me, though, and in 2007 it snuck up on me and knocked me down. So wise and deeply moving. I'll be listening to this when I'm an even older man.
9. "To Go Home" by M. Ward
This was fairly new when I threw it on a mix in 2007 and I loved it the minute I heard it. The backing vocals by Neko Case are of course great, but it's the whole sound of the record, the guitars and piano and the big echo. I don't even know quite what it's all about, except that it's a Daniel Johnston song. I don't care, I just love the drama of it and how it feels.
8. "Heart Of Glass (12" ver)" by Blondie
This is the greatest of the very great Blondie singles. The one that fascinated me as a kid. Deborah Harry's blend of icy indifference and sensuality was something I could not articulate then but I got it. This is of course their disco hit, but on other mixes I have rare early versions of them trying it as a reggae song then as a punk song. But it's this version, the extended single, that is just perefect.
7. "Paper Planes" by M.I.A.
This song got so over-exposed that it's hard to remember just how brilliant it is. And for the record, I was putting songs of hers on my mixes for a few years before this. And I pulled this one out as "the" song within a week of buying this album the day it came out, long before it was used in movies. We saw her in concert in 2007, and she was amazing. But it's the production on here, and the Clash sample, that stick with me.
6. "Love Will..." by Malcom McClaren
I feel like this or any of the next few songs could easily have been my favorite of 2007. "Love Will..." is McClaren's genius mash up of "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain & Tenille with Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart". It sounds like a stunt, but listening to it defies description. It''s so beautiful and mysterious, it feels like it encompasses everything that happens in a romantic relationship: all the hope and sadness and poetry and feeling.
5. "Last Dance (12" ver)" by Donna Summer
I have always loved this, the most iconic of Donna Summer's singles, and in 2007 I found the extended 12 " version. Because if you're going to have a last dance, you should make it last. This is one of the most joyful records ever and as danceable as her music is, it's easy to forget what an amazing singer she is.
4. "Young Girl Bluez" by Biz Markie
This shaggy dog tale of a tragic affair with an underage girl, complete with dramatic strings and a killer Slick Rick sample, is one of the coolest, strangest hip hop songs ever. Biz Markie manages to be funny and also touching. I fell in love with this song early in 2007, and then later on in the year this song seemed prescient or at least like an inside joke to me.
3. "Ain't No Way" by Aretha Franklin
This is the greatest of her ballads, or songs, to me. Looking back on my 2007 mixes, it's clear I was on a crazy Aretha kick. But this one was always my favorite and always will be. There's that otherworldly back-up singing that sounds like an angel. The simple piano chords. The subtle horns that come in. And her lyrics and singing are just heartbreaking. And deeply comforting. The woman who sang this must have really, really loved someone.
2. "Just Us" by Cam'ron
So, this is a punky underground Harlem rapper on a mixtape rapping, often explicitly, over a continuous piano loop of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". And it's more romantic than anything you've ever heard. Cam'rom is sly, cocky, lewd and with this piano behind him as he tries to seduce, incredibly compelling. That hushed "just us" chorus was shorthand for me in 2007, and the most unlikely love song I've ever heard.
1. "Loving Cup" by The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones have long been my favorite band and growing up I could probably name several songs on this album alone that I loved more than "Loving Cup". But boy, did this song just knock me out in 2007. The piano, the blissed-out lyrics, the chorus. This is a song you fall in love with when you are in love.
