New Order's on the turntable, we're dancing

my (top 5!) favorite songs of 2007:

5. Dashboard (We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank) - Modest Mouse
For any Smiths fan that keeps up with the contemporary indiesque to even the smallest extent, this was a hugely anticipated album. Modest Mouse are a band that, even if (like me) you never exactly loved, it's impossible not to be at least aware of, and maybe acknowledge some level of craftsmanship on their part. With the news that Johnny Marr, the guitarist responsible for the delicious half of The Smiths' sweet and sour formula, had straight-up-no-shit JOINED the band, it seemed that the forthcoming album couldn't help but be fresh, addictive and complex. The actual result was something less than that, often a product of lazy songwriting and noisy sonic repetition (The Parting of the Sensory might be a candidate for the worst song of the year). But on this, the seductive first single from a disappointing album, the listener is invited to imagine what could have been.

4. Kingdom of Doom (The Good, The Bad and The Queen) - The Good, The Bad and The Queen
If Damon can't get along with the old blokes from Blur, at least it's good to hear him rocking alternatively again. (Not that the poppier, dancier Gorillaz albums haven't been good. They're awesome.) Still, this entire album is a return to what made Blur's best work so great. The theme of life from the point of view of a contemporary Londoner hails back to Parklife in particular, the source of many of Blur's greatest songs. This song, second to Herculean (which was released as a single in 2006 and is therefore ineligible for this list) epitomizes those qualities best of any from the new project.

3. Reckoner (In Rainbows) - Radiohead
A lot of people who more or less share my views on music have been huge Radiohead fans for a good long while (hey, me too!), found the four years since Hail to the Thief's release in 2003 far too long to wait (again, guilty), and would probably want to kick me in the dentures for not putting Radiohead up higher on the list if anybody were reading this. They might also be puzzled by why I chose Reckoner, generally not considered the best track from the new album. No, don't skip ahead, there isn't another Radiohead song higher on the list. The fact of the matter is that Reckoner is the best song on In Rainbows, a moody yet melodic, familiar but not redundant, lyrically necessary endeavor. Oh, and it's the title track. Or didn't you notice?

2. Phantom Limb (Wincing the Night Away) - The Shins
A marvel of a song, Phantom Limb manages to simultaneously capture The Shins' own particular sound and integrate other influences (particularly The Jesus and Mary Chain - appropriate given the song's dreamy tone) while delivering lyrics that feel achingly relevant and insightful. Lead singer/songwriter James Mercer presents the life of a teenage lesbian with incredible attention to detail, and achieves the sort of depth, fullness and emotional acuity that is worthy of the best written fiction.

1. Born Losers (Hospital Music) - Matthew Good
Though my second or third introduction to Matthew Good's work, I suspect that almost any listener would find this song to be a revelation on some level. Musically, the song is a combination of folk and country influences with the aggressive soul of a rock song that matches its subject matter perfectly. The lyrics are a portrait of twentysomething discontent: the narrator is young enough to lack direction, but old and world-weary enough to have outgrown the illusion of freedom. With lines like "what doesn't kill us now just makes us better whores" and this stanza:

"when the lights come on, this whole place gets ugly
but when they're out, strangers fall in love
she could never say that flat out she don't want me,
cause I could never say that halfway ain't enough",

Matthew Good has written a song that may be about himself, or may be about no one in particular, yet seems to be about all of us in a certain stage of our lives. There are enough details in the song to resonate with any listener, and those that don't match our lives we can nevertheless imagine matching our mood. In other words, the song has the power to transport its listener to the relevant place in their own life as it exists in memory or imagination. Hundreds of songs have been written about adolescence of a certain kind. This song trumps many of them with its honesty and genuine introspection about a much more specific state of mind.