chris 10-6 10 "been here before."
jeremy enigk.
world waits.
[reincarnate].

"only in your eyes a sudden need denied / i sympathize."

you might notice that as we get higher on this list, the more deeply personal these songs get. i may or may not be adequately giving glimpses into how these songs affect and reflect my life in motion throughout the monumental year that was 2006 (but isn't every year?), and this is something i want to remedy for these top 10 songs. jeremy enigk symbolizes a lot in my life but first and foremost, he is intrinsically attached with the feeling of my eyes welling up and enduring an unbearable amount of emotion. he is responsible for two of my best friends meeting and falling in love (if only on a infinitesimal level). and that's heavy, because i love both of those friends so much that my heart starts beating fast when i think about how much they love each other. also, when seeing him perform this song live with my dearest jerksica by my side, i think it was the only time this year where at the artist's concert i sang along at the show to the point of overwhelming emotion and connection with the music (ESPECIALLY that organ stab) and had my girlfriend next to me smiling at me while i was being ridiculously entrenched in the moment. and not smiling just because she thought i was being ridiculous. hence why they used to call me captain emo.

09 "bering."
talkdemonic.
beat romantic.
[arena rock].

moment @ 0:35

the first time i heard that string riff that hits at the above moment, my eyes blinked in slow motion, the camera panned around me until it centered on me and did a vertigo shot until we cut to a flash-forward of me running down a leafy sidewalk. still in slow-motion of course, the camera followed my lower legs as my black dress shoes hit the pavement over and over while my pants fluttered in the crisp air like sheets hanging out to dry. when the keyboard kicks in, i abruptly stop and gasp for air, lurching my body backwards in my tracks, looking like i've just seen a ghost. my mouth agape, i drop my tan leather bag to the ground, the strap flailing in the air, sliding gently off my fingertips. the camera switches to a shot of ______ slightly out of focus, but it's there. i've just noticed it. i need to get a grip. i need to think. i need to act. i need this life, this _____, this _____, this _____, because without it, i will sink. every once in a while a song comes along that makes my life feel like a character revelation scene in a film, and this is indeed one of those songs. luckily it also kicks me in my ass and gets me to end my escapist film and get living.

08 "too much happy wet hair."
love of everything.
superior mold and die.
[record label].

"you oughta be on top of me, but you're just too bloody."

this was one of the last of many in-studio performances i had the pleasure of witnessing as i ended my time as music director at radio k this summer, and it quickly became my favorite in-studio performance EVER because of the version of this song that bobby burg and his ragtag band put together for us on tape. bobby looks exactly like what you would after hearing this song: cherub-like, shy, modest, unassuming, etc. but the passion he exudes when performing is absolutely unequivocal to 99% of musicians, even the really emo ones that cry when they sing. while his music is twinkly and all those other lo-fi and twee adjectives you would normally attach to this kind of music, the pure feeling of joy eventually overriding all feelings of regret and shoulda-been-shoulda-dones splattered every limb of my body and every artery of my heart when he sang this song for us. cale parks of aloha purposefully stumbled through his piano part to bring back the clumsy feeling of youth and tourmate cex (and his accompanying female singer) crooned the highlight lyric of the song without mics while sitting cross-legged on the dingy radio k couch with gigantic grins on their faces. and bobby, with his eyes closed, meticulously (yet allowing for hisses and pops of course) looped his guitar and his mouse-like voice (singing both through the mic and through his guitar pickups) and then set his guitar down, took out what looked like a fisher-price camera and took pictures of us recording them in the sound engineer's booth. when he did that, with his baseball cap sitting loosely on his head, and sampled the sound of the flash going off through the song, and then deconstructed it all to bits, i was the one with gigantic smile on my face. and i had never felt youth and innocence so pure rekindle back into my body and heart than i did at that very moment. thank you bobby.

07 "many times i've mistaken."
joan of arc.
eventually, all at once.
[record label].

"off-white is the new white."

geeze these things keep getting longer, don't they? if you're still with me, i'll buy you a drink sometime. bobby is also a friend, labelmate, and sometimes-member of this collective, which if you're really my friend, you should know that joan of arc's singer, tim kinsella, is my favorite lyricist and frankly, poet, of all time. the way he twists words carelessly/carefully and effortlessly/effervescently has always made me view him as the ultimate artist that (while many many people and critics despise him) is the best as straddling the line of experimentalism and accessibility. and everybody should also know my deep hatred for the acoustic guitar, so i was wary when i heard about a joan of arc album based mostly around it. thank god sam zurick is also one of my favorite guitarists and can make even the blandest of instruments sound alive and sputtering/spattering across your ears like a flimsy raincloud bursts around town, almost as if it's following you. and the strings, dear god the strings, gently rise the song up toward normality and sea-level at every chorus, but soon enough, like everything in life, it drops out. eventually, all at once, we are left with the same as what we had before, only tinted differently. it may look the same, feel the same, taste the same, sound the same, but it's the same old crap we've always had and will have for all time. bof!

06 "always for you."
the album leaf.
into the blue again.
[sub pop].

"i've chased this day."

damn, i haven't actually READ these lyrics until now and now i'm tearing up. i am usually a member of the faith that believes instrumental bands should stay instrumental (and some vocal-based bands should try going instrumental), but the album leaf is one of the only exceptions to this rule. yes, his voice is mediocre. and yes, i also thought that his lyrics were mediocre and could get more across with a simple keyboard melody or guitar repetition. i specifically thought this about this song for a long time. and then for some reason, it all hit me. TAL's brilliance at sound production makes his voice into a looming omniscient voice of reason and the lyrics are so simple that you might just miss their significance if you glance over them or just let them go in and out of your ears as "another love song." but after much inspection, i have discovered an important connection between my love for music and my love for the people in my life. we listen to music that makes us comfortable (and for some that might be music that is not inherently "comfortable" to listen to for most), music that reminds us of what we love, of what's worth living for. same goes for people. we surround ourselves with people that make us comfortable (and sometimes those people aren't necessarily considered "comfortable" to everyone), and like music, if we spend enough time with these people, we will never forget them. everything will start reminding us of them. like a song like this one with a catchy hook that doesn't leave your head for hours on end. i'm glad my loved never leave my head and everything reminds me of them.

check back for the LAST five songs of the countdown very soon!!! and then finally you will indeed get what i'm sure you have ACTUALLY been waiting for -- qualler's top 10 songs of 2006.  ¶ posted by chris at 3:58 PM