The Syndicate

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Here's my list. It took quite a bit of time to construct. I wonder how much crossover there is between mine and others.

A quick glance, and I see that Jay also had Tool's "Lateralus" and Ricochet also had TMV's "Drunkship of Lanterns". Cool!

Spoiler: show

1989: Rush - Available Light
1990: Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover
1991: Rusted Root - Send Me on My Way
1992: Dream Theater - Metropolis, Part I: The Miracle and the Sleeper
1993: The Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock
1994: The Stone Roses - Love Spreads
1995: Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons
1996: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - The Dead Flag Blues
1997: Dream Theater - Lines in the Sand
1998: Goo Goo Dolls - Black Balloon
1999: Porcupine Tree - Don't Hate Me
2000: Iron Maiden - The Nomad
2001: Tool - Lateralus
2002: Dream Theater - Blind Faith
2003: The Mars Volta - Drunkship of Lanterns
2004: Hiromi - Kung-Fu World Champion
2005: Coheed & Cambria - The Willing Well II: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness
2006: Sienna Root - Reverberations
2007: Phideaux - Formaldehyde
2008: Beardfish - Sleeping in Traffic
2009: Big Big Train - The Underfall Yard
2010: Haken - Celestial Elixir
2011: Haken - Visions
2012: Rush - The Garden
2013: Moon Safari - Mega Moon
2014: IQ - Without Walls
2015: Steven Wilson - Routine
2016: Haken - The Architect

eww porg

Welp, here goes. I almost quit halfway through the 90s, because I'm so out of the loop and I mostly only have instrumental albums in my discography. Some of those years were purely saved by a really obvious choice/winner.

1994, 2002, 2007 were years with a lot of strong contenders, but ironically there was also no contest whatsoever regarding what my top pick would be. 2009 was when all hell broke loose and I let indie rock finally flow into my bloodstream, I had like five songs a click away from typing them in.

Emphasis in this list is on favourites (so it's got nothing to do with whether it's also the best song of the year or not) and song (i.e. has to have singing).

1989 - Marillion, "Easter"
1990 - Alexandru Andrieș - "Blues de sezon"
1991 - R.E.M. - "Losing My Religion" [this pick would match up with my actual lifespan music listening, so sue me, ATCQ and Loveless fans, this has value for me]
1992 - Bobby McFerrin & Chick Corea - "Autumn Leaves"
1993 - Slowdive - "Souvlaki Space Station"
1994 - Pink Floyd - "High Hopes"
1995 - Laurie Anderson - "The End of the World" [hard year to pick smth, tbh]
1996 - ~~~
1997 - Radiohead - "The Tourist"
1998 - Massive Attack - "Teardrop"
1999 - ~~~
2000 - Current 93 - "Sleep Has His House" [it breaks into singing at the end, so I get to cheat :o]
2001 - Nick Cave - "As I Sat Sadly By Her Side"
2002 - Sigur Ros - "Popplagið"
2003 - The Mars Volta - "Drunkship of Lanterns"
2004 - Magma - "K.A. II"
2005 - Sufjan Stevens - "Chicago"
2006 - Deerhunter - "Flourescent Grey"
2007 - Panda Bear - "Bros"
2008 - Portishead - "Threads"
2009 - Animal Collective - "What Would I Want? Sky"
2010 - The National - "Afraid of Everyone"
2011 - Veronica Falls - "Bad Feeling"
2012 - Scott Walker - "Epizootics!"
2013 - Vampire Weekend - "The Unbelievers"
2014 - [egad, I don't have a strong contender here! errr The Swans - "Oxygen", I guess]
2015 - Julia Holter - "Silhouette"
2016 - [so far, Ulver's "Nowhere (Sweet Sixteen)"; I'd normally not count rewritten songs, but I find myself not liking the original version, on Perdition City, in any particular way, while this sounds breathtaking; besides, so far, other contenders would be Ty Segall and Esperanza Spalding, so I'd rather not go there]

Metalmarsh89 wrote:This is going to take forever. I've got each of 1989 - 2002 narrowed down to about 10 songs or so for each year, and I don't think I could narrow them down further without listening to them all.

I'm not complaining by the way.

Well, it's post-1989, so it's probably all awful anyway.

I still haven't gotten to this one bit. I blame it on the Lagavulin.

Yeah, I slept instead of doing the list. Maybe tonight, then.

Arrrgh RIP my evening tonight.

This actually makes me want to pedantically split the concept into two. What you're proposing would be the sort of Favourite Single or Song from each year during my lifetime. But that would not really reflect my actual lifespan of music listening. I mean, I was broomguitaring to Metallica on MTV when I was 2. Then I was listening to Chopin played by Rubinstein, Mussorgsky and Vivaldi on vinyls and Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds on tape. Only around 11 or 12 did I slowly start discovering artists and genres. I probably didn't pay attention to each year's batch of new music (except if prog) until 2008 or so.

Anyway, I'll probably see about that Yearly Fave Song list, later. I won't help much that I was born in 1929, though.