2006's Best Music: Songs
by Sean
Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more.


 

Yesterday Dan and Jordan wrote about their favourite music of 2006. Today, as I did last year, I offer you my favourite songs of 2006. The list goes to #55 and there are mp3s for the top 35. I decided no artist would appear more than once. I regret the lack of pop and hip-hop but I didn't hear very much and not many people sent it to me.

If you like a song, please support the artist - there are links for you to buy each record.

My favourite albums of the year were, in descending order: Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies, The Knife - Silent Shout, Swan Lake - Beast Moans, Grizzly Bear - Yellow House, Jason Molina - Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go, Espers - Espers II, Beirut - Gulag Orkestar, Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds, Damien Jurado - Now That I'm Your Shadow, Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury, Fionn Regan - The End of History, White Flight - s/t.

I suggest you buy them all, and let them rattle you.

THE BEST SONGS OF 2006

  1. Beirut - "Postcards from Italy" [buy]
    Beirut became a little famous this year, and more than anything it's because two songs available free on his website - this one and "Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)". "Postcards from Italy" is a song so generous with its pleasures, so easy to love: beautiful, breathless, wistful. A pop music rendered in shades of brown, black and gold (beer-brown, night-black, coin-gold), Condon's woozy, heartflushed voice set amid ukelele, piano, gyspy trumpet, and roll-thumping drums. And just when you think "Ok, got it," about two minutes in - there's a whole other song that crests above you, sweet as full longing. "And I would love to see that day / That day is mine / When she will marry me outside / With the willow trees / And play the songs that made / that made me so." (Beirut previously on StG: 1 2 guestpost)
  2. Lavender Diamond - "You Broke My Heart" [buy]
    "You Broke My Heart" was first released in 2005 and will be reissued on Matador & Rough Trade in 2007. But it is one of my songs of 2006. Nothing else in these eleven and a half months has so captured the way heartbreak can be answered with resolve, two songs sung in one voice. It's a victory march, with tears streaming. It's a parade down the Champs-Elysees with people cheering from their windows, tickertapes fanning & falling, clouds white as the pages of new books. Becky Stark sings the same line over and over, high as high, transforming heartbreak into triumph. And the drums and bells and piano say the same thing: Yes, yes, yes, oh yes, yes, to it all I'll say yes.
  3. Munk & James Murphy - "Kick Out the Chairs (Who Made Who replay)"
    This didn't come out in 2006 either. I guess my list is a bit of a sham. But whenever it did come out, people did not speak of it. And so now here were are with the NUMBA THREE of TWO THOUSAND SIX, and thank god it's finally a song that is fun. LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy shouts himself hoarse singing a nonsense about "kick[ing] out the chizzairs, muthaf***ers!". Who Made Who turns the tiresome original into a thing of loud funky brilliance, a pleasure that's ripe as new peaches-persimmons-pineapples. As limes. You can hear the smile on Nancy Wang's lips as she sings along. You can hear the joy in the cowbell. There's nothing spooky-nasty-dark: it's all free glad glorious awesome life. (Previously on Stg)
  4. Yo La Tengo - "Black Flowers" [buy]
    As I said in September, James McNew's got a tawny melody, light as sparrow, but he puts it in a room with sounds of deep blues, reds, blacks. Piano, french horn, violin, and these brilliant clipped synth-strings, like sprouts. The song's sumptuous, a ballad worthy of the radio - it has all the gentle prettiness that attracts people to Sufjan Stevens, the cresting feeling that draws listeners, even, to Snow Patrol or Coldplay (listen to the Chris Martin-like "Oh-oh" at 3:09). ... It's plain and unconflicted songcraft: it rubs my heart til it glows. No fucking around: just glassy, sweet song; dark petals blooming.
  5. Grizzly Bear - "Knife" [buy]
    The prettiest song about backstabbing that you'll ever hear. The content of the message becomes detached from its delivery: "Do you think it's all right?" they sing in a chorus of chemical doo-wop, "Do you think it's all right? Can't you feel the knife?" Simultaneously intimate and public, bitter and celebratory, like a hate-letter written in curlicued clouds across the whole Brooklyn sky. (Grizzly Bear previously on StG: 1 2 3 guestpost)
  6. Ola Podrida - "Pour Me Another (demo)" [MySpace]
    Ola Podrida's debut album will be released in 2007 on Plug Research. This is a demo version of "Pour Me Another". It's a love song as true as any you'll hear this year. You can hear him trying to get this down, fingers on piano-keys. Trying to tell someone exactly what he feels about her. It's clumsy, careful. It's graceful, brave. All I can hope is that you have someone to give it to. (Ola Podrida previously on StG: 1 2)
  7. The Knife - "We Share Our Mother's Health (Trentemoller remix)" [buy]
    The original of this Knife song is very, very good, but divorced from the rest of the album I prefer Trentemoller's version, that wintry electro distended into cold ice. It comes at you from all directions, heaves of melody coming shattering up from under your feet. (The Knife previously on StG: 1 2)
  8. Chris Garneau - "Not Nice" [pre-order]
    Previously on StG: This is the inverse of Antony (& the Johnsons). It's as if Garneau's been gathering songs like this, stillness and piano and cello, and he's been collecting all the gaps in these other peoples' tracks. And then with care, yes with pain, he makes his own song - a song made just of the gaps. Of the pauses that make something flicker instead of shine.
  9. Ghostface Killa ft. Cappadonna, Shawn Wigs & Trife - "Jellyfish" [buy]
    It's a tribute to the perfect woman, body and mind: "I'm not cheatin' on her or beatin' on her / I spend the weekend on her." The organ sample's feels like nothing but a golden age - some downtown utopia with a Helen on your arm.
  10. Herman Dune - "I Wish That I Could See You Soon" [buy]
    The song with the best music video of the year. Prevously on Said the Gramophone: Herman Dune's new album is made with major label lucre: horn section, expensive studio, backup singers. But it's also made with familiar stuff: tambourine jangle, sneaker squeak, rhymes like high-fives. "I Wish That I Could See You Soon" hides nothing. It's about wishing that I could see you soon. It's about seeing a photograph and hearing trumpets; it's about talking to yourself; it's about wanting, wanting, wanting; about there being no way to say and nothing you can do. Part of me wants to re-record it at half-speed, just murmur and lazy-strummed mandolin, singing all the sadness that the song submerges. Herman Dune don't wallow even for a second: they consider the worst-case, they sing it, but then they move on to the more important stuff. To wishing. And wishing is fast enough to dance to.
  11. Destroyer - "Rubies" [buy ($8.99)]
    A sprawling, baffling song, all knees and elbows and spurts of juicy-red guitar. Previously: With Destroyer, every line is an aside; no line is an aside; we listen from all sides, and he knows it ... a drumkit that keeps throwing itself across the studio floor ... Bejar's wistful and moony; he's a dandy; he's exact ("typical / rural / shit"), and abrupt ("I won't repeat them here"). He's a Bowie-like frontman and later just a man with ... a plaintive reaching theme.
  12. Justin Timberlake ft. T. I. - "My Love" [buy]
    Bar none the best song about Cameron Diaz that I've ever heard. Timbaland's made a love-song with hydra-headed personality: the club-banging synth blitz, the blushing falsetto, the easygoing beatbox, the goofy gremlin laugh that fastens everything to earth. And Justin & T.I. fill it with something that's at once sincere and exquisitely Prince-catchy.
  13. Sunparlour Players - "Talk It To Death (live)" [buy]
    Two Toronto Mennonites play a song on glockenspiel, guitar, bass drum and throat. As Dan pointed out, Andrew Penner sounds a great deal like the Arcade Fire's Win Butler used to - it's a voice with a woodgrain of ache, desires sent wheeling up in a series of whoops.
  14. Peter Bjorn & John with Victoria Bergsman - "Young Folks" [buy]
    A model duet, times three: 1) the perfect matching of clear drums and loping bassline; 2) Bjorn's tentative voice and The Concretes' Victoria Bergsman out-wearying even Camera Obscura's Traceyanne Campbell; 3) bongos (my most hated amateur instrument) and whistling (my most beloved amateur instrument). (Previously on StG)
  15. Sunset Rubdown - "Us Ones in Between" [buy]
    I woke up to this song when Dan Beirne, of this blog, made a music video, of sorts, for it. (The video is archived here.) Before then I had enjoyed it but it was like being in a dark room and not knowing that in the corner behind you was a flame. It's sad and beautiful, shrill and soothing, a song perfectly about precipice. And if you listen to the words (which I eventually did), you'll find that Spencer Krug has quietly become one of the best lyricists in all of indie rock.
  16. Christine Fellows - "Vertebrae" [buy]
    She has me at "tigerlilies". Listen and you'll hear what I mean. Fellows lives in Winnipeg. She has toured with The Mountain Goats and The Weakerthans. She plays her organ and sings in her strange, flowering voice - a bit Joanna Newsom, aye, and a bit Regina Spektor. But more solitary, more (yes) kind. And it's a song that is so sad, so moving and sad, speaking with small sweet grace to those hollowed weeks after a loved one's death.

    Kevin sent this to me and in so doing is the first winner of our Best of 2006 contest.

  17. Swan Lake - "The Freedom" [buy]
    Swan Lake's Beast Moans is free - not like beer, like jazz. Every few bars, someone opens a cage and lets something loose. I don't think they even know what they're letting go. And the magic here is that amid all these weird-wood sounds, these industrial groans, are hooks and melody and catchphrases easy-on-the-ears. A pop song yoked to the cyclops, with Dan Bejar singing its tale. (Previously on StG.)
  18. Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy" [buy]
    Only one je ne sais quoi away from being a stone-cold classic - like Marvin Gaye or Al Green classic, seriously. The bassline is tailor-made for college acapella groups, and Ceelo's vocals seem so slim-nimble that they'd be tailor-made for a tailor-made suit. Something in pinstripes, with seams about to split.
  19. Casey Dienel - "The La La Song" [buy]
    Previously on StG: Casey sings her song and then figures out how to sing it better. She plays the piano, singing, singing, words about peaches and clementines and regret. She sings all these words - and then she realises that the tangled-up things she's trying to say - well that bundle of moments isn't gonna come across in rhyming verses. There's a better way: just some "la's", high and reaching, and then a final one, low and sure.
  20. Bob Dylan - "Spirit on the Water" [buy]
    Previously on StG: All kinds of lavender as his band plays the most beautiful melody of any Dylan song I can remember: peace and quiet, chance and possibility, bliss and ease, all of it right there in the blush of steel strings.
  21. Cat Power - "The Greatest" [buy ($8.00)]
    A dusty (springfield) kinda number, Chan Marshall stretched slow and wanting over a perfect field of drums - hit like so, brush like thus, chime and toe-stepping step. Summer hot, country fair, and ended (thank goodness) before it gets too sweet. (Previously on StG)
  22. The Pendulums - "Brand New Song" [buy]
    Psychfolk from Glasgow that captures the whimsy of 70s bands like Gong and The Incredible String Band - daft, zinging, and a splendidly great song. Trombone, violin and Commodore 64s oh my! (Previously on StG)
  23. Regina Spektor - "Fidelity" [buy]
    All of Spektor's work relies on her delivery - a thing more often magic in person than on record. But "Fidelity" flourishes in these glossy surroundings, the stuttering strings hanging back just enough for Regina to dare dash forward.
  24. Sleeping States - "Rivers" [buy]
    Previously on StG: The river Sleeping States summon is so gentle, so Saturday, that the whole world can go fuzzy. A handful of grass in the bottom of your boat - squint and it's Pavement, it's Grizzly Bear, ... electric guitar, bass, and drums.
  25. Hookers Green No. 1 - "Bloody Great Big Fucking Party" [info]
    Previously on StG: Electric guitars swagger and droop, a synth-line wiggles, voices woo-woo from the back. ... It's a crowd of rowdy Scots whose chants will rouse the housewives, whose coo will call the fishes, whose hot-cold sass will fry your egg, flip it into a roll, set it warm in your hands.
  26. Espers - "Dead Queen" [buy]
    Electric guitar that smells of ozone, blended voices that smell of foreign, Northern winds. Espers' folk-music is eerie, lovely, rife. (Previously on StG)
  27. Antarctica Takes It! - "I'm No Lover" [buy/MySpace]
    Previously on StG: Listen to the exclamation of this song! The band earns the '!'. Listen to the cannonade of percussion, the charge of clap-clap, the hoarsening voices and the go-insane of the piano... the closing horn fanfare like a cavalry of rainbows that the general's added "just because we can! On, men! On on on!" They're from Santa Cruz (!?).
  28. Rah Rah - "Winter Sun" [MySpace]
    Saskatchewan's got something going on. First Matthew Feyld and now Rah Rah, from Regina, with a song that heats my bones. Despite the heat of their voices (boy-girl, with the latter recalling Cat Power and Newsom-squawk both,) "Winter Sun" is as blizzarded as the title suggests. The lyrics are double-edged: whether whispers meant for bed or fog, for the lost or the found.

    JW suggested this song and in so doing was the second (and final) winner of our Best of 2006 contest.

  29. Lily Allen - "LDN" [buy]
    Cynical and fancy-free; yes, both. Ingredients: sun, lilt, dash of cane sugar.
  30. Joanna Newsom - "Emily" [buy]
    It's not a compact song, nor one that offers itself up at first glance. It's hard to twist your life through it: the laces are tied. But for me it's a string of moments: splendours that show themselves like cloud emerging hush from behind the sun. (Previously on StG: 1 2)
  31. Fionn Regan - "Put a Penny in the Slot" [buy]
    An Irishman with an acoustic guitar - but he's no sad-sack. He plays as he plays, trying phrases, trying moods, setting it in the same circling strains of guitar. And in the bridge at 2:05, everything goes goooolden. (Previously on StG)
  32. Bishop Allen - "Flight 180" [buy]
    Bishop Allen have released ten EPs in 2006 so far, with many good songs therein contained. And this is my favourite. It's more Arcade Fire than indie-pop, something dark and full of promises. Justin Rice sounds ragged and a little scared. The violins sound strained. And when the drums come, they clear it all away.
  33. Horse Feathers - "Finch on Saturday" [MySpace]
    I want a fiddle for my best friend. (Previously on StG)
  34. Dorian Hatchet - "Fast Runner" [MySpace]
    A girl with a folded voice sings of killing her brother, over and over, while piano scampers, leaps, runs. As much fun as slipping on a patch of ice and for a moment flying. (Previously on StG)
  35. Rappers' Delight Club - "Hum" [MySpace]
    Previously on StG: In short, this is four minutes of the looped Elmo themesong, but with kids laying it down. They rap like monsters, like beasts, like cheese-shop clerks. Like kids, really - and beyond the ceaseless sparkle of the song, there's the plain flact of their flow.

For the curious, my favourite songs #35-55 are after the jump.

36. Flaming Lips - "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song"
37. Belle & Sebastian - "Funny Little Frog"
38. Cathy Davey - "Sing for your Supper"
39. Christina Aguilera - "Ain't No Other Man"
40. Two Gallants - "Waves of Grain"
41. Clipse - "Ride Around Shining"
42. Islands - "Rough Gem"
43. Greg Peterson ft. Fiona Kelly - "How I Got To Memphis"
44. Frida Hyvonen - "The Modern"
45. Jason Molina - "Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go"
46. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - "Cold & Wet"
47. Los Campesinos! - "You! Me! Dancing!" [mp3]
48. The Weepies - "Gotta Have You"
49. Junior Boys - "Like a Child"
50. Brightblack Morning Light - "Everybody Daylight"
51. Angela Desveaux - "Wandering Eyes"
52. Parenthetical Girls - "The Weight She Fell Under"
53. Viking Moses - "I Will Always Love You"
54. Psapp - "New Rubbers"
55. Fiery Furnaces - "Teach Me Sweetheart"

BONUS: Download the Top 35 in an easy pair of zip files: part 1 / part 2
UPDATE: ^ These zip files appear to be missing the songs by Cat Power and Beirut. I'll fix this ASAP.

Posted by Sean at December 12, 2006 4:00 AM
Comments

It's a shame Islands didn't make it into the top 35. Oh well.

I can't count how many times I've listened to that Chris Garneau song. Well, I can because iTunes has a playcount, and it's a very large number indeed.

Merry Christmas chaps.

Posted by Billy Steiger at December 12, 2006 8:34 AM

That Pendulum song is a great Christmas song really. It's all about the presents isn't it! Great selection Sean... can you really grade songs up to 55?

Posted by Matthew in London at December 12, 2006 9:18 AM

Excellent call on "Jellyfish", that was an overlooked jem.

Posted by Dusty at December 12, 2006 1:16 PM

great post! xox!

Posted by anne at December 12, 2006 1:56 PM

I'm sad the Junior Boys and Bonnie Prince didn't make it, but thanks, immensely.

Posted by Matt at December 12, 2006 3:52 PM

Sean, Dan, Jordan -

Just wanted to say thanks for an exceptional year on StG. You guys just keep getting better and better. Reading your lists makes me realize (yet again) how much wonderful music I have heard specifically because of this website. It is *very* much appreciated.

Karin

Posted by Karin S. at December 12, 2006 4:14 PM

Christina Aguilera is a hooker.
Im surprised she made your list.

Posted by Wh-What at December 12, 2006 4:31 PM

She didn't just make his list, she made his day

Posted by H at December 12, 2006 6:36 PM

what can i say? you're awesome. (well i guess i just said it.)

Posted by Cassie M. at December 12, 2006 7:22 PM

A little bummed that my songs didn't make the list (I thought they were amazing), but everything here is lovely as well. Thanks for a great year, guys, and for all the new songs which without StG I never would have heard -- for what's life without music?

Posted by Angela at December 12, 2006 7:25 PM

I'm a little bummed the Sean Michaels remix didn't get a mention. But the rest of this is cracking, and I'm impressed with the post. rawk. \m/

Posted by Tuwa at December 12, 2006 10:11 PM

A very good, diverse list and, as always, wonderful writing. I'm glad the Hookers Green song made it to the finals. (I actually have a story to tell about that song.)

Posted by Amy at December 12, 2006 10:15 PM

Can only repeat what Karin S. was saying, what wonderful pieces of music you bring to all our attention every weekday is just an amazing, amazing thing.

A question: I could't find this song anywhere. Not on the hype machine, not on google:
Greg Peterson ft. Fiona Kelly - "How I Got To Memphis"
quite mysterious.
That's the only song of the 55 mentioned I'm missing, and I'm very much interested in it.

Posted by Thomas at December 13, 2006 5:11 AM

Matt - Junior Boys are at #49, and "Cold and Wet" is JUuUUuuust off the top 50, and was almost there in a couple of drafts. But no, neither of their albums are among my top 10.

Amy - Let's hear it! (On SYF or here!)

Karin, Angela et al - Thank you.

Thomas - It was a song sent in as part of our contest, and I intend to write it up for StG some time soonish.

Posted by Sean at December 13, 2006 5:36 AM

Spencer Krug has quietly become one of the best lyricists in all of indie rock., totally and utterly agree. wonderful list sean, i love your writing, you often express on paper what i am thinking.

Posted by wayne at December 13, 2006 5:52 AM

Love, love, love this blog.

Posted by Jenna at December 13, 2006 1:46 PM

Thanks for the awesome list. Wonderful work, as usual.

Just downloaded the 2 zip files -- Beirut and Munk appear to be missing. Is it just me?

Posted by kathryn at December 13, 2006 3:14 PM

Gah, downloaded the Beirut track from Gramosongs.com and it's cut off (only at 2:17). Found the Munk song but now can't find the Cat Power.

Posted by kathryn at December 13, 2006 3:19 PM

Thanks for all this. All of Casey Dienel's stuff is awesome but I think 'Better in Manhattan' was one of my favorite tracks of the year. I walk around Wall Street with it on my walkman and cry! Your readers can find it here
http://www.daytrotter.com/article/103/casey-dienel-featured-artist-june-19

Posted by fairest at December 13, 2006 8:28 PM

Excellent list and writing(especially wrt. to Yo La Tengo), couldn't agree more. Even the honorable mentions were spot on, though I would've gone with "In the Morning" by Junior Boys.

Posted by stopokaygo at December 13, 2006 11:22 PM

"My Love" was great for all of five minutes - then every popular radio station decided to play it at once, and now they play it after every other song. Just the fact that it's so overplayed turned me off of the song. >_"My Love" was great for all of five minutes - then every popular radio station decided to play it at once, and now they play it after every other song. Just the fact that it's so overplayed turned me off of the song. >_

Posted by Joanne at December 14, 2006 12:00 AM

In my top tracks of 2006 (being tracks that I first heard in 2006) I have

Casey Dienel - Tundra
Herman Dune - I wish that I could see you soon
Antartica Takes It! - Circuits
Regina Spektor - Us

Also, can you repost Hello Saferide's cover of Teen Line by Shivvers please?

Posted by stubbleupdate at December 14, 2006 4:16 PM

Beirut's album was pretty good, but I preffered A Hawk and A Hacksaw's. It really went to the roots of Roman folk music and is totally authentic sounding for it too

Posted by Michael at December 14, 2006 4:59 PM

wonderful. thanks for supplying my listening for the next week!

Posted by eric at December 14, 2006 5:29 PM

The best list of 2006 songs I've read (believe me by now I've read too many of them and this stands out although I would have liked to see Midnight Juggernauts in here).

Just tempted to inquire: how many cameron diaz songs have you heard?

Posted by moka at December 15, 2006 2:18 AM

Awesome; it looks like I should be coming back to this blog more often.
My own top of the year list has some similar stuff, plus more pop / hip hop you might be interested in.
http://fearlessweaver.livejournal.com/76386.html

Posted by Eric at December 15, 2006 4:27 PM

I am so glad "Brand New Song" made it on your list. It's probably one of my favorite songs ever.

Posted by Yatenkaiouh at December 16, 2006 10:37 PM

Just wanted to thank y'all. A few months ago, I moved from LA to Aberdeen, in Scotland. It's really cold, and it gets dark at three in the afternoon. I'm working hard, which keeps a certain North Sea sorrow at bay, but on Sundays it seeps through as I walk around town - the icy streets, the granite buildings. These 35 songs are just wonderful. Listening to them I look up from the street this afternoon to see how bright the airplane contrails are in the light of the setting sun - and of course, I fall down, because the streets are icy, but it's worth it. Love and frosty thanks to you.

Posted by finn at December 17, 2006 2:11 PM

Thank you for all of the music again this year. I wish you all merry holidays and the best in the year ahead. I've been keeping up with you guys for long enough now that I have several of the same songs on my list of favorites. Your influence is powerful! (Or we just have similar taste in music?) We out here appreciate you!

Posted by lisa b at December 17, 2006 11:23 PM

The lack of a Girls Aloud song in your 'list'
calls into serious question both your ethics
and your taste.

The inclusion of Joanna Newsome does the same.


Is there no independent, critical thinking
to be found anywhere?

Posted by rrobertsjnr at December 18, 2006 9:55 PM

when will the zip files work???

Posted by Sofie at December 20, 2006 10:38 AM

Thanks to all for the kind words. Happy Holidays!

Posted by Sean at December 20, 2006 10:44 AM

where are chris brown, ne-yo and nick lachey? they are good too. for me, chris brown's Run It is my number 1 song of the year

Posted by keefe. at December 25, 2006 12:31 AM

Not gonna lie to you... Most of the songs weren't to my taste, but the Chris Garneau track was wicked... and ANYONE that has The Weepies on their list is A-OK in my books.

Posted by Catherine at January 2, 2007 12:37 AM

rrobertsjnr, great point - make some decisions that you disagree with. Independence!

Posted by Mark at January 4, 2007 10:44 PM

It's a shame John Mayer didn't make it to your list. He has anew CD out "Continuum", you should litsen to "Vulture".. that should have made it to your list.

Posted by Natalie at January 13, 2007 1:42 PM

haha, these comments are very amusing

Posted by jennifer at February 13, 2007 2:20 PM

I like this list very much indeed. :).

Posted by Katelyn at July 29, 2007 7:36 PM

this list MADE my winter at the beginning of this year.
i mean, whenever i hear any of these songs now i immediately think back to winter break memories and walking around campus in boots and gloves.
but i never wrote about how appreciative i was. also, i cannot wait for this year's list.
thank you thank you thank you
this list MADE my winter at the beginning of this year.
i mean, whenever i hear any of these songs now i immediately think back to winter break memories and walking around campus in boots and gloves.
but i never wrote about how appreciative i was. also, i cannot wait for this year's list.
thank you thank you thank you

Posted by vlada at November 23, 2007 2:53 AM

Post a comment







(Please be patient, it can be slow.)
about said the gramophone
This is a daily sampler of really good songs. All tracks are posted out of love. Please go out and buy the records.

To hear a song in your browser, click the and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'

All songs are removed within a few weeks of posting.

Said the Gramophone launched in March 2003, and added songs in November of that year. It was one of the world's first mp3blogs.

If you would like to say hello, find out our mailing addresses or invite us to shows, please get in touch:
Montreal, Canada: Sean
Toronto, Canada: Emma
Montreal, Canada: Jeff
Montreal, Canada: Mitz

Please don't send us emails with tons of huge attachments; if emailing a bunch of mp3s etc, send us a link to download them. We are not interested in streaming widgets like soundcloud: Said the Gramophone posts are always accompanied by MP3s.

If you are the copyright holder of any song posted here, please contact us if you would like the song taken down early. Please do not direct link to any of these tracks. Please love and wonder.

"And I shall watch the ferry-boats / and they'll get high on a bluer ocean / against tomorrow's sky / and I will never grow so old again."
about the authors
Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.

Emma Healey writes poems and essays in Toronto. She joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. This is her website and email her here.

Jeff Miller is a Montreal-based writer and zinemaker. He is the author of Ghost Pine: All Stories True and a bunch of other stories. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Say hello on Twitter or email.

Mitz Takahashi is originally from Osaka, Japan who now lives and works as a furniture designer/maker in Montreal. English is not his first language so please forgive his glamour grammar mistakes. He is trying. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Reach him by email here.

Site design and header typography by Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet. The header graphic is randomized: this one is by Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet.
PAST AUTHORS
Dan Beirne wrote regularly for Said the Gramophone from August 2004 to December 2014. He is an actor and writer living in Toronto. Any claim he makes about his life on here is probably untrue. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.

Jordan Himelfarb wrote for Said the Gramophone from November 2004 to March 2012. He lives in Toronto. He is an opinion editor at the Toronto Star. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
our patrons
Said the Gramophone does not take advertising. We are supported by the incredible generosity of our readers. These were our donors in 2013.
watch StG's wonderful video contest winners
search


Archives
elsewhere
our favourite blogs
(◊ means they write about music)

Back to the World
La Blogothèque
Weird Canada
Destination: Out
Endless Banquet
A Grammar (Nitsuh Abebe)
Ill Doctrine
A London Salmagundi
Dau.pe
Words and Music
Petites planétes
Gorilla vs Bear
Herohill
Silent Shout
Clouds of Evil
The Dolby Apposition
Awesome Tapes from Africa
Molars
Daytrotter
Matana Roberts
Pitchfork Reviews Reviews
i like you [podcast]
Musicophilia
Anagramatron
Nicola Meighan
Fluxblog
radiolab [podcast]
CKUT Music
plethoric pundrigrions
Wattled Smoky Honeyeater
The Clear-Minded Creative
Torture Garden
LPWTF?
Passion of the Weiss
Juan and Only
Horses Think
White Hotel
Then Play Long (Marcello Carlin)
Uno Moralez
Coming Up For Air (Matt Forsythe)
ftrain
my love for you is a stampede of horses
It's Nice That
Marathonpacks
Song, by Toad
In Focus
AMASS BLOG
Inventory
Waxy
WTF [podcast]
Masalacism
The Rest is Noise (Alex Ross)
Goldkicks
My Daguerreotype Boyfriend
The Hood Internet

things we like in Montreal
eat:
st-viateur bagel
café olimpico
Euro-Deli Batory
le pick up
lawrence
kem coba
le couteau
au pied de cochon
mamie clafoutis
tourtière australienne
chez boris
ripples
alati caserta
vices & versa
+ paltoquet, cocoa locale, idée fixe, patati patata, the sparrow, pho tay ho, qin hua dumplings, caffé italia, hung phat banh mi, caffé san simeon, meu-meu, pho lien, romodos, patisserie guillaume, patisserie rhubarbe, kazu, lallouz, maison du nord, cuisine szechuan &c

shop:
phonopolis
drawn + quarterly
+ bottines &c

shows:
casa + sala + the hotel
blue skies turn black
montreal improv theatre
passovah productions
le cagibi
cinema du parc
pop pmontreal
yoga teacher Thea Metcalfe


(maga)zines
Cult Montreal
The Believer
The Morning News
McSweeney's
State
The Skinny

community
ILX