Category: Best Indie Rock Songs

“Do You Want It All?” – Two Door Cinema Club from Tourist History

“Pink Graffiti” – Secret Cities from Pink Graffiti

“Slow Motion” – Panda Bear from new 7″ single

“Hospice Gates” – Lower Dens from Twin Hand Movement

“Latin America”- Holy Fu*k from Latin

“Trust” – Generationals from Trust EP

“Most Wanted” – Cults from Cults 7′

“I’m Not Gone” – Woods from Welcome Home / Diggin’ The Universe Compilation

“Summer Holiday” – Wild Nothing from Gemini

“The Pan”– Goodnight Loving from The Goodnight Loving Supper Club

“Tiny Circle” – Wolf People from Steeple

“Yes Yes Yes” – Elsinore from Yes Yes Yes

“Sigh No More” – Mumford and Sons from Sigh No More

“Breakneck Speed” – Tokyo Police Club from Champ

“Your Hands” – The New Pornographers from Together

“Far Away” – Jose Gonzalez from Red Dead Redemption

“Boyfriend” – Best Coast from Crazy For You

“Twenty Miles” – Deer Tick from The Black Dirt Sessions

“A Tunnel Into Your Dreams” – The Band in Heaven from Demos

“Fighting Smiles” – Jonquil from One Hundred Suns

“Home Together” – White Denim

“Hustle and Cuss” – The Dead Weather from Sea of Cowards (vinyl)

“Always” – In These Woods from In These Woods

“Somehow To Keep It Going” – Cotton Jones from Tall Hours in Glowstream

“Almost There” (with Lauren Hillman) – Opus Orange from Opus Orange EP

“Oh, Ivory” – Light Pollution from Apparitions

“Mirror, Mirror” – Unicycle Loves You from Mirror Mirror

“Forever Now” – Auto Body from Priest Party

“Younger Us” – Japandroids from new 7″ single

“About My Girls” – Dominant Legs from Young at Love and Life

“Change of Time” – Josh Ritter from So Runs The World Away “Plastic Slides” – Winter Gloves from All Red

“Stay Close” – Dolorean from Subiza (import)

“Slow Man” – Sage Francis from Li(f)e

“I Was Denied” – Thee Oh Sees from Warm Slime

A few days ago, we popped out the first volume in this series of the Best Indie Rock Songs of 2010, which we expect to have at least another few volumes. So, you’ll have plenty of songs from 2010 to stream and add to your own MP3 player playlists.

In the interest of time (since there’s so much 2011 music already out and in the pipeline to keep us busy bunny rabbits), we’re not writing out any reviews. The music speaks for itself. In some cases, you can click on the artist or band name to see the original article they appeared in 2010 (which often have even more songs), and in other cases, you can click the album title if you’re interested in making a quick and easy purchase of the album for which the song appears.

In fact, many of the albums presented in this series constitute Best Albums of 2010. And in case you want to get any of them at 320kbs MP3 no lock quality, the album titles are linked directly to purchase via Amazon.  In fact, many of the best albums of 2010 are on sale for only $5.00!  You can get four albums from Amazon at $5.00 for the same price of one new CD release. Five dollars for a great album is less than some fancy coffee drinks go for at Starbucks. But, the music you will have forever, and do whatever you want with it, copy it to all your MP3 devices – iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC, iHome, car stereo. Plus, if you ever lose your MP3s, you can re-download the originals. We receive a tiny commission for every album you purchase with the album links below. Enjoy.

“Black Gold” – Foals from Total Life Forever

“Glitter” – No Age from Everything in Between

“All Delighted People” – Sufjan Stevens from All Delighted People EP

“Knockout” – Air Waves from Dungeon Dots

“Revival” – Deerhunter from Halcyon Days

“Black Eyes” – Shearwater from The Golden Archipelago

“Ghost of Syllables” – Admiral Radley from I Heart California

“Out of Tune” – Real Estate from Out of Tune/Reservoir 7″

“Home” – LCD Soundsystem from This Is Happening

“Dirty Thing” – Telekinesis from Parallel Seismic Conspiracies EP

“Cruth & Cane” – Peter Crier Wolf from Inter-Be [+Digital Booklet]

“You & Me” – Elizabeth & The Catapult from The Other Side of Zero

“Undertow” – Warpaint from The Fool

“Glitter” – No Age from Everything in Between

“Something Else” – Diamond Rings from Special Affectations

“Bermuda” – Kisses from The Heart of the Nightlife

“What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had To Go This Way)” – Wolf Parade from Expo 86

Note: Many of these awesome releases are on sale via Amazon for great prices, including many for just $5; that’s better than iTunes. Just click on the album title to go right to that page in Amazon.

“Shake the Shackles” – Crystal Stilts from Shake The Shackles 7′

“The History of Plastic” – The War on Drugs from Future Weather EP

“Vendela Vida” – Dinosaur Feathers from Fantasy Memorial

“Fresh Hex (featuring Beck)” – Tobacco from Maniac Meat

“Sunglasses” – Whiplash from The Sunglasses

“ooOoooOoo” – Oberhofer from o0O0o0O0o

“Cloudy Shoes” – Damien Jurado from Saint Bartlett [+Digital Booklet]

“The Gaudy Side of Town” – GAYNS from Relayted [+Digital Booklet]

“Don’t Touch My Hat” – The Queers from Back To The Basement

“Sex With An X” – The Vaselines from Sex With An X

“The Smoke” – Home Video from The Automatic Process

“Big Escape” – Pearly Gate Music from Big Escape 7′

“Hot Math” – Andrew Bird from Useless Creatures

“Doesn’t Shake Me” – The Goodnight Loving from Goodnight Loving Supper Club

“Bright Lit Blue Skies” – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti from Before Today

“Tiny Circle” – Wolf People from Steeple

“I Will Live on Islands” – Josh Rouse from El Turista (Bonus Version)

“Four Score and Seven (Part One)” – Titus Andronicus from The Monitor

Don’t miss Vol One of the Best Indie Rock Songs of 2010

In the end, 2010 turned out to be another blockbuster year for indie rock (and its many related and sub genres) music. So much so that many people, including us, are still catching up, digesting, listening to, and analyzing 2010 releases. We don’t feel any necessity to follow the packs and get out best-of, year-end list by a certain date, but generally, we like to get the majority of it wrapped up no later than Valentines Day, or about the time that the Noise Pop Festival in San Francisco starts – in the third week of February. Therefore, as many of you have probably already noticed, there are lots of ‘best of’ and ‘top 2010’ band playlists and polls that have been running, and now it’s time to focus on songs.

So far, we’ve published the Top 50 No.1 Songs of 2010 of the songs featured on IRC throughout the year, which were tallied each week via the popular Top Ten Songs listings.

“Helicopter”– Deerhunter from Halcyon Digest

The same concept will continue in 2011, wherein we tally the songs that were listened to, and downloaded, the most the week previous, and then we list the Top Ten Songs for that week based solely on whichever songs we posted during that week – such as the Best New Releases weekly series, and other common posts to provide readers and visitors a reliable place to go every week, or a few times a week, to find, stream and download the best new indie rock music, get cool deals and interesting news, view artist and band profiles, stream special playlists and mixes full of carefully chosen tracks, and find terrific, but rare new releases that are often times no where else on the web.

“The Suburbs” – Arcade Fire from The Suburbs

We hope that you find this first volume of our top songs of 2010 enjoyable, and that perhaps you will discover some songs that you really dig but had never heard before.  As much as possible, we have avoided duplicating songs that are currently featured in the popular post, The Top 50 No. 1 Songs of 2010 playlist and poll. and hopefully, you voted for your favorite song. Because the No. 1 song of the week for the weekly Top Ten Songs list means that hundreds of other great 2010 songs were not included in that poll.

“Hannah” – Freelance Whales from Weathervanes

Stayed tuned also for our Best Albums of 2010 series. Yeah, we know, everyone else has already put out their top albums of 2010. We don’t think that means we should put out ours at the same time as everyone else. Plus, it takes time to put such lists together – especially since there were so many amazing releases in 2010, from Arcade Fire and Broken Bells to Deerhunter and Fang Island. Another reason we wait to put out a Best Albums of 2010 list until January, is that we think it’s a bit pretentious to be releasing best of lists before the end of the year.

In the meantime, enjoy the best songs of 2010.

“The High Road” – Broken Bells from Broken Bells

Over the next few weeks, we’ll analyze the number of times the songs in these playlist have been streamed, downloaded, and “favorited”. Sometime later this month, we’ll collect those statistics for our top songs of 2010, and then publish a final list that will be separate from the No. 1 Songs playlist/poll. Hopefully, we’re not confusing you.  The bottom line is that we love the fact that our regular visitors and new visitors help determine what are the most popular songs of those that we post on IRC.

It will be very interesting to see which songs all you guys like the most. We also encourage you to leave comments about; it only takes a few people to start the ball rolling on interesting comment threads about the songs in this special post. The songs are not in any particular order of importance.

Note: This songs are not in order of importance; they are random. Also, many of the albums that these songs appear on are among the Best Albums of 2010. Even better, many are on sale from Amazon for $5, just click on the album title to order.

“Round and Round” – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti from Before Today

“Photojournalist” – Small Black from New Chain

“Life Coach” – Fang Island from Fang Island

“Dynomania” – The Vermicious Knids from The Vermicioius Knids

“Automatic” – Twin Tigers from Gray Waves (special: $5)

“What You Know” – Two Door Cinema Club from  Tourist History

“Golden Haze” – Wild Nothing from Golden Haze EP

“This Is Real” – Best Coast from When I’m With You/This Is Real 7″

“Leave House” – Caribou from Swim

“Hot Sprawl” – Man/Miracle from The Shape of Things

“By and By” – Lay Low from Farewell, Good Night’s Sleep

“Communion” – Maximum Balloon from Maximum Balloon

“Huffy Ten Speed” – Body Language from Speaks

“Stranded” – The Walkmen from Lisbon

“Sunhands” – Local Natives from Gorilla Manor

“Swim Until You Can’t See Land” – Frightened Rabbit from Swim Until You Can’t See Land 7″

“Bloodbuzz Ohio” – The National from High Violet

In The Sun” – She & Him from Volume Two

“I Walked” – Sufjan Stevens from The Age of Adz

“Blood” – The Middle East from The Recordings of The Middle East (see Note 1)

“A More Perfect Union” – Titus Andronicus from The Monitor

“Stranger” – Dr. Dog from Stranger

“Rather Be Dead” – Bottle Up & Go from Bottle Up & Go EP

“Latin America” – Holy Fu*k from Latin

“Drunk Girls” – LCD Soundsystem from This Is Happening

“Passive Idol” – Twin Tigers from Gray Waves

“Everyone’s Hip” – Jaill from That’s How We Burn

In this list, the main difference between the IRC Readers’ Choice Poll for the No. 1 song (out of 50 No.1’s through the year) and our choices for Best Indie Rock Songs of 2010 is that here we are not including any of the No. 1 songs from the Top Ten Songs weekly feature. Obviously, one is the readers’ choice, and the other (this one) is our choice for top songs that didn’t place No. 1 for one reason or another. The purpose of this poll/playlist is to segregate the all of the non-No. 1 songs of 2010, and instead use the songs that appeared in the No. 2 – No. 10 positions throughout the year.

Note 1: This album was originally released in October of 2009, but didn’t really hit popularity until early 2010; therefore, we’re making an exception for an exceptional album.