This a little different than the usual “best of the year” list of songs. These are the ten best songs that I first heard this year. Only four of them were recorded in 2010. The others came out earlier but I didn’t hear them until this year.
10. No More Tearstained Makeup by Martha & The Vandellas. I heard/saw Elvis Costello do this song on television. I had to find the original. It’s a Smokey Robinson composition on Martha & The Vandellas’ 1966 album, Watchout.
9. Hey You by Heart. From their 2010 album, Red Velvet Car, which contains some of Ann and Nancy’s best music in years.
8. Quiet Dawn by Lonnie Liston Smith from an album I found this year called Beginner’s Guide To Jazz. Of all the good tunes on the album for some reason this one stuck with me.
7. Let Yourself Go from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers on their latest album Mojo. I could have picked several songs from this 2010 album.
6. California Gurls (feat. Snoop Dogg) by Katy Perry A dopey big hit of 2010. But I have always been a sucker for a commercial hook filled pop hit. (Thus all those years in Top 40 radio weren’t as painful as you might think.) This was the lead single from Perry’s third studio album, Teenage Dream. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for six consecutive weeks to make it a pretty big summer hit.
5. Soldier of Love by Sade from her 2010 album of the same name. When Soldier of Love came out earlier in the year I spent a lot time with this unique voice.
4. Immortality (Live) by Pearl Jam. This I heard last month on Pearl Jam radio. The studio version of “Immortality,” which I had never heard before, was released June 1995 as the third single from the band’s third studio album, Vitalogy (1994). Since then the song has appeared on several live albums. I am not sure from which concert recording this version comes. I am sure there is a Neil Young influence here.
3. A Whiter Shade of Pale by Annie Lennox from 1995′s Medusa. Cher tipped me to the song. I am not kidding. I follow Cher on iTunes’ Ping and she mentioned how much she like this version.
2. Solitary Man by Johnny Cash. This version, found in the box set Unearthed (2003), I first heard in the cinema as the Michael Douglas movie of the same name started. I never paid as close attention to the words listening to the Neil Diamond original as I did listening to Cash’s very unique take. Johnny gave the song a whole new meaning.
1. Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine by Bob Dylan. Easily my most listened to song of 2010. This version is from Positively West 52nd Street (bootlegged in 1994, released October 2010) and is so different and so much better than the original on the Blonde On Blonde album. The song was recorded at Bob Dylan’s October 1994 Roseland Ballroom shows in New York City. I am probably listening to this right now.
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