Favorite songs of 2012

This past year turned out to be a watershed year for My Kind of Music—almost every few weeks, I heard something new that caught my fancy. Most of it ended up pretty high on the pop charts, which means I grew tired of it and probably won't want to listen to it again for a couple years, but when I do, it's going to be swell!

Interestingly, I didn't discover many new tunes this year from outside the Top 40, so this list probably won't be a great revelation to you. But just in case you've been living in a lead box the past year, I've provided links!

7. Blow me (one last kiss) by P!nk

Another uncharacteristic like for me, this song features very little in the electronic or weirdness departments. If I had to name the one reason why I like this song, it would be the way P!nk's voice sounds when she sings, "Just when it can't get worse..." All fall I've been challenging myself to learn the words to this song since it's so catchy!

6. We are Young by Fun.

All in all, the instrumentation and vocals in this song are snoozeworthy. So why did I like it? Mainly because the chorus has that sad/euphoric anthem sound like Pachelbel's Canon in D. I'm a sucker for sad/euphoric. What can I say?

5. Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye

Goodness knows why I ever took interest in a seemingly all-acoustic song, but I sure did, early in the year when I first heard this song. I think it's the xylophone and the exaggerated vibrato on the string parts. The words, as usual, fail to impress, but I do enjoy the way the singer says "rough."

4. Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen

Speaking of catchy, was there one person in the whole country who didn't get caught in the thrall of Call Me Maybe? The first time I heard it, I was like, "Wow, this is so fun!" The third time I heard it (in the same day), I was like "I'd better start changing the station when I hear this song, or else I'm going to start hating it." The 400th time I heard it (coming out of the throat of some guy waiting for the elevator in my building), I was like "'This is crazy' is right!!" But some day, some day, I'm confident I'll be able to enjoy this song again.

3. Midnight City by M83

Anyone who knows my taste in music only has to listen to the first second of this song to know why I like it. Unlike all the others on this list so far, Midnight City is a blessed blast of electronic weirdness. To add to its charm, the vocals are so echoed up as to be nearly incomprehensible, meaning there's no chance of the lyrics ruining the song. The saxophone part at the end, however, didn't please me as much as the saxophones in last year's Musical Revue.

2. Ellie Goulding - Lights

This is the song I was waiting for! OK, so it was actually released in 2011, but obviously it didn't hit its stride until this year, and then it was a beautiful, electronic, danceable dream to make listening to the radio worthwhile again! My favorite part is near the end when the singing stops and all you hear is "lights" over and over and overlapping.

1. Craig Connelly - Robot Wars

I did run across one song in 2012 that was actually released in 2012, and that was Robot Wars. 100% trance and 100% wonderful, the only song better than this one was a remix of it—The Andrew Rayel Stadium Remix, which takes all the good parts and adds spooky melodies in the background! This song is so bomb, I am going to actually embed the video in my post!

Honorable mentions

As always, I would like to share with you a few older songs that I just discovered this year. You will probably be unsurprised to hear that they are both solidly within the trance genre. "The Last Universe" nicely (and ominously) straddles the line between goa (which I don't usually like) and "epic" trance (which I do). "Default" is just plain euphoric.

Default [Dave 202 Remix] (Virtual Vault - 2010)
The Last Universe [End All Remix] (Holymen - 2008)

Honorable Unmentionable

As last year, The Honorable Unmentionable category contains songs that are cool...but only bits and pieces of them.

Too Close by Alex Clare. If we just played the background music of the chorus, on repeat, with no vocals, this song would be pretty rad. I believe that awesome sound that you're hearing is called "bass wobble." If it's not, it is now!