1. Grizzly Bear "Two Weeks"

Would you always / maybe sometimes

I've been obsessed with my fair share of songs this year. I pressed repeat on songs by artists ranging from Lady Gaga to Animal Collective to Neko Case to Drake to Girls, etc. etc. 2009 was the year where I felt I gave the album a short shrift - I hardly listened to any albums this year. When I say listen, I mean live inside them, know them inside and out, know the album tracks as much as I do the singles. 2009 will be the year of the single or the track for me and no song dominated my year more than Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks."

It's safe to say that I had a bit of a love affair with "Two Weeks." I played it near constantly, my mood brightened each time I heard it, it made it's way onto nearly every mix I made this year, in short: it was my jam. I loved the simple, plinking piano chords, the slumping guitars, the lurching drums, but most of all I loved the way the voices of Ed Droste and his cohorts wove together creating beautiful, blissful harmonies that made my heart swell. Each time I listened to "Two Weeks" I felt enveloped by the dreamy, angelic melodies - like being swathed in soft fabric. If it all sounds a bit cheesy or overblown, then it is. "Two Weeks" puts me in a mood that I can barely describe - it's not just happy, not just comforted, not just anything. Each time I try to put my finger on it, it slips away just as their voices do. But it's precisely that indescribable feeling that made me put "Two Weeks" as my favorite song of 2009. The slippery nature of the song, the way I can never place what it does to me but I know it's good - though to a lesser scale, it's the same things I feel when I like someone: transported, ebullient, and utterly transfixed.