The Listomania I make the lists, you shoot them down. Quid Pro Quo.

130. Bat for Lashes – Daniel

Someone needs to call Natasha Khan on her rotary phone, tell her to put down the dust buster and sports almanac, and let her know the year is 2009.  Because like M83 last year and Pains of Being Pure at Heart later this year, Bat for Lashes’ new album Two Suns is channeling the late John Hughes with studied sways and synth swashes directly opposing the movement of all other indiestalgia.  It’s supposed to be all about the early ‘70s and fake hippies, people.  Haven't you seen the fake Ugg moccasins?

Like Saturdays=Youth last year, Bat for Lashes’ 2009 album is the perfect soundtrack to every "Say Anything…" ripoff that’s been proposed in the last quarter century.  And if that movie was (please god don't let this happen) remade today, you better believe that “Daniel” would feel appropriate pumping from the held-aloft boom box whose image still adorns dorm rooms nationwide.  The song is widescreen grandeur with timpani hits and Rockwell synth arpeggios, and small screen paranoia with loping bass and a Johnny Marr guitar turned allll the way down to two.  Until this giant chorus hits, with a wall of sound swelling up like a filled water table.  The sounds bubble underneath and burst out, the wilting female back up vocals, the monotone guitar strikes, that brilliant-shitty or shitty-brilliant $50 drum pad snare.

But it’s obvious what brings out the beauty in all these specter-sounds from way, way back.  Natasha Khan is Bjork 2.0, taking unnatural melodic turns, giant risks that return greater rewards.  Upon first listen, the chorus can even be a little unsettling.  When she hits that “law-ee-aw-ost” it’s a total flip of any expected direction, but on repeat listens, there in lies the breathtaking forlorn prettiness of the whole song.  Something that sounds so organic and so completely unnatural at the same time.   The unique tonal qualities in her voice, the frailty when she jumps to an uncertain register, pushes to find a place in the dense mix of the sound, the timpani, the electronics, and Khan spends the chorus struggling to be heard above wave after wave of resistance.  When she succeeds, and pushes through the groundswell to be heard, though, her quavering voice shines as probably the most affecting vocal of 2009.