Top 10 of 2012: #2 A.C. Newman - I'm Not Talking 

A.C. Newman - "I'm Not Talking"

Shut Down The Streets is an album that takes a while to grow on you. The big A.C. Newman/New Pornographers song is "Encyclopedia of Classic Takedowns". The rest of the album is, I'd say, more mellow than his previous albums. It's '70s AM radio stuff, done modern. And it's really, really great.

The whole album is about birth and death and loss and all of those experiences you have as you start to get older. "I'm Not Taking" is just a quiet song, long by Newman's standards (coming in at a robust four and a half minutes), but exquisitely crafted. I'm guessing there's 7 or 8 different instruments, just on this song, some only used to punctuate a few measures, like the sharp tambourine that is very much in the front of the mix.

It's already a pretty, melancholy song when the song hits its third minute and we get the call and response

No, I've never been close, I've never been close … but I've never been far away

You'll be hooked. I was. There's probably no better pop craftsman than A.C. Newman (between his solo albums and the New Pornographers), and this him at the top of his game.