Top Songs of 2009: #1 Phoenix -- Lisztomania 

This could have been any of about 10 songs off of Phoenix's album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Phoenix just basically craft these intricate pop/rock songs, where not a note is out of place. Sure, the lyrics make only very abstract sense, but partially that's a French band writing American pop music.

I had only vaguely listened to Phoenix (their last album) before I saw on them on SNL. Watching them perform and hearing this layered pop song come together -- the first repeated note, the drums, the melody, then the lyrics. If it never built from there, it'd still probably have made my top ten (as I'm a sucker for power pop).

But nope, then it hits the bridge, gets very quiet with the piano, and it's just like a time bomb ... there's the bass and boom, everyone hits at once, all on beat, and we're off.

Like a riot, like a riot, oh, indeed.

(It's not "like a rhino", as I'd initially thought.)

(Also, if you don't like this song, you have no soul.)