A Brand New Indie/Alternative Playlist

New Indie/Punk/Alternative/Rock Songs

This year saw the usual deluge of offerings in the indie/alternative rock category. Song after blessed indie song washed over the collective consciousness all year long, ebbing and flowing from the ever-nebulous mother lode of scenester genres.

Although my ears spent most of the year outside the indie/alternative musical categories, I did come across a few indie rock songs that stood out from the masses. Like particularly bright seashells on a crowded beach, these little "alternative punk" gems really caught the light.

And just as the terms indie, alternative, rock, and punk are not-so-slowly drained of any real musical or cultural meaning, so the diaphanous divisions that segregate the subcategories of pop music dissolve. In the end, these indie/alternative/punk/rock songs can (and probably should) be stripped of provenance and scene and simply enjoyed for the pleasant pop song stylings they bring.

Here are eleven new songs that were categorized as alternative punk or indie rock, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend to the mixtape compilers among you. Being a straight rock aficionado, I've kept the melodies hook-filled, the tempos upbeat, and the themes relatively sunny. You'll have to get your fix of ambient moping somewhere else.

1. "Nothing Ever Happened"

Microcastle, Deerhunter

With its telltale atmospheric, reverberiffic guitars and ethereal, mumbling vocals, Deerhunter's Microcastle falls so firmly in the shoegazing category that I nearly passed it up altogether. Shoegazing may be a fine genre, but it lives outside the hooky, riffy, raucous rock & roll I call home. Still, the track "Nothing Ever Happened" represents the catchier side of the scene as guitars double the buried vocals. A luminous, extended middle eight hits the ear just right and leads into a sweetly buzzing guitar solo and long but varied instrumental section.

2. "Say Aha"

Santogold, Santogold