ALRIGHTY, so welcome to my Decade of Music Project Summary Day Five. This’ll be the last one, I swear. It will also be the most important one, as today we’re going to talk about my favorite songs of the whole decade.

HOLY FREAKING CRAP ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?????

I am.
So let’s go.

So the first thing I’mma do is list out the 50 songs that were of five-star status by the end of the project. They are as follows (just in alphabetical order):

• Airwaves by Airplanes
• Algorithm (Alternate Reality Version) by Muse
• Any Way You Want It by Journey
• Breathe (LMC Extended Club Mix) by Erasure
• Call On Me by Eric Prydz
• Canada Dry (Acoustic) by Barenaked Ladies
• Check It Out by will.i.am & Nicki Minaj
• Damn Son by Tobu
• Dare You To Move by Vitamin String Quartet
• Death Sentence Lost! (Coldplay vs. Dethklok) by …And Sushi! Productions
• Doin’ It Right (feat. Panda Bear) by Daft Punk
• Door by Caroline Polachek
• Get Over It by OK Go
• Gold (Thomas Jack Radio Edit) by Gabriel Rios
• Golden Dandielions by Barns Courtney
• Gone by JR JR
• Hello (Single Edit) by Martin Solveig & Dragonette
• Here It Goes Again by OK Go
• Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap
• Hide and Seek (A Cappella Cover) by Dan Wright
• Hula Hoop (Mark Ianni Bootleg) by Omi
• Ice Cream by MIKA
• Infectious by Tobu
• Jealous (I Ain’t With It) by Chromeo
• Jealously by Robert DeLong
• Life by Tobu
• Lights and Music by Cut Copy
• Madness by Muse
• Mirrors (Radio Edit) by Justin Timberlake
• O Magnum Mysterium by Robert Shaw
• Paradise by Coldplay
• Paradise (Gabe Flaherty Remix) by Coldplay
• Peanut Butter Jelly by Galantis
• Pieces of Me by Ashlee Simpson
• Pressure (feat. the UCLA Bruin Marching Band) by Muse
• Run for Cover by The Killers
• Running Away by The Royal Foundry
• Send Me on My Way (Jesse Bloch Bootleg) by Rusted Root
• Sleepyhead by Passion Pit
• Sleepyhead (Cillo Mix) by Passion Pit
• Sleepyhead (Jazzsteppa Remix) by Passion Pit
• Something Human by Muse
• The Riddle by Gigi D’agostino
• This Is So Good (Radio Edit) by Ehrencrona
• Tightrope by WALK THE MOON
• Tilted by Christine and the Queens
• Valdres March by the Eastman Wind Ensemble & Frederick Fennell
• Viva la Vida by Coldplay
• When I Need a Friend by Coldplay
• Work This Body by WALK THE MOON

For funsies, let’s see how many of these came from each year. A chart! Note that “2009” is just a placeholder year for all the pre-project tunes.

I’m…actually surprised how many pre-project songs retained their five-star status. I guess they’re truly the keepers. But I’ll talk more about those in some other blog. THIS blog is all about the favorites from the project.

So I was originally going to do like “Top 5 Sad Songs” and “Top 5 Beautiful Songs” and “Top 5 Energizing Songs” and the like, but then I decided to just go with the simple “Top 5 Overall Songs” so as not to dilute their moment with other nonsense.

So here it is: from fifth favorite to most favorite: My Top 5 Songs of the Decade!

#5: Doin’ It Right (feat. Panda Bear) by Daft Punk

The simplicity of this song makes is so very good. It’s basically the same line over and over again (plus a little bit more), but the components of the song layer over one another as it goes on and adds a lot of depth to it. It’s super chill and has great bass. It also reminds me of 2013, which was a pretty damn good year for me.

#4: Infectious by Tobu

Hey look, it’s 2020’s theme song
This song has mad energy, yo. Especially during those first 30 or so seconds. I like how there’s always some part of this song that’s “moving.” Also, I discovered this song on a YouTube video showing drone footage of Calgary’s walking paths, so it always reminds me of walking. Which is a good feeling.

#3: Pressure (feat. the UCLA Bruin Marching Band) by Muse

The original song is okay. But this marching band version is SO. MUCH. BETTER. I love what the addition of the drumline and the brass does to the song. It gives it such a different vibe and Bellamy’s vocals go fantastic with it all. From the comments, some people like the crowd noises mixed into the track and some people don’t. I love them. It adds to the whole “marching band in a stadium” feel.

#2: This Is So Good by Ehrencrona

I can’t find the version I have of this song anywhere on the internet anymore. So I found the one that’s closest. This is another song that has E N E R G Y and is constantly moving. As I mentioned in my little “music memories” blog a few days ago, I associate this song with driving home from my job at Pima Community College in Tucson. I got off of work around 9 PM, it was dark, there weren’t a lot of cars out, and I would just blast this as loud as I could with my windows down. Good times.

#1: Running Away by The Royal Foundry

I heard a snippet of that opening synth part on a YouTube ad for some Alberta-related thing and I don’t think I’ve ever opened the SoundHound app on my phone so quickly. I was lucky to catch the name of the song, because now it’s got the honor of being my #1 for the entire decade. Out of 3,650+ songs, this is my favorite one from the past 10 years of downloading. It’s mainly because of that synth part, but the rest of the song (especially the chorus) is fantastic as well. Plus, the group is from Alberta!

So yeah! That’s the end of my Decade of Music-related blogs. I hope you enjoyed them. It’s weird not doing this project anymore (since, you know, you get used to doing something every day if you’ve done it for 10 years straight), but hopefully I’ll still regularly find great tunes to share with y’all. Thanks for putting up with all my music nonsense!