Top 40 of the Decade – Part 2 – 30 – 21

One cool little thing I discovered while getting the Lala widget set up was that I can just add to the list that is already there – so the playlist at the top will now have 40 through 21! (except #38 which is linked in that post).

30) Bang! Bang! – The Knux (2008)
Last post I mentioned genres you shouldn’t expect to find here: top 40, new country, jazz. My hip hop awareness is not what it should be (matter of fact, I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to call it hip hop or rap) and as such this is the only one to make the list, though I did consider songs by K-OS, RJD2, Outkast (does that even count?), The Herbalizer and Mr. Lif. If I can find a place to find more songs that are this good then hip hop will be better represented next time around.

29) Skinny Love – Bon Iver (2008)
The rest of his stuff leaves me pretty cold, but this is flat out beautiful and haunting and the song I loved most in 2008.

28) Flake – Jack Johnson (2001)
This destroys any hipster credibility I might ever hope to have but so be it, I like Jack Johnson. Quite a bit. Besides, I’m a sucker for tunes that change up in the middle. This is one of the few songs that were on the list from the start.

27) All My Friends – LCD Soundsystem (2007)
For artists that had more than one song go far in the process of putting this together I promised myself I’d mention those other songs and then promptly forgot this rule with the Elbow entry (amusingly, that other song is called Forget Myself). So, Losing My Edge was a close second to this one and gets an honorable mention.

26) Rex Kramer – Gomez (2002)
In Our Gun will forever have the distinction of being the first disc that Deb and I got into as a couple, and as such there were a bunch of songs from it that I considered for the list; Ping One Down & Army Dub being the ones that got the furthest. But there is no mistaking that weird squeal at the beginning and nothing else that hits the highs this song does. Great live show as well. Pitchfork hates them, providing the added benefit of making me feel uncool. This is not a bad thing at all.

25) Everyone Gets A Star – Albert Hammond, Jr. (2007)
So this is as good a place as any to ask – can you be in a band and have a solo song both in the list, adroitly moving around the one song per artist restriction? Apparently (though technically you don’t know this yet) yes, yes you can.

24) Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand (2004)
This is what you might call an obvious pick. I looked up the lyrics to see if there was anything quotable. I don't recommend this.

23) Float On – Modest Mouse (2004)
Did you ever accuse a band of selling out? I did back in the day, and boy did you hear it a bunch after Good News for People who Love Bad News came out. But seeing it from my late forties standpoint it’s really an amazing achievement that a band that is so…….niche-y can put out a song and album like this and have middle aged folks gravitate to it – while not really straying all that far from their roots. Maybe the long-time purists are correct that The Moon And Antarctica is the better release, but for my money it’s Good News all the way. So my twenty-something self was an idiot for calling out any band who managed to find some mainstream success while staying true to a vision. Though c’mon, Rod Stewart totally sold out.

22) I Bow Down And Pray To Every Woman I Meet – Chuck Prophet (2002)

Ain’t no motherfucker gonna criticize me.

In a just world Chuck Prophet would be huge.

21) Casimir Pulaski Day – Sufjan Stevens (2005)
At the time this was my favorite song of the year. In putting together this project though, 2005 ended up being clearly the top year for songs (9 on the final list), so it has obviously dropped some since there are still six 2005 songs to go. Keeping in mind what I said earlier about a few songs maybe being a year or two off (I wiki’d all of these but some are easier to pinpoint than others), the songs by year list comes out as:
9 songs: 2005
6 songs: 2007
5 songs: 2006
4 songs: 2001, 2002, 2008
3 songs: 2004
2 songs: 2000, 2003
1 song: 2009
Anyway, back to Sufjan. I listen to both Illinoise and Michigan less as time goes by. While he can be incredibly moving as here describing a friend dying of cancer and questioning his own faith as a result (He took my shoulders and He shook my face/and He takes and He takes and He takes), there is also a side that is annoyingly too clever by half and incredibly pretentious. Bailing on the 50 state project after just two might be pissing me off as well……though two-thirds of Illinoise forces me to cut him slack.


Next: Halfway done. What the hell am I going to say about 20-11???

Top 40 songs of the Decade – Part 1 – 40 through 31

As envisioned, I would discuss the criteria used in selecting songs, toss in some witty and erudite digressions, have a reasoned and incisive paragraph or two about each individual song and why it belongs in the Top 40 and generally put any other list to shame.

That was charmingly optimistic and is not going to happen.

We can talk about the main point to resolve in the process: One song per artist or multiple songs? I ended up sticking with one per artist, despite the very reasonable argument that the best songs should be the best songs regardless of who did them, right? That’s where one needs to acknowledge ones biases – I could put five Spoon songs, a couple Arctic Monkeys, two Band of Horses, a few by Lemon Jelly and an untold number of Decemberists songs but don’t think that is representative enough of the decade as a whole, which has been one of the best I can remember.

The other bias is – where am I at musically this decade? It started with unexpected divorce and its aftermath, shifted to national trauma and disaster, rebounded again with a new life with entirely new friends and an upward trajectory for the future that frankly is not something I ever expected to happen. There’s a lot of room there for genres.

This list in the 90’s would be heavily skewed toward alt-country and grunge. This list in the 80’s would be New Wave and college rock. This list in the 70’s would have been FM radio-centric with multiple Pink Floyd selections. I think this list is pretty wide-ranging in respect to what those would have been, though you shouldn’t expect top 40, new country or jazz. It’s slightly heavy on electronic because that has been my obsession for the past few years – though I listen to a LOT more of it than made this list simply because the genre doesn’t readily lend itself to a great “song”. The songs I had to be most ruthless about pruning were mid-tempo indie bands – there were a ton of them in my initial mix, so that’s a bias as well.

I tried to be representative of each year and for the most part am really happy about how that turned out…..the one year that got somewhat shafted is 2009 (only one song), mainly because I don’t know the new stuff enough to have it outrank the songs I’m more familiar with. This time next year it is very possible I’ll regret not having Dirty Projectors or Grizzly Bear but for now this is where the oughts were at.

One more housekeeping note – I’ve been able to find all but five songs on Lala and will be putting lists on the right side of the blog here as we post. The songs not on Lala I’ll post links for as we go along.

Funny thing about a list like this. The last five songs were by far the hardest to settle upon and changed at least seven times. To reflect that process and because it is my list I’m putting in an honorable mention for the song that it hurt me the most to leave out of the main list.

Christmas Song – Joy Zipper (2003) – A big, lush, romantic sound coupled with lyrics that sound like how you would profess your love before you knew how to put something like that into words. “I love you more than a thousand Christmases/I want you more than any gift I could think of”

Now, for songs 40-31:

40) Ballad of Human Kindness – The Dears (2006)

I believe that is a French Horn solo but am not familiar enough with my brass to be certain. Not usually a fan of earnestness in my lyrics but it works for me here.

39) Plasticities – Andrew Bird (2007)

He seems like he’d be a fun guy to hang out with, as long as he didn’t show off with the whistling too much. One of my favorite live shows of the decade was seeing him at the Zoo of all places. Anyone who rhymes ‘music halls’ with ‘neural walls’ is OK in my book.

38) Buy A Dog – Luce (2005?) (there are some years I’m not certain about though it is this decade)

Indie band out of San Francisco. The first song on the list that Lala didn’t have – the video can be seen here:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1574980

This one is for Norm, who although technically free is easily our best purchase of the decade. Even more than Rock Band.

37) Oxford Comma – Vampire Weekend (2008)

Catchy as all hell and the day I can’t love a lyric about advanced literature will be a sad day indeed.

36) Buttons – The Weeks (2008)

An alt band out of Jackson, Mississippi of all places. Wiki says they’ve been compared to Kings of Leon, though I don’t get that from this song. What I do get is a cool hook and a line “She said/smoke your cigarette/I hope you choke” that sticks in my head for days.

35) This Boy is Exhausted – The Wrens (2003)

A decidedly non-prolific band (three albums in 15ish years) and a song that profiles the ups and downs of being part of an aging group you love but know is never going to quite get over the top. He just sounds exhausted…….I think this would be an awesome song to drum on RB.

34) Station Approach – Elbow (2005)

I really miss not being able to stream music at work. I found so much stuff through radioio.com, but never seem to listen the same way at home. Elbow was one of my favorite finds from there. This would be an example of the mid-tempo songs that dominated my initial song pool.

33) Sometimes In The Fall – Phoenix (2006)

Thomas Mars’ voice reminds me of someone but I cannot place it for the life of me. Did you know that Phoenix was a backing band for Air’s song Kelly Watch The Stars? Me either. (what would we do without Wiki?) Wheels within wheels, man.

32) Bhindi Bhagee – Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros (2001)

So anyways, I told him I was in a band/he said ‘yeah, oh yeah? What’s your music like?/I said it’s um, um…..well, it’s kinda like……and it’s got a bit of…….

This should also rank quite high in any list regarding songs and food.

31) Frontier Psychiatrist – The Avalanches (2000)

It is the opinion of the entire staff that Dexter is criminally insane.

But you knew that.

Next time: 30 – 21. Shocking, I know.

EDIT: I have no idea about the weird text thing, I just copied my word document into Blogger and this is what came out. Also, maybe Marcy can help with having the widget at the side instead of the top -- every time I tried it on the side it got cutoff.

Pick for the Overrated Artist/Band of the decade award

The first one that comes to mind is Animal Collective and I know I'd have Pat's backing which legitimizes it big time and yet the Fleet Foxes irritate me a little more but I probably shouldn't piss where I eat or whatever.

What to do.

Karaoke Lecture

So, last Wed I went to a lecture on karaoke at On The Boards. The thesis was karaoke is fun, lectures are boring, so the night would be so-so. It was.

The lecturer is a local art curator who happens to really enjoy karaoke. He would talk a little about authenticity, ownership and participation and then invite someone (a ringer) to sing something they had worked out beforehand. It was fun. Before and after the lecture it was just regular karaoke. I didn't do it. I was shy.

But, later in the evening, the lecturer got up and said that someone had signed up for "Stroking". Wow, it true. It is in the book and someone does want to sing it. He announced that he does not allow that song to be performed. He was sorry, but the person who requested it is free to request another song.

Well. I can't say I didn't see it coming.

What song can you listen to on repeat for an hour or longer?

Discuss...

Gina and I listened to "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" on repeat driving from Philly but I don't think it was for an hour.



"There ain't no party like my nanna's tea party Heigh! Ho!"

At about 23 minutes into this podcast, something happens

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120182047

No of songs in Marcy's itunes library weighing in under 2 minutes

The magic number is 145!

The artist with the most songs in this category:
Tom Waits - 20 songs
The Magnetic Fields - 16 songs
The Beatles - 11 songs

East Coast is comin' home...

...and am begging, on bended knee, to have an honest-to-god face-to-face meeting with y'all! I know I'm only hanging on by the skin of my teeth, to mix too many metaphors, with my Ween and Edward Sharpe submissions, but I hear-tell that the Dec/Jan session is in the scheduling process. Any chance of a Tues, Dec. 29th meeting, for a poor wayward traveler?? (sniff) (sob) (sigh) (etc.) Or an alternative date, somewhere between December 19th and January 2nd?

Music Club #6: Songs You Like (for a Drum Circle)

You could’ve said something nice about my profiteroles.

Top 40 update

I am listening today to the final 55 songs in the Top 40 songs of the decade project, and am placing them into five tiers in order to get an inital ranking idea.

So far I've heard 42 songs. By tier:
Tier 1 -- 5
Tier 2 -- 10
Tier 3 -- 11
Tier 4 -- 16
Tier 5 -- zero.

I have problems letting go.

Update: Final tally:
Tier 1 -- 8
Tier 2 -- 13
Tier 3 -- 11
Tier 4 -- 23
Tier 5 -- zero.

Sigh.

UPDATE: We are down to 40.