Hey everybody,
After two weeks, we're finally down to the Top 10 of the list. From here, what I think is going to happen is that I'll do 10 through 6 today, then 5 and 4 tomorrow, and then #3 on Sunday, #2 on Monday and #1 on Tuesday. Then after Christmas, I'll start on a new topic (which I haven't quite decided on yet). The idea is to keep the blog going this time instead of crapping out after like, three days. I think I've done pretty good so far. So now, without further ado:
SONGS 10 THROUGH 5
10. matt pond PA, "Halloween" [2005]
Pardon the intrusion/Could we leave before it gets bad?/I might smash up all these windows/And set fire to the curtains
This song spent a long time as my de facto "favorite song of the decade," and as you'll soon see, it's one of only two that was released in the second half of the "aughts" and made it this high on the countdown. It still holds a place as the favorite song I played as a new release in four years of working at TCNJ's radio station, WTSR 91.3 FM (actually surprised I went this long without getting into my whole radio career, since it accounts for about one-third of the songs on this list). Anyway, "Halloween" is the leadoff track from mpPA's 2005 album, Several Arrows Later, which is in my opinion Pond's best work. (You can't really say "the band's best work," as Pond is constantly changing his instrumentation and musician lineup.) And true to its title, "Halloween" really does sound better in October and November than any other time of the year. It's essentially a song about self-doubt, the narrator wanting to say something but not finding any words that sound sensible or smart. The arrangement is appropriately delicate, led by acoustic guitar and violin, with a gentle backbeat and a piano-and-guitar lick that runs between every verse and chorus, before bringing the track to an end right at the five-minute mark. It's a really well-constructed song that will have you thinking -- and will want to make you listen to the rest of the album.
9. U2, "Beautiful Day" [2000]
What you don't have, you don't need it now/What you don't know, you can feel somehow
If there was an anthem of the decade, it was indisputably "Beautiful Day," which arrived in the first year of the 00's and signaled a return to form for the most anthemic rock band of the last quarter-century. After experimenting with different styles for much of the 90's, U2 had returned to prominence in 1998 with their remix of 1987 B-side "The Sweetest Thing." That set them up to drop All That You Can't Leave Behind within the first few months of the new millenium. And although it broke a string of American #1 albums for the group dating all the way back to The Joshua Tree in 1987 (peaking at #3), All That You Can't... was the first U2 album since Joshua whose singles were clearly the best tracks: "Elevation," "Walk On," "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of," and "Beautiful Day." It would be silly of me to recap any of the musical or lyrical merits of "Beautiful Day" -- if you have never heard this song, where exactly have you been the last ten years? -- but its impact was undeniable. And if this statement is even worth anything anymore, the folks over at Rolling Stone also placed this song at #9 on their countdown of the best songs of the decade. So there.
8. Spymob, "2040" [2004]
They'll see them, smell them, hear them, feel them/Communicate as if they're there
No, it's not a typo, it's not a song about the year it was released. Spymob's "2040" is a futuristic look at the world in another decade of this century, with witty references to fads like lawn bowling and robot housemaids. Announcing the beginning of the Sitting Around Keeping Score album, Spymob's first project since providing backgrounds for N.E.R.D.'s 2002 debut, the band pulls out all the stops -- lots of, well, every instrument, as well as plenty of echoey backing vocals. The song is at a moderate, slightly swung tempo which kicks into another gear energy-wise at every chorus. There is a slight breakdown right before the transition into the last chorus, but it hardly kills the momentum. Perhaps more importantly, though, I would be remiss if I did not again mention WTSR here...if you were a TCNJ student and came to any of our live events in the past few years, "2040" was sure to be played at one point or another. And even if you've just listened to the station in the fairly recent past, you've heard this song; a snippet was used for WTSR's top-of-the-hour promo (with yours truly voicing the station ID) from September 2007 until earlier this year.
7. Maroon 5, "Makes Me Wonder" [2007]
I still don't have the reason/And you don't have the time/And it really makes me wonder if I ever gave a f*** about you
The entire rap genre notwithstanding, the above lyric is probably the best kiss-off of the decade. And it leads into one of the catchiest choruses this side of Hall & Oates, which is the band you must associate with "Makes Me Wonder" on first listen. In fact, almost all of It Won't Be Soon Before Long, Maroon 5's long-awaited second album, relies heavily on one influence or another: I've already detailed the similarities between "Won't Go Home Without You" and "Every Breath You Take," and "Nothing Lasts Forever" steals a page directly out of Stevie Wonder's playbook circa Fulfillingness' First Finale. But lyrically and musically, this is a direct re-write of H&O's "Maneater," except...it's about George Bush? What? What about all those lines in the first verse about...? Oh well. The sheer sonic exuberance of "Makes Me Wonder" sort of makes you gloss over the lyrics anyway, which is why everyone came so quickly out of their post-"This Love" shells when this song was released in the spring of 2007. As a result, "Makes Me Wonder" became the first non-Idol rock song to hit #1 on the Billboard charts in five-and-a-half years, and is now recognized as one of the iconic pop songs of the 2000's.
6. John Mayer, "No Such Thing" [single version, 2001]
I wanna run through the halls of my high school/I wanna scream at the top of my lungs
The reason I need to differentiate this version of "No Such Thing" from any other incarnation is that, yes, John Mayer had been kicking it around since the end of the previous decade, when he was an independent Atlanta-based artist and recorded an acoustic version for his 1999 EP Inside Wants Out. So the version that kicks off Mayer's first proper album, 2001's Room for Squares, is the one that's represented here. I don't need to tell you much about this song -- you've heard it before, you know about all the lyrics and the song construction and it was all over the radio and it made John Mayer a household name and it's at least ten times better than "Your Body Is A Wonderland." What should be noted is the evolution of Mayer's career since this first single. This is a guy who's played guitar alongside Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, B.B. King and the like. Who developed a fixation with Jimi Hendrix sometime around 2005 that he just won't let go of. And yet, tellingly, this still might be his best song. Sometimes innocence is the best thing new artists can have going for themselves...and now years later, when you hear the lyric about busting down the doors at a high school reunion, it's no wonder Jennifer Aniston's looking for someone a little more grown-up.
Alright folks, you know the drill! Back tomorrow for numbers four and five.
-- pl
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment