The 100 Best Songs of the 2010s (71-80)

10 more of the best songs of the 2010s…

(Click here for the whole list so far, with a Spotify playlist.)


80. Metronomy — "The Look"




79. Kendrick Lamar (feat. Cee Lo Green) — "untitled 06 | 06.30.2014."




78. The New Pornographers — "Fantasy Fools"




77. Tool — "7empest"

Unlike almost all popular music these days, Tool has the nerve to venture outside of standard 4/4 time (one of at least 3 songs on my list to do so). Adam Jones's guitar playing on this 15-minute song has been called his best work in over 25 years with Tool.




76. The Claypool Lennon Delirium — "Blood and Rockets: Movement I, Saga of Jack Parsons / Movement II, Too the Moon"

This supergroup is Les Claypool and Sean Lennon, the only child of Yoko Ono and John Lennon. John was younger when he died than Sean is in this video.




75. Leon Bridges — "Smooth Sailin'"

Leon Bridges smoothly sails into the past, evoking Sam Cooke.




74. Snarky Puppy (feat. N'Dambi) — "Deep"




73. Bat for Lashes — "A Wall"




72. Sufjan Stevens — "Carrie & Lowell"

Sufjan Stevens wrote this quietly beautiful song shortly after his mom died. She and her husband were named Carrie and Lowell.




71. Yeah Yeah Yeahs — "Despair"




<— 81 - 90

61 - 70 —>

The 100 best songs of the first decade of the 2000s (30-21)

(Click here for the whole list.)


30. Ra Ra Riot — "Ghost Under Rocks"

This song has a great propulsive energy. There's some debate on the internet about the correct lyrics of the chorus, but I hear:

Here you are, you are breathing

Life into ghost under rocks

Like notes found in pocket

Coats of your fathers

Lost and forgotten

29. Yeah Yeah Yeahs — "Maps"

The kind of song that inspires graffiti.

(Unplugged.)




28. The Dodos — "Red and Purple"

This song has a personal resonance to me. I started listening to this song around the time, I was one of many people who had to say an emotional goodbye to someone important to us, and I kept finding parallels between that situation and this song. On one day when we said goodbye, many people showed up wearing this person's favorite colors: red and purple.




27. Rihanna — "Umbrella"

Possibly the youngest singer on the list: she was 19 when she recorded this song.




26. Arcade Fire — "Rebellion (Lies)"




25. MGMT — "Kids"

This song feels to me like a living, breathing creature on the prowl.

The instrumental interlude (starting about 3 minutes in) is outstanding. First, there's an adventurous and floridly Baroque keyboard solo — which is abruptly cut off and followed by a simple but effective drum passage, backed by just one relentlessly repeated chord. Then the bottom drops out for a moment, and we're back to the catchy chorus.




24. The Strokes - Last Nite

The Strokes and Tom Petty have admitted that this is derivative of Petty's "American Girl."




23. Esperanza Spalding — "Fall In"




22. OutKast — "Ms. Jackson"




21. Rufus Wainwright - I Don't Know What It Is

This is a masterful fitting of melody to chord progressions. He must have taken exquisite care to make this sound so effortless.

The 100 best songs of the first decade of the 2000s (80-71)

(Click here for the whole list.)


80. Imogen Heap — "Headlock"

I had one semester in law school where I had no morning classes on most weekdays, so I had time to have breakfast at home, and I'd always play this, the first song on her great album Speak for Yourself, to get the day started.




79. The Killers — "Read My Mind"




78. Lenka — "Bring Me Down"




77. Amy Winehouse — "You Know I'm No Good"




76. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros — "Home"




75. Nerina Pallot — "Everything's Illuminated!"




74. Rilo Kiley — "The Good That Won’t Come Out"

Starts unassumingly, ends gloriously.




73. Arcade Fire — "Wake Up"

David Bowie joins the band in this performance. A great melisma: the joyously drawn-out "adjuuuuuuust" (starting at 3:08 in the video).




72. Yeah Yeah Yeahs — "Zero"




71. Youth Group — "Someone Else's Dream"