The 100 best songs of the first decade of the 2000s (40-31)

(Click here for the whole list.)


40. Daniel Merriweather — "For Your Money"

Sean Lennon plays some nice guitar leads on this.




39. Faded Paper Figures — "North by North"

I love the male/female vocal harmonies in this song.




38. Polydream — "Hollywood"

(Full disclosure: I'm friends with them.)




37. Bat for Lashes — "Daniel"




36. Mika — "Grace Kelly"

And here's a solo unplugged live performance.




35. Grizzly Bear — "Two Weeks"




34. Sara Bareilles— "Love Song"

Here a few of the main questions I've asked myself in selecting the songs:

1) Is it capable of giving me chills? (Or: does it emotionally affect me?)

2) Is it capable of getting stuck in my head?

3) Do I enjoy listening to the singer's voice?

4) Does the music have some sort of dramatic arc or development? (A bridge or other deviation from "verse/chorus/verse/chorus" is especially helpful.)

5) Is there a sense of "inevitability" — that is, does each note seem to lead naturally to the next?

A song where I'd answer "Yes" to all those questions is probably a good contender for the list. A song where I'd answer "No" to most of those questions probably won't be on the list.

This song — which has a casually effervescent quality that reminds me of Paul McCartney — gets a "Yes" answer to all 5 questions.




33. Dntel — "(This Is) the Dream of Evan and Chan"

This song was created by the same lineup as The Postal Service.

Another blog, The Factual Opinion, ranked this the best song of the decade, saying:

The 2001 people imagined decades ago must have sounded like this--the electronic squall, the nearly overwhelming surge of drums, the drifting grasp on reality. ... 8 years on, “(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan” sounds like a future that we still haven't caught up with.

The Factual Opinion quotes the line, "He then played every song from 1993," and says, "I always imagine that he’s talking about hearing every song from 1993, from 'Whoomp (There It Is)' to 'Mr. Jones.'" Although that's what the line would seem to literally mean, I always imagine that he's talking about Kurt Cobain in the last full year of his life, and "every song from 1993" means every one of his songs from 1993 — in other words, In Utero, Nirvana's last studio album. That's why (I imagine) Ben Gibbard wittily accentuates the next line, which I hear as a reference to Cobain's famously conflicted feelings about his own success: "The crowd applauded as he curtsied bashfully."




32. The New Pornographers — "The Laws Have Changed"

It's always fun to hear both A.C. Newman and Neko Case singing lead in the same song.




31. Camera Obscura — "Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken"

When I listen to Camera Obscura, I imagine a band from the early '60s traveling through time to the '00s and trying to fit in.

Music Friday unplugged

Here are a few acoustic versions of songs I've blogged before:

Mika - "Grace Kelly." (Previously - MySpace - Wikipedia.)





My Brightest Diamond - "Inside a Boy." (Previously - MySpace - Wikipedia.)




Regina Spektor - "Fidelity." (Previously - MySpace - Wikipedia.)

If you play this performance back to back with the album version, you'll hear how she finesses each little piece of melody in the live version as if she were just creating the tune on the spot. She's never on autopilot.

Music I've been listening to: St. Vincent, Regina Spektor, Goldfrapp, Mika

New blog feature: Music Friday!

A friend sent me and others this email:

now, my musicphile friends, i have a special request. ... in the spirit of spring cleaning, i'm trying to knock the cobwebs out of my itunes library. ... i think its time to expand my horizons. can you help guide me to greener pastures? what are you listening to lately? what should i be listening to?

Here's what I emailed her in response:

St. Vincent — Based on the few 2007 albums I've heard, hers was far and away the best album of 2007. She's a seasoned indie guitarist who played with Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree (under her real name, Annie Clark), but this was her solo debut. This is exactly the kind of genre-defying music I'm searching out right now, so I'm hoping this is the beginning of an amazing career for her.

[Jesus Saves, I Spend]

Her song "Marry Me" (which has a bridge with lyrics that were probably quoted in every review of her album)  has already been drunkenly covered by the Dresden Dolls' singer, Amanda Palmer.

Regina Spektor -- 

Regina Spektor is the most wonderful musical person to come along in quite a while!

[Fidelity]

[Us]

Both songs in those YouTube clips have this feel to them that's pretty rare in music — the only way I can describe it is that you (or at least I) get this feeling of "This is it — this is what it's all about." [Added later: I talked about that more in this post on classical music.]


Goldfrapp — Their new album, Seventh Tree, seems destined to end up on every "best of 2008" list. Their older stuff was very anchored in the '80s, but the new album has more of a '60s/'70s vibe. There's something poignant about how earnestly retro they are. If you have any interest in buying physical CDs anymore, get Seventh Tree for the packaging (bonus DVD, nice artwork, etc.). Here are two great songs from it:

[Caravan girl]

[A & E]

Mika — I have the sense that he's big in Europe but not that well known in the US. (He was initially raised in Lebanon, then his family moved to Europe to escape the conditions there.) Here's a song in which he totally rips off Queen (even alluding to it in the pre-chorus) but still comes up with something original and infectious: