The 100 Best Songs of the 2010s (21-30)

Some of the best songs of the decade…

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


30. Taylor Swift — "Don't Blame Me"

(Rock cover with male singers.)




29. Portugal. The Man — "Feel It Still"

(Cover with female singers.)




28. Foo Fighters — "Something from Nothing"

I like how the music reflects the song title by starting with almost "Nothing" (a lightly strummed guitar on its own) and gradually building up to "Something" …




27. fun. (feat. Janelle Monáe) — "We Are Young"

One of the anthemic singalong choruses of the decade.

(Live unplugged.)

(A cappella cover by Pentatonix.)




26. Billie Eilish — "When the Party's Over"

Billie Eilish is not yet 18 years old, but she's captivated the world of pop music. Her brother and collaborator, Finneas, wrote this song of haunting simplicity.

(Heavy cover by Our Last Night.)




25.  Mikal Cronin — "Turn Around"

I first heard "Turn Around" playing in a CD store, and I asked an employee what it was. He showed me the album MCIII, and I bought the CD on the spot. I had never heard of Mikal Cronin before, but this song was that good.

(Live.)




24. Arctic Monkeys — "Do I Wanna Know?"

One of the defining rock riffs of the decade.

(Dua Lipa turns it into a piano ballad.)

(Reggae cover by Groove Da Praia.)

(Classical version by the Vitamin String Quartet.)




23. Tame Impala — "Let It Happen"

Here's the official video with a much shorter edit of the song — but you might not want to watch it if you have fear of flying!

The full version of the song (below) sounds at one point like a CD is skipping over and over. But Tame Impala finds beauty in what might seem to be a mistake.




22. Justin Timberlake — "Can't Stop the Feeling!"

A good pop song needs a good hook. A great pop song like this is nothing but hooks.




21. Fiona Apple — "Hot Knife"

This song seems ridiculously simple, but becomes dizzyingly intricate.

The video was directed by P.T. Anderson, who also directed Boogie Nights (1997) and There Will Be Blood (2007).




<— 31 - 40

11 - 20 —>

Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes turns 25

Tori Amos released her first solo album, Little Earthquakes, on January 6, 1992 — 25 years ago today.

The album was released only in the UK at first. Though she's an American, the album wasn't released in the US until over a month later. Apparently the thinking was that she might not be as appealing to Americans, but the concern was unnecessary.

It's hard to express what a brilliant artist Tori Amos is. She does three things and is stellar at each one: songwriting (alternating between frankly confessional and slyly cryptic), singing (at its most mellifluous on this album but capable of being much more raw), and piano playing (classically trained but with pop and jazz sensibilities).

Whether or not Little Earthquakes is her best album, it's at least the essential starting point for approaching her decades-long body of work.

Rolling Stone's "track-by-track guide to Little Earthquakes" quotes her talking about the long process of self-realization that led to creating her solo debut after leaving an unsuccessful band — here's an excerpt:

"Coming out of beating myself up about the choices I had made, I just rolled up my sleeves and grasped at all of the poetry that had ever meant anything to me," Amos says. "From Rimbaud to Baudelaire, e.e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, and also the visual artists. I surrounded myself with the stories and the thinkers that formed me, not what those that had the power to push the button wanted me to be formed with."

"Silent All These Years" is quintessential early Tori Amos — the rare songwriter who can pull off rhyming a whole phrase with itself:

So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts

What's so amazing about really deep thoughts?

The sudden feeling of uplift and release in the bridge ("years go by...") is exhilarating.



(Live solo.)


In "Precious Things," she delves into themes of Christianity, gender, beauty, sexuality, and humiliation, over a relentlessly driving rhythm.



(Live solo, starting with her explanation of why she played the piano in that fast style.)


In "Crucify," Tori, whose father was a minister, again addresses Christianity ("Got enough guilt to start my own religion"):



(Very different live version.)


"Winter" is the emotional centerpiece of the album — a startlingly intimate ballad.



(Live solo.)


Near the end of Little Earthquakes, in "Me and a Gun" (the least musically interesting but most lyrically arresting song on the album), Tori leaves her piano aside and recounts her harrowing experience of being raped. She explained in an interview:

In the song I say it was "Me and a Gun," but it wasn't a gun. It was a knife he had. And the idea was to take me to his friends and cut me up, and he kept telling me that, for hours. And if he hadn't needed more drugs, I would have been just one more news report where you see the parents grieving for their daughter.

And I was singing hymns, as I say in the song, because he told me to. I sang to stay alive. Yet I survived that torture, which left me urinating all over myself and left me paralyzed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violation through sex.

I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night, and that now I'm trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability.

Continuing the theme of "vulnerability," she sings in "China":

Sometimes, I think you want me to touch you

How can I, when you build the great wall around you?

Few albums keep vulnerability alive as beautifully and daringly as Little Earthquakes.

Music Friday: 4 more covers

For the third Friday in a row, here are 4 adventurous covers. (You can go to all of them by clicking the "covers" tag.)

9. Ben Folds covers...



...The Postal Service.




10. Tori Amos covers...



...Nirvana.




11. Dr. Fox's Old Timey String Band covers...



MGMT. (Blogged previously.)




12. Brad Mehldau covers...



...Radiohead.