songs that are good

#9.  Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place

Texan crescendo-wranglers EiTS and Scottish flange-junkies Mogwai are in constant contest over the title of Number One Post-Rockers.  While they may be neck and neck overall, there is no disputing that Mogwai’s greatest triumphs came in the previous century, and they have never again risen to the heights they did as a ‘young team’.

The Explosions however, are the sound of the new generation.  Combining rockin’ riffs, superhuman drumming, and melodies that will warm the cockles of your heart before erupting in gut-wrenching, ear-busting crescendos, EiTS are the mutes to beat, and TEINACDP is their crowning achievement.

#10. Bob Dylan - Love & Theft

The excitement mounts as we round the bend into the final stretch.  Who will take the crown, reign supreme, top the decade? (Radiohead (Sorry (SPOILER (Wait, I think that should have gone first)))).

But I am getting ahead of myself.  Ending the double digits is venerable elder statesman Bob Dylan showing us all that counting him out is a very silly thing to do indeed.  His prior album, Time Out Of Mind, was hailed as his first good album since his last good album, but I don’t think anyone was quite ready for a record that gives even his classics a decided run for their money.  While he would spend the rest of the decade mostly being old and strange, Love & Theft assures Uncle Bob permanent relevance, even in these modern times.

#11.  LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy is a grumpy old man.  He likes things that grumpy old men like (the ‘old days’, his hometown, a good sammich), and dislikes things that grumpy old men dislike (‘whippersnappers’).  He is also basically the main man responsible for most people ever hearing of ‘techno’ (he played Daft Punk at CBGB before you did.  I mean, you probably still have never played Daft Punk at CBGB have you?  It’s not even there anymore, so you lost your chance.  Way to go).

The songs on his second album, Sound of Silver are mostly not quite the kind of dancey, thumpy songs he usually makes.  There’s even one that’s just him on a piano (until it gets loud and crunchy and awesome at the end).  They’re mainly about getting old, and maybe not seeing your friends around anymore, and missing all the fun you had when you were a kid, and yet nobody should want to be a kid again because kids are stupid and to hell with them.

We should all aspire to grow up to be James Murphy.  But in the meantime he will thank you to boogie on off his yard.

#12. Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele

Staten Island drug-leprechaun Ghostface may not be the greatest emcee (though he’s close), or the biggest selling, or even have the best lady-butts in his videos, but he is easily the absolute weirdest dude in hiphop*.  Honestly, what the hell is he even talking about?  Does anyone know?  His songs are dizzying, bewildering flurries of words, lines from old kung-fu movies, soul samples and basically whatever else may be bouncing around his head at the moment.  His albums should be incomprehensible piles of crap.  Instead they’re incomprehensible piles of unexplainable brilliance, and Supreme Clientele is the best of them**.

*Deep down we all know Lil’ Wayne only seems weird because he is so high all the time.

**Honorable mention to Fishscale, because The Champ is my favorite single song of his

#13. Sleater-Kinney - One Beat

Somewhere in between Sleater-Kinney getting sick of the long-meaningless label ‘Riot Grr(r?)l’, and going full-Stooges on The Woods, came One Beat, their last album on their longtime label/assassin-school Kill Rock Stars.  Packing all the wild-eyed, giant-riffed, air-guitar-friendly good times of classic rock (but leaving out the self-indulgence and sex-obsession), One Beat sounds like something from an alternate universe where the 60’s never ended and The Who were all ladies.

#14. Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica

While nobody can quite decide how they feel about Modest Mouse anymore, one thing we can mostly all agree on is the brilliance of The Moon & Antarctica.  So, while it’s a joy to listen to, talking about it is pretty boring.  Complex themes, intricate melodies, yadda yadda.  Let’s talk about the band instead, those dudes are crazy.

Modest Mouse got their start at the Evergreen Woodland Home For Fairie Folk (And Unicorns) in Northern Washington, under the tutelage of the Woodland King Calvin Johnson himself, and spent many years as one of America’s premiere ‘indie’ bands.  Alas, chronic gambling on unicorn-races and the resulting massive debt caused the band to flee to Epic Records (wholly owned subsidiary of the Devil).  All was forgiven, however, when they emerged from the studio with their masterpiece.

Then they let some car company use a song from the aforementioned masterpiece to sell minivans to Gen-X soccer moms, and everyone hated them again.

Then they released another album, got nominated for Grammys, and were generally inescapable for a while, further irritating some, but gaining many new fans.

Then they rescued Johnny Marr from The Morrissey’s sex-dungeon and asked him to be in their band, and now nobody knows what to think of them.

#15. Neko Case - Blacklisted

Blacklisted is arguably sometimes-Canadian sex-banshee Neko Case’s first real solo album.  Unfettered by either the New Pornographers or ‘Her Boyfriends’, Case is free to be as gloriously odd as she cares to be (an oddness she expanded upon on her much stranger but ultimately less excellent followup).  Highlights include Pretty Girls (an ode to female sitcom stars) and a cover of original sex-banshee Aretha Franklin’s Runnin’ Out Of Fools, a wailing, terrifying ‘fuck you’ to all jerks everywhere.

#16. Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass

IANAOYAIWBYA is the result of a bet Yo La Tengo made with fellow Hobokenite Homeless Phil that they couldn’t make an album containing one of every single kind of song in the world.  They lost the bet, and consequently had to let Phil name the album (it’s unclear if he was aware he was doing so at the time).  Nonetheless, the diversity of the songs on this record verges on ridiculous, and the fact that they fit together so perfectly is well past incredible.

#17. The Delgados - Hate

The Delgados were a band that liked to make sad, bittersweet songs about terrible things, and then stick a bicycle pump in them and make them bigger and bigger and grander and grander until they were on the verge of exploding.  So it was inevitable they would record an album with famed volume-goblin Dave Fridmann.  Between his loudness-machines and their desire to be the Wagner of mopey indie rock, it’s no wonder that Hate is the unstoppable juggernaut it is.