ihrtmusique's Top 100 Songs of 2000 - 2009 pt.6

Part 1 (intro and also-rans)
Part 2 (100-76)
Part 3 (75-51)
Part 4 (50-26)
Part 5 (26-11)

10. Jimmy Eat World - The Middle (Bleed American, 2001) Listen
There was a time a few years ago when emo was the genre making all the waves, and at the forefront of that (and on the cover of NME and Kerrang) was Arizona’s Jimmy Eat World. They’re all-but forgotten on this side of the Atlantic now but Bleed American (or the self-titled Jimmy Eat World, as the album was rechristened in the wake of 9/11) is as strong a rock album as any of the 2000s. The Middle, a discerning radio-friendly track, is the highlight of an album that offered a no-frills approach to leftfield rocking-out that’s still entertaining me greatly now. Nice guys, too.

9. Vampire Weekend - A-Punk (Vampire Weekend, 2008) Listen
The plethora of identikit indie rock groups only serves to highlight that little bit more the ones that do things differently, and no-one’s really done what Vampire Weekend have done since The Police. Taking their inspiration from African rhythms, 80s new wave and their private American educations, they were a massive breath of fresh air in a scene that grows stale too often. A-Punk combines all these things and clocks in at an all-too-short 2m18s. But what a couple of minutes they are.

8. Phoenix - Too Young (United, 2000) Listen
If Phoenix owned a shop it would have “Purveyors of Fine Gallic Produce” printed on the window in thick gold paint. Too Young is both retro and modern, English and French, upbeat and melancholy. It’s a wonderful mix of all those things and you can put it on at 9am on a Monday morning and it will still make you feel like you’re in that perfect hour at the disco where the one you love is looking at you just how you want and everything around you is the best you’ve ever known.

7. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - There She Goes, My Beautiful World (Abattoir Blues, 2004) Listen
Nick Cave can be an acquired taste, and I don’t always acquire it, but this song has engaged that cerebral hairs-standing-up feeling in me more than any other this decade. It’s not just the passion of Cave and the choir that make listening to this a religious experience, but the forceful feeling of every second of this song should get even the most uptight square dancing in the aisles. Listening to this, I always picture Cave performing it on his knees covered in sweat belting it out in front of a packed congregation. Inspiring every time.

6. M.I.A. - Paper Planes (Kala, 2008) Listen
M.I.A.’s biggest hit to date might still be an album obscurity if it wasn’t for an average comedy movie using it in an advert (Pineapple Express). Sampling The Clash’s Straight To Hell is just one of the superb elements of this Diplo, Switch and M.I.A. production, but it’s the gunshot chorus that’s the most memorable part of this track. It’s got something, an x-factor if you will, that just makes Paper Planes stick in the head in that way that means I can’t imagine ever tiring of it.

5. MGMT - Time To Pretend (Oracular Spectacular, 2007) Listen
The attraction in Time To Pretend (my #1 song in my 2008 list) is not just the heavy-hippy tune, but the brilliant conceit that lies at its centre – a first verse fantasy about becoming a rock star that gets brought back to earth with a bump with the second verse realisations that it won’t be all it’s cracked up to be. Ideas like that probably qualify the two early twenty-somethings of MGMT to be labeled as precocious but that’s been the way with so many good musicians over the years, so let’s hope their second album (due in January 2010) will see them deliver more of the same.

4. Outkast - Ms. Jackson (Stankonia, 2000) Listen
Outkast always looked destined to be a little different to most rappers right from their early albums, but Stankonia was a stupendously funky raising of the hip hop bar. The titular Ms Jackson represents all the mother’s of young mothers and the distrust they have for the father of their daughter’s child – it’s all about the baby mommas. But socially conscious raps aside, what really makes Ms Jackson so special is its effortless cool, cleverly treading the line between ballad and floorfiller, and it sounds as new now as the day it was released, right at the top of the noughties. And the fact that the video’s full of great animals too is no bad thing in my book.

3. Jay-Z - 99 Problems (The Black Album, 2003) Listen
Never has the misogyny of rap sounded so fun (except perhaps Sir Mix-a-lot’s Baby Got Back, I suppose). The unforgettable chorus line comes from a 1995 Ice-T track of the same name but as good as Ice was back in the day, he doesn’t come within a country mile of what Jay does with 99 Problems. In all probability, the second verse, about getting pulled over by the police, is the greatest in hip hop history, so complete is its painting of a scenario from start to finish.


2. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes, 2008) Listen
Sometimes the special way that music makes you feel defies words and analysis. Good music should move you, in some way or another, and raw emotions are almost impossible to capture on paper, especially for an amateur hack like me. And so White Winter Hymnal is a perfect example of that – its beautiful innocence makes it such a simply wonderful experience every single time, that for me that’s more than enough. So if you don’t ‘get’ Fleet Foxes, or don’t warm to this kind of simple acoustic music, then I’ll probably never convince you of why this is hands down one of the greatest songs on this decade. But take it from me, if you do ‘get’ it, there are few more joyful things out there than this 147 seconds.

1. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends (Sound Of Silver, 2006) Listen
And so to my number 1. I hope you like it – but if you don’t know it, or know it but don’t think it’s worth being up here, take a couple more listens and see if I can change your mind.

James Murphy’s songwriting normally leans towards the electronic end of the musical spectrum but here it’s all about guitars, live drums and rattling piano keys, and that all combined with the lyrics is what pushes this song into the area of greatness. It’s a daring song by any estimation (and at nearly eight minutes long, All My Friends isn’t a second too long), but even more so as a single. Some bright spark (probably Murphy himself) decided that a good idea would be to release this as a single with two b-sides, both of which were covers of this same song, one by Franz Ferdinand and one by John Cale, and in my book that’s a bloody great idea. But it’s not the covers that make this my number 1, my favourite (and I also believe, the best) song of the past ten years.

Like a volcano brewing away, waiting to erupt, All My Friends builds and builds and builds, making you wonder where exactly it’s going. It doesn’t take too long to realise that it’s all going somewhere special. It makes me feel like a teenager again, like the beauty and power of music is just being shown to me for the first time. It opened my eyes, my brain, my heart. It makes me believe that anything’s possible, with its spirit emphasising that those little mistakes are all there for a reason and that you “wouldn’t trade one stupid decision for another five years of life”. And the truly best bit about everything that this song offers - it makes you want to see the people you love, spend time with the ones that matter, and you realise that that’s the true worth of a person – who your friends are. So I’d like to dedicate this to my friends - all my friends.

ihrtmusique's Top 100 Songs of 2000 - 2009 pt.5

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

25. Gnarls Barkley – Crazy (St. Elsewhere, 2006) Listen
It’s enormous testament to this track and its writers that even after hearing it about a billion times, it still sounds good. Ceee-Lo revealed a previously unknown knack for soulful singing and also brought to a greater audience the enormous talent that is Dangermouse (though those in the know had already been wowed by his Grey Album stroke of genius that laid Jay-Z Black Album rhymes over Beatles White Album samples). Sure, Crazy will be a wedding disco staple for years to come, but don’t hold that against it, and try and remember how you felt about it when you were only a few listens in.

24. The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) (Funeral, 2004) Listen
Funeral was an album of art and sincerity, and had an undertow of sadness due to the deaths of several people close to the band during the album’s recording (hence the title). The whole thing adds up to an emotionally heady mix that’s more or less filmic in its vision (something that wasn’t lost on Spike Jonze who had the band re-record Wake Up for his Where The Wild Things Are trailer. This track is like going to church, but in a good way.

23. Daft Punk – Aerodynamic (Discovery, 2001) Listen
Did somebody order a slice of baffling musical genius? Sounding like it had come out of the court of Louis XIV if he’d lived on Mars in the future, Aerodynamic was about as astonishing as it’s possible for music to be. It can’t sound anywhere near dated yet because it doesn’t even sound like it should exist yet, it’s so far ahead of its time.

22. Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor (I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor EP, 2005) Listen
Notice I’ve specifically put this down as from the EP, not the album? The Monkeys re-recorded their tracks before putting them on the album and I think a little bit of edge was lost in doing that. But whichever version you have, there’s more excitement in these 3 minutes than a lot of bands manage in a whole album. Such was the maturity of Alex Turner’s lyrics and the general arrangement of Monkeys’ songs that the band were plagued by rumours of some sinister puppet master pulling their strings (with Jarvis Cocker being the main suspect). Craziness - they were just an obscenely talented bunch of young men.

21. Passion Pit – Sleepyhead (Manners, 2009) Listen
This song took me a couple of listens before I ‘got it’, but once I had my head around it, it just seems to be one of the most magically joyful songs to be released in a long time. It’s got a pulsing beat and some crazy chipmunk-y vocals (don’t be put off by that), all with a psychedelic backdrop of trippy melodies – granted, on paper it absolutely doesn’t sound like it should work, but the beauty of music is that you don’t listen to it on paper, and this is brilliantly different to pretty much anything else.

20. Johnny Cash – Hurt (American IV: The Man Comes Around, 2003) Listen
All of Johnny Cash’s Rick Rubin-produced albums were poignant, though some of the brittle acoustic covers seemed to skirt dangerously close to hokey, but the better examples were full of such powerful emotion that it was hard not to well up. This take on Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt is unbelievably moving, and the video is often cited as one of the best of recent years.


19. Missy Elliott - Get Ur Freak On (...So Addictive, 2001) Listen
Hip hop’s had some mighty inventive moments in the past decade, though arguably none more so than this, another Timbaland production. It’s absolutely unforgettable with a rhythm and instrumentation that hadn’t been heard in the mainstream before, but a few suckers tried to copy since. And it showed off Missy’s rhyming skills to the max, something she doesn’t always get much credit for.

18. Christina Aguilera – Dirrty (Stripped, 2002) Listen
So if Timberlake kicked his reinvention off with a classy take on boy-becomes-man, Christina’s female version of that process was all about the raunch. The song’s less-than-subtle message was rammed home by the video that spread around the internet quicker than a voucher for free money, and Christina and her chaps were seared onto everyone’s brains for a long time to come. Excellent Redman rap in this too.

17. Snoop Dogg Feat. Pharrell - Drop It Like It's Hot (Rhythm & Gangsta, 2004) Listen
The Neptunes created one of the defining sounds of the past decade (and launched Pharrell, a star in his own right), and they were never more audacious than on this Snoop bomb. Similar to Get Ur Freak On, less was more for Drop It and the hypnotic beat and a few infrequent synth stabs were all the music that Snoop needed to drop some solid gold West Coast rhymes. Now let’s all try and do that ‘clip clop’ beat thing. – snoooooooooooop!!

16. Bon Iver - Skinny Love (For Emma, Forever Ago, 2007) Listen
So-called ‘cabin rock’ has been a noticeable force in the last quarter of the noughties and the act most lauded above all others is Wisconsin’s Justin Vernon, AKA Bon Iver. His story got the press on board (he buggered off to a cabin in the wilderness to write his debut album) but it was his memorable approach to Americana that kept people recommending it. His post-debut releases (an EP and a side project called Volcano Choir) suggest that lightning will strike plenty more times for Bon Iver. After seeing him perform Skinny Love solo on Jools Holland I knew this was a man to pay attention to.

15. Robyn With Kleerup - With Every Heartbeat (Robyn, 2007) Listen
Another Scando-pop masterpiece, and as far as I’m concerned this is the big one. The song’s Radio 1 ubiquity could be enough to put a music purist off but you can’t blame the nation’s yoof station for recognizing quality when they hear it. The unlikely chart star behind it was Sweden’s Robyn, last seen in the late 90s with a couple of dance hits, but this older (and wiser-sounding) Robyn came back (with Swedish producer Kleerup) to rule the airwaves with a superbly sophisticated floorfiller.

14. The Felice Brothers - Frankie's Gun! (The Felice Brothers, 2008) Listen
The Felice Brothers haven’t excited much attention outside of the pages of Uncut and the like, but this accordion-led masterpiece should be force-fed to anyone who has any interest in the alternative side of American music. It doesn’t take many listens to spot the debt Frankie’s Gun! owes to The Band, but like I said for The Gaslight Anthem’s entry, if influences are incorporated in such a grand way as this, then that’s all for the better.

13. Kanye West Feat Jamie Foxx - Gold Digger (Late Registration, 2005) Listen
Okay, we all know that Kanye’s majorly fallen off in the past twelve months or so (jackass, indeed), but this is still a fricking delight when it comes on the speakers, and is a timely reminder of why we all liked him the first place (and we did all like him). The song is a mirror for Kanye himself – clever, arrogant, inventive, funky, incisive, and above all, a cut above the rest. All together now, “we want pre-nup!”.

12. Fleet Foxes - Sun It Rises (Fleet Foxes, 2008) Listen
New band of the decade? Some would say so. I’m the first to admit that I adore Fleet Foxes, and their bucolic take on indie (all perfect harmonies and lyrics that sound like they’re out of Lord Of The Rings) has won them an army of ardent fans. As much as I’ve picked out the likes of Missy’s Get UR Freak On and The Knife’s Silent Shout for their inventive take on their genre’s well-worn path, the Foxes should be similarly praised for moving country rock forward to new levels of greatness, not seen since Crosby, Stills & Nash’s heyday.

11. Midlake - Roscoe [Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve Reanimation], (Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve Reanimations, 2007) Listen
I was in two minds about whether to even include this track – after all, it’s the remix that’s the genius part of this, and why Midlake (a band I’m not really familiar with) are so high up in my top 100. But include it I have, and it’s one of my most listened to tracks of the past few years. The original is a good but unremarkable indie rocker, but London duo Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve have turned it into an ambient masterpiece that’s reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell. Its gentle tempo and thoughtful lyrics are a heady combination, but the inspired decision to remove the guitars and let the well-crafted vocals carry the song is what makes Roscoe a very memorable seven minutes.


Part 6 (10-1)

ihrtmusique's Top 100 Songs of 2000 - 2009 pt.4

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

50. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero (It's Blitz, 2009) Listen
There are other reinventions on this list that were as subtle as a sledgehammer (JT, Xtina for instance), YYYs have been going through a much quieter sort of revolution over the past few years, the culmination of which is their recent excellent album, It’s Blitz, featuring this brilliant track. Based on a rock blueprint, but polished for the dance floor, Karen O and pals ensured that they lost none of their spunk, as it were, but broke out of any niche bracketing with superb effect.

49. The White Stripes - Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground (White Blood Cells, 2001) Listen
Uncut magazine have recently put this at #1 in their best albums of the noughties list, and while the White Stripes have never moved me as much as I’ve admired them, this a terrifically grimey modern blues number. I’d doubt anyone who claimed that when this came out they could see Jack White becoming the all-powerful alt.rock god that he is now, but he’s built that reputation on hard work and great song writing.

48. Ryan Adams - Come Pick Me Up (Heartbreaker, 2000) Listen
It would probably be possible to do a top 100 of Ryan Adams songs from this decade, so prolific has his out put been, with seven solo albums and three more with The Cardinals. Inevitably, with that level of output, some of it’s been patchy, but this is still a stunningly bleak plea of a song, written by someone who sounds like he really needs help.

47. Iron & Wine - The Sea And The Rhythm (The Sea & The Rhythm EP, 2003) Listen
Sam Beam AKA Iron & Wine is a master of ghostly acoustica and this is him at his best, with barely audible vocals, fuzzy production and nursery rhyme melodies. His later output developed a little beyond that into down-the-line acoustic indie, but his early output is some of the best lo-fi music you’ll ever find.

46. Eminem – Stan (The Marshall Mathers LP, 2000) Listen
Undoubtedly one of the best lyricist’s, across any genre, this was a creative high for Eminem and repositioned him as an artist who was about more than just cartoon violence raps. It also launched Dido’s career, though not everyone thinks that that was a good thing. It's still a fantastic testament to Eminem's story-telling ability.

45. Foo Fighters - Times Like These (One By One, 2002) Listen
Grohl and co have worked hard to become the rock titans they are now, and while their current greatest hits package may seem a little premature (Grohl considers it akin to an obituary), it’s only possible because of a slew of great rock singles, this being the best. It’s the perfect Foos track – melodic but not soft, rock but not too heavy, spiky but with a singalong chorus. And he really is the nicest man in rock, which is great for all concerned.

44. The Roots - The Seed (2.0) (Phrenology, 2002) Listen
Another band that have never quite reached the wider audience that they deserve, The Roots have been putting out some of the most well-considered hip hop for well over a decade now. Hailing from Philadelphia the band play their own instruments and write songs that mostly transcend a normal hip hop tag, and this guitar led cracker is one of their best.

43. The Gaslight Anthem - Old White Lincoln (The '59 Sound, 2008) Listen
If Springsteen received royalties for every recent band that’s been influenced by him, he’d have no bigger cheque than from The Gaslight Anthem. But I’ve never considered good influences to be a black mark next to a band, especially when they’re channeled so well as they are by Brain Fallon and the boys here. It’s unashamedly Springsteen-esque, but they admit as much, so who’s complaining?

42. Aaliyah - Try Again (Romeo Must Die OST, 2000) Listen
Not only was this Aaliyah’s best song, it’s one of Timbaland’s too, thus playing a part in making two artists stars. It’s a sexy, subtle R&B track that surprisingly came from a movie soundtrack originally (though it was later added to Aaliyah’s eponymous third album as a bonus track). She was only 22 when she died and with songs like this under her belt, she could definitely have been an even bigger star with a little more time.

41. Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out (Franz Ferdinand, 2004) Listen
Despite their obviously arty pretensions, Franz Ferdinand announced themselves with this belting indie stomper, more glam rock than Bowie, all scratchy riffs and shouty pomp, and althought their subsequent work’s all been above average at least, this still remains one of the best singles of the past decade.

40. 50 Cent - What Up Gangsta (Get Rich Or Die Tryin', 2003) Listen
I worked on the first 50 Cent record so perhaps I’m biased, but I remember very well just how genuinely exciting he was as a new artist – blessed by Em & Dre, built like a brick shithouse and shot nine times? He was like a movie character (which is more than can be said for most of the movie characters he plays). In Da Club was ubiquitous but it was this track, the first on his album, that really blew the roof off. Unusually for a rap album, Get Rich... was critically acclaimed, and although that edge has long since gone, this was a guy you knew had lived through his violent rhymes.

39. Beck - The Golden Age (Sea Change, 2002) Listen
If I was doing a list of the best artists of the noughties, Beck would definitely be in the top 10, as he would have been in the 90s too. And if he'd had a Loser of a Devil's Haircut this century then no doubt he'd be higher in this list too. As it is he'll have to settle for 39 - sorry Beck! This stark track sticks out though, and comes from his acoustic album of 2002, Sea Change. It took a lot of people by surprise after the Prince-inspired Midnite Vultures, but with strings from his father (David Campbell) and production from Radiohead cohort Nigel Godrich, it was one of the best breakup albums of the decade.


38. The Killers - All These Things That I've Done (Hot Fuss, 2004) Listen
A bit like Green Day, success seems to be changing The Killers, and for my tastes, not for the better. But Hot Fuss was a ray of glittery light in a sometimes-grey landscape, with flashes of showmanship and exuberance hinting at their Las Vegas background. Even the recent terrible-but-for-a-good-cause War Child cover of this can’t diminish the brilliance of the line “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier”.

37. Roots Manuva - Witness (1 Hope) (Run Come Save Me, 2001) Listen
Sorry Dizzee, but the highpoint of UK rap in the 00’s (in ever??) comes from Rodney Smith, better known as Roots Manuva. The production’s as good as any US knob-twiddlers of the time without ever sounding like it’s trying to ape them, and Roots wears his Britishness on his sleeve with references of pints of bitter and cheese on toast. Oh, and it's a wicked party track.

36. Kings Of Leon - On Call (Because Of The Times, 2007) Listen
Another of those diverse songs I referred to in KOL’s earlier entry, and again it does the big and brash American rock thing, but in a way that’s not altogether expected, with a great hypnotic bass-line as the spine of this song.

35. John Legend - Ordinary People (Get Lifted, 2004) Listen
John Legend is a talent in the classic sense – a true songwriter who might never have that big pop hit but will always make music that strikes a chord, and never more so than on this piano-only plea to a lover to stay the course. It’s a beautifully simple sentiment and one of the most uplifting songs of the past ten years I think.

34. The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army (Elephant, 2003) Listen
Jack White’s laced-with-acid way with words is something he doesn’t always get credit for, at least not as much as his instrumental qualities, but there are some great lines on Seven Nation Army, my favourite part of my favourite White Stripes track.

33. Outkast - B.O.B. (Stankonia, 2000) Listen
Pitchfork installed this futuristic cut as their best song of the decade, and while I rate it too, it’s not quite #1 for me. But it still stands out as a unique song, across any genre. It’s almost metal in its beat and instruments, all seriously heavy drums and wailing guitar solos, but it’s Big Boi and Andre 3000 that rightly steal the show, with their super-fast rhymes and political framing.

32. Justin Timberlake - Cry Me A River (Justified, 2002) Listen
If Like I Love You was the sound of a new credible pop hero being created, Cry Me A River was the calculated move to make that hero appeal to a wider music audience and make his flash extend beyond the pan. It benefited from the massive PR push and whispering campaign about the true subject of the lyrics (Britney, of course) and the video all-but confirmed that. Again, another slice of bona fide pop gold from Timbaland.

31. The Hold Steady - Stuck Between Stations (Boys And Girls In America, 2006) Listen
The Hold Steady hadn’t caught much attention in the UK before the release of this, their third record, but with it they blew up all over the music press and were, like The Gaslight Anthem, put in the Springsteen-acolytes bracket. Soon to be dubbed the best pub band in the US, they were a million times better than that, with Craig Finn’s acutely observed lyrics being up their with the best songwriters, and never more so than on this New Jersey epic.

30. Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Fever, 2001) Listen
The beginnings of Kylie’s renaissance had been evident with her 2000 album Light Years, but it was 2001’s Fever that took her supersonic. After a couple of listens of this (let alone seeing the video), it was nearly impossible to remember that this was the same girl from Neighbours and of Locomotive fame, and it’s without doubt the best pop song by a pop artist of the past ten years.

29. The Knife - Silent Shout (Silent Shout, 2006) Listen
The Knife have had a little more attention lately than in recent years thanks to singer Karin Dreijer-Andersson’s solo project Fever Ray, but before that even Jose Gonzalez’s hit single cover of The Knife’s Heartbeats failed to wake the mainstream up to them. Good, I say. Their album Silent Shout, and in particular this title track, is so absolutely brilliant that I’m glad more people don't seem to know about them. The warped vocals and scary electro beats never detract from what is a fundamentally listenable experience, and it’s the musical equivalent of one of those paintings that people say they see something different in no matter how many times they view it.

28. Queens Of The Stone Age - No One Knows (Songs For The Deaf, 2002) Listen
QOTSA had picked up a cult following over the course of several years of releases before 2002’s Songs... album, and their break to a bigger bunch of ears was perhaps helped in no small part by the fact that they had a certain Dave Grohl playing drums for them on this album, and their subsequent tour. On the album, the rock was ferociously loud, but on this track they trod the line between metal and rock (yes, there is a difference), and came up with a track that swings like few heavy rock songs ever do.

27. Radiohead - 15 Step (In Rainbows, 2007) Listen
Once the furore over Radiohead’s controversial self-pricing policy had died down, it became clear that they weren’t using just any old album to experiment on. In Rainbows was their best of the decade (controversial, I know) as it bridged a gap between the more conventional song-writing of The Bends and their inspirational-but-difficult albums like Kid A.

26. Jay-Z – Takeover (Blueprint, 2001) Listen
Long before the mainstream woke up to the fact that Jay-Z was and is the king of New York, he knew it, and like all kings, he had to withstand a barrage of oncomers. So Kanye put together an awesome track based around a Doors sample and Jigga man goes to work on abso-fucking-lutely destroying a couple of those pretenders to his throne. Prodigy (of Mobb Deep) and Nas are the two in his line of fire, and it’s the most comprehensive diss track ever. “You little fuck, I’ve got money stacks bigger than you” is just one of dozens of perfect lines.


Part 5 (26-11)
Part 6 (10-1)