Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Top 100 Songs of the Aughties, 90 - 81

Wassup Hepcats.
Wicked sorry for the delay, got laid up up with a touch of the sickness.
One good thing about it was I got to speed through season one of "True Blood". I'm not one usually to go for the whole vampire thing, but I found this show surprisingly enjoyable. Still waiting for season two to show up on demand, but if it matches season one in terms of vampire mayhem, buckets of gore, and gratuitous nudity, I'll be pleased. Plus maybe the greatest title sequence of the last ten years.


See? Sex, death, swamps, and hillbillies. Plus that song ("Bad Things" by Jace Everett).
On to the tunes.

90. "Dazed, Beautiful, and Bruised" - Catatonia (Equally Cursed and Blessed, 2000). I expected huge things from this Welsh band. This album had 3 really good songs on it, and they had a hot lead singer wearing net stockings on the album cover. But it's never a good sign when the 3rd record a band puts out is a "greatest hits" package. Broke up in 2001.



89. "Wendy" - Jesse Malin (The Fine Art of Self-Destruction, 2002). A strong candidate for underrated singer-songwriter of the decade, Jesse Malin was like the love child of Bruce Springsteen, Joey Ramone, and Billy Corgan, if three men could have sex and produce a musically gifted child, without the tabloids being aware. Good song about the cool chick at the bar.

88. "Imitation of Life" - R.E.M. (Reveal, 2001) The fact that R.E.M. only placed one song on this list, and that was only at number 88, would have caused 19 yr old Timmy a heart attack. This is a beautiful tune, though (with a groundbreaking video). Just let's not tell 19 yr old Timmy just yet.


87. "Nothing Better" - Postal Service (Give Up, 2003) One of my favorite lyrics of all time: "Your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures", sung in counter-melody by Jenny Lewis. Fuck, this should have been higher. Also, your girlfriend loves Postal Service.

86. "Fight Test" - The Flaming Lips (Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, 2002) Why this over "Do You Realize??" or the title track? It's all a mystery. (I know, lame cop-out. Something about this song just grabs the cockles.)



85. "I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor" - Arctic Monkeys (Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not , 2006) Arctic Monkeys took the Franz Ferdinand sound and slummed it up something hellish. This song came out when my girls were 2 months old, and I used to imagine that this would be the song I'd be getting ready to go out to. Not wistfully, mind you, just thinking about alternate realities.

84. "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" - U2 (How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, 2004) The best non-cheesy death-of-a-father song ever. "Our house doesn't make a home, don't leave me here alone." Aw, hell.

83. "The Rat" - The Walkmen (Bows + Arrows, 2004) Lady, I wouldn't ignore this guy. He sounds serious. And that drumbeat is fucking SICK.

82. "Buick City Complex" - Old 97s (Satellite Rides, 2001) A coy little song. Rhett Miller laments the loss of his apartment building, but is more worried about : "Do you wanna mess around?"

81. "Gone" - Ben Folds (Rockin' the Suburbs, 2001) Orchestral pop worthy of Brian Wilson, hell, better than Brian Wilson. Ben Folds is too smart to sing about surfboards.

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