36. “Zero” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2009)

Karen O is a performance artist, but she also is a bit of a throwback. She’s a rock star in an era where rock stars are dead, but she has also maintained some of the teenage innocence that reminds the audience that this “act” is just that. She is having fun dressing up in outrageous gear, she’s chuckling as the songs end and the crowd starts cheering and she’s basically reminding you not to take everything so seriously. She may look like a cross between Joan Jett and Pat Benatar, but the show she puts on is distinct to her. I have much respek for this band because they have created something new and unique while looking back to past influences, without losing their own current identity.

I saw a documentary called “Kill Your Idols” on the early aughts New York music scene that tried to draw parallels between it and the “No Wave” scene from the 70s. Obviously, in 2003, when it was filmed, people were starting to see that New York (and primarily Brooklyn) was the new place to be for young musicians. So the documentary sought to go back to the Godfathers of the “No Wave” scene to see what they thought of what was happening in Brooklyn circa 2002-2003. What they said was pretty great -- all these old school downtown New York punks were pissed off that these young bands seemed to be missing the point altogether. The point being that their noisy music was a statement on how not to conform. It was a “fuck you” to the world. It was an outlet for fucked up people. It was funny and interesting to see the scorn they had for The Liars and The Strokes. It also made you realize how great Sonic Youth is to have mixed the best parts of that No Wave sound with some semblance of listenable rock music to make….Sonic Youth.

In that documentary, the YYY’s are interviewed long before “Maps” became an MTV hit and even longer before Karen O was playing to 30,000 people at All Points West Festival in Jersey City. Karen O and Nick Zinner seemed so damn young and naïve in the movie and it made you realize that they were basically just kids trying to make a name for themselves. They weren’t looking to make a statement and while Zinner truly seemed to love all the No Wave noise music from the 70s (he’s a huge Swans fan), it was clear from their interview that they weren’t owed anything and they were simply kids that were trying to go about this in their own way, which they did.

They graduated from Karen spitting beer all over the audience in small clubs to Karen spitting water all over a sea of people on huge stages around the world. Along the way, their overall sound became more conventional, less noisy and easier to digest. “Our Time” from the debut EP was lo fi and abrasive, “Maps” from the debut LP was a nice catchy ballad and “Y Control” was a nice indie punk song, but “Gold Lion” and “Zero” were huge pop songs that would have been the Shriek of The Week and more if progressive radio stations still existed. Even so, “Zero” is the tune I picked here, because it seems to exemplify where they’ve come from and where they are as the decade is coming to a close. It also asks us all to “get your leather on”, which is good for many points in my scorebook.

Listen here.

37. “This Year” by Mountain Goats (2005)

'I played video games in a drunken haze

I was seventeen years young.

Hurt my knuckles punching the machines,

the taste of scotch rich on my tongue.”

Throughout the 1990s John Darnielle gained a cult following by recording hundreds of songs -- little short stories, vignettes of wacky fictional characters he had created -- to a boombox, full of hiss and all. By the early aughts he had graduated from this world and he started recording in an actual studio and writing an autobiographical trilogy of albums about his teenage years growing up in a broken home in California. “This Year” is from The Sunset Tree, the second part of this trilogy and it’s probably the most quintessential song from that series, in that it chronicles a single day of dodging his abusive stepfather by drinking with his girlfriend, playing video games and then, finally, driving home only to have it all end “as badly as you can imagine.”

It’s a fairly literal song and much of what makes it great depends on the fact that it’s all right out in front of you. And, like any great song, even if you don’t identify with everything there, there are lines and phrases throughout that are universal to any person who remembers what it was like to be 17 years old.

“I drove home in the california dusk.
I could feel the alcohol inside of me.
Home.
Picture the look on my stepfather's face,
ready for the bad things to come.

I downshifted as I pulled into the driveway,

The motor screaming out stuck in second gear.
The scene ends badly as you might imagine,
in a cavalcade of anger and fear.

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.”

Listen here.

38. “Vincent O’Brien” by M. Ward (2003)

“He only sings when he's sad, but he's sad all the time, so he sings the whole night through.

Yeah, he sings in the day-time, too.”

Every review of an M. Ward cites his dusty, timeless sound and it is indeed impossible listen to him and not marvel at the fact that his music seems like it is being filtered through an AM radio somewhere in Oklahoma. What’s makes him great, though, is how his music seems old and new at the same time. I think that 2006’s Post-War is one of the decades best records, something every music fan should own, and it’s aging really well as time goes on. I reckon that Noel Gallagher, as usual, said it best in a 2006 interview with Exclaim Magazine:

“I've just got an album in New York by a guy called M. Ward, it's called Post-War. Fookin' hell, man. I've never heard this guy before, and I was doing a photo shoot, as us rock stars generally do, and some guy was playing it in the background. I was like, ''What's that fookin' music?’ And he's like, [adopts American accent] 'Dude, it's M. Ward.' One of the best albums I've ever heard actually.”

“To Go Home” is probably my favorite M. Ward song, but it is a Daniel Johnston cover, so I thought it best not to break the already-broken-rules and include it on this list. (That’s not to say that you don’t need to listen to this song RIGHT NOW.)

“There may be mermaids under the water,

There may even be a man in the moon,

But Vincent, time is running out.

I hope you get yourself together soon.”

That having been said, “Vincent O’Brien” ain’t too shabby either, so make sure you give it a listen here.

39. “The Bleeding Heart Show” by The New Pornographers (2005)

As the decade wore on, the “super group” tag attached to the New Pornographers began to seem really befitting. AC Newman, the New Porn’s main songwriter has essentially established himself as the master crafter of the power pop song. Neko Case is Neko Case and it seems like the New Porn’s pop sound took her solo career out of its countrified shell and got her and her band to expand their palate for the better. Dan Bejar of Destroyer contributed a handful of quirky gypsy folk pop songs to each New Porns record, all of them typically excellent. The end result is Newman and Bejar basically getting a kick-ass backing band, with Neko chipping in on lead vocals and/or harmonies. If that sounds good on paper, it’s even better on the records. Nowhere is this better exemplified than with “The Bleeding Heart Show”, which mystifies me as far as the lyrics go (“In business of your lives, the perception, it is wrong, mile after mile. The phantom taste drinking wine from your heels.”), but never ceases to rock it out with the anthemic “hey la’s” in the coda. This is a truly fantastic pop song that is incredibly catchy and never not enjoyable to listen to. Check it out.

As an aside, when trying to find you tube links to these songs, I sometimes come across really absurd videos. And sometimes I come across decent homemade ones, like this one.

40. “The Crane Wife, Parts 1 & 2” by The Decemberists (2006)

The Decemberists were always destined to be the object of our derision, what with their hyper-literate lyrics and absurd tales of goblins inhabiting the world of indie prog rock (is that even a thing?). But not so fast my fren’! These guys are huge for a reason and their first couple of albums were real gems, with songs like “July July” and “California Youth Brigade” and “Red Right Ankle” and “Billy Liar”. Things started to get kind of dicey with 2005’s The Tain, which is what made The Crane Wife LP so enjoyable when it came out.

Ostensibly, The Crane Wife is a collection of tracks based on a Japanese folk tale bearing that same name. It’s pretentious, of course, but that’s what we’ve come to expect of Colin Meloy and there’s a place for this in the world of indie rock. But more importantly, The Crane Wife is a hell of an album when taken as a whole or when taken apart as a bunch of single tracks. It’s definitely one of the best albums of the last ten years and “The Crane Wife, Parts 1 & 2” seems to best exemplify what it does best. Extra points for the fact that it segues immediately into “Sons and Daughters”. Check out “The Crane Wife, Parts 1 & 2” for yourself.

41. “Patty Lee” by Les Savy Fav (2007)

This band pretty much defines the “post hardcore” genre in that they seem to take many of the great elements of hardcore – wild energy and rocking guitars -- and mix them with angular dance rock to make a nuanced and unique sound that is very listenable. It’s still edgier than your standard Drive By Truckers song, but it’s not a brutal as, say, Agnostic Front. So if Joy Division is “post punk” then Les Savy Fav is “post hardcore” and I love that these guys channel 80s hardcore and punk and 90s indie rock to make this perfect mix of rock n roll for 2009.

“’Patty Lee, turn the lights on, please.

There's something I don't understand.

Patty Lee, turn the lights on please.

This party's gotten out of hand.’

Those were the last words her suitor spoke before he croaked.

In seven seconds he'd be dead, tied to the headboard of Pattie Lee's bed.”

“Patty Lee” is Les Savy Fav’s version of a dance / rock song, and it outdoes any other dance rock song of the decade, in my opinion. People will cite “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand or some other crappy Killers song, but the reality is that “Patty Lee” gets things to a very unique and awesome place without abandoning the aforementioned “post hardcore” aesthetic. The lead guitar is unlike anything in rock n roll today, Tim Harrington’s lead man antics are way, way out there and they have a bunch of unique, kick ass songs to back everything up. Les Savy Fav made one of the decade’s best albums when they recorded Lets’ Stay Friends -- an eclectic collection of great rock songs that doesn’t so much as genre hop as “style hop” – and “Patty Lee” is the centerpiece of the whole record. A must-have.

PATTY LEE.

Apologies

What with that 17 day bender over Christmas and the whole working on a dream thing (a book I've been writing entitled 'What With That 17 Day Bender Over Christmas'), we have been seriously remiss in posting. Sorry. It will happen again.

Also, once the Top 100 is done, we'll be posting the Best of 2010. Yeah, I know. It's a little late for that. Suck it.