65. “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver (2008)

Everyone loves a back story and the one behind Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago seems to have driven a lot of the critical praise for the album. Real quick: Justin Vernon lived in North Carolina but when he broke up with his girlfriend, he decided to also break up his band and move back to the frozen tundra of Wisconsin. It was there that he spent a winter in a freezing cabin, adopting the name Bon Iver (French for “good winter”) and unintentionally writing the songs that would make him an overnight darling. The tastemakers and music blogs loved the thing long before it was even released, of course, and that led to tons of buzz, which in turn led to Letterman appearances, ABC News specials and Town Hall-headlining shows.

The thing is, Vernon deserved it. For Emma is a mini-classic in my mind, an album with real depth and soul, and something that seems to be timeless and of one particular time and place (in a freezing cabin in Wisconsin, after breaking up with a girlfriend in North Carolina). Whether the back story matters of not is hardly the point. The songs stand on their own – the mix of folk and gospel is perfect and Vernon’s falsetto carries the day throughout. All nine songs are great in their own way, but this one seemed like the most obvious pick.

Listen here.

66. “A Praise Chorus” by Jimmy Eat World (2001)

I’ve never been much into the silly tags attached to music genres, but even with that said, the one that most mystifies me is the “emo” tag. From what I can gather, Bleed American is something of an emo classic and Jimmy Eat World seems to be one of the Godfathers of the emo genre. Is it because they emote a lot? Is it because they play punk-influenced pop rock that is palatable to suburban teens? I don’t know. What I do know is that Bleed American has 4 or 5 fantastic tunes on it, and this one stands out among them. It’s an ode to rock n roll, for sure, but it’s also about getting out there and making it happen, something only a 25 year old guy can write. This is Jimmy Eat World’s version of “Cigarettes and Alcohol” or “Born To Run” – exciting, catchy, energetic and…inspiring? See for yourself.

67. More Yellow Birds” by Sparklehorse (2001)

Will my pony recognize my voice in hell?
Will he still be blind, or do they go by smell?
Will you promise not to rest me out at sea
But on a fiery river boat that's rickety?

In the late 90s, Mark Linkous had a near-death experience in London when he took too many pills and ended up in a coma. He ultimately survived and the artistic result of that was one of my favorite albums of all time, 1998’s Good Morning Spider. It’s truly incredible to listen to because it sounds and feels like something that was made from a hospital bed, with the morphine drip on.

In 2003, he followed Spider up with It’s a Wonderful Life, something equally spooky, but also equally fantastic. Linkous’ skill as a producer alone is something to marvel at, as the sound -- the overall feeling and level of intimacy -- he gets out of his songs is hard to find anywhere else.

“More Yellow Birds” is vintage Sparklehorse – a half-sedated glimpse of the sun shining through the late autumn trees with a slight chill in the air. Contemplative, unique, sad and absolutely beautiful.

Listen here.

68. “Light Years” by Pearl Jam (2000)

This decade found Pearl Jam settling comfortably into themselves, churning out solid album after solid album, solid tour after solid tour – not breaking new ground for them, but releasing tons of good tunes and doing what they do and doing it really well. Some people see this negatively as the same old Pearl Jam, but I actually appreciate exactly where they are at this point. Twenty years after releasing their first record, The Stones officially announced their decline when they sharted out Emotional Rescue and went on to become a touring novelty act (though I still think Tatoo You is a solid album).

Amazingly, PJ is almost twenty years in and they still seem to be releasing enjoyable, relevant records. I was not a fan of these guys when they first blasted onto the scene, but over the years I have really come to appreciate them for what they are – a solid straight ahead rock band with tons of great tunes.

“Light Years”, to me, is the best embodiment of everything they did well early in their career, filtered through their post-Versus need to avoid a simple, catchy song. At times, this has been to their detriment – are good pop hooks really something to avoid? – but it’s hard to argue with their output.

Listen here.

69. “Sunken Waltz” by Calexico (2003)

With Calexico, it’s easy to get lost in the mariachi horns and pedal steel and incredible musicianship while sometimes ignoring the fact that some of their most simple songs are actually their best. “Convict Pool” is a tremendous song that fits in this category. “Sunken Wealth” is in the same boat.

Washed my face in the rivers of empire,
Made my bed from a cardboard crate,
Down in the city of quartz.
No news, no new regrets,
Tossed a Susan B. over my shoulder,
And prayed it would rain and rain,
Submerge the whole western states,
Call it a last fair deal
With an American seal
And corporate hand shake.

That’s not to say that I don’t love me some epic tex mex jams like “Crystal Frontier”, which, in the live setting is taken to new heights -- a fact that seems to be no secret to anyone these days, as they seem to be the house band for every live tribute and every collaboration. They are the Booker T’s of southmex aughts indie rock, some might say. Their split EP with Iron and Wine, for example, seems to have brought Sam Beam out of homespun shell and launched him into a more percussive, swinging world that Calexico sometimes inhabits.

Anyway, this is a really great live band and their recordings don’t seem to do them much justice, but “Sunken Wealth” still stands alone as a great tune. Check it out.

70. “Let’s Explode” by Clem Snide (2001)

“A peacock died to cover my lips, so I dyed my hair in all its sweat. But now I’m haunted by these visions of me.”

Eef Barzelay And Clem Snide are criminally underrated. Who rates him, you ask? Well, I’m not sure, but I saw him play a solo gig in 2006 at the Mercury Lounge and there were literally less than 100 people there. On one level, I love being able to move freely, get a brew, get to the commode, break dance, whatever. But on another, it struck me as ridiculous that more people don’t come out to hear this guy’s songs. I would hope that Senor Barzelay could make a decent living doing what he does, because he does it pretty damn well.

Clem Snide was a very good live band that put out two great albums (“Your Favorite Music” and “The Ghost of Fashion”) and few other very good (“The End Of Love”) to good ones (“Soft Spot”), all of them filled with songs that I could have included on this list. Songs about Ryan Adams not being as “weird as you’d like me to think”, about having a kid (“never have I been made to feel less doubtful, never have I been made less cynical”) and songs about…explosions.

“And I don’t want to live forever, when the sky is full of little holes exploding as they take my picture. Let’s explode!”

I chose “Let’s Explode”, because it always seemed to define these guys to me, both on their albums and at their shows. I saw them once at one of those free South Street Seaport shows and when it became obvious that the rain was going to cut the show off after a few songs, he opened with this and blew it out, singing, “I don’t want to know me better”, over and over until we got to Jeremy’s Ale Haus.

These guys have a great ear for a catchy tune, but their real allure is Eef’s lyrics and his quirky, crackling vocal delivery. I saw shows that were really too slow to get you going, but he always kept you engaged with his songs. One example is “Made For TV Movie”, a sad song about Lucille Ball and how, in life, the chocolates always seem to move too fast. My favorite example -- the one that reminds me of the dawn as seen from the roof of my old, big yellow house in Queens -- is “Joan Jett of Arc”, which documents the first time a teenage boy got to know his lady friend. The lyrics are fantastic, but the production, the overall feel of the song, so perfectly captures the summer night, the innocence ending, the fact that the cicadas and crickets had gone silent.

71. “Some Red Handed Sleight Of Hand” by Cursive (2003)

Tim Kasher’s projects (Cursive, The Good Life) would hardly be possible without THAT VOICE. And as a fan of Minor Threat, old school Fugazi and Kasher, it’s hard not to listen to Cursive without thinking of Fugazi. And I mean that in a good way. I have often said that Kasher’s voice is the exact middle ground between Robert Smith of The Cure and Ian McKaye. In the end, it makes much of Kasher’s stuff very compelling and awesome.

Kasher released a handful of very good albums this past decade, both by Cursive and the Good Life and there were several tracks from both bands that could have been included here, but in the end I knew I would have to go back to Cursive’s 2003 classic “The Ugly Organ”, Kasher’s take on his own self-deprecating statement about his own art and how it is created, as if the things in his life that make their way into his songs exist for the art, and not the other way around. It’s a great album that fits into that “post-hardcore” genre very nicely.

Check out another great tune from this album here.

One of the things that music critic seem to constantly ignore is the power of the voice that is singing the song. How many songs, how many BANDS, exist because they have captivating singers. I am not talking about Beyonce and Mariah. I am talking about rock groups that build a basic sound around a unique vocal delivery. The National comes to mind. People either seem to love or hate Neil Young because of his voice. Imagine if Neil Diamond sang the Neil Young classics – it’d completely change the audience, even if the songs themselves were the same. There are many extreme examples like this, but the truth is that the vocals are the number one thing that draws most people to a song. You might not love Eddie Van Halen’s guitar style, but if you hate Sammy Hagar, you will be forced to disown Halen and profess allegiance to only Diamond Dave-era Halen. You might also be forced to drive 55, which is not something I will promote here at TAGTOE.

Point being that Kasher’s voice perfectly fits his Cursive and Good Life sounds perfectly. Neither could exist without that delivery.

Listen here.