So, we each pick twenty songs released this decade (this decade will henceforth be known as "the decade" - I still can't believe that it's been ten years and nobody has figured out a name.) We are holding ourselves to a one song per artist maximum, to prevent Jedd from listing twenty Vampire Weekend songs (not that I should talk - if you want my all TI version of this list, just drop a note in the comments.) This list is not a list of the best songs, these are just our personal favorites. We cool? Here's 20-16. Let's get this popping.
20. Lil Mama - Lip Gloss
This decade in music was messy and glorious and (at least in my city) filled with mopey hipsters rediscovering the simple pleasures of getting wasted and hollering along with the monster pop song of the moment while a hairy stranger rubs up against you. Or something like that. Will Oldham made cameos in Kanye videos, Jay-Z showed up at Grizzly Bear shows, rockism was generally decried, and nerdy critic-types (like yours truly) learned to love the club banger. Music's pleasures became, for the lack of a less reductive word, simpler. Of course, some people probably spent the decade in a dark room listening to Bright Eyes and Radiohead and carving Dashboard Confessional lyrics into their arms, which I suppose is its own punishment. For the rest of us, there's a song by a teenage girl from Brooklyn who happens to be rocking a truly fantastic shade of lip gloss and wants to tell the world about it. The beat is just handclaps and footstomps arranged to sound like a drum machine preset. It's simple, banging, and effective, just like "Louie Louie." It's great to dance to, and almost as good to stand and holler along to. What else do you need?
19. Morrissey - First of the Gang to Die
Music's ur-mopey intellectual also decided to (marginally) lighten up this decade, writing what just might be the decade's finest gangsta rap song. "First of the Gang" is a bear hug to the Mozzer's adoring (and improbable) Chicano fanbase. But Morrissey never quite romanticizes or mythologizes the subculture he sings about, inverting tired Robin Hoodisms with "and he stole from the rich/ and the poor/ and the not-very-rich/ and the very poor." But he admits Hector stole our hearts away. That's important too.
18. Silver Jews - How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down
The Silver Jews' David Berman also had an interesting decade, emerging from bouts of drug addiction and mental illness to become a better Jew (!), write a fantastic essay about his teenage ecstasy use, and record a resonant country pisstake. The title's unanswerable question got at least a couple of my friends laid (which is all you can really ask for from music). Even if you have no use for beardo pickup lines, you can still take a moment to contemplate Berman koans like "Time is a game only children play well" or "fast cars, fine ass/ these things will pass/ and it won't get more profound." Definitely the most poignant rollicking fake country song of the last ten years.
17. The Weakerthans - One Great City!
A bittersweet tribute to Winnipeg, the city I was born in. I came back twice this decade, both times in the dead of winter, once for my grandparents' 60th anniversary, and the second time for my grandfather's funeral a few years later. My mother, like a lot of talented young Winnipeggers, fled West about as soon as she could. Downtown Winnipeg is filled with hollowed out storefronts and empty lots where thriving businesses used to be, but the local shows still fill the shitty bars even in minus-40 degree weather. The people are impossible to hate, but it is hard not to get depressed by the city. The song describes a few of life's routine humiliations, disses local heroes Burton Cummings and Dale Hawerchuck, and catalogues all the reasons to hate Winnipeg. I can usually hold out until the line about "watching the North End die" before I get misty.
16. Beyonce - Crazy In Love
The most ecstatic, triumphant, danceable, head-rushingly romantic song about having handles like brass-balled Lakers point guard Nick Van Exel ever. It's just a fucking awesome song, ok?
2 comments:
Could one song ever fulfill the promise of all the best-used adjectives in this write-up?
And if so, what is this glorious, messy, ur-mopey, resonant, bittersweet, head-rushingly romantic, brass-balled track?
Great piece, Shmuel.
well i think my number one will cover all of that, but you will just have to wait to see it (though it is definitely guessable...)
but yeah my adjective per blurb count is ridiculous, and the blurbs just keep getting longer...
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