Casio poke you me

10
"Chicago"
Sufjan Stevens


With a little luck, the greatest song ever will soundtrack a moment of your life like a glove

It's like this: either you had a crush when this song came out, and the song very briefly became your entire world. Or you didn't, and you may have casually listened during the mid-decade Sufxplosion with or without particular interest.

If you are of the latter camp, then count yourself among the lucky: good songs should never be caught up in the unforgiving grasp of a fling, as you will never hear them the same afterward (word up Rob Fleming).

There will be a precious break-down into a vocal solo.

Sufjan was crying in a van! Poor Sufjan. At least his friend was there. The 3:00 bridge is produced like the tender third-act fulcrum of a Wes Anderson movie: the voice is warbly and repentant, the strings shimmer in the background like shy fairies, the choral background vocals pipe up and lift up the whole teary mass on a cloud. But if you shut your eyes and listen, you can pretend that neither the year, not its soundtrack, got put away some time ago. You're good, Suf: we made a lot of mistakes.

9
"School Spirit"

Kanye West

School must be hated on

Higher learning and pro music do not mix. Getting blazed and grinding out a killer beat tends to occupy the timespan concurrent with that last minute paper, or the sleep requisite to a successful exam. Or perhaps you were one of those people that got your work done early, leaving ample afternoon and weekend time to practice music. If so, I have nothing to say to you. You are probably an excellent jazz soloist.

I wonder how Kanye feels about Paul Simon's country banger "Kodachrome", which famously rolls in with the line "When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all." Lacunal genre disparities aside, I personally feel that School Spirit echo's Paul's sentiment nicely, while accounting for the inflationary educational benchmarks of the last three decades. I don't think a photographer could make it very far today without a high school diploma, however checking out of college to start an entrepreneurial effort, today, is a feasibly pimp equivalent to the prodigal 1970s dropout.

8
"The Rat"

The Walkmen

The beginning must blaze like a wall of fire

Or the whole thing, if you like. It was tricky, this decade, to turn everything to eleven and let the bile come up, without sounding pitifully like the worser parts of the last decade. Chris Cornell and his smarmy super-friends (among many others) demonstrated that angry music ages badly without a commensurate amount of self-deprecation and doubt. These important ingredients act as a sort of douche-repelling preservative. Without this, the doucheyness rapidly takes over the whole palate, drowning out the subtler bittersweet flavours (spleen, bloody spittle), and drying out the tongue.

Good thing Hamilton Leithauser apparently couldn't bear the sound of himself during the recording of Bows and Arrows. The narrator in The Rat alternates between browbeating a certain someone and mewling for pity, twisting his voice into hoarse kinks, seemingly tired of every self-righteous hat he wears. A laudable performance, sir. All that whiskey gargling should keep it fresh for some time.

7
"Bounce That"

Girl Talk

The greatest song ever will cause the reflexive raising of hands at least once during

The few DJ friends I have really dislike Girl Talk. Basically, they think that he is pedestrian. The impression I get is "yeah, I could spin those obvious mash ups, or I could hone my craft with brilliantly chosen and technically challenging cuts and crossfades." I've said something essentially similar regarding byzantine classical guitar pieces when someone asks me to play Hotel California. You see, I have no idea how to play Hotel California, yet I never get requests to play my once respectable rendition of Tàrrega's "Prelude". Oddly enough, the only sympathy I have is my own.

So here's to you, unsung local DJ's: people never crowd your decks with their sweaty naked torsos, but at least you have (lots of) room to dance to the beat of your own dubstep. I bet Paul Okenfold & Tiesto think you're way more fun than Greg Gillis.

6
"Over and Over"

Hot Chip

The greatest song will launch the greatest kitchen dance parties

Only the most experienced of house party hosts will do the right thing and put the PA next to the kitchen. Unless you are graced with hardwood floors, nothing else will let you slide in your socks quite like the sweet sweet linoleum of your average land-galley.

The trick for kitchen dance songs is having several tiers of dropped beats, vocal solos and instrumental freakouts with which to progressively force the listeners onto the lino. On this track, it could be the initial kick/clap of those wicked wicked limey drums (that's two drum voices; we are on track for earlier requirements), it could be the all-in thud of the zombie-voiced chorus, or the pre-break-down psychedelic whale-mating calls, or (if you have held out this far), it will definitely be the raunchy guitar freakout at 3:26 (oh, the times I have lost my shit at the raunchy guitar freak out at 3:26. I have inadvertently swiffered entire kitchen floors).

The greatest song ever will feature a spelling bee

Remember those? Weren't those supposed to be the meme of the aughties? Oh wait, spelling bees are incredibly boring. And we only got into them for that half year because we will watch anything on YouTube. Anyway, spelling words in songs is way more fun, because they are sort of like dirty cheerleader chants. I'm pretty sure The Go! Team succeeded to the extent that they did because a) we seldom saw pictures of them; and b) we hoped they were all dirty cheerleaders. In fact, they are mostly hairy English guys. But then again, so are Hot Chip. So, all together now:

K I S S I N G S E X I N G

C A S I O P O K E Y O U M E I