CraigMcDerm0ttArticles → My Picks: The 50 Tracks of the Aughts, Part III
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17 jan. 2012, 20h09m
40. The Sweat Descends-Les Savy Fav, Inches, 2004.
While the rest of the post-punk minded crop of New York indie bands were spending the initial half of the decade reveling in increasingly nausea-inducing, self-involved projections of coolness and affected detachment, Les Savy Fav were conducting their own conquest of re-imagined post-punk that demonstrated preferences for adrenaline and sweat over melancholy and blazers. Lead guitarist Seth Jabour leads the charge, sounding like the Edge’s megalomaniacal evil twin as he sets the stage for his arena-ready bandmates--singer Tim Harrington, whose unhinged bravado resembles a parallel-universe Bono, after getting into the liquor cabinet, while the rhythm section sound like Gang of Four-inspired imposters who have bound and gagged Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. and hid them in a closet backstage. An absolute orchestra of sonic force.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNNxx6HzURY
39. One Beat-Sleater-Kinney, One Beat, 2002.
Barely eclipses “Entertain” for the requisite Sleater-Kinney spot in this countdown, for a few reasons. Namely, by virtue of Corin Tucker’s pitch-perfect complementary vocals and lyrics to Carrie Brownstein’s front-and-center, outrage-soaked performance. And additionally, the group's engagement in direct confrontation with the powers-that-be, undertaken with an aplomb and audacity that would not be equaled the rest of the decade. Did I mention that “One Beat” came out in 2002?
Quick aside: Following their ’06 breakup, it’s become undeniable that Sleater-Kinney was easily the most overlooked band of the late-90s/early 2000’s. I find it noteworthy that I can confidently make such a bold proclamation in spite of the heaps of acclaim already bestowed upon the group during its career—they’re one of those rare bands for whom such recognition still falls short of granting true appreciation for their greatness. Anyways, despite attempts, both inadvertent and intentional, to pigeonhole Sleater-Kinney as feminist, riot-girrrl types, this track, more than any other, demonstrates why this band was so much more. A literal embodiment of the GZA’s all-time classic statement of defiance about “not being caught up in politics” and just dropping math, S-K just drop science here, and in doing so, make a compelling argument for the changing of the guard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKnz2rLU_wE
38. Nutmeg-Ghostface Killah, Supreme Clientele, 2001.
Bear witness boys and girls, as Ghostface Killah, makes like The Bride in Kill Bill, Vol. 1’s night club scene on this track. Pop quiz: On “Nutmeg,” which of the following are true of the Shaolin monk’s performance?
A. Ghost lives up to his namesake and, fresh off a two-year prison sentence, joins forces fellow Wu founder the RZA to unleash the best Wu-Tang album since Liquid Swords.
B. Tony Starks gets on some James Joyce shit as he strings together a somehow-coherent narrative invoking the likes of John McEnroe, Calvin Coolidge, and Slick Rick.
C. Pretty Tony uses lyrical sociopathy to inspire Bobby Digital to contribute his all-time best verse with the Wu.
D. The Iron Man of Rap resurrects the Legend of Hip-Hop’s most indomitable group.
E. All of the Above
(Answer: E).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkCZex3FjLY
37. Abel-The National, Alligator, 2005.
Few Indie Rock songs better captured the sense of forlorn gloom hanging over the U.S. during the middle of the Aughts. “Abel” sees the National abandoning subtlety and the aura of melancholic adulthood that has defined the rest of their output in favor of metaphorical invoking of Old Testament Biblical narrative, brawny, “These ones go to 11” sonic force, and one of the most viscerally-delivered lyrics of the decade (“MY MIND’S NOT RIGHT!”) to convey the utter absence of self-discipline, self-composure, and self-control of American authority figures and youth alike in Katrina-era America. “Carry on My Wayward Son,” this is not. This is the wayward son with one hand gripped firmly around a bottle of Wild Turkey and the other around his own brother’s throat, demanding the keys to the car so he can put an end to the misery he has brought upon himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1BjndTZvQY
36. Heartbeats-The Knife, Deep Cuts, 2003.
Less than half a decade after Bjork’s “Hyper-Ballad” and Daft Punk’s “Digital Love,” The Knife emerged as the unlikely successors to both trailblazing acts. Nearly a full decade later, “Heartbeats” still astonishes as a brazen achievement, a pop music experiment gone perfectly awry in some Scandinavian lab. Arriving hot on the heels of packaged, teeny-bopper pop’s fall from its turn-of-the-millenium heyday, “Heartbeats” comes across as a foreign act’s attempt to replicate the shimmying production and schoolyard crush-obsessed subject matter of the airbrushed pop idols dominating the Billboard charts in the early part of the decade. That the Knife slightly, yet unmistakably miss the mark on just about every aspect of the song’s execution (most likely on purpose) is what makes "Heartbeats," unlike, say, “Genie in a Bottle,” the type of rare pop music track whose appeal cuts deeper (couldn’t help it) than the most superficial levels of its listeners’ experience.
Aiming for “Tearin’ Up My Heart” melodrama, the blast of introductory synthesized bursts could be a computerized remix of the grim opening to Joy Division’s “The Eternal”. Karin Dreijer Andersson hits the chorus’s high notes like Kelly Clarkson’s Swedish twin sister, yet comes across as wholesome and well-adjusted as Karen O. on a bad day. On the surface level a straightforward love song plaintively expressing Dreijer Andersson’s admissions of her own vulnerability, “Heartbeats” possesses an underlying, forlorn iciness that conveys a level of sadness rarely seen in synthesized dance music. In missing its apparent bulls-eye, widespread mainstream appeal, “Heartbeats” hits an even more elusive target for would-be pop music acts: brilliance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrnB7c8Dvow
35. Take Me Out-Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand, 2004.
At the Houston High School Winter Formal in 2004, I was standing on the dance floor with my long-time high school girlfriend. After two years of dating, I had come to the realization that our relationship was ultimately doomed, due to two of my sweetheart’s fatal flaws: A) She was hell-bent on remaining a virgin until marriage, and B) despite being attractive, she was massively insecure about her looks. Now, the latter never really bothered me except when we attended these dances together---you see, my girl danced competitively all her life with various local dance teams, and fancied herself an amateur Beyonce video extra. Proving this self-conception to be fact occasionally took precedence over, say, dancing with me at these events, whose DJ’s relied entirely on music selections from the Top 40 and R&B charts.
Such was the case at the '04 HHS Winter Formal, as I moseyed over to the DJ at the front of the dancefloor. Leaning over the speakers, I managed to scream into his ear a single, last-ditch request: “CAN YOU PLAY SOME FRANZ FERDINAND!?!?” The guy, a young dude in his mid-20’s who had to be sick of hearing “Toxic” as much as I was, grinned at me and nodded. Sauntering back over to my girlfriend and her friends, I bided my time by commiserating with one of our mutual friends about what a bitch his date was, when Franz entered the room. This was a moment for me. This was my last year of high school, and as much as I loved Dirty South Rap, as willing as I was to tolerate glossy dance music, the ironclad reign of these genres at this dance would, for a brief four minutes, cede the floor to badass Indie Rock.
Wild-eyed with glee, I grabbed my girlfriend: “This is my request! He’s actually playing it!” Staring back at me with, I’m not exaggerating, a look of sheer horror, my girlfriend hollered over the band’s drivingly rigid opening strumming, “No one can dance to this song though, Jeremy!” I put my arms around her. “Just wait!” In the waning moments of the song’s arch-Anglo-Saxan opening salvo, I scanned the rest of the packed dancefloor and indeed, felt a sense of sudden trepidation. The gyrating, grinding, and general revelry around me had reached a full halt. Hell, all fucking movement had stopped.
What if I had made a mistake? What if I I had just killed the entire fucking Winter Formal at my girlfriend’s high school?? Then I remembered: this wasn’t a goddamned Strokes song. This was the moment the song was made for: a room packed with a thousand sweaty, hormone-fueled teenagers, who equated R&B and Rap with dancefloor romance; modern rock: with sitting alone in the corner. As I looked around, I saw mouths agape, the glazed eyes of the young and unsuspecting. Stunned by the song’s initial blow, they had all fallen into the best-laid trap any artist would spring this decade, as Franz Ferdinand slowed it down, locked into its target, and, true to their name, proceeded to fire the Shot Heard ‘Round the World.
For the next three minutes, those in attendance at the 2004 Houston High Winter Formal became acquainted with a foremost musical philosophy ingeniously realized by Afrika Bambataa two decades prior: Anglo-Saxons might traditionally lack rhythm, but in the moments when the white man’s music emphasizes, rather than avoids, the blinding ruthlessness and mechanical rigidity that has characterized its European ancestors' darkest periods, bands like Franz Ferdinand prove capable of bringing the funk. The dance floor response to “Take Me Out,” immediate and all-consuming by the time lead singer Alex Kapranos began belting out the first chorus, was a reflection of the song itself: half hands fist-pumping the-air, half R-rated sex simulation. At the song’s conclusion, my girlfriend turns around and excitedly shouts in my ear, “You were right!” I can barely remember my own Prom (okay, not that unusual, except I attended it sober), but that moment remains in my memory clear as any from my high school career.
Seven years later, I’m sitting at a bar in Pittsburgh watching the World Cup with one of my buddies, who I’m surprised to learn is rooting for Germany. He explains, only half-joking, “I admire the Germans’ uniformity in execution and their ruthless commitment to winning.” It’s as legitimate a justification for arbitrarily cheering for a sports team as I’ve ever heard. Unfortunately, it’s also rendered the entire preceding testimonial obsolete—at least as my ultimate justification for “Take Me Out’s” greatness. Franz Ferdinand must be some clever, devious little bastards: a Scottish quartet with the audacity to name their band after a doomed Austrian Archduke? I sense a shared admiration of these Germanic traits. And from now on, when asked what makes “Take Me Out” such a classic track, I will merely explain that “I admire Franz Ferdinand’s uniformity in execution, and their relentless commitment to getting me laid.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijk4j-r7qPA&ob=av2e
34. Umbrella-Rihanna, Good Girl Gone Bad, 2007.
Proof of Jay-Z’s Midas Touch during the 00’s, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” is the type of song your girlfriend loved and you yourself could enjoy without, you know, losing your masculinity. Shallow as fuck, invoking one of the oldest romantic tropes in modern lore (c’mon, has anyone really met the love of his/her life sharing an umbrella in the rain?) as its thematic motif, and subsisting entirely on lyrics comprised of equally-cliched material, “Umbrella” succeeds because of the deft production—which adds a glossy cloak to the vocal prowess of Rihanna and an added sense of bravado to Jay-Z’s intro---and pinpoint execution by one of the decade’s premiere divas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iQRXuAo6Eg
33. What You Know-T.I., KING, 2006.
By the time T.I.’s KING dropped in ’06, the Dirty South Rap had already successfully overtaken nearly every other form of popular music in terms of chart dominance. T.I., for his part, had already positioned himself as the likely heir to the throne of Hip-Hop Kingpins, just in time for Jay-Z to enter into “retirement” and leave the title open for the taking. “What You Know,” the crowning (get it?) moment on KING, operated as the ultimate, swaggering hip-hop anthem—proclaiming nothing short of T.I.’s self-ascribed ascent to being the King of Rap. The gothic horns that open the track welcome the listener into T.I.’s ghetto throne room, as he proceeds to unleash a focused, deliberate series of rhymes that are so perfectly executed in their self-aggrandizement that, by the time the track is through, all doubts as to who would claim the hip-hop throne, for the moment at least, would completely cease.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5lIWti4VUw
32. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)-Arcade Fire, Funeral, 2004.
The opening track on the Arcade Fire’s debut album, “Neighborhood #1” remains, above all, a mission statement: the Arcade Fire will not be satisfied with mere “critical acclaim” or “becoming hip cultural trendsetters.” Let every other Indie Rock act out there go for your cock or your head : the Arcade Fire are aiming straight for your heart. Wistful and romantic, communal in spirit and execution, “Neighborhood #1” unloads everything in the U2 arsenal and more to maximize its dramatic impact on the listener. Win Butler’s voice quakes, piano flourishes abound, drums march in stalwart fashion. And it all works so fucking well, all because the boys and girls of Arcade Fire were smart enough to subversively deliver a cultural call-to-arms in the guise of a love song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hh45-yBMXY
31. Lights Out-Santogold, Santogold, 2008.
Even as it was it trying to sell you the godawful invention known as Bud Light Lime, “Lights Out” breezed on into its listeners’ pleasure-center sweet spots, combining the ingredients of iceberg cool and window-steaming sexiness with a success that Justin Timberlake tried and failed to equal throughout the decade. The music video gives away all of the song’s secret weapons: a drummer who knows exactly what the fuck he is doing, Santogold airing it out with those beautifully whispered “Daaaarrliings,” and emotionless, Aviator-rocking female background singers. And, for what it's worth, this song played a pivotal role in getting me laid during my senior year of college—I doubt I was the only one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gB_vCdUsFY
Les Savy Fav Sleater-Kinney Ghostface Killah The Knife Franz Ferdinand Rihanna T.I. Arcade Fire Santigold
While the rest of the post-punk minded crop of New York indie bands were spending the initial half of the decade reveling in increasingly nausea-inducing, self-involved projections of coolness and affected detachment, Les Savy Fav were conducting their own conquest of re-imagined post-punk that demonstrated preferences for adrenaline and sweat over melancholy and blazers. Lead guitarist Seth Jabour leads the charge, sounding like the Edge’s megalomaniacal evil twin as he sets the stage for his arena-ready bandmates--singer Tim Harrington, whose unhinged bravado resembles a parallel-universe Bono, after getting into the liquor cabinet, while the rhythm section sound like Gang of Four-inspired imposters who have bound and gagged Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. and hid them in a closet backstage. An absolute orchestra of sonic force.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNNxx6HzURY
39. One Beat-Sleater-Kinney, One Beat, 2002.
Barely eclipses “Entertain” for the requisite Sleater-Kinney spot in this countdown, for a few reasons. Namely, by virtue of Corin Tucker’s pitch-perfect complementary vocals and lyrics to Carrie Brownstein’s front-and-center, outrage-soaked performance. And additionally, the group's engagement in direct confrontation with the powers-that-be, undertaken with an aplomb and audacity that would not be equaled the rest of the decade. Did I mention that “One Beat” came out in 2002?
Quick aside: Following their ’06 breakup, it’s become undeniable that Sleater-Kinney was easily the most overlooked band of the late-90s/early 2000’s. I find it noteworthy that I can confidently make such a bold proclamation in spite of the heaps of acclaim already bestowed upon the group during its career—they’re one of those rare bands for whom such recognition still falls short of granting true appreciation for their greatness. Anyways, despite attempts, both inadvertent and intentional, to pigeonhole Sleater-Kinney as feminist, riot-girrrl types, this track, more than any other, demonstrates why this band was so much more. A literal embodiment of the GZA’s all-time classic statement of defiance about “not being caught up in politics” and just dropping math, S-K just drop science here, and in doing so, make a compelling argument for the changing of the guard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKnz2rLU_wE
38. Nutmeg-Ghostface Killah, Supreme Clientele, 2001.
Bear witness boys and girls, as Ghostface Killah, makes like The Bride in Kill Bill, Vol. 1’s night club scene on this track. Pop quiz: On “Nutmeg,” which of the following are true of the Shaolin monk’s performance?
A. Ghost lives up to his namesake and, fresh off a two-year prison sentence, joins forces fellow Wu founder the RZA to unleash the best Wu-Tang album since Liquid Swords.
B. Tony Starks gets on some James Joyce shit as he strings together a somehow-coherent narrative invoking the likes of John McEnroe, Calvin Coolidge, and Slick Rick.
C. Pretty Tony uses lyrical sociopathy to inspire Bobby Digital to contribute his all-time best verse with the Wu.
D. The Iron Man of Rap resurrects the Legend of Hip-Hop’s most indomitable group.
E. All of the Above
(Answer: E).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkCZex3FjLY
37. Abel-The National, Alligator, 2005.
Few Indie Rock songs better captured the sense of forlorn gloom hanging over the U.S. during the middle of the Aughts. “Abel” sees the National abandoning subtlety and the aura of melancholic adulthood that has defined the rest of their output in favor of metaphorical invoking of Old Testament Biblical narrative, brawny, “These ones go to 11” sonic force, and one of the most viscerally-delivered lyrics of the decade (“MY MIND’S NOT RIGHT!”) to convey the utter absence of self-discipline, self-composure, and self-control of American authority figures and youth alike in Katrina-era America. “Carry on My Wayward Son,” this is not. This is the wayward son with one hand gripped firmly around a bottle of Wild Turkey and the other around his own brother’s throat, demanding the keys to the car so he can put an end to the misery he has brought upon himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1BjndTZvQY
36. Heartbeats-The Knife, Deep Cuts, 2003.
Less than half a decade after Bjork’s “Hyper-Ballad” and Daft Punk’s “Digital Love,” The Knife emerged as the unlikely successors to both trailblazing acts. Nearly a full decade later, “Heartbeats” still astonishes as a brazen achievement, a pop music experiment gone perfectly awry in some Scandinavian lab. Arriving hot on the heels of packaged, teeny-bopper pop’s fall from its turn-of-the-millenium heyday, “Heartbeats” comes across as a foreign act’s attempt to replicate the shimmying production and schoolyard crush-obsessed subject matter of the airbrushed pop idols dominating the Billboard charts in the early part of the decade. That the Knife slightly, yet unmistakably miss the mark on just about every aspect of the song’s execution (most likely on purpose) is what makes "Heartbeats," unlike, say, “Genie in a Bottle,” the type of rare pop music track whose appeal cuts deeper (couldn’t help it) than the most superficial levels of its listeners’ experience.
Aiming for “Tearin’ Up My Heart” melodrama, the blast of introductory synthesized bursts could be a computerized remix of the grim opening to Joy Division’s “The Eternal”. Karin Dreijer Andersson hits the chorus’s high notes like Kelly Clarkson’s Swedish twin sister, yet comes across as wholesome and well-adjusted as Karen O. on a bad day. On the surface level a straightforward love song plaintively expressing Dreijer Andersson’s admissions of her own vulnerability, “Heartbeats” possesses an underlying, forlorn iciness that conveys a level of sadness rarely seen in synthesized dance music. In missing its apparent bulls-eye, widespread mainstream appeal, “Heartbeats” hits an even more elusive target for would-be pop music acts: brilliance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrnB7c8Dvow
35. Take Me Out-Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand, 2004.
At the Houston High School Winter Formal in 2004, I was standing on the dance floor with my long-time high school girlfriend. After two years of dating, I had come to the realization that our relationship was ultimately doomed, due to two of my sweetheart’s fatal flaws: A) She was hell-bent on remaining a virgin until marriage, and B) despite being attractive, she was massively insecure about her looks. Now, the latter never really bothered me except when we attended these dances together---you see, my girl danced competitively all her life with various local dance teams, and fancied herself an amateur Beyonce video extra. Proving this self-conception to be fact occasionally took precedence over, say, dancing with me at these events, whose DJ’s relied entirely on music selections from the Top 40 and R&B charts.
Such was the case at the '04 HHS Winter Formal, as I moseyed over to the DJ at the front of the dancefloor. Leaning over the speakers, I managed to scream into his ear a single, last-ditch request: “CAN YOU PLAY SOME FRANZ FERDINAND!?!?” The guy, a young dude in his mid-20’s who had to be sick of hearing “Toxic” as much as I was, grinned at me and nodded. Sauntering back over to my girlfriend and her friends, I bided my time by commiserating with one of our mutual friends about what a bitch his date was, when Franz entered the room. This was a moment for me. This was my last year of high school, and as much as I loved Dirty South Rap, as willing as I was to tolerate glossy dance music, the ironclad reign of these genres at this dance would, for a brief four minutes, cede the floor to badass Indie Rock.
Wild-eyed with glee, I grabbed my girlfriend: “This is my request! He’s actually playing it!” Staring back at me with, I’m not exaggerating, a look of sheer horror, my girlfriend hollered over the band’s drivingly rigid opening strumming, “No one can dance to this song though, Jeremy!” I put my arms around her. “Just wait!” In the waning moments of the song’s arch-Anglo-Saxan opening salvo, I scanned the rest of the packed dancefloor and indeed, felt a sense of sudden trepidation. The gyrating, grinding, and general revelry around me had reached a full halt. Hell, all fucking movement had stopped.
What if I had made a mistake? What if I I had just killed the entire fucking Winter Formal at my girlfriend’s high school?? Then I remembered: this wasn’t a goddamned Strokes song. This was the moment the song was made for: a room packed with a thousand sweaty, hormone-fueled teenagers, who equated R&B and Rap with dancefloor romance; modern rock: with sitting alone in the corner. As I looked around, I saw mouths agape, the glazed eyes of the young and unsuspecting. Stunned by the song’s initial blow, they had all fallen into the best-laid trap any artist would spring this decade, as Franz Ferdinand slowed it down, locked into its target, and, true to their name, proceeded to fire the Shot Heard ‘Round the World.
For the next three minutes, those in attendance at the 2004 Houston High Winter Formal became acquainted with a foremost musical philosophy ingeniously realized by Afrika Bambataa two decades prior: Anglo-Saxons might traditionally lack rhythm, but in the moments when the white man’s music emphasizes, rather than avoids, the blinding ruthlessness and mechanical rigidity that has characterized its European ancestors' darkest periods, bands like Franz Ferdinand prove capable of bringing the funk. The dance floor response to “Take Me Out,” immediate and all-consuming by the time lead singer Alex Kapranos began belting out the first chorus, was a reflection of the song itself: half hands fist-pumping the-air, half R-rated sex simulation. At the song’s conclusion, my girlfriend turns around and excitedly shouts in my ear, “You were right!” I can barely remember my own Prom (okay, not that unusual, except I attended it sober), but that moment remains in my memory clear as any from my high school career.
Seven years later, I’m sitting at a bar in Pittsburgh watching the World Cup with one of my buddies, who I’m surprised to learn is rooting for Germany. He explains, only half-joking, “I admire the Germans’ uniformity in execution and their ruthless commitment to winning.” It’s as legitimate a justification for arbitrarily cheering for a sports team as I’ve ever heard. Unfortunately, it’s also rendered the entire preceding testimonial obsolete—at least as my ultimate justification for “Take Me Out’s” greatness. Franz Ferdinand must be some clever, devious little bastards: a Scottish quartet with the audacity to name their band after a doomed Austrian Archduke? I sense a shared admiration of these Germanic traits. And from now on, when asked what makes “Take Me Out” such a classic track, I will merely explain that “I admire Franz Ferdinand’s uniformity in execution, and their relentless commitment to getting me laid.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijk4j-r7qPA&ob=av2e
34. Umbrella-Rihanna, Good Girl Gone Bad, 2007.
Proof of Jay-Z’s Midas Touch during the 00’s, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” is the type of song your girlfriend loved and you yourself could enjoy without, you know, losing your masculinity. Shallow as fuck, invoking one of the oldest romantic tropes in modern lore (c’mon, has anyone really met the love of his/her life sharing an umbrella in the rain?) as its thematic motif, and subsisting entirely on lyrics comprised of equally-cliched material, “Umbrella” succeeds because of the deft production—which adds a glossy cloak to the vocal prowess of Rihanna and an added sense of bravado to Jay-Z’s intro---and pinpoint execution by one of the decade’s premiere divas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iQRXuAo6Eg
33. What You Know-T.I., KING, 2006.
By the time T.I.’s KING dropped in ’06, the Dirty South Rap had already successfully overtaken nearly every other form of popular music in terms of chart dominance. T.I., for his part, had already positioned himself as the likely heir to the throne of Hip-Hop Kingpins, just in time for Jay-Z to enter into “retirement” and leave the title open for the taking. “What You Know,” the crowning (get it?) moment on KING, operated as the ultimate, swaggering hip-hop anthem—proclaiming nothing short of T.I.’s self-ascribed ascent to being the King of Rap. The gothic horns that open the track welcome the listener into T.I.’s ghetto throne room, as he proceeds to unleash a focused, deliberate series of rhymes that are so perfectly executed in their self-aggrandizement that, by the time the track is through, all doubts as to who would claim the hip-hop throne, for the moment at least, would completely cease.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5lIWti4VUw
32. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)-Arcade Fire, Funeral, 2004.
The opening track on the Arcade Fire’s debut album, “Neighborhood #1” remains, above all, a mission statement: the Arcade Fire will not be satisfied with mere “critical acclaim” or “becoming hip cultural trendsetters.” Let every other Indie Rock act out there go for your cock or your head : the Arcade Fire are aiming straight for your heart. Wistful and romantic, communal in spirit and execution, “Neighborhood #1” unloads everything in the U2 arsenal and more to maximize its dramatic impact on the listener. Win Butler’s voice quakes, piano flourishes abound, drums march in stalwart fashion. And it all works so fucking well, all because the boys and girls of Arcade Fire were smart enough to subversively deliver a cultural call-to-arms in the guise of a love song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hh45-yBMXY
31. Lights Out-Santogold, Santogold, 2008.
Even as it was it trying to sell you the godawful invention known as Bud Light Lime, “Lights Out” breezed on into its listeners’ pleasure-center sweet spots, combining the ingredients of iceberg cool and window-steaming sexiness with a success that Justin Timberlake tried and failed to equal throughout the decade. The music video gives away all of the song’s secret weapons: a drummer who knows exactly what the fuck he is doing, Santogold airing it out with those beautifully whispered “Daaaarrliings,” and emotionless, Aviator-rocking female background singers. And, for what it's worth, this song played a pivotal role in getting me laid during my senior year of college—I doubt I was the only one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gB_vCdUsFY
Les Savy Fav Sleater-Kinney Ghostface Killah The Knife Franz Ferdinand Rihanna T.I. Arcade Fire Santigold
