My Top 100, No. 1: "Hard Way Home" by Brandi Carlile

Somehow Brandi Carlile was a thing for about six years before I found out about her. Nobody told me, and I'm still holding a grudge against everyone I know because of it.

I came across "The Story" about two years ago, and having enjoyed that, I turned on what was then her latest album, Bear Creek, and at this point in my music-consuming life, Bear Creek inhabits almost precisely the point in space where I want to be.

My Top 100, No. 2: "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" by Arcade Fire

I didn't like Arcade Fire that much when Funeral first came out. This was high school contrarianism talking--my friends who were, like, really into Arcade Fire tended to like whatever Pitchfork (it might not have literally been Pitchfork, but it was probably literally Pitchfork) told them to and I felt like pushing back against an externally imposed orthodoxy. 

After 10 years, four albums, a Grammy, a backlash, and a backlash to the backlash, it's hard to remember Arcade Fire representing anything new, particularly when it feels like a lot of the reasons not to like Arcade Fire have less to do with the band itself and more to do with people who like the band, or with other bands that were inspired or enabled by Arcade Fire's success. But we were all young once.

My Top 100, No. 3: "Reptilia" by The Strokes

All along I've been making the distinction between my liking a song subjectively and thinking the song is great objectively. And because I have, I can say this, even though I'm only ranking "Reptilia" third.

 

"Reptilia" is the best rock-and-roll song written and released in my lifetime, probably the best in any genre of popular music, and possibly the greatest piece of music released in any Western genre in that time. Its only fault is that because time itself is linear the song does not extend forever.

My Top 100, No. 4: "Freedom '90" by George Michael

I've got an intellectual appreciation for so many of these songs, but "Freedom '90" is just so much the fuckin' jam it makes me regret wearing out the phrase "the fuckin' jam" on so many lesser songs throughout this project.

A while back, a friend of mine moved away for a year and started showing up in Facebook pictures with a girl, whom he never said anything about until he got back. When asked who she was, he just giggled nervously and said, "Well, she's the light of my life." And that's pretty much how I feel about "Freedom '90," as songs go.

My Top 100, No. 5: "Make Our Garden Grow" by Leonard Bernstein

"Make Our Garden Grow" was the second movement of my high school's marching band show when I was a sophomore, and boy oh boy is it so much better with an orchestra and a choir than with a high school marching band.

I have the same problem picking apart Bernstein as Beethoven--this is way more complex than, say, a Gwen Stefani song, and I just don't play on that level. So I'll do the best I can to explain why I like this song so much.

My Top 100, No. 6: "Steal My Sunshine" by Len

This song has gone down, upon 16 years' reflection, as something of a joke, and by accepting that label, we do ourselves an unfathomably grave disservice.

"Steal My Sunshine" is a historical relic, a portal through which we can look back at the moment of greatest potential in American history, and wonder what life would be like if we hadn't thrown it all away.

My Top 100, No. 7: "Waltz #2 (XO)" by Elliott Smith

This song is slow and dark and it is a jam. I mean, it is not a jam, per se, but it is a fuckin' jam.

First of all, it's in 3/4. Because it's a waltz, you see. And waltzes are in 3/4. 

My Top 100, No. 8: "Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, 2nd Movement" by Ludwig van Beethoven

This is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.

I'm glad there aren't any other instruments or vocals to this song, because adding anything to it would just drown out the perfect sadness.

My Top 100, No. 9: "Alone" by Heart

I love me a good power ballad, and what a power ballad this is.

There are two kinds of song that we really don't make the way we used to: power ballads and slow-dance songs, and our society is poorer for it.

My Top 100, No. 10: "Behold the Hurricane" by The Horrible Crowes

Two and a half years ago, when I started this blog and thought I'd update it regularly, this was the first song I wrote about.

It's a great song. The music is straightforward, but necessarily so, and the lyrics are just close to perfect in tone, form and fit. 

My Top 100, No. 11: "Fashion Coat" by The National

This is the shortest song in the top 100, at two minutes and three seconds, and the last one--until, ironically enough, the No. 1 song overall--that doesn't have a complicated musical or personal reason for me to like it so much.

It's also one of the least The National songs in The National's entire oeuvre. 

My Top 100, No. 12: "I Can't Make You Love Me" by Bonnie Raitt

My favorite thing about this song--one of the greatest ever written in the history of the Western canon about heartbreak and love--is that it was co-written by a two-time All-Pro defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals.

It almost feels disrespectful to dissect this song to figure out what makes it so great. It's the totality of the lyrics and Bonnie Raitt's voice and Bruce Hornsby's (of course it's Bruce Hornsby) piano, all wadded into something that's beautiful and sad, but also detached, which almost makes it feel even sadder.

My Top 100, No. 13: "This Year" by The Mountain Goats

On New Year's Eve 2013, John Darnielle, who is, for all intents and purposes, The Mountain Goats, tweeted something about how amazed he was that people were telling him that they'd turned a line from this song--"I'm gonna make it through this year if it kills me"--into a mantra.

That doesn't amaze me, because turning anything into a mantra is corny as hell, but also because I'm one of those people.

My Top 100, No. 14: "The Weekenders" by The Hold Steady

I went on a whole tangent in one of these posts--I forget which--about why I hate RENT so much: The lyrics are supposed to move the plot and fit in with the music at the same time, but they wind up not doing either well at all. The Hold Steady's "The Weekenders" is the opposite of RENT.

The Hold Steady's "The Weekenders" is the opposite of RENT.

My Top 100, No. 15: "Never Let You Go" by Third Eye Blind

I apologized for liking the Goo Goo Dolls' "Name" a while back. I will not apologize for liking this song.

"Never Let You Go" is a goddamn banger. It is the apotheosis of late-90s power pop, the culmination of what had started with The Beatles and Buddy Holly two generations before. Throughout the 1990s, power pop had been in a symbiotic relationship with Rivers Cuomo and Weezer, like E.T. and Elliott, but "Never Let You Go" is the moment E.T. gets on his spaceship, tells Elliott to be good and goes back to his home planet.

My Top 100, No. 16: "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones

I love "Gimme Shelter" for kind of a weird reason: It prefigures the intro to New Radicals' "You Get What You Give."

Which I realize is a really dumb-sounding thing to say about a hugely influential rock classic and the highest-ranked song on this list by any sort of consensus classic rock band, to say nothing of it being a weird reason to rank any song in a personal top 100, let alone top 20. Wait, no, hear me out. Seriously, don't call the cops...

My Top 100, No. 17: "Staying Alive" by Cursive

A while back, when discussing a Murder by Death song with a really long title (hears "Murder by Death" and takes a 20-minute break to fling self against the walls), I said there were two great cello-driven concept albums from 2003 that would rank among my favorite records of all time.

Cursive's The Ugly Organ is a lot more straightforward post-hardcore than Murder By Death's country-western-influenced Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them? but it shares the latter's density of heightened moments. 

My Top 100, No. 18: "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls

Are the Goo Goo Dolls corny now? I mean, beyond how their music sort of feels dated because of how wholly '90s it is.

Maybe there's sort of a Coldplay thing going on, where the audience changes but the band doesn't, and we rebel against the thing we used to love because it reminds us of the people we used to be and have tried so hard to forget.

(HUUUUUGE bong rip)

My Top 100, No. 19: "Hang Me Up to Dry" by Cold War Kids

By far the world's greatest extended laundry metaphor.

And doing laundry is not a bad metaphor to use to describe a tumultuous relationship--being cleansed and wrung out and hung up--but I truly admire the degree to which Cold War Kids committed to the gag.

My Top 100, No. 20: "Halo" by Beyonce

I'd like to tell all of you a story about a time I was really wrong about something.

"Halo" is this generation's definitive ballad for solo female vocalist. It's "I Will Always Love You" of the 2009s. Of course, being that song for this generation means that everyone's going to try to pull the sword out of the rock.

My Top 100, No. 21: "NYE" by Missy Higgins

I declared this to be the best song of 2014, and a year later I'm still waiting at the doner kebab stand next to Colin Murphy's.

The past year has only increased my admiration for this song, to the point where I now also love Perry Keyes' original, which I panned a year go. Missy Higgins is perfect and radiates splendor upon everything she touches, including and especially this song.

My Top 100, No. 22: "Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen

If "Jungleland" is my favorite Long Springsteen song, "Thunder Road" is my favorite Short Springsteen song.

Because it sounds like Springsteen, but it really could've been a Whitney Houston song if they'd wanted it to be. In fact, someone ought to arrange "Thunder Road" as a pop/R&B ballad and have...I actually don't know who the modern Whitney Houston is anymore. We're probably a good 10-12 years past it being Mariah Carey, who I pretty much want to sing everything. Fuck it, George Michael should sing it, because he should sing everything.

My Top 100, No. 23: "Thrash Unreal" by Against Me!

I don't really like punk that much.

I never had that anti-authority streak when I was a kid, or when I did, it wasn't as brazen or angry. And insofar as I valued nonconformity, I didn't value noncomformity for its own sake, or consider conforming to some non-preppy ideal to be true nonconformity. And from a political perspective, I was never interested in tuning in, turning on and dropping out, nor did I think that just tearing down an existing and objectionable institution was a worthwhile goal--you've got to want to build the next institution in its place. Which most kids who were into punk didn't think much about because all they wanted to do was get stoned and draw anarchy signs on anything that would sit still long enough.

I just never got it.

My Top 100, No. 24: "Valentine" by Old 97's

When I think of songs to be played acoustically and in a circle, I think of this song, "Valley Winter Song" and "Decatur" by Sufjan Stevens.

Because the beauty of "Valentine" is in its simplicity--there are three verses, all musically the same--and a chorus, and it's just one guitar and one bass. You need either two or three guys to pull this off, depending on how many of them can hum and play bass at the same time. And I'd say the beauty of the song is in its simplicity, but I'm not sure that's the whole story.

My Top 100, No. 25: "Blurry Nights" by Hayden ft. Lou Canon

I love this video for reasons I'm not entirely sure I can express, but be aware that this version of the song is slightly different than the album cut, which I couldn't find on YouTube easily.

I'll also apologize for going back to the Canadian indie rock well, which cratered this blog's readership numbers when I started writing about Mardeen and Joel Plaskett last month. But this song's absolutely magical.

My Top 100, No. 26: "Fake Empire" by The National

I had a hard time picking three The National songs for this list. Certain of their songs go into certain buckets for me, and which one I like best depends on time and place and mood.

The exception is the one The National song that's yet to come on this list, but apart from that instead of "Fake Empire" and "Runaway" it could've been "Slipped" and "Geese of Beverly Road" or "90-Mile Water Wall" and "Mr. November" or any of a dozen other combinations. 

My Top 100, No. 27: "Love Is Only a Feeling" by The Darkness

I'd say that of my top 100 songs, at least 80, and probably more, could be grouped into some form of rock and roll, even if I'd describe them primarily as folk-rock or emo or power pop or some other subgenre first. 

As a result, I don't really think of many songs as being strictly rock, and I don't have a definition handy for what makes a song, or a band, strictly rock, other than this: The Darkness's Permission to Land is the greatest pure rock album of the 21st century.

My Top 100, No. 28: "Poison Oak" by Bright Eyes

Much of what I wrote about "Song For Zula" applies to "Poison Oak."

Except the kind of overwhelming existential despair you get in "Song For Zula" is different than the overwhelming existential despair of "Poison Oak."

My Top 100, No. 29: "Call Your Girlfriend" by Robyn

I wrote about this song in detail two years ago, so I won't repeat myself, except to say this: there are bangers, and then there are bangers. 

It's a better example of Side Piece Music than "Dirty Work" or even "The Hardest Thing" by 98 Degrees, just because it's so brazen. And the now-iconic music video gives us all permission to dance like idiots every time the song comes on, even if using this concept on "Call Your Girlfriend" and not "Dancing on My Own" was an outrageous rebuke to nominative determinism.

My Top 100, No. 30: "The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani ft. Akon

I threw some shade at Gwen Stefani in the last post, but only because "Underneath it All" is not my favorite song of hers. "The Sweet Escape" is.

I'd probably say "Spiderwebs" is Gwen Stefani/No Doubt's best song, though I have no idea how "The Sweet Escape," which was everywhere for about six months in 2006-07, just fell off the face of the planet, because, it's a magnificent pop song, and one of the catchiest, bounciest musical numbers of the past decade.

My Top 100, No. 31: "Valley Winter Song" by Fountains of Wayne

Fountains of Wayne got screwed the same way OK Go did--they became a joke when the thing that made them popular overshadowed a great power pop band.

"Valley Winter Song" comes from the 2003 album Welcome Interstate Managers, best known as the home of a song that was immensely popular at the time but didn't age all that well: "Stacy's Mom."

My Top 100, No. 32: "Somebody to Love" by Queen

(raises arms in praise to God)

If this song comes on in the car, you must roll down all your windows and sing along at or beyond the limit of the volume your lungs can produce. It's the law.

My Top 100, No. 33: "That Crown Don't Make You a Prince" by Murder by Death

"That Crown Don't Make You a Prince" is the best song off one of my favorite albums, Murder By Death's Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them?

This album, whose name is so odiously long I will not repeat it here, is one of two cello-heavy concept albums from 2003 that would make my list of top 10 favorite albums of all time, were I to create such a list.

My Top 100, No. 34: "Accident" by Rachael Yamagata

I've got a playlist on my Spotify that comprises nothing but music by female vocalists whose voices make my hair stand on end.

On that playlist is a song called "Duet" by Rachael Yamagata and Ray LaMontagne, which is another one of those great romantic duets in the vein of "After All" and "Islands in the Stream," but the first verse of this one is the closest you'll come to feeling hot breath on your neck without anyone actually breathing on you. 

My Top 100, No. 35: "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits

I think (but do not know with any certainty) that I like "Brothers in Arms" for reasons other than it was featured prominently in both The West Wing and Spy Game.

This song really ought to be completely insufferable.

My Top 100, No. 36: "Song For Zula" by Phosphorescent

This was my No. 2 song back in 2013, and I don't know that my feelings on it have changed since then.

James Joyce wrote that proper art fixes the beholder in aesthetic arrest, and that elicits an emotional response of any kind is of a lesser quality. He said this because he's a fucking moron, and fucking morons say stupid things. 

My Top 100, No. 37: "After All" by Cher and Peter Cetera

I apologize for the shocking thematic shift from The Roots to this.

As I've said before, there are songs on this list that I'm positive are objectively great, while others probably aren't that great, but I like them anyway. This is in the second camp.

My Top 100, No. 38: "The Seed (2.0)" by The Roots ft. Cody ChesnuTT

I feel like everyone knew how cool The Roots were before they became Jimmy Fallon's house band. It's so hard to be that cool and have that much fun while also being that good and universally beloved. I'm not sure there's another act in music right now that checks the quality/popularity/belovedness/fun boxes like The Roots.

Maybe Beyonce? Though I feel like she's not having as much fun. 

My Top 100, No. 39: "Missed the Boat" by Modest Mouse

One thing I've learned by trying to write about 100 songs in two months is that people who give their songs and albums really long names are assholes.

Thus I give you Modest Mouse's "Missed the Boat" from the album We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.

My Top 100, No. 40: "Wolf Like Me" by TV on the Radio

WEREWOLVES.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (smashes lamp) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (drives car through front door of McDonalds) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (detonates cement mixer full of dynamite, rides shockwave to Heaven like Elijah's chariot of fire)

My Top 100, No. 41: "Icky Thump" by The White Stripes

I'm not really sure how much I like most of this song. I'm just here for the one guitar lick.

Few other songs have a guitar lick as cool as "Icky Thump," and no other song plays this guitar lick. "Icky Thump" plays this guitar lick nine times.

My Top 100, No. 42: "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac

"Dreams" is a legendary song off a legendary album by a legendary band.

The result of all of that is that I don't have a whole lot to say about it that's interesting or original, except for this: A mashup of this song with AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" would probably make my top 10 favorite songs of all time.

My Top 100, No. 43: "Cavaliers Har Hum" by Bombadil

Several songs on this list have personal significance because of my time in a college alt-rock band, but this is the only song I discovered because I was in a bad.

The focus of the indie rock scene in the South Carolina Midlands--such as it is--is a bar called New Brookland Tavern in West Columbia. 

My Top 100, No. 44: "Islands in the Stream" by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers

One thing I regret about being late to country music is that I spent far too long thinking Dolly Parton was a figure of ridicule. This was a mistake, and I regret it immensely.

"Islands in the Stream" is by far my favorite Dolly Parton song, and it giving it another full listen in preparation for writing about it, I've developed no conscious thoughts about it. I've just been smiling like a moron for four minutes.

My Top 100, No. 45: "Peace of Mind" by Boston

I don't know if Boston's got a big enough repertoire for there to be a successful Boston cover band, but if they do, being in a Boston cover band has to be so much fun.

Boston is like a forced induction engine. Naturally aspirated engines just suck in air, while forced induction engines have some sort of device (a turbocharger or supercharger) that powers a fan to blow compressed air into the intake, which does...things. I know nothing about cars.

My Top 100, No. 46: "I Sing the Body Electric" from the Fame Soundtrack

This is a finale.

By the way, this is the kind of song we ought to play at graduations instead of that sappy-ass Vitamin C bullshit or whatever replaced it for this generation.

My Top 100, No. 47: "Youth" by Daughter

This isn't the saddest fucking song of all time, but you'd be forgiven for thinking that it is.

Some songs I have a hard time writing about because I just don't have anything interesting to say. I have a hard time writing about "Youth" because there's nothing I can say about the song that's even close to as powerful as the song itself. Every comment about the lyrics or the guitar line post-chorus just melts into "...fuck, man, you've just got to listen to this for yourself."

My Top 100, No. 48: "Soul to Squeeze" by Red Hot Chili Peppers

I got into rock music seriously for the first time when I was entering ninth grade, and throughout high school, three bands stood out above all others for me: U2, Bush and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

 

My tastes evolved over time, as everyone's do, so this is the only song by any of those bands that makes the Top 100, but had I made this list when I was 16 or 17, "Soul to Squeeze" would have been an easy No. 1.

My Top 100, No. 49: "There's a Fire" by OK Go

There might not be a band I'm higher on, compared to public perception, than OK Go. I might have said this about another artist already, but if I did, I was lying, because OK Go rules.

It drives me absolutely nuts that OK Go has become the band with the cool music videos, because people know them as the band with the cool music videos and not as a band that's been putting out stone cold Grade-A power pop music with alarming consistency for 15 years.

My Top 100, No. 50: "Cosmic Love" by Florence + the Machine

I love movie trailers. There's an art to balancing the desire to showcase the film's good stuff with the need to hold something in reserve. 

My favorite trailer of all time is the extended cut for Cloud Atlas. It sets up an extremely complex story and takes a six-minute emotional ride that gets me more than most two-hour feature films. Though after watching not only this trailer, but The Fault in Our Stars, I'm realizing that I might just have a neurological condition that turns me into a sobbing mess whenever I hear M83 in a movie.

My Top 100, No. 51: "Kids" by MGMT

"Kids" is a pretty simple song, when you boil it down to the musical nuts and bolts. 

You've got the kick drum/snare drum backbeat, which, like so many great percussion parts, sounds like a persistent ogre beating a pig to death with a sledgehammer. You've got the main synth lead line, which starts out just being catchy but ends up having a familiar comforting quality. You've got the bass (I think?) doing its "ooh-wah ooh-wah ooh-wah" thing, which is always the part I sing along to. And finally, the repeated chorus line: "Control yourself / Take only what you need from it," which begs to be shout-sung by drunken undergraduates in the best tradition of Brand New's acoustic album-closers. MGMT shows off each of those parts individually, then layer them on top of each other, which is fairly straightforward compositional technique.

But despite being a pretty simple song, it's somehow become imbued with a very complicated emotional message.

My Top 100, No. 52: "Laura" by Scissor Sisters

Scissor Sisters' debut album is another one of those select few records on which I like every song. It's probably a top-10 album ever for me.

Therefore, the major problem with this album was not whether a song would make the top 100, but which one.

My Top 100, No. 53: "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah Carey

This song is the evolutionary missing link between Wilson Phillips and Christina Aguilera.

I worry that some of my comments earlier about Mariah Carey's cover of "One More Try" might make it sound like I don't give Mariah Carey her proper respect, so let's get one thing clear right off the bat. I love Mariah Carey. 

My Top 100, No. 54: "If I Can't Love Her" from the Beauty and the Beast Broadway Soundtrack

Going from pop punk to the Broadway adaptation of a Disney musical is a tonal shift.

But regardless of the provenance of this song (I heard it for the first time on one of those Disney's Greatest Hits tapes that my parents played on long car rides), it's just monumentally sad and beautiful.

My Top 100, No. 55: "The Writhing South" by Say Anything

If you take away the very top level of any musical community--the internationally most popular part--you run into lots of weird subgroups.

I thought I had pop punk and emo pretty well figured out until I got to college and met a bunch of people who were exactly like me, but who'd grown up in Atlanta or South Carolina or Tennessee. And their brand of pop punk and emo was completely different from mine.

My Top 100, No. 56: "Infected Girls" by Electric Six

You know how there's a whole thing in Harry Potter about how saying "Voldemort" out loud shows you're not afraid of him? That's kind of Electric Six's approach to raunch and sleaze.

Because, like every other rock band, Electric Six sings about sex and drugs, but they just don't have any pretense of hiding it.

My Top 100, No. 57: "We Belong" by Pat Benatar

I think I've finally figured out why Pat Benatar always looked weird to me--it's because her eyes are bigger than her mouth.

Anyway, on to the song.

My Top 100, No. 58: "I'll Believe in Anything" by Wolf Parade

Fuckin' Wolf Parade, man. Wolf Parade.

Wolf Parade.

My Top 100, No. 59: "In the Meantime" by Spacehog

I know absolutely dick-all about this band apart from this song, and I do not care. Such were the wonders that produced one hit in the 1990s.

I do know that this song is not great for the reason you think it is.

My Top 100, No. 60: "Runaway" by The National

And now we get to a The National song.

The National is my favorite band, insofar as such a thing exists. They are the only artist to put three songs on this list, and that would make sense, because I love overwrought poetry and being sad in general.

My Top 100, No. 61: "Everlong" by Foo Fighters

Somewhere along the line, I got it into my head that if "Everlong" hadn't existed by the time I started writing music, I could've written something like it. Which is almost certainly not true, after further reflection. 

I'm not sure that any individual component of this song is really at virtuoso-level. (Except the drums, maybe. This is good drumming.) But the whole package became an iconic piece of modern rock and made Dave Grohl into a superstar.

My Top 100, No. 62: "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC

(smokes whole cigarette in one drag, straps on forged steel breastplate, tugs on brim of newsboy cap)
Okay, motherfuckers. Let's do this.

First semester of my senior year of college, I somehow managed to pull off a class schedule in which I had Monday, Wednesday and Friday completely off.

My Top 100, No. 63: "God's Gonna Cut You Down" by Johnny Cash

Back when Facebook let you put religious/political views in your profile, I left my religious views as "It's Complicated."

Because I'm not really religious anymore, but my religious upbringing is too important a part of how I came to be the person I am to reject it entirely. I'm a professional empiricist and skeptic, but I'm also a professional storyteller. So I can't buy any mythology or theology, but neither can I reject it out of hand. 

Which is how I wound up in a position where I guess I believe in God, but I get around theodicy--if God is benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient, how does evil exist?--by rejecting the idea that God is benevolent. The orthodox answer to that question is that God allows bad things to happen in service of a greater good later on, but I never found that satisfying for two reasons: 1) It doesn't actually answer the question, because an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God could just wave all the world's pain away and 2) Is there really a compelling reason that if God exists, He's actively good?

My Top 100, No. 64: "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts" by Sufjan Stevens

I never thought for a second that Sufjan Stevens would get through his 50 states project, but that was a really cool idea, if nothing else, produced one of the most interesting albums of its era: Illinois.

"Man of Metropolis" (I'm not typing that whole name out. It's a great song, but a stupid name.) is a lot like "Read My Mind" in that 1) it conveys a sense of going somewhere and 2) I could've put any one of four or five songs from this album on this list.

My Top 100, No. 65: "Read My Mind" by The Killers

This is the only The Killers song on this list, which--even though it's fairly high up--is not necessarily a statement that I like "Read My Mind" a ton better than most other The Killers songs.

My Top 100, No. 66: "Stolen" by Dashboard Confesional

Yes, I used to have feelings once. ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME.

This was a magnificent slow-dance song once upon a time, a perfect emotional conduit for suburban white children who think high school dating is the biggest problem facing the world at any given moment, which I mean lovingly, because I used to be one of those people. In fact, so perfect is this song that I'm going to give this video the "One More Try" treatment.

My Top 100, No. 67: "Sweet Talkin' Woman" by Five Iron Frenzy

Yes, the Five Iron Frenzy cover, not the ELO original.

Which is not to say the original isn't a bit of pop-rock genius, only that it's not as good as the Five Iron Frenzy cover.

My Top 100, No. 68: "MoneyGrabber" by Fitz and The Tantrums

I listened to Fitz and The Tantrums' other big hit, "The Walker," about 40 times a day involuntarily when MLB decided to make it the playoff theme song one year.

"MoneyGrabber," however, I listened to about 40 times a day on my own, because it wasn't enough just to dance around campus whistling the chorus--I needed to hear the whole thing over and over and over.

My Top 100, No. 69: "Through & Through & Through" by Joel Plaskett

More obscure Nova Scotian indie rock.

I'm actually kind of furious that they took down the music video for this song, because it's just Joel Plaskett traveling creatively through a fishing village. Like, by school bus, skateboard, scull, and in the front bucket of a backhoe. Which does not start with an S. "Steam shovel" does, I guess, but that's a different thing.

My Top 100, No. 70: "Hey, Doreen" by Lucius

This is the first song on this list that I've written about before, in my Top 8 Songs of 2013 post, and I didn't write much about it then because my feelings about it are uncomplicated in the extreme. 

So I'll just say two things:

1) I hate this music video. I'm not entirely sure why--I think it's that the song is really fun and the video's not? 

2) I'll repeat what I said two years ago: "Imagine Fitz and the Tantrums had a loudmouth sister, and imagine that she crashed a Ferrari full of clowns through the front wall of your house."

My Top 100, No. 71: "Will Do" by TV on the Radio

TV on the Radio is like a normal indie rock band, only really really spacy.

The key to the appeal of "Will Do" is in the first line. That melody, repeated throughout the song, is so catchy. I don't listen to this song on purpose very often, but like four or five times a week I find myself just absentmindedly singing, "It might be impractical to seek out a new romance" to nobody in particular.

My Top 100, No. 72: "One More Try" by George Michael

The time has come to deal with My Thing For George Michael. I hold maybe three or four hot take-y musical opinions that might rub people the wrong way and will come up over the course of this list. One of which (on the relationship between Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse's popularity) I've disclosed already.

The next one is about how George Michael, despite having gone platinum more times than most jewelers, is still criminally underrated as an artist.

I don't think you'd get too much argument if you said Michael Jackson was the best male pop star of his era, if not ever, and that Freddie Mercury was the best rock frontman of his era, if not ever. I don't think Michael Jackson could have been Freddie Mercury, and I don't think Freddie Mercury could have been Michael Jackson, but I do think George Michael gets you about 90-95 percent of the way to either one.

My Top 100, No. 73: "Ride" by The Vines

The early-2000s garage rock renaissance was awesome. It was a glorious time, when alt-rock radio was besieged by small bands of sleepy-looking men from the British Commonwealth who'd broken the overdrive knobs off their amps and would probably pronounce "garage" more like "grodj."

There are songs higher up on this list from grodj rock artists later in their careers, but if we're talking about the raw, almost disdainful noisy simplicity of golden-age grodj rock, The Vines' "Ride" was the best of the bunch.

My Top 100, No. 74: "Lazy Eye" by Silversun Pickups

I cannot believe this song is eight years old already.

I don't know if Silversun Pickups feel like a Smashing Pumpkins update just because of Brian Aubert's Corganesque singing voice, or if there are other reasons. 

My Top 100, No. 75: "Barcelona" by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe

Not only do I love this song, I love the idea behind it.

In 1988, Freddie Mercury collaborated with Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballe on a theme song for the 1992 Olympics, and the song turned into an eight-song LP, the last Mercury would release before his death in 1991. Because he was writing for and performing with an opera singer, Barcelona took on an operatic feel.

My Top 100, No. 76: "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz ft. De La Soul

I used to not be able to drive while this song was playing--I was afraid I'd be overcome with the urge to dance and crash. And as it turns out, Gorillaz is the first artist to get more than one song in the top 100.

Demon Days elevated Gorillaz from a gimmick band to a dance rock/hip-hop/electropop juggernaut, and "Feel Good Inc." was the biggest song from that album.

My Top 100, No. 77: "Sing Me Spanish Techno" by the New Pornographers

The nice thing about going beyond the normal four- or five-piece standard rock band is that you can put out a ton of noise when you want to.

It's one thing to have five people in the band who can sing, but it's harder than you'd think to get the most out of them.

My Top 100, No. 78: "The Good Life" by Weezer

I feel like Weezer's one of those bands where everyone who was born between 1976 and 1990 has a story about their importance as a band, and all of those stories sound more or less the same.

I've talked about power pop a lot so far, and I'll talk about it more here and again later on in the list, if only because, under pain of perjury, I'd tell you it was my favorite musical genre. And if the most important band in the history of power pop is The Beatles, Weezer's probably No. 2.

My Top 100, No. 79: "Stubborn Love" by The Lumineers

I understand if you died from Lumineers Fatigue sometime during the winter of 2012-13 and want to give this one a pass. It's easy to get tired of good-looking and earnest white people in porkpie hats and button-down shirts.

I guess I love this song because I didn't get tired of The Lumineers in 2012, possibly because I could distinguish them from Mumford and Sons (a group whose original music I haven't really cared much for since "Little Lion Man" but--with performances of The National's "England" and Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire"--would probably be my favorite band in the world if they were strictly a cover band).

My Top 100, No. 80: "Your Hand in Mine" by Explosions in the Sky

There's a great tradition of mailbag columns in modern sportswriting. It's something we can do now that email and Twitter make it easier for readers to get in touch with sportswriters, and the unlimited space of the internet makes it easier for them to respond.

I'd like to share with you what I believe is the greatest mailbag answer in the history of sportswriting.

My Top 100, No. 81: "And So It Goes" by Billy Joel

I don't know when it became extremely uncool to like Billy Joel, but it feels like it is. On the other hand, I'm so extremely uncool anyway that maybe I don't have anything to lose by continuing to like him?

Billy Joel's got a few piano ballads that express sadness and/or longing and/or loss--and if we're talking about piano ballads in general, sadness and/or longing and/or loss is pretty well-covered territory. I don't think "And So It Goes" uncovers any revolutionary insight in terms of breakup songs. But this is one of the saddest fucking songs in the universe.

My Top 100, No. 82: "The Fallen" by Franz Ferdinand

I think this song was stuck in my head my entire sophomore year of college.

Like "Bulls on Parade" I don't mind that "The Fallen" has a suburban poseur anarchist slacker vibe because it's so kinetic. 

My Top 100, No. 83: "Those Thieving Birds (Part 1) / Strange Behaviour / Those Thieving Birds (Part 2)" by Silverchair

This song is the exception to the all killer, no filler doctrine.

"Those Thieving Birds (Part 1) / Strange Behaviour / Those Thieving Birds (Part 2)" (which I'm going to refer to as "Strange Behavior" from now on, because I hate typing the full title) is more than seven minutes long, except not really, because it's an awesome power pop melody shrouded in an ablative outer shell composed of Enya song.

My Top 100, No. 84: "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celine Dion

HELL YES IT'S CELINE DION TIME MOTHERFUCKERS!

I'm so excited. Celine Dion owns. I remember being on an Elliott Smith kick a while back and watching this performance of "Miss Misery," at the 1998 Oscars, at which was nominated for best original song. It's just him alone up there, with the orchestra behind the curtain, hammering out his quiet, reserved little number, looking terrified and like he didn't want to be there, and nobody in the audience knew who he was. Contrast that with the performance of the song he lost to.

My Top 100, No. 85: "L.S.F." by Mark Ronson ft. Kasabian

I have two Mark Ronson hot takes. The first is that Mark Ronson is the coolest person in pop culture, if not the entire English-speaking world. Ordinarily I'd say something like "I wish Mark Ronson was my best friend" because he's so cool, but Mark Ronson is so cool, I worry about how uncool I'd look in comparison if we were ever in the same room. He's so cool he goes completely around the cool/uncool spectrum to the point where, despite coming off as a perfectly decent and nice man, he terrifies me and if I ever met him I'd probably melt into a stammering puddle of goo and die of embarrassment.

The second hot take is that nobody actually likes Amy Winehouse, and people who think they like Amy Winehouse actually like Mark Ronson.

My Top 100, No. 86: "You Know You're Right" by Nirvana

Nirvana's almost in The Beatles territory for me, in that I respect their place in the history of rock music more than I actually like the music itself. HOWEVER, this song is a fucking jam. 

In case it's not clear by now, I'm a sucker for simplicity, crescendos and jarring chord changes, and "You Know You're Right" has all three. 

My Top 100, No. 87: "Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis" by Brand New

Brand New's Deja Entendu is one of only a few albums in existence that doesn't have a song I don't like. I'm sure I was only one of a few hundred thousand mopey Mid-Atlantic teenagers who figured out it was possible to wear out a CD through overuse by playing this disc on repeat for most of 2003-04.

Deja Entendu also gave me irrational hope that every vapid emo band's second album would be amazing, at least until Panic! At the Disco proved conclusively that the opposite was true.

My Top 100, No. 88: "19-2000" by Gorillaz

More than any other song on this list, the music video for "19-2000" is about a machine.

Murdoc's dune buggy is one of my favorite fictional vehicles, and every bit as cool a car as any in the history of music videos. It's so cool it ended up on the album cover. It's the defining bit of imagery for Gorillaz, a band that--because it's made up of cartoons--has an entirely constructed image. 

My Top 100, No. 89: "Telephones" by Mardeen

This list is almost exclusively made up of songs with at least some level of mainstream notoriety--about 93 of these songs will cause at least one person who reads the list to go, "Oh, dude, that's my jam!" or whatever you'd say if you're cooler than I am. The exception is the enclave of Nova Scotian indie rock that I've somehow gotten exposed to for reasons that are still not entirely clear to me.

Mardeen's "Telephones" has no music video that I'm aware of, nor could I find guitar tabs or even lyrics posted online under the original artist. That's because this version has been clearly outstripped in popularity by a cover of "Telephones" from Mo Kenney, who you've never heard of either. Every so often, Spotify will take my hand and rag me a little farther down this Nova Scotian indie rabbit hole, and it's never let me down, because this song is a magnificent bit of power pop.

My Top 100, No. 90: "Close to Me" by The Cure

Every so often I look back at a very strange time in my life and scratch my head. For about a year, I was a huge The Cure fan, and I'm not entirely positive how that happened.

I'd never listened to The Cure on purpose before, but for 12 months, give or take, I'd listen to my The Cure's Greatest Hits CD front to back, then start over when it was done. And then, at some point in my freshman year in college, I just stopped, and all of these songs went back into regular rotation, more or less.

My Top 100, No. 91: "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra

All that jazz about contemporary Christian music in the DC Talk post almost ended up in a post about "Love Liberty Disco" by The Newsboys. I used to call "Love Liberty Disco" the least pretentious song in rock and roll, but the more I listen to ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky," the more convinced I am that I was wrong.

Look at these guys. I could never have played in ELO because my hair doesn't get all frizzy when it grows out. On some level, I can't really relate to this song, because I've never been that uncomplicatedly happy in my life. I'm not sure any human has. This song is so happy I'm about 90 percent sure there's some darker meaning, like Jeff Lynne wanted to kill his wife, and "Mr. Blue Sky" was the code name for a hitman, but I can't find any.

My Top 100, No. 92: "Bulls on Parade" by Rage Against the Machine

I've got kind of a love/hate relationship with Rage Against the Machine. Rage is much harder (i.e. loud and not particularly melodic) than I usually like, but I find their music as energizing as I find their particular brand of extremely self-serious late-90s anarchism to be cute.

On the other hand, one of the few cures for writer's block I'm aware of is tossing on RATM's greatest hits and going to town.

My Top 100, No. 93: "Jungleland" by Bruce Springsteen

I am a sportswriter, and I am from New Jersey. That I have The Boss on this list should surprise precisely nobody. I am a cliche, and I have made my peace with it.

The big Springsteen songs fall into one of two categories: Long Springsteen and Short Springsteen, and this is probably the best example of the former. "Jungleland" is renowned as containing the definitive Clarence Clemons saxophone solo, and it's great, but that's not why I like it so much.

My Top 100, No. 94: "Santa Monica" by Everclear

Also "Father of Mine" and "I Will Buy You a New Life," but you know what? I'm cool with self-plagiarism. I've got about 13 jokes and nine pop culture references that I just recycle, so I'm not going to get on Everlcear for re-using the same hook.

And the reason for that, of course, is that it's a really good hook.

My Top 100, No. 95: "My Friend (So Long)" by DC Talk

There are going to be two responses to this post: One from people who weren't raised as evangelical Protestants in the late '90s and early 2000s and have no idea how significant DC Talk was, and a small but vocal minority who were and will absolutely lose their collective shit. Because if you were into contemporary Christian music at all when you were a teenager, DC Talk was the pinnacle.

Which is ironic, because it's a song that's about how dangerous fame and popularity can be.

My Top 100, No. 96: "Doctor My Eyes" by Jackson Browne

My feelings about Jackson Browne's "Doctor My Eyes" are pretty uncomplicated when it comes to the song itself.

   

It's a song that, despite its lyrical content, makes me feel bouncy and upbeat, and while it's fun in its own in its own innocuous Jackson Browney way, I'm not positive it's better than "Running on Empty," or that Jackson Browne's version of "Doctor My Eyes" is even the best version of this song.

My Top 100, No. 97: "I Still Remember" by Bloc Party

I've been a sportswriter for most of my time writing for publication, with occasional forays into technology or public affairs out of professional necessity, but back when I was in high school I wrote a lot about music. The first album I ever reviewed was Bloc Party's Silent Alarm, which came out in February of my senior year and was then--as it is now--magnificent. To this day I rarely put on a jacket or turn up the thermostat without belting out, "It's so COLD in this ... HOUSE."
The hallmark of that album was the wild and manic drumming of Matt Tong. Most bands use the drums to keep tempo and have the rhythm guitarist and/or bassist fill in the rhythmic flourishes. Not so Bloc Party, who'd pretty much strum eighth notes while Tong flipped out, layering syncopation with polyrhythmia (which is not a word, but I don't care) like he's making a lasagna out of sixteenth notes or something. It's incredible.

But the one Bloc Party song on this list is not from Silent Alarm, nor is it their third-album Japanese monster movie "Flux." It's "I Still Remember," in which Tong lays down as conservative a drumbeat as any in the entire Bloc Party oeuvre.

My Top 100, No. 98: "Dirty Work" by Steely Dan

I don't remember a time before I knew this song, and yet I don't think I ever really gave it serious thought until a couple years ago, when it backed up the opening credits to American Hustle.

I love a well-curated movie soundtrack almost as much as I love a good slow-walk scene, and choosing "Dirty Work" placed the film immediately in a certain time and tone. Because not only is "Dirty Work" completely '70s, it's sleazy and sad and sordid, but in a way that's far too silly for you to take seriously.

My Top 100, No. 99: "Stay" by Rihanna, ft. Mikky Ekko

If you'd asked me, I'd probably tell you I'm kind of ambivalent about Rihanna, but if you asked me about any one of about five or six of her songs individually, I'd lose my shit. Which, I guess, means I like Rihanna more than I let on. This is not my favorite song whose music video primarily features a woman in a bathtub, but it did beat out Sarah McLachlan's "Fallen" for second place, which is saying something.

My Top 100, No. 100: "All You Wanted" by Michelle Branch

In case you thought I had a particularly cool or sophisticated musical sensibility, I'm punting on that right off the bat, because after having contemplated the classics, I'm going straight for juvenile turn-of-the-century chick rock. There are going to be songs on this list that I dissect in great detail, in which I'm in awe of the lyrical or musical construction, and which can be held up as objectively good. This is not one of them.

 

My Top 100--Introduction and Table of Contents

As you might have heard, the publication to which I'd devoted almost all of my creative energy over the past three years was shut down on Friday. This leaves me not only without my primary place of employment, but without any place to write or pressure to do so.
So, because I've got nothing better to do, and if I don't keep myself busy bad things will happen, I've decided to undertake a Large Writing Project. In this case, to list and rank my 100 favorite songs, and to write at least briefly about each--why I like it, as well as what (if any) emotional, historical or cultural significance it has.
This list is, of course, completely subjective, so you're probably going to disagree with at least some of the rankings, though that's not really the point. My goal is (apart from just staying in practice) not to be authoritative about anything, but to discuss these songs themselves, because the order will probably change by the time I finish writing, to say nothing of how I'll feel months into the future.
Right now, my plan is to finish this project by New Year's Eve, which means two posts a day most days, which could change if a big professional opportunity comes up and I get particularly busy in the near future.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this and/or I enjoy writing it.

• No. 100: "All You Wanted" by Michelle Branch
• No. 99: "Stay" by Rihanna, ft. Mikky Ekko
• No. 98: "Dirty Work" by Steely Dan
• No. 97: "I Still Remember" by Bloc Party
• No. 96: "Doctor My Eyes" by Jackson Browne
• No. 95: "My Friend (So Long)" by DC Talk
• No. 94: "Santa Monica" by Everclear
• No. 93: "Jungleland" by Bruce Springsteen
• No. 92: "Bulls on Parade" by Rage Against the Machine
• No. 91: "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra
• No. 90: "Close to Me" by The Cure
• No. 89: "Telephones" by Mardeen
• No. 88: "19-2000" by Gorillaz
• No. 87: "Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis" by Brand New
• No. 86: "You Know You're Right" by Nirvana
• No. 85: "L.S.F." by Mark Ronson ft. Kasabian
• No. 84: "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celine Dion
• No. 83: "Those Thieving Birds (Part 1) / Strange Behaviour / Those Thieving Birds (Part 2)" by Silverchair
• No. 82: "The Fallen" by Franz Ferdinand
• No. 81: "And So It Goes" by Billy Joel
• No. 80: "Your Hand in Mine" by Explosions in the Sky
• No. 79: "Stubborn Love" by The Lumineers
• No. 78: "The Good Life" by Weezer
• No. 77: "Sing Me Spanish Techno" by the New Pornographers
• No. 76: "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz ft. De La Soul
• No. 75: "Barcelona" by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe
• No. 74: "Lazy Eye" by Silversun Pickups
• No. 73: "Ride" by The Vines
• No. 72: "One More Try" by George Michael
• No. 71: "Will Do" by TV on the Radio
• No. 70: "Hey, Doreen" by Lucius
• No. 69: "Through & Through & Through" by Joel Plaskett
• No. 68: "MoneyGrabber" by Fitz and The Tantrums
• No. 67: "Sweet Talkin' Woman" by Five Iron Frenzy
• No. 66: "Stolen" by Dashboard Confessional
• No. 65: "Read My Mind" by The Killers
• No. 64: "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts" by Sufjan Stevens
• No. 63: "God's Gonna Cut You Down" by Johnny Cash
• No. 62: "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC
• No. 61: "Everlong" by Foo Fighters
• No. 60: "Runaway" by The National
• No. 59: "In the Meantime" by Spacehog
• No. 58: "I'll Believe in Anything" by Wolf Parade
• No. 57: "We Belong" by Pat Benatar
• No. 56: "Infected Girls" by Electric Six
• No. 55: "The Writhing South" by Say Anything
• No. 54: "If I Can't Love Her" from the Beauty and the Beast Broadway Soundtrack
• No. 53: "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah Carey
• No. 52: "Laura" by Scissor Sisters
• No. 51: "Kids" by MGMT
• No. 50: "Cosmic Love" by Florence + The Machine
• No. 49: "There's a Fire" by OK Go
• No. 48: "Soul to Squeeze" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
• No. 47: "Youth" by Daughter
• No. 46: "I Sing the Body Electric" from the Fame Soundtrack
• No. 45: "Peace of Mind" by Boston
• No. 44: "Islands in the Stream" by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers
• No. 43: "Cavaliers Har Hum" by Bombadil
• No. 42: "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac
• No. 41: "Icky Thump" by The White Stripes
• No. 40: "Wolf Like Me" by TV on the Radio
• No. 39: "Missed the Boat" by Modest Mouse
• No. 38: "The Seed (2.0)" by The Roots ft. Cody ChesnuTT
• No. 37: "After All" by Cher and Peter Cetera
• No. 36: "Song For Zula" by Phosphorescent
• No. 35: "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits
• No. 34: "Accident" by Rachael Yamagata
• No. 33: "That Crown Don't Make You a Prince" by Murder by Death
• No. 32: "Somebody to Love" by Queen
• No. 31: "Valley Winter Song" by Fountains of Wayne
• No. 30: "The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani ft. Akon
• No. 29: "Call Your Girlfriend" by Robyn
• No. 28: "Poison Oak" by Bright Eyes
• No. 27: "Love Is Only a Feeling" by The Darkness
• No. 26: "Fake Empire" by The National
• No. 25: "Blurry Nights" by Hayden ft. Lou Canon
• No. 24: "Valentine" by Old 97's
• No. 23: "Thrash Unreal" by Against Me!
• No. 22: "Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen
• No. 21: "NYE" by Missy Higgins
• No. 20: "Halo" by Beyonce
• No. 19: "Hang Me Up to Dry" by Cold War Kids
• No. 18: "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls
• No. 17: "Staying Alive" by Cursive
• No. 16: "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones
• No. 15: "Never Let You Go" by Third Eye Blind
• No. 14: "The Weekenders" by The Hold Steady
• No. 13: "This Year" by The Mountain Goats
• No. 12: "I Can't Make You Love Me" by Bonnie Raitt
• No. 11: "Fashion Coat" by The National
• No. 10: "Behold the Hurricane" by The Horrible Crowes
• No. 9: "Alone" by Heart
• No. 8: "Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, 2nd Movement" by Ludwig van Beethoven
• No. 7: "Waltz #2 (XO)" by Elliott Smith
• No. 6: "Steal My Sunshine" by Len
• No. 5: "Make Our Garden Grow" by Leonard Bernstein
• No. 4: "Freedom '90" by George Michael
• No. 3: "Reptilia" by The Strokes
• No. 2: "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" by Arcade Fire
• No. 1: "Hard Way Home" by Brandi Carlile

Why I Love This Song: "America"

Specifically, First Aid Kit's cover of Simon and Garfunkel's version.
And leaving aside the irony of the fact that one of the standards of popular American folk rock was done better by a pair of Swedes, there's plenty to unpack.

Here's the original:
 

Here's the First Aid Kit version:



Comparing the cover to the original--which has been nearly universally acclaimed--spares the normal discussion about the content of the song, which is about a road trip across the U.S. in which Simon, because he wrote the song in the 1960s, is trying to make a grand statement about the American Condition.
First Aid Kit's version differs largely in two ways: vocal arrangement and dynamics, and I'd argue that it's superior in both.
The first is less important, and subjective. Simon and Garfunkel sing in unison for most of the song, and it gives a haunting effect I came to love while I was listening to the doubled vocal tracks that characterize Elliott Smith. It's fine. But if you've got two people singing--particularly if one of them isn't playing an instrument--my personal philosophy is that you ought to make the most out of it. Trade off lines or verses for textural contrast, or have harmony throughout. The Soderberg sisters have built a signature sound on doing just that, so I find their drive from Canada to New York more interesting than Simon and Garfunkel's. That's a personal preference to be sure, but it does offer them an outlet Simon and Garfunkel denied themselves: unison for effect.
Unison for lack of a better idea is boring. Unison in contrast to alternating leads and/or harmony is like taking a whiff of smelling salts, and First Aid Kit breaks it out for the most important line in the song.
Which brings up the most important difference between the two versions: When we get the big crescendo in the fourth verse.
The single greatest weapon in a songwriter/composer's arsenal is the crescendo. The final crescendo is the climax, the way of highlighting that this is what the whole song's about. It's Act 5, Scene 1. It's what moves you.
So let's talk about where the crescendo comes in, and what that represents.
For Simon and Garfunkel, it comes in midway through the fourth verse, on "Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike" and climaxing on "They've all come to look for America," which is the memorable melodic and lyrical element to the song. Anyone who knows anything about Simon and Garfunkel would be able to sing that line for you.
First Aid Kit brings in the crescendo with the strings leading up the fourth verse, then climaxes at the start of the verse: " 'Kathy, I'm lost,' I said / Though I knew she was sleeping. / 'I'm empty and aching and I don't know why.' " We'd been through the verse three times before that, and each time it had been lilting and beautiful and, frankly, optimistic. But once Kathy's asleep--once we're in a place where there's nobody to look strong for--the motif turns urgent and pained and desperate.
Simon and Garfunkel's version emphasizes that Paul and Kathy have driven across the country and haven't found America, whatever that is, and neither has anyone else on the road--hence "They've all come to look for America." It's chasing an ideal that isn't there anymore, and they don't know how to continue.
First Aid Kit's version emphasizes that Paul's in deep, personal, existential pain. He can't pinpoint the source of it, and he doesn't feel comfortable talking about it, even to the person he supposedly loves and trusts the most, and even though it's destroying him. The trip across the country isn't about looking for an American ideal, it's about looking for something worth saving in himself and his relationship, and not being able to find that is an entirely different question.
The difference between the two speaks volumes. Paul Simon was born in the 1940s and wrote the song in the 1960s. It's Boomer Music, so the central problem is with how other people view something national and abstract. There's an ironic detachment to the lyrics, and for a song called "America," it says absolutely fuck-all about the country or the culture.
The Soderbergs--both born in the 1990s--take up the same text and see that the central problem is that the narrator has a vague sense that he's not whole, that he's not feeling something he was supposed to, that he was promised. That absence, though entirely emotional, is causing him deep, possibly fatal pain, and he's been conditioned not to mention it to anyone. That's a powerful, relatable internal conflict, and not mere impotent, vague, bullshit Boomer hand-waving.
Moving the crescendo up makes it a far more interesting story, and it says a hell of a lot more about America than the original.