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.
"Ride" is quintessential grodj rock: loud but slow, minimalist but very purposefully constructed, angry but fun. It's the second-shortest song on the top 100 and the chorus has one line and two chords. There's nothing to this song. But it's still got the quintessential grodj rock aesthetic, that it's something that ought to be played at a house show for teenagers who want to jump around and bounce off each other. That's fun, and there doesn't need to be a higher purpose for a song to exist.
I'll add one other thing--the harmony on the second verse is a personal favorite of mine. It's just running perfect fourths (I believe), which you're not technically supposed to do, but something about it is completely indelible, like you're experiencing the mirror universe version of the song and the original at the same time.
Anyway, there's a reason "Ride" wound up in every commercial and video game in the mid-2000s.
