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.