I wasn’t going to do this. Working on the Best Albums of the 2000s was going to be enough work. But after reading through some pretty great lists by Pitchfork, I Guess I’m Floating and Gorilla vs Bear, I was reminded of something very important — although the album is the most vital instrument a musician has at his disposal to get an idea or feeling across to listeners, we can’t undermine the importance of a song. A song gives you small doses of relief, comfort, or what have you, minutes at a time.
I gave a fair amount of thought into this list, but for the most part, I knew how it would turn out. This list is mine and mine alone; I am inviting you to my world where I don’t need to explain myself or answer to anyone. But as always, I encourage you all to leave your thoughts and your personal picks in the comment section.
I would like to end with… well, I can’t really say it better than Connor from IGIF. The last 10 years have been the biggest of my life, especially my life as a music lover, so these next 120 songs are the songs that have shaped and molded me into whoever I am today. That’s as personal as it gets.
1. LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends
from Sound of Silver (2007)
2. Radiohead – Idioteque
from Kid A (2000)
3. Outkast – B.O.B.
from Stankonia (2000)
4. The Killers – All These Things That I’ve Done
from Hot Fuss (2004)
5. The Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
from Funeral (2004)
6. TV On The Radio – Wolf Like Me
from Return To Cookie Mountain (2006)
7. Panda Bear – Comfy In Nautica
from Person Pitch (2007)
8. Roisin Murphy – Ramalama (Bang Bang)
from Ruby Blue (2005)
9. Britney Spears – Toxic
from In The Zone (2003)
10. Arctic Monkeys – Leave Before The Lights Come On
from Leave Before The Lights Come On EP (2006)
11. Spoon – The Way We Get By
from Kill The Moonlight (2002)
12. Sia – Breathe Me
from Colour the Small One (2004)
13. Kanye West – Jesus Walks
from College Dropout (2004)
14. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps
from Fever To Tell (2003)
15. Animal Collective – Peacebone
from Strawberry Jam (2007)
16. The Knife – Heartbeats
from Deep Cuts (2003)
17. The Strokes – Barely Legal
from Is This It? (2001)
18. Daft Punk – One More Time
from Discovery (2001)
19. Beyonce – Crazy In Love
from Dangerously In Love (2003)
20. The Arcade Fire – Intervention
from Neon Bible (2007)
21. Animal Collective – My Girls
from Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)
22. Radiohead – Jigsaw Falling Into Place
from In Rainbows (2007)
23. M.I.A. – Paper Planes
from Kala (2007)
24. Hercules and Love Affair – Blind
from Hercules and Love Affair (2008)
25. Sufjan Stevens – Chicago
from Illinoise (2005)
#26 – 50:
This is the seventh track on Young’s 2006 studio album Living with War. It starts off with a trumpet playing the first six notes of Taps, then having a chorus sing about various reasons to impeach the current president of the United States George W. Bush. The song is sung to the tune of Steve Goodman’s song “The City of New Orleans,†probably a reference to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, another area of critical views. The “Godfather of Grundge†makes clear that he has no love for President Bush.
Tom Waits covered increasingly political subject matter since the advent of the Iraq war, with “The Day After Tomorrowâ€. In this song Waits adopts the persona of a soldier writing home that he is disillusioned with war and is thankful to be leaving. The song does not mention the Iraq war specifically, and, as Tom Moon writes, “it could be the voice of a Civil War soldier singing a lonesome late-night dirge.†Waits himself does describe the song as something of an “elliptical†protest song about the Iraqi invasion, however. Thom Jurek describes “The Day After Tomorrow†as “one of the most insightful and understated anti-war songs to have been written in decades. It contains not a hint of banality or sentiment in its folksy articulation.†Waits’ recent output has not only addressed the Iraqi war, as his Road To Peace deals explicitly with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East in general.
This soft and mellow ballad sounds sweet and calming for the average listener. However, if you stop and listen closely to the lyrics, you’ll here the resignation of a sincere and kindhearted war protester. Banhart sings “that the war ended today/ but everyone knows it’s goin’ still†This is a reference to George W. Bush’s premature declaration of victory in Iraq on June 5, 2003. Since then, more U.S. troops died than during the official “war.†Banhart succinctly sums up his message: “oh, it’s simple/ we don’t want to kill.â€
