Also,
I liked that game. Let's do it again. #71 on the list references a turn of the century female writer, and the lead singer of the band shares a name with a former professional wrestler.
72. Dismemberment Plan – Time Bomb
Color me impressed. Some of you fucks got it. The D-Plan are easily one of the most underrated bands of the first part of the '00s. Their very, very late 1999 album Emergency and I is one of the best albums of that decade. Shit, it would be one of the best albums of any decade. Release it four months later and we would be discussing it as one of the ten best of the aughts. And then Travis Morrison and the Wailers follow that up with 2001's Change, another ballsy and purely original album that features "Time Bomb," the statement song from a band that never had any trouble taking a stand with their music. Not, like, politically or anything. But emotionally, this band never had issue with laying it's shit on the line for everyone to hear and expressing themselves without fear of fans or critics or other bands or their own band members.
It's hard to describe Dismemberment Plan's sound. That's because it's like Groundhog Day, the inspiration for the band's name. It's familiar and populist and clean for the most part. But there is just something a little off about it, some tweaks here and there that make the entire thing wholly unique and daring. It's a brilliant twist on a traditional archetype. Groundhog Day is a Bill Murray sarcasticomedy vehicle, succinct, well-written, and polished. But what makes the movie is the quirks, be it the movies idea or heart or oddball characters ("Ned?! Ned RYERSON?!") there is just more to it. The music of the Dismemeberment Plan is just like the clean and perfectly-executed indie-punk of the turn of the millenium, except for it's dirty fish-out-of-water quirks. The lightning-paced and funked-up as all hell synco-drumming, the aching and lifting vocals that go wayyyyy out to left field, stretching with an elasticity unlike any current singer, the electronic twitches unheard of in their genre. Big picture - this shit is pure power-pop candy. Closer look - the dings and nicks make it brilliant.
Also, the lyrics. Listen to the pull of Travis Morrison's vocals on lines like "I/I am a TRIP wire." This shit is like great theater, the lines can only be convincing if spouted with conviction, and that's what Morrison does best. And again, the drumming. Just listen to it. The pops, the little hi-hat ticks here and there in unexpected palces. This is the sound of polished mayhem, gritty antiques in an Ikea box. Don't let the packaging fool you. The Dismemberment Plan were one of the most uniquely talented acts of the decade.
I’m Not Even Mad, I’m Just Impressed
I'll be impressed if someone gets this one. The band who wrote #72 on the list is named after a line from one of my favorite Bill Murray movies. And the title of the song is the same title as my favorite song from an early '90s punk band that's still making music. Annnnnnd GO.
73. Wilco – Hummingbird
"Remember to remember me/Standing still in your past/floating past like a hummingbird"? "His goal in life was to be an echo"? Jeff Tweedy is the fucking Poet Laureate of the underground. Seriously, I don't think anyone in music today is writing words like this man, meaningful and powerful and lyrical and thought-provoking, cryptic but not obtuse, intelligent but not indulgent, witty but not facetious. An integral reason for Wilco being considered a noteworthy act outside of alternative music, ever pressing against the walls of mainstream culture.
And on "Hummingbird" from 2004's A Ghost is Born, Tweedy and co. go for their most naturally classic pop song to date, doing a dead-on Fab Four impersonation replete with chugging outro and McCartney voice strains. Seriously, this is Lennon/Macca for a new generation, except it's coming from one man and the band is tighter. For proof positive, listen to Tweedy's elastic voice streeeetttttttch up and then down for the hesitant, playful notes at 1:55. Listen to "Count them." That is Paul McCartney reborn. Or, well, that can't be. I forget that the Beatles are actually dying in coolness order. Ringo will live to be 117.
At 2:35, the band shakes off the song's slow-rolling rust and stomps through the most blatantly obvious 30-second ELO rip-off of all time. But guess what? This song is better than anything Jeff Lynne ever wrote. And that's an important distinction that maybe Wilco alone shares among their contemporary indie rock peers. They show their influences with pride and reverence, but often they improve on their own history. I'm not saying they're better than the Beatles. But they do more with this Beatle-esque ditty than any other band in the world could. They make something fresh and beautiful and moving from the ashes of a sound that is burned to the ground every day by less deserving bands. Also, hold on to your butts (Samuel L. voice). We aren't through with the boys from Chi-town just yet.
74. D’Angelo – Untitled (How Does it Feel?)
WARNING. Do NOT listen to this song if young children, easily influenced older children, nosey pets or envy-inclined lovers are anywhere in the near vacinity. Check for them. All set? Ok, then get up and close the door, lock it, dim the lights down real low. Maybe light an aromatic candle or something. And get ready to have yourself a time.
"Untitled (How Does it Feel?)" from D'Angelo's 2000 neo-soul masterpiece Voodoo is, by a wide-margin, the sexiest song on this list, the sexiest song of the decade, shit, one of the sexiest song's of all time. This hangs right up there with it's obvious influences (Prince, Marvin Gaye) as a landmark R&B track, a classic slice of soul whose purpose is solely to influence the making of babies. I'm serious, stop oogling the lower abs and listen to the lyrics. You can't really get more straightforward than "Take off your clothes/Baby."
This song is more than an aural aphrodisiac, though. Sure, it influences the nasty like none other. But it is also the culmination of generations of raw, unadulterated talent, an art form maturing, dying out, and being reborn by a preacher's son from the south with a killer set of pipes, a strong sense of musical history, and V-shaped muscles by his crotch that make Michael Phelps look like Big Bird. The song was written as a tribute to Prince, and certainly wears that influence on it's-- well, I guess it can't wear the influence anywhere, it's thrown on the floor in the pile of hastily disrobed garments. But you can hear the 1983, Dirty Mind Prince. You can hear the late-'70s Barry White and early-'70s Marvin Gaye. You can hear the most soulful voices of black America coming together in the raucous, climactic (in every way) chorus of D'Angelo's screaming in anticipation. Not to mention the Jimi Hendrix guitar that burbles beneath the lazy ?uestlove snare hits and slinking bass.
It's brilliant and beautiful and fully steeped in the greatest soul songwriters and performers of the past. And "Untitled (How Does it Feel?)" is unashamed to be the most brazenly, soulfully sexual song of the '00s.
Note: Yes, it DOES actually end like that. And go to youtube and watch the music video, I can't embed it. Thanks, EMI.
Follow the List
Polls
Loading ...Archive
- March 2010 (6)
- February 2010 (11)
- January 2010 (20)
- December 2009 (27)
- November 2009 (46)
- October 2009 (3)