84. Bright Eyes – Lua
Sometimes, you really can’t associate an artist’s personality with their music. It can ruin it, and that’s unfair to the quality of work. Take, for example, Conor Oberst. Conor Oberst is, of course, a total douche. Don’t argue with me on this, it’s true. And that’s making no statement whatsoever on his creative output or the quality of his music or anything. Just, personality wise, he’s a douche. Like everyone realized about Michael Jordan after his Hall of Fame induction speech. Greatest basketball player of all time? Sure. Douchiest basketball player of all time? Probable.
But I can’t associate Conor Oberst’s douchiness with his music, or it may just ruin it for me. Because the character he constructs in songs like “Lua” (and trust me, it’s not him, it’s a character) is so earnest and heartfelt and painfully, I don’t know, real, that knowing it was created by a guy who is in all honesty kind of a dick would sour it. Taking that into account, though, the story and sounds of “Lua” are about as far from douchey as one could ever get.
It’s a sad, somber, late-night love story between two real people. They aren’t the most attractive people on the train, or the life of the party they heard about from a friend, they could just as easily be YOU. And the loving way that these realistic characters are crafted in Bright Eyes’ best song is why it’s on this list. The music is great, too, the voice is shattering and fragile and brutally warbley, the guitar is picked like Dylan on Xanax, the melody is roots-folk traditionalism at it’s throwback best. But all these factors are just that – factors. And they all build into the honest and charmingly-depressed characters in the song, lovers who may not be right for each other tonight or in the morning or next week, but right now, they are all that they have. So no, I can’t think about the fact that they were lovingly crafted by a total douche. Let me live in denial.
85. Phoenix – 1901
Not every rise is meteoric. We hear the story so much that I think people assume it's a much more common careeer trajectory than it is. The One-ders are the exception, not the reality. Most bands wallow around in a middling ground for years, mired by an inability to take that next step, cross over and become a nationally recognized band. The percentage of bands that take that step is miniscule. But this year, Phoenix didn't just take the step. They made a giant leap, a vault, a daredevil-over-the-Caeser's-fountains flight from that middling state to the Next Big Thing.
Phoenix released their debut album in 2000 after playing together for half a decade in France, and existed in the European music underground for 9 years, releasing three albums and consistently staying at the bottom end of a heap of foreign dance-pop dopplegangers. No matter that they were one of the best of the group, they were still a part of the dogpile. And although Pitchfork wrote about them and metacritic recognized them as a good to very good band, no one really cared. They were never going to really go anyplace. That is, until Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.
The 2009 album dominates everything they've ever done. Dominates. Like, not even close. I'm not really even sure how this happened. You hear the same sounds, the same musical ideas, it's all the same members. But something is just different. The songs were always catchy, but these are insane, stick-in-your-brain until your last breath melodies, refrains that are meant to be screamed at the top of ones lungs, the licks are fresher, the beats are bouncier. This is like 'roids in baseball. Think of those pictures you've seen of young Barry Bonds vs. older Barry Bonds. Same thing.
And "1901" is the best of this new crop of songs. I don't feel like I need to talk about this at all. Maybe more so than any other song on this list, this track is instantly and insatiably catchy. I will point out, though, that I feel the real brilliance of the song lies in the seemless melding of classic '70s guitar strokes and 2025 electronics swooshes. The best part of any piece of music from 2009 is the upward synth push at 1:24. Seriously, put that at the beginning of any uptempo chorus ever written and you have the catchiest song of the year. Give any other band these sounds and these toe-tapping, head bobbing hooks, and you have their next step. And Phoenix's giant leap to one of the biggest indie bands in the world.
86. …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead – Another Morning Stoner
Hey look. It's another band that's faded away into relative obscurity after an overwhelming burst of critical acclaim and surprising popularity in the early Aughts. They don't have a record label any more and they tried to hype their most recent independent release by putting videos of the recording process on Youtube, but in 2002, after they dropped their major-label debut Source Tags and Codes, this band looked like it was making moves. The album even captured that mythical beast of the hipster-music world, the elusive and downright controversial 10.0 rating from Pitchfork. Seriously, I'm pretty sure PFork would give Sgt. Pepper's an 8.7 or some shit. But when the band first hit, everyone was ready to jump on the epic and orchestral indie bandwagon, and "Another Morning Stoner" was the flagship song on what has become an enduring, if unprophetic testament to the band's creative peak.
They looked like a Fueled By Ramen shit-punk act, and they used traditional rock n' roll stepping stones, but "Another Morning Stoner" is a prime example of Trail of Dead taking something old, scratching the fuck out of it, letting it rust and peel and scar, and then rebuilding it into their own, brand new tower of heavy rock power. With chiming guitars, ringing cymbals and the rush of a band that is so sonically in tune that they played in a gnarly, crushing trance, this song builds in sweeping tones to a screaming climax that sounds more Nirvana than anything "indie" could ever come up with (they do have a song named "Baudelaire" though. I'm not sure Cobain was so well-versed in French art allusions.) Now, they play live with something like 4 drummers, and there are tons of people on stage, and the whole act has become this slugging goliath that trudges through the sludge of songs with similar heft, but slowly fading muscle and tonal agility. But back in 2002, before the weight of a 10.0 and a video on MTV2 started crushing in, ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead made weighty, dense, pushing ROCK music that at once enlivened and enlightened a new generation of tattooed and tongue-ringed indie kids looking for something just a little bit, well, heavier.
87. Gorillaz – Clint Eastwood
Some things just look like shit on paper. One glance at them and you say “huh, not gonna happen” and just avoid the potential train wreck altogether. And that’s exactly what a song created by a washed up Britpop singer, a raspy underground MC, a sci-fi and electronics hip-hop producer, and an ANIMATOR looks like on paper. Train wreck. But just like they say (no one says this) don’t judge an Animal Collective album by the optical illusion printed on the front. And what Damon Albarn, Del the Funkee Homosapian, Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, and Jamie Hewlett did on 2001’s “Clint Eastwood” is anything but the jumbled mess of influences it seems to be on paper. It’s the best eerie hip-pop electronic “Thriller” jam ever. Also, it’s the only eerie hip-pop electronic “Thriller” jam ever.
With horror-show strings, the fakest harmonica noise ever committed to plastic, and the dirtiest piano groove since Dr. Dre dropped the G-funk act, Gorillaz lay down a beat weirder and more head-bob inducing than anything in the pop landscape. And this is pop, don’t get me wrong. There is dub, and hip-hop, and indie, and edm, and a host of other things mixed in there, but this is primarily pop. And just like all the pop out there, this song has stars.
The first is Damon Albarn. Singing the creepy funhouse refrain that hits harder than any sample Kanye could dig up from the ‘70s, Albarn (as cartoon character 2D) carries the song and, in fact, the entire Gorillaz album with his alternately deeply emotional and oddly detached vocals. This is the same voice from Blur, but it’s not the same singer.
The other star is obviously Del. When he growls into the song like the titular baboon at :40, this shit is on. With clean recording and exceptionally clear diction, Del gets the dirt in his rhyme from his own thick voice, and rolls through the song with gravitas and a snarl that are frankly necessary to keep up the Dark Tower sci-fi-Wild-West theme of the song. It’s a mash up in every way possible, and on paper, maybe it does look like shit. But coming out of the speakers? It’s pure pop music at it’s finest.
Gallup, Stripper, Fireman’s, Ten Foot…there’s a joke here somewhere.
I'm just too lazy to make it. Polls, they are all polls (poles). And that poll over there is finishing on Friday morning, so get any last votes in. We're getting closer.
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