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.
75. Radiohead – Everything in its Right Place
I know the rules. Listen, I wrote the goddamn rules. So I know them. But I told you I was going to make exceptions for albums that are the most important of the decade that have multiple songs that merit inclusion on their own. Well, there you go. This one counts.
It’s the opener to the best album of the ‘00s. It was a pretty revolutionary way to start a song set when it came out on Kid A in 2000. The warm keyboard tones were a total about face for the guitar-driven lonely nerd rock of the first half of their career, and were a daring way to raise the curtain on this particular grouping of tracks. There are more, I don’t know, welcoming sounds on this record. But upon many, many listens, it’s the only correct way to kick off the album. The meaty, menacing tones envelop the listener in sound quickly, a single-instrument surround sound that pulls one in to an engulfing musical experience.
With a child-like twisting-in-the-wind vocal effect, Thom Yorke careens about sucking on lemons. Which everyone in the U.S. ascertained was some brilliant allusion to alienation. Turns out in the UK that just means waking up with a bitter disposition. Go figure. The baby Yorke's continue to burble and whine underneath the now-soaring lead vocals as disintegrating keybroads drip up into the mix, the sounds slurring and leaving aural trails behind like the paint scenes in "What Dreams May Come." This is the sound of music leaving behind indelible streaks.
The cacophony builds and then receds, echoing out over the same bursting keyboard tones that ushered it in. And with 4 minutes down, we're all prepped for what is probably the single-greatest listening experience of the '00s.
Oh Look!
A new poll! Sorry, shit's been busy in real life, but things should start ramping up again for the SECOND HALF. Let's call the last couple weeks half time, shall we? Go vote ya fucks.
76. Eminem – Stan
There was a cover story on Eminem in an issue of Spin a couple years back that outlined the rise of Marshall Mathers: the Writer. Not the slumdog, not the MC, not the violent misogynist homophobe. The Charlie Kaufman of hip-hop, the brilliant lyricist, but most importantly, the storyteller. The story quoted Lorne Michaels, possibly the best eye for visual and humorous writing of the last 30 years, as calling Em a “damn good writer.”
“Stan,” from 2001’s The Marshall Mathers LP, is Eminem’s Stephen King moment, a tale of horror and deep emotionalism and regret from a tortured soul not unlike the story’s main character. Immaculately structured into three tense and climactic verses from a deranged fan and then a fourth resolving verse from Marshall himself, the story builds through epistolary (yeah, I dropped that on Eminem) crescendo, two sides of the some personality bouncing back and forth with spittle, rage, sadness, and confusion. Musically, the concrete-heavy rhymes are broken up with a funny at first, epic at the end Dido sample that, with a little help from the faint sound of raindrops and mounting thunder, gives hardly any respite from the rising black cloud in Eminem’s story.
And the storyteller reaches the most powerful literary climax of any track of the 2000s at 4:20, Eminem quickly cemented his place in the pantheon of hip-hop artists. The outcast lyricist, the substance over style, the heart beneath a raw exterior. Call him the Generation Baggypants Dylan if you want, but this is the eloquent and elegant voice of the last decade’s youth.
Bonus: I think there are four hip-hop/rap/urban/whatever the fuck groups or artists of the ‘00s that stand above all the rest on a separate playing field. Guess them.
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