Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Decade In Review: Singles

This list was a lot harder to compile than the albums list. There was no shortage of great singles in the 2000s and narrowing them down was tough! So, of course, there are some glaring omissions here - Daft Punk "One More Time," U2 "Beautiful Day," and all the great Destiny's Child singles, to name just a few - and I welcome your input and feedback in the comments. I should also point out that this is just a list of radio-released singles; if this was a list of the decade's best songs, I'm pretty certain the list would look a lot different outside of the top ten or twenty, which are pretty untouchable no matter how you slice it. Enjoy!

01. justin timberlake - sexyback
02. beyonce - crazy in love
03. nelly - hot in herre
04. bruce springsteen - radio nowhere
05. nelly furtado - maneater
06. lady gaga - bad romance
07. outkast - hey ya!
08. the killers - mr. brightside
09. dr. dre - forgot about dre
10. kelly clarkson - since u been gone

11. kaiser chiefs - i predict a riot
12. morningwood - nth degree
13. lady gaga - poker face
14. phoenix - 1901
15. arctic monkeys - i bet you look good on the dancefloor
16. foo fighters - all my life
17. bloc party - positive tension
18. usher - yeah!
19. pearl jam - the fixer
20. jay-z - 99 problems

21. basement jaxx - where's your head at
22. interpol - pda
23. vanessa carlton - white houses
24. green day - waiting
25. kanye west - stronger
26. the shins - new slang
27. yeah yeah yeahs - maps
28. nine inch nails - the hand that feeds
29. taylor swift - you belong with me
30. christina aguilera - beautiful

31. eminem - the real slim shady
32. green day - american idiot
33. jimmy eat world - sweetness
34. beck - e-pro
35. the strokes - last nite
36. panic at the disco - nine in the afternoon
37. kelly clarkson - i do not hook up
38. katy perry - waking up in vegas
39. lady gaga - paparazzi
40. gwen stefani - hollaback girl

41. kings of leon - use somebody
42. eminem - stan
43. the cribs - our bovine public
44. buckcherry - crazy bitch
45. bloc party - banquet
46. fergie - big girls don't cry
47. goo goo dolls - stay with you
48. switchfoot - stars
49. no doubt - hella good
50. the all-american rejects - dirty little secret

51. fall out boy - sugar, we're goin down
52. nappy roots - roun' the globe
53. hoobastank - crawling in the dark
54. mike doughty - looking at the world from the bottom of a well
55. hot hot heat - middle of nowhere
56. lady gaga - just dance
57. usher - burn
58. plain white ts - hey there delilah
59. 50 cent - in da club
60. oasis - little by little

61. panic! at the disco - i write sins not tragedies
62. keane - somewhere only we know
63. sugarcult - stuck in america
64. sleater-kinney - you're no rock n' roll fun
65. eminem - without me
66. justin timberlake - rock your body
67. kings of leon - the bucket
68. outkast - b.o.b.
69. the postal service - such great heights
70. u2 - all because of you

71. the polyphonic spree - light & day/reach for the sun
72. dido - white flag
73. foo fighters - the pretender
74. the killers - somebody told me
75. bloc party - i still remember
76. blink-182 - first date
77. r. kelly - ignition (remix)
78. hot hot heat - goodnight goodnight
79. cascada - evacuate the dancefloor
80. pitbull - hotel room service

81. slipknot - psychosocial
82. kanye west - gold digger
83. andrew w.k. - party hard
84. the killers - when you were young
85. ryan adams - so alive
86. ben folds - landed
87. sugar ray - answer the phone
88. flo rida - sugar
89. tinted windows - kind of a girl
90. sean kingston - fire burning

91. deftones - knife prty
92. the dandy warhols - bohemian like you
93. the cure - the end of the world
94. oasis - the hindu times
95. aerosmith - jaded
96. beyonce - single ladies (put a ring on it)
97. colbie caillat - bubbly
98. sloan - if it feels good do it
99. avril lavigne - girlfriend
100. good charlotte - the anthem

up next: more music lists! [[justin]]

Thursday, December 10, 2009

The Decade In Review: Albums

Much like my list of the greatest movies of all-time, this should be taken not as an attempt at objectivity but instead as an exercise in rank-ordering the relative greatness of the albums that really made an impression on me in the past ten years. Enjoy!

01. bloc party - silent alarm
02. the jealous sound - kill them with kindness
03. the fags - light 'em up
04. the wildhearts - the wildhearts
05. mike doughty - haughty melodic
06. the new pornographers - twin cinema
07. queens of the stone age - songs for the deaf
08. girl talk - feed the animals
09. ryan adams - rock n roll
10. cheap trick - the latest

11. tsar - band - girls - money
12. the plus ones - oh me of little faith
13. lifetime - lifetime
14. silverginger 5 - black leather mojo
15. jimmy eat world - bleed american
16. daft punk - discovery
17. the wildhearts - chutzpah!
18. courtney love - america's sweetheart
19. buckcherry - time bomb
20. nada surf - let go

21. panic at the disco - pretty.odd.
22. lady gaga - the fame
23. the heavenly states - the heavenly states
24. ginger - yoni
25. the futureheads - the futureheads
26. amscray - last of the fieros
27. ben folds - rockin' the suburbs
28. eminem - the marshall mathers lp
29. the long winters - when i pretend to fall
30. sloan - never hear the end of it

31. cursive - the ugly organ
32. the killers - hot fuss
33. radiohead - in rainbows
34. the futureheads - this is not the world
35. andrew w.k. - i get wet
36. girl talk - night ripper
37. beck - sea change
38. the subways - all or nothing
39. burning airlines - identikit
40. metric - fantasies

41. rival schools - united by fate
42. bloc party - intimacy
43. the wildhearts - the wildhearts must be destroyed
44. radiohead - kid a
45. the new pornographers - the electric version
46. charmless - just because
47. unwritten law - elva
48. sleater-kinney - all hands on the bad one
49. nelly - country grammar
50. blink-182 - take off your pants and jacket

51. piebald - we are the only friends we have
52. interpol - turn on the bright lights
53. we are scientists - with love and squalor
54. bruce springsteen - working on a dream
55. toadies - hell below/stars above
56. marvelous 3 - ready sex go
57. the yo-yo's - uppers and downers
58. torche - meanderthal
59. craig david - born to do it
60. slipknot - vol. 3: (the subliminal verses)

61. pete yorn - musicforthemorningafter
62. hedwig and the angry inch - original motion picture soundtrack
63. hot hot heat - make up the breakdown
64. buckcherry - 15
65. bruce springsteen - magic
66. sloan - pretty together
67. murderdolls - beyond the valley of the murderdolls
68. samiam - astray
69. jimmy eat world - futures
70. deftones - white pony

71. tsar - tsar
72. the go! team - thunder, lightning, strike
73. the suicide machines - the suicide machines
74. yeah yeah yeahs - show your bones
75. nine inch nails - [with_teeth]
76. justice - cross
77. linkin park - [hybrid theory]
78. phoenix - wolfgang amadeus phoenix
79. pearl jam - backspacer
80. the ting tings - we started nothing

81. japandroids - post-nothing
82. the teenagers - reality check
83. radiohead - hail to the thief
84. no age - nouns
85. scissor sisters - scissor sisters
86. lcd soundsystem - lcd soundsystem
87. jason falkner - i'm ok ... you're ok
88. aerosmith - just push play
89. neko case - canadian amp
90. we were promised jetpacks - these four walls

91. hifi handgrenades - carry on
92. look mexico - this is animal music
93. +44 - when your heart stops beating
94. the sounds - dying to say this to you
95. latterman - turn up the punk, we'll be singing
96. lit - atomic
97. atom & his package - attention! blah blah blah
98. cj & the satellites - thirteen
99. the cribs - men's needs, women's needs, whatever
100. rocket from the crypt - group sounds

up next: the best singles of the decade! [[justin]]

Thursday, October 1, 2009

September's Top Ten

According to my iTunes play count, last month's soundtrack was:

Archers of Loaf, "Might"
The Wildhearts, "The Jackson Whites"
Courtney Love, "But Julian, I'm a Little Older Than You"
The Fags, "Truly, Truly"
Radiohead, "There There (The Boney King of Nowhere.)"
Unrest, "Cath Carroll"
Nada Surf, "Hyperspace"
Katy Perry, "Waking Up In Vegas"
Radiohead, "Airbag"
Kelly Clarkson, "I Do Not Hook Up"

[[justin]]

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Opening Line

"Man, the talking animal, not only talks but he talks about his talking." (DeFleur and Larsen, "The Flow of Information," 1957)

With an intro like that, how can this book fail? [[justin]]

Sunday, September 20, 2009

"We're on a mission from God."


You know, I'm all for equal voting rights, and few things made me more ill than the systemic disenfranchisement of Black and poor voters in Florida in 2000. But that said ... things like this make me wonder if maybe there are some people who really shouldn't be out casting ballots and having their voices heard.

- from the Smithsonian Museum of American History [[justin]]

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Visceral Impact


This is a section of the communications antenna from the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, as seen at the Newseum in Washington, DC, framed amidst a collection of front-page headlines from around the world on Sept. 11-12, 2001. Watergate may have been the defining institutional moment of my lifetime, but there's no question that 9/11 will be the most significant overall. [[justin]]

Monday, September 14, 2009

... Rock Over Chicago


The Ten Best American Cities:
10. Berkeley, CA
09. Washington, DC
08. Seattle, WA
07. Portland, OR
06. Boston, MA
05. Oakland, CA
04. Philadelphia, PA
03. San Francisco, CA
02. New York, NY
01. Chicago, IL

[[justin]]