10
Youth Lagoon “Montana”
As I walked slowly down your driveway to my car I looked back and turned into salt A pillar with a hat
Why is change so damn hard? Am I to become like Lot’s wife every time I turn around and look longingly at the past? “A door is always open if it isn’t closed / And a plant is said to be dead if it doesn’t grow / I’ll grow, I will grow” In looking towards the future one must shed some of the past. Never forget your roots, but don’t let them tie you down and hold you back, because you may miss that door of opportunity. If you don’t, you’ll turn into a pillar of salt with hat every time.
*****If there is one video that you watch on this whole list make it this one*****
9
Grimes “REALiTi”
Aside from the pre-chorus and chorus itself, there are only five lines of lyrics in this masterful showcase of Claire Boucher’s prowess. Those five lines are all the context needed to establish the song’s theme of life is a series of repetitive routines and struggles. The synthesizers and the off-kilter claps and bass hits give the sense muddled organization. It sometimes sounds like it shouldn’t make sense, but a pattern emerges, and the subtlety of its catchy ear worm nature is pleasurably sneaky.
8
Ana Tijoux “Somos Sur”
The two greatest guest rap verses of the decade thus far belong to women. First place is obviously Nikki Minaj’s spot in “Monster,” and Shadia Mansour just straight up kills it on this track. Her Arabic is fluid and powerful and as if that wasn’t enough, Mansour ends it with a nod to traditional Palestinian folk songs. This is the best rap song of the decade so far. If only the hip hop crowd of the world looked beyond their own borders and acknowledged it.
7
How To Dress Well “Talking To You”
After listening to this song a couple hundred times and seeing this band live, I now have a pretty consistent vision in my mind of what’s going on in “Talking to You.” Singer Tom Krell emerges from a sunset lit fog and stops, looking down at something. He starts to sing:
Don’t know what I want. Don’t know what I need. Don’t know who I am. Don’t know who I’ll be. (This is simple shit indeed, and it might sound trite, but it’s this shade that gives my days the shape of heavy plight.) You cast a pall over my days since you passed away, which is to say you left me in a state I can’t escape. And until you’re back I know I’ll never ever be the same, which is to say I know I’ll never ever be the same.
During this first verse all I see is his face contorting in immense sadness with the words he is singing. Then the camera zooms out, and I see that he is at the foot of a tombstone. Here the camera rotates around the scene continuing through 180, 360, etc. degrees. At one point all I see is the back of Krell’s head looking at the tombstone, sun setting via time lapse in the background. At that point, I see that Krell is singing to his reflection in the tombstone, and that is where the conversation in the song takes place. They talk to each other, but is Krell talking to himself or to the grave’s occupant? Is it both? The camera keeps rotating and they keep singing to each other until the very end of the song, when the sun finally sets in the time-lapse and all that remains is darkness.
6
Beyoncé “1+1”
Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, Erykah Badu. Beyoncé takes up their mantle with a bit of upstart attitude, a sign that the times are-a-changing’. She adheres to the pop trends of the 2000’s and 2010’s, but also adds to the rich history of African American soul music with a song that bends what is “in” to her will–the will of the best female singer of this generation.
5
Autre Ne Veut “Play By Play”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFiupWwIZMY
Arthur Ashin does not make it easy for himself. For whatever reason he has decided that when he sings, it is going to cause him immense pain. You can hear how hard he works to hit each note, to convey the right feeling with each syllable. You can see it, and it works. The emotional clout is so substantial he would not even need the music in the background to make it known to the world that this climax is the epitome of all climaxes. It takes so much out of him he can’t even finish: the final notes are sung by a female back up singer. This is a song that I’ve tried to get karaoke DJ’s to obtain for the last two years because I want to try to do it myself. I want to try to obtain that level of emotional overload just through my voice and I want to show the world how much I empathize with the line “I just called you up for that play by play.” Plus, just visualize this song at a karaoke bar! Definition of epic. Right there.
4
Daft Punk “Motherboard”
My affinity for instrumentals is something that I have long sought to defend. “That was it? That was the song?” are comments that deeply and grievously wound me because I feel like who I am as a person is under fire. Music is such an incredibly powerful force in my life that the notes and the sounds provoke intense reactions, so much so that I don’t need lyrics to feel the passionate arousal of whatever emotion a song brings to mind. Daft Punk are among the most talented songwriters of the last century, and their uncanny ability to morph from electronic house to complex, calming, multiple instrument compositions is a rare gift. “Motherboard” is like a timeline of musical history that incorporates elements of funk, disco, 60’s acoustic guitar music, futuristic synthesizer genres and almost a medieval or renaissance-like flute sound. This song truly is the enlightening motherboard from where random access musical memories originate.
3
The National “Sorrow”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8-egj0y8Qs
Don’t leave my hyper heart alone
There is no line that I sympathize with more as an ENFP than that one. None. Just bathe yourself in this song’s alluring bittersweet angelic flood and come to terms with its repeat listen potential. Matt Berninger’s voice soothes, the guitar purrs, the drums hypnotize, the lyrics plead. It can be listened to an immense number of times in a row without getting old. As concrete proof of that statement, The National played it over and over again live for six hours.
2
Titus Andronicus “The Battle of Hampton Roads”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEIceHIxvtI
Picking the best, or the most epic, or the most thought provoking, or the most pretentious, or the most daring, or the most ambitious, or the most tragically beautiful, or the most grandiose Titus Andronicus song is impossible. But if I were forced to choose, this is the one. “Battle of Hampton Roads” is all of the above. It has the Civil War as relationship metaphor, the fourteen minute time-stamp, the self-loathing in the U.S. of A., the occasionally repulsive and provocative yet professorial and brilliantly insightful lyrics. And it has the balls to ask you the questions you don’t want to answer. It forces you to look yourself in the mirror and realize, whether you want to or not, you are imperfect. Despite all of that, one final line brings it back to one of the greatest things about life ever: human connection.
1
LCD Soundsystem “All My Friends (Live At Madison Square Garden)”
“Wow, this is abysmal,” was my first impression of this song, and I remember it as if it were five minutes ago. I was sitting in my college dorm room playing Mario Kart with my group of best friends, and I just could not get over the fact they wanted to hear something with such terrible syncopation and no rhythm. “Yes! Good choice!” Someone said. “It took me awhile to get used to the beat, but now I can’t get enough of it,” another added.
That was the turning point, the moment when my taste for music took a vibrant and uncertainly exciting turn towards the diverse. If not for LCD Soundsystem, I would still be stuck within the confines of musical nearsightedness, slogging through a boring and never-ending quagmire of consistently typical song patterns and an ignorant opinion of what makes talented music. I am eternally grateful.
The studio version of this song came out in 2007, so if I haven’t already, I’ve created controversy with this list. I don’t care, because bring it up in 85 years (or however many more I live for) and I’ll tell you that the best song of the century is this one. Every time. The second version of this song was released on the deluxe issue of LCD Soundsystem’s third and final studio album, This is Happening, in 2010. In that version, the band streamlined and improved the song, adding the signature “doodoodoo’s” and removing some of the background noise. The third time this song was released was on their live recording of their farewell show, and that is something magnificent to behold.
Most perfect music is live music, and LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends” is nothing less than a flawless, perfect song, especially in the context of a farewell show. Lines like “To tell the truth / this could be the last time,” take on a whole new meaning. As proof, look no further than the chill-inducing cheer from the crowd after James Murphy sings them.
Ultimately, the sheer emotional weight is this song’s crowning achievement. As it nears the end, it speeds up and carries us all with it. Tears, cheers, beers, and above all, good company. The genie may give you three wishes, but “If I could see all my friends tonight,” is the only one you really need. And for that single magical night, that wish was granted.
The Ponderings of a Deej 