As I compiled this list, I was struck by the sheer breadth of the artists and songs. While this decade has been a truly great time for music, I'm sure it has been nothing if not confounding for the music industry (for a host of reasons, to be sure). What must it feel like to watch the categorical delineations you worked so hard to define effortlessly eroded by the ceaseless tread of a thousand polyglot artists willing to steal from seemingly every genre and a listening public with a nascent penchant for an ever-expanding array of sounds?
While a great many of this decade's artists will likely be derided (and dismissed) for their considerable debt to prior forms and fads, it's entirely possible that the Aughts' great gift to future music (and musicians) will be its steady dismantling of artificial, corporate genre constructs. Perhaps we've finally arrived at a "post-genre" moment in popular music. After all, it is the age of Obama.
Admittedly, this conclusion seems almost paradoxical in light of the exceedingly derivative nature of a great many of the bands and songs presently polluting the airwaves. However, in my opinion, artistic innovation during this decade has sprung from two primary fonts: 1) Technology and 2) The singular combination of often disparate, antecedent influences in a wholly unfamiliar and heretofore unimagined form.
The impact of technological innovation is perhaps obvious. For better or for worse, we live in a moment when any fool with a laptop can record an album, and every breakfast nook is now a world class studio. Furthermore, countless democratic software applications have made the once painstaking art of the remix, the mash-up and the re-version matters of mere moments. While these are certainly giant leaps, I believe the nearly nuclear impact of the seamless melding of once diametrically opposed music denominations into coherent (not to mention riveting) compositions will ultimately prove the lasting sonic and cultural legacy of this decade. After all, it is the impulse that explains the categorical consternation many critics experience when attempting to briefly describe certain current artists. How do you tell someone what Grizzly Bear, or M.I.A., or Dirty Projectors, or Arcade Fire, or Sigur Ros, or Radiohead, or Outkast, or Broken Social Scene (to name a few) sound like in twenty words or less?
It seems to be increasingly the case that no song really fits comfortably in any one broad category. The most obvious evidence of this discomfiture is the endless proliferation of perfunctory, fragmentary sub-genres all but destined to fail in their attempt to wittily capture the essential sound of so many indie rock bands. How else can one explain the rise of "glo-fi" and the utterly inane vocabulary of the blogosphere? Shit-gaze? Dreamwave? Fidget House? Please, make it stop. These terms increasingly seem to be just words that say very little about the band or its songs. Just look at what's become of the term "indie rock." Once a shibboleth for Pavement-sounding slacker bands, it's been rendered all but meaningless (and, at the very least, imprecise) as a sonic descriptor (at best its in an increasingly inaccurate economic category).
In defense of glo-fi advocates everywhere, genre categories have always been inexact. However, these days, there seems to be an endless stream of computer-wielding audiophiles in a perpetual race for fleeting cultural relevance through the timely coining of clever, catchy terms speciously describing some new group or scene (solipsistic labels that will assuredly say more about the blogger than band). As long as there is a blogosphere, this atavistic impulse will remain, but nevertheless, its continual frustration is one more indication of the continued emergence of kaleidoscopic musical acts and the resultant evisceration of the convenient and largely binary musical landscape of previous decades. I believe we've moved beyond this black/white bimodality into a wholly technicolor realm, and one only need to turn on pop radio to hear it.
Furthermore, the Aughts have been a time (thanks to the rise of egalitarian technologies like the mp3 and increasingly unobtrusive portable music players) when seemingly more people have spent seemingly more hours than ever listening to music. Music is once again a central (and perhaps defining) element in many peoples' days. We live in the age of the Playlist, quite possibly the most perfect invention for a generation of listeners saddled with a staggering attention deficit, and a great many of us have soundtracked nearly every picayune and pedestrian moment of our lives. Everyone is a deejay. Everyone is an expert. Everyone is a critic. And everyone can hear (almost) everything.
There are certain songs that anyone who lived through this decade will find hard to ignore: "Mr. Brightside", "Paper Planes", "Umbrella", "B.O.B", "Since U Been Gone", "Toxic", Flo-Rida's "Low", just to name a few, and these are the tunes by which VH1 will likely choose to remember these halcyon days. However, if there was ever a decade when seemingly reasonable people could vehemently disagree on its definitive soundtrack, the Aughts are it.
While there are unquestionably tunes from these years that could be considered universal (see above), the considerable amount of time each person presently spends exploring new music seems to suggest that the making, sharing and dissection of such retrospective and superlative lists is all but destined to be increasingly personal, fractious and contentious (a reality perhaps further underscored by the rise and seemingly ceaseless expansion of the blogosphere). And maybe that's a great thing. Sure, the music industry may be crumbling before our very ears, but people really seem to care about music again. We may not be buying songs, but we are at least tuning in. It's difficult to say just where music might go from here, but, at the very least, there will be plenty of people listening.
Without further ado, my 100 favorite songs of the past ten years:
100. Doves - "Pounding"
99. The Klaxons - "Golden Skans"
98. Yeasayer - "2080"
97. Phoenix - "Too Young"
96. Mylo - "In My Arms"
95. Van She - "Kelly"
94. Chromatics - "Running Up That Hill"
93. The Raveonettes - "That Great Love Sound"
92. Feist - "1234"
91. Midlake - "Young Bride"
90. Rilo Kiley - "Portions for Foxes"
89. The Broken West - "Perfect Games"
88. Empire of the Sun - "Walking on a Dream"
87. Fever Ray - "Keep The Streets Empty for Me"
86. Royksopp - "What Else Is There?"
85. Spoon - "Anything You Want"
84. Radiohead - "Idioteque"
83. Kelly Clarkson - "Since U Been Gone"
82. Vampire Weekend - "Oxford Comma"
81. Gang Gang Dance - "House Jam"
80. Stars - "Elevator Love Letter"
79. Justin Timberlake - "My Love"
78. Land of Talk - "It's Okay"
77. The White Stripes - "Seven Nation Army"
76. Kings of Convenience - "Misread"
75. Band of Horses - "No One's Gonna Love You"
74. M83 - "Kim & Jessie"
73. Grouper - "Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping"
72. Antony and the Johnsons - "Fistful of Love"
71. Animal Collective - "Grass"
70. PJ Harvey - "This Mess We're In"
69. The Strokes - "Under Control"
68. The National - "Baby, We'll Be Fine"
67. Wolf Parade - "I'll Believe in Anything"
66. Wilco - "War on War"
65. Cornelius - "Drop"
64. Robyn - "Be Mine"
63. Air France - "Collapsing at Your Doorstep"
62. Studio - "No Comply"
61. Sun Kil Moon - "Carry Me Ohio"
60. Holy Ghost! - "Hold On"
59. The Clientele - "I Can't Seem To Make You Mine"
58. Celebration - "Heartbreak"
57. Beach House - "Astronaut"
56. Radio Dept. - "Pulling Our Weight"
55. No Age - "Here Should Be My Home"
54. Wilco - "I'm Always in Love"
53. Sufjan Stevens - "For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti"
52. Tapes 'n Tapes - "Just Drums"
51. Menomena - "Wet and Rusting"
50. Iron & Wine - "Upward Over the Mountain"
49. Jens Lekman - "I Saw Her at the Anti-War Demonstration"
48. The Shins - "Turn on Me"
47. Regina Spektor - "Us"
46. Nada Surf - "Blonde on Blonde"
45. Midlake - "Roscoe"
44. Stars - "Ageless Beauty"
43. Coldplay - "Spies"
42. Max Richter - "On the Nature of Daylight"
41. M83 - "Don't Save Us From the Flames"
40. TV on the Radio - "Staring at the Sun"
39. The Libertines - "Up the Bracket"
38. Liars - "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack"
37. Phoenix - "One Time Too Many"
36. Futureheads - "Hounds of Love"
35. LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends"
34. Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
33. The Killers - "Read My Mind"
32. Sigur Ros - "Staralfur"
31. Broken Social Scene - "7/4 (Shoreline)"
30. The National - "Mistaken For Strangers"
29. Fleet Foxes - "Blue Ridge Mountains"
28. Three 6 Mafia - "Stay Fly"
27. Animal Collective - "My Girls"
26. Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks"
25. Lil Wayne - "Got Money"
24. Bon Iver - "Re: Stacks"
23. Hercules & Love Affair - "Blind"
22. Kurt Vile - "Freeway"
21. Hot Chip - "And I Was a Boy From School"
20. Beach House - "Master of None"
19. LCD Soundsystem - "Losing My Edge"
18. M.I.A. - "Paper Planes (Diplo Street Remix)"
17. My Morning Jacket - "At Dawn"
16. Ryan Adams - "Come Pick Me Up"
15. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth"
14. Arcade Fire - "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"
13. Cut Copy - "Saturdays"
12. Avalanches - "Frontier Psychiatrist"
11. Panda Bear - "Bros"
10. UGK - "Int'l Players Anthem"
9. TV on the Radio - "Wolf Like Me"
8. The Walkmen - "The Rat"
7. Grizzly Bear "Knife"
6. The Rapture - "House of Jealous Lovers"
5. The Strokes - "Hard to Explain"
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Maps"
3. The Knife - "Heartbeats"
2. Outkast - "B.O.B."
1. Daft Punk - "Digital Love"
No comments:
Post a Comment