THE TOP 100 SONGS OF THE 2010's PART IV (#25-#1)

And now the final stretch!  If you'd like to catch up , here are some links:

PART I
PART II
PART III

And to listen along: Here's the playlist.  Go nuts.

25. "Ice Cream" Battles (2011)

Soooo....yeah.  I don't know how this is still on YouTube, but yes, that is a tit in the thumbnail.  Certainly more appealing than the album cover, which is a pile of chewed gum?  I think?

Anyway, I did not expect this song to chart so high, but I've put it to rigorous testing, and despite a bit of overplay in my personal sphere, this thing just keeps kicking ASS!  The positive, bouncy energy just does.  Not.  STOP.  I have no idea what that guy is singing, but I don't care!  It sounds rad!



24. "Wow Wow" Neil Cicierega (2017)

At its core, this is "Wild Wild West" by Will Smith.  It's got a different, synth heavier track underneath that Neil put there, but this is a remix of the titular song of the movie that almost derailed Big Willie Style's career in 1999.  The difference is the lyrics are chopped up to make dumb sentences and it gives the song a completely new life.  I can't believe this made it so high and the masterpiece that was "T.I.M.E.", the song that literally taught me that memes could be art, didn't even make the list.  But I checked both of them multiple times and yep: this is where it deserves to be.  I'm weird, y'all.



23. "From Above" Ben Folds (2010)

Once upon a time I was filled to the brim with storybook notions of finding somebody and knowing they were "the one".  To be honest, I think there are several "ones" in your life, and when you find them it really is special, really is worth all the strife you had to endure to meet them.

This song is about the notion of two people meant for one another that, despite being in close proximity on a semi-regular basis, never really meet.  The lyrics are by Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity and About A Boy (among other things; actually just read his novella State Of The Union from last year, I recommend it).  In fact, he wrote all the lyrics on Lonely Avenue and the results are pretty good (see also #93 on this list).



22. "Figaro Kids" 2 Mello (2017)

In the U.S., the game we grew up knowing as Final Fantasy III was in fact Final Fantasy VI in Japan.  Using that framework, along with a love of the Wu-Tang Clan (who's first album was called Enter The 36 Chambers), we get from 2Mello: Final Fantasy: The 3-6 Chambers, a mashup album of music from Final Fantasy III and various Wu-Tang projects over the years.  The best one by far is this flip of Ghostface Killa's "Apollo Kids".  This shit is so HYPE!



21. "Unbreakable" Janet Jackson (2015)

In spite of everything, I think I still believe in Love.  It ain't easy, but I do believe.  And man does this song channel that power into its chorus.  This is Janet Jackson's best work.  It's powerful, epic, bright, kind of jazzy with its melody, and yet tender and caring.  The vibe is like: "FUCK all that.  We are going to MAKE IT."  Be beautiful in the face of terror.  Be bright in the face of the dark.  Stay strong by knowing there is a connection to be found, and that connection will redouble your strength.  Keep.  Going.



20. "Klapp Klapp" Little Dragon (2014)

Which...hmmm.  When I wrote that last entry, I was blissfully unaware of which song followed it up.

This song is about hanging yourself.

I wasn't aware of that the first several times I heard it because I don't usually pay attention to the lyrics until way later if the music is interesting or if the vocals aren't the main thing in the mix.  I only made the connection of "make my chair do flips" to kicking the chair out from beneath yourself very recently.  And the video...that's a whole 'nother layer of harrowing on top of it.  Don't watch it if you're not in the best place right now, because I know things like this can push people further down a dark path.

I still think this song is an absolute masterpiece, though.



19. "The Stranger" Christine And The Queens (2018)

Water.

Water.

{Harpsichord}

I still don't know what that means in context, and I'm not sure I want to.  I like the mysterious, exotic nature of a lot of Christine's work.  I feel like this song grabs me by the back of my neck, looks me square in the eyes and says "Love me".

That's not a plea.  It's a command.  And you will obey.



18. "Fall In Love" Phantogram (2013)

Phantogram are supremely frustrating, because this song is fucking incredible, but every single other thing they've put out bores me to tears.  I don't remember a lick of it five seconds after I've hit skip halfway through the song.  But this one?  Holy fuck.  Any of us should be so lucky to write such a banger.



17. "Ghetto Woman" Janelle Monae (2013)

This song is a journey: it starts strong and keeps going up from there.  By the time you get to the rap verse, you're already bowing, and then those DRUMS kick in and oh my GOD.



16. "Melatonin" A Tribe Called Quest feat. Ambrosius & Abbey Smith (2016)

My favorite A Tribe Called Quest song.  The distinction is dubious because Phife isn't on it, but it's on Tribe's final album and for me, it counts.  The guitar, the spacey keyboards, the singing...Q-Tip is cool too, but come ON!  This track is top to bottom amazing.



15. "Won't Go Quietly" Company Of Thieves (2011)

When they started playing this song at their 2017 show at Chicago's House of Blues, I was like: "Goddammit, you're gonna make a grown ass man cry like a baby in public, aren't you?"  This song does that to me every time.  I am an absolute puddle by the end of it.



14. "Time Traveler" Knower (2017)

Warning: Fast song.  Genevive is ready.  John...John Cena?  Okay, John Cena.  (Just watch the video and you'll know what I'm talking about.  The song kicks ass, I don't need to really explain it.)



13. "Toska" Minus The Bear (2012)

I'm simultaneously surprised and not to see "Tosca" ascend to such lofty heights.  I've always been infatuated with Minus The Bear's sound, but upon further review their songs and albums don't hold up to scrutiny.  Out of the last ten years, I think I liked their B-Sides album best, and out of four albums and an EP I can only call four of their songs to mind from that stretch.  Outside of 2007's Planet Of Ice, I find them wildly inconsistent.

That being said, when they succeed, they win big.  "My Time" and "Walk On Air" were considerations for this list, but "Tosca" overachieved.  I also have a bit of sentimental attachment to it, being it was on the first episode of my radio show Expect The Unexpected, but I put it there for a reason: It's a dope song I wanted people to hear.  So here it is again.  Listen and enjoy:



12. "Out Of Frequency" The Asteroids Galaxy Tour (2012)

Considering how high pitched and nasally the vocals are, I don't know how this band grabbed me the way it did.  Actually, no, I do.  They write kick-ass songs and have a  swagger about them that tells you they mean business.  This one's all about that chorus, because I find it transcendent.  (The flute break is nice too.)



11. "Backstairs" The New Pornographers (2014)

Back in February 2017 ('round about the time it hit 72 degrees), I looked inside myself and found this was my favorite song of all time.  I've since changed my mind, obviously, since this is a countdown and it didn't even make the top 10, but it's at number 11 in the toughest list I've ever had to put together, so...that's not too shabby.  (For the record, song for song, I think any other decade list I put together would have a tough time competing with this one.  I love these songs.)

"Backstairs" is perfect rolling in your car with the windows down music, but it's also got this aspirational bent to it that gives me hope in a strong way (maybe too strong at times).  "There is another West much wilder; Another West, a new one where you are".  Such a simple lyric, but when combined with the pulsing backbeat and magical vocal layering, it becomes sorcery.  It becomes enchanted warmth as a balm against a cold world.  A deep breath in that air and I can slough it all off and keep moving.



10. "Oroborus" Metaphump (2017)

For context, here is the song this band is covering:




Now, here is their version:




I don't feel there's any further explanation needed as to why this is number ten.

9. "Hunger" Florence + The Machine (2018)

An anthem to celebrate life to in the face of the parade of endless nihilism we face every day.  Fuck it, it's Friday night.  And for a moment, I forget to worry...



8. "Girls On The TV" Laura Jean (2018)

In 2018, I put "Hunger" just above "Girls On The TV" at the top of my Top Songs Of 2018 list, but that choice was based on sentiment rather than songcraft.  (And that's no slight to "Hunger"; it has to be great to get this far on a list where "Great" can still get you left off.)

This song breaks my heart every time I hear it.  It's so subtle yet so perfect in capturing how the plans you make in youth never materialize and how friends you thought you'd have forever change and disappear.  It happens to all of us.  It's something beautiful being erased from the world, fading like a slow dissolve, and all we can do is watch, mourn and remember the better times.



7. "Rainbow" Kesha (2017)

I have a really hard time hearing this song without big, ugly tears rolling down my face.  This one absolutely destroys me.  And it's kind of the perfect song to put after "Girls On The TV" because it's about learning to live again after recovering from trauma.  And I need to hear it more and more in a world full of horrible shit that just keeps getting worse.  This song takes my hand, gives me warmth, gives me hope, and tells me it'll be all right.  Even if it won't, it's still amazing to hear because, hey...maybe it will.



6. "The Quiet House" Spock's Beard (2010)

This may be the biggest shock of the countdown, because before I threw it in the nomination queue, I hadn't listened to it but once in five years.  This one's a journey, equal parts hard charging rock and soaring harmony (as any hard prog song worth its salt is) and with a melodramatic piano breakdown that somehow doesn't derail or bloat the song.  (Yes, such is the magic of "The Quiet House" that nine minutes plus doesn't feel bloated.)  I love the length because I don't want it to end.



5. "Ain't It Fun" Paramore (2013)

Actually, this might be the surprise of the countdown, because I knew I liked this song, I just didn't know I fucking loved it.  The play between the high guitarmony in unison with the xylophone and the low bass just ice it for me.  Hayley Williams delivers with a carefree feel tinged with just the right amount of acid.  The swing of the song is what carries it, though.  The groove, the interval and then that choir comes in on the bridge and hoooo boy.



4. "The Greatest" King (2016)

Now we come to the six out of fives.  This was my number one pick for 2016, and with great reason.  Every inch of this song, every element of it, the vocal filters, the sizzle of the synthesizer, the...God, this is where my half-in, half-out knowledge of music theory fails me, because I know terms like mode, key, note choice, chords or whatever, but I have no idea what applies here.  The fucking...way this song comes together creates an ambience, a cocoon of love, adoration, melancholy of the loneliness of being without peer at the top and the sadness of the inevitability of the finite...it packs so much into three minutes and fifteen seconds without saying any of it out loud.  (The song is a tribute to Muhammad Ali that came out four months before he died but I didn't hear until after, so there's that element to it too.  There's a lot going on here and it makes me feel a lot.)



3. "Death Of Communication" Company Of Thieves (2011)

I.  FUCKING.  LOVE.  THIS.  BAND.



2. "Clarity" Adam Neely, Little Kruta & Hannah Sumner (2017)

This is the one that I saw an hour after "Overtime" that knocked it off the top for 2017.  It starts as a vocoder trap thing that morphs in the second verse into a fully orchestrated jazz epic with soaring singing and, of course, that chord.  Adam Neely had to do a follow up video about the chord in question because so many people in the comments lost their shit at how awesome it was.

That chord is amazing, but the moment that gets me is when it transitions into the Hannah Sumner part and gets really subtle.  That gets me emotional; that digs into my core.  And then it swells and becomes the kind of music I've always wanted to write but never had the balls to try. (But that's another rant for another time.)




I thought going in this would run away with the number one spot, but when I pitted it against the real number one, it was obvious.  It could have only ever been one song:

1. "Locked Inside" Janelle Monae (2010)

The first time Janelle Monae got on my radar was December 29, 2010.  I was making the commute from Milwaukee to Hartland to hang with some friends, it was cold and snowy.  I was listening to NPR and this song was on that...I swear to you it sounded like this woman was singing to me through a portal to another dimension.  I knew immediately I had to find out who this was.  This was a rare, rare, amazing thing I was hearing.

So then Janelle Monae and the interviewer start talking about Octavia Butler and I'm like "Yes, tell me more!"  I bought The Archandroid a few days later and never looked back.

The song in question was, of course, "Locked Inside".  It is achingly beautiful, has a tight groove, the production is immaculate, but the real reason it's number one is the pathos.  It's the fear of an uncertain future for yourself and the world (a theme running through much of Monae's conceptual work), and trying to convince the one you're with that one day you'll be free.  I hear the line "I know it's rough and you've had enough, but one day we'll be happy" and it tears me to pieces because I truly don't know that's possible anymore.

But we still have to live in it, and caring in the face of impossible odds is the only way we're gonna scrape by as people.  Like I said about Janet, beauty in the face of darkness.  Hope in spite of all rational input.  Praying for the impossible and striving to make it happen is the only way any of us are even going to stay sane, much less survive.




So anyway, that's the list.  Here's some random factoids:


ARTISTS THAT APPEARED MULTIPLE TIMES:

Company Of Thieves | Devin Townsend: 5

Animals As Leaders | Ben Folds | Janelle Monae | Kesha | Mark Ronson | The New Pornographers: 3

Aesop Rock | The Asteroids Galaxy Tour | Christine And The Queens | Janet Jackson | King | Knower | Phenomenal Handclap Band | Umphrey's McGee: 2

Longest song on the list: The Shanghai Restoration Project "Tactile Sonic Glide" (14:23)

Shortest song on the list: The Night Howls "Fake News" (1:59)

Oldest song on the list: Four-way tie between the Devin Townsend songs from Addicted (though if you want to get technical, a video of him cutting vocals for and mixing "Supercrush" was posted on August 2, 2009; the first single was "Bend It Like Bender", so...take your pick).

Newest song on the list: The Shanghai Restoration Project "Tactile Sonic Glide" (September 6, 2019)

BREAKDOWN BY YEAR:

2009: 4
2010: 7
2011: 19
2012: 10
2013: 5
2014: 6
2015: 10
2016: 8
2017: 17
2018: 9
2019: 5

MISCELLANEOUS STATS:

Company Of Thieves got all five of their countdown spots from the same album (Running From A Gamble).  Kesha also got all three of hers from Rainbow, and they're the only two artists to do it like that.

All right!  I finally finished this fucking thing!  No more having this albatross whispering about itself on back of my neck!  Ha ha!  I'm free! Fr...

What?

The ALBUMS OF THE DECADE LIST?!?!?

Goddamit.

Oh well.  Nothin' 2 It But To Do It^TM.  See you next time...