Music of the Weak: The 100 Greatest Songs of the Millennium (So Far) - #20-11

PREVIOUSLY: #100-91 - Introductions, yacht rock, epic narratives, Elvis tributes, and one-man Canadian supergroups.

#90-81 – Jazz revisionism, shady fact-checking, Muppetized gangsta rap, and the no pussy blues.

#80-71 – A ragtag assembly of pop stars and other hate-able entities.

#70-61 – More pop music, Australian pop, bedroom pop, Kanye West, and the decade’s greatest use of drum machines.

#60-51 – Sex, suicide, misogyny, and a brief appearance by Amy Winehouse.

#50-41 – 8 songs that deserve your attention, 2 songs that probably already have it.

#40-31 – Dylan covers, guest spots and banging camp.

#30-21 – Electronica and “Rock is Back!” hype cycle relics.

20. Luomo – “Tessio” (2000)

For a song that set the tone for a decade’s worth of dance music, “Tessio” doesn’t have an epic amount of dance-ability. Instead, it’s the sound of walking from room to room in a multi-story club, mulling over some moment of gravity, probably a break-up, or an impending one—one moment, you’re feet away from speakers blasting house music; the next, you’re only hearing traces of it coming from the next room; later, the music is only comprised of clear thoughts charging through burbles of conversation. It’s a song with a ton of illusions—false endings, echoes, women singing about eschewing women from their lives—that somehow lead to epiphany. Microhouse, the sub-genre that Luomo helped ignite at the turn of the millennium, takes its name from its association with minimal techno. In Luomo’s hands, it could refer to the degree to which tiny, ephemeral changes take on monumental importance within the music. “Tessio” lives in the distance between two points on either side of a large room, or in the slight shift between two thoughts.

19. M.I.A. – “Paper Planes” (2007)

Often, the most universal pop moments are also the weirdest. On the one hand, the chart ascent of “Paper Planes” thanks to its inclusion on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack made perfect sense. Tucked away at the end of M.I.A.’s 2007 watershed Kala, it always stuck out as a potential crossover moment—though no one could have ever predicted just how big it would get. On the other hand, it also features an abrasively atonal Clash sample, an army of kids singing about taking your money, and a chorus composed of well-place gunshots, so how prepared could people have been for it to storm its way onto the iTunes charts? For all the talk about politics surrounding her, “Paper Planes” is the moment where M.I.A. actually makes the thing the deal by flipping routine gangsta threats not once, but twice—first, by gender; then by putting the implied violence in the mouths of children, artistically rendering it the necessary evil that rappers always claimed it was. There are still pop flourishes, but even they are subversive. In M.I.A.’s hands, even finger snaps sound an awful lot like gunshots, or is it the other way around?

18. Phoenix – “If I Ever Feel Better” (2000)

The zeitgeist has spent ten year slowly bending toward Phoenix. No other band this decade has had such a slow, stately progression toward legitimate success. When this year’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix became a bona fide hit for the band, it retroactively validated everything that Phoenix had done since their yacht rock and Air-inspired debut in 2000. “If I Ever Feel Better,” one of their first great songs, may fit perfectly into today’s musical landscape, but back then it was an anachronism. A four-on-the-floor disco stomp with some of Air’s lounge-y open space, and an AM radio veneer, “If I Ever Feel Better” sounds more vital with each passing year. It’s a bonus, then, that Thomas Mars stuffs it with resonant imagery (“I’ve watched all my castles fall/ They were made of dust after all”) and a dogged enthusiasm for the impending moment when he’ll be able to look back on all the “hard time” and laugh. “I can’t wait,” he sings,” “I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait.” Hopefully the band’s newfound success means that moment has come.

17. The Knife – “Heartbeats” (2002)

There may not be a better representation of the way the 00’s changed the proliferation of music than “Heartbeats.” Released at the very end of 2002, The Knife’s best known single would have been relegated to cult status as a Swedish hit, had it not found its way into the hands of some industrious mp3-bloggers (most notably Fluxblog’s Matthew Perpetua). “Heartbeats” was always fated to be a modern standard—it presaged the internet’s fixation with Swedish pop (which carried over to Annie and Robyn), and gave Swedish songwriter José Gonzalez his biggest hit. Though most of the song’s charm comes from the interplay between the purposefully chintzy keyboards and Karen Dreijer Andersson’s alien vocals, “Heartbeats” was malleable enough to survive—even thrive upon—the acoustic rendering by Gonzalez, and even a full-on choral version by Scaly & Kolacny Brothers (an all-female choir). Now more than ever, good music will out.

16. Iron & Wine – “Bird Stealing Bread” (2002)

No other song this decade has rendered lost love as wistfully as Iron & Wine’s “Bird Stealing Bread,” and lord knows they’ve tried. A folk-inspired, banjo-playing beardo seems to crawl out of the woodwork every five minutes these days, and every one of them has a new poetic way of letting us know he once got his heart broke. “Bird Stealing Bread” is heartbreak made easy, sitting on the porch allowing your mind drift to an old lover and wondering if she ever thinks of you. That’s how it happens—it’s not willful, it’s slight, just a fleeting thought that colors everything that comes after it. In Sam Beam’s hands that thought unravels into a million loose insecurities. He wonders why he hasn’t seen this girl at any of their old favorite places. He breaks out an old picture of them on their favorite day. He wonders if her new boyfriend makes her smile when it rains. The memories cluster until he’s finally unsure whether she would even say hello to him in passing, and, all of a sudden, the “bird stealing bread” in the title and one of the song’s recurring images, is a metaphor for how quickly your stray thoughts can force you down a bleak road.

15. Gnarls Barkley – “Crazy” (2006)

Most pop songs that reach the ubiquity that “Crazy” had in the spring and summer of 2006 have more than a whiff of novelty about them. Gnarls Barkley’s monolithic hit was the opposite. Break “Crazy” down into its component parts, and you end up with a handful of musical ideas that could have been conceived centuries ago—a plodding bass line, ascending strings, and just the slightest bass drum kick. Cee-Lo’s vocal performance has only two levels, immense and immenser. When he launches into the chorus’s glory note, it’s like somebody hit him in the kneecap with a hammer. “Crazy” is as basic as it gets. Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo have no need for Poloroid-shaking or a Jay-Z cameo, because “Crazy” taps into something magical and universal, the way only a perfectly written song can. At the end of the decade, “Crazy” can take a place next to “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” or “The Weight” in the pop pantheon without a single catchphrase.

14. Amerie – “1 Thing” (2005)

It’s nearly impossible to discuss “1 Thing” without bringing up “Crazy in Love.” In the hands of producer Rich Harrison, both tracks run parallel to one another—the Chi-Lite’s horn sample on “Crazy in Love” analogous to the resplendent use of The Meters’ “Oh, Calcutta!” on “1 Thing.” But the two songs charge in wildly different directions. “Crazy in Love” uses the climactic horn break from “Are You My Woman? (Tell Me So)” in a similar fashion as its used in the orginal—the horns blast, then the vocals kick in; it’s a one-two punch. In comparison, “1 Thing” whips around on itself like a three-minute whirlwind. Harrison adds bongo, cowbell, and cymbal to Ziggy Modeliste’s already frenetic playing, but keeps Leo Nocentelli’s guitar-chords stripped down, so that the song is 90% drums. Compared with Beyoncé’s diva turn on the “Crazy in Love” vocals, Amerie’s singing is wispy and weird, a nearly absurdist flurry of tuneless disco calls, throat-scraping pleas, and bell impersonations. Both songs leave you winded. But, while “Crazy in Love” utilizes front-to-back pop conventions in order to gain its seismic success, “1 Thing” defies them. Ding dong ding dong ding.

13. Eminem – “Kill You” (2000)

Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter because it most accurately represented how people actually sounded when they spoke. The idea was to use poetry to abstract the way that conversations sounded, but to make them sound more real than real life, amplifying the music of conversation by identifying and then exploiting it. Eminem’s “Kill You” marks the hugest leap forward in conversational poetry since at least Rakim, and he uses plenty of Shakespeare’s tricks—cadence, internal rhyme, alliteration—in order to do it. Over a beat that sounds like a computer constantly shutting off and restarting, Eminem rattles off nesting doll lines like, “Think I’m sayin’ this shit ‘cause I’m thinking it just to be saying it” and twists the word “Vicodin” to sound like he’s revving a chainsaw. Walmart shoppers may have balked at Em’s drug-snorting, whore-abusing, mother-raping content, but, in truth, Marshall Mathers was the most successful 21st century Macbeth we’ve ever known, employing fantastic language to expose the workings of a deeply fractured mind.

12. R. Kelly – “Ignition (Remix)” (2003)

R. Kelly has singlehandedly redefined the idea of the unhinged musician, marking its evolution from Jack Kerouac-like rambling outsider to possibly inebriated favorite uncle that you definitely wouldn’t trust around your children. On “Ignition (Remix),” Kelly’s most indelible and lasting hit in a decade full of them, he runs a litany of sex metaphors—some successful (“I’m about to take my key and stick it in your ignition”), some not so much (Why is it like Murder She Wrote once he gets her out them clothes? Wouldn’t images of Angela Lansbury put a swift end to Kelly’s erection? Or is it really as much of a freakin’ weekend as he says it is?)—around a track of studio noises as goofy, awkward and funny as sex actually kinda is. If you’ve ever tried to sing “Ignition” at karaoke, you’ll know that “Ignition (Remix)” is the song, reinventing not only the original, but the whole idea of a remix in the first place. And somehow it’s only a preview! But, as funny as “Ignition (Remix)” is, the ultimate joke of it is an infinitely darker one: If every child molester could present a defense for himself as bulletproof as “Ignition (Remix),” the world would be a much scarier place.

11. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings – “How Long Do I Have to Wait For You?” (2004) 

When people refer to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings as “retro-soul,” the backhanded implication is that song as immaculately soulful as “How Long Do I Have to Wait For You?” could only have been written in another era. Not true. The Dap-Kings channel as much of the 80’s, 90’s and present into their music as they do the work of James Brown. Disco-funk, Afrobeat, hip-hop’s mid-decade horn infatuation, the party Prince throws at the end of Sign O’ the Times—it’s all in. The supple work of El Michels on Bari Sax, Neal Sugarman on Tenor, and Dave Guy on trumpet; Binky Griptite’s cascading guitar lick, which nimbly cuts back and forth across the song; and, of course, Jones’ virtuosic performance, which summons up a wealth of emotion that belies her tiny stature—these all combine to form one of the most vital songs of any era. We’re just lucky enough that they belong to ours.

-Martin Brown, 2009

Comments

[Sean Witzke]

Damn man, I was hoping for 1 Thing at the top spot. Hokey, but there's an argument for it.

[Chris Jones]

"even finger snaps sound an awful lot like gunshots, or is it the other way around?"

I REALLY like that imagery.

[Kenny Cather]

Any list with Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings is an incredible list!! I *love* that group!! A similar sounding group I'm liking a lot is the Noisettes.

Anyway, Paper Planes - the day that album came out, I was singing that song to anyone who would listen to me. As much as I love MIA, which is a *lot*, Diplo was just as important to that song. In my dream world, Diplo and MIA would work together all the time, which kinda happened with Kala, I guess.

My buddy and I were just talking about R. Kelly and the Ignition remix. Our verdict was even though it's an incredible song, he's still creepy.

Gnarls Barkley is such a great duo. I remember when I heard Crazy, I was like - yeah, but can they do it for a whole album? Yeah, they could.

This is a great list so far, Marty, from #100 on. I can't wait to see the top 10!!

[Marty]

Hey, thanks guys. Now's a good time to toss in any predictions for the top 10, if you're into that kind of thing. I'll bet you can get four of them, depending on how much Witzke's on his game. Tucker could probably guess 6.

[Kenny Cather]

I don't usually guess right, but I'll try....

I'm going to guess Coldplay will show up, um...The Killers...hopefully the White Stripes...Cut Copy? I know you love them.

I dunno, I'm no good at this game.

[NoahB]

I want 1 thing at the top spot as well — but that's a great write up of that song.

She has a new album out someday, if they ever release the damn thing....

[Chris Jones]

I'm really hoping(assuming) something from "The Moon and Antarctica" is going to show up. Probably either "Gravity Rides Everything" or "Paper Thin Walls".

[Sean Witzke]

Something by Just Blaze up there? Broken Social Scene (maybe "Almost Crimes" or "7/4 Shoreline", Avalanches, Burial, "I Can't Go To Sleep", LCD Soundsystem, Animal Collective/Panda Bear, "You Are the Generation Who Bought More Shoes", Robyn? At least one of those.

[Marty]

Let's just say I'm very impressed.

[Chris Jones]

I'm also going to take a longshot guess for "No One Knows" by Queens of the Stone Age, but once again: Long shot.

[Lugh]

This list is full of songs from groups I like that I overlooked, as well as plenty of new, great stuff. Thanks for compiling it.