Two complaints I want to get out of the way:
1. No, I did not print this list in 2010, so I do not know for a fact that my Top Ten will remain unscathed entering next year. This is meant as a snapshot of my favorite songs from this decade as of October 22nd, 2009. I can say that the content of the list, and the rankings as you see them here, have little chance of changing, barring an unforeseen volley of brilliance from the music industry (I would place bets).
2. These are not my picks for the BEST songs of the decade, although obviously I think they are. They are the songs from this decade that have moved me the most powerfully, and consequently, this list is ranked by the psychology of which tracks affected me the most, peaking at the number one position. It's very simple.
10. The Wallflowers - 'Sleepwalker'
- The oddball selection of the list, first for my general apathy towards the Wallflowers (I barely like more than a handful of tracks they have released - 'One Headlight' being the pinnacle), and the bizarre lyrical content of the song, which is occasionally outrageous: "I'm in your movie and everyone looks sad. But I can hear you, your voice, the laughtrack. But you never saw my best scene. The one where I sleep...
Sleepwalk into your dreams." The emotional pull of the song is undeniable, however, and the crisp instrumentation buoys Jakob Dylan's raspy voice and gives the lyrics a dream-like undertow. This is the most lush and successfully 'epic' mainstream single to come down the pike in many a moon.
9. Alien Ant Farm - 'Sarah Wynn'
- One of the most powerful and devastating songs about substance abuse ever made, Alien Ant Farm's 'Sarah Wynn' is an intensely personal and affecting of one man's love for a hopeless heroin addict, contrasting his warm memories of affection with heartbreaking pleas. The singer pleads all he can, but accepts and seems reigned to the inevitable tragedy of her situation: "What the hell were you thinking? I can't help you know, Sarah. Why the hell were you shooting up? Now you're coming down, Sarah." A bleakly hopeless, but nevertheless humanistic and pitifully humane ode to a fallen friend and lover, this is the peak of AAF's quietly impressive career.
8. At The Drive In - 'One Armed Scissor'
- For pure visceral impact, few could do better than At The Drive In, and they never put the pieces together as successfully as they did on 'One Armed Scissor' ever again. The relentless urgency of the guitar lines, the descending thumb of the bassline, and the increasingly oppressive lyrics portray a dark, nail-biting voyage into the unknown, the band's pummeling unity bringing the arguably ridiculous events of the songs closer and closer to complete eruption (upon which the band savagely delivers with the explosive chorus). In terms of sheer power, this track is the premiere argument for naming At The Drive In one of the most powerful and effortlessly assured bands of its time.
7. Incubus - 'Megalomaniac'
Incubus' most direct flirtation with the arena of politics, " A Crow Left Of The Murder" (one which they have since abandoned following the album's rapidly dwindling sales), produced some of the band's finest, most focused work. Among these is the best track of their career, the vital and endlessly energetic politick explosion 'Megalomaniac', which denounces the leader of our government circa 2005 (mr.youknowwho) with a cutting, razor-sharp edge: "Hey Megalomaniac, you're no Jesus, yeah you're no fucking Elvis. Wash your hands clean of yourself baby and step down. Step down. Step down." The guitar work is even more vicious, spitting out memorable riff after riff, but allowing for some much needed levity with the graceful, lilting mid-section of the song, which allows Incubus to indulge in some rather effective R.E.M. emulation. Their tragic shift from the album's strident and affecting tone backl to more standard fare with 2008's "Light Grendes" renders this as perhaps the peak achievement of the band's career for all time.
6. Chevelle - 'Closure'
A deliciously sharp and twisted descent into seething vitriol, 'Chevelle's 'Closure' evidences little subtlety in it's sonic barrage, using the relatively silent and suppressed first verse as a setup for the blisteringly manic second verse, which takes the band's considerable ability into full overdrive. The singer's slowly building anger builds with the guitar's shuffling menace into a wall of dense mania that the band has seldom approached afterwards, and never bettered. Taken as a couplet with 'The Red', this track can be seen as a part of a thematic couplet exploring the themes of the band (mostly, the primal force of the human id) in their most crystallized form, shedding alt-rock cliches and leaving a sizable imprint upon the listener's psyche, as well as their eardrums.
5. System Of A Down - 'Chop Suey'
- System Of A Down's most popular song by a mile, a thematic continuation from their early highlight 'Soil' (which decried the death of one of Serj Tankian's best friends via suicide) is a song with unending force and a cathartic intensity. The band creates a feverish intensity with Serj's machine-gun vocal delivery, Daron Malkian's guitar stomps, and John Dolmayan's thunderous drum beat, quickly escalating from anger and sharply observed details of parental abuse to unremitting tragedy, which is extended further into the heartbreaking bridge, which lays bare the conflict - and shattering desolation - of the song's subject. System Of A Down have many excellent pieces of work (their collective discography displays no weak links), and this song stands in particular as one of their finest products, a searing work of genuine emotional depth.
4. A.F.I. - 'Great Disappointment'
- After a string of gradually improving albums to kickstart the 2000's (dating back to the band's landmark 1999 record, "Black Sails In The Sunset"), A.F.I finally reached their creative peak with the densely atmospheric and melodic "Sing The Sorrow", the rare mainstream record that uses it's increased budget to improve and tighten the overall sound of the music. The best of these tracks, the slow-building epic 'The Great Disappointment' starts with a lone bassline, soon accompanied in sequential order by drums and guitar, building to a powerfully baroque forest of sound, punctuated by staggeringly beautiful guitar melodies and Davey Havok's piercing cries, which renders the song's triumphantly tragic chorus a pummeling surge of dark energy and increasing bleakness. After this creative peak, A.F.I. would still create noteworthy albums and singles, but no album of their since has unified in sound as well as "Sing The Sorrow" and no song of their entire canon holds the hypnotic grasp of 'The Great Disappointment'. Indeed, few contemporary songs do.
3. Eminem - 'Stan'
Eminem's shattering soliloquy about the vagaries of fate and the unexpected consequence of fame upon even the most conscientious of celebrities and their devoted fans, 'Stan' is at once a powerful tragedy steeped in pessimism about the human race and a beautiful, almost inviting lull into the private life of a developing sociopath. The escalating terror of the lyrics, which are punctuated by instances of black humor ("Dear Slim, yiou still ain't called or wrote, I hope you have the chance. I ain't mad, I just think it's fucked up you don't answer your fans") build to a horrific act of cruel violence that is rendered punishingly intimate by both the lyrics and the crisp, remarkable production, which details the absurd yet mundane minutiae of Stan's pathetic odyssey to the abyss with a delicate force. One of Eminem's most despairing tracks (and his music tends to be rather nihilistic to begin with), 'Stan' is an ode to the negative side of humanity, providing small consolation to the listener and instead elevating to the level of great fiction.
2. Radiohead - 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place'
- A mysterious, sexy dive into the often scary arena of courtship (wrapped in a menacingly oblique world of oppressive gloom and jagged, descending melody), Radiohead's 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place' is less an attempt to expand Radiohead's critical stature as innovators and more of a genuine song, a welcome deviation from the forced (yet not altogether unsuccessful) experimentation of "Kid A". The relentless momentum of the song never flags, and the bizarrely threatening lyrics squealed by Thom Yorke at fever pitch ("The walls abandon shape; you've got a cheshire cat gurn. All blurrring into one; this place is on a mission") catapult the song into an ethereal realm, divorced of the limitations of reality, fully embracing the surreal nightmare of human sexuality. This is easily Radiohead's best work of recent, dating back to their remarkable 'Paranoid Android', and one of their finest tracks in general.
1. System Of A Down - 'Holy Mountains'
The ultimate track of the new millennium, System of a Down's brutal, uncompromising look at one of the previous century's greatest horrors is a startling testament to the depths of human cruelty and brutality, a grim and ugly look at genocide and the undercurrents of resentment and paranoia that its victims must accept as daily reality. Beginning with a slithering, serpentine guitar hook, the song starts off with a chant mimicking the guitar lead before quickly elevating to a full-on explosion of lamentation and tortured agony. The opening verse lays bare the eerie, haunting absence of the deceased ("Can.. you.. feel their... haunting presence?") before unexpectedly darting to accusation ("LIAR. KILLER. DEMON. Back to the River Aras!") and then culminating in a swirling crescendo that unfolds with the precision of a tide approaching shore. The song's lyrics, spare as they are, create a desolately unsettling sense of random terror, seismic blasts of horror and degradation. In the song's final outpour of persecuted agony, the band hits their stride with full, unmitigated force, tearing the listener down to the role of victim and mercilessly smashing the dying light of hope into the ground, leaving only the murdered, defiled corpse in its wake, to reprimand us for our ignorance of history and also to remind us of it's inescapable existence. A track of transcendent force and genuine wrath, System Of A Down's peak as a band is also one of the mightiest political statements ever made on record.
~Peace
**Phil(ius)
Posts
