All Time Favourite Songs #10-1

10. Runaway – Kanye West

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is arguably the best album, if not the best artistic statement, to emerge from the 21^st century so far, so to promote any track as its definitive showpiece would be immensely contentious. But ‘Runaway’ is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s definitive showpiece. From its humble beginnings (a static, retiring piano), it ultimately manifests itself as a mind-blowing contradiction; ‘Runaway’ is a deconstruction of Kanye West’s ego. As it grows it becomes increasingly frustrated that nobody bows down to its superhuman pride; it tosses out more and more flustered boasts over its aggrandised greatness in the vain expectation of approval and endorsement. But this is Kanye; he just wants someone to appreciate his genius, even to the point of self-parody. We can’t help but sympathise, and yes, appreciate.

SEE ALSO: ‘Lost In The World’ – Kanye West, ‘Diamonds From Sierra Leone’ – Kanye West

9. Rebellion (Lies) – Arcade Fire

‘Rebellion’ is a summation of Funeral, a record avidly devoted to the ability of love and passion (and dreams) in defeating death. Win Butler is resolute in his quavering preaching; the power of adolescent spirit inevitably conquers all. Naturally, he’s not alone. As defiantly solitary as Butler sounds on ‘Une Annee Sans Lumiere’, here he has back up; jovial piano, incessant bass, up-tempo percussion, and a zealous choir of humming. The composition is gorgeous, with each separate component slotting in painlessly forming a collective whole almost as fanatically philanthropic as Butler’s lyrics; dreams aren’t only a means of escape, but the truest form of living, ‘come on baby in our dreams/we can live on misbehaviour’.

SEE ALSO: ‘Wake Up’ – Arcade Fire, ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’ – Arcade Fire

8. Stop! In The Name Of Love – Diana Ross And The Supremes

Diana Ross is Motown; she exemplifies its brazen joy, its implicit rebelliousness, and its wholehearted longing for something better. ‘Stop!’ is Ross at her most swaggeringly vengeful, and at her most bruised. In agony after discovering her lover’s affair, she intervenes, and both demands and begs him to come back to her. This paradox is evident in the chorus; the resounding confidence in that ‘stop!’ so immediate it commands its own exclamation mark, but it’s followed by the tear-jerking ‘before you break my heart’. Her vocals are stereotypically flawless, and the imposing production eggs her on splendidly, but the real triumph of ‘Stop!’ lies in the covert victory of love over lust, ‘is her sweet expression/worth more than my love and affection?’

SEE ALSO: ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ – The Supremes, ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ – The Supremes

7. The Third Planet – Modest Mouse

‘Trailer Trash’ is Modest Mouse’s best song (perhaps deserving of higher than seventh), but ‘The Third Planet’ is the opening track, yet focal point, of possibly my favourite album; The Moon And Antarctica. It’s an opalescent synopsis of existence both as a physical and metaphysical concept; Isaac Brock introduces his own logic in a cosmos free of it, toying with theological and philosophical constructs with the brilliant arrogance of Kubrick, ‘The 3rd planet is sure that they're being watched/by an eye in the sky that can't be stopped’. Like most of Mouse’s stuff pre-Good News, Brock’s exposition of fractured alienation is structured around a bleak, isolated, lo-fi aesthetic, providing him with the assured equanimity of a religious prophet.

SEE ALSO: ‘Trailer Trash’ – Modest Mouse, ‘Float On’ – Modest Mouse

6. Born Slippy. NUXX – Underworld

The voice of a sagacious divinity pierces your skin; it’s addressing you directly, ‘let your feelings slip boy/but never your mask boy’. It requests, no, orders you to let yourself go, to lose yourself to dance, while a cascading synth line alternates ephemerally between the realms of secular reality and rave fantasy. It seduces you, so when that beat kicks in, you’re stranded in its hedonistic train crash. Now that beat: it’s raucous: gruelling: booming: coarse: insatiable: unstoppable, and you’re helpless to it; it drives you to the point where its profligacy is too much yet the only answer. You are Underworld’s prey; it’s a sermon on the thrills of decadence, the loud acuity of debauchery. It proposes that a life of excess is true serenity.

SEE ALSO: ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ – Massive Attack, ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ – The Prodigy

5. Holland, 1945 – Neutral Milk Hotel

Neutral Milk Hotel’s sound disregards genre (folk-punk?); an eclectic alliance between wailing vocals, distorted guitars, acoustic guitars and ‘fuzz’ background noise, but it’s all a sidenote to Jeff Mangum’s peerless lyricism. He recklessly catapults abstruse, difficult-yet still stunning-couplets into white noise. It’s initially bewildering, but slowly understanding sets in. ‘Holland, 1945’ is a war lament, Mangum declaring his undying love for someone already dead; Anne Frank. It traverses time and space, asserting that Anne Frank’s soul-her life as a symbol of anti-war sentiments-is everlasting, and that’s why he can love her, and that’s why he does. The final three lines are gut-wrenching, ‘it’s so sad to see the world agree/that they’d rather see their faces fill with flies/all when I’d want to keep white roses in their eyes’.

SEE ALSO: ‘In The Aeroplane Over The Sea’ – Neutral Milk Hotel, ‘Two Headed Boy Pt. 2’ – Neutral Milk Hotel

4. Intergalactic – The Beastie Boys

The two main samples from ‘Intergalactic’ are from The Toxic Avenger, a campy, low-budget B-movie, and Rachmaninoff’s Prelude C-Sharp Major. This inexplicable expansiveness, this ridiculous disparity, is representative of the track’s loveable strangeness and the left-field genius of Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock. How do I adequately express my love for this song without using the term ‘just mental’? For starters the rhymes are some of the trio’s wittiest, ‘if you try to knock, you’ll get mocked/I’ll stir fry you in my wok’. The beat is dynamic, seesawing between menacing and bizarre on a whim, and let’s not forget that indomitable robot-announcer hook. They may never record another song, but remember; the Beastie Boys will always know when to let the beat… mmmmmmmmm dddrrrroooppppp!

SEE ALSO: ‘What’cha Want’ – The Beastie Boys, ‘Shake Your Rump’ – The Beastie Boys

3. Schizophrenia – Sonic Youth

Sister is heavily influenced by both the band’s obsession with sci-fi writer Philip K Dick, and Thurston Moore’s Catholic guilt. ‘Schizophrenia’ is where this amalgamation is most apparent, the duopoly of paranoid voices in Moore and Kim Gordon referencing Dick’s renowned schizophrenia, while the bitter undercurrent of Moore’s ‘Catholic block’, perhaps personified by the sister character, monopolises the album’s tone. In other words, it’s his guilt which incites Moore’s paranoia. The tribal drums and post-punk guitars are purposely tinged with jagged melancholy rather than SY’s trademark abrasion; this is not a song about youthful discontent or social anarchy, but a powerfully human sadness, the cataclysmic pressures and strains we thrust upon ourselves that are objectively meaningless.

SEE ALSO: ‘Teenage Riot’ – Sonic Youth, ‘Tunic (Song For Karen)’ – Sonic Youth

2. Let Down – Radiohead

‘Reckoner’ is probably the best song I’ve ever heard, but ‘Let Down’ is something more. Thom Yorke renovates Kafka’s short story, Metamorphosis; in the original, a man wakes up to discover he’s half insect and eventually kills himself because he’s rejected by society. But that’d be too simple for Yorke to adapt, too unequivocal. He never gives up hope on finding his identity, his essence. He is absolutely indefatigable in his faith, and pitilessly condemnatory of the artificiality surrounding him, ‘don’t get sentimental, it always ends up drivel’ (there’s the link to OK Computer’s inherent anti-materialism). Yorke is adamant that he’ll find the authenticity, the spiritual affluence to survive the consumerist apocalypse. It’s heart-rending, but so, so uplifting. The epiphanic catharsis after the bridge is the most emotional, the most beautiful, the most inspiring moment I’ve had listening to music, ‘one day/I am going to grow wings’.

SEE ALSO: ‘Reckoner’ – Radiohead, ‘Idioteque’ - Radiohead

1.       All My Friends – LCD Soundsystem

James Murphy hates ‘All My Friends’. He denounces it as ‘too poppy’. It’s true, it is, fundamentally, a pop song: the arrangement (notably the unfaltering piano and euphoric guitar) is bright and catchy: the coda is titanically climactic, and the lyrics are transparently buoyant. Murphy enters cynical, languorous, concerned about Losing His Edge, but by God does he pine for those days, my days. Murphy (in his unintentionally adopted archetype of reluctant hero for an entire generation of disillusioned Alternative types) doesn’t seem to realise that he captured perfectly the unbridled elation of post-adolescent living; the meeting of soon-to-be lifelong friends, the excitement of carefree experimentation, the greater, more thorough grasp of your own sense of person, and most importantly, that feeling of complete invincibility and infinite possibility; you and your friends will take on the world tonight, with all of its poverty, hatred and disease, and you’ll win; ‘I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision/for another five years of life’. Murphy finally, gracefully accepts his maturation; it’s no longer about being cool, but being thankful for the times you had trying to be cool. I’ve never been able to relate to a song so deeply, and never has any piece of art provided me with such gratitude for life. It vocalises exactly how I, and millions of others, feel. That’s the impact of ‘All My Friends’. It makes me achingly nostalgic for a period of my life which is just beginning; ‘we’re your friends tonight’.

SEE ALSO: ‘Dance Yrself Clean’ – LCD Soundsystem, ‘Someone Great’ – LCD Soundsystem

All Time Favourite Songs #20-11

20. Be My Baby – The Ronettes

‘Be My Baby’ will be forever linked with the first time I watched my 2nd favourite Scorsese, Mean Streets. Like Scorsese’s game changer, The Ronettes had created something intrinsically spotless while still retaining a raw, unbridled fervour which persistently threatened to break free and devour itself; when Ronnie Spector shrieks ‘so won’t you say you love me’, you can physically feel the strain and passion shiver down your spine. Phil Spektor’s Wagner-inspired ‘wall of sound’ generates a cacophonic background-it’s overdubbed to the point of excess-but it doesn’t sound at all clustered, it just works. Brian Wilson calls it ‘the greatest pop record ever made’; number 14 may disagree, but it’s a seriously close call.

SEE ALSO: ‘Heaven Must Have Sent You’ – The Elgins, ‘When You’re Young And In Love’ – The Marvelettes

19. Life’s A Bitch – Nas

With Illmatic, Nas was leading the line on New York’s Rap revival; his lyricism deeply contemporary (you can find a pop culture reference in almost every line) yet spiritual and contemplative, and his production lavish with kick drum beats so thick you bounce off them with every thump. ‘Life’s A Bitch’ is debatably the highlight; gangsta rap with a philosophical edge. Nas and AZ tackle existentialism head on, musing on their lives’ significance and purpose, and the significance and purpose of life in general, ‘keeping it real, packing steel, getting high/cause life’s a bitch and then you die’. The hazy sample in the background validates Nas’ dreamy despondency, before it glides out on a jazzy, answerless trumpet solo from Nas’ dad.

SEE ALSO: ‘NY State Of Mind’ – Nas, ‘Halftime’ – Nas

18. I Know It’s Over – The Smiths

‘I Know It’s Over’ regresses from one of Rock’s most forlorn break-up songs into a loathing self-deprecation, Morrissey reverting the blame of his lost love exclusively to his personal faults; his narcissism, his inability to connect, his intellectual exhibitionism, his near-sociopathic apathy. It’s magnificent the way he plays on the image of ‘the soil falling down over [his] head’ throughout, and the ceaseless repetition of that word ‘over’ infers the growing, panicky distress that he’ll never find anyone who’ll truly love him. The best thing about it though, and what makes it so affecting, is its lack of any apparent structure; it’s a stream of consciousness, Morrissey just sings whatever enters his enduringly conflicted mind. Insecurity this heartfelt is rare.

SEE ALSO: ‘Meat Is Murder’ – The Smiths, ‘I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish’ – The Smiths

17. “Heroes” – David Bowie

It’s now David Bowie’s turn to drag us from the downbeatism of this Ten, up into the echelons of individual empowerment and celebration. Sure, Bowie’s made songs which are technically better (‘Starman’, ‘Life On Mars?’), more universally cherished (‘Changes’, ‘Rebel Rebel’) and more archetypal of his sound and tone (‘Ziggy Stardust’, ‘Space Oddity’), but has he made one as explicitly, matchlessly uplifting as ‘Heroes’? I thought not, although you wouldn’t expect anything less from collaborating with Brian Eno. The aloof, sustained guitar elevates Bowie to omnipotent, altruistic overseer, as he praises two lovers kissing against the Berlin wall; fighting malicious oppression with incorruptible affection. Is it sappy? Sentimental hogwash? Entirely ironic? Who actually cares.

SEE ALSO: ‘Life On Mars?’ – David Bowie, ‘Sound And Vision’ – David Bowie

16. Everyday Struggle – Notorious BIG

In ‘Everyday Struggle’ Biggie masterfully narrates the self-examination of a nihilistic drug kingpin suffering a mid-life crisis; he holds his own wellbeing in contempt, but he can’t bring himself to escape. Arguments that it’s semi-autobiographical aside, it showcases brilliantly the impudent easiness of Biggie’s flow, ‘but they don’t know about your stress-filled day/baby on the way, mad bills to pay’, as well as his amazing, and amazingly varied, storytelling genius. It’s authentic, cruelly honest, and very simple; a sparse, Dave Grusin-ripped beat confirms lyrical gem after gem. It tragically, and chillingly, foreshadowed Biggie’s own murder in 1997, but he soon became a treasured martyr of artful hip hop.

SEE ALSO: ‘Juicy’ – Notorious BIG, ‘One More Chance’ – Notorious BIG

15. Fade Into You – Mazzy Star

Critically lauded and adored by a tightly knit cult of fans, Mazzy Star never really achieved the mainstream success their dark lullabies warranted. Their one major hit, ‘Fade Into You’, sounds heavenly, the guitar duet of country strumming and shy acoustic chords open the doorway to Hope Sandoval’s haunting, somnolent moan. At its core ‘Fade Into You’ is a metaphysical poem; it adopts ethereal rhetoric and imagery to emphasise the transcendent quality of Sandoval’s unreturned, sacrificial love, ‘I wanna hold my hands inside you’. She loses her sense of self in a lover who doesn’t care, and together they spiral into the ‘night of [his] darkness’. I don’t know whether to cry because it’s so lovely or because it’s so sad. My favourite love song.

SEE ALSO: ‘Needle In The Hay’ – Elliott Smith, ‘Halah’ – Mazzy Star

14. God Only Knows – The Beach Boys

‘God Only Knows’ is just about the most perfect song ever written, not only in its composition (the victoriously blaring horns, tapping tambourines, playful piano and fuzzy synthesisers are seamless), or its harmonies (the bridge’s bomba bas stand out as a gloomy delight), but it has everything you could want from a piece of music. It’s meditative, hesitative, moving, romantic, hopeful, expressive, and even a little helpless. It runs the garment of human emotion, suggesting pain and compassion are interrelated; ‘I may not always love you’. Its gratifying optimism is symptomatic of The Beach Boys' legacy; you may never know whether hope is the answer, but if you feel it, everything is okay.

SEE ALSO: ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ – The Beach Boys, ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ – The Beach Boys

13. Paper Planes – MIA

A New York Times journalist once set up MIA in an interview so she’d appear hypocritical and shallow; her response was to write ‘haters’, a song which clamped the NYT so viciously their columnists will forever wince when they hear the term ‘thick as shit’. She’s fierce as hell, but carries a sensitive ear for social angst and topicality; Kala travels the world of pop, each song identifying the disenchantment (and cool beats) of respective cultures. ‘Paper Planes’ combines both these qualities; its pandemic anger at the unfairness of a capitalist international society is levelled by its winning eagerness for change. If there’s a more recognisable and beloved hook in pop music than those gun blasts, I haven’t heard it.

SEE ALSO: ‘Bring The Noize’ – MIA, ‘Bad Girls’ – MIA

12. Here – Pavement

Number 12 was a draw between the feel-good Summeriness of ‘Gold Soundz’ and the muted self-effacement of ‘Here’. Playing to type, I eventually opted for the latter. The instrumentation is incongruous with Stephen Malkmus’ meta-songwriting; rudimentary snare hits and slightly-off-rhythm guitar drones weigh down his bulky reflection on the ambiguity of music, poetry, Art, everything. It’s a song about the subjectivity of songs; it questions why some people love something while others hate it, ‘are they the only ones who laugh/at your jokes when they are so bad’. The irony is that it’s crafted so majestically I can’t see anyone disliking it. Listen to ‘Gold Soundz’ as well though; it’s a great antithesis.

SEE ALSO: ‘Gold Soundz’ – Pavement, ‘At & T’ – Pavement

11. Wolves – Phosphorescent

Experiencing ‘Wolves’ for the first time is something I wish I could return to. It’s an outstanding aesthetic achievement, the harmony between the music and Matthew Houck’s dissonant growl is otherworldly, almost too wonderful. It’s also lyrically spectacular, wielding a mystifying opacity that feels at once transient and eternal. There are theories that the wolves represent the desolate thoughts which creep into your head before sleep. There’s the equally compelling idea that it’s a metaphor for complete existential entrapment. The truth is that I’m not sure what it’s about, or if it’s about anything at all, and I'm not really bothered; all I know is that it’s probably the most beautiful piece of music I’ve ever heard.

SEE ALSO: ‘Song For Zula’ – Phosphorescent, ‘Hope There’s Someone’ – Antony & The Johnsons

All Time Favourite Songs #30-21

30. Pyramids – Frank Ocean

‘Pyramids’ is R&B’s ‘Paranoid Android’; a sprawling epic split into two distinct parts which casts aside such menially constrictive laws as time and coherence to allow Frank Ocean’s extraordinary inventiveness roam wild while covering an impossible array of tones and themes. It’s constantly expanding upon itself: in the first section Ocean teleports Queen Cleopatra from her palace to a contemporary nightclub, ‘chandeliers inside the pyramid/tremble from the force’, before it grows into a slow-jam, a pimp’s sleazy poem for his prostitute lover, Cleopatra. Ocean’s production is densely atmospheric but at the same time indelibly sprightly.

SEE ALSO: ‘Lost’ – Frank Ocean, ‘Bad Religion’ – Frank Ocean

29. Then He Kissed Me – The Crystals

One of Motown’s sweetest love songs compacted into two-and-a-half minutes. Dolores Brooks narrates a picture-perfect romance which goes exactly to plan-they meet: they ‘go’: they marry, without so much as an implication of a sarcastic comment inbetween to soil its pristineness. It recounts every cliché of 60s American dating culture you can think of; the awkward dance invitation, the meeting of the folks; there’s probably leather jackets, hand holding and flittery summer dresses in there somewhere. Its endless appeal lies in its unassuming innocence, comforted by Phil Spektor’s benign strings. Its indefatigable belief in true love is as refreshing as the vanilla milkshake they share while gazing helplessly into one another’s eyes.

SEE ALSO: ‘One Fine Day’ – The Chiffons, ‘The Shoop Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)’- Betty Everett

28. Protect Ya Neck – Wu-Tang Clan

Enter The Wu-Tang was an accidental masterpiece, its unintentionally grainy production giving it a murky grittiness unheard of before in hip hop. It’s a brutally dark mixtape, no more so than on ‘Protect Ya Neck’, which is overloaded with sagging beats, obtuse plotlines and grimy couplets, ‘call me the rap assassinator/rhymes rugged and built like Schwarzenegger’. It’s possibly the most Wu-Tangy Wu-Tang song there is. Saying that, it’s the small flourishes which make it; the buzzsaw expletive buzzer, the erratic almost-hooks of resounding ‘protect ya neck’s, and the first hint of Ghostface’s genius, ‘not long is how long this rhyme took me’. Gloriously heady.

SEE ALSO: ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ – Wu-Tang Clan, ‘Triumph’ – Wu-Tang Clan

27. Jesus, etc – Wilco

The noughties was a decade typified by cultural togetherness and conflict, a period which saw a revolution in international politics in the form of the War On Terror on a global scale. This makes it hard to believe that one of its most defining songs opens with white trash violins. Yet this country arrangement, drawn straight from the slowdance of a Tennessee hoedown, possesses a subversive tension which echoes the overinflated, systematic fear and paranoia of its time, eerily educing 9/11 even though Tweedy had written it beforehand, ‘tall buildings shake/voices escape/singing sad sad songs’. ‘Jesus, etc’ is ultimately an imploration to discard materialistic values and embrace the brief wonder of life, comparing existence to a ‘burning sun’.

SEE ALSO: ‘Via Chicago’ – Wilco, ‘Pot Kettle Black’ – Wilco

26. A Change Is Gonna Come – Sam Cooke

Inspired by Dylan’s ‘Blowin In The Wind’, how it captured the cynical disposition of an era and nation while being transcendent of any type of pidgeon-holing (his exact words were ‘since when do whiteboys make music like that?), and hurting from the death of his 18 month old son, Sam Cooke had decided enough was enough. ‘A Change’ obviously personifies the Civil Rights Movement, ‘I go downtown/somebody keep tellin me don’t hang around’, but it’s no grand promise. It’s both disaffected sigh and abused resentment, a pummelling of reality. Heartbreakingly released posthumously, Cooke never lived to see how vital both this song, and he himself, was to so many people.

SEE ALSO: ‘Wonderful World’ – Sam Cooke, ‘Twisting The Night’ – Sam Cooke 

25. Wolf Like Me – TV On The Radio

Tunde Adembimpe’s hypnotising howl has always blurred the lines between calming and menacing, provocative and primal, but it has never sounded as unanimously malevolent as on ‘Wolf Like Me’. A skin-crawling bass-line is ravaged by seething guitars and horrifying vocal loops while Adembimpe embodies unadulterated corruption, ‘baby doll I recognise/ you’re a hideous thing inside’. ‘Wolf Like Me’ creeps inside you; it’s mentally dissolute, but its smiling, carnal evil is infectious. When it crashes, it crashes, dragging you down with it into a blissfully debauch abyss. It’s a seduction which works; you will be howling this song forever.

SEE ALSO: ‘Young Liars’ – TV On The Radio, ‘Staring At The Sun’ – TV On The Radio

24. Decades – Joy Division

(Note that I decided against including New Order because they are so similar to JD. So, honourable mentions to ‘Regret’, ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Ceremony’ and ‘Temptation’ among others.)

Quick, name a band more progressive than Joy Division. Oh you can’t? Is it because they completely reinvented rock, with their opaque discourse, soulful melodies and innovative production paving the way for Indie, Grunge and (sadly) Pop-Punk? Is it because they made sad pop music cool with ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’? Or is it because no song before or since has so vividly understood alienation as ‘Decades’? The world’s melancholiest synth understates Curtis’ ruminations on the incapability of soldiers in adjusting to domestic life after war’s end, ‘weary inside, now our heart’s lost forever/can’t replace the fear, or the thrill of the chase’.

SEE ALSO: ‘Dead Souls’ – Joy Division, ‘She’s Lost Control’ – Joy Division

23. Changing Of The Guards – Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s most underrated, and my personal favourite. ‘Changing Of The Guards’ is more gospel pop than politically overt folk: the fervent backing vocals cover Dylan’s pensive silence between lines: a leaping saxophone replaces the weary groan of his harmonica in the bridge, and the subject matter is emphatically upbeat (a biblical parable of Dylan’s journey to fame and self-discovery) rather than pessimistic, ‘peace will come/with tranquillity and splendour on wheels of fire’. His critics have derided ‘Changing’ as holding a Christian message, when really it’s only the simplest moral one; be true to yourself and ‘fortune comes’. Dylan sums it up best himself; ‘”Changing of the Guards” is a thousand years old’.

SEE ALSO: ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ – Bob Dylan, ‘Boots Of Spanish Leather’ – Bob Dylan

22. B.O.B. – Outkast

‘B.O.B.’ is a whirlwind of a song, a breathtaking social commentary just as pulsatingly funky as it is painfully resonant. It sprints through politics, race, religion and, most importantly, war, at the speed of light. ‘B.O.B.’ literally stands for ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’. Released too late to be directly concerned with the first Gulf War, and three years too early to condemn the second, it finds itself an oddly ubiquitous masterpiece, ‘don’t pull the thang unless you plan to bang’. Anti-war protest is but one small fragment of its assembly; it offers fleeting predictions, ‘cure for cancer, cure for Aids’, and private prophecies ‘got a son on the way’, all set to a dizzying, shell-shocked, never-bettered beat.

SEE ALSO: ‘Hey Ya’ – Outkast, ‘Ms. Jackson’ – Outkast

21. Hopeless – The Wrens

‘Hopeless’ is my favourite Indie Rock song, by my favourite Indie Rock band, from what I honestly believe to be the most underrated album of all time. A constant, yet always evolving, 4-note riff acts as its foundation while Charles Bissell wreaks havoc on a repentant ex’s plea to get back together. Bissell’s melodramatic vocals drip with romantic angst and emotional turmoil to the point where he almost transgresses into emo self-consummation, but he, like his faultless instrumentation, hits the nail right on the head. When he screams that refrain, ‘hopeless/that this will turn out better’, it leaves you hollow in the best possible way.

SEE ALSO: ‘She Sends Kisses’ – The Wrens, ‘Surprise, Honeycomb’ – The Wrens

All Time Favourite Songs #40-31

40. Hey – Pixies

Pixies basically invented Indie Rock, but to confine them to any sort of genre classifications would be insulting: they’re funny and puerile yet disturbing and political: they’re childishly extravagant yet elegantly accomplished: they’re radio-friendly yet flippantly avant-garde. ‘Hey’ is Black, Deal and co. at their darkest, a pensively contemptuous blast of anti-establishment ponderings masquerading as some guy complaining about being oversexed, ‘go “uh” all night… we’re chained’. Or is it just about the emptiness of sex addiction? Regardless, the funkiness of the bass guitar gives ‘Hey’ a soulful, aromatic quality distinguishing it from an already ingeniously diverse album.

SEE ALSO: ‘Gouge Away’ – Pixies, ‘Caribou’ – Pixies

39. The Rat – The Walkmen

Even the most contemplative pickings from early Walkmen taste boisterous and unhinged, but ‘The Rat’ is off the scale. It’s not so much a song as an experience, a deranged, abrasive kick to the face. The backstory, although not necessary, contextualises well; an ex who trampled Hamilton Leithauser’s heart calls him up and voices her regret in breaking up with him. Leithauser unleashes himself and his tag team of malevolent guitars, drums and bass on her, and us, ‘you’ve got a nerve to be asking a favour’. This is pure, uncut, violent emotion powered by fury, pain and miscomprehension. After the antagonism wanes he’s left with nothing, ‘now I go out alone if I go out at all’.

SEE ALSO: ‘On The Water’ – The Walkmen, ‘Heaven’ – The Walkmen

38. Turn The Page – The Streets

Has there ever been an opening track as thematically encompassing, as tonally representative, or as downright magnificent as ‘Turn The Page’?  The most discomforting, attention-grabbing string sample begins to slap you about and refuses to stop for three-and-a-half minutes. Skinner ruminates on death and killing, specifically related to his Roman ancestry, and then coils the gaudy imagery into a promise to destroy every other Grime MC. Now, ‘I’m better than you, bruv’ tracks are hardly sporadic, Kendrick’s verse on Big Sean’s ‘Control’ being the most markedly recent, but rarely have they sounded so punishingly tense.

SEE ALSO: ‘Blinded By The Lights’ – The Streets, ‘It’s Too Late’ – The Streets

37. Da Funk – Daft Punk

Homework is still Daft Punk’s best album and ‘Da Funk’ is still Daft Punk’s best song. It was the track which united the Indie scenesters and the rave kids, its eccentric amalgamation of new-wave Trip-Hop beats (and what a beat) and, supposedly anachronistic, House song-structure crafting a dance anthem which can only really be described as ‘universal’. Daft Punk turn what should be a backing drum loop into the centrepiece, the space between each mechanic hit as important as the malleable synth line. Its greatest achievement is that its exacting precision remains undented by its determination to barrage you into wild abandon.

SEE ALSO: ‘One More Time’ – Daft Punk, ‘Around The World’ – Daft Punk

36. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis – Tom Waits

Most songs could be improved by Waits’ gargling, slurring croon, but in ‘Christmas Card’ he adapts and eclipses the written word rather than the spoken, the lyrics being ripped from a Charles Bukowski poem, Charlie I’m Pregnant. The crinkly yet sombre jazz piano conjures up a crisp Winter evening in some nameless American city, the melodious setting of one of the most devastating pieces of music I’ve ever heard. It’s initially heart-warming, gentle, even funny, ‘I think about you every time I pass a fillin’ station/account of all the grease you used to wear’, but when the truth is blurted out in the final verse, it, and you, are inconsolable.

SEE ALSO: ‘Gun Street Girl’ – Tom Waits, ‘Hell Broke Luce’ – Tom Waits

35. Straight Outta Compton – NWA

You are about to witness the strength of influence-of-‘Straight Outta Compton’-on-gangsta-rap knowledge. This is Rap’s genesis, this is where it all began; no more stories of meeting pals at the deli for a cold soda on a warm day, no more tales of buying plumed hats with your sweetheart; as Ice Cube concisely states, ‘do I look like a motherfuckin’ role model?’. NWA dragged America kicking and screaming into a new, perversely evil era of hip hop, one gesticulated by a siren-imbued, rampantly erratic beat and impertinent, filthy rhymes which still shock even in a world in which Tyler, The Creator operates.

SEE ALSO: ‘Fuck Tha’ Police’ – NWA, ‘Wicked’ – Ice Cube

34. Dancing On My Own – Robyn

I’m in love with Robyn because of her enigmatic, empowering arrogance, yet her best song sees her emphatically vulnerable, at her most insecure; standing alone in a club, gazing helplessly at the boy she can never have, ‘I’m right over here, why can’t you see me?’. The production is immaculate, the dense synth lines and thunderous kick-drums composing the chorus signal her mission of seduce and destroy. It’s vintage Robyn. The chorus strips this back to something unheard of: the drums subside: the synths loosen: her confidence dissipates in a foggy cloud of dry ice. The razor sharp ‘Stilettos and broken bottles’ line refer to the daggers entering her decadent heart, and so she has no other option than to dance.

SEE ALSO: ‘Be Mine!’ – Robyn, ‘I Belong In Your Arms’ – Chairlift

33. What’s Going On? – Marvin Gaye

In What’s Going On? Marvin Gaye translated his own internal crisis into a globalised plea for peace; he had lost his friend and duet partner Tammi Terrell to a brain tumour and was stuck in a vindictive marriage with Anna Gordy. Each respective comment on race, war and poverty is validated by Gaye’s private torment, providing an enduringly resonant song with an (importantly) intimate touch. The light jazzy-cum-Motown arrangement is nothing more than a soundtrack for Gaye’s compelling imploration. He commented after its release, ‘if I was arguing for peace, I knew I had to find peace in my heart’.

SEE ALSO: ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ – Marvin Gaye, ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’ – Marvin Gaye

32. Peach Plum Pear – Joanna Newsom

‘Peach Plum Pear’ is normally the first Joanna Newsom song you hear, and it’s not uncommon to hate it. But the song, just like Newsom’s voice, grows on you until you honestly can’t cope without it. The harpsichord remains consistent, but the way its melody twists, turns and reboots around her (for some, offputtingly) waifish vocals is incredible. The cute, childlike assonance of the opening lines, ‘we speak in the store/I’m a sensitive bore’, collapses rapidly and Newsom is left bare; a ghost of paranoia, fear and rejection. ‘Peach Plum Pear’ is a love song about the tragedy of missed opportunity, the heart-rending interruption in the final line testifies to that.

SEE ALSO: ‘Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie’ – Joanna Newsom, ‘Emily’ – Joanna Newsom

31. Kashmir – Led Zeppelin

‘Kashmir’ is the least melodramatic rock-opera of all time; it possesses all the grandeur and none of the camp. Led Zeppelin’s experiment in orchestral stadium rock was inspired by a seemingly endless road in the Sahara Desert, ‘oh let the sun beat down upon my face’. Plant described ‘Kashmir’ as ‘bigger than [him]… I was petrified. I was virtually in tears’, such is its apocalyptic scale and innately terrifying power. The now notorious chord progression generates a frenziedly sinister tension, hardly pacified by Plant’s towering falsetto and John Paul Jones’ exuberantly unnerving string arrangement.  And, oh God, that scream.

SEE ALSO: ‘When The Levee Breaks’ – Led Zeppelin, ‘Stairway To Heaven’ – Led Zeppelin

All Time Favourite Songs #50-41

50. Passing Me By – The Pharcyde

Up until recently heartbreak was a relatively uncommon theme in hip hop, and even when it was touched upon it was anger rather than plaintive hurt which seemed to reverberate most. The trend has bucked recently with the likes of Earl Sweatshirt and Childish Gambino unafraid to expose their vulnerable side, but the original, The Pharcyde’s ‘Passing Me By’, remains the best, a sequence of unapologetically frank accounts of unrequited love. At the time of its release it was drowned out by prodigiously masculine gangsta rap, but the fearless, self-effacing heart of Fatlip’s verse aches like no confession, before or since.

SEE ALSO: 'Shook Ones Pt. 2' – Mobb Deep, 'Officer' – The Pharcyde

49. Sinnerman – Nina Simone

Perhaps biblical jazz-blues isn’t the most obvious addition to this list, but Nina Simone’s captivating masterpiece entrenches itself steadfastly in your subconscious. It’s an incredibly personal (Simone has known all the words since she was five), deeply immersive performance; she’s howling in exasperation, her incensed, heavy breathing completely audible and terrifyingly real. The blistering momentum of the irrepressible piano and hi-hats in the first two minutes carry Simone’s contralto on a throne of divine authority (and condemnation?) before her purifying collapse into flamboyant worship ‘Power! [power to the Lord]’ drags us down into some mystifying, inexplicable enchantment.

SEE ALSO: ‘I Put A Spell On You’ – Nina Simone, ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ – Nina Simone

48. As I Sat Sadly By Her Side – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Nick Cave, the hero of noir-rock, recites his equivocally formed, headily dark myths with a graceful dominion under whichever moniker he adopts, be it the punkish informality of Grinderman or the folk-sheened primness of his Bad Seeds. My favourite song by his is a conversational duel between optimism and pessimism; Cave and his wife debate the nature of the secular and spiritual worlds, Cave embodying the voice of cynicism, his wife, the idealist. The argument intensifies, and so does the instrumentation, the flakey piano riff bouncing off the moody strings, fashioning a song as enjoyable as it is thought-provoking.

SEE ALSO: ‘Teenage Spaceship’ – Smog, ‘This Is How We Walk On The Moon’ – Arthur Russell

47. London Calling – The Clash

The obvious choice really, but ‘London Calling’ is unavoidably the definitive example of Strummer’s musical virtuosity and political relevance. ‘London Calling’ is a desperate plea for help: The Clash were without a manager and being slowly consumed by debt: the UK’s infrastructure was collapsing; rising unemployment, widespread substance abuse, racial and cultural tensions, ‘meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin’. The jabbing guitars, carried in unison by Strummer and Jones, mechanically exact drumming, and impudent bass summon an urgency to corroborate Strummer’s distressing lament. As wretchedly resonant today as it was in the late 70s.

SEE ALSO: ‘Train In Vain’ – The Clash, ‘Anarchy In The UK’ – The Sex Pistols

46. Fight The Power – Public Enemy

From one significant piece of political-musical history to another, Public Enemy’s riotous ‘Fight The Power’ was blasted into the public cognizance on the back of Spike Lee’s 1989 magnum opus Do The Right Thing. Public Enemy recently derided mainstream rappers, Jay-Z etc., for concentrating on ‘self-mythologising’ and ‘artist branding’, rather than the music, and the message. ‘Fight The Power’ is the anti ’99 Problems’, a jarringly hardnosed call for revolution and evolution. They chastise icons of Americana, ‘Elvis was a hero to millions… but he was straight out racist a sucker, it’s simple and plain,’ to the most electrifying psych-ups of beats.

SEE ALSO: ‘Harder Than You Think’ – Public Enemy, ‘Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos’ – Public Enemy

45. Boy From School – Hot Chip

Hot Chip are the nerdy maestros of indie dance-pop, their employment of synthesisers, samples and drum machines more original, more intelligent and just funkier than anything their rivals could possibly hope to muster. ‘Over And Over’ is their grooviest, but ‘Boy From School’ is a hazy pop classic. Swirling around their most perfect assembly of synth lines and hi-hat loops is the band’s weary sigh of teenage missed opportunity. It positively reeks of nostalgia; ‘I got lost/you said this was the way back’. However it’s not languid or pensive, but actually gentrifies adolescent alienation into some sort of disco-infused meditation, the most kinetic of self-reflections.

SEE ALSO: ‘Over And Over’ – Hot Chip, ‘Ready For The Floor’ – Hot Chip

44. The City – The Dismemberment Plan

The Dismemberment Plan are possibly the best Indie Rock band of the late 90s, their insatiable riffs, chantalong choruses and succinct, constitutional understanding of what the genre means to so many people elevated them into the heads and hearts of millions. ‘The City’ is a song for everyone who’s ever felt alone in a crowd; ‘the ghosts of graffiti they couldn’t quite erase’. It’s also a (very clever) break-up song, Travis Morrison’s ex-lover leaves and it completely changes the perception of his metropolitan home, ‘the parks lay empty like my unmade bed’, yet he can’t bring himself to pack up and go. Morrison’s excruciating indecision culminates in the monumentally trashy refrain; ‘the city’s been dead/since you been gone’.

SEE ALSO: ‘The Ice Of Boston’ – The Dismemberment Plan, ‘What Do You Want Me To Say’ – The Dismemberment Plan

43. Slow Show – The National

‘Slow Show’ was one of the first songs to suffer the band’s experimental perfectionism (they’d record 50-80 versions of a track). To be fair, it is absolutely flawless. Humble guitars and unobtrusive percussion resound while Berninger (and his orgasmic baritone) relates his social discomfort, his inadequacy in communicating with other people. Then enters the girl who dispels these fears, who makes him feel normal, and loved; it’s a beautiful service to this liberating relationship, the immediacy of the pounding drums suggesting a euphoric epiphany. It closes with my favourite ever couplet, ‘you know I dreamed about you/for twenty-nine years, before I saw you’.

SEE ALSO: ‘About Today’ – The National, ‘England’ – The National

42. Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying – Belle & Sebastian

Glasgow’s Belle & Sebastian are so determinedly, wistfully light that they’re just as despised as they are loved. I cannot understand that. They’re poppy, so what? When they make songs as profoundly affecting as ‘Get Me Away’, who cares if Stuart Murdoch chooses to giggle rather than scream his pain? The opening two lines reveal its purpose; ‘get me away from here I’m dying/play me a song to set me free’. It’s a piece of music about music, and its ability to cheer you up, to console, to make you laugh, to make you cry, ‘I always cry at endings’. And you know what? It does cheer you up; it does console. It’s a celebration of the power of the guitar and the voice as a form of escapism.

SEE ALSO: ‘Dress Up In You’ – Belle & Sebastian, ‘I’m Waking Up To Us’ – Belle & Sebastian

41. Penny Lane – The Beatles

The only contention in music more tiresome than ‘The Beatles are the best band ever okay cool’ is ‘The Beatles are the most overrated band ever okay cool’. Can’t we all just agree that they are really, really good and leave it at that? ‘Penny Lane’ is McCartney’s response to Lennon’s ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, his own memoir of that famous Liverpool bus stop. I love the richness of the imagery, ‘there is a fireman with an hour glass/and in his pocket is a portrait of the queen’, its glorious colour exploding with the good nature of the city's inhabitants. What’s amazing is how ‘Penny Lane’ is applicable for everyone, the unwavering pride and passion one feels about their hometown.

SEE ALSO: ‘Eleanor Rigby’ – The Beatles, ‘Nowhere Man’ – The Beatles