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
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