As with the ending of any year or decade, the compilers are cracking the knuckles ready to offer their take on the habitual best-of. This isn’t a best of as such, just a list of 20 decade defining songs from the last ten years.
It’s not in any degree of importance and neither is it an exclusive list but it would make a belter of a mix-tape. (Or a Spotify playlist, we are 21st century after all, kids…)
1. The Strokes - Last Nite
(Is This It? 2001. Rough Trade)
Most had given guitar music the last rites at the beginning of the decade. Thankfully the coolest band on the planet awoke a dormant Rough Trade, gave the NME something other than Oasis to champion and even made the virginal Courtney Love horny.
Vid Here
2. The Streets - Blinded By The Lights
(A Grand Don’t Come For Free, 2004. Island)
Mike Skinner’s second-by-second account of a night gone sour. Whether it was the incisive lyrics or the off-beat synth loop that wasn’t as clumsy as it first sounded, those of us with similar experiences nodded with perceptive agreement.
Vid
3. Arcade Fire-Rebellion (Lies)
(Funeral, 2004. Rough Trade)
Never mind the decade, quite possibly one of the greatest songs of all time from quite possibly the greatest album of the decade. 5.43 of measured perfection, period.
Live Vid
4. Velvet Revolver- Sliver
(Contraband, 2003. RCA)
Take one recovering heroin addict from grunge nearly men Stone Temple Pilots, mix with Axl Rose’s backing band of ex-heroin addicts and allow to implode. And they did.
Vid
5. Martha Wainwright – Bloody Motherfucking Arsehole
(Bloody Motherfucking Arsehole EP, 2004. Zoë)
Surprisingly, this just missed out grabbing Single of the Week on Sarah Kennedy’s Radio 2 show. The beautifully disjointed Wainwright family have a long history of airing their beefs in the odd song; this was Martha’s diatribe at Loudon III for not being the best of dads in her own butter-wouldn’t-melt way.
Vid
6. Glasvegas - Geraldine
(Glasvegas, 2008. Colombia)
Christ knows what goes on in James Allan’s heed (sic) at times. Judging by the Spector-like grandeur of this, I’d hide the guns come dinner-time.
Vid
7. Bloc Party - Hunting For Witches.
(A Weekend In The City, 2007 Wichita)
The war on terror, domestic unrest and political soundbites allowed Kele Okerke to take a brief respite from aging punk-wrestling and knock out this beauty. Arguably the most consistent UK band of the last ten years.
Vid
8. The National – Mistaken For Strangers
(Boxer, 2007 Beggars Banquet)
If their previous album Alligator hadn’t already made them your new favourite band, then this certainly grabbed in its immediacy. The fact that they still fail to get the recognition they so clearly deserve makes them all the more attractive.
Vid
9. Modest Mouse – We’ve Got Everything
(We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, 2007 Epic)
Beating the Cribs by a good 2 years to earn the mantle of releasing the best thing that Johnny Marr had done since The Smiths, Isaac Brock dumped the prudence and went all out for melody. Delightfully bonkers.
Vid
10. Ian Brown - F.E.A.R.
(Music Of The Spheres, 2001 Polydor)
Smart unique wordplay and a typically strutting delivery, were he ever to top anything The Stone Roses did, this comes the closest to date.
Vid
11. Band Of Horses – Is There A Ghost?
(Cease To Begin, 2007, Sub Pop)
Much the same way that Grandaddy and Mercury Rev give you that ‘something in my eye’ feeling, Seattle’s Band Of Horses deal in grandiose bittersweet gems like this for fun.
Vid
12. Interpol – Obstacle 1
(Turn On The Bright Lights, 2002 Matador)
The Strokes’ success saw a saturation of New York copycats and wannabes, Interpol brought something different. Cue unfair criticism and Joy Division comparisons from the fools and adulation from us sensible ones.
Vid
13. The Libertines – Can’t Stand Me Now.
(The Libertines, 2004 Rough Trade)
After Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’s cut and paste job, the drug addiction, the burglary and every other catalogued incident that NME and Daily Star readers became accustomed to, the dirty washing was there for all to see. Not since Abba’s Winner Takes It All had a break up been so publicly documented.
Vid
14. Arctic Monkeys – 505
(Favourite Worst Nightmare, 2007 Domino)
A luscious footnote to an otherwise reasonable album, Alex Turner finally got round to writing songs for grown ups.
Live Vid
15. Crystal Castles – Reckless
(Crystal Castles, 2008 Last Gang)
Part Daft Punk, part Kraftwerk. The kind of music Arthur C. Clarke would expect us to be listening to now.
Vid
16. Death From Above 1979 – Romantic Rights
(You’re a Woman, I’m A Machine, 2004 Last Gang)
Hard to gauge them duo things, it can either go horribly wrong (The Ting Tings) or turn out ok (White Stripes). DFA fell into the second one and then the buggers split.
Vid
17. The Roots – The Seed 2.0
(Phrenology, 2002. Geffen)
Sly Stone funk, Rolling Stone cockiness and a filthiness not seen since John Leslie got out a camcorder.
Vid
18. Prodigy – Take Me To The Hospital
Evoking images of manky warehouses and sweat-soaked Ocean Pacific Day-Glo T-shirts, Liam Howlett got all old-skool on us and by Christ had we missed them.
Vid
19. The Rapture – House Of Jealous Lovers
(Echoes, 2002)
If you know how to air maraca and the track 6 button is screwed on your CD player, you have this album and know what I’m talking about.
Vid
20. Black Box Recorder – The Facts Of Life
(The Facts Of Life, 2000.)
Single-handedly responsible for the beginning of an unhealthy obsession with Sarah Nixey and a partial defrosting towards Britpop gobshite and perennial nearly-man Luke Haines. Ten years on, Single of the Decade, in one’s humblest.
Vid
Posted In Comment, Dec 06 2009.
Words - Tony