#20
Veni Vidi Vici – The Black Lips
Album: Good Bad Not Evil
Year: 2007
For sheer bravado, boys, you win. When I think of the phrase “piss and vinegar,” generally, I think of this song about one beat later. I usually feel embarrassed to listen to songs that name drop biblical figures (except for “Jesus Was Way Cool” by King Missile, because that song is awesome). “Spirit in the Sky” is a good example of this problem: killer guitar hook and then… disappointing Christian overtones. Back to the task at hand, however: The Black Lips. “Veni Vidi Vici.” One snarling vocalist, minimal, sustained guitar growl, and a xylophone! Yes, yes and yes!
#19
Letter from an Occupant – The New Pornographers
Album: Mass Romantic
Year: 2000
Too often, I feel, these blurbs conclude that a song is over too soon, that the very heart of their charm is their ability to keep me wanting more. On the other hand, then, you have “Letter from an Occupant” which, while being well worth its 3’46, is pretty gloriously summed up in its first verse. Although the song never loses its intensity, which is carried through by barking guitars and a thrill ride of swooping “oohs,” it just doesn’t get better than the sucker punch of Neko Case’sdelivery on, “You told me I could order the moon, babe/Just so long as it’s you what I want.” Indeed Case is at her most brassy here and it’s saying something that in a song with this much power, energy and just sheer volume, it’s one woman’s voice that single handedly drags it into greatness. This was my first and remains my favorite New Pornographers track; I remember hearing the opening lines, then several minutes of being dumbstruck, and then the thought, “Holy shit, I am buying this album.”
#18
Banshee Beat – Animal Collective
Album: Feels
Year: 2005
I will spare you all my rant (and oh yes, there is a rant) on Animal Collective because this is a countdown of songs I am supposed to like, not bands that kind of make me sigh wearily. As tedious as I often find them – and most of the writing concerning them – I must admit that this song is a stunner, and it’s the only example of their work I will (and do, frequently) go out of my way for. There’s a particular kind of overcast, muggy Sunday that demands “Banshee Beat.” And then there’s this: when I was wrestling with where this song should fall in the order of the countdown, I came across a piece on the recording of Feels, namely that all the instruments the band play were tuned to a set of recordings of a friend’s slightly off-key piano. It’s this tuning accounts for the warped glass distortion you hear on the album, the vague sensation of peering at something under several feet of water. This is the kind of audiophile wet dream I can’t usually be fucked to pay attention to but COME ON HOW COOL IS THAT? And so we have an eighteenth best song, and it is Animal Collective.
#17
For Real – Okkervil River
Album: Black Sheep Boy
Year: 2005
Hey kids, did you ever have a dark period? I did, once upon a time. How it was born has little bearing on my life as a music blogger but kids, my dark period started teething on a Christmas night, while drinking Jameson and listening to “For Real” on repeat. Because this one hell of an ardently, articulately distraught song. I love the way the guitar work evolves and flows on this song, from the opening’s terse picking, to that bell-like reverb soaked solo, to the angry-infectious hooks that follow Will Sheff’s escalating angstin’ on vocals. I love the vocals – the slow seep of their meaning and their gradual crescendo to a sad howl. And despite having kicked my dark period to the curb, I still really really love this song.
#16
Bohemian Like You – The Dandy Warhols
Album: Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia
Year: 2003
Another love born of my flu-crazed days watching Italian MTV, Portland’s Dandy Warhols can always be counted on to deliver smart jabs to the side of any scene, even their own. There’s really no need to detail what makes this song great; it’s a pop song and anything I could say about the guitar or the drumming or (self-proclaimed “asshat”) Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s vocals would be superfluous. It’s the kind of song that plays during the trailer of a mediocre-looking film as you get the sinking realization you’ll be seeing the movie anyway, even though it looks a bit shit. It’s the kind of song you played in your dorm room to impress some skinny guy in the early days of college, and although it doesn’t buy you much cred these days, you still have fond memories of when it did. It’s the kind of song where the band punctuates the chorus with a “Woo!” and all these years later, you still have trouble not shouting along, even though you’re iPodding it on a crowded street. It even makes vegan food seem sort of sexy, for a cheerfully bewildered half-second.
