Amanda's Best of the Decade: #100-91

Wrangling my music collection and seven years of "Best of" playlists into a limited hierarchy has been an even greater challenge than I imagined. First off, it's important to distinguish between a "Best Songs of the Decade" list and one that represents my favorite songs from the same period. Ideally, there is at least 75% overlap between these two sets of selections. Also, I was fifteen when the decade began, so a lot of formative, taste-making shit went down in my Aughts. Most notably, I learned to love electronica and female vocalists. In the end, my toils produced these one hundred, unscientifically chosen tunes: a combination of perceived rate of iTunes skippage, autobiographical significance , cultural importance, and musical quality (oh yeah, that). So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen:

#100

The Fear - Lily Allen

Album: It's Not Me It's You

Year: 2009

I've never found Lily Allen to particularly subversive but she does have a gift for cultural commentary that's charmingly reminiscent of slightly mean jokes between friends. 'The Fear' is no exception, being both bitingly insightful about and symptomatic of contemporary values. The softcore pop intro prepares us for a throwaway love song on any chart-topper's album but becomes quickly plaintive, insistent and rife with existential angst. Allen's girlish, deadpan delivery pulls it off beautifully.

#99

Cannons at the Courthouse - Devin Davis

Album: Lonely People of the World, Unite!

Year: 2005

Some seriously rollicking power pop from the midsection of the US. Davis fuses brashes guitar sounds, clever, exuberant production, punchy drum work and imaginative lyrics in this metamorphic piece of brilliance. I never get over how he casts the insignificant backgrounds of grander dreamscapes with extras, edits and fill-ins.

#98

Come into My World - Kylie

Minogue

Album: Fever

Year: 2001

Our first page from the Amanda Dance Primer. I first heard this song at a college party and went into a sort of trance while dancing to it--a novel experience for a girl who cut her dance floor teeth on Top 40 rap and R&B. I prefer this song to its album counterpart, 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' for its sense of dreamy, hypnotic motion. By turns choppy and swooning, it's a masterful example of mainstream dance pop from the queen of the genre.

#97

Gray or Blue - Jaymay

Album: Autumn Fallin'

Year: 2008

The simple, sweet essence of frustrated affection set to island-style strumming, childlike xylophone and Jaymay's (New York's Jamie Seerman) empathetic vocals. Unrequited love songs by singer-songwriters are at their best when either completely steeped in, or completely divorced from the dramatic banality that creates them and this is of the latter variety.

#96

Midsummer Night Blues - Waldeck

Album: Ballroom Stories

Year: 2007

I love me some jazz clarinet, alright? Most people do not become copyright lawyers and then go on to make incredibly sexy, jazzy trip-hop albums but then, most people are not Austria's Klaus Waldeck. Tickled ivories, swooning clarinet, retro vocals, a 'Summertime' sample and a beat existing somewhere between funk, reggae and swingtime: this song is luscious.

#95

Time to Pretend - MGMT

Album:

Oracular Spectacular

Year: 2007

Discussing this song shortly after its release, I used the phrase "it's a bit too...self-consciously anthemic, don't you think?" to express my skepticism. I know, I'm an asshole. And though I still think it's too self-conscious but its throbbing, distorted bravado is thoroughly under my skin. Every time I hear it, I want to be tongue-in-cheek about my jaded, glamorous, rock star life.

#94

Monument (Anna Oxygen Remix) - Mirah

Album: Joyride: Remixes

Year: 2006

One of the hallmarks of good dance music has always been the way it toys with expectation and delivery. In order to get people dancing, you have to essentially pander to baser instincts and in order to keep people dancing, you have to find a way to suspend that energy, eventually not dropping the beat they've come to expect. While not strictly speaking a dance tune, this remix by Anna Oxygen includes the most fantastic bit of denied expectation I've ever come across. At exactly 00:34, just after the intro has turned edgy, we hear an inhale and the smallest catch of a throat, the sound of the thought of the first line being born. And then nothing. And then the beat drops.

#93

The Palm Sunday Tornado Hits Crystal Lake - Sufjan Stevens

Album: The Avalanche: Outtakes & Extras from the Illinois Album

Year: 2006

I have long had mixed feelings about the Sujan Stevens aesthetic. It's just always seemed gimmicky and superficial to me--too many carefully researched historical facts and anecdotes, too much orchestration and not enough soul. This little beauty of a throwaway track is the opposite of all that. It would have no place in a proper album but situated amongst the numerous outtakes from Illinois (can't imagine that Mr. Stevens is ever going to get through all 50 if he has this much to say about just one Midwestern state) it is a an oasis of simple, evocative perfection.

#92

The Drinker - The Phoenix Foundation

Album: Horsepower (US Release)

Year: 2004

Kiwi six-piece the Phoenix Foundation haven't gotten much attention this far above the equator aside from their contributions to the soundtrack for 2007 film Eagle vs. Shark, but this tremulous, sixties-steeped gem deserves more than a few listens. Trembling like any good Zombies track, 'The Drinker' evokes a garbled sense of longing and cowboy loneliness--think a deserted Western landscape miles under the ocean. The line "was the sort of night you feel like breakin out/or going out to vandalize the streets/but I stayed at this masquerade and had another drink" is the song's undeniable climax; it's surprising vehemence and tragic resignation get me every time.

#91

What's a Girl to Do? - Bat for Lashes

Album: Fur & Gold

Year: 2006

Natasha Khan makes a wicked Nancy Sinatra for our time, with a short layover at Stevie Nix. Digging those tribal "Be My Baby" drums. Love the spoken verses à la...every kitschy girl group of the 60's. Desperate, crying male romantic figure? Check. With its wailed chorus and theatrical portrayal of love gone off, 'What's a Girl to Do?" makes for a dark, mystical take on a set of already successful pop tropes.