Culture Greyhound

Today I continue my ongoing feature showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of the past decade, posting ten songs at a time.

230. Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks

Plinking pianos, soaring background vocals, and an accessible approach to the band’s quiet tendencies brought Grizzly Bear their breakthrough track in 2009.  While Veckatimest still had the trademark off-kilter minor keys and dark lyrics, “Two Weeks” came out of the oven ready for Gossip Girls.  And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

229. Lucero – Tears Don’t Matter Much

When you break up with your significant other, two things help immensely when mixed together – whiskey and Lucero.  And while “Tears Don’t Matter Much” isn’t a breakup song – Ben Nichols has written plenty of those – a tune about a group of Southern musicians dreaming of “nights in NYC” is enough to tug at your alcohol-soaked heartstrings, especially in a crowded Lubbock bar, glasses in the air, yelling every word alongside your best friends.

228. Third Eye Blind – Wake For Young Souls

Call it my stubbornness to let go of nostalgia, or maybe they put on a great live show, but I have stuck with Third Eye Blind through the years.  There’s no doubt that their success is behind them, but Stephen Jenkins and Co. still made great music after that multi-platinum debut and underrated sophomore slump Blue.  That third album, released in 2003, was called Out of the Vein. And “Wake For Young Souls” shows the band was still churning out radio-ready hits long after their prime.  Too bad no one was listening.

227. Mclusky – To Hell With Good Intentions

Mclusky were one of the cooler groups to come out of the past decade.  Unfortunately, they were one of the quickest to disband as well.  At least they left us with a near-perfect track record.  This track is probably their most recognized; I remember cranking the 97X stream in high school whenever “my love is bigger than your love! Sing it!” emerged and echoed from my parent’s desktop PC in the living room.  Mclusky helped me destroy some perfectly good computer speakers.

226. Justice – Waters of Nazareth

Hearing Cross for the first time was something breath-taking for me.  While the duo owes everything to Daft Punk, the robots have never made anything French-house that sounded so hard-rock.  This song, near the end of the disc, just shows the album’s relentless execution; even when they’re finishing up, Justice are just getting started.

225. Fall Out Boy – Reinventing the Wheel to Run Myself Over

Before they were superstars, Fall Out Boy were a bit more punk than they let on.  Most of the power-pop-punk bands of that era were, actually.  From Under the Cork Tree earned FOB their millions, but Take This To Your Grave was a faster-paced introduction to a very young group.  And this song is the closest they ever got to emulating old Blink 182.

224. The Killers – Mr. Brightside

God….remember Hot Fuss?  What a great album.  These guys used to be so awesome.  With all their theatrics and Brandon Flowers’ trying-too-hard aesthetic, they still had one thing to back up all that Vegas showmanship: good songwriting.  “Mr. Brightside,” their biggest hit, like, ever, is a prime example.  But alas, with the sophomore slump that was Sam’s Town, we are reminded that the only that stays the same in pop is that everything changes.

223. Cascada – Everytime We Touch (Verano Edit)

You ever hear a song and it brings back memories? Like when you blared it all summer with two of your best high school friends? Or when you discovered the ridiculously stupid music video with your high school sweetheart? Or when you invented a hilarious (at the time), sexually-suggestive dance to this cheesy song and your friends recorded a video of you doing said dance and then put it on YouTube and you were so furious and ordered them to take it down?  Yeah, me too.

222. Eve 6 – On the Roof Again

Another friendly reminder that successful 90’s bands continued to produce music into the next century, even if their profile had diminished considerably, Eve 6 had a pretty good run before their breakup in 2006.  Their second disc, 2000’s Horrorscopes, was largely ignored, minus the lead single “Promise.”  This hidden gem, the forgotten single “On the Roof Again,” is an unusually-structured, yet catchy, tale of an overdramatic, suicidal kid fighting with his girlfriend.  Sure, that 1998 debut disc is unbeatable, but this is my favorite track from Eve 6 this past decade.  And it’s not like they ever started sucking (I’m looking at you, Gin Blossoms and Everclear).

221. Neon Indian – Terminally Chill

My favorite album of 2009, the breakthrough debut from Austin/Brooklyn’s Neon Indian, had some pretty spectacular tracks crammed into half an hour.  “Terminally Chill” is probably the danciest track of the disc – its buildup at the beginning is a little too infectious to resist.