It’s been 12 years since I’ve updated my Favorite Songs of All Time list. Which seems like a crime for someone like me: a music freak with lots of free time and a blog. I’ve thought about it a lot, trust me. I’ve reached the point in my life, though, where the return on that process doesn’t seem to justify the effort that would go into it. Streaming has messed with my head too, and I just don’t listen to the old songs as often as I used to, so I think I’m worried I would need to scrap big parts of the 2013 list if I ever jumped back into it.
However, last week The Bridge, 90.9 FM in Kansas City, which I stream often, played their top 909 songs of the century (so far), based on listener voting. I streamed off-and-on all week, but really locked in Friday evening, somewhere around #50, after all our holiday guests had left. It’s amazing how fast you can go through a countdown when there aren’t commercials!
That experience inspired me to crank out my own Best of the 2000s list. Which, again, seemed daunting. I gave myself a couple rules to simplify the task. First, I would only select songs from my annual Best Of lists. Second, for the years I did not make a Favorites list, I would only do a quick glance at my Apple Music catalog, The Bridge’s list, and a brief search of the Internet to make sure I was including anything important for those years. I wasn’t going to spend hours on 2000–03. Finally, I would try to keep the descriptions of each song brief.
(Several of these appeared on The Bridge’s countdown, so I’ll put that number in parenthesis.)
25 – “Wreckage” – Pearl Jam
I’ll sneak this in at 25, as recency bias is still in play, but after spending most of this century making good but rarely great music, Pearl Jam found a new path in 2024 and it paid off with one of the best songs of their entire careers. I still listen to it often.
24 – “Can’t Do Much” – Waxahatchee
Katie Crutchfield is an American treasure.
23 – “The House That Heaven Built” – Japandroids (#294)
Straight ahead, roaring, beer drinking, gasoline burning, rock ’n’ roll.
22 – “American English” – Idlewild
True story: one of the first nights that S worked a 24-hour shift in the summer of 2003, after we had gotten married and moved to Indy, I listened to this over-and-over-and-over. I loved it so much I was sure there had to be some kind of hidden meaning in it. Turned out it was just a great song, and also my introduction to Scottish indie rock.
21 – “Bohemian Like You” – Dandy Warhols (#271)
Looking back this may have been the first, big indie rock song I ever loved.
20 – “Catch the Sun” – Doves
Then again, I heard this a few months earlier in 2000, so this would be first.
19 – “Pynk” – Janelle Monáe featuring Grimes (#669)
I’m not sure that any artist this century has been as successful making insanely ambitious music as Ms. Monáe.
18 – “Believe” – Amen Dunes
There were a couple better known and possibly more deserving songs that could have filled this spot. None of them have the hold on me this song has.
17 – “Anything But Me” – MUNA
The best indie song that is sneakily a straight pop song of the century.
16 – “For Nancy (’Cos It Already Is)” – Pete Yorn
Musicforthemorningafter was the first great album of the century, and maybe the first new album I ever downloaded in full from “file sharing” sites and then burned onto a CD-R. Ah, nostalgia! This absolute banger was the first thing I heard from that album, on the Music Choice channels on my cable TV package.
15 – “Motion Sickness” – Phoebe Bridgers (#93)
Phoebe is our Indie Rock Queen, and this is the song that will likely stand above everything else she does in her career.
14 – “Call Your Girlfriend” – Robyn (#199)
Any one of three Robyn songs could have been here, but this wins thanks to perhaps the greatest video of the century.
13 – “Stacking Chairs” – Middle Kids
Marriage is hard. This song is a reminder that sometimes the best way to tell your partner that you love them and will always be there for them is through a simple act of helping to clean up after a party.
12 – “Hey Ya!” – Outkast (#2)
The greatest crossover song of the 21st Century. You heard it on pop stations, Black stations, and rock stations, saw the video on MTV. It was everywhere. And, at least to me, it never got old. This was #2 on The Bridge’s countdown.
11 – “Wild” – Spoon (They had 10 songs on the list, but somehow this didn’t make it.)
The best song from the most consistent and enduring indie rock band of the last 30 years.
10 – Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand (#25)
What an amazingly awesomely arranged song.
9 – “Ball & A Biscuit” – The White Stripes
OK, allow me to brag for a moment. When The Bridge started their countdown, I thought ahead to what might possibly be the #1 song. Their playlist leans to the alt/indie rock side of the spectrum, although what makes them so great is how they play plenty of modern soul, thoughtful hip hop, a smattering of enlightened country, and plenty of classics that have influenced all those modern genres. I gave the subject about 30 seconds of consideration before landing on what I thought would be the top song.
When they got to #1 sometime around 10 PM eastern Friday, my guess was confirmed: “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes. It was so obvious! I told S and she was whatever the exact opposite of impressed was. Oh well…
Anyway, “SNA” is a GREAT song. But as my brother in music E$ put it, it would be better if we had all heard it 10,000 fewer times. And it’s not even the best song on the album it comes from. This is that song.
8 – “Phantom Limb” – The Shins (#160)
The most beautiful song of the century.
7- “Mistaken For Strangers” – The National (#213)
The most cinematic song of the century.
6- “Float On” – Modest Mouse (#6)
This was the song I was listening to when S’s water broke the night before M was born and we officially became parents. Good thing it is a jam!
5 – The Rat – The Walkmen (#206)
Anger kind of went out once Korn and bands of that ilk ruined it in the late 90s. This is the best angry song of this century, though, a lament of both a fractured relationship and what that relationship cost the narrator.
4 – The Gold – Manchester Orchestra (#530)
The moment MO figured out if they dialed everything back just a touch, their music worked better than when everything was pushed to 11.
3 – “Stuck Between Stations” – The Hold Steady (#164)
I had dabbled a bit in The Hold Steady’s music before they released Boys and Girls In America in 2006. Notably “You Little Hoodrat Friend,” one of the key songs that helped guide me into the indie rock world. But the first time I heard this? It blew me away with its literacy, its humor, and its pure, American, bar-band rock.
2 – “Red Eyes” – The War on Drugs (#170)
Another band I could throw a handful of songs into a hat and be happy with any I selected. This is the song that launched TWOD’s ascent from esoteric indie rock darlings into the mainstream of the indie rock world.
1 – “The Modern Leper” – Frightened Rabbit
A song, and an album, that really fucked me up. In the best possible way. And continued doing so for years. Until the pain that birthed them became too much for Scott Hutchison and they took on a whole other level of fucked up-ish-ness.
Two other of my annual #1’s made the Bridge’s list:
2009 #1 “Whirring” – Joy Formidable was #309
2016 #1 “Pain” – The War on Drugs was #153