The Village Idiots

According to me.

I’m leading with the widget so you can listen to the songs while you read my explanations.

First, this is how I approached the making of the list. I can easily think of ten songs BETTER than these ten songs, and I’d only need three artists’ work to do it in all likelihood and probably just from one year instead of the decade, but anyone can say the obscure, unknown songs they listen to are better than what everyone else is listening to. There’s value to a list like that, and I’ll probably create a list like that myself, but while pop music in general (and almost by definition) is flavorless and insipid, there are some pretty smart, pretty creative people working in those pop genres. Pop music can’t all suck, or else it could be said that all of any genre sucks, and that just isn’t possible.

Once I limited myself to the mainstream (and by that I mean stuff you were likely to hear on the radio or on television in any of the usual media streams), I looked for originality, creativity, catchiness or memorability (is that a word?), excellence, and timelessness. Timelessness is probably the least important here, because a song can represent its decade (and only its decade) well and still be great, but if it can find a way to exist in its own time and promise to be in our consciousnesses in future NOWs, it achieves a certain greatness. When you hear Booker T. and the MGs “Green Onions,” do you think 1962, or even 1960s? A song like that somehow takes itself out of its time and becomes something greater. I hear that song and I think of movie trailers. My students hear it and they think of The Sandlot (yes, they do!). Songs that can do that are special, and there are a few of them on here.

I also tried not to gaze too deeply into the crystal ball. I really wanted to put Owl City on this list because of the way it was an Internet phenomenon before it was ever heard on the radio, but how important that ultimately is remains to be seen. This year, I spent more time listening to music online via streaming services than I spent listening to new music on the radio for the first time in my life. The last time something other than the radio played that role for me, it was MTV and we all know how huge that was. Yes, I said was. I can’t tell, though, if a band like Owl City signals a new trend or if it’s a fluke. Heck, my students are almost as aware of Mastedon as they are of Owl City and you know why? Guitar Hero. For all I know, it’s Guitar Hero and not MySpace that’s the new MTV.

There weren’t as many also-rans as I thought there’d be. Perhaps it’s because I just dislike pop music and therefore didn’t find much to turn me on. I think it’s because like a lot of pop music, songs I remembered as setting my iPod on fire when they were current just didn’t do it for me upon further review (“Hollaback Girl,” “Stan,” and “SexyBack” just felt kind of deflated with the buffer of a few years’ passing. I’m listening now to the ten songs even as I write this, and I feel really good about them, not the least bit tired of any of them except for number ten. I’ll list the also-rans after the list. Which is now.

One: “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley
Okay, just forget the fact that you heard it ten zillion times. You’re probably going to have to forget that for several of the songs on this list. Just think back to the first time you heard it. Remember how different it sounded? How soulful and silly and sweet? Remember how you wondered when pop music was ever that good? I do. It may have been played to death, but ubiquity does not detract from excellence. Best song of the decade, and I didn’t even have to think about it.

Two: “Hey Ya!” by Outkast
When I first introduced discussion about “Crazy” on Hawaii Threads three years ago, “Hey Ya!” was invoked as well. Contributors tossed about the phrase “one-hit wonders” and “overplayed,” but whether any of that’s true or not, can you remember a time when one song was so obviously the song of the year? I remember talking to a bunch of students who were much more into punk one day and saying, “You know what song’s great? Hey Ya!” I expected to spark an argument, but the punk-heads all agreed with me. I got the same reaction from other groups of students. They all loved this song, whatever their music-listening habits, and I don’t know when I’ve ever seen that. I don’t dance, and this song makes me want to dance.

Three: “I Gotta Feeling” by Black Eyed Peas
There was a time in the late nineties when I feared that everything was groove without hook. Missy Elliott, Janet Jackson, and Destiny’s Child were grooving all the way to the bank but nobody could sing along because there was no hook! Bugged the heck out of me. Now here is Black Eyed Peas, a multi-ethnic powerhouse of groove, funk, and hook. Hooks up to HERE. Hooks all over the place. You cannot hear this song without being hooked. It’s a feel-good song, an unashamedly feel-good song that doesn’t even make very much sense, but man is it a great song. Oops. I mean man! Is it a GREAT SONG!

Four: “Paper Planes” by M.I.A.
A friend and I were wondering one night about where rap was going. When hip-hop was in its pubescent years, there were all these divergent paths, and for a little while it was fun to predict where it was all going to go. At least in the mainstream, it was gangsta rap that seemed to win out, but out on the fringe you still had Public Enemy and the Pharcyde and bands playing with jazz or blues. The night that we had this conversation, the best I could offer up were Mos Def and Atmosphere (both of whom I like a great deal), but I’d forgotten about M.I.A. Talk about blowing up the world. M.I.A. is like Chuck D but deadlier.

Five: “There She Goes” by Sixpence None the Richer
It sorta looks like the winning guess in the old Sesame Street game. Remember, “One of these things is not like the others / One of these things just doesn’t belong / Can you tell me which thing is not like the others / Now before I finish my song?” I might remember the words incorrectly, but it was something like that. But really, this lovely, sweet song was everywhere for a while and I think it’s going to keep popping up. It’s got that timeless quality that I think is so hard to nail down. When you hear the song all by itself, you feel at first as if something is missing, like it’s supposed to be the background music of some TV show you’re watching, or some jewelry commercial or something, but all by itself it’s just a wonderful song, so pretty and so sweet. And it’s a lot more rock and roll than you probably remember it. Of the songs on this list, I predict it will be the one your grandkids will most likely be familiar with.

Six: “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis
The last fifteen years have given space in the mainstream for bands like Oasis, which I think would have been restricted to college radio if it had come around earlier. But there is an alternative mainstream now, as oxymoronic a term as that is, and this song represents that alternapop better than anything I can think of, and the list of nominees was long (sorry, Third Eye Blind). Poppy and pretty and mysterious, it also represents the best work from a band that was doomed to burn out too quickly.

Seven: “Walk On” by U2
I think the temptation is to take “Beautiful Day,” and I did consider it. Yet this is the song that is going to be remembered. “With or Without You” was a bigger hit from The Joshua Tree, but it’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” that endures best from that album, and that’s what’s going to happen with “Walk On.” The lyrics in the fadeout are some of their best, which I know is saying a lot.

Eight: “Come Away with Me” by Norah Jones
Likewise, “Come Away with Me” and “Don’t Know Why.” This is a great song and Jones is a terrific performer. What has struck me in the past five years is how very many singers there are like her who are also performing this kind of music and are nearly as good. I don’t know if they’re copycats or coattail-riders, or what. Still, a sweet, sweet song and an instant mood-setter.

Nine: “Don’t Phunk with My Heart” by Black Eyed Peas
I am not a Black Eyed Peas fanboy, whatever appearances might hint. I just love a good song when I hear one, and this is a very good song. The Peas are just as likely to fall flat (“Boom Boom Pow” is highly overrated, as is “My Humps”) as they are to blow it up, but when they blow it up they do it in huge fashion. What a great song.

Ten (tie): “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” by Five for Fighting and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” by Beyonce.
People who are familiar with my list-making tendencies know I hate giving ties in the last spot on the list, but the truth is that I just can’t pick one over the other here. It’s easy to dismiss “Superman” because it was played to death perhaps more than any other song on this list. I’m as sick of hearing it as anyone else, and that makes me want to take it off, but this is a seriously terrific song. “Single Ladies” has the advantage of being newer and fresher and not having as many copycats (didn’t you think James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” was Five for Fighting when you first heard it? I did, and there were other songs that gave me the same feeling). That doesn’t make it the better song, however fantastic a song it is. And it is fantastic. Kanye was right. I could stress out over this and make myself pick one over the other, but I’ve sweated enough over this list in the past two weeks and I’m done. Call it a top eleven and call me a wuss: just don’t call me wrong, ’cause this is the list!

Also-rans: “Right Now” by SR-71, “Jumper” by Third Eye Blind, “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani, “Oops…I Did It Again” by Britney Spears, “SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake, “London Bridge” by Fergie, “Inside Out” by Eve 6, “The Great Beyond” by R.E.M., “Vertigo” by U2, “The Rising” by Bruce Springsteen, “Stan” by Eminem, and a bunch of other songs I can’t remember right now.