This will be my favourite 100 songs of the century so far, with the restriction that there have to be 4 from each year, and that there can only be two per artist - in fact one per artist in nearly all cases - definitely only one per album.
There's nothing too original about this. I've made other lists that have included nearly all these songs before, but, you know me, I love making a list, and I don't mind repeating myself. I think what I like about this one is the fact of bringing it right up to the modern day, and tying that together with the start of the era. There are some changes in my taste, some distinct phases, but a lot that remains the same.
I am trying very hard to go on what I like the most now of what I liked the most then. So there are a few songs (an example would be Float On by Modest Mouse) which I loved a huge amount, but wouldn't seek out now, though I've nothing against it.
Obviously, some years are harder to pick for than others. At the bottom I've added 50 or so other songs I considered including.
I want to put it in an order other than chronological, but also not just do a list from 100 to 1, but also show roughly what's what, so I've kind of started and ended with my favourites, then moved to the middle, and tried not to put any from the same year next to each other. Got it?
- Family Affair - Mary J Blige 2000
- Pa'lante - Hurray for the Riff-Raff 2017 - Protest song
- Song for Our Daughter - Laura Marling 2020 - This and Can't Do Much by Waxahatchee came out in the unseasonably warm first few weeks of the pandemic, and they're both among my very favourite songs in the world, and maybe there's no coincidence. Also, I have a moment of rare miracle and wonder attached to it. Even though the song is actually rather dark in subject matter, it is a sentimental favourite.
- In California - Joanna Newsom 2010
- Mississippi - Bob Dylan 2001 - The trajectory of a hardcore Dylan fan, which I am, is a wonderful thing. Every one seems to have a point where we realise we don't just admire and accept the 21st century stuff, we seek it out. We prefer it. Mississippi is the greatest late Dylan song - stately, funny, conciliatory and aching.
- Losing You - Solange 2012 - This is the best song by a Knowles apart from Nick Knowles' cover of 'Make You Feel Me Love'.
- Witness (1 Hope) - Roots Manuva 2001
- My Girls - Animal Collective 2009
- Ignore Tenderness - Julia Jacklin 2022
- alyosha - Susanne Sundfor 2023
- The Modern Leper - Frightened Rabbit 2008 - I could definitely have chosen about 3 different songs from this album. Heads Roll Off. Etc. But I choose this because I also love the Julien Baker version.
- Mid-Air - Paul Buchanan 2012
- Girl in Amber - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 2016
- The Trapeze Swinger - Iron and Wine 2005
- A Better Son/Daughter - Rilo Kiley 2002 - Several Jenny Lewis songs I'd consider - one of the greats.
- Branches - Midlake 2006
- Trellick Tower - Emmy the Great 2011
- The Life You Chose - Jason Isbell 2015 - I listen to this song a lot and always imagine this is the kind of song they teach in songwriting school.
- Green Light - Lorde 2017
- Bryte Side - Pernice Brothers 2001
- If There's Any Justice - Lemar 2004 - He had a decent crack at it, Lemar, but, still, deserved better. His voice wasn't just great but also had some idiosyncrasies.
- Biology - Girls Aloud 2005
- Something Like Happiness - Maccabees 2015
- All My Happiness is Gone - Purple Mountains 2019 - There are a few cases where it's hard to choose one song from an album, but I think this is, just about, my favourite from Purple Mountains, and probably the most cheery! Yay!
- The Narcissist - Blur 2023
- Time for Heroes - The Libertines 2002 - Rather like Oasis with, say, Slide Away, this is the prime piece of evidence against the revisionism that the band of the zeitgeist were entirely bad and symptomatic of an ill age. This song is everything the Libertines claimed to be.
- She's Got You High - Mumm-ra 2007 Thindie
- LES Artistes - Santigold 2008
- Nobody's Empire - Belle and Sebastian 2014 - This was the single from the slightly disappointing B and S album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance - it's really the only one of their songs since Dear Catastrophe Waitress which is up with their very best. The last time I went "yes, that's the band i love".
- How Far I'll Go - Auliʻi Cravalho 2016 - Obviously, I have listened to a lot of child-orientated music in the last 8 years. I have listened to Let it Go 878 times, the Sofia the First theme 628 times, Reese Witherspoon singing Shake It Off 742 times, I Just Can't Wait to Be King 596 times. And that's all fine. But How Far I'll Go is the one, I think, that any version of me would have loved, that is just a magical, moving song.
- Unfollow the Rules - Rufus Wainwright 2020 - See what i said about B and S above
- Not Strong Enough - boygenius 2023
- No Children - Mountain Goats 2002
- With Every Heartbeat - Robyn ft Kleerup 2007
- A Whole Lot Better - Brendan Benson 2009 - Always a place in my heart for Brendan Benson and Josh Rouse.
- Emmylou -First Aid Kit 2012
- Pink Rabbits - The National 2013 - In quite a few places, I realise, I've chosen the last song I loved by a band I once revered but no longer. Can't believe this was over 10 years ago. It is the graceful that I wish the National weren't always trying to be now.
- Happy Birthday Johnny - St Vincent 2017
- Duckworth - Kendrick Lamar 2018
- Expert in a Dying Field - The Beths 2022 - I am the expert in the dying field that is the kind of music I like.
- Slow Life - Super Furry Animals 2003 - This comes from Phantom Power, my favourite SFA album, though it was nowhere near my favourite track on the album when it came out. It became their show opener, and that is where my love for it came. It reminds me of the giddy joy the Furries brought their fans - how this song, as a live experience, sums up everything brilliant about this band. It is, as you may know, one of my pet theories that the UK's failure, when offered with the choice, at the start of this century, to adopt the Super Furry Animals as a truly big band was one of the most precise pointers to what a binfire the last two decades has been for this country. We didn't want the actual good things.
- Paper Planes - MIA 2008
- 212 - Azaelia Banks 2011
- Where Are We Now? - David Bowie 2013
- Only God Knows - Young Fathers 2017
- Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) - Arcade Fire 2010 - The guy turned out to be something of a megacreep and that rather ruins this band (as much as most of their output for the last 15 years wasn't already pretty mediocre), but he doesn't sing this one, so, though I could have Dancing on My Own, for this year, I do still love this. Lovely little building instrumental touches.
- Nutmeg - Ghostface Killah ft RZA 2000
- Lost Changes - Beth Gibbons 2024 Not sure, this is the last one added, the album only came out this week, and it's a late replacement for Jessica Pratt's Life Is. Obviously, we're less than halfway through 2024 -who knows how this year's going to iron out. But I really like this. It's obviously not one of my favourite 100 songs of the century, it's just a song I just heard that I like. But, hey, that's the fun,
- Two Weeks - FKA Twigs 2014
- Chewing Gum - Annie 2004
- Steady Pace - Matthew E White 2013
- Round and Round - Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti 2010 - This just snuck in, as 2010 was more an albums year for me than songs, and also I thought it important to include at least one far-right insurrectionist.
- Complicated - Avril Lavigne 2002
- Chandelier - Sia 2014
- Nearly Midnight, Honolulu - Neko Case 2012
- Kiss Me More - Doja Cat ft SZA 2021
- Sign of the Times - Jamie T 2016 - Something about this hungover lament for the landfill indie era I find rather moving.
- Pauper's Dough - King Creosote 2014
- 1+1 - Beyonce 2011 - The business of Beyonce is, has become, exhausting. The excessiveness pricks all my feelings of reluctant antagonism. Still, I've been a fan for half my life, and she, more than anyone else, changed my attitude to pop (vs rock) music, that's the simple truth. 1+1 may be far from the best Beyonce song, but it's one where her singing touched a raw nerve, where you recognise someone singing with their whole body, where it's easy to just go "yes, indeed, that's a talented person".
- All in Good Time - Iron and Wine and Fiona Apple 2024 - On Twitter at the moment, people say "We're so back". When I heard this, that's what I thought.
- Hummingbird - Wilco 2004
- Betty - Taylor Swift 2020 - Taylor Swift's a fine writer, but a lot of her songs are mega-annoying in their arch solipsism, so my favourite two (apart from Shake it Off) are Love Story and this, which are both similar, structurally I guess. Neat narratives of first teenage love which trot along, and then have a euphoric romcom moment end. Irresistible. If she stuck to this kind of stuff, i think she might be quite successful.
- Sugar Almond - Camera Obscura 2024
- Juice - Lizzo 2019
- Rise to Me - The Decemberists 2011
- The Gypsy Faerie Queen - Marianne Faithfull 2018 - So odd and beautiful.
- Overcome - Laura Mvula 2016 One of the two great and underrated Laura M's of British 21st century music.
- Seventeen - Sharon van Etten 2019
- Chicago - Sufjan Stevens 2005
- Takeover - Jay-Z 2001 - Yes! Gym! Being mean!
- Introvert - Little Simz 2021
- Danny Nedelko - Idles 2018
- The First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes 2005 - I hear Conor Oberst's slightly annoying nasal voice pop up here and there as guest artist on various tracks these days and I have the most enormous affection for it.
- Angela Surf City - The Walkmen 2010
- Django Jane - Janelle Monae 2018
- Lithuania - Dan Bern 2003
- Right Back to It - Waxahatchee ft MJ Lenderman 2024
- Umbrella - Rihanna ft Jay-Z 2007
- Like I Used To - Sharon van Etten and Angel Olsen 2021
- Back to the Radio - Porridge Radio 2022
- Danny Callahan - Conor Oberst 2008 - Such sad songs.
- Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love - Kara Jackson 2023 - Such sad songs.
- Sunday - Let's Eat Grandma 2022 - Such sad songs.
- Hey Lover - Dawes 2013 - The dumbest fucking song, honestly. I just like harmonious soft rock.
- Black - Dave 2019
- The Long Water - Stephen Fretwell 2021
- Zorbing - Stornoway 2009 - This is what hit singles should sound like. Entirely immune to cool. These kids, they don't know they're born.
- Impossible Germany - Wilco 2007
- Round Eye Blues - Marah 2000
- The Rat - The Walkmen 2004 - I had a bit of an impasse in my new music listening between roughly 2009 and 2013. There are a few reasons, one of them being I had made a handful of playlists which I played over and over, particularly when I was running. Tied in with that is that I listened to the Walkmen ... a lot ... all the time ... all the Walkmen ... all the time.
- A Matter of Time - The Leisure Society 2009
- Emily - Joanna Newsom 2006
- Amsterdam - UNPOC 2003 - I picked up the Fence Sampler #3 from CD Outlet on South Street, St Andrews, in 2000. This was on it, along with Lone Pigeom. Yorkston, King Creosote and others. How odd, I thought, I've a funny feeling that's one of the greatest songs ever recorded. UNPOC's only album came out in 2003, so I assign it to that year. The most magical thing, this.
- 4th of July - Sufjan Stevens 2015 - I am hard pressed as to who is the most complete singer-songwriter of this century - I sometimes think Newsom, sometimes Cave, sometimes Tweedy, sometimes accept it maybe Beyonce or Taylor Swift, but, right now, I think I think it's Sufjan Stevens.
- Rise - Josh Rouse 2003 - They don't write loving pastiches like this anymore.
- He's Simple He's Dumb He's the Pilot - Grandaddy 2000 - Really, truly, I still feel that the moment one minute into this song when it comes up for air, or takes off, or whatever, is the most beautiful thing in all of pop music.
- When the Haar Rolls In - James Yorkston 2006 - Wow, 2006 had All My Friends, Emily, Branches and When the Haar Rolls In. That's my taste in music right there.
- My Baby Don't Understand Me - Natalie Prass 2015 - The arrangement.
- Can't Do Much - Waxahatchee 2020 - This is the song I have listened to by far the most in the last 4 years. Can't do much about it now
- All My Friends - LCD Soundsystem 2006 - Still my favourite, I suppose.
And here are some other great songs I almost included (along with 100s of others)
You Masculine You - Lambchop 2000
Darker with the Day - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 2000
Winterlight - Clearlake 2000
To be Young i(s to be Sad is to be High) - Ryan Adams 2000
The Cedar Room - Doves 2000
I See a Darkness - Johnny Cash 2000
Scottish Pop - Spearmint 2001
The Dark is Rising - Mercury Rev 2001
Blue - Lucinda Williams 2001
She Fell into My Arms - Ed Harcourt 2001
Mysteries - Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man 2002
Such Great Heights - The Postal Service 2002
Slaveship - Josh Rouse 2003
Kathleen - Josh Ritter 2003
Crazy in Love - Beyonce ft Jay-Z 2003
I'm a Cuckoo - Belle and Sebastian 2003
Kissing the Lipless - The Shins 2003
Danko/Manuel - Drive-By Truckers 2004
Take Me Anywhere - Tegan and Sara 2004
Coming in from the Cold - Delgados 2004
Don't You (Forget About Me) - Micah P Hinson 2004
Float On - Modest Mouse 2004
So Here We Are - Bloc Party 2005
Mr November - The National 2005
Running the World - Jarvis Cocker 2006
Trains to Brazil - Guillemots 2006
Funeral - Band of Horses 2006
Anyone - Joan as Policewoman 2006
Sons and Daughters - The Decemberists 2006
Is There a Ghost - Band of Horses 2007
Losing You - Randy Newman 2008
Everybody I Know is Listening to Crunk - Lightspeed Champion 2008
Dancing on My Own - Robyn 2010
Palaces of Montezuma - Grinderman 2011
Under the Westway - Blur 2012
Heaven - The Walkmen 2012
How - Regina Spektor 2012
Tilted - Christine and the Queens 2014
American Interior - Gruff Rhys 2014
Broken Wave - James Yorkston 2014
Severed Crossed Fingers - St Vincent 2014
Time as a Symptom - Joanna Newsom 2015
Hey Darling - Sleater-Kinney 2015
London - Benjamin Clemetine 2015
King Kunta - Kenrdick Lamar 2015
Dollar Days - David Bowie 2016
No One Know Me Like the Piano ... - Sampha 2017
Space Cowboy - Kacey Musgraves 2018
My Mouth Ain't No Bible - James Yorkston 2019
I Contain Multitudes - Bob Dylan 2020
Bad Decisions - The Strokes 2020
Namesake - noname 2023
