Carly Rae Jepsen – “Run Away With Me”

For the longest time, I never understood the fascination surrounding Carly Rae Jepsen.  She writes cute, catchy 80’s influenced pop songs…and it’s not like she’s the first or even the best to do so.  Like any self-assured heterosexual man should, I jammed out to “Call Me Maybe” every time it came on the radio – of course – but her music was little more than a guilty pleasure.  The intuitive statement that comes next should be a short anecdote about how Emotion changed my perceptions, and how really she grew as an artist and expanded her boundaries…but I still just don’t see it, at least not the way others do.  She’s merely a saccharine, surface-level pop artist who can craft a mean hook, but my conclusion here is basically this: so what?

“Run Away With Me” is probably the catchiest pop song in the last 10 years, and if it’s not the catchiest then it’s certainly one of the most compelling.  This track is the queen of summer bangers, a song whose upbeat dynamics and seductive lyrics make it irresistible aesthetically and intellectually.  From the moment the synths glide in to the gradual soft-loud progression that spans the first minute of thumping beats, it’s a song that immerses your senses in this neon youth; a glowing representation of what it means to be young and in love – to be the life of the party – to own the night.  Jepsen’s lyrics…

Justin Timberlake – “Mirrors”

The 20/20 Experience changed the way I view pop.  That may be a bit of a naive take, but it’s true based on my late introduction to modern music (I was that kid in high school who was obsessed with 70’s rock) and the fact that the album – especially Part 1 –  is genuinely one of the best collection of songs to come out within the last 10 years, if not longer.  I never viewed pop as a style that would have an album overflowing with 6-9 minute tracks; 20/20 does.  I never expected pop to experiment at a high artistic level, nor for it to be half as catchy as the entirety of 20/20  is.  It took my tiny, cliched definition of what I thought pop should be and blew the doors off of it.

“Mirrors” may not be the most elaborate song that JT composed for this two-part opus, but it’s probably the most meaningful.  From its gorgeous introduction to lyrics dripping with romantic intent, “Mirrors” postures itself as the best love song – best breakup song – best wedding song – best forlornly-looking-through-old-photographs-of-an-ex – best anything relationship song.  It’s 8 minutes in length but doesn’t feel anywhere close to that, gliding smoothly across its runtime while seamlessly transitioning from rhythmic verses to its soaring chorus; then to a string-laden midsection into what I feel is one of the more underrated portions of the whole experience: that prolonged “you are the love…

The Roots – “Stomp/Lighthouse”

I have a special relationship with The Roots that I don’t have with very many artists, much less of the hip-hop variety.  They were the first “rap” that I ever listened to on my own.  Purchasing Game Theory from F.Y.E. when I was in high school is still fresh in my memory; I can remember how excited I was to get my hands on it with my friends who were more interested in the new Seether, or something else pretty terrible.  I jammed out to The Roots in a way that I’d never done before with this particular genre – they were essentially my gateway.  It also helps that they’re from my hometown, and I’ve not only seen them perform live, but also just walking around the streets of Philadelphia.  They’ve always been super down-to-earth; one with the neighborhood and people.

College would come and go, and I eventually found myself swept with the overwhelmingly positive message of How I Got Over, an album that helped me relate to – and in some small senses, help – teens in a juvenile correction facility while I taught there.  The band followed me from the classroom to the professional workplace, so their work was always a cause for excitement.  They’re as much a part of my life as Brand New, mewithoutYou, Manchester Orchestra, and all my other favorite “indie-rock” bands.

So when The Roots turned around only one year after How I Got Over with undun…

Coheed and Cambria – “Key Entity Extraction I: Domino The Destitute”

When I fell in love with Coheed and Cambria, it was a swoon over their heavier side: Claudio Sanchez’s bitter lyrics in “Welcome Home”, the epic waves of electric riffs, and the complex solo spanning the latter portion of the song.  That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy me some lighthearted bops, because Coheed has a wide selection of those as well, but sometimes first impressions mean everything.  Coheed, to me, was f’n badass.

That’s why No World for Tomorrow and Year of the Black Rainbow registered as minor disappointments – and I stress minor because they’re both still solid outings.  But strong singles like the former’s title track and the latter’s “Here We Are Juggernaut” aside, they lacked that oomph, that extra push of raw grittiness that made me a fan from the time I first laid ears on “Welcome Home.”  That’s where 2012’s The Afterman: Ascension comes in, and the for-all-intents-and-purposes lead track “Domino The Destitute.”  Just as my interest in the band was beginning to wane, they burst out of a melodic haze of mediocrity with this 8-minute, guitar-thrashing epic showdown, where everything that I first loved about the band snapped back into focus.

“Domino” is an absolute beast of a song; it rides in on elongated riffs and pummeling drums, and Sanchez’s vocals are packed with emotion right from the start.  The chorus is one of their most infectious ever, and it feels like…

There Will Be Fireworks – “River”

Singing loud enough to wake the dead, not enough now that you’ve left

There’s a lot of factors that go into making great music, and too often I believe we focus on the wrong things.  Intricacy and technical prowess can only get you so far; the best bands in the world aren’t the ones that shred the fastest, create the most complex drum fills, or experiment the farthest with electronics.  They’re the ones that can tap into our human side and appeal to our vulnerability, to serve as a reminder that we’re not alone in our experiences – whatever they may be.  Only a few bands have “it”, and There Will Be Fireworks are one of them.

For proof I’m going to look no further than “River”, the second track on the group’s surprisingly underground The Dark, The Bright – an album that deserved all of the acclaim in the world and for some reason got ignored.  “River” is not a track you can easily shake after hearing it once: it comes rushing in on the heels of “And Our Hearts Did Beat”, and you can immediately tell that the song can’t wait to explode. And it doesn’t take very long to indulge, either – just after the 1 minute mark, singer Nicky McManus belts out, “We used to talk, you used to have me round…I used to sing for you” and you can feel the desperation dripping from every word.  From that…

Florence + The Machine – “Shake It Out”

It’s always darkest before the dawn…

Sometimes I’m convinced that Florence Welch doesn’t get enough credit.  Commercially, sure, she receives due monetary cash flow for superb singles like “Dog Days Are Over” and this very song – but as a real, true artist, I’m not sure that many people are bringing up Florence.  She’s one of the most recognizable voices in all of music, booming with authority and quivering with uncertainty all at the same time.  The music accompanying her iconic voice has only gotten better with time, with her most recent album High As Hope sounding like it could have been a sister album to Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool.  Albeit, you know, slightly poppier.

Regardless, I’d presume that few users on this site would think to include Welch on a decade list, and that’s slightly disappointing (I hope I’m wrong).  Ceremonials was an absolutely breathtaking album back in 2011, and it remains one now.  As more time goes by, it inches towards become a classic of the modern indie pop canon.  Although the entire album unfurls with dark beauty, “Shake It Out” is a clear standout, serving as both an inspirational hymn of sorts as well as a radio staple.  The song has its fingerprints all over this decade, and it’s impossible to imagine a major music publication that wouldn’t at least recognize the song as one of the most wildly popular “alternative” tracks of the last 10 years.

All claims…

Bon Iver – “Perth”

For a project with as many lush, jaw-dropping tracks as Bon Iver, selecting a song of the decade to represent Vernon’s artistry was no easy feat.  ‘Holocene’ could have been selected just as easily as one of 22, A Million‘s electronically-infused gems – but nothing encapsulates the “Bon Iver aura” to me quite like “Perth.”  The song inhales fresh rivers and pine, and exhales with the rejuvenating rush of an avalanche rolling down the ice-capped Wisconsin mountainside. When I listen to this song I’m transported straight into the wilderness, which of course, is the essence of Bon Iver.

I think what really does me in every time is the transformation at 2:30 – where “Perth” goes from beautiful acoustics to stunningly regal, brass-laden post-rock.  I can envision rocks tumbling down the side of a mountain with fervor; clouds rolling across the sky in fast-motion; a blackened sky opening up, giving way to veins of golden lightning.  The song is pastoral in context but celestial in sound, an aesthetic clash of the tangible and ethereal that is all too mesmerizing.  If someone asked me to pick one song to introduce a friend to Bon Iver, I’d select “Perth” 10 out of 10 times.  It envelopes all of Vernon’s best qualities as an artist, leaving a jaw-dropping atmosphere in its wake.

Read more from this decade at my homepage for Sowing’s Songs of the Decade.

Foxing – “Lich Prince”

The date was August 10th 2018, and Nearer My God was at a critical juncture in its process of making a first impression upon me.  Opener “Grand Paradise” was shockingly off-the-wall, in a good way, but I wasn’t sure if it was an anomaly or a sign of even better things to come.  Then the more plodding “Slapstick” hit my ears, and I felt like it was unfortunately going to lean towards the former.  Even as the first couple minutes of “Lich Prince” passed by, I was unconvinced.  “Goddammit Rowan you overhyped this thing” I thought to my real-life self, not thinking about how weird that actually is, and then BAM!

I FEEL LIKE A HOOUUSE PLAAAAANT!!! *cue FUCKING EPIC guitar solo*

The rest is history.  The album continued and I fell in love with every minute of it; something I still credit to “Lich Prince”, as it hooked me right at the exact moment that I was on the brink of writing the whole thing off.  It’s weird how music works like that – sometimes our opinions of an entire piece can be molded by the timing of one song.  For me, “Lich Prince” was Nearer My God‘s savior, even though now I thoroughly enjoy every part of it, including the songs I once found boring or pointless.

Another thing I once found pointless were the lyrics to this song.  “I feel like a house plant”?  Really? But then I bothered myself to actually…

Beach House – “On The Sea”

I’m not a diehard Beach House fan, but I’ll always have a soft spot for what I feel like is one of the top albums of the decade – Bloom – and the gorgeous penultimate track that seems to have followed me throughout the key moments of my life.  It played in the car when I realized I loved the girl who is now my wife.  We slow danced to this song in a vacant parking lot under the stars on our first date.  Hell, it played at our wedding.  If there was going to be a Beach House song on this list, it was always going to be this.

Of course “On The Sea” is objectively one of the band’s greatest achievements anyway, so I don’t feel like a whole lot of detailed persuasion is even needed here.  But the way it bounces in on those rhythmically uplifting pianos and ever-so-gradually builds to a vocal crescendo is nothing short of breathtaking.  Lyrically, the sea is a metaphor for the afterlife – and the singer grapples with an appreciation for all that life offers, as well as the consequences of death.  The song wanes just as elegantly as it enters, fading into white noise like a ship disappearing into the night.

Listen to this song on a clear night, alone.  It’ll be one of your songs of the decade too.

Read more from this decade at my homepage for Sowing’s Songs

…

The Antlers – “Palace”

Few bands have shaped my musical preferences as strongly as The Antlers over the last ten years.  Burst Apart was gorgeously sinister, like curb-stomping someone to beautiful indie-rock.  Undersea had the transformative “Zelda”, which nearly stole this spot.  Yet, when I think of The Antlers, I can’t escape the memory of my first time hearing Familiars – and more specifically,  when Silberman attained angelic status on the downright otherworldly “Palace.”

Everything about “Palace” is perfect: the elegant pianos that shimmer during the introduction, the regal horns that join in, and the way that Peter Silberman floats above it all – weightless, as if he’s just a spiritual entity observing from afar.  For as serene as this song is, it definitely reaches an escalation point starting at the 2:30 mark, when Silberman’s smooth, apparition-like melody launches into full throat, and he delivers one of the most powerful verses in The Antlers’ entire doscography: “He left the tallest peak of your paradise, buried in the bottom of a canyon in hell / But I swear I’ll find your light in the middle, where there’s so little late at night…down in the pit of the well.”  The brass then kicks it up a notch as well, and you’re off – floating towards the horizon without a care in the world.  It’s the prettiest, classiest song I’ve heard in quite some time.

The best thing about “Palace” might be that it lures me into The Antlers’ beauty every single…

Jimmy Eat World – “Pol Roger”

Are you alone like me? Alone but not lonely…

The best bands aren’t necessarily the ones that write the most complicated riffs or have a pitch-perfect vocalist.  They’re the ones capable of, time and time again, delivering the equivalent of musical butterflies.  Those goosebumps you get, or that lump in your throat, when you realize that a song relates perfectly to an aspect of your life.  Jimmy Eat World have always been that band for me, and as recently as 2016, they’ve released an album that somehow manages to connect with every fabric of emotion inside of me.  That’s why I’ll fight for Integrity Blues as not only the best Jimmy Eat World album, but also one of the very best of the entire decade.

I had a hell of a time selecting one song from Integrity Blues to represent Jimmy Eat World for the decade, but “Pol Roger” hits hardest every time.  The beautiful thing about music is that you can always make it about you, and “Pol Roger”, to me, feels like one of the most honest tributes to self-contained happiness.  For the better part of my adolescent life, as well as my young adult life, I relied on others for happiness.  It’s not that I had an unfulfilling upbringing or anything, I just always felt an intrinsic sense of loneliness – like my life only carried meaning if I was somebody else’s “number one”; this ridiculous idea that I needed…