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Wednesday, 9 October 2013

Trotter's Top 400 of the Noughties - Part 5 (81-100)


As Celine once sang (although probably not about my Top Tens), now that things are getting serious, I reckon each track deserves at least a sentence don't you?  Slabs of twenty from now on chaps. 

The first batch of the Top 100 includes a couple of Tracks of the Year - would be rude to say which are the ones that appear here and haven't matched their potential with the cruel passage of time though...but they do both rhyme with each other...

81 'The Bucket' by Kings of Leon - back when they were long-haired and relevant, nice vid too. Why pay for cameramen when you have shelves?

82 'Paris' by Friendly Fires - speaking of nice vids, think Busby Berkeley's Babes trapped inside a kaleidoscope...or not.

83 'Dog Days are Over' by Florence and the Machine - where Flo hit her Earth Goddess stride and announced her plan for world domination - or at least to flap about in a floaty frock with face paint.

84 'Foundations' by Kate Nash - some acerbically bitter lyrics wrapped in a sugar-coated tune, really showing up today's pop standards...shame the music press decided she was no longer cool though.

85 'Ms Jackson' by Outkast - the best song ever written about Erykah Badu's mum!

86 'We are Your Friends' by Justice vs Simian - Simian should be extremely grateful for that Justice do-over, and so should we, if only for one of the best videos of the decade.

87 'This is Love' by PJ Harvey - team up Polly at her rock-chick finest with Sophie Muller, one of England's finest video directors, and you've just worked absolute magic in sound and vision.

88 'Where's Your Head At' by Basement Jaxx - definitely finished monkey business.

89 'Sound of the Underground' by Girls Aloud- ironically shortly after Cheryl sang about 'banging on the bathroom wall' she would find herself doing something similar to a toilet attendant...and to make matters worse Nadine sings the best bit.

90 'Love is an Unfamiliar Name' by The Duke Spirit - I said this lot were criminally under-rated didn't I?  'Best use of a recurring mantra to close out a song' award is in the bag.

91 'Blinded by the Lights' by The Streets - no, this is the best Streets track actually.

92 'The Prayer' by Bloc Party - looking back its easy to overlook transitional tunes from bands that announced a significant change in direction that would then become their standard sound.  With the sound of crushing drums the boys from Bloc Party stepped onto the dancefloor.

93 'Hope There's Someone' by Antony and The Johnsons - a song of genuinely heartfelt emotion seeping from every piano chord and trembling lyric...and a deserving winner of the Mercury.

94 'Daft Punk is Playing at My House' by LCD Soundsystem - James Murphy definitely challenged for the Funkiest White Boy of the decade.  Wouldn't be surprised if he played at Daft Punk's house too.

95 'Well Thought Out Twinkles' by Silversun Pickups - so while Billy Corgan was pretending to still be in the Smashing Pumpkins it seemed that an LA band had surreptitiously snuck in and stolen all their tunes.

96 'Somebody Told Me' by The Killers - neon, lounge suits, video screens in the desert and singing Mormons - what's not to like?
97 'Mind Over Money' by Turin Brakes - another tragically overlooked band of the age and probably my biggest case of hair envy, giving wind-machine-Mariah a run for her money in a wind-swept Center Parcs by the look of things.

98 'Creator' by Santigold - inventive and playful R&B seemed to both be born and die in this decade.  Santigold was one of the last to do something truly creative in the genre.  It later went on to flog hair wax.

99 'Dare' by Gorillaz - perhaps the most amazing thing about this song was that Shaun Ryder was still around to sing it - even if Damon had actually written 'It's There' as the lyric.

100 'Tendency' by Battle - a bit of a none-hit wonder this lot, but memorable at least for mixing Animal-from-the-Muppets-style drumming with Shadows guitars.

Now listen to a good old earful of all of these over on that there Spotify malarkey...and if you missed the previous 300 Spartans you can listen to them herehere, here and here.

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