1. The Usual Thing – Marshall Crenshaw – I would love to send this to Wesley Wolfe, just to nudge him into the area where simplicity is synonymous with grace.
2. Heels – John Parish and PJ Harvey – Hidden on the lesser of the two collaborations, it has a certain toughness that makes it more than just another deep track.
3. Four Leaf Clover – Old 97’s – Stinging guitar riffs and country twang.
4 .Buy Out The Bar – Sugar Minot – More lover’s rock than music hall and it syncopates with passion.
5. Wanna Be Startin’ Something – This song is so great, even its samples are sampled.
6. Miracle Drug – U2 – I swear it isn’t me with these guys. This is just abysmal.
7.Cotton Fields – Odetta – That is some basso Odetta has, she goes down deep and the chains come off.
8. The Gypsy’s Wife – Leonard Cohen – Speaking of bass singers… nobody is deeper than Cohen: this lives up to its billing, a sorta subdued famenco.
9. The Fixer – Pearl Jam – This rocker is so awesome we fooled ourselves into thinking the album was good. It wasn’t.
10. Supaman High – R. Kelly- People were so sick of r. kelly they missed out on this entirely excellent album.
11. This Is The One Thing We Did Not Want – The Brian Jonestown Massacre – We used to have a word for this stuff when I was a wee blot on the landscape: alt rock.
12. I Will Buy You A New Life – Everclear – Hasn’t aged very well.
13. Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival – Do I really have to say anything about this at all? Melodic swamp scariness.
14. What I Got – Sublime – Sublime aren’t giving the respect they deserve because every single band they influenced sucks.
15. I’ll Wear It Proudly – Elvis Costello – At the time I thought it was a masterpiece, but the “bloody” in ‘bloody big bed” was a warning sign: and the product is too self satisfied.
16. I Remember Nothing (Live) – Joy Division – Live at Winter Garden in Bournemouth and if you’ve ever been to that miserable seaside resort they prolly deserved it.
17. Jailbird (Crows) – Dustheads – The honest roar of hardcore but with a punker edge than the real thing.
18. Hot Summer Nights – Grace Potter and the Nocturnals – Bluesy sweet nothing.
19. Minoz Maze – the Kingsbury Manx – Soft and yet harsh.
20. Last Post On The Bugle – The Libertines – Singlehandedly ended brit Pop.
21. Poker Face – Glee Music – This joke but very old very fast.
22. Lodo Dodi – Snoop Dogg – Sure, the original is better. This is still a world beater. Plus the sample? Like a rattlesnake.
23. Synthesete Song – Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band – Yeah, you know what? No.
24. A Volta – N.A.S.A. – Reggaetronish
25. You’re A Jerk – New Boyz – Could piss off Jesus himself.
26. Shout – Lulu – A Scottish ball of energy. Remember her at the end of “To Sir With Love” giving Sir the cup? Then Sir runs off crying??
27. Bathtime – Morecombe And Wise – “Don’t stand up whatever you do”.
28. Down And Out (feat Kanye West) – Cam’ron – West doesn’t sound as swaggery. What year was Purple Haze? He sounds so young.
29. Honey – Best Coast – They’re on Sub Pop? That explains a lot.
30. Isn’t it A Lovely Night – The Decemberists – Helen’s fave are too twee by a half.
31. Ambling Alp – Yeasayer – One of two great moments on a crap album.
32. Pity Party – Saint Motel – Excellent glam rocker about somebody we might not want to meet.
33. Forever – Cece Winans – I have always liked her voice but this is a bit lightweight as gospel declaiming goes.
34. Deuce – Kiss – Rock music for people who don’t like to think and can’t dance.
35. China Can Sunflower – Grateful Dead – this is GREAT GRATE: Phish listened to it a million times and then formed a band.
36. I Look To You – Whitney Houston – If her voice is all studio didgery doo, I can’t tell.
And if somebody had bothered to give her a song she could have sung the fuck out of it.
And if somebody had bothered to give her a song she could have sung the fuck out of it.
37. The Guilty Ones – Lee Michele and Jonathan Groff – Pre-Glee, I liked this a lot more.
38. Don’t Give Me No Lip, Child – The Sex Pistols – they sound like titus on Feats Of Strength
39. Heart’s Bound To Die – For Science – Like Joe noted, no bridge and so it is all forward melodic momentum,=.
40. Father And Daughter – Paul Simon – His last great song by my reckoning.