1. You Can Make Him Like You – The Hold Steady – Proof there are no deep tracks with this band not worth the price of admission.
2. When I Look At The World – U2 – – Proof there are no deep tracks with this band not worth listening to.
3. Black Balloon – The Kills – This chick can sing the blues, she always sounds sexily disturbed.
4. My Mom – Relapse – Nasty fucker.
5. Firecracker – Ryan Adams – The harp intro is gorgeous, the song flawless. Great album as well, Gold, not a bad song on it.
6. Billie Jean – Michael Jackson – Deeply eccentric it ways we can hardly imagine and as pure a rock statement as you will ever hear.
7. Seductive Barry – Pulp – This Is Hardcore boils down to three incredible songs. And this is none of them.
8. Our House – Madness – One of the truly great Brit bands, Two Tone master of Anglo quirkiness and a terrific oddly sad song.
9. Goodnight Dallas – Carlene Carter – Could teach her sister a thing or two.
10. Don’t Fall In Love With A Lonely Girl – Freedy Johnston – Put this guy just a step behind Crenshaw in the great songwriters who haven’t gotten what they deserve. And send it to Wesley Wolfe as a warning.
11. Another Travellin’ Song – Bright Eyes – Play after Carlene. What is country? What is alt?
12. Happy – Best Coast – Ain’t hating on this chick. Keep it stupid simple works for me. She got nailed by the hype.
13. No Time – Lil Kim – Hey Nani Nani, Nani Nani Hey -tell me that ain’t poetry? Lickie Lickie Fuck Your Dickie Dickie!! The great Lil Kim.
14. Not As we – Alanis Morrisette – The only keeper off her newbie.
15. Mozart/Figaro – Trans Siberian Orchestra – Is to the Philharmonic what Andrew Lloyd Webber is to Stephen Sondheim.
16. Human Behavior – Bjork – Those two first solo albums? Bjork reigned in and out her eccentricities perfectly. I still adore her (her new EP with DP is magnificent) but she can be a little, how you say, intransient.
17. Godspeed – Jenny Lewis – The most overrated woman in indie rock.
18. Sad But True – Metallic – Another bad lost in time to us. When they moved like this? Lars moved em.
19. Bopping For Apples – Regina Spektor – “Rock and roll you ate my soul…” I onced fucked to one of her songs.
20. For The Birds – Juliana Hatfield – A pretty good track off a really good album.
21. The Levee’s Gonna Break – Bob dylan – relatively ho him swamp blues.
22. Can’t Stop Now – Major Lazer – Yeah, the album kinda blew.
23. Machine – Regina Spektor – So, maybe Simone is right and I overstimated it -maybe the production was a bit of a mess. But nowhere near as much as she underestimated it.
24. You Make Me Wanna – Usher – You see, this is crossover, this is MJ good.
25. Lover come Back to me – Ella Fitzgerald – Ramones like zip.
26. The (Shipped) Gold Standard – Fall Out Boy – Maybe if you, like our Mary Magpie, grew up on em, you could forigve FOB for this crap. Me? I didn’t and don’t.
27. Shout It Out Loud – Kiss – Keeps it stupid stupid.
28. A-Yo – Method Man, Redman – Sure I loved Black Out 1, this is from Blackout 2
29. I Will Sing You Songs – My Morning Jackets – remember when these guys were the future of jam? Maybe we were settling to easy.
30. Leland Mississippi Blues – Johnny Winter – Woodstock wasn’t all love, peace and music. Sometimes it was painful bullshit crap.
31. Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) – Jay -Z – The sorta great sample a hustler can build a career around.
32. Thou Swell – Sarah Vaughn – Not Ella but the next best thing: the thing about Ella is she brough an ease to her swing, a control, a shiny brillian and Billie was the opposite but Vaughn had a depth of pain just waiting to be scratched even here.
33. Falling And Laughing – Orange Juice – Along with Fire Engines and Josef K formed a music movement, here and gone but not fogotten and hidden somewhere withing the groves of a Cutting Crew or an LCD Soundsystem.
34. Can’t You Just Adore her – Mandy Moore – Unsettled and insecure.
35. Where’s My Everything – Greg Brown – Beautiful croaking Nick Lowe cover like it’s Johnny Cash with a cold.
36. Down the Road Apiece – The Rolling Stones – Gave em an “A” for effort, I mean, really who tries to out play Johnny Johnson. Oh and, ps, there are some folks you should be flat out pissed I saw and you didn’t. Marvin gaye for one. Peggy Lee for another. And Jamey Johnson at a half empty Central Park Summerstage some fifteen years. If anybody wants me to point to the reason I have the skills to run a music website I think I would point to that.
37. Tennessee Jed – Levon Helm – About as credible a cover as you’ll ever hear.
38. Warszawa – Somewhere between a coke hangover and a strung out opium dreamscape.
39. The Underdog – Spoon – Should be their theme tune.
40. Butterflyz – Alicia Keys – OK, that’ll do for now.