210. Foo Fighters — “Long Road to Ruin” — The Foo Fighters have a knack for writing songs that you feel should’ve been written already. It’s like they fill in the obvious gaps of rock history.
209. Michael Jackson — “Stranger in Moscow” — It takes a while to get going, but it’s worth the wait. In the subgenre of songs where the singer just repeats “How does it feel?” over and over, this is my favorite.
208. Bruce Springsteen — “Born to Run” — This song should’ve been overplayed right out of my top 300. But it’s just too much of a masterpiece to leave it off, even if I don’t need to hear it ever again.
207. Velvet Chain — “Strong” — This song, best known for being on the “Buffy” soundtrack, transports me to an imaginary small-town club that exclusively plays good music by up-and-coming bands and draws large, passionate music-loving crowds every night. Like I said, it’s imaginary.
206. Tabitha’s Secret — “Forever December” — An all-over-the-place, atmospheric epic from before Rob Thomas started over-enunciating his words with Matchbox 20/matchbox twenty/his solo work.
205. Janis Ian — “At Seventeen” — It captures that moment when a young, happy person realizes how cruel the world is. It’s a necessary lesson, but that doesn’t make it any less melancholy.
204. Carole King — “Where You Lead” — This song was made for “Gilmore Girls,” one of my all-time favorite shows. I know it came out 30 years before “Gilmore Girls,” but it was still made for it, if you know what I mean.
203. Britney Spears — “Lucky” — Think it’d be awesome to be a celebrity? Then consider the story of (the entirely fictional) Lucky, who wonders “If there’s nothing missing in my life/ Then why do these tears come at night?”
202. Vanessa Carlton — “White Houses” — A great coming-of-age story song, delivered by the ideal-sounding voice for the story.
201. Stiff Dylans — “Ultraviolet” — A whiny-sounding modern punk song that I would dismiss except for the fact that it’s ridiculously awesome.
Comments
Born to Run… yuck
sorry# Posted By chance | 7/12/10 2:16 AM
I understand where you’re coming from, but I couldn’t say with a straight face that “Born to Run” isn’t one of the top 300 songs of all time. Plus, it’s the entry point to Bruce’s entire catalogue of “let’s break out of here and get a better life” songs, which I celebrate.# Posted By John Hansen | 7/12/10 2:26 AM
I love the mention of ‘Forever December’. One of my favorite unknown songs as well. Not sure I was suprised to see you knew of it considering how big of a Matchbox 20 fan you were..# Posted By Shaune | 7/15/10 3:16 PM
Shaune —
You were the one who introduced me to Tabitha’s Secret! That was back in the day when we learned about music just by talking to our friends. I’m glad to see you still dig them; I thought maybe you had moved on. Oddly, I lost my Tabitha’s Secret CD at some point (it might’ve been in a batch of CDs that got stolen a few years back), so I’m glad they popped into my head as I was compiling this list.# Posted By John Hansen | 7/16/10 1:09 AM
Born to Run would have been much higher for me. And good to see some Carole King on your list. I have a framed copy of Tapestry hanging on one of the walls in my house thats how much I love that record. The Janis Ian track is nice as well# Posted By Matt | 7/17/10 12:23 AM