Top 100 Songs of All-Time

Put this together recently as my favourite 100 songs of all-time. There's sure to be stuff I missed, but it's pretty good actually. I particularly love my Top 10.

100. Broken Girl - Dance Music
99. Crowded House - Better Be Home Soon
98. Cave In - Luminance
97. Phoenix - Too Young
96. Quasi - It's Hard To Turn Me On
95. The Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way
94. Modest Mouse - Parting of the Sensory
93. Neighbors - Sometimes
92. My Bloody Valentine - Sometimes
91. Maxine Nightengale - Right Back Where We Started From
90. Fatlip - What's Up Fatlip?
89. The Watchmen - All Uncovered
88. Everclear - Santa Monica
87. 88 Fingers Louie - I've Won {Really should've had it at #88)
86. Joel R.L. Phelps - Now You Are Found
85. Al Green - Let's Stay Together
84. Rachel Stevens - Some Girls
83. Pretty Girls Make Graves - Speakers Push Air
82. Jawbreaker - Do You Still Hate Me?
81. Blue Rodeo - Bad Timing
80. Phil Collins - All My Life
79. Badly Drawn Boy - Once Around the Block
78. The Beatles - Across the Universe
77. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
76. Antarctica - Absence
75. Wiley - Pies
74. Europe - The Final Countdown
73. Scratching Post - Get With the Program
72. !!! - Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard
71. The Get Up Kids - Action and Action
70. Simon and Garfunkel - Only Living Boy in New York
69. Grandaddy - Underneath the Weeping Willow
68. Cadence Weapon - Oliver Square
67. Radiohead - Idioteque
66. Weezer - You Gave Your Love to Me Softly
65. The Zombies - Care of Cell 44
64. Foo Fighters - How I Miss You
63. Explosions in the Sky - Day 1
62. Doves - Black and White Town
61. m83 - Lower Your Eyelids To Die With the Sun
60. Secret Stars - Some Sinatra
59. Yo La Tengo - Deeper Into Movies
58. Built To Spill - Else
57. DJ Shadow - Building Steam With A Grain of Salt
56. Nelly Furtado - Shit on the Radio
55. Sleater-Kinney - Dance Song 97
54. Fleetwood Mac - Dreams
53. Regina Spektor - Chemo-Limo
52. Liz Phair - Divorce Song
51. The Descendents - Bikeage
50. Van Morrison - Beside You
49. Archers of Loaf - Web in Front
48. Kings of Convenience - Winning A Battle Losing A War (Minizza Remix)
47. The Anniversary - All Things Ordinary
46. Sebadoh - Magnet's Coil
45. The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar
44. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
43. Coldplay - The Scientist
42. Cowboy Junkies - Blue Moon Revisited
41. Superchunk - Pink Clouds
40. Bob Dylan - I Want You
39. Rilo Kiley - Portions For Foxes
38. Slowdive - Avalyn 1
37. For Stars - How It Goes
36. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
35. Bobby Womack - Across 110th Street
34. Iron & Wine - The Trapeze Swinger
33. INXS - Never Tear Us Apart
32. Love Spit Love - Am I Wrong?
31. Smoking Popes - Need You Around
30. Justin Timberlake - Like I Love You
29. The Roots - Act Too (The Love of My Life)
28. Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
27. Lovin' Spoonful - Daydream
26. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
25. Underworld - Born Slippy/NUXX
24. The Wedding Present - Dalliance
23. New Order - Regret
22. American Football - Never Meant
21. Mogwai - Fear Satan Remix
20. Chris DeBurgh - Transmission Ends
19. Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
18. Harvest - Epicure
17. Bollweevils - Talkpeople
16. Planes Mistaken For Stars - Staggerswalloswell
15. Trembling Blue Stars - Ripples
14. Ol' Dirty Bastard - Snakes
13. Jets to Brazil - I Typed For Miles
12. Sigur Ros - Staralfur
11. The Mountain Goats - The Best Ever Metal Band out of Denton
10. The Platters - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
9. Queen with David Bowie - Under Pressure
8. Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper
7. Kylie Minogue - Love at First Sight
6. Bjork - Hyperballad
5. Moby - God Moving Over the Face of the Waters
4. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
3. The Flying Pickets - Only You
2. Harry Belafonte - Day-O
1. Ben Folds Five - Army

The Top Ten Albums of the Year

10. White Rainbow - Prism of Eternal Now: Ambient heads were talking this up over on Sound Opinions and I gave it a chance and forgot about it. Then I gave it another and got lost in it. It's a beautiful ambient album, with weird noisy freakouts and tribal-sounding drumming.

09. L.Pierre - Dip: The dirty half of the late, lamented Arab Strap, Aiden Moffat, who wrote lyrics in pornographic detail, re-sets sail on his solo career with a bedazzling ambient album that no one heard (Seriously, when I tried to search for this album the other day, most of the results were from me talking it up all over the internet).

08. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank: Modest Mouse is so close to synthesizing their newer sound with their older sound into a landmark album that it's exhilirating and frustrating all at once. Your enjoyment of this album, though, really depends what you like about Modest Mouse, as a band. If you like their ramshackle off-key pop songs, than this will be a good one. But if you're a fan of the out-of-control noisy MM of past years, stick to their older output. "The Parting of the Sensory" is probably my favourite thing of the entire year: a laid-back country song that turns into a menacing foot-stomping hoedown.

07. The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour: As a citizen of Canada, I pretty much have to like this. I mean, this is as Canadian as Canadian gets. Somehow, the majority of the world embraces true Canadian acts as Shania Twain, Celine Dion, and Nickleback, yet any one of those three could just as easily be from anywhere in the world. But The Weakerthans can only come from Canada, there's no way this band could be from anywhere else. And this is probably their most Canadian album yet, I mean, there's a song titled "Elegy for Gump Worsley" the legendary portly former NHL goalie, or "Tournament of Hearts", the title a nod to fellow Canadian outfit The Constantines, the subject matter a struggling relationship coded in curling imagery. Musically, it's no huge leap from previous Weakerthans' albums, except one exceptionally snarly Neil Youngesque guitar solo, but it's still a solid solid Canadian album. This is the album that encapsulates more about what it is to be Canadian than a million Bryan Adams ballads, a million Barenaked Ladies ironic rap songs, or six billion Sk8er Bois.

06. Paramore - Riot!: This is straight-ahead fun power pop rock. With a singer that looks like she wandered into Hot Topic by accident and got suckered in by the emo boys fascinating hair cuts and complicated shoes, singing over top of hooky, punchy guitars, it kind of reminds me of a million cute-girl-fronted bands that were around in the early nineties with one massive difference: Paramore know how to write a song that sticks with you. This thing just blindsided me. I hope Fall Out Boy's reign at the top of the charts never ends as long as they keep bringing with them bands that are catchy and fun like Paramore.



5. Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War:Stars released one of my favourite albums of 2005 "Set Yourself On Fire", so I was anticipating this one greatly. Then, I got wind of the title, and was worried about another Canadian group resorting to warmed-over tired political talking points, and approached the album with a lot more trepidation. But, then, it just turned out to another Stars album, so all is well. The war of the title is both a literal war, and a metaphorical one. This is the sound of Stars also taking some chances, though. For the most part, it sounds like Stars being Stars, but there are some genuinely surprising moments: the song "Personal" is written like a personal ad, answered by another, and back and forth to its heartbreaking conclusion (my brother tells me another song sounds like a screenplay, but I must have missed it while running out some trash), there's Torquil Campbell's surprising falsetto making its first-ever appearance (by my count). But the standout moment for me was "Barricade", a piano-aided ballad set against the backdrop of a massive protest where Campbell sings the shit out of the chorus in a way I've never heard him before as he's usually content to kind of whisper out his words, and then closes with a crowd chanting at the cops. If you didn't like past Stars albums, this isn't going to win any new converts, but if "Set Yourself On Fire" moved you, get ready to be moved once again.

4. Feist - The Reminder: felt kind of bad looking at my 2006 Best Of... lists and wondering where the women were at, there was nary a vagina to be found anywhere (Especially seeing as I counted James Blunt as 2006...) but 2007 has already produced two female solo albums better than 8 of the Top 10 from last year. "The Reminder" was such a pleasant surprise from an artists I considered kind of superfluous prior to this year. You can count 2007 as the year Feist realized she had a decent voice and decided to sing the hell out of it, pushing her songs light-years beyond anything from "Let It Die". She does ballads better than anyone else this year, where her voice trembles and almost breaks, but also surges and crests, sometimes over as little as an acoustic guitar. But, then she also proves herself on upbeat dancey numbers like "My Moon, My Man" and thrilling indie-pop like "I Feel It All". A revelation.



3. m83 - Digital Shades Vol. 1: In which Anthony Gonzalez lays his Brian Eno-influences on his sleeve with a concise emotional ambient album. Not a proper follow-up to 2005's epic "Before the Dawn Heals Us" as much as a side project under the m83 banner, "Digital Shades" is like all the awe-inspiring ambient interludes off that last album stretched out to a full-length. Like sun in the winter, it arrives, it's brilliant, and, before you know it, it's gone.

2. Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad: See then smack me once upside the head, then multiply by a hundred, and you have the best pop album of the year.




1. Eluvium - Copia: Ethereal ambient album infuzes solo-piano with atmospherics for a completely out-of-this-world experience. Songs fade in gently, settle into a pleasant little melody, before exploding out with synths, or turning inwards on themselves and begging you to turn it up. How fitting that the most emotional album in this era of unprecedented communication options, is the one that says the least; that an album with nary a vocal can say so much about the human condition and can evoke the gamut of human emotions without ever addressing the listener once. Spectacular.

Top 50 Albums of the YEAR

50. Lou Reed - Hudson River Wind Meditations
49. Radicalfashion - Odori
48. You Say Party! We Say Die! - Lose All Time
47. Scary Kids Scaring Kids - Scary Kids Scaring Kids
46. Port-Royal - Afraid to Dance
45. Ne-Yo - Because of You
44. Angels & Airwaves - I-Empire
43. Minus the Bear - Planet of Ice
42. Crippled Black Phoenix - A Love of Shared Disasters
41. Wintersleep - Welcome to the Night Sky
40. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
39. Kate Nash - Made of Bricks
38. Circa Survive - On Letting Go
37. Dntel - Dumb Luck
36. Jose Gonzalez - In Our Nature
35. Immaculate Machine - Immaculate Machine's Fables
34. Handsome Furs - Plague Park
33. Kelly Clarkson - My December
32. Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of...
31. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away



30. Timbaland - Presents Shock Value
29. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
28. Apostle of Hustle - National Anthem of Nowhere
27. Jesu - Conqueror
26. Justice - t
25. Amandine - Solace in Sore Hands
24. Besnard Lakes - Are the Darkhorse
23. Rich Boy - Rich Boy
22. Fields - Everything Last Winter
21. Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
20. Interpol - Our Love to Admire
19. Explosions in the Sky - All of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
18. Kanye West - Graduation
17. Caribou - Andorra
16. Mark Olson - The Salvation Blues
15. LCD Soundsytem - Sound of Silver
14. Britney Spears - Blackout
13. Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline
12. Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - Spirit If...
11. Radiohead - In Rainbows

Top 100 Singles of the Year

001. The Killers - Read My Mind
002. Aly & AJ - Potential Breakup Song
003. Omarion - Ice Box
004. Rihanna featuring Jay-Z - Umbrella
005. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
006. Rich Boy featuring Polow Da Don - Throw Some Ds
007. Nelly Furtado - Do It
008. Paramore - Misery Business
009. Young Jeezy featuring R.Kelly - Go Getta
010. Rihanna - Don't Stop the Music
011. Ciara - Like A Boy
012. Phoenix - Rally
013. Kate Nash - Foundations
014. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
015. Interpol - There's No I in Threesome
016. Smashing Pumpkins - Tarantula
017. Diddy featuring Keyshia Cole - Last Nite
018. 50 Cent featuring Justin Timberlake and Timbaland - Ayo Technology
019. Interpol - The Heinrich Manuever
020. My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words
021. Soulja Boy - Crank Dat (Supa Man)
022. Feist - My Moon, My Man
023. Band of Horses - Is There A Ghost
024. The Weakerthans - Civil Twilight
025. Stars - Take Me to the Riot
026. Modest Mouse - Dashboard
027. Britney Spears - Piece of Me
028. J.Holiday - Bed
029. Bloc Party - The Prayer
030. James Blunt - 1973
031. k-os - Born To Run
032. Rihanna - Shut Up and Drive
033. Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye
034. Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
035. Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around...Comes Back Around
036. The Shins - Phantom Limb
037. Josh Ritter - Right Moves
038. Feist - 1-2-3-4
039. Kanye West - Stronger
040. Battles - Atlas
041. Papoose - Alphabetica Slaughter
042. The Chemical Brothers featuring Fat Lip - The Salmon Dance
043. Kelly Clarkson - Never Again
044. Ne-Yo - Because of You
045. Gwen Stefani featuring Akon - The Sweet Escape
046. Gwen Stefani - 4 in the Morning
047. Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
048. Modest Mouse - Little Motel
049. The Editors - Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors
050. Kanye West featuring Dwele - Flashing Lights
051. The Guillemots - Annie, Let's Not Wait
052. Three 6 Mafia - Doe Boy Fresh
053. The Tough Alliance - First Class Riot
054. Rich Boy - Boy Looka Here
055. Mandy Moore - Extraordinary
056. Handsome Furs - Dumb Animals
057. Rich Boy featuring Keri Hilson and Polow Da Don - Good Things
058. Fields - If You Fail We All Fail
059. Kenna - Say Goodbye to Love
060. Kate Nash - Mouthwash
061. Bjork - Innocence
062. Circa Survive - In the Morning and Amazing
063. Silverchair - Straight Lines
064. Britney Spears - Gimme More
065. Besnard Lakes - For Agent 13
066. Kevin Drew - Backed Out on the...
067. The Killers - Shadowplay
068. Justice - D.A.N.C.E.
069. Paramore - Hallelujah
070. Tegan & Sara - Back In Your Head
071. Hot Hot Heat - Let Me In
072. Justin Timberlake - Love Stoned/I Think That She Knows
073. Rihanna featuring Ne-Yo - Hate That I Love You
074. Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson - The Way I Are
075. Timbaland featuring Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado - Give It To Me
076. My Chemical Romance - I Don't Love You
077. Paramore - crushcrushcrush
078. The Killers featuring Lou Reed - Tranquilize
079. Nelly Furtado - All Good Things (Come to an End)
080. Timbaland presents One Republic - Apologize
081. Bjork - Earth Intruders
082. The Game featuring Kanye West - Wouldn't Get Far
083. Cascada - What Hurts the Most
084. Malcolm Middleton - We're All Going to Die
085. Nelly Furtado - In God's Hands
086. Kanye West - Can't Tell Me Nothing
087. Bloc Party - I Still Remember
088. Rooney - When Did Your Heart Go Missing
089. Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry
090. Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats
091. Kanye West featuring T-Pain - The Good Life
092. Air France - Beach Party
093. Modest Mouse - Missed the Boat
094. Fields - Charming the Flames
095. The Shins - Australia
096. Underworld - Crocodile
097. Angels & Airwaves - Everything's Magic
098. LCD Soundsytem - North American Scum
099. Circa Survive - The Difference Between Medicine and Poison is in the Dose
100. Fall Out Boy - Thnks Fr th Mmrs