Listosaurus Rex

Let’s face it: I’m a young man in my 20’s.  I’m too young to be an expert on all of rock and roll’s back catalog.  And there is so much good music that has been produced that as soon as I start falling in love with a song or an album or an artist, it’s time to move on to the next one.

With the year coming to an end, people are focusing on the music that came out this calendar.  I’m here to take a look at a few of the songs that took a full hold of my attention, even if they didn’t come out this year.

Here are ten of my most-listened and most-appreciated songs this year, in no particular order.

Champagne Supernova - Oasis

Or Live Forever.  Or Don’t Look Back in Anger.  Or Supersonic.  Or any early Oasis.  My gosh, they were good.  The songs are so colossal and have such a timeless feel to them. Then again, maybe the timelessness comes from the homages — which have been mocked through the years as rip-offs, but always sound fresh — such as the piano intro from Imagine being used in Don’t Look Back in Anger.

In a world where Coldplay and Radiohead dominate playlists and critical raves, I long for a less bleak guitar sound. Early Oasis is warm and romantic and lively.  And, man, did I mention those killer songs they have?

Unity - Operation Ivy

This song, band, and album (Energy) helped inspire what is known as “third-wave ska,” aka punk music with horns, a syncopated beat, and a party vibe.  Yet before the partying and skanking, there was a real pathos to the genre.  OpIvy’s music is still relevant and oddly affecting.  Here it’s an anti-war song; it’s a rare message-song that works.

What makes a song good or bad more than anything, though, is the music.  OpIvy passes this test, too:  As much as the sometimes-grating genre of punk, OpIvy seems to draw almost directly from early ’60s guitar pop.  It all sounds good and exciting and upbeat.

Be My Baby - The Ronettes

Speaking of ’60s pop…  Man was there some good stuff.  Be My Baby is ranked as one of the top songs of all time according to some sources, such as Rolling Stone magazine, which puts the song at #22 on its all time song list.

There’s layer upon layer of music and contrasting rhythm, stirring vocal perfomances, and simple, sweet lyrics.  The tune works so well.  It honestly is one of my favorite pop tunes I’ve ever heard.

Wild Thing - The Troggs

What music do I hear Wild Thing in?  Smells Like Teen Spirit.  More Than a Feeling.  Just about any Rolling Stones song.  I hear it in 4 Minutes, I hear it in Jay-Z, and I even hear some of it in Britney Spears.  The song is heavy hitting yet danceable, roughly textured yet aurally pleasing.

That riff is just outstanding, seriously.  Why do people think that Smoke on the Water and Sunshine of Your Love are greater riffs?

Bandages  by Hot Hot Heat

If only all indie rock were this good.  The band Hot Hot Heat has always struck a chord with me.  They have old school melodies, new school sensibilities, and some of the kookiest lyrics and timbres I’ve heard.  Yet, even at the band’s most bizarre, they never go avant garde or sacrifice catchiness for weirdness.

Bandages is the best song on their best album, Make Up the Breakdown, which is seriously one of my top ten favorite albums.  I highly recommend checking it out.

I’m Only Sleeping - The Beatles

The Fab Four are a more important component of my music library than bowls of cereal are a component of my midnight snacks. Which is to say, very important.

I’ve noticed something about the band.  Though I love music from their whole career, my most favorite stuff is their early pop-rock.  I Saw Her Standing There, All My Loving, Twist and Shout, Please Please Me, etc.  That’s probably considered travesty in some circles, where Revolver is regarded as the greatest album of all time.

There are exceptions, though.  A Day in the Life is the band’s magnum opus, and I’m Only Sleeping is a stinging piece of psychedelia pop that I can’t get out of my head.

I Need You Tonight - Backstreet Boys

Everybody needs some guilty pleasures in their music library.  Mine are *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys.  Millennium, arguably the greatest album of the two groups, is a piece of pitch-perfect and highly polished pop from end to end.  Everyone remembers I Want it that Way, but this time through it was the dreamyballad I Need You Tonight.  It gave me that warm tingly feeling that I felt when I watched Disney movies when I was kid.

Wear My Ring Around Your Neck - Elvis

A sweet piece of rockabilly from Elvis’s young years, Wear My Ring uses a term that is mostly dated except in the south where people still wear their significant others’ rings on a chain around their neck.

One thing I always liked about this song is that captures the sort of subdued sexuality and rebellion that defined early rock and roll:  ”They say that going steady / Is not the proper thing / They say that we’re too young / To know the meaning of a ring / I only know that I love, love you / And that you love me too”

So What - Miles Davis

I took a history of jazz class this year, and my professor used this as an example for dozens of elements of jazz, from AABA form to modal improvisation to modal jazz as a sub-genre.  I eventually gained quite an appreciation for the song.  Like almost all music, it grows more enjoyable with familiarity.  I wasn’t big into modal jazz or bebop or fusion or anything not built around a solid chord progression until I took this class.  Now I’m not only digging through the archives of rock and roll but the equally vast and far more diverse archives of jazz, too.

Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan

I’ve known Like a Rolling Stone for a couple years, and yet it continues to grow on me.  A bit long and meandering, sure, but that’s part of the point.  It’s such an incisive and eloquent poem on hatred and abandonment.

“The princess on the steeple / And all the pretty people / They’re all drinking / Thinking that they got it made”

The beauty of the language never gets old.  Match it up with the electric funk jam that it has, and you got yourselves a classic.  So much of today’s music seems gimmicky or disposable.  Even the good stuff.  It’s always nice to have some reliable classics to fall back on and listen to when you’re feeling cynical about the music world today.