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"Remember saying things like 'we'll sleep when we're dead'
And thinking this feeling was never gonna end.

Remember that night you were already in bed, 
Said 'fuck it' got up to drink with me instead
" Younger Us - Japandroids

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Vague Space Top 300 Songs of All Time (Part 1)

2/15/2019

 
Back when I used to blog on the regular - back when blogging was something people did on the regular and when "on the regular" was a term people used (was it?) - my most popular post was the countdown of my Top 200 favorite tracks of all time.  I did an update several years later (in 2011) and that list was updated in my iTunes in the post-blog years as new songs were released and some former favorites fell out of favor.  Tastes change, but the changes were minimal, and every several months I would cue up the playlist on my iPhone and play the greatest songs ever recorded by human beings.  But recently, I upgraded iPhones and my MacBook and somehow -- it's still not clear how but I know it has something to do with the "Cloud" - I lost about half the contents of all my playlists and as a result I no longer had a record of my Top 200 songs of all time.  

My old blog is no longer active (www.vaguespace.net is a dead link) but I can still get to it through Typepad's pages (even though I stopped paying them - thanks TypePad!) - so I got to the old Top 200 list from 2011, went through the laborious process of putting them all in a playlist and then the even more laborious process of adding all the newer songs I missed and the ones that maybe should have been in there all along.  I figured I'd share that list on this blog, in a hopefully non-laborious process.  I'm starting with #201 to 300 in order.  I hope you enjoy.  And let me know in the comments if anything's missing!
#300. "Truck" Octopus Project
#299.  "Heavy Lifting"  Ambulance Ltd.
#298. "Temptation" New Order
#297. "People Who Died" Jim Carroll Band
#296. "Teary Eyes and Bloody Lips" Moonface with Siinai
#295. "Untitled 4" Sigur Ros
#294. "JM" Strand of Oaks
#293. "July, July!" The Decemberists
#292. "Death is the Road to Awe" Clint Mansell
#291. "White" Okkervil River
There are several artists in this grouping that will appear later on the list (spoiler alert) so I'll highlight one who doesn't. Ambulance LTD only put out a single full-length as far as I know, but on it appeared this amazing track from 2004.

​290. "If We Can Land a Man on the Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart" - Beulah
289. "Suicide Demo for Kara Walker" - Destroyer
288. "Nosebleed" - Deerhunter
287. "Eyjafjallajokull Dance [2016 Version]" - The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die
286. "Interesting Drug" - Morrissey
285. "No Future Part Three: Escape from No Future" - Titus Andronicus
284. "I See a Darkness" Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
283. "Walking Far From Home" Iron & Wine
282. "Midnight City" M83
281. "Anything, Anything" DramaRama
Surprisingly (to me), the only M83 song on this entire chart is "Midnight City".  There were several from their extensive catalog that just missed the cut including "Don't Save Us From the Flames", "Teen Angst", and "Wait" but this is the only one that survived.

​280.
"Common People" Pulp
279. "Hidden XS" Fuck Buttons
278. "Come to the City" The War on Drugs
277. "Suedehead" Morrissey
276. "All My Little Words" The Magnetic Fields
275. "Radio Kids" Strand of Oaks
274. "A Perfect Sonnet" Bright Eyes
273. "Reel Around the Fountain" The Smiths
272. "Memory Boy" Deerhunter
271. "Paper Thin Walls" Modest Mouse
A few bands on this part of the chart have already repeated and one of them is finished with songs already. Deerhunter is an amazing band live and they have a great new album out in 2019 but for me, this is their best song.

​270. "Willing to Wait" Sebadoh (my #1 song of 1997, yes I keep records that far back ) 
269. "Arthur Hall" Nana Grizol
268. "Teenage FBI" Guided by Voices
267. "Hymn" Pedro the Lion
266. "Stay Useless" Cloud Nothings
265. "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" Belle and Sebastien
264. "Farewell Transmission" Songs: Ohia
263. "Rider" Okkervil River
262. "Catastrophe and the Cure" Explosions in the Sky
261. "I'm a Believer" The Sheila Divine
Songs: Ohia singer/songwriter Jason Molina was the subject of the #294 song on this chart ("JM" by Strand of Oaks) and this was the last track under the last Songs: Ohia moniker for him, the aptly titled "Farewell Transmission".  He would make another decade's worth of brilliant music under his own name and as Magnolia Electric Co. but this is my favorite song of his with some of the best lyrics on this entire chart.  Jason died a couple years back and we miss his voice every day.  

​"The real truth about it is, no one gets it right"

260. "Myth" Beach House
259. "Cold Apartment" Vagabon
258. "Come on! Feel the Illinoise" Sufjan Stevens
257.  "Fill in the Blank"  Car Seat Headrest
256.  "Out There" Dinosaur Jr.
255. "Speedway" Morrissey
254.  "Thanks" The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die
253.  "Sugar Kane" Sonic Youth
252. "If You're Feeling Sinister" Belle & Sebastien
251.   "Heroes" David Bowie
In this interlude, I chose to highlight a new band with a single full-length to its credit and a song from 2017 rather than, you know, a classic from an all-time great or my favorite lazy summer song from Beach House, mainly because I can't stop being amazed by their sound, which you'll hear in this video below.  I can't wait for what Vagabon do next.

250. "The War Criminal Rises and Speaks" Okkervil River
249. "Survival of the Fittest" Desaparacidos
248.  "Yulia" Wolf Parade
247.  "Continuous Thunder" Japandroids
246.  "Roscoe" Midlake
245.  "Wait... What?" The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die
244.  "Convenient Parking" Modest Mouse
243.  "Lullabye for Christie" Dirty Three
242.  "There is a Light" A Silver Mt. Zion
241.  "Christmas Card" Joyce Manor
As some of my readers may know, I have a novel coming out next year titled "I Will Be OK. Everything." which is the name of a song from The World Is that didn't make this chart.  But the song at #245 is on the same EP as that song and it actually concludes with the verse "I will be OK. everything!" screamed at the top of the singer's lungs and that's the mantra my teen narrator says over and over in his head in my novel, to convince himself it might come true.  Unfortunately I couldn't find a good live video of the song so here's Joyce Manor instead.

240.  "Waking Season" Caspian
239.  "Mistake" Middle Kids (our first 2018 track on the chart!) 
​238.  "Homeboy" Adorable
237.  "Sprawl II (Mountains beyond Mountains)" Arcade Fire
236.  "Fast Peter" Moonface
235.  "I Felt Your Shape" The Microphones
234.  "Box Elder" Pavement
233.  "Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur" Sigur Ros
232.  "The House that Heaven Built" Japandroids
231.  "Pretty Boy" Young Galaxy
Pavement will be all over this chart, including in the upper echelon, so I didn't have to feature them here but I found this video of one of my favorite songs of theirs from a Central Park performance in September 2010 on their reunion tour.  I was at one of those shows with my Australian friends (our first meeting!) and I didn't live up here in Hoboken then so I'm guessing I took the train in?  Drove in?  I definitely wouldn't have driven to Central Park so I'm not sure.  I feel like my life before moving to the city is a forgotten blur of lost time, but that was an all-time great concert and this is an all-time great song.  

230.  "The Rat" The Walkmen
229.  "Killing Armies" Wolf Parade
228.  "Erasure" Superchunk ( 
2018! )
227.  "Greet Death" Explosions in the Sky
226.  "Victim Kin Seek Suit (2016 version)" The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die
225.  "I'm Waking Up to Us" Belle & Sebastien
224.  "Edge of Town" Middle Kids
223.  "Sugarcube" Yo La Tengo
222.  "Like a Friend" Pulp
221.  "In Metal" Low
"Filling holes with tiny sounds, shiny from the inside out, picture of you where it began.  In metal.  In metal.  Partly hate to see you grow, and just like your baby shoes, wish I could keep your little body.  In metal.  In metal."

220.  "Regret" New Order (#1 song of 1993)
219.  "Goshen '97" Strand of Oaks
218.  "White Lights" The Rural Alberta Advantage
217.  "Temple Grandin" The Andrew Jackson Jihad
216.  "Up the Wolves" Mountain Goats
215.  "Ohm" Yo La Tengo
214.  "Jumping Someone Else's Train" The Cure
213.  "I'm Not Part of Me" Cloud Nothings
212.  "Learned to Surf" Superchunk
​211.  "Nebraska "Grandaddy
I recently revisited The Mountain Goats "The Sunset Tree", as it's featured in the 2018 documentary Minding the Gap, most likely because both the movie and the album are about bad fathers and their unfortunate sons.  I discovered so much on that album when I listened to it again, beyond the catchy tunes hiding deep truths ("Dance Music") and the upbeat optimistic numbers ("Diluadid", "This Year") and the ones most bluntly about John Darnielle's abusive stepfather ("Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod", "Pale Green Things") but this is the one song that made the chart of my top 300 all time.  Almost exclusively because of the experience of seeing it live (I've been fortunate enough to see The Mountain Goats a whole lot live).  It takes a bit to get to the explosive ending of this song, so wait for it if you're watching.  You will not be disappointed.

I'm gonna bribe the officials, I'm gonna to kill all the judges, IT'S GONNA TAKE YOU PEOPLE YEARS TO RECOVER FROM ALL OF THE DAMAGE.  Our mother has been absent ever since we founded Rome but there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home!

210.  "Pretty in Pink" The Psychedelic Furs
209.  "Everyday is Like Sunday" Morrissey
208.  "Not Too Amused" Sebadoh
207.  "Season of the Shark" Yo La Tengo
206.  "(Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs with Friends" Car Seat Headrest
205.  "Head On" Pixies
204.  "Last Known Surroundings" Explosions in the Sky
203.  "Exploding Boy" The Cure
202.  "Seed Toss" Superchunk
201.  "Left of the Dial" The Replacements
This grouping has a whole bunch of alternative favorites from my youth.  And by youth I mean college because I didn't discover alternative music until the summer before I went away to school, when I purchased The Cure's "Disintegration" (1989).  That turned me onto a type of music I had heard before but had no idea the depths of brilliance until I listened - and couldn't stop listening -- to Robert Smith and The Cure sing songs of pain that spoke to me - a brainy closeted gay kid coping with all of it in 1989.  You'll see some more Morrissey and a lot more Smiths in this chart (the uber closeted-gay kid music) and I discovered them freshman year at Rutgers along with the Furs and New Order and the Pixies (and many, many others). But interestingly, while I had an eclectic music fandom before 1989's purchase of Disintegration - 80s artists as "diverse" as Heart and Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams were among my favorites at the time (U2 was my favorite band in 1989) - I wouldn't buy another album from a non-alternative (eventually "indie rock") style band ever again.  And the 2nd album I bought that summer that turned me fully into a fan of the type of music you'll exclusively find on this chart was The Replacements "Don't Tell a Soul", which does not feature "Left of the Dial" (because that came out half a decade earlier) but the fact that this song below pretty much influenced every other alternative band I would love in the 90s and 2000s and through today is pretty amazing.  "Left of the Dial" used to be where college radio (alternative) was played.  It has been the soundtrack to my adult life.

Stay tuned for the top 200.... coming soon...

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