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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 My old blog is no longer active (www.vaguespace.net is a dead link) but I can still get to it through Typepad's pages (even though I stopped paying them - thanks TypePad!)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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