2001 : 40 "By Your Side" by Beachwood Sparks

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This is what happens when you take a smooth R&B staple (as heard on "Sex and the City") and entrust it to stoner wannabe cowpokes. How is this cover not a tongue-in-cheek send up? While some blue-eyed soul jokers (cough, cough Flight of the Conchords cough, cough) would toss off a Midnite Vultures-inspired B-side, the Beachwood Sparks dare to rely on sincerity. After hearing this rendition, revisiting Sade's original—in a CVS or Rite Aid, naturally—will make you long for the Beachwood Sparks' marijuana-infused harmonies. By its conclusion, the song is swimming through an ocean of reverb yet elevated to a certain cinematic "a slow dance while the credits roll" type of magic. —James Specht Listen: The Beachwood Sparks >> "By Your Side"

2001 : 39 "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk

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Geeks love technology. It's easy to see why: when you're using technology well, using it to amplify your skills and talents, it can make you feel competent, effective, powerful—maybe even a bit high. This weird endorphin rush is nicely evoked by this track ("Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"), coming to us courtesy of the two French geeks who comprise Daft Punk. Of course, the ubiquitous spread of technology has its drawbacks, and they're embodied here too: "more than ever / our work is never over," sing the robots, revealing the diabolical catch embedded in the bargain with perfect clarity. This summation of the human relationship to tech is concise and tidy, and can be appreciated on an intellectual level, but if you appreciate it on only an intellectual level you're missing the point: this is a dance song, and dance songs are less about what they make you think and more about what they make you do. (Specifically, what they make your feet and your hips and your ass do.) In this region as well, the song excels: it redoubles in sheer awesomeness roughly every thirty seconds. Perhaps my favorite dance song of the decade. —Jeremy Bushnell Listen: Daft Punk >> "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"

2001 : 38 "Disappear" by R.E.M.

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The crushed force of memory Erasing all I've been The vanishing point appears. I looked for you and everywhere. I looked for you and everywhere. Tell me why you're here I came to disappear. At some level I moved west to find myself and to disappear all at the same time. I wanted to get away from the mistakes that I had made in my 20s and to find out who I could be without those mistakes. The problem I found is that I had to really look for myself when I got here. It was not enough to just vanish. It was not like a painting that was covered by another painting on a canvas. Just removing the top painting was not enough. I also had to repaint. It was strange when I realized this. My authentic self was not just there standing behind a Monty Hall door waiting for me to make a deal. It was not enough to just disappear. I also had to find myself once I got here. I looked for you and everywhere. I looked for you and everywhere. Tell me why you're here I came to disappear —Rich Thomas Listen: R.E.M. >> "Disappear"

2001 : 37 Scout Niblett

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It only took one song to suck me in and make me a life-long Scout Niblett fan. Her voice warbles and waves, backed up by strong direct stripped-down guitar and (sometimes) drums. Contradictions abound: she sounds childlike and innocent on one song, yet ancient and wise on another; her bluesy tales sound like they surfaced from the depths of a Louisiana Bayou, yet she hails from Britain. Add to this the fact that Scout (nee Emma Louise) has a penchant for wigs, costumes, and astrology and we end up with an enigmatic character indeed. On "Miss My Lion," the first song of hers I ever heard, Scout seduces her listener with a hot tale of passion. A one-person band of voice and guitar has never sounded so lush and earthy as it does here. She sings, "when you drive, there's no fooling me, those roads invited me" and the song does feel like late a night trip down a windy road. (And a hot make-out session in the back seat.) Fully deserving of comparisons to Cat Power, PJ Harvey, and Kurt Cobain, Scout is an absolute force to be reckoned with. —E.P. Johnson Listen: Scout Niblett >> "Miss My Lion"

2001 : 36 Three tracks by the Sun City Girls

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Libyan Dream is an impossible album to choose a single track from. A re-issue of the Sun City Girls' oeuvre as a part of the Carnival Folklore Resurrection series (#7), this particular selection runs the gambit from the lo-fi garage rocking version of the Amboy Dukes's classic "Journey to the Center of Your Mind" to the seemingly spontaneous skronk "Instantaneous Decisions," to the listenener-friendly surf-rock version of "Vinegar Stroke." If you listened to this with the volume reasonably loud, it would have you equally dancing grooves in the floor and plugging your thumbs in your ears—what more does music ask for? —Dan Markowicz Listen: Sun City Girls >> "Journey to the Center of Your Mind" | "Instantaneous Decisions" | "Vinegar Stroke"

2001 : 35 "Mt St Helens" by Mirah

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The example lay before you You knew what you had to do You have a pressure in you To destroy the one who loved you The death was all around There is something about Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn's voice. It is captivating to me, the way it is personal and sweet. She sings in my headphones like we know each other. She sings songs that connect with me in ways I did not expect. Ideas that I have always known but have never been conscious of. Every once in a while I will hear a lyric from her and it will cut through every other thought in my head. Of course using Mt. St. Helens as a metaphor for a relationship falling apart is incredible. I am not sure why no one has come up with this before. I have felt like a volcano before in my life. Just listen to the way the songs starts off softly, builds up in sound and fury and ends with her voice and guitar fading away. It is something that deserves attention. —Rich Thomas Listen: Mirah >> "Mt. St. Helens"

2001 : 34 "Forcefield" by Lightning Bolt

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By 2001, American punk looked, at least to this observer, like a pair of rather stagnant pools. On the one hand you had the pop-punk of the mainstream, recombining the increasingly empty signifiers of "Punk" in search of market value. On the other hand you had the underground, but only the most dedicated delvers could find the gems sunk within in its dispiriting glut. Then along came Rhode Island duo Lightning Bolt. Their album Ride the Skies, aside from being excellent, is also snotty, annoying, libidinal, minimalist, spastic, and palpably gleeful. In short, it contains, in a very pure form, nearly every pleasure that punk music ever provided. Depsite this, I balk at calling Lightning Bolt "punk," exactly: they're really too weird and ecstatic for the label to fit. Maybe you could call them "art punk." This is a little more apt, given their affiliation with the Providence / RISD scene of the early Aughts. This scene—infamously centered around the "Fort Thunder" art space—got known for its brilliant, damaged, psychedelic visual aesthetic, to which Lightning Bolt's music is the precise sonic analogue. —Jeremy Bushnell Listen: Lightning Bolt >> "Forcefield"

2001 : 33 "frosti" and "aurora" by björk

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listening to björk's vespertine, and particularly the conjunctive tracks "frosti" and "aurora," is like entering an immense and glittering landscape of brilliant crystals. vulnerable, delicate tendrils wind around music boxes, interior worlds are revealed through bells, clavichord, harp, and voice. suddenly ice translates into emotion reminiscent of a wintry fairy tale that reveals every little particle of the heart through beautiful and sparkling refractions of sound. these shimmering musical transparencies create dazzling effects that lead one into a world of fascination and reverie... —diane granahan Listen: björk >> "frosti" and "aurora"

2001 : 32 "Carolina" by M. Ward

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Used to feel like California, with baby eyes so blue Now I feel like Carolina, I split myself in two I love how calm this song is. A gentle guitar strumming along with a kind voice. It is only after I listen to the lyrics a few times that I realize there is something else here. I realize the calm voice is singing lyrics that are not so calm. This song kept on popping up again and again in my life. I totally understand the difference between the voice and the lyrics. —Rich Thomas Listen: M. Ward >> "Carolina"

2001 : 31 "Agenda Suicide" by the Faint

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In the movie soundtrack to my life, this song will accompany a montage of me getting ready for a night out. The scene: a brightly painted apartment in a completely unfashionable part of South Philadelphia. I am in my mid-20s, newly single, and enjoying a period of financial security and personal irresponsibility. I am on my way to a bar to listen to New Wave music and drink Red Bull + vodka, which tastes revolting but engages my dance mechanism. I have recently cut my own hair with kitchen shears. It looks fantastic. Pow. This is the noise that short skirts and eyeliner make. —Angela Smith Listen: The Faint >> "Agenda Suicide"

2001 : 30 "If You Can Want" by the Dirtbombs

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Rock is dead. Let's just get that out of the way right now. It died of a bloated colon sometime back in the early 90s. No autopsy was performed so no one is really sure. But then again, it wasn't really getting on well for many years, and most people were relieved when it passed on. People had their pictures taken with it, dressed up like it, and imitated its funny mannerisms. But it was not quite the real thing. Anyways, I didn't pay much attention to its cheap imitators through the 90s and 00s, but I accept that as a reflection of my personal feelings towards it. Maybe I had moved on. I had started new relationships. Bands were all of a sudden calling themselves Post-Rock, which made sense, since, as I said, Rock had died some years before. Then one day in 2001, I heard the first three tracks on this album, and I said to myself, "If there's anyone I want to watch perform necrophilia on the rotting corpse of Rock, its Mick Collins." Did you know you can buy a 3 bedroom house in Detroit for $5,000? No wonder these chaps are nostalgic for the past. —Darren DeMonsi Listen: Dirtbombs >> "If You Can Want"

2001 : 29 "Sort of a Protest Song" by the Matthew Good Band

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If this song had been around when I was in high school I would have made a tape that consisted of nothing but it repeated over and over again so I could listen to it for hours without rewinding just like I did with other such angsty anthems during that period of my life. —April Walker Listen: Matthew Good Band >> "Sort of a Protest Song"

2001 : 28 "Macy's Day Bird" by Diane Cluck

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the perfume of her hangs in the air like an atmosphere promising thunderstorms One skill Diane Cluck has as a songwriter is the way she uses metaphor to convey emotion without the metaphor swallowing the song. "Macy's Day Bird" is a good example. She is singing about her relationship with this woman by talking about the woman taking part in the Macy's Day Parade. This is a good way to be direct and ambiguous at the same time. Much of the meaning is left up to the listener to figure out for themselves. I think doing this with the lyrics makes the emotion feel more real. I can feel the connection because I can fill in the details. she gives me her red rhinestone ring that fits only my thumb and i wonder was it her ex-husband's or father's or someone's cheap souvenir from a somewhere he took her i decide i won't be a gift horse mouth looker so i wear it for awhile til' it gives me a rash i am not sentimental toss it in the trash —Rich Thomas Listen: Diane Cluck >> "Macy's Day Bird"

2001 : 27 "Endless Summer" by Fennesz

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Bruce Brown's 1966 surf documentary The Endless Summer opens with shots of a golden-orange sunset sparkling in the ocean's shifting striations. If I watch the first few minutes of Brown's documentary and then pop Christian Fennesz’s much-lauded 2001 album Endless Summer into the CD player, skip to track 2 (yeah, titled "Endless Summer"), and close my eyes, it's like that seascape has been translated into sound texture. A weave of warm digitally enhanced sounds glides over and through a temperate cycle of guitar chords. Sonic pulses thread through the mix, sometimes getting redirected, much as, I imagine, wave pulses or currents do in the ocean. This piece and the album as a whole (the album is named after Brown's documentary) consistently evoke both the complex waves-and-currents properties of the biggest thing on Earth and also that well-known Beach Boys-esque California-Edenic take on the ocean: it's the essential component of beach paradise and don't you worry, it wouldn't dare drown your daughter or stir up a storm so crass it smites your whole town. The sea giveth, and it does so with a smile. Period. At its most moving, for me, Endless Summer brings the idealized and the real into the same space. Fennesz's album suggests, as Brown's documentary does, that the perfect wave is actually out there in the real-as-rocks world, waiting for a rider. If you happen to be in the right place—it's South Africa's Cape St. Francis in Brown’s documentary—and it's the right time, you can live the synergy between real and ideal. Hell, you can ride it. Whatever you want. In this sense, I find the album incredibly affirming. Additionally, I'm impressed by the way Fennesz keeps the album from devolving into sentimental fetishizing of "golden moments on the beach," etc. Artfully setting the real and ideal in conversation goes a long way toward accomplishing this, but Fennesz also truncates the blissful arrivals on the album and—perhaps most importantly—almost always emphasizes a counterweight wistful quality, the same one that drives the best Beach Boys ballads, like "Surfer Girl" and "Caroline No." Indeed, Fennesz's album is typically discussed as a paean to the Beach Boys, rather than through connections to Brown’s documentary. The Beach Boys, of course, accomplish wistfulness with aching harmonies and lyrics about what could have been or should be (though we know it won't). Fennesz accomplishes his own gently melancholic, peering-longingly-at-something-so-pure-it-hurts quality by running lovely, modest melodic lines behind gauzy screens of digitized noise. He, time after time, track after almost every track, distances the listener from the beauty—suggesting that paradise isolated and (mostly) unattainable just might be richer for our yearning. And herein lies the central tonic quality of the album: paradise lost, paradise gained, and even paradise watched from across a busy street because you’re stuck behind a desk each carry the potential for redemptive, rich experience. Endless Summer really is the rare artistic document that deserves all the critical praise that's been heaped on it—and it's been plenty. If you've ever lived near the ocean or had a really good day or wanted to be somewhere else—okay, have I covered everyone?—you need to hear this album. —Eric Burger Listen: Fennesz >> "Endless Summer"

2001 : 26 "Tonight Was A Disaster" by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

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Some folks will tell you that the saddest instrument in the world is perhaps the Spanish guitar, but I know better: the saddest instrument in the world is the thrift-store synthesizer. As Exhibit A, I present you with "Tonight Was A Disaster," by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, the solo project of Californian depressive Owen Ashworth. The instrumental bridge that commences right at the track's midpoint is probably the most plaintive forty seconds 2001 has to offer; pathetic in a classical sense. As a bonus, I'll throw in "Number Ten," a song which concludes with a uniquely heartfelt usage of searing circuit-bent noise. It sounds pretty much like a dental drill banging around inside a washing machine, and yet it's also unmistakably the sound that rages in your skull when you're in the middle of having your heart broken. —Jeremy Bushnell Listen: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone >> "Tonight Was A Disaster" & "Number Ten"

2001 : 24 "Christina" by Gorky's Zygotic Mycni

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A lot of bands in the wake of Belle & Sebastian wore their influences on their foppish sleeves; employing superfluous flugel horns, harpsichords, and references to Free Design to disguise shitty songwriting. Songs like "Christina" separate the real deals from the affectations of sissies wanting to get laid. Very few bands could pull off simple lines like "Christina/I saw you in a magazine-a" and make them melancholy. The song succeeds as an heir to The Left Banke's "Pretty Ballerina," but ultimately upends romance for a lonely stalker's obsession. I was lucky enough to see the band before they broke up, in a rare US performance. They were making up a Philadelphia appearance at The Khyber rescheduled due to 9/11, at a time when you could still smoke in bars. They played "Christina." Despite the fact they were not backed live by the studio orchestra the swarms the song's opening, it was compelling. Singer Euros Childs could never be confused for a handsome man—a scrawny Welshman, hunched over a keyboard singing "What's the point of living if we can't be together / I'm coming on to shoot you / the sooner the better." This wasn't a pity party or even cheap misogyny. For every band attempting to ape the chamber pop style—a bunch of beautiful tourists pretending to be nostalgic—there are a few true losers who are too sentimental to let it die. How dare you be so beautiful when I'm so miserable? "Christina" is "Psycho Killer" for the Donovan set. —James Specht Listen: Gorky's Zygotic Mycni >> "Christina"

2001 : 23 "No Fun/Push It" by Soulwax

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When was the last time you listened to a mashup? Been a while, hasn't it? As arguably the first internet-enabled music fad, the mashup followed the same trajectory as most internet memes: It started as a goofy middle-finger to the straight world, exploded in the way things do in the unencumbered space of BTP filesharing, then one lucky bastard (in this case, Dangermouse) managed to cash in and close the book. As with all things on the internet, it wasn't long before what was once mindblowing became just another thing forwarded to you from a co-worker who knows you "like these sorts of things." Thanks to cheap, easy-to-use, feature-rich digital audio software and the tireless efforts of millions of nerds, there's no such a thing as an improbable combination anymore. Anyway, "No Fun/Push It" still hits for me. It makes me laugh, and it speaks to just how awesome the Stooges were. —Neil Jendon Listen: Soulwax >> "No Fun/Push It"

2001 : 22 "Popular Mechanics for Lovers" by Beulah

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Did you forget to read the script? There was never a role for him It was always you and me, just me Popular mechanics for broken hearts could help me now There is this line in Indie Pop lyrics. On the good side of that line are the witty pop lyrics that always bring a smile to my face, and on the bad side of that line are lyrics that make me want to throw headphones out the window. Beulah is a band that has always been on the right side of that line for me. When I hear "Popular Mechanics for Lovers," I spend the rest of the day singing it to myself. Lines from the song drop out of my mouth when I am not noticing. This happens in a way that makes me happy. That is a good pop song to me. I heard he wrote you a song But so what Some guy wrote 69 And one just ain't enough —Rich Thomas Listen: Beulah >> "Popular Mechanics for Lovers"

2001 : 21 "Left and Right of the Moon," by the Warlocks

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2001 was a shitty year, "Left and Right of the Moon." Some comfort, then, to think of The Warlocks playing desert rock to bombed-out dive bars. Something about a lack of soap, a song called hurricane heart-attack, or just a rotten candy cane heart: I watched the singer give away all his beer, channel Nico, and turn so positively shy that the crowd gave it back. And the song, all bedroom nomad. A paean to where-the-fuck-am-i, the state that ain't no place, friend. Usually this kind of shit means somebody has to die. Fortunately, that's the movie. Here you can just relax. —Justin Timberdrake Listen: The Warlocks >> "Left and Right of the Moon"

2001 : 20 "Archie and Veronica" by Lovage

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Could this be the sexiest song ever written about necrophilia? Everything about this song is delicious and over the top—Mike Patton's rich, evil snarl, Jennifer Charles's moaning and overt sexiness, the sleazy purple-hued lyrics. All of the artists involved in this project (Dan the Automator and Kid Koala are in on it too) have so much talent they can basically throw together a lounge parody act that still ends up being better than 95% of the music out there. —Angela Smith Listen: Lovage >> "Archie & Veronica"