2004 : 16 "The Cloud Prayer" by A.C. Newman

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A.C. (Carl) Newman is one of the main protagonists of the New Pornographers, a band characterized by their seamless integration of the multiple points of view of the musicians involved. They are one of my favorite groups. However, I really adore Newman's solo album as well. It's much less busy, but its beauty sort of sneaks up on you. I had a very hard time choosing a track to feature from it; at least half the album is my "favorite". Pulling his light, clear voice and straightforward pop sensibility from the occasionally overwhelming orchestration of the New Pornographers is like enjoying one perfect berry from a bowl of fruit salad. This particular track breaks my heart all over again each time I hear it. If the sad, perplexed opening line of "You don't think I tried for you" doesn't strike some sort of chord inside, either you have never been in a dysfunctional relationship, or you are a pitiless monster. The song has a way of pressing its fingers into bruises you didn't even realize you had. —Angela Smith Listen: A.C. Newman >> "The Cloud Prayer"

2003 : 39 "Freetime" by Kenna

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I used to work in a retail store which received frequent deliveries of new and promotional albums from Sony. Kenna's album New Sacred Cow was one of these. We played it in the store a few times, and while no one else had much of an opinion on it, I was hooked. Not to be confused with Keane, Kenna is (I recently found out) an Ethiopian-American artist who opened for Dave Gahan in 2003. This track is synthpop which is so heavy on the pop that it's almost a bubblegum Depeche Mode; Kenna's voice is heartfelt, although the lyrics are not terrible deep. I found it addictive. It is the shiny, fruit-flavored lip gloss of music. Kenna, as Wikipedia informed me years later, was dropped from Sony without little fanfare and never really found a niche. It's a shame. This song is the perfect soundtrack for all your activities which call for a whole lot of style and not a great deal of substance. —Angela Smith Listen: Kenna >> "Freetime"

2003 : 24-25 Two songs by Atmosphere

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Track One: "Cats Van Bags" A world-weary but impassioned hip-hop song about being on tour; in spirit, it reminds me of Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" (I mean no disrespect to either song with that comparison). Lock eyes with a thousand people at the same time They minds believin' us, my style of graffiti is Squeezing just the Midwest sweat out of my shirt And leavin' with my life essence embedded in your dirt Plus the bass line is, as they say, sick. Track Two: "Reflections" This is, hands down, the most cleverly seductive hip-hop song I've ever heard. Yeah, it treads some familiar territory—famous rapper on tour, sleeping with lots of women--but without the misogyny and sense of entitlement which plague so much of the genre. I can't choose a single line to quote because they are all excellent. The best song Atmosphere has ever done, and one of my favorite songs, period. This is not by any means the only piece that Slug has ever written to warn women away from him; I can imagine that it is only effective as reverse psychology, since there are so many people for whom intelligent self-deprecation is like sexy, sexy catnip. —Angela Smith Listen: Atmosphere >> "Cats Van Bags" | "Reflections"

2002 : 43 "The Two" by Murs and Slug

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Just another tale of two rapping superheroes trying to make ends meet in a crappy economy. The Justice League said we had to pay dues and when we couldn't ante up, they kicked us out the crew. Nerdy references fly fast and thick. —Angela Smith Listen: Murs and Slug >> "The Two"

2002 : 39-40 Aught Music Roundtable: Tallahassee by the Mountain Goats

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Roundtable Part One: "No Children" I didn't realize, until I came to write a blurb for this song, that the Mountain Goats are not a local band. They seem to have an enormous cult following in Philadelphia. Granted, my circle of friends might not be a representative sample of the population, but I don't know anyone here who can't sing along with "No Children." The over-the-top meanness crosses the line into self-parody pretty early on, a condition which is all too familiar for "the city that booed Santa" (as the national media is quick to remind us). Still, like Philadelphia, this song has some warmth hidden within which cuts the viciousness down a notch. The lyrics may be about a couple that hates each other so much that they decide to drink themselves to death, but it manages to inspire enough camaraderie that I have witnessed more than one impromptu public sing-along when this plays, complete with linked arms slung over the shoulders of near-strangers. Aw, shucks. We ain't so bad. —Angela Smith Roundtable Part Two: "Southwood Plantation Road" I got you You've got whatever's left in me to get Our conversations are like minefields No one's found a safe way through one yet I have never had a relationship like the ones described in the Mountain Goats songs. Luckily I have only seen them from the outside. I have known people in these relationships. I love the way John Darnielle finds to describe disfunction and hurt. It is just amazing to me to have so many songs like this and so many of them be great. He really knows how to write a lyric. I am not gonna lose you We are gonna stay married In this house like a Louisiana graveyard Where nothing stays buried on Southwood Plantation Road Where the dead will walk again Put on their Sunday best And then go with unsuspecting Christian men La la la la —Rich Thomas Listen: The Mountain Goats >> "No Children" | "Southwood Plantation Road"

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 : 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"

2001 : 11 "Knock Loud" by Neko Case

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Ten years have passed Since you walked out of my life But late last night in the pharmacy You were in the line in front of me So I ran away to hide A lot of reviewers call Neko Case's voice "plaintive", but I don't think that's quite accurate. Plaintive seems to apply more to the cowboy poets she obviously reveres, the thin-voiced men who sing time after time their lonesome lives. Case's voice is too rich and full in comparison. The best word for it might be "yearning". Her songs are bursting with desire: for love, for the things she's lost or can't have, for change, for solitude. Interestingly, because it fits so well with the canonical themes of her own music, this is a cover song. The original songwriter is Sook-Yin Lee, a Canadian performer who is probably more familiar to many readers as Sofia, one of the lead characters from the movie Shortbus. This song would have fit quite nicely on the soundtrack for that film, thematically. Case's plea for the listener to find her in bed is more about longing and loneliness than lust. —Angela Smith Listen: Neko Case >> "Knock Loud"

2001 : 05 "Everything Hits at Once" by Spoon

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I debated for quite some time about even putting this track on my best-of list. I don't listen to it very often, and when I do, it generally makes me feel pretty awful. But it's a good song.... Or a great one, actually, when I consider that the impact of hearing this is the emotional equivalent of being run down by a car. When it comes on someone's playlist at work it often serves as my cue to take a walk around the block and clear my head. It makes me feel as if no time has passed at all since that spring when I agonized along with this song, thinking about how much I missed my sweetheart but also the enormous mistake I was making by dating her. You see, the lyrics reminded her how much she missed someone too, she'd told me one night. That person just wasn't me. —Angela Smith Listen: Spoon >> "Everything Hits at Once"

2000 : 28 "Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby" by Emmylou Harris & co.

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I don't think we should blame the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack for the resurgence in roots music (see: Things White People Like) which saturated coffeehouses and public radio in the early part of the 00s. It's not the soundtrack's fault. It was just trying to make us happy! I love this song and my roots don't include banjos or the Appalachian Mountains. This song just sounded so perfectly fresh and simple when it came out that it was impossible to resist. —Angela Smith Listen: Emmylou Harris, Alison Kraus, and Gillian Welch >> "Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby"

2000 : 25 "Frontier Psychiatrist" by The Avalanches

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For a couple of months there, I couldn't seem to get on with my day unless I listened to this song at least once in the morning. I don't know what that indicates about my mental state, exactly. This is a pretty great example of guerilla pop, though, and even now the phrase "you're crazy in the coconut!" makes me laugh like a maniac. —Angela Smith Listen: Avalanches >> "Frontier Psychiatrist"

2000 : 18 "I See A Darkness," by Johnny Cash (covering Bonnie 'Prince' Billy)

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A Bonnie 'Prince' Billy cover, and on it Will Oldham sings backup, but the Johnny Cash version is superior in every way. Yet more proof that sometimes a cover version can be even greater than the sum of its (original song + different artist) parts. Cash's weary, rich voice is perfect for the subject matter: camaraderie, depression, suicide, and yet also hope. —Angela Smith Listen: Johnny Cash >> "I See A Darkness"

2000 : 14 "Kingdom (Restoration)," by VNV Nation

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Chances are, if you visited a nightclub which played goth or industrial music at any point in the early Aughts, you heard this track. You might even have danced to it. That's okay, no one has to know. My peers always seem a touch embarrassed about any part of their histories which involves goth clubs. Recording technology allows us to swoop and stomp in the privacy of our own homes, nowadays. You probably thought these guys were German, too, am I right? It's a perfectly understandable mistake. Actually, Mark is British and Ronan is Irish. They are nice chaps, by all accounts. The album this remix is on, Standing/Burning Empires, is one of the finest ever released in the genre known variously as synthpop, EBM, or futurepop. But hey, I'm just making small talk. The fact is, I wish I had a more eloquent description of this song than "argh, it's just so fucking GOOD!" I really don't. You will just need to listen to it. It is so, so fucking good. —Angela Smith Listen: VNV Nation >> "Kingdom (Restoration)"

2000 : 07 "Solid" by the Dandy Warhols

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Anyone who has seen the 2004 documentary Dig, about the musical and personal rivalry between the Dandy Warhols and another band, can attest to at least one thing: this group is comprised of total assholes. Seriously, kids, don't do drugs! This song has all the Californian pop snark of "Bohemian Like You" but seems to be directed more at their fellow jerks Brian Jonestown Massacre than at hipsters in general, which makes it even juicier; a dis served with a wink and a coked-up smile. Hilarious, but also good enough musically to make me shake my head in dismay at the stupid antics this band gets up to. Then again, could they have managed to create this sober? Now there's something to ponder. —Angela Smith Listen: The Dandy Warhols >> "Solid"

2000 : 04 "Why I Write Such Good Songs," by Kleenex Girl Wonder

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In a fair world, this band would be as big as the New Pornographers. Let's get to work on that, shall we? This song is a good place to start: bright, peppy, and with lyrics that make me want to make out with the singer. —Angela Smith Listen: Kleenex Girl Wonder >> "Why I Write Such Good Songs"