Making a list is hard. If you make it hard. The reason why most people make it hard is because they get caught trying to apologize for their taste. They get caught trying to make everyone happy. So when NME published their list of the Top 150 tracks, it was with great disappointment that I read the list. Not so much because I disagreed with the selections, although it’s nothing short of heresy to have Kanye excluded from the Top 50 (Monster was #53), as much as I disagreed with their lack of an opening.
“To mark NME.COM's fifteenth birthday, we've selected the 150 tracks that have meant the most to us over the site's lifetime.” Well that doesn’t help the reader one bit because a) “us” today is certainly not the same as NME’s “us” in 1996 and b) could you tell us exactly what means the most to you?
Regardless, I’m not here to correct their list. Instead, I teamed with my oldest and music-encyclopedia-minded brother (check out his blog, Corrosive Material) to create our own list of the Top 150 Tracks in the last 15 years.
No Country music. Get over it.
Some of our personal favorites like Wilco, Jill Scott, Flying Lotus, Cut Copy and Hot Chip didn’t even make the list.
Phenomenal songs like Mos Def's "Umi Says" and Nas’ “Made You Look” and Bush’s “Warm Machine” did not make it.
Nor did pop sensations like Coldplay’s “Clocks”, Destiny Child’s “Say My Name” or Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River”.
We gave a lot of value to popularity, yes. But also to strength in lyrics and beats. But not more than the value of the song in the artists’ career or the album’s significance. Overall, we just tried to stay true to who we are as music fans: we love music for music’s sake…not for pop sensibilities anymore than indie buzz.
Our list may not work for you 100%, which we didn't care to do anyway, but we think it kicks the NME’s list’s ass. Comment if you agree or disagree, think we missed a song or had a song too high or low. Or if you just want to thank us for reminding you of all the great music we’ve had over the last 15 years.
Over the rest of December, we're going to give you a time to digest our list by posting only part of the list at a time. I know you're all terribly impatient and would love to see the full 150 from the start, but I'm a big fan of suspense. So before I go into our Top 150, I wanted to share a few songs that barely missed the list along with the ones mentioned above.
Aaliyah's "Try Again"
El-P's "The Overly Dramatic Truth"
The Streets' "Weak Become Heroes"
The Knife's "Silent Shout"
Flying Lotus' "Golden Diva"
The Game feat. 50 Cent's "Hate It Or Love It"
Lenny Kravitz's "Fly Away"
Stay tuned over the coming days/weeks for the full list. We'll start with songs 150-126 on Monday and go all the way through New Years Eve with our top 10! Trust me, you won't want to miss out. Get your iTunes account ready for some music purchasing.
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