Well, I don't have a proper blog. Here, with all the <P> tags you can eat:
Andy Khouri threw out a challenge to come up with a list of 100 of your favorite songs from the first decade of the new millennium. I thought it'd be pretty interesting, since in the last ten years I went through a lot of shifts in my musical tastes. It's been fun to grab old mix CDs I haven't listened to in years and see what I was up to when I put BULLSHIT DISC 2 or INSERT WITTY TITLE 5 together. Originally, I wanted to follow suit with a zip download so you can all enjoy the soundtrack to my odd decade of whatever-dence, but I am a lazy ass dude. So I met you halfway with video links - in a few cases, it'll help explain why I dig what I did - and perhaps when it's all said and done I will crawl through the rabbit hole of my music collection and hook you up. Perhaps.
There's your intro, here's your bread and cirrhoses.
100 Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl: Every generation needs a Radar Love. Anyone who tells you they hate this song without some kind of convoluted reasons is either a liar or an asshole. Perhaps their fun genes are defective.
99 Strokes - Last Night: Someone said the first Strokes album is the greatest released in the whole decade. I've heard Hard To Explain and this, and this is the only one I like. The start/stop hoohaw makes it another good mood song, and I mentally group it with the previous Jet song anyway.
98 Ghostface (U-God) - Cher Chez La Ghost: Bossa-nova! The lyrics on this are inane as fuck: The girl singing makes sure to rub Tommy Mottola's face in it after Mariah Carey dumped him. Ghostface goes off on some rhymes like baked ziti free-form. U-God puts in a remarkably U-God performance with dick metaphors and the worst euphemism for a nice ass I've ever heard in "slim doo-doo makers, stuffed inside pajamas." All in all, it's goofy and fun - that's all I ever ask of Ghost.
97 Scarface (f. Beanie Sigel & Jay-Z) - Guess Who's Back
96 The X-Ecutioners (f. Pharoahe Monch, Xzibit, Inspectah Deck, and Skillz) - The X (Y'all Know The Name): Ah, 2002. It was a shitty year for rap. Lots of annoying mixtape DJ shouting. I heard these two around the same time, and it was a complete breath of fresh air. The Scarface joint suffers only from Beanie Sigel, who I never cared for too much but can tolerate. Otherwise, you have two iconic MCs throwing down on one of Kanye's better beats. The X was very possibly the best collection of talented dudes you never really knew about rapping on the same sweet-ass beat and not sucking. All four of those guys are underrated in their own right. The only one out of the bunch who many of you could spot in a line-up is Xzibit.
95 Guerilla Maab - Time Rolls By: Z-Ro is a dude that sings sometimes, but Trae is not. However, they both do on this one. That's really what sold me on it in the first place. They don't miss a beat jumping back and forth, except for the other guy.
94 The Heart Attack (Cee-Lo & Jack Splash) - Right Now: I would have never heard this song had I not sat through all of ATL the movie. It took another half hour to find the artist, since I couldn't just look up "Cee-Lo". Having never listened to Jack Splash of Plantlife, I cannot tell you if the rest of his output is as pleasant. Cee-Lo's like a rapping Al Green that you can play for your parents most of the time.
93 Soulja Boy - Yahh!: I have no redeeming, intellectual or esoteric reason for liking this song. It's not complex in any way. I don't even like the unedited version, because the cleaned-up "Get up out my face, you doo-doo-head dummy" makes me laugh every time I hear or think it. The video's a fucking riot, plus the bonus excerpt from "Report Card" where he samples "Throw Some D's On It" for further comedic effect seals the deal - I laugh out loud again every time I think of that. I am laughing as I type this. It's kiddiecrunk, for people not quite ready to tear da club up. And in case I was unclear, it's making me laugh a lot. Someone stop me before I have a seizure.
92 DJ Shadow & David Banner - Seein Thangs
91 Juvenile - Get Your Hustle On: Both of these came out in the year following Hurricane Katrina. The Banner joint is of particular note because I can't think of a quicker evisceration that nobody heard. Many DJ Shadow fans couldn't deal with his eclectic mix on The Outsider, so they shat on it. The Juvenile song may come off like a basic street song - you kinda have to see the video he filmed in New Orlenas to get the full effect. In a better reality, David Banner would get the sort of public stage Kanye West had. He's got more gravity in his words because he puts his money and time where his mouth is.
90 People Under The Stairs - The Outrage: These guys were my favorite rap group on the planet for about a year. They work samples like few other producers, and while their lyrics are sometimes lackluster, they put out music for kicking it. Chiefing. Whatever. A lot of the time, it sounds like they dug in a Chet Atkins fan's record bin and this is no exception. I really would like to hear them work with other artists to see what would result.
89 Black Label Society (f. Ozzy Osbourne) - Stillborn: One of the few things working at Speeds taught me besides how to hold my tongue. The bridge lodges itself in my skull often enough, and it's great driving music. I really need to explore more modern rock.
88 Young Buck - Get Buck: I'm a closet band nerd. It makes me a sucker for drumline/horn beats. This is internal hype music to me, and I rarely get the chance to play it anywhere. The horns are fucking sinister.
87 Project Pat - Chickenhead: Classic ig'nant drunk jam. It's always made me laugh. One time, I played this instead of the Chicken Dance by mistake at a party.
86 Lumidee - Never Leave You (Uh-Oh): The catchy diwali riddim from 2003 took dancehall into mainstream pop culture again, its public face this time around was a mash-up of Sean Paul, Lumidee and probably Wayne Wonder. There was an Elephant Man single in there, too. Anyway, if you heard this song, the reincarnated ICQ "UH OHHHHHHHH" noise and the hand-clapping probably wedged themselves in your skull for at least a few minutes. I had a twitch for a minute where I tried putting terribly out of place things with it, but it's mostly over. Mostly. There's a remix that has Busta Rhymes and other dudes, but even though it's repetitive as hell I prefer the original.
85 D12 - Purple Pills: This was still pre-DJ years. I thought the video was a riot, that it was an enjoyable song because it didn't take itself seriously at all, and that Bizarre was a big, nasty bastard. Upon re-inspection, I still find all of these things to be true, and therefore still like it even though it never ever ever worked when I played it anywhere. Not even the often-drug-addled crowds at Speeds. There weren't enough white people rapping for their tastes, PLAY SOME KOTTONMOUTH KINGZ.
84 The Dismemberment Plan - The Dismemberment Plan Gets Rich: It's a shame their first 3 albums came out in the 90's. My first roommate, Joe, was a huge D-Plan fan. We went to see them one time in Denton with Ted Leo. I really like this song, just wish I could have snuck in some of the better old shit. I didn't care for their last studio album too much, so this. OH OH WHOA OH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH.
83 The Dirtbombs - Your Love Belongs Under A Rock:
82 Detroit Cobras - Hey Sailor: I mentally lump these two bands together because I heard them around the same time, and they do a lot of covers I like. The first is the only song on Astroglide In Black that The Dirtbombs actually wrote. If you wound up with a mix CD from me in 2002, you probably heard one or both of these. It's really upbeat music, and the "garage punk" label doesn't convey how fun either band sounds. They're not a bunch of mohawked dudes blowing snot rockets and screaming into the mic. Well, sometimes they might be.
81 Static-X - I'm With Stupid: I love everything about this idiotic ass song. I love the lead singer's Slim Jim hair. I love the calliope. I love the screaming, screeching mess that is the audio equivalent of playing a sped-up Ms Pac-Man. Antony Johnston sent me a mix CD that included this song, and it was like finding an old baseball bat with an irreparable crack down the middle. You just want to take it out and hit things until it breaks. Okay, maybe that last part was just me.
80 Method Man - Uh-Huh: Method Man is, in his own way, hip-hop's answer to Lucy from Peanuts. We, the listeners, line up time and time again to punt the ball. We know that in the past, people have punted footballs successfully and also that Method Man tore holes in our brains with his microphone skills. At one point, he was the New Messiah. However, much like Charlie Brown, we Methheads run full force only to find someone's pulled the football. "Uh-Huh" was Meth's semi-regular placing of the football on the tee the spring before his next album dropped. This time, it was a song on the Def Jam: Vendetta game, assuring the largest number of interested parties heard it a million billion times before dashing off to the store (or internets) in the summer to find out they didn't really get a proper fix with Tical: O.
All that said, this is a serious fucking banger and I throw it out here as proof that Method Man does not suck. There are probably 5 people reading this and forming rebuttals and the rest of you probably skipped ahead halfway into the first paragraph.
79 Songodsuns - Minors Into Fire: Things I learned from Whiteymundo #283283123 - sometimes, they play awesome shit at random on Mun2 at 3AM Sunday morning, and sometimes it's from people you generally don't care for. 2Mex never did much for my ears. Put him with Busdriver and an electrohyphy beat, and suddenly you have the most beautifullest synth assault in this world - JUST LIKE THAAAAAAAAAAT. I even got away with mixing this in at the bar and in my red-headed stepchild room up at Wild West. Nobody had heard it before, but it was infectious enough to keep people dancing until I put in something they did know.
78 Basement Jaxx - Romeo: A lot of my taste in electronica rubbed off from Kenny Ketner. I'd never cared enough to investigate Bassment Jaxx until Kenny started throwing it in during our horse sets. He correctly dubbed it good cardio music, and probably got some people down at the county hooked on technopop they'd have never otherwise heard. "Romeo" reminds me of trying to mash square musical pegs into round holes to see if it sounded cool. Sometimes, truth be told, it sounded like shit that was still good for a laugh.
77 Limp Bizkit - Rollin: Man, this song is too stupid fun to hate. There's a remix I can listen to with less blowback because they got Method Man, Redman and DMX and made this overbassed behemoth out of a jackass cockrock anthem. It's too aggro for public consumption, however the original is fair game and works like a charm. I don't ironically enjoy it. I really do dig the song. Fred Durst and crew may be the 2nd douchiest band of my generation only because Creed exists, or they may be some likeable folks. He may have made a sextape with the 2nd least demand possible in that calendar year only because Tom Sizemore put one out as well. This is the reason (well, it and the "Faith" cover) Limp Bizkit should be remembered, and everything else should be filed under worthless information unless you're on Jeopardy or a VH1: I Love 8 Seconds Ago show. But even then, they'll show you a quick highlight before you tape because you probably won't remember why you love 8 seconds ago.
76 Lil Keke (f. Bun B and Paul Wall) - Chunk Up The Deuce: In a perfect world, Lil Keke would have the same label backing as Paul Wall's, if not more so. Shlubby white dudes would know his music at all my bar shows. This was originally just Bun, but ended up being a UGK reunion after the summer of Free Pimp C which may or may not have gotten him out of jail sooner. It was inescapable, in every club I went to and most of the shows I worked people were all over this song. Basically, everyone on here but Paul Wall came through on a spring/summer banger that should have launched Don Kee in to a new, more profitable orbit. But it wound up on Paul's CD-of-the-minute and everyone eventually forgot about it.
Tune in next time for another thrilling episode of GUIDING LIGHT.
I ATE YOUR HOUSE
