20 Songs I Dig Right Now

1. Cinderella - Aqualung: If you're ever looking to start an awesome mix cd, you could do worse than this song. It has an explosively beautiful opening and it maintains a pretty otherworldly feel throughout. It's got that sort of U2-esque transcendentalism feeling without Bono yelling at you.

2. Stuck On You - Failure: This is, for all intents and purposes, a generic alternative rock song from the mid-nineties. Lately, though, it's gotten under my skin. It might nostalgia or the spacemen on the album's cover. Either way, it's a great time capsule song and deserves to be dredged up. If you listen to it, you'll probably be all like, "Oh yeah... I sort of remember this one."

3. Creeper - Islands: I found this song instantly catchy... like from the first few notes on. That always impresses me. Add in lyrics about being stabbed in the heart, and you can't lose.

4. You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb - Spoon: Spoon's Britt Daniel describes their music solely as "rock and roll," and that's very fitting, especially on the songs from "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga." "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb," is my current favorite track from that record, although I've vacillated between it, "The Underdog," "Rhthm & Soul," and "Don't You Evah."

5. Once A Glimpse - Maximo Park: A nice, strong propulsive song with a singalong chorus that never lets up for a second. It's all anxiety and nervous energy.

6. The Female Of The Species - Space: More 90's alterna-rock, this one from fairly obscure band Space. This one has xylophones, though. It's kind of like Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You," although I can't adequately explain why. It's more fun, though. On account of the xylophones.

7. She Got Dressed - Fleet Foxes: I could pretty much put an Fleet Foxes song on here and it'd be ok. This one has struck me lately. This one reminds me of the best possible outcome of a Brian Wilson/Stereolab collaboration.

8. The Good That Won't Come Out - Rilo Kiley: This one's a little bit older, but I sort of rediscovered it recently. It's one of those indie rock songs that starts out mopey and muted and eventually explodes with rage and anxiety. And it's got one of my favorite couplets: "I do this thing where I think I'm real sick, but I won't go to the doctor to find out about it."

9. Hold On, Hold On - Neko Case: Neko Case's songs barely have song structures anymore... it's a pretty big departure from her alternative country stuff with Her Boyfriends. Somewhere along the way, she just shifted into a sultry, almost unnerving film noir songstress. There's a very haunting quality to her music, now, and it sort of sticks to you even after it's done playing.

10. Disintegration - Jimmy Eat World: This song is nearly eight minutes, but it doesn't get tiresome. It's a fairly miserable affair, one of the darkest songs from a unusually optimistic band. It's hard not to picture your worst relationship with this in the background... The slow build to its big crescendo almost catches you off guard the first time 'round.

11. Crown Of Thorns - Mother Love Bone: This is epic pre-grunge... I don't know if Mother Love Bone were ever embraced by the mainstream. I never heard them on the radio, but I graduated to modern rock after Andrew Wood was already dead. I absolutely love this song, though... it's the type of music that led me away from classic rock and forced me to stop dismissing 90's bands as retreads of great 70's artists. Not that they aren't, but when they made music this cool, what's the difference?

12. Plasticities - Andrew Bird: From Bird's "Armchair Apocrypha," "Plasticities" mixes tempos and moods in a lovely, pleasantly jarring way. I have no idea what the lyrics are about, but it seems very important and very stirring. It also makes a great streetlight song... the type of music you want on while driving down a lit, empty city street at, like, 3 am.

13. At The Wake - The Format: I think this song should be in every indie film ever, because it perfectly captures the feeling of suburban isolation, loneliness, powerlessness and restlessness. I might be reading too much into it.

14. Samson - Regina Spektor: This song just breaks my heart. I don't even understand how that works.

15. Move Away & Shine - The Polyphonic Spree: from the "Thumbsucker" soundtrack, this is just a typical freakishly inspirational, hook-laden Polyphonic Spree song. I don't know how they manage to actually capture so much uplift, but it's so bizarrely powerful. It's probably the happiest thing I like.

16. The Perptual Self Or What Would Saul Alinsky Do - Sufjan Stevens: There's not much that really gets me on board with the whole... uh... God thing, but Sufjan Stevens does. His faith is infectious, not obnoxious, and it makes me really want to believe in something that I do really want to believe in even if I can't really (usually) believe in.

17. Who Is It - Bjork: I prefer the Bell Choir mix from the single to the version on Medulla, but either way it's wonderful. There's something very affecting about this song, something ineffably gut wrenching. The bell choir version is especially urgent sounding... like one of the hymns in church I actually look forward to singing.

18. Take Care Of All Of My Children - Tom Waits: Speaking of hymns, this Tom Waits' song plays out like an antique spiritual, complete with warbling trumpet and old vinyl hiss. One of my favorite things about Tom Waits is his ability to make music that sounds like it could have originated at any point in time... there's no indication of its origin. It's like an artifact, something unearthed and discovered. This song is on his "Orphans" collection.

19. Dust Of Ages - Eels: Continuing a hymn-like theme, this little tune from "Blinking Lights And Other Revelations" has a church song simplicity... it reminds me of something that would have been in an early 70's Christian Claymation show... except for the vulgarity.

20. Last Flowers - Radiohead: This is from the bonus disc of "In Rainbows" material. I think it's the best song from both discs, which is a pretty big feat. This song has been floating around since "OK Computer" days, when it was called "Last Flowers Till The Hospital" (I like that version of the title better). It's very pretty, very unsettling and it should have been on the main release.