Numbers 200 - 176, "The Teaches of Peaches"

It doesn't take terribly much inspection of the list so far to arrive at a particularly unfortunate conclusion: POLITICAL MUSIC IS DEAD TODAY.

Because there isn't even an otherwise ignored undercurrent of political activism to the contemporary music scene, such as has previously been the case since the 1950s.

In the 80s and 90s, the likes of U2 and Midnight Oil would routinely be presented as overtly "political" music. What's really being measured is the tradition of the "protest song". Bono and the Oils wrote protest music - songs that had an identified target and went for its political jugular.

Today, we have M.I.A., yes, but what's interesting is that the politics has migrated from the song itself and into the sphere of the singer's identity. M.I.A.'s music might reference "third world democracy" before singing "zoom-a-zoom-a-zoom-zoom", but the content is by and large not political, and not message-oriented. And as a sung message anyway, to a certain extent perhaps any statement has to be INHERENTLY trivial, and existentially banal.

Instead, as political activism in general has become more oriented to the personal and the realm of identity politics, so political music has become more discursive. So it's less about the transmission of opposition to 'monolithic others' to be shouted down via slogans and rhetoric, and more about cultural modes of resistance.

Peaches doesn't spend a huge amount of time opining on the discursive practices behind gender. Her lyrics don't celebrate queer cultures in the recognisable and overt way that say the Pet Shop Boys' "Go West" was an overt paean to them. The differene between "Go West" and "Fuck the Pain Away" is obvious from the song titles alone, and it exemplifies quite well the overall change that we are mapping. Peaches doesn't tell folks to go out and join queer collectives. But every element of her SELF, her identity, her persona is imbued with a radical counter-disourse towards some sort of similar EFFECT.

It's the difference between maintaining the illusion of the unitary, immutable power of the word, the truth, that which lends itself to structuralist analysis, and accepting a truly postmodern, discursive analytics. The two prescribe very different modes for effective political action.

And given Midnight Oil and U2 have resolutely failed to change the world through music, I would mount a case that a new, discursive political music stands just as good a chance of achieving something as the old modes we'd more directly recognise.

That said, I, a decrepit socialist find real meaning in connecting with the unitary, barricade-storming ballads that socialists have marched behind for hundreds of years. Billy Bragg, Phil Ochs and Joe Hill offer us a motherlode as historians of political songforms.

And because everything that's wrong with the world today is an inability to grasp the historical context of anything, well, where people stand up for their rights, Joe Hill is with us still. Joe Hill inspires us still.

200.	Night (Radio Edit)	Benga & Coki	Night (2008)
199.	Barely Legal	The Strokes	Is This It? (2000)
198.	Amazing it Seems	Granada	Granada (2005)
197.	Get Myself Into It	The Rapture	Get Myself Into It (Comm Single) (2006)
196.	Strict Machine	Goldfrapp	Black Cherry (2003)
195.	The Orchids	Califone	Roots & Crowns (2006)
194.	The Funeral	Band Of Horses	Everything All The Time (2006)
193.	Rutten	Skream	Skream! [Bonus Tracks] (2006)
192.	Fools	The Dodos	Visiter (2008)
191.	Apocalypse Song	St. Vincent	Marry Me (2007)
190.	C'Mere	Interpol	Antics (2004)
189.	Punchlines	Mates Of State	Bring It Back (2006)
188.	Hang Me Up To Dry	Cold War Kids	Up In Rags [EP] (2006)
187.	Lights Out	Santigold	Santogold (2008)
186.	Ten Years Or Twenty	Moon Wiring Club	Shoes Off And Chairs Away (2009)
	I MADE THIS VIDEO! PRAISE ME!
185.	New Slang	The Shins	Oh, Inverted World (2001)
184.	He's Alright [Bonus Track]	Kurt Vile	Childish Prodigy (2009)
183.	Are You The One?	The Presets	Beams (2005)
182.	Pure Pleasure Seeker	Moloko	Things To Make And Do (2000)
181.	Banging Camp	The Hold Steady	Separation Sunday (2005)
180.	Daniel	Bat For Lashes	Two Suns (2009)
179.	Fuck The Pain Away	Peaches	The Teaches Of Peaches (2000)
178.	Thou Shalt Always Kill	Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip	Angles (2008)
177.	Try Again	Aaliyah Feat. Timbaland	Aaliyah (2005)
176.	L.E.S. Artistes	Santigold	Santogold (2000)

Numbers 225 - 201, "Things Fall Apart"

What were the noughties?  It's possibly a premature question to ask. Where we had a clear sense of what the previous decade constituted in 1995, we probably had a less clear picture of the 90s in 2005, and an arguably less defined one again in 2015.

So, in one respect the capabilities of a discrete ten year block to connote all of the aesthetic, social and cultural changes within it seem to be declining. And that's possibly part of what we're mapping. There is no question that the seemingly ever-accelerating pace of globalisation along with the rapid technological changes that have enabled it have produced an infinitely more complex world, and complexity is by its nature resistant to essentialism.

Complexity is also resistant to harbouring the sort of regionalisms that prosper behind protectionist walls. Discourse is now at least potentially more global than ever, and it becomes more difficult for regional discourses to exist in isolation from others that don't share a similar regional focus.

And you'd expect all of this to lead to a few things in the musical milieu:

• A more globalised musical culture with less regional differences
• A musical culture based less on discrete styles or genres than around interrogations between those styles
• A musical culture less dominated by a small number of headline artists, and more by an undifferentiated mass body of artists
• A democratisation of the process of music production enabled by advances in home recording technology and new distribution models

And largely we've seen all these things to one extent or another come about.

The noughties were arguably the first decade which saw no major new music genres emerge. This ties in with concepts a postmodernist would have no trouble at all recognising regarding the 'death of history' and our living  in 'an eternal present'. But it also maps a new form of discursive plurality that has perhaps almost  come to define the postmodern condition. The inherent intertextuality of all discourse is both highlighted and heightened by the new technologies used for its transmission. So no song exists independent of both the musical discourses that preceeded it, nor similarly the contemporaneous discourses within which all music is received. This would include all economic, political, social, societal, etc discourses.

And it's not surprising a model like that should turn out few new discrete styles and genres, where the production of  such depends more upon isolation and an environment in which similar discourses arising from similar inputs have their own discrete chamber within which to reverberate, wholly isolated from the larger body politic.

My thesis is that we've really only seen two significant new musical styles in the last ten years - Grime and Dubstep. Grime is hip hop with the postmodernism turned up to 11. Where hip hop was all about sampling and re-using found objects, it was thoroughly dada-ist in its aesthetic. So, what many posit as the ultimate postmodern musical style is actually thoroughly grounded in an aesthetic that dips its lid more in modernism's direction.

Grime appears to dissipate the entire possibilities of identity. Grime is Dizzee Rascall riffing on the same syncopated rhythm eight lines in a row, eight times the same statement, but with each line producing different meaning. Grime is complex triple-stepping  beats where High Modernist Hip Hop just needed a kickdrum on every 4/4 beat.

Where hip hop writes from the position of a vastly over-determined unitary narrator. "I" is the most routinely used word in hip hop lyrics. But that identity has thoroughly broken down in grime. Gone much of the "bitches and bling" bravado, to be replaced by a more humble, more polyvalent, less all-powerful narrative.

Similarly, Dubstep has its origins in drum and bass and allied dance styles. Accordingly, it's almost a completely post-linguistic style. Lyrics are minimal and exist more as just another sonic element. It's in many ways the apotheosis of the post-meaning, post-god, post-discursive style that one would predict emerging, given how many other aspects of contemporary complexity also exhibit these traits.

More on this to come. I thought you'd probably want some actual music in the interim.

#	Name	Artist	Album (Year)
225.	You Know I'm No Good	Amy Winehouse	Back To Black (2006)
224.	Letter from Abroad	John Cale	(2008)
223.	Skip To The End	The Futureheads	Promo Only Modern Rock June 2006 (2006)
222.	Green Aisles	Real Estate	Days (2011)
221.	2080	Yeasayer	All Hour Cymbals (2007)
220.	Postcards From Italy	Beirut	Beirut (2006)
219.	Body Language (Tocadisco Remix)	M.A.N.D.Y. Vs. Booka Shade	Body Language (Single) (2007)
218.	I Feel Space	Lindstrøm	Solid Sounds 2005.2 [Disc 1] (2005)
217.	Knife	Grizzly Bear	Yellow House (2006)
216.	Pass That Dutch	Missy Elliott Feat. Ludacris	Respect M.E. (2003)
215.	Memorize The City	The Organ	Grab That Gun (2004)
214.	Booo! (Radio Edit)	Sticky Feat. Ms. Dynamite	Real Garage [Disc 2] (2001)
213.	Stargate of the Hell	Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.	Glorify Astrological Martyrdom (2008)
212.	Hallelujah	Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds	No More Shall We Part (2001)
211.	First Day On The Run	The Fauves	Thousand Yard Stare (2000)
210.	So Many Ways	Mates Of State	Bring It Back (2006)
209.	We Own The Sky	M83	Saturdays = Youth (2008)
208.	Make Out Fall Out Make Up	Love Is All	Nine Times That Same Song (2006)
207.	Fell In Love With A Girl	The White Stripes	White Blood Cells (2001)
206.	Cannot Get Started	Handsome Furs	Plague Park (2007)
205.	As I Sat Sadly By Her Side	Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds	No More Shall We Part (2001)
204.	Remember Me	British Sea Power	The Decline Of British Sea Power (2001)
203.	Comfy In Nautica	Panda Bear	Person Pitch (2007)
202.	A Lady Of A Certain Age	The Divine Comedy	Victory For The Comic Muse (2006)
201.	Us Amazonians	Kirsty MacColl	Tropical Brainstorm (2000)

Numbers 249 - 226 - "Sign 'o' the Times"

So what the hell happened in the noughties?

Seriously. There are gaps you know ....

You don't really start from anywhere meaningful to say in terms of earth shattering events of the decade, the one that shattered the Twin Towers of New York City and with it so many lives is inescapably the defining one for the entire globe.

Across vastly different cultures and regions, the impact of these events came to define the decade  for so many - arguably any culture with any significant access to media to an extent that has certainly been rare in human history.

Do we see this new zeitgeist reflected in the music of the age? This is one issue we will ponder.

On a musical level, I have a few theses to extend progressively here.

My main one is that the decade really saw the end of all things monolithic in rock in particular, maybe pop and rap less so. Who are the big stadium acts now? They're all guys, and I do mean guys, from the 80s or earlier doing reunions.

It seems like Blur v Oasis are the last meaningful monoliths we are ever to see if there's any trend to be evinced from the handing of these sorts of titles to Snoop Dogg, Beyonce, Rihannon, J Lo, Gaga, etc. The thing that unites them is a large-scale vacuousness, a sense that all these beings are mannequins to more or less overt extents.

They're brands built by marketing, they themselves are just sites for discourse, billboards. So much so that even though they are at one level all about MEEEE as a global marketing force, the actual 'self', the sense of all this being about a real, living person rather than someone who descends daily from Mount Olympus, is entirely lost.

And technology pushes us ever more into this ever more self-enabled, atomised world. And we, and young folk in particular spin a very positive narrative about these discourses of narrative and freedom.

Yet at the same time we feel betrayed and jaded with what we see as outmoded structures in government and in the broader political/social sphere, we claim to crave a better sense of engagement with an ideal something in so many areas of our lives. Yet we're getting torn apart by the atomisation discourse on the one hand and the communitarian on the other.

In musical terms, file sharing and related technologies have impacted an entire artistic discourse. The self-proliferation and DIY ethos has much in common with punk. But at the level upon which distribution is still reliant upon industry models we have seen considerably less investment in new artists and innovation than at any time probably since the dawn of rock itself.

It must be pointed out, this survey doesn't bear that lack of innovation out. It shows that artists are always going to find a way to make great music. But the look of the whole 'scene' is very different to how it the 90s would have appeared looking back from 2005.

In this list, we see a profusion of artists and styles pointing off in a million directions, where in the 90s we'd be stoking the chart with Britpop and Madchaster or derivatives thereof. Subcultural forms were either established and survived and evolved within themselves.

In the case of rave, it started out as a wildly innovative and deeply counter-cultural movement, but it was soon coopted by the entire corporate superDJ/superclub/superfestvial scene with such depressing speed and completeness, this has to be one of the key stories of the 90s.

That decade started with the promise of a 'Peace Dividend' from the Cold War, but was bookend by the events of September 11, 2001 that led the US at least into a War that accrued public debt at such a rate that government couldn't drag the US economy out of recession, giving us ten years of stagnant growth.

So, this isn't the nineties, but it's obviously an extension of it. Why should an arbitrary point in time affect any of this anyway?

Technologies that enhanced social atomisation and individualism were already well advanced, even if we didn't have social media yet. Probably the other great universal global trend to emerge this decade.

More on this. And specifically on how everything has impacted music later this week.

#	Name	Artist	Album (Year)
249	Womanizer	Britney Spears	The Singles Collection (2008)
248	Down Down Down	The Presets	Beams (2005)
247	Living With War	Neil Young	Living With War (2006)
246	Departures	Closer Musik	Kompakt Total 3 (2010)
245	The Lisbon Maru	Fuck Buttons	Tarot Sport (2000)
244	Incinerate	Sonic Youth	Prime Cuts (Promo) (2006)
243	Fingers Become Thumbs!	Future Of The Left	Curses (2007)
242	Club Foot	Kasabian	Kasabian Empire ()
241	Epoca	Gotan Project	La Revercha Del Tango (2001)
240	Little Rhymes	Mercury Rev	All Is Dream [Bonus Track] (2001)
239	Running The Loping	Smog	A River Ain't Too Much To Love (2005)
238	Hate To Say I Told You So	The Hives	Tyrannosaurus Hives (2000)
237	Bewitching Cattle	Moon Wiring Club	Shoes Off And Chairs Away (2009)
236	The Empty Page	Sonic Youth	(2002)
235	Death to Death	The Crucified	Take Up Your Cross/Nailed (2008)
234	Inside Outside	The Grates	Gravity Won't Get You High (2006)
233	You And Me	Her Space Holiday	The Past Presents the Future (2005)
232	Halcyon (Beautiful Days)	Mono	Walking Cloud And Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered And The Sun Shined (2004)
231	I Feel Just Like A Child	Devendra Banhart	Cripple Crow (2005)
230	Take Me To Your Leader	Add N To (X)	Loud Like Nature (2002)
229	The Modern Age	The Strokes	Is This It? (2000)
228	Drop It Like It's Hot	Snoop Dogg	Shark Tale Motion Picture Soundtrack (2006)
227	Pon De Floor	Major Lazer Feat. Vybz Kartel	Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do (2009)
226	Empire State Of Mind	Jay-Z Feat. Alicia Keys	The Blueprint 3 (2000)

Numbers 275 - 250 - Beginnings

And here it all is.

The beginnings of it all. The dregs as some might have it, but reality is that of all the horns blown and all the things struck and strummed in undoubtedly billions of permutations down the decade, of all those countless notes and the nuances between them, THESE ONES I HAVE CHOSEN ARE THE VERY BEST OF ALL. I've whittled the universe to a pinhead for you.

I'd be really grateful to hear any and all feedback. What I'm really NOT interested in is "how can you possibly think x is a better song than y?" If you want to do that sort of binary nit-picking, go de-louse a zebra. You don't get it.

This IS a hierarchy, let's be clear, but if I gave myself another 24 hours it would all look different again. It's not authoritative in the sense of it being final. It's authoritative because it's the best it can be at this moment. Or any theoretical one.

• Song must have been released between Jan 1, 2000 and Dec 31, 2009 (by single OR by the date of the album on which the track debuted)
• A maximum of three tracks per artist in the LONGLIST of over 500 tracks
• Each song graded and LONGLIST reduced accordingly to Top 275
• All titles in Top 275 are then ranked individually

And at the end of the day, that only took me just on five years to complete!

FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT ....

#	Name	Artist	Album (Year)
275	Diamond Dancer	Bill Callahan	Woke On A Whaleheart (2007)
274	Golden Age	TV On The Radio	Dear Science (2008)
273	Smiley Faces	Gnarls Barkley	St. Elsewhere (2006)
272	19-20-20	The Grates	Gravity Won't Get You High (2006)
271	Two Silver Trees	Calexico	Carried To Dust (2008)
270	International Dateline	Ladytron	Witching Hour (2005)
269	That's Not My Name	The Ting Tings	We Started Nothing (2008)
268	Pageant Square	The Kingsbury Manx	The Kingsbury Manx (2000)
267	No Ghost	The Acorn	No Ghost (2010)
266	Last Dance	The Raveonettes	In And Out Of Control (2009)
265	La Rock 01	Vitalic	OK Cowboy (2005)
264	Plaster Casts Of Everything	Liars	Liars (2007)
263	Processed Beats	Kasabian	Pre-Release Singles Compilation [2641660] (2003)
262	Prayer to God	Shellac	1000 Hurts (2000)
261	Your Hand In Mine	Explosions In The Sky	The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (2003)
260	Pirates	Burial	Burial (2006)
259	Galang	M.I.A.	Arular (2005)
258	I Have Forgiven Jesus	Morrissey	You Are The Quarry (2004)
257	Pendulum	Broadcast	Pendulum [EP] (2003)
256	Tom The Model	Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man	Out Of Season (2002)
255	Southern Hospitality	Ludacris Feat. Pharrell	Back For The First Time (2000)
254	I'll Send My Face To Your Funeral	His Name Is Alive	Detrola (2006)
253	Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)	Arcade Fire	Funeral (2004)
252	Song 4 Mutya	Groove Armada	Greatest Hits (2007)
251	Carve Your Name	The Grates	Teeth Lost, Hearts Won (2008)
250	Drop The Phone	Shy Child	Noise Won't Stop (2007)