Numbers 20-16, "Special Cases"

#20. Miss Kittin "D'you know Frank Sinatra? He's DEAD. Hahahaha."

20.	Frank Sinatra - Miss Kittin & The Hacker
	First Album (2001)
	So, there's a wee language warning on this one. And a rather large taste one. This rates so highly as a vicious satire on the sheer vacuity of modern celebrity culture. And frankly I'm not sure any song on this list  deals with a more important contemporary issue. If Black Mirror is vital TV for the same reason, this is its vital soundtrack. The vocal is delivered with such deadpan while the content has such shock value, it's from that fissure that the song derives its power to unsettle. You kind of want a shower after this. Or a time machine. There's a hot tub time machine gag in there somewhere ...
19.	Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) - James
	Pleased to Meet You (2001)
	It's a kind of sad story this one. One of Britain's longest lasting and best loved bands were approaching their 20 year mark when they released what was to become a surprisingly poorly received swansong album, even with the benefit of Brian Eno's production. This was the only single lifted from the album, it charted poorly and the band soon split, faced with a supposed massive unpaid tax bill from Her Majesty. They deserved a better sendoff. We'll hear more from James in the Top Ninety of The Nineties project (stay tuned), during what was really their heyday, but this song is not a bad way to cap a career. Easily the best track on the album, it combined everything that was great about the band, obtuse lyrics wedded to virally addictive chorus melodies that make the whole pub want to stand up and sing along.
18.	No Pussy Blues - Grinderman
	Grinderman (2007)
	It's always an interesting experience to first encounter a good band live rather than through their singles. I knew what Grinderman were about when making my way to what is still the most fabulous music festival I've ever attended - the sadly sole stranded lonesome Australian All Tomorrow's Parties at Falls Creek. I was expecting something more Nick Cave-y and less Warren Ellis-y. The band just seemed to love creating NOISE. Clearly they were enjoying themselves and most of all were really enjoying playing together. Tight wouldn't really be the right word, perfectly loose would be closer. But when they played this, this one really shone for the CRAFT of the songwriting, and that's where you now the hand of Mr Cave is at play. Oh, plus the misogyny ...
17.	Special Cases - Massive Attack
	100th Window (2003)
	Here's another band that rightly belongs at the pinnacle of the NINETIES pantheon doing their gamma ray burst from a dying star thing. This album featured songs far more complex than anything the band had previously attempted. This isn't the sparse, catchy triphop that defined them in the previous decades. This album heralded the demise of a singles band - OK they were always much more than that, the demise of that dimension of their work is probably better - and the birth of one of the most important outfits experimenting in musical form still known to us today. As always with Massive Attack, it's all about the BASS here. Musical bass. Vocal high treble. The vocal sprints hurriedly where the bass just barely creeps. And I say creeps, because it really is haunting, ominous, foreboding ... A tremendous video to boot...
16.	Wolf Like Me - TV On The Radio
	Return To Cookie Mountain (2006)
	The song that launched a career, and revived a million flagging dancefloors. Yet another song that proves the timelessness of the pop formula - create a catchy hook, repeat it ad nauseum, and provide backing that gives it a fitting pedestal. That's how you go about creating art. You don't need to be able to sing flouncy trills like Beyonce, all the great poets ever born have shown a simple structure in repetition can generate meaning and profundity, and that's what's going on here. Lycanthropy is normally a kind of corny affectation in popular culture. Not here.

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)