The song at #57 on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2010s is “Fever” by The Black Keys. Originally hailing from Akron, Ohio, but based in the music city of Nashville since 2010, The Black Keys consists of childhood friends Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. The duo have been putting out fantastic music for nearly 20 years, and I love many of their songs – two of which are included on this list. The first of them is “Fever”, released in March 2014 as the lead single from their eighth studio album Turn Blue.
The song, along with many of the tracks on Turn Blue, was co-written and co-produced with noted producer Danger Mouse. The recording sessions for the album coincided with Auerbach’s divorce from his wife, which inspired many of the album’s lyrics. The songs on Turn Blue are generally more melancholy and introspective than those on their previous album El Camino, and represented a continuation of the duo’s departure from their earlier blues/garage rock roots, much to the chagrin of some of their fans.
“Fever” has a slicker, psychedelic rock vibe, with an infectious dance beat and greater use of lush, throbbing synths in addition to driving guitar riffs and snappy drums. And that deep bass line is fantastic! The song was nominated for two Grammy Awards, for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance. “Fever” was one of my favorite songs of 2014, and was a big hit on the Billboard Alternative, Adult Alternative and Rock Airplay charts, spending 11 weeks at #1 on the Alternative chart. Unbelievably, it peaked only at #77 on the Hot 100.
The unusual video features Auerbach portraying a sweaty televangelist preaching to an audience as drummer Patrick Carney sits nearby.
The song at #58 on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2010s is “Closer” by British electro-rock band IAMWARFACE. The London & Brighton-based act are among my favorite indie bands making music today, and I’ve featured them on this blog many times over the past four-plus years. Their aggressive name is a fitting metaphor for their bombastic, groove-based sound, and I love every single one of their songs, beginning with their explosive debut single “Say My Name” in 2016. But my favorite is their monumental song “Closer” which literally stunned me the first time I heard it in 2018.
The fiercely beautiful track opens with ominous throbbing synths that slowly build into a dramatic otherworldly soundscape, enveloping us as band vocalist Matt Warneford wearily implores to someone with whom he seems to have an obsessive and destructive relationship: “Who, who am I? I’m just living to die. This old night, when it comes, I’ll be free of these old bones.” With that, the music erupts into a maelstrom of grinding synths, fuzzy guitars, buzz-saw bass, and thunderous percussion, punctuated by almost violently crashing cymbals that emphasize the intense feelings of abject desolation expressed in the bitter lyrics. Warneford’s intense vocals are filled with despair and resignation over a love affair that now lies in tatters. “Feel I’m walking on shattered glass. This romance just has to end, to reset, erase, begin again.” The song is incredible, and leaves me covered with chills every time I hear it.
The dark video, which was filmed in stark black and white in a decrepit, abandoned warehouse, has a gothic quality that’s at once disturbing and breathtaking. Warneford is shown singing the song while a ghostly Simona Martini, dressed in a torn and dirty gossamer gown, does a stylized, almost tortured modern ballet dance. It’s absolutely brilliant.
I’ve been participating in an album draft conducted by fellow blogger Hans for his excellent blog slicethelife, in which I, along with he and eight other bloggers, have been choosing some of our favorite albums. The latest category was ‘greatest hits or compilations’. I have a lot of greatest hits albums in my collection, as there are a number of artists and bands who had several songs I love, but I didn’t want to necessarily buy any particular album of theirs. (I’ve purchased far too many albums because I loved a particular song or two, but then had to suffer listening to a lot of filler tracks, or else skip them altogether.) For those artists, a greatest hits compilation was the perfect choice for me, as I would then have all or most of their songs that I liked on one record.
My pick is “The Temptations: All the Million-Sellers”, which was released in 1981 by Motown as one of their series of ‘Motown Compact Classics’. While not necessarily my favorite ‘greatest hits’ album, I chose this particular compilation over others in my collection because it contains only 10 songs, every one of which I love and consider to be the very best by the Temptations. Frankly, many of the greatest hits albums I own still contain at least a few of what I feel are throwaway songs. With this compilation, there’s no need for me to skip over any tracks. I also like that the tracks are arranged in chronological order, which I think is essential for all ‘greatest hits’ compilations, as it gives us a better feel for how the artist or group’s music evolved over time.
Track listing:
My Girl
Ain’t Too Proud to Beg
I Wish it Would Rain
Cloud Nine
Runaway Child, Running Wild
I Can’t Get Next to You
Psychedelic Shack
Ball of Confusion
Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)
Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone
The Temptations are one of the longest-running music acts, active in one form or another since their origins in 1960! They were known for their precise choreography, stylish suits, distinctive harmonies, and the fact that they were a true ensemble, in which all five members’ vocals were prominently featured on many of their songs. Like the Beatles were for rock music, the Temptations were a major influence for many male R&B and soul acts to follow in their footsteps.
The group’s lineup has changed numerous times over the years, but their lineup during their early ‘classic’ period of 1964-68 consisted of David Ruffin, Paul Williams, Otis Williams (no relation to Paul), Eddie Kendricks and Melvin Franklin. Gruff-voiced vocalist Ruffin sang the first three hits listed above, but was kicked out of the band in 1968 due to his increasing cocaine abuse and numerous disagreements with fellow band members. He was replaced by Dennis Edwards, another gruff-voiced vocalist who sang lead on “Cloud Nine”, “I Can’t Get Next to You”, “Psychedelic Shack”, “Ball of Confusion” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”. Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams left in 1971, Kendricks to pursue a solo career and Williams for health reasons. Otis Williams is the last surviving founding member of the Temptations, and at 79 he continues to perform. He also owns the rights to the Temptations name.
I love their first big hit “My Girl”, but “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” is just so damn catchy. And you gotta love those smooth dance moves!
One of my favorites of their songs is “I Can’t Get Next to You”, which was their second single to reach #1, in 1969. I especially love the opening where we first hear clapping and yelling, then Dennis Edwards says “Hey everybody, hold it hold it, listen”, followed by a jazzy little piano riff before the song kicks in. I also like that all five members’ vocals are prominently featured.
Perhaps their most beautiful song is the 1971 hit “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)”, which was their third #1 single. By the early 70s, many of the Temptations longtime fans were frustrated by all the psychedelic songs with social and political themes they’d been releasing, most notably “Cloud Nine”, which touched on the struggles of living in poverty, with oblique references to using drugs as an escape, and “Ball of Confusion”, which touched on a litany of social, political and environmental problems of the day, many of which are still applicable 50 years later. These fans longed for songs more in the smoother R&B style of the group’s early days. In a 1991 interview, Eddie Kendricks recalled that many Temptations’ fans were “screaming bloody murder” after the group delved into psychedelia, demanding a return to their original soul sound.
Songwriting duo Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong had written the lyrics to “Just My Imagination” in 1969, and finally decided to have the group record it in late 1970, with Kendricks singing lead vocals. According to Wikipedia, the song was recorded in the midst of a bitter feud between Kendricks and the Temptations’ de facto leader, Otis Williams. Dissatisfied and frustrated with Williams’ leadership, Kendricks began to withdraw from the group, and picked several fights with either Williams or fellow band member Melvin Franklin. This would be the last song Kendricks (and Paul Williams) would sing with the Temptations.
The group’s fourth and final #1 hit – and in my opinion their best song ever – is the darkly gorgeous masterpiece “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”. Somewhat of a return to the group’s psychedelic soul sound orchestrated by Whitfield and Strong, the song was both a musical and stylistic departure for the Temptations. Beginning with an extended instrumental introduction lasting nearly four minutes (a style pioneered by artists like Isaac Hayes, and used in later songs like Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby”), each of the song’s three verses is separated by extended musical passages, in which Whitfield inserted various instrumental textures in and out of the mix. It’s like a psychedelic R&B symphony, which is probably why I love it so much. That said, the Temptations were reportedly unhappy that Whitfield’s instrumentation was given greater emphasis than their vocals on the track.
Lyrically, the song is about a now-deceased father who left his wife and family to lead a life of debauchery and crime. It was originally written by Whitfield and Strong for soul group The Undisputed Truth, whose recording of the song failed to attract attention. They then had the Temptations record it, and it became one of their biggest hits. Four of the group’s members were prominently featured on vocals, each taking the role of siblings questioning their mother about their father. Her repeated response, sung by Dennis Edwards, was chilling: “Papa was a rollin’ stone. Wherever he laid his hat was his home. And when he died, all he left us was alone.” For years, I’d assumed the falsetto vocals were by Eddie Kendricks, but I now know he’d left the band prior to the song’s recording, and those vocals were sung by Damon Harris.
Here is the long version of the song, with it’s extended instrumentals:
“My Girl”, “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)”, and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”, are included among The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll”. Rolling Stone magazine ranked the Temptations at number 68 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of all time.
The song at #59 on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2010s is “Bang Bang” by Green Day. The legendary rockers proved their staying power with the 2016 release of their 12th studio album Revolution Radio, 26 years after their first album 39/Smooth in 1990. The album’s hard-hitting first single “Bang Bang” stays true to the band’s penchant for topical themes, with lyrics that speak to America’s culture of gun violence and mass shootings in an era of narcissistic social media: “I want to be a celebrity martyr. The little man in my own private drama. Hurrah (bang bang), hurrah (bang bang) the hero of the hour. Daddy’s little psycho and Mommy’s little soldier.”
The explosive song’s musical high points are Billie Joe Armstrong’s furious guitar riffs, Mike Dirnt’s pummeling bass line and Tré Cool’s awesome galloping drum solo. And Armstrong impassioned vocals sound even more angry and intense than they were on American Idiot. I love it!
The song at #60 on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2010s is “Life Itself” by British psychedelic art pop band Glass Animals. They have a distinctly unique sound, and I really like their music. From their second album How To Be a Human Being, “Life Itself” is one of the most interesting and musically complex songs on this list and I adore it. The band employs all sorts of colorful instruments, from harps and tom toms to tambourines, piano and unusual guitar synths to create an exceptionally strong and exuberant track. Lead singer Dave Bayley’s distinctive vocals are hypnotic and mesmerizing, as are the cheeky lyrics about being a millennial slacker: “I can’t get a job, so I live with my mom. I take her money but not quite enough. I sit in the car, and I listen to static. She said I look fat, but I look fantastic.”
The rather intense and artfully-filmed official video made for the song is quite good, but seems to tell a different story than that described in the lyrics. Therefore, I’ll start with the audio video first so you can fully appreciate the sound of the song itself, then you can watch the official video if you so choose.
The song at #61 on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2010s is the superb “Heathens” by twenty øne piløts. The third of their six songs on this countdown, it was written and recorded for the Suicide Squad film soundtrack. The dark song is in the style of rap rock, with a haunting arrangement set to a slow hip hop beat. The mournful piano keys, rough scratching sounds, Tyler Joseph’s monotone vocals, and a mysterious disembodied voice chanting “watch it” contrast with the dramatic, sweeping orchestration, creating a menacing sense of foreboding.
The lyrics speak to not making snap judgements about people you don’t know, and to be more sensitive to others, as we all have hidden issues. “We don’t deal with outsiders very well. They say newcomers have a certain smell. You have trust issues, not to mention, they say they can smell your intentions. You’re lovin’ on the freakshow sitting next to you. You’ll have some weird people sitting next to you. You’ll think ‘How did I get here, sitting next to you?’ But after all I’ve said, please don’t forget.”
The song was a big hit, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it spent four weeks at that spot, held down by the inferior Chainsmokers/Halsey hit “Closer”. However, it reached #1 on the Alternative and Rock charts, as well as in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The video for the song has been streamed more than one and a half billion times.
The song at #62 on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2010s is the hauntingly beautiful “Trampoline” by indie dream-pop band SHAED. The band consists of lead vocalist Chelsea Lee and multi-instrumentalist twin brothers Max and Spencer Ernst (Chelsea and Spencer are married to each other). Their inspiration for “Trampoline” came one night as the trio sat together watching old family videos of Spencer and Max jumping on a trampoline as small children. The song’s meaning has been the subject of debate, ranging from death to suicide to drug addiction, but SHAED has stated that they simply wanted to write a great song loosely based on the idea of the Stranger Things alternative dimension “Upside Down” (Genius.com). This is artfully captured in the stunning and rather surreal video for the song.
A breakout hit for the Washington, D.C.-based threesome, “Trampoline” was originally released in May 2018, but got little airplay until it was featured in an Apple MacBook Air commercial that October, and the song quickly took off. The song finally debuted on the Billboard Alternative Chart in early December 2018, reaching #1 in the summer of 2019 and and spending 63 weeks on the chart. It also peaked at #13 on the Hot 100, and was named the #1 song of 2019 on the Alternative chart, and finished at #5 on my own year-end list for 2019.
The song at #63 on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2010s is “Adventure of a Lifetime” by British alternative pop-rock band Coldplay. I’m not ashamed to admit that I love Coldplay, who were my favorite band in the 2000s (six of their songs appear on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2000s, including “Clocks” which I ranked at #1). They continued to produce some great music in the 2010s, although some have criticized their later music as being too ‘pop’. I suppose that’s partly true, but I still love a lot of their songs from this decade.
Coldplay pulled out all the stops with “Adventure of a Lifetime”, which was released in November 2015 as the lead single from their seventh studio album A Head Full of Dreams. That album was a stylistic departure for the band, as they wanted to make something more colorful and uplifting than their previous works. And though they’d collaborated with other artists on some of their songs in the past (such as Rihanna on “Princess of China”), this album saw them collaborate with many more artists, including Beyonce, Noel Gallagher, Tove Lo, Khatia Buniatishvili and Merry Clayton.
It’s a beautiful, joyously upbeat track, featuring Jonny Buckland’s gorgeous swirling guitars, Will Champion’s thumping drums and Chris Martin’s signature soaring vocals that make for a truly great song. Guy Berryman’s strong bass gives the feel of a heart beating and the mandolin at song’s end is stunning.
The whimsical video. directed by the band’s long-time collaborator, Mat Whitecross, shows the band members transformed through the magic of CGI into gorillas cavorting about in the jungle. According to The Guardian, the video was shot at The Imaginarium, where the reboot series of Planet of the Apes and parts of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Star Wars: The Force Awakens were filmed. Hannah Clark, the producer of the video commented, “As creatures go, chimps are one of the more difficult to animate. Not only are they quite human in their movement, but they are covered in hair. Add to this that we had no backgrounds shot, and we were asking an awful lot of any post-collaborator.”
The band’s faces were covered in a special, reflective and light-catching make-up that allowed the computers to appropriately interpret the video feed and create renders of the chimpanzees’ characters. The band members didn’t play real instruments, but instead held similarly-shaped objects that enabled creation of realistic body positions. The video took six months to complete, and has been viewed more than 1.1 billion times.
The song at #64 on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2010s is “So Tied Up” by blues rock band Cold War Kids featuring vocals by Bishop Briggs. Based in Long Beach, California, Cold War Kids formed in 2004 and has undergone numerous changes in lineup, and now consists of Nathan Willett (lead vocals, piano, guitar), Matt Maust (bass guitar), David Quon (guitar, backing vocals), Matthew Schwartz (keyboards, backing vocals, guitar, percussion), and Joe Plummer, who formerly played drums for bands Modest Mouse and The Shins (drums, percussion). I love their vibrant, hard-driving sound, and they have two songs on this list – “So Tied Up” and their 2015 single “First”, which appears later.
Singer-songwriter Bishop Briggs, based in nearby Los Angeles, is pretty awesome too, with a distinctive, powerhouse voice. Combining her passionate vocals with the commanding vocals of Cold War Kids lead singer Nathan Willett on “So Tied Up” results in auditory fireworks to match the biting lyrics about a destructive co-dependent relationship that’s become so toxic the two partners loathe each other, yet are powerless to escape from it. The song is from Cold War Kids’ sixth album L.A. Divine, which also features another great song “Love is Mystical”. I loved “So Tied Up” at first listen and never tired of hearing it.
The song is positively electrifying, with an aggressive stomping beat-driven melody highlighted by pounding drums and piano keys, and fortified with a heavy thumping bass line, gritty synths and fantastic guitar work. The track’s massive sound combined with Willett and Briggs’ fiery vocals never fails to cover me with goosebumps. Shockingly, the song was not a very big hit, peaking only at #9 on the Billboard Adult Alternative and #12 on the Alternative charts. It spent two weeks at #1 on my own Weekly Top 30 chart, however.
The darkly amusing and rather violent video shows Willett and Briggs singing the song interspersed with scenes of a couple hell-bent on killing each other. By the time the song was released, Bishop Briggs had become quite popular in her own right, and many of her fans complained that her vocals weren’t prominent enough on the song. So, Cold War Kids invited her back into the studio so she could dub more of her vocals onto the track. The official video was reissued with her vocals given greater prominence.
The song at #65 on my list of 100 Best Songs of the 2010s is “Coming of Age” by Los Angeles-based alternative pop-rock band Foster the People. Though I really liked their debut single “Pumped Up Kicks” a lot (it appears later on this list), it was their beautiful, introspective song “Coming of Age” that made me fall in love with them, and they’ve been one of my favorite bands ever since. I saw them in concert at L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium in November 2014, and a photo I took of them has remained as my Twitter header pic since I created my account in August 2015. A few months after creating my account, I was pleasantly shocked when Foster the People followed me back, most likely because band front man Mark Foster saw his band pictured on my Twitter page.
Hard as it is to believe, prior to hearing “Coming of Age” upon its release in January 2014, I was unaware of any of their other songs besides “Pumped Up Kicks”. I’ve previously mentioned my musical awakening when I discovered the Billboard Alternative Chart in late summer of 2013, and when I saw “Coming of Age” appear on that chart, I naturally had to check it out, and instantly loved it. I then searched for more of their music and discovered their fantastic debut album Torches, which in addition to “Pumped Up Kicks” was filled with great songs like “Helena Beat”, Houdini”, “Call it What You Want” and “Don’t Stop (Color on the Walls)”. When Foster the People released their second album Supermodel that March, I purchased it along with Torches, and had both on repeat for the rest of 2014.
“Coming of Age” was inspired by Foster’s experience and introspection after two years of touring with the band, and was actually the last song to be written and recorded for Supermodel. He told XFM London: “Lyrically it is almost a confession. It’s about having a moment of clarity…after the storm of touring for two years and my life drastically changing. It was kind of the first breath I had to really look around and see that there were some things that happened during that period with my friends and with my loved ones, with the people that are close to me and with myself as well. It’s about growing up.”
Musically, the song is melodically complex and stunning, with swirling synths, haunting piano and gnarly guitars layered over Cubbie Fink’s thumping bass line and Mark Pontius’ aggressive percussion. I love the piano movement in the bridge, as well as Foster’s soaring heartfelt vocals that at times seem to channel his idol Brian Wilson.
The song was a hit on the Billboard Alternative and Adult Alternative charts, but unbelievably, did not chart on the Hot 100.
And here’s a cool time-lapse video showing the artwork for Supermodel, designed by Dutch artist and musician Young & Sick, being painted on the side of a building in downtown Los Angeles. With assistance from artist Daniel Lahoda, street artist Leba, and American graffiti art groups LA Freewalls and Vyal, the mural was painted over a period of 12 days, beginning the night of December 29, 2013 to the morning of January 9, 2014. Measuring 148 ft. by 126 ft., it was one of the largest murals ever created. Unfortunately, due to legal issues with both the building owners and the City of Los Angeles, the mural was later painted over.
ECLECTIC MUSIC LOVER 