100 From 1977-2003

From R.E.M.’s 1987 album, Document, the single “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” became one of the band’s most popular hits. Looking at the song’s lyrics, it does not seem like the band had the makings of a hit on its hands, with its abstract, possibly nonsensical verses coupled with something of a downer of a main chorus. However, the musical arrangement, complete with a drum intro as catchy as a guitar riff, is what gives the song its power. “It’s the End Of the World” is a perfect example of what can result from a successful mating of art and pop, with its lyrics of pure postmodern poetry. Plus, it’s one of the only songs in the world that can lead a group of strangers to chant the words “Leonard Bernstein” in unison.
      — Brian Ruh

You could probably make a good argument that the Pixies wrote the boilerplate that all alternative bands from 1990 on would use. Melding punk fury with pop melodies, sci-fi lyrics maniacally shouted by Frank Black, and Kim Deal’s awesome bass lines, the Pixies were one of the greatest bands ever. It’s hard to pick a favorite song when a band has so many brilliant tracks, but “Debaser” seemed to encompass everything that made the Pixies great. Jagged guitar riffs, unfairly catchy melody, Black screaming gibberish, Deal’s husky voice in the background sounding as soft as Black was harsh, a bridge that is pure genius, and rhythm that will make you want shake all over. “Debaser” is three minutes of a brilliant band at their best.
      — Adam Dlugacz

Sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, and platinum-blond hair; Debbie Harry had them all. As the lead singer and focal point of Blondie, she opened doors and broke ceilings. “Heart of Glass” remains one of Blondie’s biggest hits, with its paranoid lyrical ruminations and cocaine-laced disco aesthetic. Dealing with archetypal relationship issues such as mistrust, fear, and getting your heart shattered, the lyrics weren’t radically different from that of today’s blond-teen-pop-stars, but Blondie never seemed contractually subjugated to peddle an image of “barely legal” sex. Instead, she worked with her natural magnetism, exuding a much more attractive, complex, and hypnotic lure that has kept Blondie relevant as a pop-cultural icon for decades.
      — Chris Fitzpatrick

I recall reading a review of “Groove is in the Heart” when the song first came out that discussed the song’s powerful statement of individualism and personal choice. Personally, I think that’s crap, but, ultimately, it’s irrelevant what the song is about. No one listened to this song for the lyrics; in fact, ask most who are familiar with the song to recite some of the lyrics and they won’t get past the title. People listened to “Groove is in the Heart” because it was the most fun dance song to come along in years. This eclectic blend of hip-hop, techno, rap, Latin rhythm, and sheer silliness energized the dance floors 13 years ago, and still can today.
      — Michael Abernethy

The comically ominous opening line (“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you…”) was the first thing that grabbed your attention. But what really pulled you in was the rhythms: amidst the murk of the one-man band’s synths and wah-wahs, an entrancing, undeniably funky syncopation, rapped out continuously on his trademark Linn drum machine. The percussion section anchored the song; then, the whoosh of a carnival organ — riffing unabashedly on the Mamas and the Papas’ “Monday Monday” — lifted it off the ground. Finally, the melody line proper, delivered memorably by a lead vocal round-robin (first Jill Jones and Lisa Coleman, then Dez Dickerson, then the Artist himself), propelled the song into the cultural stratosphere, where it would linger for hours, days, years after its bang-and-whimper ending. “1999” was pretty grand conceptually, too: the apocalypse theme, a symptom of arrested development in the hands of most creative types, was more than redeemed by the exuberance of Prince’s music, which rejected a dystopian future by stressing the pleasure principle over our collective death wish. In 1982, it may well have changed your life. So don’t blame the song if you were revolted by its commercial renaissance four years ago: in the dystopia of mundanity that was 1999 A.D., “1999” could be little more than a painful reminder of how timid reality inevitably outstrips our boldest dreams.
      — Christopher Sieving

I first saw a band called Verve supporting Smashing Pumpkins in 1994 and, if they didn’t blow their American headliners off stage, they did show a confidence and promise that I couldn’t help warming to. Soon, after legal threats from the famed jazz label, the Verve became the group’s new name and, fronted by the gawky and gangly Richard Ashcroft, became the faves of one Noel Gallagher. By now, the Britpop wave was surging forth, and Ashcroft’s combo, from the town of Wigan, part of the wider Manchester conurbation from which Oasis had sprung, were members of that second battalion which briefly threatened to repeat the British Invasion of 1964. “Bittersweet Symphony” was an achingly beautiful paean to life’s more trying moments — lush, sweeping, pastoral, almost neo-romantic — but it prompted further testing times for the band. Based around an orchestral re-make of the Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time”, the single rose high in the UK charts in 1997, but attracted the attention of Allen Klein, one-time Stones manager and a man with an ongoing interest in Jagger and Richards’ publishing rights. In the end, the Verve had to pay quite heavily for this copyright indiscretion, and it wasn’t long before the band went their separate ways. Ashcroft’s solo work since has had the elan, the flourish, of a mid-period Dylan, but maybe we don’t need another Zimmerman no more.
      — Simon Warner

The conventional wisdom on Beck after “Loser” and Mellow Gold could’ve been boiled down to one of the most dreaded phrases in music history — one-hit wonder. So what’s a talented SoCal boy to do? Easy — enlist the hottest, most off-the-wall production team available and knock out a career-defining record like it’s second nature. As Odelay‘s first single, “Where It’s At” not only proved definitively that there was a lot more to Beck than “Loser”, but it also showed that a white dude could talk about getting down with two turntables and a microphone and not come out all Vanilla Ice. Lyrically, Beck lays out some of his most absurd profundities (“make-out city is a two-horse town”?) over the song’s mellow, in-the-pocket organ groove, and shows his prescience as connoisseur of obscure pop culture by name-checking Gary Wilson a full five years before anyone else figured out who he was. Forget all the significance though — this is one of the best party jams of the entire 1990s, guaranteed to turn an ordinary shindig into Studio 54 revisited. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta shine my shoes with the microphone blues . . .
      — Scott Hreha

“When something happens in Central Los Angeles / Nothing happens / It’s just another nigga dead” — who says this song isn’t as confrontational as “Fuck tha Police”? It might not make you want to put your fist through a windshield like “Police”, but “Straight Outta Compton” takes only 4 1/2 minutes to cover every major gangsta rap theme and cliché. Ice Cube’s sawed-off violence, MC Ren’s claims of washing down a kill with “bitches n’ ho’s”, and Eazy-E’s rollin’ dismissal of those too weak to survive — all of it combines to form an album-opener of unequaled power. Even after all these years, the song’s anger, lack of remorse, and vivid detail still provide a shock — just imagine what it sounded like in 1988 when it crashed into the mainstream like a racially-charged atom bomb. No one, not even the members of N.W.A., have been able to top it.
      — Andrew Gilstrap

Far be it from me to equate the number of punk covers of a song, especially an ’80s song, with its genius. But something makes “Just Like Heaven” stand apart from, say, Modern English’s “Melt with You”. In a way, the desire to cover “Just Like Heaven” speaks to an oddly universal appreciation, nay, adoration of perhaps the best Cure song ever. Few love songs match the exuberance of being in love (or just wishing you were); this song, with its dizzyingly buoyant melody, threatens to surpass it. No wonder everyone wants to play it, to sing it, to share it with others for just a moment. As a friend once said, every musician worth his salt knows “Just Like Heaven”. And every car passenger between 16 and 40 better know the words.
      — Jesse Hassenger

A young man identifies so strongly with his favorite rap star that he writes him a series of increasingly desperate fan letters; the final one sent details his experiments in self-mutilation and climaxes with “P.S.: We should be together, too”. Receiving no acknowledgment from his idol, Stan makes his final attempt at contact via a tape recording, made as he drives his car — his pregnant girlfriend stashed in the trunk — into a river. Days later, the rapper finally finds time to respond to his disturbed devotee, chiding Stan for modeling his behavior on that of the star’s psychotic persona (“I say that shit just clownin’, dog / C’mon, how fucked up is you?”) before realizing in the chilling final lines that he’s writing a letter to a murder-suicide. The demented apotheosis of the identity-twisting Eminem has indulged in throughout his career, “Stan” couldn’t be satisfactorily untangled in a dissertation, let alone a paragraph. Much ink and countless pixels have already been employed in analyzing the links between Stan’s deeds, Slim Shady’s words, and Eminem’s responsibilities as a commercial artist (and in deciphering Marshall Mathers’ ability to separate the three). But future scholars shouldn’t neglect other suitable topics for further discussion, like the hard and brittle sheen of the 45 King’s production; the flamboyant, unifying rhyming patterns deployed across the entire composition; and the brilliant recontextualizing of Dido’s “Thank You”, an airy and otherwise forgettable piece of adult contemporary fluff — transformed here by an overdubbed, creeping bass line that sets the world askew with each verse.
      — Christopher Sieving