top 100 of the '00s | 66. the epoxies - "everything looks beautiful on video"

The Epoxies took new wave rock and performed it with modern punk sensibilities. They released two albums of consistently clever candy-coated guitar riffs and Roxy Epoxy's husky-yet-humble vocals.

This cut has always been my fav, because it came out around the time that I solidified my career path decision to work in live TV, and it became somewhat of an anthem to me. To the band and all other listeners, though, it's a song about how pictures and video give us a tool to be whoever we want to be, despite how inadequate we may feel in person.

Some time after this album's release, I saw on Roxy's MySpace (lol) that she was doing a show on a college radio station in Portland. I Googled and called up their request line, and to my surprise, she answered, and I got to tell her that I was playing her music on my college station. How cool is that?

The Epoxies - Everything Looks Beautiful On Video by hillslink

top 100 of the '00s | 67. heloise & the savoir faire - "trash, rats & microphones"

Dance music was in such a bizarre place during this decade. For the first half, the majority of it was sleek, trance-inspired eurodance. As we neared the end of the decade, it still wasn't quite cool to like '80s music again yet, so disco had a resurgence in kind of a weird way. It sort of blended with the electroclash sound that had risen in the early '00s and became this hybrid of old and new that worked really well when it was done correctly.

Heloise & The Savoir Faire are a great face for this movement. They were all over this -- as I call it -- "trash disco" sound, making songs that aren't exactly fit for club floors but definitely aren't headbanging rock songs either. It's just sort of this super gay, super glittery, kinda synthy, kinda dance-rocky groove that white people in their 30s were just all over at this time.

This track was included on Heloise's debut EP, which a friend brought back to me in 2007 from his SxSW trip. I immediately fell in love and got it into rotation on the college station, but was bummed when they finally released an album a year and a half or so later, titled it Trash, Rats, and Microphones, and then left this song off.

The song is so rare, in fact, that this YouTube posting seems to be its only digital presence. I shot it myself when I saw the band live in fall 2007 at the CMJ music fest in New York at a bar called Mo Pitkin's, which was evidently only open for two years. I remember talking to Heloise after the show and telling her that this was my favorite of their songs, and she said, "That song is my diary." So don't let the disgust she feigns at the beginning of this video or its eventual omission from their album fool you; it's in her heart.

top 100 of the '00s | 68. kelly clarkson - "my life would suck without you"

I remember thinking how cool and edgy it was for someone to use the word "suck" in the title of a Top 40 song, almost exactly one year before Cee Lo dropped his solo debut on the world.

The layering of guitars and synths is just perfect here. It pushes and pulls between verse and chorus, working in tandem with the emotional roller coaster of the singer.

It was the first song since Sheryl Crow's "My Favorite Mistake" to put some hope into the idea of being stuck in (what often feels like?) a hopeless relationship.

We probably are not, in fact, better off without most people who piss us off.

top 100 of the '00s | 69. little t and one track mike - "shaniqua"

There are very, very,

very

few things that I like about white-dude hip-hop culture, but this song will always be one of them.

I think it really hearkens back to some of the goofy things rap was doing in the '80s (e.g. Bobby Jimmy and the Critters). It's just some goofy bullshit about moving into a place with a former tenant who was really popular, and you're tired of getting her calls. Like, who can't get into this?

This song dropped in early 2001 and was a big MTV hit, but although this duo went on tour with Blink-182, Green Day, and even Outkast (!), fate was not on their side. A large release party was planned for their well-reviewed debut album, scheduled to happen on -- you guessed it -- September 11th of that year. They broke up the following year.

I wonder if the real Shaniqua still listens to this song and smiles? I know if I annoyed someone (by doing literally nothing) enough for them to write a song about it, I could die happy.

top 100 of the '00s | 70. tullycraft - "the punks are writing love songs"

This was the only Tullycraft song I ever got into, but it really is a stroke of musical brilliance.

"Twee" was very much an established *whatever* (scene? sound? thing?) in the indie rock world by the time this album dropped in 2007, and Tullycraft's name seems to be associated with its genesis dating all the way back to the mid '90s. (Imagine what going to a "twee" show was like in 1995 -- it's pretty funny.) For the uninitiated, twee is lighthearted, lo-fi indie pop, sung in a carefree, almost jaunty manner and with no abrasive instrumentation. It's like the musical embodiment of a children's book or that guy at the office who has potted plants on his desk.

What Tullycraft did so cleverly here is draw a very clear connection between twee and '80s punk. It's a pretty clear nod in particular to the Dead Kennedys.

I took this as their own little way of saying that twee was, in fact, not all that different than punk. It's just its less-aggressive little brother.

top 100 of the '00s | 71. gorillaz - "dare"

Gorillaz' second album Demon Days was released in 2005. They used it to expand upon the aesthetic they established with their 2001 debut, comprising dark, kinda-weird hip-hop with a gritty anime shell.

"DARE" is the album's farthest reach, but is also its biggest success. The three "dude" members are swept aside and sweet lil Noodle is given the spotlight, gently singing (voiced brilliantly by singer Roses Gabor) as Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays mechanically coughs out a few phrases.

If this doesn't make you dance your ass off, nothing will.

top 100 of the '00s | 72. battles - "atlas"

Nine years have passed and I have still never heard another song that sounds like this.

Battles was formed in NYC in 2002 and, after a few EP releases, they finally put out their debut album Mirrored in 2007. This was the first single. It did not chart, but it received considerable music blogger and college radio buzz.

This track is nerdy, mechanical, noisy, rhythmic, and catchy. You'll stomp your feet through the whole thing but probably won't understand why.