The 40 Best Alternative Rock Songs Ever, 1976-2000, The Grand Finale

[Edit, 2013: Spotify playlist below ]

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A long post, but you may want to read it even if you do not care about music. Among other things, you'll get a short literary parody, details from my biography which are hopefully interesting in one or the other way, and you can learn a new expression. Here is part one, here is part two, and here is the third part of John Althouse Cohen's 40 greatest grunge songs list.

Boy, this was fun! It has made me listen to lots of stuff from the olden days again, and I enjoyed that very much. Thank you, John!

Not that long ago I was sitting on the bus in front of two young women, around eighteen or nineteen, one of whom had just bought an LP. "This is so damn expensive", she said. "Once I earn some serious money, I'm going to buy at least five records a week!" "You wait and see", I thought. If only I could feel as passionately about music again as when I was nineteen!

Or maybe not. Back then I had a girlfriend who owned maybe twenty albums, and if I'm not mistaken, one of them was by Phil Collins. I was feeling very educational and recorded lots of tapes for her. (For our young readers: Tapes are an ancient technology for recording music. A bit like CD-Rs, only crappier.) One of the tapes I had recorded had the best of Pavement on one side and the best of the Ramones on the other. One day we were sitting in a pub and they played a Ramones song. "Oh, I know who that is!", she exclaimed. "Pavement!" I don't think we had sex that night.

For complaints about your favourite band missing from the list, and general suggestions that I shouldn't be allowed to write about music, the comments section is open. Even better: Make your own list, and let me know.

To listen to some of the songs, go here and click on the "play" button next to the first song. Alternatively, you can use the player at the bottom of this post, but it will fade some songs out after 30 seconds.

Next in this series: The Ten Worst Beatles Songs. Seriously.

And now, people, brace yourselves! The Ten Best Alternative Rock Songs! Ever! (1976-2000):

10. Dackelblut: Kinder kriegen Kinder
Call me Lemmus. Some days ago - never mind how long precisely - I thought I'd listen to "Kinder kriegen Kinder". It is a way I have of driving off the happiness and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find the smiles not wanting to disappear from my lips, whenever it's a warm, sunny August in my soul; whenever I want to stop by at playgrounds and clap my hands whenever a child manages to go down a slide; and especially whenever my feelings get such an upper hand of me, that it requires me a strong moral principle not to excuse everything people do with the bad childhood they may have had - then, I account it is high time to listen to "Kinder kriegen Kinder" as soon as I can.

9. Sonic Youth: Tunic
When you feel like feeling feverish but are perfectly healthy, this is the song to put on. Another way to put this is to say that one should think it's by My Bloody Valentine if it weren't so good.

8. Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit
A surprise entry at no. 8. Almost everything I have to say about this song I've already said in sections III and IV of this post. The only thing remaining being: I once danced to this wearing a suit and a tie. It's a strange world out there.

Please don't threaten legal action or put voodoo spells on me just because it's not no. 1.

7. Pixies: Where Is My Mind
Makes you want to rock your body back and forth like an autistic child.

Boy, it's good I didn't go into advertising. Another try: Having this song on the soundtrack is the best thing about the film Fight Club, and that's a classic movie.

Yeah, that's a little better.

6. Smashing Pumpkins: Today
When Siamese Dream, the album this one's on, was popular, a girl at a party told me that this was absolutely the best album to have sex to. She went into quite some detail. I thought: "Yuck!" And I didn't mean the album.

5. Weezer: Only in Dreams
The best bit of this song is when they slowly get louder again, roughly between minutes 5 and 6. I like to imagine that they formed sort of a huddle around the drums, coordinating each other by looking each other in the eyes. But it was probably just some evil corporate producer type using evil corporate mixing techniques who pulled that one off.

4. Dinosaur jr.: The Wagon
This clearly should be the last song on the album, but it's the first. It's not hard to see why: It's the song with the greatest commercial appeal, and bands and record companies love to put those first, presumably because people who listen to the record in the shop before deciding whether to buy it start with the first song. In an interview with a German music magazine one of Pavement's members once revealed an expression for that strategy. I have a funny feeling he made it up, given that it has exactly zero google hits, but I like it nonetheless. It is the frontloader strategy.

3. The Clash: Spanish Bombs
Darn! I already blew the "perfect pop song" phrase on no. 34. Sooo... The lyrics deal with anarchy. And communism. And fighting. In Spain. Oh look, there's a red elephant behind you! And it's flying!

2. Tocotronic: Drüben auf dem Hügel
You're seventeen. You wake up. You are hung over. The sun is shining through the window and right into your eyes. You had a row with your parents yesterday. You desperately want to be in love. This is your song.

1. Pavement: Elevate Me Later (a.k.a. Ell Ess Two)
When I was in my late teens, we used to meet in a room where bands practiced. It was a little shack in a backyard, 30 metres away from the street, where the tram rails slept. It had a patch of grass in front of it. It had a flat black roof, and in the summer it would get incredibly hot. The sweat would be running down your forehead and into your eyes even if you were just sitting there, on one of the incredibly stinky sofas, motionless. One day I couldn't stand it anymore and stepped outside. I stood there alone on the patch of grass, a bottle of beer in my hand, and thought: "Ah, how cool!" And then something strange happened. It was as though some higher being stuck his - it was a he - finger - the first finger of the right hand, to be precise - in my brain and infused me with a sensation that you have to imagine as the unity of the feelings total peace and I'm so glad to be alive.

And that is the best way of describing how listening to "Elevate Me Later" makes me feel.

The 40 Best Alternative Rock Songs Ever, 1976-2000, Pt. 2 (20-11)

[Edit, 2013: Spotify playlist below ]

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Contains a story about why one shouldn't use illegal drugs. You may want to forward this post to your adolescent relatives.

To listen to some of the songs, go here and click on the "play" button next to the first song. Alternatively, you can use the player at the bottom of this post, but it will fade some songs out after 30 seconds.

20. Fugazi: Waiting Room
Dear aspiring young rap musician,

it is true that I am somewhat ignorant about rap music, but why on earth have I not come across at least ten rap songs that sample the bass intro to this song, the one that goes de-de-de-dem, dee dee dee dee deeee. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Once you've had your no. 1 hit, please forward me appropriate amounts of money.

19. The Psychedelic Furs: Pretty in Pink
The most flowing song I can think of. If you think that sounds boring, you've never properly watched a river after staying up all night.

18. The Undertones: Teenage Kicks
The Undertones also did a cover version of "Under the Boardwalk". My mother once told me when she heard earlier versions of this song, she kept understanding "Under the Walrus". When you think about it, the words don't sound that similar. And, I mean, under the walrus? Goog-goog-go-juub!

17. Frank Black: Thalassocracy
"Hey guys, I really need to go to the loo, so for the next take, can we double the speed? Thank you!"

One minute and thirty-three seconds. For the life of me I couldn't explain why this doesn't qualify as punk, but it doesn't.

16. Alice Donut: Mother of Christ
Don't buy the album! I would call Alice Donut a one-hit wonder if it weren't for the inconvenient fact that "Mother of Christ" was never a hit.

There is a common device used in the genre we're talking about here: Have low-volume passages followed by very loud passages and vice versa. Kurt Cobain once said he learned this trick from the Pixies, and he may well have. (Sidenote: Adressing young women, "Hello, little pixie" may be a very bad idea.) This song uses a somewhat different trick: Combining very flowing passages (if you don't know what I mean by flowing, think of The Byrds' version of "Mr. Tambourine Man") with extremely rhythmic passages: ones that go hack-hack-hack. Phrase it better and put it into the songwriting textbook!

15. The Cure: Killing an Arab
It was a close call between this one and the more popular "Boys Don't Cry", but there you go. Fun fact no.1: The lyrics to this song were inspired by Albert Camus's L'Etranger (hence, "I'm a stranger, killing an Arab"). Fun fact no. 2: The lyrics were misconstrued by many to be anti-Arab. For this reason The Cure did a concert the profits of which went to some Arab organization. So now you know.

14. Ash: Girl from Mars
In a Jim Morrison biography I once read, there is a hilarious scene in which he, of all people, is ushered into a studio to record an anti-drug message to America's youths. He is completely loaded and comes up with slogans such as, "Kids! Don't smoke marijuana! Try LSD!" That spot never aired.

But there is one set of musicians who actually helped to curb drug use: Ash.

There once was a young man who went to a multi-band concert which featured Ash as third billing. He had never heard of them (this was before they got fairly famous); he was there mainly for a band which may appear at no. 2 on this list. He was being visited by a friend in the city he had recently moved to, so to celebrate the reunion, they had a reefer in the afternoon before the concert. Or maybe two, this little bit of information got lost in the depths of history. It was very hot outside, so they were feeling very thirsty: Clearly the consumption of multiple bottles of beer was also in order.

And then they went to the concert. The club was very crowded. The heat, the intoxication - pretty soon our young hero had to sit down on the stairs. That summer, dresses with very short skirts were in fashion. If the man said that he didn't use the opportunity to conduct an observational study on the latest trends in female underwear, that would be a lie! Very soon, he was feeling rather aroused. Another way to put it is to say that he was extremely horny.

Now comes the part of the story for which the reader must try very hard to suspend disbelief and put some a lot of faith in the honesty of the narrator.

He was then approached by a very beautiful and sexy young lady who was clearly very interested in getting to know him better. Our hero learned that she was there because of Ash. His problem was that given his intoxication his contributions to the conversation were along the lines of, "Er, um, er. Oh, I think I have to go to the loo."

Naturally, no getting-to-know-each-other-better was forthcoming.

When he left the concert, he said to himself, "[expletive], [expletive], [expletive], [expletive], I'll never smoke dope again before going out!" And he never did. Today, he doesn't use any illegal drugs at all.

Oh, the song? Imagine one of Phil Spector's masterpieces, but with lots of loud and distorted guitars.

13. Blur: Song Two
Unfortunately fell prey to the Teen Spirit Effect. Another fun fact: The beginning of this song is played whenever second division German football club St. Pauli score at home: Whoo-hoo!

12. Ramones: My Back Pages
Starts with the sound of an explosion. Then intensifies. I wonder what Dylan thinks about this one.

11. Throwing Muses: Not Too Soon
Is it rock? Is it alternative? Two very small checks in my book, but checks nonetheless. And anyway, it's incredibly beautiful. Hands up anyone who also thinks that "She / Coulour-blind / Tired eyes" are magnificent opening lines for song lyrics. Oh.



Related:

The first installment

The first two installments of the list which inspired this list

The 40 Best Alternative Rock Songs Ever, 1976-2000, Pt. 1 (40-21)

[Edit, 2013: Spotify playlist, as complete as possible, below ]

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Warning: Lo-hoong post, which, surprisingly, contains adult language

JAC earlier commented:

I have a standing offer to link to anyone who makes their own top 40 grunge list, with commentary on each song, and blogs it. We can then compare the lists, and see which list is best.

Challenge accepted - sort of. Given my understanding of the term "grunge", which seems to be rather narrow, a list of my favourite grunge songs would be rather short if I restricted it to one song per band. So I thought I'd post a list of the 40 best alternative rock songs, 1976-2000.

I'm not going to try to define the term. For the purposes of this list, alternative rock is what I feel alternative rock is. Just a few explanations: To qualify as rock, a song does not have to be fast, but it has to have some "oomph". Hence I did not include my favourite Pixies song ("Hey"), but I did include "Only in Dreams" by Weezer. Also, some rock (e.g., Oasis) was not included because it didn't seem "alternative" enough. "Alternative rock", as used here, includes, but is not limited to, punk, hardcore (including "melodic hardcore"), grunge, grindcore, noise, what some people call emocore and encompasses most of what in Germany is known as Hamburger Schule. I used the time restriction because 1976 was the year punk took off (sorry, Stooges) and 2000 was roughly the year I lost interest in new music, so I'm not qualified to comment on later stuff.

There is one song per band, although some specific people pop up more than once (due to having left the band/the band having dissolved). I am sure I have forgotten some important stuff and that tomorrow I would probably come up with a somewhat different list. Although some of the songs have videos, there are no YouTube links. I trust you know how to use that site, and believe me, coming up with this list was already quite a bit of work, and so is writing this post.

To listen to some of the songs, go here and click on the "play" button next to the first song. Alternatively, you can use the player at the bottom of this post, but it will fade some songs out after 30 seconds.

Here comes the list.

40. Mudhoney: In the Blood
Otherwise, an overrated band

39. Lemonheads: Mrs. Robinson
In the unlikely case you haven't seen it, The Graduate is a pretty good film.

38. Guv'ner: Break a Promise
My career as a music reviewer lasted for exactly two albums. Guv'ner's was one of them. I think I gave it 4/5.

37. The Jam: Batman Theme
Starts. Goes de-de-de-de-dem. Then is over.

36. Hole: Jennifer's Body
Somehow I never liked Courtney Love, but the song is a cracker.

35. Die Regierung: Ganz tief unten
If I'm not mistaken - and I may well be - the lyrics use the word "unten" in three meanings: "to be down with someone", "the unconscious", "those body parts one does not speak of in polite company". Pretty good. And it rrrrocks.

34. Nova Mob: Where You Gonna Land
Perfect pop. Except that it's rock. Alternative, of course.

33. Joy Division: Warsaw
Joy Division were founded when the members-to-be came from a Sex Pistols concert and said to each other, "Eh! We could do that!" Indeed.

32. The Stone Roses: I Am the Resurrection
To be found on one of the three most overrated albums of all time (the others being Thriller and Exile on Main Street), this song is clearly class. The woman who reminded me of it - resurrected it, if you like - not so much. Don't worry, it's not as though it's still hurting.

31. P.J. Harvey: Shee-La-Na-Gig
If I put in some time, I could probably check the spelling on this one, but I won't. P.J. Harvey is an attractive-looking woman despite having an incredibly large nose.

30. Kommando Sonne-nmilch: Es gibt kein Weihnachtsmann
The lyrics deal with insulting Santa Claus. No, really.

29. Sex Pistols: Bodies
A song which contains the line "I'm not an animal" can hardly be bad. Also the only song I'm aware of that mentions Birmingham. Oh, wait, except for "The Birmingham Six".

28. Hüsker Dü: These Important Years
I'm only including Hüsker Dü to avoid death threats. Just joking. But I really wish they had had a better production. I remember a friend of mine (coincidentally - and when I say coincidentally, I mean coincidentatlly - the singer of the band that comes next) playing a song to me I had never heard and asking me whether I could guess which band that was. After about two seconds, I said: "Hüsker Dü." - "Oh, you know the song?" - "No, but no other band has such crap-sounding drums."

27. Tomte: Pflügen
I met him during first semester in uni. He said something along the lines of: "Hey wait, wait... You like Pavement? I find it cool that you just scribbled it on the back of your t-shirt, rather than making it all neat." - "What? That's exactly what it looks like on the album cover!"

26. Samba: Liebe lügt
Once had the following dialogue (with somebody else): "What do you mean, you like Tocotronic and Samba?" - "Er, yeah." - "Could it be that there's something you haven't understood?" - "Erm, could it be I'm less narrow-minded than you are?" And the motherfucker still owes me 20 Marks, too. Plus interest, of course.

25. The Primitives: Stop Killing Me
Two Minutes: That's a decent length for a song.

24. Honolulu Mountain Daffodils: Death Bed Bimbo
I'm only putting this one in to make me look original. Or do you know the Honolulu Mountain Daffodils? Eh? Eh?

23. Social Distortion: Don't Drag Me down
Music by men for men.

22. Jello Biafra & D.O.A.: Full Metal Jackoff
Lasts for about fourteen minutes. In our indie club we had a little game we played: We watched who went onto the dancefloor for "Full Metal Jackoff" and bet on who would still be there when the song was over. I may be making this up.

21. Sugar: A Good Idea
A good idea indeed to have oneself be inspired by the Pixies' "Debaser" without stumbling into the realm of blatant copy. Definitely qualifies as original work. As we're not on Wikipedia, that's a good thing.

Boy, that was a lot of work; feeling a bit knackered now. Feel free to point out any spelling or grammar errors, it's appreciated!