Zenlike Immaturity: Playlist Edition

The latest issue of Rolling Stone Magazine actually did something I found interesting. They called it the "Playlist Edition" and had a bunch of artists pick their top 10 songs from various entities; a particular artist or scene. Mick Jagger picked his favorite blues, Tom Morello picked his favorite protest songs, Tom Petty picked the best of the British Invasion, Rick Rubin picked his favorite Led Zeppelin songs, stuff like that.

You all know how I love to make lists, so I figured I'd pick "playlist" top 10s for the artist I unquestionably know best, and my latest fling.

Tenzwift's Top Neil Young

Neil's the best, it's as simple as that. Condensing his catalog down to 10 tracks is like choosing one organ out of your body and discarding all the rest. But this list covers the basics very well. It's only problem is that it leans a smidgen too heavily towards the acoustic material. His electric stuff is better in general, but what that means is that the great acoustic songs actually stand out moreso among their lesser brethren, and are therefore easier to pick out. If I could pick a runner up, I'd have gone with Fuckin' Up.

1. Cowgirl in the Sand
-- Crazy Horse debuted a new kind of sound. One that was fierce but plodding, like lightning shown in slow motion.

2. Cortez the Killer
-- Immaculate from the first note to the last, Cortez is a sonic trip, the one that proved the new Crazy Horse was a formidable beast.

3. Out on the Weekend
-- There isn't anything good about Harvest that isn't better in this track than on any other.

4. Tell Me Why
-- Perhaps the most gorgeous folk-pop song Neil ever penned, perfection describes it well.

5. Mellow My Mind
-- When his voice cracks -- that's it. That's the moment when shit gets real. The desperation of yearning for a simpler world overcomes him at that moment.

6. Prime of Life
-- This song comes from another world. It's like 3am personified, it oozes with the mysteries of darkness.

7. Will To Love
-- Chilling, haunting, inspired strains of grim wanderlust. A genuine lo-fi track.

8. Ambulance Blues
-- The existential nihilism of the ditch trilogy gets so bittersweet on this track that it makes me ache.

9. Thrasher
-- The most beautifully poetic and enchanting "diss track" ever crafted, where Neils spins a quiet dissertation on exactly why his pals C, S, & N are soulless corporate blowhards.

10. Slip Away
-- Broken Arrow is Neil's most underrated record, and that's saying something. Slip Away does justice to its name with ether-transversing, shimmering escapades of electric waywardness.


Pop Music

My pop fixation, though newly burgeoned, has been very long in the making. I've come to realize that much of the rock music I love harbors a very pop-like mentality (Petty, Stones, Dylan, even Neil), and that a lot of pop music cultures a very rock-like aesthetic (see below). Nothing could ever replace rock music in the very center of my heart, but occasionally I've got to admit that the pure form of the stuff -- pop, that is -- is sometimes better at wielding those pop music attributes that are present in all forms of music. Even a lot of noise music has hooks!

I once considered pop an unkempt and unseemly perversion, delegated to the outskirts of music. Now I realize that it's the epicenter of music. Not the pinnacle, but an essential influence. Without pop forms, we'd all be listening to pure white noise. Pop is good at certain things and bad at others, just like each genre has its individual attributes. And just like with any style of music, I find the select few artists that move me, and all the rest can go to hell.

1. Hand In My Pocket -- Alanis Morissette
-- This song is the embodiment of youth. It covers the dichotomous turmoil of young life like no other song can.

2. Love Story -- Taylor Swift
-- This song convinced me that pop music was onto some serious shit, some formidable glory. When she goes "oh oh" before that one chorus, that's when I knew Taylor knew what she was doing.

3. Misery Business -- Paramore
-- Paramore has so many good tracks to choose from, but Misery Business is just gorging itself on personality, and it's catchier than the fucking bubonic plague.

4. BAM -- Miranda Cosgrove
-- The crunchy keyboard riff and stark force of the vocals empower me, and make Miranda sound like a much older woman (in a good way, believe it or not...)

5. Torn -- Natalie Imbruglia
-- I like to take the line "You're a little late, and I'm already torn" to imply that she's so vibrantly emotional that all the beautiful angst of the song is caused by her man being like 3 minutes late to get home from work.

6. What's Been Going On -- Amos Lee
-- Few songs mean more to me than this. It tells the story of my private life in 2008/2009, and how once-friends become total strangers.

7. What's Up? -- 4 Non Blondes
-- Oh god this song is just so powerful. The chasm between being an adult and still feeling like a child, epitomized in under 5 minutes.

8. Build Me Up, Buttercup -- The Foundations
-- Ingenious Motown impersonation of epic wonderfulness. The way he holds back the "you" is how I knew this was true art and not just paint-by-numbers.

9. Soak Up the Sun -- Sheryl Crow
-- The quaint, girlish, subdued melody here takes what's good about chorus-driven indie rock and does it better.

10. Because The Night -- Patti Smith
-- A more beautiful song about sex is likely never to exist.