The best 250 songs of the noughties: 175-151

250-226 | 225-201 | 200-176 | 175-151
150-126 | 125-101 | 100-76 | 75-51
50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20-11
10-4 | 3-1

175. Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. - Call Me Ishmael
While I may have disliked Get Cape’s later material, I cannot fault his first album, as it is full of some great songs, of which this is the best. It’s got a lovely lazy rhythm, and it literally feels like a summer sun when the trumpet shines in through the window, aptly describing how rubbish it is being in work when the weather is lovely. And then, all of a sudden, the tempo lifts and you’re outside running about in the park. This song lifts you up and holds you up in the sky, and it’s a stunner. Video

174. Red Sparowes - Alone And Unaware, The Landscape Was Transformed In Front Of Our Eyes
This absolute behemoth of a song clocks in at eight and a half minutes and is the opening to the superb album ‘At the Soundless Dawn’. It’s a brilliant example of what Red Sparowes do best; take one brilliant riff and change it a lot of different ways, seeing which changes work best, and then recording them. Not all of their experiments work as well as this, but this shows that the experiment must work, even in some small way, as this song is sublime. Listen

173. Missy Elliott - Work It
I defy you not to work it to ‘Work It’. It’s stripped back and it’s big at the same time, and it has the golden hand of Timbaland on it. I can barely fault the man, maybe he’s the second coming? That is all. Video

172. Jamie T - Sticks 'N' Stones
It’s new, and I loved it from the first time I heard it. It’s got a brilliant childish element to it, as it tries to achieve and succeeds in sounding youthful. It’s key to the song’s success and is incredibly well pulled off. Jamie T once again shows his incredible songwriting skills this time with the full band behind him to bring out the best elements of his live show to full potential. Listen

171. The Mad Capsule Markets - MIDI Surf
The MIDI surfers come back again. I only got to see this band twice before they all decided they’d be better at running clothing lines, but those two live shows were some of the best I have ever witnessed. An incredible band, live and on record, MCM created some brilliant music, released in the UK in the noughties and definitely helped me see other genres beyond the limited potential which I had previously been fencing myself into. ‘MIDI Surf’ is a fast, throttling song which takes you on a huge fucking trip of epic proportions covering metal, hardcore (punk and dance) and pop music. Incredible band.


170. The Steal - World Wide World
These guys. Fucking hell these guys. They made the best soundtrack to me mowing my back garden ever. I must have pissed off all of my neighbours that day by playing this album 3 times in a row that day. This song is one of the best, fastest hardcore songs I have ever heard, only bettered by other The Steal songs. No further comment… well, until more turn up. Listen

169. Spitalfield - Gold Dust Vs. State Of Illinois
What can I say? It’s one of Pop-punk’s forgotten gems and while the majority of this bands back catalogue is worth ignoring, this song is definitely un-ignorable. It’s a superb song, and has an absolutely stunning chorus, and what more can you ask from pop? Video

168. Million Dead - I Am The Party
One of my bands of the decade, Million Dead has a lot of incredible songs. The culmination of Frank Turner’s incredible lyrical and vocal style mixed with Ben Dawson’s relentlessly thundering drumming, Julia Ruzicka’s incredible fuzz drenched bass and Cameron Dean’s sublime work on guitar created a whole album of pure genius called ‘A Song To Ruin’ of which ‘I Am The Party’ is the best of the best. Everything is represented so well here and nothing ever sounds less than incredible. What’s better is that everything sounds so fantastic, but then somehow gets even better, in the last 25 seconds is a testament to the power of the band. Video

167. Weezer - Island In The Sun
What would the noughties be without Weezer? That’s right, the same… but without incredible pop songs like ‘Island In The Sun’. I’m not sure I’d like to live in that alternate reality, that’s how much I love this song. Listen

166. Strapping Young Lad - You Suck
What’s better than telling your fans that you love them dearly? Telling them that they “fucking suck”. It’s brilliant, inspired even. And it’s at no point egotistical, saying that they themselves also “fucking suck”. The only thing that doesn’t “fucking suck” is this song. Everything is incredible; the guitars, the bass, the vocals, and best of all, the drums. Oh, the drums, how you slay me! Listen

165. Flight Of The Conchords – Bowie
What start’s out as a comedy duo somehow churns out this incredible spoof/homage to the man, the myth, the legend ‘Bowie’. It’s superb and works on both levels, just as with The Lonely Island; incredible songwriting, production and inspired comedy too. It’s too cool. Video

164. Muse - Plug in Baby
At the time, this was Muse at their finest, little did we know they had even better stuff to come. This captures everything that Muse were then; talented songwriters, incredible musicians, a fucking great rock band. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was the best they could deliver. Video

163. The Mars Volta - Inertiatic Esp
The Mars Volta, for me, never delivered as good as they did on their first album, with this song setting my high standards obviously too damn high for them to reach. It’s fast, it’s interesting, it’s a rock-beast and it’s got an incredible vocal melody throughout. Not to mention, the bass sounds fucking sublime too. Listen

162. Textures – Drive
I saw textures live once and they were brilliant. As brilliant as this song would have you believe. It’s all odd time signatures and fucking beastly riffs and thunderous vocals, and this is a perfect 2-minute show off of their perfect live song. Listen

161. The Bled - You Know Who’s Seatbelt
It’s energetic, it’s aggressive, it gets right down to the hardcore heart of me and makes me go fucking nuts. It’s a shame that when I saw them live in Belgium they probably weren’t at their best, with a guitarist out sick, however, even at that they put on a hell of a show. Superb and chunky riff-tastic song this. Video

160. Jetplane Landing - Brave Gravity
I have loved this song from the moment it came on Gonzo. This is when Gonzo was good, on 5 times a week and for two hours from 5pm, not like now when they barely play any music. It’s was a golden egg in a mess of indie and it was perfectly poppy and heavy in all the right quantities, not to mention having a bloody brilliant video that riffed off the success of Feeder’s ‘Just A Day’ to a decidedly geeky degree.


159. Bon Iver - Skinny Love
Thanks to my ex-band’s drummer breathing an extra set of lungs into ‘Flume’ I got really into Bon Iver. It was only when I found this MP3 floating around the net for Hear New Music however, that I truly fell head over heals for it. A truly brilliant songwriter with a really interesting way of bringing songs to life, Bon Iver is a great thing to discover. Listen

158. New Found Glory - Failure's Not Flattering
This is pop as fuck. No matter how you go about it, it is. Even if it’s really riffy and has some beastly drums in it, the overall feeling is pop. It’s got the brilliant chorus line and even some synth-y majesty bringing the whole song a step further to 80s pop. Truly though, the heart of the song is the little breakdown at 2:40. Love it. Listen

157. Atreyu - Right Side Of The Bed
I may be alone here… but I count this song as pop too. Sure it’s dark and possibly about vampires (What Atreyu song isn’t?) but fuck it. It swings with the best of them and brings a sense of Bon Jovi into a metalcore, which I never would have thought worked. But here we are and here it is! Video

156. Lostprophets - Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja
A lot of fans of Lostprophets have a right, a right to say that they sold out. By the third album pretty much everything they brought out was glossy and hitting the charts, while they looked like even more ‘pretty boy’ than usual. This is where they began and where I have a huge fondness for. They were rough around the edges and you could describe them as nu-metal if you really wanted to, but what they did was write accessible metal to the “skate” generation. This song showed all their talents; writing ridiculously good riffs that just didn’t give up, being really tight musically, bringing turntables into the mix without ruining the song and creating some damn fine choruses. Video

155. Funeral For A Friend - She Drove Me To Daytime Television
Another welsh force, Funeral For A Friend were somewhere between emo and metalcore in their early days, and this was all of those things with a lift of pop thrown in too. It’s perfectly catchy, has some great guitar work and has drums to die for. The drums especially, drive the song forward and the tempo changes are what keep the song radically interesting and fun. It’s a shame they turned into U2 cast-off’s for their third album though. Video

154. Arcade Fire – Wake Up
Wow. There is not enough words in the English language to describe this band well enough. I’ll stick with one rather pretentious one for now: Transcendent. Video

153. From Monument To Masses - Checksum
I only got into this band recently, but this is definitely one of the best most interesting bands I heard in 2009. Here are the ingredients; a high dose of 65daysofstatic with a healthy dose of Post-Rock majesty, and a dollop of the stuff that makes Maybeshewill work so well, genius. It’s a sample-filled song that plays heavily on a brilliant little guitar sound that survives the whole song and is joined by a brilliantly sparse bassline, with a super drum beat coming in at just the right times. Add a superb singing section accompanied by piano and strings and you have this little piece of heaven, and I haven’t even touched on the incredible double-time section which brings this excellent song up to an even higher calibre. Listen

152. The Knife – Heartbeats
Who can really say why this song works so well? I don’t feel I’m up to that task, as I think that no-one can deny this song it’s rightful place in your heart. It has lovely little sounds cropping up everywhere and it’s a surprisingly heartfelt song that’s easy to sing along too. If you don’t know it, you’ll silly, get on it. Listen

151. Trivium - Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr
Of course, I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for a good bit of Metal. It’s fast, it’s energetic, it’s anthemic and it’s riotous. What more can you ask for? Oh, you can ask for fucking brilliant riffs, a fucking excellent sing-along chorus, superb fucking drumming and a man tearing out his vocal fucking chords for our entertainment. Sorted, it’s all in there. Anything else? Oh, a solo? How did they leave you out? They fucking didn’t, get in there you slag! Video

Sorry it took so long to get this one out.
Next part as soon as possible.