5: The Killers - Mr Brightside

Xfm, the radio station I listened to more than any other over the past 10 years, named 'Mr. Brightside' their Song of the Decade. So did Absolute Radio. I haven't gone quite that far, but #5 in my countdown is still a respectable showing for a much-loved indie anthem. If you needed further proof of the song's popularity, consider this - the song, first released in June 2004, has just re-entered the UK Top 100, and has now spent a total of 71 weeks inside the singles chart (including 14 re-entries).

Brandon Flowers, the Mormon frontman of The Killers is a true showman. The way he moves about a stage, the way he delivers his lines, the costumes, videos and elaborate set designs, Flowers clearly believes in the value of a performance. Which is to be expected, from someone who hails from Las Vegas.

I first saw them at Glastonbury 2004, in the New Bands Tent. They drew the biggest crowd of the weekend, and I described them (in my festival review) as "the HOTTEST band around, unquestionably the biggest new band in the world." At Glastonbury 2005, I saw them again, this time on the Pyramid Stage ahead of the Friday night headliners, The White Stripes. And I mentioned that they "should have been replacing Kylie" (who had pulled out due to her breast cancer), but that they "preferred their existing slot - it virtually guarantees that they'll be headliners in 2007". And then, I saw them again at Glastonbury 2007, and surprise, surprise, they headlined the Pyramid on the Saturday night. This time, I noted that there was "no-one in the crowd who didn't know every word to every song, and at the end of a long day, when you're tired and muddy and damp, what better to cheer the spirits than a big singalong."

If you're sensing a trend here, you'd be right. For me, The Killers are a festival band, and 'Mr. Brightside' is a festival song. It's full of pomp, well-enunciated lyrics (i.e. easy to remember the words and sing along) and, when viewed from the perspective of 100,000 people, it's an exhilerating experience. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can place the exact moments at which the collective enjoyment reaches its peaks - the "... chest, now, he takes off her dress, now" lyric, the first chorus, "it was only a kiss, it was ONLY a kiss", the keyboard bridge into the "I neeeeevvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrr" outro. Best enjoyed live, no doubt, but if you're interested, here's what the video for the single looks like.

9: Los Campesinos! - We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives

It was the pace with which I fell in love which startled me the most. I'd never heard of Los Campesinos! before the final week of May 2007, let alone heard any of their songs. Within a month, I'd seen them play two live shows - one at the Scala in London, and the other in a torrential downpour at Glastonbury. They were on the brand new Park Stage at the Somerset festival, and it was a testament to my burgeoning admiration for them that I was willing to drag myself out of my sleeping bag at Way-Too-Early o'clock to stand in a thunderstorm and watch their set.

'You! Me! Dancing' came first... on the radio initially, and then in a club on a balmy late-May evening. That was like the first date, whereas 'We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives' felt more like the engagement. As soon as I heard it, I knew we were meant to be together. I mean, what's not to like about Gareth's opening line? "When you play 'Pass the Parcel' with human body parts, somebody might get head but someone will get hurt". It was love at first... listen.

And then Alexsandra's sweet sweet chorus, playful and charming and witty and everything I was looking for from an indie band. As an introduction to the prolific* seven-piece (often referred to as Welsh, even though none of the band actually hails from the country where they met at university), 'We Throw Parties...' was perfect. It even goes to the trouble of describing their fancy dress outfits of choice - "Team Campesinos trick-or-treating on the driveway in the middle of August, one of us dressed as a zombie, one of us dressed as a pirate, one of us dressed as a ninja, four of us dressed as schoolgirls". LC are fun, both on record and in the live setting, and music is meant to be enjoyed.

*Third album, 'Romance Is Boring' is released next week, less than 2 years after their debut.

18: Noah & The Whale - Five Years' Time

My favourite song of 2008. The whistling one that isn't Peter, Bjorn and John. The sound of that summer. The mandatory Laura Marling guest appearance (it seemed like she popped up on just about every folk hit of 2008). Twickenham-based Noah & The Whale released a song that on first glance seemed joyously happy, but on digging deeper, revealed its pessimistic side. The "sun, sun, sun", "fun, fun, fun" and "love, love, love" choruses seem unambiguous, but this is quite clearly a song about taking advantage of the present. "In five years' time we might not get along" suggests a painful end to the story. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. The last line is "in five years' time you might just prove me wrong". This is a song about the pointlessness of trying to predict the future. The singer hopes that his relationship will last, suspects it won't, but, in truth, doesn't really know.

Where do I think I'll be five years from now? And looking back five years, have I achieved what I set out to do? The end of a year, the end of a decade, these types of calendar-based cut-off points provide an opportunity for self-assessment and for planning. Likewise, Noah & The Whale's hit, which reached #7 in the UK charts - a lofty height for a debut single by a folk group - makes me think about the past, present and future. It's quite inspirational in that sense.... anything is possible.

25: The Coral - Dreaming Of You

Liverpool has a rich musical tradition; Gerry & The Pacemakers, Echo & The Bunnymen, The La's, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, that one from the Sugababes' original lineup... and I'm sure there's someone else I'm missing.

This decade, in particular, has seen a revival in the finest guitar band traditions of the city, with The Zutons, The Wombats, The Dead 60s and The Coral all enjoying success with variations on the British-tinged pop that made McCartney and Lennon world famous.

'Dreaming Of You' was a breakthrough hit in the summer of 2002, reaching #13 in the UK singles chart. It has a doo-wop 60s style, with harmonised backing vocals, as the band sing about the loneliness of unrequited love - "up in my lonely room, when I'm dreaming of you, oh what can I do, I still need you, but I don't want you now". When I think back to that summer (I was just completing my second year of university, and I was just embarking on a new relationship), this song stands out in the memory.

26: Kings Of Leon - Sex On Fire

Proving the precise point I was making at the start of the last post, here comes a track by a band who have been disappointing on the two occasions I've seen them play live. Kings of Leon are definitely one of those bands who sound much better on record.

I'm going to say very little about this one, as it's probably the most well-known song of the past 18 months (it's this or Lady Gaga). But I know it is a fairly divisive song, probably as a result of over-exposure.

However, the inescapable fact remains that it contains one of the all-time crowd-pleasing choruses, anthemic like a terrace football chant. This song will have longevity unlike most others of the era.

27: Bloc Party - Banquet

Some bands record stunning albums and then struggle to translate those songs into a compelling live performance. Other bands play stunning gigs, but release albums of middling quality. Getting the balance right is clearly tricky, and only the very best bands can do both. What you want is a live show which stays true to the original songs, but offers enough twists and nuances to make it feel special, like a one-off.

It's this particular 'X' factor (and no, I don't mean the god-awful reality show) that has persuaded me to become a die-hard Bloc Party addict. I probably would have been a fan anyway... all three albums are excellent and contain enough variety to prevent what I like to call 'Oasis syndrome'* But catch them live, and they're a whole different beast. The albums can be quite moody and cynical at times, but live, Kelechukwu 'Kele' Okereke rarely stops grinning. It's infectious. On every occasion I've seen them, I've witnessed a band having a lot of fun doing what they love to do.



'Banquet' was essentially Bloc Party's first single in May 2004 ('She's Hearing Voices' had been released as a vinyl-only single in February 2004), but it was the release of a re-recorded version in April 2005 that grabbed the attention. By that stage, 'Helicopter' and 'So Here We Are' had already been minor hits, and when XfM added 'Banquet' to their rotation, I was hooked. Something about the way the guitars seem to dance through the air, or the way Matt Tong's unconventional drumming builds the song up to its climactic chorus, I guess.

Of the many times I've caught them live, their BBC Electric Proms show at the Roundhouse in October 2007 sticks in the mind. In front of a smaller crowd than they were accustomed to playing for, Kele was in fine spirits, despite the fact that he had been diagnosed with acute pharyngitis and advised not to play. The atmosphere was spectacular and after starting the set with some of their slower numbers (to take advantage of the choir which they'd invited on stage with them), when they burst into 'Banquet', I thought the floor might collapse.

Three albums later, I wouldn't say this is necessarily my favourite Bloc Party song, but every time I come back to it, it brings a smile to my face. I've even got a favourite bit... in the bridge, the music breaks as Kele sings "and if you feel a little left behind, we will wait for you on the other side", and then the drums and guitars crash back in as he repeats the line. I've sung along to that with 70,000 at Glastonbury, and on my own in my car, and it sounds just as relevant either way.

35: Hard-Fi - Living For The Weekend

Remember that Carling advert with a flock of birds flying across the sky, and then the slogan 'Belong'? How could you possibly forget it? That advert was unavoidable in the autumn and winter of 2006. And it was one of the major reasons why I went off Hard-Fi... they suffered massively from being over-played and 'Living For The Weekend', which soundtracked the advert, was the biggest culprit.




A few years have passed, and now that I'm no longer hearing it every 5 seconds, I've been able to reappraise the song. And it's clear that it is a great tune, with that infectious guitar hook and lyrics which resonated with the daily grind of urban living. The chorus ("Working all the time, work is such a bind, got some money to spend, living for the weekend") seemed to sum up the daily existence of myself and many of my friends.

'Living For The Weekend' was the penultimate track on the Staines group's debut album, 'Stars of CCTV'. I was, for a time, obsessed with that record. I loved the pomp of 'Cash Machine', the indie club floor-filler of 'Tied Up Too Tight', the anthemic 'Hard To Beat' and the mournful ode to society of the album's title track. I interviewed the band on the day that they received a gold disc for 'Stars of CCTV' and I felt that this was deserved success for a likeable band, with a brash but confident frontman who had written a culturally important album.

Looking back now, I believe my initial assessment remains accurate. Hindsight shows that they weren't able to capitalise on their success, with second album 'Once Upon A Time In The West' generally considered a commercial and critical failure (despite actually topping the album chart in the week of its release). It certainly didn't produce any singles to match the high standards of those on 'Stars of CCTV'. A third album is on the way shortly. But they'll have to go some to match the heights of 'Living For The Weekend'.

50: Ladyhawke - My Delerium

2008 was a huge year for New Zealand culture. Backed by slogans such as "New Zealand: Like Scotland, But Further", Flight of the Conchords took the world by storm. And stirring up just as big a storm was Wellington native, Pip Brown, whose debut album 'Ladyhawke' sold over 100,000 copies in the UK.

That Christina Aguilera has chosen to cover 'My Delerium' for her new album should be considered a massive compliment to the Kiwi songstress, but it's not all that surprising - 'My Delerium' is a great pop song. Written by Hannah Robinson (Annie, Rachel Stevens, Sugababes, Saint Etienne) and produded by Pascal Gabriel (Soft Cell, Kylie, New Order), the song dazzles, occupying a berth somewhere between the synth-led glam disco of the 80s, and the harder grunge sound of the early 90s.

I love the way Ladyhawke's voice sounds on the verses of this song, echoey and distant. Contrast that with the "hey" and "stop" (at the beginning of the first and third lines of the chorus respectively) which seem to carry real force. Alongside the shimmering keyboard loop, it makes for an intoxicating mix, and whilst the rest of the album sounds more conventional, it's 'My Delerium' which stands apart as a song of the decade.

52: Mystery Jets feat. Laura Marling - Young Love

The second consecutive duet in my countdown couldn't be further away from the gangster rap of Dre and Eminem. Eel Pie Island natives, Mystery Jets teamed up with Hampshire folk-pop singer, Laura Marling, to record one of the loveliest songs of this, or any decade. Criminally, it only sold enough copies to hit #34 in the charts, but it's a song beloved by many.

It's a difficult record to define, by virtue of a tune that sounds as though it was written in the 70s, but with the "woah woah" backing vocals so popular in the 80s, and yet somehow sounding unmistakeably contemporary. The key to the loveliness of this song though are the vocal harmonies achieved between William Rees (Mystery Jets' lead guitarist, who took over vocal duties from singer Blaine Harrison for this track) and Marling.

Singing a story that has been told a thousand times previously, Rees and Marling each recall a one night stand from a different perspective. Rees is desperately seeking the woman he met that night. "If I only knew your name I'd go from door to door" he sings, before bemoaning the fact that "you wrote your number on my hand but it came off in the rain". Marling is more pragmatic, remembering that "young love, it never seems to last" before noting that what was supposed to be "one night of love, nothing more, nothing less" has actually had a profound effect - "that left my heart in a mess". It's a classic 21st century urban love story - the one night stand that could have been so much more. But put in on your stereo, and you'll be humming along and smiling before too long.

57: We Are Scientists - Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt

I love We Are Scientists. I fell in love the minute I first clapped eyes on them. It was October 2005, and I was at the Astoria with my then girlfriend to see Editors. We Are Scientists were one of the support acts, but they blew me away with their high energy take on the post-Strokes indie-rock world. That said, my initial assessment on my blog proved to be miles wide of the mark, when I said that they "look like Placebo and sound like a cross between The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand". In reality, they look like the Beastie Boys and sound like...., well, they sound like We Are Scientists. It's a unique and distinctive style that continues to give me great pleasure every time I pop on either of their two albums to date, 'With Love & Squalor' or 'Brain Thrust Mastery'.

Two weeks after the gig, 'The Great Escape' was iTunes' free download of the week, and my love affair began to blossom. Shortly after that, XfM began pummeling 'Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt', and I was head over heels. Track 1 off any debut album is important to set a marker, an indication of what fans can expect from a new band, and there can be few better debut album openers this decade. The guitars are legendary, and the drumroll heralds the arrival of the band. Indeed, the drumming is probably what I love most about W.A.S., filled with inventive time shifts and rhythms which just insist that, at the very least, you're tapping your feet.

70: Santigold - L.E.S. Artistes

'L.E.S. Artistes' is Santi White's attack on the scenesters of Manhattan's Lower East Side (aaah, so that's what L.E.S. stands for), and was the breakthrough hit for the native Pennsylvanian.

Released under the name of Santogold (before she changed her moniker to Santigold), it sounds like a less angry M.I.A., blending R'n'B and indie in equal proportions. It's also yet another of those songs with a chorus that really bursts into life.



Santi's a busy girl.... since finding fame with this song and it's predecessor 'Creator', she's co-written 'Littlest Things' for Lily Allen (alongside Mark Ronson), and appeared on the soundtrack to the film 'Notorious' on the Jay Z track 'Brooklyn Go Hard'.

Interesting Santigold fact: Santi studied at Wesleyan University, whose other notable alumni include the most successful NFL Head Coach of all time, Bill Belichick, as well as 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' writer/director Joss Whedon, 'Transformers' director Michael Bay, and both members of MGMT.

83: Modest Mouse - Dashboard

What would the music industry be like if it had a transfer market like the football world? Would the Sun be plastered with headlines about rumours of a surprise £20m move for Liam Gallagher to The Saturdays? Would Green Day and U2 get involved in a bidding war to secure the services of Lily Allen on a long term contract? Luckily, we need wonder no more, and that's because, not content with being an integral member of one of the most popular British bands of all time, Johnny Marr has recently decided to embark on a sort of job-hopping that we might expect from a journeyman striker. He's currently a member of The Cribs, but his career revival began in the summer of 2006, when he started recording with Seattle indie stars, Modest Mouse.

'Dashboard' was his debut with the group, the first single from their gold-certified 'We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank' album, released to much fanfare in early 2007. The band had been swirling around the indie underground for over a decade, and had even achieved some mainstream success with 'Float On' off their previous album, but the "signing" of Marr was the equivalent of Bolton Wanderers signing Jay Jay Okocha and Ivan Campo in August 2002. World-renowned stars in the twilight of their careers don't sign for unfancied clubs very often, and Marr's arrival was a coup for Modest Mouse.



This is an unusual song, to my ears at least, because of the lack of any semblance of structure. There aren't really any verses or choruses. It just rumbles along, at a consistent, reasonably rapid pace. In many ways, it's unexceptional, and I did briefly question my inclusion of 'Dashboard' in this list. But then I asked myself the following question: "Will I still enjoy listening to this song ten years from now?" The answer was a resounding "yes", which is why 'Dashboard' keeps its place as my 83rd favourite song of the past 10 years.

88: Maximo Park - Going Missing

Looking back on the decade as it draws to a close, one of the obvious trends in music has been the rising popularity of the music festival. The turning point may well have been Glastonbury 2000 (100,000 tickets sold, 250,000 in attendance), and the introduction, after a year's hiatus, of the "superfence". Stricter licensing rules and tighter security meant fewer gatecrashers and less crime. Other festivals, as ever, took their cue from Glastonbury. Either way, the music festival, formerly the preserve of the crustie, emerged as the summer holiday option of choice for the discerning middle class adolescent.*

On this basis, is there a more apt song to define this decade than Maximo Park's festival anthem? Not only does the song title accurately describe the experience of most festival-goers (in the same way that Pulp's 'Sorted For E's & Wizz' did 10 years earlier), but as one of the most prolific bands on the live circuit, this song may well have been performed at more festival sets than any other song this decade.



* I count myself in this category, even though I had been attending festivals from 1997

90: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero

2009 is the year that indie went disco. With the NME-touted La Roux, Little Boots, Florence & Her Machine et al. storming to the top of the charts, and off the back of recent success by the likes of Hot Chip, Justice and Calvin Harris, "credible" artists are queueing up to add beats to their guitars.

Of course, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs always had a hint of disco aesthetic about them, courtesy of Karen O's outlandish wardrobe and stylised vocals. But 'It's Blitz', released in the spring of this year, heralded a clear refocusing of direction for NYC's coolest band of this past decade. The whole record is packed with dancefloor fillers, and even the slower tunes like 'Zero' are flexible enough to lend themselves to countless dance remixes.

Video here (embedding has been unhelpfully disabled).

The fluctuating, Rolf Harris-on-a-wobbleboard style of guitar playing allows Karen O's vocals to the fore, and as per usual, she doesn't disappoint. I particularly like the opening gambit ("shake it like a ladder to the sun"). Not sure if it means anything, but it's a great line nevertheless.

93: Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out

Not without reason was 'Take Me Out' rated as the 34th greatest track ever performed by a British artist. In late 2003, Franz Ferdinand were one of a raft of up-and-coming British indie-rock bands, whose debut single, 'Darts Of Pleasure' had spent one week at #44 before dropping out of the UK singles charts altogether. Fast-forward six months, and the follow-up single, 'Take Me Out' had hit the giddy heights of #3 in the UK charts, #7 in Canada, and #66 in the Billboard Hot 100 - no mean feat for a ramshackle bunch of Glaswegians. Better yet, the single went gold in the US by virtue of half a million sales, and the world-renowned Time magazine described them as "a band you wish you hated".

And the single at the centre of this stratospheric rise? Well, it's one of the most recognisable guitar riffs of the decade. A frantic intro gives way to that slow pounding drum beat, before the guitar kicks in. Go on, sing it to yourself, it's easy. "Nur nur na-na nur-nur-nur." That riff was EVERYWHERE in the summer of '04. And the lyrics were as easy to sing along to as anything the Kaiser Chiefs could produce. "I say you don't know, you say you don't go, I say.... TAKE ME OUT".

I'd like to direct you to the brilliant Pythonesque video, directed by Swede, Jonas Odell.



From my research, I'd say Franz actually put more thought into the video than the single itself. But no matter. It's a timeless piece of Brit-pop-rock, that still gets used to soundtrack computer games and sports highlights montages 6 years later, and that's a testament to the song's sheer brilliant simplicity.

94: Doves - Pounding

In at #94 in my countdown, and it's the band formerly known as Sub Sub. Debut album 'Lost Souls' had been a slow-burning hit in 2000, earning the band a Mercury Prize nomination. And when the second album, 'The Last Broadcast' "dropped" in the spring of 2002, it soared straight to #1 in the charts (supplanting Blue's 'All Rise' from the top spot).

'Pounding' was the second single released from the album, and peaked at #21 in the singles charts. Built around a pounding drum beat (hence the song's title), it became one of the festival anthems of the decade, a joyfully upbeat ode to seizing the moment.



Fact #1 for fact fans: the song is currently being used on promotional advertisements for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Fact #2 for fact fans: the previous single, 'There Goes The Fear' was only available in shops for one day before being deleted, but made it to #3 in the charts. This is still Doves' highest charting single, although they also hit #3 in previous incarnation Sub Sub, with the brilliant 'Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)'

98: Ian Brown - F.E.A.R

Timing the release of a single can be significant, if that song somehow captures the prevailing mood, and thus it was the case for former Stone Roses' frontman, Ian Brown, with the release of 'F.E.A.R'.

The first single off Brown's third solo album was released just 6 days after the attacks on the World Trade Center. The song became a major commercial and critical success for Brown, reaching #13 in the UK singles chart, whilst receiving multiple award nominations for songwriting. Lyrically, it would seem to bear little relevance, but the whole mood of the song is dark, and it struck a chord with music fans in the days that followed 9/11.

Video of Brown "performing" the song on Top Of The Pops

Brown's creative use of the acrostic to form each line of each verse works a treat, and Brown admitted in interviews at the time that he created hundreds of such acrostics during the writing of the song. On top of this, the scansion varies through the song, adding maximum impact on lines that shift the rhythm of the vocals, such as "fantastic expectations, amazing revelations" and "fallen empires are ruling". There's something about the song that just seems to click. Maybe it's the use of the sample from 'Gangsta's Paradise'?

99: The Libertines - Time For Heroes

In the winter of 2001, Carl Barat and Pete Doherty were simply the latest in a long line of musicians trying to get a break. They'd formed The Libertines in the late 90s, but after several years without any recognition, it was the success of The Strokes in the early years of the decade which persuaded Rough Trade to take a chance on them. Debut single 'What A Waster' (produced by Suede's Bernard Butler) was released in the summer of 2002, but received a lukewarm media reception, received little airplay, and only managed to make it to #37 in the charts. The second single, 'Up The Bracket' fared slightly better that autumn, and the album of the same name made a small dent in the charts. But it was the release of 'Time For Heroes' (under the production supervision of The Clash's Mick Jones) in January 2003 which propelled The Libertines firmly into the spotlight.

The song, which continued the run of limited retail success by only charting at #20, quickly became a huge fan favourite and a live staple at the band's often chaotic gigs. The lyrics were written by Doherty, inspired by the May Day riots of 2001 - "there are few more distressing sights than that of an Englishman in a baseball cap" was an early demonstration of Doherty's undoubted lyrical witticism.

The rest of The Libertines' story is well-known; Doherty's descent into drug abuse, Barat firing his bandmate, Doherty's prison spell, the formation of Babyshambles, hooking up with Kate Moss (and the international media spotlight which that brought), rehab, Barat forming the Dirty Pretty Things, perpetual rumours of reconciliation. But The Libertines' arguably peaked right at the beginning of their fame, with this track. The vocal harmony between Barat and Doherty is exceptional, the riff is undeniably catchy and despite the lack of a recognisable chorus, there can be no argument with the statement that 'Time For Heroes' is a modern classic, whether you were/are a fan of the band or not.