Johnny Mercyside

Monday, March 21, 2011

Noughtie: My 100 Favourite Songs of the Decade (Part 9)



To view part 1, click here.
To view part 2, click here.
To view part 3, click here.
To view part 4, click here.
To view part 5, click here.
To view part 6, click here.
To view part 7, click here.
To view part 8, click here.

Here we go, the Johnny Mercyside official Top 20 is upon us. Here are my favourite 20 songs of the last decade. As I said at the end of yesterdays post, a lot of these songs are of the metal genre, I love my metal, but unfortunately it’s getting harder and harder to find decent bands that can play heavy music well. Anyway lets countdown from #20 to #11.

#20. “Turn Me On Mr. Deadman” – The Union Underground
Released: 18/7/00
Album: An Education in Rebellion
"I'd bet my bottom dollar this band will be around 10 years from now." - John Kalodner, the man who signed The Union Underground, the same man who found Foreigner, AC/DC, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins

I thought I’d put up that quote. This band was going places. They had a great label, a highly reputable man working with them, a great sound. As I said, this band were better than the other metal bands around at the time, Drowning Pool, Disturbed, the lot. They were better. But then they split. There’s no reasons to why they split, they just did. It’s so frustrating when you see talented bands call it a day when you see other less talented bands have the spots these bands thoroughly deserve. If you don’t believe me when I say that this band is better than the others, listen to this song. It kicks fucking ass. That being said, I do have Disturbed and Drowning Pool featured in this listing so I want to emphasise, as bands a inferior to The Union Underground. But yes, they have also done some fantastic songs, as you will see later on.

#19. “Dance Commander” – Electric Six
Released: 13/10/03
Album: Fire
You must obey the Dance Commander! How can anyone not like this song? It’s by far the best of the three singles Electric Six brought out off their debut album. It really sounds great too; it’s one of their heaviest songs. But the lyrics are so funny, and the video of course is just awesome. Gay Bar may be a slightly better video, but this is definitely the best track. I absolutely love the Dance Commander, and shall obey him and all his orders. Amen.

#18. “Renegades of Funk” – Rage Against the Machine
Released: 21/11/00
Album: Renegades
Rage released two singles in this decade and they both make this list. Tells you all about the quality, not only of their songs in general, but their cover versions. They are rumoured to be thinking about making a new album and you know something, I’d embrace that. When you hear of certain artists say after a long time out “we’re gonna make a new album!” you have your suspicious. Yet Rage are a one in a million band, and I think they have a certain quality that no other band can match. Renegades of Funk is the epitome of that. They’ve made it their song, they’ve took the original by Afrika Bambaataa and throttled it, and turned it into this metal rap classic. I love this song and hope Rage can make a new album.

#17. “No Pussy Blues” – Grinderman
Released: 19/2/07
Album: Grinderman
I don’t know how much you know about Grinderman, Nick Cave’s new sister band. The best way to describe them is that they’re exactly the same band as The Bad Seeds, but with the old punk vibes from The Birthday Party. It’s like the two bands met for drinks and Nick Cave merged the inspiration of one and put them into the other. No Pussy Blues is a fantastic song, a very noisy song, yet it’s just great. The best thing about it is definitely the lyrics, the man that Nick Cave speaks of tries to hard to band this lady, yet “she never wants to”. He tries really really hard, and does everything for her, and she still “never wants to”. Nick Cave got asked in an interview if there was any other meaning to the song and he responded, "No, it's just about not getting any pussy." Great stuff, seriously, give it a listen above.

#16. “Starfuckers, Inc” – Nine Inch Nails
Released: 2/5/00
Album: The Fragile
Listings: Best Videos
Starsuckers was the censored single. But Starfuckers, has already been covered on this site in the Best Videos listing. The story is very simple, Trent Reznor, the man behind NIN, doesn’t speak much in interviews about artists he has been associated with in the past. So this is basically a statement against all those artists who went to the press and ripped his name to pieces, primarily Marilyn Manson of course. So Trent vented all his frustrations into this song. And what a song it is. It’s definitely the best single off The Fragile, and is often played in their live sets. It’s just a brilliant song. Also, NIN is the last artist to have three songs featured in this listing with the third entry being the highest, this one, at #16.

#15. “I Hate People Like That” – Jerk
Released: 18/11/02
Album: When Pure is Defiled
I’ve said it before, Jerk are nothing original, yet they have a sound that I thoroughly enjoy. Basically a Manson ripoff with immature lyrics, Jerk sound like the type of band I’d really dislike. However I really like their only album release and this was the primary single released off it. And no matter how silly the lyrics are, the song just sounds really good. It’s one of those stereotypical industrial metal songs but I just somehow enjoy love listening to it. It’s just hard to explain.

#14. “Vicinity of Obscenity” – System of a Down
Released: Hypnotize
Album: 29/5/06
I never knew this was released as a single until I did my research and saw it as such. Hypnotise for me, is SOADs worst album. By quite some distance as well. It just feels like SOAD went emo and this was the end result. But “Vicinity” was definitely my favourite track off the album, as it’s the type of song you’d expect to hear on say “Toxicity”. It’s just completely random hard hitting awesomeness, the type of song that you’d hear on their earlier material. The lyrics are random, funny and yet there is a hiding message amongst the odd lyrics. It’s just a fantastic song, with seemingly random shouts of “Banana, banana, banana, terracotta, banana, banana, banana, terracotta pie!” It’s brilliant.

#13. “Bombshell” – Powerman 5000
Released: Unknown, 2001
Album: Anyone for Doomsday?
“GET UP! GET UP! GET UP! DROP THE BOMBSHELL!” Man this song really kicks ass. It’s definitely one of the best metal songs of the decade, and it really should be more popular than it was. It’s the type of song that really should be a metal anthem yet for some reason no one really heard it. Seriously, if you like your metal anthems listen to this. I heard this song as it was the Dudley Boyz’ theme back in the early noughties in their time in the WWE. It was also on the Evolution soundtrack. It’s a great song, its nonsense heavy metal with a brilliant chorus. It’s simple yet fucking awesome.

#12. “Capital G” – Nine Inch Nails
Released: 11/6/07
Album: Year Zero
A lot of NIN fans including myself think that the start of “Capital G” is a discreet hidden homage to the king of pop, Michael Jackson. It sounds convincingly like the start of “The Way You Make Me Feel” it’s too close to say otherwise. But the rest of the song is Trent Reznor mixing his industrial sound with electronic synth of the late eighties. It just sounds so funky and cool and the lyrics are badass too. The song is about a man with a lot of power, if it’s God or Government, or George (Bush) who knows boasting about having this power; not giving a shit about anything that is lower than him and claiming how stupid it is for people to suggest that having power corrupts people as they have never even experienced it. It’s just everything about this song, it’s just perfect.

#11. “Shut Me Up” – Mindless Self Indulgence
Released: 12/9/06
Album: You’ll Rebel to Anything
Listings: Best Videos
The song got that so many people to notice this little odd industrial/punk/rap/electronic band just marginally fails to make my Top 10. They’ve done some fantastic songs, before this hit and after, but nothing will sound as perfect as this one. Nothing will grab the attention of so many people as this one. It was just released at the right time with the right music video and it got the attention that they deserved many years ago. Shut Me Up is a song that I think metal fans will remember for a long time because it just sounds so good. “I like my coffee black, just like my metal” is simply one of the best lyrics of the decade. MSI did so much right in this song and the video alongside it makes it even better. Seriously, if you like your metal like you like your coffee (… that doesn’t sound right but never mind) then give this song a go. The song, the video, are just fantastic.

That brings us closure to the ninety songs that miss out on my Top 10. Tomorrow you’ll see what songs I absolutely fell in love with, the ten songs that shaped my decade musically. A lot of them are metal as I said, but I do have some hard rock in there too. Take care and I hope you come back tomorrow.



To view part 10, click here.

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