Next month, I'll start contributing to #FearOfMu21c, an attempt to crowdsource a great playlist of 21st century singles.
Everyone contributes their favourite 50, with bonus marks for the top five.
Here's my working so far. My list of 50 is a little long.
https://www.tumblr.com/weaversweek/729506571049140224
As Mastodon has limited post sizes, full discussion of each #FearOfMu21c song is on my Tumbr. There may be spoilers there until the countdown ends on 19 November.
Index post: https://www.tumblr.com/weaversweek/729933297209262080/fear-of-music-index-post
The first of fifty excellent songs from the 21st century.
2000 marked the high point of manufactured pop, bursting through like sunshine through the clouds. Those harmonies! The uplifting melody line!
The whole century's going to be as fun and positive as this, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50kP4S0peAs
#FearOfMu21c #SClub7
Eva Cassidy died in 1996. She was a natural musician - came up with three-part harmonies from nowhere, improvised with skill and precision - but never hit the record company leagues.
Indie label Blix Street hawked the handful of recordings to tastemakers. One was Paul Walters, the producer of Terry Wogan's breakfast show on Radio 2; the rest is history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rd8VktT8xY
#FearOfMu21c #EvaCassidy #TerryWogan
The new orchestral Eva Cassidy album I CAN ONLY BE ME is released 3rd March 2023 https://evacassidy.lnk.to/ICanOnlyBeMeRestored footage of Eva Cassidy perfor...
From Arizona to your heart, Jimmy Eat World helped us all with the unsubtle emotions of late 2001.
Whether it was a personal loss, or the cultural shock, the band's accessible emo music cut through crap and gave us permission to feel.
ELEVEN POINTS!
https://youtu.be/oKsxPW6i3pM
#FearOfMu21c #JimmyEatWorld
Banners - Mike Nelson to his friends and family - released this love song in summer 2017, on the Empires of Fire ep. It's brotherly love, a search for meaning and validation in life.
When the world stopped, the line "I wanna be somebody to someone. Someone to you" resonated. Tick Tock turned the obscure choon into a massive viral hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeLaiL9tk68
#FearOfMu21c #Banners
Established francophone singer Natasha St Pier worked with singer-songwriter Pascal Obispo for this song about the fleeting uncertainty of life, thoughtful and poignant. Even if you don't speak a word of French, you'll get the emotion here.
From Natasha's 2003 album "L'instant d'après"; a top five single in France and Belgium in '04.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f1mCn3Yv5Q
#FearOfMu21c #NatashaStPier #PascalObispo
Back to 2004, when electro-pop was at its most thrilling. Richard X from Xenomania wrote a confident, swaggering pop tune, sung by Annie about her many useless exes. The chorus line gets stuck in one's head: "you think you're chocolate but you're chewing gum", a diss to anyone.
In my personal top ten of the century, but (sigh) the top five only allows five entries, and this doesn't quite get the #FearOfMu21c bonus mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTx6enCvQ-M
#Annie #ChewingGum
Grunge never quite died, it just came back in unexpected ways. Tiffany Page was brought up on a diet of country music and Hole; her songs combine the best of both genres, relentless and verbose.
Her vocals were compared to Chrissie Hynde - soulful, smoky, sultry. "On your head", from early summer 2010, made it to Radio 1's B-list. Not that this made it a hit - into the top 40 at number 102, and straight out again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjiQrGUVYdk
#FearOfMu21c #TiffanyPage
Earnest and serious, Hozier's big breakthrough came with this masterpiece from late 2013.
Our interlocutor talks about love, using the language of catholicism. "Worship like a dog in the shrine of your lies" is such an evocative phrase, and the closing motif "a-men a-men" rams the point home.
It's a song about human sexuality, and those who would pretend it's somehow sinful.
#FearOfMu21c #Hozier https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVjiKRfKpPI
"Take me out" boasts the greatest opening minute of any song on this list. A low-pitched, menacing, guitar throb. Ominous, already we're bracing for bad news. Then in comes a low-pitched, growling Scottish voice.
Jonas Odell's video married live-action footage of the band with animated drawings - a state of the art video from 1988 is pastiche by 2004.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9jhwR07yk4
#FearOfMu21C #FranzFerdinand
The first of five Eurovision songs in the 50, and the oldest of all.
"My star" is a post-grunge song, cautious optimism for the future while being honest that life can be a bit shit.
Renars Kaupers, the singer and songwriter, is an affable and geeky chap. Made a connection through the screen, enough to have the song reach an unexpected third place, and a small release over here a month later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZutVRMXoiiU
#Brainstorm #FearOfMu21C #Eurovision
Which song to summarise Dua Lipa's career? Dua has cornered the market in disco pop, with any number of songs to soundtrack the last few years.
"IDGAF" remains the strongest for me. It's about your own personal contradictions and battles, how they can leave you stronger.
A breakup song, an empowerment anthem: you speak, I don't have to listen. You're never alone with friends: Dua stands in fierce solidarity with her phalanx.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgfe5tIwOj0
#FearOfMu21c #DuaLipa
Electroclash pop, a vocal to burn toast at a thousand paces, a chorus never to be forgotten.
Elly Jackson has style, androgynous genderqueer punk dystopian vibe we all love. This left us hollering the chorus while three sheets to the wind, a cry of complete love, a call of hope that we can get through this bit.
La Roux's signature song, first of a million bangers. Investigate other La Roux tunes, you'll thank me later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk8eJh4i8Lo
#FearOfMu21c #LaRoux
One of the greatest pop moments of the 2000s.
The chorus returns – "can we bring yesterday back around?" But this time it's higher-pitched, a touch yelpy. And there's a gloriously discordant high tone, "coz I know how I feel about you now".
By 2007, we're up to Sugababes 3.0, and the video with the young man parkouring his way around south London, hopes to meet up with his date on the Southbank.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPo8XJgoqmE
#FearOfMu21c #Sugababes
Whose bingo card had "Chains" singer gets massive hit in French?
After filling her anglophone contract, Tina recorded «Un autre univers», an album of modern chanson. This was the lead single, "Love unto the impossible".
It's a rejoinder to the cruel ex - promised eternity, then ran away; much disappears under the flame of jealousy, but Tina is always saved by the way she can love. Even unto the impossible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lk_qfB3ooI
#FearOfMu21c #TinaArena
A career condensed to four minutes. Synthpop from "1989", dense lyrics from "Folklore" / "Evermore", dark introspection of "Reputation", the effortless breeze of her early years.
"Anti-hero" is all about the insecurities that keep Taylor up, and the nightmares that wake her. She wants to be a good person, but has become convinced that her flaws will keep her from ever being one. A self-directed video extends the metaphor.
#FearOfMu21c #TaylorSwift https://youtu.be/b1kbLwvqugk
Miley Cyrus has had three blasts at fame, each more intriguing than the last. Today she's a mature woman, earlier a party animal. Miley began as the cleancut star of "Hannah Montana" and its movie.
She sings "The climb" and means it, acting through every layer of her skin. There are ups, and there are downs. "Always gonna be an uphill battle, sometimes I'm gonna have to lose" is a very rare emotion in pop.
https://youtu.be/NG2zyeVRcbs
#FearOfMu21c #MileyCyrus #HannahMontana
A straightforward relationship song, the love and the distance, the closeness and the moments when you just can't stand them.
There's gospel, there's a slow-building crescendo, there's a subtle sample from James Brown somewhere in the mix. And it's a great showcase for Alicia's skills - as pianist, singer, songwriter, producer.
"The gospel fervour of lovesick righteousness", according to Entertainment Weakly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urdlvw0SSEc
#FearOfMu21c #AliciaKeys
Official HD video for "Fallin'" by Alicia KeysListen to Alicia Keys: https://AliciaKeys.lnk.to/_listenYDWatch NOTED: Alicia Keys The Untold Stories 4 Part Yo...
Inspired by Beyoncé and Aretha Franklin, Destiny came up through Malta's many stage schools and young theatrical scene. With Matt Mercieca and Elton Zarb, she wrote and performed a Motown throwback of extreme quality.
I said in 2015, "Being in English, this song could fit straight onto a UK radio playlist. Being utterly brilliant, it won't."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85Sxw9asfX0
#FearOfMu21c #Destiny
Gothpop twins Jessica and Lisa Origliasso have been making great music for most of the century. They've gone from power pop through synth-dance, and then into an era of molten Barbie poured into a crucible with black eyeliner.
"If you love someone" is happy, upbeat, inclusive. A big giant hug for all the queers, all the misfits, all the people who don't quite fit into Normal Bread Society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc5V51_kpw4
#FearOfMu21c #TheVeronicas
An occasional reminder that I'm doing extended write-ups of #FearOfMu21c on my little Tumblr site.
What was the link between Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus?
Why didn't "Bulletproof" get the still-unawarded DOUZE POINTS?
Which song will I post next? Tomorrow's hits today!
https://weaversweek.tumblr.com/post/729933297209262080/fear-of-music-index-post
Avril Lavigne splashed onto the scene in summer 2002, and snotty bratty mall-punks from Manitoba to Milton Keynes found their eyes popping out on stalks.
It's the energy that makes this song - "Sk8er boi" sees the line between "milquetoast" and "too loud", dances along it, turns a few cartwheels, and ends by making an iconic hand gesture in our face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIy3n2b7V9k
#FearOfMu21c #AvrilLavigne
Official video for "Sk8er Boi” by Avril Lavigne Listen to Avril Lavigne: https://AvrilLavigne.lnk.to/listen_YDListen to "Let Go" 20th Anniversary: https://av...
Our group declare to be true
Daniel Peake