Screw Rock 'n' Roll

Michelle Branch, “All You Wanted” (The Spirit Room, 2001)

Bruce Springsteen, “Bobby Jean” (Born in the U.S.A., 1984)

Russian Red, “Cigarettes” (I Love Your Glasses, 2008)

Gin Blossoms, “Found Out About You” (New Miserable Experience, 1993)

Old Crow Medicine Show, “Wagon Wheel” (O.C.M.S., 2004)

Dillinger Four, “Doublewhiskeycokenoice” (Midwestern Songs of the Americas, 1998)

LCD Soundsystem, “All My Friends” (Sound of Silver, 2007)

Showbag, “Perish Union” (2003)

Brand New, “Failure By Design” (Your Favorite Weapon, 2001)

The 1975, “Chocolate” (The 1975, 2013)

The Gaslight Anthem, “The Diamond Church Street Choir” (American Slang, 2010)

EMA, “California” (Past Life Martyred Saints, 2011)

Betty Who, “Somebody Loves You” (2012)

Chromatics, “Kill for Love” (Kill for Love, 2012)

Taylor Swift, “All Too Well” (Red, 2012)

The National, “Afraid of Everyone” (High Violet, 2010)

Lady Gaga, “Hair” (Born This Way, 2011)

Kanye West, “Bound 2″ (Yeezus, 2013)

Lana Del Rey, “This is What Makes Us Girls” (Born to Die, 2012)

Sky Ferreira, “You’re Not the One” (Night Time, My Time, 2013)

Britney Spears, “Till the World Ends” (Femme Fatale, 2011)

Rihanna, “Bitch Better Have My Money” (2015)

Charli XCX, “Boom Clap” (Sucker, 2014)

Tegan and Sara, “Now I’m All Messed Up” (Heartthrob, 2013)

Against Me!, “I Was a Teenage Anarchist” (White Crosses, 2010)

Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me Maybe” (2011)

Lydia Loveless, “To Love Somebody” (Somewhere Else, 2014)

Ingrid Michaelson, “Girls Chase Boys” (Lights Out, 2014)

Caveat Last.fm

Taylor Swift

Kanye West

The Gaslight Anthem

Drake

The 1975

The National

Carly Rae Jepsen

Brand New

Kendrick Lamar

Laura Marling

Lana Del Rey

Fleetwood Mac

Jay-Z

Hole

Bruce Springsteen

Lady Gaga

Nicki Minaj

The-Dream

R.E.M.

Caveat Last.fm

Lana Del Rey, “Venice Bitch” (2018)

Lil Uzi Vert, “XO TOUR Llif3″ (2017)

Against Me!, “Paralytic States” (2014)

The 1975, “Love It If We Made It” (2018)

Travis Scott, “Sicko Mode” (2018)

Black Dresses, “U Don’t Know” (2018)

Julien Baker, “Even” (2017)

Rilo Kiley, “A Better Son/Daughter” (2002)

Worriers, “The Saddest Little Waffle House in Eastern Pennsylvania” (2018)

Caveat Last.fm. Edited to one song per artist.

100 gecs, “Money Machine”

Taylor Swift, “The Archer”

Sharon Van Etten, “Seventeen”

OneFour, “The Message”

Martha, “Love Keeps Kicking”

Benny the Butcher ft. Pusha T, “18 Wheeler”

Carly Rae Jepsen, “No Drug Like Me”

Lana Del Rey, “The Greatest”

Caroline Polachek, “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings”

Vampire Weekend, “Harmony Hall”

Billie Eilish, “Bury a Friend”

Black Dresses, “Death/Bad Girl”

Tove Lo, “Glad He’s Gone”

MUNA, “Number One Fan”

Better Oblivion Community Center, “Dylan Thomas”

Polo G ft. Lil Tjay, “Pop Out”

Georgia, “About Work the Dancefloor”

HAIM, “Summer Girl”

Kane Brown ft. Becky G, “Lost in the Middle of Nowhere”

Caveat Last.fm. Number in parentheses is place in last year’s list.

Taylor Swift (1)

100 gecs (—)

The 1975 (2)

Carly Rae Jepsen (—)

The National (—)

Billie Eilish (—)

Lana Del Rey (—)

Black Dresses (—)

Against Me! (—)

Bruce Springsteen (—)

Paramore (—)

Better Oblivion Community Center (—)  

Kanye West (10)

Ariana Grande (—)

YG (—)

Worriers (—)

Drake (18)

Polo G (—)

Al Green (—)

Caveat Last.fm.

Julien Baker, “Even” (2017)

Steve Earle, “The Galway Girl” (2000)

Taylor Swift, “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” (2017)

Amy Shark, “Adore” (2016)

The Triffids, “The Seabirds” (1986)

Brand New, “Lit Me Up” (2017)

Halsey, “Tokyo Narita (Freestyle)” (2016)

The War on Drugs, “Strangest Thing” (2017)

Cardi B, “Bodak Yellow” (2017)

Caveat Last.fm. Edited to one song per artist.

Camp Cope, “The Opener”

The 1975, “Love It If We Made It”

Laura Jean, “Girls on the TV”

Kacey Musgraves, “High Horse”

Kylie Minogue, “Dancing”

Soccer Mommy, “Your Dog”

Joyce Manor, “Think I’m Still in Love With You”

J Balvin, “Ahora”

Lana Del Rey, “Venice Bitch”

YoungBoy NBA, “Outside Today”

Pusha T, “If You Know You Know”

Amy Shark, “I Said Hi”

Drake, “Nice for What”

Ella Mai, “Boo’d Up”

Sheck Wes, “Mo Bamba”

Ariana Grande, “No Tears Left to Cry” / "Thank U, Next”

Chvrches, “Get Out”

Kassi Ashton, “California, Missouri”

Meek Mill, “Stay Woke”

Caveat Last.fm. Number in parentheses is place in last year’s list.

Taylor Swift (12)

The 1975 (—)

Avril Lavigne  (—)

Brand New (1)

Julien Baker  (—)

Kacey Musgraves  (—)

Camp Cope (—)

Cardi B (—)

Amy Shark (—)

Kanye West  (18)

Kylie Minogue (—)

Madonna (—)

Joyce Manor (—)

Snoop Dogg (—)

Foo Fighters (—)

New Order (—)

U2 (—)

Drake  (5)

Justin Timberlake (—)

I probably dove too far into some not all that great music for the latest CitySongs, which was about Galway, Ed Sheeran, and Steve Earle. That meant a lot of listening to other outsider — and occasionally insider — attempts at creating Ireland on record. Van Morrison and The Waterboys, for instance, and also The Script’s “Paint The Town Green” (it’s Sheeran’s “Galway Girl” done as best it could ever be) and also Damien Rice’s O.

I had never heard O, knowing it only as a critically favored record from the early ‘00s. What was interesting about returning to it for the first time in 2018 was hearing it in double: my ears tuned to what writers in 2003 — accustomed to Death Cab and Ryan Adams — heard, as well as how hoary and unwelcome this trad folk is to 2018 ears. 

Yet Damien Rice has some nice songs. “Cannonball” is very moving, and "Older Chests” and “The Blower’s Daughter” stand out as hushed broken ballads. Did O deserve the acclaim it received on its release? Perhaps not, but, accordingly, I imagine if it came out today, it would be too unreasonably disregarded. 

It’s funny how the broad critical tastes of a time can overlook albums that showcase sounds that have otherwise been deservedly shunned, or refuse to see the faults in records that too well fit the mood of the moment. Or: if you are the best of the David Gray and Travis set in one season, how will you be remembered when that season passes?

Anyway. I wrote about Ed Sheeran’s “Galway Girl” and Steve Earle’s “The Galway Girl”:

“Galway Girl” was released on St. Patrick’s Day of 2017, and it is a fitting song for a holiday that distills Irishness to green hats and pints of Guinness and then encourages the whole world to celebrate the combination. Sheeran, whose connection to the diaspora is as strong or as tenuous as his Irish grandparents, understands: “There’s 400 million people in the world that say they’re Irish, even if they’re not Irish,” he told The Guardian. “You meet them in America all the time: ‘I’m a quarter Irish and I’m from Donegal’.”

[...]

“Galway Girl” is a cynical song, but it is remarkable for how effective it is in its cynicism. Sheeran claims his label was reluctant to release the song, but his grasp of market segmentation is MBA-canny. He is right: there are a lot of people in the world who would like to enjoy their bare minimum of Irishness to the fullest extent possible, and “Galway Girl” offers exactly the bare minimum of Irishness.

Andrew Marantz, “Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet,” The New Yorker, March 19, 2018

Remember my Citysongs blog? No? Citysongs is the blog where I talk about cities and songs and songs about cities. It’s updated... not often enough.

But I’ve just put up a new entry! This time it’s three songs about Vienna, featuring Ultravox, Billy Joel, Anton Karas, Graham Greene, Carol Reed, the Cold War, Emperor Franz Joseph, and a 1960s travel writer’s bad review of a celebrity wine bar!

I did not enter Vienna under the brightest circumstances: a sodden and gray mid-morning off a train from Budapest I had almost missed. I was visiting for a little less than twenty-four hours, en route to Prague, and the neat houses and steady rain in the central district of Leopoldstadt were dull incentive to venture beyond my hotel room.

If the brevity of this encounter places me poorly to judge the city’s finer points, I am still better equipped than Midge Ure.

Read it over here!

And previously on Citysongs: 

You are already in hell (Las Vegas, Shamir, and Frank Ocean)

Either insane or dead (Adelaide, Paul Kelly, and Powderfinger)