Wrapped Roundup: #70-61

I don’t want to speak too soon, but this might be the best 10-song section on the entire list. Starting off strong:

#70: Fastest Horse in Town – Sturgill Simpson

For all I talk about this album, SOUND & FURY only gets one song on this list, and it’s the one I found most recently. It’s still not a particularly recent development, but if you’ve read anything I’ve written about that album, you know that each song found me at a different time. I found this one in 2024.

On an album most obviously known for how loud and obnoxious it is, Fastest Horse in Town is the loudest. Sure, Last Man Standing is a competitor, but in terms of quality of sound, Fastest Horse in Town wins by a wide margin. It beats out most of the songs on the album in terms of quality; recency bias weighs in heavily, but there’s no questioning just how impactful and thunderous this song is. 

Everybody’s trying to be the first someone

Look at me, I’m trying to be for something

I love the decision by Sturgill Simpson to bury his message underneath waves of guitar and synth. Sturgill doesn’t give a damn about what other people think, and he couldn’t care less about the music industry; after all, this album exists, an outlier in his country music career. Placing this message here, pointing out how people in his industry would rather be someone than stand for something, means only those who care about what he has to say will find it. It’s futile to say it clearly, so he’ll hide it beneath layers of razor-sharp synth and guitar.

Shoes are coming loose on the fastest horse in town

But that old horse just keeps on running

And if he falls, they’ll put him down

They been keeping him out on the track

Running him ragged just to pile up their stack

And making sure he’s all spent by the time he gets back

The industry just keeps rolling and abusing its artists, and so Simpson will criticize them loudly but obfuscate the message in waves of anger and noise. It’s beautiful, in a convoluted, uncomfortable way. 

#69: Losing My Religion – R.E.M.

What is there to be said about this song that hasn’t been said already?

Their biggest hit (by a long shot), the only one my friends know, and the best of their widely-known songs (also by a long shot). Who would’ve thought a song heavily featuring the mandolin and bearing the title of a Southern saying would be the one that garners all of the popular acclaim?

This is a song about obsession. It’s not about religion, and it’s not about love. It’s about infatuation and paranoia, and that message is embedded in beautiful layers of strings, acoustic guitar, mandolin, and steady drums. 

Every whisper

Of every waking hour

I’m choosing my confessions

Trying to keep an eye on you

Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool

Oh no, I’ve said too much

I set it up

And despite all the popular acclaim, all the times I’ve heard this song and thought, “man, I sure wish they’d give another R.E.M. song a chance!” Losing My Religion refuses to get old. It is, after all, one of their greatest songs, and one of the most well-rounded, evocative songs ever. 

#68: Your Time Is Gonna Come – Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin I gets boatloads of praise for being the groundbreaking debut album for one of the greatest bands of all time. Hard to believe it was released in 1969; the sound was truly ahead of its time. Fundamentally, though, this album is flawed; Dazed and Confused was essentially stolen from another artist, and the album’s sound is repetitive and unchanging. The best was yet to come. 

This song, though, perfectly encapsulates what is beautiful about this album: the simplicity. Zeppelin wasn’t yet at their songwriting peak, which means their ideas were bare bones, just a simple blues scale with a verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure. And it’s in their infancy that we got songs like Your Time Is Gonna Come, a good old-fashioned rock banger. Not really sure how this one ended up on top of the Zeppelin hierarchy for me this year – given a few more months, I had a few others in mind that were well on their way. Still, I can’t be unhappy about it.

#67: One World – Dire Straits

This was a top-20 song for me in 2023, and it broke the Top 100 yet again, but somewhat unconsciously; another track that Spotify seems to play disproportionately.

I’m reminded constantly of the quality of this album, and my disappointment in Dire Straits for not making more music. Knopfler is one of rock’s greatest guitarists and a solid frontman, but he leans too much into the rock opera side of things in the few albums that Dire Straits did record. 

One World is a refreshing, funky rock track that leans heavily into the bubbly bass tone that you hear more often on hip-hop tracks nowadays. It definitely never gets old, so I understand how it gets here. 

I can’t get no sleeves for my records

Can’t get no laces for my shoes

Can’t get no fancy notes on my blue guitar

Can’t get no antidote for blues

#66: Sing About Me, I’m Dying Of Thirst – Kendrick Lamar

Here comes the Kendrick Lamar representation.

I promise I don’t just like Kendrick because of the whole thing with Drake. I enjoyed the diss tracks but would not wish for more music in that vein (that’s what we got with GNX, which is much closer to the sound he achieves on the diss tracks than any of his previous albums.)

SAMIDOT is the greatest rap song of all time. Granted, that’s me saying that, and I’m not exactly a rap aficionado. Lamar shows an impressive range on Good Kid, m.a.a.d. City generally, but this song is a microcosm of the entire album; he tells stories from different perspectives, illustrates the cruel realities of life with gangs and in prostitution, and ultimately questions his own self-worth; “Am I worth it? Did I put enough work in?”

It’s a 12-minute tapestry of experiences; how much of it is autobiographical is not clear to me, but it sounds personal and real. It’s a song for a rainy day, for reflecting on what life is about and what it isn’t about, and for appreciating the life you have now. 

I could probably talk about this song and album forever, but we’ll leave it there for now.

#65: Finest Worksong – R.E.M.

Finest Worksong gets here entirely on its merits as a get-up-and-go track. The number of times I woke up dreading an exam or a rough assignment and immediately turned on Finest Worksong last year is wildly high. Right before a 6 a.m. band rehearsal, pre-final exam, you name it. 

The time to rise has been engaged 

You’re better best to rearrange

I’m talking here to me alone

I listen to the finest worksong

The lyrics themselves don’t actually make any sense, but boy, do they sound inspirational! As the lone Document representative, I think this song serves nicely as a picture of what the album accomplishes: driving rock anthems, protest themes, and confusing verses. 

#64: Holdin On To Black Metal – My Morning Jacket

Throwback!

When I was a kid, this was the MMJ song that hooked me – this and Wonderful (The Way I Feel) – because of the lyrics. What does “holdin on to black metal” even mean? What is “teenage pop” and why are we “taking shade underneath Lucifer’s trees?”

Yeah, it’s a criticism of people who draw correlations between music taste and evil. You listen to metal? You must be a Satanist! That’s what the song is saying, but what I hear when I listen to this is pure energy and weirdness. The horn section popping in every other bar is just the cherry on top of a song featuring a children’s choir, a melody taken from a Thai Pop album, and Jim James singing like Jim James does. 

What is even happening here? Why is this one of my favorite songs ever? Couldn’t tell you, but what I can say is that this is a great song! Maybe even a good song!

#63: Locomotive (Complicity) – Guns N’ Roses

And here we are, a bit early for my taste, at my long-standing favorite song of all time. 

Locomotive is one of the middle tracks on Use Your Illusion II, sandwiched between two forgettable tracks (Pretty Tied Up and So Fine). The album as a whole is not forgettable, featuring (by my count) eight extremely solid songs. Locomotive is the best of them all, and that’s definitely not personal bias talking.

I bought me an illusions and I put it on the wall

I let it fill my head with dreams and I had to have them all

But oh the taste is never so sweet as what you’d believe it is – well, I guess it never is

The song features the same run-on guitar line the entire time while Slash does his thing in a higher register – above all of that, you get Axl Rose, who just sings and sings and sings for what feels like whatever, lamenting the toll that this relationship (a toxic one, by the sound of it) has taken on his mind. The choruses are where he really shines, though, running at light speed through angry, intense condemnations of the unnamed subject. The whole song sounds just like a locomotive, barreling on and on and on through over 8 minutes of run time, eventually fading away but never losing steam. 

As for why it’s my favorite. My dad played this song for me on the way to an audition for a musical ensemble in middle school. Before that, my classic rock exposure was some Aerosmith, some classic Guns N’ Roses songs that everyone knows, and whatever else came on very rarely in the car. This song opened up an entirely new world to me, one that I’m still entranced by regularly. For that, this song will never lose its charm to me. . 

#62: Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 – Pink Floyd

Bizarre place to see Pink Floyd: any playlist that has any connection to me. Pink Floyd is not my favorite, but this song and two others on this Top 100 beg to differ, because occasionally their quirky, somewhat pretentious songwriting methods yield seriously interesting fruit. 

This is one of their big hits. It was fresh and new to me, a non-Pink Floyd listener, so it got a lot of plays. Admittedly, it’s a pretty impressive composition. My favorite aspect is probably the guitar solo thanks to the context around it; the continuous bassline and the slowly rising dynamics give it an unearthly feel that’s hard to replicate.

#61: Near Wild Heaven – R.E.M.

Nearly every song on Out Of Time will always occupy a special place in my listening simply because that album is one of my very favorites. Near Wild Heaven is a special one, though, because it fits any circumstance.

That’s a product, partially, of the album’s nature; it’s packed with bittersweet, melancholy songs that conjure conflicting emotions. In times of stress and frustration, they can be cathartic and relaxing. In times of peace and happiness, they can perpetuate those feelings. Some songs on Out Of Time lean in one direction or the other, but Near Wild Heaven best fits right in the middle, perfect for most situations and appropriately evocative of whatever it is you want to feel when you listen to it. 

Outside of the sentimental value, it’s just an awfully fun song, and by far Mike Mills’ best performance. His thin, reedy voice is much more fitting for this song than Stipe’s. All in all, it’s always going to find its way into my Top 100, one way or another.