The Best Thirty Songs of the Decade

A great song can reverberate in our consciousness upon demand; we can not only recall the lyrics, but we can hear the song during the business or silence of our lives. In that same spirt, the following songs represent the finest achievements in popular music during the past decade; many of these songs will likely remain canonical, even among the shards from the collapse of our listening monoculture, and will be enjoyed for years to come, listen after listen. Over the next month, The D Man will unveil the Best Thirty Songs of the Decade, as the Aughts, or whatever we decide to call this decade, comes to a close.

Words. Stories. Refrains. Instruments and voices. Melodies and arrangements. The following are songs in their most basic sense, and all are well worth listening to on their own merits, their own tangible sense of being. Nevertheless, some songs on this list have been imbued with greater cultural resonance due to their interaction with the listening public in a wide variety of ways. Indeed, certain songs took flight by means the artist never imagined. As a result, they have thrust their way into inclusion by the shear force of their relevance.

The D Man attempted to be objective and democratic, but is also aware of the limitations of this type of exercise. Despite these difficulties, the following songs (and artists) must be included in any legitimate discussion of the decade's great music, lyrics, and songcraft. No artist is featured more than once, except for Sufjan Stevens and Radiohead, which is an intentional liberty taken by the list's curator, as they are arguably the two preeminent artists of the decade, and, admittedly, constantly vying for The D Man's fondest affection. Furthermore, some songs come in pairs, another liberty that seemed necessary at the time, and, presumably, will serve its intended purpose.

Please let The D Man know which songs you love, which songs you hate (although, hopefully, appreciate), and which songs should have been included. Before you do, please consider this: we have but one life, and cannot listen to everything. If we choose to listen, and I believe we must, as it allows us to enjoy or contemplate our mortality and prepares us for that final change that is universal, what shall we listen to? The songs on my list represent an attempt to answer this question. And since you value life and what you listen to enough to take part in this undertaking, that ultimately can expand your consciousness in ways that perhaps only reading can rival (and even trump), I thank you for your participation.

Indeed, perhaps music's prime concern, like reading, is to, in the words of Samuel Johnson, discover "what comes near to ourself, what we can put to use." We may likewise apply Sir Francis Bacon's solemn recommendation for reading to the realm of music: "[Listen] to not contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk or discourse, but to weigh and consider." Finally, we may say as Emerson did of the best books, that the best songs "impress us with the conviction, that one nature wrote and the same nature [listens]." Pragmatically, all of this means the following: learn to listen deeply, not to believe, not to accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that sings and listens.