Corniest selection in The Current's list of the top essential songs since 2000

https://www.thecurrent.org/list/893-essential-songs-since-the-year-2000

Voted for "Rehab".

float on. vomit.

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros: Home

i really do not like this song

no HIPPO CAMPUS?

wow the top 2 really are two of the corniest songs ever

i think i'm gonna vote for "Seven Nation Army" b/c as much as I dislike "Hey Ya," it definitely has a weirdness to it whereas the "Seven Nation Army" riff sounds like it was written by a 10-year-old

Afaict, it currently rivals "Smoke on the Water" among riffs that actual 10 year olds are learning to play.

(which I'm pretty sure makes it classic)

"Beautiful Day" has to be on any short list

seven nation army is fine until dude opens his mouth

Gnarls Barkley was goofy as hell. Remember when everyone lost their shit for them for a minute?

I've paid basically no attention to popular music from the past decade and I know most of these songs. As such, I have to assume that the list was compiled in such a way as to avoid making your average soccer mom feel uncool and is therefore fairly brimming with corniness.

Like I can picture a slightly-buzzed dad enthusiastically dancing to and badly lip syncing along with a lot of these at his daughter's wedding reception.

damn, list does not disappoint

i'm not into hating people based on how shitty their musical taste is but for whoever these fuckers are i'll make an exception

Current listeners, which is the only reason Trampled By fucking Turtles are even remotely in this conversation.

the current makes me fall asleep behind the wheel

Never heard of this site. It’s a list of very popular indie-ish songs, what more can you say? Some terrific tracks sprinkled throughout, in addition to (yes) plenty of corny ones.

I guess the love for Brandi Carlile is a bit surprising in this context...

The ranking seems almost totally arbitrary, actually (I scrolled thru the first few and last few pages, and there are some great songs deep in the 800s)

"Seven Nation Army" -> "Hey Ya" -> "Mr. Brightside" doesn't seem like an arbitrary top 3 to me at all!

“all my friends”

My real complaint is that a list like this should be limited to singles... they’ve taken a bunch of well-loved albums like Fox Confessor, Twin Cinema, This Is It, etc., and indiscriminately sprinkled album tracks throughout a gigantic list.

Or just make it a list of 89.3 essential albums, instead of choosing 10 songs per album for a list of tracks.

A bunch of those seemed about the same level of corniness until we got to Coldplay

OK, lol, this station has the most mainstream playlists I have ever seen from a "non-commercial, member-supported radio station".

Admittedly, CBC2's The Drive does try to give them a run for their money. Still, are the Twin Cities really lacking for commercial stations that would play these artists?

Abacab
Genesis
10:30

Abracadabra
The Steve Miller band
10:24

Pressure
Billy Joel
10:20

Johnny and Mary
Robert Palmer
10:17

Face Dances Part Two
Pete Townshend
10:11

Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy
Sammy Hagar
10:07

Young Turks
Rod Stewart
10:03

Legs
ZZ Top

I'm telling you, The Current is next level corniness.

“Such Great Heights” is the corniest track in the Top 50, IMO. (I’ve never heard of Trampled by Turtles or First Aid Kit.)

(I know I’m posting a lot in this thread, but I’m in exactly the right mood for something silly like this at the moment.)

Hot take: Coldplay has aged better than most things on this list.

write-in vote for "issues"

The list barely acknowledges that pop/R&B exist, save for Beyoncé, Adele, “Toxic,” “Umbrella,” “Shake It Off,” and few Gaga and Kelly Clarkson songs (etc.). How does a taste profile like that even develop?

(Oh and of course stuff like “Happy” and “Uptown Funk.”)

Idk why that is hard to fathom?

Why you trolling me tonight, Sund4r? (Lol)

man I do not miss the current. it's really amazing how the current and KEXP are essentially the same in overall concept (listener-supported but well-funded stations that play a lot of indie music in pretty white/liberal cities) and KEXP is just exponentially more thoughtful and diverse and imaginative in its programming.

it's been almost 10 years since I had a job where the Current would play for hours on end and it still makes me a little mad, just such wasted potential.

“all my friends”

― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, 17 May 2019 04:05 (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ding
ding
ding

all these things i've done

It's pretty hard to top 'I've got soul but I'm not a soldier'. No less cringey today than at the time of its release.

All My Friends

I loathed "All My Friends" when it came out. But now, somehow, it's only maybe my 24th least favorite song on this list.

no one who would vote for "all these things that i've done" has seen 1) me perform this song at karaoke 2) southland tales

the corniest thing about this list is how many artist repetitions it has. plus the Flaming Lips.

Its not the list I would make, but all the same most of these songs are good.

most of the people who picked them are good too

but get them all together and

http://citypages.com/music/40-non-essential-songs-since-the-year-2000/

I love how the entire top five is from 2003-2004. I mean, those were the years I were 17 as well, so I absolutely agree, but it's still really funny.

Voted Flaming Lips. At some point, the switch in my brain flipped on them and now every single note they've ever recorded sounds corny AF.

(which I'm pretty sure makes it classic)

Almost classical (skip to 4:15):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE6NVGd-7u8

Not quite the same thing, and yet…

I still like a lot of these songs. Went with 'Do You Realize?' though (the moment I wrote them off).

Christ this is impossible.

Trampled By Turtles: Wait So Long

They made this one up just to make sure no one had fallen asleep while reading, right?

Yeah, this is impossible because there's legitimately a lot of good songs on this list which were both popular at the time and have aged well.

Voting for The National because The National.

It's more the list as a whole which is corny. It's cornier than the sum of its parts.

Annoyed about the second Wilco song here because there is literally no 'corniest selection' question to which the answer is not 'Wilco'.

Yeah, Wilco are crap.

didn't realise shit rock music was considered corny on ilx these days

the songs aren't, by and large, shit though.

my god, it's full of corn

the songs aren't, by and large, shit though.

didn't realise corny rock music was not considered shit on ilx these days

do you realize is the predecessor of a lot of the other lame shit on this list

Putting Arcade Fire at No. 4 and Lizzo at No. 7 is really the battle of 2009 Online Corny vs. 2019 Online Corny

I do like a lot of these songs, some of them a lot. "Rehab" always grated for me, though. I never spent enough time with LCD Soundsystem to hate a specific song.

why is that Portugal the man song not here

^It’s #808 on the list.

Scratch that — #251 (don’t know what the heck I was looking at the first time I searched)

Wait! It’s #87. I swear I’m not drunk, Google Sheets is, lol

(The 2nd time I mixed it up in my head w/Peter Bjorn & John, whom I also figured had to be represented here)

I’m gonna try and think of the most apparently suitable song/artist that is somehow not on this list, as a fun game

NOTABLE OMISSIONS (at first glance):
Fischerspooner — “Emerge”
!!! — "Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard"
Giant Drag — “Kevin Is Gay,” “This Isn’t It”
The Von Bondies — “C’mon C’mon”
Monsters of Folk — “Say Please”
Franz Ferdinand — various add’l songs (seems odd that they’re only represented by “Take Me Out”)

It’s somewhat hard to get a read on this station’s taste profile; not just due to some notable exclusions, but also the inclusion of some true shit that even KCRW (my local touchpoint for indie corn) wouldn’t touch... Greta Van Fleet, etc.

The overall theme may just be “whatever they were sent promos of”

I intensely dislike several of these songs but The Strokes have been the epitome of corniness for their entire career

emerge isn’t annoying it’s dope as hell

I mean, corny

not corny I mean

I know, neither are (most of) the others I mentioned... I’m just trying to fill in the gaps in this mammoth list of “2000s commercial indie” songs with a similar profile. (I don’t really buy the thread’s “corny” angle so much, but was happy to vote for Postal Service.)

(To be even more clear, some of the songs on this list are among my all-time faves.)

One “tell” to the list is that the labels represented don’t seem to get any more deeply “indie” than the Merge/Matador/Domino axis (save a random bubble-up sensation like CYHSY). So these guys know Feist and Arcade Fire, but not Broken Social Scene or Wolf Parade (I think there’s nothing from Sub Pop, unless I missed it?). This may be why !!! are excluded from their dance-punk chunk, for example...

There’s just something about the list that makes me want to “crack the code”... it’s a weirdly specific-feeling combination of great stuff, obvious/overplayed stuff, and “Adele songs you hear in barre class” — almost like it reflects the iTunes library of an actual couple in their early ‘40s who were “really into music” in the 2000s, and have gradually lost touch, but try to “keep up with it.”

the corniest selections here aren't any individual songs but that 1) a single album places three times in the top 50 and 2) it's funeral

idk if this is UK/US divide part 1,000,000 but that !!! song (or any !!! song) doesn't seem in the same demographical universe as anything on the list at the top

you know, this is america is actually the corniest selection on the list

idk if this is UK/US divide part 1,000,000 but that !!! song (or any !!! song) doesn't seem in the same demographical universe as anything on the list at the top

I mean they're a ubiquitous behemoth compared to Giant Drag or Monsters of Folk but yeah, I'm guessing people here are working with a different definition of 'notable'.

The corniness of the list comes from two main things afaict:

- Just enough rap music to look inclusive but absolutely nothing that would be even vaguely intimidating to anyone (like, where is Kendrick, seriously?)
- Everything on the list that isn't completely culturally ubiquitous is just tepid comfort food by someone who most people wouldn't be able to pick out of a police lineup but people still desperately want to claim as a major artist (Wilco, The National, The Shins, Modest Mouse, Sufjan Stevens I mean really).

Pour one out for artists like Foster The People and Peter, Bjorn & John who would have been staples of this sort of list not that long ago and have now been expunged never to return.

Just realised Beyonce isn't in there either although the fact that they didn't even sling a half-hearted vote at Crazy In Love somehow makes me respect it a little bit more?

maybe Radiohead: Everything in its Right Place is the corniest selection (rather than corniest song) because it's like "dang we have to put a radiohead song on here" but they don't have any ~~pop smashes~~ since 2000 so we'll pick the first song on their first album after 2000.

someone who most people wouldn't be able to pick out of a police lineup but people still desperately want to claim as a major artist (Wilco, The National, The Shins, Modest Mouse, Sufjan Stevens I mean really

"Float On" was an actual hit song in the US tbf: it made the mainstream Top 40 chart and stayed on the Alternative chart for 28 weeks, peaking at #1.

2) it's funeral

i remember the era when funeral was big here being really alienating to me—like, a band i never heard of, a record i felt manipulated by when it was playing, and suddenly it seemed like everyone in town was bonkers for it

i wanna say the code to be cracked is literally sociological, not musical or aesthetic—imagine the taste profile of a post-collegiate white minneapolitan who was in their 20s to 30s in the early 00s and came up liking a relatively catholic range of things, but filtered through mainstream alt-rock flavored with 90s indie. the wave of 00s big-label indie commercialization/network-ification hits and listeners to the relevant outlets/buyers of the relevant records are enabled to treat their music along the lines of commodity culture/cultural currency (it expresses them, they see the world around them remade in response to their spontaneous inclinations—i feel like somehow the gnarls barkley single, as an event, is a perfect illustration of this). so there's a kind of mirroring of real-world big-money entertainment culture down in this fantasy-leagues level: like, event singles, 'jams', things that will crowd the dancefloor and the office party when it gets hopping, but 'our' versions of those for the here and now. now despite this the demographic had some real love for and understanding of other kinds of music beyond their legacy alt/indie leanings - and the smattering of local rap (a safe substitute!) and suspicious tokenism elsewhere in the list reflects that. but now take all that, and filter it through the establishment, within a local radio market, of a station catering to some such demographic under the auspices of being 'noncommercial' and with the practical agenda of being a ~professional~ media outlet (so in general, you're not gonna hear anything that will make a day at the office or an hour in a cafe too disconcerting or weird or exciting). that axes a great deal of contemporary popular and black music right there; it cordons off whole zones of indie vitality from the 00s and 10s as being ~inappropriate~ or insufficiently ~commercial~ or ~poppy~ (this profile's mediated versions of those); and it sets a low bar for fittingness/acceptability for its own airwaves, as just being whatever is 'not the other stations' in its local market, whether because they've already got their own segment covered or because it's coded within this profile as inappropriate.

idk if this is UK/US divide part 1,000,000 but that !!! song (or any !!! song) doesn't seem in the same demographical universe as anything on the list at the top

I’m talking about the entire list, though (not just Top 50) — it has The Rapture and others on a similar tip.

- Just enough rap music to look inclusive but absolutely nothing that would be even vaguely intimidating to anyone (like, where is Kendrick, seriously?)

He’s on the list 8 times! Get outta the kiddie pool, guys... pore thru the big ol’ Google Doc!!

the corniest song on here is Beautiful Day by a fair margin.

The rap angle is a whole other thing... all that Kendrick and a few old Missy Elliott singles, but not even Nicki Minaj’s pop hits make the cut...

i remember once hearing "You Don't Pull No Punches But You Don't Push the River" on the current and wondering if I was hallucinating.

Float On was a huge US hit, it even got a Kidz Bop version. I hate it
!!!'s "schoolyard' not a 'hit' in the US by any definition.

Neither were a lot of songs deeper on the list

I concede that some of my “omissions” may be a regional thing... like Giant Drag were played a lot here on L.A. radio, but not sure what their profile was elsewhere.

The Sounds (also absent here) are another example

I'm an Annie Hardy/Giant Drag fan but yeah they never got much exposure past outside CA

omit "past"

Corny like a cliche or like some cheap sentiment, I guess I'll pick the Flaming Lips song.

No I don't realize, Wayne. Otherwise I wouldn't be stumbling through life like a malcontent bitch.

'Do You Realise?' is a rip off of this much better song from the South Park Christmas album

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=XUFfeTjuPeg

There’s just something about the list that makes me want to “crack the code”... it’s a weirdly specific-feeling combination of great stuff, obvious/overplayed stuff, and “Adele songs you hear in barre class” — almost like it reflects the iTunes library of an actual couple in their early ‘40s who were “really into music” in the 2000s, and have gradually lost touch, but try to “keep up with it.”

This is the Current demo to the letter.

j. your post is so dead on wrt the current's sociology

Would have been a more interesting poll if you had limited it the 10 or 15 songs that are actually corny, and not sprinkled those in with stone cold classixx.

j. i spot on, except it's early '30s rather than '40s, I think.

no Gangnam Style no credibility

j.'s post is excellent, morrisp's on the same wavelength with

almost like it reflects the iTunes library of an actual couple in their early ‘40s who were “really into music” in the 2000s, and have gradually lost touch, but try to “keep up with it.”

I used to hear The Current very sporadically when driving around the twin cities in the early '00s and it feels like it's more homogenized now? Or, like the notional listener/dj it's a matter of my tastes changing and now I can see the big funnel that is an aging set of interests. Feels like the overall mix used to feel a little more regional.

The last couple times I've been north my reaction has been something between "huh" and "I guess Iowa Public Radio's gotten that much better?"

obviously also a bias toward highly-played mainstream hits that overlap with the station's demographic, avoiding a lot of the truly corny things while being unable to recognize how insanely corny most local bands truly are

I didn't know there was a code to be cracked, myself. For most people music is what Facebook would refer to as a "social affinity". For most people that taste solidifies, ossifies, in one's teens and early 20s. The list makes sense to me because I used to be in that "corny indie fuxx" demo; I just kept occasionally listening to new music after about 2008. Current listeners have heard good things about Kendrick Lamar, but they're pretty sure they don't like hip-hop except for "Stankonia", and anyway they have to take Conor to soccer practice. I don't, honestly, begrudge them that, but I do begrudge the station for making catering to them a business model. I've seen how that sort of thing played out with the Boomers.

I first encountered The Current on a visit back home where all of my friends were 100% over it and I was like "thanks to spending all of my time listening to Boston hip-hop stations, I haven't been inundated with the staples of their playlist so this actually feels refreshing and exciting to me".

Later in that trip, I was jamming out to some random "Shameful Songs I Like" segment and the DJ played Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" and I was like "oh now I get why this station sucks so much"

lol

yeah, I would also imagine some of the DJs subscribe to some weird ideas about pop music purity that would have kept them from even listing things they think out of their scope (where are the Black Eyed Peas!) while also keeping others off the list because they're "just great pop songs"

I don't, honestly, begrudge them that, but I do begrudge the station for making catering to them a business model. I've seen how that sort of thing played out with the Boomers.

It would honestly be less embarrassing if these people just got into Dire Straits.

I'm not sure I understand what makes this bubble more blameworthy than other bubbles.

the thing i didn't realize before having kids was how much of your music listening time gets eaten up by them. i thought it would be me and my 2 yr old in the car jamming out on link wray and shit but it's basically "we are the people in your neighborhood" on a constant loop. that being said, i'd take any sesame street songs on repeat over the majority of the stuff on this list

a lot of sesame street songs really slap

For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t “begrudge” my hypothetical couple in their 40s (the description applies to myself, more or less!) — I’m just interested in the “blind spots” reflected/promoted by this station’s grand list.

xp My 2-yr-old is really into that “No no no, no no no no” (Elmo/Oscar?) song

my brain's on monday morning mode and I conflated the list being corny with it intentionally being a list of corny songs in prior comment. please disregard

the biggest family-friendly blindspot is having Childish Gambino in there and not a single Kendrick mention

and even then, those are the two most consensus "rap acts public radio listeners should at least have heard" picks out there and they missed one

..incidentally that's why the Childish Gambino pick is corniest as a choice -- you need a post-2010 hip hop pick and that's where you go?

Not to pedantic about this dumb list — but again, there are 8 Kendrick tracks on it (just none in top 50).

workplace seems to have blocked the current's site as streaming media, my bad

Here’s the Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aSuC88B5BmPtTTssXUwyWUVDD5WHnFSkprcUV8sE8CM

(you guys did I mention I’ve been retained by “The Current” to promote this list via social/viral channels)

heh.

Anyway, i'm not sure whether The Current deserves all this snarkiness... they are a radio station after all, so they have to cater to some non-trivial listening audience, which ain't gonna happen if they play the ILX Top 77 albums on heavy rotation.
They're doing a lot better job of it than most public radio stations, in my opinion.

(also no one is gonna convince me ever that Skinny Love or New Slang are corny songs, but i'm squarely in their target demographic, if that wasn't already obvious)

My main memory of The Current is from a decade or so ago hearing The Suburbs' "Turn The Radio On" and Atmosphere's "In Her Music Box" several times in 48 hours.

xxxp imo they deserve it because it's a bullshit business model for a public radio station to service the tastes of a market segment that could sustain a proper commercial radio station but likes the prestige of having its music be subsidized against crass market logic. i'd much rather they tried to be a genuinely public-serving station with programming in the various musics that are merely semi-popular given the commercial landscape.

rip rev105 imo

wealthy minneapolis liberals are some of the most detestable people on the planet, or maybe i just think that because i have to deal with them all the time at work. it only makes sense that their favorite radio station is forgettable indie pap

j. so so otm

They're doing a lot better job of it than most public radio stations, in my opinion.

there are at least three public radio stations in mpls that do 10000x better

not to mention the college station

Kicking myself for voting "Such Great Heights" before noticing the obvious winner, the unbearably corny Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes "Home", the only song on this list which makes me IRL cringe with embarrassment when I hear it.

To those who doubt me I ask you, which other songs on this list have a spoken word interlude where the singers deploy cartoonishly affected fake southern accents to discuss how in love they are?

not being terribly up on regional American radio I'd never heard of this station before but 6 Music (BBC digital station) cater to much the same audience in the UK afaict

googled to see if they'd done a similar list and this one from 2013 is p lol in its similarity, both in terms of how many actual same picks there are and the fact nearly every post itt could apply to 6 Music with only the names changed

My understanding is that 6music list was voted for by listeners, I think even 6music wouldn't be corny enough to vote Clocks to #1 if it was just staff and DJs.

143 Animal Collective My Girls
142 Spoon Inside Out
141 Florence + The Machine Shake It Out
140 The Darkness I Believe in a Thing Called Love
139 Foster the People Pumped Up Kicks
138 Jet Are You Gonna Be My Girl
137 Alt-J Breezeblocks

This section is hilarious.

xxp 6music is a far better station, whatever you think of it.

yeah that seems a fair assessment looking at the Current schedules and what playlists are available. seems to be very light on specialist programming

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Thank god for Radio K, KMOJ, and KFAI

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

this thread is the corniest and youve been told.

actually i mean it. the corniest thing, it’s here.

KMOJ is a treasure

#4 in these results is entirely new to me. i've never heard of trampled by turtles or wait so long. it is.....not great.

Arcade Fire should win this for Wake Up.

Too late Moka

Kicking myself for not noticing “Home” on the list when I voted. Just goes to show everyone’s voice is important , one vote can change the world.

Trampled By Turtles is an outlier on this list - an acoustic/bluegrass-y jam band that is "big" in its world, but its world is not the same world as the other 49 artists here. (maybe there are a couple other worlds represented, but you know what I mean.)

given that, i would say that Trampled By Turtles' presence on this list is largely driven by the fact that they're from Minnesota ... home of The Current.

Yeah, Trampled by Turtles got my vote. I wish Minnesotans could hear some of their music the way the rest of the world hears it

which is funny because normally minnesotans are super obsessed with what the rest of the world thinks of them

a very palpable hit

I can't believe I missed a thread where we were bagging on the Current!

Anyway, i'm not sure whether The Current deserves all this snarkiness...

I would argue they do and the reason isn't exactly their playlist, which is terrible, but unlike the other light-FM adult pop station in town Cities 97 which is easily ignored, is that the Current plays what they play but they act like they are WFMU. That sometimes around 6 PM they play a 20 yr old Guided By Voices song and they act like OMG FUCK THE MAN THE COPS WANT TO SHUT DOWN OUR EDGY STATION!!

Yeah, Trampled by Turtles got my vote. I wish Minnesotans could hear some of their music the way the rest of the world hears it

― zama roma ding dong (Eric H.), Sunday, June 2, 2019 10:14 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which is funny because normally minnesotans are super obsessed with what the rest of the world thinks of them

― j., Sunday, June 2, 2019 3:33 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This exchange should be played on a loop during the entire state fair

Tired: Indie rock is played out
Wired: Indie rock backlash is played out

AAA Radio, forevah!

That sometimes around 6 PM they play a 20 yr old Guided By Voices song and they act like OMG FUCK THE MAN THE COPS WANT TO SHUT DOWN OUR EDGY STATION!!

LOL

I don't have any real beef with AAA radio except when public or community broadcasters adopt the format because what's the point. CBC Radio 2's general non-classical programming seems to have m/l gone that way a lot of the time and just why. Someone has to think of the children.