116. "Guess I'm Doing Fine" by Beck

There was a time when Beck was just a hipster trickster. He released albums like Odelay and Midnite Vultures, slapdash monsters of hustle and rhyme. He could show a subtle side on an album like Mutations, with its downbeat acoustic ventures and surreal escapes; but even here, his voice still snarled with a bit of snark, a youthful, tinny wink. 

From his first release in 1993 to Midnite Vultures in 1999, six hard-working years, he traversed musicality with the palpability of a forest elf.

He had spent significantly longer - nine years - with his girlfriend until they broke up after the release of that Midnite Vultures record. Beck publicly admitted the breakup was devastating, causing him to write a series of songs about his feelings of loss and despair. Until this point, writing about and admitting personal issues had been on the other side of the universe from Beck's interests. 

Change was in the air. And he not only changed personally; he changed sonically.

I was a young guy who got tickets to see Beck perform a solo show at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was on a mini-tour, testing material off an upcoming album, which would turn out to be called Sea Change.

Sea Change was the album hosting the songs he wrote about his breakup. Its recording had been delayed by the September 11 attacks. A good amount of time and a world of change had intervened between Midnite Vultures and the new album. I really thought nothing of it.

From straight-ahead center in the top balcony of the theater, I looked down on a stage filled with an assortment of instruments: Guitars, piano, drums, a Radioshak toy beat-making guitar, and more I can't remember.

The man entered, and we applauded politely in the intimacy of the occasion. He sat on a stool at the front of the stage, picked up his acoustic guitar. A pal of his sat to his left, in shadow, at a pedal steel.

Beck began with a few silly numbers and goofy comments, and he played "Cold Brains" off Mutations, just warming up. "Cold Brains" is one of my favorite Beck songs. It was him just as I loved him, as I presently knew him.

He began his first new song, after a pause, with a soft strum. The acoustics of the Fitzgerald Theater are wonderful. It was the perfect place to hear the sound I heard next, which was Beck's new voice.

It went beyond the notes of the song. Resonating in that excellent room, his vocal for the new composition had a richness I was not even close to expecting. Suddenly gone from his baritone was that affected edge that kept his vocal chords from fully expanding. In its place was a deep, deep, mournful, glowing tone that broke in grainy fissures. He had changed from the inside out.

The song he played was "Guess I'm Doing Fine." It graced the silence of the room. And the moment where he ends his verse melody with those two small lifts was the moment where the old Beck was truly gone.

115. "Grind" by Alice In Chains

Those choruses burst out, and there is hope even in low places.

Is it too much to call Alice In Chains the Beach Boys of grunge bands? I just think, like the Beach Boys, their harmonies defined their sound far more than any other group recording at the time. They tended to settle excessively on lots of parallel 5ths in those harmonies, but in songs like "Grind" there is more layering and movement.

The verse is this jagged two-guitar attack and a daft, dark vocal (sung by guitarist Jerry Cantrell rather than lead singer Layne Staley), where the drums do their best to make everything a bit weirder.

The solo is vintage, daring Jerry Cantrell, a master in maybe the last generation of great guitar soloists before the thrill of rock solo virtuosity was outsourced to cute almost-like-you're-doing-it-yourself home video games.

The major chords in those choruses stand out so brilliantly. But the bass lays in some half-step dissonances just in case anyone was getting a little comfy.

Remember that Alice In Chains was an original Seattle band. They played in that indy scene along with Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Green River, Mother Love Bone, Nirvana and down the list. Sometimes I feel they don't get the respect of founders that they deserve. This is not Bush we're talking about here. Please improve your tone.

114. "Green Eyes" by Coldplay

Coldplay is a fine band, but this is the only Coldplay song you'll find on my list.

The lyrics are nothing to resurrect Shakespeare and alert him to the love song apocalypse for. But they are serviceable to tell the story.

The real story is just the damn prettiness. What a pretty song.

113. "Gratisfaction" by The Strokes

"Best friends fight, but they never enjoy life as good as when they abuse it"

Julian Casablancas, underrated lyricist.

The Strokes began as, among other things, a nostalgia band. Their sound was born out of '80s music with some '90s Nirvana thrown in for good measure. The low-fi production played up this idea that their music was not of the current epoch. Their image was of rockers out of the '70s/'80s New York scene. Their debut album, futuristic in so many ways but also imbued with this nostalgia, was a dazzling affair.

But here is the problem with bands that tinker with retro and nostalgia: They eventually have to record a second album. And we quickly see the common truth hold that, despite all their throwback appeal, they are still subject to the standard of all sophomore efforts - they must show evolution. How do evolve when you must also stay loyal to your association with the past?

The Strokes struggled awkwardly with this question for two further albums after their debut. While they fumbled around, much of their audience moved on to other things.

Only after most people were no longer paying attention did they finally arrive at the answer, demonstrated on their 2011 album Angles.

The first successful change was to actually improve their production values. The drums are still pretty primitive '70s sounding with that stadium echo, but there is definitely more sheen across the board than the abysmal sound they employed for albums 2 and 3. Those albums are hard to listen to based on sound quality alone, almost everything extremely tinny in a wasted effort to avoid any prevention to production, and the instruments voiced in a way as to almost rub the ghastliness our faces.

The second change was to actually de-emphasize the attempts of Julian Casablancas to force the Strokes to progress into a heavy band. Albums 2 and 3 have much aggression but the passion and real craft for heavy music is missing (apart from a few absolute gems). Instead, look what is done here on "Gratisfaction": An old school rock shuffle beat, drums driving on the toms, vocals half Strokes and half something out of Steely Dan or Doobie Brothers. Not a heavy song, no ill-fitting angst, just fun, challenging rock. And it turns out there are plenty of retro sounds to mine if you are also progressing in your production values to re-frame those sounds with new context.

But here is something that is all Strokes: The concept is simple, but the songwriting is brilliant. The chord progressions in the verses and choruses are unique, with that endearing, angular quality that made their fist album sound so advanced. Chords change seemingly at will rather than after four beats, and there are often not an even number of chords in a progression, resulting off-kilter cadences like the five-chord choruses in this song.

I love this song. It's a shame it's hidden on an album almost nobody has heard.

112. "Good Times Bad Times" by Led Zeppelin

The first song of the first Led Zeppelin album. This is about as perfect a mission statement as any. The Beatles kicked off their whole show with "I Saw Her Standing There." Jimi Hendrix entered with "Purple Haze." The Doors set things up with "Break On Through (To The Other Side)."

Radiohead greeted the world with "You." See, we can't all score on our first drive.

For their first number, Led Zeppelin decided to courteously announce to the world that, for the next decade or so, music would fall under the fiefdom of one blazing guitarist who happened to be the Beethoven of riffs, one shrieking blues-singing vocalist who could do things that no other mortal could do, one sickeningly smooth bassist who could run scales for fortnights, and the most consequential drummer of all rock and roll for all times.

It's hard to pick an MVP in the song, so balanced as it is to be a show piece for all. However, I pick bassist John Paul Jones, because those bass runs in the second verse are so mean, and where did this school of bass playing go?

Formally, this song has a novel feature: An A-verse, a B-verse, then returning to the A-verse after the guitar solo. The A-verse is built on a catchy major blues phrase that both guitar and bass play in unison. In the B-verse, the guitar shifts to power chords while the bass is the feature instrument in minor blues. In a world where verse/chorus/verse/chorus is abused and exploited with breathtakingly little remorse, I have no idea why the "Good Times Bad Times" form isn't more widely used. It takes a little more work to come up with a related but distinct B-verse, and maybe that's the deterrent, but it strikes me as a great way to avoid repetitiveness. Third verses are also growing more rare. Maybe because of this feeling of repetitiveness. Maybe people just don't have patience for three verses regardless and the time for A/B/A verses has passed.

Finally, for what it's worth, the singing melody never repeats across all these verses - there is new concept for each one. The kitchen sink mentality of the whole song pays off when you're dealing with a drum beat and music ideas this fun and catchy.