Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Top 125 of 2010s (100-76)

Continuing on with the best of the decade...Here are the next 25 tracks. Click on the links to listen. Enjoy.

100. Too Late - Mike Ruocco
Just another act I liked relegated to the scrap heap of music history, Mike Ruocco fronted a short-lived band called Cinder Road, who I actually saw open for Puddle of Mudd sometime during the previous decade. This solo track came a bit later on, and disappeared as fast as it arrived.

99. Bonfire Heart - James Blunt
98. Dead End Ride - Mike Tramp
97. My Little Secret - Cavo
This St. Louis rock band had a couple of modern rock radio hits off their debut CD in the waning days of the 00's. This one, my favorite track from the album, was a holdover into 2010, but didn't make much of a dent on the charts,

96. Dynamite - Any Given Sin
95. Crazy for You - Scars on 45
94. Sleeping With a Friend - Neon Trees
One of the acts that appears on my list who actually enjoyed a modicum of commercial success. Neon Trees could be called a three-hit wonder, and two of those hits drop on my Top 125.

93. Edge of Glory - Lady Gaga
92. Don't You Give Up on Me - Lissie
91. The Road Not Taken - Johnny Hates Jazz
Didn't these guys come and go in 1988? Surprisingly, they made a sudden reappearance on the music landscape in 2013. The first single from that year's Magnetized actually started to gain some exposure in Europe before lead singer, Clark Datchler, fell ill with cancer, and they had to stop promoting the album. This pensive ballad stood out for me.

90. Eye of the Storm - Scorpions
89. Moth Into Flame - Metallica
Twenty-eight years after ...And Justice For All notoriously (and inexplicably) lost in the Hard Rock/Metal Performance category to Jethro Tull, the Grammy Awards managed to f**k Metallica again, only this time, on stage. In a rare instance of me looking forward to an awards show performance, the grizzled rockers were slated to perform this single live with Lady Gaga, only to have James Hetfield's mic be shut off, unbeknownst to him, throughout the entire first verse. Hetfield made the realization and started sharing a mic with Gaga, but it really put a damper on the performance of what I thought was a really strong comeback single. Adding insult to injury, they lost their only nomination of the night. Luckily the dress rehearsal footage sounds great and was posted to Youtube (link above).

88. Scars on This Guitar - Bon Jovi
87. Rhinoceros - Juliana Hatfield
86. False Eye - Faryn Sand
The planets aligned back in 2009 when I lost my job, and my sister informed me of a desire to professionally record music. A trip to the SxSW music festival later, ProGenitor Entertainment was born, and we released a three-song EP that didn't break any chart records, but which was streamed and downloaded as far away as Australia and Japan. We caused our own version of a stir with "Faryn Sand Day" - an effort which saw friends and family bomb local DJs with requests for this track, the single from the EP. Although I may be biased, I do think "False Eye" in particular is a really strong piece of songwriting, and I believe it deserves its rightful place on my decade-end countdown.

85. Another Life - Any Given Sin
84. September - Daughtry
83. Pull Me Through - Tyrone Wells
The second of five entries on my list from this Washington-bred singer-songwriter. Wells' "More" popped in at #26 on my best of the '00's list a decade ago. He didn't slow down by any means in the 2010s - starting off with the Metal & Wood EP, which includes this standout track.

82. I Miss the Misery - Halestorm
81. Rise - Ed Kowalczyk
80. Burn it Down - Linkin Park
79. The Ghost in You - Duncan Sheik
78. My Bed - Dixie Maxwell
I've touted the music from the Maxwell sisters - Catrien and Dixie - quite a bit over the past decade or so. I still think they both should have been superstars. No clearer evidence of that than on this stellar track from Dixie's 2013 EP, still up on the Bandcamp site.

77. Lesson Learned - Alice in Chains
76. Impossible - Anberlin

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