#27) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - While it's true this song is overexposed, sometimes nauseatingly so, it's with good reason. This medley is one of those rare musical creations that transcends time. It could have been recorded in 1965, 1985 or today, and Kamakawiwo'ole's hypnotic voice and finessed agitation of a ukulele would stand up to even the fiercest scrutiny of changing tastes, fashions and styles.
It was in fact recorded in 1988, and released on a '93 album. Kamakawiwo'ole passed away in 1997 at the age of 38, and the surge of this song's presence in countless movies, television shows and commercials since then has been driven by a posthumous appreciation that might get a little annoying but is not at all surprising. Kamakawiwo'ole left behind a sort of music alchemy - a reconstruction of two old classics into a new classic that frankly sounds and feels a lot like an afternoon most of us hope to one day find in the afterlife.
"Someday I'll wish upon a star/wake up where the clouds are far behind me...."
#28) "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen - Given enough time, The Boss appears on the radar of just about every American teenage boy worth his restless salt, whether that restlessness has him staring down the highway leading out of New Brunswick, New Jersey or Bangor, Maine, Park Falls, Wisconsin or Casper, Wyoming. Though he's never quite topped my musical heroes list, Springsteen (early especially) still holds a place in my heart. His music is an oil essence of earnest romanticism, and no road trip would be complete without the very last word of road trip songs: Born to Run.
This is what we all imagine the road to be, isn't it? From the engine-driven drum roll that opens the song, to the action-packed bass riff that carries Springsteen's whimsically poetic lyrics, this is what we dream we are escaping to when we stare down any length of highway, and what we're sure beyond a shadow of a doubt we're escaping from. And when we go, we go with every confidence that we will 'walk in the sun' soon enough. It's a serenade firmly rooted in youth to be sure, but the song's energy can bring that feeling back at any age.
"It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap/we gotta get out while we're young..."
#29) "My Old School" by Steely Dan - If the word 'alchemy' could be used to describe just one band's music, I'd quickly submit Steely Dan to the short list of candidates for the honor. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's perfectionism in the studio is reportedly the stuff of legend, and really no surprise when you consider what they contributed to the 1970s. You can't create something as intricately woven, as brightly dyed, as My Old School (among countless others) without holding it to some level of perfectionism. Perfectionism is how greatness gets done. It's how you guard against allowing anything - even the act of getting out of bed in the morning - to become 'good enough.' You never grow weary and settle.
The most interesting thing about the music of Steely Dan just might be the lyrics embedded in the slick, jazzy riffs. A seedy underworld of drugs, sex and all around dysfunction belies the bouncy, bright rhythms and hooks, and serves as testament not only to their perfectionism as musicians, but complexity as artists.
"California tumbles into the sea/that'll be the day I go back to Annandale..."
#30) "Without Me" by Eminem - I raised two kids, and there was a time when I worried about the music of Eminem. Not because I think swear words are evil, or raunchiness has no place, or believe 'bad' music makes for 'bad' kids...I don't believe that at all, actually. Kids who are raised right will turn out okay in spite of Slim Shady. Kids who aren't raised right are going to face challenges...may turn INTO Slim Shady.
No, my problem with Eminem was not a soccer mom outrage, but more a disbelief, and certain disquiet, at the acceptance of him into the mainstream. When he first rose to fame in the late 90s, his popularity struck me as a significant lurch forward in the gradual but consistent coarsening of our society that's been going on the last several decades.
Not even a coarsening so much, come to think of it (again, I'm no prude), rather, a steadily increasing lack of subtlety. I mean, let's not kid ourselves, society has always been coarse beneath the surface. People are coarse beneath the surface. But Eminem helped spearhead the dissolution of a base standard for public behavior.
"Cause I'm only giving you things you joke about with your friends inside your living room," he sang, "the only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of you all and I don't have to be false or sugarcoated at all..."
For better or worse, that made total sense to me. And everyone else.
But 2002's Without Me reveals that Eminem is, essentially, a joke...in a good way. I can get on board with anyone who shows me they have a sense of humor, that they don't take themselves too seriously (Miley Cyrus accomplished this, sort of, on SNL not two weeks ago), and the humorous video is indisputable evidence that no matter how seriously Eminem was taken, how legitimate his talent, how accurately his crass persona may have reflected something about our society as much as it affected, he was never too cool to have to pull his superhero tights out of his ass when they bunched up.
I can totally get down with that. Don't think for a second I haven't cruised along, bobbing my head just like Eminem and Dr. Dre do in the video. And don't think for a second I won't do it on 1/48/50, even though I'll be almost 50...
But so will Eminem, as he is, and will always be, two months older than I am. A fact that my teenage son found hard to wrap his head around, back in the day. ;-)
"Feel the tension soon as someone mentions me..."
