The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #135

#135: "Valerie" (2007) - Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse

Okay, we're looking at some cover-song spillover from last week's "Imitation of Life and Artist and Song" week, and what we've got here is fab-producer Mark Ronson (with two other songs on this chart to his credit/co-credit so far: #209 and #326) taking a Zuton's record from 2006, speeding it up a notch, tightening the beat, adding in some horns (possibly sampled or synthed), some handclaps, and one of the best soul singers of the decade, Amy Winehouse (who's also appeared before on this chart at #196), and making a record that wouldn't sound completely out of place in 1967*. It dances, it swings, it sways, and Winehouse's vocals are so strong yet so casual she almost makes you forget that--now that she's singing it--the song has been transformed into a love song from a woman to a woman. "I Kissed a Girl" indeed.

NOTES

*In fact, the opening bass line sounds almost identical to James Jamerson's bassline in the Supremes' 1966 hit "You Can't Hurry Love," so much so that the first time I heard Ronson's version, I expected Diana Ross to start singing "I need love, love/To ease my mind"--either her or Phil Collins...whose voice causes me to need something more concrete (and mind-altering) to ease my mind.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #209

#209: "God Put a Smile on Your Face" (2007) - Mark Ronson

Let's officially welcome in the new year with the adage, "Out with the old, and in with the new," 'cause that's certainly what producer extrodinaire Mark Ronson (remember him, from way back in the countdown, co-producing Nikka Costa's record?) does with the Coldplay cut. He excised the vocals and punched up the track with drumming straight from the Ventures and horns straight from Detroit, plus a few little Space Invaders synth effects, effectively taking a mundane rock track and creating something new, something hot, something that moves, something that matters, something we should all resolve to do this year.

The Countdown Capsule, Part V: 150-101

Now, with only one-hundred records left on my chart, I'm taking a mini-vacation as Foot Foot and I descend upon Biloxi to watch the Black Crowes and for me to freckle and get a red (as unfortunately, I can't get a tan). The chart will resume on Monday with #100.

For those of you just now catching up, here are the last fifty:
For those of you not just now catching up, here are the last fifty:

#150: "Can't Get You Out of My Head" - Kylie Minogue
#149: "Portions for Foxes" - Rilo Kiley
#148: "Mercy" - Duffy
#147: "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time" - Jarvis Cocker
#146: "All of This" - Blink-182
#145: "Bullets" - Tunng
#144: "Put Your Records On" - Corinne Bailey Rae
#143: "Imitation of Life" - R.E.M.
#142: "Slow Jamz" - Jamie Foxx featuring Twista
#141: "Run to Me" - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs
#140: "I Found Out" - Nathanial Mayer
#139: "Ya Ya Ya (Looking for My Baby) - Detroit Cobras
#138: "Dick in Dixie" - Hank Williams III
#137: "Gone and Went" - Bob Childers
#136: "On a Bus to St. Cloud" - Jimmy LaFave
#135: "Valerie" - Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse
#134: "Duplexes of the Dead" - Fiery Furnaces
#133: "Right Out of Your Hand" - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
#132: "Step in the Name of Love" - R. Kelly
#131: "Beloved Stranger" - Cindylee Berryhill
#130: "Hit the Ground" - Lizz Wright
#129: "Yeah" - Usher
#128: "Four Winds" - Bright Eyes
#127: "Saint Martha Blues" - Otis Taylor
#126: "Decoration Day" - Drive-By Truckers
#125: "State of Massachusetts" - Dropkick Murphys
#124: "American Skin (41 Shots)" - Bruce Springsteen
#123: "Paper Planes" - M.I.A.
#122: "A Border Tale" - Robert Earl Keen
#121: "Choctaw Bingo" - James McMurtry
#120: "Your Man" - Josh Turner
#119: "Old School" - Lyfe Jennings featuring Snoop Dogg
#118: "When the Crying Is Over" - Ian McLagan & the Bump Band
#117: "All I Wanna Do" - Jamie Lidell
#116: "Falling Slowly" - Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
#115: "No One Knows" - Mark Ronson featuring Domino
#114: "No One Knows" - Queens of the Stone Age
#113: "The Sweet Escape" - Gwen Stefani
#112: "1234" - Feist
#111: "A Case of You" - Prince
#110: "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" - Mitch & Mickie
#109: "Penny & Me (Live)" - Hanson
#108: "Seven Nation Army" - White Stripes
#107: "Your Touch" - Black Keys
#106: "1, 2 Step" - Ciara featuring Missy Elliot
#105: "My Sweet Annette" - Drive-By Truckers
#104: "No Vacancy" - Subdudes
#103: "Cryin' in the Streets" - Buckwheat Zydeco
#102: "Belleville Rendez-Vous" - -M-
#101: "A Stroke of Genie-Us" - Freelance Hellraiser

The capsule list from 151-200 can be found here.
The capsule list from 201-249 can be found here.
The capsule list from 250-300 can be found here.
The capsule list from 301-333 can be found here.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #115

#115: "No One Knows" (2007) - Mark Bronson featuring Domino

For the third* time in this chart, Mark Ronson covers a song by flipping it onto its funky side. Ronson and this this-time-only cohorts Domino take the Queens of the Stone Age song and strip it of its metal. They change the rock riffs into bursts of horn, they change the drums from heavy on the toms to heavy on the hi-hat, and they take Homme's pedestrian vocals and replace them with Domino Kirke's sultry come-ons. By doing all this, Ronson and Domino change a head-banging anthem with its menacing undercurrent into a dance track of the highest order, something akin to what Otis Redding did with the Beatles' "Day Tripper"...except (and I can't believe I'm about to say this, being the humongous Otis fan I am) their cover is better than Otis's cover.

'Cause Otis's drummer never quite brought the funk like this.**

NOTES
*The other two times (plus a third for a co-producer credit) can be found here.

**I'll fully admit, though, that this drumming could be sampled, but if so, it's not from any Otis track (probably from a James Brown track).

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #196

#196: "You Know I'm No Good (Remix)" (2006) - Amy Winehouse featuring Ghostface Killah

And, after a one-day patriotic pause, we continue our tour of society's fascination with outre female celebrity behavior. The adjective female is important here, 'cause the public and paparazzi didn't rail away at Keith Moon, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (okay, maybe him, 'cause he was busted for smack), John Lennon (okay, him too, but not because of booze or alcohol, but mainly because of the "more popular than Jesus" comment, and the fact that he publically bedded and bedded with the woman who "broke up the Beatles"), Pete Townshend, Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Tommy Lee (if you've never read Motley Crue: The Dirt, and you're a fan of rock and roll/metal/pop music, then you're missing out on a well-written and endlessly fascinating tale of decadence and stupidity), Biggie Smalls, etc....Why not those guys? 'Cause they're guys! It's all in fun, man!

For women, though, it's not all in fun; indeed, it's trashy, slutty, behavior. And even moreso than Britney Spears, the one "diva" who seemingly never left the tabloids for two solid years was Brit Amy Winehouse. Drunken behavior, violent behavior, nonsensical behavior, loud behavior, boorish behavior, vulgar behavior--you name it, and Winehouse says yes. We're amazed, we're shocked, we shake our heads, but folks--we should have know it was coming. She warned us. She told us. Before most had ever heard of her, she recorded this song, and in the freaking title she tells us to beware. She doesn't mean it in any self-pitying way...not the way she sings it. She means no good to, uh, mean follow her libido, have fun, assert her independence, to go where she wants to go when she wants to go with whomever she wants to go.

If Britney Spears is cybernoir femme fatale, then Winehouse is a throwback to mid-twentieth century noir. She with the sliding, soulful, sultry voice slinks around this one, letting her voice ease in-and-out of the melody, almost lazily, almost intoxicatingly, but each move, each verbal shift is designed, and it's designed to let that melody and voice purr, to entice, while producer Mark Ronson's bass keeps us--and Winehouse--moving forward steadily, letting us know that though Winehouse may not be any good for us, what she has to offer is more tonic than toxic...at least until the cameras arrive.

The Countdown Capsule, Part III: 249-201

133 down, 200 to go! Here's 249-201:

#249: "Sour Cherry" - The Kills
#248: "Ruby" - Troy Campbell
#247: "Honey" - Erykah Badu
#246: "Trouble" - Ray LaMontagne
#245: "Breakfast Club" - Z-Trip
#244: "Sugar (Gimme Some)" - Trick Daddy
#243: "Nothin' No" - David Vandervelde
#242: "All the Way Down" - Oakley Hall
#241: "Dance Me In" - Sons & Daughters
#240: "Devil's Waitin'" - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
#239: "Locust Street" - The Black Crowes
#238: "I'm Outta Love" - Anastasia
#237: "Georgie Buck" - Carolina Chocolate Drops
#236: "Bible Black Starless Sky" - Andy Fairweather Low
#235: "Next to Me" - The Subdudes
#234: "Wilson Pickett" - Tim Krekel Orchestra
#233: "Fix Up, Look Sharp" - Dizzy Rascal
#232: "Up All Night" - El-P
#231: "Kick, Push" - Lupe Fiasco
#230: "Whenever, Wherever" - Shakira
#229: "Castanets" - Alejandro Escovedo
#228: "Angel of Sin" - Hank Williams III
#227: "What I've Been Meaning to Say" - Merle Haggard
#226: "100 Days, 100 Nights" - Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
#225: "In the Late Night Hour" - Ice Cube
#224: "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" - Erykah Badu
#223: "Anyone Else but You" - The Moldy Peaches
#222: "Big Wheel" - Tori Amos
#221: "The Widow" - The Mars Volta
#220: "Engrish Bwudd" - Man Man
#219: "It Overtakes Me (Single Version)" - The Flaming Lips
#218: "The Way It Is" - Nicole Atkins
#217: "The Christmas Song" - The Raveonettes
#216: "Who's Gonna Save My Soul" - Gnarls Barkely
#215: "Jerusalem" - Steve Earle
#214: "A Lot of Good Ones Gone" - Peter Wolf
#213: "Before I Grow Too Old (Silver & Gold)" - Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
#212: "Keep Me in Your Heart" - Warren Zevon
#211: "Move Your Feet" - JuniorSenior
#210: "I'll Remember You Long" - Golden Animals
#209: "God Put a Smile on Your Face" - Mark Ronson
#208: "Postcards from Italy" - Beirut
#207: "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" - Vampire Weekend
#206: "Senegal Fast Food" - Amadou & Mariam
#205: "Bulgarian Chicks" - Balkan Beat Box featuring Vlada Tomova & M. Alexiava
#204: "Ultimate" - Gogol Bordello
#203: "Sheepdog" - Mando Diao
#202: "One Mic" - Nas
#201: "Deja Vu" - Beyonce featuring Jay-Z

The list from 250-300 can be found here.
The list from 301-333 can be found here.

Thoughts anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #326

#326 - "Like a Feather" (2001) - Nikka Costa

The first single from the Aussie lady's excellent album Everybody's Got Their Something , "Like a Feather" begins with a guitar lick that sounds like a chopped-off, slowed-down version of the bass line from Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin," the funkiest bass line ever created--and this song comes close to creating that level of molasses-drenched funk. Co-producers Justin Stanley (Costa's husband) and Mark Ronson (we'll see much more of him--and a bit of Stanley--later) prove themselves funk classmen on the level of Stone himself, giving the song space to let the rhythm hit 'em, separating the disparate elements into private components and then dropping 'em on the one and three (like James Brown taught everyone to do) and letting the backbeat hit on the two and four, thereby accentuating it, so that you can feel the snare reverberate in your chest. The production and arrangement here have a decidedly old-school feel, but the record remains fresh.

Part of that freshness comes from the singer (and the twenty-first century filtered effects on her voice). Costa (who's been releasing records and garning international acclaim since she was nine) brings a sultry slur to her vocals, focusing more on the sound of the words rather than the enunciation of the words themselves. She shows great range, too, but she doesn't show off. She knows when to play it cool, laid back, hard to get, singing in her lower register; and when to rise to ecstatic glee, climbing up to high mezzo-soprano range. Her vocals tease, echoing the push and pull of the music, and ultimately--like the music in toto--deliver.

The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #114

#114: "No One Knows" (2002) - Queens of the Stone Age

This California desert band live up their title, as they give us both the pop and the rock. The Queens of the Stone age craft a slice of metallic fudge-funk about living in an anesthisized society in a Big Brother world. Like the Geraman oompah march-step music of the verses, they fall in line, but--like Charlie Rich and his woman--when they get behind closed doors, they not only get jiggy wit' it, they let it all hang out, and they get their freak on...their Middle Eastern freak on.

That's significant, 'cause this one made the top 50, and Josh Homme sounds like he's chanting some Islamic mantra in the chorus, which was a pretty daring move in 2002. The song rocks, too, with Homme and Lanegan and Oliveri thrashing out some Slayer-like riffs in the chorus, while Dave Grohl--in his this-album-only stint with the Queens--not only brings the bang and the rock as he thunders around the toms, but he also brings some funk, too, especially in the verses, his snare popping on and around the backbeat like he was Benny Benjamin. With Grohl in tow, the Queens not only rock the house, but they also house the rock, making a raucous song that you can slam and dance to.

Swallow those pills, Mark Ronson.