The Dogwood Bark's Top 100 Songs Of All Time - #99: Bloc Party - "This Modern Love"

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (2005)

"Do you wanna come over and kill some time?"

I got roped into the Bloc Party craze a few years after its peak, but at one time this band was all the rage to the thick-rimmed glasses and cardigan sporting crowd.  Although I'm not cool enough to say that I liked them before they got "big," I thoroughly enjoyed 2005's Silent Alarm and still do to this day.  

While a good portion of that album is somewhat of an acquired taste, "This Modern Love" hit me from day one.  It's not exactly a lyrical marvel, but that little guitar melody that hops in for the first time at 1:25  is simply too sweet to resist.  It actually served as a proper ringtone at one point in time.  As for the rest of the song, it's melodic enough to get anyone's attention and unique enough to keep them coming back.  The intensity builds naturally all the way to the end and leaves you reflecting back on what you just witnessed; a nice little slice of stellar songwriting.  Try it out as a nice pick-me-up on your next morning drive.

Check out the rest:

100. Pixies - "Where Is My Mind?"

The Dogwood Bark's Top 100 Songs Of All Time - #100: Pixies - "Where Is My Mind?"

Pixies - Surfer Rosa (1988)

"Your head'll collapse if there's nothing in it, and you'll ask yourself..."

When I prefaced this list, I mentioned a severe lack of content from the 80's.  Well, here we are with one of the three songs to make the countdown from the decade of my birth.  I, along with most seven year-old's, knew nothing of the Pixies back in 1988.  If I was listening to music, it was either something my parents had put on the stereo (Petty, Dylan, Dead, Be-at-lays, etc.), or I was jamming along to "Kokomo" with my school friends.  At my very coolest, I might have thrown in a tape containing "Sweet Child o' Mine" or "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

As I grew up and realized that this music thing may be evolving from a habit to an obsession, I followed the trail of critical acclaim to this influential and essential group.  Having never seen "Fight Club" (still haven't), I happened upon this song more conventionally, in the middle of the album Surfer Rosa.  Now, that record would eventually grow on me as a whole, but it was a little over my head the first time through.  Not this track though.

Immediately gripping and incessantly catchy, it's become one of the most revisited tracks in the collection.  It does not sound dated to this day, and it constantly amazes me that it came out in 1988.  Take a listen to a game changer; a jam that was truly ahead of its time.

The Dogwood Bark's Top 100 Songs Of All Time

George Harrison

Belle & Sebastian

Neil Young

Wilco

So I haven't posted anything in over a month.  This is partially due to a transition into a new career and all of the stress that comes with such an undertaking.  Truthfully though, I have been meticulously compiling a list of the Dogwood Bark's best songs of all time.  If you are a music lover, take a moment to contemplate just how difficult it would be to narrow down your entire collection to just your hundred favorite.

Well I think I've got a list with which I can finally be satisfied, at least for now.  Mind you, this is not your traditional "greatest of all time" list that lends itself heavily to influence, chart positions, sales, etc.  Check Rolling Stone or VH1 for those countdowns (though I share many of their entries).  I'd also like to point out that this particular index leans heavily towards the types of rock, folk, and pop genres that populate the majority of coverage here on the Dogwood Bark.  While I will never discount their merits, you won't find Beethoven or Mozart here.  Nor will you be able to locate any tunes from the countless, yet influential, artists from the R&B, jazz, soul, or hip hop categories.  I completely understand the place that these legends hold in the landscape of popular music, they just don't happen to reside in the old proverbial wheelhouse.

As the narrowing down process began, I found myself adding every song that just had to be included, without keeping count.  Well, I ended up with a preliminary pool of over 300 songs.  After all of skimming, trimming, and slimming of the list was complete, I found the results to be about as I expected.  The thing is littered with tracks from the 60's and 70's but severely lacks content from the 80's.  The 90's are well represented obviously, and the new millennium has clearly been good to me as well.

Lastly, this collection has evolved and grown and will continue to remain organic until long after I've published it.  There in lies part of the joy of creating such a thing.  Just when you swear that that certain Van Morrison song is fine somewhere down in the 80's, you catch it on shuffle on an unseasonably cool morning with a lot on your mind and it skyrockets up into the 50's.  With any luck, you'll hear something new that grabs you and doesn't let go.  Those of you that track it over the upcoming months will assuredly revisit some old favorites as well.  So I invite you to humor those of us that enjoy slaving over ordered lists, as ridiculous as we may seem.  Stay tuned for the countdown.

Orange - Sixties
Green - Seventies
Yellow - Eighties
Red - Nineties
Gray - The Aughts