A Decade In Music

When I think back to music this decade, I get such an almighty headrush recalling all the joy - and some of the sadness - that accompanied my listening. My most important musical memory of the decade is this: driving to Coventry with Ben and Laura, singing 'Wagon Wheel' by Old Crow Medicine Show. I've never sung so loud in my entire life, and they too were braying at an inordinate volume, and I have an exact visual memory of whizzing past a roundabout as we sang, "But he's a-heading west to the Cumberland Gap - Johnson City, TENNESSEE!" I could feel the happiness warming my body and hurting my cheeks.

This is to say that context is so important to understand music - where you were when you heard it, what memories it brings back, what significance it had, who you associate it with; perhaps just as importantly these days, how you heard it. You need to have some sense of fluidity in music: what music led you to what, what your path was. I'm pleased to say that all my discovering of music, practically, happened this decade. When other people think of their formative years, and the music that most influenced them, they often go back to their teens - but I was such a boring little prick when I was a teenager, and all of my sense of discovery, of awakening and hunger, my sense of myself: I attribute really most of it to this decade. In the first half of the decade, I lost two friends and a grandmother, at least two sorts of virginity, and so many illusions and preconceptions about the world. So this is my self-built soundtrack - what shaped me, and what I chose to shape me.

This decade, I didn't just hear the Strokes, Kanye West, Rufus Wainwright, Joanna Newsom and Dizzee Rascal for the first time - I also discovered Joni Mitchell, Orange Juice, Robert Johnson, Jonathan Richman, Bessie Smith, Public Enemy, Kate Bush and Hank Williams. So I feel a bit funny picking music from this decade, because all of this was happened upon at the same time - and I'm grateful to my age that it made all of this available to me at a time when I was anxious to strip myself down and start over. Pitchfork, Myspace, Last.fm, Salon, Spotify, various downloading sites and blogs: I read up on everything, and tried to be in touch. It was also a way of trying to work out my thing, like Tigger eating thistles and honey and all sorts before settling on cough medicine. The old came in with the new: Rufus Wainwright got me onto the McGarrigles and Loudon, and Leonard Cohen; I heard about Elizabeth Cotten on Pitchfork; Fiona Apple covered Bessie Smith, Blossom Dearie and the Boswell Sisters, so I hunted down the originals; likewise Fleet Foxes with Judee Sill, Final Fantasy with John Cale. Not counting friends and their influence: all the country music, gospel and Devon Sproule from Laura; Dave and Bonnie Prince Billy; Sophie and her Joni; Stef and Bright Eyes; Ben and - jesus - all that indie stuff I had a go at, and some of which stuck. I first heard Rufus on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, for crying out loud. It just feels like such a whirl, this decade, that picking out albums seems not quite right. But I'll give it a go.

My best music this decade is probably not the actual best music of the decade. In fact, it's definitely not. But I suddenly got that thing, in or around 2005 - that tingly feeling of music speaking to me, and just to me. What I was going through that year, Rufus Wainwright voiced exactly in 'Foolish Love' and '14th Street': not just in words - although they were also spot-on - but with the tone of the music, with its cadences and instruments. I suppose that's the teenage rush.

Go on then - let's attempt a list. Of music merely from this decade. Which is wrong:

Albums:
1. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
2. Rufus Wainwright - Poses
3. Joanna Newsom - The Milk-Eyed Mender
4. Kanye West - Late Registration
5. Bjork - Vespertine
6. Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
7. Gillian Welch - The Revelator
8. The Arcade Fire - Funeral
9. Antony & the Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now
10. Denison Witmer - Are You A Dreamer?

Some songs:
Rihanna - Umbrella
Jens Lekman - You Are The Light
Kanye West - Jesus Walks
Cat Power - Salty Dog
Outkast - Hey Ya!
Beirut - Postcards From Italy
Fiona Apple - Not About Love (Jon Brion version)
Lupe Fiasco - Go Go Gadget Flow
Britney Spears - Toxic
Camera Obscura - Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken
Missy Elliott - Get Ur Freak On
Dizzee Rascal - Dream
Dirty Projectors & David Byrne - Knotty Pine
Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game (acoustic)
Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel
Ol' Dirty Bastard feat. Kelis - Got Your Money
Devon Sproule - Plea For A Good Night's Rest
The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize?
Shivaree - Goodnight Moon
Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
The Strokes - Hard To Explain
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Raining In Darling
Ghostface Killah - Shakey Dog
Ryan Adams & Emmylou Harris - Oh My Sweet Carolina
Micah P. Hinson - She Don't Own Me
Rufus Wainwright - Dinner At Eight