Corniest selection in The Current's list of the top essential songs since 2000

I mean, corny

not corny I mean

I know, neither are (most of) the others I mentioned... I’m just trying to fill in the gaps in this mammoth list of “2000s commercial indie” songs with a similar profile. (I don’t really buy the thread’s “corny” angle so much, but was happy to vote for Postal Service.)

(To be even more clear, some of the songs on this list are among my all-time faves.)

One “tell” to the list is that the labels represented don’t seem to get any more deeply “indie” than the Merge/Matador/Domino axis (save a random bubble-up sensation like CYHSY). So these guys know Feist and Arcade Fire, but not Broken Social Scene or Wolf Parade (I think there’s nothing from Sub Pop, unless I missed it?). This may be why !!! are excluded from their dance-punk chunk, for example...

There’s just something about the list that makes me want to “crack the code”... it’s a weirdly specific-feeling combination of great stuff, obvious/overplayed stuff, and “Adele songs you hear in barre class” — almost like it reflects the iTunes library of an actual couple in their early ‘40s who were “really into music” in the 2000s, and have gradually lost touch, but try to “keep up with it.”

the corniest selections here aren't any individual songs but that 1) a single album places three times in the top 50 and 2) it's funeral

idk if this is UK/US divide part 1,000,000 but that !!! song (or any !!! song) doesn't seem in the same demographical universe as anything on the list at the top

you know, this is america is actually the corniest selection on the list

idk if this is UK/US divide part 1,000,000 but that !!! song (or any !!! song) doesn't seem in the same demographical universe as anything on the list at the top

I mean they're a ubiquitous behemoth compared to Giant Drag or Monsters of Folk but yeah, I'm guessing people here are working with a different definition of 'notable'.

The corniness of the list comes from two main things afaict:

- Just enough rap music to look inclusive but absolutely nothing that would be even vaguely intimidating to anyone (like, where is Kendrick, seriously?)
- Everything on the list that isn't completely culturally ubiquitous is just tepid comfort food by someone who most people wouldn't be able to pick out of a police lineup but people still desperately want to claim as a major artist (Wilco, The National, The Shins, Modest Mouse, Sufjan Stevens I mean really).

Pour one out for artists like Foster The People and Peter, Bjorn & John who would have been staples of this sort of list not that long ago and have now been expunged never to return.

Just realised Beyonce isn't in there either although the fact that they didn't even sling a half-hearted vote at Crazy In Love somehow makes me respect it a little bit more?

maybe Radiohead: Everything in its Right Place is the corniest selection (rather than corniest song) because it's like "dang we have to put a radiohead song on here" but they don't have any ~~pop smashes~~ since 2000 so we'll pick the first song on their first album after 2000.

someone who most people wouldn't be able to pick out of a police lineup but people still desperately want to claim as a major artist (Wilco, The National, The Shins, Modest Mouse, Sufjan Stevens I mean really

"Float On" was an actual hit song in the US tbf: it made the mainstream Top 40 chart and stayed on the Alternative chart for 28 weeks, peaking at #1.

2) it's funeral

i remember the era when funeral was big here being really alienating to me—like, a band i never heard of, a record i felt manipulated by when it was playing, and suddenly it seemed like everyone in town was bonkers for it

i wanna say the code to be cracked is literally sociological, not musical or aesthetic—imagine the taste profile of a post-collegiate white minneapolitan who was in their 20s to 30s in the early 00s and came up liking a relatively catholic range of things, but filtered through mainstream alt-rock flavored with 90s indie. the wave of 00s big-label indie commercialization/network-ification hits and listeners to the relevant outlets/buyers of the relevant records are enabled to treat their music along the lines of commodity culture/cultural currency (it expresses them, they see the world around them remade in response to their spontaneous inclinations—i feel like somehow the gnarls barkley single, as an event, is a perfect illustration of this). so there's a kind of mirroring of real-world big-money entertainment culture down in this fantasy-leagues level: like, event singles, 'jams', things that will crowd the dancefloor and the office party when it gets hopping, but 'our' versions of those for the here and now. now despite this the demographic had some real love for and understanding of other kinds of music beyond their legacy alt/indie leanings - and the smattering of local rap (a safe substitute!) and suspicious tokenism elsewhere in the list reflects that. but now take all that, and filter it through the establishment, within a local radio market, of a station catering to some such demographic under the auspices of being 'noncommercial' and with the practical agenda of being a ~professional~ media outlet (so in general, you're not gonna hear anything that will make a day at the office or an hour in a cafe too disconcerting or weird or exciting). that axes a great deal of contemporary popular and black music right there; it cordons off whole zones of indie vitality from the 00s and 10s as being ~inappropriate~ or insufficiently ~commercial~ or ~poppy~ (this profile's mediated versions of those); and it sets a low bar for fittingness/acceptability for its own airwaves, as just being whatever is 'not the other stations' in its local market, whether because they've already got their own segment covered or because it's coded within this profile as inappropriate.

idk if this is UK/US divide part 1,000,000 but that !!! song (or any !!! song) doesn't seem in the same demographical universe as anything on the list at the top

I’m talking about the entire list, though (not just Top 50) — it has The Rapture and others on a similar tip.

- Just enough rap music to look inclusive but absolutely nothing that would be even vaguely intimidating to anyone (like, where is Kendrick, seriously?)

He’s on the list 8 times! Get outta the kiddie pool, guys... pore thru the big ol’ Google Doc!!

the corniest song on here is Beautiful Day by a fair margin.

The rap angle is a whole other thing... all that Kendrick and a few old Missy Elliott singles, but not even Nicki Minaj’s pop hits make the cut...

i remember once hearing "You Don't Pull No Punches But You Don't Push the River" on the current and wondering if I was hallucinating.

Float On was a huge US hit, it even got a Kidz Bop version. I hate it
!!!'s "schoolyard' not a 'hit' in the US by any definition.

Neither were a lot of songs deeper on the list

I concede that some of my “omissions” may be a regional thing... like Giant Drag were played a lot here on L.A. radio, but not sure what their profile was elsewhere.

The Sounds (also absent here) are another example

I'm an Annie Hardy/Giant Drag fan but yeah they never got much exposure past outside CA

omit "past"

Corny like a cliche or like some cheap sentiment, I guess I'll pick the Flaming Lips song.

No I don't realize, Wayne. Otherwise I wouldn't be stumbling through life like a malcontent bitch.

'Do You Realise?' is a rip off of this much better song from the South Park Christmas album

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=XUFfeTjuPeg

There’s just something about the list that makes me want to “crack the code”... it’s a weirdly specific-feeling combination of great stuff, obvious/overplayed stuff, and “Adele songs you hear in barre class” — almost like it reflects the iTunes library of an actual couple in their early ‘40s who were “really into music” in the 2000s, and have gradually lost touch, but try to “keep up with it.”

This is the Current demo to the letter.

j. your post is so dead on wrt the current's sociology

Would have been a more interesting poll if you had limited it the 10 or 15 songs that are actually corny, and not sprinkled those in with stone cold classixx.

j. i spot on, except it's early '30s rather than '40s, I think.

no Gangnam Style no credibility

j.'s post is excellent, morrisp's on the same wavelength with

almost like it reflects the iTunes library of an actual couple in their early ‘40s who were “really into music” in the 2000s, and have gradually lost touch, but try to “keep up with it.”

I used to hear The Current very sporadically when driving around the twin cities in the early '00s and it feels like it's more homogenized now? Or, like the notional listener/dj it's a matter of my tastes changing and now I can see the big funnel that is an aging set of interests. Feels like the overall mix used to feel a little more regional.

The last couple times I've been north my reaction has been something between "huh" and "I guess Iowa Public Radio's gotten that much better?"

obviously also a bias toward highly-played mainstream hits that overlap with the station's demographic, avoiding a lot of the truly corny things while being unable to recognize how insanely corny most local bands truly are

I didn't know there was a code to be cracked, myself. For most people music is what Facebook would refer to as a "social affinity". For most people that taste solidifies, ossifies, in one's teens and early 20s. The list makes sense to me because I used to be in that "corny indie fuxx" demo; I just kept occasionally listening to new music after about 2008. Current listeners have heard good things about Kendrick Lamar, but they're pretty sure they don't like hip-hop except for "Stankonia", and anyway they have to take Conor to soccer practice. I don't, honestly, begrudge them that, but I do begrudge the station for making catering to them a business model. I've seen how that sort of thing played out with the Boomers.

I first encountered The Current on a visit back home where all of my friends were 100% over it and I was like "thanks to spending all of my time listening to Boston hip-hop stations, I haven't been inundated with the staples of their playlist so this actually feels refreshing and exciting to me".

Later in that trip, I was jamming out to some random "Shameful Songs I Like" segment and the DJ played Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" and I was like "oh now I get why this station sucks so much"

lol

yeah, I would also imagine some of the DJs subscribe to some weird ideas about pop music purity that would have kept them from even listing things they think out of their scope (where are the Black Eyed Peas!) while also keeping others off the list because they're "just great pop songs"

I don't, honestly, begrudge them that, but I do begrudge the station for making catering to them a business model. I've seen how that sort of thing played out with the Boomers.

It would honestly be less embarrassing if these people just got into Dire Straits.

I'm not sure I understand what makes this bubble more blameworthy than other bubbles.

the thing i didn't realize before having kids was how much of your music listening time gets eaten up by them. i thought it would be me and my 2 yr old in the car jamming out on link wray and shit but it's basically "we are the people in your neighborhood" on a constant loop. that being said, i'd take any sesame street songs on repeat over the majority of the stuff on this list

a lot of sesame street songs really slap

For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t “begrudge” my hypothetical couple in their 40s (the description applies to myself, more or less!) — I’m just interested in the “blind spots” reflected/promoted by this station’s grand list.

xp My 2-yr-old is really into that “No no no, no no no no” (Elmo/Oscar?) song

my brain's on monday morning mode and I conflated the list being corny with it intentionally being a list of corny songs in prior comment. please disregard

the biggest family-friendly blindspot is having Childish Gambino in there and not a single Kendrick mention

and even then, those are the two most consensus "rap acts public radio listeners should at least have heard" picks out there and they missed one

..incidentally that's why the Childish Gambino pick is corniest as a choice -- you need a post-2010 hip hop pick and that's where you go?

Not to pedantic about this dumb list — but again, there are 8 Kendrick tracks on it (just none in top 50).

workplace seems to have blocked the current's site as streaming media, my bad

Here’s the Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aSuC88B5BmPtTTssXUwyWUVDD5WHnFSkprcUV8sE8CM

(you guys did I mention I’ve been retained by “The Current” to promote this list via social/viral channels)

heh.

Anyway, i'm not sure whether The Current deserves all this snarkiness... they are a radio station after all, so they have to cater to some non-trivial listening audience, which ain't gonna happen if they play the ILX Top 77 albums on heavy rotation.
They're doing a lot better job of it than most public radio stations, in my opinion.

(also no one is gonna convince me ever that Skinny Love or New Slang are corny songs, but i'm squarely in their target demographic, if that wasn't already obvious)