Everett's Top 11

Hey everyone, I'm Everett. I primarily write for Good Weather for Airstrikes, but have recently been offered the opportunity to share some of the less cutting edge, straightfowardly "indie" music I enjoy here on All Things Go. I admit that the eleven songs I'm posting below generally appeal more to indie sensibilities than the left-of-center songs I will be posting here most, but these serve as a fairly effective introduction to my music taste. Without further ado, here are eleven songs that I like a whole hell of a lot: 1) Death Cab for Cutie, We Looked Like Giants "We Looked Like Giants" is my favorite Death Cab song, and nobody will ever be able to convince me that Death Cab has ever topped the majesty of this song. 2) Bright Eyes, Lover I Don't Have To Love It took me well over a year to finally fall for Bright Eyes music, and this was the song that, after repeated listens, eventually did it for me. I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning was my favorite album of 2005 and is one of my favorite albums, period, but I decided for a band like Bright Eyes I had to go back to the point I was finally converted. 3) Bob Dylan, Tangled Up In Blue Blood On The Tracks may very well be my favorite album of all time, and it's first song, "Tangled Up In Blue", is easily my favorite Dylan song. Listening to "Tangled Up In Blue" makes me realize that no matter how much I love Conor Oberst, comparisons between him and Dylan are simply ludicrous. 4) The Beatles, And I Love Her One of my two favorite Beatles songs (the other one being "Something"), I'm one of those people that can't define myself as a music-loving individual without inclusion of The Beatles in something like this. Probably the most influential band ever, and nobody, not even Brian Wilson, can craft perfect pop songs that approach the sheer stick-in-your-head brilliance that much of The Beatles catalogue contains. 5) Iron & Wine, The Trapeze Swinger If somebody put a gun to my head and said that I had to name my absolute favorite song in the world (which, under any other circumstances, I doubt I'd be able to) or he (or she, ladies!) would shoot me, this is the song I would choose. 6) Sigur Ros, Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa If that same person were to then ask me my favorite band, perhaps an even more difficult task, Sigur Ros would be my answer. This is my favorite Sigur Ros song and was easily the highlight of their show when I saw them last year. 7) Explosions In The Sky, First Breath After Coma According to my last.fm, this is the band I listen to most. Granted, this is probably because I've found nothing more condusive to doing homework than the Friday Night Lights Soundtrack, on which Explosions In The Sky has 11 of the 14 tracks. This song, unlike my other favorite, "Your Hand In Mine", does not appear on that soundtrack, but was my first introduction to Explosions In The Sky and remains one of my favorite songs. 8) DJ Shadow, Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt Endtroducing... is an absolutely essential album. I would not be the first to liken listening to the full album a transcendent experience, and though I believe the album as a whole is far greater than the sum of its parts, "Building Steam..." can stand alone as one of the most subtly epic tracks of the nineties. 9) Radiohead, No Surprises Radiohead is just one of those bands that I can't imagine living without. Every once in a while I'll find myself listening to nothing but Radiohead for a good week, and if it weren't for Sigur Ros, I would proclaim Radiohead the best band in the world today. 10) The Shins, Pink Bullets Chutes Too Narrow is another favorite album, and there was definitely a period of time where I would consider "Pink Bullets" my favorite song. I still consider it a near-perfect pop masterpiece, and one of the finest songs written in recent history (recent meaning 'since I entered high school'). 11) Say Anything, Woe This song, and this band in general, is just a whole hell of a lot of fun to listen to. I don't consider myself a particularly angst-ridden person, which is why my pop-punky phase ended years ago, but bands like Max Bemis' Say Anything transcend the genre enough that I don't feel even the least bit lame listening to ...Is A Real Boy. So there you go, an introduction to the music I enjoy. Hip Hop is grossly underrepresented here, and I don't want to give the impression that I dislike the genre. However, there is a collaborative effort in the works between Zack and myself that should fully satiate your hip-hop desires, so keep your eyes out for that. -Everett