Indie Rock Songs I Liked When I Was 16 (And Still Like Now)

Sparklehorse - Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy Man

Man. When I first heard this song, and for years afterward, it seemed much more uplifting than it should. When the washed-out static of the "Chaos of the Galaxy" portion finally gives way to the clean riffs of "Happy Man," it feels... optimistic. Given last month's suicide of Sparklehorse frontman Mark Linkous, I'm never going to listen to this song in the same way. And perhaps now I'll hear it the way it was intended to be heard: The refrain of "all I want is to be a happy man" is less the declaration of a simple goal, more an unattainable dream. Damn.


The Dismemberment Plan - The City

I remember in my 11th grade English class, the teacher had an online discussion board that every member of the class could access. It was the first time in my scholastic career that a class had ever used the internet in such a way and, typically, we abused it. One discussion thread on this page involved my classmates recommending music to one another. Considering that I was approximately 500 times more comfortable online than I was in person at that time in my life, my recommendations were enthusiastic and frequent. And always stuff like this song. I wonder how many of my classmates actually took me up on them.


12 Rods - Make-Out Music

I discovered Pitchfork in 2001 when I was scouring the internet looking for things written about my new favourite album, the Strokes' Is This It? Back then, Pitchfork seemed more like a website that a bunch of buddies threw together because they liked music, rather than one with the obligation to be the internet's definitive music publication. Pitchfork reviews these days are VERY safe, concerned with capturing the general consensus on a given album rather than ever going out on a limb. When they started, their reviews were incredibly subjective, which led to some weirdly high or weirdly low scores. Two of my favourite instances: Ryan Schreiber trashing Daft Punk's Discovery, and Schreiber awarding a perfect score to 12 Rods' Gay? EP. I believe the Daft Punk review has since been modified to make it a bit more respectable, but that 12 Rods review? It's just GONE, along with the near-perfect score (9.7 if I remember correctly) that 12 Rods' debut full-length, Split Personalities, received. It's a shame. Neither album was worthy of THAT high a score maybe, but they were good records. "Make-Out Music" was on both.


The Microphones - The Glow, Pt. 2

I have to admit, it's been years since I've listened to this one. I got my current laptop in the summer of 2008, and have been using iTunes since, and this still has 0 plays in my iTunes. But wow, when this came out, I thought this song was incredible. The entire album is pretty moving, but this title track in particular got to me. The loud-to-soft dynamics, the bizarre imagery in the lyrics, and especially that part at about the 2:30 mark -- "my blooooooo-oooooood flows harshly" as the key changes underneath the vocals. Perfect.


Liz Phair - Flower

Of all the albums in this post, Exile in Guyville is probably the one I listen to most and think highest of now. Unlike the others though, it wasn't one I played all the way through when I was 16. Nope, I got stuck on this song, which was, at that point, the most mindblowing piece of lyrical poetry that my teenage mind could fathom. Yeah, it's not even one of the better songs on the album, but can you really blame me for noticing it first?