Saddest Songs...Ever?

NME has a list of "saddest songs" over on their website now, it's interesting to see all the readers' picks. If you could only pick five, which songs make you outright cry or give you the chills?

Mine (in no particular order):

"Sweetness Follows," R.E.M -- Automatic for the People remains R.E.M.'s crowning achievement to date, which is saying a lot for a band who has recorded at least three outright classic pop albums. Automatic stands out, however, as their most personal, emotional album. Songs like "Nightswimming," "Everybody Hurts (one of their biggest hits)," and "M an on the Moon" are absolute highlights from their most commercial period, but it's the cello-drenched "Sweetness Follows" that delivers the killer blow. Any song that begins, "Readying to bury your father and your mother..." means business.

"Tomorrow," Ryan Adams -- Choosing the saddest Ryan Adams song is another unenviable task, but "Tomorrow," released on his demo collection Demolition, tops the list due to its tragic context. Co-written by then-ex Carrie Hamilton as she succumbed to cancer, it devastatingly evokes the conflicted feelings of fear, grief, and relief that accompany the impending death of a sick loved one. It's also the rare Adams song that isn't winking back at you through the tears. When his voice breaks during the last bar, there's no mistaking the pain behind it.

"Lost Art of Murder," Babyshambles -- Pete Doherty, much like Ryan Adams, has made a career out of sabotaging his career. Which is why "Lost Art of Murder," the closer on his band's sophomore LP Shotter's Nation, is so affecting. Mourning the loss of his lover (presumably Kate Moss) and mulling the possibility of redemption, the line, "Don't look at me like that/She won't take you back/Said too much, been to unkind/Get up off your back/Stop smoking that/Change your life/Think it'll change her mind?" creates a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a junkie desperate to change but unconvinced that he can.

"Twilight," Elliot Smith -- If the words, "I'm tired of being down, I got no fight," sung by a man who soon thereafter (appears to have) ended his own life by plunging a knife into his chest

doesn't make you tear up, you're beyond help.

NME: http://www.nme.com

Pop Art of the Decade

Recently my friend invited me to contribute my Top Ten films, songs, books, albums, etc. to a list he was circulating. The task proved more difficult than I had initially imagined. For starters, I don't read very much in the way of contemporary fiction/non-fiction. And, for example, in my haste to come up with something, I forgot that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is one of my favorite films of all time, never mind the decade.

What would make your list?

My Top Ten Movies (in no particular order)

WALL-E

Capturing the Friedmans

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Elephant

Gamorrah

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Zodiac

The Royal Tennenbaums

The Fellowship of the Ring

In America

My Top Ten Songs:

Arcade Fire - "No Cars Go"; Radiohead - "How to Disappear Completely"; The Libertines - "Can't Stand Me Now"; M.I.A. - "Paper Planes"; Ryan Adams - "Dear Chicago"; Secret Machines - "Alone, Jealous, and Stoned"; The Thrills - "Nothing Changes Around Here"; The Walkmen - "The Rat"; The Rapture - "House of Jealous Lovers"; Outkast - "Hey Ya!"

My Top Ten Albums:

Bjork, Vespertine

Whiskeytown, Pneumonia

The Walkmen, Bows & Arrows

Arcade Fire, Funeral

The Libertines, The Libertines

The Strokes, Is This It?

British Sea Power, The Decline of British Sea Power

Kanye West, Late Registration

Blur, Think Tank

The Stills, Logic Will Break Your Heart

Honorable Mentions: Jay-Z, The Blueprint; Kings of Leon, Aha Shake Heartbreak

Best Young Band You're Not Listening To...

...And not without good reasoon. Phantom Buffalo, a psych-folk quartet from Portland, ME, have at least two strikes against them: They're a band from Maine, which, outside of Ray LaMontagne, hasn't produced much music of note this decade, and second, they've undergone a namechange. They used to be called The Ponys, before they found themselves playing SXSW with a band also called The Ponys from Chicago. As the Chicago Ponys have more clout in indiedom, the Maine Ponys decided to change their name to Phantom Buffalo.

In a lot of ways, Phantom Buffalo is a name more befitting their sound. Debut album Shishimumu (2002) drew comparisons to The Shins' Oh Inverted World! and showcased a surreal, psychedelic landscape populated with po-faced, furry animals and existential doom that had as much to do with Radiohead as it did with Neil Young and Belle & Sebastian. Songs like "Parasitic Wedding Vows" and "Anywhere with Oxygen" played out like sonic acolytes to some lost Wes Anderson film. All-in-all, a great debut.

Their third LP, titled Cement Postcards With Owl Colours, is streaming on their website now, have a listen.

Official Website: http://phantombuffalo.net/

Currently Listening To ...

To Charlotte Gainsbourg's immense credit, she doesn't try to sing as much as intone intimate songs like “5:55,” “Beauty Mark,” and “Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping.” The closest she comes to actually singing (somewhat beautifully, I might add) is on the charming “The Songs that We Sing,” where she openly wonders, “These songs that I sing/Do they mean anything/To the people I'm singing them to/People like you?” before reassuring herself, “Tonight they do.” She also humorously recounts, “I saw a little girl/I stopped and smiled at her/She screamed and ran away/It happens to me more and more these days.”

The album's most telling moment is “The Operation,” a swaggering cut that sounds like it was recovered from the Moon Safarisessions. In it, Gainsbourg uses surgery as an unwieldy metaphor for . . . well, you can probably guess. It unquestionably shouldn't work, but thanks to her sense of humor, it does. When she moans, “If I pull this off, I'll refuse the Nobel Prize,” you get the impression she's referring to the song more than anything else.

She chose as her collaborators the same team behind Air's Pocket Symphony, and as a result her record lands squarely in the same late night, 70s dream pop genre as her kindred Frenchmen's work.