To my ears, a lot of mid-to-late 2000s indie rock and pop, while not necessarily homogeneous in sound, shared this very specific quality of unabashed earnestness, a bold willingness to be as emotional and intense as it wanted to be, even if that meant being more than a little melodramatic at times. It balanced rich, sunny melodicism with deeply cathartic lyricism in which everything mattered. No experience or feeling or reaction was too inconsequential to make a big, bright, messy spectacle out of.
My responses to the bands that made this sort of music were equally dramatic and oversized. I very rarely fall head over heels in love with new artists now as intensely and frequently as I did back then, and I often get nostalgic for how life-changing each of those discoveries felt, even though I realize that my taste now is a lot more interesting and diverse overall. On one particularly nostalgic night a few months ago, I compiled a massive playlist of what 18-year-old me would have considered my signature bands then began slowly narrowing it down to the 18 songs here. I even tried to channel my teenage self in making the delightfully garish cover above.
As usual, be sure to hit the Spotify playlist at the very end of the post for maximum convenience (bar one song because there always has to be that one unavailable song, doesn't there?).
1. Ra Ra Riot - Ghost Under Rocks
You are breathing life into ghost under rocks, like notes found in pocket coats of your father's, lost and forgotten.
I have no idea what this song is about, as the lyrics seem purposefully opaque, but whatever it is, it feels urgent, incendiary, nearly life or death. Between the propulsive cello and violin stabs, breathlessly frenetic drums, and theatrical passion of Wes Myles' vocal delivery, if this song doesn't immediately get your blood pumping, you may want to confirm you actually have a pulse. It's a shame Ra Ra Riot has settled for becoming a middle-of-the-road synth-pop band because I feel like there's so much more they could've done with the chamber music influences of their early work. Their debut, The Rhumb Line, is melodramatic and excessive in the best way possible, and "Ghost Under Rocks" wastes no time setting that standard.
2. Rilo Kiley - Paint's Peeling
I feel nothing, not sane. It's a hard day for dreaming again.
Rilo Kiley will always be that band for me, the one that came into my life at precisely the right time and seemed to encapsulate everything I had ever experienced or felt, even when they didn't. Jenny Lewis' lyrics are unrivaled in terms of their depiction of what it means to be a young, self-doubting, and confused 21st-century woman. But what really twists the knife blade deep is her spit-fire voice, alternating between chirpy send-offs to "the assholes that made me" and desperate, white-knuckled questioning: "Hey, how could you love me this way?" Add Blake Sennett's laid-back guitar riffs and understated harmonies, and you've got a musical chemistry for the ages. I'll perpetually keep my fingers crossed, however improbably, for a reunion.
3. Bright Eyes - Something Vague
I hang like a star, fucking glow in the dark, for all those starving eyes to see.
Conor Oberst gets a lot of flack for his overbearingly emotional songwriting and delivery, particularly in his early Bright Eyes material, and I can see where it comes off like calculatedly performative angst. But, to me, that pain has always seemed very raw and real. Of course, it's not something I want to hear very often anymore, but the cathartic release it provided was vital for my younger self's survival. I spent hours listening to Fevers and Mirrors on repeat (and probably sobbing buckets) when I first discovered it. Its best songs, like this one, are all about the slow build-up to a cathartic climax, from a gentle and dusty acoustic guitar whimper to a bruised knuckles, bloody fingernails, shredded vocal chords bang and back again.
4. Eisley - Invasion
They will try to make us forget ourselves, one by one, one by one.
"Invasion" was the first single released from Eisley's sophomore album, Combinations, and I still remember the chills that ran down my spine upon my first listen. It's the perfect hard-edged pop song, like a dark, glittering, and slick slab of obsidian mined from deep within the earth. Drawing on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the lyrics are ominously elusive, slip-sliding from the listener's grip. The protagonist, under a "bloodless moon," flees an encroaching alien enemy, whose "colorless words" threaten, "Go to sleep, this won't hurt a bit/Shifting your shape to our shells." The sci-fi mood is intensified by a blaring synth line and Sherri and Stacy DuPree's voices, like fluttery, omnipotent phantoms who know their warnings fall upon deaf ears.
5. Tegan and Sara - The Con
Encircle me; I need to be taken down.
For a while, I hung out on the borderline of Tegan and Sara fandom, never quite compelled to commit myself fully, but The Con shattered those apathetic feelings almost instantly. Even now, despite knowing every note of it by heart, it's one of those rare albums that still retains its initial charm, only further enriched by the many experiences through which it's accompanied me. While Sara handles the more experimental tunes, Tegan delivers one catchy as fuck indie rock rager after another. On the title track, she wails like a wounded animal, "Nobody likes me/Maybe if I cry," atop an immense wave of guitar and keyboard, establishing a sing-along chorus that persists years on (and will probably never be bested in their career).
6. Mates of State - Parachutes (Funeral Song)
What I had between the things I never tried was you reaching out in hopes to hold your hand.
I went through a pretty significant phase wherein I only listened to cutesy indie pop bands with dual male/female vocals (which, I must admit, is still a musical niche I'm very into). Of groups that occupy this category, husband/wife duo Mates of State is one of the most reliably delightful. Objectively, Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel do not have very great voices, but somehow the sound of their full-throated but discordant shouting in unison is charming as hell. My favorite thing about them is that, even on what should ostensibly be a pretty and gentle ballad like this one, they can never stop themselves from belting their lungs out like their lives depend upon it. Try matching their energy when you sing along, and you'll see why they're so much fun.
7. Tilly and the Wall - Brave Day
I wish I could just fade into the nighttime waves that have me falling down.
Another holdover of the above-mentioned phase, I think Tilly and the Wall was unfairly perceived by many as a novelty band (there's a tap dancer, oh my god!) that would age poorly. In actual fact, they made some really killer pop tunes that I continue to come back to regularly. "Brave Day" is a deep cut from their second (and best, in my opinion) album, Bottoms of Barrels, that puts to rest any attempts to categorize their music as amateur. Accompanied by soulful organ and twangy guitar, the band's three vocalists harmonize like old pros. Everything coasts along smoothly, like gently rolling ocean waves, before cresting in the motivational mass shout, "When you going to get back up?!?" This is followed by a board-pounding tap dance solo, naturally.
8. The Good Life - Inmates
I recognize your off-white lies. Still, I lie beside you, and that's what really hurts.
An additional phase that has already been overwhelmingly represented: listening almost exclusively to Saddle Creek adjacent artists. The Good Life is the solo project of Tim Kasher, more well-known as the frontman of Cursive, and I will forever consider "Inmates" one of my favorite songs. It's the linchpin of Album of the Year, which documents the rise and fall of a tempestuous relationship. A nine-and-a-half-minute behemoth of a folk song, it finds Kasher laying out his romantic failings with brutal honesty via the perspective of his soon-to-be-ex-lover, as voiced by Jiha Lee. Innumerable soul-crushing lines litter its winding trajectory, topped off by a single-sentence finale - "I can't be your prisoner" - that serves as both celebration and funeral.
9. Neko Case - Star Witness
The look on your face yanks my neck on the chain, and I would do anything to see you again.
Neko Case receives a lot of praise for her voice, but she's also almost certainly among the greatest contemporary songwriters. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood is another all-timer for me. After its release, I listened to it multiple times a day, to the point of falling asleep and waking up to it, for at least six months. Case is a master of Southern Gothic storytelling and a descriptive wordsmith of the highest order, as evidenced by this song, which may be about a car crash but may also be about growing up in a dead-end town and falling in love for the first time and watching someone die while everyone else looks away. Case's voice reverberates with such deep sorrow and longing that it sells all of these potential meanings and more simultaneously.
10. Straylight Run - Buttoned Down
When was it that you lost your soul? What does it take? What did they make you?
Straylight Run always seemed a little misunderstood to me. Two of their members were originally in Taking Back Sunday, which I think made people expect them to sound like Taking Back Sunday. Moreover, their most well-known song, "Existentialism on Prom Night," took off as a sort of quintessential bleeding heart ballad for emo kids, which pigeonholed them further. Honestly, though, their sophomore album, The Needles, the Space, is a highly enjoyable amalgamation of whimsical indie pop and passionate melodic rock. "Buttoned Down" is one of its highlights because it's so musically and emotionally pure, John Nolan's ragged voice smoothed over by warm acoustic guitar strums and his sister Michelle's dreamy harmonies.
11. 1997 - In Your Car
The chords are ringing out. My fingertips are pouring rain upon the rooftop.
A guilty pleasure of mine used to be reading my sister's Alternative Press magazines, despite loudly and aggressively claiming to despise any music categorized as "emo." I'm glad I've lightened up since then. At any rate, I discovered 1997 through an advertisement in that magazine, though I no longer know why I felt so specifically compelled by it. The music, once I heard it, compelled me because it so effectively utilized those male/female harmonies I love. The vocal chemistry is undeniable, upgrading the otherwise trite sentiments of this song's chorus - "Drown the pain of this one to the sound of my guitar" - until, as the next line proclaims, "This song becomes our anthem." It also helps that, melodically, it's just really well-written pop.
12. Be Your Own Pet - You're a Waste (not available on Spotify)
Now I'm glad you got a broken heart because I've been trying to fix mine from the start.
Be Your Own Pet was a band that burned quickly but brightly, though, if I recall correctly, at the time, they were quite roundly dismissed as a bunch of privileged teenagers with connections trying to pass themselves off as bad-ass punk-rockers. And, yeah, there's probably a kernel of truth to that. Really, they wrote simple pop songs dressed up in loud, brash clothing. But they were good pop songs and still are. "You're a Waste" is full of proudly immature (and insanely catchy) one-liners - "You've been a dick to me all along," "Go ahead and tell your sob story/All I have to say about it is blow me" - delivered by Jemina Pearl with a sugar-coated snarl charismatic enough to hold its own against a wall of grungy guitars and blown-out drums.
13. Land of Talk - Speak to Me Bones
Predatory by design, we know you think what's yours is mine. So much skin, so little time.
I only recently realized the brilliance of Land of Talk's entire discography, but I loved their debut EP, Applause Cheer Boo Hiss, within seconds of first hearing its jaw-dropping, mind-obliterating opener. There's no gentle easing in here, just blistering guitars and crashing cymbals from the start, blasting their way into a relentless adrenaline rush of a grungy groove. Over top, Elizabeth Powell's lackadaisical, slurred vocals at first seem an odd fit. But by the time the first chorus rolls around, they ooze rock star charisma, which makes it hard to believe her when she brashly wails, "I love anyone but me." In a rapid-fire eruption at the song's finale, she repeatedly insists, "What about right now," her voice growing more unhinged with every syllable.
14. Los Campesinos! - Knee Deep at ATP
When our eyes meet, all that I can read is, "You're the b-side."
Los Campesinos! have stealthily become one of the most consistent bands in indie rock. The fun thing about their debut, Hold on Now, Youngster..., is that in its bright and boisterous sugar-rush high you can hear both hints of the band they would become and confirmation of the band they've always been. "Knee Deep at ATP" serves as a sort of microcosm of this effect, its thoughtful blend of weeping violin, intermittent electronic bleeps, and soft, wistful vocals book-ended by a manic looping guitar and synth melody, over which the entire band shouts haphazardly during the coda, "They said, 'It's not what you like, but what you're like as a person'/Well, I need new hobbies, that's one thing for certain!"
15. Margot & the Nuclear So and So's - Talking in Code
Your voice cracks like a piano. You keep moving, but where are you going?
As much as I find the later work of Margot & the Nuclear So and So's to be generally enjoyable (Richard Edwards is too good of a songwriter not to), there's something magical about the perfect blend of chamber folk and indie rock achieved on The Dust of Retreat that the band never quite managed to capture again. There's a warmth to the instrumentation and vocals, like sitting in front of a fireplace in your favorite worn-out chair with a mug of warm tea in your hands. Here, the various instrumental flourishes - pedal steel, muted vocal harmonies, violin, horns - may have easily become overkill in lesser hands. Instead, they slowly rise to a nuanced, natural pitch in tandem with the increasingly pained crackle of Edwards' voice.
16. The Narrative - Libra
Let the air tip the scales, let the one honest judge decide, and you will find that the facts weigh down to favor you each time.
The Narrative absolutely deserved to blow up, and I'm still upset they never did. Perhaps part of the reason was that their debut EP, Just Say Yes, was so remarkable as to be near impossible to best. Simply put, Jesse Gabriel and Suzie Zeldin make magic together, and they obviously put their entire hearts and souls into this release. On "Libra," Zeldin takes the vocal lead, her serene voice the perfect vessel for the song's sense of melancholy. Its sweetness conceals the bitterness of the lyrics, as on the second verse, when she croons, "We'll pretend that we'll be friends/Oh, an ideal lie, you only last a little while." The final chorus gives way to an atmospheric instrumental outro that seamlessly interweaves post-rock influences and pop melodies.
17. Stars - Soft Revolution
After changing everything, they couldn't tell we couldn't sing. They couldn't tell we couldn't sing, and that changes everything.
Bands that unabashedly wear their hearts on their sleeves can be polarizing. Their passion is often perceived as melodrama, a word which tends to provoke a visceral reaction: love or hate. Stars' music has always been unapologetically ornate, and this song is no exception. Between triumphant burst of strings and horns intertwined with Amy Millan's blissful harmonies, Torquil Campbell delivers the verses with smooth, effortless cool. The lyrics speak to a generation of artistic romantics who strive to leave the world more beautiful than they found it: "The revolution wasn't bad/We hit the streets with all we had/A tape recording of the sound of the Velvet Underground/A K-Way jacket torn to shreds/And a dream inside our heads."
18. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Turn Into
Can't say why I kept this from you. My, those quiet eyes become you. Leave it where it can't remind us. Turn this all around behind us.
As great as Karen O is at screaming her throat raw, there's something so earnest and lovable in her voice when she attempts to sing more prettily. "I know what I know," she insists with chirpy confidence at this song's opening, and there's something about such a boldly-made assertion that stops the listener dead in their tracks. It's simple but effective, much like the song as a whole, which proved, at a time when it was not yet clear, that beneath their bratty lo-fi punk posturing, Yeah Yeah Yeahs knew their way around how to write a damn song. The build-up is subtle but assured, growing from acoustic beginnings to a high-octane rush of electric guitar, drums, piano, and synth, only to deconstruct itself back down to Karen O's distant, vulnerable warble.
