10 Years of Musical Genius

Coldplay: controversial to say the least. I can honestly say I have absolutely nothing against them; I'm not one of those 'Coldplay should die' protesters. In fact, I am a proud owner of their  album Parachutes and Yellow and The Scientist hold valuable spots as some of my all time favourite songs. However, by the third album in 2005, I like many others I'm sure, were seeing a pattern emerging, and they were becoming a little too easy listening, so easy listening, you could quite easily fall asleep to their repetitive material. 

In light of this, I was somewhat surprised to hear that Clocks was voted the greatest song of the past decade by Radio 6 listeners this week; Clocks? ... not bad but certainly not great. What's more, they were closely followed by Elbow and British Sea Power (I know ... who?).

Now I have a lot of respect for Coldplay, they've stood the test of time and are one of the few bands left who have consistently had hits in the last decade, so maybe this award is well deserved in that respect, but then I thought about all the great songs this title has been stolen from:

Adele's Hometown Glory only at 28.  

Amy Winehouse and Rehab at 25. 

Damien Rice, Mumford and Sons, Florence and the Machine, James Morrison, Bloc Party, Empire of the Sun, Kings of Leon, The Temper Trap, The Libertines, Klaxons, Arctic Monkeys ... none of these great artists even made the top 20.

I know only one song could take the top spot and with hundreds of amazing artists since 2002, it must have been an incredibly hard decision, but I have tried to compile my own list. It's eaten up a large chunk of my day contemplating the wealth of music in the past ten years (so long in fact, I just missed a Friday post time wise!), but here's how my top five would have looked: 

5# Coldplay - The Scientist - 2002

4# The Kooks - Naive - 2006

3# Damien Rice - Cannonball - 2003

2# Snow Patrol - Run - 2003

1# Oasis - Stop Crying Your Heart Out - 2002

I'm sure everyone will disagree, and add their own personal variations, but I can safely say I will never get bored of listening to these songs and to me, that is how a song should be valued. Although my greatest songs of the last twenty, thirty and even forty years would certainly look a lot different, Stop Crying Your Heart Out would still be up there with the greats, The Beatles, Bill Withers, David Bowie; the list is endless and timeless.