Top 20 songs of 2002:

20. King Crimson: �Eyes Wide Open� Perhaps they�ve still got it after all, even if they did part ways with the world�s greatest rhythm section. Also their first use of an acoustic guitar in eighteen years.

19. Peter Gabriel: �My Head Sounds Like That� The first use of a new album in ten years. One day in January of my junior year, the city�s entire waterworks broke down. Morning swim practice was cancelled, and school let out after two hours. A bunch of us descended on the house of a friend whose parents were relatively well-off and we goofed around in well-appointed languor. MTV was playing the Gin Blossoms and Us3.

18. Queens Of The Stone Age: �No One Knows� No one knows their secret formula for rocking my ass so fucking hard. Another time, a different day, there was an ice storm and school was let out early. The roads were a traffic nightmare of bad teenage drivers on ice. We went to a different friends� house and watched Annie.

17. Interpol: �PDA� The first and not last �Sing Along With Ransom� entry. Would I sleep better if I had two hundred couches? Would I write better if I had two hundred brain cells?

16. Saint Etienne: �New Thing� Man, this song makes me horny. Horny for analog synthesizers! One night in London we all drank a bunch of gin and it made me talk in my sleep.

15. The Flaming Lips: �Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planita)� Here�s some music trivia: Did you know Pink Floyd had their brains frozen until the year 2156, when they were thawed and placed inside anthromorphically cybernetic exoskeletons? Then they got in a hovercraft and wrecked it.

14. Beck: �End Of The Day� This song is probably #2 on the Saddest Songs of 2002 list. But I�m not making that list. That list is making me. What? Exactly.

13. Zero 7: �Destiny� She�s watching porn! In her hotel dressing-gown! From Simple Things, the best sex album of the year. One thing I really liked about our old house was that we could lie out on the roof and work on our totally righteous tans.

12. Boards Of Canada: �Dawn Chorus� I�ve figured out the easiest way to have nightmares: Fall asleep while listening to Geogaddi. Or maybe punch yourself in the face repeatedly right before going to bed. Or both.

11. Kenna: �I�m Gone� This song is about drugs. Or television. Or maybe both. Or maybe, man, television is a drug. Just call me Mister Marshall Fucking MacLuhan.

10. Timo Maas: �Shifter� Timo Maas is a brilliant new force in electronica today. He uses the same turntables that NASA astronauts use.

9. Spoon: �Someone, Something� This is the second �SAWR� song of the list. Made the list mostly because of the way Britt Daniels says �all right!� at the beginning of the song. That fucking bastard.

8. Elbow: �Any Day Now� What�s got into me? Can�t believe myself. Must be someone else. Must be.

7. Underworld: �Two Months Off� You bring light in. The ten-minute screenplay for a film never made? You green-light it.

6. Alto Heceta: �My Shrinking Paradise� One time I knew a band that wrote long songs. Then they wrote a short one and it blew my ass out the back of the room. Then they broke up. Can you guess what that band was? That�s right: it was the Spin Doctors.

5. Neil Finn: �Human Kindness� How about John Paul shows a little human kindness and shuts up about Neil Finn? Huh? Folks? Are you with me? Am I right? ... Thanks, I�ll be here all week.

4. Wilco: �I Am Trying To Break Your Heart� I think we should pass a law that all bands in the world who are not Wilco should break up. Then it would be only Wilco. All the time! Wouldn�t that be awesome?

3. R�yksopp: �Remind Me� I�m failing to recall what I was missing all that time in England.

2. Tahiti 80: �1000 Times� Final �SAWR� entry. French pop band improves their English, tightens up their sound, quadruples their dosage of twee. Heard it when I walked by Abercrombie Kids the other day. Another miracle moment, a confluence of Western Culture.

1. Super Furry Animals: �Alternate Route To Vulcan Street� Sometimes I ponder: What if the Caspian Sea should merger? Over my shoulder, there�s Irish maids and Seoul suburbia. The saddest and best song of the year. Best because it�s the saddest? Saddest and therefore best? Correlation is not causation. Still, though.

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