Answer the question, Claire: Screw Rock 'n' Roll Top 69 Singles of 2006, Nos. 21-25

But first...

Jeff Weiss covers the 2007's hip hop electoral battle between 50 and Kanye.

and now...

25. The Mountain Goats - Woke Up New

Get Lonely didn't deserve the chilly reception it received. Or perhaps it did; the album was withdrawn and understated, and Darnielle must have known that people would find that hard to take after the flayed vibrance of The Sunset Tree. I sure found it difficult, but I'm glad Get Lonely convinced me of its charms, because there's a lot to like about that record.

"Woke Up New" is the one song that appeals even to those who dislike Get Lonely, but it also sets the scene for the album thematically, if not musically. Like Darnielle's most instantly loveable songs in recent memory, it sparkles and bounds through its runtime, dragging you up and carrying you along with it. But where "Home Again, Garden Grove," and "Dance Music" had similarly upbeat (albeit with disturbing undertones) ideas at their core, "Woke Up New," is deeply sad, even as it tries not to be. The music is bright and Darnielle's voice cheerful, but of the opening line's triad of emotion ("On the morning that I woke up without you, for the very first time/I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared,") it's the fear and the loneliness that permeates the track most obviously. That's what gives the song its power, of course. The narrator tries to make the line "What do I do without you?" an expression of boundless optimism, but all he ends up conveying is a paralyzing sense of loss. No wonder the rest of the album was a tough sell; it had all the quiet failure, but none of the optimism. Still, it's as worth it as this song is, and this song is very worth it.

24. Fall Out Boy - A Little Less "Sixteen Candles," A Little More "Touch Me"

I'm not a lawyer, but I understand one thing about the legal system, and that's a little thing called precedent. And that's why I feel comfortable saying that Fall Out Boy need new legal representation. According to their bassist, Pete Wentz:

“The title was actually supposed to be ’A Little Less Molly Ringwald, A Little More Samantha Fox’ and we were pretty much told we were going to be sued if we used their names. Interestingly enough you can use the movie they were in or their songs. So it was obviously a reference to the difference between Samantha Fox and the difference between Molly Ringwald. There’s one girl you want to bring home and have dinner with your parents and there’s one girl that you want to turn off the lights and like whatever...”

...which sounds like a terrible indictment of the American legal system, until you start thinking about songs like Kanye West's "Barry Bonds," the Go-Betweens' "Lee Remick," Belle and Sebastian's "Piazza, New York Catcher," Bananarama's "Robert DeNiro's Waiting..." and etc., etc. Obviously, naming songs after living breathing celebrities isn't the legal minefield Wentz has been told. (Sure, there was the Outkast vs Rosa Parks thing, but Outkast were always going to win that case). Then again, Wentz could just be telling a good story featuring an adversary that everyone loves to hate; note that the band also has a track called, "Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of this Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued," which had some similarly benign original title that I can't be assed looking up right now.

But anyways, the song, "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More 'Touch Me'" (which is a better title anyway), is... well, I'm having a tough time understanding how people could not love it. The key, I've realized, is Patrick Stump's voice, something Pete Wentz realized long ago and that the Gym Class Heroes have created a two single long career out of realizing. Sure, Stump is the reason Fall Out Boy are anything at all (though, unlike everyone else, I do have a certain amount of fondness for Wentz's lyrics), but he excels in this song. There's just something magical about the way he turns every line in the chorus into a killer hook — the awkward but awesome "I don't blame you for being you," the majesty of the cry to "Kiss her! Kiss her!" and the curiously satisfying conclusion, "I set my clocks early cause I know I'm always late." Fall Out Boy is the most successful example of a group parlaying emo's natural affinity for joyous melody into pop success, and this is their best realization of that transformation to date.

23. The Pipettes - Pull Shapes

Here's the thing about the Pipettes: they don't stand up to scrutiny. They just can't. The slightest analysis undermines any transcendence they or their music achieves, which is frustrating, because I adore analysing music, and because, the Pipettes absolutely beg for analysis. Then again, "Pull Shapes" absolutely begs to be loved, and that trumps any desire to pull the track's pretensions and conflicts to pieces.

In an article for Stylus earlier this year, Will Swygart neatly encapsulated every problem I have with the Pipettes:

“Well I like to hip-haahp!” And all of a sudden, a million minds realized exactly what was wrong with this country. The Pipettes seem to be founded on the idea of Knowing Better, a throwback to the ideal, puritanical girl-group template so beloved of, well, everyone, no? Girl-groups as things to be Done Properly—they must have attitude, style, disposability, choruses, harmonies, bitchiness, and fingerclicks. They must be A Bit Dirty, but never quite allowed to demonstrate that publicly.

And that’s the idea they’re seen as reinforcing. Fun-not-fun. Pop-not-pop. Girl-group as conceptualized by, say, John Harris, perhaps. Bringing Properness back to pop, and too perfect, too studied by half. It can’t be good pop. It’s too bloody boring to be good pop, isn’t it? THEORY. It’s indie kids, isn’t it, THEY’RE the fucking problem! They just have to bloody know better, don’t they? Cuntwit Brighton fringe-flick Mighty Boosh Converse “obviously ripping off Josef K” DEFINITELY NOTHING LIKE THEM… breathe out…

And so The Pipettes become everybody’s punching bag. Genre exercise, pseudo-hipster fad, pop for pop-haters, the straw man’s girl-group of choice—it becomes impossible to hear them without some form of baggage attached. They can’t be “appreciated” without. The self-loathing of the British indie milieu, conveniently focused into one massive zit.

Exactly! If you want manufactured pop, why does it have to be this knowing pastiche? Why resurrect girl group when you have nothing new, nothing interesting to add? If Ciara and Destiny's Child and Nelly Furtado and etc. are killing on the pop chartswith interesting, daring music, why go the safe route of casting your pop in the mold of something that has had 40 years to become acceptable? Because there is absolutely no way the Pipettes were aiming to better the Ronnettes or the Supremes or the Crystals. They only wanted to remind you of them, to have a little bit of the renown of those older acts rub off on them. They would never try to offer their spin on modern pop, like Timbaland or the Neptunes, Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, because they would look dismally second rate next to these artists. Look, I like that Motown shit. But don't give me a second rate version of it and expect me to love it.

Will followed the above quote with, "It becomes of secondary importance that “Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me” is fantastic," which is the point on which he and I diverge in opinion; "Your Kisses...," is OK, "Pull Shapes" is glorious. I hate everything about the song except the giddy thrill of listening to it. Over and over again.

22. Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats

As interesting as an American Idol country music star should be, Carrie Underwood isn't very interesting. Perhaps that's because she's more American Idol than Country for the most part. Her album, Some Hearts has a wealth of big-voiced ballads, and not much else. "Don't Forget to Remember Me" was an OK tune let down by pandering religiosity, and apart from this track, that was the best thing going on that album. Still, I can only think of Carrie Underwood with fondness, and that's pretty much down to this track.

This is Underwood doing Miranda Lambert's "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," before Lambert did "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," and it might just be even better. Underwood does a great job with the righteous fury, splitting her anger between the woman who took her man (that temptress is the type to sing "some white trash version of Shania karaoke") and the cheating bastard himself (his car, as the chorus explains, is the unfortunate victim in this scenario). When I was in high school, as a fundraiser, some students a few grades above mine hosted an event called "Smash a Car Day," in which they charged students for the privelege of doing a violence to a pristine new vehicle. This song is the next best thing.

21. Ciara - Promise

The last time I saw a singer with such an effortless hintmaking talent, her name was Beyonce Knowles. Now that Beyonce is falling off a bit, it's good to have a replacement coming up. The thing with Ciara is her incredible talent of making just average songs incredibly addictive. "Goodies," "1,2 Step," and even the incredible "Oh!" weren't particularly good songs, but Ciara made them irresistible. "Promise" however, was already a great song, but Ciara's performance gave a tangible ache to its thin glide. I also like the way it decoded the key to Polow Da Don's production success: every song he creates is a re-creation of Prince's "I Would Die 4 U." Serious, when you put Ciara behind the mic on a Prince descendant, how could you get anything but an amazing single?