The Middle of Nowhere #18

We are starting a new mini-series where I write about the best 50 songs of all time, let me call it. This is part 1 of 5.

Welcome back. In December of last year, I was rambling once again about music on the internet. “never loved The Cool as much as everyone else but Paris Tokyo one of the 10 best songs ever. that list changes a lot but that song is always there.” A friend firmly replied, “we need a definitive top 50 list from you by the summer.”

I took the challenge on— helps that I was unemployed, subscribe if you wanna buy me a few tacos or some gas. I spent the last few weeks agonizing over where songs should go, whether songs were as as good as I imagine them. I nitpicked over and over until I ranked what felt impossible to place. Maybe years down the line, I’ll revisit this, with new songs I discover or with new observations that withdraw me from records I obsess over today.

This is the first installment of a 5-part series, 10 songs per blog, one song per artist. It allows me to go deeper in depth into these songs and not risk scratching the Substack word limit. Here are your honorable mentions: Tupac- Pain, Shawty Lo- Dey Know, Mobb Deep- Give Up The Goods, Cocteau Twins- Heaven or Las Vegas, 03 Greedo- Mafia Business, George Benson- Give Me The Night, Biggie- Playa Hater, Waka Flocka Flame- No Hands, The Cure- Pictures of You, Tears for Fears- Everybody Wants to Rule The World, Frank Sinatra- My Way, Musiq Soulchild- 143, Snoop Dogg- Beautiful, Sky Ferreira- Everything is Embarrassing, The Smiths- There is a Light That Never Goes Out, DJ Quik- Summer Breeze, DMX- Slippin, Ed Bruce- Mama’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys, Curtis Mayfield- So in Love, Geto Boys- Minds Playin Tricks On Me, Rick Ross- Devil in a New Dress* (I couldn’t stomach cheating), G-Unit- Wanna Get to Know You, 8Ball & MJG- Space Age Pimpin, Clipse- Mr. Me Too, Jay-Z- Dead Presidents II, Jeezy- Trap Star, Herb Alpert- Making Love in the Rain, Zapp & Roger- I Want To Be Your Man, Michael Jackson- Rock With You, The Supreme Jubilees- It’ll All Be Over, Sugiyama Kiyotaka- Futari No Natsu Monogatari Never Ending Summer, Gyptian- Beautiful Lady, Café Tacvba- María, Yves Tumor- Kerosene!, 50 Cent- Many Men, Future- Temptation, N.E.R.D.- You Know What, Lana Del Rey- Venice Bitch

50. UGK & Outkast- “Int’l Players Anthem”

I really agonized over this one.

There are obviously dozens of honorable mentions and I can’t really think of any rhyme or reason why one didn’t make it over the other. Ultimately, this is a fruitless endeavor. Hundreds of songs release everyday. You are bound to discover something everyday if you’re intent on looking for it. The finality of this list is a temporary fix. The honorable mentions and how long I spent restructuring this list is evidence of that. Nevertheless, I insisted on trying.

The closest replacements for #50 starts and finishes with “You Know What” by N.E.R.D. The chords and colors Chad Hugo and Pharrell evoked only exists in our dreams. A similar notion goes for the dark clouds and mistiness of Herb Alpert’s Making Love in the Rain or the wistful synths of Sky Ferreira’s “Everything is Embarrassing.”

“Devil in a New Dress” skyrockets the list (as high as #12, as low as #25) if I was comfortable with the technicality of cheating. Sure, Rick Ross lists this as his own record on his YouTube. Bypassing Kanye’s verse in favor of brevity and Maybach extravagance makes for a slightly better song anyway. But I had to be real. As much as I think Ross rapped the greatest verse ever, this wasn’t his record to claim. If was accepting edits of songs, the integrity of this list drastically drops.

Ultimately, it was the Pimp C verse that set “Int’l Players Anthem” over the hump. Not the Andre verse. I’ve never once understood why fans are hellbent on canonizing his verse as an all-timer. It could be that some rap fans have this perception of 3 Stacks that suggests higher worth by means of contrived sophistication. Maybe the more conservative can comfortably get on board with Andre shunning all player-isms. I’m inclined to believe that people have a slight misconception of what good writing could be.

Simplicity is the name of the game. Anyone could say anything in big vocabulary or contort it in something beyond disorienting, bordering into the unintelligible. This is where Pimp C thrives. After all that yapping about warning Andre about picking the right woman and getting out the game, Sweet Jones wipes all that shit out. All you need to know is that ‘top notch hoes get the most, not the lesser.’ There has been a lot of people trying to sample some of that Willie Hutch sauce. Pimp C was the only one to recognize that wholehearted love and soul goes hand in hand with confidence and flyness.

49. Project Pat- “Out There”

There’s a lot to take in when considering the totality of an artist’s greatness. How much does longevity vs prime factor into these decisions? Is there some good-bad ratio to ponder when observing their discography? How does the rate of releases skew an artist’s argument? In the truest sense, Future is my greatest rapper. He’s been great for 15 years, nothing in the way of truly bad albums. His peaks are invigorating. He is exceptionally malleable, able to pivot from the sensational pop ear worms to satiating meat and potatoes raps to darker, more cutting edge records that gives dimension to his artistry. All that said, he’s not the greatest rapper.

But when it comes to the act of rapping itself, the intersection of real value in word and substance and the contortion in which a rapper navigates the music, it’s hard not to see Project Pat as the best. Where rappers prove to be yappers, Pat is blisteringly direct.

“Out There” certified Project Pat in Rap’s Pantheon. It is a full exhibition of why Pat was such a phenomenal rapper. It’s the first verse, less of a rap verse and more of a Vintage Mike Tyson knockout in the first round. I don’t know anyone who evokes danger and consequences with such thrill and horror than Pat saying, “Push me to the edge, so it really ain’t my fault man… enemies gon’ bleed once I let these bullets fly, mayne.”

The second verse is as real as it gets, a vivid reminder that these raps aren’t for the sake of violence alone. No one does this for fun unless you’re a serial killer masquerading underneath a rapper’s guise. Pat shrugs, “It was said I would end up dead workin’ in the streets, but the streets is the only thing I see payin’ me.”

He was always good at bending the will of a word’s essence to his benefit. The third verse is invigorating, spinning the web of a word’s natural form to fill the rhyme scheme, fluctuating the pace at the same time. Instead of leaving words at ‘drill,’ ‘bullshit,’ and ‘liquor’ in its natural syllables, he changes its complexity and ensuring that they fit his rhyme scheme. That’s the thrill of Project Pat. When you zig, he zags.

48: D’Angelo- “I Found My Smile Again”

The 90s were different man. I don’t say that in the way an aesthetic vampire means it. The 90s is so much more than the Tumblr picture edits and the Pinterest collections will lead you to believe.

It’s a wonder how much a post-Cold War America thrives in virtually all of its industries. Money is in abundance and there’s plenty of it to go around. In part, you get to see the Black film renaissance in the 90s, or how cultures mingle in their own distinctive identities. Compare it to today, where the relationship between corporation and artist is less partnership and more of an audition. Instead of Coca-Cola going up to a pop star, you have the pop star going door to door selling their record trying to get ad revenue. There was so much industry money in the 90s. The avenues artists in different genres could travel opens up the bounds for where and how you could hear a record.

This is how you land D’Angelo on the fucking Space Jam soundtrack. It’s an opus of a record on any of his other albums. Warner just happened to back the Brinks truck in at the right time. It’s the jam band drums, it’s the bass line that sounds like seeing a paradise earth after being resurrected. It’s the warm affection in which D’Angelo sings. The divinity he captures in his writing, how this heavenly woman can help him find the joy in his life. It is one of only a few snapshots that truly captures the essence of true love.

47: Slowdive- “Alison”

July 2nd, 2023, I said goodbye to LA.

By 11am, I was in the desert, halfway to Phoenix, Arizona to see family. Signs warned me of running AC in these conditions. Smoldering heat, hot wind blowing in my face, small beads of sweat slipping out of my Dodgers hat and under my Ray-bans. The hills were seemingly endless, the only sense of progress was seeing the heat waves radiating off of the scorching asphalt. This is where I fell in love with “Alison.”

Slowdive really captures the vastness of the desert. Once you get past all the sweat of being in the desert, the scale of the desert really seeps in. It’s a surreal experience, how endless it can feel and how it stings the same no matter how far you travel. There is no release. The echoes do well in maintaining the tension. By song’s end, the vocals eventually become one with the devastating heat, dissipating into the atmosphere.

If “When The Sun Hits” is more of a romantic piece, this basks in the hallucination of the heat. Nothing makes sense, only the drums keeps from becoming one with the elements.

46: Outkast- “West Savannah”

The best rap records are clear depictions of its environment. When I spoke with Dungeon Family royalty Sleepy Brown, I thought often about my granddad. The country fried voice, the Lincoln Navigator I’d drive in, swearing that he was balling. I think about his strut or the Cadillac Devilles riding through the neighborhood. Sleepy and the crew thrived at evoking these images because they were baking in it. Tell somebody from the Tri-State area about a Texaco, they won’t be familiar with the imagery. Dungeon Family were the best at synthesizing Southern living in all of its minute details.

“West Savannah” is one of hip-hop’s purest distillations of the South. What makes this stand out, though, is that it goes beyond their usual horns or the addictive twang they put into it. It’s Big Boi diving into the distinction of the South, less Wikipedia search and more of a travel guide for the uninitiated.

West Savannah isn’t just some spot in Georgia. It’s Frazier Homes down in the Westside projects, where Big Boi cruises past adolescence at Granny’s house while momma was working and onto the scene with Sade blasting out the Cadillac Brougham. He’s smoking weed, selling drugs, making enough money to pay rent and put cable in every room. Gold chains and gold teeth illuminate the block. It’s all life in West Savannah, take the good with the bad, you do what you got to do to survive.

45: The Blue Nile- “Downtown Lights”

Is it premature to cement a record you discover earlier this year in the top 50? I thought about it a lot. But the first time I heard it was unlike anything I have ever felt.

A lot of trademark Depression music can lack punch. It’s so self-consuming; you lose a measure of reality in the selfishness of wallowing. It’s hard not to lose your humanity when you’re battling depression. You do anything just to feel something, anything. All you’ve got left is pity after a while.

The Blue Nile doesn’t do that. You get nothing creating out of rolling around in your own self hatred. All you get out of listening is a pat on the back and a reminder that you’re not the only one fighting it. When you’re in deep enough, that only acts as a numbing agent.

“Downtown Lights” is invigorating because of how in tune it is with its elements. The synths are a cool breeze, the loneliness in isolation, lack of touch, grasping for anyone to see you. “How do I know you feel it? How do I know it’s true?” The skepticism, the uncertainty, it poisons everything we touch. It’s absurd what our mind does to us, to deny ourselves the truth of what this world and the people in our lives mean to us. The Blue Nile dares to stop in its tracks and look around. It’s alright. Look at the downtown lights.

44: Rich Boy- “Throw Some D’s”

“Throw Some Ds” does a similar trick to Outkast's West Savannah. Rich Boy doesn't indulge in table setting and telling a story to evoke the setting, the way Big Boi does. He’s gonna call it what it is, whether you get it or not.

Rich Boy relishes in how he’s going to customize this Cadillac he just bought. Spend any time around the South in the 2000s and you already know how he’s going to cook it up. Drop the top, get the gator skin seats, put the candy red lollipop paint on it. Make sure you got the wood grain or you aren’t driving it right. What size rims is he gonna get? 22’s? 24’s? 26’s? Are they going to be spinners? The indulgence might seem excessive but it’s also vindicating. The things we do for the hoes in the parking lot. For those who speak the language of Alabama's own, “Throw Some Ds” is a spiritual experience. For those who don't, catch up or get left behind.

43: The Pharcyde- “Bullshit”

It goes understated just how much J Dilla was apart of my life. I didn’t spend everyday listening to Donuts. I’m not a devout apostle. I knew him as the one who gave Common all his juice. I knew Dilla as the backing piece for Slum Village and The Pharcyde. I eventually learned Joey Bada$$ used his beats to pad out his debut 1999. You may never know until you interrogate the songs’ creator. Dilla creeps in the margins just as well as he shows off.

Dilla’s music understands the minutiae of life. He understands the mundane but isn’t beholden to it. Rather, he emphasizes the elements around him, pulling off a miraculous balancing act. “Bullshit” expresses this best, Dilla’s dusty percussion clanks and slices into the ambiance. Rather than merely floating in the record’s stardust, he knows just the right placement to keep it an active experience. All the Pharcyde members sift through typical 90s rap-isms to sex ventures to plainly spoken motivation to go on another day. It’s extremely ordinary in how they navigate the record. But it shows just how much Dilla’s beats give color and memory to even our most basic days.

42: Dean Blunt- “100”

Dean Blunt does a similar trick to aforementioned band The Blue Nile. But instead of finding hope in the elements, I find nihilism. It’s notably less romantic. That’s probably because The Blue Nile were sad middle aged white guys. Dean Blunt is a Black Brit. He’s cursed with the burden of knowing too much. Hope is a luxury for the naive. It’s a resource the rich and powerful dangles above the people to stay complacent.

Perhaps it’s the distinct reverb he puts on his guitar that gives this effect. It’s as if each strum is a cigarette drag from a long day at work. He does well in staying in touch with the elements of life but he’s decidedly brutalist about it all. Rather than bask in the beauty, there’s a nagging whisper in his mind. This is all temporary.

That isn’t the totality of “100.” What separates Dean Blunt from your collection of mopey doomsayers is how he doesn’t use the knowledge of the end as an excuse to do nothing. In the midst of all the drums, Blunt says, “I’m dying to meet you, girl.” “Everybody says I’m wrong,” he echoes. He still shrugs it away. The self doubt isn’t enough. Life will go on regardless. Living is your greatest form of rebellion.

41: Slum Village- “Selfish”

Nobody wants to say it, I’ll do it.

Kanye West is a much lazier producer than you think. You wanna know how he made 5 beats a day for 3 summers? Because he’d listen to old soul records all day and throw some drums on them. If you have a basic understanding of musical equipment, you could do that in an hour. Only reason it takes that long is because you’re sifting through portions of songs. It’s totally okay to love the beats anyway. I do. But that’s the jig. Let the sample do most of the work, Ye’ll fill in the blanks.

This fact miraculously takes very little away from the record. Sometimes, you gotta hear a rapper take some music in a direction the originators couldn’t imagine. The warm winds of the chords in the Aretha Franklin sample gives plenty of room for T3 and eLZhi to adore the women in their lives. It’s a gorgeous song about hoeing around with some earnest devotion in its DNA.

Part 2 is in the works as we speak, hopefully not as long for y’all lol. Subscribe to stay locked in, working on paid sub perks.