In the City
2013
Recorded at Brooklyn's Rumpus Room with Nick Stumpf producing, and Julia Stiles stars in the video.
★ 0.9
The Songs canon
Sourced and sung.
Every song chosen by hand, with the recording to play it.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Generator (First Floor)
2010
Queens kids who met on Craigslist and busked subway platforms, then made banjo and glockenspiel sound euphoric.
★ 2.0
Falling
2002
Twenty years old when Sha Sha arrived, Kweller later played this one through a nosebleed at Austin City Limits.
★ 2.2
Let Her Go
2012
Rosenberg cut it in a Sydney studio with Australian session players, and a Dutch fan's email set it loose.
★ 2.8
Amsterdam (Peter, Bjorn and John)
2006
Track four on Writer's Block, self-produced by the trio, and its plainest study of being left behind.
★ 2.8
Life Goes On
2011
Critics heard the Kinks' Lola in the strum, and a Dancing on Ice slot lifted it to number fourteen.
★ 2.8
You Are a Tourist
2011 · From Codes and Keys
Death Cab's first number one on alternative radio, and its video was performed live in one unbroken take.
★ 3.0
Lake Michigan
2007
Roger Moutenot produced the album, Zach Rogue wrote every word, and a Zune advert gave this one legs.
★ 3.1
Blue Skies
2009
Fink wrote the whole album around his split with Laura Marling; this became its first single, and its way out.
★ 3.1
Line of Fire
2013
González singing about taking responsibility over Winterkorn's organ, the track AMC used to send Breaking Bad off.
★ 3.2
Holding On For Life
2013
Mercer tried a falsetto in the booth, doubled the take, and Broken Bells arrived sounding like the Bee Gees.
★ 3.2
Call It What You Want
2011
Paul Epworth produced it, and Foster points the synth hook at everyone too eager to conform.
★ 3.5
Beth Rest
2011 · From Bon Iver, Bon Iver
A Korg M1 supplied most of the sounds, NPR called it the year's most divisive song, Vernon his favorite.
★ 3.6
Up Against the Wall
2006
Seven minutes long, never a single, self-produced by the trio, and the longest slow burn on Writer's Block.
★ 3.7
Hero (Family of the Year)
2012
Richard Linklater put it in Boyhood and its trailer, and the Keefe brothers' harmony now sounds like growing up.
★ 3.7
Grapevine Fires
2009 · From Narrow Stairs
Jason McGerr shaped the drums after the Purdie Shuffle, and Gibbard turned the 2007 California wildfires into something almost calm.
★ 3.7
To Ohio
2009
Ten winter days in a Block Island basement, a pump organ, and a hush Emmylou Harris later covered.
★ 3.8
Charlie Darwin
2009
Cut in a converted basement on Block Island, sung in falsetto with the drums stripped out; the Mayflower never sounded lonelier.
★ 3.9
Sea of Love (Cat Power)
2000
Voice, guitar, and a 1959 Phil Phillips hit slowed to a whisper; Juno carried it to a new audience.
★ 4.1
Forever (Haim)
2012
Three sisters gave this away as a free download in February 2012; NME named it the year's fourth best track.
★ 4.2
Furr
2008
A four-track cassette machine in the rehearsal space Earley half lived in, and a boy who runs with wolves.
★ 4.2
Ho Hey
2012
Schultz wrote those shouts to snap indifferent Brooklyn crowds to attention; the record sat sixty-two weeks on the Hot 100.
★ 4.2
Some Nights
2012
Ruess wanted a hip hop producer and Paul Simon's harmonies; the sleeper took seven months to reach number three.
★ 4.3
5 Years Time
2007
Laura Marling's ukulele and Charlie Fink's deadpan flopped in 2007; a 2008 re-release carried the sunshine to number seven.
★ 4.4
Revival
2010 · From Halcyon Digest
Two minutes long, given away to fans who posted flyers, and jangling its way toward something like salvation.
★ 4.4
The High Road
2010
Mercer and Burton met at Roskilde in 2004, then recorded in secret; the result shuffles beautifully toward resignation.
★ 4.4
Take a Walk
2012
Angelakos built each verse from a man in his own family who immigrated, then set financial ruin to synths.
★ 4.5
Title and Registration
2003 · From Transatlanticism
Unhappy with the mix, Walla squashed the drums through speech-therapy hardware and rebuilt the track around a glove compartment.
★ 4.5
I Can't Make You Love Me (Bon Iver)
2011
Vernon strips Reid and Shamblin's Nashville ballad to falsetto, then slips into Raitt's "Nick of Time" at the end.
★ 4.5
Jacksonville
2005 · From Illinois
Two competing stories about who the town was named for, one a Black preacher, and Stevens sounds delighted by both.
★ 4.6
Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect
2002 · From Castaways and Cutouts
Two chords written in a northeast Portland duplex, and Nate Query put the whole album on his credit card.
★ 4.7
I Will Possess Your Heart
2007 · From Narrow Stairs
Five minutes of Harmer's bass riff before a word arrives, a krautrock crawl radio edits had to hack apart.
★ 4.7
Soul Meets Body
2005 · From Plans
Gibbard wrote it for his girlfriend, Walla produced at a Massachusetts farm studio, ten weeks atop Adult Alternative.
★ 4.7
Falling (Haim)
2013
Danielle, Este and Alana wrote it with Morgan Nagler as a stay-strong pep talk, and it moves like one.
★ 4.8
Carry Me Ohio
2003 · From Ghosts of the Great Highway
Kozelek grew up in Massillon, Ohio, and this is what he sends back: an apology set to ringing acoustic guitars.
★ 4.9
Sleeping InThe Postal Service
Sleeping In
2003
Tamborello mailed beats from Los Angeles; Gibbard answered with a dream he would rather not wake from.
★ 4.9
The Sound of Settling
2003 · From Transatlanticism
Walla had to talk the band into keeping it, and Gibbard's throwaway became their singalong.
★ 4.9
The Cave
2009
Written at a soundcheck in an Edinburgh pub, open-D guitar and banjo climbing into a stomp that drew four Grammy nominations.
★ 4.9
Hang Me Up To Dry
2007
Cut first for the Up in Rags EP, all four members co-producing, a clothesline standing in for one-sided love.
★ 5.0