What is the Best Song from the Past 15 Years?
Each week, the bartenders will be asked a very vague and general question about a random topic. We’d all like to THINK we’re experts on everything, but the fact is we’re all a bunch of normal people with our own opinions. If you don’t like our answers, let us know in the comment section (especially Jonnie for not giving a real answer).
Bartender: Joshy C.
Favorite Song: Tonight, Tonight by the Smashing Pumpkins
Release Date: 1996
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was the first CD I ever purchased when I was 13 years old and I got my first DiscMan. You remember those, right? You had to hold them really still or else they’d skip like crazy. This is pre-iPod, for all you young people out there. Anyways, this song has been my favorite since I first heard it. A heavy metal band by their nature, the Smashing Pumpkins ditched their electric guitars and incorporated such a unique orchestral soundtrack that if it weren’t for Billy Corgan’s whiny-sounding vocals, you wouldn’t recognize the band. Not to be outdone, the music video for Tonight, Tonight, based on the 1902 silent film A Trip To The Moon, has won critical acclaim and is still considered one of the greatest music videos of all time.
Bartender: Jaime Parker
Favorite Song: Karma Police by Radiohead
Release Date: 1997
I remember being in the mist of the extreme pop music craze in the mid-90’s. I was obsessed. After all, Ace of Base was coolest tape to have in my fourth grade class. I remember hearing Radiohead’s “Karma Police” (from 1997’s Ok Computer) and thinking that it was the greatest song that I had ever heard. It was haunting, it was beautiful and I wanted to listen to it a million times over again. To this day, it is still a song that I can listen to and never get tired of. Radiohead came up with the title because they used to joke between one another that they would call “the karma police” on them if they did something wrong. No matter how many times I listen to it, I can always find something new in the lyrics.
Bartender: Taylor Pratt
Favorite Song: Dizzy (Acoustic Version) by Jimmy Eat World
Release Date: 2007
In my opinion, the acoustic version of Jimmy Eat World’s “Dizzy” is one of the best songs ever written. I have to specify the acoustic version because it has slightly different lyrics than the normal version. I think Dizzy is a song that everyone can relate to. The lyrics are so poetic and tell the story of a guy and girl who are in love with each other, but they haven’t come out and said it. The girl in the song is hesitant to do so because she has been hurt before, but the guy is tired of being lead on. My favorite line in the song is a question that almost every relationship starts with. It’s the butterfly feelings you get when you like someone. The question is, “do you hear the conversation we talk around?” On the last verse you can really hear the passion in both the lyrics and vocals. Hands down my favorite song.
Bartender: Katrina
Favorite Song: Effington, Ben Folds
Release Date: 2008
When this question was first posed I had no idea what my answer would be – then I saw Ben Folds play with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this past Saturday and I found my answer. Folds was on his way to a gig once when he passed the town of Effingham. He thought it was Effington, and he wrote a song about it. One of my favorite things about Ben Folds is that he is a great pianist with an AMAZING sarcastic sense of humor, and this song fits that bill perfectly. Maybe I should start a new Effing life in Effington!
Bartender: Kyle Jones
Favorite Song: Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World — by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (not kidding, really his name)
Release Date: 1993
OK, so this might sound like a stretch for the best song in the past 15 years (not to mention that it wasn’t actually released in the past 15 years), but hear me out on this one. I think the true watermark of a great song shouldn’t just be judged on how it sounds. The measure of a great song to me comes in the intangibles. How does it make you feel when you hear it? What memories does it evoke? What picture is burned into your head that is so intimately connected with the sound that you can’t disconnect the two? I chose this medley of two American classics in authentic Hawaiian style for the memories. Isreal or “IZ” as he’s known in his native Hawaii, is a cultural icon in the state. I am one of the lucky people in this country to have grown up with family in HI, and I have been fortunate enough to have visited several times. Some of my fondest memories take me back to the islands. I chose this song because of the way it transports me. In the first few gentle strums of the ukulele, I can smell the hibiscus. The cool ocean breeze blows across Makena Beach, past my cheeks and up the slopes of Haleakala. The sun sets over Lahaina Bay, and I am there. As for the fact that it wasn’t released in the last 15 years…well, it was re-released on a hits compilation in 2001. If that’s not good enough, I plea no contest.
Bartender: Jonnie
Favorite Song: See Below…
Asking someone like me what their favorite song would be is like asking who your favorite family member is or what’s your favorite dessert? Too many possibilities come to mind. There is something to admire about so many songs, I find it impossible to even pick just one genre let alone one artist. My favorites rang from Bryan Adams’ Everything I do, OAR’s Black Rock and I Feel Home, Selina’s Dreaming of you or Biddi Biddi Bom Bom, to Etta James, Aretha Franklin and countless church hymns. Added to my insanely long list would be any Alicia Keys and Rob Thomas songs, and Shaggy, yes even many country songs old and new, Ella Fitgerald, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, and of course Michael Bubble and Harry Conick Jr. oh and Diana Krall. But my first cassette tape was Big Willie Style by Will Smith and my first CD’s were The Spice Girls and 98 Degrees and they will always hold a spot in my heart. In conclusion, I can’t choose. At the end of the day, my favorite song is whatever I’m in the mood for and what speaks to me at that specific moment.
If you’d like to submit a question for the bartender, contact Joshy C at cortinajd1@gmail.com.
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4 Comments
Joshy (do you really go by Joshy??) that is creepy because that’s the song I was listening to while reading this post. haha!
Trying to think of the best song in the past 15 years… no clue, my tastes change so rapidly.
Well, Lyndsay, if you had to vote between the ones the Bartenders posted, I think that you just picked my selection, haha.
I go by Josh in real life. JoshyC. is my penname.
Yes and yes and yes, Katrina. Love me some Ben Folds. He played on campus at Maryland when I was in school (yeah I’m a terp, btw, I saw you live in Crab Cake City). He was awesome.
Lyndsay – I call him JoshyC sometimes. Just for fun. But we have a special friendship – one which my husband is not the least jealous of.
And Kyle – I think the reason I love Ben Folds as much as I do is b/c he’s more sarcastic than me. Which is a high calling.