Glorious Tribute to a Golden Age, or "Too Much Free Time at Work"

Recently my coworker Dave and I decided to begin a project. Dave had downloaded the top 101 lists from each year that Q101 was on the air, and we decided to listen to all the playlists for a nostalgic journey. Then I decided we should blog our top 5 from each year. Then I decided we should include a "fun fact" about each of the songs. And Dave said rather than fun facts, we should include an explanation where applicable of why this song was on the list, and any special memories it conjured.
At first I was like, "That sounds like a lot of work and like it requires having had a life during these years!" But then I started writing the blog and it became a feverish labor of love. Q101 was my friend, my family, my traveling companion, my anti-depressant, my solace in tough times. And they did lots of funny stuff like prank calling people and making fun of Wisconsin and things. I know this blog is long and actually probably has information in it that I will later regret sharing, but I want you to read it. If not for the sake of all the effort that went into this, for the sake and the legacy and the glory of the Q101 that was.
(Note: I feel the first few years are kind of weak because I wasn't actually aware of music when it was actually coming out until about 1997. Granted, I've become familiar with 1994-1996 music in the years since, but my recollections on these songs aren't as personal.)

1994- In the beginning, there was Green Day

1. Green Day. “Basket Case.”
   FUN FACT: When Green Day were first trying to make it as a band, the punk scene refused to take them seriously because the band members were good-looking and they did lots of songs about girls and relationships and had lots of lovestruck fangirls at their shows. According to a documentary I watched, it wasn’t until they transitioned from relationship songs to songs about Billie Joe’s mental illness that they really had a turning point. Thus “Basket Case” equals the beginning of Green Day’s career and of a whole new world that was beautiful and divine and had issues with paranoia. There’s no better song to kick off this list.
2. Offspring. “Come Out and Play.”
   This is one of my favorite songs to thrash around to. When I played drums on this song in Rock Band, it was always possible that this would finally be the time I broke myself and/or the drum set, but we always pulled through.
3. Alice in Chains. “Got Me Wrong.”
4. Candlebox. “Far Behind.”
5. Green Day. “When I Come Around.”

1995- The year representing the height of Weezer’s career and simultaneously the beginning of their long descent into crappiness, culminating in recent albums that represent the defilement, slaughter, and pooping on the grave of music

1. Weezer. “Say It Ain’t So.”
   Singing this song with my sister while air-guitaring and drinking beers in a Chinese karaoke bar is one of my favorite memories. And I think it was captured on video.
2. Live. “All Over You.”
   This song always seemed to me to represent everything that love, real love, was. You were just so full of love that you wanted to explode all over the whole world n stuff. And eventually I ended up dating someone who quoted this song to me, well, sort of.
   “Our love is like water. It’s stored in elephants”
   -A. Davis
3. Bush. “Everything Zen.”
4. Bush. “Come Down.”
5. Live. “Lightning Crashes.”
   I guess this song is kind of creepy. It’s about an old woman dying in a hospital and instantly being reincarnated as the baby being born down the hall, as far as I can tell. It’s just understood that since there is an angel watching over the whole proceedings, the old woman was NOT evil and the baby is NOT now a horcrux.

1996- The year of songs expressing a sad, sweet, maybe kinda violent longing

1. Oasis. “Don’t Look Back in Anger.”
   This song just pulls at my heartstrings. Especially just this one chord change, it makes me feel a beautiful sadness. And typically I don’t like Oasis at all. When I first became infatuated with the song I remember looking up its meaning and whether “Sally” was an actual person. I found a quote by the songwriter saying no not really, but if it helps him hook up with a cute girl named Sally, then so much the better. Well, that was the basic quote but I edited it to take out the severe Britishness. Mothers, watch out for your Sallys.
2. Soundgarden. “Blow Up the Outside World.”
3. Bush. “Swallowed.”
   Does anyone ever know what Bush is talking about? I sure don’t. So why do their songs always make me feel feelings?
4. Stone Temple Pilots. “Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart.”
   FUN FACT: While there has been much speculation about the meaning of the song’s mysterious lyrics, the STP frontman is quoted as saying it’s actually just about a bad acid trip.
5. Stabbing Westward. “What Do I Have to Do?”

1997- The year Sarah McLachlan and Jewel almost killed alternative and I had so little to work with, unless you like Smashing Pumpkins which I don’t, that I had to include a Blink 182 song

1. Foo Fighters. “Everlong.”
   When we would gather with others and play Rock Band, my friend John and I had an “Everlong ban.” NO ONE COULD PERFORM EVERLONG. We loved this song. It was sacred. We did not want to see it disrespected by the plastic guitars and faltering vocals of mere amateurs.
2. Green Day. “Hitchin’ a Ride.”
   What an awesome song. It reminds me of the many Green Day concerts where this song marked the halfway point (and lasted about 25 minutes). The fact that they stretched it out so long makes me think that it was their favorite to perform. Or maybe it was the easiest. Either way. Good times.
3. Matchbox Twenty. “Push.”
4. Our Lady Peace. “Superman’s Dead.”
   I don’t like superhero stuff in general, and I desperately desperately hope the world is not a Subway, especially if we’re talking the restaurant, but I do enjoy songs about the demise of Superman apparently. Another of my faves is “No One Likes Superman Anymore” by I Fight Dragons. Chorus lyrics: “No one wants to know the man who stands for things we outgrow. He’s too noble and too blind. We’re all older now, and we don’t need someone to care about the innocence we’ve left behind.”
   So, in other words, NO Aaron, I will not see Man of Steel 2 with you. Probably.
5. Blink 182. “Dammit.”
   So, I hate Blink. All their songs only have 2 notes in them. But in this song, they take those two notes and they just keep pounding those notes with a relentless driving energy, telling a story that is somehow relatable and makes you feel like those two notes are part of you, and this is your story, and you DO, after all, guess that this is growing up.

1998- The year Q101 and Kiss FM were pretty much playing the same exact songs because the definition of rock had become so blurry, and most of the songs that were contenders this year were songs I remember hearing on the school bus

1. Foo Fighters. “My Hero.”
2. Everclear. “I Will Buy You a New Life.”
   I actually saw this song and #5 at an Everclear/Eve 6 concert in 2012. Thinking myself very witty, I told my fellow concertgoers, “We’re gonna party like it’s 1999!” Guess I was off by a year.
3. Harvey Danger. “Flagpole Sitta.”
   This song is just so damn fun to sing. And it kind of influenced my blog title. DON’T SUE ME
4. Fastball. “The Way.”
   I loved summer back then. Not just because I loved warmth and hated cold but also because I hated school more than any other preteen I’ve met. I also developed a deep terror of my own mortality around 1998. I remember listening to the lyrics of this song and feeling a longing so powerful I could feel my heart beat along with the tune: “And it’s always summer, they’ll never get cold. They’ll never get hungry, they’ll never get old and gray.”
5. Eve 6. “Inside Out.”
   Was there ever a lyric so glorious as “Wanna put my tender heart in a blender, watch it spin around to a beautiful oblivion?” My sister and I didn’t think so, back then. We’d happily sing along to this song as my mom shook her head and wondered what had happened to the little girls she’d hoped would grow up only ever desiring to listen to Sandi Patti and the Out of Africa soundtrack.

1999- The year alternative rock continued to flounder around and wonder who it was, much like 1999-era Mandie

1. Offspring. “The Kids Aren’t Alright.”
2. Stroke 9. “Little Black Backpack.”
3. Metallica. “No Leaf Clover.”
4. Vertical Horizon. “Everything You Want.”
   I have always enjoyed sharing fun facts about music, and I remember as this song played on the radio sharing with my father something I’d heard about Vertical Horizon: “Any of their lyrics could be interpreted as being about God.” My dad, hating the non-Sandi-Patti music coming out of the car radio but seeing my hand blocking the dial to change the station, scoffed that that’s true of ANY pop music.
   Um Dad. Have you listened to pop music in the past 50 years? (He hasn’t.) You CAN’T just replace the object of all these songs with Jesus. There’s a whole South Park episode that illustrates that. In fact, let’s just try plugging God into some of the songs on this list, and I’ll be generous and only include the songs that are directed toward one other person who is a love interest. Would you tell God you wanted Him all tattooed, you wanted Him to be bad? Would you call God a parasitic psycho filthy creature finger-banging your heart? I know concepts of God differ from religion to religion but I would venture to say that THESE ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE HYMNS in any church. See, Dad, Vertical Horizon is special and I made a valid point. You don’t know NOTHING about my musics, YOU WAS NEVER MY AGE, NONE OF YA.
   I feel better now.
5. Chris Cornell. “Can’t Change Me.”
   This haunting song comes to us from Chris’s solo album Euphoria Morning. Just the title of that album makes you feel happy, doesn’t it? I think that given the choice I’d rather listen to this solo stuff than most songs by Soundgarden or Audioslave or that other collaboration he did where he sang about going hungryyyYYYYYYYYYY.

2000- The year that Creed and Limp Bizkit, seeing the vulnerability of late-nineties-weakened rock music, decided to take it out like a wounded antelope

1. Lifehouse. “Hanging By a Moment.”
   All the joys, sufferings, and struggles of life can be found in Lifehouse’s first two albums. These three wonderful men got me through many of my struggles with life and faith and myself. But this particular song just made me want to run around in happy circles. It was always convenient when I’d hear it before track practice.
2. Matchbox Twenty. “Bent.”
   This was my favorite song for a while. I was determined, still, to bring my dad into the world of my music, or at least have him concede that it existed. (As you see in my story about #4 from last year, he fought me with all his strength on this one.) MY DAD WAS GOING TO LEARN THE NAME OF AT LEAST ONE SONG I LIKED. He didn’t even have to know what it sounded like or recognize it, but he had to learn the name. Come on Dad. It’s one word. One syllable. FOUR DAMN LETTERS. But he was so resistant to this devil music that the title could not be retained in his brain.
   It took years. I wish I were kidding. By the time my Dad finally remembered that my favorite song was called “Bent,” this was no longer my favorite song, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him, so I masqueraded as a Bent-lover for a while after it had been replaced. (My new favorite song was called “The Beginning,” double the words and quadruple the syllables, and I figured that would require Dad having to tattoo himself like the guy in Memento.)
3. Linkin Park. “One Step Closer.”
   Here is a picture of me and Keith performing this song in a Rock Band contest at a casino. I walked up and down the stage and pointed at people for the SHUT UP parts.
   

   

   
   
4. Lit. “Miserable.”
5. Three Doors Down. “Loser.”

2001- The year Linkin Park and Jimmy Eat World started taking it back

1. Jimmy Eat Word. “Bleed American.”
   NOT SO FUN FACT: This song and the album on which it was the title track were originally called “Bleed America.” However, shortly before its release, terrorist attacks on the nation caused the band to rethink this title and change it to “Bleed American.” As an English major who was taught to obsess over minute issues involving word choice, I like to use it as an example of what a difference one letter can make.
2. Disturbed. “Voices.”
3. Offspring. “Want You Bad.”
   It’s an uplifting song. There’s this straight-laced girl and the singer is contemplating her, thinking she has the capacity to become the wild and sexy woman of his dreams. Maybe even awkward loserly Mandie has such capacity! And then I’m brought back to reality by one of my favorite quotes from The Simpsons:
   Kindergarten teacher: And the ugly duckling turned into a beautiful swan. So you see, there is hope for everyone.
   Bart: Even me?
   Kindergarten teacher: No.
4. Linkin Park. “In the End.”
   NERDIEST THING YOU WILL EVER HEAR. EVER.
   Mollie and I liked to play The Sims when we were in high school. We also liked Lord of the Rings. We downloaded this thing called Sims Art Studio where you could upload pictures and turn it into wallpaper or carpeting for your Sims’ houses. Mollie created wallpapers for the entire Lord of the Rings cast. When I was shopping wallpapers for my Sim houses, I will always remember that the Galadriel wallpaper was captioned by the lyrics to this song, and I didn’t really know why.
   Years later, I guess not much has changed. I’m at work, testing the Description of Operations Text Library feature for CSR24, and I just have to type some text, any text…
   “One thing I don’t know why, it doesn’t really matter how hard you try”
   The CSR24 team doesn’t really like what I’ve done to their database.
5. Prime STH. “I’m Stupid.”
   They’re from Sweden. Sweden is not ALL horrible horrible pop music.

2002- The comeback year. The year it got good again. We survived you, Limp Bizkit. We survived you, Kid Rock. WE EVEN SURVIVED SARAH MCLACHLAN. We’re gon-na make it af-ter allllll

1. Jimmy Eat World. “Sweetness.”
   FUN FACT: I read somewhere that Jimmy Eat World got their band name from one of the band member’s stories of his older brother, Jimmy. Jimmy was an overweight child who tormented his younger brother, and once in a fit of retaliation, his brother drew a picture of him eating the entire planet, captioned “Jimmy Eat World.” I avoided this kind of retaliation from my own younger sibling by setting strict rules about how I could be depicted artistically, but I’m sure she may still have had some “Mandie Eat World” pics stashed under her bed or something.
2. Stone Sour. “Bother.”
3. Local H. “Hands on the Bible.”
4. Hoobastank. “Crawling in the Dark.”
   Hoobastank had some good stuff. Can you please find it in yourself to forgive them for “The Reason?” Please?
5. System of a Down. “Toxicity.”

2003- The year Evanescence proved to me that I really can like music with a female vocalist.

1. Disturbed. “Remember.”
   Me: When I saw David Draiman sing ‘Remember’ live, it was one of the most emotional moments of my life. It’s the first time I think I ever empathized with a bald person.
   Aaron: Do you think the song is about him remembering when he had hair?
2. Evanescence. “Bring Me To Life.”
   Evanescence has been called a female-fronted Linkin Park. I guess I can understand, because all of the songs on their debut album are about feeling a supreme misery and needing to break away from it before it destroys you. Like many a Linkin Park song. Mollie and I used to speak of creating a musical following a day in the life of a man who sings only Linkin Park lyrics and a woman who sings only Evanescence lyrics, but it would probably cause mass audience suicide.
3. Linkin Park. “Numb.”
   Tired of being what you want me to be, feeling so faithless, caught under the surface… Every step that I take is another mistake to you (caught in the undertow, caught in the undertow)
   Sounds like someone is going under, eh?
4. Brand New. “The Quiet Things that No One Ever Knows.”
5. Evanescence. “Going Under.”
   Screaming, deceiving, and bleeding for you, but you still won’t hear me, I’m going under… Falling forever
   Ok. It’s official. Evanescence REALLY needs to hook up with Linkin Park. I know soul mates when I see them.

2004- A year of musical ecstasy.

1. Green Day. “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”
   Hear that? NO, IT’S NOT THE INTRO OF WONDERWALL, YOU IDIOT. It’s the sound of Green Day TAKING OVER THE FREAKING WORLD.
2. Incubus. “Megalomaniac.”
   God I love you Incubus. This song has such an irresistible intensity. I don’t really know what it’s about, but I’m totally with you. Totally.
3. Muse. “Hysteria.”
   Hysteria is one of the sexiest songs ever written. For years, I wanted Hysteria played at my wedding. I have since matured somewhat and decided I would settle for Muse’s more wedding-appropriate song “Starlight.”
   “But Mandie, doesn’t the groom have a say in this?” you ask. Well yeah, he is completely free to suggest any song to be played at his wedding, as long as it is by Muse and not from their shitty Resistance album.
4. Muse. “Time Is Running Out.”
   This one is pretty sexy too. I’m just sayin.
5. Switchfoot. “Meant to Live.”
   Beautiful-Letdown-era Switchfoot is best described in this excerpt from an essay my sister wrote about going to a Switchfoot concert. It was written in Chinese and then Google translated into English.
   2004 time, my parents give me pleasantly surprised--Has bought the concert ticket for me and my elder sister! At that time I had not looked that famous orchestra the concert, I had not vainly hoped for actually can have the idols to me which the opportunity sees with one's own eyes I most to love! Attains the parents to mine concert ticket, I looked at them to ask: “this is really?” They nodded the confirmation, I have been crazy, was screaming in the rear court has run several circles.
   That first orchestra can be a fill wonderful recollection. That time is excited I to be even unable to describe. Let alone I, other audience person very is also crazy. Goes on stage to Switchfoot, I and the elder sister are pulled open by the frantic audience. Lucky is our two leaves the stage really very near, to is precisely the time all uses the arm which the opportunity feels initiates.
   Switchfoot sang me to find the elder sister. She said to me that, ” I have traced the biceps which initiates “. I said that, ” I have grasped a tricep “.

2005- BUT WHAT WILL I DO AFTER I WEAR OUT MY AMERICAN IDIOT TAPE, I asked, and Fall Out Boy gave me an answer.

1. My Chemical Romance. “Helena.”
   I ****ing love this music video. I think this is what finally got me over my intense fear of my own mortality that, as you read earlier, originated in 1998. I realized that death could be awesome and dramatic and emotional and Gerard Way filled and… you should not get me started on Gerard Way. (Cough) Moving on to #2!
2. Jimmy Eat World. “Work.”
   This song is the perfect song for a car ride on a summer day. Particularly if you’re not the one that has to drive, you’re the one that gets to think. It always evokes this vague longing in me. I am reminded of the longing I feel when I watch a certain music video about a certain funeral and DAMN IT, let’s move on to #3.
3. Disturbed. “Stricken.”
   I’m ok now. Disturbed may be a lot of awesome things but they are not sexy.
4. Fall Out Boy. “Sugar, We’re Going Down.”
   The sad thing about Fall Out Boy is most of my favorite songs by them never made it on to the radio. If you asked me for a list of my top 10 Fall Out Boy songs, I’m guessing few if any of them were singles. That’s not to say their singles aren’t good; this song, for example, always makes me happy.
5. Breaking Benjamin. “Sooner or Later.”
   The CD this song is on is really good. It has a bald person on it. He kind of looks like he’s remembering when he had hair.

2006- The year of memorable performances

1. Incubus. “Anna Molly.”
   FUN FACT: This song is sexy. Yeah, that qualifies as a fact.
2. 30 Seconds to Mars. “The Kill.”
   This is the song that was playing when I touched Jared Leto. A lot of people were groping him, including the woman I was pressed against who had the worst B.O. I’ve ever encountered, but that didn’t matter. In that moment there were only the two of us (me and Jared, not me and smelly lady). I savored it and etched it in my memory forever, also using a small part of my brain to wonder why his skin was so cool and dry and not sweaty like most musicians that I’ve groped, and was he some part of reptile and/or robot.
3. 30 Seconds to Mars. “From Yesterday.”
4. Fall Out Boy. “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race.”
   Mollie rewrote this song to be about Gimli in the Mines of Moria. It was called “This Ain’t a Mine, It’s a Dwarf Tomb.” Excerpt of lyrics:
   I am an ore miner
   Fitting you with weapons in the form of rings
   And don’t really ca-a-are what creature carries it
   As long as his ears ain’t pointy, that’s just the business I’m in, yeah
5. Three Days Grace. “Animal I Have Become.”
   Best described by an excerpt from a prior blog entry:
   In the middle of "Animal I Have Become," the lead singer decided to have a fight with a hat on a stick.
   Yes. You read that right.
   He got really mad at that hat. "You know what? I'm not the animal! You are! You just smoke your cigarettes, and drink your beers, and you know what? You've become the animal! Not me! NOT ME! And you're the one who needs to leave!"
   Then he faced the other way and talked for the hat for a while (I think. I don't really know what was going on and I don't think anyone did. Everyone was just looking lost and confused and like they wanted to go home). "No! You're the animal! You've become it! You said so in the lyrics of the chorus earlier!" (I am paraphrasing a little)
   "Okay, so maybe I am the animal! But so what! F*** YOU!" (repeat) (go back to song)
   Now, if a band that was anywhere near edgy tried to do this, it might work. No, it wouldn't work. But it would work better than it did for Three Days Grace. They need to learn that as a band, they have two options:
   a) Be edgy.
   b) Have a song where the chorus is "All I want is a little of the good life! All I need is to have a good time! Whoa oa oa oa oa! The good life!"
   And, Three Days Grace, I am sorry, but you went with option B. Final answer.

2007- The year Rise Against inspired us to change the world! Drastically! Somehow!

1. Rise Against. “Prayer of the Refugee.”
   Listening to this song--pretty much this whole album--makes me feel like--no, makes me KNOW--I JUST HAVE TO GET OUT THERE AND DO SOMETHING! I HAVE TO TAKE BACK WHAT'S MINE AND FIX THIS WORLD! ...but idk how. So I'll just stay here and listen to the next track.
2. Breaking Benjamin. “Breath.”
   Aaron threatened to break up with me because I picked “Animal I Have Become” over “Diary of Jane” in 2006. I make this selection of “Breath” not to extend an olive branch but to recognize another great Breaking Benjamin song off another great album. This is, in my mind, superior to Diary of Jane and, had it been in the prior year, might have beaten “Animal,” regardless of hat-on-a-stick persuasion factor.
3. Sick Puppies. “All the Same.”
   Even though I can’t say I have a tormented relationship similar to the one described in this song, it makes me think and weep and feel feelings.
4. Rise Against. “The Good Left Undone.”
5. My Chemical Romance. “Famous Last Words.”

2008- The year my favorite weird fun little nerd band got some mainstream attention

1. Avenged Sevenfold. “Afterlife.”
   My life probably peaked when I was playing Rock Band and managed to do the entire screaming part in the middle of this song in one breath. There were people there and they clapped. I will never do anything that impressive again.
2. Ludo. “Love Me Dead.”
   FUN FACT: Ludo does a multi-character rock opera called Broken Bride. It’s only about 30 minutes long but still manages to tell a complex story that includes time travel, pterodactyls, the zombie apocalypse, some kind of dragon thing (?), multiple suicides, and a touching love song. Last I heard it had been staged only in New York, using puppets.
   Ludo is the most approachable band I’ve ever met. And I’ve met like maybe 3 bands. I told them about my French-speaking aunt. My friend Manny asked them all about how they came up with Broken Bride and whether anyone in their band was a “Go Getter Greg.” And Cirena once presented them with a prop from the movie “Contagion,” telling them any time they thought of Chicago or contagion in general, to think of her.
   Seriously, if you ever get a chance, go see this band. They accepted my weirdness more than people in my high school did.
3. Fall Out Boy. “I Don’t Care.”
4. Muse. “Knights of Cydonia.”
   I mean we could even play this at our wedding, I guess, it wouldn’t be my first choice but I’m not picky as long as it’s not any of that Resistance **it.
5. Offspring. “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid.”
   One of those high-energy late-00’s Offspring songs (also think Hammerhead, Half-Truism) that convinced me that no, Offspring are not getting old, and furthermore they’re going to take over the world and it’s going to be glorious and disturbing and violent and awesome.

2009- The year when there was a lull

(Most of my favorite bands weren’t doing much this year, and there weren’t a lot of contenders for top songs. Not that the music was bad by any means, just not much for the ages.)

1. Chevelle. “Jars.”
   I don’t know what this song is about, probably soil conservation or something but then what’s all this talk about stabbing, idk, but man do I love the way they say the word “jars.”
2. Rise Against. “Audience of One.”
   The lyrics of this song truly are the ache felt by everyone who has grown up and grown apart and mourned the passage of time and the lost relationships and all those things they tried so hard for but just couldn’t keep in their grasp… in other words, the human race.
3. Muse. “Uprising.”
   Oh crap, this was on Resistance, wasn’t it? Ok. There were two good songs on Resistance, this and “Unnatural Selection.” But in order to avoid confusing hypothetical future wedding planners, I’m just going to tell them to stay away from the entire album.
4. Chevelle. “Letter from a Thief.”
5. Incubus. “Black Heart Inertia.”
   Wasn’t Black Heart like an evil Care Bear or something? This song is enjoyable, but wouldn’t have made the top 5 in a stronger year.

2010- The year dedicated to the memory of The Rev

(Interestingly enough, I saw all of the songs in this list in concert, in 2010.)

1. Avenged Sevenfold. “Welcome to the Family.”
   FUN FACT: Avenged Sevenfold got their name from the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis; specifically, it’s a reference to God’s promise that anyone who harmed Cain would be avenged sevenfold. That’s more Bibly than you’d expect from the band that does a love song about a guy doing his wife’s corpse and then being stabbed to death by her ghost.
2. Switchfoot. “Mess of Me.”
   During a year when it seemed like everything in life was falling apart, Switchfoot was there to make me believe I could put myself back together. This song actually had a pretty powerful uplifting effect on me. Thanks, bros.
3. My Chemical Romance. “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na).”
   Any commentary I provide on this song will definitely result in Gerard Way getting a restraining order against me. Incidentally, I almost called 2010 “the year Gerard Way dyed his hair red and it really looked surprisingly hot…”
4. AFI. “Beautiful Thieves.”
   I remember waiting for AFI to perform at Lollapalooza 2010. My friend Maryam and I happened to be standing by some really snotty emo kids. One of them swore at us for not looking like we cared that it was his friend’s birthday. I don’t usually willingly participate in moshing, but you know how I hate people saying stuff about my face/facial expressions, so I was out for blood. Emo kid blood. By the time this fist-pumping anthem was performed, I had already lost Maryam (I figured I’d find her eventually) and I had transformed myself into a flailing, shoving, entire-weight-hurling AFI enthusiasm bomb. It’s possible that I did “take a little life.” A little skinny-jean-wearing life. But it’s ok. “No one will care at all.”
5. Avenged Sevenfold. “Nightmare.”
   If you have only heard the version of this song without the xylophone intro, you’re missing out. This is quite probably the most badass song ever to feature a xylophone.