Thinking about the best songs of the first decade of the 2000s

Now that we're done with the list of the 100 best songs of the decade, what can we conclude about the past 10 years of music?

Maybe not much -- after all, the list is just my opinion. But for the sake of this post, I'm going to adopt the tried-and-true critics' method of assuming that my taste is synonymous with the objective truth.

Here are the features that jump out at me, the things that made the decade what it was:

1. Conspicuously female. About 40% of the lead vocals in the top 100 songs are sung by women. In contrast, my favorite rock and pop music of the decades from the '50s through the '90s was much more predominantly male when it comes to vocals (to say nothing of instruments and production). This is related to another trend:

2. The decline of straightforward "rock" and the rise of a vague cluster of genres often loosely described as "indie," in which rock is just one influence of many. In the '90s, by contrast, ROCK -- screamed vocals, bashed drums, and walls of distorted guitars -- seemed to be de rigueur unless you unambiguously fell into a non-rock genre.

Returning to point #1 by way of point #2: in the '90s, you mainly found female artists in one of two categories: (1) women playing straightforward rock music (often drawing praise for showing that they're capable of being like men), and (2) women playing music clearly not intended to rock. Examples of the first category would be Hole, the Breeders, Veruca Salt, and L7; examples of the second would be Sarah McLachlan, Lisa Loeb, and Jewel. Outstanding exceptions -- that is, women in more innovative grey areas -- were Tori Amos and Bjork (who both did most of their strongest work in the '90s, though they happen to also be in the 2000s list). In this decade, women in the spirit of Bjork and Tori Amos have multiplied: St. Vincent, My Brightest Diamond, the Dresden Dolls, Hanne Hukkelberg, Imogen Heap (Frou Frou), Rilo Kiley (Jenny Lewis), Feist, Psapp, Decoder Ring, Camera Obscura, Regina Spektor, and many others.

3. Guitars have been demoted from the dominant instrument to just one of many. Bands routinely go beyond the standard rock ensemble of guitar/bass/drums and use the full panoply of instruments. A rock song with piano and strings doesn't stand out as unusual. (For instance, #55.) It's reminiscent of the Beatles' later work except that sophisticated electronics are part of the toolkit now. Of course, there was already an earlier decade where popular music was heavily electronic -- the '80s -- but synthesizers became so dominant then as to be overwhelming, which led to the alt-rock backlash of the '90s. Artists in the '00s have generally struck a more tasteful balance between electronics and traditional instruments -- and the electronics themselves sound better anyway.

4. Male singers often use a style distinctly unconcerned with living up to the old expectations of rock singing (screaming, raspy, macho, aggressive). The new style is exemplified by Rufus Wainwright, Thom Yorke (Radiohead), and Andrew Bird. Other examples are Beirut and Grizzly Bear. It's influenced by a man who tragically can't be on this list: Jeff Buckley. It's more flowing and refined. It's less conventionally rocking, more classically melodious. These singers can and do "rock," but they also freely choose not to.

5. We've established that "rock" is less dominant (#3), but what was the best rock of the 2000s like? If we take the listed songs by the Strokes, the White Stripes, Hot Hot Heat, and Franz Ferdinand, we can hear a decisive shift away from '90s rock. The new rock is simpler and more down-to-earth. These bands aren't like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, or Alice in Chains -- who bared their souls and tried to overwhelm you with their emotion. The new bands just want to write fun rock songs with catchy melodies and a cool guitar lick or two; if they succeed at that, their job is done. The singing and guitar playing are usually less ambitious (Jack White being the exception that proves the general rule when it comes to guitar), and the songwriting tends to be more concise. The drumming often sounds like a human version of a disco beat. For these bands, a song with the earnest drama of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" or a concept album with the grandeur of the Smashing Pumpkin's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness would be unthinkable. (None of this is inherently better or worse than '90s rock -- just different.)

7. Less originality, more synthesis of the past. I don't mean to criticize this music as "unoriginal." It is original, but in subtler ways -- and that subtlety is itself an achievement. It's not usually original in the sense of "Congratulations to these people for creating a brand-new genre!" It's original as in "Hey, this Of Montreal band picked really good music to be influenced by, and they piece together the influences in unusual, refreshing, fantastic ways."

8. Love is in; angst is out. Love is once again the default subject matter even in "indie"/"alternative" genres. Unlike in the '90s, you rarely hear an outpouring of angst unconnected to romance.

9. A certain intangible quality you might call "positivity" or "optimism." The songs have lines like "You are my sweetest downfall / I loved you first" (#56) ... "Maybe I'll never die / I'll just keep growing younger with you" (#8) ... "Say what you want to satisfy yourself" (#34) ... They have titles like "Good Day," "Better," "Marry Me." Even counterexamples like "Bad Day" and "2080" ("I can't sleep when I think about the future I was born into") usually have some kind of uplift. The few that stand out as purely negative -- Radiohead's "Sit Down. Stand Up," Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," and Beck's "Lost Cause" -- are by artists who had their breakthroughs in the angst-ridden mid-'90s. While Radiohead has perfected the rock of eerie atmospheres and tormented souls, people like the Arcade Fire, Regina Spektor, Of Montreal, and the Dodos have been no less brilliant at playing music with more major keys, less cynicism, more vivacity, less darkness, more sunshine.