The New York Times recently published, “The Top 25 Songs That Matter Right Now” in an attempt to highlight songs that capture the current mood of our country.
The editors note that the songs selected represent a very earnest, very serious desire to find the right reaction to a world that feels tense and high-stakes — an ambient conviction that music should be looking for ways to cope, ways to protect ourselves, moments of escape, hard reckonings with our collective responsibilities, ideas for how to make the world feel less brutal.
And while the artists do not always sound thrilled about the circumstances, they’re a lot more motivated — whether it’s to articulate something bleak or find their way toward something better — than you might expect.
When I first came upon the list I was quite excited, since the first song on the list is one I am quite familiar with – Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen. For each song in the list, there is a separate write-up as to why the song was chosen.
Unfortunately, once I got past that first song, I did not recognize any of the next24 songs. However, I thought it would still be worthwhile to sharethe listwith you, aswell as YouTube links to the songs so that you can listen to them. I’m guessing many of you may have heard of many, if not most of these songs (each link below takes you to the brief write-up about each song):
- Bugs Life by Tierrra Whack
As I noted earlier, I only knew one song on the list above. But I have heard of eight of the artists (including Bruce).
Once again, a clear sign that I’ve got to broaden my musical horizons…
And if I had to pick my favorite song from the list above (again, not counting Born in the USA), it would have to be Slow Burn by Kacey Musgraves.
Borden's Blather 