Enough with things I don’t like. How about some stuff I do like. What follows is a list of songs that I have listened to repeatedly over the years. They’re all fairly old, but they’re all still alive.

5. The Wrens, Happy

Sometimes I think this might be the best song ever written – at least the best break-up song ever written – because of the incredible use of dynamic and mood. The song starts quietly and slowly builds, layering sound on top of sound until eventually culminating in shimmering guitars and bouncing drums; the sound of the song, when conflated with the lyrical content – breaking up, dealing with the realities of the break-up, then finally moving past it – has a layer of meaning rarely found in pop music.

4. Comets on Fire, Jaybird

This song is just tough as fucking nails. I literally put it on every mix I made for like 3 years straight. Officially they’re on hiatus, but if they ever get back together, promise me you’ll go see them live, if you can. They’ll blister your heart.

3. Guided By Voices, Auditorium and Motor Away

First of all, Guided By Voices is literally THE GREATEST band name of all time. I honestly don’t even understand how anyone could think differently.

Second of all,Alien Lanes,the album which these technically two songs appeared on, absolutely defined the latter part of the 90′s for me. I’ve been listening to this record for 15 straight years.

2. Stevie Wonder, Living for the City

How in the everliving fuck do you pick one song off this record? I don’t know. I just kind of did it at random.

I know this: this song just sounds like NYC to me.

1. Weezer, Tired of Sex

Weezer is, for better or worse, one of my all time favorite bands, and what is most amazing about that fact is that my love all rests on the strengths of two albums: the first two.

Tired of Sex is the first song on what is now considered one of the greatest rock records of the 90′s – however, critical and commercial reception of the record was, at the time, tepid at best. The fact of this is a minor travesty, as the failure of the album sent Rivers Cuomo spiraling into a prolonged depression; while he seems to have recovered, his music, as of yet, has not.

Regardless, if we’re ever drinking in a bar together somewhere, and by some happenstance this song plays over the sound system, you will be mortally embarrassed – or amused, depending on our relationship and whether or not you can stand to see an almost middle aged man flailing about with unabashed exuberance – because I can and will air play every instrument in this song.