What does it take to be #1?

As Nelly once said in his song “#1,” “Two is not a winner and three no one remembers.”

But I think in this case, Nelly was probably talking about sports and not Best Song of the Decade Lists. For one thing, I don’t think that song would end up on anybody’s List. Even Nelly himself, with all the bombast and self-respect that that promotional photo implies, probably considers it a minor single at best.

Today Pitchfork revealed #1-20 of their own Best Songs of the Decade List. They named Outkast’s 2000 single “Bombs Over Baghdad” the best song of the decade. I would certainly agree that this song has what it takes to be #1. No major single of the past 9 years has come close to the electricity of its hyperkinetic beat. The sheer climactic power of its gospel choir bridge is probably a more reliable source of renewable energy than even those really huge windmills you see by the freeway. And what about its ability to be (even titularly) political without sacrificing its identity as a unanimous crowd-pleasing dance floor jam? It’s untouchable. Show me a party guest who seizes the host’s iPod to change the track when somebody puts on “BOB,” and I’ll show you an asshole. However, I would argue that the #2 choice, LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends,” is also something of a winner, and I would definitely say that 3, M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” a lot of people remember. (Maybe not as many remember the Diplo remix of “Paper Planes,” but you knew P4K was frothing at the mouth to include something faintly oblique and underground in the top 3.)

As Nelly obviously knew, being #1 requires a kind of brute strength. You need to be ironclad. Burly enough to bear the burden of a lot of very hefty and oft-discussed concepts. “Cultural importance.” “Universality.” “Staying power.” And I have total confidence that “Bombs Over Baghdad” can withstand collisions with all of these concepts, with or without a helmet. It’s that good. It’s formidable.

But if that’s what it takes to be #1, I’m glad “All My Friends” missed the honor by a hair. There’s something kind of private (and thus vulnerable) about my love for that song; it’s something I reach for in moments of insecurity. When I need affirmation that it is still possible to be cool in your 30s. When I need affirmation that it is totally normal and not that shallow to worry about still being cool in your 30s. When I am missing people I love but don’t live near anymore and I need to hear James Murphy implore in a sing-speak voice that is less than virtuosic but all the more affecting because of its imperfections, “Where are your friends tonight?” The way it slowly crescendoes to this gut-wrenching but never overwrought emotional climax, its precision in capturing this feeling of being self-aware and aging and understanding the importance of your relationships with other people amidst a sometimes maddeningly hyperactive sense of self — these are really vulnerable human emotions that I don’t think any other song of this decade, or perhaps any other decade, captures with such subtle accuracy. But I wouldn’t trust it to carry the burden of being the Best Song of the Decade. I would hate to hold something I love so sloppily, so sentimentally, so inarticulately under that sort of scrutiny.

That is why I was sort of relieved to see a lot of my favorite songs of the decade tucked away somewhere acknowledged but relatively inconspicuous on the list. I am sick of arguing with people about the emotional wallop packed in the opening chords of Grizzly Bear’s “While You Wait for the Others,” so I was happy to see it back in the #330s. I didn’t see the Mountain Goats’ “This Year” on the list at all, which seems something of a travesty until I realize that its break-glass-in-case-of-emergency cathartic powers would somehow be blunted for me if somebody were to boldly declare it the Best Song of the Decade, or even One of the Best. It would make public something that I treasure because it feels very private; it would force me to try to put into ceremonious and culturally definitive words something I’ve always valued just because it’s so unpolished and vague.

Trivial as they might seem, I love these Best Of lists because they lay the foundation for a conversation about why we love the things we love, even if they are not necessarily the Best things. And hopefully, somewhere down the line, they invite attempts at the impossible task of sharing with other people the really personal and vain corners of your mind where this sort of love resides. I’m glad then that Pitchfork went ahead and published their big, looming Best list so early. It gives me a lot of time to think about my own personal list, which is an exercise in narcissism that I’ve only just begun.

A few other personal quibbles about the Pitchfork list:
*”Bros” at #48? I know the major Panda Bear gushing is going to happen on the Albums list, because I know that it’s not a profoundly song-oriented album, but come on. I would have a hard time thinking of 47 songs better than “Bros” in any decade
*A lot of the pop songs shown obligatory pop-musically-informed-indie-rock-people-love in the top 100 cannot hold a candle in the general vicinity of Nelly Furtado’s “Maneater.”
*Which goes to show what sort of amazing contributions Timbaland has made to pop music in this decade. You never would have thought that in 1999 anybody would be saying that in any sort of decade-retrospective context, but really. The other day when discussing the decade in music, a friend of mine suggested we all just divide the decade into “Pre-Sexy Back” and “Post-Sexy Back,” and I think he’s got a point. The acronyms might get a little confusing, but I think it could catch on. As my friend concluded, “Look, if I had to hear that song every day for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be upset.” I think this is a nationally-held opinion; somebody go print that on a dollar bill or something.