12:25 AM

Julian's taking a class at McGill where the professor asked the 200 students to submit their favourite bands, which he collected and compiled into a global ranking.

01. Dave Matthews Band 02. The Beatles 03. Led Zeppelin 04. Bob Marley 05. Pink Floyd 06. U2 07. Bob Dylan 08. OutKast 09. Radiohead 10. Ben Harper 11. Rolling Stones 12. Counting Crows 13. Grateful Dead 14. Neil Young 15. Simon and Garfunkel

16. The Tragically Hip 17. Aerosmith 18. David Bowie 19. The Doors 20. Jimi Hendrix 21. Madonna 22. John Mayer 23. Sarah McLachlan 24. Phish 25. The Who 26. Michael Jackson 27. Louis Armstrong 28. Beastie Boys 29. The Band 30. CCR

This is both really and not-at-all interesting. I mean, it's hilariously accurate to the cliche. The jam bands are there, the stoner bands, and a very healthy dose of the rock canon. No sign of the contemporary Top 40, outside of heart-on-sleeve troubadours like Mayer and McLachlan, and OutKast. OutKast's presence is actually very interesting - it suggests that the Pazz & Jop tokenism thing is slightly more complicated than (rockist/racist/closedminded) critics trying to seem rounded. I doubt these students would have felt compelled to have 'at least one' hip-hop record on their list of "favourite bands." More likely, they genuinely engaged with Speakerboxxx/Love Below, in a way that they haven't with most other hip-hop albums. (I'm assuming that Dre and Big Boi wouldn't have made the list a year ago.) Maybe it's because S/TLB is more 'conscious' (or proggier?) than the (presumably mainstream) rap these white kids have been exposed to. (The absence of indie rock on the list is as telling as the absence of undie rap.) It's strange, though, to see that OutKast isn't just the hip-hop group for indie fuxxxors who dig the Flaming Lips - it's the group of choice for the chilled-out suburbanites who smoke fatties and listen to Zeppelin.

Also interesting: Radiohead below U2!

In other indie rocker news, the most-commented-upon thread on Said the Gramophone is my post on Modest Mouse's "Float On". Not because I said anything interesting, but because google likes it. The thread is a fascinating excursion into the indie ideology war - it's all right here in stone-engraved caps:

"I pray to the gods of indie rock that the rest of the cd has some merit and this is just the crappy radio single epic forced them to produce."

"a frat boy sing along chorus that is not becoming to a talented band like modest mouse ... now they are using pop chord progressions. [This is meant as an insult. --ed.]"

Then there's the indie kids praising Thrice/Dashboard and the other indie kids attacking Bright Eyes/Thursday. It's a bloodbath, really. But beyond all this - there's also a lot of really intelligent comments, of people who are listening to their instincts and understand that the politics/social hierarchy is stupid: what matters is the music, not who's listening. Whether it's "sold out" or not, is it any good?

The Beatles - "Norwegian Wood" [take 2]. Because the mainstream rules. (One day I'll post a favourite Dave Matthews tune.) An alternate take from The Beatles' Rubber Soul recordings of "Norwegian Wood/This Bird Has Flown". "Norwegian Wood" is one of my very favourite Beatles tracks, playful and wry and ultimately black-hearted. This version is fascinating, almost terrifying. All the life has been stripped away, all the humanity. The sitar's been sedated, the drums and bass are grey and lumbering. John and Paul's vocals, mischievous in the final recording, have been turned ominous and uncaring, nearly psychopathic. The ambiguous final lines are no longer solemn-but-grinning; now, they're almost threatening. Who let this man into their house? Didn't they see the white of his teeth? The mud in his eye sockets? The zombie's hands? It's a nightmare song.

Sloan - "Everything You've Done Wrong". There was a time when maybe, just maybe, Sloan would have made the college kids' top-30 (in Canada, at least). Now, however, they continue their slow slide into irrelevance. Nevertheless, I can remember the first morning I heard them, the first day I read their name. I had awoken early before school, had tramped downstairs to watch the tube before I had to catch the bus. And there on MuchMusic was this casual, earnest pop jewel - a magnificent melody, blushing vocals, horns and handclaps and a bassline like my stammering silly heart. "Sloan," I noted at the end of the video. "Who?" I wasn't one to follow contemporary radio music, especially not Haligonian pop bands. But so began my two weeks of Sloan hunting, waking up at dawn, waiting downstairs by the TV, and hoping (dreaming!) of maybe hearing "Everything You've Done Wrong". It was my white whale, my Loch Ness Monster, my first love affair. It's honestly one of the very finest pop songs that has ever been recorded - effortless, dazzling, catchy, perfect. Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Years later, I own two copies of the album and a half-dozen mix CDs with this track somewhere in the running order. As much as I may listen to other songs, "Everything You've Done Wrong" is always on repeat, over and over again, somewhere deep in the kindest, happiest parts of my brain.