The 11 Best Songs By The Hold Steady

 No lyricist can capture life better in a song than Craig Finn.  If you need to hire someone to paint a picture of the tired, the working class, and the rejected in one portrait than the Hold Steady can put it to music.  They're the blue collar garage rockers to white collars of mainstream rock radio.  What Springsteen was raging about before he found his calling as a runner, The Hold Steady delivers with a habitual grind of grit, pantheon and pride.  They're the Northern States answer to the Skynyrds and the Tuckers.  From a world of skyscrapers, coffee carts and bitter cold, where salvation is defined by finding just enough pocket change in your coat for a cab ride home.  It's about staying positive when life is at its most mundane.  That no matter the height of the struggle, everyone of us is in it together.

Here are the 11 Best Songs By The Hold Steady:

1. Chips Ahoy! (Boys And Girls In America)
2. Soft In The Center (Heaven Is Whenever)
3. Both Crosses (Stay Positive)
4. Cattle And The Creeping Things (Separation Sunday)
5. Stuck Between Stations (Boys And Girls In America)
6. Your Little Hoodrat Friend (Separation Sunday)
7. Stay Positive (Stay Positive)
8. Knuckles (Almost Killed Me)
9. Sequestered In Memphis (Stay Positive)
10. The Swish (Almost Killed Me)
11. Hot Soft Light (Boys And Girls In America)

Buy The Hold Steady's new album, Teeth Dreams...now!!!

Don't forget to check out our blog's awesome new book The 111 Best Lists of the 2000s.  Available now! (featuring Hold Steady)

The 11 Best Songs By The Hold Steady

For music releases...the first couple months of a new year is usually a dead time filled with leftovers, new bands, and sophomore albums.  It's very hard to make lists for bands with one album since their list is pretty much every song on their debut album.  There's really no point in making a list. It's like eating a BLT and then making a list of the five favorite ingredients in the sandwich.  The only real surprise is if the tomato knocks off the bacon...or some nut bread or rosemary mayo somehow sneaks up the chart.  But I've never been big on order of songs over the inclusion of specific songs in the lists.  That's why there's no lists for Big Pink or Cloud Nothings...two of my most anticipated albums this month.  But finally things are rolling...and there are more lists to be made.

Here are the 11 Best Songs By The Hold Steady:

1. Stay Positive (Stay Positive)
2. Stuck Between Stations (Boys and Girls in America)
3. Soft in the Center (Heaven Is Whenever)
4. Sequestered in Memphis (Stay Positive)
5. Hot Soft Light (Boys and Girls in America)
6. Both Crosses (Stay Positive) 
7. Cattle and Creeping Things (Separation Sunday)
8. The Weekenders (Heaven Is Whenever)
9. The Swish (Almost Killed Me)
10. Constructive Summer (Stay Positive)
11. Chips Ahoy! (Boys and Girls in America)

Buy Craig Finn's new solo album, Clear Heart Full Eyes.

The 11 Most Anticipate Albums of Winter 2012

The final year of existence is upon us...and here's what we have to look forward to.

They always did say Van Halen would reunite when hell froze over.  I guess they were right.

Here are the 11 Most Anticipate Albums of Winter 2012:

1. Van Halen - Secret Title (2/7)
2. The Shins - Port of Morrow (March)
3. Craig Finn - Clear Eyes, Full Hearts (1/24)
4. Paul McCartney - Kisses on the Bottom (1/31)
5. Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror (2/14)
6. The Big Pink - Future This (1/17)
7. Of Montreal - Paralytic Stalks (1/31)
8. Heartless Bastards - Arrow (2/14)
9. Esperanza Spalding - Radio Music Society (2/28)
10. Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory (1/24)
11. Miike Snow - Happy To You (March)

The Best Albums of 2010 (#12-#22)

Our list continues...one day to go.

Get me your top albums of the year...pronto.  Remember...your top 20...your top 10...or your top 7...or 2...whatever you liked.  It's up to you.

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Here are the Best Albums of 2010 (#12-#22):

12. Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon II (Maybe)
13. She & Him – Volume II (I Knew It Would Happen This Way)
14. The National – High Violet (Bloodbuzz Ohio Live)
15. Crocodiles – Sleep Forever
16. Against Me! – White Crosses (Bob Dylan's Dream)
17. Kanye West – My Dark Twisted Fantasy
18. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
19. The Hold Steady – Heaven is Whenever
20. Janelle Monae – ArchAndroid
21. Bruce Springsteen – The Promise
22. Junip – Fields

Buy these albums and more now!