Tag Archives: Hold Steady

The 11 Best Songs By The Hold Steady

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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 The Hold Steady)

Buy this book or everyone you know will die.

The 11 Best Songs By The Hold Steady

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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 Best Songs of the Year (so far):

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I’m a sucker for a request.  And I’m a sucker for making lists.  Had no intention of doing this…but if the fans want it…then…

 Here are the 11 Best Songs of the Year (so far):

 1.  I Was A Teenage Anarchist – Against Me! (White Crosses)

2.  25 To Life – Eminem (Recovery)

3.  Odessa – Caribou (Swim)

4.  Soft In The Center – The Hold Steady (Heaven Is Whenever)

5.  You Wanted A Hit – LCD Soundsystem (This Is Happening)

6.  Giving Up The Gun – Vampire Weekend (Contra)

7.  Valleys of Neptune – Jimi Hendrix (Valleys of Neptune)

8.  End Love – OKGo (Of The Blue Colour of The Sky)

 9.  Can’t Hear My Eyes – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti (Before Today)

10.  Flash Delirium – MGMT (Congratulations)

11.  The Fourth Night of Drinking – The Drive-By Truckers (The Big To-Do)

 Buy any of the great releases from 2010 and more!

The 11 Best Songs By The Hold Steady

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Tonight I celebrate my 7th wedding anniversary…and to ensure I have an 8th one…I’m keeping this short.

 Rock on. 

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.  Sequestered in Memphis (Stay Positive)

4.  Cattle and the Creeping Things (Seperations Sunday)

5.  Both Crosses (Stay Positive)

6.  Hot Soft Light (Boys and Girls in America)

7.  Constructive Summer (Stay Positive)

8.  You Can Make Hime Like You (Boys and Girls in America)

9.  Your Little Hoodrat Friend (Seperations Sunday) 

10.  Chips Ahoy! (Boys and Girls in America)

11.  Slapped Actress (Stay Positive)

 Buy the Hold Steady’s new album, Heaven is Whenever!