49. King Without a Crown (live) by Matisyahu

"King Without a Crown (live)" by Matisyahu

Written by Matisyahu Miller, Josh Werner

Produced by Michael Caplan, Jacob Harris, Angelo Montrone

Released on Live at Stubb's (August 23, 2005)

Released as a single, 2005

Peaked at #28 on Billboard Hot 100

amazon itunes spotify video

I don't totally understand who Matisyahu was or who he is, but I do know that this performance of this song is fantastic. It doesn't seem real though. An orthodox Jewish man singing and rapping over reggae beats has to be made up, right?

Sometime around the recording and release of this live show was when I first became aware of the hype surrounding the annual SXSW music festival in Austin, TX. This show from Matisyahu is the only great thing I know to have come out of that festival. I'm sure those who are more in tune with the music industry can point to other musicians that got a boost from a show at SXSW, but it would be news to me. I always seemed to hear about lots of hype surrounding people who performed there, only to never hear of them again.

Matisyahu is barely the exception. His music career hasn't been a failure, but it also didn't skyrocket him to incredible success. He has released a handful of albums and had two singles chart on the Billboard Hot 100 ("King Without a Crown" and "One Day.")

But Matisyahu isn't on this list because of his overall career or his studio albums or his Jewish faith. He is on this list because this performance was recorded and released, and this performance is spectacular. Something about this performance gives me chills and reminds me of the mild successes I experienced as an amateur musician in school.

I started playing the alto saxophone when I was a nine year old in 4th grade. I loved it. I enjoyed playing in front of an audience and being in the band at school. When I was in middle school, I got my first taste of playing jazz, and that was when the real fun began. I loved playing jazz. Concert band music always felt too strict and stodgy. Jazz band music was fun; it literally had swing. My favorite thing we got to do in high school was when our jazz band played at our school's basketball games. We'd play some really fun funk stuff, and when the team came on the floor for warmups, we would play an up-tempo version of "On Broadway." I got to improvise and laugh and play music I genuinely enjoyed.

I was just good enough to secure a spot in my college's jazz band, and that's when I truly peaked as a musician. Our band director really helped me unlock more of my potential as an improvisor and saxophone player. I got to play on stage with jazz legends Clark Terry and Randy Brecker. We did tours in Taiwan and New Orleans. I will always be grateful for the opportunities my musical abilities afforded me.

But all good things must come to an end. I never really wanted to put in the practice time I should have in order to actually become something great. I just liked to be good enough and hang out with my band friends and perform on stage from time to time. Eventually my schedule and my inability to fully understand our band director's manic depression led me to quit the jazz band, and that was it for me. I picked up the saxophone a handful of times after that, and tried to learn to play the guitar, but my days playing music are almost all behind me now.

There are two moments as a musician that I will never forget. One was in high school when I got to sit in with a professional trumpet player named Marcus Printup, who was doing a show at our school. The other was during a jazz band show in college. Both times it was while I was improvising. In both cases, something just clicked, and I was locked in, but it was better than that because I was locked in with another player.

The first time, Marcus had three of us trade solos before having us all improv together. I started following along with a run he was making, and it just clicked. All of a sudden, we weren't just improvising at the same time, we were improvising together. It was pure magic. After the set, Marcus gave me a hug; it felt like he was thanking me for that improv we shared.

Then in college, at one of our shows, while I was soloing, the drummer and I clicked and were playing off each other perfectly. We could feel that connection being made in front of an audience of listeners. Once again, after the show, hugs were shared. We both felt and recognized that something truly awesome had occurred.

I had always heard about being "in the zone," usually in a sports context. Often though, it involved just one player finding that perfect rhythm and being locked in. Things like Mark Whiten hitting four homeruns in 1993, or when a pitcher throws a perfect game, or a basketball player going for 50 points. In that context, the zone only ever seemed to have room for one person.

My experience, during those two performances, must be something a little different. I managed to be "in the zone" along with another performer at the same time, and it was an incredible feeling that I really can't compare to anything else in my life. Those performances I shared on stage with another musician were pure musical nirvana. I will never know if the audience felt the same kind of feeling that I had, or could even recognize what happened on those two nights, but that detail almost doesn't matter because I know what we felt and experienced.

There are parts of this live performance of "King Without a Crown" that feel similar to my own experiences as a musician. Specifically, I hear it in the backing musicians more than in Matisyahu's singing. When it really seems to click is in that section after the guitar solo and Matisyahu's stage dives (about 3:35 in the music video), when they change up the rhythm. The guitar, bass, and drums are locked in so tightly. They were in it.

I'm sure they were also feeding off the energy of their frontman and the audience, but something about that section takes me back to those days playing jazz when we were locked in together and hitting on all cylinders.

I don't know if the band felt the way I imagine they did. (You can see that Matisyahu felt something with that "woo" he let out after that section.) Did they all feel the urge to share hugs after the show? I don't know, but I know how it can feel. Live music isn't always perfect or transcendent or magical, but this performance felt like it to me, and that's why I keep listening to it.

Right now "King Without a Crown (live)" by Matisyahu is (probably) my 49th favorite song of all time.

50. My Sharona by The Knack

"My Sharona" by The Knack

Written by Doug Fieger, Berton Averre

Produced by Mike Chapman

Released on Get the Knack (June 11, 1979)

Released as a single, June 1979

Peaked at #1 on Billboard Hot 100

amazon iTunes spotify music video

I've been watching the television show This is Us. (I almost wrote here that it doesn't represent the typical kind of show I watch, but then I remembered that I watch Grey's Anatomy, so yes, this is the kind of show I watch.)

I was first turned on to This Is Us by a drunk woman at a trivia night who approached me out of nowhere to explain how much I looked like the dad from that show. She was convinced that I looked just like him, and that I must get that all the time. She was the first, and still only, person to ever tell me that. So I figured I'd give the show a try, and see who this guy was.

First of all, I would like to thank that random drunk woman for the compliment. Milo Ventimiglia is quite a comparison, but I'm not really sure it holds up. (It probably helped that I was wearing my winter beard at the time.)

So after a few episodes, I got hooked, and now, seemingly everytime I watch the show, my living room gets a little dusty. It must be a job requirement for the writers that they make the audience cry at least once an episode. It's impressive work.

What really hooked me to the show was when I realized that the three kids in the show are all my age. They were born in 1980. They don't have my exact birthday, but it's pretty close. (The character of Robin Scherbatsky from How I Met Your Mother was born on my birthday, but I think that character was a couple of years younger than me.) Seeing scenes from their youth are fun reminders of what being a child in the 80's and a teenager in the 90's was like. It's not exactly like my life. I didn't grow up in Pittsburgh with an adopted black brother, but there are enough similarities and clothes and songs and set decorations to generate that warm feeling of nostalgia.

That's what "My Sharona" feels like too. It came out just before I was born, but I definitely remember hearing it as a child. It feels like my childhood. It feels like the 1980's. It feels like short shorts and tube socks and being a latchkey kid and being out with the neighborhood kids and playing little league and generally being a kid at a certain time and in a certain place. It's warm and fun and puts a smile on my face.

My favorite part of the song is the bridge/guitar solo. The main verse and chorus are fine, but when they breakdown into that solo section, it absolutely rocks. Not every rock song needs a guitar solo, but this one is so much better for having it.

There are other songs like this: that are good, but have a particular part or section that is transcendent. (The most extreme example of this is probably "Dogs" by Pink Floyd, which is kind of a mess until you get to the two sections with David Gilmour's harmonized guitar interlude. If it's not the best guitar part he's ever played, it's certainly the most underappreciated.)

A little nostalgia and a great guitar solo. That's it. I guess I could have just written that. That's why I love this song.

Right now "My Sharona" by The Knack is (probably) my 50th favorite song of all time.

51. Wild World by Yusuf / Cat Stevens

"Wild World" by Yusuf / Cat Stevens

Written by Yusuf / Cat Stevens
Produced by Paul Samwell-Smith
Released on Tea for the Tillerman (November 23, 1970)
Released as a single September 1970
Peaked at #11 on Billboard Hot 100
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After 18 months, 50 blog posts, over 38,000 words, and numerous stops, starts, and calls from my mom about typos she found (thanks mom!), I'm now halfway done with this project. It has taken me much longer than I expected, but based on how much I've learned about myself, it has probably been worth it, and I will continue. I'm also hoping that the next 50 won't take me a year and a half to complete.

I now know that I'm not a writer. Like so many things in my life, I imagine writing in a somewhat romantic fashion. It feels like something I want to do, but when it comes time to actually write, I don't enjoy it enough. It's similar to how I feel about music. As much as I love music, I don't think I could ever be a music critic or a musician. I like playing music and thinking about music, but I don't love the work that would go into becoming great at either of those things.

I also do not have a great history of following through and completing long range tasks and goals. I knew this project would be ambitious and big, but part of me thought it would be easier and that I would be able to keep myself motivated enough to do it. My hope now is that things will get easier as I get further along the list. (We'll see...)

Like some other songs on this list, "Wild World" is a song that I share with my mother. She owned and loved this album long before I was around. I don't remember when I first heard this song, but one of my earliest memories is with my friend Dan Loomis. Dan is now a successful jazz bassist out of New York. I first knew him as a tall middle schooler with curly hair who played the guitar. He had a Cat Stevens song book that he would sometimes play from. I remember hearing him sing "Wild World" and enjoying it. He probably played some other Cat Stevens tunes too, but "Wild World" is the one that stuck with me.

The other song I remember him playing on his guitar around that time was the Indigo Girls cover of "Romeo and Juliet." (Dire Straits' original version of that song is one of many songs that almost made this list.) When I heard him playing it for a few of his friends, I exclaimed, "Oh, that's a Dire Straits song." Someone wisely shushed me, and I just silently listened to the rest of the song, as I should have been doing all along. If you are interested in hearing some really cool jazz covers of David Bowie songs (which you absolutely should be), and just other cool jazz stuff, check out his band The Wee Trio.

Alright, back to the song at hand. "Wild World" is a breakup song. It's sweet and sad and hopeful. It's also a song about innocence. Despite the fact that Yusuf wrote this for his ex-lover Patti D'Arbanville, it feels like it was written for me. I was a sheltered child. I played by the rules, and enjoyed spending the majority of my school age years attending a small religious private school. Going to college (20 minutes away from home) felt like a very wild world for me. There was so much that I was not prepared for.

I remember being in high school, and really thinking that I had everything figured out. I genuinely wondered to myself what more there was for me to learn. I knew the path I was on, and I wasn't sure I could deviate from it, but I really started to wonder if college was really all that necessary.

Looking back there are lots of things I've gotten wrong in my life, but this was the big one. Everyday of those five years in college, I learned more and more about how little I actually knew. Sometimes it was in the classroom, but more often it was outside with my friends, at my part time jobs, in the books I was reading, and in the life I was trying to live. I still sit here wondering, when am I actually going to really figure things out? When are things going to start making more sense? When am I actually going to feel like I've started to answer all those questions I didn't know existed when I was in high school?

Sometimes I miss that feeling of invincibility. I know it's a feeling that was never based in reality, but sometimes I just want to crawl back into that bubble, that protective shell, and dream of what life could mean without all those pesky unanswered questions. (Based upon what I've seen of reality television, there are plenty of people who manage to enter adulthood without ever breaking out of that kind of mindset.)

Yes, it is a wild world. A lot of things do turn bad out there, but sometimes I can get by with a smile.

Right now "Wild World" by Yusuf / Cat Stevens is (probably) my 51st favorite song of all time.

52. Bullet with Butterfly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins

"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" by The Smashing Pumpkins

Written by Billy Corgan
Produced by Alan Moulder, Billy Corgan, Flood
Released on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (October 23, 1995)
Released as a single October 24, 1995
Peaked at #22 on Billboard Hot 100
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The first few times I shared an office with someone, I was young enough to think that my officemates wouldn't mind if I sometimes played music without headphones. They in fact did mind, and made that fact known. At one point, when I had something by The Smashing Pumpkins on, one of my colleagues asked me very seriously, "Why do you listen to such terrible music?" I didn't really know how to respond. I wanted to say that my music wasn't terrible, but part of me knew that it was going to be incredibly hard to justify why The Smashing Pumpkins weren't terrible, and why it might be appropriate to play in the office. So, I just played something else, or turned off the music. The next day, instead of not listening to music, I played the Garden State soundtrack. My officemate expressed genuine shock because now I was playing something that was actually pleasant, and in their opinion good. I'm not sure they ever fully rectified the fact that I could genuinely enjoy both The Smashing Pumpkins and The Shins.

The Smashing Pumpkins represent a lot about what I love about music. Music for me isn't always about beauty and perfection. I like beautiful music, but the music I love isn't always beautiful. The Smashing Pumpkins' music inspires me because they, and specifically Billy Corgan, had vision.

Billy Corgan's vision involved writing introspective lyrics and sad melodies, and then recording layer upon layer upon layer of guitars. His sound has been referred to as a "wall of guitar" sound (paying homage to Phil Specter's "Wall of Sound" production method). I love guitars. It has been reported that at least one of their songs had over 100 guitar parts layered into its final recording. Billy Corgan is clearly a gifted musician, songwriter, and guitar player, but it was his vision and the sound he created that really connected with me.

I didn't always think of The Smashing Pumpkins as a band I liked. When they were at their creative and commercial peak in the mid-1990's, I might have actually said that I didn't like them. Their biggest song, at the time, was "Tonight, Tonight." It had a pretty cool music video, and is a good song, but I didn't like it then because instead of layered guitars, it featured orchestral strings. Orchestral strings were certainly not my jam. As the years went by, I found myself drawn to their music because I was able to ignore songs like "Tonight, Tonight" and spend more time listening to the more guitar-heavy songs from their catalogue like "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "Cherub Rock," and "Siva." When I actually saw them in concert a couple of years ago, "Tonight, Tonight" might have been their best performance of the night for me because they didn't have an orchestra with them. Instead they played it on their guitars. It was really cool.

One big question that remains is: Would The Smashing Pumpkins be better if they had a good singer? I think that's the real reason that my officemate, all those years ago was so put off by them. Maybe you don't particularly like layered distorted guitars, but you could tolerate them if there was a pleasing voice to be heard above the noise and tumult. That's a trickier question to answer. There have been many successful musicians and bands who did not have a traditionally talented vocalist. I often find it fascinating to hear cover versions of Bob Dylan's songs done by exceptional vocalists. Those cover versions often help emphasize the beautiful melodies that his limited voice often only hinted at.

Had Billy Corgan given the singing duties over to someone else, his music may have been more pleasing to the ears of my officemate, but it also may have lost something. The imperfections in his voice sometimes gave the lyrics and feel of the music a different kind of power.

That's what makes all of this so difficult. Why is this my 52nd favorite song? How can I adequately explain the feeling I get when I hear it. Is it the imperfections that make the song more perfect? There's no real way to quantify how a song makes me feel or why it makes me feel that way. Maybe it's the minor key signature or the guitar harmonies or the angry lyrics or the quiet-verse/loud-chorus song structure. It might be all of those things or maybe none of them. Popular songs illustrate the power of synergy better than almost anything else. Each individual part of the composition and recording cannot be quantified until they are put together into one comprehensive, whole unit. Once fleshed out and complete, you have something that is so much greater than the sum of its individual parts, that it's hard to imagine how it was built in the first place. 

Music does that. It is inherently impossible to quantify why it works the way it does, especially because each individual song will illicit vastly different reactions from individual listeners. All I know is that sometimes music just works, and it doesn't always have to make sense. Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins aren't the most talented or the best, but I love their music. I love how they executed their vision. I love guitars and angst and anger and vision, and this song has all of those things. Put together, they make a fantastic song. If you agree with my former officemate's assessment of this song, I get it, but...

Right now "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" is (probably) my 52nd favorite song of all time.

53. As by Stevie Wonder

"As" by Stevie Wonder

Written by Stevie Wonder
Produced by Stevie Wonder
Released on Songs in the Key of Life (September 28, 1976)
Released as a single October 1977
Peaked at #36 on Billboard Hot 100
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A lot of positive things can be said about Stevie Wonder: genius, prodigy, inspiration, perfection, and on and on and on. He's one of the greatest.

Unfortunately, what seems obvious to me and many others, is not universal. It's music. Nothing in music is universal. There are people who actually do not enjoy Stevie Wonder's music. In addition, there are people who don't like Stevie Wonder as a person. I learned this in a very real and very disturbing way when, a few years ago, I ventured down an internet rabbit hole and found people who genuinely believe that Stevie Wonder is not blind.

Obviously this is crazy. The sheer level of insanity necessary to even conceive of something like this is incredible, but there are people with video breakdowns and impassioned arguments touting the wild conspiracy theory that Stevie Wonder has faked his own disability.

I'd like to officially go on record stating that I absolutely do not believe this crazy theory. It is a tragedy that someone with so much talent can be left with the inability to see, and Stevie Wonder being able to overcome so much to become such an amazing artist is truly inspirational.

With how prevalent conspiracy theories have become in mainstream America, it probably shouldn't surprise me that people have elaborate conspiracy theories that disparage cultural icons like Stevie Wonder. Conspiracy theories are hot right now. Everyone's got one, and the internet has made them incredibly easy to spread. When I was younger, conspiracy theories were mostly centered around a handful of topics: the JFK assassination, UFOs, and exotic beasts (like sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster). Now there are conspiracy theories about everything, and many of them are either crazy or dangerous or both.

I consider myself a skeptic, so I will often find myself entertaining conspiracy theories or at least giving people on the internet and in my life the opportunity to explain themselves. Most of the time, the theories don't stand up to reason and thought. The earth is obviously not flat. That's pretty simple, but people still try to believe it. Fortunately a significant number of flat earthers go out and make videos trying to prove their side, that actually just prove that the earth is, in fact, round. I knew things were getting crazy when I started watching a video about the earth being flat and it started with the declaration, "Obviously we know that the moon is a hologram." This blew me away, not just that this person was claiming that the moon was a hologram, but the way he led with it, like it was axiomatic or an established fact.

Unfortunately, as much fun as it is to poke fun at conspiracy theorists, many of them have become dangerous. We saw this in action a few times over the past 4 years. There were small operations like the man who invaded a pizza franchise because he was convinced that he was going to liberate enslaved children in their basement. We also saw massive operations like the attempted coup at the Capitol Building that took place on January 6.

One of the things that is most troubling to me is that there are certainly legitimate conspiracies out there. There are people with great power who are using their money, power, and influence for their own benefit. Is it Illuminati or the Rothschilds? Almost certainly not. Is it a secret cabal of child sex traffickers? I certainly hope not. To me all the craziness that has taken over the discourse on the internet has acted as a very real distraction from some of the real things that everyday people do need to be concerned about. I think that big banks have too much wealth and power. I think that we give too much personal data too freely to big businesses. I think politicians are too often doing favors for the people and organizations with the most money. This stuff is happening, seemingly out in the open, but there's too much noise to figure out what's real and what's just an idiot with rudimentary video editing skills.

I also get very concerned with how much of what I would consider dangerous conspiracy theories are built on a foundation of anti-Semitism. It's truly alarming the number of times I have looked at something and thought, "well, they could be on to something," only to dig a little deeper and find that they are holocaust deniers and are still blaming things on specific Jewish families and individuals. It's gross. That's why I had to finally give up on the /r/conspiracy subreddit. I just wanted yetis and UFOs, but too many others in that group touted theories based on Jewish cabals running the world. Modern conspiracy theorists are ruining it for those of us raised on Unsolved Mysteries.

So, back to Stevie Wonder. He is a genius. People on the internet are sometimes ignorant and dangerous and can't let well enough alone. "As" is my favorite song of his. It's joyful, complex, and perfect, much like Mr. Wonder himself. I am so grateful that he was able to share his gifts with the world. I also still really hope that Big Foot is real.

Right now "As" by Stevie Wonder is (probably) my 53rd favorite song of all time.

54. Just a Friend by Biz Markie

"Just a Friend" by Biz Markie

Written by Marcell Hall
Produced by Marcell Hall
Released on The Biz Never Sleeps (October 10, 1989)
Released as a single September 26, 1989
Peaked at #9 on Billboard Hot 100
amazon iTunes spotify music video

It's been more than a month since I've written anything for this blog; this project I started more than a year ago; this project that I am not even halfway through. Discipline has never been a strength of mine. I have routines, but they are the kinds of routines that are probably better categorized as ruts. The last few months have been great for ruts and bad for routines.

So now that I have a little break from my normal work routine, I'm going to try to take advantage and not fall as deep into my typically dangerous ruts and routines. I am never sure how successful these types of plans will be, but I have to try something. So let's talk about my 54th favorite song of all time.

"Just a Friend" by Biz Markie is the closest thing to a funny song on my list. That's not to say that I don't enjoy fun songs and funny songs, but I rarely want to place them into categories like best or greatest or favorite. "Just a Friend" is the exception. It will always stick with me and feel special, mostly because of my older brother, Jack.

The only constants for me during the first 16 years of my life were the four of us: mom, dad, Jack, and me. We moved around a lot, so while I made new friends wherever we went, I learned early on that those friendships would probably fade or disappear after our next move. I had best friends over the years, and while I didn't always like my brother, he was always there. Often, even after we would fight about something or annoy each other, he would still feel like my best friend because he was a constant. He was there, and even though there would be another fight over the remote control or another burp he'd blow across the table at me or an argument over whose turn it was to use the computer or me running to my parents to tell on my brother, the good outweighed the bad. I looked up to him, and I think he wanted the best for me. 

Jack was two years older than me, so I always just assumed that he was cool. All older kids seem cool. In retrospect, he probably wasn't that cool, but he was certainly cooler than me. I learned a lot from him. Because I thought he was cool, I often took cues from him about what kinds of music I should listen to. I didn't like everything he did (and he hated some of the stuff I liked), but there was always significant overlap. He introduced me to some music that I still enjoy like Metallica, Jethro Tull, and Alice Cooper. He also introduced me to some music that I never really figured out, like GWAR, but nobody is perfect.

I don't remember when I first heard "Just a Friend" by Biz Markie. I watched too much MTV to have somehow missed it when it came out, but for a long time I didn't remember it. What I did remember was my brother singing the chorus. For some reason, that was it. I don't remember seeing the video or hearing it on the radio, I remember my brother singing it. I also remember not being sure what it was, but wanting to be like my brother, I sang it too. For years I would hum or sing that little tune from the chorus, not really remembering what the rest of the song was. When I did find it again later, it was already so familiar because of Jack. I know I must have heard the actual song before I heard it from my brother, but part of me will always remember it as that song Jack used to sing.

Another thing I remember like this was that Jack would randomly say, "It's all ball bearings nowadays!" That was another thing I didn't really know, but I would say it too because my brother said it, and because it sounded odd and funny. I finally watched Fletch a few years ago, not realizing that's where the line came from. Needless to say, when Chevy Chase said the line, this is how I felt:

I always wanted to seem cool, so I wanted to feel like I was in the loop with my brother. I wanted him to think I was cool too. So I went along and said the line from Fletch and sang the chorus to this song. They are small things, and maybe strange memories to have, but they are a part of who I am because of my brother, and I will always love him for that.

Right now "Just a Friend" by Biz Markie is (probably) my 54th favorite song of all time.

55. Gone (feat. Consequence and Cam'ron) by Kanye West

"Gone" (feat. Consequence and Cam'ron) by Kanye West

Written by Kanye West, Dexter Mills, Cameron Giles, Chuck Willis
Produced by Kanye West
Released on Late Registration (August 30, 2005)
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Warning: Explicit Lyrics

Kanye West is a genius. That is clear. It should also be clear that just because someone is a genius does not mean that they are also likable. Many words have been written and spoken about Kanye West, and many of them have not been kind. He's clearly not a perfect person, but he also has made some of the best music of the past 20 years. Many people have thrown around words like crazy or unstable in reference to Mr. West. In recent years, I have become less comfortable using those words, especially as his wife has become more open and clear about her husband's personal struggles with his mental health. 

Kanye West broke new ground producing tracks for Jay-Z and for his own debut album. His practice of using sped up soul samples as the basis for his tracks sounded so cool. Around the time when he released his first two albums, I was hovering on the outskirts of St. Louis' underground hip hop scene. Through some of those connections I learned a few things about sampling beats and making digital tracks. I never took the time to really do much more than fiddle around and try a few things, but I did learn that it's not easy. While I don't always think that Kanye is that great of a rapper (despite what he says about himself), it is clear to anyone who listens that he is a master producer. He creates innovative, fun, and dynamic backing tracks, on top of which he adds his fun and interesting rhymes.

So with some of that background, I was blown away the first time I played "Gone" after buying the Late Registration album. One of Kanye's gifts is his ability to find and use samples from songs that others have overlooked. At this time I owned the Otis Redding box set Otis!, and had listened to it extensively. Despite that, I had never heard the Otis Redding song "It's Too Late" that Kanye had sampled for "Gone." One reason is that it's actually not that great of a song. It's a subpar cover of a mediocre song. (Even the great ones make mistakes.) Kanye managed to take a small sample from it and create greatness from mediocrity.

What makes this song more amazing is how the track develops. Many rap songs take a sample, add a beat, and repeat. They'll usually change the beat a bit for the hook, but sometimes not. "Gone" is different. The beat changes throughout the song. Once Kanye comes back to rap his final verse, his voice full of spit and venom, that Otis Redding sample has completely disappeared. It is still very much the same song, but it's evolved. This wasn't something radical from a musical sense, but it was certainly something I had not heard in a rap song before.

Kanye was so far beyond the simple tracks I had seen and heard to a whole new level of prowess and genius. This track is the culmination of all the work he had put in before he became a meme or a caricature of himself. On his first album he claimed that he made "five beats a day for three summers." All that work paid off in this masterpiece from his second album.

It could be argued that he had already created at least one masterpiece with "Jesus Walks." (Kanye certainly feels that way.) That was never a personal favorite of mine, but I certainly understood why Kanye and others thought it was great. So I may have been a little late to the party in recognizing Mr. West's genius because it wasn't until I heard this song that I really got it.

Around the time of its release, Kanye West said in an interview that he felt like Late Registration was the best produced album of all time. Kanye has gotten himself into trouble for making comments like this. It sounds like he's bragging; it's just more evidence to say that his ego is out of control. For me, after hearing "Gone," it didn't feel like bragging, it was inarguable fact.

Right now "Gone" (feat. Consequence and Cam'ron) by Kanye West is (probably) my 55th favorite song of all time.