Most Confident/Arrogant Lead Singers

Who are the most confident and/or arrogant lead singers you listen to?

+ Britt Daniel--Spoon. Hands down the baddest, most in your face arrogant mo-fo in American rock today. That guy could sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and make my mother blush.

+Brandon Flowers--The Killers. Kind of like the kid in high school who thought they were the king of the world and knew everything before they even had a chance to learn that there's a massive world outside the halls of high school that's waiting to completely obliterate his soul.

+Nick Thorburn--The Unicorns, Islands. The kind of arrogance that makes a person believe that the world is holding their breath to hear every word or idea that comes out of their mouth.

+John Darnielle--The Mountain Goats. The kind of arrogance that says, "I've read every book in the world and can reference any sentence or concept from any of those books at any given time so BOW TO ME!"

+Matt Berninger--The National. The quiet, brooding arrogance. "I don't know you, I don't need or want to know you. This is my gig. So #$@ off. No more questions."

+Jack White--The White Stripes. "I used to re-upholster furniture now I rock. I'm from Detroit. I'm an enigma and I play the marimba and I don't let my drummer who's my exwife practice because our sound is really my sound. And you have no idea what I'm going to do next!" Magician arrogance.

+Sufjan Stevens--Sufjan Stevens. Kind of like John Darnielle but with instruments instead of literature. He's kind of like the Chinese water torture of music. You know the one where you're tied down and a drop of water falls on your forehead until you go mad? He'll throw so many different stringed instruments at you you'll love it at first and then after three songs (three songs max!) you'll wish an Asthmatic Kitty would come gnaw your heart out.

+Ted Leo--Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. "Let's kick this @#$% out! #$%@ the establishment! #@$%@ meat eaters! Is that blood seeping out of my tear ducts?! @#$% tear ducts!"

+Jeff Tweedy--Wilco. "Yeah? You don't like our album? Well I'll sue you for my tapes, take my tapes elsewhere and then release the biggest record of the new century. Then I'll put out a string of amazingly solid, tight groundbreaking work that'll be nominated for and win Grammy's. And I'll do it all with massive migraine headaches. Step aside."

My Top Five R.E.M. Songs (Almost a month later) And Two Great, Great Albums I Recently Had Written Off and Vending with the Von Trapps.

My Top 5 (6, actually--there's a three way tie for 4th) R.E.M. songs based on iTunes play count*:

• Exhuming McCarthy
• Country Feedback
• I've Been High
• Fall On Me
• What's the Frequency Kenneth?
• How the West Was Won and Where it Got Us

I'm always surprised when I look at play counts. Two songs I would've thought would have been on the list: Nightswimming and Swan Swan H.

*I loaded my songs onto this computer 5/16/07 so it's been counting since then.

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There are two albums that were released last year that are quickly becoming two of my favorites: Sky Blue Sky and Boxer. I know I totally wrote both of them off at the end of 2007 but I never write anything completely off. It's a good thing too. I think SBS (Sky Blue Sky) is Wilco's strongest album to date. I love YHF but SBS is so tight and stong and concrete it's just magical. They make it sound so so so so so easy. In fact, it pisses me off how easy they make it sound. It just taunts me whenever I listen to it. "Hey, freaker, look what I can do. Ha. You're sitting there at a desk, and I'm making magic! Look how easy it is to be me! Look how easy! And people love me! I was nominated for best Rock album! I didn't win but no one can take that nomination away from me! NO ONE!"

Boxer is different. Boxer kills me with subtleties. It's a chord change or a word or a phrase or the way he sings something or the timing of the percussion or the string arrangements of a particular song. There are moments I listen for. Fractions of songs. And the sentiments at the foundations of the songs devastate me--distance, loss, space, how one relates to the world outside oneself. But the songs are so striking. So poignant. They resonate.

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I ordered an AMFM cd from Austria. It cost me $11. Total. Eleven dollars. Pretty cheap, right? The cd was $8 and shipping to the U.S. was $3. Well that was two and a half weeks ago. I'm thinking shipping was so cheap because they sent the cd on a freakin helium filled balloon. Or carrier pigeon. Or Austrian gypsy. Or basal wood airplane. Or newspaper boat. Or remote controlled car. Or worse yet--I got ripped off by some corrupt Von Trapp who had no intention of sending me my cheap-yet-difficult-to-find cd. I'm cursing you Austria. I'm cursing!