Every Modest Mouse Song Ranked From Best to Worst w/ Reviews. pt. 6: #40-21 (Steemit Exclusive)

Here's the penultimate part of the list.

This section showcases Modest Mouse's range w/ loud, soft, angry, happy, sad, lo-fi, hi-fi, and all manner of other verbiage applying to the various tracks. Somehow they sound so different yet so the same across the discography. It all comes down to Isaac's extraordinary skill in songwriting, that most elusive and raw of musical talents. As much as the drumming and bass-ing are unique, Isaac is clearly the glue that holds this rickety ship together.

Damn, these are some amazing songs. I'm so excited to share them with you. Let's get started.

(40) We've Got Everything (We Were Dead)

The snare sounds crazy on this song. I think there's a vocal sample mixed into it. Whatever the case, the drums are truly driving this beat, creating a ton of energy for Johnny Marr's guitars to glide atop with melodic funk riffs. It keeps building from there, both Isaac and James Mercer entering together for James's best contribution to this record. This song has some of the most powerful verses from the band's entire discography.

We receded like waves out of the stars
Didn't want it, didn't need it, but we knew that we could steal it
Left it dying on the floor

(39) Calculus Man (Unreleased)

This song showcases a different production style for Mouse - louder, edgier, crunchier. The band is jamming hard, clearly having fun in the studio for a B-side that has never been officially released by the band. They're having a ton of fun here, this is a rare MM track where the band sounds sober. It's not so much an energy as it is a lack of drug-induced lethargy. If you haven't heard this obscure cut, it's worth a YouTube search to give it a listen.

And I walk to my head
And I walk through my hell
And I walk through my head
And I know I ain't going nowhere

(38) Spitting Venom (We Were Dead)

This is the perfect introductory song for new Modest Mouse fans. The production is incredible, Isaac's vocals are as good as they've ever been, and the arrangement is ambitious as hell. This song does not outstay its welcome, every moment counts despite an 8+ minutes of runtime. This song shows a band in peak form, 15+ years into existence, refining its sound without losing one ounce of what made them special. If I were ranking these songs today, rather than going from my original 2008 list, I'd put this in the top 10.

Well, we walked real stiff
And our canes tapped the ground
You hit me with yours and said
"You're going to stare me down"

(37) Dark Center Of The Universe (Moon & Antarctica)

If Spitting Venom shows Modest Mouse in its glorious fully-refined form, Dark Center shows an earlier stage of triumph. The still young band was at the absolute peak of hype, following two acclaimed albums, and upped the ante again. It's easy to underestimate this album's ambitious production, with the last two decades making hi-fidelity psychedelia the norm - but they were pushing serious boundaries here, getting it in just prior to Radiohead's game-changer with Kid A.

Well God said something but he didnt mean it
Everyones life ends but no one ever completes it
Dry and wet ice, they both melt
And youre equally cheated

(36) Invisible (We Were Dead)

Isaac Brock is going absolutely mental here. His vocals are fully evoking the Tom Waits drunken low-end crunch, and I love it. The rest of the band sounds stoked, you can imagine huge smiles on all the faces in the studio as this groove landed on the tape. It's dorky as hell, the simplest guitar melodies and two-note basslines, and it just doesn't matter. The band sounds great. Fuck your music theory, this is raw greatness.

I go absolutely mental
Good ramblin' George
Well, you're not invisible inside your car
No matter, you could breathe it like your flies in a jar
Yeah, you're not invisible

(35) Other People's Lives (Building Nothing)

Isaac's vocal production is really wacky on this one. He sings the main melody twice, in sync with himself, but one take is warbling all over the place. Starting out with the hook is an unusual trick for the band, but it's instantly catchy and engaging. This song takes a "Trucker's Atlas" sort of flow, with an endless variation on a simple theme. It feels good and makes for an engaging finale to this collection of tracks.

Well later that night on the side of the road
I’m out of gas and I should have known better
Well a guy shows up, he’s twenty-five years old
Always thought this kid was such a mama’s boy

(34) Bury Me With It (Good News)

This beat is filthy, grimy, disgusting. It's funky and laid back, but Isaac's paranoid rambling atop of the beat keeps it pushing forward. I feel like he's warming up to his future deeper-voice style on this song - when he screams, he still goes high pitched, but in the verses you can see a precursor to his deranged deep style on We Were Dead. One more thing - the guitars on the chorus are NASTY.

Good news for people who love bad news
We've lost the plot and we just can't choose
We are hummingbirds who are just not willing to move
And that's good news for people who love bad news

(33) Interstate 8 (Building Nothing)

I'm smoking some already-been-vaped weed, it's just kicking in as I get to this track. I'm realizing that smoking shitty weed, listening through an old pair of speakers I dug out of my dad's storage room while visiting the other day, is pretty much the perfect Modest Mouse experience. The malaise that perpetuates the band's music is basically this - everything's cool, just kinda cheap and shitty. It makes me laugh. This track is another appearance from Nicole Johnson, too bad she stopped singing with the band after the early days - she's a great fit and expands the tonal character of the sound.

You're an angel with an amber halo
Black hair and the devil's pitchfork
Wind-up anger with the endless view of
The ground's colorful patchwork

(32) Tundra/Desert (Long Drive)

The band prior to any success - you can hear how uncertain they are about their future. As far as they know, this band isn't gonna earn one penny. They're going to struggle to survive, work the same shitty jobs as their parents, live the same shit lives. You can hear that sadness and uncertainty, not just in Isaac's crackly vocals but in the timidity of the first drum beat, the intensity as the whole band starts rocking it two minutes in. This track is eerily relevant to how many young adults feel today in America.

Every sick, fickle fucker
Childhood's what makes you
Until they treat you like tundra
Weigh those opinions
More like air than lead

(31) A Different City (Moon & Antarctica)

If you ever want to understand what makes Modest Mouse unique, listen to the vocals on this song. Start by focusing on the leading voice, whichever that is. After a bit, shift to the other voices. There's the tinny lead, the falsetto upper harmonies, and a faint lower harmony. That weird vocal arrangement, although it sounds natural, is unlike what anybody else was doing at the time - and largely unlike anything ever since. It's the core of the modest mouse style. Beyond the vocals, this song showcases some of the most technical drumming that Jeremiah Green would ever lay down on a Mouse track.

I wanna live in a city with no friends or family
I'm gonna look out the window of my color T.V.
I wanna remember to remember to forget you forgot me
I'm gonna look out the window of my color T.V.

(30) Gravity Rides Everything (Moon & Antarctica)

Right from the first few seconds of this track, you are wrapped in a warm pillow of sound. At first it's some drum sticks and reversed guitars, then the nicest acoustic strumming you've ever heard, then even Isaac's vocals manage to be soothing and peaceful. The band is in love, and even this batch of miscreants can't help but turn syrupy sweet when love is in the air.

Early early in the morning it pulls all on down my sore feet
I wanna go back to sleep.
In the motions and the things that you say.
It all will fall, fall right into place

(29) Satin In a Coffin (Good News)

Another creepy blues track from Good News, this one menacing as hell as Isaac repeatedly says "I sure do hope you are dead," and some other really great lines here - dissolving into coffee is a beautiful turn of phrase in verse two. I can't imagine any other band making this song, there's no melody yet it feels so melodic. Is he singing or yelling or talking? I can't decide.

Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
Are you dead or are you sleepin'?
God I sure hope you are dead.

(28) 3rd Planet (Moon & Antarctica)

That bassline. It swoons around in the upper register, and right as the first vocal and drum beat fade away, it lingers. Warm, consonant, beautiful. But before you know it, you're swept into crunchy guitar chords and a wistful chorus, something sad's going on even if you can't place it. The drumming here is so creative, no amount of music school or chops-building will ever teach someone to play like Jeremiah's doing on this track. This is a true indie classic.

When it occurred to me that the animals are swimming
Around in the water in the oceans in our bodies
And another had been found, another ocean on the planet
Given that our blood is just like the Atlantic

(27) Ocean Breathes Salty (Good News)

An enigmatic, sad track. "You wasted life, why wouldn't you waste the afterlife?" is one of the most brutal insults I can imagine. Isaac returns to some LCW-era imagery, talking about when "the ocean met the sky" - just like the opener on LCW where he says "from the top of the ocean, to the bottom of the sky." This track is catchy in a bizarre way, like all the notes make sense at any given moment but the melodies themselves defy understanding.

The ocean breathes salty, won't you carry it in?
In your head, in your mouth, in your soul.
And maybe we'll get lucky and we'll both grow old.
Well I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I hope so.

(26) Never Ending Math Equation (Building Nothing)

This is my favorite Modest Mouse groove. They do a similar one on a few other songs, but the tempo, the vibe, the tone is just absolutely right here. It helps that this song has some of the coolest lyrics I've ever heard, they don't even make any sense, they're just cool as fuck. Isaac is rapping here - I never thought about it until now, but this is total rap. Damn, if you only listen to one song on this list, this is a fine choice.

We aint sure where you stand
You aint machines and you aint land
And the plants and the animals, they are linked
And the plants and the animals eat each other

(25) Bukowski (Good News)

This song shows off the band's sonic evolution since Moon & Antarctica. The strings on that album always had to blend into the mix, a little in the background. Here, the upright bass is full and thick, laying the foundation for Isaac's rapid-fire rap/singing about religion. He's got a clever juxtaposition going on, you are never quite sure if he's insulting God or Bukowski. This song proves it: Modest Mouse are the world's best folk-punk band. haha

Went to bed and didn't see
why every day turns out to be
a little bit more like Bukowski.
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read.
But God who'd wanna be
God who'd wanna be such an asshole

(24) I Came as a Rat (Long Walk Off a Short Dock) (Parlour Tricks)

uhhh??? I think I doubled a track on the original list. oops. FORGIVE ME. Skip to #23:

(23) I Came as a Rat (Moon & Antarctica)

The closest the band's been to pop-punk, with those picked-out guitar power chords at the beginning and some irreverent lyricism that references haircuts and cats in the same breath. But there's way too much happening here to ever fit into the pop-punk scene, and the style is shed entirely when they dig into the slower strummed groove. This song flows through so many sections, yet it never feels forced or "progressive". It's just good songwriting with a whole lot of depth.

I caught a ride, we caught some air
He's never gonna cut his hair
It takes more time to make a fake
We night swam down in the lake
Washed the dirt off our intentions
Prattle on 'bout bad inventions

(22) Paper Thin Walls (Moon & Antarctica)

There's a lot of interesting percussive sounds here - cowbell, rototom, sleigh bell - which makes for an off-kilter, energetic groove. The whole band is on the edge of their seat here, digging into their instruments hard without sounding too brutal. Dorky though it is, I can't help but love the lyric "the whole world stinks so no one's taking showers anymore" on this - and overall, the vocal performance is top-notch on this track.

These walls are paper thin
And everyone hears every little sound
Everyone's a voyeurist, they're watching me
Watch them watch me right now

(21) Bankrupt On Selling (Lonesome Crowded West)

Isaac by himself on this track, strumming his four chords and singing his wistful lyrics. This song is more of a story, the bard's tradition ala Bob Dylan, and it sums up the sad anger of the poor against the rich. Here Isaac is picturing the businessmen, selling and selling and never getting anywhere. He hates them, yet he pities them.

So all of the businessers in their unlimited hell
Where they buy and they sell and they sell all their trash
To each other, but they're sick of it all
And they're bankrupt on selling

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Woo, that was a fun trip. Next up is the grand finalé, the best 20 songs from Modest Mouse's entire discography. I look forward to seeing you there :-D

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