Picture the scene: I’m unemployed, and I really enjoy, more than anyone should, those listicles where something (songs, albums, episodes of a TV series etc.) has been ranked, from best to worst. I doubt the logic and the ambition of these lists, and whether anyone could rank, with any precision or rationale, a large number of things which all share the same essential DNA. As I said though, I enjoy reading them, agreeing or disagreeing with them, and I enjoy the attempt that’s gone into making them make sense. Therefore, in my perpetual boredom, I wanted to undertake the project of making one of these lists myself. There was not a better candidate than a comprehensive ranking of (almost — I’ll get to this) every Los Campesinos! song. Like anyone who likes Los Campesinos!, I actually love them — I’ve never met anyone who has only a placid appreciation of them, rather than a fevered, and usually long held, adoration. I’ve liked the band since I was fairly young, I think 12 or 13, have eagerly anticipated every new release since 2011’s Hello Sadness. I have seen them live a modest 5 times. The only other artists I could properly do this for are Taylor Swift, for whom too many lists of this kind already exist, and Pavement, but I didn’t want to wade through that many songs, so LC! were the natural choice.
Here is my attempt at a framework for this ranking.
- Every LC! song is to be included, except those under 1 minute long or entirely instrumental (or both). This discounts “Theme From Rash” from the Heat Rash project, “200–102” and “Heart Swells / 101” from Romance Is Boring, “Between an Erupting Earth and an Exploding Sky” from We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, and “In Accordance to Natural Law”, “Yr Boyfriend”, “The Eyebright Bulger”, and “Clunk-Rewind-Clunk-Play-Clunk” from Hold On Now Youngster… Rarities Collection. Nothing against this collection, but they are difficult to compare against more typical tracks, and thus I found it easier to omit them.
- I am not including multiple versions of the same song, i.e. I am not including anything from the live album A Good Night for a Fistfight, or demos of previously released tracks.
- I am not including LC! remixes of songs by other artists.
- Covers not discounted by the first rule are included. I will consider the covers, as far as possible, on their own merit, rather than as a comparison to the original song.
- Songs are judged, roughly, against the following criteria — lyrics, whether its a Banger, and how good it is when played live. The first of these, obviously, does not apply to covers. The second is admittedly vague and personal, but I promise, is not reducible to whether the song is good, or whether the song is uptempo. To illustrate: both “The Sea Is…” and “Who Fell Asleep In” are slow, and good, but the former is a banger and the latter is not. Am I making sense? It’s maybe like — do I want to shout along with this song? The third criterion is the least important, because there are very good LC! songs which are rarely played live, or that I have not seen played live. Therefore, I am only making positive judgments about songs when considering their live renditions, rather than negative judgments. As a whole, the criteria operates as a guide rather than a rule.
And before we get started, some general disclaimers:
- There are very few songs on this list that I dislike, or think are bad. In my opinion, the quality of LC! releases have remained relatively stable throughout the years, insofar as there’s hardly an album that sticks out as significantly worse than the rest of their work. As such, there will be plenty of songs on the bottom half of this list that I love! It’s just that I love others more.
- While I’ve made a considered attempt at being ‘objective’ about this, it’s obviously just a reflection of my opinion and my favourites.
- Connected to the above, I just feel the need to say now: I love the Christmas EP, A Los Campesinos Christmas, more than, perhaps, anyone else does. That might come across.
- There is most likely a familiarity bias at play in these rankings — I am more familiar with the album tracks, and less so with B-sides, rarities, and so on, and this is more or less reflected.
So — from worst to best, to create suspense… I’ve added comments and justifications which are hopefully of some interest.
90. “Police Story” (Black Flag cover), and 89. “C Is The Heavenly Option” (Heavenly cover), both Hold On Now Youngster… Rarities Collection: Two covers that just don’t really do it for me, and which I would never go to listen to. Both go some way towards capturing the early sound of LC! — “Police Story” is angsty and loud, and “C Is The Heavenly Option” is a twee duet between Gareth and Aleks — but there are much better examples of both these sounds to go for.
88. “The International Tweexcore Underground”, Hold On Now Youngster… Rarities Collection: I don’t have the nostalgia attached to this song that some people seem to have — even in my earliest listens to the band, this song passed me by. It’s not good and it’s best forgotten.
87. “Light Leaves, Dark Sees pt.II”, Hello Sadness: Hello Sadness is my least favourite LC! album, and it’s mostly because of the slower, sadder ballads. LC! do sad very well but this one just misses the mark for me. It’s also the last song on the album, and one thing I’ve learnt from this list is that I don’t particularly favour LC! album closers.
86. “Four Seasons”, Heat Rash #1: Heat Rash was a zine project released by the band between 2011 and 2012, with 8 accompanying singles. This one is my least favourite — it’s a bit dreary and doesn’t make much of an impact.
85. “Too Many Flesh Suppers”, Romance Is Boring B-side: As far as I can tell this is actually well-liked by a lot of fans, but it just doesn’t stick for me. Recorded in the same sessions as Romance Is Boring, I can see why this didn’t make the cut.
84. “2007, the Year Punk Broke (My Heart)”, and 83. Don’t Tell Me To Do The Math(S), both Hold On Now Youngster…: “2007…” is another so-so closer! I usually forget about this one-verse track, and think the album ends with “Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks”. “Math(S)” is just a bit too silly, and twee, even for HONY…
82. “Every Defeat A Divorce (Three Lions)”, and 81. “The Black Bird, The Dark Slope”, both Hello Sadness: Two more that I could take or leave from Hello Sadness.
80. “No Tetris”, Hold On Now Youngster… The Demos: This song is weird, and I don’t know that it’s particularly good, but it has a frenzied ending I simply respect.
79. “Little Mouth”, Benny & Jolene Soundtrack: Written for 2014 low-budget romcom Benny and Jolene, this song (perhaps inevitably) doesn’t really sound like an LC! song to me, but it’s enjoyable.
78. “It Started With A Mixx”, Hold On Now Youngster… Rarities Collection: Ultra-short, self-conscious early pop song — nice enough!
77. “A Portrait of the Trequartista as a Young Man”, No Blues: My least favourite from 2013’s No Blues, with heavy metaphorical lyrics and a sound that is reminiscent of the weaker songs from Hello Sadness.
76. “Life Is A Long Time”, Hello Sadness: I like this one more than the Hello Sadness tracks I’ve ranked so far purely because of all the eye imagery.
75. “The Trains Don’t Run (It’s Christmas Day), A Los Campesinos Christmas: A Christmas song that doesn’t give me many festive feelings.
74. “Allez Les Blues”, Heat Rash #3 and 73. “To The Boneyard”, Heat Rash #4: Two more Heat Rash tracks that are just fine.
72. “For Whom The Belly Tolls”, Sick Scenes, 71. “Selling Rope (Swan Dive to Estuary)”, No Blues and 70. “Sad Suppers”, Sick Scenes: I feel pretty similarly about all 3 of these tracks — perfectly good album tracks but ones I’d be prone to skip if I was in the mood, and ones I wouldn’t be able to sing back. Another disappointing album closer in “Selling Rope…” too, which is overly long.
69. “The End of the Asterisk”, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed: A funny song with some cruel lyrics delivered with biting candour — “Honestly you are an absolute tragedy / Not like ‘heroically’ in all of the books you read”.
68. “There Is A Flag. There Is No Wind”, and 67. “I Warned You: Do Not Make An Enemy Of Me”, both Romance Is Boring: The weakest Romance Is Boring tracks, both with strong lyrics scattered throughout, but repetitive and with short choruses I don’t love.
66. “We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives”, Hold On Now Youngster… Rarities Collection: I thought this might be LC! at their most twee and immature sounding, but I have an affection for it. “It’s all the same if the fizzy drinks are nice”!
65. “5 Flucloxacillin”, Sick Scenes: I reckon most people will consider this one under-ranked, but… it’s just not my fave!
64. “To Tundra”, Hello Sadness: Hello Sadness at its saddest, I like this one more than the similar tracks on the album.
63. “A Litany/Heart Swells”, Sick Scenes: A fairly depressing song about feeling alone and being miserable in a relationship, I like the lyrics of this one a lot — especially “Outside a chicken shop, a ceiling of stars / A nostril of Diet Coke, I’m back in your arms’.
62. “A Doe to a Deer”, A Los Campesinos Christmas: A sweet Christmas love song!
61. “Dumb Luck”, Heat Rash #3, 60. “I Love You (But You’re Boring)” (The Beautiful South cover), Heat Rash #2, and 59. “She Crows (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #4)”, Heat Rash #4: Three of my favourite Heat Rash tracks! I wish “She Crows…” was on Hello Sadness.
58. “How I Taught Myself To Scream”, Hold On Now Youngster… Rarities Collection: I really like this early song, shoutier and heavier than much of the stuff from that period.
57. “Drop It Doe Eyes”, Hold On Now Youngster…: A decent track from HONY… that I tend to forget about, I like the Pavement reference the most.
56. “All Your Kayfabe Friends”, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed: I really like the Tony Cascarino lyric in this one, but there are plenty better LC! songs about dysfunctional relationships.
55. “Plan A”, Romance Is Boring: I toyed with putting this much higher up, just because I enjoy it as a change of pace and style on Romance Is Boring, but different does not equal excellent. From what I can tell this has never been played live, which may indicate that the band aren’t a massive fan, but I like it and its idealist, kinda-romantic, teenage vision of success.
54. “The Time Before The Last Time”, No Blues: My favourite song about wanking in the shower. Also, a good song about the attempt to end a relationship — but it will be referenced in one I much prefer.
53. “Frontwards” (Pavement cover), Hold On Now Youngster… Rarities Collection: Almost certainly ranked too highly, but I really enjoy this cover. I think it works well as a duet and as a pop song.
52. “Hate For The Island”, Hello Sadness: The lyrics are great on this, especially “We watched a fox rip out the contents of each / Bin-bag that lined the road and then you turn to see me, mouth / ‘Those entrails are how I’ll feel when you decide to leave me”’.
51. “My Year In Lists”, Hold On Now Youngster…: I can’t help but cringe at the first verse of this, but it’s great live, and I love ‘I cherish with fondness the day (before) I met you’ and the anti-New Year’s sentiment.
50. “Kindle a Flame in Her Heart”, A Los Campesinos Christmas: I love this one for the interplay between Gareth and Kim’s voices, and for placing yearning front and centre in a Christmas song.
49. “Dreams Don’t Become You”, Heat Rash #2: This track was a collaboration with Zac Pennington of Parenthetical Girls, who is singing lead vocals. Sonically, it’s not unlike the best parts of Hello Sadness — my second fave of the Heat Rash songs.
48. “The Fall of Home”, Sick Scenes: This song stings slightly now that I’m a graduate back in my hometown. It’s sad!
47. “Cemetery Gaits”, No Blues: “They boast of poets on their side / But what use will this be when it comes to a fight / I glance across the length of pew / And all that I can think’s I want to undress you” — a fight, a church, sex… this bridge would be very good for a LC! lyrics bingo.
46. “It’s Never That Easy Though, Is It (Song for the Other Kurt)”, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed: I love the lyrics in this one about cruel break-ups and petty jealousy, but I’m not massively into the chorus.
45. “We Are All Accelerated Readers”, Hold On Now Youngster…: Placement of this probably 75% determined by “You said you look less like the Venus de Milo / And more like your mother in a straight-jacket”. Also “the opposite of true love is as follows / Reality” is as close as early LC! gets to a mission statement.
44. “Tiptoe Through the True Bits”, Hello Sadness B-side: Another song that should have made it onto Hello Sadness! The trumpets on this are a really nice feature for a slower track, and the lyrics are beautiful and tender.
43. “Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats”, Hold On Now Youngster…: ANY MORE TEAaAAAaAARS FOR THE BIRTHING POOL
42. “Ways to Make It Through the Wall”, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed: This is the perfect opening track for WABWAD, a song about all about idea vs. reality, defiance, and inevitability.
41. “Let It Spill”, No Blues: A frantic song, with a great ending — “You’ll find me upside down in the belfry / ’Cause baby I’m bats it is true”.
40. “Light Leaves, Dark Sees”, Heat Rash #1: Oh, I love this so much more than the pt.II featured on Hello Sadness. It’s a great, funny love song, featuring lyrics that later appeared on ‘When Christmas Comes’.
39. “Death to Los Campesinos!”, Hold On Now Youngster…: It is a bold (and very LC!, and very early 20s) move to open your debut album with a song title like that, and then immediately jump into a lyric about Hitler.
38. “Got Stendhal’s”, Sick Scenes: A weird, grand song about love and death, with imagery that switches from the hyper-normal (“carrier bag of cans”) to, well, ghosts!
37. “Coda: A Burn Scar In The Shape Of The Sooner State”, Romance Is Boring: This is actually the perfect closing track to Romance is Boring. The song is a reflection on the death of a lover, closing with the echoing, haunting refrain “I can’t believe I chose the mountains every time you chose the sea”.
36. “Romance Is Boring”, Romance Is Boring: I’ve ranked this song this highly mostly because of how fun it is live, but this track is a good representation of LC!’s sarcastic attitudes and bitterness.
35. “As Lucerne / The Low”, No Blues: A song about basking in misery, couched in beautiful, nature-grounded lyrics. I love the intro on this, and the blistering cry of ‘There are no blues that can sound quite as heartfelt as mine’.
34. “… And We Exhale and Roll Our Eyes in Unison”, Hold On Now Youngster…: On this song from their first album that holds the press and audiences to account for the way they consider female musicians, LC! subtly set themselves apart from a lot of the mainstream late-noughties indie scene. The lyrics on this are great — cutting without spelling out exactly what they’re trying to say. I particularly like “The earth’s air pressure gets far greater when I hear you”.
33. “Hung Empty”, Sick Scenes: Strong closing track about being ‘grown-up’ and not quite realising how you got there, and being lonely. Classic themes!
32. “Songs About Your Girlfriend”, Hello Sadness: Another one I like better played live, but LC! are always good when their lyrics play with the balance between boisterous arrogance and a thinly-disguised lack of confidence.
31. “The Holly & the Ivy” (British folk carol), and 30. “Lonely This Christmas” (Mud cover), both A Los Campesinos Christmas: Ok, ok, look — I know. I know I have ranked these way too high. They are not original songs, and they are Christmas songs. Whatever. They’re wonderful. I really enjoy Rob’s vocals, which take the lead on “The Holly & the Ivy”. As for “Lonely This Christmas”, I love how melancholy it is, and the deeply sad spoken-word final verse. Why is this Christmas song so sad and why do I like it so much? Fun-fact: I remember listening to this on the way to university for the first time (in, uh, October) — why.
29. “Who Fell Asleep In”, Romance Is Boring: Often, my favourite LC! lyrics are those which deal with religion, and this song is my favourite overall example of that. “But I swear now, every time that I kiss her / I feel her God breathe on her shoulder / It pains me but I’m sure she’s still yours” — can’t believe LC! inspired Fleabag series 2!
28. “In Media Res”, Romance Is Boring: “But let’s talk about you for a minute…” — what an opening line to an album which features Gareth talking predominantly about himself. This is a weird song, but it ends on an idea which is always tumbling around LC! records — what do you want to make of your life, and how are you going to do it?
27. “A Slow, Slow Death”, Sick Scenes: This seems to be a firm favourite from the band’s most recent album, and I understand why. A more-bitter-than-sweet love song against a political backdrop, it’s LC! at their most mature.
26. “Glue Me”, No Blues: A slow song that really works for me, all pining and unhealthy attachment. It features one of their all-time greatest lyrics in ‘Draw me like one of your fence, girls / Stood erect as a post, head to toe in creosote.’ Lots of football references.
25. “Hello Sadness”, Hello Sadness: I love this one played live. It builds into something high-energy and anthemic, and for a song about accepting sadness, it appropriately sounds like letting go.
24. “A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State; Or, Letters From Me To Charlotte”, Romance Is Boring: A story about one relationship told from the dissecting perspective of another, ending with a murderous dream — this song has it all! I love the lyric ‘though said with hands in pocket / I mean it hand on heart’.
23. “Here’s To The Fourth Time!”, and 22. “I Broke Up In Amarante”, both Sick Scenes: Two of the best songs from the most recent record. “Here’s To The Fourth Time!” is about, among other things, recollection and memory, and it’s fitting that it rehashes some ideas the band had dealt with prior, referencing “The Time Before The Last Time” and the chorus echoing a similar statement from “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed”. “I Broke Up In Amarante” is about a rough time Gareth went through when recording the album, and it becomes an ode to feeling sorry for yourself.
21. “What Death Leaves Behind”, No Blues: Another song about death and love, but one easy to dance to, and with a hopeful ending — “We will flower again”.
20. “Heart Swells / Pacific Daylight Time”, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed: On A Good Night for a Fistfight, Gareth calls this the ‘first proper, genuine love song that [they] ever wrote.’ The earnestness shines through this two part track, an emotional detailing of the hopes and fears that come with infatuation.
19. “When Christmas Comes”, A Los Campesinos Christmas: Yeh, there’s one more Christmas song. It definitely does not deserve to be at #19, but fuck it, this is my list. It has a probably insincere message about Christmas ridding you of all that’s been “lurking” the rest of the year, but I like to indulge in a genuinely happy LC! song (albeit with a depressing backdrop) in the festive season. I also like the romantic aspect of this track — ‘Making small change with the carollers / Every mention of His name changed to yours’.
18. “You’ll Need All Those Fingers For Crossing”, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed: “You wrote a letter to God, ‘Just in case’, you said / ‘I’m nothing if I’m not a pragmatist’” — ! ! !
17. “This is How You Spell “HAHAHA We Destroyed the Hopes of a Generation of Faux-Romantics”, Hold On Now Youngster…: In my ‘methodology’ for this list, I ranked the songs within their respective albums first, and originally I had placed this #1 for HONY…. I have a real soft-spot for the spoken section of this song, and the chorus’s declaration “if you don’t exist with hearts the size of a house brick / Cease and desist!”. Most ridiculous LC! song title? Tough competition but it might have it.
16. “Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1”, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed: A majority of the early work of LC! is confessional, and this track out-rightly labels itself so. There’s a good story, moving from nice-but-dull boyfriend to childish ex in just 2 verses, and it’s different to a lot of LC! songs in that we don’t get too much of the jaded aftermath, just the documentation.
15. “There Are Listed Buildings”, Romance Is Boring: An extremely catchy pop song about presumably unrequited lust and a longing for attention. “I think I’d do it for love if it were not for the money” is a great reversal on the Talking Heads lyric (“Never for money, always for love”).
14. “Renato Dall’Ara (2008)”, Sick Scenes: Released as the first single from Sick Scenes, this is a great, self-referential track with some of the best lyrics the band has ever put out. Lyrics like “living off 2008” and “once up and then back down again” are a perspective on how the band built a career off of the back of HONY… and continue to play on a decade later. Lines like “He took a hobby as a PCSO / Let me level this as an indictment / Only a part-time grass but a full-time asshole!” are just proper funny.
13. “Avocado, Baby” and 12. “For Flotsam”, both No Blues: Is “Avocado, Baby” one of the biggest bangers LC! have ever released? I think so. The song always gets a great live reception, with a strong sing-along chorus and refrain, relatable to anyone who has felt toughened by heartbreak. “For Flotsam” is my favourite song on the album though, but “I saw God in the bathroom, I baptised him in sick / Embraced him around the cistern, ‘C’est la mort, enough of this’” turns out to be only my second favourite LC! lyric about vomiting in toilets.
11. “Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks”, Hold On Now Youngster…: “When the smaller picture’s the same as the bigger picture / You know that you’re fucked’ is, I think, my favourite opening line of a LC! song. Another one that’s made special by live renditions, always played towards the end of the show, the outro calling out.
10. “Knee Deep At ATP”, Hold On Now Youngster…: In making this list I had a pretty good idea of what would be at the top, but this breaking the top 10 was a surprise. It’s a rare mature, subdued moment on HONY…, appropriate for a song about being cheated on. “And I know he took you to the beach” is sung like a spat accusation, and it’s a rare LC! song where you only feel uncomplicated sympathy.
9. “Straight In At 101”, Romance Is Boring: There are not more audacious lyrics in the LC! catalogue than on this song, an account of disappointing sexual encounters and failed relationships. The end of this song is a real kicker — the so-far cavalier attitude to breakups exposed as the embarrassment of them not being included on a list of the “top 100 breakups of all-time” sets in.
8. “Baby I Got The Death Rattle”, Hello Sadness: Dense with excellent writing, this might be LC!’s strongest song, lyrically. Death, love, sex, fate, religion, mysticism! The contrast between the attitudes and perspectives of the ‘ass’ man and the ‘angel’ women are particularly great, and as is Gareth’s melodramatic performance.
7. “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed”, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed: “OH WE KID OURSELVES THERE’S FUTURE IN THE FUCKING, BUT THERE IS NO FUCKING FUTURE” — I am such a sucker for this track in all it’s angry, brutal, nihilist glory.
6. “By Your Hand”, Hello Sadness: My favourite song about handjobs! Always kills live.
5. “The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future”, Romance Is Boring: A sad song and a firm fan favourite — were you even on Tumblr in your formative years if you didn’t reblog something to do with this song on the reg? It’s a genuinely sad song that’s taken on a new life as ‘the song with the Never Kiss A Tory lyric’, but I guess that’s how things go, and it is a good line.
4. We’ve Got Your Back (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2), Romance Is Boring: The second DMEB ranks highest for me. It’s another song about a troubled relationship and failed communication, and full of ambiguous lyrics and differing perspectives. The expression of vague solidarity, “And so fucking on, and so fucking forth / We’ve got your back, whatever that’s worth” always sticks with me.
3. “You! Me! Dancing!”, Hold On Now Youngster…: It’s easy to dismiss “You! Me! Dancing!” as that early-career track that was on that Budweiser ad that they have to play at every gig cos people love it but it’s not that good but… I think it is that good. It’s relentlessly fun, the looooong intro is exciting every time you hear it live, the quickly spoken outro (“And I always get confused / Because in supermarkets, they turn the lights off when they want you to leave / But at discos, they turn them on…”) still makes me feel something, even now.
2. “Miserabilia”, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed: I love every single part of this song. It’s pitched exactly right; righteous, dejected, messy, all somehow without verging into obnoxious. Even the screamed final lines (“Shout at the world because the world doesn’t love you / Lower yourself because you know that you’ll have to”) feel earned, and true, even if bratty. This one has my favourite lyrics about vomiting in toilets.
1. “I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know”, Romance Is Boring: I really do think that, beyond being my favourite, “I Just Sighed…” is the best LC! song. It’s as good as they get on longing, break-ups, futility, fruitless romantic pursuits, jealousy. It contains some of the best imagery of any of their songs (“He, boyfriend, inside’s a saint, becoming a martyr / Me writhing, rolling on the floor / Stared daggers pulled from my thoracic wall”). Increasingly desperate verses set against against a pleading chorus. The slowed down bridge, “I’m a little bit drunk, and I mean just a little bit”… it’s the winner!
