In this time of uncertainty, one thing is undeniable: Chapel Hill has a fantastic local music scene. For decades, we’ve been known for producing great, innovative, influential artists in every genre. As the host of 97.9 The Hill’s “Live & Local” music hour, I’ve been able to spend the last four years digging into the treasure trove of music that’s come out of our community.
This summer, to honor the great artists who’ve given us so much, we’re counting down the top 100 local songs of all time.
What makes a “local” song, you ask? Here are my arbitrarily-established rules.
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First, we’re only considering artists based primarily in Orange, Durham, and Chatham Counties – WCHL’s listening area, that is, or Chapel Hill/Carrboro and the towns immediately around them. (No Raleigh-based artists for this list. Sorry, Chatham County Line.)
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Second, we’re only considering songs that were written or recorded when the artist was locally based. Anything Wye Oak or the Mountain Goats did after moving to Durham is fair game, for instance, but “If Children” and “No Children” are out. (This also excludes James Taylor, who launched his career after moving away.) Covers are allowed, but we’ll keep them to a minimum.
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Third, we’ll also be playing these songs on the radio every week as we count down to number one – so we can only include songs that are radio-friendly, or at least songs that can be made radio-friendly with minimal edits. (This rules out a lot of hip-hop and punk – and certain Superchunk songs about annoying coworkers.)
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And finally, to make sure we’re celebrating as many musicians as we can: no more than three songs per artist. (For no particular reason, I’m calling this the Mandolin Orange rule.)
Ready? Here we go!
100. Arrogance, “Open Window” (1976)
“Want to tell you, the truth of it is…”
No better place to start than where it all began, right? This won’t be the oldest song on our list, but if The Chapel Hill Music Scene™ has a founding moment, it may well be the day Don Dixon and Robert Kirkland first played together in a UNC dorm room back in the late 60s. Arrogance started out heavier – their first single was a proto-metal song called “Black Death” – but within a few years they’d evolved a softer sound that fit right in with the vibe of mid-70s AM radio.
Arrogance never made the national charts – Dixon eventually achieved greater fame as a producer for bands like REM – but they put out several solid albums. My favorite is 1976’s Rumors, with two fantastic songs and arguably the most 70s cover pic of all time. I’ll go with “Open Window,” Kirkland’s lamentation for a lost(?) love, but honorable mention to Dixon’s “Final Nickel” (minus the doo-doo-doos, preferably).
99. XOXOK, “Right On” (2020)
“Just ‘cause I’ve got a Ph.D. don’t mean they won’t…”
“Right On” is a gut punch of a protest song that sneaks up on you. The title suggests a happy vibe – yeah, right on! – until Keenan Jenkins hits you with the context: he’s a Black man, pulled over by the cops, calmly hitting record on his cellphone camera just in case they “light me right on up.” It’s an incredibly timely song for 2020, though sadly it’s also an incredibly timely song for 2019, 2018, 2007, 1996, 1985…
That part about having a Ph.D. is autobiographical, incidentally: Jenkins put a promising academic career on hold to pursue his music dream. Good choice. (Honorable mention to another stellar XOXOK single from 2020, “I’ll Be Fine.”)
98. Morning Brigade, “Elemental” (2014)
“I can’t hold on, you say I’m strong, I can’t hold onnnn…”
It’s a song about sickness, but there’s nothing ill about Peter Vance’s voice soaring over ethereal background vocals and dramatic strings. (Not to mention great keyboard work from Gabriel Reynolds – who, as it happens, also plays on XOXOK’s “Right On.” Want to make our next top 100? Give him a call.)
97. Open Field, “Guillotine Bait” (2015)
“Water on the ballast just to see if we float…”
There are two types of bands: those who develop their sound over time and record their best songs near the end of their run, and those who arrive fully formed and hit you with their best stuff right away. Open Field have been consistently solid for five years, but I always come back to this inescapably catchy song off their very first release. Lee Waters’ drumming is the star here, but stick around for the dreamy vocals and a vibe they describe as “pastoral psychedelia.” I won’t argue.
Prior to Open Field, lead singer Ken Stephenson also had a great run with the Kingsbury Manx. My favorite of theirs is “Regular Hands” – also off their first album, as it turns out. Like I said: there are two types of bands.
96. The Veldt, “Soul in a Jar” (1994)
“…What am I dying for?”
Founded by twin brothers Daniel and Danny Chavis, named for a classic Ray Bradbury short story, and influenced by shoegaze icons My Bloody Valentine, The Veldt were a key part of the Chapel Hill music scene in the 90s heyday before the Chaviseses moved to New York (and rebranded, for a while, as Apollo Heights). Their best Chapel Hill album was 1994’s Afrodisiac; I also like “Revolutionary Sister” off the same album, but “Soul in a Jar” is a more quintessential Veldt song (with a video that’s about as 90s as it gets).
95. Rachel Kiel, “Elm and Pine” (2017)
“Try to remember how it felt when you kept your promises to yourself…”
Rachel Kiel had already been around for a decade, but her 2017 album Shot From A Cannon – her third – still feels brand new. Nothing clever to say about “Elm and Pine”; it’s just a terrific song that’s catchy and sad and liberating all at once.
94. Al Riggs, “Local Honey” (2017)
“Nothing’s sadder than a local death…”
Al Riggs has been one of the most prolific artists in the local music scene for the past few years, so there’s a lot of great stuff to choose from. We’ll go with the stripped-down and weirdly wistful “Local Honey,” which juxtaposes Riggs’ smooth coffee-shop-ASMR vocals with some shockingly dark imagery straight out of the gate. (Fittingly, it also got used in an episode of “Welcome to Night Vale.”)
93. Dillon Fence, “Collapsis” (1993)
“It’s the first time you’ve had an idea why you’re alive…”
Between this band, Hobex, and the Electric Trio, Greg Humphreys has had a terrific (and terrifically varied) career in music – but it’s Dillon Fence that started it all. Dillon Fence never hit it quite as big nationally as their friends Hootie & the Blowfish, but they were a major part of Chapel Hill’s 90s scene and put out several seminal albums – including Outside In, for which “Collapsis” is the stellar opening track.
Hard to pick a single Dillon Fence song for this list – they’ve got a greatest-hits album that’s worth checking out in full – but I’m going with this one because it received a pretty high tribute: the late-90s band Collapsis (featuring DF drummer Scott Carle) named itself after this song. (Though maybe that’s just because “Queen Of The In-Between” wouldn’t fit on the marquee.)
92. Hank & Brendan, “Dis” (2016)
“One sweet day I’ll build my own…”
Like Lou Reed and Earl Scruggs’ twisted love child, Hank Close and Brendan Macie bill themselves as “the bluegrass band at the rock shows (and) the rock band at the bluegrass shows.” It’s a wild blend, but it works; at their best they sound just demonic enough to give you second thoughts about that moonshine. This little song, buried near the end of their debut album Space Grass, is emblematic, mixing Macie’s melodic banjo with Close’s slightly off-kilter vocals and disorienting lyrics about – what exactly?
91. Ben Folds Five, “Brick” (1997)
“Six a.m., day after Christmas…”
Okay, yeah, I’m being a little contrarian by putting this one so low – but as a proud child of the 90s who was graduating high school when this was all over MTV, I still maintain Ben Folds Five had better songs than this. (We’ll hear from them again later on.) Even so, “Brick” is undeniably a classic, either in spite of or because of its subject matter: Folds driving his probably-soon-to-be-ex girlfriend to get an abortion on a cold, gray winter morning. For all the talk in the 90s about how the Chapel Hill music scene was about to explode just like Seattle, this wound up being one of the few songs to really break out on a national level – but it did, and it’s well deserved.
Listening to the song again, it’s remarkable what Folds is able to evoke without much direct description. He never discusses the condition of the car, for instance – but it’s an old beat-up car, right? Smelling like cigarettes? At least 80,000 miles? You have to really crank on the handle to get the window to roll down, and it makes this ungodly screeching sound whenever you do? It takes a great song to impress an image in your head as clearly as this one does.
…I do need to know more about the parents who peace out down to Charlotte and leave their daughter home alone on Christmas, though. That part never got explained.
Next week: Chapel Hill does ’90s grunge; Durham gets its anthem; and Sara Romweber shines.
