(no subject)

[themidnightgirl]

After reading about Q magazine's top 1001 songs of all time (top ten and article here) I and a colleague had a little game. It's patently ridiculous to claim "Best Ever Songs" - where is "Summer is Icumen In"? for example and...well you get the picture.

Here are the rules
1) Pick the 10 best songs of the last 50 years. Must have at least one song from each decade except this one.
2) Whilst it's impossible to put aside personal taste, try to be a little bit objective - trust me, the 10 best songs are not all in the same genre.
3) Nothing too obscure - (this caused me some problems) songs that someone with a reasonable degree of musical literacy and knowledge would recognise.
4) One song per artist.

Here's my list...

Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry
My song from the 50s. It's hard to imagine now the impact that Chuck Berry had, and this song is the purest example of a Rock'n'Roll song there is.

Norweigan Wood - The Beatles
60s song. It wouls be ridiculous to not have the Beatles on this list, and this is one of the most interesting of their songs. Going along with some of the other arguments I've made, it would be better to pick "Can't Buy Me Love" or "Strawberry Fields Forever", but I think this is intrinsically a better song.

Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay - Otis Redding
It was impossible for me to overlook soul music, and this is one of the finest soul songs of all time. Redding never heard the completed version - he died immediately after recording it.

Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan
"Johnny's in the basement/Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement/Thinking about the government" Bob Dylan (for all his odd vocals) is a great songwriter and this is the most perfect of all his songs.

Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
80s song (just). It was hard for me to select an Eighties song - so many disparate threads through the decade, and such a disappointing last few years. I decided to go back as far as I could and see where that led me.

Boogie Wonderland - Earth, Wind and Fire
70s. Try as I might, I couldn't overlook Disco as a movement. It's so important to where popular music is today. Earth, Wind and Fire were perhaps _the_ definitive disco band.

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
90s song. Hard to underestimate the importance of Nirvana to the music scene...

Layla - Derek and the Dominoes
I've got two choices here almost purely on their riffs - this is instantly recognisable.

Seven Seas Of Rhye - Queen
This is the one song which is gross personal favouritism. This should be Bohemian Rhapsody, but I don't like that song and I do like this one.

Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple
The riff is perhaps the most recognisable one in rock music.

It's easy to see places that I've missed. And it's even easier to dispute my choices (on another day, I'd list a different 10).

Songs that should have been there...
Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys
Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley
The Model - Kraftwerk
Monster Jam - Spoonie Gee.

Comments

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

"...hard to underestimate..."?

[spikydavid.livejournal.com]

No 80s Bruce?

Come to that, no 80s Madonna or Michael Jackson. Pop as a whole is under-represented :)

No black urban music from the last twenty years? Obviously, I know as little about this genre as anyone, but Dr Dre, perhaps?

[borusa.livejournal.com]

It would have been 70s Bruce, and it would have been either Thunder Road or Born to Run or Badlands or Jungleland or into the eighties and Bobby Jean, or The River, or Highway Patrol Man, or Brilliant Disguise.

You understand the problem.

Or Racing In The Street.

It's very hard for me to pick something off black urban music - but Spoonie Gee did make my backup list.

Baby One More Time was on the original version...
Didn't say this was easy!

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I don't dare try this! I'll be arguing with myself for a week over what should be on the list!

...though Good Vibrations would definitely be on the list, as would A Day in the Life by the Beatles...