desh | Top 10 songs ever

Top 10 songs ever

In honor of WXPN's countdown of the top 885 songs of all time, here is my vote for 10 best, or what it would've been had I voted on time:

1. Doors - Light My Fire
2. The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
3. Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
4. Derek and the Dominoes - Layla
5. Billy Joel - Piano Man
6. John Lennon - Imagine
7. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
8. Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
9. Beatles - Hey Jude
10. U2 - Sunday, Bloody Sunday

...and, man, I can't believe I have to leave out Romeo And Juliet, Orange Sky, Hallelujah, Bobby McGee, everything by Pearl Jam, everything by Zeppelin...

What are your lists? (Looking at other people's lists here might help.)

I might try to start a meme next week, once their top 100 is revealed...

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1. Doors - Light My Fire

I hate that song... ::hides::

...plus...Supper's Ready, Ode to Billy Joe, Sounds of Silence, Subterranian Homesick Blues, Wild Horses, Age of Aquarius, Georgia on My Mind... ten's just not enough. :)

Sounds of Silence! I knew I should've looked at S&G more. Still doesn't crack the top 10, though. You're right, 10 is way too hard.

Pink Floyd	Dogs
Radiohead	There, There
The Beatles	Rocky Raccoon
Muse	Time is Running Out
Eric Clapton	Old Love (unplugged)
Radiohead	Knives Out
Folk Implosion	Natural One
Jimi Hendrix	Castles Made of Sand
Led Zeppelin	The Rain Song
Live	Pillar of Davidson

Even without putting them in order, that was a lot harder than I thought it would be....
A few that got bumped at the last minute, or that I feel bad about leaving out:
Beatles - Tommorow Never Knows, DJ Cam - Hip Hop Opera, Massive Attack - Dissolved Girl, Portishead - Glory Box, Pink Floyd - Welcome to the Machine (which was the first song that really grabbed me and made me think about music as more than just something to listen to), The Beta Band - Won, U2 - If You Wear that Velvet Dress... oh god... I could go on like this for hours.

I should just shut up I guess... I think I'll post this to my journal too, I like this type of post.

I love Pillar of Davidson, as you well know. But I distinguish between songs I like and good songs, and for me, PoD doesn't quite make the good songs list. The "songs I like" list would be at least half different, with PoD, "Rock & Roll Dreams" by Meat Loaf, probably "Under Pressure" by Queen, possibly "Birdhouse In Your Soul" by TMBG...

Massive Attack...that's techno, yes? I'm curious to hear if there's any techno at all on this list. XPN is as good as any station at cross-genre stuff (there was a blues song recorded in the 1920s on the countdown yesterday), but they probably have limits. I'm betting that Dr. Dre and LL Cool J will also manage to miss the top 885, though a Beastie Boys or two might make it.

And re Pink Floyd: Dogs is a great choice, though for me it would be third, behind Comfortably Numb and Shine On I-V. But they played Echoes yesterday! All of it!

A shame. I'm curious about your list, though. I don't think I know what music you like these days...

That's a good point about good songs vs songs I like... I think Time is Running out and PoD might not have made it if I was thinking just of good songs. Though PoD would be really close to the list, it would probably be on the outside looking in.

Massive Attack is Trip-Hop, I.E. a mix between Hip Hop and Techno. Kind of like a more techno-heavy The Roots (who are awesome). I never really listen to XPN, or really any radio for that matter, but now I'm curious, I might have to give them a listen. Especially if they actually played Echoes in it's entirety. That takes balls.

As far as my list goes, though, I could seriously add another paragraph or two about why each of those songs rules. Maybe I will when I post it to my journal.

Also, when I was spell checking this entry just now with LJ, it doesn't have techno in it's dictionary. It suggestions:

Tech no, Tech-no, Technion, Teaching, Tech, Techs, Teched, Torching, Tench, Chino, Tachyon, Teach, Tenor, Etching, Tenon, Ten

I don't even know what tench, tenon, or teched means.

10. Paul Simon - Sounds of Silence
9. Velvet Underground - Venus In Furs
8. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See A Darkness
7. The Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)
6. Palace - Agnes, Queen of Sorrow
5. Tom Waits - Yesterday Is Here
4. Beatles - In My Life
3. Beach Boys - God Only Knows
2. Otis Redding - Sittin' On The Dock of the Bay
1. Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat

I don't even know if I can DO a top ten... I would feel so limited. A top 100 might be easier for me, but I'd probably have a lot of ties.

I'm also very impressed that you left Pearl Jam off the top ten. I know how you love them so, but good call leaving them out. I don't think you qualify for a "greatest song of all time" if the lyrics are all mumbled (no offense to Bob Dylan).

--Jeff

That's why all of Bob Dylan's best songs were made infinitely better when other people sang them! rolling stones doing Like a rolling stone, All along the watchtower by hendrix just to name a few.. if anyone knows others, please point them out because I want to know... I know there are lots more, but I can never remember them.

I totally forgot Watchtower.

Pearl Jam's "Black" would probably be in my top 20.

No women are in any of your top 10 lists. boo. except for a casual mention of Janis Joplin.

Massive Attack? Techno? What planet do YOU live on?

Just for that comment, I'm going to put a guide to Electronic music in my LJ just to show you how off you were. And, also, because I think I'm behind on my condescention quota, at least in the "Electronic Music Snobbery" category.

--Jeff

I know, I realized that. I considered two Janis songs and one Indigo Girls song, but they didn't make the cut.

I wonder how high the top XPN song by a woman will be. I bet it's not in their top 10 either...

Though I find it fun to do this objectively, the practice usually turns into choosing the ten of the most relevant artists and then methodically isolating their most culturally signficant hit. Of course, "Best" is as subjective as it gets, but it's fun to see how closely the two align.

Using that as my foundation, here's a shot at a few (already flawed by my anticipation that XPN will cheat towards classic rock and folk).

The Eagles - "Hotel California" - Rock critics and casual fans alike love to fawn all over this. Slightly edges "Desperado."

Simon and Garfunkel - "Bridge Over Troubled Water" - Seems to have an equal shot against "Sound of Silence," and I think is ultimately more covered.

The Beatles - "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" - Could also be "Hey Jude;" maybe both.

Rolling Stones - "Satisfaction" - Important AND completely ingrained in our pop-psyche.

Aretha Franklin - "Respect" - Possibly the most quintessential female vocal in pop music history.

Elvis Presley - "Hound Dog" - Birth of rock blah blah blah.

Bob Dylan - "Blowin' In The Wind" - Might cite some other artist's version.

Don McLean - "American Pie" - Come on, this is XPN we're talking about.

I think your #4-7 have a definite shot of displacing these, or landing close behind. I was tempted to throw in "What's Goin' On," "Landslide," "You've Got A Friend," or something by The Doors or Led Zepplin, but my inclination is that none of them are quite essential enough to be in the top ten. To be a best song of all time the song has to be something that launches a thousand tangents.

I fully expect one or two songs from my lifetime to sneak in there, possibly "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Beat It," but otherwise i stand by my prediction. I'll ruminate on my personal top ten for tomorrow :)

The Beatles - For No One
The Decemberists - Los Angeles, I'm Yours
The Dismemberment Plan - The City
The Doors - You're Lost, Little Girl
Modest Mouse - 3rd Planet
Mr. Bungle - Ars Moriendi
Oingo Boingo - Little Girls
Pere Ubu - Navvy
The Pixies - Hey
Radiohead - Just
The Shins - So Says I
Soul Coughing - Bus to Beelzebub
Thinking Plague - Dead Silence
XTC - Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me)

So, wait, this is your prediction, rather than your personal 10 best? Interesting. I can't really argue with them, and of course I'm too skewed to early 70's power rock. It's what I like.

You should know, their methodology was to somehow sum the total of all the top 10 lists submitted to them, rather than to just pick in studio. One consequence of this is that multiple copies of a song can appear, if at least one was a cover. For example, Jersey Girl by Springsteen and Waits were right next to each other, at 684 and 685.

So anyway, because of this, XPN won't necessarily restrict the top 10 to one representative song per artist. (Though, I must confess, I sort of did this for my own top 10.) I fully expect the top few of the XPN list to be all Dylan and Beatles. I think an interesting bet would be the position and identity of the first non-Beatles non-Dylan song. My current guess is Satisfaction at 6.

I really want to hear your ten best.

I feel really un-trendy right now. I don't know a single song on this list. But at least I've heard of Modest Mouse!

Eh. I just don't know techno, and I'm okay anyway with saying I just don't like it in general. And yes, Jeffy, you had a little something to do with that.

I wuv you!

Well, i had partially accounted for the methodology, as that's how most of these lists are compiled, but i didn't necessarily account for the sample population. However, i was assuming "no covers unless they're definitive" ("Respect" & "Hound Dog") in the same way Y100's album countdown typically leads with "no compilations or best ofs, unless they're definitive" (Bob Marley "Legend").

That said, the Beatles did represent about half of a recent Rolling Stone Best Albums poll top ten - I would be shocked not to see it happen here. However, I don't think Bob would necessarily rank that many songs at the top if a different population was polled, but a glance at their sample page has all sorts of Dylan songs i don't know in top tens.

This is, of course, why i rarely put any faith in scientific polling that samples such a fractional amount of a population, no matter how carefully or randomly selected; i would wager that a truely representative poll of music lovers (and, be sure, this isn't a critics poll, they haev musicians right next to traffic reporters) around the country would *probably* yield less top-ranked Dylan in favor of more commercially successful singles in the vein of "Respect" and "Satisfaction" in the same way that any idiot knew that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was being watched by a hell of a lot more people than Neilsen said it was.

Ahh, grad school, how she beckons me.

Desh, I'm ashamed. Well, at least it didn't work the other way around and make me lose my ire regarding Pearl Jam.*

--Jeff

* With the exception of one song... "Even Flow". I don't know why, but it's a really good song, in spite of Eddie Vedder.

i simply looked up my itunes 'most played" list and took it from there.

green day - time of your life (just is what it is, a good luck song as it were)
evanesence - anywhere
goo goo dolls - sympathy
goo goo dolls - girl right next to me
simon and garfunkle - sounds of silence
don mclean - vincent
matchbox 20 - unwell
green day - boulevard of broken dreams/wake me up when september ends (tied)
jimmy eat world - a praise chorus
michell branch - are you happy now

How about Joni Mitchell? She's been getting a lot of XPN airtime in this top 885 of theirs, and she has a REALLY good voice. Of course, my fave of hers is "Big Yellow Taxi", which isn't very representative of her usual stuff.

--Jeff

I generally shy away from the "Most Played" category, since my tastes for what I want to listen to tend to wax and wane in several different directions. Favorites of the moment aren't necessarily long-time favorites. One of my favorite songs is "Bebop" by Charlie Parker, yet it is often left off my playlist if I'm not in a Jazz mood (this week, I am). You seem to be in an Alternative Rock mood this week, Jilli.

--Jeff

Obviously Dan my Man, you are a racist shvine! Look how all of those people are white, except for JH. Obviously you are a honkey cruising for some trouble.

Oh wait, I read down a bit to where you praise the Roots. They rule. Now I wont have to send the PC Attack Pandas to chew your ass to shreds.

If you're interested, you can probably find free, legal mp3s by a lot of these groups at www.epitonic.com. You can here the Pere Ubu here:
http://isomerica.net/~electricwalrus/postpunk/
You can hear some other stuff by Thinking Plague at www.cuneiformrecords.com (but don't listen to the track from A History of Madness cause it's not one of their better tracks).

Tentatively, in no specific order, with extended justifications on CK.

Lisa Loeb, Stay
David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust
Madonna, Vogue
Ani DiFranco, Untouchable Face
The Supremes, Stop In The Name of Love
The Beatles, Oh Darling
Sheryl Crow, All I Wanna Do
Carole King, I Feel The Earth Move
Weezer, Say It Ain't So
Veruca Salt, The Morning Sad

I'd be shocked if any of them make the top ten on XPN, but on MTV or VH1 i might have a shot.

it was hard, and i limited myself to recordings (rather than traditional songs) and recordings with vocal at that (i listen to a lot of instrumental stuff). that said here it is, in no order

back to the earth - rusted root
thank you - dido
hearts and bones - paul simon
spanish train - chris de burgh
conversation - joni mitchell
i was only 19 - old '97s
when i was a boy - dar williams
tillman county - dave carter & tracy grammer
still... you turn me on - emerson, lake, and palmer
the origin of love - hedwig and the angry inch

Back To The Earth is totally my you song. I think of you every time I hear it, which is rather often because it's on that mix of yours...

Today's top 10:

878 LEAST COMPLICATED [BY] INDIGO GIRLS

15 A CASE OF YOU [BY] JONI MITCHELL

784 HIGH AND DRY [BY] RADIOHEAD

456 BITTERSWEET SYMPHONY [BY] VERVE, THE

736 SCARBOROUGH FAIR CANTICLE [BY] SIMON AND GARFUNKEL

375 WHEN I WAS A BOY [BY] DAR WILLIAMS

244 CLOCKS [BY] COLDPLAY

5 SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL [BY] ROLLING STONES

21 IN YOUR EYES [BY] PETER GABRIEL

205 CRASH [BY] DAVE MATTHEWS BAND

Keep in mind, that's just today's. In about two hours, my list will be completely different.

your list is perfect, i couldnt agree more. but i would add a bowie and queen song, if your doing a top 20 anytime soon.

1. Doors - Light My Fire

amazing song=]

-mary kate.

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Top 10 songs ever

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In no particular order....

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I couldn't get it below top 13

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since i wanted to make it easier on myself

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DAN=RACIST!

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Tentative Ten

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