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Wednesday, November 24, 2010 10:17 AM
(Last updated on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 10:18 AM)
The Best Songs of All Time
 by Fëanor

A couple of friends forced me to do this! They challenged me on Facebook! What could I do?

Really any top ten list of the best songs of all time is ridiculous, because there are just too many great songs out there, plenty of which I'm sure I've never heard. But it's still an interesting and fun exercise.

A little backstory on process and such: my iPod contains my entire music collection, and I rate the songs on it religiously. I keep a smart playlist of all of my five star-rated songs. Naturally I started there when looking for the best songs ever. However, the playlist contains over 1500 tracks, so picking the best of the best was tricky. I just scrolled through for a while, setting aside my favorites. Then I tried sorting by the number of plays, with the assumption that the more times I'd listened to a song, the more I like it. But I listen to my iPod on shuffle so often that really this number is mostly arbitrary. So then I got more systematic about it and started trying to pick out one or more representative songs by the artists who appeared most frequently on the list, or who I felt deserved a place on the best of list. Doing this made me realize that some of my favorite songs had been mistakenly rated only four stars, so I'm glad I got that fixed!

The first version of my best of list was 82 songs long. After that, it was time for some serious culling. Once I got it down to fifty (which took hours), I really had a hard time shaving it down any more. Every song was just too good. So I finally had to make up various rules to complete the culling, and make my decisions swiftly and ruthlessly, so the cuts would be painless. I decided I wanted to include only really great artists on the list - folks with a long and impressive body of work. Anybody who just happened to do one or two great songs was out. I also decided to keep only the more classic artists, if you will; more recent artists were mercilessly cut. I was going here by the idea (arguable, but as I understand it, in use by critics when they go about creating a canon) that you can't know if somebody's really good if they've only been around for a little while. With only ten entries available to me on my list, I felt I had to be more conservative and make sure to include the grand old fellows - the big, essential artists.

Anyway, here's what I was left with:

  1. "Tangled Up In Blue" - Bob Dylan (Blood on the Tracks)

  2. "Thunder Road" - Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)

  3. "Wish You Were Here" - Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here)

  4. "So What" - Miles Davis (Kind of Blue)

  5. "How Many More Times" - Led Zeppelin (Led Zeppelin I)

  6. "Quartet: Acknowledgement (Part 1)" - John Coltrane (A Love Supreme)

  7. "Hey Joni" - Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation)

  8. "The Musical Box" - Genesis (Nursery Cryme)

  9. "We're Not Gonna Take It" - The Who (Tommy)

  10. "Beyond Belief" - Elvis Costello & The Attractions (Imperial Bedroom)


I'm actually more proud of my top fifty list than my top ten list, because it's more diverse and I got to fit a lot more of my favorite stuff on it. Even so, I wasn't able to get everybody on there I wanted to, and I surprised myself with how many spots on the list I gave over to certain artists (Genesis and Tori Amos in particular - I didn't realize I liked them that much!). A number of bands that I'd list among the greatest ever, and definitely among my personal favorites, didn't get spots on the list. I'm particularly upset about Radiohead and Talking Heads not being represented, and to a lesser extent, The Police. But when I listened to what I'd consider my favorite songs by them, they just didn't stand out for me as among the best of all time. I think I like those bands more for their bodies of work, and how that work changed music in general, than for any specific songs. Or maybe I just happen to be in a weird mood. I'm sure if I made either list a couple of months from now, or a couple of months before now, they'd come out differently.

Regardless, for posterity, here's the top fifty list, in alphabetical order by artist:

  1. "4th Of July" - Aimee Mann (Whatever)

  2. "Will You Smile Again For Me" - ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (Worlds Apart)

  3. "Whatever Happened to My Rock 'N Roll" - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (B.R.M.C.)

  4. "Tangled Up In Blue" - Bob Dylan (Blood On The Tracks)

  5. "Highway 61 Revisited" - Bob Dylan (Highway 61 Revisited)

  6. "Isis" - Bob Dylan (Live 1975)

  7. "Thunder Road" - Bruce Springsteen (Born To Run)

  8. "Born To Run" - Bruce Springsteen (Born To Run)

  9. "Drive" - The Cars (Greatest Hits)

  10. "Chelsea" - Counting Crows (Across A Wire: Live In New York)

  11. "A Murder of One" - Counting Crows (August and everything after)

  12. "The Island, Come And See, The Landlord's Daughter, You'll Not Feel The Drowning" - The Decemberists (The Crane Wife)

  13. "The End" - The Doors (Best Of The Doors (Disc 2))

  14. "Alison" - Elvis Costello (My Aim Is True)

  15. "Waiting For The End Of The World" - Elvis Costello (My Aim Is True)

  16. "Beyond Belief" - Elvis Costello & The Attractions (Imperial Bedroom)

  17. "Everlong" - Foo Fighters (The Colour & the Shape)

  18. "In Your Honor" - Foo Fighters (In Your Honor)

  19. "Me And Sarah Jane" - Genesis (Abacab)

  20. "That's All" - Genesis (Genesis)

  21. "The Musical Box" - Genesis (Nursery Cryme)

  22. "Dance On A Volcano" - Genesis (A Trick Of The Tail)

  23. "One For The Vine" - Genesis (Wind & Wuthering)

  24. "Blood On The Rooftops" - Genesis (Wind & Wuthering)

  25. "Quartet: Acknowledgement (Part 1)" - John Coltrane (A Love Supreme)

  26. "How Many More Times" - Led Zeppelin (I)

  27. "Stairway To Heaven" - Led Zeppelin (IV)

  28. "So What" - Miles Davis (Kind Of Blue)

  29. "Hurt" - Nine Inch Nails (The Downward Spiral)

  30. "Last Exit" - Pearl Jam (Vitalogy)

  31. "Wish You Were Here" - Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here)

  32. "Sympathy For The Devil" - The Rolling Stones (Beggars Banquet)

  33. "Here I Come (Feat. Dice Raw & Malik B.)" - The Roots (Game Theory)

  34. "Something In The Way Of Things (In Town)" - The Roots (Phrenology)

  35. "Entertain" - Sleater-Kinney (The Woods)

  36. "Let's Call It Love" - Sleater-Kinney (The Woods)

  37. "Eric's Trip" - Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation)

  38. "Hey Joni" - Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation)

  39. "The Way We Get By" - Spoon (Kill The Moonlight)

  40. "Do It Again" - Steely Dan (Citizen Steely Dan 1972 - 1980)

  41. "Black Friday" - Steely Dan (Citizen Steely Dan 1972 - 1980)

  42. "Deacon Blues" - Steely Dan (A Decade of Steely Dan)

  43. "Father Lucifer" - Tori Amos (Boys For Pele)

  44. "Caught A Lite Sneeze" - Tori Amos (Boys For Pele)

  45. "Muhammad My Friend" - Tori Amos (Boys For Pele)

  46. "Not The Red Baron" - Tori Amos (Boys For Pele)

  47. "One" - U2 (Achtung Baby)

  48. "Beginning To See The Light" - The Velvet Underground (The Best Of The Velvet Underground)

  49. "Cut My Hair" - The Who (Quadrophenia - Disc 1)

  50. "We're Not Gonna Take It" - The Who (Tommy)
Tagged (?): Lists (Not), Music (Not)


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Welcome to the blog of Jim Genzano, writer, web developer, husband, father, and enjoyer of things like the internet, movies, music, games, and books.

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