The Greatest Post of All Time!

[vovat]

For all you readers in the Philadelphia area and certain parts of Maryland, WXPN put out their list of the top 885 songs of all time. I remember when they were talking about this, but I didn't actually listen to the broadcast. For what it's worth, I'm not sure why every list has to be "the greatest [whatever]s of all time," especially when it's obviously biased in favor of recent songs. I mean, how many songs on the list are from before the latter half of the twentieth century? Not that I listen to much music from prior to that time either, and, indeed, if I were listing my personal favorite songs, they'd probably be primarily from an even narrower period of time. But the song form was certainly around before then, and I don't say my personal favorites are representative of "the greatest songs of all time," either. Oh, well. I guess exaggeration sells, or something.


Anyway, I'm glad to see three songs by the Pixies (songs 806, 709, and 361), three by Tori Amos (752, 490, and 220), and one by XTC (670). Granted, the XTC song they chose was "Dear God," and I would probably have to say that, if that's your favorite XTC song, you haven't listened to enough by the band. Still, I'm glad they showed up.

I can assume that the prevalence of folky singer-songwriter stuff on WXPN explains why, for instance, there are five Dar Williams songs on the list (859, 858, 812, 789, and 375). Not that I have anything against Dar, mind you (and I know a few people on my friends list are fans of hers), but I'm not sure she's all that well-known to the general public. That Los Lonely Boys song that they play the crap out of on that station is also on there (722). Maybe I'm biased because I don't think that song is that great, but didn't that song come out less than a year ago? Isn't it a bit early to be declaring it one of the greatest of all time?

I'm not sure how even ONE Dave Matthews song made the list, let alone five (392, 380, 324, 266, 205), as well as one by his even more boring clone John Mayer (580). There are a lot of artists that I don't like but I can see why other people do. The popularity of Matthews and Mayer, on the other hand, seems inexplicable to me.


A few other songs on which I thought I should comment:

817 IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS [BY] BARENAKED LADIES

I was never a big fan of BNL. I have Gordon, but that's it. Pretty much everyone I know who IS a BNL fan talks about how much they've gone downhill recently, though, so I guess it's cool that their one showing on this list is a song from when they were actually good (and that has members of Moxy Früvous doing backing vocals).

519 NOTHING BUT FLOWERS [BY] TALKING HEADS

Several Talking Heads songs made the list, but this is a personal favorite of mine, so it's cool to see it there.

390 ANOTHER TRAIN - THE POSIES

Like the Ken Stringfellow/Jon Auer Posies? I like that band, but I've never heard this song, nor can I find any information on it. Is it misattributed, or what?

269 SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW [BY] JUDY GARLAND

Okay, so there's at least one song from the thirties in the list. There are probably more that I just didn't recognize as being from that time period. Didn't this take third place in somebody's list of the top songs of the twentieth century? It didn't fare anywhere near as well here.

90 BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY [BY] QUEEN

This was the only Queen song on the list, for some reason. I really would have expected more.

30 SOUNDS OF SILENCE [BY] SIMON GARFUNKEL

Heh, "Simon Garfunkel." Wasn't this on a recent list of the WORST songs ever? Not that I agreed with its presence there. It's one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs.

Comments

[levelfive.livejournal.com]

Simon Garfunkel. hah. that list was full of typos.

yeah, "The Sounds of Silence" was on a list of the worst songs ever written or something. kind of stupid, since everybody i know really loves that song.

i'm just glad XTC made it on that list at all, even if it IS just for "Dear God." oh well. it's a good song anyway, although there are better.

and John Mayer/Dave Matthews suck. yes.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I've never been really all that into BNL at all. The only one of theirs I own is Maroon, and I actually _REALLY LIKE_ that one a lot, but apparently it's like, their worst-selling album ever and basically all the actual fans hate it. Although I think their new one, uh, Everything To Everyone or whatever it's called is _really really fucking dire_. I heard it in a record store (pretty much the whole thing, too; it was over the PA, and I tend to take an inordinately long time in record stores. Because I love records. And DVDs, too, and this one had DVDs as well, so, y'know, doubly long), and it's basically a bunch of stuff that's Retreads Of Other Things They've Done, like that "Chimps" song was basically "One Week" without the Wit And Charm, and Testing 1-2-3 was pretty much just the straightforward pop-songs they do just... without any spark/juice/whatever that makes their good stuff Listenable. And there were a bunch of other really terrible ones, like the one about Shopping, or... the stuff I'm forgetting other than going "Oh my god, is this BNL? Jesus, did they get hit in the head or something and decide to just completely get rid of anything that made me even tolerate them?"

Aside from Maroon, though, there's a few songs of theirs I like too, and $1000000 is one of them.

Also looking at the list -- I'm really surprised Daniel Johnston made the list. That's pretty cool, but not the one I would have chosen ("Rock'n'Roll/EGA" -- I don't listen to a lot of his stuff, but that song is nigh-perfect). Yay, Patsy Cline and also "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell! (That song is really, really good. It's funny, because it's written by Jimmy Webb (as are quite a few of Glen Campbell's best songs), which is nice because it makes it clear that it was MacArthur Park that was the fluke, and not the good stuff.)

Simon Garfunkel's cousin, Simon & Garfunkle is also on the list with "Only Living Boy In New York", which is keen, because I really dig that song, and the title is just basically completely the kind of thing that I totally eat up.

Heh, this is amusing:
685 JERSEY GIRL [BY] TOM WAITS
684 JERSEY GIRL [BY] BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Whoa! Peaches en Regalia at 612! That's awesome! On that note, Baby's On Fire by Eno at 523!

OH GOD YES. 283: This Must Be The Place - Talking Heads. This is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. I ADORE this song. Pretty much if David Byrne had only written one song, and this were it, he'd STILL be pretty much one of the number one songwriters in the world.

Only thing I can really think of that's missing is "Flowers on the Wall" by the Statler Brothers. But overall, that's actually a good list. If radio were like THAT, it'd be so much better and actually not terrible. I would listen to that station. Even during the songs on that list I hated. Man.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree that "Only Living Boy In New York" is cool, both in terms of the title and the actual song. They were playing that in a music store about a month ago, and I hadn't heard it in some time, so it was good to hear again.

I'm also quite fond of "This Must Be The Place," although I still prefer "Nothing But Flowers." I've been meaning to get more Talking Heads albums. I currently have Sand in the Vaseline, plus I ripped my dad's copy of Little Creatures, but I'm not sure which album to get next.

I'd definitely include "Flowers On The Wall" on a list like that. I'd also include some TMBG, of course, but I wasn't exactly expecting them to show up. If they had, it almost certainly would have been with "Birdhouse In Your Soul." The thing is, I don't think that station plays much TMBG except on their kids' show, which was actually the first place I ever heard "Birdhouse."

[revme.livejournal.com]

With Talking Heads -- basically pick up Stop Making Sense (either the DVD (definitely the DVD) or the re-issued CD), and that's a great starter. Otherwise, I'd recommend on holding off for a while, because apparently they're going to reissue all the records remastered and such. (Remain In Light's even getting the 5.1 treatment -- that comes out in March.) Oh, also "Name of this Band is Talking Heads" is both a) Safe To Get Now (since it just came out on CD, all remastered and spiffed up) and b) wicked awesome. So, basically both of those. (If you are feeling spendy, the Once In A Lifetime Book/Box set is pretty keen, too -- it comes with a DVD of "Storytelling Giant" their video compilation, re-edited to include the new videos that hadn't come out when the tape did. And all the other stuff is remastered on that, too.)

If you're just looking for albums, I'm fond of '77/More Songs About Buildings and Food. I don't really care for Speaking In Tongues that much, though -- the Stop Making Sense versions of those songs blow the album ones out of the water. (Also, the production/synth bass on SIT bugs me. Maybe this will be fixed in the remaster, though, because I'm not sure how much of it is lousy production and how much is lousy mastering. Because the album doesn't really sound all that great on CD.) I don't have Little Creatures or Naked yet, although a lot of the tracks from Naked don't really jazz me. Although I do want Little Creatures.

Oh, you should also see "True Stories" if you haven't. It's usually available on a pan-and-scan (boo!) dvd for like 6 bucks new, if you know where to look (like Borders or cut-out type bins). It's an excellent, excellent film. And it's got John Goodman singing "People Like Us", which is actually nails even better than David Byrne does, and David does that song excellently.

But yes. I keep intending to write a thiing about how "Flowers on the Wall" is one of the greatest country singles of all time, but I keep putting it off. Oh well!

[onib.livejournal.com]

I think BNL's Maroon wasn't as well received by die-hard fans because it's much more cerebral and introspective than their other albums. They wrote the songs while Kevin, the keyboardist, was going through chemotherapy, and I think the lyrics reflect their focus on life & death during this period. Most of the fans seemed a little uncomfortable with the lack of bouncy songs.

It took me a few listens to the new album to come around to it. For instance, I didn’t like Shopping very much until I realized that it was actually a rip on Bush and his naive advice that Americans should fight terror and support the economy by going out and buying more stuff.

But yeah, most of the album seemed to be lacking a lot of the spark of their earlier stuff.

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

i used to be a big fan of the bnl. while i still love them as people, their music now just maes me sad. i don't know what they've done. i couldn't even make it through songs from their latest album. they were so horrid. 'gordon,' 'maybe you should drive,' and 'born on a pirate ship' were so amazing. they they came out with "one week" and.. well, you know .

[vovat.livejournal.com]

This comment disappeared earlier today, and then it reappeared. Weird.

[tisok.livejournal.com]

390 ANOTHER TRAIN - THE POSIES

Like the Ken Stringfellow/Jon Auer Posies? I like that band, but I've never heard this song, nor can I find any information on it. Is it misattributed, or what?

never heard of it either and i've got just about all of their stuff. a search on google only turned up this (http://www.harbourtownrecords.com/morton.html), which obviously isn't them.