Vote, vote, vote

You’ve still got two weeks to send Norm your votes for the top 10 rock and pop songs of all time. I don’t usually approve of voting, but I’ll make an exception here, if only to stop the list being dominated by over-rated Scousers and Mancs and Stairway to bleeding Heaven.

So, in no particular order, here are my top ten. It would be too male to put them in precise order, wouldn’t it?

The Model – Kraftwerk

No-one else captured that feeling you get when you see a beautiful but unattainable woman.

Starman - David Bowie

Before him, pop stars were just vacuous pretty boys.

I’m Alone – Jimmy Donley

There’s gotta be some swamp pop in the top 10. And Jimmy Donley should be the patron singer of bloggers everywhere – unrecognized genius.

Pale Blue Eyes – Velvet Underground

The original and best indie band.

Always on my Mind – Elvis Presley

It ain’t a top ten without the King. The only good thing John Lennon ever did was name his cat Elvis. (Apart from the collaboration with David Bowie on Fame, and writing Jealous Guy, and inspiring the best Scouse joke of all*.)

Stand by Me – Ben E. King

Dunno why, I just like it. This just edges out Muhammed Ali’s version.

Sam Cooke – Wonderful World

All the maths you need to know.

Once in a Lifetime – Talking Heads

Sounded amazing when I was 18. Sounds true now I’m 40.

Paper Thin Hotel – Leonard Cohen

I guess I’m in a minority here, but to me the greatest pop music collaboration of all time isn’t Lennon and Mccartney, Bacharach and David, Morrissey and Marr, or Lieber and Stoller. It’s Cohen and Spector. Magnificently over the top, this is I Will Survive for heterosexual men.

After All – Dar Williams

The inspirer of this blog shows why she’s the greatest singer-songwriter of all time (bar Hank).

This list is subject to three constraints. I've excluded country music, as Norm asked. I've limited myself to one song per artist. And I've suppressed my patriotic instincts, so there's nothing by Kasabian, Showaddywaddy or Englebert.

Near misses come from other songs by these 10, plus, among others, Tom Waits, Otis Redding, Sex Pistols, James Brown, Low, Joy Division (though not Love Will Tear Us Apart), The Smiths (not How Soon Is Now), Pulp, REM, Percy Sledge and the Ronettes, among others.

* The motto of Liverpool John Lennon Airport is “Above us, only sky” (yes, really.) The motto of the baggage handlers is: “Imagine no possessions.”

Comments

[Bryan]

here here on the Jimmy Donley, an unrecognized genius indeed. Nice to stumble across the name on the internet, even nicer to hear his music! sadly that one's out of print I think