"Genius of Love" (Tom Tom Club)

“Genius of Love” (1981) has become such an ol' skool R&B staple that many people fail to realize that Tom Tom Club was actually a side project of Talking Heads.  Specifically, Tina Weymouth (bass/vocals) and her husband Chris Frantz (drums) took a break after touring to promote Remain in Light (1980) and headed to Nassau, Bahamas, for a little r&r (rum and rock lobster…rest and reggae…reefer and relaxation…okay, I’ll stop now). 
During their stay, Weymouth and Frantz often would unwind by listening to music and jamming with various musicians and friends.  They called the ragtag bunch “Tom Tom Club” in honor of the Bahamian club where they’d first rehearsed.
As Frantz notes in a 2011 Vulture article, they weren’t listening/jamming out to New Wave or post-punk during these get-togethers; they were listening to dance music.
“When we wanted to relax and have a good time, we’d put on Bohannon or Parliament Funkadelic, not The Clash. They’re fantastic, but to unwind and have a good time, we preferred Smokey Robinson & the Miracles or James Brown. We also loved reggae music.”
So when their pal Chris Blackwell (founder of Island Records and Nassau’s Compass Point Studios, where Talking Heads had recorded several albums) invited them to the studio to record a single as Tom Tom Club, they pretty much knew what they wanted to do.
“There was this one song that I loved called ‘More Bounce to the Ounce’ by a group called Zapp, and ‘Genius of Love’ was inspired by that.”
In fact, the whole song is more or less a shout-out to the artists they liked to chill out to--which explains Frantz intoning Jaaames Brooown!  Jaaames Broooooown! at the end of the song.

"Once in a Lifetime" (Talking Heads)

The gestation of Remain in Light (1980) by Talking Heads pretty much can be traced to three events.
First, early on in his relationship with the band, producer Brian Eno played them a copy of Nigerian artist Fela Kuti's Afrodisiac (1973)--a prototypical example of Afrobeat (a genre that Kuti himself created, which combines traditional African folk music with funk and jazz.)
Second, back when hip-hop was brand new, Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz gave frontman David Byrne a copy of Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks."
Third, during the band's brief hiatus in 1979, Byrne and Eno collaborated on an experimental project called My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (released in 1981), which relied heavily on creating funk-influenced tracks around "found sounds"--including everything from snippets of static to recordings of radio evangelists.  (It's considered the first commercial example of modern sampling and largely established the precedent for sample clearance practices.)
Each of these events influenced the way the band tackled the creation of Remain in Light.  Instead of taking their usual approach of writing new music, rehearsing and arranging those songs, and ultimately putting the polished material on tape in the studio, they instead reversed the process: jamming in the studio, listening back at what they'd spontaneously created, culling the parts they liked best, and then writing lyrics and other melodies around those grooves.  Essentially, they were "sampling" their own rhythms, basslines, guitar licks, etc.--the end result being funky, trance-like songs that had the rhythmic complexity of Afrobeat.
When it came to putting words to the music, Byrne took cues from his "found sounds" and nascent hip-hop, harvesting direct quotes from sources like Nixon's Watergate Tapes as well as coming up with stream of consciousness chants and hooks that paid homage to Kurtis Blow and The Sugarhill Gang.
Specifically, "Once in a Lifetime" developed out of a jam session and Byrne's recordings of Pentecostal preachers, hence his very proclamatory, sermon-like delivery.  And despite what many critics thought, Byrne wasn't railing against 80s excesses in the song; he was just pondering how we often go from "point A" to "point B" without thinking.  As he stated in a 2012 NPR interview, "We operate half awake or on autopilot and end up, whatever, with a house and family and job and everything else, and we haven't really stopped to ask ourselves, 'How did I get here?'"
And that indelible chorus?  After Byrne hit a brick wall, trying to come up with some sort of melody that fit the groove, Eno came up with something off the top of his head, using nonsense syllables initially.  In time, it developed into the lines we all know:
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
Into the blue again, after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground...

 

"Sound and Vision" (David Bowie)

It was mid-1976.  David Bowie was tired of the LA scene.  Tired of cocaine addiction.  Tired of addiction's bedfellow, paranoia.  Just...tired.
So he up and moved to Berlin--the brooding Bohemian center of the avant-garde with its hulking, graffiti-covered wall slicing it into West and East.  It was a place where no one seemed to care that he was an international rock superstar, and that suited him perfectly.
The first of three albums born of his German expatriation was Low (1977), a direct reference to how he was feeling at the time.  
Upon its release, Low confounded critics and fans, who were expecting another installation of R&B-flavored rock, à la Young Americans (1975) or Station to Station (1976).  Instead, what listeners got was a record where Bowie navel gazed over buzzing/burbling/quivering guitars (courtesy of long-time Bowie cohorts Carlos Alomar and Ricky Gardiner), futuristic synths (courtesy of kindred spirit Brian Eno), and Dennis Davis's thunderous drums, which sounded like they were exploding with every lick (courtesy of producer Tony Visconti's then-new gadget, the Eventide H910 Harmonizer--one of the first combo digital pitch shifters/delay effects boxes.)  
A perennial favorite of mine from this timeless album is the track "Sound and Vision."  It sneakily presents itself as an upbeat pop song, but then takes a left turn when Bowie finally shows up to croon after a 1:30 instrumental intro.  Quite simply, he's singing about being hole up in his room with the blinds drawn, cut off from the rest of the world, watching TV.  He's not really lamenting his isolation or particularly celebrating it; he's simply observing it like a bystander, hypothetically asking the listener, "Have you ever wondered about isolation, too?"

"Cars" (Gary Numan)

Here in the US, Gary Numan (aka Gary Webb) didn't really get his due until bands in the 90s like Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins started covering his songs live.  To many, he was merely a "one-hit wonder," even though he'd had a string of hit songs in the United Kingdom and was an influence on artists ranging from Devo to Afrika Bambaataa.
But if you're going to be known for a single song on this side of the pond, "Cars" from the 1979 album The Pleasure Principle is a damn good one to be known for.
The song was inspired by an incident where Numan was sitting in London traffic and suddenly found himself being harassed by a couple of bruisers on the sidewalk, who apparently singled him out because of his signature black mascara look (more on that in a minute).  In short, they tried beating him up and pulling him from the vehicle, but Numan locked his doors and drove up on the sidewalk to get away.  
As he commented to Mojo magazine in 2008, "After that, I began to see the car as the tank of modern society."
Speaking of Numan's "look" and persona, his icy, slightly androgynous image was an unintended byproduct of trying to mask the fact that he was just a painfully shy person with bad skin.  
In a 2011 interview with The Music Press, Numan commented that, despite now being called "the godfather of synth," he couldn't even afford to own a synthesizer early on.  Until he had a few hits under his belt and was able to purchase a Moog, he was writing new music by working on rented synthesizers in the studio for only a couple of hours at a time.  In fact, he said he knew little or nothing about analog synthesizers before encountering a Moog that someone had left in the recording studio.  He was intrigued by the instrument and started experimenting with channeling the sound through his guitar pedals and amps to create new textures.  The specific goal was not to be groundbreaking; he was just looking for something that sounded interesting.
When he and his band Tubeway Army eventually released a few of their synth-rock experiments in the late 70s, Numan suddenly found himself an unlikely pop success and in demand to perform--particularly on high profile shows like Britain's Top of the Pops.  Ultimately, the entire robot aesthetic was the result of terrible stage fright and a BBC makeup artist covering him in pale, android-like makeup to hide his severe acne from TV viewers.  
Anyway, as overplayed as "Cars" might be, it somehow still sounds as fresh and futuristic as when I heard it for the first time as a kid, circa 1980.

"This Year's Girl" (Elvis Costello & The Attractions)

Elvis Costello's 1978 album This Year's Model is a hard album to cherry pick.  It's one of those rare albums that fires on all cylinders the whole way through.  Even on the "slow" songs, there's a manic urgency that sounds like a Bill Haley & The Comets show on amphetamines, largely in thanks to the production of fellow Brit songwriter/producer Nick Lowe, whose own Jesus of Cool from '78 reads like a playbook of snarky indie rock.
"This Year's Girl" from the album is one of the "slower" songs, rocking along with a syncopated, vaguely mambo beat.  Lyrically, Costello seems as disgusted with rich playboys using their money and influence to snag the latest "it" girls as he does with the glossed-up "it" girls who stare back vapidly from their magazine covers and billboards.   Musically, it features The Attractions' signature sound: Costello's crunchy pub-rock guitar, Steve Nieve's wiry, brittle Vox Continental organ, Pete Thomas's reverb-heavy drums, and Bruce Thomas's nimble bass, which rarely is content to just rest on one note.
Although it was never released as a single from the album, it's as single-worthy as "Radio, Radio" or "Pump It Up."

(Because Universal Music Group has blocked the album version from being posted online, here's a live performance from Passaic, NJ, 1978.)

"Do You Wanna Touch Me" (Joan Jett)

Okay, let's get this out of the way first.  "Do You Wanna Touch Me" was written and originally performed by British glam rocker Gary Glitter, né Paul Gadd.  I'm not going to use this forum to enumerate what he's done/has been accused of doing, but he's a despicable human being.
But this isn't about him.  
This is about a helluva performance by a rock icon/survivor.  
Joan Jett was touring the globe and cranking out hooky glam and punk rock with The Runaways at the age of 17.  She hit rock bottom by age 21, and then, when no US record company would sign her as a solo artist, she founded a her own record label with writer/producer Kenny Laguna to self-release her 1980 comeback album, Joan Jett (re-issued by Boardwalk Records as Bad Reputation in 1981).  
Badass.
In fact, it really ticks me off whenever I mention Joan Jett and someone replies, "Yeah, she rocks pretty hard...for a girl."
Dammit.  No.  No!  NO!  She ROCKS.  
Period.
I saw her in concert a few years ago in 2009, and she commanded the stage unlike any performer I'd ever seen.  She didn't have elaborate lighting or set design.  She didn't come out in some bizarre outfit to grab everyone's attention (she was wearing a black Runaways t-shirt with black leather pants).  She strode onstage, strapped on her guitar, told us in her tough New Yawk accent that she'd recently turned 50 and was happy to be alive and kicking, and then launched headlong into "Bad Reputation," sounding like she was 17 again.  
Every song had that same energy.  But the real pinnacle of the show was "Do You Wanna Touch Me" from the Bad Reputation album, which she stretched into a 10-minute glammed-out jam with audience call-and-response: 
Do ya wanna touch?  
YEAH! 
Do ya wanna touch?  
YEAH!!!
YEAAAH, OH YEAH...OH YEAH!!!
I ended up singing and dancing with a biker chick and a couple of college-age brosephs and brosephines, and everyone had a frigging ball.  Such a great show.
The studio version of "...Touch Me" is equally rousing, with its gate reverb-drenched, recorded-live feel.  Jett snarls her way through the come-hither lyrics while she and her backing band crank up some filthy-sounding guitars to a pulsing beat that's calibrated to fill an arena.
At the end of 3:45, the song is hers and hers alone.

"Call Me" (Blondie)

No one embodies late 70s/early 80s New Wave better than Debbie Harry.  
Actually, scratch that.
No one embodies late 70s/early 80s New York City better than Debbie Harry.  Part East Village punk.  Part silver screen starlet.  Part Studio 54 disco chick.  Part Great White Way darling.  Part globe trekking Bohemian.  
A tough angel.  A street smart scholar.  A bombshell with brains...
And the song that wraps all of that up in one, tidy package is Blondie's "Call Me (Theme from American Gigolo)" (1980)--a song that Harry co-wrote with Italian producer Giorgio Moroder, who's probably best known for co-writing Donna Summer's disco moan-fest, "Love to Love You, Baby."  
Story is, Moroder was tapped to score the film American Gigolo, and he'd asked Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks to collaborate on a theme song.  However, because of contractual conflicts, Nicks was unable to participate, so Moroder contacted Harry instead.
(I'd say that worked out pretty well.)
The song walks a fine line between punk crunch and disco gloss.  There are Chris Stein's revved up, grungy guitars pitted against Moroder's sizzling synths, and Clem Burke's driving, bottom-heavy beat, which seems as readymade for slam dancing as it is for doing "The Bump."
And then there's Harry's vocal: channeling Peggy Lee at her smokiest one moment, and then yelling like Iggy Pop at a methadone clinic the next.
It's a perfect song in every conceivable way.

"Valerie" (Mark Ronson feat. Amy Winehouse)

In 2007, NYC-based British producer Mark Ronson released Version, a collection of R&B/soul covers of alt/indie rock and pop songs.  As you can imagine, covering the likes of The Smiths, Radiohead, and Britney Spears on the same disc with Motown-style arrangements produced mixed results.  
But a standout track on the album was a cover of The Zutons' 2006 indie rock song "Valerie," featuring the late Amy Winehouse on vocal.  In fact, it's one of those charmed instances where the artist covering the song owns it so completely that you almost don't associate it with the original.
The collaboration came about because Ronson had co-produced Winehouse's 2006 hit album, Back to Black, which itself had a 1960s throwback feel.  Ronson requested that Winehouse choose a modern rock song that she could cover for the Version project, and she suggested The Zutons' song--a track that Ronson initially wasn't sure was a good fit for her voice and style.  
Ultimately, "Valerie" would become one of her signature songs.
And the reason is crystal clear: Winehouse's interpretation and immaculate delivery retains the humor of the original, only it's tinged with her ever-present, Billie Holiday-like melancholy, which pushes the soul quotient to the max.
(Plus, there's the added bonus of lighthearted studio chatter at the beginning of the track, where Winehouse references a bit of Dave Chapelle.)

"Reach Out I'll Be There" (The Four Tops)

Chances are, if you hear a song by Martha & The Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, or The Four Tops from the mid-1960s, it was written by the team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Brian Holland.  In all, the trio composed more than 50 Top 10 hits, including 25 #1 songs, for Motown Records between 1962-1968.
One of my favorite Holland-Dozier-Holland compositions is "Reach Out I'll Be There" (1966), as performed by The Four Tops.  It's a song that has so many memorable elements from start to finish--from the galloping rhythm in the intro (created by using timpani mallets on the plastic head of a tambourine with its cymbals removed) to that dramatic, intricate bassline, played by the inimitable James Jamerson of The Funk Brothers.
In a Sound On Sound online piece from February 2008, Dozier recalls his writing partner Brian Holland sitting down at the piano and playing a minor-hued pattern that had an almost Russian or Gypsy feel.  Dozier says Holland played around with the melody for awhile, but ultimately was stumped about where to go with it.  So Dozier sat down next to him at the piano and decided to go "into left field with a totally different feel," playing a verse that shifted the melody from Holland's moody minor key to a major key, giving it a gospel feel.  
In a separate 2013 Wall Street Journal article about the making of the song, Dozier notes that he and his writing partners also were listening to a lot of Bob Dylan in 1966.  As much as they admired him as a lyricist, they really liked Dylan's half-spoken, half-sung delivery on his songs, and they wanted to write something for Levi Stubbs, lead singer of The Four Tops, that had that same feel.  Says Dozier, "We wanted Levi to shout-sing 'Reach Outs''s lyrics--as a shout-out to Dylan."
So, there you go: it's one part Dylan, one part Russian/Gypsy folk song, one part gospel, and completely Motown.

"More Love" (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles)

Okay, everyone.  This one is heavy.  So get your Kleenexes ready.
The Miracles' frontman Smokey Robinson wrote "More Love" (1967) for his wife and fellow bandmate, Claudette, who had joined the band in 1958.  Quite simply, they'd had a tough time trying to start a family and maintain a marriage while also keeping up their hectic touring schedule.  The rigors of being on the road took a huge toll on Claudette's health, leading to a series of eight miscarriages and a set of twins who were stillborn.  As a result, Claudette retired from the road in 1964, even though she continued to record with the band.
Ultimately, Claudette confided to Smokey that she felt she had let him down with each miscarriage.  He replied with the song "More Love," which expressed that he would love her forever, no matter what:

More love, and more joy
Than age or time could ever destroy
My love will be so sound
It would take about a hundred lifetimes
To live it down, wear it down, tear it down...

It's not only a classic Motown recording, but one of the best, most sincere love songs ever recorded.
One thing I do want to point out is the production on this track.  It was a rare instance of The Miracles recording without the help of Motown's house backing band, The Funk Brothers.  In fact, the music track was recorded with session musicians in Los Angeles, which is where Motown would relocate in 1972.  
Although subtle, the feel of the track is different from the group's Detroit sessions from around that same time.  For example, take a listen to "I Second That Emotion," also from 1967, but cut with The Funk Brothers at Hitsville USA.  The groove is just a little more in-your-face, with the snare drums and bass pushed way up in the mix.  By comparison, "More Love" is more orchestral with hints of West Coast jazz and Southern California sunshine.  I usually prefer the rawer Detroit sound; however, the lush LA feel works exceptionally well for this timeless song.

"Gimme Some Lovin'" (The Spencer Davis Group)

Great Britain's Spencer Davis Group was named for its lead guitarist, Spencer Davis, who along with eventual superstar Steve Winwood (lead vocals and keyboards), Mervyn "Muff"--God, what an awful nickname--Winwood (bass), and Pete York (drums) comprised the original lineup of the R&B-flavored quartet.  The band got its name because the brothers Winwood didn't want to be bothered with talking to the press, so they elected to make Davis the bandleader since he was more comfortable in the hot seat.  (After all, Steve Winwood was barely 15 years old and his brother not much older when they joined the band in 1963.  So it's pretty understandable why they were eager to have Davis--who was in his mid 20s--be the titular frontman.)
The group's hit "Gimme Some Lovin'" (1966) is one of many songs from the 1960s that is largely built around a Hammond B-3 organ groove.  The Hammond is essentially a church organ with a built-in, rotating Leslie speaker that creates a slight swirling effect as a note is played.  Although the Hammond B-3 was used pretty extensively by jazz artists like Jimmy Smith in the late 50s/early 60s, it really was after Ray Charles featured the organ on several recordings (especially his 1961 album Genius + Soul = Jazz) that it became a sought after instrument for budding R&B and rock musicians.  And the list of Hammond enthusiasts is long:  Booker T. Jones of Booker T. & The MG's, Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals, Ray Manzarek of The Doors, session musician Al Kooper (who played the Hammond on Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone"), and many others. 
Steve Winwood also was a devotee of the Hammond B-3 and a Ray Charles disciple.  In fact, Charles's influence is all over Winwood's impassioned vocal and soulful keyboard work on "Gimme Some Lovin'."  Add in that thumping bassline, clunking cowbell percussion, and female backing singers, and the track easily could have been a Ray Charles single.  
Speaking of other people's songs, I discovered recently that "Gimme Some Lovin'" borrows pretty heavily from another 1966 song called "Ain't That A Lot of Love" by Memphis soul artist Homer Banks.   Although Banks's song has altogether different lyrics and lacks that distinctive Hammond organ sound, the chord progression and bassline are strikingly similar to "Gimme Some Lovin'."
So for your consideration, I'm posting both "Gimme Some Lovin'" (credited to S. Winwood, M. Winwood, S. Davis) and "Ain't That A Lot of Love" (credited to Homer Banks and Willia "Deanie" Parker).   
  

"Hip Hug-Her" (Booker T. & The MG's)

From 1962 until about 1971, Booker T. & The MG's was the official house band of Memphis-based Stax/Volt Records.  The combo of Booker T. Jones (Hammond organ / piano), Steve Cropper (guitar), Al Jackson, Jr. (drums), Lewie Steinberg (bass, 1962-65), and Donald "Duck" Dunn (bass, after 1965) played on most of the label's major hits of the 1960s, including: Otis Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness," Johnny Taylor's "Who's Makin' Love," and Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'," to name a few.  
When they weren't backing other famous artists, they were releasing albums and touring on their own.  One of their most consistent albums is Hip Hug-Her (1967).  From start to finish, it's an all-instrumental record filled with funky beats and Southern-fried riffs--perfect fodder for DJs looking for tasty samples.  But, in truth, it's kind of lean when it comes to songs that stand on their own as songs.  By that, I mean 75% of the album sounds like backing tracks or demos that are missing a lead vocal.  

After all, they were a backing band, albeit a damn good one.

One exception is the album's rollicking title track.  All elements come together to create the perfect soul stew: Jones's Hammond-B3 organ wails and Cropper's guitar snarls and moans through slight distortion.  But the foundation of it all is Jackson and Dunn.

As I've mentioned before, Jackson had a knack for playing just behind the beat, meaning that there was always a little swing in everything he played.  (The pattern he plays here, with the emphasis on the "2" and the "4" and those time-keeping 16th notes on the hi-hat, is very similar to his drumming on Otis Redding and Carla Thomas's duet "Tramp," released that same year.)

Dunn was the prototypical soul bassist who set the standard for how to establish a groove.  His closest peer was James Jamerson of Motown's Funk Brothers.  But as The Atlantic contributor David Graham pointed out in his 2012 tribute to Dunn, Jamerson was "melodic and intricate," whereas Dunn "was a riff-master, staying close to the triad of each chord and sticking to the bottom of the register."  It's that straightforward yet heavily rhythmic approach that influenced bassists from Paul McCartney (see: "Dear Prudence") to Paul Simonon (see "The Magnificent Seven.")  It's also that proverbial "bottom end" that gives "Hip Hug-Her" its thump and bounce.  (It's no coincidence that the song is named for some tight-fitting jeans.)

"Train in Vain" (The Clash)

I remember being about 4 years old (so, around mid-1982) and there being a rebroadcast of a late-1979 episode of 20/20 (the long-running ABC "news" magazine show that should have taken a dirt nap years ago) about punk rock.  (Oh, the things you can find on YouTube if you look hard enough.)
I recall sitting on our living room floor, listening to the painfully out of touch reporter talking about the mayhem at punk shows and how punk rock "noise" was going to bring an end to civilization as we knew it, all while stock footage of guys and gals with spiked hair, piercings, and black lipstick flashed across the screen.  
I was intrigued.
"How did that guy make his hair stand up like that?"
"Why do they wear earrings in their noses?"
"What was that song those loud guys were singing?" I asked my mom and dad.
My parents were, quite frankly, scared shitless by the report (as I'm sure half of America was).  After all, the neighbor girl had just returned from studying abroad in England, and she had come back with pink hair!  Obviously, the menace was right in our back yard, just as Hugh Downs and Baba Wawa had said!
Looking back, the most laughable part of the program was how desperately it tried to vilify The Clash as some sort of ringleaders, all but telling parents to burn any Clash records they found in their kids' bedrooms before their message of anarchy, wild dancing, and rock & roll infiltrated the fertile young brains of America's yoots.
My guess is that ABC rebroadcast the show to coincide with The Clash hitting the Top 10 with the single "Rock The Casbah."  (More on that sometime soon.)  
But the very first song that got The Clash on the US charts was "Train in Vain"--a song that wasn't even intended for release on the double-album London Calling (1979), but got tacked on at the very last minute.
According to The Clash's former guitarist Mick Jones in a 2002 Blender magazine article, the track--essentially a break-up song--was written and recorded in a 24-hour period for a New Musical Express (NME) magazine promotional single in the UK that never came to be.  Rather than just leave the song lying around for a subsequent release, the band tacked it on to the end of the master tapes for London Calling.  However, by that point, the album cover art had already gone to press.  As a result, the song title was left off the cover; the intent was not to have a so-called "hidden track" on the album.
As far as the title goes, "Train in Vain" never actually appears in the lyrics.  Instead, it had more to do with the feel of the music and the lyrical topic of a relationship falling apart.  As Jones explained, “The track was like a train rhythm, and there was, once again, that feeling of being lost.”
When it was released as a single in 1980, the song helped ease the stigma (fostered by programs like 20/20) that they were a bunch of no-talent louts who knew one chord only.  But anyone with a half a brain and a working set of ears could hear that they had a real sense of roots and musicality.  Just because they had criticized the US for its crass commercialism didn't mean they didn't have an affection for American music and/or the chops to play original music that was heartily indebted to it.

"Go Your Own Way" (Fleetwood Mac)

Ah, for every song pleading for a lover to stay, there are at least ten more telling a significant other to piss off.
One of the better examples is Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way," the first single released from the album Rumours (1977).  
Before we talk about the song, I first want to talk about the album.  Whenever people mention Rumours, they always discuss its sales numbers.  "One of the biggest selling albums of all time."  Yeah, well, so's Hootie's Cracked Rear View and Boston's self-titled album, and I'd rather roll in broken glass than listen to either of those over-produced schlock-fests, thank you very much.  So let's not judge it by its company, shall we?  Let's talk about the music and the people behind it.
Off and on since 1975, Fleetwood Mac has been guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham, a genius/mad scientist of epic proportions who can take seemingly disparate elements like Celtic folk, hard rock, and Beach Boys-like harmonies and combine them to create something that sounds natural and electrifying.  But he's not the whole picture.  The band also had the not-so-secret weapons of Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, who were themselves experts at crafting solid songs, along with the crack rhythm section of John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, proving Aristotle's point about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.  (Yeah, I just name-checked a Greek philosopher.  I promise I won't do it again.)  No doubt the whole intrigue surrounding the album--the highly publicized breakups, the infighting, the schtupping, the off-the-charts cocaine consumption--probably influenced the public to go buy the record en masse and scrutinize every line of the lyrics, looking for "the Walrus was Paul" kind of insights.  But, ultimately, it's a well-crafted pop/rock album with great songwriting (i.e. no filler), honest emotion, great performances, and production that's quite professional without sounding too slick or too stuck in its era.
One of the keystones of the album is definitely "Go Your Own Way."  It's a somewhat rare instance of a guy (Buckingham) telling a girl (Nicks) that shacking up isn't enough for him, and she should move on if she's not ready for something deeper.   (In the demo of the song, it's even clearer that he's addressing Nicks.  The original lyric in the chorus went: You can go your own way / You can roll like thunder--a direct reference to Nicks's song "Dreams," which is also about their rocky relationship: Thunder only happens when it's raining.)
The song works not only because of Buckingham's jilted-lover delivery and Christine McVie and Nicks's note-perfect backing harmonies, but because of the sheer layers of instrumentation: the bright, syncopated acoustic overdubs set against the throbbing 16th notes from the angry-sounding electric, John McVie's perfectly-placed thumps of bass, and Fleetwood's almost-tribal drumming, which perfectly cribs the tom-tom rhythm pattern from "Street Fighting Man."  
Last but not least, Buckingham's guitar solo during the last minute of the song may not be one of the more ostentatious displays of axemania, but it is one of the most expressive and effective "f-you's" ever recorded.

"D'yer Mak'er" (Led Zeppelin)

"D'yer Mak'er" from the 1973 album Houses of the Holy is probably one of the poppiest songs in Led Zeppelin's massive catalog.  But I wouldn't call it "lightweight" by any stretch of the imagination.  Sure, it doesn't blaze with leaden, electric blues fire like "Whole Lotta Love" or "Heartbreaker," but it's still a heavy groove, largely due to John Bonham's thunderous-yet-swinging drumming and John Paul Jones's insistent bassline.  What's more, Jimmy Page's understated riffing throughout, Jones's syncopated piano overdubs, and Robert Plant's pleading (almost vulnerable) delivery give it a certain sexiness that make it the ideal song for fogging up the windows of your hooptie with someone special.
Which is the perfect segue into talking about the title of the song.  It's pronounced "Jer-maker," not "Dire Maker," as people often think.  
It comes from the punchline of an old Cockney joke:
Man 1: My wife's going on 'oliday.
Man 2: D'yer mak 'er?  (As in, "Jamaica?" but spoken so fast and with Cockney r's inserted so that it comes out sounding like "Did you make her?")
Man 1: No, she's going on 'er own accord.
So it's a reference to "Jamaica," because the song is stylistically a take-off on dub reggae, as well as the phrase "Didja make 'er?" meaning...well, y'know.

"Hey Bulldog" (The Beatles)

"It's a good-sounding record that means nothing."
This is how John Lennon described his song "Hey Bulldog" in a 1980 interview with journalist David Sheff.
The song began as a rough sketch called "You Can Talk to Me."  Lennon hadn't planned on doing much with the tune, until the band was set to shoot a promotional video in the recording studio for Paul McCartney's new single, "Lady Madonna."  Rather than miming to the "Lady Madonna" track, McCartney convinced his bandmates that they should work on a new song and have the videographers film that instead.  So the boys worked on "You Can Talk to Me" while the cameras ran.
When McCartney spontaneously started barking after the last verse, Lennon ad-libbed, changing the next line of the song from Hey bullfrog! to Hey bulldog!, which became the new title of the song.
The song never was released as a single, not even as a B-side.  Ultimately, it wound up as a track on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album (1969) but was cut from the movie to help reduce the film's running time.
For as much of a throwaway as Lennon considered the song, it is a perfect example of late-period Beatles: there are still tinges of psychedelia leftover from the Summer of Love (mainly in the abstract lyrical approach), but the music is straight-ahead rock with a bass- and drum-heavy R&B feel.  The opening riff, played on piano and guitar by Lennon and George Harrison, respectively, is like a close cousin to Barrett Strong's 1959 hit, "Money (That's What I Want)," with a little bit of James Bond swagger thrown in.  Ringo Starr also does a solid job as always, never getting too showy or adding needless fills; it's just steady groove from moment one.
And then there's McCartney's bass.  
It is one of the best basslines ever recorded.  The supple tone, the syncopation, the inventiveness of the little octave jumps, runs, and slides.  It's funky, melodic, rocking, confident.  It also perfectly fits the buoyant mood of the song and elevates it to another level without showboating.
Most artists only dream of having "throwaway" material as great as this.

"Mary Jane's Last Dance" (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers)

Tom Petty is the kind of artist that slips off your radar sometimes.  But when you start naming off the slew of songs he's penned, it hits you how prolific a songwriter he is and how consistently he's produced sturdy, tuneful rock & roll for 30+ years now.
"Mary Jane's Last Dance" (not "Last Dance with Mary Jane," as half the world on the Internet might lead you to believe) from the band's 1993 Greatest Hits album is, to me, one of his most "perfectly Petty" tracks.  It melds his penchant for Rust Belt Americana, memorable riffs that feel equally indebted to Roger McGuinn and Neil Young, hellaciously catchy hooks, and a "this is me, take it or leave it" tossed-off charm into one cohesive whole.
As an aside, I rarely consult the site SongFacts.com when I do my research.  Mainly because most of the "facts" come from random people posting complete crap.  (Jennifer Lopez is not the daughter of folk singer Trini Lopez, for instance.)  However, the site will occasionally post real interviews with musicians, conducted by SongFacts staffers.  
One particular 2003 interview with The Heartbreakers' lead guitarist Mike Campbell (one of Petty's perennial secret weapons) sheds some light on how "Mary Jane's Last Dance" came to life.
According to Campbell, Petty came up with a rough version of the song in Campbell's garage during the sessions that produced Full Moon Fever (1989), Petty's first solo album.  At the time, Petty called the song "Indiana Girl," and it was primarily about a sheltered Midwestern girl who decides to leave home.  
Years passed, and Petty still had the riff kicking around in his head.  So during the sessions for his second solo project, Wildflowers (1994), producer Rick Rubin had him put the song on tape.  Rubin and Campbell liked it well enough, but Petty wasn't convinced the chorus (Hey, Indiana girl / go out and find the world) was going to cut it.  A week later, Petty came back with revised lyrics and the now famous chorus with its ambiguous imagery, which could be about sepia memories of juvenile heartbreak or just a flat-out ode to marijuana.  (However, I've always interpreted the song as a metaphor for someone who starts dabbling in harder drugs and is falling, deeper and deeper, into that vortex.  Read the full lyrics to see what I mean--especially the stanza that begins There's pigeons now on Market Square.  It has a really ominous feel.)
Whatever your interpretation, you can't deny Campbell and Petty's Crazy Horse-esque twin guitar crunchfest--especially Petty's raunchy solos in the middle and end of the song. 

"Mary Jane" (Rick James)

So everyone and his second cousin knows "Super Freak" and "Give it to Me."  
But a lot of folks overlook "Mary Jane" from the album Come Get It! (1978): Rick James's second-ever single as a solo artist and the song that introduced the world to what James called "punk-funk."  More or less, he defined "punk-funk" as an attitude that combined the rebellion and lyrical bluntness of punk rock with the deep grooves of heavy, rock-infused funk.  
Or...umm.  Something to that effect.  
Read the 1979 interview for yourself.  It's quintessential Rick James: he leaps from topic to topic, contradicts himself several times, sings the praises of ganja, disses George Clinton, refers to his own music as causing "mental diarrhea," admits to being AWOL from the US Navy in the mid-1960s, and even touches on the fact that, while he was AWOL, he was in a Canadian folk-rock band called The Mynah Birds with Neil Young (!) at one point.
Anyway, I first heard "Mary Jane" at the same freshman orientation party where I also first heard The Bar-Kay's "Holy Ghost."  Part of the celebration included a community-building activity where we sang a sleepaway camp-style song to the tune of "Mary Jane":
Do-do-do, Hinton James!
Do-do-do, Hinton James!
We live in Hinton James
Our beds ain't got no springs...
And some more stuff I can't remember.
But I digress...
The song does have some "punk-ish" elements, I suppose--the overdriven guitar in the intro and coda, in particular.  But, apart from that, it's just a heavy funk groove with some nasty slapped bass, interwoven rhythm guitar and synth lines, and an infectious verse and hook.  
No matter what your opinion of the song's subject matter or Ol' Slick Rick himself, you will find yourself singing Do-do-do / Mary Jane for a week after you hear it.

"The Cisco Kid" (War)

War's roots stretch back to Long Beach, CA, in the early 1960s, when the band was known as The Creators.  Even back then, the band's sound was a soulful stew of its multicultural members' musical influences, including everything from rock and jazz to funk and Latin music.  
It was while The Creators were backing Deacon Jones--pro football defensive end and occasional R&B singer--at a Los Angeles nightclub in 1969 that they were plucked to back former Animals frontman Eric Burdon for his new project.  From that point on, they would be known as War, keeping the name even after Burdon left the band in 1971 due to health problems.
I actually had a chance to see War in LA back in the early 2000s.  Despite almost getting shivved by a really beefy dude in the crowd (whose girlfriend we'd accidentally bumped while dancing), it was a helluva performance.  Along with some expected songs on the setlist ("Low Rider," "Spill the Wine," "Why Can't We Be Friends"), they played a loooooong, smokin' version of "The Cisco Kid" from the 1972 album The World Is a Ghetto.  No song--not even "Low Rider"--quite encompasses all of the elements of War's music the way "The Cisco Kid" does.  It's funky (B.B. Dickerson's bassline is as stanky as anything Bootsy or Larry Graham ever put down), it's jazzy (the late Charles Miller's sax goes hand-in-hand with Lee Oskar's harmonica), and it's got this SoCal barrio swagger (Harold Brown's steady, galloping rhythm on the rim of his snare drum establishes the laid back groove that sets the perfect backdrop for the tale of the swashbuckling Cisco and his sidekick Pancho.)
It sounds like no other band on the planet.

"Baby, What You Want Me To Do (Live)" (Etta James)

"Baby, What You Want Me To Do" is a blues song written by Jimmy Reed that has been covered dozens of times by everyone from Bill Cosby to Elvis Presley on his 1968 NBC comeback special.  But the version that is the funkiest, grittiest, most gut bucket of them all is the live version by Etta James from her 1964 album Etta James Rocks the House.  
The album was recorded at The New Era Club in Nashville, TN, in late 1963 to showcase James's vocal prowess outside the studio and to prove that the 26-year-old singer had chops that extended beyond the pop material that had earned her chart success.  
The whole recording blazes with raw fire.  James tackles roadhouse boogie, rock & roll, and Chicago blues and successfully conquers all as she blazes her way through a sweaty set of 11 songs in about 40 minutes.  It's the definition of a desert island disc.
In particular, "Baby, What You Want Me To Do" nearly brings down the house.  (And it's only the second song of the performance.)
The track is the perfect combo of James, who is in top vocal form, being backed by equally talented musicians, and all of it getting captured by a sound guy who knew what the hell he was doing: the bass and lead guitars sound like you're sitting a foot from the stage.
If you do nothing else, listen to the stretch from 2:14 to the end.  The band gets a groove cooking that grabs ahold and just doesn't let loose.  (I smile every time the bass guitar begins matching the triplet pattern the drummer is playing on the ride cymbal.)  
Also, James rounds out the song with these growling, wordless vocalizations that mimic the sound of a saxophone wailing--it will make the hair stand up on your arm, guaranteed.
If there were any doubt that she was a baaaaaad gal before this song, that uncertainty is obliterated by the time she says "thank you very much."

"(Night Time Is) The Right Time" (Ray Charles)

You know, I couldn't talk about "I Got the Feelin'" without talking about "(Night Time Is) The Right Time" by Ray Charles--the very first lip-sync performance the "Huxtable family" put on for their grandparents' 49th anniversary on The Cosby Show's episode #27: "Happy Anniversary."  (Another classic moment from a classic sitcom.)
"(Night Time Is) The Right Time" (1959) is a smokin' blues that exists in its own special realm, somewhere between rock & roll and R&B.  It's inextricably equal parts Sunday go-to-meeting and Friday night juke & gin: Charles plays a funky little groove on his Wurlitzer electric piano as he extols the virtues of being with your honey at night while his backing singers, The Raelettes, take it to church behind him.  
(And contrary to what all of the crappy online lyrics-finder sites might have you believe, they are not singing night and day-o or night or day, oh; they are singing wah-do-day / wah-do-day-doe.)
And not to knock Brother Ray, but when vocalist Margie Hendrix (née Marjorie Hendricks) suddenly enters stage left and begins to wail, she owns this song.  When she sings bay-bay!!! I'm never sure whether I should praise the Almighty or light up a Marlboro.  Or both.
As much as this song is associated with Charles, I should point out that the song is actually a cover of "The Right Time" by the late Nappy Brown (née Napoleon Brown Culp), who hailed from Charlotte, NC.  Back when I was living in Charlotte and still doing some occasional work for Charlotte magazine in the 2000s, I recall one of the magazine's frequent contributors writing a piece about Brown.  I'd had no clue--as I'm sure was the case for most readers--who Brown was or that he had recorded the original version of this song in 1957 with a slightly slower, but almost note-for-note identical, arrangement.  
Brown was quoted in the article as saying he was never upset that his own version was largely overlooked and Charles's version was a success.
"'It felt good that he had covered it.  That still was good for me,' he says with a sly wink and a jingle of his pocket, signifying the royalties he's received." 

"I Got the Feelin'" (James Brown)

If you're wondering: yes, my introduction to James Brown's 1968 single "I Got the Feelin'" was "Rudy Huxtable" lip-syncing baby-baby-baby, baby-baby-baby, baby-baby-baby for her grandparents on episode #303 of The Cosby Show, "Golden Anniversary."
It's a classic scene that is no doubt etched into the collective memory of my generation.  Although, I'll admit that I didn't pay much attention to the song itself until many years later when I got a copy of the compilation 20 All-Time Greatest Hits--a pretty good intro to James Brown's long and groundbreaking career, even though it is missing some key tracks like "Funky Drummer" and "Soul Power."
Anyway, "I Got the Feelin'" is some rhythmically complex stuff.
It's in 4/4 time, but drummer Clyde Stubblefield doesn't just play in straight 4.  Instead, he's using his hands and feet to play these funky, syncopated 16th note patterns on the bass drum and snares, and he's changing up the pattern every couple of measures, so you're never exactly sure just when the snare is going to hit.  But as with every other James Brown song from about 1967 to the 1990s, the groove is always on "The One."  
What's that mean exactly?
That means when you're counting out the song, "1" is always going to be the most emphasized, most deeply felt beat.  It's the anchor, if you will.  In fact, "The One" was a concept that Brown's bassist Bootsy Collins (who joined Brown's band in 1970) would ultimately take with him to Parliament-Funkadelic and George Clinton would exploit to its fullest extent, even building some of the band's space alien mythology around the concept of "The Almighty ONE."

"Rock Steady" (Aretha Franklin)

"Rock Steady" from Aretha Franklin's 1971 album Young, Gifted, and Black is pure groove from beginning to end.  Franklin says it herself in the lyrics: Rock steady, baby / That's what I feel now / Let's call this song exactly what it is.
It also features a who's-who of 1970s R&B: Franklin (of course) on vocals and piano, Donny Hathaway on organ, Bernard Purdie on drums, Mac "Dr. John" Rebennack on percussion, and Chuck Rainey on bass.
In a 2012 article on the No Treble website, Rainey reveals that the track was only supposed to be a demo.  Basically, Franklin showed the session musicians what she had in mind, and the recording engineer on the session, Gene Paul (Les Paul's son), pressed record and let them do their thing.  The idea was just to get a rough take on tape before producer Jerry Wexler arrived at the studio so they could work on it at a later date.  Instead, it turned out that Wexler couldn't improve upon the groove laid down in the rough take, so the rough became the final.  No overdubs.
Speaking of Rainey, check out the little ascending three-note pattern he does every few bars; it subtly elevates the track from "great" to "classic."
(As evidenced by this classic Soul Train clip.)

"Pick Up The Pieces" (Average White Band)

If there ever were a testament to the power and influence of music beyond borders and boundaries, it's Average White Band.  This funk band from Scotland was influenced by R&B and soul from America--especially the sounds of James Brown and his backing band, The JB's.  More or less, during the late 1960s, AWB's six original members had all been session musicians or members of prog rock groups, playing on tracks that probably weren't their cup of tea.  The founding of AWB in 1972 gave them an outlet for the music that really moved them, and by 1973, they were touring in support of Eric Clapton and winning over audiences with their brand of funk.  By 1975, they had a #1 hit--"Pick Up The Pieces" from the album AWB (1974).
The influence of The JB's is abundantly clear on "Pick Up The Pieces," a mostly instrumental, horn-driven track that was inspired by two of The JB's songs: "Hot Pants Road" (which you may recognize as the foundation of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power") and "Pass the Peas."
In fact, when "Pick Up The Pieces" hit #1 on both pop and R&B charts, The JB's (recording under the name "Above Average Black Band") responded with the song "Pick up the Pieces, One by One."  In some ways, it was a good-natured jab at the Scottish band of funkateers.  But, no doubt, there was a little vinegar in that parody, too.  And who could blame them?  An all-white band (at that time) comes out of nowhere, gets massive mainstream exposure, and scores a huge hit with a song that easily could have been one of their own.  That had to sting.
Which brings up the age-old argument of, was AWB co-opting The JB's sound, or was the band simply inspired by it?
Personally, I think you can tell when a musician feels what she/he is playing.  I happened to catch Average White Band in Anaheim, CA, during a business trip in 2001, and those dudes were putting down the funk like it was still 1975.  There wasn't any faking going on.
Generally, unless you're an artist that was manufactured in a laboratory by a record company or producer for the sole purpose of making cash (exhibit A), the problem is never "is the artist sincere about what she/he is performing?"  Furthermore, artists rarely are shy about revealing who influenced their sound.
The problem lies with how record companies, their marketing people, and the media have historically packaged artists in a way that's about as subtle as a barker trying to draw toothless hicks into a carny sideshow.  It's easier to hype an artist with superlatives or boil their entire sound down to some BS two-word classification than it is to delve into their actual artistry or influences.  (Elvis wasn't the one going around in the 50s calling himself "The King of Rock & Roll" just as much as Living Colour wasn't running around in the 80s trying to pigeonhole themselves as "black metal" either.)
On the merits of the music itself, "Pick Up The Pieces" is an airtight groove by one of the best funk bands still out there.  And that's all that should ever matter.