A list (in no particular order) of my 500 favorite songs (singles, deep cuts, hits, and more) of all time. Includes a wide array of selections from rock, punk, funk, R&B, soul, classical, jazz, folk, and world music.
The thing I like about Spoon is that they're consistently consistent. That's not to say they're predictable, though. I just mean that, whenever a new Spoon album drops (or gets leaked), I know it's going to be a compelling listen. They're one of the few bands that I actually get excited about these days. Along with that, frontman Britt Daniel is one of the few artists who I'll still take 5 minutes to read about in the music press—particularly if it's an interview where he's discussing the creative process behind his songs. Great thing is, I never get that "I'm an artist, dammit!" pretentiousness from him. But I do sense that he truly works at his craft. He also has a brain and isn't afraid to use it. I definitely got that sense the first time I heard "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007). I still love that entire album, but "Cherry Bomb" stuck out to me from moment one. It was immediately poppy and catchy, yet it also hinted at its layers of deeper meaning beneath that accessible groove. It reminded me of something that Elvis Costello would have put out, circa 1977—the tinges of punk and Motown/Spector give it that feel. (Daniel told Salon.com in 2014 that the song was Spoon's attempt to sound like The Supremes.) The intelligent lyrics also feel like My Aim Is True-era Costello. Daniel doesn't beat you over the head with the fact that this is a breakup song. Instead, he drops hints through fractured, metaphoric poetry. (What better symbol than a smoldering cherry bomb could one use to describe love that's well past its sell-by date?) As he told eMusic back in 2007, "That central image of the 'cherry bomb' came naturally. Sometimes lines just come to you while you're singing, and you're not sure where they came from. I came up with the cherry bomb being representative of a need to blow out this romantic flame."
Revisiting my mother's collection of singles again. She owned a number of 45's by The Hollies, one of the many British Invasion bands of the early/mid-60s. (I tend to think of that era as "The Beatles, The Stones, and miscellany.") On that note, I never really thought much of The Hollies. I find most of their songs to be painfully lightweight. For instance, I remember my mom had this one frothy pop tune called "On a Carousel," which I heard again for the first time in many years on an episode of Mad Men last season. I believe she also had another single of theirs called "Look Through Any Window," which I accidentally broke as a toddler*. And don't get me started on their abysmal "Air That I Breathe" from the mid-70s. Had she owned that single, I probably would have "accidentally" smashed it, too. But then there was the 1972 track "Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)"—this taut, rocking number about an undercover FBI agent who falls in love with this tall, sexy lounge singer in the midst of some sort of Prohibition-era sting operation. It was a helluva departure for the band and an interesting topic for a rock song. That said, the G-man narrative isn't what grabs me. To be honest, I couldn't understand half of the lyrics that frontman Allan Clarke was singing anyway. (Earlier today, I learned the line that comes after She was a long, cool woman in a black dress is actually Just a 5'9" beautiful, tall, which refers to the woman's height. I always thought it was something more poetic/metaphoric: Just a fine and beautiful song. Who knew?) No, what draws me to the song is its bright, crisp Fender Telecaster sound. That clean guitar tone simultaneously gives the track a bit of 50s throwback bop and early 70s crunch. Poking around the Web, I've read various comments from actual music critics and armchair experts that Clarke was attempting to rip off Creedence Clearwater Revival's sound in order to score a hit. And I suppose I hear the influence. There's a touch of John Fogerty's "Green River" in the rhythm and riffing of "Long Cool Woman." But I get more of a glam rock vibe, akin to T. Rex's "Bang A Gong (Get It On)," which came out the year before it in 1971. Take a listen to them, back to back, and see what you think. (*I broke a lot of my parents' 45's as a little kid. Dozens. But it was never done maliciously. I would make up pop/rock songs of my own, and then I would pretend that my song was on one of those 45's. I'd sit cross-legged on the floor, spinning the record on my knee—as if it were on a turntable, and use my index finger as the tone arm, all while imitating the sounds of an automatic record player, right down to the crackles, pops, and scratches of a vinyl record. But the records didn't get broken just by me spinning them on my knee. The destruction happened when I'd hop up abruptly, usually because my mom was calling for me or because I had to run to the restroom. It would go something like this: I'd attempt to stand up, one or both of my legs would be asleep, I'd lose my balance, and my knee would come smashing down on the record, cracking it in two. ...dozens.)
I remember staying up really late one night in 5th grade, taping music videos off Night Tracks,this cheesy 80s show on Superstation TBS that played both new and old videos. A little context for my geekery: my awesome 5th grade teacher was always doing fun projects with our class and giving us incentives to study hard. There were the mammoth things she did, like the 300-mile field trip to a historical site that she organized, and the original rap that she wrote about the events leading up to the American Revolution so that we could remember key dates and names. (Awesome, right?) But there also were tons of smaller things. For instance, this one time, she rewarded us with a free period to watch music videos because we'd all passed a big test (spelling, I think). But because our elementary school didn't have cable T.V. and, therefore, no MTV, the only way to pull off a music video-viewing party was for someone to volunteer to bootleg stuff off T.V. at home and then bring the tape to school. So I volunteered. (Actually, it was more like "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, Mrs. Wetli, can I do it, pleeeeeeeeeeeease?") Anyway, it's May 1989, and I'm sitting in my living room with my parents at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, filling up a videotape with all of this late-80s schlock off Night Tracks—stuff I can't believe we ever listened to (Debbie Gibson, Bobby Brown, Great White, Tone Loc, Bon Jovi, etc.). Suddenly, here comes this video of an impish dude in bright pink pants with glitter on his face, tearing through this riff that sounded like something ripped from the Chuck Berry songs my dad listened to, only raunchier. I remember my mom drowsily saying, "Mike, this is from when I was in high school. You probably want to stop the tape." But I just let the tape roll as this diminutive rocker sang about teeth of the hydra upon you and hubcap diamond star halos. By the time he reached that first chorus (Get it on / Bang a gong / Get it on!), I had no clue what he was singing about, but I was completely entranced. In my gut, I knew that my classmates would want to fast-forward through it (and that premonition ultimately came true). But I didn't care. I knew I was an oddball with my own unique tastes*, and I wanted to have this song on tape. Something about that glittery elf and his overdriven guitar resonated with me. Still does. (*From about 1987-1991, I wore my hair in this mini-fro/pompadour thing. God help me, I was trying for a MacGyver mullet. My neighbor Ben had convinced me that all I had to do was wet my hair, brush it back, and then wait for it to air dry. When Ben tried that, he ended up looking like a mini Richard Dean Anderson, for better or worse; however, when I tried it, I ended up looking like a cross between Eddie Munster and boxing promoter Don King. But it made me 4 inches taller, so I wore my frizz with pride.)
I marvel at David Bowie's genius. In 1972, he created a character—a rock & roll alien that was one part Iggy Pop and one part Warhol Factory misfit—and turned it into a vehicle to bring his music to the masses. Granted, things got complicated when the line between the character, Ziggy Stardust, and the real David Bowie began to blur. But I still think the basic idea of being able to step into character and act as wild, creative, and unfettered as you want and then step out of character and go home at the end of the day is brilliant. I also think the entire The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) album is brilliantly executed—particularly the track "Moonage Daydream." The song actually was written by Bowie before the Ziggy concept ever took flight. He recorded a version of it in 1971 for a short-lived side project called Arnold Corns, a "band" that basically consisted of Bowie and a fashion designer named Freddie Burretti. The deal was, Bowie wrote and sang all of the words, and the meticulously dressed/coiffed Burretti played frontman and lip synced to Bowie's vocals. Anyway, the Arnold Corns version failed to make any kind of commercial impact. But it did plant the idea in Bowie's head of performing his songs as someone other than himself. Also, it explains why "Moonage Daydream" doesn't really fit the narrative of Ziggy, unlike, say, the song "Starman" or the title track. Nevertheless, it has that same brash and bold attitude that permeates the entire album. And that vibe has as much to do with Bowie's delivery as it does with the guitar skills of the late Mick Ronson. In fact, it's Ronson's guitar work that makes me love this song so much. During the first half of the song, his playing is rhythmic yet melodic, punctuating Bowie's vocals perfectly. During the last half of the song, when he launches into his extended solo, it's completely abstract and unhinged. It wails and screams like the throngs of British teenagers who got glittered up and packed concert halls to catch a glimpse of The Spiders from Mars. Apart from maybe John Coltrane's avant garde noodling on "My Favorite Things," I don't know of anything else on tape that sounds quite like it or that's packed with so much raw emotion.
So another single from my mother's collection is "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith (from the band's 1975 album Toys in the Attic). It always struck me as an odd entry in her library. Sure, she owned some rocking stuff by The Who, Zeppelin, the Stones, etc., but she also had equal amounts of mid-70s Neil Diamond schmaltz. That's why the "Toxic Twins" from Boston didn't strike me as her cup of tea. So I flat out asked her once, "Why do you own this?" Obviously ticked off that I was questioning her sense of cool, she put the record on the turntable and started commentating. I remember her pointing out three specific things about why she liked the song: 1) It began with a catchy chorus, and it was kind of unique to begin a song with a refrain. 2) She liked Joe Perry's riff on the bridges between verses and that woooosh sound underneath it (created by mega-producer Jack Douglas running taped handclaps and a hi-hat backwards). 3) She got a kick out of Steven Tyler's funny lyrics, which she said I'd understand when I was older. It was interesting, hearing her break down the parts of the track that way. Up to that point, music had been a tidal wave of sound to my ears; I'd never thought about zeroing in on the individual elements of a song to articulate why something resonated with me. She kind of changed the way I listened to all music from then on. Anyway, years later, I did finally understand the words to "Sweet Emotion," and, yes, they were pretty funny. My initial assumption was that Tyler was writing about a gossiping groupie. Turns out, he was writing about Perry's wife, Elyssa. Both he and Perry had been competing for her affections, and the latter won out. Suddenly, Tyler didn't care for her being around, particularly when she prevented them from writing or doing lots of heroin, so he penned this diatribe against her. In it, he accuses her of everything from spreading rumors and stealing his booze to humping around (the droll pregnancy-scare reference You can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died). The other key element of this song that my mom didn't point out is Tom Hamilton's bassline. (Could be because the single edit literally chops off the first :30 of the album version, omitting Hamilton's entire intro groove.) It's easily the funkiest bassline ever in a rock song; it perfectly sets up the lowdown feel of the track and maintains its gritty pulse throughout. Apparently, Hamilton had come up with the bass riff in high school, but it never really fit anything that Perry and Tyler had written. So he pretty much kept it under his hat for years. It was only when the band had extra studio time at the end of the Toys in the Attic sessions, and Douglas asked if anyone had any "spare riffs," that Hamilton finally had his moment in the sun. Incidentally, "Sweet Emotion" is one of the very few tracks in Aerosmith's (varied) catalog that actually credits Hamilton as a co-writer.
When I was a little kid, my mother owned many (many) 45 singles from the late 60s/early 70s. She used to keep them in these old, round cookie tins because all of them had lost their paper sleeves years before. Those tins were a treasure trove of randomness. I'd often empty them out on our living room floor and pick about a dozen to listen to, usually based on their colorful labels. This method of selection made for an odd mix of music: British songstress Petula Clark mingling with Harry Nilsson, The Rolling Stones, and countless one-hit-wonders. One time, I recall spotting this record that had a colorful yellow-orange label with a riverboat on it. I thought it looked cool, so I put it on the turntable. Not sure what I was expecting exactly, but I was bowled over by the chunky electric riff that came blasting through the speakers. I also remember my mother's reaction. She got all flustered and asked me, "Geez, where did you find that record?" I was probably five years old at the time, but even at that young age I could tell the song had some sort of nostalgic bond for her—something from her high school days that was far enough in the past to leave there but vivid enough to make her blush. (I'm guessing it was a guy.) Anyway, the song was "Cinnamon Girl" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, a track that Young supposedly wrote in an afternoon (along with "Down By The River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand" from 1969's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere) while delirious with a 103-degree fever, bedridden by the flu. Sonically, the track perfectly captures the late 60s in my mind, combining hippie/folkie melodicism with a searing hard rock assault—kind of an aural and metaphorical bridge between Woodstock and Altamont. It also is a song that constantly reminds me that our parents are real people and not saints, thankfully.
I kind of feel bad for including "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nevermind (1991) in my list, considering how tortured Kurt Cobain was by the song at the end of his short life. (As he once told Rolling Stone, "On a bad night, I can barely get through 'Teen Spirit.' I literally want to throw my guitar down and walk away. I can't pretend to have a good time playing it.") But the song still means a lot to me. And I'm not just saying that to jump on some generational bandwagon. The moment I heard/saw the video for it on MTV, I felt like I was witnessing history: this was the antidote to all of the overblown rock and pop that had been shoved down our throats during the latter part of the 80s. It was raw and intense in a way that revealed all of the bands riding the top of the Billboard charts in those days for the crap peddlers they really were. But the most striking thing to me was that Cobain & Co. weren't merely telegraphing some tired sentiment like "it's cool to be uncool." This song/band didn't give a shit about being cool. "Cool" was some concept that advertisers had invented to make you feel bad about yourself so you buy stuff you don't need. No, this was a generational call to arms to stop being apathetic and stop blindly consuming bullshit. And it rocked. As soon as the video ended, I imagined everyone from MC Hammer to Axl Rose screaming at their agents on the phone, "What the f*** am I supposed to do after that?" Quick side note about the song's origins: in 1990, Cobain was hanging out in Olympia, WA, with his friend Kathleen Hanna from the punk band Bikini Kill. (She recounts the story in this great video from 2010, when she performed a cabaret act of sorts at Joe's Pub in NYC.) In short, they got stinking drunk and wound up back at his apartment, where Hanna proceeded to write a bunch of stuff on his bedroom wall in Sharpie pen, including the taunt "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit." (Apparently, her bandmate Tobi Vail, who was dating Cobain at the time, wore Teen Spirit deodorant.) Six months later, Hanna got a call from Cobain, asking her permission to use the bit of graffiti for a song he was working on. Said Hanna, "I hung up and I was like, how the f*** is he going to use 'Kurt smells like Teen Spirit' as a lyric?"
