Check out the bracket: http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=143649&tclass=Best%20Songs%20Ever%3F
Also I've decided how I want to write about it. I'm going to write about the loser of each so that each song gets it's due. I'll start either tomorrow or the next day.
EDIT 2:
Further edits on the list after suggestions from Drew.
EDIT 3:
One swap after suggestions from Mike
California- Phantom Planet is cut for Mistaken for Strangers-The National
California probably shouldn't have made it this far anyways. I started writing the first few "battles" so I'd expect some up by late tonight or tomorrow.
The Flaming Lips song has changed from "Fight Test" to "Do You Realize???" This is a better represenative and isn't a Cat Stevens Rip-off.
If you've ever read my xanga from my early high school days you might know I like to make music lists. So today I've compiled 128 songs from my music library that I think are all candidates for the best song in there (or at least good enough to be in the top 128) I've battled my favorite albums and my favorite artists before but never have I done favorite songs. Compiling this list took about 3 hours that I don't really have to spend. I went through and picked 1 song from every relevant artist. The Beatles, Bowie, Clash etc all deserved more spots but I know I'm sick of seeing lists dominated by Beatles and Beach Boys songs.
I'm not sure yet how I plan on narrowing it down yet. I will probably do it tournament style with random seeding but the question is how much writing I'd like to do on each song/battle. Honestly I could write a page about most of these songs and in some cases several essays but that would make this take forever. I suppose I'll sleep on it.
Anyways here's the list for now, feel free to complain about the lack of Sugar Ray.
✓ 96 Tears And The Mysterians
✓ Peacebone Animal Collective
✓ Two The Antlers
✓ Wake Up Arcade Fire
✓ Roam The B-52's
✓ Silent Sigh Badly Drawn Boy
✓ The Weight The Band
✓ Brian Wilson Barenaked Ladies
✓ God Only Knows The Beach Boys
✓ Intergalactic Beastie Boys
✓ A Day In The Life The Beatles
✓ I'm A Cuckoo Belle & Sebastian
✓ Stand By Me Ben E. King
✓ Dry The Rain The Beta Band
✓ In A Big Country Big Country
✓ Just a Friend Biz Markie
✓ I Gotta Feeling Black Eyed Peas
✓ No Rain Blind Melon
✓ End Of A Century Blur
✓ Like A Rolling Stone Bob Dylan
✓ No Woman No Cry Bob Marley
✓ Toxic Britney Spears
✓ Somewhere Over The Rainbow Brother Iz
✓ The Way It Is Bruce Hornsby
✓ My City of Ruins Bruce Springsteen
✓ For What It's Worth Buffalo Springfield
✓ Carry The Zero Built To Spill
✓ Father and Son Cat Stevens
✓ The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
✓ Lost in the Supermarket The Clash
✓ Overkill Colin Hay
✓ Brimful of Asha Cornershop
✓ Just Like Heaven The Cure
✓ Lights And Music Cut Copy
✓ Time After Time Cyndi Lauper
✓ One More Time Daft Punk
✓ The Crystal Cat Dan Deacon
✓ I Believe In A Thing Called Love The Darkness
✓ Heroes David Bowie
✓ Under Pressure David Bowie & Queen
✓ Babylon David Gray
✓ Soul Meets Body Death Cab for Cutie
✓ Layla Derek & The Dominos
✓ Come On Eileen Dexy's Midnight Runners
✓ Gyroscope Dismemberment Plan
✓ Walking The Dodos
✓ The Boys of Summer Don Henley
✓ Hotel California Eagles
✓ September Earth, Wind & Fire
✓ Rocket Man Elton John
✓ Stan Eminem
✓ Tears In Heaven Eric Clapton
✓ Do You Realize?? The Flaming Lips
✓ Blue Ridge Mountains Fleet Foxes
✓ Landslide Fleetwood Mac
✓ The Modern Leper Frightened Rabbit
✓ Faith George Michael
✓ Crazy Gnarls Barkley
✓ Gin & Juice The Gourds
✓ The Message Grandmaster Flash
✓ Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) Green Day
✓ Sweet Child O Mine Guns N Roses
✓ Papa's Got a Brand New Bag James Brown
✓ Young Hearts Spark Fire Japandroids
✓ 99 Problems Jay-Z
✓ Numb/Encore Jay-Z And Linkin Park
✓ Hallelujah Jeff Buckley
✓ Take Me Home, Country Roads John Denver
✓ Imagine John Lennon
✓ Flashing Lights (Ft. Dwele) Kanye West
✓ Hounds Of Love Kate Bush
✓ Waterloo Sunset The Kinks
✓ Heartbeats The Knife
✓ All My Friends LCD Soundsystem
✓ Sweet Home Alabama Lynard Skynard
✓ I Heard It Through The Grapevine Marvin Gaye
✓ Real World Matchbox Twenty
✓ Missed The Boat Modest Mouse
✓ No Children The Mountain Goats
✓ 99 Luftballoons Nena
✓ Two-Headed Boy Part 2 Neutral Milk Hotel
✓ Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana
✓ The Past Is A Grotesque Animal Of Montreal
✓ Hey Ya! Outkast
✓ Band On The Run Paul McCartney & Wings
✓ Gold Soundz Pavement
✓ Mistaken for Strangers The National
✓ Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd
✓ Every Breath You Take The Police
✓ Purple Rain Prince
✓ Common People Pulp
✓ Bohemian Rhapsody Queen
✓ Losing My Religion R.E.M.
✓ Fake Plastic Trees Radiohead
✓ Godspeed (Sweet Dreams) Radney Foster
✓ Under The Bridge Red Hot Chili Peppers
✓ Ooh La La Rod Stewart
✓ Sympathy For The Devil The Rolling Stones
✓ Closing Time Semisonic
✓ Random Rules Silver Jews
✓ Mrs. Robinson Simon & Garfunkel
✓ All Star Smash Mouth
✓ Disarm Smashing Pumpkins
✓ The Way We Get By Spoon
✓ I Am the Resurrection The Stone Roses
✓ What I Got Sublime
✓ Chicago Sufjan Stevens
✓ Give a Little Bit Supertramp
✓ Once In A Lifetime Talking Heads
✓ Greener Tally Hall
✓ Drops of Jupiter Train
✓ Wolf Like Me TV On The Radio
✓ Cold Days From The Birdhouse The Twilight Sad
✓ One U2
✓ Astral Weeks Van Morrison
✓ Pale Blue Eyes The Velvet Underground
✓ The Drugs Don't Work The Verve
✓ The Start of Something Voxtrot
✓ The Rat The Walkmen
✓ Tired of Sex Weezer
✓ Seven Nation Army The White Stripes
✓ Baba O'Riley The Who
✓ Fatalist Palmistry Why?
✓ I Am Trying To Break Your Heart Wilco
✓ I'll Believe In Anything Wolf Parade
✓ Maps Yeah Yeah Yeahs
✓ Ce Jeu Yelle
✓ Changes 2Pac
Sorry the list formatting is bad. I guess blogspot didn't like my tabs. But it's "Song"space"Artist" right now.
ReplyDeleteWhat? No Sugar Ray?
ReplyDeleteEven though you now have no credibility, you now need to set up an NCAA style 128 song bracket that culminates in the best-song-ever-to-be-in Steven's-library-that-isn't-by-Sugar Ray.
There must have been a mistake on this list. There's a disturbing lack of "Like a G6" and "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell".
ReplyDeletePumped for this! Later you should do a "best track #7".
ReplyDelete"Losing my Religion." S'my fave. Also many hamsongs, and a french song. I think we are on the right track.
ReplyDeleteAfter giving the list a closer read, let me complain about some bands probably no one else cares that much about:
ReplyDeleteno Man Man? no Grinderman?? no Fiery Furnaces?? no MGMT? no Menomena? no The National??
I actually love complaints about the list.
ReplyDeleteI just couldn't justify a Man Man song. Engwish Bwudd would have been the pick.
Grinderman I don't know.
Fiery Furnaces probably would have made an album list but they're not really a singles band.
MGMT couldn't make it because they're soooo bad in concert, like embarrassingly bad. I couldn't justify one
Menomena song, the albums are great but there's no standouts, though I probably would have gone with Wet and Rusting.
Now The National I was thinking was more album focused too but now as I'm listening to Mistaken for Strangers again, it really has to be on there. I'm cutting California for it.
So excited for this! Immediate flashback to high school. Only a few bands that I control+f-ed for and didn't find: The Shins and Beck, but not imperative. Also agree with Mike on Menomena. Missed the Boat as best Modest Mouse song???! Psh. Now I'm going to be checking this like every 3 hours instead of every day.
ReplyDeleteI Loser-Beck was in the original 200 or so, but the shins didn't make the cut. As for Modest Mouse, The Moon and Antarctica is easily my favorite album from them, but Missed the Boat is the only song from them I ever seek out to play by itself.
ReplyDeleteI would say spitting venom is their (modest mouse's) best effort, nice and epic.
ReplyDelete