DownBOUND Train is a classic? I’d contend it’s not only the worst song Springsteen ever wrote (and that would take some doing) but the worst song anyone ever wrote. The guy wokls at the lumber yard, then the carwash and seemingly simultaneously on some sort of road gang. Impressive employment history, but, gee - the song don’t make a lot of sense! Kinda like that song where the guys name changes from Frank to John in the same verse…
mm
The debated part of my list (my David Bowie and Sex Pistols nominations were accepted, I guess):
Pixies - Doolittle
“Debaser,” “Monkey Gone To Heaven,” “Here Comes Your Man” (“Wave Of Mutilation” and “Gouge Away” should probably qualify as well)
Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables
“California Uber Alles,” “Holiday In Cambodia,” “Let’s Lynch The Landlord,” “Chemical Warfare”
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
“There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” “The Boy With A Thorn In His Side,” “Bigmouth Strikes Again”
The Smiths - The Smiths
“Reel Around The Fountain,” “What Difference Does It Make?” “This Charming Man,” “Hand In Glove”
Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
“Blister In The Sun,” “Kiss Off,” “Add It Up,” “Gone Daddy Gone”
Weezer - The Blue Album
“Buddy Holly,” “Undone (The Sweater Song),” “Say It Ain’t So” (maybe “My Name Is Jonas”)
I’m wondering if a large part of this isn’t a generational issue. I’m 21, and I’d reckon a fair number of people my age would know these songs, particularly if they’re into alternative/indie. A huge number of bands that are currently either popular or just outside the mainstream cite The Smiths as an influence, and it seems almost compulsory that their songs be covered if you’re an emo band. “This Charming Man” and "There Is A Light … " are particularly popular choices for both covering and mixtapes. The first Violent Femmes album was released before I was born, yet it was the soundtrack of many people’s life when I was in high school (1999-2003); even people into more Top 40-ish music would know at least those four songs. “Gone Daddy Gone” has even been recently covered by the enormously popular duo Gnarls Barkley. Weezer’s first album was released when I was nine years old, yet at a party I attended a couple of years ago, everyone (out of a crowd of 40 or so people) could sing along while a guy with a guitar played “Say It Ain’t So.” Despite the album being 13 years old, the three tracks I listed are still played on rock radio and, again, are familiar to even people my age who don’t listen to alternative music. I’ll admit that maybe my Dead Kennedys pick was a little more obscure than my others, but the four songs I listed are going to be known by anyone into punk, especially American hardcore.
While compiling this list, I truly made an effort to include albums with what I considered to be accepted classics. If I had just made a list of albums with songs I like, I would have listed discs by, for example, Belle & Sebastian, Blur, Buzzcocks, Magazine, Talking Heads, X, Spoon, The Fall, The Magnetic Fields, Pulp, etc - but I didn’t think that any of these bands had an album that fit the criteria (although Blur and Pulp would probably qualify in the UK). I listed the songs I did because they’re canon to my generation. I’d argue that many of the songs listed by older Dopers have lost their classic status. Not to pick at anyone in particular, but take Genesis and Steely Dan as examples. Both of these bands have songs that still get airplay on classic rock radio, but most of the examples listed here I’d never heard of. I’d even go as far as to estimate that more music-listeners alive today know “Monkey Gone To Heaven” by the Pixies than x track by Genesis, and, further, that the Pixies have influenced more currently active bands than Genesis has. It’s not a question of quality - I’m sure Steely Dan fans can agree that those tracks are fine examples of the band’s work - but more that what was once considered classic has changed.
(Thanks also to spoke- and Hippy Hollow for defending my Weezer and Pixies picks.)
I agree with all the picks in your last post, Lisa-go-Blind. They are all classics within the alternative genre (one of the possible criteria we’re discussing). They were all on the top of the playlist for college and alternative radio back in the day. They are all cited as influences by bands today.
Also from the (then-alternative) world I would add Document - R.E.M.:
“Exhuming McCarthy”
“The One I Love”
“It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”
“Finest Worksong”
and Disintegration - The Cure:
“Pictures of You”
“Fascination”
“Love Song”
“Lullaby”
All received heavy airplay on college stations at the time and still get airplay today.
And a more mainstream album occurs to me:
New Miserable Experience - Gin Blossoms
“Hey Jealousy”
“Until I Fall Away”
“Found Out About You”
“Allison Road”
I’ll also add Rush’s Moving Pictures.
I think Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta and Limelight would qualify. YYZ and The Camera Eye are also influential.
You’ve got a point here, too. I think folks may be getting too hung up on whether songs from a given album were “hits” at the time of release. But hell, Jimi Hendrix never had a top 40 hit in the US. Even “Purple Haze” only made it to #65. And yet I don’t hear anybody squawking that Are You Experienced doesn’t meet the OP’s criteria.
Hendrix was “alternative” (in the original sense of the word). Yet his songs are remembered well today. I think the alternative songs (and albums) you list will be remembered, too.
To be fair, he got laid off at the lumberyard and had to take the job at the car wash. I assume that after his halluciantion he did something Really Bad and got sentenced to hard labor on the road gang.
I’m just saying people would recognize it on the radio. Not commenting on its value. And :smack: on the name…must have been thinking of the Tom Waits song. Which song changes from Frank to John??
Wait, are you saying he’s written some really bad songs…? Heathen! 
What, no mention yet of Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life? That was the first album that came to mind when I opened this thread. Classics include (but are not limited to, no sireee):
I Wish
Village Ghetto Land
Pastime Paradise (Coolio’s rather-good reworking notwithstanding)
As
Isn’t She Lovely (not a favourite of mine, but extremely well-known)
Sir Duke
Just typing in those titles makes me want to listen to the album again, but personal preferences aside, I’d still contend that those are “classics”.
Other Pink Floyd albums:
The Wall - ABitW part 2, Comfortably Numb, and Mother and Hey You, which are only not classic compared to the first two which are regularly cited in the Top 20 classic rock songs of all time.
Wish You Were Here - Every single track, a distinction it shares only with LZIV (with the exception of Four Sticks. Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Welcome to the Machine, Have a Cigar, Wish You Were Here.
Other Pink Floyd albums:
The Wall - ABitW part 2, Comfortably Numb, and Mother and Hey You, which are only not classic compared to the first two which are regularly cited in the Top 20 classic rock songs of all time.
Wish You Were Here - Every single track, a distinction it shares only with LZIV (with the exception of Four Sticks. Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Welcome to the Machine, Have a Cigar, Wish You Were Here.
I hear Rio by Duran Duran is classic, too.
I, for one, completely agree. 100%
And I also was going to go with Machine Head, but Cardinal beat me to it.
Any Beatles album qualifies, as do most Stones albums <=Miss You.
I have lots of input and will be back. But first I give you Bad Company’s self-titled first album including; Can’t Get Enough, Ready For Love, and Bad Company.
…and “Moonlight Mile.”
Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic
Kiss - Destroyer
Frampton - Comes Alive
Some great choices here- I gotta go with Tapestry as my fave (forgot who mentioned it)- “So Far Away”, “I Feel the Earth Move” and “It’s Too Late” are easily three of the best songs, ever.
And spoke-, JImi Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower” peaked at number 20 on the pop chart.
I stand corrected, but the thrust of my point still stands. Jimi Hendrix didn’t get sustained play on mainstream radio until the advent of “classic rock” stations in the 80s. He was a countercultural phenomenon in the US - the “alternative rock” of his day.
In the same way, acts like Elvis Costello, The Cure and The Violent Femmes didn’t get a lot of airplay at the time their songs were released in the US, but now many of those tracks are regarded as “classics.”
As a matter of fact, I can think of quite a lot of “classic” songs from the 60s to the early 80s that never made the top 40 in the US:
“My Generation” - The Who
“Substitute” - The Who
“London Calling” - The Clash
“Blowin’ in the Wind” - Bob Dylan
"The Times They Are A-Changin’ " - Bob Dylan
“No Woman, No Cry” - Bob Marley
"Jammin’ " - Bob Marley
“Should I Stay of Should I Go?” - The Clash
“New Year’s Day” - U2
“Sympathy for the Devil” - The Rolling Stones
“Street Fighting Man” - The Rolling Stones
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” - The Rolling Stones
“Gimme Shelter” - The Rolling Stones
“L.A. Woman” - The Doors
“Comfortably Numb” - Pink Floyd
“Piece of My Heart” - Janis Joplin
This one entered the Hot 100 08-16-68 and reached #12 . Maybe you didn’t see it because you looked under Joplin. The record was by Big Brother & The Holding Co.
Yep. Missed it. But you see my point, I hope. Chart success does not define what is and is not a “classic” song.