I just wrote this for another board like 10 mins ago. It’s not my favorite songs “of all time,” but rather 10 songs that I just absolutely love.
Talking Heads - “Air” - What a songo! I love so many things about it - Tina’s “aiiiiiir” vocals, the guitar riff under “what is happening…to my skin?”…
the Magnetic Fields - “when the open road is closing in” - One of the finest songs on “charm…” and a great, great country song.
the Walker Brothers - “the sun ain’t gonna shine anymore” - one of those songs, like “this could be the night,” that sums up so much in so little. A perfect piece of near-Brechtian vaudeville.
Leonard Cohen - “sisters of mercy” - the more quaint and light side of Cohen; a bit of really pretty, sweet humanity from an era when he was tearing your heart out.
Antonio Carlos Jobim - “the waters of march” (any version, but in this case the Jobum and Elis Regina version) - One of my favorite melodies ever penned, one that just sticks in your ear and catches you slightly swaying your hips while whistling or singing it later. “A stick, a stone…”
the Microphones - “I want wind to blow” - It kicks off what’s now one of my favorite records ever, and makes me believe in the power of the acoustic guitar again. The moment when everything “kicks in” at 2:30 w/ the 4-on-the-floor tom tom, the harmonica, the organ, and that most beautiful little guitarmelody is near-symphonic in its impact; it causes my hair to stand on end.
A Tribe Called Quest - “Check the Rhyme” - This will always be the Tribe song to me; it’s everything that made them great on one song. Q-tip’s verses are amazing, Phife’s are stupid, and that Average White Band horn riff is incredibly hot. The 12-bit beat thumps and smacks, and i love the drop-outs at the ends of the verses (“rap is not pop, if you call it that, you stop”/“before I get the butt, the jim must be erect”), the subtle chord change after the second chorus.
Magazine - “Definitive Gaze” - I honestly wish the rest of their output was this good and interesting, because this is one of those songs that immediately makes a band your new favorite, and everything else by them is a disappointment after this song. I love the angular groove that breaks into the power chords and piano groove, before that amazing minimoog lead cuts through - you’ll be humming it for days. The shape of post punk that should have came to stay.
Los Reactors - “Dead in the Suburbs” - I heard this on a weird 1980’s american underground comp and fell in love with it - the teenage angst is straight out of
Repo Man, the pre-“Hey Ya” farting synth-bass, the perfect Farfisa riffs, the amazing punker singalong chorus. I was so thrilled when I recently found out that everything they ever recorded was just released on a CD two months ago!
thje Breeders - “Doe” - The type of song that you want to get a sex change and start a cover band just to kick out at an open mic one night. The Steve Albini drums sound twice as huge as “Surfer Rosa,” the riffing is so lackadasical, and the Deal/Donnelly “da-da …da-da…da-DA” is so life-changingly hot.
