Nov 142008
This question courtesy of Townsman Northvancoveman:
Name a band whose best song is/was their most popular song.
Early vote: “Don’t Fear the Reaper”…
This question courtesy of Townsman Northvancoveman:
Name a band whose best song is/was their most popular song.
Early vote: “Don’t Fear the Reaper”…
Should we exclude 1-hit wonders, like Hot Chocolate and “You Sexy Thing” (provided they don’t have a better song that some rock nerd here knows about)? Your BOC choice is good because the band has a few other well-known songs to choose from as well as a few well-regarded albums.
I’m gonna say KISS and “Rock ‘n Roll All Night.” Will someone Pince Nez me and show me the figures on “Beth?” I don’t think so. “Rock ‘n Roll…” is KISS’ best-known, most beloved song and for my money it’s one of the only songs by them that I think is good.
Swamp Thing by the Chameleons, though a lot of their other songs come close.
Same goes for Do You Realize?? by the Flaming Lips (though maybe Evil will Prevail is better!)
The Smashing Pumpkin’s 1979 is another example that came to mind, i think i like it a little more than Tonight, Tonight. And a more recent example, i think Paper Planes by M.I.A. is her best song. its certainly the best song on Kala. I haven’t really listened to their first album.
Born To Be Wild
Agree with “Do You Realize?”, hissing fauna. For posterity’s sake, is there a way to determine the “winner” here, maybe the “best” song that charted the highest or sold the most copies?
This is not going to be as easy as one might think because there will be no consensus that The Stones best is Satisfaction or the the Beatles best is Hey Jude, for instance…so it will likely be a mid-tier group with a monster hit. I think we should DQ one hit wonders from this…
As a general rule, all of Bob Marley’s hits were his best stuff. Whatever his biggest hit was is probably a winner in this category. Unless it’s “One Love,” which is pretty idiotic.
Come to think of it, I know we’ve had a “battle of the greatest hits albums” before, but I don’t think anybody threw Marley’s name into that ring. He’s a greatest hits *monster*.
But let’s be strict about this: What was Bob Marley’s biggest song? Was it his best?
The best information I can find quickly (a Billboard article says that “One Love/Exodus” was top five in the UK, his highest charting position.
Is “One Love” Bob Marley’s best song?
I’ve always thought ‘Redemption Songs’ was his best song-as-a-songwriter-song.
It also probably his LEAST representative recording. I don’t know if I ever heard it in a form other than the acoustic-solo that made it to the greatest hits compilation.
I wonder if it could have cracked the top five if it had been recorded early on, with the the Barrets filling the beat and bottom, and the I-threes bringing it all home…
I can’t go for Marley’s Greatest Hits album. Having to hear it cranked up by super-white Deadheads of the future Parrot-head variety in college bummed me out for years, even though I liked a few songs if I could hear them without those clowns around.
About 8 years ago a friend recommended I try Burnin’. I love that album – the hits and the album cuts, like “Pass It On” and “Small Ax.” In fact, I love those two album cuts better than any of his hits. To me, they’re his “best” songs.
I agree, though, that mid-level artists will be the ones to examine. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts on this later.
Here’s a major artist with many popular songs who may qualify: The Boss’ “Born to Run” is his best song, in many ways, and his most popular – no?
BOC are disqualified because their best song is “Godzilla.” I’m surprised I even have to remind you people of this.
Obvious answer: “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Here I go opening up a can of worms again..is “Lola” the Kinks best and most popular song?
By the way, Great 48 may be right on both counts….
“Godzilla” is fine, but I don’t think it’s their best, relatively speaking from this non-fan of BOC. It IS their funniest song.
Northvancoveman, I may have to back you up on “Lola.” As fan favorites go among big bands, that’s a killer song. I know “Waterloo Sunset,” for instance, is “better,” but “Lola” is a masterpiece among biggest hit songs by big bands. Put it this way: if we go an extra step and rule out both album cuts and “rainy day, sitting by the bedroom window”-type songs by the big bands, I think “Lola” meets your challenge.
And if we rule out any song which did not have a word changed due to trademark infringement then I got your back too on Lola as the clear winner…
Sheesh, Lola isn’t even close to being the Kinks best.
Here’s two songs I though of which were part of the soundtrack of many a Stratomatic game in my cellar:
1. “More Than A Feeling”-Boston
2. “Paradise by The Dashboard Light”-Meatloaf
Wouldn’t Bat Out of Hell qualify as a lopsided album. I seem to remember that the best known songs were on side 1.
A fun fact about the late Brad Delp of Boston was that he was originally from Danvers, MA, near me & was part of a local garage band called the Monks, who actually backed up Sgt. Barry Salder of “The Ballad of the Green Berets” fame when he played the Witch City in the summer of ’66.
Finally, Mr. Mod in re: killer songs by the Kinks, doesn’t “You Really Got Me” & “All Day & All of the Night” rate just a bit higher than “Lola”? As the 21st Century cliche goes, I’m just sayin’
AC/DC – You Shook Me All Night Long
The Knack – My Sharona
Led Zeppelin – Stairway To Heaven
Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze
Cheap Trick – Surrender
David Lee Roth – Yankee Rose
Metallica – Enter Sandman
Ok, maybe I am saying their most popular song is their best pure pop single.
The other side of this coin (unless it has been covered)
What artist is most popular for their WORST song?
Like McCartney is most known for Silly Love Songs
Could not disagree more about The Kinks, There are 7 songs better ON THE LOLA record let alone in their catalog (Strangers or Top Of The Pops just from LOLA come to mind)
I’m Not Like Everybody Else
Afternoon Tea
Sunny Afternoon
Waterloo Sunset
Stop Your Sobbing
Picture Book
David Watts…..ok I’ll stop
Nick Lowe – Cruel To Be Kind – still my favorite song of his, and the only one most people know
Jungleland2, many good choices, especially “Cruel to Be Kind” and “Surrender”!
Diskojoe, I hear what you’re sayin’. I was just sayin’ that it’s nomination could be seen as making some sense.
I’m glad you mentioned “More Than a Feeling” – I was trying to hum that song out in my head late last night to list that one, but I could only get so far before some other Boston song took over. “More Than a Feeling,” I’d agree, is the best Boston song and, appropriately, their most popular one.
I can’t stand Meat Loaf, but I’ll take your word on that album possibly being the most lopsided ever – and the album side may have a higher Listenability Factor than Marquee Moon.
I just checked the track listing of Bat Out of Hell & “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” was on side 2. I was surprised that there were only 7 songs on that album & I remember about 3 of them (I haven’t listened to it since my Stratomatic days).
Is Don’t Stop Believin’ – the “most downloaded song of the 20th Century in the iTunes Music Store” – the best Journey song?
Black Magic Woman for Santana?
As a Pulp fan, I have others that I favor more, but Common People is probably their objectively best and most popular song.
I can’t get behind Lola, You Shook Me All Night Long, Stairway To Heaven or Purple Haze being the best song by any of those artists.
Agreed. Also, “I Want You to Want Me” is Cheap Trick’s most popular song. I do agree with Jungleland about “Enter Sandman,” however.
i’m glad 48 chimed in with “Godzilla,” because I disagree vehemently with the suggestion of Don’t Fear the Reaper as BOC’s first song.
I think “She Don’t Use Jelly” and a few others are much more interesting listens than “Do You Realize” as well.
“Cruel to be Kind” is a great answer.
“Roadrunner” by the Modern Lovers is, without question, Jonathan Richmond’s most popular song, and it is the one that will come closest to immortalizing him. Is it his “best song”? We could argue all day about that, but I think it’s magical, really taps a vein.
Is “Walk on the Wild Side” Lou Reed’s best song? No way.
The problem with this thread is that anybody who has gotten “into” any of these bands knows (and loves) the deep cuts, where great, unheard of songs live.
For example, “Get the Knack” has many lovely, wonderful songs, examples of really excellent songwriting (Lucinda, for instance).
Another example, I think Cobain wrote better songs than “Teen Spirit,” but I know what 48 means when he says it’s their best song.
Along these lines, I think “Psycho Killer” might be the Talking Heads best song, but I also think that many of the songs on the first three albums are examples of great…REALLY great…songwriting.
Maybe the obvious answer to this thread is “Stairway to Heaven,” in a populist sort of way, but we all know that Zeppelin wrote lots of excellent stuff.
And no, Lola is neither the Kinks “best” song, nor their most popular. It’s either “All Day…” or “You Really Got Me.”
Good point about “I Want You to Want Me” being Cheap Trick’s most popular song. Nevermind my support for “Surrender.”
I stand by my belief that “Lola” is The Kinks’ most popular song. I’ve never seen The Kinks live, but isn’t that the big encore song, in which everyone sings along and girls get on their boyfriends’ shoulders and flash their boobs?
“Roadrunner” is definitely a most popular/best choice, if you ask me.
As much Lou Reed as I love, I’m down with “Walk On the Wild” side as meeting the criteria as well. That’s a fantastic single that never gets old for me.
Here’s one – I don’t know the title, but isn’t the “most popular” Radiohead song the one with the video with Thom Yorke in an astronaut’s helmet that’s filling with water? I find that their most memorable song, although not so memorable that I know what the title is.
Argent – Hold your head up.
Mod, Glad you like the suggestion of “Walk on the Wild Side”.
I just came from the hopper, where my copy of Neil Young’s “Shakey” lives, for the purposes of extended visits, of course.
In it, he is quoted as saying, around 1973, “I think those people like David Boooowie, or Bowie, or however you say it, got it right, man: ‘Take a Walk on the Wild Side.'” And then I realized how INTERESTING that song must’ve sounded to the “period ear,” the ear around 1973. There was nothing else on the radio like that. It really IS an achievement. So, okay, “Walk on the Wild Side,” without question, his most popular work, is probably also his best.
Is “Ooh La La” the Faces best song? It’s probably their most popular.
As for “Lola,” I won’t argue too much about that, but a song’s function as an Encore number doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the most popular song. Lola lends itself to a long, drawn out, performative moment of interaction with the audience, which is why I suspect it’s the encore number.
And we could argue all day about whether or not it’s their “best.” I don’t think it is. I don’ty think it’s original enough (sounds like an early 70s Stones song…and like that’s what they were shooting for).
I still think that “You Really Got Me” and “All Day” are better songs, and are definitely more recognizable to a greater number of people.
But there’s no way of proving it.
What about “Stairway”? Doesn’t anybody remember laughter?
Another suggestion: “anarchy in the UK.”
“Hold Your Head Up” is a won hit one-der (and I know Rod Argent was in the zombies, but if we include Zombies material, then it’s not Argent’s “best” song).
And speaking of the zombies, I know that deep cut afficionados would disagree, but “Time of the Season” would be regarded as their best song by many.
Is “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” or “Reelin’ in the Years” the most popular Steely Dan song? If either one is, that qualifies as a most popular/best song, no?
I think the most popular Faces song was “Stay With Me”. It was their only Top 40 song.
I would have to say that “Roadrunner” & “Time of the Season” would be the most recognizable & popular songs by Jonathan Richman & The Zombies.
I would still say that “You Really Got Me” is the most popular & recognizable Kinks song. I would put “Lola” at #2 or #3.
Mr. Mod, you never saw the Kinks live? Pity.
Diskojoe, there are so many bands I love from the ’60s and early ’70s I never saw play live when I had the chance in the late ’70s and early ’80s because way back then I thought they were no longer cool and that I’d be letdown. Who would have known, for instance, the second-row tix I turned down for the Stones in 1981 in Chicago would have probably been a relatively fantastic show to have seen 27 years later?
I even had this super-snob problem with bands from my high school days. For instance, I had NO interest in seeing The Jam play the Trenton War Memorial on their tour for their last full album, the one with “Town Called Malice” and mostly other bad Pigbag-inspired songs. One subpar album and I turned my nose up at a band I’d been following closely for their previous run of albums!
I did see The Clash on their tour for Combat Rock, and it was the sort of letdown I would have expected from all the other shows I chose not to see.
Since Mr. Mod mentioned Steely Dan, I’ll use this thread to post this:
http://tinyurl.com/5tlegu
Mr. Mod, I know how you feel. One of my biggest regrets in life was never seeing the Ramones live, even though I had a chance to see them when they played BU in 1983.
The facts DQ my nomination of Lola…”Tired of Waiting for You” was the Kinks biggest single. It was #1 in the UK and #6 in the US. “You Really Got Me was #1 in the UK and #7 in the US. “Lola” wasn’t even a UK #1, it got as far as #2, and hit #9 in the US. (The live version of “Lola” hit #1 in the Netherlands in 1980, though…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kinks_discography#Singles
She’s Not There is a good contender for the Zombies
Happy Together by the Turtles
A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum
I think other things for Springsteen have charted higher like something from Born In The USA.
I actually saw The Ramones live with Andyr around that time. Neither of us ever loved the band, but I think he’ll agree that the show was surprisingly STRONG! We were both HUGE fans of their nonstop approach.
Love that “Dan” piece, Oats. Thanks.
I maintain that NO young woman has ever sat upon her boyfriend’s shoulders and flashed The Kinks during “Tired of Waiting”! Let’s get serious: what’s a better indicator of a song’s popularity, record sales, chart rankings, or flashed breasts?
Regading that question, consider “Born to Run” vs “Born in the USA”: in their quietest, most honest moments, which would you think The Boss and his bandmates would say gives him more satisfaction: the women on their boyfriends’ shoulders during the former or the proud, beaten-down veterans raising gnarled fists during the latter?
I’ll go with the formula above, but I’m not sure of the implications for “Walk on the Wild Side”….
mockcarr, “She’s not There” IS a good contender in the “best song” department, but it’s not their most popular.
And the others you name are one hit wonders. What other songs come close in popularity for Procul Harum and Happy Together? I mean, “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” is the most popular (and best) song by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, too, but…
It’s a much more interesting question when the artist in question has had more than one major chart success.
I still maintain that “Ooh La La” is, at the present time, a better answer than “Stay with Me” when it comes to the Faces. Regardless of how it happened (ad space, chart success at the time of release, soundtrack use, whatever) It’s their most popular song now. And it’s a MUCH better song than “stay with me.”
Let’s tackle Tom Petty (he’s so skinny even I could tackle him..badump bump). Is “Refugee” his most popular, or is it something else? Free Falling? And is either his best? For a guage of popularity, REMEMBER how many times you’ve heard either, but for quality, FORGET how many times you’ve heard them, and really consider them as songs. It’s a tossup.
Mod’s rhetorical question regarding the Bruce song is as brilliant as his girlfriend-on-shoulder axiom is numbskulled.
The Turtles one hit wonders? How about Eleanor, She’d Rather Be With Me, You Baby, She’s My Girl, It Ain’t Me Babe, You Showed Me?
That quibble aside, is anyone else surprised by how many examples have been put forth for this thread? Considering how often public opinion is derided, I’m surprised by the results here.
Or maybe it’s that RTH just doesn’t care about Mariah Carey’s best song.
“Happy Together” has to be a serious contender…
The Turtles have a number of hit songs, Sat, and I’d say that “She’d Rather Be With You” is a little better than “Happy Together,” but we’re splitting shells.
“Ooh La La” is a late bloomer among Faces songs as far as public knowledge goes. Even today, I wonder how many people who hear the song on ads know it’s Faces. Even today, I wonder if the general public knows that “Stay with Me,” the band’s biggest hit, is Faces and not Rod Stewart solo. Next time you’re at a “normal person” cocktail party, Sat, ask those standing around the punch bowl what their favorite “Faces” song is.
I’d say “Free Falling” is Petty’s most popular song, even outdoing “Breakdown” in the hoisted, flashing girlfriend category. Sadly. Even putting aside the fact that we’re all pretty cool, that song kind of sucks, doesn’t it?
Al submits: Eleanor, She’d Rather Be With Me, You Baby, She’s My Girl, It Ain’t Me Babe, You Showed Me.
I contend: I know a lot more about music of this period than the average consumer, am endowed with a better than average audio memory, and even I can’t hum a few bars from any of these tunes off the top of my head.
If they objectively come close to rivaling “Happy Together” for the most popular spot in the Turt’s catalog, close enough to make it a compelling question where they’re concerned, then fine. But they don’t in my book. I never received the memo.
And do they rival “Happy Together” in quality? I wouldn’t know, because I never thought of them as having been popular enough to push the Turtles beyond one-hit-wonder status.
frequently wrong, however….saturnismine.
Sat, at least I can tell you how a few of those those songs go…I might hear Stay With Me sometime, never Ooh La La. A couple of months ago I heard “Guide For The Married Man” while recovering from a hangover – good 60s past their prime swingin’ movie theme song. The Turtles got that gig.
Someone is going to hit you with a bunch of Salty Dog Procol Harum stuff, Ismine. It aint’ me, babe.
Tom Petty’s best song is American Girl.
Mariah Carey’s best song (like I’d know) is the same as Harry Nilssons’ which is not even the best Badfinger song. I guess I’ll have to be braced for the Everybody’s Talkin’ backlash,.
I have to agree on those Turtles songs. I know that at least “Eleanor” & “You Showed Me” have popped up on oldies radio, if not the other songs, which are all great songs.
I actually got to see them perform at the Topsfield Fair in 1999 & they opened w/”You Baby”, which was a gas since it’s my fave rave Turtles song. Afterwards, Mark Volman autographed my copies of Turtle Soup (produced by Ray Davies, by the way) & the Best of while Howard Kaylan refused for some strange reason.
Regarding the Turtles, fair enough, mockcarr. But I just asked my resident oldies expert and fine first lady about all these Turtles titles and she gave me a “whatchootalkin’bout willis” look, and shot back with “Never hoid of ’em.” She read the posts herein and concluded that y’all are a bunch of rock nerds or turtles nerds of a higher order than i am, and on this particular subject, you’re completely full of shit if you think the turtles don’t belong in the one hit wonder category.
Re. Ooh La La, it’s ubiquitous on the telly these days. Even my mum knows that song and who it’s by. Stay with me? She’s never Hoid of it.
I like “American Girl” as TP’s best tune!
And I’m with you on “Everybody’s Talkin’ at me,” too.
Wow, I would have thought by now a clear leader would have emerged, but we have no fewer than 15 candidates and the betters aren’t backing any horse strongly. Here are the contenders so far:
1. Don’t Fear the Reaper
2. Rock and Roll All Night
3. Do You Realize?
4. Born to Run
5. Smells Like Teen Spirit
6. More than a Feeling
7. Paradise by the Dashboard Light
8. Cruel to be Kind
9. Don’t Stop Believin’
10. Roadrunner
11. Walk on the Wild Side
12. Stairway to Heaven
13. Stay with Me
14. She’s Not There
15. Happy Together
COME DOWN FROM THAT IVORY TOWER, SATURNISMINE, you and your first lady of rock! I bet you’d know most of the Turtles songs Townspeople have listed if we hummed them for you.
Regarding Steely Dan:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/donald_fagen_defends_steely_dan_to
Seriously, dude, if one hit wonders are DQ’d, and SHE don’t know those songs, then the Turts are a OHW.
Sorry…you’re the ones in the Ivory Tower if you’re delusional enough to think that those are serious enough hits to take the Turtles out of the onehitwonder category.
I’m down here with the regular folk.
Well, according to Whitburn’s Top Pop Billboard Singles:
It Ain’t Me Babe spent 11 weeks on the charts, peaking at #8
You Baby spent 12 weeks on the charts peaking at #20
Happy Together spent 15 weeks on the chart, spending 3 of them at #1
She’d Rather Be With Me spent 11 weeks on the charts peaking at #3
She’s My Girl spent 10 weeks on the charts peaking at #14
Eleanor spent 12 weeks on the charts, peaking at #6
You Showed Me also spent 12 weeks on the charts also peaking at #6
So, Happy Together was definitely their most popular – which I didn’t challenge – but, as I said, they were far from one hit wonders, having 5 Top 10 singles and 2 more that hit the Top 20.
Sat, you may know a lot about music from that period but I lived through it. I remember all of these from the days of WFIL & WIBG. And all of them, except for the Dylan cover, are still played on the Hartford oldies station.
Then the “regular folk” need to get up on their boyfriends’ shoulders and catch a better view! Wasn’t “You Showed Me” used in a Swiffer ad or something like that? What’s more regular than a Swiffer ad?
I can see both sides of the Turtles argument, but if “Happy Together” was declared our winner now, it would be the Rock Town Hall equivalent of the Florida hanging chad….
Actually, I think I’d go for the Kiss entry before this one if I had a vote so far. Is Pretty Woman Roy Orbison’s best song?
Green Onions by Booker T and the MGs
No, “Crying” is.
For the record, Whitburn says the Dan’s biggest hit was “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” which isn’t even in my personal top 10.
I’m still not seeing anything that beats “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Maybe it’s just a regional thing but SURRENDER is a much bigger classic rock song than I Want You To Want me (at least here in the south)
Steely Dan – their best songs were not singles although Rikki is damn good
(Any Major Dude is my personal fave or Black Cow, Babylon Sisters)
Might Go with Badfinger’s No Matter What (unless you are going to tell me that Baby Blue or Day after day were bigger hits, sorry, I was an infant when these came out.
Mod, maybe when new entries stop coming in, we should put up a poll?
I’m glad My Sharona isn’t on that list since Good Girls Don’t kicks its ass. I like Pretty Woman better as it stands out from Orbison’s many wail of despair stringfests which begin to blur into one another, Crying is likely the best of that set of songs I’ll admit.
I’d bet you’re right about Badfinger sales.
Frickin’ Jimmy Buffet qualifies for this list much as I hate to say it.
Oh my god, “Margaritaville” is BY FAR his best song…
I’m calling shenanigans. It seems we lack consensus on the concept of ‘most popular.’ Saturn’s claim about Ooh La La’s current ubiquity on TV (I had no idea) calls into question the use of original chart data to establish popularity quotient. The advantage of chart data is that it theoretically renders popularity quantifiable, even if we now know that chart positions were not computed way back when with algorithmic purity.
By asking whether an artist’s best song “is/was” their most popular, not specifying whether current or original popularity is most important, Mr. Mod introduced a fatal flaw into this argument.
In any case, I do not concur that the Turtles were one-hit wonders, though I agree that Happy Together is/was their best known song. However, I have to say I prefer Eleanor to Happy Together, so I don’t believe the Turtles qualify for this category.
BigSteve, it depends on what your definition of “is” is.
The Great 48, I’ll spin “Heart-Shaped Box” over “Smells Like Teen Spirit” any day of the week – and time and again I’ve been proven to have taste equal to your own good taste. Your otherwise fine suggestion falls just short…I think. We will run a poll later tonight so that The People might decide!
At this moment, I think “Margaritaville” takes it hands down.
I wish it weren’t true.
All personal taste aside, “Margaritaville is a monster hit, definitely his biggest and definitely his best song. (Well I guess that is personal taste, but who would disagree with it?)
Deciding whether Margaritaville is Buffet’s best song would require me to listen to all of Buffet’s other songs. I think I’ll pass.
Hey, Mockcarr: have you gone FUCKING INSANE?! “Green Onions,” the MG’s best song?!
You’re out of the band!
“Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys. Although I think “Heroes & Villains” is Brian’s “King Lear”
Nice to see I am not the only person who does not care for “Free Fallin'”. Wasn’t there a story, like somebody bought Petty a synth, and he used it to write that song. Dumb song.
Is “Black Hole Sun” Soundgarden’s best song? How about “Under the Milky Way” by the Church?
Turtles – I think “you showed me” was covered by the Lightning Seeds in an Austin Powers flick, which brought it back into prominence.
Yes on Soundgarden (although I personally still have a soft spot for “Full On Kevin’s Mom”), no on the Church: “Reptile” was the better of their hits, and a few other earlier songs beat them both.
I think I’ll toss in Radar Love. Moontan is a pretty good album, and Candy’s Going Bad gives it a run for the money, and Twilight Zone had MTV behind it, but Radar Love was a monster hit for good reason.
If you forced me, at gunpoint, to pick a Jimmy Buffett song to listen to…I’d rush you and try to get the gun off you. But if somehow you managed to overpower me and then maybe shot me in the knee or something and said again that I had to choose a Jimmy Buffett song to listen to…I’d say “Do it! Pull the trigger!” But then if you shot me in the other knee, and I was writhing in agony on the ground and you said one of my loved ones would be next…I’d say “OK, OK, play Pencil Thin Moustache.”
For some of the others listed above, I like She’s Not There and This Will Be Our Year better, but I think Time Of The Season is still the most popular Zombies song.
I still have to object to Stairway being in play for the best Zeppelin song.
I’m good with Ooh La La as best Faces song, but even with its recent commercial-fueled resurge, I think you’d get a lot of the general public who either wouldn’t be able to say it was the Faces, or wouldn’t know the name of the song.
Reptile was a hit?
Extra points for recognizing why “Margaritaville” is a stone cold classic of psychic oblivion…
Seriously, I don’t debate that the song sucks. But I believe it’s safe to say that it sucks in just the perfect way for being what it is, and I’ll say that rather than listen to the whole Buffett catalog any day.
Yesterday!
Pince-nez: it’s “Buffett,” not “Buffet,” no matter how much funnier it is to spell/pronounce it that way.
Not as big as “Under the Milky Way,” but it got a fair amount of radio play in the exceedingly unhip town I was living in in late 1988. More than…what was the single off the follow-up album? “Metropolis”? God, that was a crap record. That was about the time that Kilbey’s junkie-asshole side took over for good. Dude never did anything worth a crap after 1988.
Gold Afternoon Fix. That was a really crappy album! I pulled it out of the “abandoned” pile a few months ago, gave it a spin in the car – and wanted to chuck it out onto the highway. Blech.
Mod, Are we going to wrap this up with a poll? I listed 15 songs mentioned here in a post above…
“Yesterday” it is! I win!
😛
I understand your antipathy towards Buffett. But if you’re gonna listen without prejudice, give A White Sportcoat and a Pink Crustacean a spin. You’ll find songs much better than Margaritaville, which I’m fairly sure was a joke/novelty song that, depite its appeal as fitting into the Pschic Oblivion category, people have made way too much of.
Does anyone else think “Hot Rails to Hell” is actually BoC’s best song? I could see a case being made for “Don’t Fear the Reaper”, though it’s obviously not very representative of their sound.
No way on Soundgarden. “Outshined” beats the pants off of it if you’re talking about their most well-known hits, though I’ve always had a soft spot for “Head Injury” and “Nazi Driver” from tehir 1st album Ultramega OK.
Maybe on The Church. “Reptile” certainly rivals it, as do other older ones like “Constant in Opal” or “Violet Town”. I actually like Gold Afternoon Fix, though, but I think part of that is its status as the 1st Church album I ever heard. It’s certainly weaker than Starfish, for example.
Berlyant wrote:
Right, which is why some of us may feel it is BY FAR their best song!
I should have put my last comment on this thread… sorry.
I don’t see “Don’t Fear the Reaper” as all that different from the core sound of mid-period Blue Oyster cult. But it seems far and away their best song to me, despite a number of excellent moments in their catalog.
“Godzilla” loses out as BOC’s best song for me because of the weak, slightly tinny vocal, especially on the chorus of that tune. But how about the crunchiness of that guitar? It’s enough to make all other sings forgiven.
Dr. John seems to be advocating an exploration of Jimmy Buffett deep cuts…. anyone think those songs should be posted, perhaps as part of another thread, and discussed in more detail?
Heh heh heh.
This tends to often be true of both singer/songriters and AOR bands. Here are a few nominations:
Gordon Lightfoot: “Sundown”
Free: “All Right Now”
Bachman Turner Overdrive: “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet”
ZZ Top: “La Grange”
Don McLean: “American Pie”
James Taylor: “Fire And Rain”
Harry Chapin: “Cat’s In The Cradle” or “Taxi” (though I know Stewart’s going to chime in about that song about the truckload of bananas)
Nirvana: “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
*sigh* Whoever said “Lola” was the Kinks’ best song makes me so sad…I’m not even angry, just sad. I’d take every single song on ARTHUR or VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY before “Lola,” not to mention a bunch of early and mid-period singles, most of SOMETHING ELSE and MUSWELL HILLBILLIES, and at least three or four other songs on teh “Lola” album.
PUDMAN’s back!!! We missed you, man. Great suggestions.
I should note, I didn’t say “Lola” was the best Kinks song, but I did say that a case could be made for it, taking into account a bunch of factors that I know stretch the point.
Hope this isn’t the last we hear from you for a while and hope all is well.
Mr. Mod, be careful of that wall behind you; wouldn’t want you to hit it while you are backtracking!