The Search for Perfect Pop
8Cleaning off an old hard drive this afternoon and found a relic I feel compelled to share. Compiled over several months (and several beers) by a small group of friends who liked to argue about the perfect pop song. Someone suggested there must be rules. And so it was. If I can find it, I’ll post the full list of the 100 greatest we finally agreed on. For now, scroll down for the top 5.
The Rules: In Search of Perfect Pop
The rules are the rules and are not subject to debate.
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By definition, the song must have appeared on the Billboard Pop Charts at some time, regardless of position or length of stay.
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Must have great lyrics likely focused on obsessive, unrequited, conflicted, and/or ill‐fated love (or the consequences thereof.)
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The Nillson Exception: Ballads are acceptable but strongly discouraged. A killer hook, an upbeat tempo and a strong melody (driven by jangly guitars, a soaring organ or a distinctive piano) are normally required.
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The Buckinghams Corollary: Horns and strings are optional but a great touch.
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The David Clayton‐Thomas Amendment: Harmonies (or at least significant background vocals) are strongly encouraged but not required.
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The Walk Away Renee Supposition: Inclusion may be influenced by the number of recorded covers.
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The Poor, Poor Pitiful Me Disappointment: The version that achieved the highest Billboard Chart ranking is considered definitive.
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The Ides of March Proclamation: One hit wonders are encouraged. (Sometimes mislabeled the Tommy Tutone Test)
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The Billy Joel Limitation: Artists don’t matter, songs do. However, no artist can be represented more than once. (a/k/a the Elton John Exclusion)
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The Michael Jackson Modification: An artist can be represented once as solo and once as part of a group. (Previously known as the Diana Ross Rule)
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The Phil Spector Proposal: Producers and Songwriters can be represented an unlimited number of times. (originally The Neil Diamond Declaration)
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The Madonna Mandate: Madonna, Phil Collins; any “country cross‐over” artist; Al Yankovich (or any other novelty artist); Celine Dion; anyone who has recorded for Disney; Sonny or Cher (but not Sonny & Cher) are all excluded.
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Everything else is a matter for debate.
The top 5:
- Cruel To Be Kind (Nick Lowe)
- Walk Away Renee (The Left Banke)
- You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ (Righteous Brothers)
- Go All The Way (Raspberries)
- Don’t Worry Baby (Beach Boys)
- 19 comments, 24 replies
- Comment
You had me until rule 12.
@Cythwulf agreed
@Cythwulf As I recall Rule 12 was originally the Diane Warren Decision: Any singer who has ever recorded a Diane Warren song is automatically disqualified. Seemed unduly harsh.
@Cythwulf Didn’t Elton John record for Disney?
@medz Good catch. These rules were compiled long before the Lion King. Have to check and see if Elton John recorded directly for Disney or licensed his performance. Need a loophole as he’s represented on the top 100 list with Tiny Dancer.
@Frcal How long? Because Lion King is already 24 years old.
Also, you might consider reverting to the “Neil Diamond Declaration.” I dunno.
@Moose early to mid 80s? Before 85 for certain. Ringleader of the whole thing passed away that year.
Spector is clearly a horrible human being but the music…?
Rick Astley?
@narfcake Yes it is.
I thought this thread was going to be about finding the best soda.
@medz That’s what I thought…
Found it.
/youtube sunny
@2many2no Hits a lot of the rules doesn’t it? Thanks for that one. A solid contender for certain.
@Frcal If you can find this DVD/CD set somewhere, you’d probably find it immensely enjoyable and interesting.
Richard Thompson - 1000 Years of Popular Music
/image Richard Thompson - 1000 Years of Popular Music Set
Product Description
Richard Thompson - guitar & vocals Michael Jerome - percussion Judith Owen - vocals The idea for this project came from Playboy Magazine - I was asked to submit a list, in late 1999, of the ten greatest songs of the Millenium. Hah! I thought, hypocrites - they don’t mean millennium, they mean twenty years - I’ll call their bluff and do a real thousand-year selection. My list was similar to the choices here on this CD, starting in about 1068, and winding slowly up to 2001. That they failed to print my list among others submitted by rock’s luminaries, is but a slight wound - it gave me the idea for this show, which has been performed occasionally, and will hopefully receive a few more airings. The idea is that Popular Music comes in many forms, through many ages, and as older forms get superceded, sometimes the baby is thrown out with the bathwater - great ideas, tunes, rhythms, styles, get left in the dust of history, so let’s have a look at what’s back there, and see if still does the trick. I am unqualified to sing 98% of the material here, but me having a go could be considered part of the fun. Also, trying to render an Arthur Sullivan orchestration with acoustic guitar and snare drum is pretty desperate stuff, but may, at a stretch, be thought charming. What appears on this CD is a performance, rather than a chronological, distillation of several different shows - hence some gaps in the 17th and 18th centuries, and too much weight on Music Hall and Rock & Roll - we just felt that some performances weren’t quite captured - perhaps on Part Two?
Amazon.com
As Richard Thompson explains in his typically droll annotation, 1000 Years of Popular Music came about after Playboy asked various musicians to rank their top ten songs of the millennium. While most dipped no farther back than a few decades–a century at most–Thompson’s musical memory rose to the challenge. The result is this concert set’s encapsulation of 22 songs that trace a musical progression from the Middle Ages through Britney Spears, with Judith Owen and Debra Dobkin providing spare instrumental and rich vocal support. Released as a concert DVD with two audio CDs, the selection is irrepressibly idiosyncratic, from rounds, madrigals, and British balladry that recall Thompson’s early days in Fairport Convention through the music-hall singalong of “I Live in Trafalgar Square” to dips into the songbooks of the Kinks (“See My Friends”), Squeeze (“Tempted”), and Bowling for Soup (“1985”). Among the highlights are the soulful tenderness of the 17th century’s “Bonnie St. Johnstone,” a haunting “Shenandoah,” a samba arrangement of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day,” and a deliriously rocking rendition of the Easybeats’ “Friday on My Mind.” --Don McLeese
@shahnm Thanks. I actually have this, if being in my Google Play Music Library counts as “having”. Sigh. I own hundreds of vinyl records, an equal number of CDs, thousands of dollars worth of audio equipment and these days I too often listen on a phone streaming to Bluetooth speakers I bought on meh. And I’m so old with such bad hearing, it doesn’t really matter. BTW, aside from Fairport Convention, Thompson is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is - in my opinion at least.
@Frcal I don’t know. I’ve seen him live a bunch of times, and he’s got the best mix of jaded, cynical, anti-BS, hilarious going. I go to a LOT of concerts… The only one who rivals RT on clever is Colin Hay.
As an aside, I share the same high-end equipment vs. convenience dichotomy you mention. I recently bought a decent “high-rez” portable audio player to use with a pair of great headphones I picked up at a black friday sale. This more than anything else has reinvigorated my appreciation for much of the music I’d forgotten how much I love…
@shahnm Never having seen RT live, I’ll defer to your judgement. I tend to believe that clever has been mortally wounded with Zappa and Zevon both gone. There is Michael Nesmith but he sometimes confuses cosmic and clever.
@Frcal That was a different era… Times change, musicians and wordsmiths come and go. But as with pop music, if you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with.
I don’t think my definition of pop and your definition of pop are the same thing.
@thismyusername I watched that while sipping some decent wine, and was very, very thankful for the wine.
@shahnm hey now, that was a perfectly acceptable song in the 80s.
Just because I heard it here first, this bears mention…
/youtube cisco adler don’t kill my buzz
From my teen age years…How did I survive ??
[1]: [Screamin’ Jay][1]
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins “I Put a Spell on You”
– From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia –
Hawkins’ most successful recording, “I Put a Spell on You” (1956), was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. According to the AllMusic Guide to the Blues, “Hawkins originally envisioned the tune as a refined ballad.”[3]The entire band was intoxicated during a recording session where “Hawkins screamed, grunted, and gurgled his way through the tune with utter drunken abandon.”[3] The resulting performance was no ballad but instead a “raw, guttural track” that became his greatest commercial success and reportedly surpassed a million copies in sales,[5][6] although it failed to make the Billboard pop or R&B charts.[7][8]
The performance was mesmerizing, although Hawkins himself blacked out and was unable to remember the session.[6] Afterward he had to relearn the song from the recorded version.[6] Meanwhile, the record label released a second version of the single, removing most of the grunts that had embellished the original performance; this was in response to complaints about the recording’s overt sexuality.[6]Nonetheless it was banned from radio in some areas.
/youtube avril boyfriend
@medz Wind the clock back. The Rubinoos did it first.
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2008/01/09/avril_lavigne_settles_girlfriend_lawsuit.html
@narfcake Pfffft…that crap wouldn’t crack the top 5000 pop songs.
@medz It was the 70’s.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rubinoos
@medz but good enough that it managed to rate an out of court settlement when Rubin sued Avril.
sugar, sugar by the archies?
Anything by the Jackson 5 precedes The Archies by definition, but you can’t mention “Sugar Sugar” without “Yummy Yummy Yummy” by the Ohio Express.
/youtube hot chocolate you sexy thing
/youtube donna summer i feel love
/youtube jack white weep themselves to sleep
“Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” was a cautionary tail about the dangers one find in the winter.
/youtube zappa yellow snow
/youtube zevon my shit’s fucked up
@shahnm I miss Warren sometimes.
He’s not nearly as celebrated as he deserves to be.
@2many2no Damn straight!