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The Best Pop Songs
The file pouch in my briefcase has a file folder called “Current.” This is the place where all the things I’m supposed to deal with today (or this week) are intended to go. But over time this file has morphed into the “whenever” file, and has become the place where I put things and forget about them. This is typical of my approach to organization (as I prefer to think of it, my dynamical systems approach to organization).
At any rate, yesterday I was mucking around in this file folder, trying to find ways of making my briefcase lighter, when I came across a list of songs that I had made months ago. The best well-known songs, in fact, of my lifetime. Such lists are notoriously subjective and mercurial. Frequently they include arcane references to works that the average pop culture listener has never heard of. My list includes only those songs that almost everyone of my generation will be familair with. And it has only three musical criteria: the song must have lyrics that stand alone as poetry, the song must strike a balance between melody and rhythm, and it must be socially relevant (or have exerted cultural influence).
So, without further delay, and in no particular order (or, the order in which they occurred to me), here are my favorite pop songs of the last 40 years:
- The Way It Is (Bruce Hornsby)
- Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
- Drift Away (Dobie Gray)
- Arc of a Diver (Steve Winwood)
- Young Americans (David Bowie)
- Blinded by the Light (Manfred Mann, written by Bruce Springsteen)
- In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel)
- The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Steve Winwood, Traffic)
- Broken Arrow (Robbie Robertson)
- Here Comes the Flood (Peter Gabriel)
- Fragile (Sting)
- Telegraph Road (Dire Straits)
- Take Me to the River (Talking Heads)
- Time After Time (Cindi Lauper)
- The River (Bruce Springsteen)
- After the Gold Rush (Neil Young)
If I had to choose one of these songs as the best overall, or my most favorite, it would be Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” It’s impossible to untangle the song’s musical merits from my own memories and emotions that have, over time, become fused with the music. That’s the way it is with great songs. They make their way inside and find a lasting home.
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The Best Pop Songs
Derek is right: I’m showing my age. Quite a bit of research has shown that people develop their musical tastes between the ages of about 10 and 30, after which time they tend to forego other styles and remain faithful to the music of their youth (this accounts for the plethora of “classic rock” stations for the baby-boomer generation). Obviously this is true for me as well. I haven’t heard a new song that meets my criteria for greatness in over a decade (some of those Nickelback songs come pretty close, though…).
The Best Pop Songs
There are some fine songs there, but my first reaction is that they’re all pretty mellow. Also, Tracy Chapman is the newest artist on the list, so it is really from the 23 years between 1965 and 1988. :)