| Best songs of all time? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 24 2013, 07:06 AM (1,792 Views) | |
| Caro | Dec 24 2013, 07:06 AM Post #1 |
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Our radio today has had their ten best songs of all time as voted by the listeners. I think the choices do tend to rather indicate the age of the listeners of NZ's National Radio. They were: 1. Imagine - Lennon 2. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen 3. Whiter Shade of Pale (most played song on UK radio) - Procul Harem 4. Bridge over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel 5. Stairway to Heaven (best-selling sheet music of all time, apparently) - Led Zeppelin 6. Love will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division 7. Throw Your Arms Around Me - Hunters and Collectors (Aussie band - the only song I didn't know) 8. Anthem - Leonard Cohen 9. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen 10. These are the Days of our Lives - Queen But no Bing's White Christmas - can't have Xmas without it; I will have to resort to youtube though that feels like cheating. |
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| rumbaba | Dec 24 2013, 09:31 AM Post #2 |
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None of those would be in my top 10 |
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| rumbaba | Dec 24 2013, 09:32 AM Post #3 |
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I detest Bohemian Rhapsody |
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| AmosBurke | Dec 24 2013, 10:36 AM Post #4 |
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I like We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Going To Use It and Temple City Kazoo Orchestra versions of Bohemian Rhapsody. As to the rest, well I think Love Will Tear Us Apart is the best song ever written, and I do like Throw Your Arms Around Me. I can't stand Imagine and I'm pretty indifferent to the rest. My top 10 changes quite regularly, but my top three are Love Will Tear Us Apart, The Lion Sleeps Tonight (pretty much any version) and Women In Uniform (Skyhooks). I saw a list once of over 500 different recordings of The Lion Sleeps Tonight. I have three, so I've still got a few to find! |
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| Norm Deplume | Dec 24 2013, 11:03 AM Post #5 |
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Not my scene at all but then, I come from a bygone age when music really was MUSIC. |
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| rumbaba | Dec 24 2013, 11:18 AM Post #6 |
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Bohemian Rhapsody isn't really a song, it's a series of fragments with an overblown production. I always felt there was a touch of Spinal Tap about Queen: I could never take them seriously, all a bit 'tongue in cheek: clever but no heart, no soul.
Edited by rumbaba, Dec 24 2013, 09:49 PM.
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| May-Cee | Dec 24 2013, 08:51 PM Post #7 |
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A lot of these songs turn up on these sort of polls. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that the awful "Imagine" makes me want to throw up; it being the most hypocritical piece of shit ever written. On a more positive note... I never quite knew before that Amos is such a big Joy Division fan. They were the soundtrack to my late-teens, pretentious punkette life; and I still love them to bits, but... "Love Will Tear Us Apart" as "the best song ever written"? I wouldn't go quite that far! |
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| Caro | Dec 25 2013, 05:29 AM Post #8 |
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I don't much care for Love Will Tear Us Apart. Perhaps it's just that it's a decade before my time really, so my heart is with those big 60s songs. Does pop music have to have a heart or a soul? I just want it to have a tune and a beat I like, guitar sound rather than bass. I don't care what the lyrics are about much. And I like overblown. And punkrock - well, more or less all rock. (But my taste in music is very low - I am quite content to have very country and western music blaring away on my car radio and sing along happily to it. And I like gentle 50s stuff too.) |
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| Mobson | Dec 25 2013, 08:57 AM Post #9 |
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Mmmm...bit (i.e. not a lot) worried about those National radio 'listeners' and their choices....
Edited by Mobson, Dec 25 2013, 08:58 AM.
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| May-Cee | Dec 25 2013, 06:56 PM Post #10 |
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Hi Caro I know we all listen to music in different ways... But as you're such a superb wordsmith, I'm surprised that you don't care too much about the lyric of a song. (Your choice, of course!) Being a wee bit of a wordsmith myself, I can never just "tune out the words". To me, that will always be part of the appeal. In a way, I agree with Norm. The great "songs" (as opposed to the great "records") were by the likes of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and - especially! - Rodgers & Hart. So I'll love youse and leave youse; bewitched, bothered and bewildered by that list... |
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| rumbaba | Dec 25 2013, 09:25 PM Post #11 |
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I got the 'new' Attica Blues CD from Archie Shepp for Christmas, I'm a sucker for this stuff ![]() |
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| Caro | Dec 26 2013, 08:55 AM Post #12 |
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Thanks for that lovely if quite undeserved compliment, May-Cee. (I am reading Pickwick Papers at the moment, and while I am enjoying it lots, I get a little down that Dickens at the age of 24 could manage such a command of English, and I struggle to find synonyms for 'lovely' or 'interesting'.) I don't disregard the words quite as much as that post suggested - the cleverness of Cole Porter and others is wonderful to listen to. I always smile at the lyrics to The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane for instance, which seems to me so carefully thought out. And I suppose songs I really like (Like Roy Orbison's Crying) have lyrics that fit the tune well. But I couldn't have a favourite song where I didn't like the music. My brother-in-law refuses to sing hymns or even our national anthem which thanks God for various things. I don't pray when invited to or bend my head but I sing How Great thou Art lustily (well, not really - it's a bit of a dirge, or at least played usually at the speed of a dirge, as are so many otherwise perfectly pleasant hymns). |
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