pick the best of the first 10 songs i can remember hearing in my life

apologies if this comes off as self-indulgent, i'm emboldened by the recent spate of personal taste polls

felt an immediate shock of recognition, quite a few of these would be on my "beginning of time" list

I voted Nirvana could thought of tossing a lol-vote to Crash Test Dummies

My list wouldn’t be nowhere as cool. Probably the lion king soundtrack, celine dion, spice girls, eurodance hits like Scatman, jordi “ dur d’etre bebe” fey and onda vaselina…. Stuff like that.

A list of the first 10 albums I remember buying would make me seem cooler as Mezzanine was iirc the third album I ever bought.

Ace of Base too overlaps for me too I think.

my early life cool factor was increased by my mom having a taste for alternative rock, so talking heads and REM records were playing around the house and MTV was on the TV all the time. a formative memory is my mom and her siblings dressing up like the addicted to love video and lip-synching to it while they recorded it with a camcorder

Oh yeah my parents didn’t a cool music taste lol. Rod Stewart, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, Elton John, Mecano, Enya… whatever top charting albums were being sold to late boomers.

Crash test dummy's because it's clearly the best kids song of the bunch

Lol it hadn’t occured to me how none of these songs have lyrics that a 4 year old should be be listening to.

and my absolute favorites were under the bridge and heart-shaped box! i was six by the time heart-shaped box rolled around. in utero was my first CD. i think my mom figured it was ok b/c i didn't understand the lyrics anyway. she considered letting me have the rhcp tape a year earlier but the lyrics (and the title, and the album art) were too much.

crash test dummies def stands out as the most kids-song-like

"damn i wish i was your lover" by far

SHUCKS

- Hey son what ya listening to?

- this banging rock song called “rape me”

Yes, it's interesting that a six-year-old would appreciate something as heavy as the Nirvana tune. I couldn't have stomached heavy rock like that until maybe age 10. But I guess if it were played in your house all the time you would get accustomed to it.

Wow, what a list! Even tho they're Canadian and it was a hit I can't remember ever hearing "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm". My list would be Pachelbel Canon, Bach Double Violin Concerto, Strauss Blue Danube, Vangelis Chariots Of Fire OST, Billy Idol "Mony Mony", Bert & Ernie Sing Along, Raffi "Baby Beluga", Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams" and Beach Boys "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (my mom uncharacteristically owned the 7", b-side was "God Only Knows", I remember very clearly putting that record on at age 4 or 5)

Yep, I'm listening to "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" right now and I'm certain I've never heard this song before. Wild

“Mmm mmm mmm mmm” was a top 10 charting hit around the world. Oddly enough in Canada it charted lower (#14) than in the US (#4).

Outside their home country of Canada, the single became the band's most successful song, reaching number four in the United States and number two in the United Kingdom—the group's biggest hit in both countries. It also reached number one on the Modern Rock Chart in the United States and in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. While the Crash Test Dummies had six singles reach the Canadian top 10, "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" was not one of them, instead stalling at number 14.

I guess latinamerican charts aren’t as well documented but I can confirm it also received a lot of airplay in Mexico.

Charts are weird over here. Small anecdote: about 10 years ago I was drinking with five friends on a bar in LA. When it was closing time and the music went off (LA bars close so early btw) two of them who are professional singers started singing popular Mexican songs like “el rey” and “cielito lindo” most of the staff probably were Mexican too as they all joined in the singing and the whole bar was hyped - because it did sound magical I swear - and taking videos.

Anyways at one point we also started singing “drinking in la” by Bran Van 3000 and we all thought the rest of the bar would join in - since the song was a big hit in Mexico - but rather two different groups of people approached to ask us what song we were singing, in particular the “drinking in la” one.

And that’s how I found out the song didn’t chart at all in the US and was far from a hit in Canada.

People seemed to be having fun even gave a round of applause before we left.

I’ve found out that latinoamerican charts since like the 60’s are usually more aligned with the UK charts than the US ones. I’m not sure what’s the reason for it.

whoa, that's funny you mention "drinking in la," my friend is currently kinda fascinated by that song so he's played it around me a couple times and i do think i have a vague memory of it, but it might be a false memory that comes from it being such a perfect example of a certain type of late 90's pop song

Yes, it's interesting that a six-year-old would appreciate something as heavy as the Nirvana tune. I couldn't have stomached heavy rock like that until maybe age 10. But I guess if it were played in your house all the time you would get accustomed to it.

― Josefa, Sunday, February 4, 2024 11:52 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

well my nirvana love started with heart-shaped box, which is heavy in a way but not very aggressive, and to my six-year-old ears i think it was suggestive of deep emotions that sounded very adult and cool

- Hey son what ya listening to?

- this banging rock song called “rape me”

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Sunday, February 4, 2024 11:45 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol. very close to reality. i danced around the living room air-guitaring to the whole cd and i remember earnestly informing my mom that that song had very good guitar playing. i conflated "rape" with ape, which was easy to do since "very ape" was on the same cd

Yeah, it's strange that I've passively heard "Drinking In LA" about a billion times in my life, and "Mmm Mmm" never. I remember feeling struck, in the year I lived in LA, at just how inescapable Drake and The Weeknd were. I heard them in Canada but not nearly as frequently as I did ambiently on LA playlists

i don’t have a memory of it but according to my parents ace of base was my favourite song as a baby

Toss up between Swamp and All That She Wants

good list Karl. voted Sledgehammer. by chance, i also saw the video last night on a playlist our friends had going in the background for their toddler, also including Love Shack, Birdhouse In Your Soul, Groove Is In The Heart, Road to Nowhere, and other kooky, college-y late 80s/early 90s hits. bodes well i reckon.

not sure about my very first musical memory, but I know right around first grade i heard "The Name of the Game" by ABBA, but could only attach the words "Doctor Dolittle Tales" to the title. in my mind's eye this happened in the A/V classroom, but maybe it was just stuck in my head while i fiddled with the spiraling cord for my gigantic, enveloping plastic headphones. i didn't crack the code til I was 25 or 26, at Used Kids Records in Columbus. looking at a used LP of ABBA's second Greatest Hits, i saw the title, and was instantly certain I'd closed the loop at last.

love shack was def another early one for me. anything that got played a lot on 99X atlanta in the early 90s is probably buried pretty deep in my psyche

i voted for sledgehammer because i too have childhood memories of listening to that album (and my parents showing me the video).

my parents played a lot of beatles for me growing up, and have distinct memories of kid-friendly beatles songs like "rocky raccoon" (maybe not actually kid friendly, but what if it was about an actual raccoon), "ob la di ob la da," "i am the walrus," and "octopus's garden"

the first song, however, that i remember hearing on the radio on my own and thinking "this is my favorite song now," was "tubthumping"

I never heard Sledgehammer until I was an adult, weirdly

I voted REM bc I like it the most

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huh, not what I expected!

except for zero votes on life is a highway, that was a lock