The Trashmen – Surfin’ Bird
The Four Tops – Baby I Need Your Loving
The Shangri-La’s – Give Him A Great Big Kiss
Judy Collins – Send In The Clowns
Roxy Music – Street Life
Kraftwerk – Europe Endless
Abba – The Winner Takes It All
Loose Joints – (Tell You) Today
Squeeze – Up The Junction
Dexys Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen
Frankie Knuckles feat. Jamie Principle – Your Love
Morrissey – Everyday Is Like Sunday
Public Enemy – Party For Your Right To Fight
Eruption – Don’t You Want Me?
Daft Punk – One More Time
The genre limitations of the list can be best explained by the fact that until you know a style of music quite well it’s very hard to really recognize perfection. So the stuff I’m exploring – reggae, African musics, country, even hip-hop to some extent – I just don’t know enough about yet. Which is a good thing – perfection’s not that exciting.
― Tom, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Also, perfection to me implies a kind of beautiful tidy completeness,
which is why there's not very much that in any way 'rocks' on the
list.
― Tom, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Thanks, Tom, for making me realise there is a point to these "Teen"
(TM) threads after all - ignore all my previous comments today.
Perfection, then. Is this a desirable goal? If I thought hard enough
I could probably come up with x-teen songs (or recordings of songs)
which I consider in some way to be 'perfect' or representing the best
of a particular style or genre. But most of them probably wouldn't
make a list of my favourite records. Mozart was a genius and pretty
much perfected what the Mannheim school started and then Haydn
refined, but it was a huge relief when Beethoven came along and
fucked it all up again. Equally, in pop, sometimes it's the
imperfections that you treasure the most - that one bum note, the
embarrassing lyrics. Or maybe you just love something against your
better judgement or despite agreeing with every criticism you read
about it. As you say, it's hard to be passionate about perfection.
― Jeff W, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Tom, this list has a strange resonance for me because it starts off
with a song that a dying friend sent me this summer as an MP3
("Surfin' Bird"), saying jokingly that he wanted this to be the music
at his funeral. It also hits a couple of his favorite bands: Roxy
Music (who he got me to appreciate) and Public Enemy (who we both sort
of discovered at the same time, about the time "It Takes a Nation of
Millions" came out).
― DeRayMi, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Frankie KnuXles would I'm sure be gratified to see his name on a list like this. I don't know that I know the song either (mucho sex and noise awaits tracer!) I'm curious about the PE though Tom. Why that song and not "Give it Up" or "Fight the Power" or "Don't Believe the Hype" or "Bring the Noise" all of which seem to me if not perfect then at least "tighter"?
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Yes I explained it in tiresome bullet-point
detail. However I cannot remember where. On
the thread which I linked to ethan's original
thread, shortly after you complained that my
link left you more confused than before:
which this thread was, who can say? (My
guess = tim finney's "hot 15" thread.)
― mark s, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I LOVE the part in "One More Time" when the beat drops out and
Romanthony's voice get's just a touch more vocoderized for a
single "ooooohh"--it's right before he says "You know I'm just
feeling..." It makes the song like twice as good to me. I love
things like that--and DP have a lot of them--where the song would
be "fine" without them, but having them there makes everything that
much better and more interesting. Still, they don't feel unnecessary
or superfluous in any way.
― Clarke B., Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link