ILM POLLS THE 20TH CENTURY'S BEST TRACKS (Campaigning thread)

Don't forget to vote there: ILM POLLS THE 20TH CENTURY'S BEST TRACKS (Voting Thread - Ends at Midnight on Friday, November 26 EST)

Do your campaigning here, though. You can persuade us all you like about particular songs, but you're only allowed one single youtube embed (a thread loaded with them wreaks havoc on some browsers). Talk openly, as flowery or as directly as you like, about which songs you think people should be voting for. This might end up being a great resource for me when it comes time to search for blurbs about the songs that make the eventual countdown.

Thanks!

One song, so long it needs two Youtubes. Well, I wasn't entirely gonna play ball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=638kOxpFl5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neIs2rPDfMM

Lyrics: http://www.lyricstime.com/soft-machine-moon-in-june-lyrics.html

The rest of the album is (imo) very, very good (especially Out-Bloody-Rageous and to a slightly lesser extent Facelift...really wild moods they evoke here) but Moon In June is just...colossal. It's got everything. I've pretty much got the entire thing memorised, but so many great moments, so many wonderful touches. It's about being young, being lost...nothing else represents these things quite so well for me.

― Do the english boil pizza? (acoleuthic), Friday, 15 January 2010 02:54 (10 months ago)

Ike Turner's "Rocket 88" is often referred to as the first rock n' roll single, and it might well be. There was no eye in the sky on music in the early to mid '50s like there is now to tell us what people were doing in garages all around the world, but imo it's pretty clear where rock n' roll was married with nuance. Link Wray's "Rumble". This brief instrumental piece from 1958 is the first example of an amplified guitar sounding truly menacing. If you've seen It Might Get Loud, you'll remember Jimmy Page saying "Rumble" was the reason he wanted to buy his first guitar. I'd imagine many people would echo that sentiment. Within ten years of "Rumble," we had Hendrix, Clapton, Page and an army of others pushing electric guitar as far as it would go. I reckon it all began with "Rumble".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5kAXNm0od4

I'd also like to put in a good word for what was my #1 pick on my ballot: The Platters - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. I never really think of it as my favorite song, but when my mind goes there or when someone asks me what my favorite song is, I usually arrive at Smoke Gets in Your Eyes first and then toss around a couple others before deciding which song title to speak aloud.

Everything about it is sorrowful, joyful and painfully beautiful. Tony Williams' voice is divine (as it was on "Only You" and "The Great Pretender," the latter of which I wish I'd also nominated).

Written by Jerome Kern in the 1930s, it was covered a number of times before The Platters got to it. Yet they somehow managed to define the song for every version which followed theirs.

Fun and demented proto punk from Peru on par with Surfin Bird (could be even considered the Spanish version of Surfin Bird). The lyrics are about a man who loves blowing up and demolishing train stations. It's not supposed to be any sort of anarchist statement, the band was just trying to find a theme that would fit the energy of their music but the future punk generations of Latin America though otherwise and it ended up being hugely influential and responsible for breaking the movement.

Los Saicos - Demolición (1965)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fML-0M3e6Tk

For many young people in our generation, who decided to grow up with rock'n'roll by the mid and late 80s, the music of Los Saicos was known through some Subterranean (punk) bands who made covers of their anthem "Demolición" and turned it into an affirmation of
Anarchy and Revolution. And, on some more restricted level, through copies of copies of some original tape, which we listened to surrounded by friends in secret ceremonies which gave us back the original music of this band and opened our eyes to the Mistery: This was the wildest, darkest and unbeatable of all the covers of the song that we had previously heard.

- Beat Column from Sotano Beat fanzine.

There's blurbs on several songs that made my final list (most of them not mine but credited to original source) over here in case you want to post some of them on tracks that make it:

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/moteldemoka/favorite_singles_of_all_time_

I like Amy's review on this one.

Marlena Shaw - Woman of the Ghetto

Marlena Shaw wasn't apolitical before she recorded "Woman of the Ghetto" in 1969. No black woman could afford to sit on the sidelines as the nation sifted the ashes of the most incendiary decade in U.S. race relations since the end of the Civil War. Martin Luther King Jr. met his violent death the previous year and the urban landscapes of New York, L.A., Detroit and Cleveland bore fresh scars from economically ruinous riots. The nascent women's movement was urging suburban housewives to question their social and legal status, and for the first time since the mortal chill of the mid-century red scare, intellectuals and students began voicing loud objections to class privilege. But prior to recording Spice of Life (US, UK), Shaw was probably best known as a versatile jazz singer who performed with The Count Basie Orchestra, an interpreter of lyrically neutral standards.

There's little that's neutral about "Woman." Even today, its lyrics are provocative, even strident, poking a sharp stick at the white, quivering belly of middle class complacency, and in particular, ghetto tourists--well-meaning, but ineffective politicians, peace activists and academic types:

You're sittin up there in your ivory tower
Sixty stories tall
Now you may have seen one ghetto
But have you lived there at all?

And if Shaw is fierce and uncompromising (channeling you-go-girl R-E-S-P-E-C-T Aretha), in her "Brave, free, black me/I am a woman of the ghetto" self-assertion and with her blunt naming of material imperatives--jobs, food, schools, goddammit--who can blame her? It's the only reasonable response to those who would posit a theoretical solution to a practical problem. If you won't come to the ghetto to see how we're really living, I'm gonna bring the ghetto to you.

Most political screeds set to music enjoy the shelf life of unrefrigerated salmon. I know I'm not the only one who cringes--fair or not--at the name Joan Baez. (Though not, of course, when I think of ideologically motivated songwriters like Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield. Funny how the civil rights movement produced so many more keepers than the 60s anti-war and early women's movement.) What makes "Woman" a great and timeless song--essential lyrics aside--is its dazzling, sensuous, funky sound. You know you're in for something special from the opening couple of seconds as Shaw improvisationally hmm hmms over a fat, snaky bass line. She's just warming up for some scorching, but always smooth and disciplined (some of today's pop divas could learn a thing or two) vocal exercises, buoyed by Richard Evans' subtly layered arrangement--soulful choir girl back-ups, conga, organ, electric guitar and distinctive kalimba breaks. Its pop appeal just might be the song's greatest (subversive) strength. Everybody knows you catch flies with honey, not vinegar.

- Shake Your Fist. http://shakeyourfist.blogspot.com/2006/09/woman-of-ghetto.html

Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?' contains some of my favorite lyrics of all time. Feel-good existentialism.

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.
I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.
I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.
And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire?"

- Lyrics to 'Is that all there is' by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Another song that's almost so familiar that it's become forgettable is "The House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals. I urge you to go back and listen to it fresh, divorced from personal association. It's got a mysterious history behind it, some people dating its origin in one form or another all the way back to the 16th century. It evolved over time both in Britain and in the United States, through numerous lyrical variations and melodic reinventions, where it arrived via The Animals in 1964. While it's not a wholly original 20th century composition, The Animals' take on it is, I think, one of the most vital recordings of the era...by anyone.

youtube link

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Cn_59cQeBuI/SwiV2s1wBJI/AAAAAAAABi0/9CkJbuT2duw/s1600/Tom_Dissevelt,_Kid_Baltan_-_Song_of_the_second_moon_sm.jpg
Tom Dissevelt & Kid Baltan's "Song of the Second Moon" (1957) is one of the earliest examples of electronically-produced music in a pop ccntext, and it is fucking amazing: a compelling, meticulously arranged psychedelic collage of warped electronic rhythms, eerie pulses and chirps, whistling synths (and humans), and grinding industrial loops that stays cohesive despite the density of musical ideas expressed within its 3 minutes. It sounds years ahead of its time, though there are definitely elements of jazz, classical, and space-age pop as they existed in the late 50s. Really recommended for everyone especially if you like electronic music which like duh, I know you do.
yootoobe link

Some of my odd picks that people may have not heard before:

Motorpsycho — Mad Sun
Motorpsycho — The Golden Core
Arto Lindsay Trio — Imbue
Archer Prewitt — Good Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox78e5EyMVs

Haris Alexiou - I Mangues Then Iparphoun Pia

This is partly a stand-in for all the great Greek music I often don't even know by artist and title, but it's also one of my favorite songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnwpY0TD_tA

How do I post a youtube link without embedding?

I am listening to "Theme de Yoyo" right now and it is pretty groovy! I am mostly stoked on this poll because I know it will introduce me to some solid new songs.

i hope people vote for pre-60s stuff! even though it's a minority in the nominations and i don't know most of the songs myself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz0b4STz1lo

^^^Gustav Holst – Jupiter (the bringer of jollity!)
When I polled this, someone said ti gives them "mind orgasms"
Ecstatic drama!
Written somewhere between 1914-1916.
Flips me the fuck out every time!
Plus it's about Jupiter.

lol @ robert wyatt getting 3 youtubes to himself already

I am worried basically no one has heard The Celestial Choir — Stand on the Word (youtube link)

It's a choir piece that is a fucking jam. It makes this atheist's ass move! I first heard it on a Pet Shop Boys "Back To Mine" meaning it has the Chris Lowe blessing. So forceful and gorgeous!

Yes! One of Walter Gibbons' underappreciated contributions was digging up some great gospel disco (see also NYCC "I'll Keep a Light in my Window", which is imho even better).

Spotify people, know that "Stand on the Word" is attributed to The Joubert Singers there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_PBpM4nnyM

This was my introduction to Al Bowlly so it seems right that I post this link to introduce others. Stick with the clip as the song doesn't kick in until about a minute.

Henry Castro's Cumbia de Colombia may be a little esoteric in the English speaking world, but it's an old big-band cumbia with trippy time-bending transition in the intro:

http://musicmeow.info/search/mp3/1/Henry-castro.html

(The thing coming up on youtube when I search artist and title is the wrong version.)

I guess it's supposed to start out more folkloric and then go to what was probably a state-of-the-art big band sound, but there's a little rhythmic twist that goes along with it.

Okay, that Al Bowlly song is terrific. I don't know that I would've squeezed it into my ballot if I had heard it prior to voting, but I'm glad it's in my life now. Also, I really need to see Pennies From Heaven.

I don't love the song but it makes me want to see the movie, yeah.

Just wanted to stan hard for this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wLQNrr15sA

IMO it is beautiful, triumphant, gloomy, sad, happy, nostalgic, critical... It blows me away and if you are trying to avoid being too 80s heavy in your ballot this is my pick for "If you can only choose one song recorded in the 80s..."

And of course I also have to recommend the song from which my username tag comes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dQOJ657ptE

Sorry I just learned about the one youtube rule. I am very sorry for breaking it, I'll try to read the OPs more closely from now on.

For shame! TWO youtubes.

(I shall pardon you, though, because one of them was The Dream Academy!)

people, make sure you vote for a lot of novelty singles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2mujNA7CRk

called "the all-time novelty hit, plus a definitive summation of early sixties New Orleans R&B" by Greil Marcus

and who is ilm to disagree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3zo5KvtJX4

"we've jumped kerosene now whadda we do?"

has nihilism ever been this infectious, fun and darkly hilarious? an explosive, all-consuming noise extravaganza, and one of the most alluring ear-bashings you're likely to hear anywhere from anybody.

I did not nominate this one but I want to rep for it anyway, 'cause it's just wonderful! IMO, on par with Depeche Mode at its best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBJa5PuoCe4

theres this cool group called the beatles that i think you would like

some days this is my very favorite recording by anyone ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAKfy2W70Qg

I'll rep for this imperfect but spellbinding track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjAczpyN3lU

there are surely better technical vocal performances of Lush Life but everything stops for me when this plays.

lots of good stuff itt - house of the rising sun still bangs - amazing organ - like that last one too and crut's thing is wicked also keroseeene

Only voted for one song that wasn't in English, which is in fact the most beautiful song ever made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRqI5R6L7ow

I've not been able to put together any eloquent repping for my favourite tracks yet, but I just want to say I'll be very disappointed in anyone who doesn't vote for the Doctor Who theme. Very disappointed indeed.

Your shame has motivated me.

No more youtube embeds but SO happy that someone nominated James Brown's "Cold Sweat". Here's Michael Tilson Thomas talking very intelligently about it: http://americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org/programs/mtt_files/mtt_07.shtml

My pick is Albert Ayler "Truth is Marching In" - my favourite version is on Live in Greenwich Village (I don't think there's a studio recording), but this Youtube from another session is just as likely to rattle your soul:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKUc81vH3Fg

This music is elemental; it is cathartic. It's something I don't listen to that often because it completely overpowers me. The musicians are pushing their emotion into the music as far as it will go and at the same time they're trying to keep it all under control. It sounds as if the effort could break down into chaos at any moment and yet it just about holds to the end.

Honourable mentions:
Jorge Ben - Hermes Trimegisto Escreveu (Spotify link, it's blocked on Youtube for me)
Jacques Brel - La Chanson des Vieux Amants (with subtitles! which are devoid of the poetry of the French lyrics but give an idea of what he's on about)
Richard Youngs - Soon it will be fire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrqCVfCscpk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbiaCF_qsrg

I checked out Meredith Monk's "Gotham Lullaby" because last.fm kept telling me to listen to her and because I liked the title. How was this not in my life before? Something so weird and so gentle, so open as the sky, it's just perfect for me.

I voted for the Doctor Who theme emily. By the way: I'd recommend watching a short documentary on Delia Derbyshire called 'Delian Mode' which briefly reviews her life and work as well as exposing some lost tapes. I'm sure you've already heard it but there's an experimental dance track from the early 60s that is quite impressive.

Documentary:
http://thedelianmode.com/home

Samples of Lost tapes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7512072.stm

Here is the specific dance track I mention:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7512490.stm

Let's not forget, everybody...Cameo's "Word Up" is ALL TYME GRATE!

Darcy Clay : Jesus I was Evil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKX8ntjWeas

Its brilliant.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eKX8ntjWeas?fs=1&;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eKX8ntjWeas?fs=1&;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

I would also like to implore people not to forget about the following:
Bo Diddley
Dock Boggs
Pickin' Boogers
The Shaggs
Bessie Smith
Ornette, Albert and Sun
Link Wray
Homosexuals
Leadbelly
Flipper

Thank you for listening.

Don Drummond
The Impressions

Jeez once you start it gets a bit tricky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7lN1R2LP-4&feature=related

I can't find the original recording of Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "Didn't It Rain" on Youtube, but you can hear it on the Spotify playlist linked to in the voting thread. Meanwhile, here's an awesome live performance of it.

I'm not a religious person at all, but Sister Tharpe's songs are so full of energy and spirit they almost make me want to convert. She was funky decades before James Brown and Funkadelic, and helluva guitarist too. (If you remember the scene in Amélie where Amélie's neighbour is watching a woman play guitar on the telly, that's Sister Rosetta Tharp.) Besides being one of the finest gospel artists ever (who also wrote several gospel standards), I think she should be recognized as a foremother to rock & roll, soul, and funk, and "Didn't It Rain" is one of her most rousing performances.

can't use youtube here undetected - anyone want to post either ITS YOURS (the basis of all hiphop) or STRONG ISLAND (fun as hell) or SOMETHING FRESH TO SWING TO (if you like Grindin/ 9x out of 10 type beats, you need this record NOW)

Hardfloor's "Once Again Back (Rumble Mix)" was originally released in 1991 (on their first single, so I guess the title was supposed to be humorous), and it has what is perhaps the nastiest and fattest bass in all electronic music. If you're gonna vote for one bassline in this poll, let it be "Once Again Back".

I've spent my one Youtube, but you can listen to the track here.

One song I'll verbally campaign for, rather than just posting links, is Jim O'Rourke's Ghost Ship in a Storm. It's just a perfect song in every single way.

I'm trying to link to the youtube without posting the youtube

actually I want to campaign one more track
eric serra - the big blue overture (le grand bleu)
^this is the most perfect pure moods type song

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

Elis Regina's version of Aguas De Marco (Waters of March) with the song's author, Antonio Carlos Jobim appears on the amazing collection Elis and Tom. On that version, she gets comically exasperated towards the end of the song and starts cracking up. On this version (download video, 11 meg, Quicktime file), the same thing happens, but it seems so genuine that it it's hard to believe this was simply part of her act (unlike Ella Fitzgerald's shtick of "forgetting" her lyrics). Not sure who she is playing with here, but if you already love her voice, you'll love her even more when you see her sing

- WFMU ( http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/02/videos_france_g.html )

^ Also includes some good taped performances of France Gall and Django on that post.

The only song that I would be very upset to not see in the top 100 is "I Am The Cosmos."

Actually "I Only Have Eyes For You" as well.

I voted for one of those and not the other.

Elis Regina's version of Aguas De Marco (Waters of March) with the song's author, Antonio Carlos Jobim appears on the amazing collection Elis and Tom. On that version, she gets comically exasperated towards the end of the song and starts cracking up. On this version (download video, 11 meg, Quicktime file), the same thing happens, but it seems so genuine that it it's hard to believe this was simply part of her act (unlike Ella Fitzgerald's shtick of "forgetting" her lyrics).

The same thing happens on the Elis Regina song I nominated, "Vou deitar e rolar (Quaquaraquaqua)"; when she sings the chorus, she sounds like she's about burst into laughter. Which I guess is understandable, since the chorus goes like this: "quaa quara qua quaa quaa quaa"... Baden Powell, who wrote the original version of the song, meant the words to be an onomatopoeic imitation of the sound of the quíca. Even if it was her schtick, though, she sounds great while doing it. Hers was a singular talent.

I guess I should campaign for my number 1 vote too...

Like I said above, I'm not a religious person at all, but if there's one place where I can experience a form of spirituality, it's definitely music. And this applies to none other as much as it does to Alice Coltrane - she was an immensely spiritual person, which you can hear on every note she plays. I know some people prefer her earlier jazzy works to the later orchestral stuff, but there's some exquisite, uplifting beauty in the orchestral songs as well. To me the perfect example of this beauty is "Hare Krishna", based on a traditional Indian tune. Unfortunately it's not available on Spotify, but you can listen to it here:

Alice Coltrane - Hare Krishna

"When I think of those east end lights, muggy nights
The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs
Prima donna, Lord you really should have been there
Sitting like a princess perched in her electric chair
And it's one more beer, and I don't hear you anymore
We've all gone crazy lately
My friends out there rolling 'round the basement floor..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7a0Gm379E

There are not many songs that make me want to laugh, cry, dance and fuck all in one ungainly mess, but this is one, and perhaps the best one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMC_5FxdULY

"Moyo Wangu" translates as "my heart", it's chimurenga music, which translates as "struggle" in the Shona (Bantu) language of Zimbabwe, and this is Thomas Mapfumo (and the Blacks Unlimited). Please try to look past the poor quality of the clip, and stay with it, and I'll include this linked clip to the studio version, which is fuller and musically more satisfying, although perhaps not quite as endearing as this live performance (no dancers in the studio!).

*this link to

Listen to its unfolding, a dark jewelled flower.

Shaggs shaggs shaggs

Ghostbusters people!!

last-minute voters, for your consideration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJK-6f0DFa8

Ennio Morricone - The Man With The Harmonica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p8apOS_BPA

This clip doesn't even have the track proper, just a motif from it. Even so, there's a better marriage of film and music, or another track that conjures such amazing ambience from so few elements, I haven't heard it.

& don't forget about Yakety Sax, ppl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRHE-4XLqD4

orig. by Boots Randolph, for polling purposes

There's a separate thread for Youtubes et al:

ILM POLLS THE 20TH CENTURY'S BEST TRACKS (Campaigning thread)

Whoops, sorry, I just noticed this is is the campaigning thread.

http://rlv.zcache.com/great_job_a_sticker-p217085688877392375tdcj_152.jpg

Anyway, remember you're allowed to post only one Youtube per person.

Dignity is restored

at this zero hour it is time to swing for the fences imo.

The only country song I voted for :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTGKzWDakK8

This song is one of the catchiest songs I've ever heard, It's ridiculously upbeat and more people need to fall in love with it.

This performance sells the song completely thanks to the guy who can't seem to stop smiling and pointing when he sings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m6NcqvEjV8

:O

Brick are incapable of feeling sad.
I think we are music soulmates, Kitchen Person.

There is a five minute version w/an extra long flute solo somewhere in this crazy world.

A wonderful, often ignored, album track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUhjVWA2S8Y