1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die - 1955

Half-hearted vote for Sinatra; there are Platters, Little Richard, and Bo Diddley songs I like much better.

love four of these songs, but made my vote for the company store

ford over london

Cry Me A River

Little Richard

Sinatra for me, even though there are better Sinatra tracks coming up later. Still prefer Sinatra's 50s albums to most 50s rock'n'roll although some nice soul, country influenced pop/rock and Brill Building music was being made towards the end of the decade.

was 1955 a really bad year?

I actually hate voting for Sinatra over the rock 'n' roll here--Sinatra's dismissal of early rock 'n' roll was typically nasty, condescending, and basically clueless.

... another day older and a vote from me.

Sinatra basically dismissed rock in general. As for 50s rock, it just didn't hold up. If The Beatles count as rock, then rock started being good in 1963. If not, then I guess rock has never really been worth paying that much attention to at all.

Little Richard

As for 50s rock, it just didn't hold up.

I gather you've been questioned on this before...It's perfectly fine to hold such a view, but you might want to temper that with phrases like "for me," etc.

Tough for me between "Cry Me a River" and "Sixteen Tons", both 10/10 type songs for me, but ultimately have gone with "Cry Me a River". Might change my mind though.

It's perfectly fine to hold such a view, but you might want to temper that with phrases like "for me," etc.

Such is not The Way of the Hongroe

My vote goes with Ol' Blue Eyes. That song (and the album it's from) are amongst Sinatra's best, and I've turned lots of my younger friends on to him by playing this song (or "One For My Baby"), most who never dreamed they'd like anything this old. In The Wee Small Hours and Only The Lonely (from '58 or '59) are his best records IMO, and essential listening.

Worth noting that Frank Sinatra was the first major artist to recognise the potential of the album as a cohesive musical statement and not just a random collection of songs - he was 10 years ahead of the rock crowd in this regard. He did this even back when "albums" were literal albums - a book with about 5 pages each containing a 10- or 12-inch 78 rpm disc with one song per side. And when the LP came around in 1948, he understood the importance of good sequencing immediately.

Sinatra may have despised rock and roll, but an astonishing number of rock singers (of the past and present) like Sinatra and were influenced by him.

16 Tons

I'd never deny Sinatra's influence, talent, or anything like that. He's huge--surely one of the four or five most important American musicians ever. And there are songs of his I love (especially "It Was a Very Good Year"). Just not a fan of him personally, in part because of quotes like this:

"It smells phony and false. It is sung, played, and written for the most part by cretinous goons, and by means of its almost imbecilic
reiterations and sly, lewd, in plain fact dirty, lyrics, it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on earth."

There's something happening here, etc.

was 1955 a really bad year?

Check the album list at Rate Your Music and judge for yourself...

Voted for Little Richard over Bo Diddley. Tutti Frutti is a riot of a song! Love the vocals on this. 50's rock is just fine by me.

oh man tutti frutti is great, but only you is just about perfect

these are all GREAT songs - deathless - but oh man voting is no contest. "tutti frutti" is volcanic, a force of nature

Some of the 1955 singles that didn't make this book (unless the book has the years diff.)

Johnny Cash- Folsom Prison Blues
Chuck Berry- Maybellene
Muddy Waters- Manish Boy
Frankie Lymon- Why Do Fools Fall in Love?
Elvis Presley- Mystery Train
Fats Domino- Ain't It a Shame

Now that list is more like it. And from my media player I'd throw in:

"Speedo," Cadillacs
"Mi Soncito," Celia Cruz
"Death of an Angel," Donald Woods & the Belairs
"Your Promise to Be Mine," Drifters
"Lonely Nights," Hearts
"Pledging My Love," Johnny Ace

16 tons in a heartbeat, no problem whatsoever.

And that's a good (if short) list.

I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

I'm glad Geir's priming everyone with these polls for the big 50s TRAX poll in a few months. I still wanna do that, but first we gotta get through the rap poll and then rest for a couple weeks.

The Platters should have this, in a perfect message board.

J. London a close follow-up.

Fuckin' Tony Williams, though...phew!

Tony Williams is one of my favorite voices ever. EVAR.

Check the album list at Rate Your Music and judge for yourself...

1955 was still more about singles though, wasn't it? At least if you are speaking of popular music.

I'm glad Geir's priming everyone with these polls for the big 50s TRAX poll in a few months.

Well... I'll continue this book into the 2010s :)

Some of the 1955 singles that didn't make this book (unless the book has the years diff.)

Johnny Cash- Folsom Prison Blues

I believe the 1969 live version is in the book.

Sinatra basically dismissed rock in general. As for 50s rock, it just didn't hold up. If The Beatles count as rock, then rock started being good in 1963. If not, then I guess rock has never really been worth paying that much attention to at all.

Nice to have today's WTF moment.

this list really fails to do justice to early pop(I will probably say this a few more times during the countdown). voted Tutti Frutti but all are great

fwiw country music was fucking ON FIRE in 1955

Let Me Go, Lover! - Hank Snow
A Satisfied Mind - Porter Wagoner
Cry! Cry! Cry! - Johnny Cash
When I Stop Dreaming - The Louvin Brothers
Why Baby Why - George Jones
Wildwood Flower - Hank Thompson and His Brazos Valley Boys with Merle Travis
Would You Mind - Hank Snow
The Yellow Rose of Texas - Ernest Tubb
MYSTERY TRAIN - ELVIS PRESLEY

"Mystery Train" is surely missing here, but just as the book is missing a lot of really important early Beatles songs, it also seems to reduce the number of tracks by other big names.

Penniman over OBE

what silly book are these polls based on again?

feel like there's a clue in the thread title

ya think?

Nope, don't see one there.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Re poor selection pre-rock, obvious point I suppose, but: A problem in compiling such a list in a consistent way over a longer period is surely that "song" means different things. For the last decades, what we have thought about as a "song" is a recording of a song, ie an artist-song pairing, while in the early 20th C a "song" was to a larger degree the song itself, an entity consisting of tune + lyrics, to be sung and recorded by whomever.

That is true. Sheet music actually counted in early hitlists.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.