1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die - 1957

This one is pretty easy for me, at least as long as the only Buddy Holly song in the book is the one I am not particularly fond of (he had many other songs that were great and more melodically and harmonically groundbreaking).

Anyways, "You Send Me" is beautiful, mixing pop and soul in a great way.

I don't love each and every one of them, but these are about as elemental/iconic as it gets. I vastly prefer "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" to "Great Balls of Fire"--that gets my vote. I'm not at home right now to scan my media library, but I know there's tons missing, starting with "Love Is Strange."

woooh Sam Cooke in a tight field

but SAM. FUCKING. COOKE. everybody

No "Walkin' After Midnight"?

Also unlisted: Peggy Sue, Oh Boy!, Jailhouse Rock, All Shook Up, Rock & Roll Music, Susie Q, Lucille, Keep a Knockin', Wake Up Little Susie, Bye Bye Love, Come Go With Me, Got My Mojo Workin'

I think "Come Go with Me" would be my single favorite song of '57.

All of the missing songs wouldn't necessarily make me mad, except that they were bumped so they could include stuff like "My Drug Buddy" and "Crash Into Me" later in the book.

lol

Sam Cooke.

Yeah, Sam Cooke in a walk.

Let's welcome him to the stand with a great big hand, Mr. Sam Cooke!

love Sam Cooke & JLL but "That'll Be The Day"

That'll Be The Day.

Only 1 Buddy Holly song? This is an outrage.

Buddy Holly over Chicken in the Barn (whose barn? what barn? my barn!)

whole lotta shakin
you send me
when i fall in love

buddy is kinda misrepresented by thatll be the day

Only 1 Holly song is definitely wrong. Also, those two earlier Everly Brothers songs are surely much superior to the one that will eventually pop up in the next poll.

Glaring omissions galore from every year, although they are more obvious in the case of the 50s and 60s because later on they would have to make a pick anyway.

I can't vote against Sam

Sam Cooke, easy

Sam Cooke will win this, surely.

I agree "That'll Be the Day" is sort of atypical for Holly, but I like its gleeful sarcasm better than the sweetness of most of his hits.

I voted for the Killer .... Grrrr!

Buddy Holly has at least 10 songs better than That'll Be The Day

Tough choice between Cooke and JLL.

Buddy Holly has at least 10 songs better than That'll Be The Day

Agree. I also think Sam Cooke has at least three or four better than "You Send Me" (which is great, I agree).

Sam Cooke

whoaah-ooh-oh-ooh-ah-oh

Love Is Strange indeed. otherwise the Killer. not sure which yet

Voted Cooke, but Everyday or Not Fade Away would have easily beat him for me. Probably a ton of other stuff from 1957 too.

When I Fall In Love
(behemoth of love songs)

Yeah, if this had been "Oh Boy" rather than "That'll Be The Day," Holly would've gotten my vote over Cooke.

"Oh Boy" I feel has the same limitations. But "Maybe Baby" was a great song that was groundbreaking by using a completely different set of chords from what one was used to hear in rock'n'roll music at the time.

Not to mention "Everyday" although I guess that one probably sounded more pop than rock'n'roll anyway.

Except for the use of the ii in the verse, everything in "Maybe Baby" is I-IV-V in the key of A, Geir.

why do you bother

It's a vi chord!

(But, yeah, I-vi-IV-V was extremely common.)

hahahahahahahahaha hoo boy, Geir

Yeah, meant to type "vi." But the chord progression was so common, it has its own Wikipedia entry.

I think "That'll Be the Day" was one of his best, actually. The way he sings the blue notes and the way it swings. Such a classic of the period.

Except for the use of the ii in the verse, everything in "Maybe Baby" is I-IV-V in the key of A, Geir.

Which was different from 99 per cent of all rock'n'roll at the time. Which was supposed to be 12 bars of I - I - I - I - IV - IV - I - I - V - VI - I.
Extremely boring and predictable. Like harmony didn't matter at all (which I am afraid it didn't for those people - it was all about performance. Booooooring)

And, basically, that is also one thing I liked about early Sam Cooke. His songs were really nice pop songs. Songs with tunes that did actually contrast from each other. Proper tunes that had more in common with Tin Pan Alley/Brill Building than with rock'n'roll. For me, what Sam Cooke did up to 1960-61 or thereabouts is way superior to the too-gospel tinged "A Change Is Gonna Come".

Think of what Chuck Berry did with only I, IV, and V - "Thirty Days," "Too Much Monkey Business," "You Can't Catch Me," "Almost Grown," "Memphis, Tennessee," "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" - that's a lot of variety.

Chuck Berry was really good at writing good songs within the limitations of I-IV-V, I'll give him that ("Johnny B Goode" is for me the best example). But it was still a very unneccessary limitation.

See, I think it's part of the charm of those records.

I'm going with performance over harmony, so fuck you Geir. Jerry Lee and "Shakin'." And Sam Cooke's best songs were in fact the ones you describe as "too-gospel tinged" (code for "too black").

I'd rather say "Too black" is code for "too bluesy" or "too gospel tinged". Because this has to do with music, not with skin colour. I despise music with exaggerated emotion. I dislike R&B the the exact same reason why I despise a typical "white" genre such as metal. I want my music to be cool, calm and collected, with brains over emotion!

... don't you like The Beatles

He only listens to volume reference tones.

"exaggerated emotion," "cool, calm and collected"
Geir doesn't like fucking.

Oh and Sam Cooke started out as a gospel singer, not the other way around.

I know. But Sam Cooke got some sophisticated and nice and melodic pop songs delivered to him by some talented Brill Building songwriters at the beginning of his pop career.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Never heard Little Darlin' before, so great.