1,001 songs to listen to before you die...

[Liam]

437.      

‘American Girl’, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1976)

I feel like Tom Petty is another artist that has largely passed me by due to a (perceived by me) lack of success in the UK relative to some other big US acts. However, this has been used in so many different places – it feels – that I am well aware of this song. This is another tune where I believe the lyrics had a lot of importance in its success as they tell a narrative that can easily be co-opted by the listener for someone they know or even themselves. The book mentions the similarity/outright theft of ‘Last Nite’ by the Strokes, which I somehow hadn’t realised. If you are going to steal, I guess you should at least steal from something good.

438.      

‘Detroit Rock City’, Kiss (1976)

I was thinking that I’d know this song as soon as it came on, yet I can only really hear ‘Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight’ by Spinal Tap. I guess that speaks volumes to how good the writers were at tapping into the sound of these big and brash rock bands from this time period. Maybe it is just me, but this just doesn’t do it for me like some of the other Kiss songs I know – that is, until the guitar solo. It isn’t anything spectacular, yet it lifts things above the rather solidly pedestrian song up until that point.

439.      

‘Young Hearts Run Free’, Candi Stanton (1976)

A song for all years. The disco element doesn’t date it like it could do for some songs, yet what it does do is hides how sad the song actually is. Stanton sings about a woman who stands by her cheating man as she can’t find the impetus to make a break for it. The simple repeated drums lay the groundwork, whilst the horns add some flourishes to help develop what is actually quite a simple song. Canton’s vocals are given room to stand out and are a particular highlight.

[METALMAN]

Yeah, American Girl basically rips of the Strokes. Last Nite is obvs much better, but American Girl is okay. I never got the fuss around Tom Petty. Few good singles and a number of mediocre albums. Still American Girl is better than all that shite like Free Fallin that he'd do later.

Detroit Rock City is okay. I always get surprised when I'm reminded Kiss songs exist outside of Guitar Hero/Rock Band games. I guess it was fun to play back in 2007 or whenever. 😕

Young Hearts Run Free is a marvellous song. One of the best pop choons ever. I saw it live once. Pretty cool, huh.

[Bobfoc]

I have difficulties with Kiss. I like a lot of their songs, but I'm also aware that the members are all horrible people.

[VerbalPuke]

Love the Ramones, obviously. And I mean, can't argue Blitzkrieg Bop, it's a banger, catchy as fuck and hard not to love. 

The Saints are a really pleasant surprise, they are a great band. The entire "I'm Stranded" album is really very good, and it's great seeing them here getting recognition. They were every bit as good as other bands from that era in the US and UK. 

The Modern Lovers are also brilliant, really love that whole album. I prefer Astral Plane or Old World but Roadrunner is still a cool song as well. 

I don't like Kiss, but I do like the movie Detroit Rock City. It's pretty bad, but one of those films from my childhood that I'd get stoned and watch with friends, so it's got sentimental charm to me. Detroit Rock City is probably not their worst song, but I'm really not big on them. 

[GoGo Yubari]

Hah, I love "American Girl." Genuinely think it might be on my list of perfect songs, in part because it's a song I've heard covered a million different times and every time without fail I'm like "oh yeah, I really like this song." Not sure there's really any other Petty song that feels that way to me, they're usually a little too sentimental or full of themselves.

Kiss is bad but that song's okay. I got to that album in 1001 Albums and it's... what it is. Not offensively bad but pretty inessential.

[gunnar hendershow]

I would pick "American Girl" as my favorite Petty song. I don't love everything Petty made but he's got some good stuff and "American Girl" stands ahead of the rest.

I'm not a big fan of Kiss but they have to be included on this list somewhere. After all, they're important.

"Young Hearts Run Free" is just brilliant. What a great pop song.

[Malenko]

8 hours ago, VerbalPuke said:

Love the Ramones, obviously. And I mean, can't argue Blitzkrieg Bop, it's a banger, catchy as fuck and hard not to love. 

The Saints are a really pleasant surprise, they are a great band. The entire "I'm Stranded" album is really very good, and it's great seeing them here getting recognition. They were every bit as good as other bands from that era in the US and UK. 

The Modern Lovers are also brilliant, really love that whole album. I prefer Astral Plane or Old World but Roadrunner is still a cool song as well. 

I don't like Kiss, but I do like the movie Detroit Rock City. It's pretty bad, but one of those films from my childhood that I'd get stoned and watch with friends, so it's got sentimental charm to me. Detroit Rock City is probably not their worst song, but I'm really not big on them. 

I agree with most of this. I prefer Pablo Picasso on the Modern Lovers album. I actually also like the new version of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, although it's definitely not as creative or groundbreaking as the original band's work.

[Skummy]

"Young Hearts Run Free" is one of my favourite songs ever. I would put it alongside "Be My Baby" as one of the greatest bits of pop music ever recorded, just an absolute masterpiece.

There's been a lot of other stuff on here lately that I like, but don't have much to say about. I bloody love Jonathan Richman, though.

[Liam]

4 hours ago, Skummy said:

"Young Hearts Run Free" is one of my favourite songs ever. I would put it alongside "Be My Baby" as one of the greatest bits of pop music ever recorded, just an absolute masterpiece.

There's been a lot of other stuff on here lately that I like, but don't have much to say about. I bloody love Jonathan Richman, though.

I assumed the Neu! were your sort of thing (you might have already said that - can't remember).

[Liam]

440.      

‘Chase the Devil’, Max Romeo (1976)

I won’t be the only one who primarily ‘knows’ this song through its sampling in the Prodigy song ‘Out of Space’, one of my absolute favourite songs. The most interesting aspect of this song are some of the weird things Romeo did during recording his songs – things like burying the tapes in the ground or blowing smoke on the reels. His is also probably one of the very few songs on this list that would have a guiro as a backing instrument.

441.      

‘New Rose’, The Damned (1976)

The first thing that really hits you with this song (and maintains throughout it) is the power and speed of the drums. This is noisy, fast and fun, whilst apparently being fuelled by ‘speed and cider’. The vocal break in the middle gives this a bit more of a dynamic feeling to avoid it from becoming a bit one note in style, before a breakneck end 45 seconds or so that ends where it began – with those drums. Hectic.

442.      

‘Anarchy in the U.K.’, The Sex Pistols (1976)

The Sex Pistols have never really been a band that I wanted to go back and check out. I was aware enough of what they had to offer, but I’ve never been a big fan of the older punk sound. No judgement for those who are, it just wasn’t something that appealed to me personally. The release of this was shortly followed by the infamous interview in which they swore on television, thus creating a maelstrom that carried them into the public consciousness in a manner that hadn’t been the case before. This was apparently the second attempt at recording this song – a version that geared towards recreating the live sound was turned down, whilst this version was seen as a more considered take and much better for it. Whether I like their sound or not, this must have been a real signal of intent during the mid-70s.

[Malenko]

I like all of these. I don't normally listen to Max Romeo, but I've seen it live and I had a good time. It's the kind of stuff I'm happy watching a set but wouldn't want to be in a full festival dedicated to it - although I've actually been in that situation!

The last 2 I've heard a bazillion times but they never get the skip treatment on my mp3 playlist.

[METALMAN]

These are three nice ones. Chase the Devil has a great feel. It's a really good song. For what it's.worth, I like the Prodigy sample of it too.

The Damned always seem to be the more overlooked of the triumvirate they formed along with the Clash and the Sex Pistols. Maybe's that's a bit unfair. New Rose is a really good song and they would, arguably, go on to do better tunes than the other two.

I'm not a huge Sex Pistols fan, but in Anarchy in the UK, God Save the Queen and Pretty Vacant they have a trio of singles that absolutely fizz with life. The Sex Pistols weren't really "punk", but that's probably for the best - real punk music often sounds pretty feeble. The production and the overdubs make Anarchy sound absolutely huge, almost Spector-esque.

[gunnar hendershow]

The Sex Pistols were what they were and considering 45 years later people are trying to copy everything they did (though, admittedly, less and less people) says a lot. The way their music hits makes it sounds so important, as @metalman said it sounds "absolutely huge".

The nature of rock n roll being the working class music of the late 50s and most of the 60s turning into self-indulgent music for "musical elites" by the early 70s with the likes of Yes and Pink Floyd gets brought up a lot in what led to punk's rise and popularity. But I think more importantly it was the canary in the coal mine about a major societal shift away from the post-war consensus of actually caring about the working class. They were angry because they could feel the walls closing in. Sex Pistols and 

Anyway, I prefer The Damned and The Clash if we're picking favorites.

[METALMAN]

12 minutes ago, damsher hatfield said:

turning into self-indulgent music for "musical elites" by the early 70s with the likes of Yes and Pink Floyd gets brought up a lot in what led to punk's rise and popularity. 

I think this thing is interesting. When I was younger I used to read NME, and they were right into this whole idea of punk as "year zero" coming in to save music. They'd barely mention anything that came before 1976. Which makes sense, I guess, because NME journalists were at the forefront of the punk explosion in the UK, sothey're going to want to burnish their own legend.

But it's all a load of shit because Yes were good anyway. 😕

And the concurrent scene of disco and funk music was far more progressive, musically interesting and daring than first wave punk ever was. Bands like the Damned and the Clash became really good by 1979 or so, but first wave stuff wasn't exactly improving on what came before.

I mean, I don't really mind because the myth is a lot of fun. It's just complete bollocks, and it accounts for a lot of "alternative" music fans who could barely name a thing that came before.

Edited June 30, 2020 by metalman

[VerbalPuke]

Disco is shit.

[VerbalPuke]

3 hours ago, Malenko said:

I like all of these. I don't normally listen to Max Romeo, but I've seen it live and I had a good time. It's the kind of stuff I'm happy watching a set but wouldn't want to be in a full festival dedicated to it - although I've actually been in that situation!

The last 2 I've heard a bazillion times but they never get the skip treatment on my mp3 playlist.

Ya, same. 

The Sex Pistols seem to have this reputation as maybe being a fake boyband, but really they were a bunch of kids from working class backgrounds that came together much like any other band would. Well, if any other band hung around Malcolm McLaren. Anyway, the one album Nevermind the Bollocks is pretty good, Steve Jones guitar work shines here I think, and from my understanding he played some of the bass lines since Glen Matlock was replaced with Sid Vicious who wasn't very good. He got that tone cranking a Fender twin reverb to it's max, which is neat because those amps are usually geared toward cleaner tones. But anyway, this is a good album if you just want some raw rock and roll. 

Then of course the Damned are pretty legit, their best album is probably Machine Gun Etiquette but New Rose is a solid choice anyway. I saw them last year and they were great, really special. 

14 minutes ago, metalman said:

I think this thing is interesting. When I was younger I used to read NME, and they were right into this whole idea of punk as "year zero" coming in to save music. They'd barely mention anything that came before 1976. Which makes sense, I guess, because NME journalists were at the forefront of the punk explosion in the UK, sothey're going to want to burnish their own legend.

But it's all a load of shit because Yes were good anyway. 😕

And the concurrent scene of disco and funk music was far more progressive, musically interesting and daring than first wave punk ever was. Bands like the Damned and the Clash became really good by 1979 or so, but first wave stuff wasn't exactly improving on what came before.

I mean, I don't really mind because the myth is a lot of fun. It's just complete bollocks, and it accounts for a lot of "alternative" music fans who could barely name a thing that came before.

I mean, it wasn't really about "improving" on anything. The idea was more about going back to the simpler times of  rock and roll (channeling rockabilly, surf, garage and such), and part of the appeal was that anybody could do it. It was easier to see Johnny Ramone and think "I can do that" as opposed to some self-indulgent prog stuff around that same time. I think some people tend to forget there was more to the first wave than the Clash, Ramones, Sex Pistols or the Damned (The Stranglers, Cock Sparrer, Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders, the Saints, Pere Ubu, Stiff Little Fingers, etc. etc.) so I think there was a lot of different things going on that eventually would be built and improved on in the 80s. The late 70s laid the foundation for what was to come later with post-punk, noise, grunge, hardcore, etc. 

[Malenko]

10 hours ago, VerbalPuke said:

Then of course the Damned are pretty legit, their best album is probably Machine Gun Etiquette but New Rose is a solid choice anyway. I saw them last year and they were great, really special. 

 

I'm aware it is for most people but I prefer their first two albums. I believe Machine Gun Etiquette has nicer melodies but I like the first two more even if those are rough around the edges. To be fair their only albums I don't like are those they did in the mid 80s until they broke up. Granted, they were shifting towards a more goth oriented sound but they had been doing so since the Black Album and Strawberries and there's stuff I like there. Also, there are some bands within the Goth Rock/Post-Punk genre I like a lot, so it's not just that. For some reason I just don't like how the Damned did it, even though most of these bands I like were actually influenced by the Damned! Personal preference works in a weird way sometimes.

When they came back in the 90s it was softer but still kept the punky/goth feel and I like it more. They were still making music and their last album last year (?) was pretty decent.

[Liam]

443.      

‘Poor Poor Pitiful Me’, Warren Zevon (1976)

Warren Zevon’s self-titled album had involvement from Stevie Nicks, Don Henley and Bonnie Raitt amongst others, suggesting that these musicians knew a good thing when they saw it. They had hitched their wagon to a singer-songwriter who soon proved that he had some skill in that department. This song wasn’t quite what I expected with the title, yet somewhat better. The clear guitar and drum sounds offer a backdrop for Zevon to talk about a run of bad luck that included things such as a failed suicide attempt and domestic abuse. The lyrics are at odds with the sound, which is what makes it an interesting slice of Zevon’s work. The clarity of the production in general was noticeable and made everything sound that bit bigger than it might have done otherwise.

444.      

‘Underground’, The Upsetters (1976)

The book speaks to this song setting the tone for future acts such as Massive Attack, and I can see it. This is an example of ‘dub’, not necessarily a style or genre of music that I was aware of. However, I do much prefer it to many of the reggae-esque songs that have come before it in the list. The use of echo and reverb give it a darker tone whilst still maintaining the overall groove that makes this style of music so enjoyable and largely quite accessible.

445.      

‘God Save The Queen’, The Sex Pistols (1976)

  Influenced by: My Generation • The Who (1965)   

Influence on: Smells Like Teen Spirit • Nirvana (1991)  

Covered by: The Bollock Brothers (1983) • Anthrax (1985) • Quorthon (1997) • Motörhead (2000) • Enrico Ruggeri (2004) • The Enemy (2008) • Nouvelle Vague (2009)

Outside of the opening bars of this tune, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it in full. It is hard not to compare it to ‘Anarchy in the UK’, which is a song I do prefer on balance of what I think they offer. ‘God Save…’ might be more controversial in its content as it linked the Queen to a fascist state and was released during her Jubilee for good measure…but it just isn’t as good overall. It lacks the hookiness to go with the noise that a lot of the 70s UK punk bands often managed to incorporate effectively.

[Bobfoc]

I ought to listen to more of Warren Zevon's songs. I think I'd like them.

[Hobo]

I love Warren Zevon - and "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me" is one of his great songs. I would suggest anyone who has never listened to him to Desperadoes Under The Eaves, which is the closer on the same album.

He was a classically trained pianist who learned how to play piano from a student of Igor Stravinsky - and Zevon knew Stravinsky himself. (I think it sometimes gets mixed up that Zevon was taught piano by Stravinsky). He had some proper musical chops but his real strength was in his humor. Sardonic is the word, I believe that gets attached to him the most. 

The personnel listings on Warren Zevon albums are kinda wild at times when you see names like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, David Gilmour, REM, George Clinton, Bruce Springsteen, Ry Cooder popping in to do bits on a couple of tracks.