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

[METALMAN]

Oh you're back! 

I quite like Soundgarden. I used to have very little interest in them but they've grown on me in the last two years. That being said, I've never really been too keen on Black Hole Sun. It starts off pretty good but the last two minutes is just this interminable dirge. Needs editing.

This Stone Temple Pilots one is okay. Again a bit of a dirge though. The singer's voice annoys me a bit but this doesn't surprise me because I've already heard that WHEEEEEYEEEEEN THE DOGS BEGIN TO SMELL HER WILL SHE SMELL ALOOOOOOWAAAHOOOAAAAHONE.

Waterfalls is a remarkable song. TLC were great and this is probably their best. HOW ON EARTH is it inspired by Waterfalls by Paul McCartney though? Because they both say don't go chasing waterfalls? Because that's about it. The McCartney one is a nice little song too, mind you.

I don't really like this Tori Amos song.

Grace is a really good album but I've never been mad keen on Hallelujah. It's a bit much. I don't really like any iteration of the song really. The Leonard Cohen one is fine I guess and if I were pushed to name a second best it probably would be Jeff B, but this is really a song that just needs to go away.

[Bobfoc]

I didn't realise Waterfalls was as old as that. I must be misremembering when I first heard it.

[Liam]

1 hour ago, metalman said:

Oh you're back!

I'll be about - just not sure about how often I'll update.

[VerbalPuke]

Out of all that, I really like Cornflake Girl. I like her voice a lot, i had a lot of friends growing up that really liked her but I never really listened a lot. I heard more of her from my wife and she's really talented, this song in particular is what made me appreciate her more.

1 hour ago, Bobfoc said:

I didn't realise Waterfalls was as old as that. I must be misremembering when I first heard it.

Same, not that its a huge difference but I really thought that was 96 or 97.

[GhostMachine]

On 26/11/2020 at 10:21, Skummy said:

yeah, I like "Hurt", and seeing NIN play it live on the With Teeth tour will always stand out as a spine-tingling memory for me, but I don't recall anyone really talking about it as a great Nine Inch Nails song before Johnny Cash did his version. "Closer", "Terrible Lie", "Piggy" or "Head Like A Hole" feel more fitting.

"All Apologies" is a great song, but I grow wearier and wearier of the MTV Unplugged session as I get older. It's not indicative of who Nirvana were, and really feels like a conscious effort to try and shape the band even more as "Kurt Cobain + Friends", with Kurt in the role of a singer-songwriter more than a frontman. It's telling that it wasn't really seen as anything special until after his death.

I absolutely can't stand Oasis. Never could.

Johnny Cash owned "Hurt", just like Jimi Hendrix owned "All Along the Watchtower", which Dylan himself even said.

Was not a fan of the Nivana Unplugged to begin with. And completely agree with you, Skummy. Strangely, the one I really enjoyed that was also out of place was the Alice In Chains one, and Layne was high the entire performance.

Oasis....meh. I get the hate, especially with the brothers' attitudes and egos, which were a nasty mix. Personally, I only like two of their songs: "Live Forever" and "Champagne Supernova".

I know Black Hole Sun was Soundgarden's most commercially successful song, but I like "Spoonman" more.

And, after listening to TLC's "Waterfalls", go listen to Ludicris' "Splash Waterfalls". The unedited version. 

[gunnar hendershow]

I'm not the biggest fan of "Black Hole Sun" compared to some other Soundgarden songs but it does feel like when they realized their sound. Down on the Upside is a lot more of them trying to recapture "Black Hole Sun" than the sludge and noise of their earlier songs.

Stone Temple Pilots are fairly maligned for being the forefathers of arena alt-rock. But they had some decent songs. "Interstate Love Song" is one of their good radio hits but, yeah, I don't seek it out otherwise.

"Waterfalls" is great because TLC are great. They should have 3-4 songs that make this list but I have my doubts that'll be the case. "Waterfalls" is one of the best choices they could have made.

Meh, Tori Amos.

Grace is a fantastic album but "Hallelujah" just pales in comparison to Leonard Cohen's. There's many other great Buckley songs they could have picked but they went with the obvious one.

[GoGo Yubari]

"Lover, You Should've Come Over" would have been a "we're picking the song that we think is better over the song that's more culturally relevant" pick for Jeff Buckley that I would have been 100% for. "Hallelujah" is a song that I just barely want to hear any rendition of anymore, even the ones I think are good (which is basically just Cohen, Cale, and Buckley).

[Skummy]

4 hours ago, GoGo Yubari said:

"Lover, You Should've Come Over" would have been a "we're picking the song that we think is better over the song that's more culturally relevant" pick for Jeff Buckley that I would have been 100% for.

Yeah, it feels like the '90s are really just going for hits/obvious choices, rather than the "must hear before you die" idea, and I'd have gone with Lover as well. I don't know if I could categorically say that it was Buckley's best song, but it's certainly his most mature, creatively and emotionally, for such a young artist.

I grew up on Soundgarden - my half-brother is nine years older than me, and was a teenager at the height of grunge, so most of my earliest musical memories come from him, and Soundgarden were his number one band. We had a pet cockatiel that whistled Black Hole Sun. That said, as a song, this one doesn't do that much for me. It's interesting in parts, but I agree with metalman that it sort of loses its way and becomes a bit of a dirge. 
Aside, but when my brother's flat was broken into, they stole his entire CD collection except "Euphoria Morning" by Chris Cornell.

I don't like Stone Temple Pilots. I associate them too much with the post-Pearl Jam arse end of grunge stuff that begat Creed, Puddle of Mudd et al. Yarl Farm.

Waterfalls is brilliant, I love TLC. I never had a "pop music" or R&B phase as a kid, so TLC were a group I knew from occasional radio play but mostly came to as an adult when my cousin got big into them. They're the obvious ones, but this and No Scrubs are both superb.

I love Tori Amos, she was part of my teenage goth kid awakening to genres outside of hard rock/metal, and I have a lot of affection for her music because of that. I don't know if I'd consider Cornflake Girl one of her best, necessarily, but it always makes me smile when I hear it.


God, Jeff Buckley and Hallelujah. I could talk for hours about this one.

I was doing work experience in an HMV stockroom in September 2001, and was at work the day after 9/11. Mark Radcliffe was on Radio 1, talking about how he had to find a song to play under those circumstances, and the only thing he felt appropriate was to offer a moment of quiet reflection, and played Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah. It was the first time I ever heard it, and the room fell silent until it finished.

I fell utterly in love with Jeff Buckley from then on. He was the first artist I felt like I really arrived at on my own terms, rather than through family or friends recommending them, and no one else I knew being into him made him feel like he was mine. I bought everything I could get my hands on - the albums, the bootlegs, the live DVD, the biography. I bought Tim Buckley records, I started listening to Nina Simone and Leonard Cohen because Jeff Buckley covered them and spoke highly of them, bought Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan because Jeff said he was the greatest, got into Captain Beefheart because Buckley collaborated with Gary Lucas, got into Bad Brains & The MC5 after I heard Buckley cover them on live recordings, and into The Smiths (who I'd previously been pretty resistant to) after hearing his version of "I Know It's Over". He probably shaped my tastes more than any other single artist, other than maybe Bowie or Tom Waits - but in terms of opening doors to other artists, and other genres, I'd still put him at number one.
 

Back to Hallelujah...it's neither my favourite Jeff Buckley song, or my favourite Leonard Cohen song. Some of that is because of over-exposure, some because it just doesn't hit all the spots that other songs of theirs manage. In spite of that, I have repeatedly argued for it being the best pop song ever written. That started after a prolonged drunken conversation with an old bandmate years ago, and eventually found its way into a magazine I used to write for. Basically, my point was that Cohen's version is sleazy, predatory, and a little world-weary, while Buckley's is breathless, angelic, and contains none of the sleaze or menace or grit of Cohen's version. Cale's version is more hymnal. But it's also been able to work as an X-Factor finalist power ballad, and as a cheesy open mic night number. All of those elements exist within the song, no version feels incongruous or forced, yet there isn't a single version that manages to contain all of those elements. And I think it's that inability to grasp a "perfect" interpretation that makes it the best pop song ever. 

All that said, I could probably gladly go the rest of my life never hearing it again.

[apsham]

I don't really like Buckley's version of Hallelujah at all - it's hard to do anything to beat the Cohen original in my mind, but I've never minded the Kate Voegele version either. 

 

[Liam]

For the record, I'd have gone with 'Lover,...' as well for Buckley. Probably my favourite by him, if not...hmmm Everybody Here Wants You.

[Hobo]

I've never liked Buckley's Hallelujah, it's not the worst cover (which that was the one by Bono). I liked Cohen's version more once than I do now because of the over exposure of the song. I feel the same about Steve Earle's "Galway Girl" which has been endlessly covered by various Irish acts over the last 20 years and, as such, I've completely lost my interest in ever hearing the original.

Going back to the entry on Blur, just seeing "The Universal" being mentioned reminded me of how Irish singer Joe Dolan did a cover of it which also has a really good music video.

 

 

 

[METALMAN]

5 hours ago, Liam said:

if not...hmmm Everybody Here Wants You.

oh yeah definitely. This song is brilliant. It was only really a demo that got released, right? At least, I always assumed that because there's something very temporary or placeholder-ish about the synth strings on that one. But maybe that's for the best, because that song works because it's stripped down to the bare essentials, and Jeff Buckley did have a bit of a tendency to polish songs a bit too much.

[Skummy]

"Everybody Here Wants You" was off the unfinished second album - I think some of the production was cleaned up before release, but not as much as it would have been had Buckley survived, for sure. My favourite off that album is "Morning Theft", though, which I think is just gorgeous - though, again, tied up with a lot of personal history.

Buckley is another one somewhat like Cobain, in that him no longer being around really lead to a certain perception of his work taking precedence, when he could be a surprisingly diverse performer. A lot of his live stuff was starting to move in an angrier, punkier direction, and I think much more of that would have started to makes its way on record. Even if it he hadn't explored that side of his work more, he's someone who was prepared to release a cover of Corpus Christi Carol on his debut album, so there was a lot going on beyond the fey singer-songwriter type he's been cast as.

[Liam]

I really like 'Nightmare By The Sea' and 'Opened Once' on that album as well. Also like that 'Nightmare By The Sea' got the cover treatment by Katatonia randomly enough.

[Liam]

No baby yet and I can't be in properly until active labour due to COVID, so here is another 5 songs:

811.      

‘Red Right Hand’, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (1994)

Nick Cave is someone I really feel like I should have listened to a lot more in my time checking out music – I probably own a fair few of his albums, yet rarely really listen to them. However, I am a huge fan of this song. I don’t think I can remember a better song for getting the malevolent nature of the protagonist so in sync with the music, or I guess more the other way around. Apparently, the lyrics were largely ad-libbed with the title and the narrative being the main thing that Cave knew when going in to create the song. Lyrically, I love some of the individual snippets, such as being a ‘microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan’ – chilling.

812.      

‘Sabotage’, The Beastie Boys (1994)

Influenced by: Waiting Room • Fugazi (1988)   

Influence on: Break Stuff • Limp Bizkit (2000)   

Covered by: Phish (1999) • The Bosshoss (2005) • Beatsteaks (2007) • Cancer Bats (2010) • The Penelopes (2009) • Switchfoot (2010)

For me, and without a lot to base it on, this is probably the best realisation of the Boys’ love for hip hop and punk rock, creating a three minute blast that hits the ground running, whilst the stop/start nature of the song has it lurching its way to the finish line in a way that is nothing if not glorious. It’s arguable that riffs and scratching never sounded so good together.

813.      

‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’, Prince (1994)

Influenced by: Takin’ Me to Paradise • J. Raynard (1983)   

Influence on: Take It from Here • Justin Timberlake (2002)  

Covered by: Raheem (2008)  

Other key tracks: Alphabet Street (1988)

I was completely unsure as to why this song made the list – it is a great song, but Prince does great songs – but after reading the little biography that comes alongside it, it all makes a lot more sense. This was during his ‘The Artist’ phase, with this song released independently at a time when he was at loggerheads with Warner about his creative freedom. Couple with this being a song for his soon-to-be wife, there are layers to the behind the scenes narrative that make this a viable member of the list. That, and it is a really good song; not something to forget.

814.      

‘Sour Times’, Portishead (1994)

Influenced by: Danube Incident • Lalo Schifrin (1968)   

Influence on: Teardrops • The 411 (2004)   

Covered by: The Blank Theory (2002) • Bryn Christopher (2008)   

Other key tracks: Glory Box (1994) • Numb (1994) • All Mine (1997) • The Rip (2008) • We Carry On (2008)

Whilst I went back many years later to check out Massive Attack, I never really got around to listening to any Portishead, or at least not knowingly so. I initially expected ‘Glory Box’ to be the song that ended up on the list what with it being the one song I could name from the band, yet when this slunk its way out of my speakers, I vaguely recalled hearing it in my relative youth. Not that it means it should make the list, more that it might have had some success that made it noteworthy. For a chilled out band, this is quite a creepy song with the quick bursts of strings and the sparse instrumentation making it feel like the soundtrack to a western. That a part of the song was lifted from ‘Danube Incident’, a song composed by the man who did the soundtrack for Mission Impossible, Dirty Harry and Bullitt may explain that filmic feeling that permeates through the song.

815.      

‘Army of Me’, Bjork (1995)

Influenced by: Dig It • Skinny Puppy (1986)   

Influence on: Love Again • Baxter (1998)   

Covered by: Helmet (1996) • Beanbag (2001) • Powerman 5000 (2004) • Abandoned Pools (2005) • Caliban (2006) • Drama (2010)

Written in 1992, this was apparently considered too aggressive for the overall feel of Bjork’s debut album. However, it fit in much more with the tone that was set for her sophomore effort. Industrial, electronic, powerful, the tune is powerful throughout. Bjork clearly wasn’t someone to mess around with. This for me was her at a point where there was experimentation, yet she still had a discernible pop sensibility. I doubt she wrote for the charts per se, but underneath the song’s aggression, it bops.

[Liam]

816.      

‘Champagne Supernova’, Oasis (1995)

I feel like this would be a potentially divisive inclusion, depending on what your mileage might be on those songs that end up thrown on at an indie club at the end of the night when everyone is drunk and wants to shout along to something. To be quite honest, I didn’t really know this song very well until my University days and times falling out of clubs pissed off of my face, and I always enjoyed it when it came on. Do I care as much for it now? It is a decent enough song and showed that Oasis had better writing chops than some might say, but it doesn’t set the world alight for me.

817.      

‘The Fever’, Garth Brooks (1995)

Brooks is notoriously difficult to find stuff from on Youtube, so this is what is purported to be a live version…and I’m vaguely of the opinion it might not actually be Brooks singing. He was one of my mum’s favourite singers, so I’ve had my fair share of listening to him so feel like I’d know. Ah well – it gives you a sense of what the song is about at least. This is oddly a song I’ve never actually heard by him considering all I just said about my experience with him and it is a raucous enough tune that is a revising of an Aerosmith song of all things. I’m not quite sure why it has made the list outside of to get Brooks on there somewhere.

818.      

‘Kung Fu’, Ash (1995)

Influenced by: Teenage Lobotomy • Ramones (1977)   

Influence on: Buck Rogers • Feeder (2001)   

Other key tracks: Day of the Triffids (1995) • Luther Ingo’s Star Cruiser (1995) • Angel Interceptor (1995) • Girl from Mars (1996) • Goldfinger (1996)

I genuinely think that Ash are one of the best singles bands in my time listening to music. Their Intergalactic Sonic 7” collection is so good with a load of earworm bangers for your buck. This isn’t their best song by any means in my opinion, but mainly finds its way onto the list as the song that broke them into the mainstream consciousness – all the most impressive as two of them were only 17 at the time of recording. That isn’t to downplay it as a tune. It isn’t quite as refined as some of their later offerings, yet it does have the raucous noise, quirky lyrics and catchiness that they became known for in some of their later songs. I’m glad they made the list, though I’m sure not everyone would agree.

819.      

‘1979’, The Smashing Pumpkins (1995)

Influenced by: Everything’s Gone Green • New Order (1981)   

Influence on: Turn My Way • New Order (2001)   

Covered by: Vaux (2006) • Jacksoul (2006) • Lismore (2006) • Kuusimäki (2007) • Young Love (2007)

Before I knew who the Smashing Pumpkins were, I was aware of ‘1979’ as a song. This implies to me that it must have got some radio play in the UK as it would have been the only opportunity I got to listen to music outside of soundtracks and TV adverts. It was always a song that I enjoyed as a child and was happy to rediscover in my late teens. I always feel like I want to like the Smashing Pumpkins more than I do. When they are good, they are very good; they aren’t often good enough for me. However, ‘1979’ smashes it out of the park with its hazy, lazy sound that resonates nostalgia.

820.      

‘Common People’, Pulp (1995)

Influenced by: Fanfare For the Common Man • Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1977)   

Influence on: Sliding Through Life on Charm • Marianne Faithfull (2002)   

Covered by: William Shatner & Joe Jackson (2004) • Tori Amos (2005)

This might legitimately be my own personal favourite song on the list thus far. I loved the song as a nine year old when it first came out, only for it to shoot into the stratosphere when I finally got around to checking out ‘Different Class’. What an album. Easily top five for me of all time. I prefer ‘Disco 2000’ (probably because it is played less on the radio) and ‘Something Changed’ (the lyrics are so good), but this is THE Pulp song. I also like that the lyrics could apparently be about the wife of Yannis Varoufakis, a man who is quite well liked in the English department I work in for some random reason – a random mix of reference and personal in-joke. Lastly, it is one of the ten or so songs I've done at karaoke. Badly, I'm sure.

[Skummy]

"Common People" is on my list of probably fewer than ten karaoke songs too, and the only one I've done twice. I once did it as a duet, and it turned out to be the extended album version, so the person I was duetting with didn't know half of it.

It's great. It's one of those songs that almost suffers for being a hit, because it was so ubiquitous that you tend to overlook that it's clever, funny, and has a nice touch of venom to it. 

I never really got into Britpop at all - hate Oasis, have only a passing familiarity with Blur - but I adore Pulp, even though I didn't get into them until far too late. Similarly, I prefer Disco 2000 - it's a superb song, played less often, and makes me genuinely nostalgic for the sort of childhood it describes, which very few things manage for me. 

[GA!]

4 hours ago, Skummy said:

"Common People" is on my list of probably fewer than ten karaoke songs too, and the only one I've done twice. I once did it as a duet, and it turned out to be the extended album version, so the person I was duetting with didn't know half of it.

That 3rd verse is unnecessary though.

I love 'Common People' but Different Class is such an extraordinary album that it wouldn't be in my top 5 favourite tracks from it.

Ash were one of the first bands I got into when I actively sought out music to listen to. They could, and still can, write some amazing singles even if they don't really hold up well in the album format. 'Kung Fu' is youthful fun that could only be written by 17 year olds; it's like their version of 'Alright' by Supergrass.

I love The Smashing Pumpkins (their pre-2007 output to be accurate) and Mellon Collie... is one of my favourite albums so of course I think '1979' is great. Billy Corgan in the 90s is a rare example of overthinking your craft being a good thing - at a time when rock music was trying to be laid back and casual and cool, he created some great angsty, dramatic textures in his music.

[gunnar hendershow]

"Champagne Supernova" is the lesser of the two played right before a bar closes and they want to have people wind down Oasis songs. It's really an example of what I don't like about them.

Can't talk 90s popular music without Garth Brooks. And while so much of the country that followed/copied him has been progressively getting worse, Garth is alright. He bridged the gap from traditional country & western musicians that had personalities and stage presence with arena rock tendencies to be more than just a musician but a total performer. 30 years later and what he opened the doors for is largely dreadful, but Garth had to be pretty good to make that possible though.

I dabbled in Ash back when I was first really getting into music and they sounded super youthful. I wish I kept up with them and dug deeper because it's hard to go back and listen to them now, I think the sound has passed me by.

I was heavily into the Pumpkins when I was younger and in high school. Billy Corgan is America's answer to Morrissey in so many ways. Mellon Colie is the height of his career and there's a half dozen songs from it that could make this list but you'll have a hard time topping "1979" for being extremely focused and artistic at a time when rock music in the US tried to eschew all of that.

Pulp are great and everytime I hear them I wonder why I haven't listened to more. "Common People" is kind of obscure over here so it doesn't suffer from any overplay. It's a brilliant song. Probably the Pulp song that most triggers those thoughts mentioned at the start of this paragraph.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Garth Brook but no Chris Gaines. I see how it is.