Gr00vus
Footballguy
My 50th birthday is rapidly approaching (some time in December 2018). I haven't been doing a ton of reflection, but one thing I have been thinking about is what makes me like the songs I like. I still have no idea, but as an exercise to help figure it out I thought I'd try to assemble what my favorite songs of all time are. Over the days and weeks that follow, I'll be posting my 50 favorite songs, plus one wildcard chosen by my 9 year old son as his "favorite" among the songs I've subjected him to. I'm not suggesting these are the most influential, most technically excellent, most critically acclaimed, biggest hits, most popular or anything like that. They're just the 50 songs I've figured out I like listening to the most.
Over the course of time I've graded the songs I like in my various music playing applications on the 5 star scale (5 being best). While there are thousands of 4 star songs, it turns out there are only about 200 5 star songs in my world. It took a bit, but I culled my favorite 50 from that 5 star list, and those are the ones I'll list here. I'll post a little bit about why I like each song, maybe some interesting history, some tangents related to the song.
One working hypothesis I have is that the bulk of your music taste is developed pretty early on in your life, particularly between the time you just about hit your teens and roughly the end of your college career. Obviously this won't be the same for everyone, but I think it's pretty representative of most people. In my case that means the late 70's and most of the 80's have a lot to do with my music sensibilities, for better or worse. So, there will be some hair bands, there will be some sterile production qualities, and, yes, there will even be some disco. I like to think there is a minimal amount of chalk in this list, though I'm not shying away from top 40 stuff either. But if you're looking for the Beatles, Stones, Who, Led Zeppelin, etc. - you won't find it here. I think it likely that I've heard all that stuff too many times to love any of it anymore, but for whatever reason, they didn't crack the list, organically (i.e. I wasn't forcing myself to avoid chalk).
I've also played drums most of my life, so the rhythm section plays a huge part in whether I like a song or not. I imagine many of my comments on these songs will bear some discussion of the drummer, bassist, etc.
I may interject a few mini-favorite lists as interludes, as the topics take me. Towards the end I will definitely put up my top 10 drummers of all time at least.
I invite you to comment, heckle, expound, expand, ridicule, boggle, laugh, cry, or whatever other type of participation you'd like to have. What fun is bearing your truest musical soul for the FFA without blow back? If nothing else, I'll have explored a bit more about what makes music work for me.
Over the course of time I've graded the songs I like in my various music playing applications on the 5 star scale (5 being best). While there are thousands of 4 star songs, it turns out there are only about 200 5 star songs in my world. It took a bit, but I culled my favorite 50 from that 5 star list, and those are the ones I'll list here. I'll post a little bit about why I like each song, maybe some interesting history, some tangents related to the song.
One working hypothesis I have is that the bulk of your music taste is developed pretty early on in your life, particularly between the time you just about hit your teens and roughly the end of your college career. Obviously this won't be the same for everyone, but I think it's pretty representative of most people. In my case that means the late 70's and most of the 80's have a lot to do with my music sensibilities, for better or worse. So, there will be some hair bands, there will be some sterile production qualities, and, yes, there will even be some disco. I like to think there is a minimal amount of chalk in this list, though I'm not shying away from top 40 stuff either. But if you're looking for the Beatles, Stones, Who, Led Zeppelin, etc. - you won't find it here. I think it likely that I've heard all that stuff too many times to love any of it anymore, but for whatever reason, they didn't crack the list, organically (i.e. I wasn't forcing myself to avoid chalk).
I've also played drums most of my life, so the rhythm section plays a huge part in whether I like a song or not. I imagine many of my comments on these songs will bear some discussion of the drummer, bassist, etc.
I may interject a few mini-favorite lists as interludes, as the topics take me. Towards the end I will definitely put up my top 10 drummers of all time at least.
I invite you to comment, heckle, expound, expand, ridicule, boggle, laugh, cry, or whatever other type of participation you'd like to have. What fun is bearing your truest musical soul for the FFA without blow back? If nothing else, I'll have explored a bit more about what makes music work for me.
Last edited by a moderator:
yay 
! 
this 
will 
be 
fun 
!!!!
Oh hell yeah. I was preparing to start my long-promised 211-song Beatles countdown tomorrow but will follow this along instead.
