Where in the world are the middle-aged dummies? Worldwide top 31 song countdown. (1 Viewer)

[scorchy]

First you didn’t know My Sweet Lord and now you don’t know Watching the Wheels? Did your parents ban Beatles music in the house?

Those rapscallions with their haircuts and using "yeah" instead of "yes" and what have you. No, none of that in this house!

Furthermore, you are to stick to playing normal modes of music, not weird stuff. Those who we'd find acceptable here would include Lawrence Welk, Jim Nabors, Percy Faith... good!... Andy Williams, Perry Como, and certain ballads by Mr. Frank Sinatra.

 

[krista4]

certain ballads by Mr. Frank Sinatra.

 

[titusbramble]

One-Point Selections:


titusbramble:

Routainen Maa - Heikki Mustonen (Finnish)

Note from titus: Included Youtube link as I do not know how well Spotify will pick up soundtracks to Finnish video games which are not yet out of early access on Steam

OK, soon after I sent this list and the explanatory note, I did actually check Spotify (despite having zero account, paid or otherwise) and see that, by some minor miracle, it did have the track available to stream. Yay, cool, everyone can hear it! However, whatever track with the same name (despite being Finnish ffs) that ended up in the playlist is a completely different song, so if anyone was relying purely on Spotify to listen to people's selections, I can only apologise for having to listen to whatever piece of **** actually ended up on the playlist. This is what you wanted:

Routainen Maa

My Summer Car · My Summer Car Soundtrack · Song · 2018

open.spotify.com

To give some commentary for upcoming picks:

5 point pick - I could easily pick at least a dozen tracks from this genre/timeframe, Probably 2/3 from this single artist, he is that much of a genius. Another one where you don't want to listen to the single version
6 point pick - We've already seen this artist, don't think this is her primary song from the album that I've picked one from, and she's certainly done more prominent stuff afterwards, but this is my pick of what she's done
7 point pick - Another track where I'm not sure where I heard it first. It might have been from listening to a Hamburg-based rock station while playing Euro Truck Simulator 2. It might have been from listening to the same station at work (where I was not playing ETS2, but may as well have been), but some quick röck/pop banger action
8 point pick - This will either push your expected number of tracks from this genre above what you were thinking, or it will keep it as you would think if nobody ends up picking the ultra obvious Youtube phenomenom. For me this is close to the perfect pop song despite being not able to understand a word of what they're saying

@Hawks64 Don't know how easy it is to fix the one point playlist? Thanks

 

[Eephus]

I'm missing your write-ups for your and @ditkaburgers' picks in this countdown.

I'll try to get back into this. We've changed our routine when we have dinner together and are watching Taskmaster instead of listening to music. Mrs. E sitting this one out took some wind out of the sails as well.

Today probably wouldn't be the best day to jump back in and explain my irrational devotion to Sporty Spice.

 

[simey]

Some favorites I know from round 4. There is something good about everything today of both known and unknown. I'm not including any songs from past lists.

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - I Levon's voice on lead, which is always a great thing. On Ancestry.com, I learned that a few of my kin fought for the Confederacy.
Hells Bells - My favorite song on the album.
Cannonball - I always had this song on mixed tapes in the 90s. It graduated to playlists in this era.
The Logical Song - I have fond youthful memories of this song and album.
The One Thing - My third favorite song by them. I love how this song kicks off.
Watching the Wheels - This is on the wrong end of the countdown.
Call Me - <--- hotline
Lemons Never Forget - This song is no .
Could You Be Loved - My favorite Bob Marley song. From the infectious groove to the backup singers, this song is awesome.
Detroit Rock City - Fun catchy song.
Draw Your Brakes - I know this is from zam's list without looking.
Blitzkrieg Bop -
Elephant / Solitude is Bliss - I like both of these songs by TI, so I added them together. Lonerism is the first album I ever heard by them.
I like Under Pressure and No Time too.

10 favorite unknown to me songs

Mississippi
Gunslinger's Glory
Boys in the Better Land
Anything Could Happen
Party Police
C'est La Vie
Mainland
When You're Gone - This sounds familiar
Soul Makossa
I'll Call You Mine

I like more than these, but I'm tired of typing, and the INXS video made me very hungry.

 

[jwb]

I want to echo some of the comments on The Clean - definitely a new to me band, and I have enjoyed both songs by them. That's a good sign - will look deeper into them.

Also want to shout out to @JMLs secret identity for Midnight Maniac the other day. Brought back some good memories. For a brief period in the early 80's, Krokus was almost the next big thing. Then... poof.

 

[Westerberg]

Love Taskmaster.

 

[Ilov80s]

Furthermore, you are to stick to playing normal modes of music, not weird stuff. Those who we'd find acceptable here would include Lawrence Welk, Jim Nabors, Percy Faith... good!... Andy Williams, Perry Como, and certain ballads by Mr. Frank Sinatra.

Nothing wrong with that

 

[simey]

Check out Levon belted it out behind those drums.

 

[krista4]

Check out Levon belted it out behind those drums.

Freakin' spectacular. I know we talked about this in turnjose's thread, but I'm in awe at anyone playing drums and singing that well simultaneously. Certainly the best drummer/vocalist combo I've ever seen. And one of the coolest dudes ever in music. My second pick for "drummer I wish I could have hung out with."

 

[simey]

My second pick for "drummer I wish I could have hung out with."

Is Ringo #1?

 

[Don Quixote]

Check out Levon belted it out behind those drums.

Almost bought The Last Waltz 4K UHD during the Criterion sale the other day. Now wishing I just pulled the trigger. (I’ve seen the movie before, but a disc I would like to own.) Next one.

 

[krista4]

My second pick for "drummer I wish I could have hung out with."

Is Ringo #1?

Perhaps.

 

[simey]

My second pick for "drummer I wish I could have hung out with."

Is Ringo #1?

Perhaps.

Maybe you'll run into him this summer when you visit your friend in England.

 

[krista4]

Today wasn't quite as successful for me as yesterday on the playlist, but there were still some fabulous highlights.

Of the known-to-me songs, the aforementioned song from The Band, "Could You Be Loved," and "Watching the Wheels" top my preference sheet. Duh. Vance Joy was an artist that I would have considered if I'd thought of him, so I was also happy to see him on there. I loved Binky's deep dive into the Bee Gees! And believe it or not, I really like the Bryan Adams/Melanie C song, which Eephus had shared with me back during the Bryan Adams Controversy of '22.

Not quite making my new-to-me playlist but still very enjoyable were "Fantastic Man" by William Onyeabor, "Mississippi" by Pussycat (those glorious harmonies!), and "C'est La Vie" by Khaled. Actually making their way onto the playlist were "Mainland" by The Real McKenzies, "Soul Makossa" by Manu Dibango, and "Boys in the Better Land" by Fontaines D.C. Every time I hear a song from Fontaines D.C., I love it and vow to check out more, and then I don't unless a countdown or draft comes along, so big thank you to whoever chose that.

 

[krista4]

Through four rounds, I already have 20 songs on my new-to-me favorites playlist. If we stay at this rate, this will shatter the number of songs I had (89) from the British Isles countdown.

 

[krista4]

Oh, jeebus, I forgot to mention my favorite of the day, which was "Canção Pra Você Viver Mais" by Pato Fu! Simply beautiful.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

I'm missing your write-ups for your and @ditkaburgers' picks in this countdown.

my irrational devotion to Sporty Spice.

Sounds like the name of an indie flick set in the '90s.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Through four rounds, I already have 20 songs on my new-to-me favorites playlist. If we stay at this rate, this will shatter the number of songs I had (89) from the British Isles countdown.

My "favorite new to me" playlist has 25 songs from the US countdown and 25 from the British one. At this rate I'll probably need to include 50 from this one.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Favorite new-to-me from #28:

Xanadu -- Dream Theater (Val Rannous). This is kind of cheating because I know and love the Rush song and this is a very faithful cover. The intro is incredible, as Eephus said, and the way the synths are layered in adds greatly to the majesty of it all. Both versions "breathe" a little more than most Rush epics.
Solitude Is Bliss -- Tame Impala (Marco). My knowledge of Tame Impala is kind of spotty and random, so it's possible I came across this before. The main riff is an amazing earworm and the way it employs guitars is very different from what I usually listen to. The bassline is also a real grabber. The song itself is very late-period Beatles -- but that's as good a source material as you're ever going to find to work with. Also helping the comparison is that Kevin Parker's voice sounds a bit like John Lennon's.
Today -- The Re-Stoned (Raging Weasel). Speaking of great source material to work with, this is a heavy take on a hippie song that keeps the charms of the original.
Elephant -- Tame Impala (Chaos34). Also possible I came across this before. Heavier and more straightforward than Solitude Is Bliss, it manages to pull off a cross between psychedelic Beatles and T. Rex.
I'll Call You Mine -- girl in red (Hov34). When things kick up with "Breaaaaaaaaaaaaak meeeeeeeee down," it's pure bliss.
Fantastic Man -- William Onyeabor (Landryshat). Fantastic indeed. Infectious but yet off-kilter.

 

[krista4]

Fantastic Man -- William Onyeabor (Landryshat). Fantastic indeed. Infectious but yet off-kilter.

Great description.

 

[Don Quixote]

Fantastic Man -- William Onyeabor (Landryshat). Fantastic indeed. Infectious but yet off-kilter.

Great description.

It is a good description of that song and him. I posted this link in JML’s thread to a mini-documentary on Onyeabor that I thought was interesting:

- YouTube

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

youtu.be

 

[krista4]

Some of you are good at these little games. @Pip's Invitation and @Don Quixote , you can pretend it's a Jeopardy category of "'S' is for song".

Take a solo song from the singer of one of our countdown's artists.
Add an "s" at the beginning of the last word of the title.
Now you have a song in tomorrow's countdown.

The reason I noticed this? Because I was putting together tomorrow's picks and wondered if this were a cover. Ummmmm, it's not, since I totally botched the song name.

 

[shuke]

So many greats this early already.

Known favorites:
Just Win Baby: The Logical Song - Supertramp
DrIanMalcolm: Under Pressure - Queen and David Bowie
Dr. Octopus: The One Thing - INXS
Mrs. Rannous: Royals - Lorde - New Zealand
worrierking: The Boys In The Better Land - Fontaines D.C.
krista4: Blitzkrieg Bop - Ramones
Mt. Man: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band
simey: Bell Bottom Blues - Derek And The Dominos
MAC_32: Cannonball - The Breeders
higgins: Watching The Wheels - John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Zegras11: Call Me - Blondie
Oliver Humanzee: Anything Could Happen - The Clean
Chaos34: Elephant - Tame Impala
New to me favorite:
Hawks64: Lay It On Me - Vance Joy

 

[shuke]

Pussycat wins for best album cover, hands down

Did you see the Scientist one? Or that Pete Rose was in the Bee Gees???

 

[shuke]

New to Me Favorites

Watching The Wheels - John Lennon and Yoko Ono (higgins)

 

[shuke]

The Clean's Anything Could Happen appeared at spot 1058 on shukelist™ so it's obvious many of you don't ready my posts or go into my thread!

 

[krista4]

Just remembered to listen to "Believe" since it wasn't on Spotify. Shouting it out as a reminder to people to check this out, and even more so to check out the movie, Run Lola Run, if you never saw it. One of my favorites from that era.

 

[Mt. Man]

A tiring day for me, so not as much to say as usual. Maybe I can hire simey to prop up my selection some more . Higher energy on the playlist, though. Which likely partially correlates with having a lot of new songs again.

#28s
Recognized by title alone: 16
Sounded familiar: 4
Knew from this countdown: 1
Didn't know: 22

Selected Favorites:
The One Thing (Dr. Octopus)
Blitzkrieg Bop (krista4)
Bell Bottom Blues (simey)
Cannonball (MAC_32) - Flashback of the day award!

Some songs I didn't know that I ended up liking:
Mainland (timscochet)
Lay It On Me (Hawks64)
I’ll Call You Mine (Hov34)
Elephant (Chaos34)

 

[higgins]

I'd like to take a few seconds to encourage folks on something that may (on surface) seem absolutely annoying BUT can be gratifying.... reaction videos. If you have fave songs that you're curious about how other people react to, no matter where they're from, etc., I find this fascinating and entertaining.

Case in point: I selected Loverboys' "Turn Me Loose" -- please watch 2:30 - 2:55 -- "Young, headband man can sing!"

This reaction couple makes me want to jump up and down. Now, they happen to be from the US and I can totally see eye-to-eye with them. But from other cultures? I dig this type of thing and am totally on board.

 

[shuke]

I'd like to take a few seconds to encourage folks on something that may (on surface) seem absolutely annoying BUT can be gratifying.... reaction videos. If you have fave songs that you're curious about how other people react to, no matter where they're from, etc., I find this fascinating and entertaining.

Case in point: I selected Loverboys' "Turn Me Loose" -- please watch 2:30 - 2:55 -- "Young, headband man can sing!"

This reaction couple makes me want to jump up and down. Now, they happen to be from the US and I can totally see eye-to-eye with them. But from other cultures? I dig this type of thing and am totally on board.

I've seen some of these that I liked, but a lot of them seem fake to me, like they're not actually hearing the songs for the first time.

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Fantastic Man -- William Onyeabor (Landryshat). Fantastic indeed. Infectious but yet off-kilter.

Great description.

It is a good description of that song and him. I posted this link in JML’s thread to a mini-documentary on Onyeabor that I thought was interesting:

- YouTube

Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.

youtu.be

Yeah. Its good stuff.
Onyeabor is definitely an interesting artist

Rest of comment redacted by MANAGEMENT

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Mississippi by the Pu$$ycats



Abba meets the Carter family in Lynn Anderson's powder room?

yes, plz

Yeah. Good description. im not sure what was in the water in the Netherlands at the time with George Baker selection around at the same time.

Pussycat wins for best album cover, hands down

70s written all over it lol

Fidelity - Regina Spektor (JMLs secret identity) - This is one of my go-tos for auditioning speakers. Her voice is so expressive and the recording is perfect - you can hear every breath, swallow, and sibilant - plus the intro has a huge bottom end to give the woofers a workout. Just missed my cut but shouldn't have

Wow. I need to upgrade my stereo equipment lol.

Also want to shout out to @JMLs secret identity for Midnight Maniac the other day. Brought back some good memories. For a brief period in the early 80's, Krokus was almost the next big thing. Then... poof.

I will er….pass it on.

 

[Mrs. Rannous]

The melody of this one just brings me in, as well as the vocals. The song title translates to a “A Song for You to Live Longer,” and was written while the singer’s father was dying of cancer. I think it stuck with me, as I could feel something like that even before plugging the title or lyrics into Google translate.

I'm eager to listen to this one. One of my top songs is in Spanish. I feel like I've always understood what the song was about due to its feel, and only a month or so ago did I first translate the lyrics.

I just found out that some songs have English translations in the Closed Captioning on YouTube.

 

[krista4]

Yeah. Its good stuff.
Onyeabor is definitely an interesting artist

Rest of comment redacted by MANAGEMENT

Don't.

(You just can't help yourself?)

Management.

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Todays selected comments
Four-Point Selections:
JMLs secret identity:
1) - Fidelity - Regina Spektor - Russia

landryshat:
2) - Fantastic Man - William Onyeabor (Nigeria)

John Maddens Lunchbox:
3) Mississippi - Pussycat - Netherlands

Eephus:
4) When You're Gone - Bryan Adams; Melanie C

simsarge:
5) Rivers Of Babylon - Bony M - Any group that has a lead singer sporting buck sergeant stripes on a gold Statue of Liberty hat is good to go in my book.

Zegras11:
6) Call Me - Blondie

1) - There were a few options available for the Russia selection, but this one stood out and had to be included. Now I need to buy a decent stereo by the sounds of it to immerse myself in the experience

2) Don Quixote recommended him for the 1977 thread and I enjoyed the one there. I feel theres one better that hits me right in the jML spot

3) I shouldnt like Mississipi but one look at the wiki page for this song should tell you why I do. It went to number one in 9 of the 15 countries listed and was top 10 in most for the year end countdowns. It was a massive hit wherever it was released. Not sure if it got a US release, but the sound, lyrics etc were all US centric so should have been a big hit. There have been days where I have played this over and over 10 times in a row, cause its such a great song. To put Little Green Bag out of my list, it had to be a good un.

4) Seems such an odd combination, but Mel C was always the most rocky of the Spice Girls and had a massive album in her own right at the time. Good song

5) I can talk more about this tomorrow. Frank Farian wasnt all bad as he brought these Caribbean immigrants into the spotlight and as Farian stated "All members (of Boney M.) could be replaced, except Liz Mitchell” the lovely smiley gorgeous face with the magnificent voice. Mitchell could turn an average song into a hit, and she did numerous times. Not here though Babylon was their only top 40 US hit and was backed with the superb Brown Girl in the Ring

6) It was hard not to include Blondie for me, but I could only do 1 UK/US combo for my lists. If I did a UK/US combo list, I have a song that would be top 5. Not top 5 is Call Me, but the Giorgio Moroder touch is spectacular on this song.

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

Yeah. Its good stuff.
Onyeabor is definitely an interesting artist

Rest of comment redacted by MANAGEMENT

Don't.

(You just can't help yourself?)

Management.

I’m trying Ringo, I’m tryin real hard

 

[Mrs. Rannous]

I'd like to take a few seconds to encourage folks on something that may (on surface) seem absolutely annoying BUT can be gratifying.... reaction videos.

The only one of these I like is Jamel. His reaction to Hocus Pocus made us laugh.

 

[krista4]

I’m trying Ringo, I’m tryin real hard

Uh-huh.

 

[krista4]

I've asked nicely several times. What more should I do?

 

[Mrs. Rannous]

I've asked nicely several times. What more should I do?

Ask Binky? Oh, wait...

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

I've asked nicely several times. What more should I do?

Regular, scheduled beatings should do the trick.

 

[krista4]

I've asked nicely several times. What more should I do?

Regular, scheduled beatings should do the trick.

Well now I just think it's all a long game for S&M!

(NTTAWWT)

 

[Mrs. Rannous]

This sexytime took an unexpected turn.

 

[John Maddens Lunchbox]

I've asked nicely several times. What more should I do?

Regular, scheduled beatings should do the trick.

Well now I just think it's all a long game for S&M!

(NTTAWWT)

I like my beatings in private

 

[Raging weasel]

4 pointers
16 known to me
New songs I liked in playlist order
- Cancao Pra Voce Viver Mais( Don Quixote) fully expected to hate this just based on the title but it's so good it won me over
-Solitude Is Bliss (Dreaded Marco) Not as good as Elephant,which I knew,but still very good
- Paisin Oriental (Mr CIA)
- Gunslingers Glory(Manster) could do with out the jangly guitar/banjo but the rest is good

Soul Makoossa(Doug B) gave this a like in the last5 so wasn't technically new to me but close enough

Call Me would've been on my list if I knew they qualified.
Liked both Xanadu but prefer the Rush version

 

[zamboni]

This was selected for a specific reason - I thought some people around here could use some more Rush in their lives, and maybe if the track didn't SAY Rush on it, they would listen to it with open ears and get much needed exposure, only to find out later that it's classic Rush. Surprise!!!

Speaking of, has anyone ever see The Rush Tribute Project? Going to see them next week - fellow Rush friend of mine clued me in on them. Strong covers, which obviously isn't easy to do with these guys.

Their Xanadu cover - vocals are a bit off Geddy's, but musicianship is top notch.

 

[zamboni]

Draw Your Brakes - I know this is from zam's list without looking.

I've gotten way too predictable in these things.

 

[Hawks64]

One-Point Selections:


titusbramble:

Routainen Maa - Heikki Mustonen (Finnish)

Note from titus: Included Youtube link as I do not know how well Spotify will pick up soundtracks to Finnish video games which are not yet out of early access on Steam

OK, soon after I sent this list and the explanatory note, I did actually check Spotify (despite having zero account, paid or otherwise) and see that, by some minor miracle, it did have the track available to stream. Yay, cool, everyone can hear it! However, whatever track with the same name (despite being Finnish ffs) that ended up in the playlist is a completely different song, so if anyone was relying purely on Spotify to listen to people's selections, I can only apologise for having to listen to whatever piece of **** actually ended up on the playlist. This is what you wanted:

Routainen Maa

My Summer Car · My Summer Car Soundtrack · Song · 2018

open.spotify.com

To give some commentary for upcoming picks:

5 point pick - I could easily pick at least a dozen tracks from this genre/timeframe, Probably 2/3 from this single artist, he is that much of a genius. Another one where you don't want to listen to the single version
6 point pick - We've already seen this artist, don't think this is her primary song from the album that I've picked one from, and she's certainly done more prominent stuff afterwards, but this is my pick of what she's done
7 point pick - Another track where I'm not sure where I heard it first. It might have been from listening to a Hamburg-based rock station while playing Euro Truck Simulator 2. It might have been from listening to the same station at work (where I was not playing ETS2, but may as well have been), but some quick röck/pop banger action
8 point pick - This will either push your expected number of tracks from this genre above what you were thinking, or it will keep it as you would think if nobody ends up picking the ultra obvious Youtube phenomenom. For me this is close to the perfect pop song despite being not able to understand a word of what they're saying

@Hawks64 Don't know how easy it is to fix the one point playlist? Thanks

It's fixed.

 

[Hawks64]

So many greats this early already.

Hawks64: Lay It On Me - Vance Joy

The funny thing about this song, I discovered it listening to No Shoes Radio. Not a fan of pretty much anything else he sings but I did like this one an awful lot.