Favorite Rock/Pop Music
The following are most of my favorite rock/pop songs. Music from my very favorite artists (Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, and Enya) is omitted, because I have a hard time comparing songs by these artists with everyone else. They will one day have their own separate listings, ratings, and commentary.
The "rating" is on a 1-10 scale, and is based on similarity groups (it is too hard to rank them beyond that). A "1" is an absolute favorite, while a "10" would be a song I like, but just barely enough to have on a playlist. Only those that rate 1, 2, or 3 are being listed here at this time. Within a rating group, there is no sub-order based on preference (i.e., I like all the "1" songs about the same). And I will no doubt expand this list someday to include songs I rate a 4-10, as this list omits many artists who have many songs I like a lot (The Beatles, The Cranberries, CCR, Alice in Chains, and many others -- I just don't like any of their songs enough to rate as a 1, 2, or 3).
Lastly, the info column sometimes has links to the Wikipedia entry for the particular song if I could find one ("WP", opens in a new window), and/or some personal commentary about the song ("Me", links to my comments lower on this page).
| Title | Rate | Artist | Year | Time | Info |
| Sultans of Swing | 1 | Dire Straits | 1979 | 5:49 | WP |
| Frankenstein | 1 | Edgar Winter | 1972 | 4:45 | Me, WP |
| Cat's in the Cradle | 1 | Harry Chapin | 1974 | 3:51 | Me, WP |
| The Unforgiven | 1 | Metallica | 1991 | 6:28 | Me, WP |
| Bohemian Rhapsody | 1 | Queen | 1975 | 5:58 | WP |
| Silent Lucidity | 1 | Queensrÿche | 1990 | 5:48 | |
| Don't Fear the Reaper | 2 | Blue Öyster Cult | 1976 | 5:05 | WP |
| Wooden Ships | 2 | Crosby, Stills and Nash | 1969 | 5:30 | WP |
| Hotel California | 2 | Eagles | 1976 | 6:30 | WP |
| Call Me When You're Sober | 2 | Evanescence | 2006 | 3:36 | WP |
| All Along the Watchtower | 2 | Jimi Hendrix | 1968 | 4:02 | WP |
| Sweet Home Alabama | 2 | Lynyrd Skynyrd | 1974 | 4:44 | WP |
| I Just Want You | 2 | Ozzy Osbourne | 1995 | 4:57 | |
| Scarborough Fair/Canticle | 2 | Simon and Garfunkel | 1966 | 3:09 | WP |
| Black Hole Sun | 2 | Soundgarden | 1994 | 5:18 | WP |
| Come Sail Away | 2 | STYX | 1977 | 5:33 | WP |
| Dear Mr. Fantasy | 2 | Traffic | 1967 | 5:36 | WP |
| Fight the Good Fight | 2 | Triumph | 1981 | 6:21 | |
| Back in Black | 3 | AC/DC | 1980 | 4:16 | WP |
| Dream On | 3 | Aerosmith | 1973 | 4:28 | WP |
| A Horse With No Name | 3 | America | 1972 | 4:09 | WP |
| Loser | 3 | Beck | 1993 | 3:57 | WP |
| More Than A Feeling | 3 | Boston | 1976 | 4:45 | WP |
| Expecting to Fly | 3 | Buffalo Springfield | 1967 | 3:46 | |
| Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing | 3 | Buffalo Springfield | 1966 | 3:27 | |
| Wild World | 3 | Cat Stevens | 1970 | 3:20 | WP |
| Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm | 3 | Crash Test Dummies | 1993 | 3:53 | WP |
| God Shuffled His Feet | 3 | Crash Test Dummies | 1993 | 5:09 | |
| White Room | 3 | Cream | 1968 | 5:00 | WP |
| My Own Prison | 3 | Creed | 1997 | 4:59 | WP |
| Smoke on the Water | 3 | Deep Purple | 1972 | 5:41 | WP |
| The Crystal Ship | 3 | Doors, The | 1967 | 2:34 | |
| Lucky Man | 3 | Emerson, Lake and Palmer | 1970 | 4:38 | |
| Voodoo | 3 | Godsmack | 1998 | 9:03 | |
| Sundown | 3 | Gordon Lightfoot | 1974 | 3:34 | WP |
| Sweet Child O' Mine | 3 | Guns N' Roses | 1987 | 5:56 | WP |
| The Gambler | 3 | Kenny Rogers | 1978 | 3:31 | WP |
| Tuesday's Gone | 3 | Lynyrd Skynyrd | 1973 | 7:33 | |
| Free Bird | 3 | Lynyrd Skynyrd | 1973 | 10:08 | WP |
| Down Under | 3 | Men at Work | 1982 | 3:46 | WP |
| No Leaf Clover | 3 | Metallica | 1999 | 5:43 | |
| Hero of the Day | 3 | Metallica | 1996 | 4:21 | WP |
| One Night in Bangkok | 3 | Murray Head | 1984 | 3:51 | WP |
| Cinnamon Girl | 3 | Neil Young | 1969 | 3:00 | WP |
| The Man Who Sold the World | 3 | Nirvana | 1994 | 4:21 | WP |
| Smells Like Teen Spirit | 3 | Nirvana | 1991 | 5:01 | WP |
| Don't Speak | 3 | No Doubt | 1996 | 4:24 | WP |
| Crazy Train | 3 | Ozzy Osbourne | 1981 | 4:52 | WP |
| Today | 3 | Smashing Pumpkins | 1993 | 3:20 | WP |
| Winter Time | 3 | Steve Miller Band | 1977 | 3:15 | |
| Creep | 3 | Stone Temple Pilots | 1992 | 5:33 | |
My Comments on Selected Songs
The Cat's in the Cradle, by Harry Chapin
This is perhaps the first song that I ever identified as one that I really liked, that was a "favorite" of mine. I was probably three years old or so, in say 1976 or 1977. Appropriately, it was my dad that introduced it to me, as he liked it a lot as well. From the all-around good album Verities and Balderdash, the song is "the story of a father who is too busy with work to have enough time to spend with his son, though in the chorus the son comments to his dad 'I'm gonna be like you'. Later, after his son grows up and he now wants to spend time with him, the son now finds excuses to avoid spending time with his father. Too late, the father discovers his son has grown up just to be like him." (Wikipedia).
It has been recorded by various people, including Johnny Cash, Simon and Garfunkel, and Ugly Kid Joe. But I like the original the best.
Hearing it tends to evoke in me images of the movie The Field of Dreams, for obvious reasons.
The Unforgiven, by Metallica
Easily my favorite Metallica song. The Wikipedia article for this song says: "The lyrical content of 'The Unforgiven' deals with a young child who is assimilated into a collective society from the moment of his birth. Never allowed to express himself or display any signs of individuality, he lives his life as a faceless, nameless number of many. In his final moments of life, he looks back on his life with nothing but bitterness and regret." I think that is pretty accurate, and it is what makes this such an emotionally powerful song -- along with superb instrumentals (that have a strong "Western Movie" tone to them).
The Unforgiven could be a 'theme song' for so many people around the world: people in dictatoriships, communist/socialist countries, and other statist regimes. Or even people repressed by collectivism more broadly, whether from family, religion, race, or whatever. Fortunately for me it isn't a personal theme song, but rather a type of warning: you don't want to have to lament your life, so live it to the fullest and fight against collectivism and other attacks on individual rights in all their forms.
To be really specific, I've long thought that this is the perfect theme song for the minor character of Henry Cameron from the beginning of Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. He is the architect who dies as an old man, never having been able to express himself -- his principles -- in his work, and who warns the hero, Howard Roark, not to compromise and make the same mistakes he did.
Some great lyrics from this song include:
...deprived of all his thoughts
the young man struggles on and on he's known
a vow unto his own
that never from this day
his will they'll take away
...
never shined through in what I've shown
never be
never see
won't see what might have been
...
never free
never me
so I dub thee unforgiven
...
they dedicate their lives
to running all of his
he tries to please them all
this bitter man he is
throughout his life the same
he's battled constantly
this fight he cannot win
a tired man they see no longer cares
the old man then prepares
to die regretfully
that old man here is me
...
you labeled me
I'll label you
so I dub thee unforgiven
So I dub thee unforgiven -- it doesn't get much better than that! I also love the lines "they dedicate their lives / to running all of his". It is the eleven lines that start with those two that most lead me to think of the fictional character of Henry Cameron.
Frankenstein, by The Edgar Winter Group
Any song hummed by Otto the busdriver on the Simpsons can't be half bad. But this one is more than that... it is stunning. Reading the brief entry at Wikipedia I learned it hit #1 in 1973, and deservedly so. It is a great combination of hard rock guitar and drums with cosmic keyboards.
As I have thought about this song over the years, I've noticed how segmented it is: although the opening theme returns later, there are many distinct parts that seem to be just patched together... making it the perfect "Frankensong". In fact, I've sometimes visualized this song in terms of the old Frankenstein movies -- black and white, with the Frankstein monster with the bolts in his neck, the bad hair cut, and dingy sportcoat that doesnt' fit well, and so on. Segments of the song seem to correspond to parts of the classic "bringing the monster to life" scenes. This probably isn't the best such video storyboard, but here is one attempt:
- 0:00 - 0:50 = main theme; general intro of the setting of Dr. Frankenstein's castle, his lab, and his goals
- 0:51 - 1:30 = cosmic guitar; Dr. F. struggling with his equations, and then the camera zooms through the elaborate fluids and vials involved, and during the whining guitar we see a black cat meowing loud (twice)
- 1:30 - 1:50 = Saxophones; Dr. F. now struggles to get the parts he needs
- 1:51 - 2:01 = Cowbell highlights percussion; Dr. F. chatters at his assistant, upset with him, and tips a table of equipment out of frustration
- 2:02 - 2:11 Drumset percussion; recovering, half-crazed now, from his temper-tantrum, Dr. F runs around the huge equipment in his lab, with all the lights flashing like in the old movies (pre-modern computers)
- 2:11 - 2:21 Growing tension from guitar; leads to his throwing the switch once, only to see a lone finger of the monster's move slightly
- 2:21 - 2:48 Serious drumset work, including some dueling tom-toms; Dr. F. racks his brain to figure out what is wrong, what more can he do? The dualing tom-toms play while he frantically looks back and forth, back and forth for a solution.
- 2:49 - 3:15 Cosmic guitar work; a crack of lightning from above makes Dr. F. realize what he needs... more juice... a lot more electricity, and that he should get it from the sky. So the monster's lifeless body is slowly hooked up to a lightning rod on the roof.
- 3:15 - 3:53 Cosmic keyboards/synthesizer, going lower and lower, then bubbling back, with drums added back in; the lightning can either strike at the beginning of this sequence or the end. If at the end, then the lightning strikes when the main theme starts up again. But if at the beginning (I prefer to think of it this way), then there is a slow build of the fluids, electricity, etc., working their way into the monster...
- 3:53 - The triumphant main theme returns; the eyes open, an arm bolts forward breaking its bonds, the body springs up, the other bonds are broken, the monster rampages through the lab, chokes his maker and throws him to the ground, and (during the slower parts of the music towards the end) he lumbers out into the night to cause destruction!
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