20. "Forever" - Kiss
Paul Stanley and Michael Bolton with their powers combined? Why the dick not? I would never think that a singer in my 100 favorites of all time and a singer in my 10 worst of all time would both knock heads and pen one of my favorite songs of all time. But I guess stranger things have happened. Kiss' last top ten Billboard single thus far "Forever" stems from their final album of the 80s, Hot In the Shade. Said album isn't necessarily one of the band's strongest, but up until Psycho Circus, Kiss hadn't released anything close to a bad album yet. "Forever" is the type of maple syrupy balladry that every rock band was required by law to produce at least once per album during that decade but it unquestionably destroys all in the same vein. Paul's soaring vocal and sexcellent songwriting skills certainly help, and whatever the hell Mr. "Please, Inside Voice" Bolton contributed must've been worth something as well. He must've brought the syrup. But yeah, this is the finest power ballad ever recorded and I usually love me some power ballads.
19. "Easy" - The Commodores
Does this count as a power ballad as well? Not so much "power" mayhaps but certainly the ballad part. I guess just substitute the "power" for "sexual dynamite" courtesy of the demon in the sack Lord Lionel Richie at the helm as vocalist and composer of the quintessential Commodores jam. "Easy" is actually the best song the Richie or darn near anybody ever wrote, either with the band he got famous with or flying solo. Faith No More does a well known enough cover of "Easy" as well, though they cut the second verse out for some unfortunate reason. Mike Patton still devastates the vocal so it's hardly worth missing. But the guitar solo here by Thomas McClary is appropriately easy to play and might also be in the top ten of all time. It's the piano and vocal melody though that are impossible not to fall for. This is a song you can hear anywhere at any time and just ease back and sway uncontrollably to. Even if it's blizzarding outside on a Monday at 6 in the AM on your way to a full week of work. There can be no denying the superpowers that Lionel Richie most assuredly possesses.
18. "Hey Jude" - The Beatles
I might not have a more famous song on this list than "Hey Jude". It was the first single the Beatles released on their own Apple label and proceeded to sell all the copies ever. It broke chart records in both their native UK as well as the US, (both as the longest single track length wise and longest position at number uno, respectively). And I don't think a "greatest songs of all time" list has yet come out in any professional medium where it doesn't place, more often than not, about as high if not higher than I'm putting it here. Like I said in the forward, sometimes I agree with a band's most popular song deserving the acolytes, or one of the many, many most popular songs where the Beatles are concerned. This is arguably the best song Paul McCartney ever wrote. Even John Lennon thought so. Written as a lullaby to Julian Lennon regarding his parents current break-up at the time, "Hey Jude" is the ultimate piano ballad and perhaps it's most famous sing along finale, (still the longest fade-out in pop history I'd reckon), is pure greatness. It's the Beatles doing what they simple couldn't help but do. Being innovative and delivering a pop masterpiece that will endure long after anyone who was alive at the time, including them, is even with us.
17. "In Your Eyes" - Peter Gabriel
My love for Peter Gabriel's music is as intense as it can possibly be for anyone's but I am hard pressed if ever in my life to believe that he has a better song in his catalog than "In Your Eyes". So is an album that is in the higher running for the best ever made and there is perfection on display in every sound therein. It makes all the sense then that said album would contain the ultimate Peter Gabriel song and "Eyes" is just the creme de le creme. Gabriel's utilization of world music is about second to none where Westernized pop music is concerned and this is a beautiful-in-every-way representation of this. The multi-layered percussion track, featuring both Manu Katché and Jerry Marotta on drums as well as numerous other acoustic and electronic flourishes, provides the perfect coloring for that simple keyboard "riff" and memorable 12-string guitar lick. And of course Gabriel's exquisite lyrics. Few better love songs exist than this and if anyone needs further proof that PG is an outstanding vocalist, this here is exhibit A. The free-form vocal improvisation by both Gabriel and Youssou N'Dour at the end is a glorious send-home for "Eyes" as well.
16. "Let's Go Crazy (Jam)" - Prince
How this song came to exist in it's seemingly present form I have yet to decipher. For whatever thank-the-gods reason, at some point within the last few years, Prince put together an all-female group called 3rdEyeGirl and up and decided to use them to turn "Let's Go Crazy" into the sickest fucking stoner rock song of all time. I've spent all the same years the rest of you have listening and loving the normal version of "Crazy" off the legendary Purple Rain album, but never in any of my years would I have the faintest idea that the song contained arguably the greatest guitar riff not written by Tony Iommi. Since I was turned onto stoner "Crazy" by a band mate of mine last year, I have listened to it probably more times than any other Prince song. Actually, I've probably been listening to this jam more than any song by anybody this whole time. This guitar solo has always been what big floppy tittays would sound like if big floppy tittays were a guitar solo, but in this setting it just rips even harder. Then we have one of the riffs from Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein"borrowed for good measure and then a brand new riff that is just destroyed for several minutes before bringing it back to home base for that recognizable, stop-everything-else ending lead rippage. I'm just throwing this out there, but is there any possibility we can all just convince the Purple One to re-vamp every song in his catalog just like this? I'll wait.
15. "Do You Wanna Dance?" - The Ramones
You can balk all you want that no one in their right mind would put a random, less than two minute, Ramones cover of a Bobby Freeman song as not only their highest and only Ramones song on a list like this, but also a song that ended up in the top fifteen. Satan damn it though, I stand proudly by it's inclusion where it belongs. My buddy Shawn Reilly is my one and only ally in this, at least that I can say. But anyshit, yeah, I just can't pretend there's another song in the book of Ramones that I ever feel like hearing more than Rocket To Russia's "Do You Wanna Dance?". Or that there's a song by anybody that's stuck in my head more often. Every time I hear it I just keep saying to myself "You know, this really is the greatest song of all time". And judging by the fact that this is the first time it's made my favorite song list even though I've been a Ramones fan for years now, I can only imagine it may very well take the very top spot as routinely prophesied in me head. Also, Rock and Roll High School is a delightfully stupid ass movie and you'd be right to bet the farm that the school hallway riot scene set to "Do You Wanna Dance?" is everything musical numbers in films should be. See clip above for irrefutable evidence.
14. "Kentucky Avenue" - Tom Waits
Any self-respecting songwriter or lover of music at that would have to be broken as a human being not to recognize that Tom Waits is one of the best song-slingers we've ever seen. I understand Waits' McGruff the Crime Dog vocals often put a number of people off to his greatness, (though not I said the fly), but regardless, there is a never ceasing list of phenomenal songs that this man has penned over the decades. Waits' most critically lauded albums Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs I agree are his finest offerings in album form, but as far as a single shining tune that dwarfs all others, it's Blue Valentine's "Kentucky Avenue" for the win. One of if not thee most autobiographical song he has, the linear lyrics for "Ave" flow like a laundry list of childhood memories. Waits' grew up on a street in California that bares the song's name and pretty much everything described in "Kentucky Ave" went down in some form or another accordingly. This is another example, and I've had a few if you've noticed, of a song that just does one thing for it's duration. The chord progression here changes but once, and we're never given a chorus. Few songs build so gorgeously as does this one though and by the time the strings come in and the vocals pick up in intensity, it's just the best goddamn sounding thing on earth.
13. "Let It Be" - The Beatles
And the piano loveliness moves ever forward. Four songs in on this list now, it should be undeniable to anyone reading this that the Beatles are my favorite band. Always have and always shall be. And speaking of always, "Let It Be" has never not been my favorite Beatles song. I usually re-evaluate any number of Beatles tunes at any given time since I listen to all their albums multiple times a year, certain ones hitting a particular spot for certain periods. But nothing ever gets re-evaluated to the degree of overthrowing the title track off the band's last released studio album. "Let It Be" has the only use in the Beatles discography of the "magic chord progression", (see U2's "With or Without You" plus a billion other pop songs for reference), though it's expanded upon here a bit if we're going to split hairs. Lyrically, it follows a long line of up-lifting McCartney gems and the almost somber, certainly gospel tinged mood melds word to music splendidly. The first verse and chorus of this song is my favorite thing the Beatles ever did, especially when those first background "oooo's" come in. Just gorgeousness. But when the song kicks into pre-power ballad gear, George Harrison gets to bust out the guitar solo of his career, the album version of the song most specifically, (two released solos exist, check the Blue Album for the other one). The best song by the best ever group, straight-up.
12. "Hallelujah" - Jeff Buckley
No song ever has had such a successful one-hundred and eighty degree re-interpretation than Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Not only is Cohen's own version off of his Various Positions album completely unrecognizable from Buckley's, but it's unarguably completely inferior. It's common practice to take a song you like and go somewhere very different with it when playing or recording your own version, but I wonder if Buckley had any idea at the time that he was ultimately taking ownership of "Hallelujah" when he took it to it's now legendary place. Above any of his originals, "Hallelujah" has become JB's signature song, even though in his tragically short career he penned no shortage of phenomenal songs of his own. Everything about Buckley's legacy can be heard here. The vocal performance is just... fuckin hell can you even describe it? The man's entire range is on display here and then there's that ethereal quality that's impossible to duplicate even if you're fortunate enough to have half of Buckley's technical vocal skills. It is without question one of the most beautifully performed songs of all time and I can keep showering it with praise till I'm blue in the tits, but alas, the song doth speak for itself.
11. "With or Without You" - U2
U2's The Joshua Tree has an unprecedented distinction. That is that the opening three tracks on it are just about the best three tracks the band ever cut. And all of them almost made this list. On many a previous list I had "Where the Streets Have No Name" present and if I would've extended this here list just to the 110 mark, you would've read my words on it several entries ago. But yeah, once again the masses are far from incorrect in placing "With Or Without You" on the pedestal that it's on. It's been THE U2 song since it came out and the band has played it live at every single concert they've given since. It'd be like Kiss not playing "Rock and Roll All Night" or Nickelback not getting rocks thrown at them mid-performance. It's just gotta happen. When I hear the "magic chord progression" in virtually ninety-nine out of a hundred pop songs on the radio, I think of "With Or Without You" every single time. That is because this is the best and most unwavering example of said chord progression there be. Adam Clayton never strays from playing it in straight four/four time and the rest of the band just continues to build layers of haunting beauty over it's foundation. Bono has knocked it into outer space with many a vocal performance in his career and this is as good as he gets, the "OH OH OH OOOOHHH" part representing the perfect orgasm before it all simmers back down to my favorite part of the song, the fade-out. It's the best thing the Edge ever did at that point, simplicity delivering the goods.
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