100 FAVORITE SONGS 30 - 21

30.  "If Not Now, When?" - Incubus

Incubus' self-imposed five year break between the albums Light Grenades and If Not Now, When? was clearly a stroke of genius on the band's part since when they regrouped for the later offering, it was the best goddamn album they ever made.  And one that was almost Incubus in name only.  The band took a bit of a gamble with changing up the entire genre they were in pretty much with the adult contemporary, pop craftsmanship on delightful display on INNW?.  But with songs this good, they would've been fools not to follow it through.  The album's opening title track is the band trying to re-write U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and it comes about as close as any attempt at such a thing yet has.  This song's slow, lumbering groove and very simple chord arrangement speak volumes for how much beauty you can get out of such a minimal structure on paper.  "If Not Now, When?" would probably be the band's best song even as an instrumental but alas, Brandon Boyd has a vocal here that I'd preach belongs in the top ten by any singer ever.  I have been a fan of this band and Boyd's voice for years now but even I had zero a clue that they could do something this amazing, let alone this far into their career.

29.  "Evil" - Cactus

Band's full of white boys had been covering blues songs for many a year by the time American supergroup Cactus got around to making Howlin Wolf's "Evil" their bitch in 1971.  Hailing off the Restrictions album, and dubbed "That's Evil" for some reason, this is basically the most perfect classic rock song ever.  I heard it and Cactus for the first time in general way late in the game, only within the last six or seven years and within about five seconds, I knew I was hearing one of the sickest pieces of ass-whooping awesome I had ever heard.  The riff in the Cactus version is one of the infinite examples of a re-working that many an early rock band took much liberty with.  Listening to the original, and still goddamn great Howlin' Wolf version, it's unrecognizable except for the vocal arrangement.  Cactus created a gem of early heavy metal glory here, a blues vamp that's just monstrously heavy.  Carmine Appice's drumming is the tits and Rusty Day's vocal sounds like somebody who's just smoked all the cigarettes, got done fucking a ballroom full of groupies, and who's about to die of alcohol consumption.  It's furious, dangerous sounding, groin-heavy boogie, nigh ever done better.

28.  "Asleep" - The Smiths

Two bands plus a solo artist have two songs each make their debut on this list in the upper thirty, and the first be England's greatest singles band of all time, the Smiths.  I am a Morrissey fan as I will be for all the days I have left and the Smiths therefor are one of my very favorite bands.  With only four albums but about two-hundred singles and b-sides, the Smiths hardly churned out a bad song in their five years as a band, Stephen Patrick Morrissey and Johnny Marr easily becoming one of pop music's most excellent songwriting duos.  It's not surprising that such a gem was a b-side to "The Boy With the Thorn In His Side", that being a track off the band's finest album The Queen Is Dead.  1986 twas a good year indeed.  "Asleep" is hardly textbook Smiths.  It's a piano ballad with just Marr on the ivories and Morrissey's luscious crooning on top.  A typical depressing and direct Mozz lyric minus most of the humor, all about that delightful subject of suicide, it certainly has the ingredients to ruin your day but "Asleep" is a thing of beauty above anything else.  Even without the hooky, multiple guitar tracks and the laugh-out-loud word play, the Smiths could instead offer up a sorrowful masterpiece such as this and have it be damn near the best song in their catalog.

27.  "Into the Void" - Kyuss

I love Black Sabbath, as anyone who loves songs with distorted guitar in them are required by law to, but I have also said for years that I love other bands playing Black Sabbath songs even better.  Can't really say that about too many other artists, (besides Leonard Cohen), but there is evidence I dare you to dispute where Kyuss' version of "Into the Void" is concerned.  Yes, Kyuss keeps the arrangement and obviously the riffs exactly the same, but that borderline low-fi production from the Masters of Reality album, as well as Bill Ward's sub-par drumming and Ozzy's sub-par vocals are not invited to the party.  Instead, Kyuss just explodes this fucking song.  Josh Homme's drop tuned six-string run through a bass amp may be the heaviest guitar tone ever heard and it makes "Into the Void" sound like it always should've sounded.  Which is actually the case when most bands who are given better production values take on a Sabbath jam.  They just fucking come alive.  I can hardly stress enough not to get the wrong impression, since Sabbath is unholy greatness, (see my number thirty-seven here for proof that I tell true words), but this version of "Void" is so good that I'd like to start a kickstarter to get Kyuss to re-record every single song from the first six Sabbath albums.

26.  "Thunder Road" - Bruce Springsteen

This is the first time that Born To Run's lead-off track "Thunder Road" has been my favorite Bruce Springsteen song.  Though I can't really offer up an excuse as to what the hell took me so long to make such an obvious revelation.  There is no finer album the Boss made than BTR and in the case here, all the critics are totally right.  It is one of the best collections of songs in all of rock music.  The album has two songs on this list, the opener here, and the closer "Jungleland" as well.  So we can certainly say that no record is bookended more perfectly.  "Thunder Road" sets the stage for the album, a tale amongst several of two lovers, (perhaps the same lovers throughout?), who are setting out for "one last chance to make it real".  The song has no chorus and is linear from start to finish more or less, the lyric just rolling and rolling right along, ultimately climaxing before the best thing Clarence Clemons would ever blow on his trusty axe caps the whole thing off on a soaringly divine note.  It is one of music's most perfect songs and a glorious invite to the album that put Springsteen on the map for the rest of our times.

25.  "Edge of Desire" - John Mayer

I got deep into, (huh huh), John Mayer rather quickly.  In less than a year I picked up all of his albums, (in hard copy form, none of this downloading shit), and I will continue to stay on top of this man's output as long as he keeps putting out albums.  Once I had everything at my disposal to listen to, this song became the one I couldn't stop hearing, either actually hearing or just never leaving my head.  Mayer is a top-notch guitar player, which I hope I shouldn't have to tell anyone, and one of the reasons for this is the amount of restraint that he shows more often than not.  The solo for "Edge" is an example of this fo sho, it's brief with not much at all to it and it's also exactly what it should be.  The chord structure and melody here make love together stunningly and Mayer's lyric is full of such longing that you can almost feel the inevitable bouncy-bouncy that's bound to go down when listening to it.  It's the best everything this guy has given us thus far and it'd be totally unfair to expect him, or almost anyone, to ever top it.

24.  "Needs" - Collective Soul

I've been a fan of Collective Soul since "Shine" came on the radio, where it's remained regularly since.  And every single Ed Roland and Co have released I have also been a fan of.  And every album.  Collective Soul is on the short list of band's that don't really have a bad song, nor an embarrassing stumble along their twenty plus years together as a band.  They are steady and reliable, pure and simple.  The forth album Dosage contained the hits "Heavy" and "Run", the later of which has endured as a signature jam.  The most luscious of ballads "Needs" though is a song I incredibly just keep liking more and more.  I easily convinced my band mate that we should cover it, which we've since continued to do, and she said she researched a bit and found it somewhere on a list of the best break-up songs ever written.  You will find no argument here far as that goes.  Ed Roland most always seems to construct his songs on the most basic of chords, which explains why I can play anyone I attempt to figure out by ear since I can barely move away from the first three frets of a guitar myself.  And how this man has made such a career out of penning SO many excellent songs this way is admirable if it's anything at all.  This is as good as it gets, an acoustic ballad and some strings coming together all over yo face.

23.  "Ask" - The Smiths

So soon?  Yes, the Mighty Smiths return with their very finest single and very finest song period, of course meaning "Ask".  This one was also released in 1986, clearly the band's best year, and it's one of the rare Smith tunes to contain some guest vocals courtesy of Kirsty MacColl, who helped out on the harmonies and was married to producer Steve Lillywhite at ze time.  Whereas that other letter A single/b-side "Asleep" didn't sound like the Smith's on paper in the least, "Ask" is pretty much the atypical Smiths song.  Johnny Marr's jangly, multi-layerd guitar tracks that he weaves in and out like a classical composer would do with a string section, the solid back-beat and rhythm section of Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, and the farthest from least hilarious lyric from Morrissey.  "Writing frightening verse to a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg" is one of the Mozz' best lines as is "It's the bomb that will bring us together", the word "bomb" I'm guessing is made intentionally to sound like it could be "bond" that he's singing.  Just speculation but certainly nothing I'd put past him for a hoot.  For anyone who's never heard this greatest of bands before, "Ask" is the first and last choice I'd make as the first song to play for such a soul.

22.  "Open Your Eyes" - Snow Patrol

I love when band's get away with playing the same thing throughout an entire song and making it brilliant.  In fact I've sandwiched this Snow Patrol jam right in between two other songs that almost do that exact same thing.  "Open Your Eyes", the penultimate track off of SP's best album Eyes Open, takes this to more of an extreme.  It's closer along the lines of those other Irish darlings U2's "With Or Without You", where the same simple chord progression is played throughout with no changes and the building on top of it just keeps growing to a feverish pace.  "Open" is also rare in that, unless my ears have been deceiving me, there's some double bass drumming going on during the outro.  Secret Slayer fans be these lads mayhaps?  Ultimately I love this here chord progression whenever it's used but this song soars to it's utter greatness due to Gary Lightbody's perfect vocal melody.  The entire Eyes Open album is fantastic most largely due to how frontman Lightbody chooses to sing all his words, and this song be the example that shines most brightly.  The chorus here is just the song's title with "Tell me that you'll..." thrown before it but just that sung over and over again does it for me.  An example of stripped bare pop perfection, my kinda shit.

21.  "Lady In Black" - Uriah Heep

And while we're on the subject of "less is more" and one of the most simple pop/rock songs in construction ever, may I hereby welcome you to world of Uriah Heep and the awesome that is "Lady In Black".  I have loved the Heep for more than two decades of my life in counting and few finer classic rock bands exists.  And perhaps no finer classic rock band exists at all that's still putting out albums that stand-up proudly to the excellence of their heyday, (see 2011's Into the Wild as one of the very best examples of a band full of sixty-year old's who are just killing it).  "Lady In Black" though stems way back from Heep's second album Salisbury and was composed by still the band's finest songwriter in one Ken Hensley.  Hensley, as everyone hip to Heep's history well knows, was the band's main songs-smith for about the first eleven years of their existence and he pretty much single-handedly wrote 90% of what the band still plays live today and the cuts on all of their greatest hits albums.  "Lady" was big in Germany, as most of their songs for whatever reason were, and it at least at one point was used to teach children English in classrooms there.  Heep has a number of ballads in their canon but nothing at all is better than this here piece.  As Hensley himself put it, "A song with only two chords and a chorus with no words in it.  Way to go!".  Damn right.

100 FAVORITE SONGS 40 - 31

40.  "Little Secrets" - Passion Pit

This is the highest inclusion from a band that I've only recently gotten into and I guess time will tell if it, well, stands the test of time and remains this high.  "Little Secrets" by premier hipster band Passion Pit was the first song I ever heard from them and for about six months, I listened to it every day, usually more than once.  I use hyperbole like Jose Canseco used needles in his ass, but like seriously, this is the catchiest song of all time.  That's usually how I warn anyone who I play it for for the first time.  "This will be stuck in your head...always".  The deafeningly loud keyboard and percussion bombardment here is just layers of hooks on top of hooks on top of more hooks.  Frontman Michael Angelakos is credited with composing this bit of pop perfection, as he is most every Pit song, and if the music video is a legit representation of how they pull this off live, the whole band sans Angelakos and drummer are playing synths.  I have no idea what said video is about with all the bags on peoples heads and whatnot, nor do I have a clue what the hell the actual song is about but none of this matters a goddamn.  If you listen to this song and it doesn't make your problems blow up in a sea of glittery sparkles with it's bouncy happiness than you are not of the human species my friend.

39.  "How Blue Can You Get?" - B.B. King

There are great lyrics and then there is the GREATEST lyric ever sung.  And the award for the later goes to "How Blue Can You Get?".  According to wikipedia, what I can almost gather is that B.B. King himself may have added the four lines of this song that warrant such praise.  Specifically, "I gave you seven children...and now you wanna give 'em back!".  Yes, even if you're alone in your car listening to this for the three-hundredth time, you're still gonna hoot and holla like you're on the Jerry Springer show when Mr. King spouts that brilliance with that show-stopping delivery as only he can.  Far as the rest of the song, it's all B.B. at his best.  The Live In Cook County Jail version of "Blue" has the absolute definitive B.B. King guitar solo, which is so goddamn perfect you don't even mind that it takes up more than the first half of the song's five minute running time before we even get to those bomb-tastic lyrics.  It's a slow fuck build up, panty moistening solo, a vocal that could fix the ozone layer, and then those downhearted pleas of a woman done doing a man wrong.  It's the blues at it's most bluesy and most glorious.

38.  "Makin Love" - Kiss

Four percent of this list is made up of Kiss songs, and a hundred percent of those Kiss songs are Paul Stanley sung gems.  "Makin' Love" closes what I'd probably consider the best make-up era Kiss album Rock and Roll Over, and it's one of the earliest and finest examples of what could be dubbed heavy metal you can find.  For 1976, this riff was about as heavy as it got, and it still bangs the head nicely.  The real kicker though is that along with the Alive! version of "She", "Makin' Love" contains the best guitar solo Ace Frehley ever played.  Actually Ace has hardly ever busted out a lead that's not excellent, but this one just fucking smokes.  The whole song rocks as the album title so correctly suggests and there's really not a finer example to play the anti-Kiss snob to show them that the superhero make-up gimmick was one thing, but the band easily has always had the songs to back it up and then some.

37.  "No Quarter" - Led Zeppelin

My favorite Zeppelin jams have changed frequently over the two plus decades they've been about my favorite band.  On the one hand that's saying something impressive since I literally can never get sick of the greatest rock band of all the times.  Even if I'm exposed to classic rock radio against my will and have to hear "Ramble On" every single day, the Zeppelin is still impervious to ruining.  "No Quarter" off of Houses of the Holy is one of the ones that just up and dawned on me as damn near the best thing Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonzo ever pulled off.  The finished recording of "Quarter" went through the ringer of Jimmy Page producer-extraordinaire studio tricks.  A vari-speed induced pitch change, massive compression on the guitar, Moog-pedal effects on the keys, etc.  Much effort into setting that thick, spooky mood.  Grounding it down to the earth is John Bonham's phenomenal grooving.  During the solo section I'd certainly put Bonham's performance as one of the absolute best he ever played.  Ultimately, "No Quarter" is a showpiece for John Paul Jones though, those electric keys dictating the entire proceedings.

36.  "Child In Time" - Deep Purple

Deep Purple is a band that I exalt to the very highest order.  Specifically mock II and III Deep Purple, pretty much the band's run throughout most of the decade of the 70s when they just couldn't be stopped, personnel changes be dammed.  The first of the mock II line-up's albums was Deep Purple In Rock and it's contestable as their best album still.  "Child In Time" appears here and is basically a showcase for the entire band's then new-found powers.  DP was a competent British blues cover band basically, dabbling in some psychedelia and just previously some classical music with the John Lord written Concerto for Group and and Orchestra recording.  But with In Rock, Purple made a heavy and ultimately undeniable claim as the best hard rock band on earth.  "Child" runs through a simple arrangement for over ten minutes, with the guitar solo of Richie Blackmore's career, (sorry "Highway Star"), slammed dab in the middle.  But unless you're deaf, and even then, it's ultimately Ian Gillian's superhuman vocals that perch this song on the mountain top of rock awesome.  Gillian's ever building "ooo ooo ooo's" and eventual "AHHH AHH AHH'S" screaming will never be topped by anybody ever.  You can barely if at all argue that it's the best vocal performance in rock history.

35.  "Black Sabbath" - Black Sabbath

Tony Iommi wrote so many utterly outstanding riffs that all other guitar players since should've just blatantly plagiarized as many Sabbath songs as possible, (and in fact, the entire stoner metal genre that BS alone spawned did just that).  The song "Black Sabbath" by the band Black Sabbath off the album Black Sabbath has but two riffs in it.  And they both represent the two opposite ends of what Iommi was capable of.  The pentatonic, "blue note" diabolus in musica, three note main lick is the textbook "evil" guitar riff and is as simple as they come.  Then the closing riff to "Sabbath" is in the choosing between maybe two others as to the most fucking awesome guitar riff in the history of mankind.  And it moves around a whole lot more and takes some actual ability to get down properly.  And it's somehow the even MORE evil of the two riffs.  This song is basically every black and white horror movie rolled into a six plus minute epic that itself basically invented every metal genre of music in one wicked swoop.  For an extra plus, Ozzy Osbourne has given very few memorable-in-a-good-way vocal performances and "Black Sabbath" is on his short list of excellent ones.

34.  "The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair" - Led Zeppelin

When I made my last version of this list I had to finally fess up to the truth.  And that truth be that the non-album, unreleased for decades, BBC recorded throw away cut "The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair" was in fact, the best song Led Zeppelin ever recorded.  A bold statement yes.  But true just as well.  Jimmy Page was a songwriter and riff master with hardly a single peer from 1969 to 1979 and the riff in "Girl" is his masterpiece.  Whatever blues jam he stole it from is irrelevant, as is the fact that it most closely resembles the iconic riff to "Moby Dick" perhaps more than anything else.  It's also without importance that Plant took obvious inspiration from the Sleepy John Estes song "The Girl I Love She Got Long Curly Hair" for the lyric and that the band, for all documented accounts, only performed the song this one and only time it was recorded.  It is a jam that the real Zeppelin fans are well aware and it's one that this die hard till I die Zeppelin fan shall rank as their crowning achievement.  Plant's vocal's were never better, Jonsey dances his bass around as he always stupendously did, Bonzo is the greatest human being who ever lived, and again, THAT RIFF.

33.  "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" - The Rolling Stones

Similar to Nileppez Del, the Stones of the Rolling variety climax out their third and final entry on this list, and the choice most obviously be Sticky Fingers' "Can't You Hear Me Knocking".  I think this has always been my favorite Stones song.  I honestly cannot remember a time when it wasn't.  The first half of "Knocking" is typical Stones-at-their best awesomeness, Keith Richard's more common than not open G tuning riff, he and Mick Jagger's shouting vocal harmonies, Charlie Watt's slammin home dat tasty groove, and all the rest of it.  But it's the long, epic, instrumental finale of "Knocking" that remains the best damn thing this band ever pulled off.  Mick Taylor is one of classic rock's finest lead guitar players and if there's a better example than the solo in this song to make such a claim, then well, that example doesn't exist.  This is some of the best guitar playing ever played, period.  And the always faithfully sixth/seventh Stones member Bobby Keys possibly blows the tastiest sax solo on a rock record.  If you don't like this song or the Stones for that matter than you are wrong about life.

32.  "Halo of Flies" - Alice Cooper

Vincent Furnier/Alice Cooper is one of my favorite people in the human race.  And I have been a fan of every Alice era since always.  But when he was joined by the original band, which collectively went under the name Alice Cooper, there were few if any a better rock band in the early 70s.  Love It To Death, Killer, Billion Dollar Babies, and even Muscle of Love and Easy Action are all kick-fucking-ass albums.  Killer specifically is the masterpiece if I had to call it, and "Halo of Flies" appropriately doth appear on it.  Released as a single only in the Netherlands two years after the album came out, for whatever cocaine-fueled reason, "Halo" is the Alice Cooper band at their most ambitious and undoubtedly best.  At over eight minutes long, the song is completely linear and may be the most excellently arranged rock song ever.  AC is the best garage prog band you ever heard on "Halo", as the song takes on an ambitious task and the results are flawless.  Numerous bands have covered the song since then, (none of whom you know, trust me), but this is one of those so utterly perfect studio recordings that it's rather sacrilegious for anyone else to have a go at it.  Every note is right where it belongs.

31.  "In Your Room" - Depeche Mode

Songs of Faith and Devotion was an album that I didn't realize at first was in all actuality, the best Depeche Mode album.  Violator was for the longest time me thoughts, as popular opinion usually dictates.  And then Ultra was for a spell as well for me.  Both solid choices I'd scarcely argue with.  But SOFAD I just kept bumping and it's place at the top of the Depeche heap has been sound for awhile now.   There are a number of phenomenal cuts on Songs, "Walking In My Shoes", "Judas", and of course "I Feel You", but the album version of "In Your Room" is on all the other levels.  Depeche is always at their best when at their most moody I'd say, and man oh man, "Room" just oozes with atmosphere.  That almost David Lynchain keyboard melody and intro, that moment those punishingly slamming drums erupt in, and then one of my favorite choruses of all time combine with all the other sonic textures the band's music has always been known for, to just come together in a beautiful and dark orgasm that makes my everything tingle.  True that I can count as many band's that I love more than Depeche Mode on less than two hands.

100 FAVORITE SONGS 50 - 41

50.  "Burn In Hell" - Twisted Sister

Everyone in my age group has seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure at least a hundred times right?  Well then each and every one of you has also heard "Burn In Hell".  At least the chorus of it.  I am all about the Dee Snider.  Dude's hilarious, doesn't take himself the least bit seriously, (cause how could you?), he wrote every song on Stay Hungry, and he's as ass-whoopingly awesome of a heavy metal vocalist as the universe has ever been given.  And "Burn In Hell"?  C'mon.  This song rocks more balls than Mount Rushmore kung-fu fighting the Himalayan mountains, (get it, cause they're both made out of rocks?).  When it comes to heavy metal jams, I think I'd have to go as far as to say that this has the greatest chorus in the genre's history.  Plus there's that opening Sabbath riff, killer lead, and again, Dee Snider wailing like he's preaching to the brethren of the rock and roll dammed.  So throw up dem horns and fist pump like a drag queen!

49.  "Metropolis Pt. 1 'The Miracle and the Sleeper'" - Dream Theater

And here be another of my favorite bands making it's debut on this list.  There can't possibly be a Dream Theater fan alive or dead who doesn't think that "Metropolis Pt. 1" isn't as ballsmazing of a song as has ever been conceived.  Fuck "Pull Me Under, (which is still better than most things any other crop of musicians could come up with mind you), but "Metropolis" is probably the signature DT tune.  This was the first of their songs I ever heard, a buddy of mine playing it for me and my brother one afternoon with a warning that our heads were gonna fall off our necks.  He lied not.  The instrumental section is what instantly blows the mind of anyone who's listening, with some quintessential feats of virtuosity that DT has always been unfathomably proficient at.  John Myung's bass solo is so jaw-dropping it's silly.  After a couple hundred times listening to Images and Words, possibly the best album ever made that's not a Beatles album, I've since grown to adore the whole rest of "Metropolis" besides the instrument masturbation section and to top it off, this is the best vocal performance James LaBrie ever gave.

48.  "I Want To Take You Higher" - Sly and the Family Stone

Once again, I have to specify a live version here as superior to the studio one.  It's the Woodstock rendition of "I Want To Take You Higher" that ranks as the first anything I ever heard from the utterly influential and lauded funk pioneers Sly and the Family Stone. And as it's always remained, it's the best Sly jam of all time.  The Woodstock version is adrenaline-drivenly faster, and a whole lot longer due to drugs and Sly's hilariously groovy rant and build up at the end.  And more drugs.  Four Stone members trade off and duo the lead vocals, Sly of course, as well as guitarist Freddie Stone, bass god Larry Graham, and female vocalist Rose Stone.  And they are all funktastic.  As are the ultra-hooky yet brief bass, guitar, and harmonica solos and that inward breathing one note sax solo.  It's impossible not to lose yourself in the drug fueled, good time funk party happiness that's on loud-ass display here.  Everything the Family Stone and Sir Sly were phenomenal at, done to the nines.

47.  "Come Together" - Primal Scream

Did somebody say drugs?  I honestly have to say right off the bat that Bobby Gillespie probably has the absolute worst voice in any otherwise good band.  It often comes very close to distracting one from how completely awesome everything else that's going on is on Screamadelica.  Almost.  Cause ultimately, smack dab in the middle of one of the best album's to emerge in the entire decade of the 90s is "Come Together", definitely one of the best song's to emerge from any decade.  Not to be confused with the iconic Beatles "Come Together", which Scream's version shares zero similarities with besides those words appearing and both band's being British, this song sums up the entire Screamadelica experience.  Meaning ecstasy.  Lots and lots of ecstasy.  The opening and very, very long closing chorus of just the song's title sung over and over again is one of my favorite things in any song ever.  And the fact that more than half of "Come Together's" eight minute running time is dedicated just to that is a stroke of genius.  I very often say that my favorite part of any song I only wish would go on infinitely.  In the case here, it comes about as close as ever to doing just that.

46.  "These Are the Days of Our Lives" - Queen

Sadly there is an easy choice for well, the saddest Queen song.  That title belongs to "These Are the Days of Our Lives" the biggest single from Innuendo.  In 1991 it was released on Freddie Mercury's birthday in the U.S. and then nine months later in the native U.K. after his death along with "Bohemian Rhapsody" once again, where it remained for five weeks and ultimately won a slew of awards for that year.  The lyrics for "Days" were penned by Roger Taylor about his own musings on moving up in age and the music video was the last that Freddie ever shot.  Watching said video and hearing Mercury's routinely flawless and gorgeous vocal throughout is what makes the song hit just so, so much harder.  I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't love this one and I've also yet to listen to this song without getting a little or a lot emotional myself.  Queen was a band with zero equals and Freddie's was a voice that will never, ever be bettered.  And this is a shinning testament amongst many other examples of these two things being undeniable.

45.  "Fake Plastic Trees" - Radiohead

To be clear, I love that Radiohead turned weird.  From the very first time I heard Kid A on the day it came out, I immediately proclaimed it as the best album they ever made and I stand by that statement ever as much today.  Really every album in their discography is exceptional save maybe Pablo Honey.  Which brings us to their sophomore effort The Bends and therefor "Fake Plastic Trees".  This has been a signature song for the band since pretty much always and even doodling away with electronica flavored prog-pop brilliance as they've been doing for years now, there is still no escaping the fact that it remains their very best song.  This is one of the first songs I ever learned how to play on guitar, (cause it's easy, I suck at guitar, and it's this great), and for a number of years it was probably my favorite song of all time.  Over ten plus more years of continuously listening to and checking out more music, "Trees" has slipped a few dozen spots maybe, but to say it's less great would be undeserving indeed.  All acoustic ballads should sound like this.

44.  "Always On the Run" - Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz had about a three and three quarters run of excellent albums.  Let Love Rule kinda blows except maybe a song or two, Mama Said through Circus are sexy beasts, and 5 is solid except for one of the very worst songs in the history of mankind in "Fly Away".  So bad was said shartfest that it permanently took Kravitz right the fuck off my radar, where he's perhaps unfairly remained ever since.  But going back to the man's second and by far best album Mama Said again, "Always On the Run" is what awesome would sound like if awesome were a song.  It's one thing that the riff in this song could kill Godzilla fucking King Kong, then it's another thing that the OTHER riff going on simultaneously with it could carry the song to greatness all on it's funky lonesome.  Then you have a Slash guitar solo which is a thing that's impossible not to suck.  And finally, the horns at the end of this song are the best thing that any horns in any song have ever played.  So yeah, Sir Leonard knocked it out of the stratosphere with this one.

43.  "Two of Us" - The Beatles

"Two of Us" kickstarts the original Let It Be album and true to the era in Beatles history, it was penned solely by but one in the John Lennon/Paul McCartney duo, (the later in this case), though credited to both.  Out of the four Beatles jams I have on this list, every last one of them were written and recorded during the band's final year and a half together, which basically goes to show that the greatest band in history just kept getting better and better up until the very end.  And even written during the band's most turbulent time, meaning the Get Back sessions, "Two of Us" still can't help but to be a brilliant and simple piece of work, the Beatles at their folky best.

42.  "Love You To Death" - Type O Negative

Peter Steele was easily one of the best songwriters in metal history and no band before or since has sounded anything like Type O Negative.  Steele's outstanding and unique, vampiric vocals, that intentionally cheap guitar tone, those Beatlesy background vocals, and those church keyboards are all thrown together and make their very best collective sound on the first "real" track on October Rust, "Love You To Death".  I don't think I've had a different favorite Type O song since I've acquired all of their albums and I doubt I ever will.  This just represents everything that was fantastic about this band and Pete Steele.  Arranged in a linear fashion, another Steele trademark, "Love" rolls along equally creepy and gorgeous and eventually gets to that spellbinding "Am I good enough...for you?" section at the end.  I get goosebumps every time I hear it.  If only every other Goth-flavored band was even half as good as Type O was, then such misery fueled music would be so much more joyous to hear.

41.  "Racing In the Street" - Bruce Springsteen

Some more of the Boss for dat ass.  The long and incredibly tedious sessions for Darkness On the Edge of Town produced an enormous crop of material, apparently seventy songs written and ONLY fifty-two recorded.  Most eventually found their home on future Springsteen albums and compilations, and more still were given to other artists, "Because the Night" most famously for Miss Patti Smith.  But amongst the boatload of gems floating around during this period, the one that towered over them all I'd say is one of the lucky ones that actually made it onto the Darkness album, "Racing In the Streets".  The "one about a girl" as Little Steven had said, "Streets" is nearly seven minutes of just about one chord progression played over and over again and slowly boiling to an eyes closed, swaying finish that just moves you to a bigger house.  I'd certainly go as far as to say that this is the most gorgeous song Springsteen ever wrote.  Of course it's a piano ballad so it had a head start for my liking already, but this is really a beauty that you have to just sit in total concentration for and just get lost in along the ride.

100 FAVORITE SONGS 60 - 51

60.  "One Too Many Mornings" - The Chemical Brothers

That whole brief "electronica is the next greatest thing since sliced bread" craze we had in the mid-90s did produce a number of killer albums and some enduring artist.  It also inspired almost everyone under the sun to take a stab at making some tracks without much in the way of real instruments represented, (Radiohead most successfully comes to mind).  British not-real-brothers the Chemical Brothers were possibly at the top of the heap in the genre's heyday and the duo's first two full-lengths Exit Planet Dust and Dig Your Own Hole are two otherworldly fantastic albums.  It's the debut Planet Dust that spawned this here cut, "One Too Many Mornings".  This isn't typical big beat Chemical Brothers in many senses.  It's the band at their more relaxed and chilled, kind of a slow wake-up call after an ecstasy fueled all nighter.  In this regard it should make a good chunk of sense why it's my favorite of their jams.  Cause it's mellow and I lean towards a band's mellow side like Michael Jackson leans like a smooth criminal.  I could listen to this song on repeat and never tire of it.

59.  "The March of the Black Queen" - Queen

Out of the many, many, many outstanding pop hits that Queen unveiled over their nearly three decade career, it's easy to forget that at one point, yes, they were actually a prog band.  Well, they made at least one straight up prog album that's for sure, that being the sophomore effort Queen II.  Side two of said album was entirely credited to Freddie Mercury and it's a tour de force medley of Queen at their technical and most challenging prowess.  No song on the album or in the band's entire discography represents this more than the jaw-dropping awesome that is "The March of the Black Queen".  At six and a half minutes, it's not only "Bohemian Rhapsody Part I" two years early, but noticeably more complex and dazzling.  The song swings through multiple movements, tempos, and time signatures, all the stuff progressive rock does in spades, impressively incorporating everything amazing about Queen to begin with.  Mercury, Brian May, and Roger Taylor's second-to-none operatic vocal harmonies, May's colorful and distinct leads, and Freddie's vocal acrobatics and ambitious arrangements.  Though I love the genre with all my wang, most prog bands can only wish they had a song half as good as this.

58.  "A Vampire Bit My Balls" - Maggot Twat

Anyone who knows me has heard me sing the highest of praises to the greatest local band of all time, (wait, is that even a thing?), of course meaning Maggot Twat.  I have seen this band live four times and that's about a hundred times too few.  They are Gwar on a smaller budget.  Except stupider and infinitely better musically.  8-Bit Apocalypse is one of the very best metal albums ever made and it's lead off track "A Vampire Bit My Balls" is this band's quintessential masterpiece.  For those of you who don't know this song's brilliant first verse, and still wanna have a hard time making it out but for shits and giggles anyway, check out Mr. Hong's moving rendition here.  Otherwise, do yourself the greatest favor you can and see this band live as soon as possible, where the video screen will help you along with all your sing-along needs.  Stupid lyrics, stupid riffs, and all neck-breakingly heavy, Maggot Twat is absolutely everything every metal band on earth should be.  Hail the Twat!

57.  "I've Been Loving You Too Long" - Otis Redding

I have an embarrassingly small amount of soul music on this list.  I'm blaming being born Caucasian.  But anyway, Otis Redding's signature tune "I've Been Loving You Too Long" is undoubtedly one of the greatest rhythm and blues songs of all time, no matter if you ask an expert or my dumb ass.  That finger picked guitar melody has been copied so many times, it's as much a part of the genre as the twelve-bar is to the blues in general.  But of course, it's Redding's superhuman vocal on here that just sends it into the ether of awesome.  If I had to be specific, I'd consider the live Monterrey Pop Festival rendition as the most defining.  Really just the most defining considering everything that was amazing about Otis Redding in general.  It's a live vocal performance so perfect that all others, no matter what the song or singer, can barely if at all compare.

56.  "Sure Shot" - Beastie Boys

Is this my favorite rap song?  Well shit, I guess it be.  I feel equally as silly considering Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys to be my favorite hip-hop album of all time as well.  But I gotta calls it like I sees it and give both titles to these Jewish white boys.  "Sure Shot" of course isn't off Boutique but is the lead-off track to the also fantastic Ill Communication.  The usual top-notch old school verse trading, full of boasts and pop culture silliness, is there as it always is.  But "Sure Shot", no bullshit, has the best sample any rap song has ever used.  It comes from jazz flutist Jeremy Steig's "Howlin for Judy" off his 1969 album Legwork, which uses that wicked flute lick as the main "riff" of the song.  Listening to the source material, it hardly screams "sample me" and you'd hardly suspect how it would be immortalized twenty-five years later by the Beasties.  Pure genius was the idea to throw a hip-hop beat over it, no doubt.

55.  "Gravity" - John Mayer

Another "slow-fuck" gem right here from who else but Mr. John Mayer.  This was the first Mayer tune I really, really got into and it's so rooted in slow, panty-moistening R&B that it almost sounds like a cover.  Mayer himself has said it's "the most important song" he ever wrote and its proper studio version also comes off the most fantastic album he's put out thus far, of course being Continuum.  Mayer sings his arse off here, as he's known to do, especially in a live setting where he tends to show off and further guarantee his getting laid after the performance from at least three or four women in the audience, (I can only speculate here of course).  Speaking of showing off, Mayer usually jams the shit out of his songs live, which is a tendency fantastic guitar players have, and "Gravity" is no exception, getting the full axe-slinger acrobatic treatment every time.  This version here is particularly, and ridiculously, good.  The end of this song can just go on and on and on as far as I'm concerned.

54.  "Painkiller" - Judas Priest

Greatest speed metal song of all time right here, pure and simple.  As any self-respecting metalhead should be, I'm certainly a Judas Priest fan, but as good as their classic 80s albums were, the band really took off and blew heads with their somewhat comeback album Painkiller.  Scott Travis, from Racer X fame, permanently replaced Dave Holland, (not my brother or the famous jazz bassist btw), who's by-the-books competent rock drumming straight up got owned by Travis' metal-chops loaded assault.  This is instantly apparent on this, the title track's monstrous opening drum fill, which blares loud and proud that yes, Priest has a new and infinitely superior drummer.  Then the metal-riffage follows suit and Priest is in a whole new speed metal league.  Like all killer metal songs, "Painkiller" contains a riff from fucking hell, as easy a contender as any for the sickest of all time.  Glen Tipton and KK Downing's dueling leads are more devastating than ever and on top of all this, Rob Halford rips out the vocal of his career.  Fist-pumping fury right here peoples.

53.  "Black Star" - Yngwie Malmsteen

And the heavy metal fury continues.  Poofy-pirate shirt and high kick master Yngwie Malmsteen is a difficult man to take seriously for many people.  Yes he has made essentially the exact same album over and over again on a regular basis for thirty years now, but the cliche "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" I'd say certainly applies here.  Take or leave any Yngwie that thou wishes, but it's pretty difficult to deny the man's opening track from his opening album is fucking awesome.  There's a reason that along with "Far Beyond the Sun", also off said debut Rising Force, "Black Star" has been performed at every single concert he's given since always.  Both those songs are pretty much signature tunes from the Swedish "taught God how to play guitar" shred master.  The hyperfast, neo-classical leads in this song are sexual chocolate, and I love the dark, slamming back-beat that accompanies it.  Satan bless the Yngwie and his tight leather pants and ever increasing waste-line!

52.  "You Are" - Lionel Richie

At last we arrive at the first of two songs on this list written and serenaded by the sexiest man on earth Mr. Lionel Brockman Richie Jr.  So, so many to choose from for this God of a man as well.  But pretty much since I got his debut self-titled album, "You Are" has been my favorite solo Richie jam.  This is just straight-up sunshiny R&B tinged pop right here.  If you catch yourself in a shitty mood, bump this song and just try not to be grinning from ear to ear and dancing like David Allan Geer in I'm Gonna Get You Sucka! by the time the chorus hits.  It's infectious and perfect, a song as only the Richie knows how to compose.  He actually co-wrote it with his then wife Brenda Harvey Richie and the two of them must've simultaneously been on ecstasy and watching Singing In the Rain or something to have constructed such a gloriously giddy cut such as this.  If every song in the world sounded like this, we'd probably be living in a musical and war and poverty would be a thing of the past.  And that's as political as I get folks.

51.  "Then She Kissed Me" - Kiss

I've often talked, (OK fine, often "bragged"), that hardcore Kiss fans or hardcore fans of any band really usually hate the songs that are played on the radio from said bands and instead gravitate towards the hidden album gems as their absolute favorite.  And I can say with a solid bout of sincerity that nothing proves this point I just made up more than my absolute adoration for Kiss' cover of the Crystals "Then He Kissed Me", the "he" changed to a "she" here for reasons I should hardly have to explain, (here's a clue, Paul Stanley singing about kissing a man would be hilarious yet awkward to say the least).  I have loved Kiss' version of this Phil Spector penned jam since the day I heard it and never for any reasons I can explain.  I never willingly listen to the original version or ever gave a shit about it before in any capacity.  So I'll just blame it on Paul Stanley being able to sing anything and immediately making it all the amazing.  Ultimately, this proves that when Kiss was at their best, they could knock off a completely filler, throw-away cover to flesh out an album and it would still end up being better than any original any other band would work diligently hard at.

100 FAVORITE SONGS 70 - 61

70.  "Once In A Lifetime" - Talking Heads

I really don't like to choose a band's signature hit as their best song, especially a band like the Talking Heads who are definitely not a "greatest hits only" band.  But well sometimes that song simply deserves to be the signature hit that it is.  For me it was between this and "Born Under Punches" that I was bound to include, both off of Remain In Light, one of the greatest things ever to listen to.  "Once In A Lifetime" got the distinguished honor basically for one reason.  This song has one of the best choruses of all time, for which we have that crazy studio scientist Brian Eno to thank.  In fact much of the song and album's brilliance, as is the case with most things he is involved in, is due to Eno's superb influence.  Eno's oblique strategies method of working with musicians produced a jumbled set of conflicting rhythms and melodies on top of each other, giving the entire Remain album it's unique sonic backdrop.  And "Lifetime's" spoken and sung lyrics dealing with complacency and conformity via a mid-life crisis fit the off-kilter musical goings on just exquisitely.

69.  "Hold My Heart" - Sara Bareilles

The ole "sucker for a ballad" cliche of my own creation once again takes firm hold where this one is concerned.  Three albums into her career, Sara Bareilles has a laundry list of ballads that are exceptional, but none of them so far can top "Hold My Heart".  Kaleidoscope Heart, which this song comes off of, is likewise her best at this writing and from the very first time I heard it, "Heart" even made the song that made me a fan of her's "Gonna Get Over You" disappear from my memory briefly.  I could easily make a "100 Favorite Ballads" list but so much of this list you're currently reading is dedicated to songs like this and ergo, that would ultimately be an underwhelming read.  Not to name drop yet another list of mine, but as I said in my "100 Favorite Singers", Bareilles' knack for composing exquisite melodies and then singing them like some angelic super heroine is what makes me a fan of each and everything she does.  Couldn't possibly pick a better example than this.

68.  "Heroes" - David Bowie

Since I've oddly never wondered what any songs I listen to are really about, it wasn't until I actually looked this one up that it became quite obvious that even being coked out of his gourd for much of the recording of the "Heroes" album and his Berlin period in general with Brian Eno, David Bowie was still able to come up with some beautifully poetic stuff here.  Bowie secretly at the time wrote it about producer Tony Visconti's affair he was having, witnessing he and backup singer Antonia Maaß making-out "by the wall", meaning the Berlin Wall of course.  The title itself came simply from the "heroic" sound that the track had when it was still an instrumental, Bowie later incorporating it into his tale of two lovers.  The sound of the song itself is a whole other mess of brilliance.  All the tweaking with guitars, vocals, drums, and layers of synths give it that famous "wall of sound".  I particularly love the story of how they got Bowie's vocal, by utilizing three different mics at various distances away from him and turning on and mixing certain ones the louder Bowie sang.

67.  "Faithfully" - Journey

I had a hard time picking Journey songs for this list since at least four of their biggest hits should've made it.  Journey is one of those bands where for the most part I agree that the singles were the best shit they had, whereas most of my favorite band's radio hits I never listen to or in some cases even loathe.  I have all the classic Steve Perry era Journey albums everyone who knows what good singing sounds like should own, and yeah, they pretty much picked the right singles for each and every one.  "Faithfully" off Frontiers was written solely by keyboardist Jonathan Cain and it's damn near the quintessential power ballad.  And coming from this band, that is indeed saying something.  Boyce Avenue does a spectacular version of this as well since anybody who can nail a Steve Perry vocal certainly gets my approval.

66.  "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" - The Beatles

First but obviously not the last appearance of my favorite thing ever that just so happens to be a band, the Mighty Beatles.  As you can see, I'm cheating a bit here by including technically three songs together as one.  But not since Abbey Road came out has a single person on earth listened to just one of these songs and not the entire piece.  As we all should know I hope, the second side of Abbey Road contains a sixteen minute medley of full and mini-songs, all of which conclude with the "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" trilogy.  When listening to the Beatles catalog in order of when they were recorded, and not counting "Her Majesty", "The End" trilogy is the absolute perfect ending to the greatest band in history's body of work.  The one and only recorded Ringo drum solo as well as the one and only John, Paul, and George duel lead guitar solo, on top of the amazingness the rest of it all is, is simply delectable icing on ze cake.

65.  "Just A Man" - Faith No More

It pains me to have only one Faith No More song on this list, but I could say that about twenty other bands or more.  And that's not counting the ones that didn't even get A song on the list.  King for A Day...Fool For a Lifetime kinda creeped up on me as my favorite FNM album.  It was the last of the four Mike Patton fronted albums I got and I had already listened to the other three countless times.  Quickly though I found myself almost only listening to this one and the album's closer "Just A Man" just kills me.  Most of my liking of KFADFFALT so much is that even more than usual for the band, they simply go all over the place on it, breaking down a number of styles.  "Just A Man" is the album's gospel tune more or less.  By the time the back up singers, or choir I should say, come in at the end, I's get the full-on chills.  Where Mike Patton is concerned, goddamn that boy can sang.

64.  "Hoodoo Operator" - Clutch

Holy fucking balls does this song whoop-ass. Coming off the Slow Hole to China compilation full of b-sides and unreleased songs, obviously the question begged upon hearing "Hoodoo Operator" is "What?  How the dick was that previously un-released?".  Certainly colors me confused at least.  But anyway, yeah, if aliens came down to earth and told me "Play us something from this band called Clutch we keep hearing so much about", this is the song I would play them.  From that funky-ass marching drum groove, to that sweet swinging riff, and of course to that monstrous chorus riff and ze silly-ass lyrics, this song just makes me grin ear to ear.  I would've previously never thought that the blues could make me headbang so goddamn hard but well, here we are.  Hail these bearded torch-bearers of the mighty riff!

63.  "Let's Get It On" - Marvin Gaye

And here we are at the sexiest song ever recorded.  There's a reason, besides simply it's title, that this jam played for comedic effect in every single trailer or scene in a movie depicting people about to engage in penetration.  The first four wah-wah played notes of this song sliding right into Marvin Gaye's panty moistening voice is enough to make any woman's knees buckle instantaneously.  And yeah who am I kidding, I have to change my shorts after listening to it as well.  Amazingly, the musical track for "Let's Get It On" was recorded when the song had completely different lyrics that, gasp, weren't at all about fucking.  It was originally a political song, collaborated upon by Gaye and producer Ed Townsend. Gaye had changed some of the lyrics around before Townsend intervened and informed Gaye that in fact yes, it was all supposed to be about "gettin it on".  I, as I'm sure you all agree, could scarcely imagine hearing this song now with lyrics more akin to "What's Going On?".

62.  "Love On the Rocks With No Ice" - The Darkness

Once again we have a band who should have at least five songs on this list but instead criminally only have one.  Though never released as a single, "Love On the Rocks With No Ice" has kinda become a signature tune for the band, at least since their reforming in 2011, (thank the gods for btw).  For the tour I finally got to see them on last year, they closed their set with this beast, which was the one I was screaming for the entire night.  What can you say about this song and the Darkness in general except A) Justin Hawkins is fucking awesome and B) they fucking rock.  Permission To Land, the band's debut and the album "Love On the Rocks" stems from, is a pretty much flawless offering, (their second album One Way Ticket To Hell...and Back even more flawless, IMO).  AC/DC riffage, except better and Hawkins bansheeing away with a ridiculously scorching chorus, this song just has all the ingredients that make this band kick ass for Satan except more so.  If I could sing like this guy, every band I was in from now till I died would cover this song.

61.  "Neogenesis" - Enslaved

I love Enslaved's Monumension through Isa period.  One of the best three-album runs from any metal band.  The final song off Isa, and therefor the final song in this trilogy of albums I guess, is the monstrous "Neogenesis".  Though this statement makes not a lick of sense, I liken this band during this time and especially this song to what Pink Floyd would sound like if they were an extreme metal band.  Yeah I know, try and figure that one out.  Well actually, if you haven't already, just listen to this haunting beast.  Eerie clean vocals give way to amazing riff after amazing riff, culminating with one of my absolute favorites at the 8:40 mark.  The slow, somehow again Floyd-esque stoner riff that closes this song, as well as that fantastically building guitar solo over it, is just ungodly epicness.  If I had the Infinity Gauntlet, one of my very first tasks would be to simply go back in time and make that part last at least ten minutes.  Then have Enslaved play it at my kids birthday parties every year.