From the Columbus Museum of Art: Aminah Robinson. She will knock you out with her huge canvasses of Columbus life.
There is a Canadian radio station, which asks listeners to email in their favorite and least favorite songs in. Most, of course, are rock. What is your favorite and least favorite rock song? Okay, take two.
Best: Don't Think Twice, Bob Dylan; Imagine, John Lennon
Worst: Believe, Cher; All by Myself, Eric Carmen
33 comments:
Good one on the Cher - whenever it comes on the radio I immediately change the station.
Favorites: (there are so many but #1 is easy - the rest are at random and could change in an hour)
Runaway, Del Shannon
Sleepwalk, Santo & Johnny
My Girl, Temptations
Help Me Rhonda, Beach Boys
A Pirate Looks at 40, Jimmy Buffett
Worst: Ain't No Mountain High Enough, (hideous) Diana Ross version
Copacabana, B. Manilow
Baby I Love Your Way, Peter Frampton (don't know why but I've always hated this)
Seasons in the Sun, Terry Jacks
Jeff M.
Runaway, yes, for sure. I should have included that.
Copacabana-hate it.
And I don't know A Pirate Looks at 40-off to play it.
Patti - You've picked some wonderful songs for your favourites! Best and worst are so hard for me, because there are never just two songs that I would put in either category. Trust me, I'd take up your whole comment space with my lists. I'm glad you've got me thinking about it, though...
It's so hard to pick a favorite, but one that I don't hear very often but just love is "Black Is Black" by Los Bravos; two-and-a-half minutes of pure pop goodness. Of course, the field is very crowded and ask me tomorrow and my response will be different.
There's a pretty crowded field for worst song too, but I find Paul Anka's "Having My Baby" absolutely wretch-inducing. Blech!
Oh. boy, Deb. You found the absolute worst in one shot.
Went to an entire exhibit of Robinson's work once. Found her work interesting but there's no place to rest your eyes, no focal points.
Yeah, I gotta go with Deb on the worst song. Woof.
Best song...there must be hundreds of them. Who could go with just one?
A few had focal points but in general that's a good observation. Often the case in primitive art too.
Deb, how did I ever forget that? Maybe my brain wanted me to forget it. "Honey" by Bobby Goldsboro is pretty bad too.
Jeff M.
The Paul Anka song is horrid. So is the one Jeff picked: "We'll have joy/We'll have fun/We'll have seasons in the sun." Pass the barf bag. And the tune is like some children's song that would be sung as a lullaby. Not rock at all. It's a perfect example of the pop music with a "Let's-all-hold-hands-and-wear-smiley-face-buttons" kind of philsophy that was churned out by the bucketful during the 1970s.
My tastes are too eclectic to ever come up with favorite anything.
But there is a song that I think is practically perfect: "You Get What You Give" by the New Radicals.
That's definitely a favorite.
I like a lot of what Adele does these days. A real throwback to R&B.
I loathe that song by Radiohead "Creep." An annoying and obnoxious "tune" and the lyrics are supposed to be ironic but they're just idiotic. Most new music has idiotic or simplistic lyrics. I can hardly listen to any of it. They don't even rhyme anymore. It's like everyday speech set to an endless repetition of six bars of uninteresting music.
Adele is pretty amazing. Don't know Creep. So much of the newer music is unknown to me. I think I remember my mother saying this.
This is one of my favorite weeks as the oldies station I listen to - <a href="wcbsfm.com>WCBS-FM</a> - is playing every song in their catalog (from A to Zzz as they put it). Not only do you get to hear early '60s and even '50s songs they rarely play these days, but since they play everything you hear obscure stuff you rarely hear.
You can listen to it online by the way. They started yesterday and are up to the "C"s today. Last night we heard "Baby" songs (including three versions of "Baby It's You") and, later, "Boogie" songs.
Jeff M.
Sorry I screwed up the link but jsut go to wcbsfm.com.
Jeff M.
Playing Chains. I think I like the Cookies version better!
"You're Having My Baby" is truly atrocious and so "Seasons in the Sun" and indeed the entire Barry Manilow oeuvre. But I'll agree with John that you can exclude them from rock.
While a little harder to segregate from rock is the utterly despicably whiny, Terry Jacksish "I Started a Joke" by the BeeGees. Similarly, the aggressively inane "Short Shorts" by the Royal Teens--sure it's a joke, but it's a joke that the BeeGees started. The irritating commercial jingle version manages to be an improvement.
The best is even closer to impossible, as everyone says.
Best love song coming to mind: "For You" by Big Star. The only composition by the drummer Jody Stephens they recorded. If you're going to get one bite at the apple, take the whole damned apple.
Best debut EP rocker with existentially Exhausted lyric: "Twister" by Jawbox
Best songs on the reunion albums: "Automatic Rainy Day" by the Go-Go's and "Between the Two" by the Bangles
wv: cramp. "Human Fly," probably.
Best Zombies songs: "What More Can I Do?", "Beechwood Park" and "Remember You"...best love song: "This Will Be Our Year"
Worst Zombies song: "Tell Her No"
But even the first band's worst was pleasant enough.
(though the single version of "Remember You" is too slow and the vocals are too far forward in the mix)
Best songs named for works of literature that (other than their titles resonating with the song composers) have nothing to do with the songs: "Dover Beach" by the Bangles; "Bullet Park" by Jawbox
wow. JAWBOX? you, sir, are awesome. let me buy you a beer.
If you can find a good non-alkie. Does it up my coolness points that they had me over to their house and were overly kind to dedicated a concert performance to me?
I didn't think so.
There are so many on both ends of the spectrum.
Best: This Boy, Imagine, Helplessly Hoping, Could This Be Magic?
Worst: Mrs. Miller's covers; I Feel Good, by James Brown; Norman; Tighten Up; all bubblegum rock.
Oddly enough, I don't dislike Having My Baby. If you ignore the message it's not that bad.
WV: Wailing. Seems fitting.
I was listening to Just My Imagination while taking my walk today and then flipped to My Girl on my ipod; the Temptations are always my first rock choice when not listening to classical.
As for worse ... not sure if it qualifies, but I REALLY HATE Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night (yet love most of his recordings).
Straight rock, it’d have to be a song I was forced to drum to last year until the band and I couldn’t reach agreement (that we dump it), Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak ... ugh. The Lyrics could've been written by Sarah Palin ...
Oh, I hate Strangers too. Just an awful song no matter who sings it.
Love THIS BOY, so sad, and IMAGINE is the best.
OK, a few more favorites more or less at random:
Cupid, Sam Cooke
Time Has Come Today, Chambers Brothers
In My Life, The Beatles
I Wonder Why, Dion & the Belmonts
It's All in the Game, Tommy Edwards (the only #1 song written - in this case co-written - by a Vice President of the United States; you could look it up!)
Jeff M.
I have a feeling Jeff and I will share favorites 98% of the time.
Best -
Okay... before my time, but I have loved this song since the first time I heard it on YouTube -
"Runaway" - Del Shannon
"Crimson and Clover" - Tommy James and The Shondells
"I'll Stand By You" - The Pretenders
Not really rock, but Marina V's "poppy" cover of GUNS 'N ROSES Don't Cry.
WORST -
Two words - Laura Branigan. OMG!! I want to stick a pencil in my ears... a very long pencil. A very long, sharp pencil!
"Jumpin Jack Flash." Sorry... I do like the Stones, but that song... it does something to me similar to the effect Mary Hart's voice has on Kramer, on that old Seinfeld episode.
"Hold On Loosely" - .38 Special. I'm sorry, but what the ____!
Cap'n Bob and I definitely share a lot of the same tastes but he can actually play music ("Louie Louie" at least), which is beyond me.
Jeff M.
PS - Veronica, it's inexplicable sometimes why one song will affect you that way. I really liked the original version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell), which is why I find Diana Ross's "look at me, aren't I wonderful?" version so awful.
Stones songs I like most: Paint It Black, You Can't Always Get What You Want.
Like most others, there's no way I can do just two. For the good ones, it was hard to stop at 6 (so I sorta didn't).
Favorites
- Ode to Joy - Beethoven
- Stardust - Hoagy Carmichael
- Rhapsody in Blue - Gershwin
- Hotel California - Eagles
- Late for the Sky - Jackson Browne
- Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon
Should be on the list but ran out of room: Time Has Come Today by the Chambers Brothers, Heard it through the Grapevine by Marvin Gaye (original version only, please), Cool Change by Little River Band, Horse With No Name by America, Broken Arrow by Buffalo Springfield, Desperado by The Eagles, so many more...
Dislikes
- anything that's rap
- Hully Gully
- Dead Man's Curve - Jan & Dean
- Ode to Billy Jo - Bobby Gentry
- Love Shack - B52s
Okay, you said rock songs and I did just favorite songs. So shoot me. But most of them are "rock" in some sense of the word.
Great lists both.
Ode to Joy would be my favorite classical for sure.
Hee, Rick...one of your favorites is one of my black beasts, and I love "Love Shack"...
I can play a lot more than "Louie, Louie," Jeff, but I'm no Eric Clapton. Hell, I'm no Eric Skiffendorf. Funny thing about "Louie, Louie," is that I'm not that crazy about the song. But it's a Northwest favorite and every so often people try to have made Washinton's state song.
Thank you, Anon... Yes, it is inexplicable.... just one of those "mysteries", I suppose.
You Can't Always Get What You Want.... oh yes! Probably my favorite Stones song!
@Richard - You don't like Love Shack? Hmmm... try singing it along with a car full of girls, zipping along the "44" on a hot summer's day.... you will gain a whole new appreciation... I promise! LOL!!
Classical....
Moonlight Sonata
Ode To Joy
Adagio For Strings
Well-Tempered Clavier
:)
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