1. Walk Right Back – The Everly Brothers – Love them close harmonies, you can hear what Lennon and McCartney were listening to, and the background lick is very good -it moves right along, the lyric is sticky but the chorus, really the last four lines of the verse, is elastoplast.
2. I’ll Never Find Another You – The Seekers – Three part harmonies, abd does it matter that Judith Durham was a jazz singer? The song is indelible from the opening line (kinda funny given the Seekers were born in a former penal colony): “There’s a new world somewhere they call the promised land”. 964 and effectively changing the Jazz Seekers into the Seekers.
3. Don’t Believe The Hype – Public Enemy – This broke em huge, mostly because of that weird sound all the way through, and with Flava “no you can’t have it back silly rabbit” Flav undercutting Chuck D’s Farrakhan shout out, it was black power and anger and politics.
4. Let It Be Me – The Everly Brothers – One of the clearest and most persuasive love songs every written: it drips purity of intent.
5. Love Child – Diana Ross And The Supremes – An ode to a bastard and a black song to single parenthood.
6. Rebellion (Lies) – Arcade Fire – Another scream out to agitprop rockers, with their best song and major generational shout you.
7. Helpless – Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young – Really, Young plus back up harmonies but the harmonies weregreat and the setiment was a hippie dream but not a good dream -it floats in a downward motion.
8. Janie Jones – The Clash – It is another daydream of failure and success and revenge, all that “he’s really gonna tell the boss, gonna really let him know exactly how he feels… it’s pretty bad”. It’s “Career Opportunities” of a while collar closer.
9. Stay – David Bowie – One of the biggest ballads you will ever hear and it is so big that it dwarfs the disco groove it is built upon.
10. All Apologies – Nirvana – The Unplugged version is the greatest suicide note ever written