Here are my 100 favorite songs

[AArdvark]

I used that Queen song when I made a cat / dog video

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[pinback]

1. Will there be any MC Frontalot on this list?

2. Is Tubthumping on this list?

[Almost on board here]

Based on his Get Lamp interview and the arcade room he always shows off, his top eleven is probably going to be a copy and paste of Bowie's "Diamond Dogs".

[AArdvark]

I predict the Hall and Oats cover of 'You've lost That Loving Feeling'.


THE
MTV WHEN IT WAS GOOD
AARDVARK

edit: from now on I'm only going to refer to the songs by their ICJ rating number.


THE
92 WAS GREAT!
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#100 "We Are the World" - USA For Africa

How they managed to pack this much talent into a song that is complete shit mystifies me to this day.

I recall that Prince thought the same thing about either the song or the experience. He was always the coolest guy in the room and he offered to make a song for the album (I can't remember if that happened or not).

I also remember reading that some people, Billy Joel maybe, were muttering about how not-great the song was that they were making. I mean, it goes on forever and that's just what it is. But I think it's pretty cruel for the other musicians to snark on something Lionel Ritchie co-wrote while getting eaten by Michael Jackson's python.

Also for your consideration is this amazing Italian singer if you have anything left in your budget:

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I'll give that a listen next. This is already paying dividends!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

WHOA WHOA WHOA.

I need some context here. How did you come up with this list. WHEN did you come up with this list? What criteria did you use for picking these songs? I... wow, this thread's gonna be a busy one!

It is right of you to ask me these things, thank you Flack.

I came up with the list over the last year, adding and moving songs around as I had Google Drive open.

I just picked songs that I really like and have liked for my whole life. I tried to weed out the ones that I listened to constantly for 8 hours a day on repeat at work and then never wanted to hear again. I've tried not to include songs by artists I like just to have them represented on the list - sometimes you like a band but then when you add up all the songs you love by bands that don't really have an oeuvre that you are crazy about, a band gets squeezed out.

(Plus, I feel many, many pop punk bands are quite listenable to me but they don't have that one song that I spurted about. Alas.)

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I literally just got chills when Cyndi Lauper came in with her part. There wasn't a kid in my school who couldn't do this entire song "in character."

There's not a person in that video whose "greatest hits" I wouldn't listen to.

Thank you for this gift.

Thank you.

Thank *you*, Flack. Every time someone watches that video, the ad sales goes to help a people in need.

(/me slooooowly disables Adblock)

Cyndi Lauper was great in that. There are many "breakdowns" of the song out there. Some attempt to be more smug than others, but every one I've read agrees that, yeah, she knocks it out of the park. It'd be a totally different song without her there.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

1. Will there be any MC Frontalot on this list?

2. Is Tubthumping on this list?

1. Yes.

2. Sooooooo - well, no, it is not. I understand that this will make a lot of people angry but I said that at the start, when they realize that someone with my tastes put various pop songs on but not that one. Don't hate me!!

[Game Critic]

2. Is Tubthumping on this list?

2. Sooooooo - well, no, it is not. I understand that this will make a lot of people angry but I said that at the start, when they realize that someone with my tastes put various pop songs on but not that one. Don't hate me!!

That shit song is the audio equivalent to waterboarding. It's what plays in my mind whenever I go through one of pinback's games.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I used that Queen song when I made a cat / dog video

[youtube][/youtube]

That dog is eating that cat! Is the cat OK??

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

In the early 80s I started getting a couple of bucks a week for allowance and mostly spent it on 45s that I bought at Walmart. This was one of the ones I owned, with Bohemian Rhapsody on the front and You're My Best Friend as the B-Side. What a great record.

This is gonna sound horrible, but if I could resurrect one guy from history and give him another 100 years, it would be Freddie Mercury.

[AArdvark]

Cat is alive and well..The dog, well he got old. That video is almost ten years old. They were best friends and loved to wrestle around like that. The cat would put his head in the dog's mouth and the dog would let him. I think he enjoyed the dog breath or something. The cat would roll over and bicycle the dog's nuts with his back paws, pretty funny. When the cat had enough he'd run away.


THE
GONE WITH THE
SCHWINN
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#89 Within Our Reach - CMA

I think I found CMA when Youtube suggestions had me listening to "chillstep" or "trance" or maybe even electronica. A lot of people listen to Pandora during the day, but for me, Youtube's recommendations have always been the best.

I was able to license this song for Cyberganked as well. No vocals, except for a beautifully-sampled gal in some parts. But no, like, lyrics. (Ben said that text games ought not to have lyrics that are sung because it distracts from the game. I do agree with that, but I made an exception for Veela earlier.)

Anyway, please enjoy CMA. His bandcamp link is here: https://cmamusic.bandcamp.com/

[youtube][/youtube]

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#88 Eye in the Sky - Alan Parsons Project

This was another one that would have made my top ten when I was a teenager. I like the haunting style of vocals here a lot, and there's a few other songs that do the same thing.

I also always liked that the band wasn't named after one dude, but his PROJECT. That always made them seem a little more interesting than many other acts that were just named after a guy.

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[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#87 Retro City - Adventure Club

This is the first dubstep song, dubstep was the genre of music I've listened to the most for the last couple of years. I think Adventure Club is the best group making dub that I've heard, though I will admit I don't get to everything. (Usually due to the fact that I get my associations from Youtube, as mentioned.)

The whole genre makes me feel young, like when the world was new. I hope there's a totally new genre I get into every 10 years.

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[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#86 Tempter - June

I know that pop punk is a journey that many of you will not, can not, should not take with me. I don't know that these guys ever had another song that I took to, but this is everything you'd want in a good pop punk song:

1) Catchy
2) An actual guitar solo, rare for the genre
3) Ostensibly about self-loathing
4) Vocals which do not -- for the genre -- sound like whining.

We even get the guitar by itself just before two minutes. Break it down for me fellas!

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[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#85 Freak of the Week - Marvelous 3

I feel like there was a music scene or fandom that the Marvelous 3 were referring to when they wrote this song. It's very wry and there's a layer behind it that I like if you've ever been disappointed with a scene of your own.

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[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#84 Africa - Toto

I don't think I like another song that sounds anything like this at all. I had never seen the video until a few months ago. Surprisingly not too embarrassing for an 80s video, which was an awkward time for music videos.

I read an article once about how Toto weren't even sure if they were going to put this song on the album they were making. We all got lucky there! Unlike song #100, watching this video does not feed a people.

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[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#83 Let Me Go - 3 Doors Down

I believe this band has a fairly terrible reputation. Gerrit made fun of them at the end of his Adult Films and You video short. (That is no longer on Youtube. I should have saved all of Gerrit's work because the jerks who had them on their channel couldn't simply leave shit alone and leave them up.)

Melissa and I were at a pizza parlor a few weeks ago and all they played, for the 30 minutes we were in there, was 3 Doors Down music. Can you imagine such a place! The pie was good too! We are going to New Orleans again shortly. I seem to recall they are from Louisiana. I would like to see them live, but I will have to trick my fiancee to do so. Wish me luck, denizens.

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[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#82 Wintertime - Steve Miller Band

Like many people my age, I ended up with Steve Miller Band's Greatest Hits 1974-1978. Wintertime is on it and man, Rochester radio stations play so much goddamn classic rock that I got sick of the entire genre. This sounds the least like other Steve Miller Band songs that I know and in making this list I listened to it again and it really does hold up. It really does sound like a winter song. Part of me would like to live for a month in a snowed-in cabin somewhere in western Colorado where I got up each morning, had a pot of coffee overlooking the snowy bleakness and just wrote all day. This song would be playing!

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