What’s the news around town? Pitchfork counted down the top 200 songs of the 1960s. As with all such lists, there’s only so much you can say about it. 200 songs for a whole decade (one of the most musically rich decades ever, no less) will leave hundreds, even thousands of well-deserving candidates off.
That said, there were a number of interesting decisions. A number of experimental, jazz, etc. tracks made it into the 150-200 range and then completely disappeared. Pitchfork wants us to know that they’re hip, but not too hip.
And was anything more obvious than them picking “God Only Knows” as number 1? Don’t get me wrong–it’s my favorite Beach Boys song and would probably make my top 10. It just felt 100% inevitable. And while we’re on the subject of the Beach Boys, 3 songs in the top 13? Really? And two of the top 7 from Pet Sounds? It’s another example of the problem with the collective identity of Pitchfork, since when it was reissued a little while back, the reviewer gave it a 7.5 and declared “If this were not the Beach Boys, but some indie pop outfit on Parasol Records, it might make a few critics’ Top 10 lists, if it didn’t just vanish into obscurity.”
And, how could such a list get made without me talking about the Beatles? They limited it to five per band, and the ones they chose carry no big surprises: “I Want to Hold Your Hand” HAD to be on the list. And “Eleanor Rigby” and “I Am the Walrus” are both pretty canonical and representative of different periods. Mainstream enough to be safe picks while great enough that no one can really complain. And “A Day in the Life” making the top 5 was just about as much of a foregone conclusion as “God Only Knows” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” My one real complaint is with “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Revolutionary, yes. Influential, yes. Best? No. Apart from Pitchfork, how many people would really say it’s one of the 20 best songs of the decade?
But these are consensus choices, which means they stayed away from anything poppy after the requisite one early tune. Ultimately, it’s because they love the Beatles as pyschedelic artists, and their choices (and comments) reveal that they consider the Beatles to have been the John Lennon show, with Paul just along for the ride. I mean, it’s okay to pick the “obvious” ones. So what if “Hey Jude” was their biggest hit? It really was that good. And don’t bail on “Penny Lane” because you’re worried it’s too poppy.
Or, if you want to stay away from those, surely you can dig a little deeper into the catalogue: take “For No One” instead of “Eleanor Rigby” – the emotion is all there, and may even be the better without the gimmick of the strings. Or you want a trippy song, why not go with “Rain” or “She Said She Said?” And do we really need three pyschedelic songs? How about “In My Life” or “Yesterday” or “Something” or “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” or “Let it Be” or “Across the Universe” or the Abbey Road medley? I guess it just seems weird when you have a band that transcended genres like no one else ever has that the five they picked seem so similar.
All that said, I’m obviously ascribing too much motive to these selections. Like I said above, any list is going to leave off far more worthy candidates than it will include. And, all things considered, they did a great job of mixing things up, while trying to cull 200 songs out of a great decade for music.
So, on that note, here’s a couple choices they made that I love, with the link to the page where its discussed and a short excerpt from their comments:
Crimson and Clover – Tommy James (this is the shortened version, unfortunately, since I lost the extended version in the great iTunes meltdown of aught-6 and haven’t re-added it)
#57
This song– quite possibly the closest white pop musicians have ever come to approximating how making love actually feels– is meant to be an afternoon roll in the hay, not an alleyway screw.
Waterloo Sunset – The Kinks
#29
This was supposedly the first track he produced on his own and every detail works to reconfirm a sensibility: The sporty intro sidesteps into the unmistakable vocal melody played first on guitar, then sung by Davies. Throughout, a scrappy rhythm guitar abuts an angelic harmonic web, balancing vicarious experience with the gorgeous hands-on pageantry of the city.
Runaway – Del Shannon
#64
Despite lacking the “yeah, well fuck you too” vitriol of garage groups like the Seeds, hundreds of punks and proto-punks heard, for better or worse, a whole aesthetic universe in “Runaway”. It’s one of the most coverable songs of all time.