Love this. A glimpse of a serious musician's personal, private loves. I listened to each song (even the ones I already new), and tried to imagine what you heard that I might not have. Wish I had a platform for doing the same :).
Great list and great commentary! Most "lists" are pure B.S.! Can't wait for the next one! Also, loved the metaphor about the cards for the Syd Barrett song
Thank you.. I'm unfamiliar with a good half of the songs (or at least the particular recordings), so lots of fun. I must say I was flabbergasted to see one of my alltime faves, White Light / White Heat, on the list. I couldn't agree with you more about how it feels to listen to it!
P.S. It would be amazing to hear an analysis of Animal Collective's music, especially Alvin Row from Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished. Or Acid Mother Temple's very long jams (La Novia, Psycho Buddha, etc.).
Thanks for the recomendations, I think this channel is doing important work creating bridges between classical and “popular” music. I’d also like to recomend the album “To be Kind” by Swans. It’s technically a rock album but the genre is pushed beyond its breaking point. It’s almost reminiscent of Bruckner in how primal, large scale and patient the music is. For me, the definitional experimental album of the century so far.
Thanks so much both for your music but also for the incredible depth and breadth of your musical knowledge and appreciation of musical history and composition. Cole Porter, Beefheart, Soft Machine… etc - wow. I’d love to take a history of music course with you ( and I’ve taken many of them). I’m sure you’d be contrasting Palestrina with Reich and Senegalese drumming, Bach to Boulez, or how someday Beefheart and Zappa will be part of the American Song Book. It’s so refreshing to see someone who sees the totality of musical expression as a big picture and not the often “classical or jazz, pop or rock” etc.
I feel you 100% on the white light white heat album. Sister Ray, ooh boy. And I love 16 shells from a 30. 6; some of my favorite lyrics EVER are “so I spent all my buttons on an old pack mule” and “woah you gotta meet me by the knuckles of the skinny bone tree.”
Great list Samuel. These individual tracks all provide an "experience" so to speak. Another great experience track, for those who haven't heard it, is Frankie Teardrop by Suicide. It's unforgettable.
@@bonzey1171 I'm sure you've had that conversation a number of times, but in my opinion the best part of Soft Machine's "Allan Holdsworth era" was Allan Holdsworth himself, who moved on rather soon after Bundles was released, leaving Jenkins' SM to a slow and steady decay... "Third" is great. In my opinion, though, the best SM stuff was captured live in between "Third" and "Fifth" and gets released by Cuneiform every now and then...
I did own Bundles decades ago. It´s not bad but I feel they had lost so much of what I loved about them after "Six" that it had became a separate thing. I do appreciate some of the Jenkins era but.. it´s something else than the older Soft Machine I love.
Nice list. I love “Ooh Baby Baby” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. It follows “genre conventions” gracefully, but also transcends them by being so very beautiful.
Great work, Samuel. Ithink it would be interesting if you analyzed some of your favorite albums (jazz/rock) for us. Perhaps providing a list some of your favorites would also be engaging.
Samuel, this was very interesting (and surprising)! I very much enjoy your wide spread of interests and knowledge. How about a similar exercise to this covering your "Twenty best jazz tracks". Also, I'd love to hear what you've got to say about Monteverdi. Many thanks.
Great Beatles pick, you should have mentioned the immaculate horn playing by Alan Civil, horn player from Berliner and Philharmonia... I'll take my time to make my list!
Characterising "Moon in June" as Proustian was brilliant! Whereas Proust, among other things, encapsulated a certain social ethos at the beginning of the 20th century and, at the same time, delved deeper into the individual experience and its conditions, Moon in June seems to capture a whole segment of the pop music of the 60s as well as forge ahead into a new mode of free-flowing expression in popular music - the first half being like a collection of associative snapshots of the past and the second half more stream-of-consciousness expression.
Great diverse list! One of my personal favorite pop songs is Kraftwerk - Neon Lights. There is something haunting about the vocals, the melody and the effects they used on their synthesizers. Florian Schneider knew how to write a great melody and was clearly classical trained or at least heavily influenced. One of my other favorites is Another Star from Stevie Wonder. It might be his all time best work which is saying something. It's such a powerful song with its Latin rhythms, the instrumentations and Stevie's delivery. He's able to turn these relatively simple lyrics into something so personal and touching.
love your channel and all the different topics you cover and your wide breadth of musical adventures....really enjoyed this video as well...and thought it would be fun to submit my own list, as hard as it was to narrow down! 1. Big Star - Back of My Car 2.MX 80 Sound - Train to Loveland 3. Family Fodder - Playing Golf with My Flesh Crawling 4.Alice Cooper - Halo Of Flies 5. The Groundhogs - I Love You, Miss Ogyny 6.Stooges - I Got a Right 7.Everything But The Girl - The Night I Heard Caruso Sing 8.Fleetwood Mac - The Green Manalishi 9.King Crimson - Starless and Bible Blac 10.Robert Fripp - Exposure 11. Eno - Baby's On Fire 12.The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows 13.Jimi Hendrix - Machine Gun 14.Van Der Graaf Generator - A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers 15.Wishbone Ash - Time Was 16.Public Image - Public Image 17.Skating Polly - Don't Leave Me Gravity 18.Cheap Trick - Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School 19.Todd Rundgren - Couldn't I Just Tell You 20.The Pop Group - We Are All Prostitutes
Oh.. I did not expect you to namedrop Aphex Twin or VU´s menacing WLWH, but the way you did it immediately made sense to me. Music shouldn´t always be comfortable. ** The Kinks are possibly the most underrated of the famous "classic" rock bands. ** Sometimes I actually prefer the more spontaneous late 1968 demo version(s) of Moon in June over the one on Third.
Other pop song masterpieces include but certainly aren't limited to: "Mayor of Simpleton" by XTC, "You Get What You Give" by New Radicals, "Sowing the Seeds of Love" by Tears for Fears, and "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel.
i have a british friend who goes to the opera every weekend, we talk about mahler and autechre and xenakis and the rest. one band that i've gotten him deeply into (this still dumbfounds me) is slipknot, particularly their first record. it's white light white heat to the extreme, there are caveman polyrhythms and a ragged almost jazzy approach to timing and drum fills, it has an organized chaos feeling that reminds a bit of beefheart. i'm not exactly championing it for it's written complexity, but something like the song "eyeless" is without a doubt extremely unique, i think it's a must hear
Fantiastic list, love to see that the Kinks made the cut. Was not suprised to see Beefheart and Velvet Underground up there. If you like the grit of those artists I highly recomended the Animal Speaks by the Numbers Band, Smile by the Fall, and Marquee Moon by Television. Each song is a severly underrated.
Really nice to see this different side of you, and an interesting choice of songs (I am familiar with the majority of them). I was kind of expecting to see Sonic Youth included (you interviewed Jim O'Rourke), but I understand not every song can make it on the final list. Tip for some exciting contemporary "pop" music (imho): KNOWER - I'm the president . There's an incredible live version on TH-cam.
An interesting and generally excellent list! I've spent much of the evening listening to the songs you mentioned that I'd never heard before. And I'll probably revisit several of them over the next few days. Then I kept thinking of songs I'd add, and wondering if you were familiar with any of them. Ah well, it was a fun way to spend an evening.... It surprised me that your Beefheart pick wasn't Frownland, about which you made a super video some months ago. This and (I supposed) Moonlight in Vermont have always been my favorites from him. th-cam.com/video/r9lpLm7jwQY/w-d-xo.html I first ran across Prisencolininsenainciuso (however you spell it) some years ago. Sorry to offer a correction, though -- the staging in your linked TH-cam clip isn't anything like an official music video, conceived by Celentano along with the song. It's just one of several stagings broadcast by Italy's RAI network over the years and choreographed by the RAI team. And the staging you offer is far from the best one, which sadly got taken down a couple years ago. This clip however very roughly marries the album version of the song with the best staging (starting around the 2:15 mark). It features an unhinged Raffaela Carra, a corps of impossibly flexible bell-bottomed dancers, and a strategic wall of mirrors: th-cam.com/video/foU3Tgg7VJI/w-d-xo.html I've never liked Leonard Cohen's music, sorry to admit. My pick for a Canadian entry would be one of these three -- Summer Wages sung by Ian & Sylvia officially, but Ian Tyson is the only one singing on the track: th-cam.com/video/9oybX65J4dI/w-d-xo.html The Mary Ellen Carter sung by the late, great Stan Rogers, a song that, as the introduction to this clip makes plain, has saved lives: th-cam.com/video/fT-aEcPgkuA/w-d-xo.html Or one of the songs by Tragically Hip, such as Fireworks, a song so Canadian, it mentions Bobby Orr: th-cam.com/video/O9wW9ENBPlQ/w-d-xo.html Only two of your picks are from Black singer-songwriters? Here's two more to help even things out a bit -- Cab Calloway is better known as a showman than as a songwriter, but he did pen several popular tunes, including Jumpin' Jive. Half of this TH-cam clip of the song features Calloway singing it, and the other half is, simply put, the greatest pop dance routine ever filmed: th-cam.com/video/qXZRWa8kyAE/w-d-xo.html Then there's Rubber Biscuit by a short-lived New York City doo-wop group called The Chips, which fits nicely into your category of songs that are worth hearing because they're stupid but fun: th-cam.com/video/E_D_mwTcsKk/w-d-xo.html Next, I offer for your inspection a trio of songs that are straight-up in foreign languages -- The first song has been called the best Brazilian pop song ever. I think Rolling Stone rated it as the 2nd best, but no matter. Aguas de Março/Waters of March is basically a list of the random debris that washes down the streets when the March rains hit Brazil. The idea is that life can be pretty random, but it's also abundant and beautiful, as is the delightful singing by Elis Regina and the song's composer Tom (Antonio Carlos) Jobim:: th-cam.com/video/E1tOV7y94DY/w-d-xo.html From Belgium comes this heartbreaking French-language hit written and performed by Jacques Brel, Ne me quitte pas/Don't leave me, which TH-cam kindly subtitles in English: th-cam.com/video/q_bq5mStroM/w-d-xo.html There are different accounts of the next song; some say it was written by Serge Gainsbourg, others say it was written by Anna Karina, whose 1967 music video performance of Roller Girl is seen in this clip (which has English-language subtitles). I'll go with it being written by her, claiming for the nonce that it's a legit suggestion in the spirit of your 20-item list: th-cam.com/video/YEbHNhRsq3E/w-d-xo.html There's no doubt, however, that British folk-rocker Sandy Denny wrote (and first recorded) the haunting tune Who Knows Where the Time Goes, before dying far too young: th-cam.com/video/n2xODjbfYw8/w-d-xo.html Staying in Britain, I'd like to offer Elvis Costello's intense Watching the Detectives as being a song everyone needs to hear at some point. Truth to tell, his back-catalog is full of songs that richly reward the listener, though I admit that his voice is, for many, very much of an acquired taste: th-cam.com/video/K--POHTLGY0/w-d-xo.html And finally, a magnificent song of love and longing and separation -- and the literary references are front-and-center -- Tim Buckley's Song to the Siren: th-cam.com/video/vMTEtDBHGY4/w-d-xo.html
@@samuel_andreyev Any one of those would be great, but if I had to pick one I would probably go with Sabotage, mainly because I'm interested in hearing your analysis on a rap rock song. Or maybe Whip It, since it's one of my favorites too!
As an italian, music fanatic following and respecting you since years, i had a stupid big smile on my face watching this video knowing Adriano Celentano was on the list. Also i would like to highlight how he nailed the "playback" of a nonsense song : D
Interesting list including one of my obsessions, Tom Waits. Another obsession is late-period Talk Talk, especially the final two albums. I never see anyone analysing them, how about it Sam?
Many interesting observations, Samuel! My musical tastes aren't all that broad to be honest, but I always enjoy your suggestions, and some of them really stuck with me. I was caught off guard with the overlap between this list and my popular music taste though.
Great list! I was pleasantly surprised to see Moon In June included as I'm a huge Soft Machine fan (especially the Wyatt era). Devo, The Kinks and The Beach Boys are also favorites. Have you heard much Scott Walker?
How about Animal Collective? Would love to hear your opinion on songs from early and recent, namely "Leaf House" and "Who Could Win A Rabbit" from Sung Tongs and "My Girls" from Merriweather Post Pavilion. You'd like the animalistic (no pun intended) fervor and experimentalism in their music, including metric modulations and a lot of vocal fireworks (Fireworks also a great song!).
I really enjoyed that, thanks. (I just wish I could unsee Celentano's dancing.) You've got a few of my favorite songs here. I've decided that too much creativity is holding back my music career, so I'm going to start cultivating my "imbecilic exterior."
@@Martykun36 Geez relax, it was a joke. I would have thought that was obvious, but maybe I should have put an lol in there. I don't even have (or want) a music career.
I have a couple (I'm a guitarist, so my taste skews that way). My Bloody Valentine - To Here Knows When Guitarist Kevin Shields is a pioneer in 'effects' guitar, and his masterpiece is undeniably the album Loveless, which almost bankrupted the bands label Creation Records prior to Oasis. Shields' main innovation to guitar playing is the 'glide' picking, whereby chords are strummed at the same time that the tremolo arm is depressed, which, when combined with the reverse reverb and fuzz that has become synonymous with the band, creates this melted, 'vacuum cleaner' sound. Honestly, throw a dart at a track from the Loveless album, it's a masterpiece. The Flaming Lips - Race for the Prize the album 'The Soft Bulletin' came at a low point in The Flamin Lips' career, their guitarist had just left, and a number of experiments (such as the 4LP Zaireeka, designed to play simultaneously and to draw attention to the space of the room it was being played in similar to something like Alvin Lucier's experiments in the same vein) commercially failed. The album was an attempt to write songs without the big guitar sounds that they were known for (see: She Don't Use Jelly), and although they aren't totally strict with that rule, much of the instrumentation on the album succeeds at that goal. Race for the Prize, the album's opener, starts with these super compressed drums, recorded in the confined space of a bathroom, more compression being added at the mixing stage. Xiu Xiu - Master of the Bump (Kurt Stambaugh, I Can Feel the Soil Falling Over My Head) Xiu Xiu are one of my favourite bands, Jamie Stewart writes about sexuality and gender from such an alienated, almost perverse perspective. Master of the Bump I see as a parody of all the big macho guitar-solo songs of the late 80s and early 90s. It's this tender, almost whispered song about toxic masculinity, and ends with the first few phrases of one of these solos that is left dangling in this rather insecure manner. Big Thief - Jenni Adrienne Lenker is a songwriter that people should probably pay more attention to, she's writing some of the most exciting guitar music today - her 'quarantine' solo album Songs and Instrumentals is one of my favourites in recent history. For Jenni, Lenker and her bandmate Buck Meek tied a guitar to the roof of a barn and hit it with drum sticks, physically swinging the guitar in the room, creating this otherworldly swirling effect.
Dear Samuel, you are an excellent composer and popularizer, as well as a great connoisseur of the subject. I venture to add a couple of songs (there would be MANY others) that I particularly love: Experience by Gentle Giant and New Frontier by Donald Fagen. Thanks for your attention and keep up the good work!
I'd never come across Prisencolinensinainciusol. It's a masterpiece. And the comments under the video are hilarious eg "What's your wifi password?" "It's on the back of the router" Back of the router:
Nice list. But it's 2024 and the most recent song is from 20 years ago, and more than half are from more than 50 years ago. Would be interesting to see a list with popular music from past 10 years or so. :)
"Prisencolinensinainciusol" is fascinating in how, as an English speaker, it nails everything about the cadence, morphology and texture of English while being completely incomprehensible. Absolutely brain-frying. Love it. (Also a big fan of Wyatt, Waits, Cohen and Devo, although in the latter two cases I might have chosen "Who By Fire" and "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" respectively.) A few (by which I mean quite a few) suggestions of my own, mainly from before 2004 per the video proper but with a few later entries of especial note: - The United States of America, "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (1968): I could have gone with the more lyrically acerbic opening number to this record here, but this conceptually simpler number is simply undeniable in terms of the urgency of its instrumentation, performance and musical focus, sensuous yet laced with potent menace. - Wire, "Map Ref. 41°N 93°W" (1979): An immaculately arranged and structured pop song, easily one of the most beautiful pieces of music to ever emerge out of the punk/post-punk movement, reflecting on the awe of observing the vastness of the Earth from the air and sonically painted with guitars and keyboards with all of the colour and grandeur of the vistas depicted. - This Heat, "Makeshift Swahili" (1981): The nightmare of colonialism and cultural imperialism made manifest through a blend of Canterbury-school progressive rock sophistication, visceral punk rock aggression, and highly experimental studio-as-instrument soundplay, the studio version flipping to a particularly raw live recording during the chaotic coda for maximum disorientation. - Coil, "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)" (1986): The lush interweaving of Fairlight sampler lines and string quartet behind Jhonn Balance's inimitable vocals really provide the perfect setting for the morbid neo-Decadent homoeroticism of the lyrics, a fragmented portrait of the assassination of the radical Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. - The Magnetic Fields, "100,000 Fireflies" (1989): Another perfect pop song, albeit more austere and humble, carried by clear melodic lines, a gently emotive vocal performance from the late Susan Anway, and lyrics which, while initially sardonic if evocative, transform into something far more sincere and all the more devastating for it. - Swans, "Her" (1992): What begins as a soft, intimate little love song like the lapping of a lone candle flame expands outward further and further into a titanic wall of protean melody before dissolving into glittering noise and the sound of a tape-recorded voice from decades before, coming full circle. - Burzum, "Jesu død" (1996): Odious as Varg Vikernes and his views are, there is something undeniably compelling about the demoniac minimalism of best work, particularly this eerie slice of almost Feldman-esque repetition, luxuriating in the timbre of a single repeated guitar motif overwhelmed with tape saturation. - Sonic Youth, "Hoarfrost" (1998): A gorgeously arranged and performed tone poem about walking with a loved one in the snow, comprised primarily of layers of intricate, warmly luminous melodic guitar work, at once comforting and tinged with a certain niggling unease, as if some threat lurks just out of view, or hidden in plain sight. - Current 93, "Sleep Has His House" (2000): Mostly comprised of a layered, lulling harmonium drone and a murmured refrain for the better part of twenty minutes before blooming into an impassioned wail of grief listing all of the wondrous things which death renders trivial. - Dälek, "Ever Somber" (2005): One of the most beautifully produced works of modern music, hip-hop or otherwise, the thematic lynchpin to an album reflecting on the role of music in bringing attention to social issues which turns inward, speaking to self-destruction as an escape from the ravages of systemic racism and art as an escape from self-destruction. - St. Vincent, "The Neighbors" (2009): Pretty much any song off of Actor could go here, but I'm going to go with what might be the most peculiar, an off-kilter, jaunty number stuffed with subtly odd instrumentation which could be a portrait of teenage recklessness and minor small-town scandal or something far more sinister or, conversely, personal and interior. - Jute Gyte, "Yarinareth, Yarinareth, Yarinareth" (2017): Closer to a work of classical art music in terms of composition than a traditional metal song, with the use of quartertones facilitating both horrific dissonances and some of the most sumptuous melodic lines I've ever heard. - billy woods & kenny segal, "Speak Gently" (2019): Another thematic crux to a fairly harrowing and excellently produced hip-hop record about poverty, here primarily not for the extremely on point verses but the spoken word coda where the instrumental dissolves into freeform abstraction and woods discusses the strange experience of receiving other people's mail year after year, an anecdote mundane yet haunting.
I might have gotten into the talking heads a long time ago if the first song I heard from them was “once in a lifetime.” Ive always hated that song lol. But i think the rest of that album is an absolute masterpiece.
No Backstage Pass by Caravan is lovely. As is Didn't Matter Anyway by Hatfield and the North. Richard Sinclair is a great musician Mumps is also ace. The Northettes were such brilliant vocalists
Something you might enjoy Samuel is, well, almost anything by They Might Be Giants -- in their forty years of output I can't think of another act that so consistently produces both superbly catchy melodies and smart, quirky lyrics. You may already know them, but if not try some songs like "I Palindrome I", "Dead", "Turn Around", "The Statue Got Me High" or "Mr Horrible", or little miniatures like "Exquisite Dead Guy" or "Weep Day". I don't listen to much pop music, but I play their songs all the time.
If you like the late 60s Beach Boys and Kinks kind of thing, I also highly recommend checking out the entire 1968 album "Odessey and Oracle" by The Zombies, which I feel is an underrated masterpiece of chamber pop as well as a fantastic use of the "studio as an instrument." It gets experimental at times but is also completely accessible all around. The most famous song from this record is the single "Time of The Season" which I love, but also notable is "Hung Up on a Dream" which I think is absolutely beautiful.
Prince and the Revolution: "When Doves Cry." The full album version that is about six minutes long. For the songwriting and for the guitar work & synthesizer improvisation at the end. // There is the legendary story of how Prince, in the studio with the engineers suddenly removed all the base tracks to the song at the very last minute before mix-down. As the final mix began turned to everyone and said, "No one would have the _balls_ to do this."
Probably the best song of the 2000's is "Pink Bullets" by The Shins . Beautiful melancholy melody and these lyrics " It's just like a book that you read in reverse. So you understand less as the pages turn or movie so crass and awkwardly cast that even I could be the star." GENIUS!
A Playlist for lazy listeners. Only 13 of the 20 were available as singles. You will have to click on the remaining 7 songs on Samuel Andreyev's list above. th-cam.com/play/PLwOqCL3KW3u8QgBv8IBdAu_Ps3eQEDNyO.html&si=QJSkIASMKU5sRavu
1) I adore lists, but well, who doesn't? 2) I know that italian music never reached the international radar, but please please please, liste to Lucio Battisti, our John Lennon, or our David Bowie let's say. Just pick up his masterpiece 'Don Giovanni" one of his most experimental song. Do yourself a favour ❤ Ps i was still listening and didn't know you had added Celentano!!!! Jeeeeeez man!!!! ❤❤
@@alessandrocendamo462 Franco Battiato has a work with a range that in the 20th century can only be compared to Frank Zappa. With a 20 popsong playlist I would prefer Franco as cantautore
A bit like Alan Partridge's radio phone-in, What is the best thing? Anyway the correct answer is the Waterboys' studio version of Van Morrison's Sweet Thing. Perfection.
Kate Bush is so fun to listen to. Symphony In Blue, Them Heavy People, Hammer Horror, Nocturn and many more are so unique. It'd be great to hear you talk more about her!
You could have any number of Cohen songs here, overused but the still brilliant "Hallelujah", "Dance me to the end of love" and "A thousand kisses deep" which is a truly great song in my opinion. Bohemian Rhapsody is self indulgent to my ear, structurally it is innovative for a pop song but it's a bit of an overblown whine. I think Bob Dylan could have a mention here as well. "I think it's going to rain today" by Randy Newman is another great song, just perfect.
I regret that I didn’t choose You Want it Darker from Cohen’s last album. That was my original choice and I somehow forgot it when I was preparing to film. That last album is OUTSTANDING!
OH!!!!! you should have explained why you like Bohemian Rap!!??? hearing what is interesting about it from a trained composer is so so so rare!! you nut! 😊
I would've included The Walker Brothers' song "The Electrician" by Scott Walker. It's a very dark and heavy track that goes on a sinister journey, and it's in very stark in contrast to his earlier songs. It points in the direction his music would go from Climate of Hunter to Tilt and Drift.
Here are three songs to add to that very fun and interesting list! 1.Flanders Dictum Part of a much larger story it reflects on psychopathic leadership and their planning, as it affects the innocent. Original and unique Omni writing. th-cam.com/video/m6CNd1gJ19w/w-d-xo.html 2. Won't give in (Finn Brothers) This is everything a great pop song should be, outsized in pleasurable melody and golden mean form, which Neil Finn had found a predilection for. Note the short white hot center at the golden mean. Very fine writing. th-cam.com/video/byPG-_9RKCM/w-d-xo.html 3. I want to be with you, Mandy Moore. Lyrically, it contains everything I hate in a pop song but so what. This is an extreme masterpiece of music mixing, production and planning. It should be listened to on a good stereo, not mp3 but wave. The sounds are little brush strokes of impressionistic feathering. Perfect in reverb amounts and automation of such said feature. The singing is perfect and the back hooks are adhered to religiously. A masterpiece. th-cam.com/video/ErntJrtQGBg/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for your list, it's interesting. I enjoy your channel and find it educational and inspiring especially with regard to early/mid 20th c composers. One thing that confuses me here is that you can appreciate the naiveté of Beefheart and yet not as much Mr Barrett. After watching your interviews with the makers of Trout Mask you should see how they were really naive in it and were more conduits of their humanity than "expertly trained". Like your breakdown of Frownland. You can divide anything into fractals but this work is just more a feel, a groove, a nervous impulse roughly translated into music and that makes it a masterpiece. This is what sets it apart really. I think we are seeing more and more desire for naive work too these days where everything has become extremely technical and competitive which gives everyone a bad case of impostor syndrome. Sorry I should add some picks since you asked: hard to choose a perfect song. Post y2k Perhaps "Let the Bells Ring" by Nick Cave and about a million others! It is indeed a great privilege to explore and enjoy this world of music!
@@samuel_andreyev I do agree with you there Samuel. I think possibly Rick Wright had a lot to do with the musical arrangements on Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, he did live with Syd at the time, by the way, I loved your analysis of See Saw, one of my favourites along with Summer 68, 🙂
I love soft machine. One of my favorite bands. Despite some of the greatness that comes later in the band’s life, I still prefer their first album the most. It’s super low budget, and it captures this raw, almost modern punk energy. I have yet to hear anything from that era that has real teeth like that album has.
Robert Johnson Terraplane Blues 1936 Billy Holliday Strange Fruit 1939 Miles Davis/Bob Dorough Nothing Like You 1962 The Who Substitute 1965 Leo Ferre Pepee 1968 Frank Zappa Flower Punk 1968 Laura Nyro You Don't Love Me When I Cry 1969 Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Chile 1970 Kevin Coyne Sand All Yellow 1972 Roxy Music Re-make, Re-model 1972 Patto Loud Green Song 1973 Gong Prostitute Poem 1973 Solid Gold Cadillac I Believe 1973 Roy Harper Twelve Hours Of Sunset 1974 Joni Mitchell Jungle Line 1975 John Martyn Dealer 1977 Art Bears In Two Minds 1978 James Blood Ulmer Are You Glad To Be In America? 1980 The Fall Totally Wired 1989 Jane Siberry The Vigil (The Sea) 1989 I used the same criteria as Samuel. I declined to choose the same artists as he did! I chose TWO Canadians.
Did you have a change of heart with Autechre? I heard you say a while back that you didn't much care for them-maybe you've listened to their post-Confield work since. Didn't know you vibed with Aphex as well. But wrt your obligatory call for engagement in the comments, you might check out more Kendrick Lamar. The opening track "Wesley's Theory" from To Pimp a Butterfly might appeal to you.
While not quite as grandiose as Adriano Celentano, 12-year-old singer Stella Zelcer (recording as Stella) made hit parodies with her uncle of Ye-Ye (from "Yeah Yeah"), the French version of Anglophilic (think Johnny Hallyday) teenybopper pop. She went on to marry Christian Vander and front the legendary Zeuhl (prog fusion) band, Magma.
Also, you’ll get no disagreement from me that Devo is funny. However, I find them so much deeper than that. They’ve had a consistent aesthetic and message for nearly 50 years. Humor and incredibly subversive satire throughout their career all tied together by all they do and say. (Especially before 1984 though). I play the Whip It, Freedom of Choice or Jocko Homo video for all of the college classes I teach. I don’t comment on it, I just let these 18-20 year olds see and hear it. It’s so much fun!
Interesting choices. I especially liked the Beastie Boys and Soft Machine, as they were unfamiliar to me, and compelled listening. I could not with the Kinks and Velvet Underground (though I generally like VU and Lou Reed) . It's kind of hard to see what you consider a masterpiece, other than just being good and singular. It might be interesting (imo), if you attempt the same kind of a listing (i.e., "this is a masterpiece" plus some discussion) at the level of an entire album from recordings of the rock and pop eras. Or maybe even at the group/individual level. Just wondering if you think there are such things (as I do).
Soft Machine's "Third" was a staple on our "music for tripping" playlist... "The moon in june" stood out on that album as a trip within the trip. It connects me to the spirit of 2 dearly loved friends lost to heroine and suicide. R.I.P Luc & Tom.
Is there any band/composer/singer songwriter/song that resonates with you, that doesn't seem to resonate with anyone else? Or the other way, that everyone else likes that you just don't get? I sometimes feel like I'm taking crazy pills when certain bands, songs, albums, composers, etc. are held in such high regard and I just don't get it.
I'd love to hear you expand more on why every song the Beach Boys recorded is dumb, I think they have a whole bunch of gems, especially from their lesser known albums.
@@loadishstone I said this because there was a lot of controversy under his video about 20th century masterpieces. That was his opinion also. I don't know much about this genre of music so I didn't know if it was a controversial list.
Not many I'd say. They're all pop and rock songs that everyone would say have "something" to them. Someone could say like "why isn't A Day in the Life or What’s Going On in there" and it could be either because they're not that interesting to him, or just because they're so obvious picks they would add nothing to the list.
Have to disagree about Barrett. I do think he was a genius. The track I would have picked for this kind of list would have been "No Use Trying". Would love to hear your thoughts on that one.
Here is a playlist of the songs listed above:
th-cam.com/play/PLcKh5uvyw3hZ3HfKuuoJh1QeoAl-YAdaA.html&si=1u4cLo78ss_PmiZ6
Thank you! I started to do the same myself, but now I'll use yours. Shout out to Samuel: how about you pin this playlist to the top?
Done. Thanks!!
@@samuel_andreyev 👍
@@jameschristiansson3137 Thanks for letting me know. I swapped the unavailable video for a different version.
@@okasa64 Thanks for the quick update. Removed my comment.
"I don't know why Mike Love, who's this kind of... well, we won't get into that" 😆
It's a signature arrangement by Van Dyke Parks. Why not give praise where praise is due?
Hahaha so good
Honestly I lack the context to get this, any one care to explain?
I don’t find the dumbness of the beach boys to be a downside, but an extremely charming upside to their music. It’s an endearing and friendly quality.
I can't even get through the video, you've sent me off listening to everything and that leads to more things... Great stuff. Thanks for this!
Love this. A glimpse of a serious musician's personal, private loves. I listened to each song (even the ones I already new), and tried to imagine what you heard that I might not have. Wish I had a platform for doing the same :).
Every list should be prefaced in this way. Bravo, maestro.
Great list and great commentary! Most "lists" are pure B.S.! Can't wait for the next one! Also, loved the metaphor about the cards for the Syd Barrett song
Thank you.. I'm unfamiliar with a good half of the songs (or at least the particular recordings), so lots of fun. I must say I was flabbergasted to see one of my alltime faves, White Light / White Heat, on the list. I couldn't agree with you more about how it feels to listen to it!
"The dumbness serves an aesthetic purpose." Is an amazing zinger 😂. This and the comment about Saint-Saëns living long enough had me in stitches
This is such a perfect description of The Beach Boys, and it's also why I love them so much. Bravo, Samuel Andreyev!!
P.S. It would be amazing to hear an analysis of Animal Collective's music, especially Alvin Row from Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished. Or Acid Mother Temple's very long jams (La Novia, Psycho Buddha, etc.).
Thanks for sharing this remarkable and quirky list!
Thanks for the recomendations, I think this channel is doing important work creating bridges between classical and “popular” music.
I’d also like to recomend the album “To be Kind” by Swans. It’s technically a rock album but the genre is pushed beyond its breaking point. It’s almost reminiscent of Bruckner in how primal, large scale and patient the music is.
For me, the definitional experimental album of the century so far.
Super album
Thanks so much both for your music but also for the incredible depth and breadth of your musical knowledge and appreciation of musical history and composition. Cole Porter, Beefheart, Soft Machine… etc - wow. I’d love to take a history of music course with you ( and I’ve taken many of them). I’m sure you’d be contrasting Palestrina with Reich and Senegalese drumming, Bach to Boulez, or how someday Beefheart and Zappa will be part of the American Song Book. It’s so refreshing to see someone who sees the totality of musical expression as a big picture and not the often “classical or jazz, pop or rock” etc.
I feel you 100% on the white light white heat album. Sister Ray, ooh boy. And I love 16 shells from a 30. 6; some of my favorite lyrics EVER are “so I spent all my buttons on an old pack mule” and “woah you gotta meet me by the knuckles of the skinny bone tree.”
Great list Samuel. These individual tracks all provide an "experience" so to speak.
Another great experience track, for those who haven't heard it, is Frankie Teardrop by Suicide. It's unforgettable.
Really good and diverse list… I didn’t expect Soft Machine! The Third album is really good although I like their fusion “Allan Holdsworth” era.
Love Soft Machine
@@bonzey1171 I'm sure you've had that conversation a number of times, but in my opinion the best part of Soft Machine's "Allan Holdsworth era" was Allan Holdsworth himself, who moved on rather soon after Bundles was released, leaving Jenkins' SM to a slow and steady decay... "Third" is great. In my opinion, though, the best SM stuff was captured live in between "Third" and "Fifth" and gets released by Cuneiform every now and then...
I did own Bundles decades ago. It´s not bad but I feel they had lost so much of what I loved about them after "Six" that it had became a separate thing. I do appreciate some of the Jenkins era but.. it´s something else than the older Soft Machine I love.
Can't dispute anything from that list. Glad the Kinks made the list.
Especially on Ray Davies' 80th birthday.
Samuel's point about the Kinks going in the non-hippy direction is so right: they celebrated Englishness in ways that anticipate Brexit.
You 're a good man, dude..very good selection and explaining, thanks from the ❤
Back at you
Nice list. I love “Ooh Baby Baby” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. It follows “genre conventions” gracefully, but also transcends them by being so very beautiful.
Thank you for recognizing Adriano Celentano! Also, I am glad that we have similar tastes in terms of some of the song picks.
Great work, Samuel. Ithink it would be interesting if you analyzed some of your favorite albums (jazz/rock) for us. Perhaps providing a list some of your favorites would also be engaging.
Samuel, this was very interesting (and surprising)! I very much enjoy your wide spread of interests and knowledge. How about a similar exercise to this covering your "Twenty best jazz tracks". Also, I'd love to hear what you've got to say about Monteverdi. Many thanks.
Any thoughts on Scott Walker?
Great Beatles pick, you should have mentioned the immaculate horn playing by Alan Civil, horn player from Berliner and Philharmonia...
I'll take my time to make my list!
interesting list! Learned a lot of new music
Characterising "Moon in June" as Proustian was brilliant! Whereas Proust, among other things, encapsulated a certain social ethos at the beginning of the 20th century and, at the same time, delved deeper into the individual experience and its conditions, Moon in June seems to capture a whole segment of the pop music of the 60s as well as forge ahead into a new mode of free-flowing expression in popular music - the first half being like a collection of associative snapshots of the past and the second half more stream-of-consciousness expression.
Good to see Kate Bush on your list. She’s such an amazing talent.
Please make a video on the Ligeti piano etudes
Great diverse list!
One of my personal favorite pop songs is Kraftwerk - Neon Lights. There is something haunting about the vocals, the melody and the effects they used on their synthesizers. Florian Schneider knew how to write a great melody and was clearly classical trained or at least heavily influenced.
One of my other favorites is Another Star from Stevie Wonder. It might be his all time best work which is saying something. It's such a powerful song with its Latin rhythms, the instrumentations and Stevie's delivery. He's able to turn these relatively simple lyrics into something so personal and touching.
love your channel and all the different topics you cover and your wide breadth of musical adventures....really enjoyed this video as well...and thought it would be fun to submit my own list, as hard as it was to narrow down!
1. Big Star - Back of My Car
2.MX 80 Sound - Train to Loveland
3. Family Fodder - Playing Golf with My Flesh Crawling
4.Alice Cooper - Halo Of Flies
5. The Groundhogs - I Love You, Miss Ogyny
6.Stooges - I Got a Right
7.Everything But The Girl - The Night I Heard Caruso Sing
8.Fleetwood Mac - The Green Manalishi
9.King Crimson - Starless and Bible Blac
10.Robert Fripp - Exposure
11. Eno - Baby's On Fire
12.The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows
13.Jimi Hendrix - Machine Gun
14.Van Der Graaf Generator - A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers
15.Wishbone Ash - Time Was
16.Public Image - Public Image
17.Skating Polly - Don't Leave Me Gravity
18.Cheap Trick - Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School
19.Todd Rundgren - Couldn't I Just Tell You
20.The Pop Group - We Are All Prostitutes
Would be really interesting hearing you talking about Aphex Twin.
Planning to
@@samuel_andreyev Even better, Venetian Snares.
Could you do boards of Canada too?
autechre too!
Maybe I'm being biased because I'm brazilian, but I think every list of must-hear songs that doesn't include Tom Jobim is incomplete
I’ll check him out. Thanks!
@@samuel_andreyev i would sugest the albuns "Urubu", Matita Pere" and "passarim" for a start. ;) I hope you enjoy.
Do you have opinions on Talk Talk's later experimental works?
I would love to hear your thoughts about the last two Talk Talk albums.
Oh.. I did not expect you to namedrop Aphex Twin or VU´s menacing WLWH, but the way you did it immediately made sense to me. Music shouldn´t always be comfortable. ** The Kinks are possibly the most underrated of the famous "classic" rock bands. ** Sometimes I actually prefer the more spontaneous late 1968 demo version(s) of Moon in June over the one on Third.
Would you mind to do more of lists? Like, the darkest pieces of music or any other unique value.
Other pop song masterpieces include but certainly aren't limited to: "Mayor of Simpleton" by XTC, "You Get What You Give" by New Radicals, "Sowing the Seeds of Love" by Tears for Fears, and "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel.
i have a british friend who goes to the opera every weekend, we talk about mahler and autechre and xenakis and the rest. one band that i've gotten him deeply into (this still dumbfounds me) is slipknot, particularly their first record. it's white light white heat to the extreme, there are caveman polyrhythms and a ragged almost jazzy approach to timing and drum fills, it has an organized chaos feeling that reminds a bit of beefheart. i'm not exactly championing it for it's written complexity, but something like the song "eyeless" is without a doubt extremely unique, i think it's a must hear
Intriguing
you can't see california without marlon brando's eyes
Fantiastic list, love to see that the Kinks made the cut. Was not suprised to see Beefheart and Velvet Underground up there. If you like the grit of those artists I highly recomended the Animal Speaks by the Numbers Band, Smile by the Fall, and Marquee Moon by Television. Each song is a severly underrated.
Really nice to see this different side of you, and an interesting choice of songs (I am familiar with the majority of them). I was kind of expecting to see Sonic Youth included (you interviewed Jim O'Rourke), but I understand not every song can make it on the final list.
Tip for some exciting contemporary "pop" music (imho): KNOWER - I'm the president . There's an incredible live version on TH-cam.
I'm glad you also have a good taste in non-classical music!
coincidence that Cole Porter and the Beach Boys mention Plymouth Rock?
An interesting and generally excellent list! I've spent much of the evening listening to the songs you mentioned that I'd never heard before. And I'll probably revisit several of them over the next few days. Then I kept thinking of songs I'd add, and wondering if you were familiar with any of them. Ah well, it was a fun way to spend an evening....
It surprised me that your Beefheart pick wasn't Frownland, about which you made a super video some months ago. This and (I supposed) Moonlight in Vermont have always been my favorites from him. th-cam.com/video/r9lpLm7jwQY/w-d-xo.html
I first ran across Prisencolininsenainciuso (however you spell it) some years ago. Sorry to offer a correction, though -- the staging in your linked TH-cam clip isn't anything like an official music video, conceived by Celentano along with the song. It's just one of several stagings broadcast by Italy's RAI network over the years and choreographed by the RAI team. And the staging you offer is far from the best one, which sadly got taken down a couple years ago. This clip however very roughly marries the album version of the song with the best staging (starting around the 2:15 mark). It features an unhinged Raffaela Carra, a corps of impossibly flexible bell-bottomed dancers, and a strategic wall of mirrors: th-cam.com/video/foU3Tgg7VJI/w-d-xo.html
I've never liked Leonard Cohen's music, sorry to admit. My pick for a Canadian entry would be one of these three --
Summer Wages sung by Ian & Sylvia officially, but Ian Tyson is the only one singing on the track: th-cam.com/video/9oybX65J4dI/w-d-xo.html
The Mary Ellen Carter sung by the late, great Stan Rogers, a song that, as the introduction to this clip makes plain, has saved lives: th-cam.com/video/fT-aEcPgkuA/w-d-xo.html
Or one of the songs by Tragically Hip, such as Fireworks, a song so Canadian, it mentions Bobby Orr: th-cam.com/video/O9wW9ENBPlQ/w-d-xo.html
Only two of your picks are from Black singer-songwriters? Here's two more to help even things out a bit --
Cab Calloway is better known as a showman than as a songwriter, but he did pen several popular tunes, including Jumpin' Jive. Half of this TH-cam clip of the song features Calloway singing it, and the other half is, simply put, the greatest pop dance routine ever filmed: th-cam.com/video/qXZRWa8kyAE/w-d-xo.html
Then there's Rubber Biscuit by a short-lived New York City doo-wop group called The Chips, which fits nicely into your category of songs that are worth hearing because they're stupid but fun: th-cam.com/video/E_D_mwTcsKk/w-d-xo.html
Next, I offer for your inspection a trio of songs that are straight-up in foreign languages --
The first song has been called the best Brazilian pop song ever. I think Rolling Stone rated it as the 2nd best, but no matter. Aguas de Março/Waters of March is basically a list of the random debris that washes down the streets when the March rains hit Brazil. The idea is that life can be pretty random, but it's also abundant and beautiful, as is the delightful singing by Elis Regina and the song's composer Tom (Antonio Carlos) Jobim:: th-cam.com/video/E1tOV7y94DY/w-d-xo.html
From Belgium comes this heartbreaking French-language hit written and performed by Jacques Brel, Ne me quitte pas/Don't leave me, which TH-cam kindly subtitles in English: th-cam.com/video/q_bq5mStroM/w-d-xo.html
There are different accounts of the next song; some say it was written by Serge Gainsbourg, others say it was written by Anna Karina, whose 1967 music video performance of Roller Girl is seen in this clip (which has English-language subtitles). I'll go with it being written by her, claiming for the nonce that it's a legit suggestion in the spirit of your 20-item list: th-cam.com/video/YEbHNhRsq3E/w-d-xo.html
There's no doubt, however, that British folk-rocker Sandy Denny wrote (and first recorded) the haunting tune Who Knows Where the Time Goes, before dying far too young: th-cam.com/video/n2xODjbfYw8/w-d-xo.html
Staying in Britain, I'd like to offer Elvis Costello's intense Watching the Detectives as being a song everyone needs to hear at some point. Truth to tell, his back-catalog is full of songs that richly reward the listener, though I admit that his voice is, for many, very much of an acquired taste: th-cam.com/video/K--POHTLGY0/w-d-xo.html
And finally, a magnificent song of love and longing and separation -- and the literary references are front-and-center -- Tim Buckley's Song to the Siren: th-cam.com/video/vMTEtDBHGY4/w-d-xo.html
Yes, Buckley!
do more of these lists! I would also love if you analyzed in depth one of these songs
Which one out of the 20 would you most like to see an analysis of?
@@samuel_andreyev Any one of those would be great, but if I had to pick one I would probably go with Sabotage, mainly because I'm interested in hearing your analysis on a rap rock song. Or maybe Whip It, since it's one of my favorites too!
I was thinking the same thing. I'd love to hear Samuel's thoughts on the harmonic structure of Autumn Almanac.
As an italian, music fanatic following and respecting you since years, i had a stupid big smile on my face watching this video knowing Adriano Celentano was on the list. Also i would like to highlight how he nailed the "playback" of a nonsense song : D
Re: Beach Boys, define of what do you mean by dumb? I never thought of there music in that light.
Interesting list including one of my obsessions, Tom Waits. Another obsession is late-period Talk Talk, especially the final two albums. I never see anyone analysing them, how about it Sam?
Many interesting observations, Samuel! My musical tastes aren't all that broad to be honest, but I always enjoy your suggestions, and some of them really stuck with me. I was caught off guard with the overlap between this list and my popular music taste though.
Great list. I'd love to hear your thoughts on John Fahey.
Great list! I was pleasantly surprised to see Moon In June included as I'm a huge Soft Machine fan (especially the Wyatt era). Devo, The Kinks and The Beach Boys are also favorites.
Have you heard much Scott Walker?
How about Animal Collective? Would love to hear your opinion on songs from early and recent, namely "Leaf House" and "Who Could Win A Rabbit" from Sung Tongs and "My Girls" from Merriweather Post Pavilion. You'd like the animalistic (no pun intended) fervor and experimentalism in their music, including metric modulations and a lot of vocal fireworks (Fireworks also a great song!).
The celantano track is amazing....id have picked dead end street from the kinks.....
Great stuff
I really enjoyed that, thanks. (I just wish I could unsee Celentano's dancing.) You've got a few of my favorite songs here. I've decided that too much creativity is holding back my music career, so I'm going to start cultivating my "imbecilic exterior."
sounds like your problem isn't creativity rather than ego
@@Martykun36 Geez relax, it was a joke. I would have thought that was obvious, but maybe I should have put an lol in there. I don't even have (or want) a music career.
Samuel, you are a gift to us
I have a couple (I'm a guitarist, so my taste skews that way).
My Bloody Valentine - To Here Knows When
Guitarist Kevin Shields is a pioneer in 'effects' guitar, and his masterpiece is undeniably the album Loveless, which almost bankrupted the bands label Creation Records prior to Oasis. Shields' main innovation to guitar playing is the 'glide' picking, whereby chords are strummed at the same time that the tremolo arm is depressed, which, when combined with the reverse reverb and fuzz that has become synonymous with the band, creates this melted, 'vacuum cleaner' sound. Honestly, throw a dart at a track from the Loveless album, it's a masterpiece.
The Flaming Lips - Race for the Prize
the album 'The Soft Bulletin' came at a low point in The Flamin Lips' career, their guitarist had just left, and a number of experiments (such as the 4LP Zaireeka, designed to play simultaneously and to draw attention to the space of the room it was being played in similar to something like Alvin Lucier's experiments in the same vein) commercially failed. The album was an attempt to write songs without the big guitar sounds that they were known for (see: She Don't Use Jelly), and although they aren't totally strict with that rule, much of the instrumentation on the album succeeds at that goal. Race for the Prize, the album's opener, starts with these super compressed drums, recorded in the confined space of a bathroom, more compression being added at the mixing stage.
Xiu Xiu - Master of the Bump (Kurt Stambaugh, I Can Feel the Soil Falling Over My Head)
Xiu Xiu are one of my favourite bands, Jamie Stewart writes about sexuality and gender from such an alienated, almost perverse perspective. Master of the Bump I see as a parody of all the big macho guitar-solo songs of the late 80s and early 90s. It's this tender, almost whispered song about toxic masculinity, and ends with the first few phrases of one of these solos that is left dangling in this rather insecure manner.
Big Thief - Jenni
Adrienne Lenker is a songwriter that people should probably pay more attention to, she's writing some of the most exciting guitar music today - her 'quarantine' solo album Songs and Instrumentals is one of my favourites in recent history. For Jenni, Lenker and her bandmate Buck Meek tied a guitar to the roof of a barn and hit it with drum sticks, physically swinging the guitar in the room, creating this otherworldly swirling effect.
Dear Samuel, you are an excellent composer and popularizer, as well as a great connoisseur of the subject. I venture to add a couple of songs (there would be MANY others) that I particularly love: Experience by Gentle Giant and New Frontier by Donald Fagen. Thanks for your attention and keep up the good work!
I'd never come across Prisencolinensinainciusol. It's a masterpiece. And the comments under the video are hilarious eg
"What's your wifi password?"
"It's on the back of the router"
Back of the router:
Hell yeah, this will be my weekend playlist!
Thanks for nr. 10 😊
Nice list. But it's 2024 and the most recent song is from 20 years ago, and more than half are from more than 50 years ago. Would be interesting to see a list with popular music from past 10 years or so. :)
Thanks. I stated at the beginning that my chosen timespan was 1934 to 2004. A video covering the last two decades is something I’m working on.
@@samuel_andreyev Of course you are working on it. And we are anticipating !
Someone with energy, create a playlist of these songs :D
Did so and tried linking it multiple times and working around the filter, but TH-cam automatically deletes any comment with a link on it, sorry
I made a playlist, but if I cannot put a link in a comment, then you will have to search for it.
I was in the 8th grade when Whip It came out...was definitely kind of a cultural phenomenon at the time...sorry you all missed it!
"Prisencolinensinainciusol" is fascinating in how, as an English speaker, it nails everything about the cadence, morphology and texture of English while being completely incomprehensible. Absolutely brain-frying. Love it. (Also a big fan of Wyatt, Waits, Cohen and Devo, although in the latter two cases I might have chosen "Who By Fire" and "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" respectively.)
A few (by which I mean quite a few) suggestions of my own, mainly from before 2004 per the video proper but with a few later entries of especial note:
- The United States of America, "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (1968): I could have gone with the more lyrically acerbic opening number to this record here, but this conceptually simpler number is simply undeniable in terms of the urgency of its instrumentation, performance and musical focus, sensuous yet laced with potent menace.
- Wire, "Map Ref. 41°N 93°W" (1979): An immaculately arranged and structured pop song, easily one of the most beautiful pieces of music to ever emerge out of the punk/post-punk movement, reflecting on the awe of observing the vastness of the Earth from the air and sonically painted with guitars and keyboards with all of the colour and grandeur of the vistas depicted.
- This Heat, "Makeshift Swahili" (1981): The nightmare of colonialism and cultural imperialism made manifest through a blend of Canterbury-school progressive rock sophistication, visceral punk rock aggression, and highly experimental studio-as-instrument soundplay, the studio version flipping to a particularly raw live recording during the chaotic coda for maximum disorientation.
- Coil, "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)" (1986): The lush interweaving of Fairlight sampler lines and string quartet behind Jhonn Balance's inimitable vocals really provide the perfect setting for the morbid neo-Decadent homoeroticism of the lyrics, a fragmented portrait of the assassination of the radical Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini.
- The Magnetic Fields, "100,000 Fireflies" (1989): Another perfect pop song, albeit more austere and humble, carried by clear melodic lines, a gently emotive vocal performance from the late Susan Anway, and lyrics which, while initially sardonic if evocative, transform into something far more sincere and all the more devastating for it.
- Swans, "Her" (1992): What begins as a soft, intimate little love song like the lapping of a lone candle flame expands outward further and further into a titanic wall of protean melody before dissolving into glittering noise and the sound of a tape-recorded voice from decades before, coming full circle.
- Burzum, "Jesu død" (1996): Odious as Varg Vikernes and his views are, there is something undeniably compelling about the demoniac minimalism of best work, particularly this eerie slice of almost Feldman-esque repetition, luxuriating in the timbre of a single repeated guitar motif overwhelmed with tape saturation.
- Sonic Youth, "Hoarfrost" (1998): A gorgeously arranged and performed tone poem about walking with a loved one in the snow, comprised primarily of layers of intricate, warmly luminous melodic guitar work, at once comforting and tinged with a certain niggling unease, as if some threat lurks just out of view, or hidden in plain sight.
- Current 93, "Sleep Has His House" (2000): Mostly comprised of a layered, lulling harmonium drone and a murmured refrain for the better part of twenty minutes before blooming into an impassioned wail of grief listing all of the wondrous things which death renders trivial.
- Dälek, "Ever Somber" (2005): One of the most beautifully produced works of modern music, hip-hop or otherwise, the thematic lynchpin to an album reflecting on the role of music in bringing attention to social issues which turns inward, speaking to self-destruction as an escape from the ravages of systemic racism and art as an escape from self-destruction.
- St. Vincent, "The Neighbors" (2009): Pretty much any song off of Actor could go here, but I'm going to go with what might be the most peculiar, an off-kilter, jaunty number stuffed with subtly odd instrumentation which could be a portrait of teenage recklessness and minor small-town scandal or something far more sinister or, conversely, personal and interior.
- Jute Gyte, "Yarinareth, Yarinareth, Yarinareth" (2017): Closer to a work of classical art music in terms of composition than a traditional metal song, with the use of quartertones facilitating both horrific dissonances and some of the most sumptuous melodic lines I've ever heard.
- billy woods & kenny segal, "Speak Gently" (2019): Another thematic crux to a fairly harrowing and excellently produced hip-hop record about poverty, here primarily not for the extremely on point verses but the spoken word coda where the instrumental dissolves into freeform abstraction and woods discusses the strange experience of receiving other people's mail year after year, an anecdote mundane yet haunting.
I might have gotten into the talking heads a long time ago if the first song I heard from them was “once in a lifetime.” Ive always hated that song lol. But i think the rest of that album is an absolute masterpiece.
No Backstage Pass by Caravan is lovely. As is Didn't Matter Anyway by Hatfield and the North. Richard Sinclair is a great musician
Mumps is also ace. The Northettes were such brilliant vocalists
Would love to hear you speak about autechre
Something you might enjoy Samuel is, well, almost anything by They Might Be Giants -- in their forty years of output I can't think of another act that so consistently produces both superbly catchy melodies and smart, quirky lyrics. You may already know them, but if not try some songs like "I Palindrome I", "Dead", "Turn Around", "The Statue Got Me High" or "Mr Horrible", or little miniatures like "Exquisite Dead Guy" or "Weep Day". I don't listen to much pop music, but I play their songs all the time.
If you like the late 60s Beach Boys and Kinks kind of thing, I also highly recommend checking out the entire 1968 album "Odessey and Oracle" by The Zombies, which I feel is an underrated masterpiece of chamber pop as well as a fantastic use of the "studio as an instrument." It gets experimental at times but is also completely accessible all around. The most famous song from this record is the single "Time of The Season" which I love, but also notable is "Hung Up on a Dream" which I think is absolutely beautiful.
The Electric Prunes were pretty good too!
@@samuel_andreyev Checking that out now - thanks!
Hung Up on a Dream is amazing!!
The Residents definitely deserve a spot here too. „Spotted Pinto Bean” is a wild ride
Samuel I like your list. While listening to your analysis I thought if you do another one Jethro Tull "Locamotive Breath" would be a good candidate.
I adore Anything Goes!
Loved this selection, though my own personal choice from the Kinks would probably be "Waterloo Sunset".
Prince and the Revolution: "When Doves Cry." The full album version that is about six minutes long. For the songwriting and for the guitar work & synthesizer improvisation at the end. // There is the legendary story of how Prince, in the studio with the engineers suddenly removed all the base tracks to the song at the very last minute before mix-down. As the final mix began turned to everyone and said, "No one would have the _balls_ to do this."
Probably the best song of the 2000's is "Pink Bullets" by The Shins . Beautiful melancholy melody and these lyrics " It's just like a book that you read in reverse. So you understand less as the pages turn or movie so crass and awkwardly cast that even I could be the star." GENIUS!
A Playlist for lazy listeners. Only 13 of the 20 were available as singles. You will have to click on the remaining 7 songs on Samuel Andreyev's list above. th-cam.com/play/PLwOqCL3KW3u8QgBv8IBdAu_Ps3eQEDNyO.html&si=QJSkIASMKU5sRavu
Thanks!!
1) I adore lists, but well, who doesn't?
2) I know that italian music never reached the international radar, but please please please, liste to Lucio Battisti, our John Lennon, or our David Bowie let's say. Just pick up his masterpiece 'Don Giovanni" one of his most experimental song. Do yourself a favour ❤
Ps i was still listening and didn't know you had added Celentano!!!! Jeeeeeez man!!!! ❤❤
I solved my first answer because (Freudian mistake?) I read Franco Battiato instead of Lucio Battisti.😮
@@narosgmbh5916 both undeniable Geniuses!
@@alessandrocendamo462
Franco Battiato has a work with a range that in the 20th century can only be compared to Frank Zappa.
With a 20 popsong playlist I would prefer Franco as cantautore
Love the Bjork selection, Medulla is one of her most interesting projects to date, imo.
"Close to the Edge" is a criminal omission but I want to believe it's just because a suite is not considered a song? ;)
A bit like Alan Partridge's radio phone-in, What is the best thing?
Anyway the correct answer is the Waterboys' studio version of Van Morrison's Sweet Thing. Perfection.
List of songs you need to hear
What's the criteria
I've no idea
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. (please feel free to steal these lyrics).
Why is this my exact music taste
great show...
Kate Bush is so fun to listen to. Symphony In Blue, Them Heavy People, Hammer Horror, Nocturn and many more are so unique. It'd be great to hear you talk more about her!
You could have any number of Cohen songs here, overused but the still brilliant "Hallelujah", "Dance me to the end of love" and "A thousand kisses deep" which is a truly great song in my opinion. Bohemian Rhapsody is self indulgent to my ear, structurally it is innovative for a pop song but it's a bit of an overblown whine.
I think Bob Dylan could have a mention here as well.
"I think it's going to rain today" by Randy Newman is another great song, just perfect.
I regret that I didn’t choose You Want it Darker from Cohen’s last album. That was my original choice and I somehow forgot it when I was preparing to film. That last album is OUTSTANDING!
@@samuel_andreyev agreed. I found it tremendously consoling at a difficult time.
OH!!!!! you should have explained why you like Bohemian Rap!!??? hearing what is interesting about it from a trained composer is so so so rare!! you nut! 😊
I would've included The Walker Brothers' song "The Electrician" by Scott Walker. It's a very dark and heavy track that goes on a sinister journey, and it's in very stark in contrast to his earlier songs. It points in the direction his music would go from Climate of Hunter to Tilt and Drift.
Here are three songs to add to that very fun and interesting list!
1.Flanders Dictum Part of a much larger story it reflects on psychopathic leadership and their planning, as it affects the innocent. Original and unique Omni writing.
th-cam.com/video/m6CNd1gJ19w/w-d-xo.html
2. Won't give in (Finn Brothers) This is everything a great pop song should be, outsized in pleasurable melody and golden mean form, which Neil Finn had found a predilection for. Note the short white hot center at the golden mean. Very fine writing.
th-cam.com/video/byPG-_9RKCM/w-d-xo.html
3. I want to be with you, Mandy Moore. Lyrically, it contains everything I hate in a pop song but so what. This is an extreme masterpiece of music mixing, production and planning. It should be listened to on a good stereo, not mp3 but wave. The sounds are little brush strokes of impressionistic feathering. Perfect in reverb amounts and automation of such said feature. The singing is perfect and the back hooks are adhered to religiously. A masterpiece.
th-cam.com/video/ErntJrtQGBg/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for your list, it's interesting. I enjoy your channel and find it educational and inspiring especially with regard to early/mid 20th c composers. One thing that confuses me here is that you can appreciate the naiveté of Beefheart and yet not as much Mr Barrett. After watching your interviews with the makers of Trout Mask you should see how they were really naive in it and were more conduits of their humanity than "expertly trained". Like your breakdown of Frownland. You can divide anything into fractals but this work is just more a feel, a groove, a nervous impulse roughly translated into music and that makes it a masterpiece. This is what sets it apart really. I think we are seeing more and more desire for naive work too these days where everything has become extremely technical and competitive which gives everyone a bad case of impostor syndrome. Sorry I should add some picks since you asked: hard to choose a perfect song. Post y2k Perhaps "Let the Bells Ring" by Nick Cave and about a million others! It is indeed a great privilege to explore and enjoy this world of music!
Well, I do appreciate it, enough to put Dominoes on this list. I just think that claims of Barrett being a genius are overblown.
@@samuel_andreyev I do agree with you there Samuel. I think possibly Rick Wright had a lot to do with the musical arrangements on Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, he did live with Syd at the time, by the way, I loved your analysis of See Saw, one of my favourites along with Summer 68, 🙂
I love soft machine. One of my favorite bands. Despite some of the greatness that comes later in the band’s life, I still prefer their first album the most. It’s super low budget, and it captures this raw, almost modern punk energy. I have yet to hear anything from that era that has real teeth like that album has.
Agreed, still my favourite Soft Machine album🙂
Robert Johnson Terraplane Blues 1936
Billy Holliday Strange Fruit 1939
Miles Davis/Bob Dorough Nothing Like You 1962
The Who Substitute 1965
Leo Ferre Pepee 1968
Frank Zappa Flower Punk 1968
Laura Nyro You Don't Love Me When I Cry 1969
Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Chile 1970
Kevin Coyne Sand All Yellow 1972
Roxy Music Re-make, Re-model 1972
Patto Loud Green Song 1973
Gong Prostitute Poem 1973
Solid Gold Cadillac I Believe 1973
Roy Harper Twelve Hours Of Sunset 1974
Joni Mitchell Jungle Line 1975
John Martyn Dealer 1977
Art Bears In Two Minds 1978
James Blood Ulmer Are You Glad To Be In America? 1980
The Fall Totally Wired 1989
Jane Siberry The Vigil (The Sea) 1989
I used the same criteria as Samuel. I declined to choose the same artists as he did! I chose TWO Canadians.
Did you have a change of heart with Autechre? I heard you say a while back that you didn't much care for them-maybe you've listened to their post-Confield work since. Didn't know you vibed with Aphex as well. But wrt your obligatory call for engagement in the comments, you might check out more Kendrick Lamar. The opening track "Wesley's Theory" from To Pimp a Butterfly might appeal to you.
Yes! Everybody knows! Great choice
While not quite as grandiose as Adriano Celentano, 12-year-old singer Stella Zelcer (recording as Stella) made hit parodies with her uncle of Ye-Ye (from "Yeah Yeah"), the French version of Anglophilic (think Johnny Hallyday) teenybopper pop. She went on to marry Christian Vander and front the legendary Zeuhl (prog fusion) band, Magma.
I’ve always thought that “Dear God” by XTC is an incredibly brilliant bit of songwriting and production.
Also, you’ll get no disagreement from me that Devo is funny. However, I find them so much deeper than that. They’ve had a consistent aesthetic and message for nearly 50 years. Humor and incredibly subversive satire throughout their career all tied together by all they do and say. (Especially before 1984 though).
I play the Whip It, Freedom of Choice or Jocko Homo video for all of the college classes I teach. I don’t comment on it, I just let these 18-20 year olds see and hear it. It’s so much fun!
Interesting choices. I especially liked the Beastie Boys and Soft Machine, as they were unfamiliar to me, and compelled listening. I could not with the Kinks and Velvet Underground (though I generally like VU and Lou Reed) . It's kind of hard to see what you consider a masterpiece, other than just being good and singular. It might be interesting (imo), if you attempt the same kind of a listing (i.e., "this is a masterpiece" plus some discussion) at the level of an entire album from recordings of the rock and pop eras. Or maybe even at the group/individual level. Just wondering if you think there are such things (as I do).
I guess "moon in june" is actually a penultimate track on "Third". Great song nevertheless, and great selection of songs as well!
Soft Machine's "Third" was a staple on our "music for tripping" playlist... "The moon in june" stood out on that album as a trip within the trip. It connects me to the spirit of 2 dearly loved friends lost to heroine and suicide. R.I.P Luc & Tom.
Is there any band/composer/singer songwriter/song that resonates with you, that doesn't seem to resonate with anyone else? Or the other way, that everyone else likes that you just don't get?
I sometimes feel like I'm taking crazy pills when certain bands, songs, albums, composers, etc. are held in such high regard and I just don't get it.
I'd love to hear you expand more on why every song the Beach Boys recorded is dumb, I think they have a whole bunch of gems, especially from their lesser known albums.
Something can be a gem and still be dumb. Dumb doesn’t mean bad.
Everyone should check out Classified Freed Speak by Jerry Lewis Novac on the album Novac.
Let’s see how many feathers are ruffled by this one.
That would be weird. Not really any “controversial” choices here and, more importantly, it’s his opinion lol.
@@loadishstone I said this because there was a lot of controversy under his video about 20th century masterpieces. That was his opinion also.
I don't know much about this genre of music so I didn't know if it was a controversial list.
Not many I'd say. They're all pop and rock songs that everyone would say have "something" to them. Someone could say like "why isn't A Day in the Life or What’s Going On in there" and it could be either because they're not that interesting to him, or just because they're so obvious picks they would add nothing to the list.
Have to disagree about Barrett. I do think he was a genius. The track I would have picked for this kind of list would have been "No Use Trying". Would love to hear your thoughts on that one.
I don’t know how Soft Machine played along with that track, absolutely incredible especially Robert Wyatt on the drums🙂