Best Songs Ever: The Rules

During lockdown I started spending a lot of time making playlists. It was a weird time with not a lot to do. The playlists would all have these loose themes and overtime started getting stricter rules; until I came up with the ultimate playlist. BEST SONGS EVER.

The rules were as follows:

• Each song had to be the single best song by that artist (not just in some random persons opinion, not according to Rolling Stone or Pitchfork, this would be determined by the ultimate source of such knowledge, me)
• An artist can appear multiple times on the playlist but the track must be attributed to a different artist name than other tracks (ie. Paul McCartney could contribute as a solo artist, as a member of the Beatles, as a member of Wings, and maybe even as Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder for “Ebony and Ivory”. That last one won’t happen though, jesus fucking christ)
• Cover versions are absolutely fine, there are plenty of songs that got far better a second time round with a different approach
• Some of the songs won’t actually be that artists best song, instead it’s the track that gets overlooked because of something else (sorry Everlong, you really are an amazing piece of song writing, but because of you something else keeps getting overlooked)
• Nobody got to see the playlist, they just couldn’t handle it. Nobody can.

I gleefully started adding tracks and then had to start going back and removing tracks when another song by an artist overtook it. That’s when the game really changed. I came up with a new rule. Once an artist was on the playlist, that was it. No second chances. Are you a current recording artist that made it onto the playlist? Well it’s all down hill from here then buddy.

I am super opinionated about music and equally as passionate. I knew a lot of the entries early on. So here’s some hints. Elton John. The Smashing Pumpkins. Counting Crows. Weezer. Joy Division. Everclear. Radiohead. Del Amitri. Face to Face. Hundred Reasons. Modest Mouse. Lagwagon. You can speculate about those tracks, we will get to them.

I’ve been adding to the playlist ever since. It’s now over 30 hours long. I added a new track just yesterday, February 9th 2024. About a year ago I started thinking that I would love to write about the playlist and about the songs that made it. I would talk about what I loved about the artist but especially what I loved about that track in particular. I’d be able to explain how that little hi-hat flair at the end of the chorus made me feel. I could tell you why that one line in the bridge was career-defining. I could be Beato (or maybe Pat Finnerty).

I never did anything with that idea though. Until now.

So there are the rules. I’m not going to write about each song in the order they were added. Instead I’m just gonna dive into the list every now and again and pull out a little gem to share. I’ll probably include a Youtube link with each episode and timestamp my thoughts so you can listen along at home and picture me stood in front of you, passionately waving my arms around as you fail to understand why the backing vocals are so important to the entire thing.

Episode 1, coming soon, and we’re gonna go hard. Electric Light Orchestra.