week 2:
for love of mixtapes; god is a dj (and his name is fred); wyclef returns; A-HA RETURNS (!); the twenty greatest songs ever scientifically determined by a three man panel consisting of me, myself and i; oh, and, boobs.

week 3:
get drawn to the magnetic fields; three movies that are grossly overrated; some of the greatest movies...ever; xtc murders love...again; james brown breaks out in a "cold sweat"; morrissey and springsteen...separated at birth?; i bare my soul...again; and MORE!

week 4:
gladiator slays me, eminem and xtc reviews, a new look!, i poke fun at my own writing, the inmates take over the asylum, and MORE!

other blogs i like:
(because they're out there, you know)
nylpm
blue lines
josh's blog
westernhomes
log.nu
skykicking
pearls that are his eyes
catherine's pita
public blog
i drank WHAT?
cultural artifacts of the moment
frytopia

the twenty greatest songs ever...because i say so!

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1. beach boys - surf's up
i honestly have nothing left to say about this one, besides that its genius awes me ceaselessly. i've never heard anyone as in tune with music as brian wilson, and i doubt i ever will. to read all that i've said about this one and the smile album previously, go here.
-fred solinger

2. four tops - reach out (i'll be there)
this song probably couldn't have come along at a better time (though i'm sure the group, certainly reading this #2 placing, are replying, "number one would've been better!"). the nation was torn apart by vietnam, segregation, student revolts, you name it. off in the distance, you hear a plaintive flute and a clapping noise, not unlike the sound of a horse in full-stride. reaching through the darkness, the powerful voice of levi stubbs announces in no uncertain terms that the calvary has arrived. when the nation was in its hour of greatest need, who else could it possibly have turned to but to the tops? "reach out (i'll be there)" was just the sort of thing that a desperate nation was delighted to hear; a declaration of true friendship and unconditional love, all powered by the herculean vocals of levi stubbs and his ace support team, the tops. holland-dozier-holland have written as many classic songs as anyone you care to name; when i call this one the best they ever did, the compliment couldn't be any higher.
-fred solinger

3. smokey robinson & the miracles - the tears of a clown
the higher i get in this here countdown, the less i feel i have to say about each entry. since these songs have almost always been near the top of any list i've compiled, i've said so much about them, and i don't know if there are any angles left to cover. well, "tears of a clown" singlehandedly revived the career of the miracles, and it was co-written by stevie wonder. the song starts off sprightly with a flute/oboe duel and then the motown sound kicks in, full gear, with another ingenious james jamerson bassline and the inhuman drumming of benny benjamin, each of whom add hooks to a song that's got enough of them for some bands' entire catalogs. smokey robinson delivers some of the cleverest lyrics of his storied career in his peerless tenor, the brightness of the recording masking the utter sadness of his tale. again, for the sake of the song, i'll cut it short here. a mere catalog of what the song has to offer is no comparison to the experience of listening, so go listen already!
-fred solinger

4. otis redding - try a little tenderness
as i said earlier about "by the time i get to phoenix," the mark of a great soul song is how well it deals with its catharsis or in this case, more succinctly, its crescendo. for the first several verses, otis, the soul man's soul man, sincerely delivers the lyrics, often adding to them a sense of aching, emphasizing them as if he's trying to educate since he lost his woman because he didn't treat her right. the production is excellent, as it should be since it features the mg's -- especially effective are booker t.'s hammond and al jackson's oddly timed tapping of his drumstick. that hammond plays a key role in the crescendo of this song; slowly, otis and booker along with the memphis horns climb the scales until there's a sudden stop and otis exclaims, "nah nah nah, try a little tenderness." after that, my friends, chills, chills, and more chills. otis yells and hollers and screams and ad-libs his heart and soul out, and the band never fail him. i'll stop with the words, because in this case, they do the song absolutely no justice.
-fred solinger

5. glen campbell - wichita lineman
glen campbell himself, i openly admit, is square, though he's experiencing a bit of a revival lately, and i guess i came in with that wave of new fans. i had a hard time listening to him with an open mind, but then i heard this song and any attempts by me to dismiss him as an artist were stopped dead in their tracks. the song is richly produced and glen delivers one of his most earnest vocals (and also, it should be said, delivers a fine guitar solo). the real jaw-dropper in this song, though, are the lyrics. jimmy webb, as he was with a number of campbell songs, was the author of "wichita lineman," and at an astoundingly young age, he penned this song fully encapsulating the emotion of loneliness. one of webb's trademarks was how he ended a song with a new chord (see also "galveston" and "by the time i get to phoenix"); on "wichita lineman," the chord he conjures up is so unbearably sad, sounding like a man waking from a beautiful dream into his painful reality. sad stuff, yes, but totally unforgettable.
-fred solinger

6. david bowie - heroes
here's another one that, like "living for the city," that deserves to be heard in full, and not in any sort of edit. in the edits, there's not enough time to establish a sufficient build-up: there's one verse and then bowie seems to be, apropos of nothing, screaming his head off. in the album version, you get a much more measured ascension in bowie's vocal intensity. "heroes" trumps all other bowie songs, in my mind, because of eno's wonderfully dense and murky production and also because of bowie's unadulterated tragic/romantic imagery (the idea of two people expressing the noblest emotion on top of a construct necessitated by hate is striking). for much of bowie's career, "artifice" seems to be the watchword, but to me, "heroes" is the moment when he finally lets his guard down; the fact that he delivers this song during his emotionally-repressed "berlin" period is all the more impressive.
-fred solinger

7. al green - you ought to be with me
when tom saw my placement of "l-o-v-e (love)" at number 12, he remarked on what a good song and, moreover, what an underrated song it is. i'm sure that he'll feel the same way about this one. amid all of the great hits that al experienced in the 70s, this one most likely gets lost in the shuffle, and that is a shame. the song commences with pensive strings and thereby the mood is set. "you ought to be with me" is al's rationalization to a girl as to why she should get with him. the sad mood would seem to indicate that al's song is written in vain, but he persists nonetheless for he has nothing left to lose. in a way, "you ought to be with me" isn't too far removed from the songs springsteen was doing at the time, with lines like, "they don't want to see us do, all of the things we want too." al takes a song with a nice structure and, with the help of uber-producer willie mitchell, fashions it into something so much more.
-fred solinger

8. isaac hayes - by the time i get to phoenix
without a doubt, it's the fastest 18 minutes in pop music. like what ean rhys' wide sargasso sea did with "bertha" from jane eyre, isaac hayes took the cuckolded hero of jimmy webb's "by the time i get to phoenix," and gave him a back story. he took his time with it, delivering a striking nine-minute monologue on "the power of love," as the man put it. with the remaining nine minutes, he and his ace backing band constructed a track as desolate and as panoramic as the quiet, early-morning midwestern highways the protagonist drove down. the song builds to an awesome crescendo with hayes' keyboard launching into the stratosphere, the drummer pounding the skins relentlessly, and the horns adding the necessary punctuation. soul music, to a great degree, is about catharsis, and with this one, hayes took "by the time i get to phoenix" to soulsville, and it became all the better for it.
-fred solinger

9. elvis presley - if i can dream
i became an elvis fan only recently. having a mother who's a huge fan and thinking that elvis was just generally uncool were roadblocks to what has become my total surrender to elvis fandom. "if i can dream" is taken from the '68 comeback special. after years of ridiculous movies that undermined his credibility as a singer, elvis decided that he wanted to sing songs that actually meant something (also see "in the ghetto"), and so he decided to tackle this song which, sounds fairly harmless today, was considered a risk for someone with elvis' popularity. it was a relative flop for the king, but it features what i to believe his most assured and commanding performance. the bridge of the song features elvis at his impassioned best with the king standing toe-to-toe with the massive orchestra, and the way he nails the ending is enough to give you chills. as he neared his death in '77, he arguably was becoming a more powerful vocalist -- the world was left to mourn both the man and the music we lost way too soon.
-fred solinger

10. donna summer - i feel love
i really wish i had my donna summer best of right now, but a certain someone has it at her office! what, really, can i say about this one? it's brilliant and revolutionary and is really the genesis of all modern dance music. i recall a vh1 special on disco in which david bowie talks about how, one day, an exasperated brian eno came running in to see him, telling him about this song he had heard with this teutonic beat and strong black voice and how it was the future of music. the tune, as bowie would reveal, was "i feel love," and has he said that, he started to laugh. i'm not quite sure what the laugh was meant to signify, whether he was dismissing the tune or chuckling at eno's prescience; either way, eno nailed it. the song is amazing and time has done little to diminish its impact.
-fred solinger

11. bruce springsteen - born to run
for better of for worse, bruce springsteen is new jersey. (sorry, bon jovi. you have to do a little more than name an album after the state to earn the distinction.) i come from new jersey, so maybe that's why i feel this song so: the need for escapism, to get away from the dullness of it all and to run to the big city, whose shadow we all live in. bruce has it worse, though, since he's from south jersey, and it is dreadful down there, for the most part. the lyrical content would matter none, though, if it weren't for the spector-ian production of the track (indeed, bruce has been writing about this kind of stuff for years now, and the only album i own is born to run). on this song, he proves himself to be a kick-ass rock 'n' roll singer, which is so much more interesting than that faux-dylan stuff he does, and the tune and production are equally powerful, with great moments to burn. there's something very thrilling and, perhaps, uniquely new jerseyan to roll down the windows on a warm night and drive fast with this one playing loud -- the feeling of freedom is staggering, and it's one of the reasons i love this one so.
-fred solinger

12. al green - l-o-v-e (love)
listening to orange juice's loving cover of this one the other day, i was reminded how great the original is. where edwyn's voice just isn't strong enough to carry certain sections of the song, i recall exactly how exuberantly the reverend al delivered those very same parts. the horns and strings soar to the heavens and, amazingly ,that perfect, beautiful voice goes higher. to hear al green's voice is to hear love itself (the man was not joking when he named an album, al green is love). for him to name one of his songs, "love," to me, is redundant because all of his songs are stamped with that emotion, though if ever a song written made you feel the power of love, this one earns the distinction hands-down.
-fred solinger

13. jimi hendrix - all along the watchtower
jimi hendrix was not known for his skill at writing pop songs. my favorite jimi track, then, happens to be his best pop song and, on top of that, it's a cover of a bob dylan song, a man who is incapable of writing good pop songs! he turned bob's dull, spiritless version into a rip-roarin', sign-of-the-times, epochal classic. the sound of those opening chords raining down gives "all along the watchtower" one of the greatest openings ever, and from there it only gets better. i can't remember a song on which both jimi's barking vocals and fiery guitar work were as focused and as explosive as on this one -- the guitar solo itself, which goes from slide to wah-wah, would nearly qualify it for a spot on this list. the ending is nearly as good as the opening as jimi lets out one final growl of "all along the watchtower" with jimi's fevered playing continuing well on after the song, and indeed his life, faded out.
-fred solinger

14. beach boys - i get around
i should take this time to say that it was painfully difficult to choose which beach boys songs to put on this list. i could very easily put together one of these lists for my favorite beach boys songs -- scratch that "very easily"; again, it'd be difficult, though not as trying as this. so, with that said, "i get around." it is, in my estimation, their best chart hit and, like other songs on this list, it epitomizes the best of what the early beach boys could do. as hard as it is to believe, perennial jerk, mike love, actually manages to sound pretty cool on this one, taking the leads while brian sang the chorus. and, oh, what a chorus. it boggles the mind when one thinks of all of the insanely infectious, not to mention genius, melodies that brian concocted, and the chorus for "i get around" is very nearly the summit. everything comes together wonderfully, and no detail is spared (the handclaps are especially welcome).essential stuff.
-fred solinger

15. sly & the family stone - everybody is a star
while sly & the family stone were at their peak, they represented to me the ideal band. black, white, male, female, rock, soul (as has been oft-noted, prince was paying attention). basically, there were no rules, and kick-ass rock anthems were sung with the same fervor and gusto as sacred hymns. "everybody is a star" found the family in a meditative mood, the song itself presented in exquisite pop-soul fashion. it's a song about equality and unconditional love, brimming with hope. the wordless refrains conveyed more about the pent-up dream of freedom than any civil rights leader possibly could. if only for just a moment, you got to feelin' that everything would turn out alright in the end. "everybody is a star" appeared on sly's greatest hits album, and gave no indication what was to follow. his next album would be there's a riot goin' on, an album which revealed just what becomes of dreams deferred.
-fred solinger

16. rolling stones - jumpin' jack flash
it all starts with the riff, which is tuffer than tuff, all thanks to keef. if it ended with the riff, it wouldn't be here, so obviously there's more to it. many times, keith comes up with a trademark great riff and mick puts some words and a melody to it, but more often than not, the two aren't on the same level. on "jumpin' jack flash," mick manages to steal the show from keith: no small feat when you consider that "jjf" is one of the best riffs richards ever committed to record. jagger's performance is so vivid that you can practically see him jumping around, prancing, and twisting. he howls and yells and sings unintelligbly -- it's one of my favorite songs, and after all of these years, i still have no idea what the hell he's talking. simply put, this one rocks.
-fred solinger

17. big star - kanga roo
i admit that, for the longest time, this song was an object of great befuddlement. i'd heard so many raves about it, and yet, it grazed my ear every time i listened to it. looking back, i now can't remember when exactly it clicked: it may have been one wintry day while walking on campus in an odd state of mind, and the way the track just gracefully floated in limbo finally seemed so right. of course, that may not be when it happened it all, but it's certainly very romantic, isn't it? to me, "kanga roo" is the sound of a mind slowly coming undone, as if one were watching their lives flash before their eyes. the lyrics, on paper, are so simple, yet when thrown into this context, they become revelatory. prior to their third album, alex chilton and big star seemed driven to create the perfect pop album and song. pop songs, by definition, sell a lot of copies and make their authors a lot of money. this pursuit long having failed, "kanga roo," then, is the sound of alex chilton's discontent and disillusionment.
-fred solinger

18. lorraine ellison - stay with me
it's probably the most unknown of the greatest songs of all time, though it certainly has a cult following, and the stories surrounding its recording verge on the legendary. so powerful was ellison's ceiling that, allegedly, the recording tape broke, the orchestra dropped their instruments and wept, the ceiling cracked, and so on and so forth. what we do know for sure was that ellison was a singer from philadelphia. on the day she was to record "stay with me," written by jerry ragovoy (who also penned classic weepies such as "piece of my heart," "get it while you can," and "cry baby"), frank sinatra canceled his recording session. the studio had the orchestra, and they were going to get paid regardless, so they brought in ellison to cut her track. the result is monumental, and something that you truly must hear to believe.
-fred solinger

19. stevie wonder - living for the city
i should stipulate that it has to be the album version from innervisions: the single version seems so terribly unresolved after hearing in its full seven-minute glory. out of all of his tracks this side of "where were you when i needed you?", "living for the city" represents his best ever use of synths, harnessing them to express rage and despair. the song itself is like a play about a young man who goes to the city to seek out opportunity, but finds himself on the wrong end of the law because of his color. the play-like atmosphere is bolstered by stevie's use of a dramatic spoken passage that details the young man's arrival to the city, his trial, and his being thrown into a jail cell, closing with the jarring statement, "c'mon, get in your cell, nigger," put to good use by public enemy on their classic, "black steel in the hour of chaos." all in all, an absolute stunner.
-fred solinger

20. abba - knowing me, knowing you
i admit that i was an abba cynic at one time. i unfortunately based all my opinions on the band on "dancing queen," alone, which i still find to be an annoying-as-all-hell song. i say, "unfortunately," because that foolhardiness on my part kept me from some of the best damned pop music made in the 70s. my favorite is "knowing me, knowing you," a shimmering gem of a track. it's quite possible that abba's records were the best produced records of the 70s; for proof, just listen to how crisp the guitars are on this track! other than that, it features a stunning pre-chorus and bridge, and the chorus itself is even more brilliant. if you too, like i once was, are holding out on purchasing a copy of abba's gold, for whatever reason, do yourself a favor and get it today. don't make the same mistakes i've made.
-fred solinger