Ten greatest songs of all time, arguably (pt. 5/1000)
The Dr. Rhythm Top 10 is music that represents talent, artistry, innovation and unique style. We encourage you to research and discover this music on your own.
Mouse over selection for more, listen to examples though Amazon below.
Folk Brothers, Count Ossie
"Oh Carolina"
Jamaica has had more of an impact on popular music than most people think. Count Ossie's hybridized Rasta, Kumina, R & B, ska/mento song "Oh Carolina" was the window to reggae, dub, hip-hop, reggaton, ragga, and many other great musics. Remember Shaggy's ragga-infused version? It was an homage to this Jamaican classic.
Sex Pistols,
"Anarchy in the UK"
This song proves that whiny, scrawny and seemingly talentless people can have brilliant careers in music. The punk rockers knew they were all these things and what a better way to challenge the concept of music. The punk movement was anti-everything, perhaps even anti-themselves. We salute these punks and their music. They knew what they wanted and knew how to get it.
Sam Cooke,
"The Twist"
Sam Cooke wrote the song, Chubby Checker made it famous. What a great idea, write a song about a dance, making both culturally iconic. Other songs like "Twist and Shout" were intimately inspired but this simple but effectively song.
John Coltrane, "A Love Supreme"
Many jazz fans would agree that this Coltrane song/album is great whether you like popular music, jazz, soul, or anything like it. It is an album length work, so it is long, but it is worth it. We often forget that jazz and rock share the same history and neither would be the same without the other.
Aerosmith, "Walk this Way"
I think the most impressive aspect of this song is when it was "remixed" by Run DMC, one of the early versions of the "remix" that has run (not a pun) so rampant today. The video is also a classic with Steve Tyler's lips at their best.
Richie Havens, "Motherless Child"
The Woodstock performance, once again, is most likely the best version of this song you will ever hear. He improvises on the lyric "freedom" mostly because during the performance he ran out of encores. Whatever really happened it has become a Havens classic.
Jimi Hendrix, "The Star Spangled Banner"
Yes, another Woodstock performance. Many said that Hendrix was unpatriotic, flag burning, and an American disgrace. But his performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" was more a musical statement than a political one. The entire performance is based around noise and speaks more towards the beauty of noise, than the soiling of our National Anthem. Whatever Hendrix really meant, it is best read as a musical statement that makes us realize the intricate detail of noise-sounds in music.
The Beatles,"A Hard Day's Night"
It inspired an album, a movie and a generation. The Beatles' lyrics were fun, catchy and showed clever use of language. What is a hard day's night? Oh those wacky British. The song is well-crafted, musically interesting and shows the Beatles' maturity as it appears on their first all Beatle-written album.
Patsy Cline,
"Crazy"
Country music was never the same after Patsy Cline. She showed us that we could be crazy and it is okay. Sometimes being a little crazy makes us that much more sane. Country & Western was perfect for making us questions if we were doing the right thing. Patsy, I salute you and all you stand for.
Louis Jordan, "Caldonia"
Without Louis Jordan, the saxophone would not have been an 80s pop standard. Jordan was an early R & B king and his vocals clearly influenced singers like Ruth Brown and Little Richard. Listen to Little Richard's "Lucille" and you will hear the similarity. Jordan gave some swing to rock and soul to R & B.
Can an apple a day keep the music industry at bay? 9.5.08
This week the Wall Street Journal and Motley Fool are "hinting" at Apple releasing the first ever "interactive album" with Snow Patrol leading the way up the steep slope of decline that is called the music industry. The new format to be used on Apple products and bought through Apple software would provide a host of "extras" that keep the waning music fans interested while they listen to bloated alternative (but really just cheap rock) bands. These would include liner notes, photos, lyrics, perhaps even videos. Essentially, this would be exactly like someone buying a CD, but would not have to worry about leasing a giant storage space to store all of their over-sized jewel cases and those annoying 4" discs. Thanks Apple you once again saved the music industry!
Can you read the butter-drenched sarcasm? Why must we also be such fools? For months I, Dr. Rhythm, have been screaming to you all that music will be moving towards more interactive formats, like video games, HD Blu-Ray, and computer formats. And many would say, finally Dr. Rhythm, you have been proved correct (which is the case 98.4% of the time.) But Apple is not doing the music industry a real service. It is not the format that is broken, it is the practice of listening. We do not know how to listen to music as a culture any more.
Now many may read this as an insult, but it is not your fault. In the early 80s Sony created the portable music player, aka the Walkman. It was one small step for Walkman, and one giant leap for Walkmankind. But what it really did was create a shift in listening practices. Consumers could bring their music with them to the grocery store, the park, the zoo the gym...we had a continuous soundtrack in our lives. The Discman then cometh and gave us digital music, but with the occasional skip. And finally the iPod was born, saving both Apple and the music industry from inevitable doom.
Listening to music on an iPod, computer, Walkman, Discman or Zuneman whatever, this is not the problem. The problem exists at the aural level, the cochlear-level. We are trapped by our earbuds, and headphones into a habit-forming practice of listening to music during ______, while ______, at the ______. But still this is not really the problem either. It is everything summed together.
We are persuaded to buy our music online, put in our personal player (probably an iPod, but that is changing,) plug in our cheap earbuds, and go workout, go shopping, walk to school, study, read, work...This is considered a cultural practice. The industry loves this because they can corner the market towards their products. Apple owns the music, the player and the earbuds, thus they have created the Apple culture. Good for them, bad for us.
Our culture is making us think and behave a certain way when it comes to music. We, as a whole, no longer listen to music through speakers, real speakers, not computer speakers, or iDocks. The stereo system is obsolete. Yet the home entertainment system is flourishing with 5.1 surround or better in well over 50% of homes and HD is following fast.
We as a culture have settled for portability, which has positioned music into a passive activity. Music is also being created this way. There is a general genre-malaise, where labels are cranking out music that serves the general sound of a popular genre. The public usually buy with open arms.
Now Apple thinks that they can shift the passivity towards activity with their special features and bloated over-priced add-ons. What would happen if we just listened to music, through average-sized stereo speakers, while not doing anything else? We would probably realize that we are listening to a lot a bad music. If you cannot just listen to your music then there is a problem. Once you are able to listen to an entire album, like you would watch an entire film, or television show, then you can take that music into your lives via your portables of choice.
If you vehemently disagree, take a deep breath, and think with an open mind for a second. Ask yourself, how do you use music? Some use it like a drug, "I need it to focus, to sleep, to calm me, to feel good..." Some use it as a distraction, "It keeps my interest while I drive, work, exercise..." Others say, "It makes me feel happy, it makes me remember _____, it makes me _____." These are all real statements from real people. We use music, we do not listen to it.
Apple is trying to make music an "activity" through their quasi-interactive format, but what it will really does is make music a money-making "activity" poising your interest away from the music and more towards their products. There is nothing wrong with "using" music, but we have lost the practice of listening to music. The industry does not want you to listen, they want you to use. They are the dealers, you are the users.
Do not let them feed you this addiction. Remember when music was an art? It still is, but you have to fight the desire to buy user-minded music. Snow Patrol and Apple are not going to save the music industry. This is NOT the interactivity we were describing. This is musical heroin.
We need to change the culture of listening, and not create digital versions of our current reality. We have the Wii (like Wii Music), PS3, the home computer, and the home entertainment system at our disposal. I challenge musicians to create music that can be experienced through these formats that challenges us to really listen to their music. This is what will "save" the industry, if that is what we need. I still think that if the industry wants to attack their customers, create stale "drive-through" music, and continue to create passive listening devices, then let them die. They do not deserve to be saved. Music will always survive.
Keep on listening. Do what feels right. And always...consult your doctor.
In good musical health,
Dr. Rhythm
"Does the US have their own musical instrument? "
Ask the Doctor - 8.01.08 (want to ask the doctor? click here
Dear Dr. Rhythm,
Are there any musical instruments that originated in the US. Someone told me the banjo and Sousaphone are the only American musical instruments, but I have a hard time believing them because they are often wrong. Let me know. Thanks.
RT
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Dear RT,
Your friend was only partially correct but at least had the right idea. The banjo, though developed in America, is really an adaptation of several different African instruments. The best suspect is the Senegalese halam, or xalam, which used a hollowed gourd and skin to form a drum. Strings made from the tendons of an animal would run across the top of the skin creating a percussive plucking sound while played.
The Sousaphone is of course an adaptation of the tuba which is an adaptation of a European instrument called the Serpent. The Serpent was most likely a variation of various horns coming from the Middle East or Africa.
As for musical instruments uniquely American. There are several but none of them really appear often in popular culture. Harry Partch invented many instruments one of the more innovative was the Cloud Chamber Bowls. Though many of Partch's instruments were also variations of other more common Western instruments, the Bowls were a series of modified Pyrex bowls that had been cut and tuned.
In fact this is a common trend in the world of instrument building. It is an American innovation to take everyday items and fashion them as musical instruments. The Cloud Chambers Bowls are one example. Other examples include taking junk items like tin cans, brake drums, pipes, hubcaps, or even sea shells. In the modern era anything that makes sound is fair game. Look at Björk who worked with percussionist Evelyn Glennie. Glennie plays all sorts of weird instruments including standard terra cotta flower pots.
Electronic musical instruments are more likely characterized as true American innovations, but keep in mind most instruments are adaptations of some instrument before them. One example is the Moog synthesizer, which was invented by Robert Moog, one of the first modular analog synthesizers.
So as you can see, to say anything is uniquely American is hard to do because everything has a predecessor. But the importing of African slaves in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries did bring quite a few innovations to this country.
In good musical health,
Dr. Rhythm
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"Is Obama Ludicrous?"
Dear Dr. Rhythm,
What's the deal with Obama and Ludacris? He keeps changing his mind. Does he like Ludacris, does he not like Ludacris? He said once that he listens to Ludacris in his iPod! I mean what's up?
JM
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Dear JM,
I hear you, I cannot figure it out either. I wrote in a previous article several months ago that if we only knew what was in the iPods of our presidential candidates then this would be a different election. Well, now at least we know one artist in Obama's. Does this not concern a few people? Music is not just music, it is a part of us mind, body and spirit. You do not just listen to anything, you make choices, similar to how you choose which clothes to wear and how to fashion your hair. Music is fashion.
Oh well. Chances are this will only help Obama in the long term. I try to remain partisan on this website but when it comes to music there are no boundaries. Obama was wrong, he needs to admit that and let the voters determine how damaging this situation really is.
