The Best British Songs of All Time
From the BBC: The Beatles' A Day in the Life was ranked the best British song of all-time. Does this mean that Dowland, Purcell, Vaughan Williams and Britten didn't make the grade, or were simply discounted because they weren't pop? The phrase "of all-time" is a bit presumtuous in my book. Still, I think the article has probably identified the best British pop song ever. The mixture of avant-garde elements, lyrics as well as solid pop craftsmanship gives A Day in the Life its strength. So now it's time for me to identify just a few of my top British pop songs. Of course, this does bring up some questions. Do I list my favorite British pop songs, or songs that I feel contribute something signficant to the field of British pop music but that I may not like as much? I decided to just list my own skewed list of favorites (sorry Elvis Costello, Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Pink Floyd).
1) A Day in the Life (for the reasons discussed above).
2) Reel Around the Fountain-The Smiths.
-Who would think to put a melancholy, simple ballad like this as the first track on a first album? Well, that's exactly what The Smiths decided to do. Usually bands go for a big bang that will get the album off to a good start. But this really is a quintessential Smiths track: Morrisey's limited but effective monotone, dryly funny and melancholy lyrics, jangly guitar with the occasional odd chord change and a subtly interesting bass line. Highly influential for most mopey Brit groups out there today.
3) How to Disappear Completely-Radiohead
-There are so many Radiohead songs I could put on here, but this is probably my favorite. It may lack some of the complex structure of some of their other songs, but it more than makes up for it by being so emotionally compelling. Radiohead is great at subtle details which lend depth to their songs. In this song, the bass is in duples against the triple meter of the acoustic guitar while strings interact seamlessly with electronically altered guitar samples in a slow orchestral layering. The simple chord changes and somewhat lilting feeling are hypnotic enough to lend a sense of comfort, which is slowly undermined by subtle dissonance. Eventually the song disintegrates into atonality (much like A Day in the Life, giving the sense of "disappearing completely") only to come through on the other side into a gorgeous falsetto vocalise and the introduction of a simple E major chord. It is truly ravishing.
1 Comments:
You're seriously putting Clocks on the top 5 of all time? Aren't there other great brit songs out there? I mean... come on, Stevie!
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