The Greatest Songs Ever

A co-worker subscribes to a music magazine called Blender and he passes it on to me when he's done with it. It's a nifty little publication and has a cool semi-regular feature called "The Greatest Songs Ever". They take a page to analyze a specific song and discuss its creation with the key players. The current issue on the newsstands discusses Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer."

Under the guise of having "the greatest songs ever" on my iPod, I have complied them in a playlist, with the exception of "Superstar" by The Carpenters, which has eluded me. I'm not sure if I'll let that one go or not.

Anyway, if you want to check out their archive of these articles, click here. If you're ever bored, just run over and read one or two of the pieces. It's quite interesting, such as the explanation of the brief atonal piano chord at the beginning of the song "Roxanne" by The Police:

“I was just about to sing the first line,” remembers Sting, “when I noticed a stand–up piano. I was tired, I’d been up all night, so I just sat down. I thought the piano lid was closed, but it was open, so I wound up playing this incredible chord with my arse. It was this sort of atonal cluster that went nicely against the chords we were playing. We thought it was funny, so we left it in.”

I had never noticed it before and when I went to listen after reading this, there it was, an aural blink of sound before that first note is sung. This fascinating trivia makes my day from time to time.

The archive runs from July 2001 and covers most of '03 and '04, with only one listed from '05, so I'm guessing it's not a "complete" list. Worth a look-see, nonetheless.