Top 5 compositions in Pop/Rock Music

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Ladies and gents, I'm asking for your opinion about best five compositions in popular music. I imagine this is a little different from your personal favorites. If you would like, more than five compositions are very welcome.
Mine are below. Thanks.


1. She Said She Said/Beatles
2. Mother/John Lennon
3. Anarchy in the U.K./Sex Pistols
4. Close to you/Burt Bacharach (Carpenters)
5. Highway Star/Deep Purple

[San Antone]

Waterloo Sunset - Kinks
Good Vibrations - Beach Boys
Surf's Up - Brian Wilson
Strawberry Fields Forever - Beatles

[Szykneij]

Came up with 7.

Wichita Lineman - Glen Campbell (Jimmy Webb)
Going Back - The Byrds (Carole King)
Someday - The Carpenters (Carpenter/Bettis)
Rainy Night in Georgia - Brook Benton (Tony Joe White)
Sour Suite - The Guess Who (Burton Cummings)
Year of the Cat - Al Stewart
Where Have All The Cowboys Gone - Paula Cole

[ando]

Oh boy. Please explain the difference between best and favorite. To my mind there IS no objective criteria, especially in pop/rock music, except what you admire.

These are just five tunes right off the top that I think were written/crafted exceptionally well - and, naturally, ones I like. 

The Mexican Babe Ruth

Contusion Stevie Wonder (catalogue full of great ones)

Long Train Running Doobie Brothers (created more than a handful of greats)

Spark Tori Amos (this one or Winter  quite a few good ones)

Interstate Love Song Stone Temple Pilots (closest in this list to a definitive pop/rock track, I guess)

[Karl Henning]

Oh boy. Please explain the difference between best and favorite. To my mind there IS no objective criteria, especially in pop/rock music, except what you admire.

These are just five tunes right off the top that I think were written/crafted exceptionally well - and, naturally, ones I like. 

The Mexican Babe Ruth

Contusion Stevie Wonder (catalogue full of great ones)

Long Train Running Doobie Brothers (created more than a handful of greats)

Spark Tori Amos (this one or Winter  quite a few good ones)

Interstate Love Song Stone Temple Pilots (closest in this list to a definitive pop/rock track, I guess)

It would certainly be subjective. You may judge a composition excellent without its residing among your favorites.

[springrite]

Bruce Hornsby and the Range: The Way It Is
Brian McKnight: I remember You
Gordon Lightfoot: If you could read my mind (well, more for the lyrics...)
Jackson Browne: For a Dancer (well, more for the lyrics as well...)
Michael Martin Murphy: Wild Fire

[Szykneij]

It would certainly be subjective. You may judge a composition excellent without its residing among your favorites.

And, conversely, I have favorites that aren't terribly musically complex, but are fun or have some personal or nostalgic meaning. Since the op chose the term "composition", I took it to mean selections admired for their compositional elements (harmonic structure, form, melodic interest, etc.)

[ando]

...I took it to mean selections admired for their compositional elements (harmonic structure, form, melodic interest, etc.)

Understood. But how do you admire a composition you don't particularly like, however complex or compositionally developed? Much less rank it in your top 5?

[Luke]

Not 5. And some of these are representative of my favourite groups/singers, and other songs could feature equally.

This video is not by the band, and the song doesn't begin straightaway.

[Karl Henning]

[Karl Henning]

Great thread! Now I've more items to go back and listen in on.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Great thread! Now I've more items to go back and listen in on.

Karl, I never knew that you know/like Michael Jackson's music! Some of Hall and Oates' music sound like Hall have studied music and/or composition at college.

P.s. Do you happen to know that Jeff Beck Group recorded Superstition?

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Waterloo Sunset - Kinks
Good Vibrations - Beach Boys
Surf's Up - Brian Wilson
Strawberry Fields Forever - Beatles

The Kinks' tune is a good composition.

And, conversely, I have favorites that aren't terribly musically complex, but are fun or have some personal or nostalgic meaning. Since the op chose the term "composition", I took it to mean selections admired for their compositional elements (harmonic structure, form, melodic interest, etc.)

I love the Beatles Tomorrow Never Knows. It's a great, and artistically significant, song imo. But I'm not sure if it's one of best compositions in history.

[Karl Henning]

Do you happen to know that Jeff Beck Group recorded Superstition?

Yes, indeed!

[Karl Henning]

Karl, I never knew that you know/like Michael Jackson's music!

It was an amusing journey. When my sisters Kris & Kim were teens, they were big fans of the Jackson 5 (among others) so for some years I was mildly allergic to Jackson. But when I shed that baggage, I realized how sharp his solo work was. Terrible, flawed human, of course, but the music is at times brilliant.

[Luke]

Terrible, flawed human, of course, but the music is at times brilliant.

The Sorabji-Jackson similarities never end    Please continue

[Karl Henning]

The Sorabji-Jackson similarities never end    Please continue

(* chortle *)

[Cato]

Okay, I ignored most of the popular stuff of the 1950's and beyond as not worth my time: I was teaching myself Music via Gabrieli, Bach, Telemann, and many, many others, following the course of Western Musical History.


Yes, I was a snob at age 10!   


However, my little sister loved a new comedy on television in 1965, (when I was in high school), called The Monkees.   


They had some fun songs!      Last Train to Clarksville, I'm a Believer were very popular for a time.  Later, they had a satirical song called Pleasant Valley Sunday which was ear-tickling!


"Mr. Green, he's so serene, he has a T.V. in every room!" 

Since she often had the radio on to catch a Monkees song, one day I heard a melancholy song by The Beach Boys called Sloop John B, which I did not realize at the time was an old folk song.

Flash forward to when our teenaged daughter was listening to a certain radio station in Toledo, which played the best of the '70's and 80's: the bizarre guitar work in Pat Benatar's Invincible hit me one day.  And Pat Benatar seems to be a woman with whom one must not trifle!   

The station also played Ann and Nancy Wilson's song These Dreams:

Around 2000, The Go-Go's had a hit called Unforgiven, which has some great guitar work, and is a slam-bang piece:

Honorable mention: one of the best alto voices in popular music!  It was fashionable to sneer at Karen Carpenter back in the 1970's, but...

[ando]

Terrible, flawed human, of course, but the music is at times brilliant.

assume much?

[Szykneij]

Later, they had a satirical song called Pleasant Valley Sunday which was ear-tickling!


"Mr. Green, he's so serene, he has a T.V. in every room!" 

Carole King wrote "Pleasant Valley Sunday", as well as an incredible number of other great tunes for herself and others. I only included one of hers in my original list. I probably could have included 20.

I was, and still am, a Monkees fan.