The perfectly written pop/rock song.

In My Room by the Walker Brothers

Shake Some Action by the Flamin Groovies

There She Goes: The La's
I love the Flower Girl: Cowsills
Come On Eileen: Dexy's Midnight Runners
Red Rubber Ball: The Cyrcle(sp?)
and just for kicks,
Gary Gilmore's Eyes: The Adverts

the topper on my list,
Brandy: The Looking Glass

[ Edited by: foamy 2005-12-30 11:52 ]

Violent Femmes - "Add it up" needs to be added to this list. To have such a perfect rock song with angst, sex, and some of the catchiest hooks ever, but done with acoustic guitar and bass and drum only, this is one of the best.

I'd also like to add Killing Joke's "80's"

--SBiM

[ Edited by: Suffering Bastard in Maine 2005-12-30 12:02 ]

"Feed Me With Your Kiss" - My Bloody Valentine

The first one that comes to mind, and I know this is gonna sound sorta wimpy...but in terms of pure pop I'd hafta say:

The Go-Go's 'Our Lips Are Sealed'. It has all the staples of a pop song AND you can dance to it.

Also-any of The Beatles early pop singles.

On 2004-12-31 09:41, tikitortured wrote:
Foamy, good call on BRANDY by Looking Glass. That song always gets me right where it counts. Also what about that song that goes: "I love her more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow..." I sing my ass off when that song is playing. And come to think of it THAT might be the best pop song ever written!!? (who's it by?)

Well, I'm just catching up on this thread and I'm surprised that a year later this musical question went unanswered... until now!

"More Today Than Yesterday" by The Spiral Starecase (One Hit Yonder and a great pop tune!)

...also more great pop tunes in this genre

"Vehicle" - The Ides Of March
"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" - Chicago
"You Make Me So Very Happy" - Blood, Sweat & Tears

"The Go-Go's 'Our Lips Are Sealed'. "

Our lips are sealed is a cover of a Gang of Four song. Or rather, they wrote it, had the Go-go's record it, and didn't like it, so they performed it themselves.

--SBiM

Squeeze - Pulling Mussels From a Shell, Another Nail For My Heart & Tempted - damn those guys could make a fine pop song!
James - Laid
Michael Penn - No Myth
Big Audio Dynamite - The Bottom Line
Lightning Seeds - Pure
Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner
The Police - Message in a Bottle
The Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star

Split Enz - I Got You
Fountains of Wayne - Red Dragon Tattoo
Crowded House - World Where You Live
Neil Finn - She Will Have Her Way

You Showed Me - the Turtles
Ship of Fools - World Party
Orange Skies - Love
The Needle and the Damage Done - Neil Young
Alone Again Or... - the Damned (or Love)
Ain't It Fun - the Deadboys
You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory - Johnnie Thunders
All I Want Is You - Roxy Music
Rock n' Roll Suicide - David Bowie
Shake Some Action - the Flammin' Groovies
All Tommorrow's Parties - the Velvet Underground

(P.S. - nice to see this thread revived)

On 2005-12-30 15:07, Suffering Bastard in Maine wrote:
"The Go-Go's 'Our Lips Are Sealed'. "

Our lips are sealed is a cover of a Gang of Four song. Or rather, they wrote it, had the Go-go's record it, and didn't like it, so they performed it themselves.

--SBiM

You're off by one number SBiM. "Our Lips Are Sealed" was co-written by Terry Hall of Fun Boy Three (formerly the lead singer of The Specials) and Jane Weidlin of The Go-Go's. Wiedlin and Hall were in a relationship at the time when they wrote the song in 1980. Fun Boy Three also recorded it and it appears on their 1983 album 'Waiting' produced by The Talking Heads' David Byrne. The Go-Go's had the mega-hit that we all know a few years before in 1981. Gang of Four never had anything to do with this song

''Beat on the brat, beat on the brat, beat on the brat, with a baseball bat! hey hey, hey oh ho''.

Ah yes, thank you DonHo for my bad.
I get my numerically oriented 80's bands mixed up.

--SBiM

"Downtown Train" by Tom Waitts

... 50 cent - in da club... here is a sample of pure pop genius...

Go, go, go, go
Go, go, go shawty
It's your birthday
We gon' party like it's yo birthday
We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday
And you know we don't give a f--k
It's not your birthday!

... pure genius...

"Starship Trooper" by Yes

"I think I love you" - Partridge Family
"Time to change" - Brady Bunch
"H.R. Puffnstuff theme song"
"the Lidsville theme song"
"Ocean spray" - Manic Street Preachers
"Monday" - The Jam
"Limit Club" - The Damned
"Follow the leader" - Red Kross
"China Girl" - David Bowie(Iggy Pop)
"From the floorboards up" - Paul Weller
"100,000 Years" - Kiss
"One is the loneliest number" - 3 Dog Night
"Walk on by" - Burt Bacharach
"The Raven" - The Stranglers
"Superstar" - The Carpenters
"She's not there" - The Zombies
"Gone, Gone, Gone" - The Everly Brothers
"Wendy" - The Beach Boys
"The Cheat" - The Blue Hawaiians
"The Hideout" - The Weirdos
"Candy-o" The Cars
"Pity" - Mind Over Four

...and damn near every song XTC ever wrote.

Mad Magazine's "Nose Job", and whatever the belching song was called. "My Old Flame" as done by Spike Jones.

[ Edited by: HelloTiki 2006-01-10 23:42 ]

On 2006-01-10 23:41, HelloTiki wrote:
Mad Magazine's "Nose Job", and whatever the belching song was called.

"It's A Gas"

I think NIck Lowe writes the best pop! Pure Pop For Now People!
I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass has been one of my favorite songs forever, also I was happy to see Marshall Crenshaw, Someday Someway on the list!

September Girls, Thirteen - Alex Chilton/Big Star
Cruel Summer - Bananarama

oh lord, don't get me started....

oh nooooo, I can't stop -
Waitress in the Sky - Replacements (how about the entire Tim album?)

"You're the mayor of shark city, people think you want the beaches open."

[ Edited by: mrs. pineapple 2006-01-11 09:42 ]

[ Edited by: mrs. pineapple 2006-01-11 09:43 ]

More songs that spring to mind that are more in the "pure pop" vein than my previous entries:

Popsicles & Icicles - the Mermaids
A Million Miles Away - the Plimsouls
It's Not Unusual - Sir Tom Jones
I Got You - the Split Enz
Don't Fear The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
San Francisco Nights - Eric Burdon & the Animals
Modern Love - David Bowie
Where Were You (when I needed you) - the Grassroots
Buy For Me The Rain - the Nitty Gritty Dirtband
The Passenger - Iggy Pop
Allison - Elvis Costello

In the "how did that become a pop hit?" category would be the Breeders' "Cannonball".

Have you ever heard a song become a hit that went against so many pop music rules?

Granted, it still has something of a verse chorus verse structure. But it's such a strange song to be so catchy.

--SBiM

Suffering Bastard, you've opened up a whole new can of worms. What is the criteria for determining a pop hit? Back in the olden days of AM radio, a pop hit was determined by it's position on "the Charts" (which consisted of 30 or 40 songs). If your song spent X number of days on the charts as No. 1 with a "bullet" you were pretty cool. Then along came "FM RADIO" that played all the "loooonngg" versions of songs you couldn't hear on AM stations because they didn't have to suck off all the sponsor's every five minutes. Remember Bill Bored Magazine? Very influential piece o' shit back in the day. What is No. 1 on the Hit Parade today? I couldn't tell ya 'cause I'm outta touch with the "record industry". For all I know it's a 16 year old kid from the South Side of Chicago doing an Eminem cover and takin' his money to the bank in a new Escalade.

I love the stuff that's coming up...stuff I love and figured no one would think of, like the Breeders and My Bloody Valentine and World Party and "Beat on the Brat"!! Will I be the first to mention PJ Harvey? "To Bring You My Love", specifically.

Nick Lowe...he sure is the quintessential pop/rock artist, isn't he? The whole album "Dig My Mood" is awesome--I could listen to it forever. Likewise "Time Wounds All Heels". And of course...his masterpiece...

"Shting Shtang". :lol:

My favorite Nick Lowe song is probably "What Lack Of Love Has Done", though.

Some songs that really stick with me through the years:

1. "The Big Heat" Stan Ridgway
2. "El Paso" Marty Robbins
3. "London Calling" The Clash
4. "Major Tom" Peter Schilling
5. "People Are People" Depeche Mode
6. "Sweet Dreams" Patsy Cline
7. "Deep Song" Billie Holiday
8. "Heartbreak Hotel" Elvis
9. "Heart of Glass" Blondie
   10."These Boots Are Made For Walking" Nancy Sinatra
   11."Moon River" by anybody, any version
   12."Wicked Game" Chris Isaak
   13."Invisible Sun" The Police
   14."Holding Back The Years" Simply Red
   15."Running Up That Hill" Kate Bush
   16."Great Balls of Fire" Jerry Lee Lewis
   17."Back on the Chain Gang" The Pretenders
   18."Brown-Eyed Girl" Rolling Stones
   19."Nothing Can Change This Love" Sam Cooke
   20."The Future" Leonard Cohen
   21."Sweet Dreams" Eurythmics
   22."Night and Day" Frank Sinatra (I am sure he recorded
   this more than once, but the version I'm thinking of is an
   old 40's one, probably with Dorsey)
   23."Ghost Riders In The Sky" Tennessee Ernie Ford
   24."From This Moment On" Ella Fitzgerald
   25."Begin The Beguine" Artie Shaw

OK, I went into Big Band there, which is more pure pop than pop/rock, but hey. "Begin The Beguine" exhilarates me more than the best rock song I've ever heard, and in a not dissimilar way. Talk about rhythm!!!!!!!

I second the vote on whoever it was mentioned Jeff Buckley's version of Cohen's "Hallelujah". It's sublime. So's his take on the Nina Simone classic "Lilac Wine". Those are two perfect recordings. Literally. Perfect. I still can't believe that guy's dead. So weird.

Virtually every song the Beatles did was some kinda perfect pop/rock. How to pick one???

Last but not least, "Sea of Heartbreak" by Don Gibson is another totally perfect pop/rock song. Like Nick Lowe, Gibson was a genius of that particular genre. I wonder if he ever wrote a song that wasn't hopelessly catchy...

On 2006-01-12 00:58, tikivixen wrote:

I second the vote on whoever it was mentioned Jeff Buckley's version of Cohen's "Hallelujah". It's sublime. So's his take on the Nina Simone classic "Lilac Wine". Those are two perfect recordings. Literally. Perfect. I still can't believe that guy's dead. So weird.

I third it.

also -
Ben Folds - the entire Rocking the Suburbs record. The poppiest depressing album ever.

Too many to choose from, but off the top of my head:

"All Kindsa Girls" - Real Kids
"Ever Fallen in Love?" - Buzzcocks
"Teenage Kicks" - Undertones
"Life Begins at The Hop" - XTC
"Starry Eyes" - The Records
"I Saw Her Standing There" - The Beatles
"Walk Away Renee" - Left Banke
"It's All Over Now","Satisfaction","The Last Time", and "Paint it Black" - Rolling Stones

And every song by The Who before Tommy

On 2006-01-12 10:33, thejab wrote:
Too many to choose from, but off the top of my head:

"Teenage Kicks" - Undertones

Teenage Kicks was the late John Peel's all-time favo(u)rite pop song.