Perfect Pop Songs

Cutie of '90s cuties. This and "Stay" are perfect.

 

How has this not been posted yet?

The 2 guitar and bass solos are sexy.

'80s lyricism was so strong. These guys worked "aurora borealis" into the song. Toto worked "Kilimanjaro" into Africa. Madonna and Rush both quoted Shakespeare.

 

One of the most beautiful songs to hit the top 40:

 

This is the only funny song about nuclear war I know of .

Not pure pop for now people, but it's a helluva song. He gets a lot done in two minutes ten.

 

These guys were all veteran studio musicians who put together a side project. They only charted one record, but they're really good. The Tractors Christmas album is a fun alternative.

Gotta love a good shuffle.

 

Country-pop. Hooky as hell, and a fun little song.

 

More country pop. Rimes hit the Country Top Ten with this when she was thirteen - but she said that the record company accidentally released the version that she had recorded when she was ten. She hit one hell of a Patsy Cline vibe for someone so young.

 

Pure pop, straight from the well.

 

Have we got to this point in the thread without posting any Buffalo Springfield songs?

Time to remedy that. One of the all-time great ones:

 

Forty years ago today, John Lennon's "Double Fantasy" was released. I grew up listening to the Beatles, and they did a lot to form/influence my musical tastes.

John had gone on his long, drunken "Lost Weekend", then come home and became a house-husband and the father to his son that he never had. He kicked his heroin addiction, got his head and his heart straight, and when Sean was old enough he took the song demos he had accumulated and went into the studio. He released this album, and basically told the Yoko critics they could suck it by alternating tracks with her across the entire album. He was coming back out into public, rested and renewed and ready for his second act.

I was so happy for the guy. He had lived his life in a fishbowl for so long, pulled through it on his own terms. I was over my second-hand Yoko hate for "breaking up the Beatles", which had become all but inevitable given all the years that they had lived in each other's pockets and their level of success. I found myself grateful to her for filling the void he felt inside him, and I was happy to see him so happy.

And then he was taken from us, so suddenly.

 

This one makes me weep to this day. "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans."