Favorite Songs by One Hundred Artists

(A fairly random assortment of favorite songs by performers whose discographies I know well. I’ve done my best to select toward artists lots of people have heard and away from the profound obscurities I love, but as Naomi Shihab Nye says, “The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it,” so who knows? I’ve arranged this list alphabetically by artist.)

 

  1. Adam and the Ants: Prince Charming

  2. Laurie Anderson: The Dream Before

  3. The Beach Boys: God Only Knows

  4. The Beatles: You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away

  5. The Bees: One Glass of Water

  6. Big Star: Thirteen

  7. Björk: Bachelorette

  8. The Blue Nile: Family Life

  9. The Books: An Animated Description of Mr. Maps

  10. David Bowie: Five Years

  11. Billy Bragg: The Only One

  12. Phoebe Bridgers: Chinese Satellite (Copycat Killer EP Version)

  13. Kate Bush: Cloudbusting

  14. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: The Ship Song

  15. Kasey Chambers: Paper Aeroplane

  16. Ray Charles: You Don’t Know Me

  17. Leonard Cohen: Famous Blue Raincoat

  18. The Comsat Angels: The Eye of the Lens

  19. Sam Cooke: Bring It On Home to Me

  20. Elvis Costello: Tramp the Dirt Down

  21. The Creatures: Killing Time

  22. The Cure: Pictures of You

  23. The Decemberists: Grace Cathedral Hill

  24. Iris DeMent: No Time to Cry

  25. Depeche Mode: Waiting for the Night

  26. Dexys Midnight Runners: Tell Me When My Light Turns Green

  27. The Divine Comedy: Tonight We Fly

  28. Nick Drake: Fly

  29. The Drifters: One Way Love

  30. Duran Duran: The Chauffeur

  31. Bob Dylan: Shelter from the Storm

  32. Erasure: My Heart…So Blue

  33. Eurythmics: Love Is a Stranger

  34. Feist: Now At Last

  35. FKA twigs: Two Weeks

  36. Roberta Flack: Our Ages or Our Hearts

  37. John Foxx: Your Dress

  38. Aretha Franklin: Do Right Woman, Do Right Man

  39. Marvin Gaye: Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology Song)

  40. John Wesley Harding: Roy Orbison Knows (The Best Man’s Song)

  41. Ted Hawkins: The Good and the Bad

  42. Robyn Hitchcock: Queen Elvis

  43. Hothouse Flowers: Sweet Marie

  44. Michael Jackson: Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’

  45. James: Lullaby

  46. Japan: Ghosts

  47. Billy Joel: An Innocent Man

  48. Elton John: I’m Still Standing

  49. Kings of Convenience: Misread

  50. Lenny Kravitz: I Build This Garden for Us

  51. Cyndi Lauper: All Through the Night

  52. The Magnetic Fields: Acoustic Guitar

  53. Laura Marling: Ghosts

  54. Maxwell: …Til’ the Cops Come Knockin’

  55. Paul McCartney: No More Lonely Nights

  56. John Mellencamp: Authority Song

  57. George Michael: One More Try

  58. Van Morrison: Sweet Thing

  59. Morrissey: November Spawned a Monster

  60. Mötley Crüe: Red Hot

  61. Alison Moyet: For You Only

  62. Naked Eyes: Promises, Promises

  63. Randy Newman: Marie

  64. New Model Army: (I Love) The World

  65. Olivia Newton-John: Please Mr. Please

  66. Harry Nilsson: Don’t Forget Me

  67. Mary Margaret O’Hara: Dear Darling

  68. Phil Ochs: When I’m Gone

  69. Sinead O’Connor: This Is a Rebel Song

  70. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Maid of Orleans (Joan of Arc)

  71. Michael Penn: Innocent One

  72. The Police: Can’t Stand Losing You

  73. Prince: The Beautiful Ones

  74. Queen: Somebody to Love

  75. Otis Redding: These Arms of Mine

  76. R.E.M.: Country Feedback

  77. Jonathan Richman: That Summer Feeling

  78. Rilo Kiley: Spectacular Views

  79. Josh Ritter: Snow Is Gone (Hello Starling) (live from the 4 Songs EP)

  80. Linda Ronstadt: Long Long Time

  81. Roxy Music: To Turn You On

  82. Bob Seger: You’ll Accomp’ny Me

  83. serpentwithfeet: four ethers

  84. Richard Shindell: On a Sea of Fleur de Lis

  85. The Sisters of Mercy: Ribbons

  86. The Smiths: You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby

  87. The Sound: Winning

  88. The Sundays: My Finest Hour

  89. David Sylvian: Some Kind of Fool

  90. Talking Heads: (Nothing But) Flowers

  91. Talk Talk: Inheritance

  92. They Might Be Giants: Ana Ng

  93. Tindersticks: Raindrops

  94. Tom Waits: Take It With Me

  95. Gillian Welch: I’m Not Afraid to Die

  96. Dar Williams: After All

  97. Stevie Wonder: Heaven Help Us All

  98. XTC: Dear God

  99. Yaz: Softly Over

  100. The Zombies: This Will Be Our Year

— December 23, 2021


Return to Lists