Samuel Andreyev is a composer, professor, and host of the Samuel Andreyev Podcast. This channel features his lectures, analysis videos, interviews and videos of his compositions.
Fantiastic list, love to see that the Kinks made the cut. Was not suprised to see Beefheart and Velvet Underground up there. If you like the grit of those artists I highly recomended the Animal Speaks by the Numbers Band, Smile by the Fall, and Marquee Moon by Television. Each song is a severly underrated.
Here are three songs to add to that very fun and interesting list! 1.Flanders Dictum Part of a much larger story it reflects on psychopathic leadership and their planning, as it affects the innocent. Original and unique Omni writing. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m6CNd1gJ19w.html 2. Won't give in (Finn Brothers) This is everything a great pop song should be, outsized in pleasurable melody and golden mean form, which Neil Finn had found a predilection for. Note the short white hot center at the golden mean. Very fine writing. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-byPG-_9RKCM.html 3. I want to be with you, Mandy Moore. Lyrically, it contains everything I hate in a pop song but so what. This is an extreme masterpiece of music mixing, production and planning. It should be listened to on a good stereo, not mp3 but wave. The sounds are little brush strokes of impressionistic feathering. Perfect in reverb amounts and automation of such said feature. The singing is perfect and the back hooks are adhered to religiously. A masterpiece. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ErntJrtQGBg.html
Also, you’ll get no disagreement from me that Devo is funny. However, I find them so much deeper than that. They’ve had a consistent aesthetic and message for nearly 50 years. Humor and incredibly subversive satire throughout their career all tied together by all they do and say. (Especially before 1984 though). I play the Whip It, Freedom of Choice or Jocko Homo video for all of the college classes I teach. I don’t comment on it, I just let these 18-20 year olds see and hear it. It’s so much fun!
Oh.. I did not expect you to namedrop Aphex Twin or VU´s menacing WLWH, but the way you did it immediately made sense to me. Music shouldn´t always be comfortable. ** The Kinks are possibly the most underrated of the famous "classic" rock bands. ** Sometimes I actually prefer the more spontaneous late 1968 demo version(s) of Moon in June over the one on Third.
okay, I'm not much for video shorts, but this is an excellent observation! WHAT is artistically happening? HOW can we teach artistry in the context of historical reverence?
I love listening to you, Samuel. I believe that out there, there is at least a single composer who's actually been spending these decades perfecting a marvelous opus in secrecy, the kind of life work that changes music forever.
I wonder why you called the songs of the Beach Boys "dumb". Is it because of their lyrics (which I would understand) or something else? From a mere musical point of view they don't sound dumb to me -- the Beatles certainly didn't think so since the two bands motivated and influenced each other. The Beatles' "Rubber Soul" inspired the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds", which in turn inspired The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper". Brian Wilson's favorite song is "Norwegian Wood", while Paul McCartney"s favorite song is "God Only Knows", which he considers the greatest song ever written -- high praise coming from arguably the greatest songwriter of all time! I personally think "God Only Knows" is a masterpiece of songwriting; it has an interesting chord progression using half-diminished and second inversion chords, and ends with a memorable polyphonic chorus.
As an italian, music fanatic following and respecting you since years, i had a stupid big smile on my face watching this video knowing Adriano Celentano was on the list. Also i would like to highlight how he nailed the "playback" of a nonsense song : D
My list: Dorsey and Sinatra: Polka dots and moonbeans (40) Charles Trenet: Que reste-t-il de nos amours (43) Screamin Jay Hawkins: I put a spell on you (58) Jaques Brel: Au suivant (64) Bob Dylan: I want you (66) Leonard Cohen: Suzanne (67) Pink Floyd: See Emily play (67) Velvet Underground: Heroin (67) Faust: Meadow meal (71) John Hartford: Up on the hill where they do the boogy (71) Brian Eno: Burning airlines gives you so much more(74) Lucio Battisti: Abbracciala Abbracciali Abbracciati (74) Patti Smith: Birdland (75) Televisions: Marquee moon (77) CCCP: Curami (86) Slint: Breadcrumb Trail (91) Supreme Dicks: in a sweet song (96) Joanna Newsom: Have one on me (10) Julia Holter: Voce Simul (18) Jpeg Mafia: Jesus forgive me I'm a thot (19)
I love soft machine. One of my favorite bands. Despite some of the greatness that comes later in the band’s life, I still prefer their first album the most. It’s super low budget, and it captures this raw, almost modern punk energy. I have yet to hear anything from that era that has real teeth like that album has.
While not quite as grandiose as Adriano Celentano, 12-year-old singer Stella Zelcer (recording as Stella) made hit parodies with her uncle of Ye-Ye (from "Yeah Yeah"), the French version of Anglophilic (think Johnny Hallyday) teenybopper pop. She went on to marry Christian Vander and front the legendary Zeuhl (prog fusion) band, Magma.
Gotta put in a word for Rickie Lee Jones. The general consensus seems to be that her second album, Pirates, is the best, and from that album, I'd choose Traces of the Western Slopes, but there's so much genius across the first three albums at least. Also, try Weasel and the White Boys Cool from her first album, or Gravity from The Magazine.
Great diverse list! One of my personal favorite pop songs is Kraftwerk - Neon Lights. There is something haunting about the vocals, the melody and the effects they used on their synthesizers. Florian Schneider knew how to write a great melody and was clearly classical trained or at least heavily influenced. One of my other favorites is Another Star from Stevie Wonder. It might be his all time best work which is saying something. It's such a powerful song with its Latin rhythms, the instrumentations and Stevie's delivery. He's able to turn these relatively simple lyrics into something so personal and touching.
Dear Samuel, you are an excellent composer and popularizer, as well as a great connoisseur of the subject. I venture to add a couple of songs (there would be MANY others) that I particularly love: Experience by Gentle Giant and New Frontier by Donald Fagen. Thanks for your attention and keep up the good work!
You could have any number of Cohen songs here, overused but the still brilliant "Hallelujah", "Dance me to the end of love" and "A thousand kisses deep" which is a truly great song in my opinion. Bohemian Rhapsody is self indulgent to my ear, structurally it is innovative for a pop song but it's a bit of an overblown whine. I think Bob Dylan could have a mention here as well. "I think it's going to rain today" by Randy Newman is another great song, just perfect.
I regret that I didn’t choose You Want it Darker from Cohen’s last album. That was my original choice and I somehow forgot it when I was preparing to film. That last album is OUTSTANDING!
An interesting and generally excellent list! I've spent much of the evening listening to the songs you mentioned that I'd never heard before. And I'll probably revisit several of them over the next few days. Then I kept thinking of songs I'd add, and wondering if you were familiar with any of them. Ah well, it was a fun way to spend an evening.... It surprised me that your Beefheart pick wasn't Frownland, about which you made a super video some months ago. This and (I supposed) Moonlight in Vermont have always been my favorites from him. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-r9lpLm7jwQY.html I first ran across Prisencolininsenainciuso (however you spell it) some years ago. Sorry to offer a correction, though -- the staging in your linked RU-vid clip isn't anything like an official music video, conceived by Celentano along with the song. It's just one of several stagings broadcast by Italy's RAI network over the years and choreographed by the RAI team. And the staging you offer is far from the best one, which sadly got taken down a couple years ago. This clip however very roughly marries the album version of the song with the best staging (starting around the 2:15 mark). It features an unhinged Raffaela Carra, a corps of impossibly flexible bell-bottomed dancers, and a strategic wall of mirrors: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-foU3Tgg7VJI.html I've never liked Leonard Cohen's music, sorry to admit. My pick for a Canadian entry would be one of these three -- Summer Wages sung by Ian & Sylvia officially, but Ian Tyson is the only one singing on the track: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9oybX65J4dI.html The Mary Ellen Carter sung by the late, great Stan Rogers, a song that, as the introduction to this clip makes plain, has saved lives: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fT-aEcPgkuA.html Or one of the songs by Tragically Hip, such as Fireworks, a song so Canadian, it mentions Bobby Orr: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-O9wW9ENBPlQ.html Only two of your picks are from Black singer-songwriters? Here's two more to help even things out a bit -- Cab Calloway is better known as a showman than as a songwriter, but he did pen several popular tunes, including Jumpin' Jive. Half of this RU-vid clip of the song features Calloway singing it, and the other half is, simply put, the greatest pop dance routine ever filmed: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qXZRWa8kyAE.html Then there's Rubber Biscuit by a short-lived New York City doo-wop group called The Chips, which fits nicely into your category of songs that are worth hearing because they're stupid but fun: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-E_D_mwTcsKk.html Next, I offer for your inspection a trio of songs that are straight-up in foreign languages -- The first song has been called the best Brazilian pop song ever. I think Rolling Stone rated it as the 2nd best, but no matter. Aguas de Março/Waters of March is basically a list of the random debris that washes down the streets when the March rains hit Brazil. The idea is that life can be pretty random, but it's also abundant and beautiful, as is the delightful singing by Elis Regina and the song's composer Tom (Antonio Carlos) Jobim:: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-E1tOV7y94DY.html From Belgium comes this heartbreaking French-language hit written and performed by Jacques Brel, Ne me quitte pas/Don't leave me, which RU-vid kindly subtitles in English: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q_bq5mStroM.html There are different accounts of the next song; some say it was written by Serge Gainsbourg, others say it was written by Anna Karina, whose 1967 music video performance of Roller Girl is seen in this clip (which has English-language subtitles). I'll go with it being written by her, claiming for the nonce that it's a legit suggestion in the spirit of your 20-item list: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YEbHNhRsq3E.html There's no doubt, however, that British folk-rocker Sandy Denny wrote (and first recorded) the haunting tune Who Knows Where the Time Goes, before dying far too young: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-n2xODjbfYw8.html Staying in Britain, I'd like to offer Elvis Costello's intense Watching the Detectives as being a song everyone needs to hear at some point. Truth to tell, his back-catalog is full of songs that richly reward the listener, though I admit that his voice is, for many, very much of an acquired taste: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K--POHTLGY0.html And finally, a magnificent song of love and longing and separation -- and the literary references are front-and-center -- Tim Buckley's Song to the Siren: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vMTEtDBHGY4.html
YES to Sabotage. One of the all time great basslines. People should check out the Letterman performance to get a proper sense of what all the members are bringing to the song.
Great work, Samuel. Ithink it would be interesting if you analyzed some of your favorite albums (jazz/rock) for us. Perhaps providing a list some of your favorites would also be engaging.
Thank you.. I'm unfamiliar with a good half of the songs (or at least the particular recordings), so lots of fun. I must say I was flabbergasted to see one of my alltime faves, White Light / White Heat, on the list. I couldn't agree with you more about how it feels to listen to it!
No Backstage Pass by Caravan is lovely. As is Didn't Matter Anyway by Hatfield and the North. Richard Sinclair is a great musician Mumps is also ace. The Northettes were such brilliant vocalists
I have a couple (I'm a guitarist, so my taste skews that way). My Bloody Valentine - To Here Knows When Guitarist Kevin Shields is a pioneer in 'effects' guitar, and his masterpiece is undeniably the album Loveless, which almost bankrupted the bands label Creation Records prior to Oasis. Shields' main innovation to guitar playing is the 'glide' picking, whereby chords are strummed at the same time that the tremolo arm is depressed, which, when combined with the reverse reverb and fuzz that has become synonymous with the band, creates this melted, 'vacuum cleaner' sound. Honestly, throw a dart at a track from the Loveless album, it's a masterpiece. The Flaming Lips - Race for the Prize the album 'The Soft Bulletin' came at a low point in The Flamin Lips' career, their guitarist had just left, and a number of experiments (such as the 4LP Zaireeka, designed to play simultaneously and to draw attention to the space of the room it was being played in similar to something like Alvin Lucier's experiments in the same vein) commercially failed. The album was an attempt to write songs without the big guitar sounds that they were known for (see: She Don't Use Jelly), and although they aren't totally strict with that rule, much of the instrumentation on the album succeeds at that goal. Race for the Prize, the album's opener, starts with these super compressed drums, recorded in the confined space of a bathroom, more compression being added at the mixing stage. Xiu Xiu - Master of the Bump (Kurt Stambaugh, I Can Feel the Soil Falling Over My Head) Xiu Xiu are one of my favourite bands, Jamie Stewart writes about sexuality and gender from such an alienated, almost perverse perspective. Master of the Bump I see as a parody of all the big macho guitar-solo songs of the late 80s and early 90s. It's this tender, almost whispered song about toxic masculinity, and ends with the first few phrases of one of these solos that is left dangling in this rather insecure manner. Big Thief - Jenni Adrienne Lenker is a songwriter that people should probably pay more attention to, she's writing some of the most exciting guitar music today - her 'quarantine' solo album Songs and Instrumentals is one of my favourites in recent history. For Jenni, Lenker and her bandmate Buck Meek tied a guitar to the roof of a barn and hit it with drum sticks, physically swinging the guitar in the room, creating this otherworldly swirling effect.
Wow, so many comments! I suppose popular music really is, well, popular. Personally I couldn't make it through any of these, maybe with the exception of Son House, which I do think sounds authentically musical. All of the rest is regurgitated Mozart in my opinion, and I hate classical tonality with a passion. I'll think I'll stick with Baude Cordier, Matthias Weckmann, and Morton Feldman if you don't mind. You know how every modern classical piece here on YT has a grumpy commenter or two questioning "how is this even music"? Well, today I'm that guy :) To clean out my ears, I'm now listening to your Bern Trio, and Stopping. Ahhh, much better!
How about Animal Collective? Would love to hear your opinion on songs from early and recent, namely "Leaf House" and "Who Could Win A Rabbit" from Sung Tongs and "My Girls" from Merriweather Post Pavilion. You'd like the animalistic (no pun intended) fervor and experimentalism in their music, including metric modulations and a lot of vocal fireworks (Fireworks also a great song!).
A lot of cool choices! BUT. I'll confess I am still mystified by the love for Velvet Underground. Must be me. I might have gone with "Prophet's Song" from Queen. Musically very interesting and unique and serious. Freddie's "round" is performed live in the studio with two echo devices. One of the great Rock Vocal performances committed to vinyl. Bonnie Raitt's version of "I Can't Make You Love Me". Maybe the most perfectly crafted, perfectly performed beautifully poignant song ever to grace the radio. Bruce Hornsby's "Harbor Lights": I couldn't believe I was hearing something so high information, yet so emotionally powerful on the airwaves - AND a Pat Methany solo! The Who's "Won't Get fooled again: Greatest Track on the best album from the greatest rock group. . . .(IMHO) "Bag Lady" from Todd Rundgren. Getting verklempt thinking about that song. A LOT of Todd deserves at least one listen. "On reflection" Live from Gentle Giant. A Capella vocals and bonkers fun. "NSU" from Cream Live - maybe too "Instrumental" but the most sophisticated inter-weaved improvised interaction between musicians - any genre - --ever "Ticking" form Elton John. Mostly piano and vocals. Beautiful composition with tragic lyrics from the view of a tormented individual. "Into the Light" from Peter Gabriel. It does all the same things as "Ticking" "How do you think It Feels" from Lou Reed's "Berlin" The whole album has a hard to pin-down magic, and this maybe it's most immediate intense track. Benny Mardones "Into The Night". 80s "middle of the road" genre, mildly successful Radio hit - - that happens to be very well composed and drenched with heart featuring as soaring of a vocal as you will hear on the radio. The Man is proclaiming from the mountain tops! Is Zappa's "Village of the Sun" cheating? Johnny Cash's "San Quentin" where he performs it live TWICE in a row for good measure - That's as proudly down-in-the-dirt country/blues as you get! Al Jarreau "Take Five" 76. Or ANYTHING form 70s Al Jarreau! Not mentioned enough among the great vocalists. King Crimson's "The Howler". Bizarre and jagged yet somehow Adrian Belew makes it accessible. Rufus 1976 "Sweet Thing" Just so laid back and cool and comforting. Sophisticated but deceptively simple sounding. Chaka Kahn's vocal is so intimate and alluring. While we're doing 70's RB: Ramsey Lewis -"Sun Goddess". Teamed with Earth Wind and Fire's leaders, everything is master-level and still singable. AND "Too High" from Stevie Wonder: Just get a kick out of hearing Stevie not giving a sh!t and opening an album with so much chromaticism! His early 70s output was a historic achievement. Johnny Winter's Version of "Johnny B. Good" because everyone needs to hear peak Johnny Winter at least once! Last One: "Tea in the Sahara" from the Police: Hypnotic. Simple bass. Sparse guitar swells. Single Vocal. No drums. The space sucks you in. The Police at their minimal best.
While the Syd Barrett Dominoes (1970) song is interesting, it sounds too much like The Turtles "Happy Together" (1967), which is unfortunate, because it is the ONLY Syd Barrett song I have ever heard which sounds in any way like someone else's song. But it did come at the point where he suffered the most severe brain damage, perhaps an earlier more original song would have been more appropriate for a figure of his originality.
I prefer 'Anything Goes' by the other Cole Porter. You know, "Anything goes in, Anything goes out. Fish, bananas, old pajamas, mutton, beef, and trout."
"Prisencolinensinainciusol" is fascinating in how, as an English speaker, it nails everything about the cadence, morphology and texture of English while being completely incomprehensible. Absolutely brain-frying. Love it. (Also a big fan of Wyatt, Waits, Cohen and Devo, although in the latter two cases I might have chosen "Who By Fire" and "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" respectively.) A few (by which I mean quite a few) suggestions of my own, mainly from before 2004 per the video proper but with a few later entries of especial note: - The United States of America, "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (1968): I could have gone with the more lyrically acerbic opening number to this record here, but this conceptually simpler number is simply undeniable in terms of the urgency of its instrumentation, performance and musical focus, sensuous yet laced with potent menace. - Wire, "Map Ref. 41°N 93°W" (1979): An immaculately arranged and structured pop song, easily one of the most beautiful pieces of music to ever emerge out of the punk/post-punk movement, reflecting on the awe of observing the vastness of the Earth from the air and sonically painted with guitars and keyboards with all of the colour and grandeur of the vistas depicted. - This Heat, "Makeshift Swahili" (1981): The nightmare of colonialism and cultural imperialism made manifest through a blend of Canterbury-school progressive rock sophistication, visceral punk rock aggression, and highly experimental studio-as-instrument soundplay, the studio version flipping to a particularly raw live recording during the chaotic coda for maximum disorientation. - Coil, "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)" (1986): The lush interweaving of Fairlight sampler lines and string quartet behind Jhonn Balance's inimitable vocals really provide the perfect setting for the morbid neo-Decadent homoeroticism of the lyrics, a fragmented portrait of the assassination of the radical Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. - The Magnetic Fields, "100,000 Fireflies" (1989): Another perfect pop song, albeit more austere and humble, carried by clear melodic lines, a gently emotive vocal performance from the late Susan Anway, and lyrics which, while initially sardonic if evocative, transform into something far more sincere and all the more devastating for it. - Swans, "Her" (1992): What begins as a soft, intimate little love song like the lapping of a lone candle flame expands outward further and further into a titanic wall of protean melody before dissolving into glittering noise and the sound of a tape-recorded voice from decades before, coming full circle. - Burzum, "Jesu død" (1996): Odious as Varg Vikernes and his views are, there is something undeniably compelling about the demoniac minimalism of best work, particularly this eerie slice of almost Feldman-esque repetition, luxuriating in the timbre of a single repeated guitar motif overwhelmed with tape saturation. - Sonic Youth, "Hoarfrost" (1998): A gorgeously arranged and performed tone poem about walking with a loved one in the snow, comprised primarily of layers of intricate, warmly luminous melodic guitar work, at once comforting and tinged with a certain niggling unease, as if some threat lurks just out of view, or hidden in plain sight. - Current 93, "Sleep Has His House" (2000): Mostly comprised of a layered, lulling harmonium drone and a murmured refrain for the better part of twenty minutes before blooming into an impassioned wail of grief listing all of the wondrous things which death renders trivial. - Dälek, "Ever Somber" (2005): One of the most beautifully produced works of modern music, hip-hop or otherwise, the thematic lynchpin to an album reflecting on the role of music in bringing attention to social issues which turns inward, speaking to self-destruction as an escape from the ravages of systemic racism and art as an escape from self-destruction. - St. Vincent, "The Neighbors" (2009): Pretty much any song off of Actor could go here, but I'm going to go with what might be the most peculiar, an off-kilter, jaunty number stuffed with subtly odd instrumentation which could be a portrait of teenage recklessness and minor small-town scandal or something far more sinister or, conversely, personal and interior. - Jute Gyte, "Yarinareth, Yarinareth, Yarinareth" (2017): Closer to a work of classical art music in terms of composition than a traditional metal song, with the use of quartertones facilitating both horrific dissonances and some of the most sumptuous melodic lines I've ever heard. - billy woods & kenny segal, "Speak Gently" (2019): Another thematic crux to a fairly harrowing and excellently produced hip-hop record about poverty, here primarily not for the extremely on point verses but the spoken word coda where the instrumental dissolves into freeform abstraction and woods discusses the strange experience of receiving other people's mail year after year, an anecdote mundane yet haunting.
Is there any band/composer/singer songwriter/song that resonates with you, that doesn't seem to resonate with anyone else? Or the other way, that everyone else likes that you just don't get? I sometimes feel like I'm taking crazy pills when certain bands, songs, albums, composers, etc. are held in such high regard and I just don't get it.
