I just had dinner with my sister and she told me she asked my father earlier this week what his top 5 favorite songs were. I began thinking what mine were and realized I can’t name them. I struggle to think of 5 songs I always like or can always listen to. I jump between music so randomly and get stuck listening to things for long periods of time. I think if I were to name my top 5 favorite songs, not a single one of my favorite artists would sit on that list, because to be my favorite artist, I enjoy the entire album or albums. This means that no one song stands out above the rest, or not to the point where I can definitely pick it. I love Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen, but being asked to pick one song off that album as my favorite I just can’t do. It would mean demeaning the rest of that wonderful album. I then end up going to singles that are alone on their album, where the rest of the album falls far short of the mark set. I also find new and wonderful music on an almost weekly basis, just this past week I began obsessively listening to Muse. I have already racked up over 600 tracks listened to (just check my Last.FM) and I think I could consider one of their albums among my top 5 albums. But to have to go through all their tracks and look at one and think “that’s the one” is probably too hard. I also listen to a lot of trance, I like it to work to, not many lyrics and good melody makes for amazing background noise while I work away. I enjoy some of the tracks to just close my eyes and focus, no real words or expression. But would trance fall into the top 5 ? My most listened to song on Last.FM is a trance song (White Sand by Sunlounger and Armin van Buuren, its amazing). I like Beck and the Flaming Lips a bunch, but neither has one of those stand out songs.
I don’t think I can answer someone when they ask for my top 5 favorite songs, I can give them albums or artists, but I enjoy entire albums more than singles. I like the concept of an album. A complete album trumps a mix of great singles. A great album blends and builds up. It lasts for an hour and the entire album is unique, no repetition. A mixture of feelings and expressions that creates this fantastic whole. It gives you a mixture of up tempo and mellow, of heartfelt and casual, of emotion and thoughts. It really grabs you and doesn’t stop after one track, it takes the entire 12 tracks to finish it. My top 5 albums would have to be: Born to Run, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Black Holes and Revelations, Greatest Hits (Queen), and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Those are whole albums I listen to on a regular basis. It may change occasionally (like Black Holes is recent, like within the past month I discovered Muse, I highly recommend them). But again, I scroll through the other albums I listen to and can find another 10 or so that can compete for that list and I begin wondering if I should put them in, my mood can change just enough where one of these albums sounds better than one listed at that moment. It’s a challenge to name a top 5, because I have an attachment to many other songs and it feels sad almost to leave them out. I guess I’m just a sappy loser who doesn’t want to hurt the feelings of singles or albums…
What are your top 5?