Over at his AOL gig, John Scalzi points to a list purporting to be the Top Ten All Time Pop Singalong Songs. Here’s the list:
- 1) Baha Men – Who Let the Dogs Out
- 2) Beatles – Hey Jude
- 3) Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive
- 4) Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You
- 5) Tommy James and the Shondells – Mony Mony
- 6) Joan Jett and the Blackhearts – I Love Rock and Roll
- 7) Don McLean – American Pie
- 8) Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
- 9) Santana Featuring Rob Thomas – Smooth
- 10) Village People – YMCA
Words fail me. Almost. Words like “madness” and “sadly deluded” and “totally on crack, maybe cut with something halluucinogenic” are actually rushing forward, offering to help out.
Miscellaneous thoughts below the fold:
1) “Who Let the Dogs Out”? Huh? “?!?!?!,” even.
2) No Motown? “Tracks of My Tears?” “My Girl?” These don’t make the list? Are you mad?
3) I mean, seriously, no “All Time” list should include anything recorded in the last ten years. Unless it’s really, amazingly good, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” isn’t that. Jesus, if you’re going to put novelty hits on the list, where’s “Whoomp (There It Is)”?
4) Also, “I Will Always Love You”? Are you kidding me? The only thing that song makes me want to do is change the station. Even “Mike and Mike” using it as a lead-in to talking about the tastefully named Chad Pennington makes me kind of twitchy.
5) I’ll give you “Hey Jude,” “American Pie,” and “Mony Mony.”
6) “Bohemian Rhapsody” isn’t actually a great singalong song, it just gets cast as one because of Wayne’s World. If you want a Queen song for the list, it’s either “We Will Rock You” or “We Are the Champions.”
7) “Smooth” is a fun song, but I’m not sure I’d put it down as a great singalong song.
8) I’m not a big fan of “Stayin’ Alive,” either. If I’m going to do ridiculous falsetto, I usually go for “Beast of Burden” by the Stones.
9) On the one hand, “YMCA” is fundamentally a novelty song. On the other, we’ve been stuck with people publically singing along with it for nigh on thirty years, so I suppose it probbaly belongs.
10) Seriously, no Temptations? No Smokey Robinson? But “Who Let the Fucking Dogs Out” tops the list?
Obviously, any real list of this sort will be highly individual, so I wouldn’t really attempt to claim that I know the absolute ultimate Top Ten songs to sing along with, but here’s a set of songs that are highly likely to get me to sing along with the iPod while driving:
- “Tracks of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles — One of the most perfect pop songs ever.
- “Beast of Burden” by the Rolling Stones — I have a mix tape in the car with “Ziggy Stardust” followed by “Beast of Burden,” and late at night, I would sometimes rewind the tape, just to sing those two songs a second time.
- “Big Brown Eyes” by the Old 97’s — “I got issues… Yeah./ Like I miss you… Yeah.”
- “Baba O’Riley” by the Who — It’s hard to resist belting out the “Teenage wasteland” part.
- “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” by Bruce Springsteen — Even better than “Born to Run.” It’s got style changes, key changes, daft lyrics– the works.
- “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” by Tom Waits — One of the few people I can almost sound like.
- “American Pie” by Don McLean — We should keep one from the original list, so why not this one?
- “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan — The original is one of the great kiss-off songs, and the live version on No Direction Home just kicks ass.
- “Lost in the Supermarket” by the Afghan Whigs — Greg Dulli’s alternative lounge singer really works well with this song.
- “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell — “Sometimes I feel I’ve got to” BOMP BOMP “Run away, I’ve got to” BOMP BOMP “get away…”
I could keep this up for a quite a while– obvious stuff like “I Will Survive” and “Brown Eyed Girl;” less-known stuff like “Hoover Dam” or “Hyper Enough;” too-recent stuff like “Roses” or “Your Little Hoodrat Friend”… But never in a million goddamn years would I get to “Who Let the Dogs Out”…
What are your best singalong songs?
Um…I’m gonna guess that Bohemian Rhapsody was in Wayne’s World in that fashion because people have been singing along to it in that fashion for over a decade. I don’t know how anyone can resist, really…
But “We will rock you” is also a good choice.
Jesus Christ, even I have an opinion on this one. That list is insane. Any list that puts “Who Let The Dogs Out,” while snubbing Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” is just demented.
Problem is that waaaaay too many people don’t know the lyrics to these “singalong songs.” It doesn’t count as singing along if one belts out three fifths of the chorus and then mumbles for a while, then does an air-drum accompaniment for the balance.
Um…I’m gonna guess that Bohemian Rhapsody was in Wayne’s World in that fashion because people have been singing along to it in that fashion for over a decade.
Well, at least some people that Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey knew, anyway. I can’t say I’d ever heard anybody singing along with it prior to the movie.
That list is insane. Any list that puts “Who Let The Dogs Out,” while snubbing Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” is just demented.
“Piano Man” is another good one. I thought of that, but I already mentioned it last week, so I thought I’d go for a little mroe variety…
Problem is that waaaaay too many people don’t know the lyrics to these “singalong songs.” It doesn’t count as singing along if one belts out three fifths of the chorus and then mumbles for a while, then does an air-drum accompaniment for the balance.
True enough. I limited myself to only songs that I actually know the words to, which excluded a bunch of other Stones tunes (“Sweet Virginia,” “Let It Loose,” “Sway”) because I’m really not sure what the hell Mick is saying.
How could you miss Born to be Wild?
If you add up all the people who actually sing any part of any of the songs in the last year, say, then probably ” Who Let the Dogs out” is on the most popular list simply because of sports stadiums, but then “Take me out to the Ballgame” should be there instead and “Roll out the Barrel”.
Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed girl also belongs on any such list.
When I was in college about 25 years ago, I was out drinking with a German friend who was lamenting the fact that Americans have no tradition of singing in bars. I stood up from the table, faced the crowd in the barroom, and let out with:
“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip,
That started in this tropic port about this tiny ship.”
By the time I got to “…here on Gilligan’s Isle!,” there must’ve been about 40 people singing and laughing and having a grand time. My German friend was not impressed. “The only culture Americans have is TV.”
IMHO, “singing along with a recording” does not really meet the criteria for a singalong song. Real singalong songs are a capella, or at best, accompanied by some goober with a folk guitar. My personal favorite singalong song is probably “Charlotte the Harlot,” but I can’t say that it’s terribly well known.
Only someone trapped in the late 1970s early 1980’s who listens to Hit Radio to get their nostalgia fix would produce such a list (yeah, sure, I sang along with Disco, probably after I had my fill of the Sexpistols, “Desire”, and BeBop Deluxe). There are three that I think should be on such a list:
Warren Zevon’s ‘Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money’.
Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowing in the Wind’. (Anyone not sing this one?)
Chris Issak’s ‘Wicked Game’
Mike
1) “Who Let the Dogs Out?” I liked Baha Men’s “Move It LIke This” much better – it’s also good to dance to.
2) Bleh.
3) Sick of hearing it. Same lyrics over and over, and higher than most people can sing coherently.
4) NO! I hate this song. Why does it cause people to sing at the top of their lungs, way off-key, like a bunch of idiots?
5) Now I’m positive it’s mostly women voting on AOL
6) Now I’m sure it’s mostly people in their 30’s to middle-aged voting on AOL. A song about being rebellious simply by listening to rock and roll. Woopee.
7) A song with a good tune but nobody can decypher. And repeats the refrain too many times, again!
8) This song’s alright.
9) Also good.
10) NO! Refer back to number 4.
Dude! I always have sung along with “Bohemian Rhapsody”, long before it was given the big-budget-movie-ok to do so.
And there are songs I’d love to sing along to, but I just can’t manage the words as fast as they do. A bunch of stuff by The Barenaked Ladies comes to mind… “Watching X-Files with no lights on, we’re dans la maison, I hope the Smoking Man’s in this one…”
Louis Louis is another one that everyone seems to also sing along with, that is blatant by it’s absence.
Louis Louis is another one that everyone seems to also sing along with, that is blatant by it’s absence.
The problem with that one is that the guy singing it doesn’t appear to know what the words are…
Well, at least some people that Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey knew, anyway. I can’t say I’d ever heard anybody singing along with it prior to the movie.
I’ve been singing along with it since it came out. Really great. But how can you have a sing along list that has no Chuck Berry? Johnny Be Goode is guaranteed to have me singing along in 2 seconds flat.
Also Must Sings: Pretty Woman, Somebody To Love, When You’re Good to Mama, Old Time Rock and Roll, Desperado, Paradise By the Dashboard Light, Total Eclipse of the Heart (yes, I know it makes no sense), You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, Stray Cat Strut, A Pirate Looks at Forty, Diamonds and Rust, Good Vibrations, California Girls, Here Comes the Rain Again, Hotel California.
And I’d better stop here because my iTunes play list entitled Sing Along has 87 songs on it…. Yes, I do like to sing and yes, I am old.
You may now all mock the old fart. And I didn’t even put anything on that list that would make me blush (well, except Total Eclipse) but I have to sing along anyhow. Like the whole Neil Sedaka catalog.
MKK
I’m surprised that nobody has nominated “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer.
As a part time musician, like the bell for Pavlovs dog, the ones that will get a crowd (of a certain age) out on a dance floor AND singing include
Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison,
and
Mustang Sally by Wilson Pickett (ride, Sally ride…)
It gets to where you wanna stop playing them cause you’re sick of them, but its like throwing raw meat to a wild pack of dogs.
“Take on Me” ~ A-Ha
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” ~ Tears for Fears (for that “lyrics – wha??” list
“Rio” ~ Duran Duran
“It’s the End of the World As We Know It” ~ REM
“Shout” ~ James Brown
“Georgia” ~ Ray Charles
“Folsom Prison Blues” ~ Johnny Cash (*pop*ular enough, right?)
“Think” ~ Aretha Franklin
“Crazy” ~ Patsy Cline (again with the *pop*ular)
“Soul Man” ~ Sam & Dave
“Honky Tonk Woman” ~ Rolling Stones
“Baby I Love Your Way” ~ Peter Frampton (with a *gag* but let’s face it…)
What is this rewind? just let it play long enough and the track will come around again. “They tell me bold brendan is dead” The chieftans version or “scorpio rising” much better than that dog song. 2 out of 3 aint bad works better
and I will vote for Paradise By the Dashboard Light
Is this a list of songs people ought to sing along with, or that people do sing along with?
Because if it’s the latter, I’ve got to wade into battle over whether Garth Brooks and Sir Mixalot are “pop”.
As I think we all established in earlier threads, it is scary as hell how many people can sing *all* *the* words* to Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
I will also second Melissa at #17 with “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” by REM, however very few people know the words to this song, and just chime in “Leonard Bernstein” at inappropriate times.
And yes, “Piano Man,” Duh. Like obviously.
“I’m on the center-line, right between two stoops of pine!”
I’m assuming, of course, that you reference the Sugar song of that title. If not, I probably look really weird now. I’m from the UK, what can I say? 🙂
I agree completely about all the songs I recognize, which unfortunatly is only about half.
Blake: I was just about to nominate “anything by Tom Lehrer”.
Actually I was also going to suggest Tom Lehrer, either “The Elements” or “We Will All Go Together When We Go”. Are we all weird or what.
This’ll be telling stuff about my history that I may live to regret letting slip, but. . .
I recall “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night being the song that could get everyone singing along way back when. It wasn’t necessarily anyone’s favorite song but it was just irresistible. (In an early job I taught it to a group of deaf kids. Strange story.)
These days I’d like to say that “Dirty Water” tops my singalong list, but recently I haven’t had the kind of opportunities I would have liked to have had, alas.
“Tainted Love” by Soft Cell — “Sometimes I feel I’ve got to” BOMP BOMP “Run away, I’ve got to” BOMP BOMP “get away…”
Only because of coneheads. It gets the Bohemian Rhapsody treatment, yo.
“Lost in the Supermarket” by the Afghan Whigs
When did this stop being a Clash song? You’re the second ScienceBlogs blogger to mention this version. Thanks to you, I can no longer blog happily.
Oh, and why is there no Journey on this list? Separate ways. Don’t stop believing. And howsabout Bon Jovi’s livin on a prayer. I’d say the best singalong songs are those that are fixtures on every good coverbands setlist. Not that the previous three are.
“Lost in the Supermarket” by the Afghan Whigs
When did this stop being a Clash song? You’re the second ScienceBlogs blogger to mention this version. Thanks to you, I can no longer blog happily.
It’s still a Clash song, but I like the Whigs version better. They slow the tempo down a bit, give it a bit more of a groove, and Greg Dulli does his white-guy soul crooner thing to great effect. It’s one of those cover versions that manages to outdo the original.
Again, the second list is a subset of my personal singalong list. The full list would probably have some Journey and maybe “Livin’ On a Prayer” on it, but there isn’t room here in the margin of the Internet for the full list…
Lots of good ones. My contribution:
“The Dock of the Bay”, Otis Redding.
As a formerly/infrequently performing musician, I will have to echo Perry’s rec of “Brown-Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison (which I note Chad has late in this post), but also add “What I Like About You” by The Romantics.
Detroit’s The Romantics were one of the underrated bands of that whole 1979-1980 thing, although I never understood the red leather getups. Their record company originally pushed “When I Look in Your Eyes,” as the hit single from this first self-titled album, but WILAY took on a life of its own on dancefloors despite never hitting the top 10 (or top 40 if I recall).
Also, as a fellow worshipper at the altar of Springsteen, I must heartily concur with Chad’s rec of “Rosalita.” “Born to Run” cannot hold a candle to this ultimate Boss sing-a-long.
Whenever my wife and I are driving anywhere it’s a Ben Folds frenzy – I think ‘Underground’ should be outside your ten-year limit. Quenn’s Greatest Hits (disc one) is pretty much faultless in that respect as well. Some Suzanne Vega too, particularly the chorus to In Liverpool. Oh, and most Pixies stuff.
Bonus points to the Sugar mentions too, the Copper Blue album has a few good sinalong numbers.
And to back up the Whigs fans, Greg consistently comes out with cover versions superior to the originals – see If I Only Had A Heart (from Wizard Of Oz), Papa Was A Rascal (James Booker) and his latest, Live With Me (Massive Attack, currently playing on the Twilight Singers MySpace site) for evidence. Then again I’m something of a Dulli obsessive…
Bonus points to the Sugar mentions too, the Copper Blue album has a few good sinalong numbers.
I forgot to confirm earlier that I was, in fact, talking about “Hoover Dam” off Copper Blue, which is a fantastic record– on the “Perfect Album” list.
And to back up the Whigs fans, Greg consistently comes out with cover versions superior to the originals – see If I Only Had A Heart (from Wizard Of Oz), Papa Was A Rascal (James Booker) and his latest, Live With Me (Massive Attack, currently playing on the Twilight Singers MySpace site) for evidence. Then again I’m something of a Dulli obsessive…
The one I really want to hear was alluded to by Nathan Lundblad a while back– he saw the Twilight Singers do “Roses” by OutKast, which had to be awesome.
There’s a snippet of the Twilight Singers doing Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” on YouTube, via this Slate article on all the covers.
The thing Chad forgot to mention about the Whigs’ cover of “Lost in the Supermarket” is that it uses the beat of “Train in Vain” and, indeed, slides into “Train in Vain” at the end (via Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”).
(There’s also “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love,” which for some reason cracks me up.)
You can get quite a few Whigs/Twilight Singers clips on YouTube, some better than others. They did Roses quite a lot on the tours for Blackberry Belle and She Loves You but it was their version of Hey Ya that really got the crowd going. There were rumours of them covering Ain’t Nobody by Chaka Khan for their next covers album, would love to hear that 🙂
Chad, I’ve got a whole heap of good quality Whigs/Singers bootlegs with loads of the covers that never made it to record thanks to a very kind gentleman on the Whigs mailing list. Might be able to find a way of getting some to you if you were interested – email me on doubleday80 at hot mail dot com.
“Songs that kind of suck but you can’t help singing”
1) “Sail Away” by Styx
2) That “Lovin’ Touchin’ Sqeezin'” song by Journey
Add your own!
Nobody mentions *anything* by Peter Paul & Mary? Feh!
Re “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”, I like Nikki French’s additions. Through the darkness, and into the light….