Perfect Pop Songs


Those with the kind of music, lyrics, performance, arrangement and production that you could easily repeat all day.

How about starting with this one? Somewhat outside of her usual cannon and none the worse for it. Perhaps also a contender for the sexiest vocals ever?

Louie Louie  by Julie London
cd318
@bdp24 ,

"Are we to consider well-selling Classical albums Pop music?"

I would. At least certain variants. Here in the UK Classic FM chart often has themes from, wait for it, computer games and films in it. Even their top 300 Hall of Fame features some very well known music. Often much to the purists disdain. Everyone here in the UK will remember Nessun Dorma (World Cup theme 1990) and Freddie Mercury's collaboration with Montserrat Caballe Barcelona (1992 Olympic Games theme).

https://halloffame.classicfm.com/2020/


@desktopguy,

"Every time I hear this, I fall into a spell (song-as-drug):"


That’s a great point about the trance effect. I think the average music listener is drawn to pop before all else just for this reason. They want to move and they want to escape their immediate reality, of only for 3 minutes or so.

Certain records with this quality seemed destined to be instant worldwide hits upon release.

The obvious 2 ones that I can think of were the following.

The Police : Every Breath You TakeThe Bangles : Eternal Flame

@slaw,

The hypnotic Walk Away Renee" by The Left Banke has somehow achieved the near impossible by replacing the also brilliant Four Tops version as my favourite.

The Left Banke Walk Away Renee
https://youtu.be/9_QVUfZv92U

On the flip side of the brilliant "Walk Away Renee" 45 is the also wonderful "Pretty Ballerina". Both are sterling examples of Baroque Pop, a sub-genre. ;-)

We tend to take The Beatles for granted (I perhaps more than most); they had more excellent Pop-type songs than any other Rock Group you can name, from "I Saw Her Standing There", "Please Please Me", "Love Me Do", "She Loves You", and "I Want To Hold Your Hand", to "Come Together", "Because", "Something" (gorgeous), and "Here Comes The Sun", the last two written by George Harrison, who by ’69 had caught up with Lennon & McCartney. McCartney credits Buddy Holly with giving him his sense of melody. Buddy was just getting started when his plane went down, a real tragedy.

A Pop song can be performed in just about any style, and many have been. What is now considered Country, for example, is largely Pop music. A far cry from it’s Hillbilly beginnings.