30 Great sounding songs.

30 Great sounding songs.

I got together with several music enthusiasts and a couple of musicians and over a period of three months we tried to give an unbiased verdict on what really are 30 great sounding songs. All genres were taken into account. Songs great because of their lyrical content were ignored.

Firstly we had to define what good sound was, we all agreed that sounds in the vain of babies cries, generator noise, screaming, creaking, banging, screeching, and barking were all unpleasant and offensive to the ears, but good sounds? Well, this was harder to determine – I came up with the whale theory i.e. it’s calming for pregnant women and stressed out people, I also believe a guitar played at its best will give a whale like audio quality. Seagulls calls cropped up a lot as being soothing, a soft voice over a piercing shout, the sound rain makes on leaves, a soft wind rustling past something, around mid octave vocal harmonies.
Instrument wise we all thought a Glockenspiel or harp were incapable of grating our hearing sense, something to do with a note quality that’s well rounded and slightly muffled.
We agreed a heavily distorted chord thrashed guitar sounded unpleasant but it did evoke enjoyment through its energy, it was hard to relax to but the adrenaline levels soared.

There was a problem with this theory though, all songs have more than one separate sound incorporated in their structure, some bad and some good in the same piece, we realised these combined sounds would have to be determined to be good through our perception and imagination. We had to distinguish between different imagery i.e. some noises can sound similar to a waterfall or detuned radio, a waterfall is considered beautiful a detuned radio is about as bad as it gets, we thought so long as it’s not the sound of a waterfall we’d consider the sound unpleasant. (Fridge buzz) In most cases a song had long passages of good sound and bad sound, one song had beautiful piano, soft lyrics and endearing vocal harmonies but it encompassed the harshest of guitar solos, this was part of the songs effect, a release from the growing tension. It got to the point were we had to say on the whole the song sounds great but its how the combined sounds and vocals evoke incredible emotion that makes this song stand out, this was through passion, atmosphere or sadness. Songs that portrayed an intense feeling of energy/anger/excitement had to be kept tight and controlled, not too noisy, we looked for the use of musical suggestion (maybe an increase in tempo/vocal harmonies etc)
All these moods created by our combined interpretation of the sounds were the deciding factor in stating why we felt one song was better than the next, some songs sounded very similar or were similarly enjoyable, so we went on which had the most feeling. We tried to select 30 atmospheric songs that anybody from the age of 2 to 102 would find melodious.

So here they are in no particular order:

Radiohead – Street spirit (fade out)
Michael Jackson – One day in your life
Andy Williams – Where do I begin
Moody Blues – Knights in white satin
Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
The Beatles – The long and winding road
10 CC – I’m not in love
Genesis - Ripples
Radiohead – Paranoid Android
Annie Lennox – Love song for a vampire
John Williams (Stanley Myers) – Cavatina
Bjork – Come to me
LucianoPavarotti – Nessun Dorma
Genesis – Blood on the rooftops
Ennio Morricone – Chi mai
Pink Floyd – Sea-saw
Michael Jackson – Why
Bjork – Play dead
Aled Jones – Walking in the air
Ascension – Someone like you (orig edit)
Pink Floyd – The narrow way part3
Michael Jackson - Earth song
Carpenters – For all we know
George Michael – Cowboys and angels
Genesis – Mad, mad moon
Righteous Brothers - Unchained melody
The Beatles – Something
Genesis – Snowbound
Sheryl Crow – Tomorrow never dies (full length CD version – not the raw film one)
Radiohead – Sail to the moon

There were a few other artists who just missed out, including – Simon & Garfunkle, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie.

If you feel any of our chosen 30 songs sound bad state why.
What song/songs do you feel should be on the list.
Do you think we were bias towards certain acts?

Thanks....

G.L - T.A - R.M - C.B - D.G - A.P - L.W - J.H - N.S - A.S - M.J - J.T - C.S
AND THOSE C**NTS WHO HATED EVERYTHING IN THE 250 SHORTLIST.