100 From 1977-2003

While the walls of Marilyn Manson’s ivory tower are built from his commercially successful “The Beautiful People”, the foundation on which it stands is his groundbreaking remake of the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”. His success with the song, however, should come as no surprise, as it served as the stepping-stone for its composers twelve years earlier. While the rest of the new wavers faded into oblivion, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart evolved into the powerfully soulful band they’ve come to be known as worldwide. And though the duo would record other hits — “Here Comes the Rain Again”, “Missionary Man”, and “There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)” — they would never peak at number one in the US again.
      — Michael David Sims

U2 has always liked making big statements. Politics, love, war –- they’re all fodder for the band’s often-anthemic rock. 1987’s The Joshua Tree was a huge statement, launching U2 into the rock superstar stratosphere. Coming in the wake of the failed British Miners’ strike and at a time when street violence in America still had shock value, the album was both a cry of pain and a declaration of hope. The perfect opener for such a passionate album, “Where The Streets Have No Name” contains all the elements that make U2 a great band: a charging, churning musical vibe; intense, quasi-spiritual lyrics and an incredibly catchy melody. From the subtle organ music that leads into the rousing instrumentation and Bono’s pained, impassioned vocals, the song’s “take no prisoners” mentality works on every level. Filled with secular and religious imagery — flames, dust, floods, wind — the song itself is a swirling tornado of sound, but ends with the same type of peacefulness with which it opened. Whether it’s about Bono’s visit to famine-ridden Ethiopia, his views of heaven, or just a passionate plea to a lover, this is one track that sounds as fresh and potent today as it did more than a decade ago.
      — Nicole Pensiero

Let’s get one thing straight right at the top: “I Feel Love” is not now, nor has ever been, a disco song. Yes, its creators — Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte — were among disco’s main architects, but “I Feel Love” was a departure for them, the futuristic, horn-and-string-free climax to an otherwise clumsy concept album called I Remember Yesterday, released in 1977, that was supposed to be Donna Summer’s traipse through musical history. What the song did, with enough pop smarts to make it a top 10 hit and one of the most durable dance club anthems of all time, was bridge the gap between Kraftwerk’s avant garde forays into repetitive electronic music and the synth-pop revolution that groups like New Order and Depeche Mode were to launch just a few years later. Many of the tricks of the trade that electronic dance music employs to this day are already here: the hypnotic, bubbling synths, the metronomic clatter of high-hats and drum machine snares, Summer’s sex kitten cooings, even flange effects and that lockstep, four-on-the-floor kick drum that’s been every club DJ’s best friend ever since.
      — Andy Hermann

It was in 1983 that Michael Jackson ascended from his mundane position of bog standard superstar to assume the official mantle of the Goddamn King of Motherfucking Pop. In that one year, seven of Jackson’s songs would moonwalk into the US Top Ten and he would release what would become the biggest selling album of all time. The album was Thriller. And the greatest song on Thriller was the title track itself, that now legendary pop epic about ghosts, ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. It was funky, it was swathed in keyboards that made your leg jiggle like you had a bad dose of crabs, it was only scary to mentally disturbed children and it came with a fourteen minute, John Landis-directed video starring a troupe of dancers in full zombie make-up that culminates with guest vocalist Vincent Price rapping, “Creatures crawl in search of blood / To terrorise yawls neighbourhood”. See, even in 1983 Michael Jackson was fucking nuts. Still, “Thriller” is the archetypal Jackson hit, timeless yet resolutely stuck in the decade that it helped to define. A lesson in how pop should be done for every insipid boy band that has emerged in its wake, “Thriller” is the song that welded Motown to Tinsletown, took video excess to glorious new heights, and bagged Jackson one of his numerous Grammys that year. Hell, it even introduced the world to Jackson’s iconic red leather suit. And though it’s hard decide which is scarier — Michael Jackson’s Rick Baker-assisted transformation into a werewolf, or the first signs of his surgery-assisted transformation into a plastic ghoul — it’s clear that “Thriller” represents an insane genius at the very top of his game. One more time, yawl: “Girl, this is thriller, thriller night / ‘Cause I can thrill you more than any ghost would dare to try”.
      — Thomas Patterson

The self-titled 1982 album by the Violent Femmes was a seminal, accessible masterwork. It seemed that every confused, alienated high-schooler who heard it was saved, lifted out of his lonely doldrums and invited to the punk party that had hitherto seemed dissonant and unwelcoming. “Blister in the Sun” blew the roof off the angst and insecurity we were feeling, in a song so accessible, so catchy yet simple, anyone could learn to play it on guitar, or could walk off singing it, or screaming it. For a generation of teens who had seen the paradise of their 1970s childhoods come crashing down, “Blister in the Sun” was our anthem, a badge of geeky coolness that brought its wearer sudden, inarguable authority.
      — Erich Kuersten

“Head Like a Hole” seems rather normal now, in the shadow cast by the later work of Trent Reznor and his disciples, but when you first heard it around 1989, it was like sticking your finger in a light socket. Electronic/Industrial music to that point had existed as an obscure subgenre with little hope of breaking wide in a mainstream climate fixated on melody. So Trent Reznor merged the two worlds, crafting meticulous exorcisms and rants so far ahead of the curve that it took the music biz years to figure it out. But figure it out they did, and after Reznor’s 1994 breakthrough, The Downward Spiral, his self-flagellating vision became an industry’s tired formula. “Head Like a Hole”, though, still stands apart — outraged without being tied to a particular cause, electronic without mechanical inhumanity, and a perfect blend of industrial drive and pop hooks.
      — Andrew Gilstrap

Prince playing the sexual naif. Genius. Forget “Get Off”, “Cream”, “Head” and even “Sister” — when the purple wonder is the one on all fours with the glove stuck in his face, pure pop pleasure is a beautiful experience. “Little Red Corvette” captures the formerly-known artist at his playful best — from the maintained-but-not-overdone lyric line to the slow groove of the verses to one of the better choruses written by a man who makes a living on the pop charts, the song cruises from beginning to end with no let up. Add in the layered vocals on the bridge, the always-perfect guitar fills, and you get a ride so smooth it charts amongst the best songs of its generation.
      — Seth Limmer

By the end of the ’70s, with Al Green in church and Teddy Pendergrass in a wheelchair, it seemed like the era of the R&B “love man” was over. Ravaged by drugs and divorced from Motown, Marvin Gaye, some believed, was yet another casualty. But the end of 1982 found Gaye again, for more than two solid months, in the place he had been so many times before: the top of the R&B chart. The song, of course, was “Sexual Healing”, an intoxicating mid-tempo ballad that mixed gentle vocals, lite reggae rhythms, and percolating synthesizer lines. While its sound always moves the crowd to the dancefloor, what’s most interesting about this song is its lyrics. “Sexual Healing” is not a sleazy plea for a woman to come to bed. Rather, Gaye is, like any great lyricist, simply telling us what we know to be true: sex feels good and is “good for us”. This vulnerable, sweet single was Gaye’s biggest hit ever and, sadly, the last great song he recorded before his death in 1984.
      — Jordan Kessler

When Synchronicity came out, I went to the local mall to buy my copy. I had been entranced by the video on the then-young MTV (for the record: when MTV first came out I thought it was the most racist thing since the film Birth of a Nation. My views have not changed). As I stood with the album, waiting for the bus, I ran into a friend. He was with someone he knew and when he asked me what I had a purchased I held it up. His friend made a face and asked, in a voice dripping with disapproval, if I were an Oreo. For the unwashed, an Oreo is a black person who is white on the inside. I tried to defend myself, but got only laughter. I haven’t spoken to that friend since then and Synchronicity has been a mainstay in my album collection ever since.

“Every Breath You Take” is the jewel of the album. Sure, purists will mock the two songs written by guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland, but even those two add nuance to an album that mixes and matches genres — jazz, pop, and rock — without any confusion. “Every Breath You Take” stands out because it is never clear how to read the song. Is it a paean to the vagaries of love, or is it the anthem of a stalker? Maybe it’s both? Is there a difference between a stalker and someone whose love life has been wrecked by heartache?

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I’ll be watching you

Matched with these nuanced words is a score that underscores darkness. There is the lonely bass (in his previous life Sting was a jazz bassist), there are the plaintive violins, and the quiet guitar. In many ways the score, in its simplicity, reinforces that heartache, or obsessive love, are simple emotions; simple because they are so common and ever-present in a world that acts as if love is easy. And if you do not trust me, a proud Oreo, then at least you can trust Puff Daddy. His racial standing is never called into question and when he decided to write about his slain friend, Biggie Smalls, which song did he riff from? This is the song that appeals to those who are unlucky and obsessed with love.
      — James Withers

The impact of a few power chords… The significance of the title track from one of rock’s greatest albums cannot be understated, as they are linked together as one collective entity. “Back in Black” came along at a time when the musical world was in dire need of clarity. The crunch of Angus Young’s guitar gave us a viable alternative to Disco and New Wave without the ponderous overtones of previous metal offerings. Additionally, it expanded the group’s international acclaim to the shores of the US; it saved a band on the brink of collapse by introducing new lead vocalist Brian Johnson to the masses; it stormed the new decade by recreating a genre of music that needed a blast of energy; plus it is arguably the most recognized riff in all of hard rock. That said, the true measure of the song’s greatness comes by way of one simple test: How many people don’t crank it up when they hear it? Exactly . . .
      — Adam Williams