[Music] What is the best single record EVER? (Your choice not the critics ones)

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Questions

Habitual User
Oct 18, 2006
25,504
Worthing
Note - I'm a historian and songs which reference historical events are right up there for me. Thought about We Didn't Start The Fire but went with this;



Yes this could be just about the best ———— till tomorrow....... such memories from Twickenham when my wife, me and friends were so coked up it was a pretty amazing experience when they did this. After 2 E’s I came up on ‘you can’t always get what you want’ and that runs this close.............

Live is just so memorable isn’t it.
 






Whitechapel

Famous Last Words
Jul 19, 2014
4,408
Not in Whitechapel


Somehow Frank Ocean managed to cram an albums worth of ideas in to one song. A soul/R&B/Funk/Princeesq/Status Quoesq epic about ancient Egpypt which compares Cleopatra and a prostitue living in modern day Vegas. Here's a few snippets from reviews that do it more justice than I ever could.

"structurally ramshackle though never erratic, it's the type of massive album centrepiece that was inconceivable before The-Dream's stadium-R&B reinvented the genre as a mythological epic"

"so much more than a song; it is an audible baptism, a narrative delicacy, a self-indulgent experience! And you best believe once you press play, this ride will take you to the destination of your choice."

"Verses and hooks collapse onto each other, rhymes pop up out of nowhere, and the singer acts like minutely balancing a 10-minute concept piece is no big deal"

"righteous funk opus that spans nearly 10 minutes"

"a 10-minute, tempo-shifting, minor-chord narrative of Egyptian queens and Las Vegas strippers, marrying Tangerine Dream sequencers and a jazzy John Mayer guitar solo to a rapturous slow jam – and make it all seem to make sense"
 




Frankie

Put him in the curry
May 23, 2016
4,383
Mid west Wales
The only record I can remember heading to the dance floor was Love Action by Human League .

The opening 5 seconds of the tune is instantly recognisable , even today it's one of those songs that get people on the dance floor.
 


Robinjakarta

Well-known member
Jul 14, 2014
2,163
Jakarta
So, just the one choice please, no “oooh I’m not sure, could be this could be that and I’ll list 10, which will probably all change tomorrow” :wink:

Has to have been released as a single too, no album tracks that weren’t singles

I guess it’s almost certainly going to be a wide choice of songs from the last 70 (feck me :down:) years and depending on your age, a song from your teenage years

Nothing controversial here if you’re an old codger, this is mine

Expecting lots of Punk to appear


https://youtu.be/IwOfCgkyEj0

I was going to pick that one!
 
















getz

Active member
Jan 15, 2010
230
Whenever I hear Dionne Warwick's "Walk on by" memories of the Regent Ballroom come to me. One for the OAP's out there!
 


Robinjakarta

Well-known member
Jul 14, 2014
2,163
Jakarta
Was a toss up between this and Like A Rolling Stone for me. My Back Pages was not far behind

Same plus honourable mentions for Positively 4th Street and The Times They Are 'a Changin.

The first time I heard Mr Tambourine Man, I was all-night fishing in the Sussex countryside when I heard this sound wafting through the 5am or so early morning breeze from my transistor radio. Couldn't believe what I was hearing. In a great year for music, this was something else, as the influence of the Byrds showed.
 


















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