Daniel Brasher's Top 50 Album Countdown

Musician. Entreprenuer. Actor. PR Man. Travelling Wilbury.

[hurleyquinnzel]

Songs that never fail to make white people beyond turnt

 Don’t Stop Believing 

Bohemian Rhapsody 

Living On A Prayer 

Come On Eileen 

Sweet Caroline 

Shot Through the Heart 

Pour Some Sugar on Me 

Sweet Home Alabama 

Under Pressure 

Shook Me All Night Long 

Ice Ice Baby 

Cotton Eyed Joe

500 Miles

Wonderwall 

Buddy Holly 

A Thousand Miles 

Teenage Dirtbag 

Red Solo Cup 

Mr Brightside 

Never Gonna Give You Up 

Eye of the Tiger 

Chicken Fried 

American Pie 

I Love Rock and Roll 

Dancing Queen 

Don’t You Want Me

We Will Rock You 

The Time Warp 

Hey Jude 

Piano Man

This Is How We Do It

Drops of Jupiter 

Hey Soul Sister

In The End 

All The Small Things 

Stacy’s Mom 

Kryptonite 

All Star 

You Found Me

Bad Day 

Bring Me To Life 

Dance, Dance

Sugar We’re Going Down 

I Write Sins Not Tragedies 

All The Small Things 

Ocean Avenue 

Dirty Little Secret 

Margaritaville 

Sk8er Boi

Brown Eyed Girl 

Life Is A Highway 

Some Nights 

Little Lion Man 

Breakeven

Hey There Delilah 

Viva La Vida

Use Somebody 

Carry On My Wayward Son 

Take On Me

1985 

Iris 

I’m Awesome 

Seven Nation Army 

September 

Since U Been Gone

Skinny Love 

Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)

Bye Bye Bye 

Say It Ain’t So 

Somewhere Only We Know 

I’m Yours 

Last Resort 

My Girl 

Tiny Dancer 

Roxanne

Shout 

I’m a Believer 

Soul Man

Feel Good Inc 

Check Yes Juliet

Walking On Sunshine 

MMM Bop

Pumped up Kicks 

Hooked On A Feeling 

It’s A Beautiful Day

Summer Girls 

Before He Cheats 

Happy Together

You Make My Dreams Come True

Build Me Up Buttercup

Escape (The Pina Colada Song)

DONTTRUSTME

Shake It (Metro Station)

Juke Box Hero

Girls Just Want To Have Fun

[lastoneout]

Why u gotta drag me like this

[tackysapphic]

why bruh. Why u gotta do this

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Take that Andy Warhol! Velvet Underground & Nico cover reinterpreted in black and white.

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46. The Velvet Underground & Nico

Best Song: Venus in Furs

How did this album ever get made? It was just so ahead of it’s time and still sounds fresh today. It’s sonic distortion and proto-punk laid the foundation for everything to be loved about music dating back from the 60s onwards. There are many great tracks to indulge in here. ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘Heroin’ are both deceptively sweet - at least at first. The iconic low vocals on ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ is a career highlight for Nico who collaborated on this album at Andy Warhol’s request. ‘Venus In Furs’ is the standout moment however; played in an odd mode with some alternate tuning - this was the sign of the darker rock to emerge in the 70s. However, if you wanted more proof that these guys predated the Sex Pistols by over a decade listen to ‘European Son’; it’s simply trashy noise played like a symphony. This is a very early experiment in rock’n roll with dynamics and avant garde soundscapes. It makes for a chaotic vision of musical expression.

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Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet. Read the review :)

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47. The Juliet Letters (Elvis Costello & the Brodsky Quartet)

Best Song: This Offer Is Unrepeatable

By 1993 Costello had gone from Rock’N Roll to Ska to even a full-on God-honest Country album. What hadn’t he done? Classical music. Yep, this album is probably the best collection of song and lyrics Costello has ever produced. His collaboration with popular classical musicians, the Brodsky Quartet, was initially inspired by a fan-letter Costello received from a soldier during the Gulf War. Costello takes on about a dozen different characters, each writing to lovers, brothers, mothers and many others. ‘This Offer Is Unrepeatable’ is a rebel-rousing piece of junk mail delivered like a pitch from the Devil. In 2011 I performed in a cabaret adaptation of this album, I had the privilege of performing ‘Taking My Life In Your Hands’ written from the perspective of a desperate rejected man writing to the object of his obsession. Elvis Costello’s imagination is wicked and unsettlingly astute. The Brodsky Quartet write such moving passages and doubled with the best writing of Costello’s career this album is an underrated gem.

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The Pixies portrait. Painstakingly recreated with oil paints.

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48. Surfer Rosa / Come On Pilgrim (The Pixies)

Best Song:       Caribou

Very few artists are as sonically inventive and diverse as the Pixies. Most astonishing is they developed out of the heartland of America isolated from the larger music scenes. Their manic energy swings from restrained to demonic and makes for endless hours of listening. This compilation album features both their debut EP and initial mini-album and has some of their best tracks. Their most famous track ‘Where is My Mind?’ can be heard on the closing credits to the film Fight Club. Other than the at-turns-beautiful-at-turns-scary performance on ‘Caribou’ there is the pure deranged fury of ‘Broken Face’ and ‘Vamos’ which degenerates into random screams. ‘Nimrod’s Son’, about a motorcyclist born of incest, has one of the catchiest rockabilly rhythm sections of all time. Frank Black has a definite talent for melody and juxtaposition. The frequent screaming of Black and droll chants of Kim Deal contrast so beautifully against the pounding rhythms of David Lovering and unique licks of surf-rocker Joey Santiago.

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Jeff Buckley. Photo-shopping.

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49. Live At Sin-E (Jeff Buckley)

 BEST SONG:       Just Like A Woman

‘Grace’ is a crowning achievement. There is no other album that is as touching and informed. From the wicked ‘guitar magic’ of Gary Lucas comes some truly mindboggling sounds I’ve only ever heard rivaled by Ry Cooder. But, sometimes you need to look at the black and white to see how truly strong a performer and their songs are. I was pretty shocked when I first heard Buckley perform ‘Be Your Husband’ just him and his 1983 Fender Telecaster. I was astonished by his skill and creativity as a solo performer. Ever since I’ve been trying to be as evocative a solo performer as he was during his Café Days. In this set, done over two nights at the height of Buckley fever in NY before his first major record deal, he covers some jazz and pop standards and a few obscure rock songs.

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Leonard Cohen. Two-minute photoshop painting!

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50. I’m Your Man (Leonard Cohen Tribute Album)

BEST SONG: I Can’t Forget

Is there anything better than musical poet laureate Leonard Cohen? Perhaps not, or perhaps it’s Leonard Cohen being covered live in concert by the Jarvis Cocker and Nick Cave. This album and the accompanying live concert are electric. The caliber of each performance and the accompaniment are superb. Nothing beats listening to Rufus’s honky tonk rendition of ‘Everybody Knows’, or the sleazy sax on Nick Cave’s dirty-as-dirty-can-be ‘I’m Your Man’. My favourite is the wailing musical saw on Jarvis Cocker’s ‘I Can’t Forget’ (which is formerly covered on a tribute album by The Pixies). Every artist deepens the impact and meaning of the song in their own unique way. There are some dud covers in my opinion, but overall this is a touching tribute to the genius of Leonard Cohen. ‘There is a crack in everything/ but that's how the light gets in’.