Instant Classics

[suzzer99]

You know a song that I think might belong on here is Classical Gas.

[JuntMonkey]

Broken Wings
Sister Christian
Ghostbusters
Hotel California
Jingle Bell Rock
That Was a Crazy Game of Poker
Buffy theme song
Woke Up this Morning (Sopranos theme song)
Rhapsody in Blue
Kids in America
My Heart Will Go On
C is for Cookie

[Shilly]

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Not sure how "Don't Stop Believing" is in the mix - I like Journey alot, but it reeks of 80s "pop-rock" and I know plenty of people who do not like it (although if this thread is about finding like, the quintessence of each genre, then that's a good choice).

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Maybe it doesn't define its genre in the way some of the other songs do, but it's one of those songs that 99% of people know and will sing together in a bar or party setting, whereas some of the songs mentioned in this thread didn't even get radio airplay.

[AJFenix]

Warren G - Regulators

I don't know anyone that has heard and doesn't like this song.

[miajag]

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Good Vibrations - Beach Boys - is there a better pop song?

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Wouldn't it be nice and kokomo

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rofl

[dizong]

california girls - beach boys
touch me - doors
hey jude - beatles
norwegian wood - beatles
rock and roll - led zeppelin
hey ya - outkast
teenage riot - sonic youth
linus and lucy - vince guaraldi

[NajdorfDefense]

Superstitious - Stevie Wonder
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Head Like a Hole - NiN
Under My Thumb - Stones
Rosalita - Bruce
Roxanne - Police
Truckin' - the Dead
Good Vibrations - Beach Boys
James Brown is Dead - LA Style
Happy Birthday...

[Marwan]

The Smiths - How Soon is Now
Michael Jackson has a bunch - Thriller/Billie Jean etc

[pvn]

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I'm thinking of songs that are so good they transcend their genre, like the kind that come along once a decade or so. For the most part, these songs will click with everyone who hears them, immediately. IE - you could play one for a bushman in New Guinea, and he'd immediately start humming along or dancing or whatever was appropriate to the song.

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CCR's cover of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine"

This recording (the 12-minute version) is so unbelievably mind-blowing that in transcends all sorts of genres. The essence of motown in a blues-based-classic-rock jam session; the two styles have so much ancestry in common already that they build off of each other's strengths and create positive feedback loops.

Bill Monroe's "The Walls of Time"

No doubt one of *the* greatest (in the influence sense) and best (in the general impressiveness in and of itself sense) bluegrass songs ever (it effectively defines all of the major bluegrass motifs even to this day - it's sort of the bluegrass version of David Allen Coe's "greatest country song ever" portion of "you never even call me by my name," but for real).

[relaxwithtrudy]

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Ok, so in efforts to clarify - here's my completely subjective opinion on the classics, and maybes, since my original three.

Classics:
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Hey Jude
Hey Ya
Friends in Low Places (I hate just about all young country except this song, there has to be some older country too, but I can't think of one right now)

Maybes:
Fake Plastic Trees (is it popular enough?)
Under the Bridge (I'm not totally nuts about it, but if everyone else is...)
Sir Duke, Tears of a Clown, Let's Get it On, and a bunch of motown songs (hmmm)
Billie Jean

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PASS.

weezer, buddy holly.