artist/band with large catalog and you only really need to hear one song by them.

Cream - Badge

This is a good one.

Donovan - Sunshine Superman
Eurythmics - Never Gonna Cry Again
Chicago - 25 or 6 to 4

> Patti Smith - Because the Night

For the purposes of the thread, I'd say "Gloria".

i really like 3 patti songs. people have the power, because the night, and pissing in the river. so, can't pick one. always happy to hear those three songs. that's it though. any more than that is too much for me.

Would say New Sensation is the essence of INXS

Doesn't really explain earlier stand out stuff like Don't Change but is the template for every post-Kick single

Or rather every post-87 single that people liked and wasn't a ballad.

More than any other act on this thread, Patti Smith is one I'd walk five miles to see her sing live, and I'm only a casual fan, she's such a great performer with such a broad legacy I can't even think about reducing her to a single song she recorded many years ago

Unlike say Jonathan Richman who I love seeing live and have high-fived several of his latter-day records but everybody knows it's Roadrunner forever

Thought it was "Ice Cream Man."

Donovan - Sunshine Superman

YES. Good one!

I own nothing by him, and radio has kind of forgotten him, but I would dig pretty much any Donovan cut that came on the radio.

Donovan - Sunshine Superman

;_; I love so many Donovan songs but this is so true. Peggy Lipton's cover of "Wear your love like heaven" even begins with a "Sunshine Superman" quote

Unlike say Jonathan Richman who I love seeing live and have high-fived several of his latter-day records but everybody knows it's Roadrunner forever

― capital in ruins, thousands dead (flamboyant goon tie included)

Desmond Dekker - The Israelites

I love Sleater-Kinney to the ends of the earth, but I don't think they ever touched the perfection of Start Together.

Janis Joplin I also dig, but that famous live version of Ball And Chain is gorgeous, passionate, and probably better than Big Mama Thornton's (the only time I'll ever say that about a white rock band's cover of a black blues song).

And ignoring what a cultural behemoth Johnny B. Goode is, Promised Land is far and away the best song Chuck Berry ever wrote.

Low - (other than a handful of their Christmas songs come the season) - Lazerbeam.

Desmond Dekker has a surprisingly rich catalogue of songs. I'm always impressed when I listen to his stuff. Songs like 'It Mek', 'Problems', 'Dracula', 'Fu Manchu' are all just as deserving as the classic 'Israelites'.

'Roadrunner' is no way my favourite Jonathan Richman song, but that will all depend on your threshold for his schtick. That song is a straight ahead blues/punk number that pulls no punches, but somehow I find something like 'Ice Cream Man', 'Abdul & Cleopatra' or 'The Morning Of Our Lives' far more indicative of his style (and ultimately more entertaining) than 'Roadrunner'.

Roadrunner is a bit like Teenage Kicks in that it's a song that sounds so full, such a perfect capturing of an aesthetic, that you don't feel the artist could do any better. You really can get everything you want from that artist from that one song. I've actually had the same thing with Hallogallo, rightly or wrongly.

This is Will Oldham for me, I think. "I See a Darkness" is a great song, but I could take or leave the rest. I've got three or four of his albums (none of which feature the song I actually like) and I've never really been able to connect with his stuff.

Os Mutantes - Panis et Circenses