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

Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage!

Kiss - "Love Gun"

Yo MattDC, thanks for the shout out. These just go for me personally, I'm not playing god here! Happy holidays though!

Dinosaur Jr. - "The Lung" or "Freak Scene".

Julian Cope "Sunspots"

Tho' I really appreciate his curatorial efforts and writing.

Eagles - Hotel California
Steely Dan - Reelin' in the Years

Elvis Costello almost works for me but I like Radio Radio as well.

James Taylor - Fire and Rain

lol@ steely dan. one for the headz there.

i dunno, beck and elvis costello and talking heads have lots of songs that i need to hear... i knew i'd disagree with everything in this thread before i opened it.

Foreigner - Dirty White Boy
The Toadies - Possum Kingdom

oh man soundgarden forgot about them. "black hole sun" all the way for me. and then i am so done. but i love that song.

The entire Beach Boys discography can be boiled down to a 7" with "Don't Worry Baby" on one side and "Good Vibrations" on the other, and honestly I can take or leave "Good Vibrations."

Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage!

i'm not a big E6 fan but this is really their worst song

The entire Beach Boys discography can be boiled down

no

lol@ steely dan. one for the headz there

no idea what you are talking about. that one dan song is more than enough for me.

Hi Iago! Happy Christmas as well, I feel a bit bad about jumping on you on this thread even if you are unjustly depriving yourself of the Blondie back catalogue.

The entire Beach Boys discography can be boiled down to a 7" with "Don't Worry Baby" on one side and "Good Vibrations" on the other, and honestly I can take or leave "Good Vibrations."

― 誤訳侮辱, Monday, December 24, 2012 2:26 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol now do the beatles

It's OK, Matt DC. I must say, I know Blondie the least of the three so I am going to give them another shot. Merry Xmas to you too!

oh yeah, happy holidays everyone! Could 2012 have sucked any worse? I guess if Mittens won, but otherwise, a bummer of a year

"Union City Blue" is my pick for best Blondie song which sounds nothing like "Heart of Glass" (which I love, and generally my favourite Blondie songs somewhat resemble it). But I guess that's a question for a Blondie thread.

that bob marley one

lol now do the beatles

I hate the Beatles more than anyone you know hates anything.

you sound cool

these are all subjective but I guess that's the point. feel free to debate any of them cos i prolly don't know what i'm talking about.

The Eagles "I Can't Tell You Why"
Heart "These Dreams"
The Alan Parsons Project "Eye In The Sky"
Fall Out Boy "Dance Dance"
Sugar Ray "Someday"
Chris Isaak "Wicked Game"
Del Amitri "Roll To Me"
Powerman 5000 "When Worlds Collide"
Boyz II Men "Motownphilly"
The Flamin' Groovies "Shake Some Action"
Rod Stewart "Maggie May"

Eagles, Alan Parsons, Flamin Groovies, and Rod all OTM for me

Rod Stewart - Young Turks

Is surely what you meant.

Man, Heart is essential listening

smashing pumpkins - cherub rock

hope I don't piss anyone off too bad with this one, but: Shriekback - My Spine (Is the Bassline)

Have tried, but nothing else I've heard by them grabs me at all. If any huge fans think I am missing out on the rest of their catalog, I would love some suggestions.

cat power - metal heart

not really large catalogues i guess, but still
beach house - zebra
xx - vcr
bon iver - skinny love

I think if you only picked Strawberry Fields Forever and associated boots flying around that would be enough for The Beatles.

There are people who have made better blues and girl scream pop, better concrete or used sitars in their tracks more interrestingly, had better riffs or did the studio as an instrument thing...so for all the goodies in their immense catalogue you could actually get away w/SFF. Besides, so many tendencies are there in one single song that its a good sum.

That's what I do anyway.

America - A Horse With No Name

cat power - metal heart

Jukebox or Moon Pix version?

Ventura Highway by America is hundred times better than Horse With No Name.

i mean seeeeriously rules so hard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5J54RVZjYs

And to play to type:

Bardo Pond - "Tommy Gun Angel"
Cocteau Twins - "Donimo"
Dead Can Dance - "Summoning of the Muse"
Stereolab - you know, the one that sounds like Neu! or Faust.

cat power - metal heart
Jukebox or Moon Pix version?

metal heart is the song i was going to post -- but i need both versions
i want her to keep recording this every 10 years until she's 90 years old
it's the only cat power song i need by a wide margin

Electric Six, but 'Gay Bar' instead of 'D!HV'.
A bit unfair on Rod Stewart, as he had loads more great songs besides 'Maggie May' - although everything since about 1992 can be skipped.

Lazy and obvious, but...Mudhoney - Touch Me I'm Sick. Honestly assumed this would be mentioned in first 5 replies

They're great and all, but really.

radiohead, maybe 'there there'. nb i love radiohead

should be good for another hundred posts or so *crosses fingers*

oh i know who is the ultimate example of this for me is bjork

America - A Horse With No Name
i love about 9 songs by this band

Fela "Lady"
Neu! + La Dusseldorf "Hallogallo"

I don't think saying "this band can be reduced" is a bad thing. I think it shows a clarity of intent.

Until recently, the only Grateful Dead song I ever needed (or wanted) to hear was "Box of Rain."

Rod Stewart - Young Turks

Is surely what you meant.

No I think he said "Hot Legs"

"cat power - metal heart
Jukebox or Moon Pix version?"

moon pix

otm, but i like them both. fortunately, the rules do not limit different recordings of the one song

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