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

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

Blue Cheer's version of "Summertime Blues." I like that one OTT cover tune, have no need for any more by them.

coldplay - yellow
eminem - my name is
kanye west - through the wire
the strokes - last night
bright eyes - waste of paint
the smiths - how soon is now
gorillaz - clint eastwood
delibes - lakme (the flower duet)

how soon is now is a good smiths pick. kinda get all your smithiness right there. could definitely understand someone picking ace of spades by motorhead for the same reason.

I was about to say that "How Soon Is Now" is a distinctly bad Smiths pick, since it doesn't sound much like anything else they did! It's a total one-off in their catalog. And is 2-3 minutes too long. If I had to pick one song to get all your Smithiness from, it'd be "Still Ill".

Thinking the same myself, a very un-Smiths song to me.

its so epic though. and i can definitely see someone who doesn't care about the smiths listening to it a lot. i just meant that lyrically/emotionally its got all the smithiness but then it has the rock wallop and it makes sense for a non-fan to pick that one. more so than the other well known stuff like this charming man or whatever.

no non-smiths fan is gonna pick still ill as the one smiths song they listen to!

and suedehead would be prefect for non-moz people too.

Oh, I wasn't thinking about what song the non-fan would be most likely to enjoy--I was thinking about what song nails the basic essence of the band so well that you could hear just that one track and understand what they're about. But I see now that I may have missed the point of the thread.

Yeah, I'm in the camp of loving "How Soon..." and really not being much into other Smiths.

Smiths don't fit in here imo (my POO would be "Ask" though, duh)

I don't think there's any sort of "don't fit" about this though. It's highly subjective, one song I think is awesome and a bunch of others by the same artist that don't do much for me.

Which isn't the same as picking one song that encapsulates the band.

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