The 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era: 80-61

By Andy Dougherty (@AndyDougherty10)

Ed. Note- We continue our look at the 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era with Part Two of our five-part series. To look back at songs No. 100-81, and to see Andy's methodology, click here.

80. A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum, 1967

Numerous sources cite ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ as the most-played record in the UK since the mid 1930s. Rolling Stone called Procol Harum’s surreal debut “a somber hymn supported by an organ theme straight out of Bach,” and noted that it “helped kick-start the classical-rock boomlet that gave the world the Moody Blues.” Said The Guardian’s Richard Williams, “it skipped across centuries with its infallibly seductive Bach-goes-to-Muscle Shoals organ lead and chord progression and a wonderfully dippy lyric which could be taken to mean anything or nothing…[Gary Brooker’s] blue eyed soul voice proved oddly perfect for this eternally enigmatic masterpiece.”

The 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era: 100-81

 By Andy Dougherty (@AndyDougherty10)

Ed. Note: This is the first in a series of pieces by correspondent Andy Dougherty, who has compiled numerous critical lists and rankings with the hope of creating a definitive list of the Top-100 songs of the modern era. Think of this as the Rotten Tomatoes of music, and check back each day this week as the countdown continues.

Over the past few years, I have taken opinions from countless sources and aggregated 60 lists of the greatest songs of all-time, with the purpose of arriving as close as I could to one definitive list of outstanding, important, classic songs.

I have always been a huge fan of rock and pop music with a broad range of tastes. Plenty of websites have great music recommendations, but each of them is biased in its own way. Some insist that all of today’s music is garbage while others are completely ignorant of the past. Some are too US-centric; others are too UK-centric. Many show expertise in one or two genres while overlooking everything else.

I studied music in college, and most of my classmates focused on classical or avant-garde music. But I wanted to study rock and pop music seriously. To help with that goal, I wanted to find a source that factored in as many of these biases and differences in opinions as possible to create a diverse list of fantastic songs to recommend.

I found many sites that tried (besteveralbums.com, vinylsurrender.com, acclaimedmusic.net, to name a few). Acclaimed Music is the most comprehensive music website I have come across. I love the site, and it has helped me discover thousands of great songs, but I found some of its rankings hard to accept: ‘Yesterday’ outside the top 100? ‘Piano Man’ outside the top 1000? ‘See Emily Play’ as the only Pink Floyd song in the top 300 at No. 194?

Unsatisfied with what the Internet had to offer, I decided to try to emulate Acclaimed Music’s mission with my own methodology.