The Over Thought Podcast: Breaking Down The 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era

The gang returns from hiatus to discuss SuiteSports.com's list of The 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era.

Contributor Andy Dougherty, who compiled the list, joined editors Joe Parello and Jeremy Conlin, along with their buddy Joe Blake, to break down the list, and discuss the future of music in general.

To see the complete list, click here, and check out the podcast below.

Ed. Note and Fact Check: At 22:25 of the podcast, Joe Parello asserts that "Jock Rock" came out before "Jock Jams," and Joe Blake claimed he was mistaken. Well the joke's on you, Joe Blake, because "Jock Rock" came out in 1994 and "Jock Jams" came out in 1995.

Oh, and we chose "Hotel California" as the image for this article solely because Jeremy hates it. Enjoy!

The 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era: The Top-20

By Andy Dougherty (@AndyDougherty10)

Ed. Note- We continue our look at the 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era with the final installment of our five-part series.

For Part One and Andy's methodology, click here.

For Part Two, click here.

For Part Three, click here.

For Part Four, click here.

20. London Calling by The Clash, 1979

“Without warning, the drums and guitars hit in unison, opening the song and the album with a heavy hammering groove. It’s like an inverted reggae song -- downbeat chords instead of upstrokes -- though Simonon’s spare bass boom gives it a slight dub feel. From there, it’s all Armageddon prophesying and unwillingness to lay down and die,” said Billboard. Pitchfork described the song as “the record’s cosmic lynchpin: Horrifyingly apocalyptic, ‘London Calling’ is riddled with weird werewolf howls and big, prophetic hollers, Mick Jones’ punchy guitar bursts tapping little nails into our skulls, pushing hard for total lunacy. Empowered and unafraid, [Joe] Strummer reveals self-skewering prophecies, panting hard about nuclear errors and impending ice ages.

He also spitefully lodges some of the most unpleasantly convincing calls to arms ever committed to tape.” PopMatters said, “No time before or since has Joe Strummer been more pointed lyrically, or more vocally persuasive, more rebellious in his individualism, howling as it were because he really meant it; a sincerity that makes his shout, “forget it brother, and go it alone," sound like the easiest solution to being let down and left out by the masses…topping it would be impossible.”

The 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era: 40-21

By Andy Dougherty (@AndyDougherty10)

Ed. Note- We continue our look at the 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era with Part Four of our five-part series.

For Part One and Andy's methodology, click here.

For Part Two, click here.

For Part Three, click here.

Continue reading for Part Four.

The 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era: 60-41

By Andy Dougherty (@AndyDougherty10)

Ed. Note- We continue our look at the 100 Greatest Songs of the Modern Era with Part Three of our five-part series.

For Part One and Andy's methodology, click here.

For Part Two, click here.

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.

Forgot About That $#!+ Friday: A Crap Reason To Stay Together

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

In January 1996, I suppose Todd Pipes was having an argument with his ladyfriend. This argument was bad news. It would probably lead to the end of their relationship. His ladyfriend said that they had nothing in common, that the world had come between them. They were falling apart.

Forgot About that $#!+ Friday: Every Other Juvenile Song

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

Everybody remembers Juvenile's breakthrough hit "Back that Azz Up."

The ode to ass shaking reached No. 15 on the Billboard 100, practically started the "twerk song" movement, introduced the mainstream to Lil Wayne, helped his album 400 Degreez reach 4x Platinum, and paved the way for The Big Tymers to become stars.

But what most people don't remember is that Juvenile had several other hits, including a No. 1 single back in 2003. The reason you don't remember them: They were pretty much all terrible.

So, let's take a look back at some of Juve The Great's other hits.

Forgot About that $#!+ Friday: A Subtle Suicide Note

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

Back in 1999, there were plenty of reasons to want to kill yourself.

There was the Y2K scare, Columbine High School shooting, Monica Lewinsky's cringe-worthy sit-down with Barbara Walters, Wild Wild West (Both the movie and song), Cher's "Believe" topping the charts,  and Bret Hart getting his brains kicked out by Goldberg.

Yeezus, How Did We Get Here?!?!

Credit: RapGenius.com                                                                                        

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

I recently wrote a review of Fast and Furious 6 where I wondered just how on the Earth the franchise had advanced from the first film about cars and the racing subculture of LA, all the way to the international heist/anti-terrorism summer blockbuster the latest installment was.

Yeezus, the latest album from polarizing artist, lyrical genius voice of a generation, and gay fish Kanye West has the same feel. If you listen to his first studio album The College Dropout, a masterpiece from early 2004, then turn Yeezus on, you'd be hard pressed to find many similarities.