I thought we’d do something very different today, just to break things up. A completely off-topic topic. I’m stealing this idea from something I saw on social media. The idea is pretty simple. Just list your 20 favorite songs (of all time). But to make things interesting, there’s a catch. You can’t use the same band or artist twice! (So if you pick Hey Jude, you can’t pick any more Beatles songs)
My list is below. I started with my favorite bands/artists (in particular ones that were at one point my favorite band) and tried to pick my favorite of their songs. I didn’t want this to take forever, so whenever I was stuck deciding between a few different songs, I always just went with my first instinct and moved on. Even then it still took a long time and my list of honorable mentions was long. I tend to like a wide variety of types of music but this pretty well represents what I favor over others.
I did this exercise with some of my friends from college and we created a shared playlist on Spotify. The fun part about that was sampling styles and artists that I knew about but didn’t spend a lot of time listening to in the past. The transition from “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” to “Master of Puppets” is jarring let me tell you. All in all it was a lot of fun. I recommend it!
Anyway, here is my list.
- Smashing Pumpkins – Mayonaise
- Pearl Jam – Black
- Led Zepplin – When the Levee Breaks
- Twenty One Pilots – Car Radio
- AJR – 100 Bad Days
- Jimmy Eat World – Always Be
- Childish Gambino – 3005
- AWOLNATION – Kill Your Heroes
- Our Lady Peace – Clumsy
- Dave Matthews Band – Ants Marching
- Blink 182 – After Midnight
- Beck – Where It’s At
- The Who – Baba O’Riley
- Kings of Leon – Waste a Moment
- Metalica – Master of Puppets
- Rascal Flatts – Prayin’ for Daylight
- Rush – Tom Sawyer
- Vampire Weekend – Giving Up The Gun
- Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger
- Stone Temple Pilots – Big Empty
Hardest Omissions: The Killers, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Green Day, Chance the Rapper, Jars of Clay/Third Day/DC Talk, Boston, Mumford & Sons, Of Monsters and Men, Lumineers, 2Pac and Kendrick Lamar
Now it is your turn. Share your list in the comments below! Remember, there are no wrong answers (unless you list something from Limp Bizkit – in which case you are very wrong and you should reconsider everything).
Enjoy the next few hours of glorious wasted time.
