Neil Young

Country Home
White Line
Fuckin Up
Mother Earth
My My Hey Hey
Powderfinger
Sedan Delivery
Don’t Cry No Tears
Danger Bird
Cortez the Killer
Through My Sails
Barstool Blues
Cinnamon girl
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
Down By the River
Cowgirl in the sand
Tell Me Why
After the Goldrush
Only Love Can break Your Heart
Southern Man
Don’t Let it Bring You Down
Goin Back
Comes A Time
Lotta Love
Human Highway
Peace Of Mind
Out on the Weekend
A man needs a maid (Massey Hall)
Look out for my love
Heart of gold
Are you Ready for the country
Old Man
There’s a world
Alabama
The Needle and the damage done
Words
The painter
Tonights the Night
World on a string
Mellow my mind
Speakin Out
Albuquerque
Lookout Joe
Old Laughing Lady
The Loner
The Last Trip to Tulsa
Time fades Away
Journey through the past
LA
Walk On
See the sky about to rain
For the Turnstiles
On the Beach
Motion Pictures
Ambulance Blues
Like A Hurricane
Harvest Moon
Unknown Legend
From Hank to Hendrix
One of these days
Rockin in the free world
My Heart
Sleeps with Angels
Change your mind
Train of love
Roll Another Number
Western Hero
I’m the Ocean
Downtown
Fallen Angel
Falling from above
Leave the Driving
Carmichael
Bandit
Be the Rain
The Way
Families
Boxcar
Ordinary People
Ever After
No hidden Path
On the Way home
Ohio
Helpless
Bad fog of loneliness
I am a Child
Dance dance Dance
Come on baby lets go downtown
Winterlong
I Believe in You
No More
Revolution Blues
Sail Away
Sugar Mountain
Thrasher
When You Dance You Can Really Love
Grandpa’s Interview
Mr. Soul
Star of Bethlehem
Broken Arrow

Yo check it

quote:

Originally posted by EricG75:
You think "Jenny and the Ess-Dog" and "Vanessa from Queens" are the only great songs on Stephen Malkmus and Pig Lib?

Actually, I don't own those albums. That's why I've only included 1 song from each.

quote:

Originally posted by EricG75:
You think "Jenny and the Ess-Dog" and "Vanessa from Queens" are the only great songs on Stephen Malkmus and Pig Lib?

I think that's generous.

I think you need to revisit those, MJ.

Malkmus' first solo album is easily as good as the last couple Pavement albums.

"Black Book", "Church On White", "The Hook", "Trojan Curfew", "Jenny & The Ess-Dog", and "Deado" are all excellent tracks.

quote:

Originally posted by EricG75:
I think you need to revisit those, MJ.

Will do.

Have not really had time to research but here are some names I'd like to throw out there;

David Byrne
Ray Charles
James Brown



Closing In:
Eddie Vedder
Matthew Good
Dave Matthews
Outkast (esp. Andre)
Lil' Wayne
Trent Reznor

Close:
Tupac
Bob Marley

And if you want to include a group and their culmination of work, try Wu-Tang! Ghostface alone has to be getting close to a 100.


Not saying any are my favorites, but some names to consider. Apologize for any repeats.

getting close to having written a 100 songs and having written 100 great songs are two entirely different things...

This is a fun discussion, although I feel it all rests on your personal definition of 'great'. For example, I love Neil and have tried to absorb all of his material...and it would be a stretch to say he has 100 'great' songs...even if you are being generous with the definition. Also, if we really want to get into it, what makes a song? Would anything off of Dead man even count as a 'song'? Would different interpretations and mixes of the same song count as more than one? Just as someone brought up that Treefingers and Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors were more relevant within the context of the albums they were a part of, I feel like lots of Neil's material is great because of the material which surrounds it...the feeling of the whole album. How about a thread for artists with 6 or more 'great' albums?
I feel like this thread is kind of focused to more pop sensibilities, cause most of the great post rock/progressive artists are automatically eliminated because of their tendencies to put 3 or 4 songs into one megasong...hahaha.
Anyways i'll stop there cause i'm getting way too into this.

quote:

Originally posted by Nobody6:
Actually, I don't own those albums. That's why I've only included 1 song from each.

I have to go with Eric on this, there's definitely more than one great song on each of those albums. I wouldn't say they're on par with anything Pavement did, but they're great no less.

quote:

Originally posted by Liberalkid:
getting close to having written a 100 songs and having written 100 great songs are two entirely different things...

I honestly can't tell if that's sarcasm or not. Seriously, so what? It's just a number, you know...

Another band that has written 100 or more great songs: The Roots.

The Beatles!

Yeah, I was thinking of including the roots. You could really find quite a few if you want to include producer credits as well, or jazz and electronic artists.

The Roots might have 100 great songs, but don't they all take turns writing? And no, we're not counting production credits, though that might be a nice topic in and of itself.

quote:

Originally posted by shakey:
This is a fun discussion, although I feel it all rests on your personal definition of 'great'. For example, I love Neil and have tried to absorb all of his material...and it would be a stretch to say he has 100 'great' songs...even if you are being generous with the definition. Also, if we really want to get into it, what makes a song? Would anything off of Dead man even count as a 'song'? Would different interpretations and mixes of the same song count as more than one?

I thought Neil Young would be an easy sell, but going through his discography is really quite daunting. I don't profess to be a Neil Young expert, nor do I own all of his albums. I *think* I've heard them all, except the Stills-Young collaboration Long May You Run, which I need to track down. The others that I don't own are for very good reason:

Trans
Everybody's Rockin'
Old Ways
This Note's for You
Are You Passionate

And of course, I don't own either of the Soundtracks (Where the Buffalo Roam and Dead Man), but I have seen both of those movies, and quite liked the score to DM, though the music in WtBR didn't leave much of an impression. I have various live albums, but certainly not all of them, so I won't touch on those. Anywho, here is a list that I came up with. Are they all Great? Who knows. What I do know is that if any of these songs were to come on the radio while I was driving, I would instinctively reach to turn the volume knob up!

Buffalo Springfield:

01. Out of my Mind
02. Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing
03. Burned
04. Do I Have to Come Right Out and Say It
05. Flying On the Ground Is Wrong
06. Mr. Soul
07. Down to the Wire
08. Broken Arrow
09. Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?
10. I Am a Child

Neil Young:

01. The Loner
02. If I Could Have Her Tonight
03. I’ve Been Waiting for You
04. The Old Laughing Lady
05. Here We Are in the Years
06. What Did You Do to My Life?
07. Cinnamon Girl
08. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
09. Down by the River
10. Cowgirl in the Sand
11. Tell Me Why
12. After the Gold Rush
13. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
14. Southern Man
15. Don’t Let It Bring You Down
16. When You Dance You Can Really Love
17. I Believe in You
18. Cripple Creek Ferry
19. Out On the Weekend
20. Harvest
21. Heart of Gold
22. Old Man
23. Alabama
24. The Needle and the Damage Done
25. Words
26. Walk On
27. See the Sky About to Rain
28. Revolution Blues
29. For the Turnstiles
30. Tonight’s the Night
31. World on a String
32. Borrowed Tune
33. Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown (co-written with Danny Whitten)
34. Mellow My Mind
35. Roll Another Number (For the Road)
36. New Mama
37. Tired Eyes
38. Don’t Cry No Tears
39. Pardon My Heart
40. Lookin’ For a Love
41. Barstool Blues
42. Cortez the Killer
43. The Old Country Waltz
44. Hey Babe
45. Hold Back the Tears
46. Star of Bethlehem
47. Will to Love
48. Like a Hurricane
49. Comes a Time
50. Lotta Love
51. Thrasher
52. Powderfinger
53. Pocahontas
54. Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)
55. Field of Opportunity
56. Little Wing
57. The Old Homestead
58. Captain Kennedy
59. Comin’ Apart at Every Nail
60. Op-er-a Star
61. Rockin’ in the Free World
62. Don’t Cry
63. Ways of Love
64. Wrecking Ball
65. Too Far Gone
66. Country Home
67. White Line
68. F*!#in’ Up
69. Mansion on the Hill
70. Days That Used To Be
71. Unknown Legend
72. From Hank to Hendrix
73. You and Me
74. Harvest Moon
75. War of Man
76. My Heart
77. Prime of Life
78. Sleeps With Angels
79. Change Your Mind
80. Song X
81. I’m the Ocean
82. Downtown
83. Changing Highways
84. This Town
85. Good to See You
86. Silver & Gold
87. The Painter
88. After the Garden

CSN&Y:

01. Helpless
02. Ohio

Oooh! No "Losing End" or "Albuquerque", MJ? Good list none the less. Neil is no doubt one of the greats.

This is definitely an elite club. Neil Young, Bob Dylan and The Beatles were the only names to pop into my head that I felt were serious contenders. They are of course the obvious answers, but these folks are legends for a reason you know. How about Bowie? I'm not familiar with all of his records, but with a huge recording career and 7 or 8 great records in the 70s alone, he's gotta be close.

Bowie's got to be close. Bowie is a lot like Young, in that they both had a terrific decade in the 70s, then a not so great 80s. My fear is that Bowie has not done enough in his late carreer to push him past the century mark. After releasing 16 (15 if you discount the covers album Pin Ups) albums from 1970-1987, he's only released 6 proper albums plus two Tin Machine records, and a soundtrack for the British TV mini series, The Budda of Suburbia. Incidentally, Reeves Gabrels gets co-writing credit on a lot of the post-1987 Bowie stuff. Still, I'd like to see someone make a Bowie list.

I'm nominating Captain Beefheart.

Not sure this is a fair question. Really great songs are relatively rare, so IMHO no one has 100 great songs. Fanatics of any artist have a skewed perspective.

Neil Young, Bob Dylan, the Beatles are clearly on my list of really great songwriters, but i'd also add Lucinda Williams, Don Schlitz, Laura Nyro.

Then there are songs like "Crazy" that Willie Nelson wrote, which is clearly one of the greatest songs of the last century.

I'd compile a list of great songs and then look to see who the songwriters are..

Beethoven could have only written the 9th to achieve God status. Come to think of it, in his company everyone else is a piker.

Fun topic. I'm too tired to really count and verify these songwriters output but they are probably in the ballpark.

-Townes Van Zandt (including songs he wrote in his sleep but never wrote down)
-Bob Dylan
-Hank Williams
-Jimmie Rodgers
-Bill Monroe
-Van Morrison
-Neil Young
-Richard Thompson
-Bruce Cockburn
-Leonard Cohen
-Greg Brown (he's released 20+ albums and from the one's I've heard he is easily hitting better than .500)
-Woody Guthrie (there are hundreds that had not ever been recorded or scored as evidenced by the Billy Bragg and Wilco collaborations)
-P.D. (I don't know what the initials stand for but I run across him all the time).


P.S. One last entry
-Gram Parsons (only if you count all of the songs that have been written in collaboration with him figuratively sitting on the shoulder of untold songwriters of the alt.country persuasion)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sanford9850,

Trad. arr. is another great.