25. "Because" by the Beatles

Maybe the best song on the Abbey Road album. 

John Lennon claimed the electric harpsichord part was inspired by playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata in reverse. This is bull. 

However, what is great about that harpsichord part is that it was played by the 5th Beatle, Sir George Martin. Coincidentally, like Beethoven, Martin progressively lost his hearing in his later years.

For an assignment as a senior in high school, I brought the lyrics for this song into my English class. It was during our section on Romantic poetry. The reading I did of Keats, Coleridge, and Blake in that class inspired me to major in English in college, where I would make poetry my primary study, lead the campus literary journal, win the campus-wide writing award, and graduate summa cum laude before being deposited into the real, class-gridded world without a single benefactor like an exiled space alien.

That day in high school, upon hearing these Beatles lyrics, about the crushing emotional impact of becoming conscious of the power and scope of natural forces, the redneck North Dakotan tough guy stuffed into the desk beside mine dismissed the Beatles as just a bunch of druggies. The Beatles did abuse drugs, especially John Lennon. Ironically, I agree that drug use is destructive to society, drugs of kinds both shunned and accepted. They are the source of debilitating paranoia and half-baked thinking in many, many minds today, not to mention unknowable carnage and squalor. They have no place in my life. 

But it is undeniable that the lyrics to this song, along with the totality of the song, made my world larger. Like the other poetry from that class, this song expected more out of me than I had been giving.

Maybe eventually my old high school classmate got out of North Dakota, into the world a bit, and stopped flinching at the power of his own mind. But we all know he didn't. And he is the victor of this story.

24. "Beautiful Girl" by INXS

Remember INXS? They made some genuinely unique music in the '80s and '90s before their vocalist Michael Hutchense met one of the most ignominious ends in music history in 1997. The band actually carried on without him, like the Doors playing shows after Jim Morrison’s death, hoping nobody noticed the all-crushing void devouring the stage.

Many of the INXS songs are just too '80s/'90s contemporary pop for my taste, but a few of their songs I consider underappreciated gems. Example: "Beautiful Girl." 

This song came later in their run of hits, the rest of which were big, boisterous numbers. This song seems to be taking a little stock of their situation. With the end near at hand, it plays as a coda.

Just an excellent chorus, very memorable. Early '90s pop was still based on stand-out melodies, especially choruses. Songs actually developed, instead of how so many pop songs now just settle on one highly-produced progression and only offer nominally varying singing parts and dynamics over the top to make you feel they are going somewhere. It's a postmodern bit of music business, I think - why waste two catchy progressions in one song? I just think music was meant to develop, not loop.

23. "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes

Actually, the song was written by the team of Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich. It was an experiment of Phil Spector's, designed for his protégé group, the Ronettes, and it has become legendary as the pioneer song for the influential recording technique Spector termed his "wall of sound." But Phil Spector is a depraved murderer, so I will not be delving into his profile much here. His work does, however, make more unavoidable appearances in my series. Screw him.

My wife introduced this song to me (she introduced a lot of great music to me), and it embodies some of the great '60s pop music she and her mother love. For Jill, I think it is inextricably linked to Dirty Dancing. It is not just a fantastic song; it evokes a time period in American life that is seductively simplified in my mind. I think of kids straight out of The Sandlot pushing each other into the public pool, this song crackling on the PA system, the smell of hamburgers in the air. I think of Henry and Karen Hill enjoying the best of their aluminum Christmas tree good times in Goodfellas before Jimmy's ultimate heist falls apart.

Beyond that, the song is a true musical marvel. The opening drum rhythm is instantly identifiable, with such glamorous long echo. The vocal has such raw attitude; I hear this East Coast gal singing with sarcasm and cracking gum. The construction is classical purity: The music starts in on a one-chord vamp, establishing the lushness of all the many sounds in the recording before the song begins to find direction. All the changes are designed to build to the huge resolution of the chorus. These days, choruses just kind of happen. There is no courtship. In the early 1960s, you still had to coax a chorus into existence. "Be My Baby" is a master class. The dynamics build, the chords are arranged for progressive tension, the melody peaks, and then in a truly joyful moment of consummation, the chorus erupts with the multiple voices of the Ronettes, imploring their listener to be their baby. The chorus is so, so catchy.

I wish we could all live together in that chorus for all time.

But we can't.

22. "Baby Britain" by Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith's first two albums were almost completely guitar and voice, with a few minimal instruments in support. For his third album, he started to evolve his sound to include more instrumentation. For his fourth, he really embraced a fuller sound, especially writing for a band again. (He started out in a band in the early '90s only to go solo when his independent work became so popular.) He also went out of his way to write music with a bit more brightness, if only a bit more. 

This is where "Baby Britain" fits in his evolution. 

Smith was a Beatles fan - apt with his John-esque kind of voice. And the more instrumentation he brought into songs, the more I think he tended to emulate the Beatles. "Baby Britain" has the feel of "Getting Better," chiming, chopping guitars and all.

Even with a broader sound, there is a commitment to minimalism. The singing melody is the star, and the chord structure is clearly labored over but not embellished; the extra instruments do their simple jobs nicely. 

For someone suffering from hard drug and alcohol addiction and possibly scarred from child abuse underneath it all, a song that seems to make fun of an alcoholic kind of counts as lightening up.

21. "Armistice" by Phoenix

French band, very French love song. Or really seems like a makeup song - the titular "armistice." That's a pretty strong word to use in French context, I would think. 

Here are more sprawling verse melodies from these verse-meisters. The middle bridge seems a bit underdeveloped, but the ending totally redeems this song, a blasting finale that is such a fun release to sing.

I don't know... I've listened to other albums by this band, and none of them strike me. They were really focused for this one, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, which "Armistice" closes. 

So much in music in general comes down to drumming and the creativity of changes. The best songs are inspired with these. 

The drumming in "Armistice" is so catchy and original; there is not a lazy pattern except for maybe the straight beat in the middle bridge. Otherwise, the drums are dancing, playing with the beat, adding a great cloud of cymbal in the choruses.

The changes are traditional pop form except for the decision to close with a unique section. I happen to love songs that close with new ideas. It shows such confidence in both the ending and in the rest of the song that sets it up.

The rest of the magic comes from those great melodies and some exceptionally slick guitar layering.

For one album, Phoenix were onto something special.