Ridiculous right?
What was I even thinking?
Dollars to donuts this was gonna be nigh on impossible.
Still, the challenge lay beckoning me like some kind of distant lighthouse beam promising to navigate me to shore if only I would begin the journey.
How exactly then, does a person go about the task of reducing more than four decades of dedicated music listening to an atom-sized list of just 50 favourite songs?
With great difficulty, as it turns out.
A number of the artists featured in this countdown could easily have provided 50 songs on their own. And what of the sheer brutality required to leave out classics from my distant youth such as “Video killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles, “Heart of Glass” by Blondie and “The Look” by Roxette?
In the end, with the aid of enough teeth-clenching to render me with the overbite of a prairie dog, I somehow managed to settle on my almost (but probably not entirely) definitive Top 50 Songs list. This goldfish-bowl look into the uplifting earworms and joyous anthems I have had running through my head these so many years includes songs from each decade from the 60’s through to the present.
My face may well be brightened with my own sense of achievement at having compiled this catalogue, but in its aftermath, after having reached the end point of such a herculeanly large undertaking, I am, for the moment at least, a creatively spent force. And therefore, by my own reckoning, a momentarily emptied, somewhat genuinely tragic figure.
I’m not kidding!
Thus, before this introduction gets any weirder or more melodramatic, I say … bring on the music!
“Owner of a Lonely Heart” – Max Graham Vs Yes
“Gimme Shelter” – The Rolling Stones (Streetlab Mix)
“19” – Paul Hardcastle (Destruction Chrysalis Mix)
“Gonna Fly Now” – Theme from Rocky
“Panama Beat” ( Van Halen + Michael Jackson mashup) – Wax Audio
“Don’t Walk Away” – Toni Childs
“When the Night Comes Falling” – Bob Dylan
Listen here (song starts at 37 second mark)
“Jump” – Van Halen
“Best Foot Forward” – Martin Plaza
“Walk on the Wild Side” – Jamie J. Morgan
“Calling Dr. Love” – Kiss
“Body and Soul” – Jenny Morris
“In and Out of My Life” – One Phat Deeva
“If I Survive” – Hybrid
“Going out of my Head” – FatBoy Slim
“Driving Satisfaction” – Grace Jones
“Heaven” – Stereolove
“Eyes Without a Face” – Billy Idol
“Old Man” – Neil Young
“Starships” – Nicki Minaj
Listen here (song starts at 40 second mark)
“Sitting on Top of the World” – Delta Goodrem
“I like it I Luv it” – Koolmatch
“I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore” – Divinyls
“Break Free” – Ariana Grande
“It’s a Long Road” – First Blood Soundtrack
“Amazing” – Seal
“Over and Over” – Madonna
“3AM Eternal” – The KLF
“Keep Hope Alive” – The Crystal Method
“I Can’t Wait” – Stevie Nicks
“Don’t Know Much” – Aaron Neville & Linda Ronstadt
“My Friend” – Groove Armada
“Let Me See Your I.D.” – United Artists Against Apartheid
“R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” – John Cougar Mellencamp
“Endless Love” – Endless Love Soundtrack
“Dance on my Own” – Robert Plant
“I want your Hands on Me” – A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 soundtrack
“Human Nature” – Gary Clail & the On-U Sound System
“The Way I made you Feel” – Jimmy Little
“Cross the Border” – Remixed by Funk Corporation
“Submission” – Sex Pistols
“No Lies” – Noiseworks
“Something That You Said” (12 inch Extended Mix) – Kids in the Kitchen
“53 Miles West of Venus” – The B52’s
“Damn I Wish I was your Lover” – Sophie B. Hawkins
“Kissing the Wind” – Nia Peebles
“Don’t Lose Your Head” – INXS
Listen here (song starts at 50 second mark)
“48 Crash” – Suzi Quatro
“Helter Skelter” – The Beatles
“My Island Home” – Christine Anu
Scenic Writer's Shack 