Tom Ewing

#Let5D0It - The Shortlist

Added 2024-03-09 14:28:45 +0000 UTC

I promised (myself if nobody else) that I'd post my "final 100" contenders for Arron Wright's upcoming #Let5D0It challenge on Bluesky - my 50 favourite singles from 1954 to 1976.

So here they are - there's actually 101 tracks on the longlist, as something's in there that "shouldn't" be but I can't actually work out what.

Fifty of these will be my actual selection. There's a handful of artists remaining with multiple tracks (The Four Tops, T Rex, a couple of others) - it's possible I'll end up picking both but not tremendously likely.

I feel bad about the 50s. As I've pared down the list from its original 250-ish, I've kept snipping away tracks from 1954-1959. I used not to care about rock'n'roll or 50s R&B much; that's changed over the last decade or so - doing Popular helped! - but when you're limited to 50 choices you're going to end up with songs that have been closer to your heart for longer.

Also, my head is just in more of a 70s place at the moment. Cynicism, dread, paranoia, luxurious string arrangements, art school wankers... that decade just has the juice for me currently.

Beyond that I've tried to be true to myself. I often ended up with a choice between an idiosyncratic favourite by a big artist and a canon choice I also love, and even more than in the 21st century leg of this exercise I often ended up with the odd personal choice. I may be the only person involved who'd pick "I Want You" over "What's Going On?" or "Won't You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" over "Like A Rolling Stone" but too bad, that's where my points are going. If they're going anywhere - getting from 100 to 50 is the really hard part...