Dan’s Definitive Top Ten 2010: Introduction
It feels like the first day of school today, the Tuesday after Labor Day. A child of teachers, I grew up in a household that had its summers off and took that responsibility seriously. Part of me still recognizes these seasonal benchmarks, like Labor Day, and though their observances are pretty arbitrary, at least more so than the equinoxes, I can normally feel a palpable shift, if only in my mentality. A breeze that might have felt warm yesterday might feel cool today. Football seems even a little less out of place. And I ease back into using my brain again.
I live in New York, and if I still owned a radio or had space for one in my apartment, I’d listen to WRXP. It’s a station that, to explain nothing, plays music I like by bands I like. Most of my favorite artists are dead or their bands have disbanded and WRXP plays them. I like some bands who happen to be alive and well and WRXP plays them, too. And in one of the more satisfying instances of killing two birds with one stone I’ve ever experienced, this rock station broadcasts at 101.9 FM, a couple of years ago having bumped out the smooth jazz outfit that for years had claimed that bit of the airwaves and responsibility for a good chunk of my rage and disbelief.
Last year, for the first time, WRXP solicited votes for a Definitive Music Countdown, or something, lent gravitas by the capital letters. Listeners were asked to submit the names of their twenty favorite songs, with the caveat that a band could show up only once per ballot. (There were a few separate spaces for “legacy” picks, e.g. favorite Bob Dylan song, favorite Elvis song.) It was a savvy idea that certainly made me think hard about my choices. And it was from this idea and/or a similar savviness in the listeners that there was a lot of fresh blood in this eclectic mix of songs: for example, “Stairway to Heaven,” that overplayed gem which is usually near the very top of similar countdowns, was buried at #991.
This Labor Day Weekend, WRXP did another countdown, but changed the focus a little bit: 10 songs instead of 20, still not repeating an artist, but only from the last three decades. This would naturally flush out even more of those bands and songs we so often hear and give some airtime to fantastic music I grew up with but haven’t heard in a decade and a half, least of all on the radio.
In the spirit of WRXP’s list and of new beginnings, I’ll be counting down my own Top 10 Definitive Songs from the last three decades, reverse-chronologically. My choices were those songs that were most important to me personally over these years, tentpole works on which I’ve hung many of my most seminal memories. They might no longer even be my favorite songs by the particular bands, but all in all they are the ones without which the rest could not have followed. Stay tuned.
[Edit 9/24: With the list now complete, here's a link to #10. Ludo, "Save Our City"]
