We’re coming up on the end of a year, the end of a decade, and if Dan Brown and Roland Emmerich are right, on the end of human existence. And in case you haven’t picked up on this through context clues, this is a music publication. That means it’s time for the latest round of end-of-time-period wrap-ups. Us music pubs LOVE best-of lists; we’ll do a best-of for any category you care to name, provided we’re about to hit a calendar milestone. This time, I’m digging a little deeper. I’m going to try and list the top five songs in the past 500 years of recorded music. I’m not going to go back further than that, since there’s a legitimate chance David Bowie is an ageless, undying lich who left demo tapes buried in the La Brea tar pits that we have yet to uncover. 500 years ought to cover most of what’s there to listen to. Let’s do this thing.
1. James Brown, “Sex Machine”
Number one with a bullet. And, frankly, an obvious choice. Hardest working man in show biz, that’s what they called him. And man, out of his massive body of work it’s hard to pick a stand-out, but “Sex Machine” is the end-all-be-all of fuck-you-funk-me R&B&S&M righteousness.
2. James Brown, “Sex Machine”
I listed it twice because we always play it twice. Don’t we? As soon as you “HIT IT AND QUIT!” you wanna bring it back to the beginning. It gets you ready to get up and do you thang. You wanna get into it, man. You know, like a, like a sex machine, man? Movin’, doing it, you know. Can I count it off? One two three four A-BAMP BAMP BAMP BAMP BAMP BAMP BAMP
3. James Brown, “Sex Machine”
Because it’s so minimalist, and it’s all you need. Prince knew what was up. “Kiss?” Great song, wasn’t it? Not top five great, mind you, but great. Just a wiggidy-wack bass, a stutter of bass drum, a fiddly guitar now and then, and Prince squealing. That’s it. That’s all you need to get moving. James added a few more ingredients, not many, just what we need and nothing more. Piano. Horns. Maceo Parker playing the echo game. Perfect. This song could be two weeks long and I wouldn’t mind.
4. James Brown, “Sex Machine”
SHAKE YO MONEY MAKE-AH! SHAKE YO MONEY MAKE-AH! SHAKE YO MONEY MAKE-AH! SHAKE YO MONEY MAKE-AH! SHAKE YO MONEY MAKE-AH! SHAKE YO MONEY MAKE-AH!
5. James Brown, “Sex Machine”
And the hell of it is James wasn’t even trying. He used gold records for dinner plates. I have his Christmas album and it’s hilarious. “Let’s Make Christmas Mean Something This Year” was obviously done in one take, was probably improvised, James was probably drunk during recording, and it’s the secret sauce for any merry X-Mas. “Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto?” Heartbreaking. James was the king. He will be missed. I don’t pretend to know what the next 500 years of music will bring, but if we can use stem cell nanobots to revive him, he’ll be all over the 2509 A.D. best-of list. Guess what song is going to dominate.
Honorable Mention: The Smiths, “This Charming Man.”
(This will probably be showing up in the upcoming print edition of Vinyl Tap, in case you’re from the future and confused.)
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[...] come to think of it there is one Christmas album we keep going back to. I referenced it in an earlier post, and it’s topical so I’m going to mention it again: James Brown’s ‘Funky [...]
Too Much Happiness » Well, Merry Christmas And All That added these pithy words on Dec 25 09 at 9:02 am