10 SONGS: THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO'S TOP 10 ALL-TIME MOST-PLAYED TRACKS

10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. Given my intention to usually write these on Mondays, the lists are often dominated by songs played on the previous night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single.


This edition of 10 Songs is the third of three this week, each one drawing exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1032.

Yesterday, we talked about This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio's Top 10 all-time most-played artists. Today, it's all about the songs themselves. Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) proudly presents TIRnRR's Top 10 all-time most-played tracks:

1. BIG STAR: September Gurls



When Dana and I first started talking about the greatest record ever made, this specific track was what we had in mind. The concept itself grew over time: an infinite number of songs can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. But originally, we did intend to crown just one song as GREM. And that song was "September Gurls" by Big Star.

We've shifted our choice occasionally. When the members of the group Frisbie visited us, we told them that "Do Anything You Wanna Do" by Eddie & the Hot Rods had dethroned "September Gurls" as the GREM, though I don't think they quite agreed. Lately, I've taken to thinking that, if we really have to pick just one, The Beatles' "Rain" is the greatest record ever made. Luckily, we don't have to pick just one. An infinite number, my friends; an infinite number.

But the discussion started with "September Gurls." As I wrestle with the process of writing a book about the greatest records ever made, there was never any doubt that "September Gurls" would get its own chapter, and there is certainly no doubt that it is TIRnRR's all-time # 1 most-played track. I really can't imagine any other track ever overtaking it in that spot. 

2. THE STALLIONS: Why



Man, I shoulda known to expect trouble when Dana got his mitts on a compilation CD called Goin' After Pussy: Teasers & Tidbits. Yeah, ever the adolescent, saying that title still makes me snicker. In 1999, our first full year on the air, Dana started playing two tracks off that comp with some frequency: "Kill The Ramones" by Boris The Sprinkler, and "Why" by The Stallions. We played the Boris the Sprinkler track a lot. We played The Stallions in our best mutant approximation of heavy, heavy rotation.

Initially, it was strictly a Dana tune; I didn't even like it. But as Dana kept playing it and playing it, the track's pounding brilliance bludgeoned me into blissful submission. Our friend and listener Dave Murray hated it, but he too fell under its thrall with repeated exposure. The power of radio. 



At the time, I didn't realize "Why" was a cover, an obscure '60s nugget originally recorded by a group called The Dirty Wurds, and also covered in the '80s by L.A.'s garage goddesses The Pandoras. The Stallions' version is definitive. It was our # 1 most-played track during TIRnRR Year One, and it repeated that honor in TIRnRR Year Two. It's the only song to ever top our year-end countdown more than once. And even though we stopped playing it as frequently after 2000, we had already played it so much throughout 1999 and 2000 that it remained our all-time # 1 for years and years thereafter. We hardly ever play it now. But maybe we should. Why, baby? The power of radio. The power of rock 'n' roll.

3. THE RAMONES: Blitzkrieg Bop



"Blitzkrieg Bop" was the first Ramones record I ever heard. It was late August or early September in 1977, the fall semester of my freshman year college. In high school, reading Phonograph Record Magazine had primed me for the idea of punk rock, and hearing "God Save The Queen" by The Sex Pistols on commercial FM radio that summer had redefined my expectations of what rockin' pop music could be. 

So I pestered the jocks at my campus radio station for more punk (in its broader circa '77 parameters). Blondie. Television. The Dictators. Talking Heads. The Runaways. And--oh God, yes!!--The Ramones.

Hey-ho, let's go!

In '77, I was unashamed to like The Bay City Rollers--I'm still unashamed to like The Bay City Rollers--but I didn't pick up on the intentional similarity between the Rollers' familiar S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! NIGHT!! chant and The Ramones' own leather-clad call to arms until it was spelled out for me much later. Beneath the implied violence of the band's sonic assault, The Ramones' pop sense was steadfast and undeniable. I was about to become a fan. I had no idea just how much of a fan I was about to become.

4. THE RAMONES: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker


The record that changed my life. No exaggeration, no embellishment. No record before or since had the seismic effect of my first spin of "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker." That's when everything changed. That's when I knew. In a very real way, that's where everything started, everything I ever became as a writer, DJ, and cheerleader for the music I love. 

I'm not going to tell the story again here. Go read the "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" chapter in The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), and then read the "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" and "Blitzkrieg Bop" supplements that will open and close that book. I love The Beatles. I love The Ramones. About two months after first hearing "Sheena," The Flashcubes would complete my triumvirate. Here. It all started to come together here

5. THE FLASHING ASTONISHERS: Period Exclamatory



What, you thought The Flashcubes were the only Syracuse group with flash? The Flashing Astonishers' "Period Exclamatory" has become one of the defining tracks in TIRnRR's long and storied history, and it was included on our very first compilation CD, 2005's This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 1. It still gets played on the show. As it should.

6. MANNIX: Highway Lines



Another saga about another love gone wrong
And the DJ knows what I'm goin' through

Magic. I fell hard for this track from Mannix's 2001 album Come To California the first time I heard it, and it became our # 1 most-played track in TIRnRR Year Three (the first year-end # 1 that wasn't "Why" by The Stallions). When Mannix let us use the track in our 2013 collection This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 3, I quoted the above lines from the song's lyrics to open my liner notes for the disc. The song earns a spot in my Greatest Record Ever Made! book, part of a heartfelt radio appreciation thread that flows from The Selecter through Mannix to The Drifters. The chapter talks about the importance of passion, and the importance of radio:

How much can it mean to spin a few records on the radio every Sunday night?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'll tell you that the opportunity to share a passion for pop music means a lot to me. That appeal is part of the reason why I first wanted to write about rockin' pop music decades ago as a teen in the '70s. Wait, wait--"write about rockin' pop music?" No. I wanted to write on behalf of rockin' pop music, to serve an agenda, to spread a freakin' Gospel of jangle and buzz, hooks, harmonies, guitar, bass, drums, heart and soul, verse and chorus, amplified sounds, life itself played to the rhythm of a tambourine. I wanted to tell people about the music I liked. I figured there had to be someone else out there that liked it, too.

So I wrote. I wrote in my high school newspaper. I wrote unsold, unpublished articles for magazines, failed submissions to CREEM, unfinished notions intended for Trouser Press. Later, I wrote reviews and articles and interviews that I sold to Goldmine, The Syracuse New Times, DISCoveries, and a handful of others. I wrote liner notes. I wrote pieces published in books. I wrote letters. I wrote internet posts. I testified. And it was true.

The same need to share this passion led me to radio. There was never, ever any place for me in commercial radio. I didn't want to play what someone else told me to play; I knew what records needed to be played. In the '80s, I met a friend named Dana who also knew what records needed to be played. Together, we invented a format. It's nominally a power pop format, but it isn't really that. It's not any strict format defined from the outside. The format is called This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio.

We spin a few records every Sunday night. We spin old tunes and new tunes, stuff you know, stuff you might not know. How much can it mean to spin a few records on the radio every Sunday night? To me, man, it means more than words can say....

Mannix says the DJ knows what he's going through. We say Mannix knows what we're going through.

7. THE LA'S: There She Goes


"There She Goes" is The La's' purest, most shining moment. I remember playing the song in, I dunno, maybe 1990 for a professional DJ pal I'd known for years. Although the song had come out in 1988, she had never heard it before, and she was amazed that it sounded so great, so radio-ready, rather than sounding like the weird stuff she presumed I was going to subject her to. Honestly, American radio dropped the friggin' ball on this one, because it should have been a massive airplay smash, not a left-of-the-dial ditty that played only at the fringes. 

"There She Goes" has become more widely-known over the years, and it was the first song heard in the first episode of TV's Gilmore Girls in 2000. When we play the song on our show, I usually dedicate it to Lorelei Gilmore, wherever she is. This makes Dana cringe, because he doesn't like Gilmore Girls. 



Philistine.

8 [tie]. SUGAR: If I Can't Change Your Mind


In the '80s, I liked most of what I heard from Bob Mould's group Hüsker Dü, especially their transcendently thrashin' cover of The Byrds' "Eight Miles High." In the '90s, Mould fronted Sugar; I don't think I really heard any of Sugar's stuff until Rhino Records hired me to write the liner notes for a 1997 various-artists compilation called Poptopia! Power Pop Classics Of The '90s. Sugar's incredible power pop number "If I Can't Change Your Mind" was among the tracks being considered for Poptopia!, and the good folks at Rhino sent it to me along with other potential Poptopia! cuts so I could, y'know, write something already. Alas, Rhino was unable to clear rights to "If I Can't Change Your Mind" for use on the compilation. That's a shame; it would have been the single most exciting track on that comp, and it was a pretty decent comp as it was.



8 [tie]. THE BEATLES: Revolution


In my 2017 fantasy of a 1976 Beatles reunion concert, I have the once-and-future Fabs open their show with the house lights down, the voice of an unseen John Lennon counting out (in), and the blistering guitar of "Revolution" filling the arena as the lights come to life and fake history is made. A splendid time was guaranteed for all.

The version of "Revolution" played by The Beatles in my imaginary Beatles concert is the version they played in real life for the song's original 1968 promo video, all loud and distorted, and enhanced by Paul McCartney and George Harrison's boisterous backing shoo-be-doo-wops. It's the definitive version. It's what we play on This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, and it's what we played on Sunday night to celebrate its position among our all-time most-played tracks.

10. THE ONLY ONES: Another Girl, Another Planet


I've been thinking of the unique ways in which we can discover favorite songs, and I may examine that subject in a future blog post. I came to The Only Ones' wonderful 1978 record "Another Girl, Another Planet" via a various-artists soundtrack LP I borrowed from a friend. I don't think I'd heard The Only Ones prior to hearing my friend's copy of That Summer!, the companion album for a movie I knew nothing about, but which earned points for assembling a cooler collection of tunes than you'd expect from a major label in 1979.



How cool was the That Summer! soundtrack album? Man, it had The Undertones, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, The Boomtown Rats, Mink DeVille, Patti Smith Group, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Richard Hell & the VoidOids, Eddie & the Hot Rods, The Ramones, a fantastic song called "New Life" by The Zones, and "Another Girl, Another Planet." Duly hooked by my friend's copy, I bought one for myself at my earliest opportunity.

"Another Girl, Another Planet" is not exactly obscure in our shared circle of new wave rock and pop. But I have no idea when in my timeline I would have gotten to the song if not for That Summer!  How many songs do we miss entirely, potential Greatest Records Ever Made that fail to move us only because they failed to reach our ears in the first place? There's so much out there. Old and new, past and present. We need to hear it all. We need to have friends to hip us to the sounds we need. And we need the radio to do its job.

Radio's job is to sell records. I don't mean that in just the literal sense of compelling a listener to part with cash or credit to assume ownership of an irresistible treat he or she just heard on the wireless (though I do also mean the literal part, too). Radio has to sell you the sound. It has to. It has to make you aware of the music you didn't know existed, and to make you its fan. Another girl, another planet. Another show, another song. Another job to do. 

Let's get this show started. We have some songs you need to hear.


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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download

Volume 3: download

Volume 4: CD or download

Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 155 essays about 155 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).