TOP 1,000 TRACKS - Introduction
This list started out as a number of Spotify playlists on my PC. I then wondered from which years the majority of tracks were released …….. and so the project started. I originally wanted a maximum of 50 tracks per category but I soon realised this wasn’t to be. I wanted to cover all times of my musical life and so I’ve ended up with 28 categories some with well known songs and others with personal favourites that not many people (nobody!) has heard of. There are plenty of wonderful hidden gems amongst the obscure stuff.
The exercise took just under two years to compile as firstly I needed 1,000 tracks (my Spotify lists covered about 500 tracks) and then slot them into appropriate categories. This proved to be much more difficult as a number of tracks could appear in multiple categories! Finally I searched for the year of release and the length of each track thus producing categorised playlists.
The 1,000 tracks would take just under 88 hours to listen.
I initially wanted a single set of desert island discs: my all time favourite tracks. That was soon split into three sub-categories and expanded to cover 50 tracks!
Each category/playlist reminds me of memories of a time and place. Here’s a brief description of each:
Desert Island Discs singles – my favourite tracks which were either singles or of single duration in length. Not surprisingly these are all from 1964 - 1973! 75 minutes of sheer bliss.
Desert Island Discs long – album tracks, most played stuff longer in length. There’s nothing earlier than 1969. It does include two live tracks! Two and three quarter hours of ecstasy!
Desert Island Discs live – my 10 favourite live tracks. 96 minutes of utopia and guitar strangling. All have superb guitar solos contained therein. This is compulsory for playing loud when driving down a motorway.
Class Rock/pop - these are the tracks that just missed out on the desert island disc category and cover all genres. I couldn’t keep this to just 50 tracks. Five and a half hours of personal delight.
When Pirates Ruled The Waves covers my junior school period where I heard music mostly from Radio Caroline daily and it includes the period when Top Of The Pops started broadcasting on TV. This is the most influential time in my musical listening development.
Pirates Ruled 67-68 covers the period when the postmaster general (a certain Edward Short) banned the off shore pirate stations and BBC’s Radio 1 started. Radio Caroline continued, illegally. These tracks cover the first three years at secondary school.
Post Woodstock Malaise is a humorous moniker applied to favourite tracks mostly from my O and A level years. The vast majority of other categories are covered by this period too.
Poodle Rock (80s) covers the mainly American stadium rock of the late 80s and early 90s. It’s not a genre I specifically listened to but there were enough tracks to generate its own category.
Modern Prog – the prog rock mostly derived from the wacky world of the internet. All are post 1990 tracks.
Motown – mostly from the Radio Caroline days but many of the songs in this category were re-released in the late 60s and were bigger UK hits than when they were originally released.
New Bloody Wave - late 70s punk and new wave championed by the NME (for better or worse). Includes the last 7 inch single I bought namely “Shot by Both Sides” by Magazine.
El moderno (post 85!) - covers all the tracks that didn’t fit into any of the other categories since I got married!
West Coast – plenty of wonderful stuff from 66-72 and all American and mostly laid back and/or drug influenced.
Singer/Songwriter - self explanatory covering all genres in all age brackets too.
Metal/Hard Rock – the majority of tracks in this genre is music by which revision was aided.
At the College Disco - 6th form and university discos (well, the ones I attended!) played this stuff. (you might not believe that these days).
Da Blooz – a category for the more bluesy oriented tracks that weren’t selected in any other genre.
Axemen - this is the pot for tracks not easily categorised into any other pot.
Prog Rock - a favourite list mostly covering the period 69-74.
Prog Rock The long ones – a cheeky additional category for those tracks upwards of 8 minutes in length.
Instrumentals - another self explanatory category. This is probably the most wide-spread selection.
Kraut & Amb – great stuff from all years: a sort of subset of prog.
Underground 60s – the sort of stuff John Peel played and championed successfully in the early years of Radio 1.
Live Din - a big favourite of mine where bands can show their mettle more often than not improving on the studio equivalent tracks. It’s mostly hard rock/metal and blues-rock from the 70s.
Beat Explosion - a separate category for noisy guitar oriented pop singles of the mid 60s. Most could have been included in the “When Pirates...” category too.
Pre Beatles (ish) - bucket for rock and roll and all things heard on the light programme at weekends.
AOR – an easy on the ear category offering only a little offensive/threatening material (no guitar solos). The sort of tracks Smooth FM includes on its playlists.
Quiet Zone - acoustic and laid back tracks. Perfect for a summer’s evening. Slightly rockier than the AOR category; often it’s rock bands in their quieter moments.
Most, if not all tracks can be found on You Tube, Spotify or similar. Enjoy!
Dave Pennington
March 2018
The exercise took just under two years to compile as firstly I needed 1,000 tracks (my Spotify lists covered about 500 tracks) and then slot them into appropriate categories. This proved to be much more difficult as a number of tracks could appear in multiple categories! Finally I searched for the year of release and the length of each track thus producing categorised playlists.
The 1,000 tracks would take just under 88 hours to listen.
I initially wanted a single set of desert island discs: my all time favourite tracks. That was soon split into three sub-categories and expanded to cover 50 tracks!
Each category/playlist reminds me of memories of a time and place. Here’s a brief description of each:
Desert Island Discs singles – my favourite tracks which were either singles or of single duration in length. Not surprisingly these are all from 1964 - 1973! 75 minutes of sheer bliss.
Desert Island Discs long – album tracks, most played stuff longer in length. There’s nothing earlier than 1969. It does include two live tracks! Two and three quarter hours of ecstasy!
Desert Island Discs live – my 10 favourite live tracks. 96 minutes of utopia and guitar strangling. All have superb guitar solos contained therein. This is compulsory for playing loud when driving down a motorway.
Class Rock/pop - these are the tracks that just missed out on the desert island disc category and cover all genres. I couldn’t keep this to just 50 tracks. Five and a half hours of personal delight.
When Pirates Ruled The Waves covers my junior school period where I heard music mostly from Radio Caroline daily and it includes the period when Top Of The Pops started broadcasting on TV. This is the most influential time in my musical listening development.
Pirates Ruled 67-68 covers the period when the postmaster general (a certain Edward Short) banned the off shore pirate stations and BBC’s Radio 1 started. Radio Caroline continued, illegally. These tracks cover the first three years at secondary school.
Post Woodstock Malaise is a humorous moniker applied to favourite tracks mostly from my O and A level years. The vast majority of other categories are covered by this period too.
Poodle Rock (80s) covers the mainly American stadium rock of the late 80s and early 90s. It’s not a genre I specifically listened to but there were enough tracks to generate its own category.
Modern Prog – the prog rock mostly derived from the wacky world of the internet. All are post 1990 tracks.
Motown – mostly from the Radio Caroline days but many of the songs in this category were re-released in the late 60s and were bigger UK hits than when they were originally released.
New Bloody Wave - late 70s punk and new wave championed by the NME (for better or worse). Includes the last 7 inch single I bought namely “Shot by Both Sides” by Magazine.
El moderno (post 85!) - covers all the tracks that didn’t fit into any of the other categories since I got married!
West Coast – plenty of wonderful stuff from 66-72 and all American and mostly laid back and/or drug influenced.
Singer/Songwriter - self explanatory covering all genres in all age brackets too.
Metal/Hard Rock – the majority of tracks in this genre is music by which revision was aided.
At the College Disco - 6th form and university discos (well, the ones I attended!) played this stuff. (you might not believe that these days).
Da Blooz – a category for the more bluesy oriented tracks that weren’t selected in any other genre.
Axemen - this is the pot for tracks not easily categorised into any other pot.
Prog Rock - a favourite list mostly covering the period 69-74.
Prog Rock The long ones – a cheeky additional category for those tracks upwards of 8 minutes in length.
Instrumentals - another self explanatory category. This is probably the most wide-spread selection.
Kraut & Amb – great stuff from all years: a sort of subset of prog.
Underground 60s – the sort of stuff John Peel played and championed successfully in the early years of Radio 1.
Live Din - a big favourite of mine where bands can show their mettle more often than not improving on the studio equivalent tracks. It’s mostly hard rock/metal and blues-rock from the 70s.
Beat Explosion - a separate category for noisy guitar oriented pop singles of the mid 60s. Most could have been included in the “When Pirates...” category too.
Pre Beatles (ish) - bucket for rock and roll and all things heard on the light programme at weekends.
AOR – an easy on the ear category offering only a little offensive/threatening material (no guitar solos). The sort of tracks Smooth FM includes on its playlists.
Quiet Zone - acoustic and laid back tracks. Perfect for a summer’s evening. Slightly rockier than the AOR category; often it’s rock bands in their quieter moments.
Most, if not all tracks can be found on You Tube, Spotify or similar. Enjoy!
Dave Pennington
March 2018