Time to keep the countdown going with 5 more awesome songs in the top 100.
I started this trek at song 1000 and have gradually worked my way up to this point. The selections just keep getting more and more difficult. Even now, I keep tweaking the list as I wonder if this song is just a little tiny bit better than this other song. It really doesn’t matter at this point because in all the history of music, these are all songs I love and can listen to anytime, anywhere.
So, here we go.
Be sure to click on the videos to hear the songs.
And here is a quick recap before diving into it.
100 – Cheap Trick – Dream Police
99 – Creed- One Last Breath
98 – Blind Melon – No Rain
97 – Living Colour – Cult of Personality
96 – Triumph – Ordinary Man
95 – Scorpions – You And I
94 – Tesla – Forever More
93 – MCR – House of Wolves
92 – Rise Against – Re-Education
91 – Yngwie Malmsteen – Fury
Because of my age and the type of music my parents listened to, I didn’t really discover Led Zeppelin until the late 70s after In Through The Out Door was released, John Bonham died, and Zepp broke up. I was just catching up and I loved Zeppelin’s catalog. I think it was actual grief I was feeling. No more Zeppelin? I just learned about them!
And then, lo and behold, Robert Plant releases his first solo project ‘Pictures At Eleven’ in 1982, and I was blown away.
It is still my favorite Robert Plant solo album.
‘Pledge Pin’ is my favorite Robert Plant solo song. It was the second single. It climbed to #15 on the charts in America.
For a little while at least, I didn’t feel like Led Zeppelin was completely gone. This album captured enough of the old Zeppelin magic to make a young man happy.
Robert, of course, moved slowly away from the Zeppelin sound and charted his own course, but I’ll always be grateful this album and this song arrived when they did.
I never got to see Zeppelin live and I have never seen Robert Plant live either. Another regret of mine.
There are 7 Robert Plant solo songs in my top 1000 songs.
90 – Pledge Pin
106 – Ship of Fools
127 – Burning Down One Side
150 – Worse Than Detroit
397 – Tall Cool One
433 – Fat Lip
690 – Slow Dancer
Originally written and recorded by Bob Dylan in 1967, All Along The Watchtower is a work of art. It has been called by many, the best cover song ever. The original by Dylan was slower, and after hearing Jimi’s cover, it is said that Dylan placed it like Jimi did for years afterwards.
Jimi Hendrix is on record being a huge Dylan fan, saying he loved the way Dylan wrote songs and wanted to write with him. Jimi also acknowledged that he and Dylan were in that group of music artists that cannot sing normally.
Jimi’s voice doesn’t diminish this song at all. In fact, I think it makes it more human.
Dylan says he wrote the song during a storm while recovering from a motorcycle accident. There is a strong biblical influence in the lyrics as the song is framed like a ballad about two riders, the joker and the thief, heading for a tower of security while enduring the world of chaos where people tend to speak falsely, pointing to Isaiah 21:5-9.
I don’t think Dylan has ever definitively explained the lyrics, so there are various interpretations, some even saying it was about Dylan’s battle with record executives.
Either way, it is a powerfully written song.
And the improvements Jimi Hendrix made to it with the guitar work is unforgettable. A masterpiece.
I never got to see Jimi Hendrix live because he passed away in 1970.
Only 2 Jimi Hendrix songs made it in my top 1000 songs but I feel there should have been more.
89 – All Along The Watchtower
413 – Purple Haze
Queensryche is one of those talented rock bands that hit the music scene at precisely the perfect time for their style. Considered to be progressive metal, they burst out of the Seattle music scene with their self-titled debut EP in 1982.
I fell for them immediately. Everything about the band and their songs was perfection for the early 80s music scene.
Geoff Tate’s vocals are out of this this world.
Their first album, The Warning, was released in 1984, and I listened to it a thousand times over.
The title track still haunts me musically and lyrically. It was the first single but did not chart.
For me, the lyrics of Warning are about a seer warning mankind about its impending doom.
I have seen Queensryche live many times. They are, in my opinion one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen, especially in the 80s.
There are 15 Queensryche songs in my top 1000 songs.
Warning is my 4th favorite Queensryche song.
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88 – Warning
118 – Roads To Madness
128 – Anybody Listening?
137 – En Force
168 – Breaking The Silence
219 – The Lady Wore Black
236 – Spreading The Disease
256 – Eyes Of A Stranger
311 – Speak
764 – Revolution Calling
798 – Operation:Mindcrime
893 – Empire
I’m pretty sure my brothers and I wore out LP needles listening to the song and this album over and over. Ride the Lightning is the title track of their 2nd album. Metallica has continued to produce a lot of great music over the years, but I think this song encapsulates the essence of Metallica for me, the height of their skills and talents as musicians, a perfect meshing of their metal and thrash roots.
Strangely enough, the song Creeping Death was the only single released off this album.
The lyrics of Ride The Lightning are about a man on death row facing the prospect of sitting in the electric chair.
I’ve seen Metallica live several times. My favorite memory of them was in 1989 at Alpine Valley when they did a three-encore set and the venue had to start shutting off the power to get them to leave. The crowd didn’t want it to end and neither did the band.
Looking back, I think Metallica deserved more than 4 songs in my top 1000 list.
87 – Ride the Lightning – 1/4
234 – Enter Sandman – 2/4
309 – Creeping Death – 3/4
490 – The Call of Ktulu – 4/4
I’ll admit I was never a big Sabbath fan, but I still listened to plenty of Sabbath pretty regularly growing up, chiefly their self-titled first album, Black Sabbath, thier 2nd album, Paranoid, and then from the Ronnie years, Heaven And Hell, and The Mob Rules.
War Pigs epitomizes for me Sabbath’s talent as songwriters. The structure of the song, the pauses and hits, the lyrics.
The song addresses the evils of war. The war in Vietnam was still waging when they wrote it, and Geezer Butler has said he feared being called up.
The song places the blame for war on politicians and corporations who want to send young men to die for them.
As a pacifist, I love the lyrics of this song.
Ozzy’s voice is haunting and perfect. No one else could have pulled this off the way he did.
I never saw Black Sabbath live and included five songs by them in my top 1000, although there probably should have been more.
86 – War Pigs – 1/5
287 – Paranoid – 2/5
843 – Country Girl – 3/5
903 – The Mob Rules – 4/5
916 – The Sign of the Southern Cross – 5/5
And that’s all I got for today. Hope you are enjoying the list. Be sure to go back and see the other posts and other songs on the countdown when you have time.
Until next weekend…
100 – Cheap Trick – Dream Police
99 – Creed- One Last Breath
98 – Blind Melon – No Rain
97 – Living Colour – Cult of Personality
96 – Triumph – Ordinary Man
95 – Scorpions – You And I
94 – Tesla – Forever More
93 – MCR – House of Wolves
92 – Rise Against – Re-Education
91 – Yngwie Malmsteen – Fury
90 – Robert Plant – Pledge Pin
89 – Jimi Hendrix – All Along The Watchtower
88 – Queensryche – Warning
87 – Metallica – Ride The Lightning
86 – Black Sabbath – War Pigs
Allen M Werner is the author of the epic dark fantasy series
THE CRYSTAL CRUX
Author Allen M Werner 
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