I won't start the top 50 yet but I have a stupid amount of HMs so I'll post those and then in the meantime Flav'd will wrap up and David will get closer

This list was difficult to make as my favorite songs at the moment favours recent ones I haven't burned out as much, so I tried to rate what songs have been most important to me and my musical tastes over the course of my life

HM group 1 - THE BOSS

He is well represented on my list, but I could have put many more on



"Because there's always just one more day
And it's always gonna be that way"




"Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there "



"In your skin upon my skin in the beating of our hearts
May the living let us in before the dead tear us apart"



"Oh Teddy boy they will all cry, your two fine legs were your mother's pride
Stumps made of tree won't do at all, why didn't you run from the cannonball?"



"There's a prayer coming through the air and it's shot straight through my heart
Tearing open the evening sky and tearing me apart"




"But now there's wrinkles around my baby's eyes, and she cries herself to sleep at night
When I come home the house is dark, she sighs "Baby did you make it all right"



(posting the live version since I prefer it)

"Sandy the angels have lost their desire for us
I spoke to 'em just last night and they said they won't set themselves on fire for us anymore"



"And the poets down here don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be.
And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment , and try to make an honest stand

HM group 2 - Hip-Hop



"Fuck Bad Boy as a staff, record label and as a motherfuckin' crew!
And if you wanna be down with Bad Boy, then fuck you too!



This song appears to be pulled from youtube

"And look, you tell me you ain't did it then you ain't did it
And if you did, then that's family business"



"I'm a motherfuckin' spiteful, delightful eyeful
The new Ice Cube, motherfuckers hate to like you. What did I do?"



"I'll never forget that Christmas I sat up the whole night cryin'"



(thank you to the Rock in GI Joe 2 for bringing me this song)

"Sometimes I don't like who I am
When I look in the mirror my reflection is Uncle Sam"



"How's about that, it seems like it's my turn again
All through the years my mic has been my best friend"



"We fight, fuck, get buckwild
Kill, chill, make love, have child"



"Want my whole name spelled out, my own pain spilled out
No pain, no gain, I blow brains, Cobain"



"I hit that court and when I jumped, I jumped, I swear I got so high
I touched the net, "Mom, I touched the net," this is the best day of my life"



"So he kick, push
Over his shoulders he swore he'd never look
'Cause wasn't nothin' back there but the blackness"

Damn I have second thoughts about leaving most of these awesome songs out of the top 50. No more for a while as I have to go to work

Love The Boss, I have like a dozen favorites myself, but none of those are included in these HM's (songs which I'm mostly unfamiliar with actually). Feel I've been geared more towards his hits, of which I expect to probably see some of them in you list though.

Renegade! Great song. Lots of good stuff here but that is the standout. Family Business is also great, thats my friends favorite Kanye track.

I wonder how many people start after Flava but finish before him.

HM Group 4 - Bands



"And if, you don't love me now
You will never love me again"



"The star maker says, it ain't so bad
The dream maker's going make you mad"



"Her elegance and charm are worthy of praise
And I heard she used to throw for the Oakland A's"



"Pray that God won't live to see
The death of everything that's wild."



"And how can we win,
When fools can be kings"



"Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine"



(a rapper should sample this song with Rihanna singing the chorus)

"High, high, what a feeling to fly
Over mountains and forests and seas"



"Now we're old and grey Fernando
And since many years I haven't seen a rifle in your hand"



"The gods may throw a dice
Their minds as cold as ice"

I changed my mind and put a song I had in Bands HM in the top 50, so the song that got dropped out ("Kick Push II") is edited into my hip hop post

Last one

HM Group 5 - Individuals



"And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burning coal"



"And the first one now
Will later be last"



"Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see"



(The version with Tom Petty, Neil Young, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Roger McGuinn and Dylan is my favorite, but youtube rights didn't cooperate)

"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"



"Everyone said they were crazy
"Brenda you know you're much too lazy"



"I've seen the lights go out on Broadway
I've watched the mighty skyline fall"



"And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today"



"She took his ring, took his babies
It took him minutes, took her nowhere"



"Oh and I can see Daniel waving goodbye
God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes"



"Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women
There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry"



"And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky"



"Holes in my confidence
Holes in the knees of my jeans"



"Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard"

Oops, I just realized Simon and Garfunkel possibly should've been in the bands section, oh well



"Kathy, I'm lost", I said, though I knew she was sleeping.
"I'm empty and aching and I don't know why."



"All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"



"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you"



"I build the pyramids for you, babe,
Just to see your face"



"Cause I'm payin' the rent and I'm swallowin my pride
And I'm workin' on the Jungle Cruise ride"

Nice mention of ABBA's Eagle. It's my favorite ABBA song. It doesn't get love as much as it deserves.

It begins

50. Arcade Fire - Black Mirror



"The black mirror knows no reflection
It knows not pride or vanity"

Black Mirror is one of my favorite album openers, an ominous and mysterious start to "Neon Bible". Depending on your interpretation the black mirror can refer to the darkness in one's soul, society, death, surveillance or TV/internet culture. Either way the sound of the song thanks to the bassline, violin, trepidation in Win's vocals and other instrumentals used superbly, makes you fear it. The imagery of "I walk down to the ocean, after waking from a nightmare" and "shot by a security camera, you can't watch your own image" gives me the feeling of walking in darkness with your hood up and and being watched by those cameras, danger and paranoia now follows you. As usual in the best Arcade Fire songs, the use of french lyrics and Regine vocals add a haunting aura to the song.

49. Paul Simon - Graceland




"There is a girl in New York City who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I'm falling, flying, or tumbling in turmoil I say
Oh, so this is what she means"

Graceland is about redemption for Simon's character while he travels to the home of Elvis with his son, while in real life Simon was looking for it in Africa. Moreso I see it as a song about becoming lost in thought about the past while he has the time on his train/bus, while the chorus keeps snapping him back to the present. The verses describing his journey so far make the song for me, with several phenomenal lines that show his pain and heartache. My favorite is the human trampoline one, but I also love describing his declining marriage to Carrie Fisher with ones like "And she said losing love, is like a window in your heart/Everyone sees you're blown apart/Everyone sees the wind blow" and "She comes back to tell me she's gone/As if I didn't know that/As if I didn't know my own bed/As if I'd never noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead" "And I have reason to believe/We all will be received/In Graceland." Instrumentally the album track of the song has one of my favorite guitar/bassline vibes, which unfortunately is only partly captured by the live performances available on youtube.

48. Meat Loaf - Paradise by the Dashboard Light



"So now I'm praying for the end of time
To hurry up and arrive
'Cause if I gotta spend another minute with you
I don't think that I can really survive"

Paradise by the Dashboard Light is a memory about when the singers were young and life was simple, all that mattered was whether they would go all the way in that car. Hence why the five words that represent the title and chorus line are so important, for them it was truly their own paradise. But nostalgia has tinted their glasses, and in reality even back then it was complicated because they wanted different things, the wiser female wanted love while he was just in it to get laid and not seeing the repercussions. The chemistry between the two singers is wonderful and the guitar riff and piano play important roles. The build-up from when she starts pushing him into declaring his love leading to the payoff of "So now I'm praying for the end of time" sequence is gold. I also really like the line "Glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife" repeated throughout the song. In the end the girl is left saying things never felt so good, while he says things were much better than they are today. Which is funny because he got what he wanted which was to have sex and she didn't which was for him to love her forever, but in the end he is still the more bitter of the two.

Love Paradise, great selection.

Fucking hell. It's going to take me a month of sundays to get through this thread. It should be renamed "The Shack Top 500".

If it did, it would no longer be your favourite song.

That has no correlation whatsoever.

Those two The Killers tracks kind of just prove how far they've fallen since when they were good. Average songs.

50-48

Must do better. Hoping your list improves!

I haven't got to the real Algren pukes choices yet

47. Eminem - Mosh



"Stomp, push, shove, mush, Fuck Bush"

Released awkwardly a week before the 2004 election, Eminem’s George W. Bush diss track was seen as too little too late to stop Bosh’s re-election. Or maybe people just didn’t give a shit about what celebs political opinions are. Perhaps he should have wrote a song about going out to the ballot box. Either way, it was an awesome song.

Typically the beat is not what I respond to most in rap songs, but it’s at the forefront of this song’s success. It anchors the rising intensity of the song and is the backdrop for the rallying masses. Eminem’s signature intensity and rage is the perfect partner for this. He invokes the imagery of marching through the rain, fog, darkness to show these are not sunny days, the days of the Iraq war and the lies to get there is a storm to fight against. It’s the emotion of the song that gives it resonance for me long after Bush. It also has a fantastic music video only half of which is in the youtube clip.

46. Radiohead - Karma Police



“For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself"

Karma Police is a beautiful and haunting song. Thom Yorke’s vocals, the acoustic guitar, bass and piano all play integral roles in creating the vibe. Every section has its value from the intro and close, to the "Karma Police" sections, to the This Is What You Get”, and then my favorite of all, when it kicks into high gear emotionally in the last two minutes of the song. Even though I never knew what the song really means, it’s a song where every line matters and thanks to the vocal performance even ones absurd on the surface like “He buzzes like a fridge, he’s a like a detuned radio” or "Arrest this girl, her hitler hairdo is making me ill" are some of the most memorable of their career. Lines like “Karma police, I’ve given all I can, it’s not enough, I've given all I can” and “This is what you get when you mess with us" is searing, along with of course the “For a minute there…” exit. It is one of Yorke’s most emotional and best performances. I saw Radiohead perform it in the pouring rain, it was a highlight of my limited concert going experience.

Excellent choice. And I'll probably prefer Karma Police to at least 40 of the following 45 songs.