On the 13th of November 2024 I skeeted (Bluesky posts are called skeets because they specifically asked us to not do that and fuck them) That the best song in the world was No Sunshine by Therapy? and on that day it was. Therapy? are bloody brilliant and amongst all of their great albums Cleave is one of their best. The next day the best song in the world was Alone by The Cure and again it was. The Cure are bloody brilliant and Songs Of A Lost World was my album of the year for 2024. On the 15th of November it was Shadowplay by Joy Division, Joy Division are bloody brilliant and at this point I started to make a playlist of all of these best songs as there seemed to be a lot of them.
You may have noticed by now that my attention span is haphazard at best but I am also a determined chap and if I commit to something I’ll sometimes see it through to the end. It is this determination that has seen me collate 365 songs into a 25 hours and 55 minute playlist titled “The Best Songs In The World”
You can find it here …
Not only have I made this playlist I have also made it into a spreadsheet as I fucking love me a spreadsheet! I have then pivot tabled this beautiful data and can tell you that the most popular artist outright was mewithoutYou with a whopping 13 songs (that’s 3.5% of the playlist!) There is a caveat here as Mark Lanegan comes in second with 9 BUT that doesn’t count his work with Soulsavers, Screaming Trees, Queens Of The Stone Age, Chrissie Hynde, Mad Season, Auf der Maur or any other way I managed to sneak him in on the sly. I love and miss Mark dearly, the world is genuinely a duller place without him in it. Rest in peace you big moody bastard.
The longest song was Tao Of The Dead, Part 2: Strange News From Another Planet by …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead coming in at 16:32. The shortest was Poor Old Prince Philip by Crapsons which rattles by in 11 seconds. The one and only song to appear twice is Love by Lambrini Girls and I regret nothing, it’s bloody brilliant. Shelter had 3 songs in a row and only have 4 on the list in total, I “may” have been reading Ray Cappo’s book and toying with straight edge (again) at the time.
By and large it all flows quite nicely and the only real gear change that makes me wince relistening is when I go from Brompton Oratory as covered by Mark Lanegan to Supernaut as covered by 1000 Homo DJs but I really *REALLY* had to listen to Supernaut on that day, no other song would have done.
There are little easter eggs scattered throughout for my own amusement. Winter Solstice by mewithoutYou was picked on 21/12/24, The Time They Are A Changing by Bob Dylan was the weekend the clocks went back. Open Up by Leftfield was when Hollywood was literally burning. There is a whole run where the order is the same as a tape that came free with Kerrang! in 95 or maybe 96 at a push. A good chunk of The Crow soundtrack is on there. There are little runs of bands all linked together in tenuous ways i.e. Electronic, New Order, Joy Division, Therapy? Nine Inch Nails (Therapy? and NIN are the joint 3rd most popular picks with 8 each)
There are some shocking misses due to being limited to Spotify as the actual best songs at some point were Gold Dust Woman and Over The Edge as covered by Hole and as a result Hole only appear thrice, Thrice appear twice. Pink Floyd never made the grade once as they are more a lose yourself in the whole album type of thing. Three Colours Red aren’t on there and I have their debut album tattooed on me (more on tattoos another day maybe) American Football are only on there three times and one of them is a cover. There is a frankly embarrassing lack of women, but PJ Harvey is the joint fifth most popular pick with six appearances (not counting her duet with Mark Lanegan)
The most pretentious music wanker pick is 打開太陽 – 美聲版 by Flesh Juicer. The most “dude wtf are you thinking?” pick was God Put A Smile Upon Your Face by Coldplay but one of the many musical hills I will die on is that their debut was bloody brilliant and it was only with fame and fortune that the rot set in and they became the beigest band ever, the musical equivalent of a Ford Mondeo.
You can pretty much track my state of mind and the time of year as there is a lot of gloomy dirges in the winter and bouncier stuff in the summer. You can see where I stopped taking the meds and things spiralled out of control and you can see where I start to pick myself back up again. You can see when I found out Kerbdog were supporting Reef. You can see when I saw Reef. You can see where I was getting stressy over an imminent birthday gathering that involved karaoke. Despite all of *this* I find it hard putting my thoughts into words and music makes things easier for me. I’d be lost without it.
That’s kind of a lie, I find it hard to put my thoughts into words that I can speak out loud. I can sit and write about all the plates spinning in my head with little to no thought at all. If I was to sit down and tell you about this playlist I’d say something like “I made a playlist where I added a song a day for a year” and then leave out all the nuance and hidden details and meanings. My internal monologue never really stops, it went quiet for a while and I stopped writing and carried on like a normal person. Then it got all loud again and I didn’t know what to do and now here we are.
For the record (see what I did there?) the best song in the world, like the actual best one of all time ever is Roam by The B52s.
Prozac and Whimsy 
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