Customer Reviews

1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time and the Artists, Stories and Secrets Behind Them

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In the iPod era, it seems like everybody and their mother has a book out about "essential playlists," as if you can condense a band like the Beatles into 20 randomized gems. Interesting though books like this are, none are worth owning any more than one should buy a tracklist for a compilation CD. So why should this massive title be any different?

The answer is simple. In its size lies content... Creswell says something about each song. It's more like a book of brief stories, as opposed to the bound grocery lists similar titles offer... you get recommendations and reasons why. See, this book is like talking to your friend about music... he'll tell you he's just discovered Portishead, you'll share that you've lately been really into Neil Young's latest, and perhaps after you'll go home and check out what the other was hyping.

There is plenty of hyping going on in here, too, with 1001 tracks waiting for you to discover them. Neither the songs nor the artists are all the same old standards... you'll find, for example, Pearl Jam's "Alive," but I was all the more pleased to find a young woman named Thea Gilmore listed within... a name which might be more well known in England, but is not as well known here in the US. If you're looking for the Great American Songbook, you'll be disappointed. Of course, if you're looking for songs that classic, that well known, what more new can be written? The title states that these are great songs. This is, of course, debateable, but what is not debateable is that these are not necessarily the greatest. This book isn't meant to be a top 1001 of all songdom... it is meant to simply be 1001 songs that the author feels are truly great. I'd recommend this book to any avid music fan, anyone who enjoys learning about music they didn't know before, and anyone open to hearing that which may not be familiar... that is the niche it serves. If you need a countdown, look elsewhere, and if you can't look past the classics, Michael Buble will have a new CD soon enough.

I love this book. I rate it five stars because it tells the stories behind all those great songs. It's answered a lot of questions I've had. I know I'm not one to judge a book that has mostly oldies- I'm only twelve years old- but it's a great book and I recommend it to music experts and newcomers alike.

[I tried to enter a list of the 1001 songs but couldn't.]

It is what it is: a list of 1001 Songs that the author felt like writing about. The subtitle "The Great Songs Of All Time" is rather dubious, and unfortunate. To be fair, Mr. Creswell admits his prejudices openly in the introduction.

I found his commentaries on the songs to be an enjoyable read and recommend the book based on that alone. As mentioned in another review here, he occasionally has a fact wrong. I have to admit that my tastes and his differ significantly and that quite a number of the songs here have me shaking my head (Brian Eno's "1/1" ??) or hitting the skip button (Stooges' "L.A. Blues"). I've managed to stream most of them from a music service.

Mr. Creswell largely eschews the monster hits, though he strays from this quite often to include the likes of "Satisfaction", "Ticket To Ride", and "Like A Rolling Stone". I actually quite enjoyed the off-the-beaten-trail aspect of this book and wish he had made that a rule when he selected the songs. His inclusion of several songs from bands of his native Australia seems contrary to the subtitle, but, again, any list is subjective.

Because of this inherent subjectivity, disagreements are quibbles, but why, oh why do rock critics feel compelled to include every song The Velvet Underground ever recorded in their lists? They are a band that is virtually ignored by everyone on the planet - except rock critics. The VU or Lou Reed or Nico are grossly overrepresented in this list with 14 entries. And does Midnight Oil really deserve 3 songs in the top 1001 of all time?

My larger problem with this book and lists by most rock critics is that they feel compelled to include songs from the Country, Jazz, Pop and Blues genres, but their knowledge of these genres is too shallow. The selections are obvious and perfunctory. "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Crazy" and "He Stopped Loving Her Today" are obvious country choices; "Take Five", "My Favourite Things" and "Take the `A' Train" equally shallow choices for Jazz. I doubt that the top 1001 songs of all time would truly be 90% Rock. I wish Mr. Creswell had admitted upfront that this was a list of his favorite rock songs or had greater breadth in his selections. I could easily come up with 500 Country, Jazz and Pop Vocal songs that would argue for inclusion in any list of the 1001 great songs.

Quibbles indeed, I found this book enjoyable even though I actively dislike at least a third of his selections. His comments are lengthy enough and entertaining. A bonus is that by seeking out the songs herein, I've discovered a few gems that have escaped my attention through the years: "Levi Stubb's Tears", "I Still Carry You Around", "A Message To You Rudy" and others. And what good is a list you don't argue with?

If you are looking for an overview of 100 years of popular music of the world, look elsewhere. The selection allowed by the author's blinkers comprises overwhelmingly English-speaking rock & roll. The only way you can enjoy this messy book is if you share the author's many biases. It could be expected that he would have written mostly about the songs he loves - in his case Bob Dylan's (28 songs, including the Gospel period) and Neil Young's. But the problem is that he was equally interested in putting down those he does not, even if it is for ideological reasons. He detests Supertramp, so he mentions just one of their songs, precisely the one he hates the most, so that he is allowed to say they were "the worst group ever and thank God it's over". He puts down John Lennon's "Imagine" saying it is "pretentious", but he doesn't hide that what he hates is that it depicts "an atheist utopia". He detests "concept albums", so, he mentions one song of Jethro Tull, just to be able to say it was "a band ruined by the concept album". He detests Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Deep Purple - and the only purpose of the review of "Smoke on the Water" is to deride it. He only mentions Donovan Leicht to put him down. His blatant homophobia is obvious in his review of YMCA. He lists only one song of Michael Jackson. More importantly, you won't find any mention of Pete Seeger, Odetta, Belafonte or Miriam Makeba, so don't even think of the inclusion of any songsters from, say, France. Piaf, Becaud, Aznavour, Moustaki, Dassin, Brel, Polnareff, even Johnny Hallyday might not have existed. His ignorance of serious music is made obvious, among other things, by his tiptoeing mention of J.S.Bach in the review of "A whiter shade of pale", although in a effort to look open-minded, he includes Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and John Cage's 4'33' (no kidding).

As the songs are not in chronological order, you cannot concentrate on your favorite period. They are not ordered by songwriter, so you cannot read the sections about those you prefer. They cannot be grouped by genre because that would make obvious the book unevenness. You can only look repeatedly for song names in the index, or pass the pages at leisure until you find one that attracts your interest. This book is useless as a reference.

Definitely some insightful essays for a wide variety of songs. The order of the songs, however, is neither a ranked list nor a chronological listing, but a seemingly random order. For those interested in best-of song lists, also check out the following:

Dave's Music Database presents: The Top 100 Songs of the Rock Era 1954-1999

I was looking for a song reference in order to identify older songs so that I can add them to my library.
I admit I did not buy this book but I searched through "Look inside" in order to randomly see if the mentioned songs are really those important from my point of view. When it is about music (or art in general) "de gustibus non est disputandum" but some general rules should still apply.
First of all, these songs are not groupped in any way (they should be grouped by genre and year), but the big questions are raised by the content.
First 5 songs didn't tell me anything, moreover you cannot mention "Bird on a wire" for Cohen and not his masterpieces Suzanne or Hallelujah (which is mentioned but for Rufus Wainwright and I don't know why because if you do not like Cohen's interpretation than next in line is John Cale who made the current arrangement or K.D. Lang or the group Lind, Nilsen, Holm and Fuentes).
You cannot mention Neil Young with "Down by the river" but not with "Heart of gold".
For Bee Gees you may argue which song was their best, but you cannot mention "Stayin' Alive" without "Massachusetts".
What about missing completely Scorpions (Wind of Change), Europe (Final Countdown), Berlin (Take my Breath Away), Joe Dassin (L'ete Indienne), Neil Diamond (Sweet Caroline), Egelbert Humperdinck (Spanish Eyes), Joe Cocker (You are so beautiful), Chris deBurgh (Lady in Red), Edith Piaf (Je ne regrette rien), Depeche Mode (Enjoy the Silence), Jean Michel Jarre (Oxygene 4), Roch Voisine (Tu et Moi) and list can go on.
Now Beatles (30 songs mentioned!) were great indeed but "I Me Mine" really in top? In exchange ABBA (2 songs), Aerosmith (2 songs), Guns N' Roses (1 song) just to mention few? The worst treated is Queen with 2 songs (at least Bohemian Rapsody is mentioned): I don't think I am the only one considering Queen the best band and Freddie as having one of the best voices (by the way Freddie Mercury as singer is not mentioned but you can find Rev Mercury like "Opus 40" is way above "Barcelona" or "The Great Pretender"). At least 5 integral Queen albums are well above 90% of what is mentioned in this book.
And you removed all this to make room for King Sunny Ade (no offence intended - just the first example I found). My random search through book's index showed me that 50% of songs have no memorable value and 25% cannot make the top 1000 no matter which your preferences are.
I don't deny this book may bring you interesting facts that you did not know about some songs, singers or bands but the title of the book is not "Interesting facts behind the scene" but "The Great Songs of All Time" or in my opinion is far from this.

The selection of songs here is not the point. Creswell is not overly concerned about his personal connection with the songs, and he isn't trying to persuade anyone. Instead, he has assembled an extremely pleasant collection of brief essays, histories and anecdotes that any popular music fan can learn from and enjoy. I've found his writing to be generally so informative and entertaining that I read about songs I don't particularly like almost as enthusiastically as I read about my favorites. Highly recommended.

Written by an Aussie, there are an awful lot of entries here of bands and songs unfamiliar to the American public. However, the writing is consistently excellent. Author shows solid foundation of musical knowledge, and clearly enjoys his subject matter. I would recommend that this book be on any rock and roll fan's reference shelf.

It would seem impossible for a book running close to 900 pages written by an "expert" with over 30 years experience in his field to be total rubbish, but "1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time", comes surprisingly close. Let's begin with the title. I can grant the "1001" without taking the time to count them (No, they're not numbered... nor in any discernable order for that matter) but then things get dodgy.
Leaving aside the questionable grammar of the subtitle, Mr. Cresswell seems to believe that "all time" begins almost exclusively with the rock era.Look in the, woefully inadequate, index and you'll find Britney Spears, but not Sondheim; Radio Birdman is here-but no Richard Rodgers; You will search in vain for Irving Berlin or Cole Porter. Surely at some point in "all time" they wrote something "great"! But, in a way this is just as well, since my random "landings" on such non-rock era pieces as Rhapsody In Blue (hardly a "song") and Over the Rainbow, are so error filled that they're laughable. (For the record, Gershwin's "Swanee" was not introduced in "the world's first musical film" in 1919/20-when George would have been 21-but in a stage show. And OTR was not written as a disguised protest song-Harburg never disguised his protests-but precisely as a book song for that particular place in the film).
Further problems evolve with even finding any given song except by dumb luck. A case could be made for indexing the above Over the Rainbow under Judy Garland, it was her signature song and neither Harold Arlen nor E.Y. Harburg, the writers,make the cut. But to list I'm a Believer solely under the Monkees, when its composer, a fellow named Diamond, has recorded it numerous times, completely belies the title of the book since we are now not even examining "Songs" but recordings.
Space prevents much further comment so let's end on a positive note. With Amazon's discount, the book makes an affordable, and not unattractive, doorstop.

I WAS DISSAPOINTED IN THAT MANY OF THE SONGS ARE RELATIVELY CURRENT. I EXPECTED TO FIND MORE AMERICAN STANDARDS RATHER THAN "PUNKISH" TITLES. I WOULD HAVE NEVER PAID THE AMOUNT I PAID HAD I KNOWN THE LIST OF SONGS THE BOOK CONTAINED. IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA TO LIST THE SONGS AND GIVE THE BUYER A BETTER IDEA OF WHAT HE/SHE IS BUYING.