The Cove 100: Outstanding Pop Recordings

1

Aretha Franklin — “Respect”

97 · Song 23 · Performance 25 · Production 24 · Consequence 25

Otis Redding wrote it as a man asking; Franklin recorded it as a woman informing. Almost everything that makes the record iconic was added in the studio — the spelling-out, the sisters' answering vocals, the stop-time — which is the clearest case on this list of a recording outgrowing its song. Full marks for consequence: it left the building as something larger than a single.

2

Marvin Gaye — “What's Going On”

96 · Song 24 · Performance 24 · Production 25 · Consequence 23

The record that proved a pop single could be built like a piece of chamber music and still work on the radio. The party chatter at the top, the two lead vocals in conversation with each other, the saxophone wandering in unhurried — every one of those is a production decision, and none of them is decoration.

3

The Beach Boys — “God Only Knows”

95 · Song 25 · Performance 23 · Production 25 · Consequence 22

A song that opens by declining to be a love song and then spends two and a half minutes being the most complete one anyone wrote in that decade. Harmonically it goes places pop songs did not go; texturally it is a small orchestra of instruments chosen for how odd they sound together. The round at the end is the finest ending in the form.

4

Stevie Wonder — “Superstition”

94 · Song 23 · Performance 25 · Production 24 · Consequence 22

Essentially one man playing everything, and it swings harder than most bands manage in a lifetime. The clavinet part is a rhythm section on its own; the drums sit fractionally behind it; the horns arrive late and leave early. A masterclass in what groove actually is, which is tension between parts rather than tightness.

5

The Beatles — “A Day in the Life”

94 · Song 24 · Performance 23 · Production 25 · Consequence 22

Two unfinished fragments welded together by an orchestral crescendo that nobody had a reason to believe would work. It is the moment the recording studio stops being a place where songs are documented and becomes a place where they are composed — and the final chord is still the best argument for that shift.

6

Prince — “When Doves Cry”

93 · Song 23 · Performance 24 · Production 25 · Consequence 21

He took the bass off. A dance record with no bassline should not function, and the reason this one does is that everything else has been arranged to cover the hole — the drum machine sits higher, the keyboard carries the low end in stabs, and the vocal has room it would never otherwise get. The best example in pop of subtraction as a production technique.

7

Michael Jackson — “Billie Jean”

93 · Song 23 · Performance 24 · Production 25 · Consequence 21

The bassline and the drum pattern do not change for the entire record, and it never once sags, because everything above them is in constant motion. Famously laboured over in the mix, and it shows in the best way: every element occupies its own frequency space, which is why it still sounds enormous on equipment that did not exist when it was made.

8

Fleetwood Mac — “Dreams”

92 · Song 24 · Performance 24 · Production 23 · Consequence 21

Two chords, one drum pattern, and no chorus in the conventional sense — the hook is a change in the vocal's altitude rather than a change in the music. That it carries four minutes on that little is a testament to how good the band's internal clock was and how much information Nicks puts into a single held syllable.

9

Kate Bush — “Running Up That Hill”

92 · Song 24 · Performance 24 · Production 24 · Consequence 20

Built on a drum machine pattern and a single insistent keyboard figure, with an enormous amount of empty space around them. The arrangement never resolves the tension it sets up in the first bar, which is why the record still feels unfinished in the way the lyric requires.

10

Public Enemy — “Fight the Power”

91 · Song 21 · Performance 24 · Production 25 · Consequence 21

Denser than anything around it, by a distance. The Bomb Squad stacked so many samples that individual sources stop being identifiable and the whole thing becomes a single abrasive texture — a production approach that was briefly possible, then legislated out of existence, which makes this a record that literally cannot be made again.

11

Nirvana — “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

91 · Song 23 · Performance 24 · Production 22 · Consequence 22

The quiet-loud structure was not new; the commitment was. What carries it is the drumming, which plays against the guitar rather than with it, and a lead vocal that audibly degrades over the take and was left that way.

12

Whitney Houston — “I Will Always Love You”

90 · Song 24 · Performance 25 · Production 21 · Consequence 20

Dolly Parton's song, and the recording that demonstrates the difference between the two things. Beginning a cappella is the whole gamble — there is nothing to hide behind and no reference pitch to lean on — and it is won inside the first four bars. The key change is the most famous one in pop for the ordinary reason that it is perfectly executed.

13

Al Green — “Let's Stay Together”

90 · Song 23 · Performance 24 · Production 24 · Consequence 19

The Hi Rhythm Section playing quieter than any comparable band would dare, with the drums damped almost to a thud. That restraint is what leaves room for the vocal to float rather than push, and the record is the definitive argument that soul does not require volume.

14

Joni Mitchell — “A Case of You”

89 · Song 25 · Performance 24 · Production 21 · Consequence 19

Full marks for the song, which is as well-written as anything in the popular canon and would survive any arrangement you subjected it to. The recording is nearly bare — dulcimer, voice, a little guitar — and the sparseness is what makes the specificity of the lyric land.

15

Donna Summer — “I Feel Love”

89 · Song 19 · Performance 22 · Production 25 · Consequence 23

The song is almost nothing, deliberately. What matters is that the entire backing is synthesised and sequenced at a time when that was a technical stunt, and that Moroder made it sound warm rather than clinical. Nearly every electronic dance record since is downstream of this one.

16

Radiohead — “Paranoid Android”

88 · Song 22 · Performance 23 · Production 24 · Consequence 19

Three separate pieces in six minutes, joined without any of the connective tissue that would normally make that palatable. It works because each section is committed to absolutely, and because the guitar solo is placed where a chorus would ordinarily go.

17

Curtis Mayfield — “Move On Up”

88 · Song 22 · Performance 24 · Production 23 · Consequence 19

Nine minutes of essentially one groove, and the length is the point — the horn line does not arrive until you have been in it long enough to want something. The percussion arrangement is more detailed than almost anything else from the period.

18

Lauryn Hill — “Doo Wop (That Thing)”

87 · Song 23 · Performance 24 · Production 22 · Consequence 18

Two verses addressed to two audiences, rapped and sung by the same person without any seam between the modes. That fluency was rare then and is still not common, and the horn-led arrangement keeps the whole thing warm enough that the lecture never reads as one.

19

Amy Winehouse — “Back to Black”

87 · Song 23 · Performance 24 · Production 23 · Consequence 17

A period pastiche that transcends pastiche because the writing is genuinely modern and the performance is genuinely wounded. The Dap-Kings play it straight and slightly stiff, which is correct — the stiffness is what the vocal pushes against.

20

Beyoncé — “Crazy in Love”

86 · Song 21 · Performance 24 · Production 24 · Consequence 17

The horn sample is doing so much work that the record could have coasted on it, and instead the arrangement keeps adding pressure — the doubled vocals, the handclaps, the bridge that drops almost everything. A lesson in how to build a single around a borrowed hook without being subordinate to it.