Everyone loves a good pop song

At the Carolina game this afternoon (sigh), I heard a super-emo remix of "Time After Time" which annoyed me at first and then I decided it was awesome. Not because Quietdrive did some fantastic spin - on the contrary, it's pretty derivative - but because it is a truly awesome pop song. There are something like 100+ covers on iTunes, and I'm sure that doesn't even come close to the number of bands and/or lounge singers who've covered it. So I started thinking about all the pop songs that I could hear over and over again, preferably in their original incarnation. This might be a too-broad definition of pop, and my songs are certainly kind of old. There are lots that might be added to the list in a few years - the whole thing is totally arbitrary. These are those I thought of tonight, and the list is totally not all-inclusive:

1. "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper. Bless her orange-haired heart, she has such a weird voice and crazy close-together eyes, but that swell on "when you're lost . . ." kind of gets you every time.

2. "Stardust" by Nat King Cole. This might be cheating, because I don't actually know if pop songs per se existed in Nat's time, but it was certainly popular and, my goodness, always bears repeating. I get sucked in at the fermata "Sometimes I wonder how I spend" and then the violins that follow.

3. "Take On Me" by A-ha. They might win the prize for stupidest band name ever, but I cannot tell you how much time I spent listening to KRSP with Shannan waiting, dying for this song to come on the radio. Much screaming followed.

4. "Somebody" by Depeche Mode. This could just be my generation, but its lyrics are kind of every teenage girl's best scenario. "About the world we live in and life in general." As you do.

5. "Father Figure" by George Michael. It's not your first George Michael choice at a dance - that honor goes to "One More Try" because it's like 6 1/2 minutes long - but it has interesting chord progression (and those super great background ladies), and it's kind of unnerving in a good way. Only, it's probably better to just not listen carefully to the lyrics as an adult.

6. "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS. This song was my favorite song for a very long time. The video was really mysterious and Parisian, and Michael Hutchence was all wandering around with his lovely blowing curls. And come on, the minor violins? So great. It's a good use of white space and phrasing, too. He loves your precious heart.

7. "Bad" by U2. I was only 8 when The Unforgettable Fire came out, so I don't know how it was on the radio, but I discovered in in high school, and the live version from Wide Awake in America is equally fantastic. I think there are probably more popular choices from The Joshua Tree, which I love, but "Bad" is one of those songs that builds beautifully and takes you right along with it until you "Suuuuuureeeeeennnnnder, dislocate" unwittingly. Hoo hoo!

8. "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" by Phil Collins. Phil Collins songs are all so keyboard-y and mixed kind of weird and mushy - they sound so representative of pop songs of their era. Maybe it's because we remember them from cassettes, but either way, the name of this song is some weird grammatical problem (and it has the weird parenthetical addition to the title in a sad marriage of marketing and art, no doubt) but the soaring music . . . you just can't help but be sad that "there's just the memory of your face."

9. "A Little Respect" by Erasure. I don't know that Andy Bell & Vince Clarke really wanted to write a song for teenage girls and their unrequited love, but there you go. "I'm so in love with you-u-u-u-u" indeed.

10. "She's Got a Way" by Billy Joel. Billy Joel songs are best when it's just him and the piano, his voice sounds great, and it's a quite perfect love song with one of those amusing journeys to falsetto at the end.

11. "Scarborough Fair" by Simon & Garfunkel. Is it the only song ever written about herbs? It's among the small group of songs written in 3/4 time, which makes it flow perfectly, and no matter how much better musically Paul Simon was without Art, they harmonize beautifully. Also kind of mystical and haunting. (Although, I have to say it's in a tight race with "April Come She Will" for me.)

12. "And it Stoned Me" by Van Morrison. I love how he just starts, vaults you right in. It has interesting rhythm, and though the horns are vaguely blare-y, I do love the melody and the narrative.

13. "Every Rose Has its Thorn" by Poison. Not really super deep insight there, but who can resist Bret Michaels and his giant sigh before the song even starts, like, "what follows is so heartbreaking, I can barely stand it." That's certainly how I felt listening to it a million times. "Yeah, it does."

14. "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac. Oh Stevie Nicks, and your wonderful scratchy alto. It's a perfect, perfect acoustic song - simple, but not completely prosaic, metaphors for the hard parts of being alive, those quiet mmm-mmm parts, and the musically ambiguous ending.

15. "Crazy for You" by Madonna. The thing is, you're always "dying to say" stuff to people, and it's all clichés and smoky rooms, but it's such a great melody, and the "ah, ah, ah, ahhhh" background singers totally suck you in.