Trying to put into words what makes a song perfect is pretty hard, if it’s even possible. My take is that perfection is a lot like porn: I’ll know it when I see it, and damn do I love it. I think that songs can be perfect in a lot of different ways, and no two perfect songs need to have anything in common. I picked out ten examples that I find myself coming back to over and over again, so that maybe you can start thinking about what makes a song perfect to you or just appreciate the craft of these specific ones.
Perfect Pop Songs
The Cars – Just What I Needed
This one stands out to me for so many reasons. It’s the first single off the Cars’ first album, which is insane. It’s an 80s song that came out in the 70s, which is insane. The most recognizable part of it is the crazy good keyboard riff that only comes in after three full minutes and lasts for thirty seconds, which is insane! The writing is tight, repetitive but not droning, the chorus is infectious, the performances are spot-on. It’s perfect, right?
The B-52s – Roam
Another instant earworm of a hook here. The instrumental performances are all solid but this is one that’s carried by the vocals laid down so well by Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson. The lyrics connect perfectly to the upbeat sonics by painting pictures of escapes and fun and beautiful vacations. Speaking of vacations….
The Go-Gos – Vacation
Here’s one where the lyrics don’t match the sound, but that just makes it even better. The song is given another layer to connect to it on once you get past how fun it sounds. Every instrument really gets a chance to shine through on its own, even with a strong vocal lead. What more could you want?
The Killers – Somebody Told Me
The story goes that the Killers heard Is This It by the Strokes, and threw out all their songs except for “Mr. Brightside.” That was great, not only because “Brightside” became one of the ultra-rare songs to enter the permanent musical canon, but because we got “Somebody Told Me” out of it. It’s got disco to it, it’s a dance song, it’s singable, it’s got that particular kind of sleaze that seemed to only exist in the early 2000s. The lyrics have that really interesting quality where at first they don’t make any sense at all, but if you think about it they do. It also does something structurally that I really love, where the second verse (which is also the last verse) is cut super short compared to the first one. It’s as if they realized mid-playing that the chorus is so damn good that they need to get right back into it as soon as possible. That’s how you know you’ve got something special.
Covers That Outclass the Original
It’s not easy to do, so when it does happen, it’s worth celebrating. These two in particular stuck out to me.
The Coolies – King of Confusion (The Go-Gos)
This comparison might not be fair to the Go-Gos, since the original song was never really supposed to be listened to too much. It was a Japanese bonus track on their last album from 2001, and as such they probably didn’t give it their full polish and dub treatment. That said, the version by the Coolies is better in every single aspect. Palmyra Delran does an incredible and almost indistinguishable vocal impression of Kim Shattuck on the lead, as she died before this project could come out, and it hits stronger than the more theatric sound of the 2001 cut. She and Melanie Vammen give the guitar parts more bite and more of a sense of timing and urgency that really serves the song. Clem Burke from Blondie guests on the cover and provides a cleaner and clearer drum track, and the other guest is none other than Kathy Valentine of the Go-Gos! She does her own bass line over again, and she does it better 21 years later. It’s better than the original and still close enough that I really don’t see any reason to ever go back to the original. That’s perfecting a song in my book.
The Beards – Thalassocracy (Frank Black)
This is one where you could have just covered it straight, and it would have been fine. But when the Beards got their hands on it, and more specifically the aforementioned Kim Shattuck, they took it to another level by adding a nasty little bit of vocal distortion and a much-appreciated dose of melody. The song isn’t turned totally soft by it, though, because Kim still adds in her best-in-the-biz screams where they’re appropriate. The solo is turned more pop punk than punk, which fits right into her wheelhouse but still competes with the source material’s version. The original song is good, but after hearing the one that came eight years later, it feels like it’s been perfected and it really knows what it’s supposed to be.
General Perfection
The Beths – Future Me Hates Me
This is just so good. The music is just delightful, the vocals are charming, but on top of that, the lyrics and the structure and the use of backing vocals play into the narrative perfectly. The protagonist is so cautious and hesitant to fall in love, because of all the people they know that it’s broken, and they think they can keep themselves out of it, but then they’re ensnared just like everyone else. But when that comes, and there’s no turning back, the rest of the band starts singing some of the same lines she did earlier, but masterfully recontextualized to basically welcome her to the club. She tries one more time to launch into the chorus, but she’s drowned out by all the other victims like her singing her earlier lines and just gives in (again). You can’t write better than that.
The Voidz – The Eternal Tao 2.0
And you can’t write weirder than this. Strokes side quest turned main mission, the Voidz are where Julian Casablancas and his strange friends can make strange uninhibited music. Sometimes it’s abrasive, sometimes it’s lowkey and sweet, sometimes it’s something else. This one is kinda everything somehow. The song has multiple phases, all of them super compelling, with inspirational and borderline revolutionary lyrics if you can work out what the hell is being said through the Auto-Tuned and purposely haphazard delivery. The guitars, the drums, the keyboards, the effects, it all just drives the song and keeps you invested the whole way through even if you manage to hate it (you’re crazy if you do, but you’re at least gonna pay attention).
Michael Penn – Room 712, the Apache
This one starts with the same energy it ends with, which isn’t frenetic but it’s a jolting open. As the verses go on, they incorporate more and more backing vocals, which gives it a sense of progression that I love and that you don’t really get from the song’s dynamics, so they serve an actual purpose. The vocals peak toward the very end, when they hit the chorus one last time and change up the lyrics (which is another tactic that gets me most of the time), on the line “I just can’t get the thing to start.” There’s an understated emotion behind the delivery. Weary, desperate, frustrated, something. It didn’t need it, but it puts the whole thing over the top and gives the conclusion that much more satisfaction.
Queens of the Stone Age – Misfit Love
A foreboding intro, check. A catchy and danceable riff, check. Classic Josh Homme high-low vocals on the verse, check. Classic QotSA creepy guy doing vocals in your ear (“a thrill, I need a thrill“), check. But then just when you’re expecting the usual virtuosic bluesy solo, the song says fuck you (yes, you, directly) and launches into a minute-plus long driving outro that raises the stakes and the beauty all at once. It hits all the right notes you wanted and creates some new right ones to hit. Perfect in my book.