Best Songs of 2022: Bad Bunny, Beyonce, Steve Lacy, Taylor Swift
Top 10 Songs From 1973
It was a great year for albums, as some of rock's biggest names released their all-time best LPs in 1973. But many of the year's best songs work better as stand-alone singles rather than album tracks, which is why only two cuts on our list of the Top 10 Songs From 1973 can be found on our list of the year's best albums. That's not to say those albums didn't contain great songs, or that these songs weren't pulled from good albums. It's just that these are the songs from 1973 we could listen to over and over again.
Before they started work on the Band on the Run album, McCartney and Wings were commissioned to write and perform the theme song for the eighth James Bond movie. "Live and Let Die" became the biggest Bond theme to that point, reaching No. 2. Beatles producer George Martin was enlisted to produce and score the song's orchestral midsection. It was the first time McCartney worked with him in years.
After four years of mostly missing the Top 40, the Michigan band scored its first No. 1 hit with this cowbell classic, which was produced by Todd Rundgren. There's nothing subtle about Grand Funk Railroad or "We're an American Band," which is probably for the best when you're dealing with a song about willing after-show groupies.
Alice Cooper was coming off the biggest hit of his career ("School's Out") when he released the Billion Dollar Babies album in 1973. It became his only No. 1 LP, thanks to this catchy, guitar-driven single that winks at his onstage reputation. The cut, which made it to No. 25, is one of several on our list of the Top 10 Songs From 1973 that's rooted in real life.
Following Duane Allman's death in 1971, things were somewhat dicey for the rest of the band. Their 1972 album Eat a Peach was cobbled together with some leftover Duane tracks. So when the Allmans reconvened in late 1972 to record their first album without their star guitarist, nobody was really sure how it would turn out. It turned out to be a hit: Brothers and Sisters would become their only No. 1 album, and "Ramblin' Man," the most accessible song of their long career, became their only Top 10 hit, stopping at No. 2.
Back when this song first hit airwaves, fans thought they were hearing a new Bob Dylan track. Nope, this Scottish band was actually playfully mocking Dylan. Even though "Stuck in the Middle With You" was Stealers Wheel's only hit, the band and the single didn't completely fade away: Singer Gerry Rafferty had a huge hit in 1978 with "Baker Street," and the song underlined an infamous scene in Quentin Tarantino's debut movie Reservoir Dogs.
Billy Joel's breakthrough hit was inspired by his gig as a lounge singer in Los Angeles after his debut album bombed. (Like other tracks on our list of the Top 10 Songs From 1973, "Piano Man" is based on real events.) Joel rattles off a series of characters, none of whom seem very interested in hearing him play his music. Joel didn't have another hit until four years later, when The Stranger made him a star. But the autobiographical "Piano Man" remains his best song.
"Walk on the Wild Side" is one of the oddest songs to ever hit the Top 20. Reed has other songs about junkies, hookers, transsexuals and oral sex, mostly with the Velvet Underground, but none of them ever got any airplay. "Walk on the Wild Side" helped make Reed's second solo album, Transformer (which was produced by David Bowie), a hit.
The title track of John's double-album epic features one of his best vocal performances and one of his greatest melodies. It also sounds great, a triumph of both style and substance. "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" serves as the album's anchor, a reserved work that touches on the singer's gargantuan fame in the '70s.
Dylan not only scored the soundtrack to Sam Peckinpah's bloody western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, he had a role in it. He's not very good, but the music he wrote for the movie, most of it instrumental, is quietly panoramic. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," a recurring theme of both the movie and album, is the highlight.
At nine minutes, "Free Bird" is not only the longest-running track on our list of the Top 10 Songs From 1973, it's the most epic sounding of the bunch. Lynyrd Skynyrd knew what they had here. "Free Bird" capped their debut album and became their signature tune in concert, where it often stretched out to 15 or more minutes. After 40 years, it remains one of classic rock's most popular songs.
Bird Songs
poets and musicians, from Chaucer to Wordsworth, from Handel to Respighi. Birdsong can be a natural phenomenon of intense beauty. But our enjoyment is incidental to the main purpose, which is one bird communicating with others. Birds became the world's master musicians in order to convey to potential mates, rivals and predators all the important things they have to say, from "Clear off!" to "Come on!" And their songs have been shaped by their environment, just as the rap musician of New York delivers a different "tune" to the yodeller in the Swiss mountains. The musical detail would have impressed the great composers. The nightingale, for example, holds up to 300 different love songs in his repertoire. The canary may take 30 mini-breaths a second to replenish its air supply. The cowbird uses 40 different notes, some so high we can't hear them. The chaffinch may sing his song half a million times in a season.
Indeed, British musician David Hindley slowed bird song down and discovered parallels between the skylark's blizzard of notes and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; between the woodlark's mind-numbingly complex song and J.S.Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues. It changes its tune according to the rules of classical sonata form.
Song allows the bird to "speak" better than and other family of creatures. It is the perfect medium for communicating over long distances, or when it is hard to see the singer - and the audience: for example at night or in dense vegetation. Whatever the habitat, birds have a way of singing into it. When a bird sings, it can always be heard, even after it has moved out of sight. Sound travels in all directions; it can penetrate through or around objects.
But how do birds produce such a complex variety of notes? How do they sing non-stop for minutes on end without pausing to catch their breath?
The vocal skill of birds derive from the unusual structure of their powerful vocal equipment. The syrinx is the sound-producing organ in birds. It is the equivalent of the human sound box. The syrinx contains membranes which vibrate and generate sound waves when air from the lungs is passed over them. The muscles of the syrinx control the details of song production; birds with more elaborate system of vocal muscles produce more complex songs.
But unlike our soundbox, which is situated at the top of the trachea, the bird's syrinx is set much lower down, at the junction of the two bronchi or air tubes leading to the lungs.
This means that the syrinx has two potential sound sources, one in each bronchus. The separate membranes on each bronchus produce separate sounds, which are then mixed when fed into the higher vocal tract. This complex design means that birds can produce a far greater variety of sounds than humans can.
Birds give the impression of singing in long bursts for minutes on end without catching their breath. But they actually do this by taking a series of shallow mini-breaths, which are synchronized with each syllable they sing.
However, birds must work hard to get their particular message across. There is a lot of competition in the avian choir.
The Superb Lyrebird is thought to have the loudest bird call in the world. The bittern is not far behind. Its loud, booming call is one of the farthest travelling of all bird songs. It calls relentlessly both day and night from deep within the reed bed, hoping to attract a female into his territory.
The kakapo has one of the most far-carrying songs of any bird. It sings from an amplification bowl that it tramples into the ground. The bird sits inside this bowl, slowly inflating its two enormous air sacs, sucking the air in with a whistling sound, until it is almost double its normal size, as big as a football. He then starts to transmit the most amazing message that can be heard as far as four miles away. He may boom all night for three months to attract females in the area to his display court.
Birds use sounds that travel better in particular conditions. In forests sound bounces off trees and is absorbed by the leaves. Here a constant brief signal works best. If the intended recipients mishear it the first time, they will surely catch it again. Birds of the forest floor, such as antbirds and curassows, use low-pitched calls that will not be bounced off and distorted by the ground. Out in the plains species like the Savannah Sparrow favor the buzz. The buzz is a compressed message which carries over great distances in open areas, savanna and grassland.
Running water produces a lot of interfering background noise which makes hearing any other sounds quite difficult. The high frequency calls of New Zealand blue ducks cut through the bubbling and rushing sound of the water.
In the open, sound travels best a meter or so above the vegetation. Many small birds therefore sing on elevated perches high in the vegetation to minimize interference from the ground and foliage. The nightingale sings its beautiful, melodious song from a branch on a tree, from where the song carries a long way.
Another performance ploy is to transmit the signal from above the vegetation by leaping up and calling from mid-air. The blue-black grassquit, a tropical grassland bird of South America, leaps clear of the grass during displays. In Britain, the skylark has solved the problem of few high vantage points in its habitat of open grassland. It soars high into the air to deliver its glorious warbling song, hovers then plummets down almost vertically.
Skylarks actually uses song as a form of defense against predator birds such as merlins or peregrines. By singing, the skylark signals to the merlin that it is in good condition and will be a hard job to catch. Only a fit skylark can afford to sing whilst being chased by a predator.
A human singer can use amplification to hide his or her vocal deficiencies. But bird song conveys a very honest message about the singer. The singer can't cheat: because singing expends energy; smaller, weaker birds cannot bluff the receiver into thinking that it is a larger, stronger rival or mate. Only strong birds with extra energy and strength can invest the energy need for loud, continuous singing, and evade any predator that may detect it.
The best time to hear bird song is at dawn. The dawn chorus is one of the marvels of nature. Birds all over the world show the greatest amount of singing activity around dawn, from English woodland to tropical rainforest. But why they do it is still not clearly understood. One reason may be that dawn is the best time for sound to travel, because there is little wind and less other noise and disturbance. Songs broadcast at dawn can be 20 times as effective as those broadcast at midday. And this is a time when birds can't do much else. Light intensity is low, making it difficult for them to hunt and forage. Low temperatures keep their insect prey on the ground.
By singing at dawn, when their energy reserves are low after the night, male birds may be telling females that they are nevertheless still fit for breeding. A male singing lustily is demonstrating that he has spare energy in abundance. Dawn may be a good time to sing, but there is likely to be a lot of vocal competition. So there are advantages to singing at a different time of day, particularly when two different species have similar songs.
Two birds of the Californian chaparral, the wrentit and the Bewick's wren, share the same habitat, and also have similar songs. But they manage to alternate their singing bouts so that they are never in direct conflict.
The British dawn chorus: dawn may be the best time for sound to travel, because there is little wind and less other noise and disturbance
Listen to the dawn bird song
Birds can distinguish neighbors from strangers by individual differences in their songs. Males use this information to concentrate their defense efforts. They will not react aggressively against a neighbor as long as he stays on his own territory. But a singing stranger could mean a threat to the territory; a strong response is required to see this potential invader off.
When they are trying to attract females onto their territory, males become operatic. They sing longer and more complex songs. Females listen, but do not generally respond. Male great reed warblers, for example, sing long and elaborate songs when advertising for females. The females will spend several days visiting a selection of singing males before making their decision. They prefer to mate with males singing the most complex songs with the largest repertoire. Large song repertoires are an advantage in many birds, because they increase a male's attractiveness to females.
The record holder must surely be the brown thrasher, with over 2000 songs in its repertoire. The sedge warbler produces some of the longest and most complicated of all bird songs. An individual male may never repeat exactly the same sequence of elements twice during the course of his life. He constantly varies the order in which he arranges the 50 or so elements at its disposal.
Imitating or mimicking the calls of other species is one way that birds can increase their own repertoire, and be more attractive to mates. They can also vary the order, sequence or repetition of phrases to sound more variable. The most renowned vocal mimics in the bird world include mockingbirds, starlings, mynahs, marsh warbler, lyrebirds, bowerbirds, scrub-birds and African robin-chats. Starlings in the Shetland islands in Scotland have been known to mimic sheep; in Oxford, England, they mimic buses. The lyrebird, which Sir David Attenborough meets on a log in a dense forest in Australia, is the bird world's best mimic. It can imitate 12 other birds. It does the whirring of a camera's motor drive and the click of a shutter. It repeats the engine of a car, and the din of a car alarm. It can even imitate the screech of the chainsaw wielded by the loggers coming to cut down its habitat. Some migratory species, such as the marsh warbler, have an international repertoire. These birds nest in Europe but migrate to Africa in winter. Although the marsh warbler imitates some European species, most of its songs are those of African birds, which it hears on the wintering grounds. The warbler may mimic the calls of over 70 bird species. Warblers are telling females where they spend the winter. A female may find it advantageous to pair with a male adapted to wintering in the same part of Africa as she does.
Although it is generally the male that sings to attract mates or defend territories, in some species the female joins in too. The female alpine accentor sings to attract males, because for her it is an advantage to mate with as many males as possible - each one will then help in caring for her young.
The red-winged blackbird female sings two distinct song types throughout the breeding season. Song A is a form of communication directed at her partner. She sings Song B when other females appear; it seems to be an aggressive signal. Male European robins sing all year round. They have two songs, a longer more complex one to attract females in the breeding season, and a shorter simpler one to defend the territory in the winter. However, in winter, both sexes sing, because both male and female defend separate territories. They need these territories to ensure that each will have enough food to survive the winter.
The female black-headed grosbeak seems to use song to give her man a scare. Grosbeak parents take turns in incubating the eggs. But if the male is late returning to relieve the female from her duty, she sings a complex song imitating a male grosbeak. This may be to trick her mate into returning by giving the impression that a rival male is on his territory.
Ravens do a similar thing. Members of a pair learn each other's calls. When one partner is away or out of sight, the other will often call with it's mate's individual calls to relocate it and prompt it to return. In some species, the female may join the male in singing to defend their mutual territory. Both sexes will sing a duet in alternation. Duetting is particularly common in birds that maintain year-round territories and it helps in maintaining contact between members of a pair, in the dense and noisy environment of a tropical forest.
African shrikes are famous for their musical, repetitive duets, sounding something between a bell and a horn. Each pair develops a unique duet "part", which they use to keep track of each other in dense vegetation, to maintain their territory and to synchronize their breeding cycles. The two birds are so well synchronized in their duetting, you would think it was one bird singing, not two.
Magpie larks sing a duet to defend their territory in the Australian bush. One bird utters a loud metallic "tee-hee" that is immediately followed by the other's "pee-o-wee, pee-o-wit". The pair is so co-ordinated that the whole thing sounds like one song.
In some species, an entire group of birds may join in a chorus song to defend the territory. Groups of Australian magpies produce a remarkable chorus, varying from quiet warbling to loud caroling. The white-crested laughing thrush also sings a group chorus. Each individual has its own phrase to contribute to the song: the result is like one bird singing. One of the most amazing performances comes from the lyretailed honeyguide.
In the forests of Central Africa it flies above the tree canopy, sings and then spirals down like a roller-coaster from hundreds of feet up in the air. As it does so, it vibrates its tail and the rush of wind through its spiky feathers makes a loud drumming sound, audible throughout the forest. Whooper and Bewick's swans perform a noteable love duet. Nearly every day they confirm and strengthen their bond by a mutual greeting and courtship ceremony. Both partners join in a resonant duet that rings across the lake. The two stately birds swim to face each other and with beaks raised and wings uplifted launch into a wild clangor, the female replying to the quick honking of the male with repeated notes half a tone lower.
Song is certainly a way for a young man to get on. Consider the D'Arnaud's barbet, an African species, master of the art of singing in harmony. Barbets live in groups of 3-6 birds, with one dominant male and female. The male and female sing an intricately synchronized duet. The other members of the group are forbidden to join in.
But should the male be away for too long, one of the other males quickly moves in. He immediately begins singing the song that had been reserved for the dominant bird. The female sings her part and the two begin to form a new pair, synchronizing their duet more precisely. But should the former male reappear, the new bird becomes a subordinate member of the group once more. White-browed sparrow weavers sing group choruses, which they use to defend their territories.
Remarkably, each bird is an expert sound mixer. It can also produce the whole chorus on its own. The sound produced by one individual will sound as complex as that produced by nine. Bird song is a deep and complex subject as well as a gloriously uplifting one. There is much scientists still do not understand about it. In the meantime -- enjoy.
The 50 All-Time Best Luke Bryan Songs, Ranked
Luke Bryan's songs are honest, easy-to-digest observations of life and love, with heaping doses of boyish charm added for extra flavor.
Ever since country radio first got to know the superstar with the 2007 single "All My Friends Say," Bryan has been lighting up the genre with playful, good-timing singalongs and earnest and wholesome ballads. He's put out some of the saddest country songs of the past 15 years, but he's also released some of the catchiest party tracks.
No matter what kind of song he releases, Bryan's small-town heart and authenticity is at its core.
Anyone who listens to country radio knows that Luke Bryan is a reliable, true-blue country hitmaker whose style ranges from '90s-inspired traditionalism to beer drinking tunes to bro country. What some fans might not know, though, is the full depth of his range. On this list of the 50 best Luke Bryan songs, we dig into some of the album cuts that prove he often takes cues from rock, R&B and even hip-hop.
Flip through our list below for a comprehensive run-down of the best songs Bryan has ever released, and feel free to let us know if we missed your favorites.
Luke Bryan's massive catalog of songs perfectly walk the line between heartfelt and fun. Here are our 50 favorite hits and deep cuts.
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