Top 10 Songs From 50 Artists

 DISCLAIMER: The following is subject to change as my opinions continue to evolve.

Awhile back I got bored and started making Top 10 song lists of all my favorite artists (mostly rock, but some hip hop artists too, and even a few pop guilty pleasures). Having now come up with such lists for fifty music artists in total, I thought it’d be cool to share them here. And for the record: Yes, all these artists are arrange in chronological order from whenever each of them released their first albums (I think).

So, without further ado… Here you go:

The Beatles

1.Yesterday, 2.Revolution, 3.Hey Jude, 4.Here Comes the Sun, 5.Come Together, 6.Let It Be (Single Version), 7.Get Back, 8.Day Tripper, 9.While My Guitar Gently Weeps, 10.With a Little Help from My Friends

The Rolling Stones

1.Gimme Shelter, 2.Wild Horses, 3.Angie, 4.You Can’t Always Get What You Want, 5.Paint It Black, 6.Sympathy for the Devil, 7.Beast of Burden, 8.Miss You, 9.Jumpin’ Jack Flash, 10.Start Me Up

Jimi Hendrix

1.Voodoo Child (Slight Return), 2.Burning of the Midnight Lamp, 3.All Along the Watchtower, 4.Little Wing, 5.Castles Made of Sand, 6.Ezy Ryder, 7.Foxey Lady, 8.Fire, 9.The Wind Cries Mary, 10.Are You Experienced?

Led Zeppelin

1.No Quarter, 2.D’Yer M’ker, 3.All My Love, 4.Battle of Evermore, 5.When the Levee Breaks, 6.Out on the Tiles, 7.Immigrant Song (Live), 8.Trampled Under Foot, 9.Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, 10.Ramble On

Black Sabbath

1.Supernaut, 2.Symptom of the Universe, 3.Sabbra Cadabra, 4.Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 5.Children of the Grave, 6.War Pigs / Luke’s Wall, 7.Paranoid, 8.Iron Man, 9.Jack the Stripper / Fairies Wear Boots, 10.Wheels of Confusion / The Straightener, Honorable Mention: A National Acrobat

Michael Jackson

1.Thriller, 2.Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, 3.Beat It, 4.Billie Jean, 5.Dirty Diana, 6.In the Closet, 7.Give Into Me, 8.Jam, 9.P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), 10.Invincible, Honorable Mention: Blood on the Dancefloor

ABBA

1.Dancing Queen, 2.SOS, 3.Mama Mia, 4.Take a Chance on Me, 5.Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), 6.Waterloo, 7.Super Trouper, 8.The Winner Takes It All, 9.Chiquitita, 10.Voulez-Vous

Aerosmith

1.Rats in the Cellar, 2.Back in the Saddle, 3.Sick as a Dog, 4.Last Child, 5.Dream On, 6.Mama Kin, 7.Sweet Emotion, 8.Walk This Way, 9.Water Song/ Janie’s Got a Gun, 10.Lord of the Thighs

Queen

1.The Show Must Go On, 2.A Kind of Magic, 3.I Want It All, 4.I Want to Break Free, 5.Radio Ga Ga, 6.Killer Queen, 7.Stone Cold Crazy, 8.Don’t Stop Me Now, 9.Bohemian Rhapsody, 10.Love of My Life

Kiss

1.I Stole Your Love, 2.Love Her All I Can, 3.Detroit Rock City (2012 Remix), 4.Hard Luck Woman, 5.Unholy, 6.Tears Are Falling, 7.Creatures of the Night (1985 Remix), 8.Black Diamond, 9. Parasite, 10.I Was Made for Lovin’ You

Van Halen

1.Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, 2.Little Dreamer, 3.Unchained, 4.Panama, 5.Hang ‘em High, 6.Little Guitars, 7.DOA, 8.Everybody Wants Some, 9.Atomic Punk, 10.Mean Street

Def Leppard

1.Bringin’ on the Heartbreak, 2.Switch 625, 3.Two Steps Behind (Acoustic), 4.Love Bites, 5.Rocket, 6.Foolin’, 7.Photograph, 8.Hysteria, 9.Miss You in a Heartbeat (Revised), 10.Pour Some Sugar on Me

Ozzy Osbourne

1.No More Tears, 2.Hellraiser, 3.Diary of a Madman, 4.Believer, 5.Bark at the Moon, 6.The Ultimate Sin, 7.Miracle Man, 8.Mr. Crowley, 9.You’re No Different, 10.Shot in the Dark (Live & Loud Version)

U2

1.The Fly, 2.Until the End of the World, 3.New Year’s Day (Video Version), 4.Bullet the Blue Sky, 5.Pride (In the Name of Love), 6.Vertigo, 7.Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of, 8.Walk On, 9.Original of the Species, 10.Mysterious Ways

Metallica

1.Ride the Lightning, 2.For Whom the Bell Tolls, 3.Fade to Black, 4.Battery, 5.Orion, 6.Through the Never, 7.Enter Sandman, 8.One, 9.The Thing that Should Not Be, 10.Hardwired

Pantera

1.Cemetery Gates, 2.Cowboys from Hell, 3.A New Level, 4.Mouth for War, 5.5 Minutes Alone, 6.I’m Broken, 7.Walk, 8.Death Rattle, 9.Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit, 10.This Love, Honorable Mention: Regular People (Conceit)

The Smiths

1.How Soon Is Now?, 2.What Difference Does It Make?, 3.Handsome Devil, 4.This Charming Man, 5.William It Was Really Nothing, 6.Hand in Glove (Hatful of Hollow Version), 7.Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, 8.There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, 9.Still Ill, 10.Well I Wonder

Red Hot Chili Peppers

1.Scar Tissue, 2.Under the Bridge, 3.Dark Necessities, 4.Minor Thing, 5.Backwoods, 6.The Shape I’m Takin’, 7.Death of a Martian, 8.Quixoticelixer, 9.This is the Kitt, 10.Look Around, Honorable Mention: Black Summer

Faith No More

1.Kindergarten, 2.Everything’s Ruined, 3.Midlife Crisis, 4.A Small Victory, 5.From Out of Nowhere, 6.Ashes to Ashes, 7.Cuckoo for Caca, 8.The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, 9.King for a Day, 10.The Perfect Crime, Honorable Mention: Absolute Zero

Guns N’ Roses

1.November Rain (2022 Version), 2.Rocket Queen, 3.Nightrain, 4.Mr. Brownstone, 5.Out ta Get Me, 6.Sweet Child o’ Mine, 7.You Could Be Mine, 8.Yesterdays, 9.This I Love, 10.Dead Horse

Soundgarden

1.Limo Wreck, 2.The Day I Tried to Live, 3.Let Me Drown, 4.Superunknown, 5.Mailman, 6.Room a Thousand Years Wide, 7.Holy Water, 8.Jesus Christ Pose, 9.Burden in My Hand, 10.Big Dumb Sex, Honorable Mention: Blow Up the Outside World

Nine Inch Nails

1.Head Like a Hole, 2.Closer, 3.March of the Pigs, 4.Hurt, 5.Mr. Self-Destruct, 6.1000000000, 7.Echoplex, 8.Down in It, 9.Terrible Lie, 10.The Perfect Drug, Honorable Mention: Sin

Nirvana

1.Come As You Are, 2.Polly, 3.Very Ape, 4.Dumb, 5.Dive, 6.Lounge Act, 7.Sappy, 8.Do Re Mi, 9.Blew, 10.All Apologies

Green Day

1.Geek Stink Breath, 2.Holiday / Boulevard of Broken Dreams, 3.Whatsername, 4.American Idiot, 5.Wake Me Up When September Ends, 6.Longview, 7.Welcome to Paradise, 8.Basket Case, 9.When I Come Around, 10.Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)

Alice in Chains

1.Bleed the Freak, 2.Sunshine, 3.Would?, 4.Angry Chair, 5.Them Bones, 6.Rooster, 7.God Smack, 8.Dirt, 9.The One You Know, 10.Your Decision

The Smashing Pumpkins

1.Mayonaise, 2.Cherub Rock, 3.Drown, 4.1979, 5.Bullet with Butterfly Wings, 6.An Ode to No One, 7.Thirty-Three, 8.Rhinoceros, 9.Hello Kitty Kat, 10.Eye

Pearl Jam

1.Black, 2.Alive, 3.Jeremy, 4.Deep, 5.Even Flow (Single Version), 6.Yellow Ledbetter, 7.Rearviewmirror, 8.Go, 9.Daughter, 10.Better Man

No Doubt

1.Don’t Speak, 2.Sunday Morning, 3.Just a Girl, 4.Spiderwebs, 5.Trapped in a Box, 6.Hella Good, 7.Underneath It All, 8.Hey Baby, 9.It’s My Life, 10.Love to Love You Baby

Rage Against the Machine

1.Bulls on Parade, 2.Bombtrack, 3.Know Your Enemy, 4.Guerilla Radio, 5.Killing in the Name, 6.Take the Power Back, 7.Testify, 8.Sleep Now in the Fire, 9.Bullet in the Head, 10.How I Could Just Kill a Man

Stone Temple Pilots

1.Crackerman, 2.Sex Type Thing, 3.Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart, 4.Meadow, 5.Naked Sunday, 6.Dead & Bloated, 7.Interstate Love Song, 8.Vasoline, 9.Plush, 10.Piece of Pie, Honorable Mention: Creep

Dr. Dre

1.Nuthin’ but a “G” Thang, 2.Fuck Wit Dre Day (And Everybody’s Celebratin’), 3.Let Me Ride, 4.Forgot About Dre, 5.Still DRE, 6.The Next Episode, 7.What’s the Difference?, 8.I Need A Doctor, 9.Just Another Day (performed by The Game), 10.Talk About It

Buckethead

1.Nottingham Lace, 2.Big Sur Moon, 3.Claymation Courtyard, 4.Griffin’s Spike, 5.Big D’s Touch, 6.Binge & Grab, 7.Electric Umbrella, 8.Mind Train, 9.Our Selves, 10.Pink Eye, Honorable Mention: Last Light

Tool

1.The Pot, 2.Forty-Six & 2, 3.Swamp Song, 4.Sober, 5.Intolerance, 6.Prison Sex, 7.Bottom, 8.Schism, 9.Jambi, 10.Descending

Oasis

1.Champagne Supernova, 2.Cast No Shadow, 3.Morning Glory, 4.Live Forever, 5.Supersonic (Live), 6.Don’t Look Back in Anger, 7.Talk Tonight, 8.Slide Away, 9.Falling Down, 10.I’m Outta Time

Weezer

1.Island in the Sun, 2.Say It Ain’t So, 3.Undone - The Sweater Song, 4.Buddy Holly, 5.The Good Life, 6.Hash Pipe, 7.Pork and Beans, 8.Beverly Hills, 9.Only in Dreams, 10.All My Favorite Songs

Outkast

1.Rosa Parks, 2.B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad), 3.Ms. Jackson, 4.SpottieOttieDopaliscious, 5.ATLiens, 6.Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, 7.So Fresh So Clean, 8.The Way You Move, 9.Aquemini, 10.Skew It on the Bar-B, Honorable Mention: In Your Dreams

John Frusciante

1.Away & Anywhere, 2.Representing, 3.Murderers, 4.Untitled #6, 5.Every Person, 6.Song to Sing When I’m Lonely, 7.Carvel, 8.Omission, 9.This Cold, 10.Before the Beginning

Foo Fighters

1.Dear Rosemary, 2.Wind Up, 3.Hey Johnny Park, 4.Everlong, 5.Stranger Things Have Happened, 6.Generator, 7.Headwires, 8.I’ll Stick Around, 9.Aurora, 10.February Stars, Honorable Mention: Gimme Stitches

Eminem

1.Stan, 2.Lose Yourself, 3.Without Me, 4.Cleanin’ Out My Closet, 5.The Real Slim Shady, 6.My Name Is, 7.Guilty Conscience, 8.Brain Damage, 9.Role Model, 10.Bad Meets Evil

Daft Punk

1.Harder Better Faster Stronger, 2.One More Time, 3.Aerodynamic, 4.Da Funk, 5.Around the World, 6.Instant Crush, 7.Get Lucky, 8.Robot Rock, 9.Lose Yourself to Dance, 10.Contact

System of a Down

1.Ariels, 2.Chop Suey, 3.ATWA, 4.Toxicity, 5.Sugar, 6.Know, 7.Hypnotize, 8.BYOB, 9.Revenga, 10.Roulette

Coldplay

1.Violet Hill, 2.Viva la Vida, 3.The Hardest Part, 4.Speed of Sound, 5.The Scientist, 6.Clocks, 7.In My Place, 8.Fix You, 9.Yellow, 10.Adventure of a Lifetime

The White Stripes

1.Fell in Love with a Girl, 2.Blue Orchid, 3.The Denial Twist, 4.Hotel Yorba, 5.Truth Doesn’t Make a Noise, 6.Why Can’t You Be Nicer to Me?, 7.Seven Nation Army, 8.The Hardest Button to Button, 9.Little Bird, 10.Jimmy the Exploder

Slipknot

1.The Heretic Anthem, 2.People = Shit, 3.Solway Firth, 4.Nero Forte, 5.Custer, 6.Sulfur, 7.Psychosocial, 8.(sic), 9.Spit It Out, 10.Duality, Honorable Mention: Left Behind

Linkin Park

1.In the End, 2.A Place for My Head, 3.Faint, 4.Figure-09, 5.Don’t Stay, 6.Lying from You, 7.Across the Line, 8.More the Victim, 9.Castle of Glass, 10.Heavy Is the Crown

Audioslave

1.Be Yourself, 2.Like a Stone, 3.Show Me How to Live, 4.Set It Off, 5.What You Are, 6.Cochise, 7.Gasoline, 8.I Am the Highway, 9.Heaven’s Dead, 10.Out of Exile

Justin Timberlake

1.Like I Love You, 2.Cry Me a River, 3.Rock Your Body, 4.FutureSex / LoveSound, 5.SexyBack, 6.Medley: Let Me Talk to You / My Love, 7.What Goes Around… / …Comes Around (Interlude), 8.LoveStoned / I Think She Knows (Interlude), 9.Suit & Tie, 10.Can’t Stop the Feeling

Velvet Revolver

1.Fall to Pieces, 2.Slither, 3.Set Me Free, 4.Illegal i-Song, 5.Headspace, 6.Sucker Train Blues, 7.Get Out the Door, 8.Messages, 9.She Builds Quick Machines, 10.Can’t Get It Out of My Head, Honorable Mention: Gravedancer

Slash

1.Standing in the Sun, 2.Anastasia, 3.Bad Rain, 4.Been There Lately, 5.Life’s Sweet Drug, 6.Shadow Life, 7.Wicked Stone, 8.Bent to Fly, 9.Lower, 10.Take It Away

Jack White

1.Over and Over and Over, 2.Lazaretto, 3.Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy, 4.Blunderbuss, 5.Freedom at 21, 6.Sixteen Saltines, 7.Missing Pieces, 8.Love Interruption, 9.Love Is Selfish, 10.Bombing Out

There you have it! One thing I would like to note is that, while I admire all these artists as musicians, I have issues with how many of them come across as people in interviews and such. That said, sometimes it’s just best to separate the art from the artist…

And that’s all I got!

Peace!

Related Article: Top 10 Songs From Even More Artists

Fixing Act One of Rogue One (Revised)

 NOTE: An earlier version of the following post was originally published in December 2021. I took the post down after noticing too many errors with it, and have since decided to revise it.

So a few days ago marked the fifth anniversary of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first ever live-action theatrical spinoff in the Star Wars franchise.

Because of this, I was thinking about the movie again recently, particularly the common complaint audiences had about the first handful of scenes feeling too “frantic,” and I realized something… The beginning of the movie is actually not that hard to fix. As a matter of fact, anyone can do it, as long as they have the right editing tools at home…

Oh, don’t get me wrong! Rogue One has a ton of issues. Way more issues than what any simple fan edit could fix. All I’m proposing here is that the first chunk of the movie (let’s call it “Act One,” for the sake of simplicity) can be turned into something much more effective than what it currently is with just a simple rearrangement of the scenes.

With that all being said, let’s break down, one scene at a time, how I would fix the beginning of Rogue One:

1.Delete the blue milk zoom-in

Minor nitpick, I know, but fan-service moments like these are fucking stupid and should not have been in the movie. Fuck this shit!

2.Add “Thirteen Years Later” after the title is shown

As you may recall, the film starts with a “prologue” sequence that shows Jyn as a little girl, watching her mother Lyra being killed and her father Galen being taken away. We then see the title of the film, complete with cheesy Star Wars font and all, before cutting to a shot of Jyn, now an adult, sitting in a prison cell, her mother’s necklace still around her neck. The necklace and Felicity Jones’s striking resemblance to the little girl from the prologue are enough to visually communicate to us that a significant amount of time has passed since the pre-title sequence. That said, I plan to move this scene to later in the story now. Again, the objective with this “fix” is to make it so that we stay on certain characters for longer. Therefore, the scene where we first meet adult Jyn should be moved to later, right before she gets rescued by the rebels. Because of this, we need something else to communicate to the audience right after the title reveal that time has passed now since the prologue. A simple “Thirteen Years Later” text would get the job done. And in case you’re wondering; yes, I did some research and made sure that was the exact number of years between the prologue and the rest of the story.

3.Delete Cassian’s introduction scene

I know what you’re thinking; “What’s wrong with you, dude?! The characters in Rogue One are already too flat as is!! You wanna make them even flatter?!” Hear me out… The biggest issue with the beginning of the movie is that it jumps around between too many locations and characters, in too short an amount of time. Therefore, if there are any scenes that can be cut out in order to “diminish this effect,” as franchise creator George Lucas himself once worded it, then they should be cut. This scene wasn’t even originally part of the movie anyways. It was written and shot entirely during the reshoot phase, and it shows. The guy Cassian talks to here is a horrible actor, and you can just tell the whole scene was shot in a day, on a super-tight schedule. Besides, everything we learn here is repeated to us a few scenes later, when Jyn meets the rebels. The only thing we’d really lose is the cool moment where Cassian is forced to kill his buddy in order to escape. That alone told us everything we need to know about his character arc. That said, we get a similar character beat a few scenes later anyways, when the douchey general guy tells Cassian to kill Galen as soon as he sees him, and Cassian nods in a reluctant but obedient way. Is this as compelling as him being forced to kill his friend? No, but it gets the job done of telling us what this character is all about, and sometimes less is more.

4.Cut to Bodhi arriving on Jedha

So after the prologue and the title and the “Thirteen Years Later” text, we cut to Bodhi arriving on Jedha, specifically the scene where he’s being walked through the desert by Saw’s henchmen. Bodhi’s actions are what kick off the whole story, so after the prologue, I think it makes the most sense to have him be the character we meet first.

5.Cut to Bodhi meeting Saw

In the real movie, after we meet Bodhi, we are shown a bunch of scenes with other characters before finally cutting back to him later, so that we can finally see him meeting Saw. Like I said earlier, the objective of this hypothetical edit would be to stay on certain characters for longer, to try to diminish the frantic “feel” of the movie as much as possible. Therefore, after seeing Bodhi being walked through the desert by the henchmen, I think the movie should hard-cut to the shot of Saw’s robot legs walking through the dark hallway while he shouts “Lies! Deceptions!” or whatever it is he pointlessly screams there.

6.Tarkin introduction

So after we see Saw order his henchmen to take Bodhi to the squid monster, we should cut to the scene where we first meet Tarkin in the movie. I’m pretty sure this is how it plays out in the actual movie anyways, so I won’t comment any further on this.

7.Cut to black, with Galen’s voice saying “Stardust”

As soon as Tarkin’s intro scene ends, I want to cut to the scene where we meet adult Jyn in the prison cell. That said, cutting straight from Tarkin to adult Jyn’s intro would be a little too “sudden,” so to ease the audience into it, I would cut to black first, and add a quick soundbite of Galen’s voice saying “Stardust,” as I feel this would act as a good setup for when we see adult Jyn waking up in the prison cell immediately after.

8.Cut to adult Jyn introduction

And finally, this is where I would put the quick scene of adult Jyn in the prison cell, waking up from a nightmare and looking at her mother’s necklace.

9.Delete intro shot of the planet Wobani

In the real movie, right before we see K2SO rescuing Jyn from the tank, we get a quick establishing shot of a purple planet with some text saying something like “Wobani: Prison World.” But because we are now moving adult Jyn’s intro and her rescue right next to each other, this shot is no longer necessary, so I’m getting rid of it. Not that it matters, by the way, but in case you haven’t noticed, Wobani is an anagram for Obi-Wan.

10.Cut to K2SO rescuing Jyn

Immediately after adult Jyn’s intro scene in the prison, we cut to the sequence where she’s rescued, starting with the shot of the tank moving across the muddy terrain, and concluding with her “surrendering” to K2SO, just like in the actual movie.

11.Add the flashback montage right after the U-Wing departure

In the actual movie, after Tarkin’s intro scene, we get a flashback montage dream sequence, where we see two different points in Jyn’s childhood intercut with one another. I like this sequence, and want to keep it, but since we moved the Tarkin intro up a bit, this scene no longer fits there. So instead, I would just fade to black and cut to this little dream sequence right after we see the U-Wing with Jyn, Galen and K2 leave Yavin 4. The next scene we see is Jyn waking up right as they arrive on Jedha anyways, so it still fits just fine.

12.Delete the “You just watch yourself” shit

The rest of the movie plays out the same, with the one exception being that I would delete the “You just watch yourself” callback. Like the blue milk zoom-in, it’s just stupid fan-service, and the fact that it was ever even thought of for this movie makes me cringe…

And that’s pretty much it! Like I said in the beginning of this post, I still have plenty of other issues with Rogue One beyond the stuff mentioned here. That said, none of those other issues can really be fixed with simple fan-editing, as they’re all far too “baked” into the story. Again, the purpose of this post was just to propose how the beginning of the movie could have played out in a much smoother way, with the key being that it should have held on certain characters for longer.

One last thing I would like to say here is that, while I don’t necessarily hate this movie either, I have a feeling I would have liked the original cut much more, before they did all the reshoots. The middle section on the rainy planet is my favorite part of the movie, and from what I’ve heard, it’s basically the only section that wasn’t changed in reshoots, and it shows…

That said, it also sounds like the original cut had a much “bleaker” tone, which doesn’t necessarily fit with Star Wars (even the darkest corners of it). It sounds like the original deaths of all the characters in the final act were much more “random,” which was meant to highlight how, during war, good people often die in random, meaningless ways when they’re out on the battlefield. Word on the street is that Disney felt this was too bleak, so Tony Gilroy was brought in to give all the characters “meaningful” deaths, which basically changed the whole theme of the movie to being about “the importance of sacrifice.” While I admire the effort, all of their deaths and reasons behind them felt a bit convoluted to me. Part of me wishes the studio would’ve just let original director Gareth Edwards do his own thing. I think the fact that he hasn’t been active in the industry at all since this movie came out says a lot…

Despite all this, there are still moments in Rogue One that I enjoy here and there, so happy fifth birthday to the movie…

Peace!

PS: Oh yeah, I would also get rid of all the planet name tags from the movie. That stuff wasn’t needed…

2024 UPDATE: I like the real movie as is much more now! It has really grown on me!