The five hundred eighty-seventh song: Thriller - Michael Jackson
Thriller is one of Michael Jackson's tracks I know the best, but it's hard to separate where exactly that fame comes from. The music video is a production in its own right, memorable as its own short movie. Even so, the sound of the track is as good, memorable and engaging with Vincent Price's vocals just adding to that creepiness.
The five hundred eighty-eighth song: Shock the Monkey - Peter Gabriel
Shock the Monkey is tamer after the sound of Thriller, but the straight forward pop track is still good, a simple track that's quite nice with the mood it sets, still slightly off putting as it goes on.
The five hundred eighty-ninth song: Save It for Later - The Beat
As a ska influenced new wave song, Save It for Later is fairly straightforward as a listener, with a hook that's simple enough to understand and builds just enough to satisfy, but not so much that it doesn't remain, essentially, the same track throughout. It's overall mostly just a neat track that doesn't outstay its welcome but just continues to feel good.
The five hundred ninetieth song: Great Southern Land - Icehouse
Without knowing for sure, it feels like the music of Great Southern Land invokes that feeling of being lost, a large place you get lost in. The lyrics invoke an admiration for the country, a talk about Australia that works nicely to invoke a more unsettling mood about the country that feels like it suits the story they want to tell about the land.
The five hundred ninety-first song: Party Fears II - The Associates
The high, almost operatic vocals of Party Fears II creates the real unsettling background to this track's building hysteria. It starts as a nice simple pop sound, but several times builds with the lyrics to an anxious crescendo that feeds the scaredness of the lyrics. It makes it not entirely easy to listen to, but the mood it does evoke gets set up incredibly well.
The five hundred ninety-second song: Situation - Yazoo
We follow up with another synthy track, another that I had not heard of before. The track has that upbeat new wave sound, but becomes more threatening with its chorus, repeating 'move out' with a more menacing, darker voice. Quite what it's challenging, I'm not sure, but it's a worthwhile one to hear here.
The five hundred ninety-third song: Rock The Casbah - The Clash
The sound of Rock the Casbah is one you'd expect from the Clash, a slightly slurred vocal that belies the lyrics, which are smarter and a bit more political about that, addressing some semi-fictional bans on rock music that come to a head in the song. It's a good idea, and the shouted chorus really helps to enforce that defiant party atmosphere.
The five hundred ninety-fourth song: Buffalo Gals - Malcom Mclaren
Only as this track started did I realize that I had missed out on some hip hop appearing in the list at this point. I'm sure that won't be as common on later batches of songs, but here it still feels like the sound is being built up in here. The track has its rap sounds and a lot of scratching, the latter of which feels a lot less common these days, but it also has the musical interludes and synth sounds that feel like they disappear later. Add to that the tamer lyrics - referencing square dancing a lot - and I really feel like I'm mostly getting an insight into the rap of the contemporary era.