The three hundred and ninetieth song: Essiniya - Nass El Ghiwane
While in other lists, we get entries that are there because of the unique viewpoint they represent, in this list we usually get hits (relatively speaking) that stand out and are often more generally known. This makes an entry like Essiniya more special, because it's not as international - instead, it's an example of Moroccan music, popular in the Arabic world but not really known here. It's a different sound, fitting the region, but quite different from the rock and pop we've been dealing with, and the a capella introduction (which runs for the first two and a half minutes) really gives us that feeling, I assume inspired by what was around them. Even when the drums kick in, the mostly choral singing feels traditional, even as the lyrics are radical for their day and they would have been the rebels in the country at the time. It's an interesting example, which feels like it deserves its own place on the list.
The three hundred and ninety-first song: Carpet Crawlers - Genesis
Now this puts us back at prog rock - I'm glad that after the previous song, we at least get something that sound different, rather than the standard rock songs we've also got plenty of. Carpet Crawlers is dominated by the constant presence of an electric piano repeating the same riff, a dreamy fantasy sound that otherwise has a restrained feel, with only Peter Gabriel's vocals sometimes breaking through the sound that feels like it is breaking through the water, coming up for water in a song that otherwise flows along.
The three hundred and ninety-second song: Aguas de marco - Antonio Carlos Jobim & Elis Regina
More than a decade after the Girl from Ipanema, Jobim shows us how alive Bossa Nova still is, with a simple but engaging melody with a nice and gentle back and forth between the two performers that, if we had the English language lyrics, we would have heard sing about Rio's rainfall in March, with some wordplay that breaks them up near the end, making it a pleasant and human bit of music that works well to create the atmosphere of this March weather.
The three hundred and ninety-third song: Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City - Bobby Bland
It's possibly to see how blues turned into R&B in the first minute of this song, the music and background vocals coming in to give it some extra focus. It never quite hits the higher heights of it though, with a repetitive chorus that starts to wear out its welcome sooner than it should. It's a decently sounding track, but maybe not quite enough to be a good R&B track, while I don't quite feel the pathos in here either.
The three hundred and ninety-fourth song: (Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night - Tom Waits
The Heart of Saturday Night starts with the sounds of a car driving off, an interesting introduction to a folksy blues number about, I think, going out on a saturday night, hooking up with someone, a wistful number that makes the singer sound quite lonely and disappointed with what he gets out of it, but something that helps his life a bit. After the introduction, the music simplifies, but Tom Waits' voice stands out and helps sell this story incredibly well, his emotions being clear from all parts of the song and adding a dimension beyond what the lyrics provide on their own.
The three hundred and ninety-fifth song: Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd
While this is a popular rock song, I'm not sure it quite resonates with me. It's a song responding to others that blamed the whole of the south for a racist minority, but with some bits that are a bit easy to misconstrue. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of jingoistic pieces, but the riff itself works quite well, and I think hearing it in a group setting (say, karaoke) would be better than an album based that, by its nature, feels a bit sanitized - there's so much here that can work a crowd that doesn't work as well sitting at home.
The three hundred and ninety-sixth song: Piss Factory - Patti Smith Group
Proto punk? Where we previously saw a spoken word song act as a prelude for rap, here it feels we have a beatnik reading poetry to a frantic piano track that builds up its own aggression. There's something jazzy in there, but the aggression of the lyrics is so much bigger that we get something else, an attitude that will carry over and is enchanting in the way it wants to make a point. It gets a bit comedic sometimes, but mostly it gets in here, makes it point (and perhaps goes on a few minutes longer than it should after that). It's different, it's a sign of the times and the anger present at the time, but also something that doesn't feel like it makes its point quite as well with what feels like a semi-improvised rant.