SONGS WITHOUT WORDS
Friday’s playlist was simply “songs without words”, which was apparently too tall of a task for some of you. The qualified wordless submissions crossed genres, time periods, emotions, relevance, and musical skills. One may ask how can you rank Deadmau5, Claude Debussy, Benny Goodman, and Jurassic Park in the same list? The answer lies in each song’s cultural impact, technical difficulty, standalone value, and the ability to be respected by anyone with a refined palate. Luckily for everyone, my palate is the most refined. *chef’s kiss*
Tier 1
Green Onions, Sing, Sing, Sing, In The Mood, Claire de lune, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Gayaneh: Sabre Dance
This short list is the crème de la crème of songs without words. They are influential and iconic both within their respective genres and the history of music itself. These are the songs with their own wikipedia pages, grammy awards, and/or induction into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. Universally recognized, loved, and respected, the Tier 1 songs are the kind we put on golden records in satellites to float aimlessly through space so if aliens find it they know what life on Earth is like. If you don’t like these Tier 1 songs, immediately go get a COVID-19 test as loss of taste is one of the early symptoms.
Tier 2
Sandstorm, Finish the Fight, Comptine d’un autre ete, Peter Gunn, Summertime from Porgy and Bess, Concerning Hobbits, Tamacun, Jessica, Frankenstein, Cliffs Of Dover, Classical Gas, Eleanor Rigy, In A Sentimental Mood, Titles, Christmas Eve, Fade, Jaws: Theme, James Weber’s Breakdown
This Tier 2 is the strongest Tier 2 to date. In a different life, most of these could be Tier 1, as they are all fantastic songs. The only knock against them is that they haven’t shaped musical history the same way as their Tier 1 counterparts. The select few Hollywood entertainment titles in this tier have standalone value as great songs and have helped to define their respective products more than they let the products define them. For example, “Jaws: Theme” is the premier ominous and suspenseful instrumental, no shark attack needed. The gap between these Tier 2 and Tier 3 songs is so wide it makes the gap between the Breaking Bad finale and Game of Thrones finale seem insignificant.
Tier 3
Theme from Superman, Hedwig’s Theme, Theme From Jurassic Park, The Avengers, Mia & Sebastian’s Theme, Main Theme of FINAL FANTASY VII, Married Life, Taps, Beauty Beats, Band of Brothers, Five Hours, Strobe
First off, I would like to thank our Tier 3 co-sponsors Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox. Apparently it is news to most of you, but songs without words exist outside of movie soundtracks. In a vacuum, these songs are all fine, but the majority of these songs rely on their association with their more famous visual counterparts. Is Theme From Jurassic Park a decent song and a perfect complement to the movie? Absolutely. Would anyone be listening to this song and commenting on its greatness if Jurassic Park never existed? No. The majority of these submissions are carried by the nostalgic feelings you get from the song as it makes you think about the movie.
Tier 4
Orchestral Hip Hop, My Heart Will Go On, Life And Death, A Thousand Years, Love Story
There is a reason why most of these songs originally have words. That’s because the instrumentals are not strong enough to stand on as a real song. The instrumental versions just make you feel like you’re at karaoke waiting for some drunk bachelorette to butcher pop songs. “Life And Death” falls from Tier 3 to Tier 4 as it is so obviously the backing music for a suspenseful, emotional TV scene. There is nothing musically spectacular about the song until the 3:33 mark when a dying elephant blows out your ear drums. As for “Orchestral Hip Hop”, this was a respectable attempt at being bold and trying something new and adventurous; however the result was like your mom trying to pick out cool clothes for you for Christmas instead of just giving you a gift card.
Tier 5
Hocus Pocus, Storm
These songs managed to fail the most basic premise of the playlist. While terrific songs in their own right, they have no business being in this playlist, just as “Taps” wouldn’t be warmly welcomed in Boner Jams unless you have a wounded soldier. “Hocus Pocus” failed the test by the slimmest margin, as the scat singing is nonsensical enough to not be considered words. On the other hand, yodeling has roots in verbal communication and definite pronounced syllables. Additionally, there are enough “Ohhhs”, “Ahhhhs”, and onomatopoeias like “haha” that judge, jury, and executioner all disqualified the song. If you play with fire, you’re likely to get burned. Lastly, we have “Storm,” a 23 minute marathon of a song that would be the perfect song to put on while you study for the SATs, if you wanted to graduate college before the song ends. “Storm” surprisingly has enough varied slow and steady build that it never gets old. However, this submitter has an inverse relationship between ball size and brain size as you would think if you submitted a 23 minute song to “Songs without words,” it might behoove you to listen to the song carefully to ensure there were in fact no words in the song. Beginning around the 17:30 mark, words start and are audible through the remaining 5 minutes of the song. Granted, 5 minutes of words in “Storm” is only like 4% of its run time, but the disqualifying segments of the song are longer than most others’ entire submissions.
Conclusion
Songs without words is actually one of the better playlists in the short run of the Playlist Power Rankings, albeit not an overly impressive feat. Buoyed by the magnificent Tier 1 and Tier 2 songs, even the influx of all the perfectly average movie soundtrack submissions was not enough to do considerable damage. Enjoy this playlist as the soothing background to your quarantine dinner date with your lover, and then double up as Tier 3 comes on and plays the soundtrack to whatever movie you choose to watch. If you’re feeling lucky after all that, tell Alexa to play last Friday’s playlist.
Jam On.
Best: “Green Onions” - Booker T & the M.G.’s
Props: “Tamacun” - Rodrigo Y Gabriela,
Worst: “Storm” - Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Playlist Rank: 7.8/10
Complaints can be mailed to PlaylistPowerRankings@gmail.com where they will be promptly deleted.
No Bens were harmed in the writing of these rankings.