Dr. Nelson Winston

Curtis Mayfield was a genius. One thing I’m going to get more into when I discuss the seventies is that, despite my alternative rock background, I love R&B of the seventies.  With that fact out of the way, it was only natural that Curtis Mayfield’s masterpiece Superfly would be one of the last albums I…

There were a lot of breakup songs in 1963, but you know what there also was a lot of?  Instrumentals. That’s right.  Unlike today, where virtually nothing that doesn’t involve lyrics becomes a hit song, there were no less than eight instrumentals that made the year-end charts.  The majority of them related to surfing, which…

Author’s Note: When I originally wrote this list, this next song was ranked 5th. I decided to knock it down several spots because as I will explain, I enjoy this song in spite of its flaws, rather than consider it a nearly perfect song. As a result, I had to end up re-writing much of…

Let’s lead off the top ten with the biggest hot take I have regarding 1963, best or worst. In 1963, a little band from Hawthorne, California called The Beach Boys scored three hit songs.  The biggest of them is a song you are probably all familiar with, “Surfin’ U.S.A.”  Although the song never reached number…

For those unfamiliar with my 2020 best list for Rock and Alternative, the Sins Of Omission is my attempt at being creative for the best list.  It includes a list of songs that I felt were deserving to be hits this year, that failed to make the year-end list.  I’ll have up to ten songs…

Author’s Note: I wrote the bulk of this summary in June 2021, as my second full-length project after my 2020 lists. I wrote the honorable mentions while still living in New York, then wrote the top ten while living at an Airbnb in Sylvania while waiting for my current apartment to be ready to live…

As a quick recap, here are the songs we’ve discussed so far. #10: Nino Tempo and April Stevens get lost in their “Deep Purple” dream. #9: Bobby Darin is not “The Reason I’m Living.” #8: “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days Of Summer” sure inspired the worst in Nat King Cole. #7: “It’s The End Of The World”…

Before we get to what could possibly be worse than a song about being attracted to a potentially underage girl, here are a list of songs that were bad, but didn’t make the cut. “I Love You Because” – Al Martino #3 peak#21 year-end Al Martino was one of the last of a dying breed,…

Like with many easily offended parents and grandparents, I understand the hate to the near-constant stream of songs we have been getting over the past 30 years relating to butts and explicit sex. I… I get it.  I’m a guy.  Women are attractive.  But why do men constantly have to sink to the lowest common…

Going through this year-end list, I came across convinced that the most influential song of the year was Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”  This is because of the bridge, where Elvis famously speaks to his love interest and equates the world to a stage.  I don’t know what happened, but several artists attempted this…