I know, I’m always complaining about the quality of modern pop music, so if you’re wondering “who does Debuchelon listen to when he’s not writing songs of his own?” then here’s part of the answer. One song from each year of music history between 1960 and 1989. In a few places I’ve linked through to what I think is a better version than the original studio release (usually a strong live performance) otherwise click the Spotify link below.

Now I realise that all these songs come from the same broad genre (common time, octave scale, and so on) but don’t worry, I’m not one of those people who thinks that the world of music begins and ends with Euro-American pop. Soon I’ll post my favourites from African, Eastern and south-American cultures, along with some Jazz and Gospel.

Meantime, if you’d like to know why there’s nothing post-1990 in this list, then I’ll admit that I’m having to reach into less well-charted waters to get stuff that meets my criteria. Something fundamentally bad began to happen in our music industry in the 1980’s and by the 1990’s the symptoms were too obvious to ignore. Posers with large marketing budgets were everywhere, singing cliched lyrics to ten-a-penny tunes. And often not very well. Can’t mention names of course. I’d get trolled to death.

Click this link for Debuchelon’s Spotify playlist and listen to the way music used to be: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/20JEv8OsEFmg9NhZHTzc2O?si=8EF7SQd3QumVs0VG5LMECQ