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The next issue of Rolling Stone — on stands and available in the online archive on Friday — features fifty artists sharing lists of top ten songs from artists and musical mini-genres that they know, and love, deeply. Highlights include Yoko Ono on her favorite John Lennon songs, My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way on the best glam rock tunes, Win Butler on Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith on Bob Dylan’s love songs. Over the next five weeks, RollingStone.com will post these and bonus, online-only lists, with streams of many of the songs as well as audio from interviews with some of the best-known list-makers.
Annie Lennox is one of the 50 people featured and has gone for a Women With Soul theme, adding “If you think of soul music as the black R&B style, well, that’s one brand. But all music is of the soul: As a singer, your voice expresses your soul. These are the songs that helped me find my own voice.”
Here’s Annie’s Top 10, and her comments and YouTube Videos for you to watch that we have found at the end of the list.
- “I Say a Little Prayer” Aretha Franklin, 1968. It’s transcendent. When I first heard this, I sang it over and over and couldn’t stop.
- “I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten” Dusty Springfield, 1968. Her voice had such subtle nuances.
- “Close to You” Carpenters, 1970. Karen’s singing was so stylized but so natural.
- “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” Dionne Warwick, 1968. Dionne Warwick’s sound is like coffee with cream: smooth, but with an edge.
- “Baby Love” The Supremes, 1964. So uplifting, and their harmonies couldn’t be beat.
- “Dancing in the Streets” Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, 1964. Like honey on a stick.
- “Farewell to Tarwathie” Judy Collins, 1970.It’s about hunting whales, and it’s chilling.
- “Downtown” Petula Clark, 1965. It makes downtown sound like a mythical wonderland.
- “Anyone Who Had a Heart” Cilla Black, 1964
- “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me”Sandie Shaw, 1964. Those choruses build up and just take off.