Rex Racer said:

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"I Touch Roses" by Book of Love would be on my short list.



"Forever Young" by Alphaville is another one.

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Hate to be "that guy", but I saw Book of Love at a club in Abilene in 1986 after the release of that album. I guess I can't totally claim "before they were cool" status because they had opened for Depeche Mode, but they really hadn't taken off yet.

Tanya 93 said:

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You guys seen the Queen Bio on A&E? Great story behind this song. Long story short, Queen and Bowie collaborated but they could not agree on the beat and background music to use for the lines they had. After a couple of days of playing with it, and getting very frustrated with the process and one another they ended a session in the studio very late one night and said "look lets go home, start thinking from scratch on how we want this to sound, and regroup in a couple of days. Then present our ideas to one another."

A couple days later, Queen and Bowie returned to share what they had come up with and it was the exact same beat and music for all intents and purposes. Now, I'm sure there's some exaggeration to that story and I'm sure both sides went home with some sorta base music idea to use but its still a great story showing two legends coming together.

gggmann said:

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Also, this vid dropped earlier this week. Pretty good coincidence to this thread:

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That was a great watch. Thanks for posting.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Definitely feels like Tears For Fears, MJ, and Hall & Oates win the thread.

Obviously McCartney and Beach Boys would be in there as well, but I guess I'm hesitant to consider them pop artists? Sure, a lot of their stuff is poppy, but I would put them solidly in the rock music category.

Same for Journey, Nirvana, and the others mentioned.

Also, have to agree with Take On Me. You play that song pretty much anywhere and people just sing along. I think it's easily a top 5 pop song ever.

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I consider Don't Stop Believing to be a pop song, not rock. It follows the same 4 basic chords that are 90% of all pop songs.



Boston I'll give you rock.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Definitely feels like Tears For Fears, MJ, and Hall & Oates win the thread.

Obviously McCartney and Beach Boys would be in there as well, but I guess I'm hesitant to consider them pop artists? Sure, a lot of their stuff is poppy, but I would put them solidly in the rock music category.

Same for Journey, Nirvana, and the others mentioned.

Also, have to agree with Take On Me. You play that song pretty much anywhere and people just sing along. I think it's easily a top 5 pop song ever.

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The Beach Boys and Beatles made many songs that I would call pop. Beat It is 100 times more a rock song than God Only Knows.

Because that's where I think the difference would be most apparent.

Being VERY generous to Prince, poll all adults over 30 with Take on Me and the most popular Prince song and it might be a push.

But do the same with the younger generation and the difference will become extremely apparent.

Side note, this is also a great song by Aha.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Because that's where I think the difference would be most apparent.

Being VERY generous to Prince, poll all adults over 30 with Take on Me and the most popular Prince song and it might be a push.

But do the same with the younger generation and the difference will become extremely apparent.

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I don't understand why you believe that so many more people have heard Take on Me rather than 1999, Purple Rain, or Let's Go Crazy. And what is this poll question.....have you heard Take on Me? Please name Prince's most popular song. Those don't seem like equal questions.

Now that I think of it.....I guess more people probably know Aha from their Superbowl Halftime show in 2007. Oh wait, that was Prince. Nobody would ever invite one hit wonder Aha to play a superbowl show.

Meh, YMCA is probably more well known than almost any song listed on this thread.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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You keep talking about the the artists. Again, this is about SONGS.

You seemed confused about Take On Me being an iconic song, so I am explaining. It's an incredibly popular song that most people have heard and probably enjoy, more so than any single Prince song. That is my point.

It doesn't seem that hard to comprehend. Nor is it something you should be taking as seriously as you seem to be. It's gonna be ok.

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What do you base this on?

DallasTeleAg said:

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Take On Me is definitely more popular than any Prince song.

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BS

But, the thread title is "Best" pop song and not "Most popular" or "well known" pop song.

beanbean said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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You keep talking about the the artists. Again, this is about SONGS.

You seemed confused about Take On Me being an iconic song, so I am explaining. It's an incredibly popular song that most people have heard and probably enjoy, more so than any single Prince song. That is my point.

It doesn't seem that hard to comprehend. Nor is it something you should be taking as seriously as you seem to be. It's gonna be ok.

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What do you base this on?

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Popularity. Radio play. Hits on YouTube or Spotify. (Take on Me has 1.6B views.)

Whatever metric would you'd like to measure their popularity by.

I'm not sure I get why you're trying to die on this hill...

TXAG 05 said:

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I want to hold your hand-The Beatles

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I'll 2nd this nomination

beanbean has his bean in the sand

While we are quoting spotify....

Spotify 100 Greatest Pop Songs

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Ah yes, a random Spotify compilation happens to have Prince as the first track on the playlist. Clearly I'm wrong.

Guess that means Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of my Head is the second most popular song ever.

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DallasTeleAg said:

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But, the thread title is "Best" pop song and not "Most popular" or "well known" pop song.

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Wouldn't the best pop song, by definition, be the one that is the most popular?

"Brandi (You're a Fine Girl)" by Looking Glass is another one.

Prince has 7 Grammys and an Oscar for the score of Purple Rain. He clearly sucks and no one likes him.

1999 is pretty good though…