It’s time to play the game again, this is where I dig up a bunch of different songs with the same title and see which one I like the best. I don’t keep an index of these, if you’re curious what I’ve done before just head over to the category on the right and it’ll show you my other posts.

Today I’m doing one that I was going to do awhile back, but instead I got sidetracked and decided to write about an album instead. It’s time to talk about “that one song,” ever famous in music conversation but no one really knows what one song it is. After all this time we can finally answer the question – yes, I know that one song.

A whole bunch of artists have songs called One. I’ve chosen six from artists I know and/or respect. Spoiler alert – I did not choose Creed. Also spoiler alert – if you think you know which one I’m going to pick as the winner, well, you’d be right, this one is obvious as obvious gets. This one is a bit bigger than normal so let’s have at it.

Alanis Morissette

I was very, VERY into Alanis when she burst on the scene, she had quite an effect on 17 year old boys. But I quickly moved on to other territory and haven’t really kept up with Alanis that much since her big break. This is from the 1998 album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, which sold a lot and I won’t say much more about because the title is taking up a lot of space.

I haven’t ever heard this song before, as I don’t think I ever listened to this album in full. It’s a pretty good song, not anything that’ll set the world on fire but I’m honestly digging it quite a bit. While Alanis won’t win today’s contest, I can say I should maybe visit more of her work someday.

Fates Warning

This band is a pretty well known quantity in metal but I’ll be honest – I’m not all that familiar with them. For whatever reason I’ve never spent a lot of time with them and it’s been years since I’ve heard them at all.

I was kind of shocked to find that this is, by far, FW’s most streamed song on Spotify. I’m pretty sure the 2000 album it came from didn’t make waves, in fact I can’t find a damn thing about it. But this is apparently a very popular song for some reason. It has far more streams than anything from their popular albums.

This is a really good song, one that would be in contention for today’s crown if it wasn’t for that one song. If nothing else, this reminds me that I really need to brush up on Fates Warning.

Harry Nilsson

A well-respected but perhaps underrated artist, Nilsson had some success in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I know some of his stuff but he’s someone I haven’t spent a ton of time with and also one I should probably add to the to-do list.

Nilsson composed One and released it on his 1968 album Aerial Ballet. It wasn’t a hit for him at the time, but the song would soon get pretty big off a cover version by Three Dog Night. Since this series doesn’t consider cover songs (kind of goes against the whole exercise), I’ll only be looking at Nilsson’s original tune. The song has been widely covered even beyond Three Dog Night, though their version is probably the most well-known.

Nilsson’s OG composition is a good tune. I’m not overly familiar with it but I have heard it before, and it’s been in a bunch of movie soundtracks and stuff like that. I don’t have much criteria to rate how it should place in this contest but I’d give it good marks if I were actually handing out scores.

Simple Plan

Ok, we have a bit of history on ye olde website – as long as I was looking over everything correctly, Simple Plan is the first band to appear in these contests more than once. They were on the Jump one, which they obviously lost, and now they compete in the One gauntlet, which they also have obviously lost.

As I said last time, pop punk isn’t really my bag. I also don’t shit on it just because it’s there to do, and this song is ok. I will say it’s just ok – it’s kind of slow and doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t have a leg in this race but hey, maybe at the rate they keep popping up on these, they might sneak away with a win.

U2

It’s time for one of the two very, very well-known versions of One. U2 released this on their 1991 mega-album and direction-changing Achtung Baby. The single was a massive hit and people fall all over themselves to this day to talk about how great it is.

The song was kind of a bridge between what they did in the 80’s and their new direction. Not that the new direction did them any harm – this album was stupid successful. But One was a callback to more familiar U2 material, something for the old folks I guess.

I’ll say this – it’s a really good song. I haven’t heard it in a long time and this is a nice, sad tune. I figured I’d think it was good but I’m a bit taken aback, this is a really great song.

It’s time to sort through the murk and pick a winner. Alanis had a nice tune, as did Harry Nilsson. The metalhead in me would default to Fates Warning, who has a nice offering even with my lack of familiarity. But the U2 song truly did knock me back a bit. They are the clear winner – of second place. Today’s blatantly obvious winner?

Metallica

That’s it, folks. That’s the post. See you next time.

The game is back again. This time I’m doing one I just happened to notice as I was scrolling through a huge list of these “different songs with the same name” thing. I wasn’t aware there were enough different songs with this same title to do this one and when I saw it I figured I’d give it a whirl. I was aware of the existence of exactly one of these songs before I set out on this course.

Real quick for anyone who hasn’t seen one of these posts before, it’s really simple – I go through a bunch of different songs with the same name (not covers, actual different songs) and pick the best one/my favorite. I don’t do exhaustive searches to try and cover every instance of the song’s title in all of recorded music history, I just go with what’s in front of me. Today’s contest has five entries which is a good spot for these posts.

Bing Crosby

The first entry is from one of music’s most popular artists. Bing Crosby was the man, and was for a very long time all through the 20^th Century. The song was released in 1931 and was a hit, and would go on to be recorded by everyone and their mother as was the fashion in the old days of music.

I’m not a huge expert on this era of music so I won’t get that much into it. The song is fine to listen to and it reminds me of the kind of stuff my older relatives would play when I was growing up. It’s not stuff I’d seek out but I think it’s fine to hear.

Bruce Springsteen

It’s quickly on to the one I’m familiar with. Dancing In The Dark was the lead single from Springsteen’s seminal Born In The USA album and was his best-performing single ever (perhaps still is). The song was written literally overnight when producer Jon Landau told Springsteen the album needed a hit single, and hence one was delivered. The video famously features a young Courtney Cox.

If I were to list my favorite Springsteen tracks this song probably wouldn’t be on the list, but it’s still a really good song. It was the first time Springsteen used synthesizers in his music, thought they’re just a part of the song here. It was a good song to set the Boss apart from his usual fare.

Imagine Dragons

No thank you. Next.

Rihanna

This track comes from a movie soundtrack that Rihanna also provided voice acting to. It was some kid’s movie that I’ve never heard of so I’m entirely unfamiliar with it. Rihanna is immensely talented but this song doesn’t do much for me, it’s extremely repetitive and doesn’t have a lot going on.

Kim Wilde

The 1980’s pop star recorded her own version of Dancing In The Dark, which was a single released in 1983. Wilde had a few early international hits but this turn to dance music did not do her any favors – the song and album flopped, and it would be a few years before Kim would find her biggest success.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this tune, but I’d agree with consensus that Kim had better music elsewhere. This may come as a shock to my readers, but I’m not much of a dancing person and it would stand to reason that dance music isn’t really my bag.

It’s time to pick a winner and this turned out to be really easy, my dance partner is Bruce Springsteen. This song title appears to be a popular one, more results turned up but I don’t have the time or energy to go through every one. But no one else here could argue with the Boss.

Today I’m taking it easy and going with a song that only has three known variations. There might be more, but I don’t feel like looking for them and the three we have to discuss will be plenty.

As the title suggests, the song in question is Love You To Death. One version comes from heavy metal royalty, another is a signature track from everyone’s favorite band in the fall season, and yet another is from a group I heard of a little while ago when I saw that they also recorded a song with the same name. Let’s get into it.

The Soup Dragons

We’ll start with the band I’ve never heard of. These guys were a Scottish alt-rock act active from 1985 through 1995. They are totally unfamiliar to me. This song comes from their 1990 album Lovegod. This wasn’t a single or anything, it’s a deep cut from a record that saw a bit of chart action but seemingly didn’t set the world on fire.

This is a pretty cool sound. I like what they’re doing here. Alt-rock was a very catch-all term in the era before grunge, this is very bright and shiny but not in a detrimental way. The song is fine and it gives me enough cause to delve further into the band’s work.

Judas Priest

This is a cut from the Ram It Down album. Being honest, the album is not anywhere near the top of my Priest rankings, or even the middle really. This song is also a deep cut from an album not necessarily celebrated among the Priest faithful.

This track is fine. I’m not in love with it by any means, it’s no signature Priest classic or even a heralded deep cut from a better record. But the song is entertaining enough, I can accept X degree of silliness and this hovers around that mark. Even if it strays a bit over, I’ll take it.

Type O Negative

Wrapping up with the spooktacular rockers (in the Halloween season, no less), we have the second single from Type O’s October Rust album. This record saw the band move on from the Bloody Kisses period and refine their sound into a more “goth balladeer” realm, which would largely define the remainder of their career, and which this song is a shining example of.

The song is pretty simple – dude digs girl, dude pledges his eternal devotion to girl. It’s laden with the signature Type O sound that only they could do.

So this wasn’t really much of a contest. It would seem like pitting Priest against anyone would be an epic battle, but picking stuff off Ram It Down isn’t really going to cut it. The obvious winner is Type O Negative. It’s in the spirit of the season and also the best song presented, with all respect to The Soup Dragons.

Next time I get into one of these it’ll be one with a ton of songs to go through. I figured I’d go light for today. Until next time.

It’s time again for my silly little game where I compare a bunch of different songs with the same name. This current edition crosses genre lines and is a true cross-section of music from several parts of the soundscape. It also has a blatantly obvious winner before I even begin typing so I’ll just save that one for the end. Lazy content is still content, remember that.

Today’s song is Jump. Again, I’m sure most everyone can guess who I’ve already handed the award to. But in the interest of fairness, let’s review a handful of other acts who’ve recorded songs called Jump. There are a few hit-makers here and also a few legacy acts who I wasn’t aware had songs called Jump. I stumbled into a list of nine major artists who’ve done a song called Jump, and a cursory Spotify search turns up about a trillion results, so I’ll cull this down to five other acts and our winner. Let’s have at it.

Kris Kross

The first contestant offers up a noteworthy entry into the contest. Kriss Kross’s Jump was a massive smash hit in 1992. It topped charts in many different countries and was the best-selling single of that year with over 2 million copies moved. It was the the first rap song ever to spend 8 weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100, and the first song since The Police’s Every Breath You Take to accomplish that feat.

And fair play to Kriss Kross – this was a justified smash hit. The two Chris’ who comprised the group were a year or so younger than me when they delivered this magnum opus. Even in the sea of grunge and Metallica in 1992, this song was all over the place. There’s no arguing with success and this was a total masterstroke.

Kylie Minogue

Speaking of massive hits, we have one of the world’s biggest hitmakers in Kylie Minogue right here. She did that “loco-motion” song in the 80’s and then did that one song in the early 00’s that literally took over every chart on the planet. I’d be here until next week running down her accolades.

And this isn’t one of them. Her version of Jump is a deep cut off of a 1997 album – it wasn’t released as a single and it’s nothing to write home about. It is some kind of nice electro-pop slow jam, the song isn’t bad by any stretch, but it’s also not winning any awards.

Loverboy

This cut comes from the group’s 1981 breakout album Get Lucky. The album features Loverboy’s signature song Working For The Weekend and was a big seller. Loverboy’s Jump was the final single from the record and also features an interesting collaboration – the track was co-written by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. That duo were slinging songs left and right for any takers before Adams’ big breakout in 1983. I don’t know the history behind this, if it was an Adams/Vallance song that the band decided to use or if that writing pair and Loverboy collaborated on the song, but here we have it.

It’s a pretty cool song, certainly fitting of Loverboy. It doesn’t outdo what we know is coming, and honestly I wouldn’t rank it ahead of Kriss Kross either, but it’s a fun song. Honestly I’m more curious about the specifics behind Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance being involved with it than anything.

Rihanna

Our most recent entry to the series is from the Barbados superstar’s 2012 album Unapologetic. It was a single from the record and apparently a well-regarded song by critics, though for Rihanna standards it lags behind many other songs in streaming numbers (a paltry 43 million compared to her busting a billion twice and being close to that with several more tracks).

It is a cool song that samples Ginuwine’s 1996 mega-hit Pony, which was everywhere in Europe for the few years I spent there. Rihanna’s Jump hasn’t lived up to her usual measure, but in fairness she is often the gold standard of modern music releases and I guess everyone has to have other songs besides mega-hits.

Simple Plan

One more song before we get to where we all know we’re going. This from a Canadian pop-punk act who have been around for quite awhile but I’m not really familiar with. Simple Plan’s Jump comes from their 2004 album Still Not Getting Any (2004 me hears you, bro).

I almost feel obligated to talk shit about this since it’s pop punk, but truthfully I have no problem with it. It’s a fine song, not one I’m going to race to write a massive essay about, but still solid. I never really listened to much pop punk but I never had any real issue with it either. I still have a bigger death metal and black metal collection than a lot of other people so it doesn’t matter what I think about pop punk anyway.

Out of these five entries, I’d easily give the award to Kriss Kross. Their Jump was iconic, massive and essentially ruled the world for an extended time on its release. None of the other songs here really measure up to it.

But, of course, there’s one more Jump out there. And it’s my obvious winner.

Van Halen

Jump was the lead single to Van Halen’s 1984, their final album from the initial run with David Lee Roth and a massive success. Jump itself shot to the top of the Billboard charts and stands as VH’s biggest single from their career span.

Though some VH fans do poo-poo the synth and pop direction of Jump, I’m not one of them. I was 6 years old when I first heard the song, it wasn’t going to deter me that they might not have the same edge as their debut. Nothing in the years since has changed my mind that it’s a fantastic song from a masterpiece of a record.

And nothing any other musical act did could topple Van Halen from the “Who did the best Jump?” contest. It’s time to hand the trophy to VH and call it a day on this edition of the game.