By Mike James
July 19 2009

Let's move away from rugby for a moment and focus on the musical preferences of ERE.  Well we on ERE are a spectacularly eclectic bunch, and the contributing membership of ERE never ceases to amaze me. I cannot claim that this exercise is particularly representative, as it would have been nice to have more than a couple of dozen contributors - anyway, this is an attempt to pull together "the results" - not very easy actually as there is only one clear "winner" and that is in the category of "song" rather than artist or any other category.

Firstly, my thanks to all those who responded. For those who didn't, what was asked was for everyone to produce their top 10 tunes of all time. Nearly everyone commented how difficult this is to do, and mainly as music seems to affect each of us differently, certainly our "favourites" seem to move around in our minds - maybe depending on what we are up to and what is influencing our lives at any given point. However, a lot of the contributors said they "keep coming back" to a consistent group of between 10 and 20 songs.

It would be unfair to name names in some of these categories, but first let me thank one contributor, who managed to contribute a Top 10 where the only artistes I was aware of were Counting Crows and The Killers !!! Anyone heard of Eels, Lagwagon, The Strokes?....  You have?....Nuff said I should stick to my own generation !

Artistes featuring highly -  Bruce Springsteen four times in the survey with The Beatles,  three times in the survey for  The Killers, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, & The Rolling Stones all familiar so far? OK then the list continues :  Bette Midler  Simon & Garfunkel. Twice in the survey: Queen, Genesis, Pet Shop Boys, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, - OK so far? The list continues  -  Edward Elgar, Meatloaf, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel.

So what on earth is going on when one of our younger members submits a list with Schubert, Mozart, and Elgar on it - interspersed with The Verve and Bob Dylan. Absolutely fascinating !

Looking at the chronology, this is what has taken some time - I have put on my anorak and attempted to "schedule" by decade - and this probably where the ERE generation starts to come into play. I took the song by the artist rather than the originator of the song:

Pre 1960    7%

1960-1970  18%

1970-1980  27%

1980-1990  19%

1990-2000  12%

2000-now   17%

Now a list of the monster raving loony party tunes - no names

The Wombles - invitation to a ping pong ball  ( I never thought I'd see the day!)

Flanders & Swan - An ill wind (same contributor!)

Panzerleid (From the Battle of the Bulge)

Surprises

1     Not a Michael Jackson song in sight !

2    That this excellent track didn't get nominated more than once http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU3KELkd-zY&feature=related

3     That there were very few American bands's nominated other than Springsteen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Simon & Garfunkel

So - the biggest surprise has to be

That the band that had the most nominations was Cream, with 5 contributors wanting their songs represented. Badge came up, Strange Brew came up  , BUT Sunshine of your Love came up three times.

Although Cream was only together for a little more than two years, their influence was immense, both during their late-'60s peak and in the years following their breakup. Cream was the first top group to truly exploit the power-trio format, in the process laying the foundation for much blues-rock and hard rock of the 1960s and 1970s. It was with Cream, too, that guitarist Eric Clapton truly became an international superstar. Critical revisionists have tagged the band as overrated, citing the musicians' emphasis upon flash, virtuosity, and showmanship at the expense of taste and focus

The only other song to feature more than once was "Hallelujah" which in fact had three different nominations - Jeff Buckley, Happy Mondays, and the original Leonard Cohen work.

So here you are ERE - it is all your own work !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqh54rSzheg