What would you consider over the years as the perfect pop song?

My tastes probably differ from yours, but three from the 2010s that cone to mind immediately as great pop songs that don't drive me 'round the bend are:

"Call Me Maybe," Carly Rae Jepsen
"Safe and Sound," Capital Cities
"Shut Up and Dance," Walk the Moon

 

I have to find the game of love version you mentioned that sounds interesting

 

Call Me Maybe was good. I haven't heard the other two.

 

Yesterday - The Beatles
Hey Jude - The Beatles
Help! - The Beatles
Ticket to Ride -The Beatles
Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel
A Whiter Shade of Pale - Prkcol Harum
MacArthur Park - Richard Harris
American Pie - Don McLean
Wichita Lineman - Glenn Campbell
Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones
Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder
Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley & the Comets
The Twist - Chubby Checker
I Heard It to the Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
God Only Knows - The Beach Boys
Rag Doll - The Four Seasons
If - Bread
Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane - The Beatles

 

Kind of A Drag--The Buckinghams
Lies--The Knickerbockers
Along Comes Mary--The Association

Many other great songs already listed.

 

Andy Partridge, I Defy You Gravity.

 

Dion’s The Wanderer!

 

You need to do the dance as well. Get someone to drive, open the passenger door and dance next to the car.

 

I haven't seen this one come up yet...

 

After all these years I still don't think I've heard a more perfect pop song than Bob Lind's "Elusive Butterfly". The melody, the lyrics, the production - everything works. And at the end it ENDS. No fade out, no sudden cut-off in the middle of a musical phrase. Just a proper concluding chord, and that's it.

Runner-up would probably be S&G's "The Sound of Silence".

 

Anyone yet mention...

So It Goes - Nick Lowe

It could be a creditable contender.

 

Marshal Crenshaw's version of Someday Someway probably deserves some consideration.

 

A number of Jimmy Webb tunes could be serious contenders. The consummate Tunesmith.

 

Pop Goes The Weasel

 

Some weird choices here. Some people's "perfect pop songs" sound to me incredibly bland and repetitive.

Do those people think the same about my nominations? Who knows. I guess it just reinforces how different people's music tastes can be.

 

An honorary life time achievement award to those who went to work each day at The Brill Building.

 

Perfect pop song?
Let me give three unassailable choices.
Hey Jude by The Beatles, as some have mentioned.
Africa by Toto
Something To Believe In by The Bangles.
Do give this one a listen.

 

This.

 

The Beatles - Yellow Submarine

Everybody knows it, and everybody can sing it (maybe not perfectly or with all the words). The very definition of "pop"ular

 

Maybe not what some would consider pop but...

Steely Dan: Ricky Don't Lose That Number and Reelin' in the Years
Little Feat: Long Distance Love
BOC: Burnin' for You
Bill Withers: Lovely Day
EW&F: Shining Star
Joni Mitchell: Help Me

 

Head Over Heels by the Go Go's
The Letter by the Boxtops
It Won't Be Long and All My Loving by the Beatles

 

no such thing as just one, of course. But I'll stick with the rules of the thread.

"Second That Emotion" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles is tied with a bunch of others for first place.