Oye Como Va B+ Not a great song or anything, IMO, but an integral part of the fantastic Abraxas album. It helps round it out, as that album has some hummable melodies as well as adventurous instrumental workouts.
479. Santana, “Oye Cómo Va” OK. Seems I'm missing something. Good song, but Santana did many songs that are much better in my view (Samba Pa' Ti; Europe; Soul Sacrifice; She's Not There; Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen to name a few). So I looked for entries higher up on the list. Turns out there are none. Oh well, seems me and the people who did the rating experience Santana's music very differently. I'll give it a 3/5 because it is a good song, but not more as it doesn't rank among Santana's best for me. 1. Pixies - Where Is My Mind? 2. Carly Simon - You're So Vain 3. Breeders - Cannonball 4. Supremes - Baby Love 5. Four Tops - I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) 6. Robert Johnson - Cross Road Blues 7. Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time 8. Santana - Oye Como Va 9. Weezer - Buddy Holly 10. Nilsson - Without You 11. Biz Markie - Just A Friend 12. Kanye West - Stronger 13. Solange - Cranes In The Sky
Oye Como Va (Santana) A good, classic song. It would be either this Evil Ways, or Black Magic Woman that I would include for Santana in a personal list. I like this song better after seeing Greg Rolle sing it with Ringo's All Starr Band. I now picture Ringo on drums when I hear it. (4/5) Rating the songs so far: 1. You're So Vain - Carly Simon 2. Buddy Holly-Weezer 3. Cannonball-Breeders 4. I Can't Help Myself-Four Tops 5. Oy Como Va-Santana 6. Baby Love - Supremes 7. Without You - Nilsson 8. Cross Road Blues-Robert Johnson 9. Pancho And Lefty-Townes Van Zandt 10. Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper 11. So What-Miles Davis 12. Just A Friend-Biz Markie 13. Bad Romance-Lady Gaga 14. 212-Azelia Banks 15. Cranes In The Sky -Solange 16. Where Is My Mind?-Pixies 17. Welcome To The Jungle-Guns N' Roses 18. Old Town Road-Lil Naz 19. Truth Hurts-Lizzo 20. House Of Balloons-The Weeknd 21. Stronger-Kayne West 22. A Milli-Lil Wayne Once I get to a top 40 I'm not going to drop the bottom songs if a new song places higher. RS still hasn't included a top 500 songs from the 2000's in my opinion. Only #1-#3 are definite top 500 with 4-7 contenders were I making my own list. #14-#22 would not even be considered for my top 50,000 songs!
#479 Santana - Oye Como Va Although I don't rank artists to the same degree as @Terrapin Station, (who I salute for the effort), this is an elite-tier artist in my pantheon. Incredible musicianship aligned to major influence in bringing the Latin vibe and sound through to a mainstream rock audience. Early Santana is magical and the first four releases all made a recent collection of my favourite albums. I prefer the debut and III to Abraxas, but I'm splitting hairs. Oye Como Va is certainly a good song but not my favourite from Abraxas; that honour would go to Black Magic Woman with Samba Pa Ti a close second. Oye Como Va is likely not in my personal Santana Top 10 which would definitely include; Evil Ways, Persuasion and Soul Sacrifice from the debut, the two Abraxas tracks mentioned, and both Batuka and Taboo from III. However, it slides easily into 3rd position in the list below. It it seems a real shame that the only recognition given to Santana in the RS500 is for a cover song though, and in a nominal position.
Listening to Oye Como Va as I post, although I've heard it plenty of times before, mostly when it was out. There's nothing really objectionable about it, but it doesn't particularly interest me either. It sounds like it's mostly one two-chord sequence repeated ad infinitum, with Latin percussion and rock band accompaniment. There are certainly occasions on which I might go for that, but this isn't one of them. I guess the band gets marks for originality, and they were certainly popular. I'm just not a particularly big fan. Every song must be judged on its own particular merits though, so bring on Samba Pa Ti ...
Oye Como Va I would have chose either "Evil Ways" or "Black Magic Woman" over this, but it's still a good song. 3.5/5 The Motown songs on my list are more classic than "Oye Como Va", but overplayed. So What-Miles Davis You're So Vain - Carly Simon Without You - Nilsson Oye Como Va - Santana I Can't Help Myself - Four Tops Baby Love - Supremes Cross Road Blues - Robert Johnson Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper Welcome To The Jungle-Guns N' Roses Buddy Holly-Weezer
“Oye Coma Va” is a great track. Not one of my favorite Santana songs, but essential for the guitar playing. Without You - Nilsson So What - Miles Davis Baby Love - Supremes I Can’t Help Myself - Four Tops You're So Vain - Carly Simon Where Is My Mind? - Pixies Oye Coma Va - Santana Buddy Holly - Weezer Pancho And Lefty - Townes Van Zandt Just A Friend - Biz Markie Cross Road Blues - Robert Johnson Cranes In The Sky - Solange House Of Balloons - The Weeknd Cannonball - Breeders Truth Hurts - Lizzo Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper Stronger - Kanye West Bad Romance - Lady Gaga 212 - Azelia Banks A Milli - Lil Wayne Welcome To The Jungle Old Town Road
#478. Juvenile feat. Lil Wayne and Mannie Fresh, “Back That Azz Up” (1998 ) Written by Byron Thomas, Terius Gray Wikipedia says: “Back That Thang Up" (or the uncensored version "Back That Azz Up") is a song recorded by American hip-hop artist Juvenile featuring American hip-hop artists Mannie Fresh & Lil Wayne, being the latter's first single. It was released on June 11, 1999, as the second single from his 1998 album 400 Degreez. The song was Juvenile's biggest hit single until the release of "Slow Motion" in 2004, which peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, surpassing Back That Azz Up which peaked at #19 on the same chart. Also performing a verse on "Back That Thang Up" is the song's producer, Mannie Fresh, and Juvenile's fellow Hot Boy, Lil Wayne performs the outro. Wayne's lyrics ("After you back it up and then stop/then what, what/ drop, drop, drop it like it's hot.") popularized an expression for a certain type of sexually suggestive dance; the expression was later re-popularized by Snoop Dogg with his number-one hit "Drop It Like It's Hot". Lil Wayne's verse was repeated on his 2008 single, "Lollipop". Drake samples the song for his song "Practice" from his 2011 album Take Care. American R&B singer Jonn Hart did a remake of the song. Both the song and its music video were omnipresent in media venues for much of 1999 and early 2000. "Back That Thang Up", Lil Wayne's "Tha Block Is Hot", and B.G.'s "Bling Bling" were the three hits that launched Cash Money into the pop mainstream. Based on the content of the song, there were three edited versions of the song, which allowed for radio stations to choose between playing "Back That Thang Up" and the edited version of "Back That Azz Up". Johnny Kenaya was in the studio with Juvenile and Mannie Fresh while the record was playing. He gave the green light on the project to go on. The former had redone amended lyrics, while the latter was edited as is (with the word "ass" left intact). Also, the edited album version had "ass" backmasked along with other expletives. "Back That Thang Up" only came out on the single, the compilation Universal Smash Hits in 2000, and Juvenile's Greatest Hits in 2004.
In the ultimate list of the greatest songs of all time, this isn't top 500 or even top 5,000. Top 5 million maybe, naw probably not. If negative numbers didn't already exist, this would be a good reason to invent them so they could be used to rate this.
For me, it really just grew out of being a solution to these "problems:" * I have and like a ton of music * I don't like to listen to the same thing too often (not the same songs, albums, artists or even genres) * I also don't want to forget about stuff I like * When I pick stuff to listen to by whim, I tend to pick the same thing too often and I tend to forget about a bunch of stuff, just because my memory sucks sometimes, so listening by whim causes the two problems above rather than solving them * I want to listen to the stuff I prefer a bit more often
RS #478 Juvenile featuring Lil Wayne and Mannie Fresh – “Back That Azz Up” 400 Degreez is a very solid late 90s hip-hop album, one that I enjoy enough that I’m sure I’ll list it in the “Favorite music of 1998” thread before too long, especially now that I have it loaded in my streaming pool due to going through these Rolling Stone lists, but there are hundreds of albums from each year that I could (and might) eventually list in those threads—I basically list anything that I periodically listen to and enjoy, partially with the motivation to hopefully prod some folks to expand their listening a bit. (There are albums that I've passed by for those threads, but if I've listened to it recently, I enjoy it, and I'm near a computer or my kindle at the time or soon afterward, I post it on those threads, keeping in mind that I enjoy the vast majority of music period.) Thinking about a top 500, I don’t really get what makes this album stand out above a bunch of other late 90s hip-hop. I would think that if you dig 400 Degreez, there should be at least 50 other hip-hop albums from 1998 alone that you’d like just as much, and if you don’t really care for late 90s hip-hop overall, you’ll probably find nothing attractive here, either. 400 Degreez isn’t really unusual in its milieu. It's not something like, say, Busta Rhymes’ Extinction Level Event: The Final World Front, another hip-hop album from 1998 that would be a candidate for my own top 500 list. As for “Back That Azz Up” specifically, it’s understandable why it might have been chosen as a single and why it might have been a minor hit—it’s one of the more commercial tunes on the album, with a very danceable groove and rather straightforward and clear instrumental and vocal hooks. Top 500 material though? No. And not my favorite tune on the album. I don’t dislike “Back That Azz Up” by any means, but it’s my least favorite track of those we’ve covered so far. I don't really get why hip-hop fans who participated in the Rolling Stone poll would have picked this track over many hundreds of other tracks in the same niche that they could have chosen instead. This seems even more arbitrary than most entries in the list. (Though oddly, 400 Degreez also seems to be in the album list.) My top 10 songs to this point, plus 5 to show the ranking of the current track: 1. "Time After Time" - Cyndi Lauper 2. "Without You" – Nilsson 3. "You're So Vain" - Carly Simon 4. “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” – Four Tops 5. “Oye Como Va” - Santana 6. "Baby Love" – Supremes 7. “Bad Romance” – Lady Gaga 8. "So What" - Miles Davis 9. "Welcome to the Jungle" - Guns N' Roses 10. “Cannonball” – The Breeders . . . 19. “House of Balloons” – The Weeknd 20. “212” – Azealia Banks 21. “Cranes in the Sky” – Solange 22. "Where Is My Mind?" – Pixies 23. “Back That Azz Up” - Juvenile
Just want to note that this was not a minor hit. It was a huge hit, powering the album to 4x platinum, by far his best commercial performance. It only got to #19 because it was in that weird era of the Hot 100 where airplay only singles were allowed to chart, but the chart formula itself still prioritized sales.
Yeah, I have no idea what the charts actually said. It's weird to me that this album was that popular. There are tons of similar hip-hop albums from that year and era.
You know, it makes me wonder--are there songs on the list that didn't chart? (And same for the album list.) It seems weird to me that the entire top 500 lists would be stuff that charted. That's not correlated to the best stuff in my opinion.
For me, one of the biggest head-scratching aspects of a list that's supposed to be for the greatest songs, is it's reliance on singles. I don't think there'd by more than twenty singles in my greatest thousand songs list, let alone five hundred.
"Back That Azz Up" If my Top Pop Singles 1955-2006, the most recent edition I have, is correct, this was the first of the 177 (!!) times that Lil Wayne was either lead act or "featuring" on a charted single so far. As for Juvenile, he eventually faded as a charted artist, as he had his last significant hit in 2006. The only commercial single for this song was a 12-inch (Cash Money/Universal 012156482-1). It was called "Back That Azz Up" and included the Clean Radio Edit (4:25), Album Version (4:25), Extended Version (4:36, only 11 seconds longer than the album version), Instrumental (4:36), and TV Track (4:35). This same five-track record also was issued with a promo-only number (U8P 1588). Before this record, a promo-only CD single and a promo-only 12-inch record were issued. Both are titled "Back That Thang Up" and have the same catalog number except for the prefix (U5P 1545 CD, U8P 1545 12"), but the two are different. The CD is the only 1999 source for the 3:50 Clean Radio Edit; it also has a 4:25 "Album Clean" (presumably the same as the stock Clean Radio Edit), Instrumental, and "Back That Azz Up" Album Version. Meanwhile, the promo 12-inch of the same number, also entitled "Back That Thang Up," starts with the album version and continues with a unique Clean Extended Version (4:36). The B-side contains the Instrumental and the TV Version. Between the four discs, all four contain the album version and instrumental. As noted in the original post, there are three "clean" versions with different lengths (3:50, 4:26, 4:35), plus the Extended Version and TV Version. I never heard this on the radio in 1999. My listening, before I went full-on classical, was mostly to Adult Top 40 radio, which I suspect was originally created as a no-rap zone. Listening to it now, I like the music bed and beat; it's certainly more interesting than those found on most 2000s hip-hop. As a result, it was better than, say, "A Milli," which remains the worst song on the list so far. But by the end of the 1990s, it felt as if every other word on some of these rap songs was something you couldn't say on the radio. I sometimes think they did it not for any artistic reason, but because they could. Not on a volume of A Few of My Favorite Things and won't include later.
On the contrary, I'd guess that of the 1,600-plus songs I've included on the 75 volumes of A Few of My Favorite Things, fewer than 100 were not singles. Some of them might not have been hits, and others I might have used the album length rather than a single mix/edit, but by my standards, far and away my best/favorite songs were singles.
Since Oye Coma Va was a cover, it seems the original should be on the list if this was about songs rather than recordings.
So far, there have been three non-singles ("Where Is My Mind," "House of Balloons," "So What"), three non-charted singles ("Pancho and Lefty," "212," "Cross Road Blues"), and one radio-only single that failed to chart because of the Hot 100 rules of the time ("Buddy Holly"). That's roughly 30 percent. On the other extreme, eight of the 23 so far hit #1 on the Hot 100 and another one peaked at #2.
Thanks. I don't normally pay much attention to charts aside from checking out if there are artists on (especially the present) charts that I'm not familiar with. I make a note of who they are and familiarize myself with their music, but that's the extent of it.
"Back That Azz Up" 1/5 - Another entry on the list that just isn't my thing. Top 10: 1. Cannonball – Breeders 2. You're So Vain - Carly Simon 3. Oye Como Va - Santana 4. I Can’t Help Myself – Four Tops 5. Where Is My Mind? - Pixies 6. Baby Love - Supremes 7. Without You – Nilsson 8. Buddy Holly - Weezer 9. Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N' Roses 10. Stronger – Kanye West
Different takes and all that. For me, while I like many of the singles my favoured artists have released, I find them, for the most part, to be less interesting than album tracks. There are exceptions, of course.
