What are the most classic, original AND distinctive songs you have ever heard?

That is a good point, in terms of attempting definitions. Classic can cause problems - I would say, let's focus on Original and Distinctive, more than the former - Alright now is a classic, but it ain;t the other two....

 

Man, some of the songs coming out of this...yes, we need to compile the list and make a cassette tape!

 

Sad but true - heard it in a rock club at full volume for first time; it was like the building was gonna come down!

 

Alone again Or : Love
Venus in Furs : VU
Hospital : Modern Lovers
Frankie Teardrop : Suicide

 

White Bird-It’s A Beautiful Day

 

Talk Talk - "Life's What You Make It"
Pulp - "Common People"
Lewis Taylor - "Lucky"

 

Early Bathory
Rigor mortis
Camel
Can

 

In the Top 40 void of the second half of 1979, when Steve Dahl had "demolished" disco and few superstar artists had new music out, radio found hits in unlikely places. For example, a song by a painter who dabbled in rock music on the side -- he designed and painted all his band's album covers -- made the Top 20 in the fall of '79, and that song still sounds unusual and fascinating after all these years. I refer to Paul Roberts, his band Sniff 'n' the Tears, and the wonderful "Driver's Seat":

 

X - Los Angeles, White Girl. Nobody ever sounded like them, before or since.

Jason and the Scorchers - Last Time Around, Broken Whiskey Glass.
These were the songs that created cowpunk. Nobody had combined country, hard rock and punk like that before. Like a collision of George Jones, The Stones, and the Sex Pistols, but never sounding forced, phony or contrived.

 

21st Century Schizoid Man

 

Prince — When Doves Cry

 

Since we've gotten into definitions. NOTHING can be VERY unique. Either it is one of a kind or it isn't. Something can be very unusual, or very rare, but not very unique.

 

Noted

 

If we are going with original, then how can Stairway To Heaven qualify? But I would call it the best rock and roll song of all time. And it is definitely a classic. But it is not unique.

 

Wesley Willis - Rock and Roll McDonalds...definitely original and distinctive...

 

Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads
Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles
Pantagruel's Nativity - Gentle Giant
At Home, at Work, at Play - Sparks
Good Morning Captain - Slint
Eros Arriving - Bill Nelson
I Hang Suspended - The Boo Radleys
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover - Paul Simon
Take a Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed
All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground
The Mercy Seat - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Sleep that Burns - Be Bop Deluxe
Rock It - Herbie Hancock
Music for Boys - The Suburbs
Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family - David Bowie
My Sex - Ultravox!
Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix Experience
Surf's Up - the Beach Boys
Key of Life - Klaus Nomi
Prelude/Angry Young Man - Billy Joel
Baba O'Reily - The Who
The Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin
Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles
Blister in the Sun - The Violent Femmes
Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones
Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
Love to Love - U.F.O.
Five Great Lakes - Buffalo Daughter
He's Frank - The Monochrome Set
Third Stone from the Sun - Jimi Hendrix
Metal Fatigue - Allan Holdsworth
Vibrate On - Lee Perry with Augustus Pablo
Setting Sun - The Chemical Brothers

 

Autobahn

Rock lobster

 

Strange song

 

I like the way this thread has converged on a common definition without actually spelling it out in too much detail. I think of it as "songs that somehow seem to write their own rules (and do so with tremendous success), and don't sound quite like anything that came before".

(Or maybe "songs that, when you stop and think about it, are a lot weirder than they now seem to us".)

Anyway, it's not a pop song, but here's a track that comes to mind that literally wrote its own playbook -- Eberhard Weber's "The Colours of Chloë":



Just the instrumentation alone -- ocarina, five-string upright electric bass, and a cello section as the dominant instruments in a quote-unquote "jazz fusion" song? Where'd that come from?