Earlier this week I mentioned that heavy metal bands produce a lot of numbered songs. But even that genre takes a back seat to rap. I could have easily tackled this project using only rap songs. In fact, much of my research time was spent digging around for non-rap songs to prevent the list from being too rap-heavy.
I guess that’s because a lot of wannabe rappers have access to sophisticated enough recording equipment (read: a laptop) to produce halfway decent songs.
Prince’s ‘7’ is one of the most popular tracks in my ’31 Numbered Songs’ series. Released in 1992 as the third single from Prince’s Love Symbol album, the track reached #7 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Filled with Prince’s trademark religious imagery, ‘7’ is presumably about the seven deadly sins. The song’s video features then 18-year-old Mayte, a dancer who married Prince four years later and divorced him four years after that. They had a child, who died less than a week after his birth.
Fewer well-known artists than you’d think have songs named after numbers, so this exercise has introduced me to quite a few new performers.
It’s hard to tell just yet whether I’ve stumbled across any bands or solo acts I’ll listen to beyond their contribution of ’12’ or ‘Twenty nine’ or whatever, but there’s always a chance.
Take the English alt-rock band Mansun, which recorded for a decade starting in the mid-90s. I doubt I’ll ever seek them out again, but parts of ‘Six’ are intriguing.
Finding 31 numbered songs wasn’t easy, especially because my goal was to have as broad a range of genres and voices as possible.
It would have been quite simple if I’d embraced heavy metal, as those bands seem to have recorded a song for just about every number. I don’t know if that’s a hallmark of the genre or a coincidence, but if you want to hear angry white men shouting numbers, you are in luck. It’s like Sesame Street in hell.
Our fourth numbered song comes from Givin’ It Up,the 2006 collaboration between jazz artists Al Jarreau and George Benson.
The album featured appearances by Jill Scott and Paul McCartney, among others, and songs by Billie Holiday, John Legend, Daryl Hall and Sam Cooke, in addition to Jarreau’s own compositions. It won two Grammys, one for a Benson instrumental performance and one for the vocal performance by the duo and Jill Scott.
Meet Me In Montauk 