The Ultimate Curmudgeonly Jukebox

There have been a number of posts recently in the beer blogosphere about people’s ultimate pub jukebox. Now it has to be said that beer snobbery has nothing on music snobbery, and there is a whole range of acts whose music might be utterly unlistenable and devoid of commercial success but still merits a high place in the “critical canon”. Whereas I make no apology for liking Magnum, and for liking Sam Smith’s Old Brewery Bitter.

I am an unabashed fan of classic rock and AOR. So here are ten tracks, not necessarily my ten favourite tracks, but ones that, if I walked into a pub and heard them playing, I’d say “yeah, alright...”

• AC/DC – Hell’s Bells
  
• Belinda Carlisle – Lay Down Your Arms
  
• Big Country – Wonderland
  
• Boston – More than a Feeling
  
• Dire Straits – Single Handed Sailor
  
• Don Henley – Boys of Summer
  
• Heart – Crazy on You
  
• Mountain – Nantucket Sleighride
  
• Pearl Jam – Alive
  
• Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks – Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around

And I haven't even mentioned Roxette!

If you go in any rock pub, you’ll find a band cranking out covers of Bad Company, AC/DC and Van Halen, and the critically preferred wank will be nowhere to be heard.

Edit: Thanks to Mark Wadsworth for the cartoon.